Boaz Bloom and Tumble-Down Row, Part Five

November 26, 2007, 2:00 pm; posted by
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The last of the Best of Job, continued. Lost? Read part one, part two, part three, and part four!

Boaz and I talked about pretty much everything under the sun. Tumble-Down Row was like our own little Acropolis, and we laughed, disagreed and found common ground — just basking in good-natured, unexpected, mutually beneficial interaction that spanned generations and geography with effortless ease.

I was self-indulgent one day and blabbered on about an ex-girlfriend and all the things about her that had annoyed me. Boaz was silent for a long time, staring down the row. But when he responded, it was with the single wisest thing I’ve ever heard pass from a man’s lips — wise, oddly freeing, and mutedly passionate.

Sticking his hands out with his palms up, looking at them as if they were him complete, he said, “If I can live with all my faults, I sure as hell can live with the faults of those I love.”

 

Summer was passing pretty quick. The only thing remaining was to get the basement sealed — and the only guy for miles who did it was backed up with basements all over Chap. I told him to take his time. Becky had this thing she did when she kissed ya, dontchaknow, and well…

 

Boaz spoke of Amelia only once to me. I asked him for his funniest memory. He told me about a Saturday they spent in Georgia going to a wedding of a close friend of hers. The reception was a good three towns over, and the two of them followed a few people who knew the way. Boaz was driving the Chevy and Amelia announced that she had to go to the bathroom. “She was trying, God bless her,” but consumed lemonade was overwhelming her. They couldn’t pull over or they would get separated.

Boaz tried to distract her, but with every mile, it just got worse and worse. She was not smiling anymore, and she gripped the door, pressing her legs together. She looked at him with pain. He smiled at her.

“Just go,” he said.

“What?!”

He told her again to just go — right there on the seat.

She said the embarassment would kill her.

He took her hand. “I’ll go too.”

Her eyes lit up. He smiled at her. She smiled back.

“Ya promise, Bo?”

“I promise.”

And right there on the interstate outside Savannah, Boaz and Amelia relieved themselves. They found a thicket behind the reception hall where they parked and changed into the jeans they’d brought. “We danced up a storm too,” he said, looking away.

Soiled a bit, but in love and in denim, they were free to enjoy themselves.

I could tell he loved her dearly.

 

Becky and I were down by the hardware store when we heard about Boaz. McCallister told us with labored breaths, wiping his glasses, that Boaz had been hit by a bus up on the highway skirting Chap.

Killed instantly.

Nobody understood. It was way off his usual route.

“He must’ve gotten lost,” McCallister said, not believing it.

Do you believe I cried?

I did.

Do you believe I lied?

What a punch to the gut.

— TO BE CONTINUED —


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