Kneecaps Are Necessary
A short story by Harvey Sutlive

Their business was finished at Real Discount Appliance. Reverend Evans manoeuvred Mr. Bell's truck out of the parking lot, past the convenience store, to a set of traffic lights.

"I believe we'll... go home through town," ordered Mr. Bell. He didn't see very well, and riding the empty airy bypass earlier that morning, without reference points, had disagreed with him.

It was late March and warm rains were falling already. New grass was growing on the sides of the road. Dogwoods blossomed.

Reverend Evans passed a couple of subdivision entrances and drove through a small scruffy commercial district. The road narrowed and picked up sidewalks and granite curbstones. Handsome wood-frame houses lined the sides of the road. Dogwoods and water oaks and poplar trees filled their yards.

"These town dogwoods," Reverend Evans said to Mr. Bell, "they bloom better than the dogwoods on your place."

"Folks fertilize these trees," said Mr. Bell disparagingly. "All this asphalt heats up the air more. It forces the blooms."

"They look pretty," said Reverend Evans. He checked the rearview mirror. A police car was following them.

"Mm-hm," said Mr. Bell. He preferred the spare shape of a forest dogwood to the shape of any town dogwood.

The grass was growing again on the roadsides. And in the yards of the houses. The grass was growing also, Mr. Bell knew, in his own pastures - in his river bottoms. The sweet deeprooted grass.

At auction, when Mr. Bell's cows came up for bidding, how loudly the auctioneer shouted, "Riverbottom Cows!" That rustle of interest, that wordless sound the crowd made. Shifting forward in their chairs, to better attend the auction. It satisfied Mr. Bell's soul when he heard that interested rustle. No schedule of fertilizer or lime on any upland hayfield ever made cows like riverbottom cows.

A brand new air conditioner safe in its packing box lay snugged in the corner of the back of Mr. Bell's pickup. The third weekend in May would soon arrive – that was the weekend of his wife's Family Reunion. And it might be hot that weekend.

Relatives would arrive from all over: Macon and Columbus; Florida; Alabama; Tennessee. From all over the country. Air conditioning might be needed. Or - it might not. Late May was often cool and breezy. There was no way to know in advance.

Mr. Bell brooded on the new air conditioner. Their old unit no longer cooled adequately, his wife felt. "Marie's got it in her mind about this air conditioner," he told Reverend Evans. "She thinks she needs a new one - when she don't. Our old air conditioner works good." Reverend Evans checked the rearview mirror. The police car was still back there.

To get his attention, Mr. Bell threw a hand on Reverend Evans' knee and squeezed hard. The truck swerved. "Watch it," said Mr. Bell. "Listen. You take that old air conditioner and carry it down to your house. Put it in the front room. Get some use out of it."

"Thank you," said Reverend Evans neutrally. He had never thought of installing air conditioning.

Reverend Evans lived on Mr. Bell's property, by the river, in the old generator shack at the May Shoals power dam. The generator shack stayed comfortable most of the time. Its thick, ill-made brick walls kept the heat out. The flat tarpaper roof he had covered with a thick layer of Mr. Bell's hay - plastic sheeting over the hay, weighed down by river rocks - kept off rain. He often picked up a breeze off the river. Cooling mists from the broken down power-dam blew through the windows.

"It's a good 'un," Mr. Bell was insisting. It'll cool your whole place down without any trouble. It'll run several more years."

"Why don't you sell it," said Reverend Evans. If he accepted the air conditioner, Mr. Bell might expect him to take less pay on a job sometime in the future.

Reverend Evans had been working for Mr. Bell for more than two years. Before that he was employed by a rural electric cooperative. He cut grass for the rural electric cooperative. He picked up trash in the power-line right-of-ways. Before the cooperative he was in prison for several years.

"None of your business," said Mr. Bell. "You do like I tell you, and put it in your house. If you don't take it, I'll throw it in a gully. I don't like to fool with selling used stuff."

"If it's so good," said Reverend Evans doggedly, "why don't you leave it where it is."

"Because I bought this new one," said Mr. Bell impatiently. He stabbed his thumb backwards at the boxed up air conditioner in the pickup bed. His thumb seemed to indicate the police car tracking exactly behind them.

Reverend Evans nodded and pretended to understand. He watched the road. He glanced in the rear-view-mirror. He pretended to listen while Mr. Bell lamented his wife's bad judgment about air conditioners. He studied... the surface of the windshield. The interior surface... and the white morning light on the windshield. He observed... new leaves on trees... in the yards of the well-made houses...

As a practicing minister he had spent years listening to people. All those painful twitches inside people - and they insist on naming, describing everything... he learned to be silent unless asked a direct question. He perfected the minimal reply, the required empathetic expression.

In prison, he was not required to listen. That wasn't his job anymore. He kept to himself. His life was quiet. How good that felt. Before prison, he hadn't believed in salvation. But after he was in, he did. He took up his assigned job in the prison laundry. Because he was a former minister they soon gave him the day shift. In the evenings he watched television and went to bed early.

Luckily, there was space in a minimum-security facility. Four years passed quickly. During the first year of prison, his wife decided to divorce him. A prayerful solemn decision, as she told him in a letter. She moved herself and their children out to Seattle, Washington. She enrolled in computer school and found a good job. She met a nice man and remarried.

Now she and the children were settled and contented. It was a blessing. The family had a new husband and a new daddy. Reverend Evans accepted this turn of events. He thanked God everything worked out so well and nobody bothered him for child support or alimony.

"Marie's told me so many times she wanted one, and she's kept on asking, and finally I just - got it for her," Mr. Bell was saying wearily. He hated to talk about unreasonable people. "She's paying with her own money. I told her half a dozen times, 'Don't loose confidence in that old air conditioner Marie.' But she says she wants a new one so bad, so I guess we'll have to, you know, go along with her." Mr. Bell folded his hands in his lap and sighed.

Mr. Bell furnished Reverend Evans with a place to live and paid him a dollar an hour above minimum wage, cash, under the table. In return, Reverend Evans helped with Mr. Bell's cows and did odd jobs and a good bit of driving. Previously, at the EMC, while picking up trash in the power line right-of-ways, Reverend Evans had resided in a trailer park.

Besides working for Mr. Bell, Reverend Evans participated in the extended ministry program at Piedmont Regional Hospital in town. The State Superintendent of Churches for Reverend Evans's denomination suggested he stay connected to religion on an organized basis after he was released from prison. Some day he might get his own church again. In the meantime, though he couldn't actively minister on his own, he could be giving something back to the community. Reverend Evans signed up to work at the hospital on alternate weekends. His probation officer agreed the hospital time would count as community service - Reverend Evans had a large amount of community service hours to perform as part of his parole agreement.

Reverend Evans had an interview with the State Superintendent of Churches a few weeks after he was released from prison.

"Thank you sir. I'd be grateful to help out at the hospital some weekends," he told the Superintendent. The probation officer had already assured him that hospital work would count against his community service. "I have a lesson to learn yet. I have a debt to pay. I'll be grateful to work for you."

"You and I both have a Higher Employer Reverend Evans," said the Superintendent. "His name is Jesus Christ. He has a job for us, and we need to get it done. I'm not preaching a sermon to you Reverend Evans - this is person to person. This is colleague to colleague. Do you understand me?"

"Thank you sir," said Reverend Evans evenly.

"Reverend Evans you burned down your own church."

"I was only trying to burn the office sir. To destroy the books. I'm sorry sir."

"Well we lost the whole building."

"I'm sincerely sorry about that."

"How were you able to shut your eyes to the terrible wrongs you were committing Reverend Evans? I mean before the fire. I'm not counting the fire. Stealing the money - from your own congregation - is what I'm talking about."

"I intended to replace the money. I thought of it as a loan sir. I wasn't trying to do anything wrong."

"Arson. Theft by taking. The police knocking on your door, putting you in handcuffs in front of your family. And what do the police find? Inside your house, right there on church property, in the minister's study - you tore out the drywall and set up sinks and burners - in that sacred retreat – an amphetamine lab."

"Nobody knew about that sir. I kept that room locked. My wife and kids didn't know anything about it."

"To lose your wife and children, to be stripped of your role as a husband and a father - the Lord has sent you a heavy burden Reverend Evans."

"That is true."

"I talked with Mattie Jean several times while you were away. The way that girl bounced back from her experience is a miracle in itself. I use the word miracle with all deliberation. At first, she was completely devastated."

"On the amphetamine operation," said Reverend Evans, "I know this is no excuse sir, but as those things go sir, it wasn't a very big operation. Not at all. It was very, very wrong just the same, but it was pretty small scale."

"We're talking about yourself and Almighty God, Reverend Evans," said the Superintendent. "Scale doesn't matter. We're talking about your soul here."

"Yes sir," said Reverend Evans humbly.

"We both should be happy for her sake."

"Pardon me sir?"

"Mattie Jean. We should be happy... happy for her sake. Happy she's made a new life for herself, out west."

The Superintendent couldn't help it - an image of Mattie Jean - her tears, her slim body - no - her face, her sorrowful face... the feel of her slim body when she hugged him gratefully and thanked him – just that one time and his wife was standing there nobody could say he did anything wrong - her slim body... her breasts pressing his shirtfront...

"I am happy for Mattie Jean," said Reverend Evans. A quiet, sincere, even tempered woman, and honest, and dependable. Not a fanatic about religion either - few minister's wives were. And she had a good body on her too. He did wonder several times why he behaved so badly towards her. He decided finally that Satan must have driven him crazy with boredom - that was the only sensible explanation for it.

Now the policeman behind them was speaking into his car radio. Mr. Bell had stopped talking about the air conditioner - Reverend Evans knew he should make a comment.

"What's wrong with that old one," he asked Mr. Bell.

"Nothing I tell you," said Mr. Bell. "It was hot last year at the reunion. You remember that. When all the people came. We ate outside, on the picnic tables. Folks coming and going, letting all the cool air out of the house. Naturally after dinner when they came inside it took awhile for the front room to get comfortable. Marie said, 'Owen, the air conditioner's not working right.' I explained to her – you can't cool down no half a dozen fat women in two minutes, not in a house with a window unit. Now, grocery store air conditioning - you could take the whole bunch and carry..."

The blue lights on top of the police car started flickering. The lights stabbed at the air space between the police car and Mr. Bell's pickup. The police car siren growled twice.

"What's that," said Mr. Bell. He turned and stared through the back glass of the pickup. "I believe the law's back there," he informed Reverend Evans.

"I may have run a red light," said Reverend Evans. "Back on Chase Street. That corner after Highland Pool Supplies."

"Highland Pool Supplies," said Mr. Bell in an amazed voice. "Have we got a police car following us?"

"Yes," said Reverend Evans.

"Then - pull over, you fool. Do you expect he'll give up, and go away? Pull over dammit." Mr. Bell unfastened the truck glove compartment lid and after some fumbling inside found the vehicle insurance card. He pulled it from its little protective cardboard envelope. "Gimme your driver's license," he told Reverend Evans. He rolled down the window glass in the passenger door.

A bulky young policeman emerged from the patrol car and marched towards Mr. Bell's pickup. He carried a sturdy clipboard in his hand.

"Over this side, Officer," boomed Mr. Bell out his open window. He stuck his arm out the window and waved the insurance card and Reverend Evans' driver's license in the air. At the back of Mr. Bell's pickup the policeman hesitated, then swerved and came round towards Mr. Bell's side of the truck.

"Here," said Mr. Bell loudly. "You take these." He hiked himself up on the pickup seat and pulled out his own wallet, and deftly extracted his own driver's license. "Take this too," he ordered. "Now that second driver's license I just give you is my own driver's license. It's expired. I know that. I've got so I can't hardly see to drive anymore, except close to the house. Reverend Evans here does the driving when I need to go to town, to pick stuff up."

The policeman fastened the two drivers' licenses and the insurance card to his clipboard. He looked closely at Mr. Bell's face and at Reverend Evan's face. He fluttered the first few pages of his ticket book, which was also fastened to the clipboard.

"Now," said Mr. Bell. He threw his voice full volume at the policeman, as if he were calling his cows, to be sure the policeman was paying attention. "About that red light. Back there on Chase Street. Where the pool supply place is at." He stared in the policeman's face until he got a pretty good impression of what it looked like. "I won't say we did run that light, and I won't say we didn't." He stopped and checked closely to make sure the man was listening. "If we did, I wasn't aware of it."

"You did," said the policeman.

"Write me up a ticket then," said Mr. Bell severely. "Now - if that was a yellow light," he cautioned the policeman, "I don't want you to write no ticket. But if it was a red 'un, go ahead and write me up. Use your own judgment."

The policeman stared at Mr. Bell a full two seconds without saying anything. He pulled an expensive looking ballpoint pen out of his shirt pocket, bent his head over his clipboard, and filled out a pink colored form. He tore the form out carefully and handed it to Mr. Bell.

"Sir, this is a ticket for failure to stop at a red light," he said politely. "It's a warning ticket. It won't cost you any money or add any points to your insurance. You will not be required to appear before a judge. But the citation stays on our computer for two years, and if you do go before a judge during that time, it will come up on your record." The policeman changed the pitch and tone of his voice and threw it over towards Reverend Evans. "You need to watch those traffic lights more closely. It's dangerous when you run a red light."

"I'm sorry," said Reverend Evans humbly. "I got in too much of a hurry. I know it's dangerous."

"It's taking a chance on wrecking a good pickup, and maybe hurting other folks too - that's what it is," said Mr. Bell. "Just to get someplace half a minute quicker." He looked at Reverend Evans and frowned. "I'll talk to him about it. He knows he's done wrong."

The policeman suddenly recognized Reverend Evans. He bent lower and put his face inside Mr. Bell's window. His expression changed.

"What you told Russell Knobb's family sir at the hospital, that went straight to my heart," he said quietly and respectfully. "I want you to know I started going to church again because of you."

Reverend Evans kept a dignified blank expression on his face and nodded and said nothing for several seconds. He had no idea what the policeman was talking about.

"The Lord took me up," he finally replied. He couldn't think of anything else to say. "I was his instrument." Mr. Bell frowned and looked puzzled.

The policeman noticed Mr. Bell's expression. He glanced once back at the traffic piling up behind his squad car, and after that disregarded it.

"I was in the emergency room last November with a gunshot victim - white trash drug dealer," he explained to Mr. Bell. "One of his buddies shot him through both kneecaps. He was in some pain and the ER physician got him sedated, and I was trying to get his paperwork out of the way - possession of cocaine, false ID, possession of an unregistered handgun, the usual shit if you know what I mean. Excuse my language Reverend."

"That drug dealer with the bad knees," said Reverend Evans. "You were talking to... the fireman's family weren't you." The policeman nodded.

"Russell Knobb was a good friend of mine," he said. Reverend Evans now had a rough grip on the situation. Quietly but eagerly the policeman gave his version of the story to Mr. Bell.

A fireman had been brought to the emergency room. He'd been run over and crushed,

unfortunately, by a pumper truck during a training drill. There was nothing the emergency room staff could do for him. His family arrived just in time to be told the life support systems had been shut down. They huddled together in the hallway.

Reverend Evans approached the fireman's family and said mildly and with open quiet confidence in his face, "He'll walk again. I have it on the best authority. Let's pray together."

The simplicity and naturalness of this message, the complete unforced confidence in Reverend Evans' voice and manner, passed through the stunned family's deepest defenses, and lifted them out of their shock and pain. Weeping they prayed together for the soul of the dead fireman; made certain, as Reverend Evans was certain, that their relative was walking in heaven with the Lord.

Reverend Evans, who had not been paying close attention had mixed up the fireman with the drug dealer who was shot in both his kneecaps. A top bone specialist in Atlanta had placed himself on call for cases exactly like the drug dealer's case. He was traveling at top speed from Atlanta at that moment in his new Lexus. The top bone man needed complex knee trauma, as much as he could get, to test several new patellar and crucial ligament reconstructions he was developing for his clinic. He was almost ready to apply for two new patents. They had sports medicine applications. By the time Reverend Evans understood his mistake, it was too late to explain to the fireman's family.

The policeman was winding up his take on the story to Mr. Bell, who was visibly impressed.

"I'll let y'all go now," said the policeman. He frowned at the cars stacked up in the road behind them. With an impatient waving motion he indicated they should go around. "Watch out for the traffic lights, sir," he told Reverend Evans. "I know you changed my life."

"Thank you Officer," said Reverend Evans mildly.

The drug dealer received first class treatment from the orthopedic surgeon and generous transportation money for follow-ups in Atlanta. The surgeon was disappointed in the drug dealer's left knee, which was a low shot, a clean drill hole in the tibial plateau. But the right knee - that was a real mess – the surgeon got femoral rodding out of that one, plus a kneecap insert.

Kneecaps are necessary, the surgeon always insisted to the insurance providers. You need a fulcrum in there to handle all that tendon pressure. He used one of the kneecap inserts that he had himself developed in his clinic, on the drug dealer. The drug dealer was on crutches in less than ten days.

After the policeman left, and they were on their way through town again, Mr. Bell scolded Reverend Evans briefly and thoroughly for running the red light. Then he changed the subject to preaching.

"You're a good worker, and it's convenient for me to have you around," he told Reverend Evans. "But this ain't a suitable job for a real preacher. What you said to those people in the hospital - I heard the way that fella talked about it. You need to get your own church again. Now there's a couple of things about preaching you ought to consider, right off. One is, like I said, looking for a church, and another is..."

"To tell the truth Mr. Bell, I'm happy doing what I'm doing," said Reverend Evans politely.

"There's an inner voice Reverend," Mr. Bell said. "And we all got it. Mine is in the left side of my head, in the back. If I pay attention, the blood goes to that place, and I just notice it, and listen, and find the best course to take. Now - you can't tell me your inner voice is saying to you - Reverend Evans, keep on living thisaway."

In fact Reverend Evan's inner voice gave him exactly that information, if he consulted it. "I do get the call again sometimes," lied Reverend Evans. "I'll think about what you said. I'll pray on it. That's all I can do."

They were nearly out of town traffic now. A road widening crew was at work just past the city limits. Heavy equipment was scattered up and down the road for several miles. A row of old trees, already pushed over, lay waiting to be cut or burned up. Several zoning change signs were posted, as well as signs for new construction.

"I never felt the need for preaching too much," Mr. Bell was admitting. "If I did do some little wrong thing, I always said you know, said a little prayer before I went to sleep, and straightened things out. I said, 'Lord, I made a mis-take today. I want you to forgive me.' Then I could turn over and go to sleep, knowing I took care of it."

"Mm hm," said Reverend Evans. He believed in living in the immediate present and seldom reviewed his own wrongdoings before he went to bed or at any other time.

Less than a month after the drug dealer left the hospital, he was killed in his own kitchen - an argument during a card game - gunshot wound to the chest. He died right there in his chair.

The Atlanta surgeon cursed briefly when the hospital sent him a message about the drug dealer's death - then he forgot all about it. The nurses at the hospital, the ones in the emergency room, made up some pretty good jokes about drug dealer's expensive knees.

Reverend Evans drove steadily on. Mr. Bell examined sin and redemption further, and right living, and proper driving habits, the volatility of beef prices, and central air conditioning versus a good-quality window unit. Reverend Evans was daydreaming about naked nurses. They were pedalling bicycles... in a river bottom. Slim nurses and naked and beautiful and standing on the pedals of their bicycles... flexing their calf muscles... coasting, smiling, bouncing on the cushiony bumpy grass...

Eventually they arrived at the intersection of a county road with the main highway. There was a thin white sign on a pole in the corner of the intersection – it read MAY SHOALS 2 MILES. Reverend Evans slowed the truck and turned.

"Here we go," said Mr. Bell. "Marie's going to like what's in the back of this truck," he predicted. In spite of himself Mr. Bell was happy, for his wife's sake, about the new air conditioner. His stomach growled - it was almost time for lunch.