Free Providence by Chris Coppernoll

home, but I crashed on the sofa in the den. Around three, I woke up feeling off-kilter. Midday darkness was extending its twigged fingers over the city skyline. Car lights arched their beams across the living-room walls, and I realized I didn’t want to be alone.
    I drove to CMO and parked out back. The lot was empty and white, the yellow lines already erased by snow. As the mercury descended, the rain that had fallen at lunch became snow, turning Providence into a frozen ice village.
    I climbed the slick metal stairs and entered the building through the kitchenette. I had planned to spend a couple hours answering phone messages, something that would give me an excuse to hang around and catch up with Peter and Aaron. But the building was empty, the only light coming from the gold table lamp Mrs. Burman left on in the downstairs lobby.
    I climbed the ornamental wooden staircase to the second floor and switched on my desk light. Everything was just as I’d left it on Monday. No new phone messages, faxes, or memos. The room felt less like an office and more like a storage space for a large desk and my reading sofa. I reached for my Bible and lay down. Most mornings I’d go through a similar routine, spending time on the sofa reading and praying. Sometimes I’d take ten minutes, but more often that time would stretch to forty-five when I would hear the doors open downstairs and a second CMO staffer arrive.
    The Word of God is my sanctuary. It’s where I turn to unscramble the world. When I’m reading and praying, the Lord had my complete attention. It’s a lecture hall, a private counseling session, a daily check-up with the All Knowing Physician. I hoped He would show me what He expected me to do with this book, which too often felt like a heavy weight pulling me asunder. I didn’t blame God for difficult situations, and I wouldn’t complain, but I needed His strength. He had a plan, and my job was to find out what He was doing, let His power work it out through me, and work it out in lives of others around me.
    The slow-motion snow was stealing color from the world. And my home was threatening to steal what was left of me with its unopened boxes full of tangled memory wires, each of them in desperate need of untwisting. I craved an experience with the Word.
    After prayer I found a sticky note from Peter on my computer screen. It read: “To: Jack Clayton, From: Peter Brenner—If you are reading this message, GO HOME! Love, Peter.”
    The phone rang, and I saw my direct line light up. After hours I always let the machine pick up. But I wondered if it was Peter calling and clicked on the speaker phone.
    “Campus Mission’s Office.”
    “Hi, is this Jack Clayton?”
    “Um … yes,” I didn’t recognize the voice.
    “Hello sir! My name is Bud Abbott, and I’m with the Chicago Tribune. How are you doing today?”
    I couldn’t believe on the one day I decide to answer an after-hours phone call, I found myself talking to one of the people I’m so famous for avoiding. Before I could answer his benign question, he rolled ahead with a few that promised to be less benign.
    “I’m working on a story about you for our Sunday edition and I just wanted to know if I could ask you a few questions?”
    I wondered how he’d gotten the number for my direct line. “Bud, it’s rare that you got through to me. Usually my secretary answers the phone. But I’ll just say what she would have told you: I don’t give interviews.” I wasn’t trying to be rude. He certainly knew this before he called.
    “Yeah, I’d heard that. But I wanted to know if you’d make an exception?”
    “Why would I do that?”
    “Well, Mr. Clayton, I’ve run across hospital records from New Mexico that say you were admitted with gunshot wounds in 1988. So … what do you think? Would you like to answer a few questions …?”

~ E IGHT ~
    If I go there will be trouble
An’ if I stay it will be double.
    —The Clash
    “Should I Stay or Should I