Yellowriter

“Mommy, teacher says that every time a bell rings an angel gets his wings,” the child says. We all know where we’ve heard those words and if you don’t, shame on you. It’s A Wonderful Life is a holiday classic and probably one of the best movies of all time. Last month, just before Christmas, I balked at the idea of watching it again. My oldest daughter rebuked me by saying, “Dad, it just wouldn’t be Christmas without watching it.” Of course, we watched it.

My wife and I are reading through the Bible again this year. We took the challenge three years ago and it has become part of our day. The insights gained and the questions raised more than make up for the loss of seeing an episode of American Idol. We were reading about Ishmael, the Father of the Arabs, and how in Genesis 16 he was described in the New International Version as “a wild donkey of a man.” I thought about how such a modern man in the twenty-first century would act if he were of the wild donkey breed. I didn’t have to think long before my mind’s eye brought me a picture of Byron Douglas Graves.

The Graves moved across the street on Indian Sage Road in 1963 when Byron was a baby. Byron was succeeded by Nathan as the youngest child in 1965. There were seven boys and two girls complete with mom and dad living in 1100 square feet of house. The Graves were and are Mormons, which basically translates to big families, powered milk and day old bread donated from the local bakery. They also got the old donuts from Winchell’s and my brother and I were usually around to help keep them from becoming staler. The biggest adventure came in the spring of 1969 when much of the Grave’s house burned down. We never were quite sure if the cause was Nathan playing with matches or Bad Boy Clark home from the Army letting one of his cigarettes ignite the blaze, but like it or not, we had houseguests. With Clark in the service, John on his mission, and Carolyn and Larry out of the house, my dad offered to let the Graves come and live with us. That summer I slept outside under the stars with the neighbor kids for company. Meals were strange having 14 people to feed, but we made it work.

My first clue about Byron being of the wild donkey variety came during my sixth grade year of school. There was a guy named Mike in our grade and he was a bully. We put up with him (we had to), but no one liked him. Mike was bigger than the rest of us and liked to punch people smaller than him in the arm. We usually only saw him at school, but during spring break he wandered over to Indian Sage and encroached on our games. By the end of the week we were sick of Mike, but all too scared to challenge him. Just after socking me in the arm, he turned to slug my friend and Byron’s older brother, Bruce. As we rubbed our arms and laughed like it didn’t hurt (it hurt like hell) Byron came up and punched Mike in the stomach. We all gasped. Mike acted like it didn’t phase him, but I know he got the wind knocked out of him. He threw Byron to the ground like a sack of potatoes and smiled. The games were over. As Mike started to walk off Byron jumped up, ran over and kicked the bully right in the ass! It staggered the bully. This time Byron ran to the safety of his house, taunting Mike as he ran. Mike never returned.

Byron, at some point in his life, saw fighting as an important part of who he was. At times he fought people. Sometimes it was the religion and value system of his parents. On two occasions, at least, he opposed the police and went to jail for it. He told me later that never in his life was he so frightened than by his first night in the joint. When I spoke to him ten months ago he was talking nonsense. His views on religion were borderline insane and the wildness in his eyes actually made my blood run a little cold. His teeth were rotted out of his head and I presumed it was “meth mouth”, the effect of using crystal meth. I wanted to ask him about his wife and children, but he talked as if a void in the conversation would bring his destruction. I later surmised that he was high on speed and was moving on a frequency that I could not comprehend.

The best thing for Byron was fast pitch softball. For years we had a team with all the neighborhood guys and Byron blossomed during these years. He was a good player and worked hard to improve. He began using steroids one year and became enormous through the chest and arms. He actually performed at a higher level too, but his hot-headedness was beginning to be too much for anyone to control. Several times he had to be restrained from fighting and the guys all took turns to make sure Byron didn’t go off on an opposing player. Overall he was a good man to have on the team. He was reliable and solid.

You can’t play ball forever. As we got older, the team disbanded and we all grew into middle age. You know middle age, being couch potatoes with our hands on the remote. Some of us are even grandparents. Every time I saw Byron he looked worse. Whether or not it was the steroids, the meth, or the marijuana he took and sold for medical purposes, I cannot say. His lungs were shot and he needed to be on oxygen. After his lung transplant, he seemed to get even sicker, but he fought on.

Violence had once been a sanctuary for Byron. Once while I was standing in front of my father’s house I visited with him while he stood in his parent’s yard. A car pulled up and Byron talked to the driver. After a minute Byron walked to the passenger side of the car and delivered a crushing blow to the man’s face. I actually heard the bones crack. The driver sped off. When I asked Byron why be decided to break the guy’s jaw he said, “I didn’t like the way he looked at me.”

Danny Rossmango and I went to Byron’s wedding. She was good for him and we hoped that she could settle him down. For years Becky had the job of damage control. The first time Byron went to prison was because he thought a man in his trailer park was leering at his wife. He beat the man mercilessly and the law showed him little mercy as well. Becky held the fort while Byron donned a shirt with numbers over the pocket. An incident with a county dogcatcher landed Byron in the pen for a second stretch.

When we quit playing ball I saw him less and less. Two years ago he argued with me about the legality of marijuana for medical use and became angry when I told him that the Feds still considered it a crime to grow and sell weed. We agreed to disagree in the end and over the next couple of years my contact was a wave or a shout of hello as I visited my parents.

When my mom died Byron was at the services offering kind and gentle words. I listened to him while in sort of a surreal existence seeing the tenderness emerge from the man of fury, our jackass of a man.

But today I am at Byron’s funeral. The Mormon Church is packed and most of it is his numerous relatives. Larry has passed on years ago and Nathan cannot make the trip from Texas, but the rest of the family is there. My friend, Bruce, cries as he speaks and many of the relatives follow suit. I survey his mother, Lela, sitting with dignity and grace like usual. His father is there as well, old Joe being 85 years old. I listen as Lela Bea, his sister, gives the bio of his all too short life. She tells of Byron’s love for animals and I remember back to his assortment of birds, snakes, lizards and ferrets.

A theme runs through the speakers and it is a theme of wildness: it is a blatant acknowledgement that Byron Douglas Graves was somewhat of a rogue and a loose cannon. In many ways he was as wild as the animals he kept – everyone in the room that knew him understood this fact. His niece gives a talk and calls her uncle Byron “a smart ass.” Some groan at the profanity, but most of us accept it as an apt description of the man we have come to honor in his death.

I sit there with my father, Bob Glasscock, Jim Ross and Bill Roof. There is a group picture of all of us together dressed in red, softball uniforms in the hallway. I tell Becky after the service that I am glad she posted the photo. “Playing ball with you guys was one of the things he loved,” she tells me with a wan smile.

At the end of the hour and a half long service I almost start to cry. I didn’t because Byron wouldn’t have wanted me too. But what is it that brings me to the brink of tears? It is the tenderness that I’m feeling coming from a family that wanted a different ending to a tragic story. I see it in their smiles and their gazes that seemingly focus on nothing in particular. I hear it in their stories. I can even feel it from the big picture of him smiling as he looks back at me.

I wonder about this one life, a series of contradictions stored up in a powerful man whose life ended way short of its destiny. I look at his children and realize that through them he will get a chance at redemption. Did I say redemption? The service is coming to the benediction and will be over in two minutes. Behind me a cell phone chirps and a man hurries to answer it. He cuts off the tone of the music and to me it sounds like a single, solitary bell ringing. I smile as the benediction begins. Somewhere in a dimension that I can never know, that exists between all things spiritual and all things driven by human emotion, Byron got his wings and I’ll salute his memory at every opportunity.