Promise Kept (Perry Skky Jr.) (5 page)

“Aw, Perry, don’t even use that as an excuse. You haven’t talked to me either. My brother’s not just mad at you anyway. He’s mad at me too. So, if you’re taking it out on me that he has an attitude with you, it’s not fair.”

“No, no. Where are you even getting that from?” I asked, really frustrated how our night was kicking off.

We got to the Varsity and it was really crowded. Everyone was looking for a cheap date, but the Varsity was a historic place known for great hotdogs, hamburgers and chili cheese. The place was smelling so good, but I couldn’t be tempted. I couldn’t go to Coach Moss’ house with a full stomach. I had the name of the recruit and I was supposed to meet him at the door at six. Six-fifteen came and I couldn’t find him.

I said to Savoy, “I’m just gon’ walk around, I’ll be right back.”

“That’s cool,” she said, still a little salty about earlier. I wasn’t gone for two minutes when I heard Savoy scream out, “Don’t touch me! Get your hands off of me!”

I rushed to the back side of the building and found Savoy moving away from this young, buff dude who fit the description of the recruit.

“Are you Jeff Wade?”

“Yeah, man. Chick is trippin’.”

“Yeah right. You felt me up and said a little bit more than that. I can’t deal with this, Perry,” she said, coming over to me.

“I ain’t do none of that.”

“You are going to believe him over me?” she asked.

I was so torn; I knew she was a little paranoid from everything that happened at the beginning of the year at the club. Maybe she was on her cycle or something, because she had an attitude with me all the way over here. Or did I really need to take in what she said and deal with this chump for being too forward with my girl? Quickly I thought of my options. If I jumped on him I could possibly be arrested and be in the newspaper again for some foolishness. He could tell Coach, he could probably go to another school. Talk about a recruiting trip gone bad. But if I didn’t, I could lose my girl with her thinking that I really didn’t have her back. I didn’t want our relationship to be built on lies—we needed trust. She needed to know that I would be there for her, and with her brother accusing me of bailing during his fight, that’s the last thing I wanted on my conscience. So I thought about it for real. I prayed,
Alright Lord
. Savoy stood with her hands on her hips and her head rolling, waiting on me to do something. Jeff had his hands folded like he was the best recruit in America and I had better not do anything to jeopardize it.
Can you give me some insight Lord; can you help me out here?
I pointed one finger to Jeff and put my arm around Savoy and said, “Let me deal with this, man.”

Jeff nodded. “Cool. I’ma step in and grab a lil’ something to eat.”

As soon as we were alone, Savoy grabbed my shirt and passionately said, “You do believe me, right? Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I have to deal with this the right way, and he is a recruit for the school. I’m not going to tolerate his actions toward you but I can’t just go off on him in public, you know? When we tell Coach that recruits are not of good character, Coach backs off of them anyway. We’re a class act school. It’s not about just throwing the ball down the field. If we get this guy it could be a big deal, but let me go about it the right way. Can you trust me to do that, baby? I mean I am sorry that our date started out on the wrong note, but I’ll make it up to you.” I kissed her cheek and put her in the car.

I went inside.

“Alright man, what’s up? You hitting on my girl, man?”

Jeff gave me a smug look. “She’s fine, man. I had to touch.”

“I understand, but you can’t be touching up on women like that.”

“I mean it was just a little tap.”

He admitted to me what he had done. I had come at him the right way. I had figured him out.

“I didn’t know she was your girl anyway.”

“Yeah, but you come to Tech or any school really pushing your weight on these females and you’ll get yourself into all kinds of trouble. Besides, my girl has had a lot to deal with. I can’t have anyone messing with her.”

“Aw snap, my bad. Your girl is the one whose brother is on the team, too? Some gang guy messed him up?”

“Yeah, all that.”

“I’ma go apologize. Naw man, that’s cool, let’s just talk about Tech for a little bit. Some of the other guys are going to come and swoop me up. Show me around A-town.”

“Alright, let’s get you a burger.”

“Cool.”

An hour later I was sitting with C. Moss. Savoy was with his wife.

“It’s just hard to get this dating thing right. She has such high expectations and sometimes my motives are so impure. It’s like I can’t be with her, but it’s too hard to be without her. I just don’t know where we fit in. If it’s in the cards for us at all. I think I did the wrong thing by bringing her here for Valentine’s. She’s really ticked at me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with thinking outside of the box and making sure that y’all don’t cross any lines that y’all don’t need to. You know what I’m saying,” he said to me.

“Yeah, I got you.”

“There’s no need to reinvent the wheel either. Just keep God in prayer, get on out of here and take her to a movie or something. You can finish the night doing something that makes her excited. Stay on your prayers and the Lord will continue to show you where to lead in this dating relationship. You’ll figure it out, stay open. There’s nothing wrong with recruiting new ideas.”

“I
’m sorry, can you forgive me?” Savoy said to me as we left the Moss’ home after dinner. Because her attitude had been chillier than the February air, I was taken aback that she was apologizing, and honestly I didn’t know what exactly she was seeking forgiveness for. There was a grocery store nearby so instead of driving right to the movie theater to see a romantic movie to salvage our Valentine’s evening, I pulled into the parking lot. I figured we needed to talk and I wanted to look directly into her eyes and listen to what she had to say and speak from my heart.

“I’ve been angry at God!” she said to me.

Wow
, I thought. She was one of the most solid Christians I knew.

“Yes, He saved my brother. Yes, He put us back together and yes I should love Him just because He’s God, but I’ve been really upset with Him. Because I am upset with Him I have been mad at the world, particularly you.”

“So do you feel like your brother, that I let you down after the big game?”

“No, you explained everything that happened and it makes complete sense and I can’t blame you for any of that anyway. You know I blamed myself for trying to make you jealous. And I guess that is just it. I guess what makes me so angry is that as much as I prayed to the Lord to have Him try and help me stay on the right path things come up, and it’s like Satan is able to come in my mind and corrode it. I feel like frazzled wires connected to nothing, and every time I try to tell my brother about God he says so many other things that make me doubt salvation is real, and that scares me. I just found out that my dad’s sister, Tad’s mom—”

“Yeah,” I said.

“—She has cancer,” Savoy told me with teary eyes.

“Oh man, are you serious? I hadn’t even talked to Payton.”

“I’m sure she knows because Tad is real torn up about it. We sort of just found out but I don’t think she has long to live.”

And all of the things that I really felt to tell her—it’s okay, this is not where we are supposed to be, that we live here to get to Heaven, that God is going to take care of us, that it’s all going to be fine—I’m not sure of it myself. Some mornings are shaky, just thinking about my body being underground in some box that I can’t get out of.

“I’m just afraid. The Lord is not giving me any comfort or any answers and if He was really real don’t you think I’d have peace?”

I hugged her, I really appreciated her being vulnerable and sharing her concerns with me. I didn’t know if I had the answers that she was looking for but I did know that I truly understood where she was coming from. I mean, not too long ago I was questioning my own salvation, battling with God for the things I felt He wasn’t doing right. Thankfully He brought me to a place of comfort, because I had to just trust and have faith and believe.

“That’s Satan trying to mess you up, Savoy. That’s Satan trying to get into your mind to make you think that all you know to be true is a lie. He’s the one who’s a liar, call him on the carpet, speak the word. Satan cannot touch or destroy you; you have the protection of the Almighty.”

“Why does it feel like everybody that I love is suffering—you with your grandmother, my brother with his life, and my aunt with cancer. I just, I just don’t know.”

“I don’t know a lot, Savoy,” I said, holding her hand, “but I do know that the word says to be absent of the body is to be present with the Lord, and my mind can’t even conceive what He has in store for us in Heaven and I want to be there. I want to see my grandparents, I want to see my Savior face to face, and I want to hear him say, ‘Job well done.’ And I know I haven’t been living a life that, if He took me right now, He would want to reward me for, but I know that I am alive today and I can do better than I did yesterday. And I know that it is tough to witness to people but that doesn’t mean that we are supposed to give up.”

“Yeah, but what are we supposed to do? They say so many things about Him not being real that you question yourself.”

“You have to trust and believe,” I told her. “You’ve got to stand just as firm as they are. It’s like planting seeds in soil and watering them. I mean a seed doesn’t automatically become a full bloom. It comes in stages, so who knows what stage you are in at helping people grow in Christ. We want to see them automatically grow up and be some pretty flower, but they might just be a seed, it might be the first time they ever heard the gospel.”

“Here I am supposed to be the water of what someone else has said.”

“You might be the sunshine that gives them hope that God cares.”

“I don’t know what stage this is but I will not know all the answers until I am with Him.” She got out of the car and walked into the wind. I turned off the car, got out and went over to her.

“I care about you a lot, and me and you have got some issues but that doesn’t mean that I am going to give up. That doesn’t mean that I am going to stop striving to work this thing out. I know it’s harder for me when you’re not around, girl, but to get this thing worked out I am surely going to try. We just got to keep going through it, keep praying for each other. Some days I’ll be stronger than you, some days you’ll be stronger than me.”

“So, you’re committed to us for real?” she asked, looking at me with the most precious eyes I had ever seen.

“Yeah!” I said from the heart. “I really want you to have my heart, but we’re young you know, and just because I don’t give you everything you’re looking for doesn’t mean I’m not giving you all that I’ve got.”

She put her arms around me and squeezed real tight. What we had may not have been perfect but it was real good. Salvation was secure. Our witnessing could be stronger, but because we wanted it to grow we were in a good place. We were real secure and that was awesome.

“Perry, man, come here. Come here,” I heard a voice call out as I was about to enter the football complex. “Come on man, don’t front and act like you don’t know me, dang.”

I looked to my left and I looked to my right and all I saw was a bum on the street. As the dingy person walked toward me I swallowed hard. It was Mario, our former quarterback, truly looking like he was strung out on something. If you don’t have anything good to say you’re not supposed to say anything, right. Well, the guy knew me too well to think that I would be cool with the image before me. I had to be honest, I had to ask what was up. “Man, what’s been up with you, why do you look like crap?”

He couldn’t even get his words out—he started stuttering and stumbling. He clearly was high. “Perry, man. I need, I need some money. I need some cash, come on. Give me what you got,” he said as he approached me and started looking for my wallet, digging in my pockets.

“Aw man, Mario. Back up, man.”

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place for a lot of reasons. One was that I needed to hurry up and get into Coach Moss’ office. We were about to head out on a mission trip to the children’s hospital. I also couldn’t give him any money—clearly he wouldn’t be buying any gas or food with it, and I surely didn’t want to give him anything that could be a catalyst into anything that could do him more harm.

“Man, I ain’t got anything.”

“Come on, rich boy, lie to somebody who don’t know you. I been waiting on you to come up here. I just need a little twenty or forty, whatever you got I need it. Alright man, come on come on.”

I put my hands up in the air and said, “For real, nothing.”

Then he turned a little violent and grabbed my collar and said, “It’s your fault that I’m in this predicament anyway. You snooped and found out what I was doing. I got messed up, kicked out of Tech, beat up more times than I know. I’ma have to make it anyway, I know how then. You don’t want to give a brother a handout.”

Maybe I was misjudging him, I mean the more he talked the more he was able to put his words together and sound articulate. I always had a little stash in my dashboard so I told him to hold on, went back to my car and gave him a fifty.

“Thanks man, thanks!” When I got inside C. Moss lit into me.

“You said you wanted to be one of my leaders, Perry. I took that seriously and you come in here late and all when you know we have to be at the hospital at a certain time. We were waiting on you; your tardiness shows no leadership skills. You didn’t have the decency to call. I’m not trying to push you out there to do public service—that needs to be something you desire from the heart. You told me you were up to it and now you’re dropping the ball. I mean I assume that’s not like you. What’s up with that?”

I didn’t want to laugh because that would have been totally rude, but when I looked up I saw my roommates Deuce and Lance standing behind Coach Moss, where he couldn’t see their faces, and they were doing everything but keeping me straight; googling their eyes, sticking fingers up behind his head, just being jerks. Finally I couldn’t hold it in and I just bust out laughing. He turned around quickly and caught the two of them being silly and I lost it even more.

“See, you guys just don’t understand. When we get to where we’re going and you see these kids lying there you won’t have such a careless attitude.”

“Look Coach, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. They were being…”

“No need to apologize. I mean Perry, you’re grown, do what you want to do. I’m just letting you know that I didn’t appreciate it. It’s my job to give and give and pour into you guys. But it is not a part of my job description to put up with your lack of respect.” He went around me and went to his car.

“Y’all need to hurry up,” he said to everyone without looking back.

“We knew you would be on time, so we were late,” Deuce said to me.

“Why were y’all late?”

“You know Lance was hungry.”

“I had to get a snack from the cafeteria. You know we going to the hospital and it don’t smell right in there. I wanted to be full. Aren’t we supposed to bring flowers to the sick and shut-in?” Lance joked.

On the way over Coach Moss remained distant. I did feel bad about letting him down and I did want to tell him what I thought about Mario, because I wasn’t sure but it could have been a whole lot more of a big deal. I knew I just needed to pray for Mario. When we got to the hospital the three of us were talking loud, not intentionally. Just three guys joking.

“Shh!” the chaplain said harshly. We could tell by his demeanor that if he had a switch we would get a whooping.

“I hate hospitals,” Lance said.

“I’m not too fond of them either,” Deuce chimed in. I didn’t say a word but concurred with the both of them.

“Well, you get in front since you don’t have a problem with it,” Lance said, taking my moment of silence as a sign of toughness. At first it was okay. We visited a few kids that were on IVs, we said the right things we needed to say to them, signed some autographs and we were out. No emotional attachment—nothing really big. They had a virus, they took some medicine, and they would be out in a few days. But it wasn’t until we got to the cancer ward that both my roommates lost it. There was this one little girl, bald and pale as could be, with this cute little picture of her beside her bed. She used to have long blond hair.

“The football players are here, Mom, the football boys. I love Buzz,” the little girl said.

Buzz was our mascot and one of the pictures we had of him was already signed. As I turned and saw my guys tear up, I gave her the picture and a hug, after her mom said it was okay. I held it together until I got to the burn unit and I saw this little boy with only one finger remaining on his left hand from a horrible fire, where we heard he lost two of his siblings. He was twelve and he had been home alone cooking.

“I was going to play football this year in the seventh grade. I don’t think I’ll be able to play anymore. I’m sad about that.”

I was sad about it too, and my heart was breaking. As I began to break down he reached for my hand with that one little finger and said, “But you know what’s going to bring me joy?”

I looked up with eyes full of tears.

“Being able to see you play. I still have my eyes. I can still see. Get out there and play for me next year, you’re real bad.” When I walked out of the room I just fell to my knees. I was a part of a fallen world. Man wasn’t perfect and we needed a perfect Savior to rescue us. The tears kept flowing worse than a raging river, and that made me want to be about God’s business. People were hurting, even innocent children, but there was a God who was capable of drying all our tears. When my roommates came over and hugged me it was like feeling an embrace from God. Though I couldn’t see it He had all the babies in this place.

Being a big football player, it was sometimes hard to be vulnerable and show your true emotions. A group of us from Tech and other schools went to a college retreat at Lake Lanier, Georgia. The ACC and SEC chaplains sponsored the event to encourage athletes. Though Savoy had come as well, we were hanging in different groups. Being up there to focus on God helped me feel better than I had in a while. It was praise and worship time; ironically, my sister and Lance’s sister were up there too, doing some kind of duet. They sounded like angels though. As I lifted my hands to the sky I just wanted to connect with God. I wanted Him to know how much I loved Him. I wanted Him to know out of all of what He was doing for me, if He did nothing else I was determined to be satisfied. Then the Clemson chaplain came up and preached. His message was real convincing.