Chapter 8 -- Shaking the Bridge

SHAKING THE BRIDGE

         Jesse sat at the kitchen table in Nyla's house that Friday night, a chewed pencil in his hand, books and papers before him and a half a cup of cold coffee at his elbow. Nyla sat beside him.
         He put down the pencil. “It’s no use, Ny, I’m too dumb for this! I’m just not getting it.”
         “You’re not dumb, you’re just tired." She took his coffee cup and rinsed it out and refilled it. But the coffee wasn’t working any more; he had been up since five in the morning and it was nearly ten, a long day of school and work behind him. It was obvious that any further study tonight would do him no good.
         “Why did I take chemistry in the first place?” he asked himself aloud.
         “I don’t know, because you need it to graduate?”
         “I’ll never use any of this stuff in my whole life!"
         “Don’t farmers use chemicals?”
         “Sure, but the directions are on the label. That’s all I need to know.”
         “Maybe you should go home and get some sleep and come back in the morning and we’ll get into it then.”
         “I have to work tomorrow."
         “Jesse, you have to graduate. The test is Monday.”
         Jesse took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He said he thought he could find his way home. “I’ll come back in the morning,” he promised.
         “We’ll work some more after you’ve had some rest. We'll go over it again Sunday after church. You worked hard at this all semester, you can’t blow it now and throw all that away! You can do it!”
         He wished he were as sure as she was! Leaving his books behind to use in the morning he kissed her and headed for home.
         Lillian came to meet him when she heard his key in the lock. She asked “Are you ready for the big test?”
         “Nowhere near, I’m going back in the morning.”
         This whole school year had been cruelly hard for him. With a full load of work on top of his studies he had felt he had to run twice as fast as anybody else in order to stand still. He was dating the prettiest girl in school and he didn’t have any money to take her out. He had literally had no time for her in weeks. It could not be much fun for her going steady with a drudge like him! That she put up with it was proof in itself that she loved him.
         Once the school term was over things would get a little easier, but right now he had to face three more tests. One on Tuesday and one the day after that. Math would be easy and history held no fears. But the daunting test was on Monday morning, two days away.

         Lillian watched him climb the steps. He used to take them two at a time. Not tonight. She well knew how difficult this year had been for him. When she told him he worked too hard his answer was always the same. “I'll have to work a whole lot harder than this if I want to get anywhere.” But she was the one who went in his room at night and found him sleeping in his clothes and took the book out of his hands and the glasses off his face and pulled up the covers. At times like this she wondered whether she had been right, after all, to keep Joey. She knew as long as he had Joey he would always put the child first and his own needs last.

         Jess looked in on Joey who was fast asleep. He was thinking he had to do this as much for Joey as for himself. How could he tell Joey he had to graduate if he didn’t do it himself? He pulled up the covers over Joey’s shoulder and went to his own room. He fell asleep almost at once. It had been a long day.
         He showed up at Nyla’s in the morning. She said, “You’re bright and early.”
         “I’m early; let’s not give me anything I can’t live up to."
         They worked for a couple of hours and then he thought he had enough of the material in his head to make a good stab at passing the test. He would be happy with a C+ and that was all he hoped for.
         She said "We'll go over it again tomorrow after church."
         After lunch he went to work at the dairy farm. That evening he stole a couple of hours to be with Nyla; he felt entitled to that.
         When he got home Lillian had already gone to bed. He pulled off his tie and opened his collar and went up to Joey’s room. He had expected to find the child asleep but he wasn’t; he was crying softly. Jess touched him and discovered he was burning with fever.
         “Mom!” he called. “Joey’s sick!”
         She told him to bring her the baby thermometer. It registered a hundred and three!
         She said, “We have to get his fever down. Run some cool water in the tub.”
         He carried Joey into the bathroom and laid him in the cool water. It seemed to help a little. “What’s wrong with him?” he asked, wrapping the child in a towel and holding him close.
         “He seemed fine when he went to bed." Jesse had already found out how quickly a child who seems fine can become ill.
         Dr Bowman came in the morning. “Well you’re in for it,” he told them. “It’s the measles. Half the kindergarten is down with it.”
         Jesse felt some relief. Measles, that’s something children get. “Then it isn’t serious?”
         Bowman was closing his bag. “Yes, it’s serious! Do you remember when you had this?” Jesse didn’t, but his mother did. Bowman gave them instructions and left to call on more little sufferers.
         Jess was sitting on Joey’s bed holding the child. “He’s never been this sick before.”
         Lillian agreed. Joey cried and talked nonsense. All day they worked trying to cool his fever, trying to comfort him. It was heartbreaking to see him this way. It was a long terrible day. They took turns holding him and rocking him. They gave him cool baths and tried to cool his skin with alcohol sponges. His fever broke about midnight. At last he fell asleep.          Dr.Bowman had told Jesse the worst would be over when the rash came out. The poor child looked a sight, but he felt a lot better.
         Jesse awoke in daylight and found himself on the foot of Joey’s bed. For a moment he couldn’t remember why he was sleeping there, then it came back to him. He rolled over to reach Joey, who was still fast asleep. His forehead was cool. The worst was over.
         Jesse sat up and contemplated the next move, which would be getting up on his feet. His neck was sore and his limbs cramped from the way he had been lying. A little more awake he found his glasses on the bed and put them on. He was thinking there was something important he needed to remember and then it came to him in a rush ~ the exam! He looked at the clock and then ran into the hall as Lillian was coming out of her room. “Mom, I overslept! The test! The test is in two hours!”
         He showered and dressed and ran out of the house without his breakfast. It was a long walk to Carthage and there was no time to lose. Once seated in the classroom, pencil in hand and the test pages in front of him, he discovered that everything he had studied was gone, like a blackboard washed clean. He turned the pages and wrote every answer he could think of but it wasn’t very many. His hard work learning this stuff was completely erased.
         The proctor said, “Stop.” He put his pencil down. There wasn’t much use even in handing it in. It was over. The only blank he was sure he had filled in correctly was the one for his name, and he was thinking if you put him to it you could even make him doubt that. He had worked hard this year, harder than anyone else he knew of, and it had been for nothing. There was no point in taking the other tests; without a passing grade on this one he didn’t stand a chance. He was beaten after all. He walked down the hall and out into the rain and headed for home.
         Joey was sitting up, a piece of toast in his hand. A blotchy red rash covered his face and hands and arms but he was feeling a lot better. He reached up to Jess and gave him a toast crumb and butter kiss. Joey was going to be all right; what else really mattered? Jesse knew what mattered! Graduating mattered! Getting his diploma mattered. But he had blown that now. That was over and done with.
         Joey looked up at him anxiously. “Don’t cry, Jess, I’m okay!” He put his arms around him.
         Lillian joined them a moment later. Jess sat up and wiped his face on the edge of the sheet. “I failed the test, Mom,” he said.
         “Are you sure you failed? Maybe you didn’t.”
         “I didn’t even answer half the questions and the ones I answered were probably wrong. I couldn’t think ~~ some of it’s coming back to me now, but it’s too late."
         Joey, always one to look on the bright side, said, “Jess! I don’t have to go to school for two whole weeks!”
         School would be over for the term by then. “And I don’t have to go to school any more for the whole rest of my life.” He went to his room and sat on the bed. He kicked off his shoes and covered his face with his hands. “Father, why did this happen? I worked hard, I really tried!”
         Jesse had never learned to pray a proper prayer with a start and a finish. It was more like a running conversation. It seemed God was saying to him, “Where have you been? I’ve been waiting for you to come to Me and ask for help!”
         “I’m sorry, Father. I’ve been busy ~~” and the excuse sounded lame in his own ears.
         “You know by now your help comes from Me! Why didn’t you ask?”
         Well why didn’t he? But he had been so busy the past few weeks he had not had time to pray or even think about it. Of course he had prayed for Joey all night and all day while he was so sick but he had not even thought of praying for himself. “You know all I had to do,” and then he said he was sorry and lay back on the bed.
         There was a memo paper on the nightstand. He picked it up and read from it, in Nyla’s writing, “All things are possible.”
         But not this time. “You don’t understand, Father, the test is over ~~” and he stopped. He had just told God He didn’t understand! “I’m sorry, Father,” he said, “I shouldn’t speak to You that way.”
         On the other side of the paper she had written, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”
         “If there is a way, please show me what it is,” he said. The thought came to him that he could go and talk to Mr. Shriver about it. Mr. Shriver was a strict teacher, and not known for giving chances. But he would try everything. The worst that could happen is that Shriver would say no. And Shriver had little kids; he might understand.
         It was as if God said, “All things are possible but now you need to sleep.” He slept for a couple of hours and when he woke a plan was percolating in his mind.
         He would call Mr. Shriver and make an appointment to see him. Shriver must have heard excuses that weren’t anywhere near as good as this one! Unless he tried everything, he was just giving up. And he would take the other two tests. If he didn’t he was really a quitter. He was feeling better about the whole thing after a little sleep and prayer.
         He put on a clean shirt and went to see Nyla. He was aware that there was more to it than an F in chemistry. He had learned something out of this: the busier you are the more you need to pray. The more you’d better pray!
         He came into the classroom where Mr. Shriver was sitting at his desk. His jacket and tie were off and his sleeves were rolled, his collar open. Jesse had never seen him look that human before! He looked very tired. “Come in MacIver!” he said. “Sit down.”
         Jesse sat on one of the front seats. Before he could say anything Mr. Shriver handed him the pages of the exam he had written, or rather, not written, the morning before. “This isn’t your kind of work, MacIver. Can you explain this?”
         Good! he was getting a chance to explain. He didn’t want to sound as if he was making excuses. “I studied,” he said. “I thought I knew it but when I got here I couldn’t remember anything.”
         Mr. Shriver knew that happened sometimes. He knew more about this student than Jesse thought he did. “What happened?”
         “Joey got sick,” Jesse said.
         “Joey? Who’s Joey?”
         “My nephew, he’s six, he got the measles Saturday night. We were up with him all night and all day ~~ ”
         “You haven’t got to tell me about the measles, Jesse. They’re all down with it at my place too. Both of us had a rough weekend. I know you worked very hard this term. You did good work and I also know you were working hard outside of school. You have to have a fair chance at this. When can you be ready to take this test again? Can you be here Thursday morning?”
         Jess looked up. “Yes! I can do it then! Thank you!” and he added under his breath, “Thank You!”
         “Be here at nine in the morning,” Shriver said. “How is Joey now?”
         “He’s all covered in rash, but he’s a lot better.”
         “My kids too. I’ll see you Thursday. You’ve worked hard this school year. We’ve all seen a real change in you since last September. We can’t let you miss graduation now.”
~~~~~~~
         It was a week later that he was trying on the graduation gown. He felt silly in the thing and the hat was even sillier. Joey looked up at him and giggled. But he was graduating, that was the main thing; that was what mattered, not what he had to wear to do it.
         Lillian reached up and pushed back his hair and put the cap on him. “You look magnificent. You really did it! You shook the bridge!”
         He was putting the gown on a hanger. He turned. “I what?”
         “You shook the bridge. Do you know the one about the flea and the elephant?”
         “No.”
         “Well the elephant walked across the bridge and the flea said in his ear, ‘we shook the bridge.’ That’s how it is, you know, when you do something riding on God’s help.”
         Jess laughed and put his arms around her. “I get it." Joey squeezed between them to share in the hug.
         Lillian said, “I’m so proud of you!
         Not to be outdone, Joey said “Me, too!”