The Fall

He stomped with the quick, short steps of a flamenco dancer and the sound of a thunderclap.

Mr. Tom T. Trawley was the most punctual man I ever knew. Each Sunday, at noon precisely, he stood, hiked up his pants, and stepped out from the pew where he and his wife sat. He walked up the aisle toward the two doors at the back of the church and pushed them open, their pneumatic hinges sighing as they slowly closed. You could hear his footsteps as he shuffled across the small vestibule and pushed open the outer doors, escaping, I thought, to his light blue Ford Fairmont sitting along the curb out front.

Everyone, even his wife, called him T. He was broad-chested and broad-shouldered. Both had been accentuated by the years he had spent as a waterman hauling crab pots in the spring and summer and hand-tonging in the fall and winter.

His legs were as thin as sticks. He reminded me of a trotting bison.

The attention paid to his upper body wasn’t given to anything below his waist. It was as if God had swung him by his feet, and all his muscles had pooled in his chest and arms. Because of this imbalance, he tottered when he walked and always looked like he was about to lose his balance. He pitched forward, careful not to let his chest move beyond his center of gravity. His legs were as thin as sticks. He reminded me of a trotting bison.

One Sunday in June, when the weather was fine, we gathered at church for the Sunday morning service. It was a pleasant morning, and the church windows, often closed, were open slightly to let in the breeze perfumed by freshly mown lawns and warmed by the early sun. The pastor began slowly but quickly reached his full oratory power. Our church, well, its pastor, blew past the noon dismissal time each week. Sometimes, we were as much as 40 minutes past noon. It seemed preparation and brevity were works of the Devil and his minions. There was no clock except the one on the back wall, and no one but the pastor could see without turning around and making the obvious point that they couldn’t wait to leave. But since most adults wore watches, the congregation only had to look at their wrists to see how the pastor ignored the time. We were, for all practical purposes, a captive audience—all but one of us.

Like every Sunday, T stood up, nodded to his wife, and walked toward the church doors. The worn wooden floor creaked with the steps of his tilting stride. Few people looked his way. Everyone, including the pastor, was used to this weekly ritual. I was looking for a way to pass the time, so I always welcomed T’s escape as a distraction and a countdown to the dismissal of the rest of us.

I was sitting in the back pew on the other side of the church, so I had a clear view of his walk down the aisle and out the door. I had watched him take that walk every Sunday for most of my life. But today was the walk I would remember.

T’s purposeful shoulders-forward gait was interrupted about five feet from the doors. With a sudden movement that was surprising for his bulk, he reached for his belt while he stomped with the quick, short steps of a flamenco dancer and the sound of a thunderclap.

The staccato booming of his feet coincided with the passionate point the pastor was making. The sound made many fainthearted congregants gasp or let out a breathy shriek. T’s hand hit the door with a church-shaking force. His pants, despite his efforts, quickly dropped below his knees and became a khaki tripwire. He was headed for the floor when the doors arrested his fall. As he pitched forward into the vestibule, his shirt was up, and his pants were down. With a flash, his red boxer shorts signaled his surrender. He was airborne for only a few seconds, and then his bulk hit the floor, covering the small space between the doors at the front and back of the vestibule. I watched him struggle to pull his pants up as the doors on their pneumatic hinges slowly closed on his misery. Though I couldn’t see him, I heard him stand, take a step, and push his way outside.

I wasn’t the only one who heard him leave with whatever shreds of dignity he had precariously clinging to him. We all heard it because as I turned to face the front of the church, I realized it was silent. The pastor, with his hand outstretched, had stopped mid-sentence. He had seen it all, too. He looked like a man dangling between Heaven and Hell. Beads of sweat stood out on his face. His collar, which always looked tight to me, seemed to shrink as he stood there motionless. I was barely a teenager, yet I knew this very same struggle. I was having one of my own. The better angel of his nature prevailed because he finished his sentence and said, “Let’s pray.”

It was only a couple of minutes past noon.