Marshall Ramsey

Silverware clanked and the buzz of a hundred different conversations were the only sounds he heard. He and his wife stared at each other, eating their salads quietly while waiting for their entrees to come.

It was date night and like a depleted well, their conversation had run dry.

Initially they had talked about the children.  That’s what their lives had become: Whatever the kids needed.  The trips to practices, carpool, projects, homework, laundry.  The kids were the joy of their lives. But they also were their lives. They were exhausted.

Another bite, quiet chewing and more silence.

He looked into his wife’s blue eyes. They were a stunning cobalt, as beautiful as the day he had first met her.  While he didn’t believe in love at first sight, he would admit he had fallen in love with the beauty of her eyes.  They were the gateway to her soul.  You could tell whatever her heart was feeling just by looking those eyes. He had seen them blue. And red. Full of tears. And closed.

Marriages are complicated things. “Until death do you part” is not for the weak of  heart. So many times both of them had wanted to quit. To give up on that vow and on each other. But something kept them together.  Maybe it was stubbornness. Maybe it was familiarity. Whatever it was they had made it all the way to this restaurant.  Now if their food would just get there.

She looked at her watch and sighed.

He looked again in her eyes. He saw their whole 20 years together.  The good times. The bad. The history. Their history.  When he first met her, he thought he had known what love was.  For years he held their relationship to that impossible standard.  He had made the mistake of believing love was just words.  He had learned the hard way that love was about action.  The gestures. The little things. It was a verb.

He thought about all the work she did at work and home.  How much of her energy she unselfishly poured into the kids.  How she had sacrificed when he had chased his silly dreams.  How much of her identity she had let go.  No, love wasn’t a few words in a sappy song or in a greeting card. Love was the day in and day out giving she did for him and their children.  He thought about all she did.  Obviously she was madly in love with him.

The two looked at each other. More silence.

She looked at her husband. He was a good man if not a little flawed. Most days he frustrated the living crud out of her.  But he tried.  She could have done so much worse and she knew it. They were a team and had a strong foundation to build the rest of their lives on.  That foundation was what the sweet words and gestures were built on.  She looked at his weathered face and imagined spending the rest of her life with this man. Maybe that was love after all.

They looked at each other in silence and then at the same time said, “I love you.”  Both smiled and then said at the same time again, “Where’s our food?  I’m hungry.”

“I wonder if the kids have burned the house down yet?” She said.

They laughed and started talking about their hopes for their future. And that night in a fancy restaurant, a great marriage was reborn before the entrees ever made it to the table.

On the eve of the 2016 elections, two candidates stood on the stage for the final debate. Each had been coached and coached again to make sure they had the right answer for the right question at the right time.  Their suits were expensive and their makeup was immaculate.  The lights shined brightly and the cool breeze from the extra air-conditioning would had rustled their hair if they had not each used a gallon of hairspray to nail it in place.  The TV production people scurried around like mice, trying to get the last minute details ready.  A man with a headset counted down:  Three………Two………..One…..

“Live from the Manchester Civic Center, welcome to the final Presidential Debate. I’m CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and I will be your moderator tonight.”

Out in the audience, two figures sat in the crowd. They were a little larger than the rest of the people in the room and had a strange glow about them.  Both were angels, sent down to observe the debate and report back. Although their Boss was all-knowing and knew what was going on, they asked for the duty. They had loved politics since the Roman times.

One was blonde.  His name was Gabriel (not that Gabriel — it was a common mistake to confuse the two) and the other had brown hair. His name was David (and not that David either).  Each looked uncomfortable in their suits, like little boys forced to dress up for church.

Gabriel held his huge hand up to his mouth and whispered like he had learned in a sawmill,” LET’S HAVE SOME FUN.”

Yes, Gabriel and David were angels, but they weren’t angels when it came to their practical jokes. Impish was the word that St. Peter had used about them. There was the time that they had hid Daniel’s halo.  And they had an annoying habit of calling Jesus “the chosen Son.” Most of their behavior would have offended the Senior Sunday Class as Mt. Bethel First Baptist Church.

David looked at Gabriel, smiled an unangelic smile and said, “I know exactly what you’re thinking.”

Both angels waved their hands at the same time.

Both the candidates got a strange look on their faces right as the debate began.

Wolf Blitzer: “Gentlemen. First question.  Why are you running for President?”

The candidates normally would have said something trite like, “Because I love America,” or “I wanted to help the children.” But something weird happened. They told the truth.

“Hell, Wolf, who wouldn’t? You get lots of swag. Big plane. Cool house. And the chicks.  Good Lord, no wonder Bill Clinton was a horn dog.  My wife is a b*tch.  She can be coldly sleeping upstairs and I can be in the command center lovin’ on an intern.”

The audience sat there in stunned silence.  A little old lady on the front row fainted. The candidate’s wife screamed, “You think I’m a b*tch now, you just wait!!!!!” and then stormed out.

Wolf Blitzer turned red. “Um, rebuttal?”

Candidate Two: “Wolf, it’s strictly about power for me.  And think of the money.  I can’t wait to get on the speaking circuit when I’m an ex-President.  As long as I don’t #$%$ up too badly, I’m set for life. ”

Once again, the audience just looked at the two men.  Across America, Twitter, Facebook and Google+ lit in. Televisions turned to the debate of the Century.  Soon nearly every TV in the U.S. would be tuned in.

Wolf Blitzer: “What’s your economic plan?”

Candidate One: “To suck up to Big Business. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is like the puppet master whose hand is up my ass.  As long as the CEO’s are making their bonuses, who gives a damn about the middle class. Viva Wall Street. And the poor? Please. That’s his party’s talking point.”

You could have heard a mouse fart.

Candidate Two: “What a whore.  Me, I’m going to kiss Big Labor’s butt for four years. As long as the union bosses get their money, I get mine.  Big Guv’ment, baby.  That’s what it is about. Government jobs.  Screw the poor.

Wolf Blitzer coughed nervously.  Someone talked into his ear.

“Gentlemen, May I ask you the source of your candor this evening?”

Both looked at Wolf and started to open their mouths. Both David and Gabriel waved their hands and the candidates’ strange looks went away.

Candidate One: “Why Wolf, I am up here today because I believe in family values.”

Candidate Two: “I’m working hard for the children. They are America’s future.”

It was the highest-rated show in the history of Television.  The audience in the theater just sat there stunned, looking at two men who had just plowed salt into the field of their political careers.

David and Gabriel laughed.  “Think the Boss will get mad?” David asked his partner in crime.

“Maybe a little,” said Gabriel. “But he never was very fond of liars.  I think we’ll get pardon.”

“You mean like Haley Barbour liked to give out?” David chuckled.

Both Angels left the theater laughing about the Hell they had raised.

The garbage truck driver looked at his watch.  “5:00 a.m.  I’m #$%# late,” he muttered.  He pushed the pedal down and sped north through the wet city streets.

Coming from the east, the driver of the SUV looked at his watch. “5:00 a.m. I’m late,” he cursed. He accelerated.

The light changed but neither man paid any attention to it.

It was the point in time and place where two fates met in an eruption of glass, metal and airbags.  Time slowed to a stand-still.  The man in the SUV saw his childhood as clear as day.

There was Susie Jenkins. How he loved her when he was six.  She had brown hair and eyes and a smile that would melt snow.  He saw his mom making him breakfast in the morning. He remembered lying on his grandmother’s floor, sleeping in complete security.  He remembered his first kiss, stolen in the back of the gym at the dance. His wife standing at the alter, a tear running down her face.  He saw more tears as she left him for his infidelity. The then the mistakes starting flowing like water from a broken dam. The relationships he never mended.  He felt the cold dirt as he threw it on his parents’ caskets. That’s when he felt the pain.  Then there was a white flash and nothing.

The garbage driver slammed on his brakes and the truck began to skid.  The massive green and yellow beast began to tip and then planted again firmly on the ground.  The sound of impact would haunt him for the rest of his life.  The smell of smoke and the heat of the fire would, too.  And the burns on his hands would take months to heal.

The driver of the SUV woke to see flames coming from in front of him. Time suddenly sped up.  The airbags had saved him but for how long? The door, crushed by the garbage truck’s bumper had impacted it, was jammed shut.  He struggled with the seat belt but it was jammed, too.  Smoke began to fill the car, obscuring his vision and burning his lungs.  He never saw the hulking figure rushing toward him.

Adrenaline can turn a mouse into a lion.  The garbage driver stepped into the flames an grabbed the door handle.  He smelled his flesh burn and felt the searing pain.  But God himself could not have stopped him from what happened next. With a giant pull, he ripped the door off the car and yanked the stunned driver out of the SUV.  Seatbelt and all.  Superman would have been in total awe.

The garbage truck driver pulled the SUV driver to the curb right as the crushed vehicle exploded into flames.  A fireball lit the early morning sky, leaving both men stunned.

“Thank you,” the SUV driver said.  He fumbled for his wallet and handed the man his card.  “You saved my life. If I can ever help you, let me know.”

Dr. Gary Vinings. Onocologist.

Three months later, Dr. Vinings got a call.  “Dr. Vinings, it’s Malcolm Fredricks, the driver of the garbage truck that hit you.  I have a strange lump and need your help.”

“Come in immediately, and I’ll see what we can do for you.”

X-rays, CT scans, blood tests and other tests (all paid for by Dr. Vinings) revealed a tumor.  Immediate surgery, treatment (once again all paid for by Dr. Vinings) and follow-up left the garbage truck driver cancer-free.

Dr. Gary Vinings visited Malcolm Fredricks in his hospital room. “We caught it in time. Good thing you called when you did.”

There was a pause. And then silence.  Both men looked at each other and realized their lives had been changed by the chance meeting of two objects in time and space. That they were saved at the point of impact.