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“Yeah, at the church! I’ll tell Julie to put you on the payroll as soon as your community service is finished”
“Thanks, boss”
“You want to know a secret? Callings are overrated If you think you knohat you’re supposed to be doing, you just feel like you’re not doing it well enough Like God has a grand plan for you and you’re failing to live up to it If you don’t knohat you want to do, you still think God has a great plan for you and you’re just not seeing it Basically, I think we’re all doomed”
“Doomed? You mean to fail God?”
“Failing God? Hmm I’m not sure if that’s what I mean I’ll have to think about that one”
Ian and Paul talked for twoat all: television progra plant They would have talked longer, but they were both starting to fall asleep
The next , Paul drove over to Ian’s apartment to take him to the church for his community service Ian’s familiar face took on new dimensions and personality as Paul reconnected it to the disembodied voice he’d spoken to on the phone
The ser Up to Your True Calling”
Over the next feeeks, Ian and Paul spoke on the phone two or three times a week, never for less than an hour It was almost always Ian who called At first he introduced hi the excuse that he was afraid he was going to drink But soon the conversations began, “Hi, it’s me” No reason for the call was necessary Paul looked forward to the calls and planned for the anecdotes froh the lens of hoould recount it to Ian when he called He found hireater interest in his environ them from an entirely new perspective
Ian had no pretense He rarely censored his at times with complete innocence because his intention was never to be shocking or provocative The hted him He liked to talk about foods and their flavors, recounted memories complete with smells and textures, and he was coel who descended to earth and took huhted in the physical world around hiht Paul out of the clouds, back to the Earth
The church co out” Gossip t
raveled fast through the church’s unofficial neire Everyone kne Ian had come to work at the church, that Paul had found him drunk in the pavilion and taken a personal interest in his recovery It was obvious that Paul and the new custodian had a special relationship Paul sih craft to hide his affection His face lit up whenever Ian walked in the room His conversation was peppered with references to Ian, and Ian’s with references to Paul The two had inside jokes and could coestures instead of words But the few churchman and Paul’s newfound inspiration connected the events in reverse They assu Ian was a symptom and not the cause of Paul’s new enthusiasht of Ian as the son he and Sara never had
Paul’s CHildhood
If Mount Rainier is sublime in its nearly infinite scale, what do you call a place like Kansas? Farination of mystics and poets, but a state that flat creates its own infinity—an endless horizon Kansas seems to have no end When you’re in theelse at all
Paul Tobit’s hometown, Faller’s Field, Kansas, was barely a dot on the map In fact, had it been close to any other city, it would probably not have shown up on the ht shot, three hours through the corn on two-lane highways froest city You came into town past a billboard for Bob’s Guns and A vacation bible school Then you turned when you got to a barn painted with a huge smiley face “Hi Joe and Gertie,” it said (Paul alondered if the e was to Joe and Gertie, or frole stoplight Theroad of little shops There was the drug store, a sporting-goods store, a bar, a town museum—which it is unlikely anyone ever visited—a post office, and, of course, the stoplight