Twelfth Angel Read online

  More praise for The Twelfth Angel

  “Love of the game, apprehension, camaraderie, good sportsmanship, the exhilaration of winning and the anguish of losing—The Twelfth Angel transported me back to my own Little League days in California.”

  —Jim Palmer

  Baseball Hall of Fame

  “Mandino skillfully tells this story and fills it with familiar characters we want to care about. Through this emotional story, he makes the point that life needs to be lived to the fullest using whatever gifts we have. He also suggests we could do ourselves a favor by recognizing the angels that live around us.”

  —The Wilmington News Journal

  OTHER BOOKS BY OG MANDINO

  The Greatest Salesman in the World

  The Greatest Salesman in the World, Part II:

  The End of the Story

  The Greatest Miracle in the World

  The Greatest Success in the World

  The Greatest Secret in the World

  The Gift of Acabar (with Buddy Kaye)

  The Christ Commission

  The Choice

  Og Mandino’s University of Success

  Mission: Success!

  A Better Way to Live

  The Return of the Ragpicker

  A Treasury of Success Unlimited

  U.S. in a Nutshell

  Cycles

  The Spellbinder’s Gift

  Secrets for Success and Happiness

  A Fawcett Book

  Published by The Random House Publishing Group

  Copyright © 1993 by Og Mandino

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Fawcett Books, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto.

  This book is not authorized, approved, or sponsored by Little League Baseball, Incorporated. Little League is a registered trademark of Little League Baseball, Incorporated.

  Fawcett is a registered trademark and the Fawcett colophon is a trademark of Random House, Inc.

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 96-96750

  eISBN: 978-0-307-78478-0

  v3.1

  In loving memory …

  Doug Turno

  … the bravest little

  guy I’ve ever known

  &

  Rev. Jack Boland

  … the bravest big

  guy I’ve ever known

  Contents

  Cover

  Other Books by This Author

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  A Humble Acknowledgment

  Chapter I

  Chapter II

  Chapter III

  Chapter IV

  Chapter V

  Chapter VI

  Chapter VII

  Chapter VIII

  Chapter IX

  Chapter X

  Chapter XI

  Chapter XII

  Chapter XIII

  Chapter XIV

  Chapter XV

  About the Author

  A HUMBLE ACKNOWLEDGMENT

  This book could have never been written without the help and guidance of my son, Matthew. The story line for The Twelfth Angel came from Matt as well as the good counsel and advice that I needed in order to do justice to this very special tale.

  Og Mandino

  Everyone’s life is a fairy tale, written by God’s fingers.

  —Hans Christian Andersen

  I

  Solitary confinement.

  Self-imposed.

  For many days after the funeral I did little when I was out of bed except slump at my desk in the den for countless hours and think about ending my life. The phone was off the hook, fax machine disconnected, and all doors leading to the outside world were locked and bolted. Still, each day, what seemed like an endless stream of traffic had moved slowly up my long circular driveway, always followed by a mournful tolling of the door chimes until I finally ripped out some wires. Sympathy from my friends and neighbors was the last thing I wanted.

  The past seventeen years. How special they had been. Filled with hard work, rewards, love, joy, success, achievement, laughter and even some tears. There had been so many precious moments, such a long run of proud and unforgettable experiences, and now, even before my fortieth birthday, life was suddenly no longer worth living.

  Occasionally I would push myself away from the desk, rise, and move slowly around the room, pausing to stare at each of the framed family photographs on my walls. Memories. The good times and special occasions depicted in each picture were still so vivid to me that I could almost hear voices and laughter. Was it Lord Byron who wrote that we can see farther through tears than with a telescope?

  I turned my high-back wooden swivel chair slightly to my right, reached down to the bottom drawer of my large oak desk, tugged at the handle and it slid open silently. Inside, resting atop a telephone directory and several seed catalogs, where I had placed it yesterday after a long search through still unopened packing cartons in the garage, was the dull-finished 45-caliber Colt automatic pistol that I had bought, secondhand, during a rash of house burglaries back in Santa Clara, ten or so years ago. Next to the old weapon was a box of cartridges, a full box. I hated guns, always have, and after three test shots in the basement of a San Jose gunshop, I had never fired the damn thing again. Now I placed the lethal instrument on my desk blotter and stared at it, running my fingers slowly along its scratchy surface. On the flat side of the barrel, just above the trigger, was the small outline of a rearing horse and the words Government Model, COLT, Automatic Caliber .45.

  I raised the muzzle end of the gun with thumb and forefinger, stared down the barrel and despite my shattered state of mind a name suddenly flashed through my self-pity to add to my confusion—Ernest Hemingway. Dear God! A ghost from my childhood! I had discovered Hemingway’s books in the local library when I was ten, and that summer I devoured everything of his I could find. It was after reading For Whom the Bell Tolls for the second time that I made my decision. When I grew up, I would be a writer, a famous writer, and I would find adventure in all parts of the world like Hemingway. What a wonderful life that would be! And then … and then my hero let me down. One day in 1961 he placed the business end of a loaded shotgun to his head and pulled the trigger. I had a terrible time dealing with that. Why would anyone be foolish enough to do such a thing? Why? No rational answer came from the grown-ups I queried. Why? Why? What could possibly cause a man to take his own life, especially a big, tough, smart guy like him—a man who had so much to live for? I leaned forward and peered down the gun’s barrel again, shaking my head as my eyes filled with tears. Mr. Hemingway, please forgive me for judging you and thinking you were dumb to do what you did. Please.

  I turned my back on the gun and gazed out the picture window directly behind my desk. Just below was a wide deck that extended across the entire rear of the new Cape Cod–style house. Rolling slightly uphill, away from the deck, were several acres of dark green lawn, studded with white Adirondack chairs, a horseshoe court, cedar picnic table and benches, and two six-foot-tall golf pins with red practice flags, set approximately a hundred and thirty yards apart so that I could practice with my short irons. At the far side of the lawn was a long single row of newly planted privet hedge, and beyond them was a meadow with several huge granite boulders, tall blueberry bushes and a small pond filled with noisy green frogs. Behind the meadow was a stone wall and a thinned-out woodland of pine, birch, maple, and a few ash, extending to both my left and my right as far as I could see. Raindrops suddenly began to fall, splashing against the window and diffusing my view until the outside
world through the glass looked more like a painting by Monet. Forty-four acres of heaven on earth. Sally and I had fallen in love with the house and grounds at first sight. Bought it the very same day the realtor showed it to us.

  Sally …

  I was now sitting in almost exactly the same position as on that Saturday, just a month ago, when she had walked into the den, stepped around my desk and hugged me. “Well, hometown hero,” she asked proudly, “are you ready to greet your public?”

  “I’m not ready but I am nervous. Hon, I haven’t seen most of these people for a lot of years. I can’t believe this old town is doing this.”

  “Why shouldn’t they? The people of Boland are very proud of you, John Harding. Your mom and dad spent their entire lives in this community. You were born here, went to school here, were a three-letter man in high school as well as president of your senior class, went on to college and became a baseball All-American. Now, here you are, just twenty years later, moving back to your hometown while you are being acclaimed by the entire business world as the newly elected president of Millennium Unlimited, one of the largest and most powerful computer companies in the computer industry. And … and … you’re still so young! Why shouldn’t these people honor you? Real heros are getting tougher and tougher to find in this crazy world of ours, and this town of Boland, as well as the rest of New Hampshire, has every right to pay tribute to you and all that you have done with your life. In the past few weeks most of them have seen you on Good Morning America or the Today show and read about you in Time and now they can’t wait to see you in person, especially the old-timers who knew your folks and remember you as a little boy. I was chatting with a Mrs. Delaney down at the post office this morning and she told me that the town hasn’t been in such a frenzy since Commander Alan Shepard, from Derry, dropped by for a clambake supper after he had become the first American in outer space—and that was almost thirty years ago!”

  New Hampshire was a completely new experience for Sally, whose roots were all in Texas. We were both recruited out of college by a Los Altos firm that manufactured portable adding machines. Three months after we met, we married. Smartest thing I ever did in my life. In the years that followed, we probably moved our skimpy collection of furniture and clothing six or seven times up and down what would later become known as Silicon Valley as I kept changing companies in my persistent climb up corporate ladders. Sally was a rarity of the age. She insisted that all she wanted to do was stay home, be a housewife and mother—and my cheerleader. She was all of those and more to me, and seven years ago we were blessed with a healthy son, Rick.

  Just two years ago I had assumed the vice-presidency of sales for Vista Computer in Denver and after I was fortunate enough to double the company’s dollar volume, both years, I was approached by an executive headhunter for the position of president of Millennium, third largest manufacturer of computer software in the world. The board of directors, it seemed, had voted unanimously, after two years of decreasing sales volume, to go outside the company for leadership. It was a dream come true for me, both the opportunity to head my own company and also to return to my New Hampshire roots.

  Since the company’s headquarters and main plant were in Concord and my old hometown of Boland was only about a thirty-minute drive away, on good roads, Sally and I decided to look for a home in Boland, and we got lucky. Of course our West Coast furniture was completely out of place within the traditional architectural styling of the new rooms, but that didn’t faze Sally a bit. Almost overnight she was deep into books and catalogs on early-American and colonial interiors and she solemnly assured me that before we had our first house party for Millennium’s executives, our new home would be furnished in a manner that would make even Paul Revere proud, providing we didn’t run out of money first.

  “Well,” I sighed, after Sally had finished singing my praise, “they said they wanted us down on the town common at two, so I think we had better get going. Where’s our son?”

  “Rick is in the living room, sulking. He’s not very thrilled about his usual Saturday afternoon baseball game with his friends being fouled up by adult doings, but since it’s his birthday next Wednesday, he’s struggling hard not to lose any points.”

  I grinned. “Well, let’s go take our bows and get on with our lives.”

  II

  I remember so vividly the rare sight of heavy traffic on Main Street as our Town Car inched past automobiles parked on both sides of the recently tarred pavement on that Saturday morning. Drawing closer to the common, we began to hear the brass and drums of a marching band.

  The township of Boland, population five thousand plus, founded in 1781, was such a typical small New England community that it almost looked like a Hollywood set. Along its two-lane, maple tree–lined main thoroughfare were three old spired white churches, one small restaurant, a grocery and hardware store, police station and town offices sharing the same aging redbrick building, a Grange hall, two filling stations and a branch bank. Not a single new building had been erected along the town’s downtown “business” district since I had gone off to college in ’67, and only a huge stone foundation remained, now nearly covered by weeds and brush, from a fire four years ago, that had totally leveled the Page Public Library, my favorite hangout as a youth. That spacious Georgian-style building had been erected through a generous bequest from one of Boland’s most successful citizens, industrialist Colonel James Page, and his gift to the town had also included sufficient funds to fill all the library’s shelves with books. Unfortunately neither while the edifice was being erected nor in all the years it had served the people of Boland had any of the town’s officers ever thought about making arrangements to insure their most beautiful municipal building, and the small town, despite several attempts, had never been able to raise the necessary funds to rebuild after the fire. Across from the library ruins was the bench-lined common, and at its northern site stood the bandstand with a new coat of light-blue paint.

  “Wow,” exclaimed Rick as he leaned closer to the front windshield, “look at the crowd of people, Dad! Are they all here for us? If they are, can I please just stay here in the car and wait for you two?”

  I pointed ahead at the banner that hung tautly across Main Street, WELCOME HOME, HARDINGS … BOLAND IS PROUD OF YOU! “See that, Rick? That greeting includes you, fella!”

  My son tugged at his baseball cap and puckered his lower lip. “Why me? I didn’t do nothing.”

  “Well … you are a Harding, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then you are an accomplice. You’re in this with us.”

  A uniformed police officer standing close to the sidewalk near the commons began waving his arms frantically as soon as he spotted my car. He gestured toward an empty parking space that he must have been saving for us. As we stepped from the car, to loud applause and cheers, the officer raised both his arms protectively. “Welcome, folks. Will you three kindly take each other’s hand and follow me closely to the bandstand? Please don’t stop to greet old friends during this trip, because if you do, we’ll never get to that platform before sunset. There will be plenty of time for all that later, but right now they need you up there,” he said loudly as he nodded toward the bandstand. The townfolk were sitting so close to each other on the common’s newly mowed grass that many had to stand in order to make room for us, but with the officer’s help we finally did reach the bandstand’s steps, where we were greeted by a smiling man with a huge crop of white hair.

  “Welcome, John,” he shouted above the band’s rendition of “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here!” “I’m Steve Marcus. Don’t know if you remember me but—”

  “Steve, of course I remember you. Our class treasurer, played left field your junior and senior year … and I heard you now have your own law practice in Concord. You look great and haven’t changed at all—except for the color of this …” I said as I ruffled his hair.

  On the bandstand, seated in a half circle of wooden foldi
ng chairs, were the other guests. Steve walked us down the row, introducing Sally, Rick and myself to the three town selectmen, the fire chief, police chief, high school principal and the pastors of the town’s three churches. I knew none of them from my early days except one of the selectmen, Thomas Duffy, a retired judge who had been a good friend of my dad’s.

  “John,” he said in his fondly remembered basso-profundo voice, “my only regret is that your mother and father are not here today to take part in this very special occasion.”

  “Mine, too, sir. Judge, you are looking just great!”

  “And so are you, son, so are you.”

  Steve paused before the next chair but made no introduction. Instead, smiling slightly, he asked, “Do you remember this lady, John?”

  I leaned closer. She was a tiny woman, wearing a delicate summer floral-print dress, her silver hair pulled back tightly in a bun, a small white-cloth handbag resting on her lap. She looked up at me almost timidly, through rimless glasses, and there was a slight quiver in her lower lip as she moaned and reached up with both hands toward me.

  “Miss Wray,” I gasped, “is it you?”

  She closed her eyes and nodded. I knelt down to embrace my first-grade teacher, that special person to whom I owed so much because she had instilled in me a passion for books that had contributed toward every step I had been able to take up the ladder of success. I kissed her cheek gently and said, “Now this truly is a special day!”

  Miss Wray nodded while tears ran down her wrinkled cheeks. After I had introduced her to Sally, she motioned toward Rick and asked, “Is this your son, John?”

  “Yes. This is Rick, Miss Wray. He’ll be in the third grade this fall.”

  “Rick,” she said in a firm voice, placing her small hands over my son’s, “I hope that you are as proud of your father as we all are. We knew, even when he was very young, that he would be an important person someday.”