The Three O’Clock Calls

“I shot a man,” George said again. “Man standing right there in my yard telling me to shoot him. I shot and killed him. I don’t know what all to tell you now, but I gotta say I shot a man, and here I am now just sitting here. In the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, JSO.” His words started to jumble together. Tom could tell he was intoxicated and didn’t want to think about just how drunk he had to have been to shoot someone. All Tom could grasp through George’s slurred speech and his own whirling mind were the four words, “I shot a man.” Nora must have read the distress on Tom’s face because she propped up on one elbow and started to rub his back. “Everything okay?” Nothing was okay. Even for the adult child of an alcoholic, this was a shock. Jesus, why couldn’t I have a normal father? Tom felt guilty for thinking it. “Dad, I can’t do anything for you right now in the middle of the night.” “I only get one phone call. I just wanted to let you know.” Let me know my father is a murderer? Tom dropped his face into his hands, keeping the phone to his ear with this shoulder. “I’ll come down tomorrow, Dad,” Tom said. “Don’t bother. No visitors for two days.” “Fine. I’ll come when I can.” “Anyway, I done it,” George said. “He stood there and I shot and killed him. Self-defense, of course.” “Of course.” Tom sighed. “Bye, Dad.” He hung up the phone and buried his head in Nora’s shoulder. Here we go again. Except worse. Jesus, help me. Nora held him. There wasn’t much to say. Eventually, she fell back asleep, but Tom was amped up. His heart kept racing. His imagination created videos of Tom visiting his father in prison for decades for the rest of his life. He did not want to visit a prison ever, certainly not to see his drunk killer father. His dad was going to die in prison. First-degree murder. He thought about telling the kids their grandfather was a murderer. They didn’t have much of a relationship with him. Tom made sure to protect them from George, but still. A murderer. The word tasted like blood and bitterness. Tom rolled out of bed. No point sinking into that pit of his imagination. He made a pot of coffee and sat in the kitchen trying to understand the conversation he had just had with his father. Trying to understand his anger. He felt selfish, thinking about how this act of his father’s was going to disrupt his own life. He didn’t have time to drive out to some distant prison, go through visitation hassles, or talk to his dad through glass. They didn’t talk much already. What were they going to talk about through glass? “Why can’t I have a healthy father, God?” Tom said out loud. “Why does my dad mess up my life like this? All I want is a dad who isn’t drunk 24-7.” He felt conflicted about saying these words but knew God wanted to hear his honest thoughts. And right now, he was not feeling very righteous. He was angry, hurt, and felt a rising resentment that his dad’s actions consistently caused him grief. And now his dad was a murderer. How much was this going to cost him? “Don’t let me ever be like my dad,” he prayed. “Don’t let me do that to my girls. Let me be a better man than him.” Even as he prayed those words, they cut Tom’s heart. He ached for the father he would never have. He knew he could be a better father to his kids, but he wished he didn’t have to make it all up as he went along. If only he had a good role model. “I thought I was past all this pain,” Tom prayed. “You healed me, Jesus. You keep on healing me every day, and I need you. Show me how to love my dad. Help me love him. Right now, I don’t feel loving. I don’t even want to think about him, forget about loving him! He’s the one in prison, and I’m thinking about myself, and even that makes me angry with him. I need your help, God.” That last prayer would be the key to getting through the next few days for Tom. He stopped praying and tried to get his mind to stop racing. He stared out the back window, though he couldn’t see much in the darkness. Tom needed to get his mind off the what-if scenarios and the why-can’t-my-dad-be-different loop. He sipped his coffee and focused on what he could see outside. He’d been sitting there with the coffee for hours already, and now the sun was rising. A new day. May there be new mercies with this new terrible day. “Your mercies are new every morning,” Tom said to the empty kitchen. “Great is your faithfulness.” The next line of the old hymn choked him up a bit. “Great is your faithfulness, O God, my Father. There is no shadow of turning with thee.” The light of the rising sun caught on the dew drops sprinkled across the lawn and made the backyard glisten like so many moist diamonds. Tom focused on the beauty, the familiarity. His eyes roamed over the swimming pool, his girls’ favorite place to play. The happy memories soothed a bit of his anger. Thinking about his family, about Nora asleep upstairs and Danielle and Kayla waking up for school soon, calmed him further. He wasn’t his father. God would help Tom love his father, maybe even help him forgive him. And God would guard Tom against the addictions that wreaked such havoc on George’s life. He was not his father. Tom’s coffee had grown cold long ago. He hadn’t slept all night but still felt wired with adrenaline and caffeine. He planned to go to the jail, but when he called to confirm visiting hours, he was told to wait two days, like George had said. Tom felt relieved that he could use the time to calm down and brace himself. *** Two days later, he drove to the jail alone. Nora had offered to come along, but just one person could visit George anyway, and Nora had only met him a few times over their thirteen years of marriage. Tom didn’t want to put her through this. Tom knew what jails felt like from the perspective of the police officers, but walking into the visitation room as a family member of a confessed murderer was surreal. He’d seen the rickety chairs, the panes of glass, and the telephones so many times during his career as a police officer, but only today did it strike him that this felt just like a scene from a movie. He was an actor. His dad was an actor. None of this was real. It couldn’t be. Tom sat down in the chair an officer directed him to, and then his father was brought out in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs. Tom shook his head. Nope. They were not playing a role; this was his actual life, his actual father. Jesus, help me. Tom breathed the prayer again and picked up the phone receiver. George was sober for possibly the first time in his life since he was eleven years old, other than the few days he’d spent in jail for the armed robbery. The jail has a way of detoxing a man with harsh brutality. “Son, my stomach hurts,” George said first thing. “I got night sweats, headaches. I hate this stinking place. They ain’t treating me right in here.” He was pale with dark circles under his eyes, and his hands trembled. Through the glass, Tom could see his whole body shaking. “That’s because you’re not drinking, Dad,” Tom said. “Let’s not talk about that. What happened?”