Advance Praise
“Dehmelt does not deal in stick figures. The characters of The Hard Way Back to Heaven are very real, and you will laugh alongside of them, cry alongside of them, and want to bash them over the head for their repetitive stubbornness. These moving, realistic individuals are a testament to the ability of this young writer with a promising career ahead.”
—Wes Peters, Author of Between The Doors
The Hard Way Back To Heaven
Based on a True Story
The Hard Way Back To Heaven
Karl Dehmelt
Apprentice House
Loyola University Maryland
Baltimore, Maryland
Copyright © 2015 by Karl Dehmelt
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission from the publisher (except by reviewers who may quote brief passages).
First Edition
Printed in the United States of America
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-62720-065-3
E-book ISBN: 978-1-62720-066-0
Design by Katie Krzaczek
Cover image courtesy of United States Geological Survey archive
Published by Apprentice House
Apprentice House
Loyola University Maryland
4501 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21210
410.617.5265 • 410.617.2198 (fax)
www.ApprenticeHouse.com
This novel is written in honor of my mother,
Patricia Lee Dehmelt,
September 30, 1961—January 11, 2011
This novel is dedicated to my friend, Shelby.
Thank you for helping me save myself.
Prologue:
Tuesday Morning
Present Day
In the suburb of Abington, Pennsylvania, in a place called Willow Grove, a man named Harlan McGregor sits on his front porch, waiting for the world to end. He does not know by what means the end will come; sometimes those possibilities sit next to him, leaning along the sides of his wooden chair, forcing it to creak like bones. The wind occasionally tussles his silver hair. The wrinkles upon his skin touch the coarse familiarity of the wood as if shaking hands with an old friend; his boots tap to music his ears heard long ago. Even though he wears a flannel shirt, and a cross around his neck, he feels naked. Every morning at exactly six o’clock, Harlan walks outside and sits in his chair, and he does not hear a sound except for that music he can barely recall. At times, he can almost state the name of a song, but just like everything else, it flits out of his scope and eludes his grasp.
It is Tuesday.
Harlan sits in his chair, empty handed. His eyes, once vibrant and blue, still retain a glimmer of their former glory. Harlan has made friends with Father Time. Father Time lets him ignore the chiming of the bells hanging down from the sloped ceiling of the porch. Father Time gives him a cushion against the noise of the occasional passing car, gently pushing it down the street. Faces on the edge of his memory blur, the past bubbling just under the surface; a man, a woman. If not filtered by Father Time, they would cause him unbearable pain, and he would most certainly drown.
Time allows him to look on past the simple things: the jogger, with his Labrador, who always wears the Blue-Jay jumpsuit; the bikers, their tires spinning over pavement; the distant sound of sirens whipping like bullets through the air. They all bounce off and scatter, and Harlan loses sound of them in the silence, black pebbles dropped into a pool of water so full, the bottom becomes an afterthought in the depths.
As always, Father Time passes by and greets Harlan. His fingers are long and delicate, his form cloaked by a white coat. His beard is long and mystic, and he seems to hold the secrets of the universe just behind his pearly teeth. An arcane air sits about Father Time, one of knowledge accumulated from every moment of every century now seen as the past. Harlan welcomes him wordlessly, motionlessly. Father Time always sits next to him on the porch in the mornings, and he never says a single word.
Not many people bother to pass by the houses on Harlan’s street; the major highway running through the center of the area is far enough away to not disturb the residents. Shops try to draw passing cars in as they travel through: an Italian, family owned sub shop; a mechanical garage, under new ownership as of two years ago; a fancy men’s apparel store. Sometimes cars stop, and other times they don’t. Harlan does not look for them, he does not hear them, and he never rises from his chair.
Harlan is waiting for someone.
The path from Harlan’s porch snakes to the street and the sidewalk. His yard is small, containing nothing except overgrown clusters of grass and an apple tree. It is June. The buds on the leaves are just starting to bloom into full view, and the fruit is almost ready to emerge.
Hours pass by. Those who live around Harlan rise, as they should, getting into their cars and driving away to work. Harlan worked in his younger days; he had been a mechanic long ago, retiring after 32 years in the business. Now Harlan’s question is not how many years he has lived, but how many more await him.
At 8:05, someone comes walking down the sidewalk. Instead of passing by the range of Harlan’s gaze, they catch his eye. As the person turns from the sidewalk and begins down the path to Harlan, Harlan’s eyes seem to wake. Father Time steps off the porch to take a walk. Father Time and the figure cross each other on the path from the street to the house, and as they do, Harlan blinks. His old heart skips for a split second. He cannot make out who stands before him. He just sees a silhouette with no detail. In that moment, Harlan feels himself start to move, his mind now churning. He flexes his fingers over the angles of the wooden arms of his chair, letting the movement wash over them and give them momentary change. His relaxed lungs clench, and it feels, for one solitary remnant of Father Time’s gift, that he is holding his breath for the figure walking down the path.
The figure reaches the front steps of Harlan’s porch.
“Good morning, Mr. McGregor.”
In an instant, Harlan’s limbs, fingers, and mind sit back down on the wood of the chair, itself supported by the wood of the porch, connected to the earth and every other living person. The weight of the world rolls off his back, and he no longer baits the seconds before him. The words, whatever they were, escape him, forever remaining unsaid.
Harlan looks up at the direction of the voice, the sinews of his neck leaving rust in their path as they turn.
Before Harlan stands a teenage boy. He is of medium build, wearing a black tee shirt. The sandy color of the boy’s hair is not yet dull from age. His glasses are not yet bent by the force of time. Harlan’s shoes do not compare to the boy’s black sneakers. Harlan looks at the eyes behind the glass, those green eyes observing the old man sitting on his porch. The boy wears a watch upon his left hand.
Harlan clears his throat.
“Good Morning, Nathan. How are you this fine morning?”
The boy returns Harlan’s smile. “I’m doing well; I’ve only been up for about an hour, if you couldn’t tell. How are you today?”
“I’m doing fine. Just watching the world pass me by, as we