God Will Cut You Down

by Tom Bennitt

conclusion

But he grew tired of comments from his ponytailed professor like, “Ben, what’s at stake here? Your characters are one-sided frat boys just looking to get laid.” He thought about a master’s in journalism or creative writing but in the end he chose the safe, well-paved route — law school. Now his writing was confined to documents like joint venture agreements, full of technical phrases like “adequate assurance of performance.”

“Isn’t this too much house for one person?” his brother, Dave, asked as he painted the wall opposite Ben.

“It’s an investment. A good neighborhood near the university, museums and art galleries, where the young professionals and empty nesters want to live. It’s called appreciation. You should take notes. Then again, you’ll never leave Cowport.”

“I take it back, this place is too small. Your ego won’t fit. I’m going over to Sears, we need some more primer.” Dave laid his roller down in the tray and went to wash up.

Dave had driven an hour from Millport, their depressed hometown on the Ohio River, to help Ben paint the high-walled foyer. He lived there with his wife and two daughters and booked accounts receivables for a strip mining company. The classic older brother, Dave was dependable and cautious, yet he loved to pick apart Ben’s life and tell him where he’d screwed up.

Dave was also a gadget freak who wandered through hardware stores like a new bride at Victoria’s Secret, so he’d be gone awhile and Ben needed to move the mirror to the cellar. Left by the previous owner, the long, thin mirror cracked when he’d removed it from the front hallway. It would be a bitch to move to the cellar but if he could paint the house by himself, he could take a mirror down a flight of steps.

Ben started to slide it down the carpeted cellar steps, his arms taut. At the bottom, the mirror’s corner caught on the concrete floor. He heard a faint splintering but did not notice any cracks. He moved his sandaled feet a few more inches to the left and looked for a good place in the cellar to store it. He’d finally decided to lay it flat under the workbench.

Then he heard a crack, like the discharge of his twenty-two caliber rifle. When he looked down the mirror was splitting in half, parallel to the stairs. The bottom half yawed and then pitched toward his leg, descending like a scythe.

The shard of glass struck the naked area behind his ankle, three inches above his heel, and lacerated the Achilles tendon. For a few seconds Ben saw and felt nothing and he thought the mirror had somehow missed or glanced off. Then the first wave of thick blood flowed out of the gash, like the Deep Passion paint he’d poured into the tray a few minutes ago, and then the first shot of pain hit.

He crawled over to the laundry pile and grabbed the nearest t-shirt. He wrapped the shirt around the ankle like a tourniquet and tied it off. Ben tried to comprehend what had just happened, but he was dizzy and light-headed. He felt trapped inside some Stephen King novel.

Ben awoke in the ambulance and looked up at Dave. A paramedic sat by Ben’s ankle, which was covered with gauze and athletic tape.

“That mirror may have cut part of the Achilles tendon, which explains all the blood,” the medic said. “It’s a serious injury but, with surgery and therapy, you should make a full recovery.”

“I found you passed out next to an Olympic-sized pool of blood. You’re lucky Sears was closed,” Dave said.

“A few more minutes, you could have died from the blood loss,” added the medic. “But don’t worry, the wound is stable now. The ER docs will suture it up and send you to an orthopedist within a few days.”

“I might hurl on your shoes,” he told his brother.

“Good, I need new ones,” Dave laughed.

Ben peered out the rear window. The low, gunmetal clouds were moving fast. He eyeballed a small cluster mutating into a face — snarled eyebrows over dark eyes and a large nose. Above the siren’s drone, he thought he heard someone talking in his ear, but both Dave and the medic looked on in silence. It was a coarse, grating voice that sounded vaguely familiar. Inaudible at first, it grew louder and more distinct until he could discern the words, and their far-reaching import. “One day God will cut you down.”

* * *

The ice cubes crackled as Ben poured bourbon into the tumbler. He returned the handle of Maker’s Mark to the bar shelf and carried the glass into the living room.

Ben collapsed into the old leather couch, which gave out a slow hiss, and then he slackened his noose and unbuttoned the top of his dress shirt. In a circular motion he rubbed his temples and squeezed out thoughts of the unfinished brief and its Friday deadline.

An old paperback copy of The Iliad lay on the coffee table, baiting him to take another crack. He’d read the first half for his Greek Literature class over ten years ago. Professor Karl had been some expert on Achilles and Ben recalled his truncated thesis: Achilles was like Mike Tyson, the greatest warrior of his era but a legacy tarnished by hubris and rage. He had to be worshipped at all times and could not tolerate criticism. Ben wished he’d paid more attention in class but Karl’s lectures frequently induced r.e.m. sleep among the back rows where he dwelled.

Ben swilled the bourbon and set the glass down and propped his right foot onto the ottoman. Then he leaned forward and appraised the scar behind his ankle. His Achilles tendon screamed after a long day: a pretrial hearing in Judge Vican’s chambers, deposing an orthopedist known as the “the butcher” among Pittsburgh malpractice lawyers, and pulling weeds after work.

Out of habit he ran his index finger along the scar’s horseshoe curve and pressed down on the nodule that protruded from under the skin. It had formed on the tendon at the point of laceration, the rigid, callous fibers replacing the body’s pliant, elastic ones. Six months of physical therapy had reduced it to the size of a small marble. But this stubborn ball of scar tissue lingered, steadfast.

A creeping burn traveled up the nerves of his leg and spinal cord and triggered the pain receptors in his thalamus. In a few minutes the ankle would stiffen. He slid his hand up and squeezed his right calf. After eight weeks in a walking boot, the right calf muscle had atrophied to about half the size of the left one. From the knee down it looked like two different legs, a child’s next to a man’s.

Over the past twelve months Ben had reconstructed the accident dozens of times, evaluating it like one of his malpractice cases. Each time he concluded that he’d acted with reasonable prudence and caution. Of course he should have waited for help and worn better shoes, but failure to do so did not constitute gross negligence or recklessness. Accidents happen, and this was a freak accident.

The legal term for a faultless, unforeseen event that causes serious damage or injury is an “act of God.” In his professional life Ben had used the term often in motions and briefs. But when he applied that concept to his own mishap — a mirror that shattered and fell onto his leg and lacerated his Achilles tendon — somehow it did not fit. When Ben realized the answer could not be found in Black’s Law Dictionary, he began to search for alternate meanings.

Maybe it was a literal act of God, he first thought. A singular action or reaction, drawn up and executed by the big boss in the sky. Didn’t God have a reason for everything, a plan for everyone? If so then it begged the question, why would God act that way? Was the plan to make Ben a crippled, overweight, angry, depressed cynic who drinks too much?

Although Ben had separated from his Catholic upbringing, his faith and belief in God remained. This belief did not require sanction by a church. It was more personal. And while he did not seek out external signs from God, for a long time Ben viewed the accident as some gnostic message. Specifically, it had to be a form of punishment, an act of retribution. Sister Margaret’s appearance that day in back of the ambulance — her face molded by those clouds and her grating voice in his ear — had somehow confirmed this idea.

But punishment for what? Being a class clown, becoming a lawyer, cheating on his college girlfriend? Like anyone else, Ben had made mistakes, committed some cruel acts he’d take back if he could, but ultimately he was a good person — a generous spirit, loyal to his friends and family, virtuous.

In the end, Ben had to accept that the punishment did not always fit the crime. Bad things happened to good people. Not every action was orchestrated by God according to some master plan. There was not a reason for everything, some acts were random.

And while God was not cruel and vindictive, this world often was. After Adam and Eve ate from the apple, He sprinkled the earth with pain and suffering and illness and injury to account for our sins. But He also gave us joy and love and hope to heal and redeem us, so that we may endure.

Sister Margaret had it only half right, Ben thought. It’s life, not God, that cuts us down. At some point in our lives we all sustain a laceration. Some physical, others emotional, some cut deeper than others. Life had a sharp edge and Ben now understood how after one too many deep cuts a man could turn angry, depressed and cynical, and when the pain became unbearable, how that man could open his arms to death.

Ben would not let himself become that “angry guy” and he wasn’t ready for death. There was too much left to do, like write the Great American novel, or maybe start a family. Gretchen had bailed a few months ago, Ben’s accident just hastened her split, but he was seeing someone from his book discussion group, a third grade teacher — not at St. Luke’s. Once again, Ben traced the horseshoe scar with his index finger. He would stick it out. He would endure.