“You have played the trumpet professionally?”
“Shoot, lady! I was tops years ago. Lookin’ at me now, you’s probably thinkin’ I’m dreamin’ or somethin’. But I ain’t. Gene Krupa, those other guys, they were no better than me, no, ma’am, they sure enough weren’t.”
“Do you have any family left?” Carla asked, aware that scaring him by talking about his eternal destiny would only have made him shut her out.
“Not any more. All dead, or so disgusted with me that they might as well be. My parents were the last to go. I’ve been all alone since then. Nobody wants me, you see. Nobody cares no more.”
She glanced more closely at the trumpet, saw that there was a possibility it could be repaired.
“You could play that instrument,” she offered. “If you were as good as you say, you’d get gigs even now.”
He scratched his dirt-streaked hair.
“Who would sit still and listen to a has-been or maybe some guy who never was?” he spoke, sighing forlornly. “Maybe all I ever did have was my stupidity in thinkin’ that I was any good, you get what I’m sayin’, lady?”
“I can help you,” she insisted.
He coughed convulsively and Carla’s heart went out to him.
“Sorry…” he told her as he caught his breath again and seemed to mean it. “What’s some slick broad like you able to do for a godforsaken guy like me?”
“You think God has turned His back on you?”
“You blind or somethin’? I ain’t seen nothing and no one showing me God’s love lately.”
“I am an entertainer myself. There are fifty thousand people inside this building who have paid to watch me.”
“Oh…” he said, impressed but growing more uneasy. “Well, I’ll be goin’ now. You can’t be late. Audiences hate that.”
“I am very late already, mister,” Carla remarked ruefully “A few more minutes could never matter.”
She reached out for his arm.
“Let me take you inside,” she said, understanding why he would hesitate, given his appearance and the body odors coming from him.
“I stink.”
Carla had no need of being convinced of that.
“Yes, you do, mister, very badly,” she agreed. “But a good shower can take care of that. And there are some stage clothes you can slip into. Would you tell me your name?”
“Thomas…” he blurted out, narrowed his eyes, the cynicism that was part of the outlook of most homeless people, especially the ones as bad off as he was, an instinctive fact of life that most of them never shed. “Thomas Gilboyne.”
“God doesn’t want you to end up like this, Thomas,” she told him.
“And you speak for God, lady?” he asked. “Then ask Him to snuff me out like He does everybody else sooner or later.”
Thomas coughed again, nearly collapsing to the ground and Carla thought for an instant that he was indeed dying, right before her eyes. She gripped his arm and held him upright, fighting her revulsion as she inhaled the rank odor of his body and filthy clothes.
As Carla glanced around desperately for help her silent prayer was answered when two stagehands appeared at the exit door. They stepped into the alley, both apparently about to light up cigarettes, since smoking was not permitted in most of the backstage area.
“Randy! Jeff!” Carla called out to them.
The young men ran over to her and she read the confusion on both faces as they took in the sight of Carla supporting the derelict musician. “Help me get him into the theater, please,” she instructed. “He’s sick. He needs a doctor.”
“But Carla…” Randy began. He glanced nervously at the other stagehand.
“If you won’t help, I’ll do it myself,” she insisted. She took a stumbling step forward doing her best to support the sick man and suddenly, Randy and Jeff moved to help her.
The company always traveled with a doctor and Carla knew her specific request to have Thomas examined and given the best possible medical care would not be ignored. He would in fact most likely get better medical attention here, she reflected, than in any of the city hospitals that would accept him as a patient.
The two stagehands gently carried Thomas Gilboyne between them, and as Carla opened the stage door, they took him inside.
He was beginning to regain consciousness, his bloodshot eyes widening.
“Am I where I think I am?” Thomas asked, casting a longing glance in the direction of the stage. “What did I do to deserve this?”
“You were God’s instrument,” she said, “and that makes you special.”
“God used me?”
“He did, my new friend, he did use you in a wonderful way,” Carla assured him as she smiled broadly.
Carla pointed out where the doctor’s little office was.
“When you’re finished,” she said, “you can stay for my second performance.”
“Second?” Tom repeated. “You must be bone tired after the first one.”
“I do not allow myself that luxury!”
After they were done, Carla bowed her head for a moment.
“Lord, Lord; that could have been me a year ago or maybe a year from now,” she prayed, “if You hadn’t given my beloved Kyle to me. If only I could have done for him what he did for me.”
She half expected the once persistent voice to say something but it did not, and she sensed that whoever it needed to help, it had been accomplished and now she was expected to take care of her part.
Carla cautiously stepped into the wings as she had done a thousand times over the years in hundreds of arenas but none as big as that one.
“Albert…” she whispered.
Perspiring heavily due to the strain of keeping the audience from bolting, Albert caught a glimpse of her.
Carla smiled, holding up one finger to show him that she needed just a minute, and he nodded in acknowledgment. then she hurried back to her dressing room, and prayed for a moment while holding her Bible tightly with both hands.
Then she headed back toward the wings. Albert saw that she was ready.
“And now, ladies and gentlemen,” he announced, obviously relieved, his voice choking as tears mixed with sweat, “I am happy finally to present to you, tonight, the one and only Carla Gearhart.”
The band immediately struck up its regular introductory music as the audience became absolutely quiet.
With some awkwardness in view of what had happened, Carla stepped out into the glare of spotlights.
“It’s real amazing to me that you haven’t left here by now,” she confessed. “I would have, if I were sitting where you are.”
A curly-haired young woman, dressed like a cowgirl in the front row, stood and smiled pleasantly as she said, “Carla, your friend told all of us what is going on in your life. We’re waiting…because we love you. And our prayers go with you.”
One by one, people were standing until nobody remained in their seat. In an instant, some fifty thousand pairs of hands started clapping, with a chorus of voices shouting, “Carla, Carla, Carla!”
Finally she signaled that she was ready to begin.
Visibly