Hometown Legend by Jerry B. Jenkins Read Free Book Online Page B

look again.
    “All right,” she said, “do you know how much volunteer work she does?”
    “Wouldn’t surprise me,” I said.
    “But you don’t know.”
    “I know she does a lot here at church.”
    “That’s not the half of it. She’s on the go almost every night, doing stuff for people.”
    “Well, that’s good.”
    “Did you know she spent as much time in my guest room as she did at her own home the last six years of my dad’s life?”
    I felt stupid. I’d had no idea. “She was helping out?”
    Kim was through with me. She got into her car and rolled down her window. “That’s the understatement of the year, Cal. She
     saw me one day at the grocery store and noticed I was crying. She’d been praying for my dad, but she didn’t know how bad he
     was. She came home with me that day and just started doing stuff without asking. Did a lot of shopping for me, talking with
     Dad, keeping an eye on him in the night. You never knew any of that?”
    Bev worked in my office and I hadn’t known she was doing night duty half the time with Kim’s father. I didn’t know what to
     say. “Who was watching her cats?”
    Kim looked at me twice. “Her cats?”
    “If she was at your place so much, I mean—”
    “Does she talk about her cats, Cal?”
    “She used to.”
    “But not for years, right?”
    I shrugged. “I guess. I wouldn’t ask after her cats. I’m not a cat guy.”
    “No kidding.”
    “It shows?”
    “Bev’s cats have been dead for years.” I tried to look surprised but I don’t think I convinced her. “Nobody expects you to
     care about her cats,” Kim said. “But it seems you’d know something like that.”
    “Not if she doesn’t tell me.”
    “She probably didn’t think you cared. She was right.” She started her car.
    “Would you just tell me one thing, Kim? Is this something you’ve noticed, or does Bev feel like I don’t really know her?”
    “I told you, if you knew her at all you’d know she’d never say a word. She thinks the world of you.”
    “Well, the feeling is mutual.”
    “Calvin,” she said, “you just proved that’s not true.”

9
    I divided my time between figuring out how to keep the company running and working through plans with Coach. Finally, one August
     morning, it’s time. I’ve got a printout from the school office that tells who’s coming out for football—way more than we could
     keep, of course, but that’s what that scholarship and a returning legend’ll do for ya. I recognize most of the names, cept
     the newcomers, and I figure I’ll get a bead on them today, the first day of tryouts. Just like Coach Schuler, he announces
     it for early in the morning the first eligible day, Thursday the sixteenth. People think it’s cause he wants to see who’s
     committed and ready to work, but I know he just can’t wait.
    I wake up in a bed damp from sweat and know that even after my shower, I’m gonna have that humid shine all day. Coach and
     I meet at Sweet Tee’s Diner for early morning coffee. The owner, Sherman Naters’s ma, Tee, is a big woman with a soft heart
     and a smile from the waist up. I’m wondering where she is. Shazzam, her on-again-off-again boyfriend, is holding down the
     fort and he’s got the TV going full blast with some Hollywood entertainment show that’s reminding everybody this was the day
     The King died at Graceland in 1977.
    Shazzam, who always looks like he’s got about a week’s worth a beard and wears a full camouflage jumper and rubber boots,
     pulls from his bald head a grimy cap with fishing lures hanging from it and puts it over his heart. “I say he’s still alive,
     boys! I seen him, I have!”
    He pours us some tea and tells us Tee is setting up a little stand at tryouts. He becomes solemn all of a sudden. “An honor
     to have you back, Coach Schuler, sir. You’ll remember I played for you, in a manner of speaking, when you was first head coach
     here.”
    Somebody hollers for Shazzam to