Introduction

Talented, handsome, and personable, Dewayne Jobe rose from humble beginnings in rural Mississippi to play college football in Southern California and beyond. One of the best wide receivers in college ball, Dewayne is assured a promising career in professional football and easily finds success both on and off the field. Not only is he a great player, he's got the wife, the kids, and the pristine white picket fence to boot. But catastrophe looms right around the corner and ultimately strikes with a crushing vengeance. Will Dewayne's faith and character stand the test of such tragedy? Or will he lose everything--including the love of his life? This modern retelling of the story of Job will capture readers with the age-old question of why bad things happen to good people--and how good people can survive.

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Excerpt

Th e lemon yellow Hummer skidded to a stop in front of Dewayne

Jobe’s house, the hip-hop music vibrating the vehicle’s insides with

percussive explosions. Jesse Webb, owner and operator of the pulsat-

ing vehicle, blew his horn to the rhythm of the beat.

Th e front door of the house swung open. Cherie Jobe stepped out

onto the porch and planted her free hand on her hips.

“Jesse Webb, I’m gonna call the police if you don’t turn off that yel-

low tank and stop raising the dead.”

Jesse’s grin transformed into a look of mock hurt. “Miss Cherie,

we’re just celebrating.” Conceding to her trumped-up scold, he reached

over to lower the volume.

“You got that thing so loud I couldn’t hear Gabriel’s trumpet.” No

longer able to hold a scornful expression, her face gave way to a bright

smile. “Get in this house, both of you. My boy’s not ready.”

Riding shotgun with Jesse was Sylvester “Sly” Adams, quarterback

for the Springdale Tigers and record holder for throwing the most

touchdowns in the high school’s history—due in large measure to his

best friend Dewayne, Springdale’s star wide receiver.

“Still trying to make himself look pretty for the cheerleaders.” Sly

opened his door and bounced off the front seat.

Jesse came around the front of his Hummer. “He could spend all

day in front of his mirror and still not look as pretty as Sly.”

“My man,” Sly said, and the two boys pounded fi sts.

Cherie smiled at the antics of her son’s friends and ushered them

into the house.

Springdale had only one recreational off ering for its citizens . . . high

school football. As soon as young boys showed the least bit of interest

in the sport and displayed a reasonable measure of aptitude and compe-

tence, they were absorbed into the peewee league for early training and

experience. Jesse, Sly, and Dewayne were born in the same year, signed

up for the peewee league in the same year, and grew into the rhythm and

fl ow of the game together, perfecting their skills and at times showing

true genius. Tomorrow the three friends would play their fi nal game

of high school football for the Mississippi state championship.

Sly sauntered toward Dewayne’s bedroom, with Jesse at his heels.

“Jesse, could you come here a minute?”

At Cherie’s request, Jesse started turning back toward the living

room, but not before throwing a playful punch at Sly’s shoulder. He

fl ashed a boyish smile of surprise when Sly wheeled to smack him

back. Th e boys traded a few good-natured slaps before Sly dodged the

last backhand and disappeared into Dewayne’s room.

“My boys. What am I gonna do without all your craziness!” Cherie

said.

Jesse gave Cherie a quick peck on the cheek and then settled his thick

frame into a well-worn Webb factory recliner. In spite of his fi replug

physique, Jesse was swift on his feet. With his agility, he had racked up

an impressive number of tackles as a linebacker for the Tigers.

It would have been easy for him to stay with his kind and class

growing up in Springdale, Mississippi, but the team sport of football

worked a strange magic on Jesse’s impressionable psyche, and he had

instead chosen two African Americans to be his best friends. It went as

far back as those fi rst years in the peewee league when kids recognized

diff erent skin shades only as colors from the same palette and not with

any overtones of bigotry. Th e mutual respect the three boys had for

each other’s talents closed the deal on a permanent friendship, and their

trust for each other on and off the fi eld made them inseparable.

Cherie perched on the sofa near the young man she considered an

adopted son. “I’m in a quandary, Jesse.” She smoothed the wrinkles

out of her dress with agitated fi ngers.

“About what, Miss Cherie?”

Th ey ignored the playful jive coming from Dewayne’s bedroom.

“My boy and his future,” she said. “God has given him a gift , and I

don’t know what’s the best way for him to use it. You’re going to col-

lege, I know, and I want that for Dewayne, but I don’t know the best

choice for him.”

“I envy him.” Jesse’s head drooped. “I don’t have choices, Miss

Cherie.”

Heir to Webb Furniture, a fourth-generation business, Jesse had

every intention of accepting the CEO mantle as soon as he fulfi lled

another Webb tradition of attending Ole Miss and playing football, if

not exceptionally, at least honorably.

“Ole Miss, Webb Furniture, and the rest of my days in Springdale

are laid out for me. I couldn’t change that destiny if they off ered me

the moon.”

Cherie reached her hand over to Jesse’s thick leg and patted the fi rm

muscle above the knee. “Th ere’s pride in knowing who you are, where

you come from, where your future’s headed. It will be a comfort to me

knowing you’re close by.”

Jesse gave her hand a quick squeeze. Her motherly tenderness

seemed to ease the sting of resignation that came from having his

future set in stone.

Cherie sighed. “But my boy . . . it’s the moon they seem to be of-

fering,” she said.

“How’s that?” Jesse leaned forward in the easy chair.

Cherie stretched herself over the arm of the threadbare sofa and

reached behind it. She pulled out a battered shoebox with a rubber

band over the top that tried to keep the stack of letters tucked inside.

Th e lid pushed upward as soon as she removed the rubber band, and

the top letters popped up and spilled onto the fl oor. Cherie bent over

to retrieve them from the faded carpet.

“Colleges and big-time universities wanting Dewayne to come play

for them and off ering to pay his way,” she said as she collected the let-

ters and displayed them for Jesse to behold.

Jesse moved over to the couch to look at the pile and gave a whistle.

“You need a bigger box.” He picked up a few of the envelopes. “Guess

folks all over have fi gured out how good our boy is.”

“I don’t know where to begin. Robert and I never went to college.”

Cherie Turner and Robert Dewayne Jobe met on the assembly line

of Webb Furniture, each one thinking the other a thing of beauty.

Th ey began spending as much off -hour time together as possible,

and months later, neither of them could think of any reason why this

relationship should not become permanent.

Cherie had never remarried aft er her husband’s death . . . a tragic

accident of a fatigued husband working double shift s to provide for a

new wife and their soon-to-be child. Early one morning a police of-

fi cer spotted the rear bumper of Robert’s car sticking out of the water

of Deer Creek. With no evidence to the contrary, the coroner ruled

it death by drowning, probably due to falling asleep at the wheel just

as the car came upon the precarious curve onto the bridge over the

creek.

Th e likes of Robert were not to be found again. Rather, Cherie

raised her son by herself, believing the good character of his father

was installed at birth and trusting God’s mercy would make up for all

human defi ciency. Th e quantity of inquiries displayed before Jesse’s

unbelieving eyes was evidence enough that character and talent fl owed

in Dewayne’s bloodstream.

Dewayne’s size, dexterity, and quickness defi ed reason. By his seven-

teenth birthday, he had topped out at six feet six inches, weighing two

hundred forty pounds, all muscle, bone, skin, and functioning organs

to sustain this young man under the grueling training regimen he en-

dured from his coaches. Th e grocery bill for the two of them would have

fed a family of six. By his last season of high school football, he was a

good head taller than anyone on his team and most of the boys from

all opposing football teams who lined up against him. Add another

three feet of arm span to his six-six height, and any player assigned

to cover Dewayne would need a miracle to stop a pass completion

or bring him down. Double coverage and gang tackle were about the

only defense a team could use to stop Dewayne, and even then, he

would drag his tacklers along like Gulliver dragging the Lilliputians

for a few extra yards. His profi ciency at off ense applied to defense as

well. He and Jesse were a formidable pair of linebackers who knew

the game and each other’s moves so well, it was not oft en they were

duped by another team’s off ensive play. And each time Sly came onto

the fi eld with his all-star quality at quarterback, it was hard for the

hometown fans not to expect a touchdown. Being undefeated their

senior year was not a cakewalk, but it never was in question either. By

midseason, everyone in Springdale knew their team would play in the

state championship, and they were the odds-on favorite to win.

Th e clamor of Sly’s entrance broke the spell cast over Jessie and

Cherie staring at the queries for Dewayne’s talent. Sly burst into the

living room as though pursued by tacklers. He gripped a football and

pumped his arm in several directions, looking for would-be receivers

as he provided his own sports commentary.

“Th e off ense has collapsed and the blitz is crashing in on the Sly. He

fakes right, then left . He stiff -arms one three-hundred-pound tackler.

He leaps over the second one like a gazelle. No one can sack the Sly.”

“Somebody shut him up,” Dewayne said as he entered the living

room.

“He dashes across the fi eld, waiting for a receiver to get open.” Sly

danced sideways. “He lobs the pass over the heads of the opposing team”—

he pump faked toward Dewayne, then turned and pitched the ball—

“dropping the pigskin into the outstretched hands of the receiver.”

Jesse caught Sly’s pitchout without ever taking his eyes off the stack

of letters Cherie held in her hands.

“Another touchdown for the Sly.” Sly acknowledged his imaginary

cheering crowd by waving his hands in the air.

Sly might have had an exaggerated view of his skills, but on the

football fi eld, he lived up to them. He was fast enough to evade most

defensive players who got past his front line, and he enjoyed dancing

around the fi eld, dodging tacklers, almost as much as throwing touch-

downs. Orphaned at a young age and raised by a doting grandmother,

Sly had created an image of himself that required a belief that he was

superior to most other humans. In spite of a fawning public, Jesse and

Dewayne were the only ones allowed into his narcissistic bubble, and

to his credit, Sly did not mind his two best friends taking him down a

notch or two when the preoccupation with his ego got out of control.

Th e three boys were rarely apart, except when the social norms kept

Mississippi’s blacks and whites separated, but the trio pushed even those

boundaries. Th ey sat in the pews of each other’s churches or went to

a single-color restaurant or attended a public function with a young

lady of the opposite race. Th ese small challenges to social traditions

raised eyebrows and stimulated behind-the-back conversations, but

as long as the Springdale Tigers kept winning, the boys could do no

wrong and all was right with their world.

When Cherie cleared her throat, Sly redirected his attention from

his fantasy fans to the letters in Cherie’s hands. “Is that D’s fan mail,

Miss Cherie?”

“I guess you could call it that,” Jesse said.

“What did I tell you about throwing the football in my house?”

Cherie’s mild scold made Sly fi dget and produced a rare sheepish

grin on his face. “Sorry. Too excited about State tomorrow.”

“Dewayne, you never told us about all these letters,” Jesse said, wav-

ing a stack of letters in front of his face like a fan. “You sure been

secretive.”

Dewayne shrugged. “Nothing to tell really.”

“Nothing to tell,” Sly said, taking a handful of letters out of Cherie’s

hand. He began to fl ip through the stack, discarding each one into the

shoebox aft er reading the letterhead. “D, you got Penn State, Michigan,

Ohio . . . too cold for your black Mississippi blood. Th e University of

Tennessee . . . you just volunteer yourself onto the next one. It looks

like the entire SEC is coming aft er you. You got your cowboy colleges,

and fi nally your elite West Coast Rose Bowl contenders. Th at’s an

impressive list . . . almost as good as mine.”

“What are they off ering?” Jesse asked.

Dewayne shrugged his shoulders again, looking more uncomfort-

able. “Full rides.”

“Don’t be hanging your head, my brother.” Sly slapped Dewayne

across his broad shoulders. “Th is is a proud moment.”

“So what should he do?” Cherie asked.

Quiet settled over the boys. Jesse stopped fanning himself and

handed Cherie the letters. She shuffl ed them into a neat pile before

returning them to the cardboard box.

“What do you want to do, D?” Jessie said, and he picked up the

football in his lap and began to pass it back and forth from hand to

hand. Th e thump of the ball smacking Jesse’s hands as he played his

own game of pitch and catch dominated the sounds in the room.

“I want to score touchdowns,” Dewayne said.

“Th at’s right.” Sly went from slap to embrace. “My man here wants

to catch himself a boatload of touchdowns and a fat NFL contract.”

“Mama and I have been doing a lot of praying about this,” Dewayne

said. “We need God’s direction.”

“What do you think, Sly?” Cherie asked.

“As long as God don’t send him to Miami, he can go anywhere that

pays to let him play.”

“You never told us you decided on Miami,” Jesse said.

“Strong program that made me the best off er, eighty-degree winters,

and women as far as the eye can see.”

“Careful now in front of your mama,” Cherie said.

“Ain’t any of them ever going to replace you, now.” Sly leaned over

and gave Cherie a kiss on the cheek.

“Don’t be playing with me.” Cherie waved him away, unable to resist

a smile. “Be serious now. Where should my boy go to college? Th e

coaches have been talking. Th e recruiters have been calling. But I want

to hear from his best friends.”

“Miss Cherie, D needs to get as far away from Springdale as he can,”

Jesse said. “I think a West Coast school might be his best bet.”

“No lie, Miss Cherie,” Sly said. “With our boy’s hands he can pull

in those passes. Th e sports pages like to see that kind of beauty and

that is what gets the attention of the NFL.”

Sly intercepted the ball from Jesse, stopping the hypnotic rhythm

of the passing. He stretched out his passing arm dramatically and pre-

tended to throw a “Hail Mary” out the front window in the westward

direction. “Go west, young man.”

Dewayne just smiled and then patted Cherie on her shoulder. “We

need to go, Mama.”

“Don’t want to be late for your last pep rally,” Cherie said.

“No, ma’am,” Jesse said, springing from the recliner. “We win State,

I’m buying you a new recliner.” He kissed Cherie on the cheek before

bounding out the front door.

Sly repeated Jesse’s farewell on Cherie’s cheek with an extra “You

know I love you,” and Cherie added her own tender pat to his face.

“You coming?” Dewayne asked.

“Of course I’ll be there,” she said.

Like his friends before him, Dewayne kissed his mother on the

cheek.

“You know the Lord is gonna steer us right, Mama,” he said.

“No doubt, son, no doubt,” she said. “Now go on. Don’t be late.”

Dewayne squeezed his mother’s arm before walking out the door.

Cherie picked up the few letters that still lay on the fl oor, folded

them, and replaced them in the shoebox. Before sealing the box, she

“Lord, we need thy wisdom,” she whispered. “Let the right one rise

to the top.”

Th e only location large enough to accommodate the town of Spring-

dale for the pep rally was the Webb family farm. Th e level of play, the

team’s competence, and the town spirit had not had a simultaneous

appearance before in Springdale, and talk was that it would be another

generation before the convergence of the three would happen again.

Neighboring counties could spot the three blazing bonfi res. Th e

multitude roared as the head coach introduced each starting player,

accompanied by a blast from the marching band’s brass section as the

player dashed into position facing the crowd. Cherie had maneuvered

onto a small rise a short distance from the center of the celebrations.

Th is bond of humanity had one goal in mind: to unite their individual

desires and energies into a force powerful enough to win the support

and blessing of the gods of football, and to raise the town of Springdale

out of the universal plainness of small-town America.

Jake Hopper, the receivers’ and quarterbacks’ coach for the Tigers,

did not like standing with the other coaches and staff and the team

for these football rituals. He preferred anonymity. He preferred the

controlled discipline of the practice fi eld or the blood rush of the game.

He accepted these chaotic traditions as a necessary evil.

He ambled through the crowd until he spied Cherie. Here was a

friend, a calm in the maelstrom. He moved toward her, but a group of

teenagers bolted in front of him, blocking his path and nearly trampling

him as they rushed to get a better view of their heroes. He waited for

the herd to pass and then made steady progress toward his goal.

Jake stepped up beside Cherie. “And what do you think of our pagan

rites?”

“It’s loud enough to bring down Jericho’s walls,” Cherie said. “I

should have brought my OSHA earplugs from the factory.”

“Th at assembly line working you hard?”

Cherie cupped her hands over her ears. “Hard enough, but I don’t

think it ever gets as loud as these kids.”

“Humanity changes little, I’m afraid, except through calamity, and

then reluctantly,” he said, approving his pithy statement with a smirk.

Jake Hopper gave of himself body and soul to taking the God-given

talent of each player and molding it. In his heart of hearts, he consid-

ered himself a sculptor of living, fl esh-and-blood models, shaping and

perfecting the fl uidity of speed and motion of the human body. And

a well-executed, unrepeatable moment on the fi eld brought a bigger

smile to his face than a touchdown or even a win.

Jake prized the singular bond between player and coach, a bond

of souls when competitive physical play brings out a special bliss be-

tween men. Jake and Dewayne had that bond, an idealized bond of a

father and son, free of responsibility beyond the rules, discipline, and

training necessary for the game. Dewayne had no father. Jake had no

children. Yet the two men provided for each other what was missing

in their lives.

“Excuse me for being forward, but if all our sons had mothers such

as you, the world would be whole,” Jake said, a bold statement, espe-

cially from someone unaccustomed to making them. Perhaps the sips

of vodka before arriving at the pep rally inspired the boldness. He felt

a pang of regret, a fl ushed embarrassment at the compliment. He was

thankful for the darkness. It helped conceal his chagrin.

At that moment, the music from the marching band raised its decibel

level, and the cheerleaders, shimmering pom-poms stuck to the top

of each raised arm, began their escort of the senior boys to the front

of the team.

“Hush now. Th ey’re about to introduce my boy,” Cherie said.

Jake turned his eyes away from Cherie and wondered how life might

have been diff erent had he met Cherie in their younger days. She might

have spoken the same words just now but substituted them with “our

boy.” Th e thought produced in him a pang of regret. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. Do you think Sylvester should have blamed Jesse for the loss of the championship game? Do you think the loss of that game haunted Jesse? If yes, how so?


 
2. Do you think Rosella’s parents should have placed so much pressure on her in order to make her the opposite of Bonita? How do you believe that affected her?


 
3. On pages 51-54 Dewayne has a conversations with Franklin regarding Rosella. In the conversation Franklin makes comments regarding Dewayne’s upbringing-was this a sign of snobbery? How do you think Dewayne handled the situation? Would you have handled it differently?


 
 
4. After going off to college, Dewayne and Sly lose touch with Jesse. Should they have kept better contact with Jesse? Do you think Jesse still blamed himself for the big game? Do you think Jesse felt trapped based on what was expected of him?


 
5. Rosella didn’t recognize Bonita at first, when Bonita asked for money from Rosella. Should Rosella have offered to get her help? Should Dewayne have given Bonita that money? What would you do in this situation?


 
6. Do you think Jake is at fault for Jesse’s death? Do you think Jesse’s death was a suicide? Why or why not? Do you think there was any significance to the fact that  Dewayne’s best game night was the same night as Jesse’s death?


 
7. Why do you think Dewayne negotiated his football contract for such a small amount? Do you think it was a scheme to make the older players feel indebted to him?


 
8. Do you think Bruce’s attempt to get rid of Tyler was warranted? Should Rosella and Dewayne have taken the children sooner? Do you think Franklin and Joella should have made more of an attempt to help Bonita?


 
9. After Dewayne was accused of murdering his family, Cherie had a heart attack. Do you think she died believing her son to be a murderer? Why or why not?


 
10. After the murder of his family, Dewayne is immediately the only suspect. His family and friends turn against him--except Jake. What was your reaction to Jake showing up at the hospital to help Dewayne? Do you think Rosella should have turned her back on Dewayne? Would you have?


 
11. After the surgery, Dewayne makes a drastic recovery and returns to the NFL. What do you think it took for him to make it back?


 
12. How do you think this story compared to the biblical Job? Do you think race was a factor? Who do you feel were the major characters, and what were their contributions to the story?

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