The Meat on the Bone: A Little Book About Finding Our Way

By Janice Kelley

Born and raised in a midwestern town that sits on the outskirts of postWorld War II events, bright but shy boy named Harry Porter lives an even-keeled life. As he matures, attends college, and prepares for a corporate career, Harry begins dating fellow philosophy student Sylvia Silverstein with no idea of what the future holds.

Feeling complete for the first time in his life, Harry happily immerses himself in Sylvias life and her Jewish traditions. He soon meets her overprotective parents, who teach him he is a visiting guest on Earth with a purpose. But after tragedy strikes and Sylvia dies unexpectedly, a grief-stricken Harry decides to seek solace from his demands by dropping out of college and applying for a job as a bus driver. Twelve years later, he encounters circumstances beyond his control during a snowstorm. Events then send Harry on the journey of a lifetime, during whichwith the help of his childhood friend, Quincyhe will make discoveries beyond his wildest imagination.

The Meat on the Bone is the poignant tale of one mans unexpected path through life as he peers into the promise of tomorrow and finds the answers to some of lifes greatest questions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jan 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781480805170

Janice Kelley

Janice Kelley enjoys awakening to the sound of train whistles that come from the tracks surrounding picturesque Mukilteo, Washington, where she works and lives with a spoiled cat. She has two adult children. This is her first novel.

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Copyright © 2014 Janice Kelley.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-0517-0 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-0518-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-0519-4 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014931267

Archway Publishing rev. date: 4/3/2014

CONTENTS

Chapter 1. Crazy Love

Chapter 2. The Hills of Life

Chapter 3. The Bear and the Warrior

Chapter 4. Seasons of Victory

Chapter 5. The Watchman

Chapter 6. An Intermittent Life

Chapter 7. The Years, They Pass

Chapter 8. Romance Blooms

Chapter 9. A Mentor on the Bus

Chapter 10. A Day at the Game

Chapter 11. Angel in Drag

Chapter 12. No Layovers

Chapter 13. Day Gone By

Chapter 14. Old Woolly

Chapter 15. The Puppeteer’s Hand

Chapter 16. Sliding Home

Chapter 17. Figgy Pudding for All

Chapter 18. Green Wood Won’t Burn

Chapter 19. One Foggy Day

Chapter 20. Just as It Should Be

Chapter 21. Casa Bonita

Chapter 22. A Matter of the Heart

Chapter 23. Play Ball

Chapter 24. The Long Stretch

Chapter 25. A Really Big Thing

Chapter 26. The 112th Street Stop

Chapter 27. Plan B

Chapter 28. The Law and the Tutor

This book is dedicated to my family:

my son, Brett Kelley;

my daughter and her husband, Tara and Glenn Sites;

my sisters, Lori Markiel and Sharon Williams;

and my parents, the late Elmer and Norma Campbell.

We are such stuff as dreams are made of.

—WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

If one advances confidently in the direction of their dreams and endeavors to live the life they have imagined, they will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

—HENRY DAVID THOREAU

If I can dream of a better land where all my brothers walk hand in hand, tell me why my dream can’t be true.

—WALTER EARL BROWN

I have a dream … When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir.

—MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. at the Lincoln Memorial, August 28, 1963

Who puts a dream in a child’s heart and leaves it there to play?

—THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER 1

Crazy Love

P ostwar America was an interesting place, with unemployment at historic lows and a blossoming economy. The middle class swelled, along with bellies as those lucky enough to come home took their second chances gladly. Young adults focused on getting married, setting up house, and working steady jobs. Front porches were supplied with jars of fresh milk by milkmen who walked their beats back and forth from parked trucks that dotted the neighborhoods. Western democracy and the American dream were the watchwords of the day. And new popular music styles fed souls thirsty after conflict—rhythm and blues, country, and folk, just to name a few. My parents, Mary Lucas and James Porter, met at a community dance hall, and not to be trite, but the rest was history.

James spied her filling her punch cup: a petite girl with long, wavy strawberry-blonde hair that covered her shoulders. He stood chewing his bottom lip on the inside—a habit he was trying to break—as he waited for her to turn his way. What was it that his friend always said about seeing a girl driving a car from the back? You were no better than a possum crossing the road, hoping for the best, until you drove up beside the driver’s side to get a look at the whole picture. Boy, was that ever true; he bit into his lip until he let out a little yowl. Then she turned, and he saw nice, small features: a little turned-up nose and beautiful blue eyes. She was wearing a red turtleneck sweater, which looked darn good on her, and a black-and-white polka-dot flared skirt with red pumps. The packaging was appealing for sure! He asked her for a dance, admitting he wasn’t too adept at it, and after a cumbersome go-round, they retired to one of the little tables that had been set up surrounding the pass-through to the kitchen. The community had donated all the food in an attempt to give the returning soldiers every chance for some recuperation after doing their time.

Sharing a piece of blackberry pie while listening to her animated conversation about her family and how she played the piano at church lightened his spirits so much that he knew he wanted to see her again. He told her a little bit about the decoy operations he had been involved in when the French were liberated. He tried to keep it technical, explaining things about the ships, and he saw that the information interested her—that was good enough for now. She seemed special, so he didn’t want to say anything too heavy and maybe blow his chances. He felt fabulous to be there in one piece, meeting her that night, and he found himself breathing easy for the first time in a long while. She smiled a lot, and he liked that. He told his cynical friend the next day he guessed he was smitten and thought maybe she was too. Now he would have to win over her parents—he wasn’t looking forward to that.

As James was sitting around the dinner table with her family six weeks later, her father commented that Mary and James were seeing quite a bit of each other for only recently becoming acquainted. Her mother gave him a look and passed around the mashed potatoes again. Once they heard about James’s new job as merchant national relationship manager at a local company, they both perked up. James was well spoken, well groomed, and a bit dashing, Mary’s mother thought, and he seemed smart too—not to forget ambitious, which was one quality her dad liked in particular. You can’t feed a family on dreams, he always said. A solid position—now, that was a plus. Mary felt the same on all counts.

On a clear day in May, Mary stepped into James’s emerald-green Ford coupe in a light blue suit, carrying a small bag that contained her personal essentials. Her mother had already taken her dress to the church, where it hung like an inanimate lady-in-waiting—no elopement for them. They were headed for a little-known hamlet in Ohio to, in seaman’s terms, tie the knot. James bit his lip until it bled, holding the car to its course along the winding terrain, his palms sweaty. The road held many dips, and they broke the tension by driving as fast as they could, calling the experience going through the shoots. The road finally swelled, and they dropped into a vale where the faces of wildflowers lifted by the breeze surrounded a simple clapboard church that stood in contrast to nature’s fanciful beauty. James pulled the car to the side of the road and stared at Mary. Are you sure this is a good idea?

What—getting hitched? Her voice cracked.

I’m all for that. I mean coming here to this outdated building in the woods. You’ll probably be changing in an outhouse—did you think of that?

Tears began rolling over her freckled cheeks, and she got out of the car to find herself standing among yellow and purple snapdragons that must have propagated from a garden somewhere, their seeds carried by the birds. James came up alongside her and slipped his arm around her tiny waist.

Are you having second thoughts? she asked. You asked me to marry you, remember? Talk about the eleventh hour!

No, it’s not that, he replied. I just wish we had put more thought into this whole thing, I mean. I wanted to please your parents, and well, I wonder if it would have been better to plan something in the city.

You’re the one who wanted to do this before the job heated up; you were afraid you would be working long hours to prove yourself. It seems like I’m the last one you want to make happy. Her words were cutting. Maybe we don’t have as much in common as we thought; everything my family believes in is represented here. Wanting to give him an out, she continued, Let’s tell everyone we’ve decided to wait. It’s not the end of the world; they’ll understand.

He was beginning to see she was a pretty level-headed gal. There were enough nerves too close to the skin for both of them. They stood staring at the horizon and then one another for a good thirty minutes, neither one speaking.

As Mary finally moved, getting back into her seat in the car, he got down on his knees in the gravel outside of her door. The window was rolled down halfway, and he knew he had to think fast. He had done a lot of that in France, and for some reason, a poster he had once seen popped into his mind. It had read Let’s Finish the Job—Urgent, experienced seamen needed! He knew he would need to come up with something other than a sincere apology, so he squished his face up against the glass, making fish lips, and said, Will you marry me?

She laughed until she cried and then got down to his level on the glass, with her lips squished up too, and whispered, Yes.

Petra, the Reverend Montgomery’s portly efficiency expert—otherwise known as his secretary—met them at the door, immediately asking if they had gotten lost. No, Mary replied, but I’m definitely not changing in an outhouse!

My goodness, darlin’, whatever gave you that idea? Petra asked. We have a changing room right here in the church. Come along now—let’s meet the reverend, and I’ll get you a nice, cold glass of lemonade.

Mary couldn’t resist giving James a look with her eyes squinted and a quirky smile—something like a half smile but not really—which he secretly found amusing. He reached for his handkerchief to wipe his clammy hands before offering to shake with anyone.

Reverend Montgomery instantly appeared with his hand out, ready to greet them. He was a tall, lanky man, and his dark suit looked as if it had been pressed one too many times, leaving sheen on the fabric. His face resembled Abraham Lincoln’s, and he walked with a slight limp. When he took people’s hands in greeting, he clasped his other hand over theirs, smiling sincerely, all the while looking them straight in the eye. Mary let out a bit of a sigh that actually sounded more like a whimper. Her parents had suggested they get married in a church, and this one in particular—well, insisted, really.

Things were much better after the lemonade. Mary’s dress fit her perfectly, and she was surrounded by enough maternal nurturing by all the female relatives that her legs finally quit shaking. Peering into the sanctuary to see nearly every pew filled, she shrieked. Who are all these people? We don’t even know them!

Oh, practically the whole town is here, Petra explained. They don’t get much entertainment round these parts. Don’t you be worrying that pretty head, hun; it’s just weddin’ jitters, she said in a soothing voice.

All of a sudden, a thought ran through Mary’s mind as though escaping Alcatraz: Maybe we should have turned back after all. Suddenly, her head was swimming, and she wondered if her feet would obey the command to move forward.

James was stationed in his position at the front of the sanctuary like a good soldier. From the look on his face, he could have been braced for execution. Then logic took over, and she reminded herself to be realistic. Their courtship had been something of a tornado up until now, and they were taking a big step into the unknown. Just pick one foot up, she told herself, and set it down again. The piano held a dominating spot up front, and as her father took her arm, the pianist broke out with Church in the Wildwood and then When the Roll Is Called up Yonder. Her smile was frozen as they walked the plank together.

Reverend Montgomery stood smoothing out his jacket at the podium, where he towered above the wooden structure set up to hold his notes. Lifting his black Bible in his bony hand, he invited the Lord to join them with his glorious presence. The air was so thick you could have cut it with a knife, so he took a moment to peruse the guests, allowing himself time to put this situation in perspective. He typically liked to have a meeting with couples in advance to uncover inner motives; however, this wedding had come about so quickly there simply had been no time. He reminded himself of all of the couples sitting before him he had married with misgivings—things had turned out just fine for them. Many held hands, he noticed. Yes, miracles happened every day.

He took a breath and began. "Since Mary and James didn’t give me a preference for verses, I’ve taken the liberty to pick out a section of scripture I’m particularly fond of.

It’s found in Ezekiel 37 and is commonly referred to as the ‘Valley of Dry Bones.’"

Mary’s parents shared a look, and James whispered in the ear of his intended with a concerned query. What have we gotten ourselves into? I knew we should have gone to the justice of the peace, and I’m speaking literally.

Instead of improving, it was as if the ceremony were starting out under a black cloud. They shared a look of hopelessness. They had come this far—what could they do but continue? Mary demurely shushed him. You know that wasn’t possible, so just be quiet.

The reverend’s voice reflected a mixture of a French and Southern accent, adding a drama that made it seem as if they were attending a stage play, and the audience sat in rapt attention. He paused a moment, reviewing his notes, and then audibly cleared his throat. He was in the habit of educating his listeners on how he had arrived at his message, so he began.