Billy Coffey

storyteller

At The Mall

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“Leave me alone, you freakin’ nut!”

A young lady at the mall. To me. Spoken in an angry and sneering voice that stops everyone else coming and going through the doors. People are spectacle-driven at their core. And this is quickly becoming a spectacle.

My crime, it seems, is that I looked back when I pushed open the swinging doors to the parking lot. Rounding the corner behind me came a blur of a woman. Boots, jeans, and a sweatshirt that announced her attendance at the University of Virginia. Huffing and puffing and mumbling to herself, she had the appearance of someone very late for something very important. Three giant Gap bags, a pink-striped Victoria’s Secret box, a cup of coffee, a soft pretzel, and a purse were all haphazardly arranged in her arms. She steamrolled toward me while trying to look at the expensive watch on her left arm.

So I exited, stepped to my right, and held the door open with my left hand.

She charged ahead, still trying to check the time and still not quite doing it. Then she glanced up long enough to get a bearing on the door. Which, thanks to me, was already open.

“Excuse me?” she said.

I smiled. She didn’t.

“I got the door,” I said. “Come on out.”

“Don’t you hold that door for me,” she said, eyes bulging. “I am perfectly capable of opening the door without the assistance of anyone else.”

First thought—huh? Second thought—I should have stayed at home.

“I’m sure you can, ma’am,” I said. “But I just thought—”

“I don’t care what you thought! What is this, Big Strong Guy rescues puny woman? Well I don’t need your help, Big Strong Guy. I just need you to get out of my way!”

“Ma’am, I didn’t mean any—”

That was when I was cut off by the “freakin’ nut” comment. Plus a few others I really don’t care to elaborate upon.

Which brings us to the present moment. This lady’s rant has escalated in decibels and language enough to become a very effective attention magnet. Most everyone using the doors pauses to watch the scene. Not that I can blame them. I would stop and watch, too.

“LET GO OF THAT DOOR LET IT GO NOW!!” she screams.

I stand my ground. Partly out of the deep ethical conviction that is at the root of every good Southern gentleman, but mostly because I have decided that no yuppie college liberal with a chip on her shoulder is going to tell me what to do.

“I ain’t gonna do it,” I say.

So she yells more. About not being a helpless child. About self-reliance and women’s liberation and archaic traditions. She screams and spits like Hitler behind a podium. And as is usually the case with people who shout at me, my eyes glaze and her voice fades into a muffled, incomprehensible voice. Not unlike the “Waa waa waa” used by Charlie Brown’s teacher.

“…and don’t you ever think otherwise, do you understand me?”

No. Not really. But I can’t tell her I wasn’t paying attention. I don’t want to get hollered at again. Besides, I’m getting a little tired from holding that door.

So I take a deep breath and say, as humbly as I can, “Ma’am, I am truly sorry for offending you. You’re right. You can handle this. Please forgive me.”

She starts her rebuttal, but I close the door in mid-sentence. The faces of the men in the crowd around me show a slight sense of disappointment, either because they want to see me wait her out or they want to see me get slapped. The faces of the women are mixed, as if they somehow know there can be no winner here.

Satisfied that she has just won a pivotal battle in the war of equality, the woman adjusts herself, turns around, and pushes the door open with her hip.

Halfway through, she trips.

Shopping bags and coffee and pretzel and purse scatter in all directions, and she hits the concrete with a loud thud.

Silence all around.

The woman sits on the cold concrete, momentarily confused in a heap of freshly stained Gap T shirts and a rather attractive nightgown.

The crowd is stunned at the irony.

And me? I’m barely managing to keep a straight face. Nice? No. Honest? Yes.

Then my Christian guilt kicks in. I should help her up, I think. Jesus would help her up. It’d be a turn-the-other-cheek kind of thing.

But as I take a step toward her, I am met by laser beams shooting from her eyes.

Then again, I’m not Jesus.

And from the looks of it, none of the other folks still milling around are Jesus, either.

The sudden realization of just how stupid she looks makes the woman jump up, grab her purchases, and scurry off into the parking lot. The crowd begins to disperse, some heading to their cars and others into the mall. One man opens the door for his wife, who laughs as she walks through.

My faith says that I have to love this woman. Whether I want to or not. And I don’t want to. Not at the moment, anyway. But still, the love Jesus says we should all have for everyone isn’t the sort that is a noun. It’s a verb. It means doing. Loving others is more than forgiving stumbles or remembering birthdays. It means caring. And also allowing yourself to be cared for.

Handling The Remote

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Sexist I’m not, though I must admit I believe there are a few things men have a firmer handle on than women. Just a few, mind you.

Chief among these is the proper handling of the television remote control. This is most likely due to an almost childlike ignorance concerning its proper function on the part of the female. The remote is not used to simply turn the channel or adjust the volume. It’s purpose is much more intricate–to obtain an overall grasp of station selections, striking an elegant balance between quality viewing and commercial evasion. Or, in more simplistic terms, to channel surf.

My wife has long abandoned any hope of holding the remote control. Not that I do not trust her with it. But watching her use it is painful to me in the way that a composer would be pained by watching a hillbilly use a Stradivarius. It is a skill, the handling of a remote. Something that cannot be taught but must be inborn.

Over the past few weeks, however, an insurrection has begun over our family’s remote control. One led not by my wife. Not even by my son.

By my daughter.

It began innocently enough. I walked into the living room one evening and found her on the sofa and the remote on the ottoman. During a commercial break on her favorite cartoon, I decided to see what else was on. When I reached for the remote, however, I found a little hand already upon it. Hers.

The standoff that ensued was both temporary and bloodless, and my Alpha role in the family remained intact. But as these remote control battles increased in frequency, I began to lose a bit of face. The last one, yesterday, ended in a tickle fight that was only broken up with my son whopping me with a pillow.

I’ll be honest here. I really don’t understand the whole remote control thing. I don’t really know what it must be in my hands and no one else’s. I am not a callous snob. I will gladly watch what my family wants. But I must be the one to turn the channel.

True, there is a certain amount of power involved in the remote. Those buttons are alluring. I have a control over the television that is not offered in my life. Possibilities that are difficult at least and impossible at best.

Zoom, for instance. With a push of a button, my remote will enlarge a certain area of my screen and bring greater detail to the larger picture. The ramifications are enormous. I have outwitted both Jethro Gibbs on NCIS and Shawn Spencer on Psych by careful manipulation of that button. I don’t miss anything, even the smallest and most hidden clues. Which is quite unlike my own life, in which I miss too much.

And there is the Swap button. How wonderful that one is, enabling me to instantly trade what I’m watching for something else. Easy on my remote. Harder in my reality.

The Exit button is even more handy, enabling me to quickly escape from a screen I have no idea how I managed to get to. Exit works wonders for me in working with the television. Unfortunately, I rarely have one in life. Most of the time, I must find my own way out of the confusion I get myself into.

I would also like to have Pause, Rewind, and Fast Forward buttons in my life, just so I could take a break or try something again or skip over the parts I don’t like.

Play, too, would be a necessary function. I would like more play in my life.

That, I think, is why I’m so passionate about the remote. And if you’re honest, I don’t think you can blame me. Because we all want a little more control over our lives.
I will say, however, that there I have one function in my life that is much better than its counterpart on my remote control: the Guide button. A push of that button and I know how to navigate around on my television. Handy, no doubt.

But handier is the Guide in my life, the One who can navigate me through all of those parts in my life I would like to skip over or redo or exit. The One who can help me zoom in on what needs to be seen.

And Who can help me swap earth for heaven.

Either/Or

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My uncle picked this tomahawk up last summer and gave it to my daughter, a budding Indiana Jones. And when I said he picked it up, I mean it literally. He found it in a cornfield between the South River and the Hershey plant, about six miles from my home.

People a lot smarter than me say there were never any permanent native settlements in this area. The Shenandoah Valley was instead a kind of ancient superhighway that various tribes traveled through on their way from one place to another. Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Catawba, and Delaware Indians visited this area at various times, as well as my ancestors, the Cherokee.

The problem was that in a fairly limited amount of space, one tribe was bound to run into another. The results weren’t pretty. For thousands of years, much of our valley was one big battlefield.

Evidence of these tribal wars can be found every spring when the farmers start plowing their fields. There are arrowheads by the millions, flint scalping blades by the thousands, and sometimes, the head of a tomahawk.

I’ve spent many a lost moment with this tomahawk in my hands, asking the unanswerable.

Who made this? When? How did it end up in a cornfield?

Why, I suppose, is a question that that doesn’t need asking. To the Native American male, a tomahawk was his most prized possession. Much like the samurai and his sword, the tomahawk held an almost mythical position. It was the weapon of a warrior. A instrument of death.

But maybe asking why it was made does matter. Maybe that’s the question that matters most.

I never go hiking without a tomahawk. From building a shelter to securing food and water, it can perform tasks that a knife simply cannot. One of the wisest pieces of advice about going into the woods came from my father: “You can take a knife into the mountains and live like a prince. But you can take a tomahawk into the mountains and live like a king.”

My point?

Though the tomahawk can certainly be used as a weapon, it is first and foremost a tool. It’s a thing. And like all things, it can be used for good or for bad. It can improve life or destroy it. It all depends on the user.

Maybe it’s no surprise that the ancient people who once roamed these parts chose to use their tools to destroy life. After all, they were ignorant savages. Right?

But consider what you’re using to read this post. The Internet is quite possibly greatest invention of the last century. It allows people from almost any country to connect with people they would otherwise never meet. To be exposed to other cultures and ideas. To connect. It is a treasure of information and knowledge. Don’t know something? Google it. You’ll have your answer in seconds.

But this wondrous invention that can improve the lives of millions of people has destroyed just as many. There are an estimated twenty million websites devoted exclusively to pornography. You can google how to make a bomb just as easily as how to make a birthday cake. And for every highcallingblogs.com there is a jihadist calling for death and destruction.

Maybe we’re all ignorant savages.

Not much has changed since that unknown person dropped his tomahawk and my uncle picked it up. We’re still taking what was made for good and using it for bad. And I suppose we always will. We may be smarter and more capable than our ancestors, and our children may grow to be smarter and more capable than us, but we all carry around the same fallen nature.

That’s why I get a little leery when I start hearing about how things will get better when this person’s in charge or that country gets fixed or that peace agreement gets signed. I know better.

And I know this, too: each day we are faced with this one choice: what will I do? What will I do with what God has given me? Will I use my mind to think about how I can help others, or will I use it to think about how I can help myself? Will I open my heart and risk loving even more, or will I close it because I’m too frightened of hurt? And will I use my faith as a salve to pour on open wounds, or as a weapon to fester those wounds more?

This ancient tomahawk sitting beside me was likely used to both preserve the life of its owner and take the life of his enemy. Us? We’re not a matter of both, I think. I think we’re either/or. Either serving God or serving ourselves. Either helping others or not.

Either bringing the world a little closer to heaven or a little closer to hell.

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