Or maybe Tootie’s troubles was because of Pa. Tootie was her daddy’s girl, and that can be too much of a good thing. I do believe that a Catholic can go to heaven, but not unless they accept the grace and salvation the Lord offers us. It’s so easy. It’s so simple. Tootie don’t think it’s rational, and it isn’t rational. Lions playing with lambs and eating straw sounds ridiculous, I guess, especially if you’ve been to Africa and seen how they do and have been bit by a nine-foot mamba snake…who am I to judge? It’s not rational; it’s what you call a paradox. You have to believe like a little child. Believe it because it’s impossible. There’s no need for holy water or praying to a lot of saints when you can talk to Jesus direct. When I think I can’t take it no more, I hold my picture of Jesus against my breast and pray for Tootie and my family and for all of the lost souls in the world. I say, “Jesus, I cry my bleeding heart out every day for you; come down to earth and forgive them all, for they know not what they do. Come down and give us a thousand years of peace like you said you would and throw Satan down in the pit where he can’t get at us no more.” When I do this the grown-up in me dies and I’m like a little child and can see the world fresh again. Born again. Sometimes I don’t really believe in no life after death, but I do believe that Jesus has saved me. Other times I believe it all—tigers eating straw, the water turned to wine, the Red Sea parting, the Tower of Babel, and a thousand years of peace on earth with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

I am ninety-two years old and I had to get this in before I go.

New Stories

Night Train

JACK BUFFMEIR​, AS far as I knew, being a little kid, didn’t seem to have a real job or any work history whatsoever. On occasion he made birdhouses, and if he couldn’t sell them to people, he just gave them away. They weren’t all that hot. Something a simpleton would knock together. In addition to this, Jack raised a few chickens and grew vegetables. My grandmother felt sorry for Jack and let him live in a shack on the back of her property. It was just a one-room affair with an outhouse behind it.