A Rhinestone Button

by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

  “There was this guy, goes into emergency with a knife wound to the belly, from a bar fight. They strip him down and find the guy’s got a salami duct-taped to his thigh.”

  “Trying the impress the ladies?” said Jocelyn.

  “More likely trying to impress the men,” said Rod.

  “A gay bar?” said Penny.

  “No. The guy was a cocky little bastard, trying to show he was packing the goods, you know. Faking it with that sausage. He was looking for a fight. Trying to prove himself.”

  Job thought of something Jerry had once told him, about a man he’d seen in the bathroom, who’d stood two feet away from the urinal, showing off. “He had more to piss with than I can fuck with,” Jerry had said. Job shifted in his seat, tugged at the hem of his shorts, wondered how much was enough.

  Jocelyn rummaged in her handbag and brought out the coconut suntan oil. She rubbed her arms and her face, and smoothed it over her collarbone, the upper rounds of her breasts and into her cleavage. She squirted a dollop of oil on her right hand, worked it into her palm as she put the bottle back into the bag with her left. She pulled the leg of Job’s shorts up and rubbed the oil into the head of his penis, bringing him to the point of coming within seconds. But he stopped her. He gripped her wrist and pulled her hand back. Blinked and gulped. Caught her eye and tried to smile. She took his hand and placed it at her crotch, widening her thighs to accommodate. When he didn’t move his hand, she placed her left hand over his and moved it up and down, while together they watched the backs of Rod and Penny’s heads. Her right hand was again at his penis, working him up. A feeling he wanted to hang on to forever.

  Rod turned onto an oiled road, a soothing quiet after the rumble of gravel. But Job feared the quiet, wanted the rattle that had cloaked his backseat tryst. Then, behind them, the lights of a police car. Job yanked his hand from Jocelyn’s lap and pulled his shorts down, his excitement withered, the guilt of it already on him. Rod pulled the van to a stop and went to sit in the police car to try to explain why he had been speeding.

  The flames of gas-well flares licked up into the sky, giving the landscape an apocalyptic feel. Something was off, strange. It was as if someone had flicked a switch, turned off a light. The world looked that different. Job still heard the rumble of the van’s engine as it sat idling in Park. But sound brought no colour at all, no shape, no sensation to his hands or arms, no certainty, no knowing. The effects of the beer had worn off, and with it what faded colour and sensation he had still heard.

  Job kept his hands in his own lap for the rest of the drive, and Jocelyn kept her hands in hers. They each looked out the window on their own side of the van. He avoided grazing Jocelyn’s arm with his own and shifted away so that one buttock was nearly off the seat. A Skyhawk in front of them hit a robin. The bird rolled and fluttered in the air currents behind the car, clearly wounded but still trying to fly. It fell to the side of the road.

  He had once parked his car behind the Value Drug Mart in Wetaskiwin late on a winter afternoon when the light was failing. When he came out again, darkness had fallen and the sodium lamp bolted to the side of the shop had come on. His truck was the only vehicle left in the parking lot, yet he didn’t recognize it. The eerie light from the sodium lamp turned the red of his truck a metallic greenish grey. He had felt momentarily anxious, wondering what had become of his truck, sensing that this one, sitting where he’d parked his own, could not possibly be his. He felt a shift, as if reality were coming unstuck and falling away. The uncertainty stayed with him until he put the key in the truck door and it turned. He felt that same shifting now, reality slipping from his grasp. Without the colours and shapes of sound, the certainty, the knowing, it was a world only half heard, muffled. It was the half-world seen under solar eclipse, the light turned tinny, a landscape of ash.

  Fifteen

  Job sat by himself in the hired hand’s cabin, listening to the vacuum cleaner. After chores he’d made a nightly habit of trying out different sounds and drinking different brands of beer, hunting for his colours, but the fantasia of shapes and light had disappeared altogether. This day, a snowy Saturday, he’d once again brought the vacuum cleaner over from the house, under the pretence of cleaning up, and had left it running for half an hour in the centre of the room. But as usual, the glass egg failed to appear in his hands.

  With the vacuum still humming, Job watched the chickadees and pine grosbeaks peck at the bird feeder he’d built and placed outside the window. One of the chickadees was missing a leg. He moved closer to the window to get a better look. The birds, seeing only the reflection of the world outside, didn’t rush away. He pressed his forehead, nose, cheeks and lips to the glass, then sat back to look at the imprint his face had left there. A clown’s face.

  The room lit up. Ruth was at the door, her neck bent to avoid hitting the top of her head on the door frame. “I knocked but—”

  Job clicked off the vacuum.

  She closed the door and took off her coat, dripping melted snow on his freshly vacuumed floor. She held out her hands. “Good to see you!”

  Job felt himself wrapped in her long arms, his cheek cradled in her bosom. He held on too long. Ruth pulled away and patted his shoulder as she took a seat. She glanced at the cases of beer bottles stacked in the corner. “We miss you at church,” she said. When he said nothing, she picked at her nails. She had once told Job that she’d never been comfortable evangelizing. She couldn’t sell Tupperware to save her soul. “Liv was at church a couple of weeks ago.”

  “Liv?”

  Ruth nodded. “Jacob said you’d been feeling kind of down.”

  “He ask you to talk to me?”

  “I guess I should have stopped by before. But so much has been happening. So, what have you been up to?”

  Job shrugged. He searched his mind for something to say. “I’m sorry,” he said finally. “I just don’t feel much like talking these days.”

  “Sure. I understand.” But she made no move to leave. “Interesting news about Penny, eh?”

  “What about Penny?”

  “Jacob didn’t tell you?” She laughed. “I hear she’s gotten pretty serious with that fellow that was here at the revival with Pastor Divine. Bob? Tod?”

  “Rod?”

  “I heard they were talking marriage.”

  Job felt no surprise. No feeling at all. He watched through the window as the one-legged chickadee hopped and fed, expertly compensating for its handicap. It flew off and was replaced by another chickadee.

  “Then there’s Wade and me.”

  “Wade?”

  Ruth grinned. “We’re getting married. August 1. Got the church booked. Reception in the basement. That’s why I stopped in. I wanted to let you know. And Wade wants to know if you’ll be his best man. He doesn’t see anything of Jerry any more. Debbie didn’t like Wade coming over. Said he made her nervous, just sitting, watching, never talking. Personally I think that’s his best attribute.”

  “You and Wade?”

  “It’s thanks to you, really. Wade said he always thought you and I would get together. Once you were out of the picture, he asked me out. The rest is history. Anyway, you okay about being best man?”

  “Sure. Happy to.” They sat in silence. Too long. “You see anything of Will?” Job asked finally.

  “At church. But I’m ashamed to say I avoid him. He’s got so preachy. I understand Jacob’s been counselling him. A good thing, I guess. But he’s just so self-righteous. He keeps saying, ‘God’s leading me here, God’s leading me there.” ’

  Job watched a blue jay fly up to the bird feeder, scattering the grosbeaks and chickadees. The jay hunkered down into the feeder made for much smaller birds, and pecked awkwardly for sunflower seeds. Job’s father had hated jays. He called them thieves and shot them. Job had no feeling for them either way, though from habit he banged a fist against the glass, scaring the jay off. “Have you ever thought what if there were no God?” he said. “Do you think th
e world would be any different than it is now?”

  Ruth said nothing for a minute. “I can’t talk to you about this kind of thing,” she said. “My faith is just too precious to me.” She stood and put her coat back on. “There’s a karaoke dance at the hall tonight. Wade and I are going. Why don’t you come with us?”

  “To a dance? You don’t dance.”

  “Sure I dance. Just no one ever asked me.”

  Job found himself standing on the stage of the Godsfinger community hall, wondering how he had got there. Mike in hand. The recipe box of song lyrics sat beside the tape machine on the table in front of him. A light from above blinded him. He could only see black below. Someone called out, “Sing something, Job!” jarring him, sending a thump of blood through him. He couldn’t think what to sing.

  “Amazing Grace.” He knew the words by heart. But as soon as he’d had this thought he realized he couldn’t remember anything past the first line. He picked up the recipe box of lyrics and ruffled through the A’s. Called out into the darkened dance floor. “ ‘Amazing Grace’ is missing.” Someone called, “Sing, Job!” Others joined in, sounded a chant: “Sing, sing, sing, sing!” Their voices rang through the hall.

  “I’ve forgotten,” cried Job. “I don’t know the words.” Then the thump of the audience beating their feet against the floor.

  Job woke to a knock at the cabin door. It was Jacob, smiling. Job suspected Ruth had had a chat with him and that Jacob was worried for his soul. “Wondered if you wanted to come along to church with us this morning. Will’s coming. He said he wanted to give Bountiful Harvest a try.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Jacob turned and looked over the silos. The silos leaned so hard Job was sure they’d simply crash down one of these days. He’d warned Ben not to go near them. “Listen, Job, did I do something to make you stop going to church? I mean, did this whole halfway-house thing turn you off? Or Jack Divine’s church? I couldn’t live with myself if I was responsible for you losing your faith.”

  Job said nothing, thinking of the dream he’d woken to, of trying to sing “Amazing Grace.” “Actually, I was thinking it was about time I went back to church,” he said. “I planned on going this morning. To Godsfinger.”

  “Really. Well. That is good news.” But he didn’t invite Job over for breakfast.

  Job slid into the back pew where the late people sat, and waved when Ruth and Wade turned to smile at him from their pew near the front. Barbara Stubblefield rolled a skinny, crippled man in a wheelchair to the pew in front of Job, and parked the chair, pressing a foot to the brake. The man had almost no control over his limbs and couldn’t talk, though he made his feelings known well enough. He grunted, low guttural sounds that sent sprays of saliva out in all directions. He tried to shake his head no, his head wobbling and bobbing on his weakened neck as if it were on wires, the head of a marionette.

  Barbara patted his arm. “Shush,” she hissed. “Just give it a couple of minutes. If you don’t like it, we’ll go.”

  When the man slapped his armrest, Barbara forced his hand to his lap. “Enough!” Then, her voice softening, “It’ll be nice, you’ll see. We have some fine singers. And Pastor Henschell’s messages are always stimulating. And there’s coffee and cake afterwards. Mrs. Schultz makes the best almond squares in the county.” A distinction that had once been Job’s.

  The man swung his head back and forth as best he could, and cried out. When this got no response from Barbara, he let his head lull to his chest, sighed a few wet sighs and sat quietly, his head shaking slightly, apparently capitulating to Barbara’s will. Locked in place, it seemed there was little else he could do.

  Barbara kept turning in her seat, watching the door of the sanctuary. Finally she waved in a woman in her mid-thirties holding the hand of a ten-year-old girl. The girl was overdressed for church. Her hair was tied up in a red bow at the back. The woman had the pucker lines of a smoker and was wearing a navy dress, wrinkled and a decade out of date. A run in her nylons. They sat next to Barbara. “Maybe you’d like to go to junior church with the rest of the children, Sherry,” Barbara said to the girl.

  “No.”

  “Have you ever been to junior church before?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you like it?”

  “No.”

  Pastor Henschell greeted them. “Our Bible reading today is from Romans 7. Verses 18 through 25. ‘I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?’ Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

  They sang “Come, Humble Sinner.” “Come, with your guilt and fear oppressed, And make this last resolve.” Job mumbled along and looked around the sanctuary, saw it as if for the first time. Without the colours that had once accompanied the singing, there was nothing to stir the awe in him. Plain white walls. Simple crossed windows. The unpainted wood cross was the only decoration. A humble sanctuary, filled with farmers, uncomfortable in their Sunday best.

  Barbara in her blue dress, studded with flowers. As she sang she held one hand to her heart and looked heavenward, her face flushed, eyes glistening. Job had seen her put on this performance a hundred times, and he’d always felt a cast of falseness to her. But this morning he saw she really believed the emotion she created in herself. She was also aware of the people watching her and was attempting to create the emotion of awe and love not only for herself but for the rest of the congregation. She was like a Victorian lady swooning over a surprise or indecent remark because she felt swooning was expected of her. Or like a teenaged girl, working herself up into a screaming fit on an amusement-park ride, even though she wasn’t particularly frightened, but because the other girls would expect it of her and join in her screams. It was a performance, and though the emotions were manufactured, they were nevertheless real. He was moved despite himself, as if he’d sat through a formula Hollywood movie that he didn’t much enjoy, but cried nevertheless at the ending. He felt manipulated.

  The song ended and Barbara clutched her hands together across her chest, shaking them gently for emphasis, and, still staring upwards, murmured, “Thank you, Jesus.”

  Pastor Henschell stepped up to the mike. His wide shoulders in a new blue suit. His hair neatly trimmed. “Today I’m going to talk to you about fence-breakers. We’re all fence-breakers. Each of us has looked into that other field, stuck our heads through the wire, worked the wire up and down a little. Even if we didn’t step right through the fence, we’ve all thought about it. Not one of us is without sin.”

  Every beef farmer in that congregation had had a fence-breaker in their pasture at one time or another, a cow they’d had to yoke with two-by-fours nailed in a triangle around its neck, so it couldn’t possibly get through the wire.

  “Just like a farmer puts a yoke around a fence-breaker, God puts a yoke around us. The yoke is our conscience. That sick feeling when we’ve thought or done something we know we shouldn’t have. That’s the yoke that should stop us from stepping through the fence. But it doesn’t always, does it? A little sin leads to bigger sin. We wiggle that wire a little more, a little more, and before we know it, we’re through the fence!”

  His voice rose in volume. Annie Carlson, seated across the aisle from Job, rummaged through her purse and pulled out a package of yellow foam earplugs. She rolled them between her fingers, and made a point of holding her arms up as she put them in so Pastor Henschell would take note. He didn’t. “So God uses another kind of yoke! He uses the consequences of our actions to teach us not to break through the fence of his laws. If you break through the fence, if you break God’s laws, you will suffer the consequences! If you are an adulterer, you will get pregnant or suffer from venereal disease! Your marriage will suffer! Your spouse will leave you! Your sins will catch up with you. Maybe not right away, but years from now, the truth will come out. God will put that yoke
on you!”

  That did it. Job felt the familiar stab of guilt in his gut. It was just like Pastor Divine said: Make use of guilt. It’s the best tool in the evangelical toolbox. Everybody feels guilty about something. Make them feel the guilt in their bellies; fire it up! Promise them salvation, the final solution for guilt. Then you’ve got them.

  The man in the wheelchair cried “Ma!” in a strangled voice. He rolled his head towards Barbara and, as he couldn’t turn completely towards her, he let his head lull heavily on his left shoulder so he could get a good look at her. A bubble of saliva burst on his lips and for a moment Job thought he might spit at her.

  They stood, sang “Almost Persuaded.” “Almost persuaded now to believe, Almost persuaded Christ to receive.” The man in the wheelchair cried out “Ma!” again and again, flinging his head from side to side, slapping the armrests weakly. A fledgling pigeon, with undeveloped wings flapping and mouth open. Barbara shushed him, dabbed the saliva from his mouth and pulled his hands down into his lap. “Quit it!” she hissed. “Behave!” When he only shook his head harder and grunted so loudly that he competed with Mrs. Henschell’s organ playing, Barbara said, “All right, all right, we’ll go!” She turned to the woman and girl sitting with her and said, “I’m sorry, Carol, Sherry,” as she pressed a foot to the brake on the chair. Red-faced, and without looking at anyone in the congregation, she marched the chair down the aisle and out through the sanctuary doors.

  “You can’t hide sin from God!” Pastor Henschell called out.

  Startled, Job looked around and realized the singing had come to an end and that he had sat with the rest of the congregation. Sherry pulled at the bow that held her hair back. Her mother slapped her hand down.

  “He knows every single thing you’ve done! And he knows you’re helpless. Sinning is in your nature! That’s why you must confess and ask the Lord’s forgiveness, ask for the Lord’s help in changing. A leopard can’t change his spots, and under our own power we can’t change either.”