Prayers of Agnes Sparrow

by Joyce Magnin

  The town hall was located right next door to the Full Moon, which was convenient for the council members who gathered there at least once a day for coffee.

  On my way to the town meeting a brisk, freezing wind swirled around me. I hiked up my collar and hurried to the town hall. I met Ivy on the steps.

  “Evening, Griselda. How's Agnes?”

  Ivy was a middle-aged widow with long blonde hair and exceptionally large breasts that she tried to keep hidden under oversized sweatshirts. Agnes prayed for a breast reduction for her but no volunteer surgeon ever stepped forward. Ivy never held it against her.

  “Lord wanted me to have a big bosom,” Ivy said, but often lamented the fact of never having had babies to suckle. “Seems a waste.”

  “Agnes is fine, Ivy. How are you?”

  “I’m doing okay, you know, well as can be expected. Tell Agnes I’ll be coming by in a day or so. Got some things to discuss.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell her.”

  My foot landed on the top step and the thought hit me that just once I’d like someone to ask how I was doing. But it was always Agnes on their minds.

  The building was packed to the gills by the time I got there. Studebaker Kowalski was up front. He held tightly to the petition, already in deep conversation with Boris Lender. It might have been my mood, but Studebaker looked like a cheap TV evangelist. He wore a maroon polyester leisure suit with white stitching around the wide lapels, pockets, and seams. His shoes matched his white belt, and I swore I could smell his Brut aftershave across the room. Studebaker and I made eye contact, and he waved the pages at me. I motioned back, feigned a smile, and then turned my attention to Edie Tompkins.

  “Well, hello there, Griselda. So this is Agnes's big night.” She pushed her persimmon red lips into a smile. “Uh, no pun intended.”

  My eyebrows arched like a gothic cathedral. That woman made my blood boil. Edie was a nosy neighbor. She stood about six feet tall, which meant she towered over me by half a foot. She wore her frizzy hair piled on top of her square head, adding nine inches to her tallness, and was partial to flowered dresses straight out of 1953. Edie was married to Bill Tompkins, the automobile mechanic and member of the council as president of the commerce association. Bill was a good egg and, I was hoping, the one member who would understand Agnes's situation.

  I hung my coat on the last available hook and made my way through the crowd gathered around the refreshment table laden with all types of snacky finger food. Town meetings, and just about every occasion in Bright's Pond, called for refreshments. I think it might have been in the charter. Ivy plopped down a plate of brownies, but I managed to snag the last piece of Bill Tompkins's fudge. He was not only an excellent mechanic but made the best fudge in the universe, a recipe I understood required him to stir for hours. Every two years his extended family gathered at Bright's Pond for their “Family Fudge-Off.” They tried to out-fudge one another and unseat Bill as king, but he won every year. Boris and Studebaker judged the contest.

  Edie offered me a cup of coffee to which I added a tablespoon or so of half and half. The coffee was another reason to attend town meetings. There was just something about it percolating in that big, silver urn that gave it a special taste that not only warmed your hands on a cold night but also warmed a spot in your soul.

  “Here you go, Griselda,” Janeen Sturgis said. She handed me a paper plate stacked with treats and covered with two or three paper napkins. “For Agnes. I sure hope the sign is approved. I’d be so proud to be from her town.” Her eyes lit up when she smiled. “We’re all so proud.”

  I took a deep breath. “Thank you, Janeen.” I put the plate on the table and made a mental note to pick it up on my way out. Agnes loved Bill's fudge and Cora Nebbish's lemon squares, although I hated bringing her plates of treats like they were some kind of offering. Janeen tilted her head and looked at me the way a dog does when he can’t understand what you’re saying. I guess she expected me to get all excited about the stupid sign.

  What really scared me though was what her husband said next. “Yeah, maybe we’ll rename the town. You know, call it Agnesville.” He chuckled. But I knew he was serious.

  Janeen slipped her arm in his. “That's wonderful, dear, Agnesville.” She chortled.

  I would have shushed them, but they had taken their seats and I supposed it was too late to make a difference. The idea of Agnesville had just been released to the universe. I watched it escape out the door as Eugene Shrapnel walked in.

  Eugene was as mean-spirited and dyspeptic as they come, always complaining and shouting about one thing or other. He was a little more manageable when Edith, his poor, skinny wife, was alive. Eugene hated Agnes—called her a sorceress and thought she was “in league with the devil.” He stood maybe five-feet, eight-inches tall and walked hunched over: claimed he took mortar fire in the back at the Battle of the Bulge. I think he withered from his own nastiness.

  Eugene wore dark clothes, suits mostly, and a weird little felt hat with a feather stuck in the band. His raspy voice seemed to come from some tight, tiny spot in his throat. But his worst feature and the one that garnered the most attention was his nose, a bulbous, lumpy thing that resembled a chunk of cauliflower with bright red and purple veins running through it. Most folks accepted the fact that it was impossible to talk to Eugene without staring at his nose. To top it off he smelled like wet wool and Lysol.

  “Good evening, Miss Sparrow.”

  “Hello, Eugene.”

  “I hope you aren’t thinking that this … this sign disgrace will actually come to pass.”

  I popped a lemon square into my mouth and chewed, staring at his nose without saying a word.

  Eugene harrumphed his way to a seat—the last one, in the last row, closest to the exit. Fortunately, I found a seat up front. Unfortunately, it was directly behind Studebaker. He turned around, sending a waft of cologne around the room. I sneezed.

  “Bless you,” he said. “You still have time to sign it.” He shoved the petition under my nose.

  “I already told you. Agnes doesn’t want a sign.”

  “She's just being humble, that's all. Once she sees her name in giant block letters, she’ll be glad we did it.”

  I shook my head. “No, she wouldn’t, Stu.”

  He ignored my comment and said, “I’m gonna ask the council to commission Filby Pruett to make a statue.”

  My heart raced. “Please, Stu, you can’t be serious. A statue? Of Agnes? Fat Agnes?”

  Boris banged his gavel. “Let's come to order,” he shouted. “Order.” He said it five times before the crowd finally quieted down.

  Boris was a lawyer and a pretty fair man. No one ever complained about him or the way he ran the town meetings. He managed to get a few people out of scrapes with the law including the Tompkins's boy Nelson, who was arrested for driving through a cornfield while intoxicated. Farmer Higgins claimed he lost about three thousand bucks, but when the damage was assessed it tuned out to be more like three hundred. Nelson slopped the farmer's pigs for a month to make up for the loss.

  Boris wore gray suits with red ties and had a penchant for cheap cigars. His teeth had turned a most disagreeable shade of yellow from the habit, and when he smiled they looked like rows of rotting corn niblets.

  Dot Handy had her pad and pencil fired up with two extras perched behind each ear and one stuck in her hair bun. She nodded to Boris, and the meeting began. After the Pledge of Allegiance and the approval of the previous month's minutes Boris called for new business. I could see Studebaker was primed to present his petition. His legs twitched like a schoolboy's. But before that there were a few other issues to discuss, including the need for a new stop sign at the corner of Ninth and Hector. The hiring of a crossing guard to replace the retiring Sam Gaston was approved. Dot Handy took the job.

  “I’ll take good care of your children,” she said and sat down.

  The chair reluctantly recognized Eugene Shrapnel, who tapped his
cane on the floor.

  “You got to do somethin’ about that mangy beast that's been tramping around town going on four years now,” he whined.

  He was talking about Ivy's pooch. He made the same speech every meeting.

  “That hideous hound keeps doing his smelly business in my rose garden.”

  Boris shook his head. “We told you, Eugene, put a fence around your roses.” He turned his attention to Ivy. “And you keep that dog on a leash.”

  “A leash?” Ivy took a breath. “I just couldn’t.”

  “Then you got to fence him,” said Bill Tompkins from the committee. “It's the only way. You can’t let him loose all the time, Ivy.”

  Boris banged his gavel. “I could get a court order, Ivy. Just save us all the trouble and keep your dog off the streets.”

  “I’ll poison that stinking mutt,” Eugene said.

  Ivy choked on her cider. “Do and I’ll poison you, you bloated old windbag.”

  Boris brought the meeting to order before it went any further awry.

  “Go see the police chief, Eugene. Get an order for the fence.”

  The chief of police was new to Bright's Pond that year. She might have been all of twenty-five years old. Her name was Mildred Blessing, and for most of the men in town she was exactly that. Even in uniform it was easy to see that Mildred had truly been blessed in a Jane Russell sort of way—beauty, breasts, feminine brawn. She was one of my regulars at the library, checking out hard-boiled detective stories and psychological thrillers. Mildred hoped for a real crime in Bright's Pond, but the most she got was dog poop and drunken teenagers.

  An hour later we finally got to the real reason there was a record turnout for the meeting on such a snowy night. Studebaker Kowalski stood up.

  “Mr. Chairman, members of the council, distinguished people of Bright's Pond.” Stu turned around and nodded to the crowd. “I move that a vote be taken to have our town sign changed to read: Welcome to Bright's Pond, Home of Agnes Sparrow.”

  Spontaneous applause broke out and Boris pounded his gavel several times to bring the meeting back to order.

  “Okay, okay, calm down. Now, I know we’re all proud of our Agnes Sparrow but I am obliged to ask if any one would like to present an argument.”

  I swear I felt every single eyeball in the building lock on to me. My heart raced. I was never very good at public speaking. My hands went sweaty, and a chill wiggled down my back. But I shook it off and raised my hand.

  Boris pointed his gavel at me. “The chair recognizes Griselda Sparrow.”

  “My sister doesn’t want a sign with her name or her picture on it, so I move we table this petition. And she most certainly does not want a statue.”

  I couldn’t believe the ruckus that broke out. I thought for sure an avalanche started rolling down Jack Frost it was so loud. Boris let the shouting go on for a few minutes during which time I heard more than a few people tell me that I was being selfish, that Agnes was famous and deserved the sign.

  “Why, she's done more good than anyone for this town,” Janeen Sturgis said. “Without her prayers Frank and I would have … well we wouldn’t be together, I’ll tell you that.”

  “That's right,” Studebaker shouted. “I’d be dead by now.” He turned to me. “Dead.”

  “Abomination,” Eugene shouted. “This is an evil generation. They seek a sign; and there shall be no sign given it, but the sign of Jonah, the prophet.”

  “But Agnes doesn’t want the sign,” I said as loudly as I could over the din.

  “Abomination,” Eugene said.

  Ivy Slocum shimmied to her feet. “Oh, hush up, you miserable, old man.”

  “You’ll see,” Eugene said. “You’ll all see her for what she really is. One day … one day the sky will fall, mark my words.”

  Boris pounded his gavel. “That's enough, Eugene. You said your piece; now sit down and be quiet.”

  Eugene pointed his cane toward the door and left the hall.

  “I move for a vote,” Stu shouted.

  Boris banged his hammer one more time.

  “You can’t call for a vote, Studebaker. Now sit down and be patient.”

  I raised my hand.

  “You got something else to say, Griselda?” Bill Tompkins asked.

  “Yes.” I managed a smile even though I knew nothing short of the Rapture would change their minds. “Agnes said she isn’t against you changing the sign but she wants it to say Bright's Pond, Soli Deo Gloria.”

  A hush, peppered with several words of amusement or confusion, fell over the crowd like a heavy, wet blanket.

  “What in jumpin’ blue heck does that mean?” someone shouted.

  “Sounds like some witch's spell,” said another.

  “Witches? We don’t want no witches in our town.”

  “Maybe Eugene is right,” shouted another, “if she's talkin’ in spells, maybe it's a curse.”

  “It means,” I said as loudly as I could, “to God alone the glory.”

  “I don’t get it,” Studebaker said.

  “You saying we don’t believe in God?” shouted Frank Sturgis, Janeen's husband.

  “Of course not,” I said. “Agnes doesn’t want the glory. It isn’t hers to have.”

  Another three minutes of ruckus broke out as folks spewed nonsense about me not thinking they believed in God and bringing witchcraft to Bright's Pond. The whole thing gave me a headache. Feeling outnumbered I sat down.

  Bill Tompkins asked to address the council.

  “Maybe we should honor Agnes's wishes,” he said looking directly at me.

  “Witches?” said Jasper York who was hard of hearing but would never admit to it. “What's with all the witches?”

  “Wishes, Jasper,” I said leaning into him. “Agnes's wishes.”

  Jasper rested on his three-footed walking cane. “Oh, in that case, I guess it's all right with me.”

  But Bill's endorsement of Agnes's desires did little good as I only heard a few voices ring out in agreement with us.

  Finally, after Boris regained control, I again urged we table the petition, but a vote was taken in spite of my protest.

  3

  Agnes and I still lived at the Sparrow Funeral Home. Our parents died in a train wreck when I was seventeen and Agnes had just turned twenty-one. A few days after the funeral, while we were staying with our Aunt Lidy, Boris Lender, Pastor Spahr, and some of the others helped sell off our father's mortuary equipment and dispose of what they could. The women in town did their best to take the funeral parlor look out of our home by recovering chairs and replacing drapes. But, no matter, it still looked like a funeral home and smelled like it at times, especially during high humidity when odors from the embalming room seeped through the floorboards.

  It was a large Queen Anne Victorian built in 1891, which meant we had miles of coursers and gingerbread, two turrets, and a wide wraparound porch with three hundred and fifty-one spindles. I counted them when I was seven. The entryway was two wide, dark green doors that opened out to accommodate a coffin. On hot summer days, guests arriving for a viewing would often sit on the porch, where my mother served sweet iced tea and cookies while they discussed the deceased and waited their turn to pay their respects. There wasn’t any air-conditioning or even a fan inside. My father said a fan oscillating in the corner would have been undignified and could have mussed ladies’ hair.

  A bronze sparrow perched on a twig with one leaf served as our doorbell. You turned it and chimes sounded all over the house. We always stopped what we were doing, whether it was mid-stride on the steps or buttoning a shirt, because the chime generally meant there had been a death in town. Now the chime most likely meant that someone with a prayer need had come looking for Agnes.

  I stood at the door, shivering against the frosty air and touching the cold little sparrow. I wondered how to tell Agnes about the meeting.

  She was still wide-awake when I went inside. I stamped the snow that had been falling all night
off my boots and hung my coat on the rack. I shivered. Agnes had managed to change into a sleeveless baby blue nightgown while I was gone. The cold never seemed to bother her as much as me. She claimed it was because she had so much insulation.

  “It's cold in here,” I said. I nudged the thermostat past seventy.

  Arthur greeted me and wrapped his body around my legs with a loud purr. I reached down and picked him up. He was a former stray that used to come by the library. I started feeding him there, but one day decided to take him home.

  “I prayed for the meeting,” Agnes said from her bed. We had moved her bed to the first floor, the old viewing room, because Agnes could no longer climb stairs. She was in a good spot, able to look out a large window and watch the comings and goings of Bright's Pond. We still called it the viewing room.

  She not only prayed for the people who made a point to come by and ask for Agnes to deliver their requests to the Almighty but also for anyone who walked past the house. Most of the time she knew the folks who went up and down our block, but every so often a stranger would wander by, usually a visitor from out of town. She prayed for him or her too.

  “Did you tell them?” she called.

  I dropped Arthur and sat on the sofa.

  “Yes, I told them, but they passed the petition anyway.”

  “How could they? I don’t want a sign with my name on it. It ain’t right, Griselda. They don’t know what they’re doing.” I saw a shudder rattle through her body. She took a labored breath as her cheeks turned red. “I told you to keep them from letting this happen.” Agnes reached for her jar of M&M's.

  “A few people were in agreement with me and you, but we were outnumbered, if you can count Eugene as people.”

  “So, I got no say.” She popped a few of the bright candies into her mouth.

  I yawned and rubbed my right eye. “They mean well, Agnes. Most of them think you’re just being humble and once you see the sign—”