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As usual, the weekend is over before I got to enjoy it.

The next week will be busy and hectic (what’s new?), but Tuesday night’s Waterdeep concert will make it all worthwhile. Over the past year, Don Chaffer has become my favorite songwriter and storyteller. Because I am so excited for the concert, I am going to post a story of his called “Clarence”. It’s off a demo disc that you can only get if you buy What You Don’t Know or Whole ‘Nother Deal off of his website.

Enjoy!

Now, deep in the South there’s an automechanic who works under the shade of an oak tree. He fiddles with old cars which people really don’t need much for anything, other than for the ocassional drive to the next town. His name is Clarence. If they do need their car for anything important, they don’t take it to Clarence. Now, Clarence likes to drink a Coke in the Summer at lunch after he’s finished eating. He leans his back against the tree, puts the heel of his boot up underneath his butt, and tips the glass bottle back like he’s on a television commercial. You’d think Clarence has things easy the way he drinks that Coke; but he doesn’t. No one’s got things easy, no matter how much they think they do.

Clarence tried to fix Old Man Rivers’ car twice. He told Old Man Rivers that it couldn’t be fixed the first time, but Rivers brought back to him a week later anyway. Clarence figured that Rivers must have forgotten bringing it to him the first time. . . And he was right; Rivers had forgotten.

Clarence hasn’t been married since 1979. It was that Summer that his wife left him for Tom Ricks. Ricks was a ‘wrassler’ in high school, but he put on a good beer gut with all the other athletes after he graduated. So Clarence figured it must have been his mind she was after, since his body had gone to pot. . . Cause, Clarence was never much of a ‘books guy’. Now, Ricks wasn’t either, but Clarence didn’t know that. Evelyn, that was her name, didn’t even love Tom Ricks. She was just gambling. . . betting that if she went after another man, Clarence would come alive.

Well, Evelyn lost. She lost the bet and Clarence, and eventually Tom Ricks too. Cos’ Tom was a gambler as well, and he got so ashamed of how much money he lost that one night he just never came home.

Nope. Clarence never came alive either.

Except one day, when he was drinking a Coke and a fly buzzed one too many times around his face. He got so mad he threw his Coke bottle at the fly. Now, that’s fine, but the fly was in front of one of the cars he was working on and the bottle broke the back passenger side window. Clarence got so mad at the fly, and at Evelyn, and Tom Ricks, and Old Man Rivers, and Ford Automotive Manufacturing Company (who made the cars he worked on so much), that he took a crowbar and he beat as hard as he could on the trunk of that Oak tree. When he finished, there were several knicks in the bark and he felt a little bit better.

So, that Sunday Clarence went to church for the first time in ten years. He had quit going after the divorce. And it was that Sunday that the parson preached on forgiveness. Clarence figured forgiveness was twice as hard is getting mad, which, he had to admit, hadn’t been near as hard as he thought it would be all these years.

So, he took to fixing fewer cars and writing more letters.

When Clarence died in a carwreck, he was 38 years old. He had decided to go for a midnight drive without his headlights on just because he wanted to see how well he knew the roads. When the truck came around the corner, Clarence had enough time to say, “Oh, Jesus”, and that was about all. At his funeral, Clarence’s daughter who had lived with her mother ever since the divorce found some letters at his bedside, sealed, stamped. . . but never sent. She gave them to the people they were written to. Her mother Evelyn, Tom Ricks (who had finally showed back up in town two years previous), and the parson at that church. There was one written to Ford Manufacturing Company that she took to the dealership in Jamesport. One written to Old Man Rivers, who had died, so she gave it to Rivers’ wife who was 94 years old and still lived in the house they were married in. The last letter was to her.

She never found out what all the letters said. The parson told her that his was a thank you note for preaching on forgiveness on the right day. And hers just said, “I figure getting angry is a brave thing to do, and I figure that forgiving folks is twice as brave as that. The only thing I figure is as brave as them two things is saying that you’re sorry. Well, I ain’t saying I’m brave, in fact, I am pretty scared of a lot of things. . . But I am sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t a better dad to you. I hope I ain’t screwed you up too bad. What a chicken I was. I love you, dumpling.”