"This can't be good," I said, removing the contents.
"They want you to preach?"
"We'll know in a second." I began reading. Maurice, he just tapped his broom handle on the floor in a kind of nervous, janitorial anticipation.
Dear Mr. Jarvis,
It has come to the attention of the elders of North Hills Presbyterian Church that you recently led a team of four on a short-term mission trip, a weekend of service to a fellow minister of the gospel down along the Carolina coast. Such selfless service can set a long-lasting example for our congregation. We are most interested in the details of your experience. Your injury and subsequent recovery would also be of encouragement to the church body.
We, the elders, would like to invite you to speak (just ten minutes or so) at our missions conference to be held at the church in early December. The content of your talk would be up to you, of course, although a short briefing with church leadership is standard procedure to ensure an appropriate message. You may confirm with the church secretary, Elaine, at your convenience.
Grace and peace, Robert Kyle, elder
I stuffed the letter in my jeans pocket. "Maurice, you wanna speak to the church mission conference in December? 'Cause I'm due in New York in three days."
Maurice propped his broom in a maintenance closet. "No way, Jay Jarvis. I'm a sexton and I'm a poet ... but I ain't preachin' to no Presbyterians. Tyrus said this church has no emotion."
Maurice then told me to hurry up and fetch my belongings and that he'd lock up and walk out with me. I jogged the length of the hall to reclaim my umbrella.
He met me in dim light. For a moment, he admired the blue-andwhite design. "Ya know, Jay, I almost took that one home. My sister got a birthday coming up next week."
Down the hall we strolled, a pair of unlikely comrades. And one more thing was certain-I was going to miss Maurice Evans.
We turned the corner, past the pecking order of church offices, past the New Members board. He nudged me to stop and look. I did not want to. But he nudged me again. This time there was one new family and two new single girls. However, a small spreadsheet was pinned to the bottom of the corkboard, and in red ink, a note was scribbled across it.
I shook my head. "Won't even ask who did that, Maurice."
"Wasn't me," he said, palms raised in innocence.
"I know, Maurice."
He snatched the paper in one hand and held it up, tapping it as he spoke. "I've been thinking about this note all day. What are they talking 'bout with that nineteenth stuff? My cleaning skills?"
"No, Maurice."
He looked offended by the note. "Can't nobody say I don't keep a clean church. I know I'd be in the top five. I know it, Jay. I got twenty-four years experience."
"It's talking about the quality of single men, Maurice."
"The what?"
I leaned against the wall. "It's the latest fad. It's killing the nightclub business. The official term is denominational hopscotch. Lydia knows all about this stuff. Thinks God is very mad about it. That it shows a certain lack of faith."
Maurice held the spreadsheet aloft and quickly made for the exit. "Gomorrah comin'," he said, shaking the paper overhead. "She's on the way. We in a downward spiral now."
Umbrella in tow, I tried to keep up, but Maurice could not be caught. He was nearing the side door when suddenly he stopped, turned to face me. "You know what, Jay ... I just might know who did it. I think I seen her."
"I'm all ears."
"Don't know her name," he said, fumbling for his keys, "but I saw this girl rush in at lunch hour and leave real quick. Real quick. Had black hair ... and one of those shiny rings in her eyebrow."
I pushed open the side door to the parking lot. "It's a crazy world, Maurice."
"Yessir," he said, gazing out at the autumn sky. "Crazy world, indeed."
God ... He is the great iconoclast.
-C. S. Lewis
I woke to the first beep of my alarm clock. One last shave, one last shower before lugging my duffel bag onto the front steps.
And onto the front steps we went, me 'n duffel bag. Then I opened my door again and peered back across my empty living room, my empty foyer, my khaki walls only six months dry. A chapter closed.
Strange to look out across your own dew-covered grass and see a FOR SALE sign impaled on a stake, a capitalistic dagger letting the world know a life is about to change, and that the change comes with a price tag, two and a half baths, and a vaulted ceiling.
I felt like I should take a picture or that someone should be in the doorway waving bye. I felt like chipping golf balls on the lawn one last time before leaving the South. And, to my relief, I felt like I would make my flight since my ride was on time, approaching the cul-de-sac with top up. Her Limeness, tailgated by an orange Jeep.
She backed Sherbet into my driveway. Steve left his jeep on the street.
"All black? You look very New Yorkish," said Darcy, popping her trunk.
"Conformity," I said. "Appreciate you guys taking me to the airport."
"Don't mention it," said Steve, loading my carry-on. "Just save us some subway tokens."
"And opera tickets, too," said Darcy. She slid behind the wheel of her Caddy, its big V-8 rumbling with impatience.
From Sherbet's front seat, I stared into the chrome side mirror, watching my slice of suburbia fade away. Darcy made a left, and suburbia disappeared.
We ramped onto 1-85 North, toward the Greenville-Spartanburg airport, and Darcy immediately blew by three minivans, an eighteenwheeler, and a muscle car.
"I thought you repented ..."
"Sorry," she said. "It's like you men and your silly fetish with baseball."
"You have a sports fetish, Steve?" I asked, turning toward the backseat.
"Not me," he said. "Well, maybe the Cubs qualify as a fetish."
At the US Air drop-off, I shouldered my carry-on bag. Darcy closed the trunk. In front of us, a yellow cab pulled to the curb. A businesswoman exited the cab, briefcase in one hand, purse in the other. She glanced at my black wardrobe, smiled briefly, then turned and walked quickly between sliding glass doors.
"You'll be seeing plenty of cabs, bro," said Steve, reaching for my duffel. "I'll carry this one in for ya."
"Nah, I can handle it."
"You sure?"
"Yeah, let's get all the good-byes over with."
"We'll miss you," said Darcy, hugging my neck. Nice perfume, Darcy.
"Get us some Yankee tickets," said Steve with a shake and a bear hug.
I liked Steve Cole, regardless of his secrets. Darcy too. And I would use this moment to give them one last chance for confessional, one fleeting opportunity to come clean. "Before I leave the South, I wanted to ask you two a question."
Steve's face went blank. "Sure, what's up?"
"You two ever thought about, you know, being a couple? Y'all seem to get along pretty well."
"Naaah ... us? We're just buds," said Steve.
"Yeah, just good buddies," said Darcy, stroking her shiny blonde hair. "We'll miss you, Jay."
I picked up my duffel and backpedaled toward the entrance.
Steve waved and said, "Send an e-mail when you get settled."
"Will do."
Inside the glass doors, I turned to watch Lime Sherbet, the car that had lent such color and adventure to my seven months in South Carolina, ramble away.
My window seat was over the wing, which would've really stunk had I not been changing planes again in Charlotte. While skimming through an article about the plight of spotted owls, I felt the plane bank left, saw urban sprawl extend over the wing, and figured the owls would have to fend for themselves.
In the lobby of Charlotte International, hordes of businesspeople crowded the restaurant bar at 9:20 A.M., watching a big-screen TV, where live from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange an attractive young woman smiled into the camera, telling us that stocks looked strong in premarket trading.
The s
miling young woman was mistaken; the premarket is for fools.
I ordered an English muffin, link sausage, and orange juice, then sat in a booth and listened to the businesspeople chat about our new national pastime: Are stocks overvalued? Will the Fed lower rates again? Do you get real-time quotes at the office? Do valuations still matter in this new millennium?
The answers, people, are yes, no, yes, and yes.
While I finished breakfast, the young woman's TV smile morphed into a frown as she reported that stocks had reversed course in the opening minutes of trading and were now falling precipitously. Crowded below the television, the businesspeople mumbled curses and sipped their juice.
Then, with thirty minutes left till departure, I made a preflight visit to the men's room.
Not that I had to go, mind you.
No, this was larger in scope. This was premeditated. This, at long last, was the season. There are seasons for everything under the sun, and this day, November the 10th, was the season in which to turn the tables on Steve Cole and Darcy Yeager.
In the harsh light of a Charlotte men's room, I reached into my carryon bag and pulled out an awful green-and-purple Hawaiian shirt, a pair of khaki shorts, my passport, and my well-worn beach sandals. My black wool pants and black turtleneck hung over a stall, like the remnants of a raptured New Yorker. In fact, I didn't even like those black clothes, so I just decided to leave them there.
I left the rest room in full stride, trekking past the businesspeople, the television, and the restaurant bar, my sandals flip-flopping as I made my way down the long and busy corridor, the corridor leading to the international boarding gates.
This time my window seat was in the rear of the plane, view unobstructed. At takeoff I watched Charlotte fade to miniature, until we were too high above the clouds to watch anything but the brighter side of cumulus. I may have been mentally ill, but I knew my cumulus.
We leveled off, and soon a flight attendant made her way down the aisle, smiling left and right while distributing peanuts. "And how about you two?" she asked, her brass name tag identifying her as Marlena.
"Yes, please," said the lady seated next to me. My seatmate looked fiftyish, heavyset and happy, like a youthful grandmother. She wore an orange bow in her hair, and I guessed she was Hispanic.
"I'll take one, too," I said, reaching to accept my freebie.
The lady opened her packet, then asked what I could see out the window. But there were only clouds out the window, so I really couldn't tell. We finished our snacks in silence. The clouds disappeared.
Marlena returned, took our trash, and offered us bottled water. We accepted, and the grandmotherly lady turned to admire my shirt.
"Like it?" I asked.
"Love it," she replied. "All those purple-and-green leaves ... so colorful."
"It's my jungle shirt."
She unscrewed her bottle top, took a sip. "You could've hemmed those shorts, though."
`Just cut'em off last night," I said, still nervous about my visit but glad to have a talkative seatmate.
She kept staring at my shirt, like it might bite. "It'll be hot when we land," she said. "Where in South America are you headed?"
I looked out the window and muttered, "Somewhere east of Coca, Ecuador."
"That's pretty remote," she said, adjusting her lap tray. "Very remote. Don't tell me you have family there?"
I chewed and swallowed three peanuts. "No, ma'am ... she's, well, she's someone I met this past summer."
"Ah, visiting a young lady."
"She's supposed to meet me at the airport ... if she can get use of a pickup truck. I figured it was easier for me to fly there than her fly to New York City."
She turned for a closer look at me. "You're from the big city?"
"No, ma'am, but I was supposed to move there today to begin training for a job on Wall Street. I delayed the training for a week."
"That's nice."
"Yeah, and this morning my friends Darcy and Steve, who try to hide their romance-even while I was in the hospital with an oblong head, can you believe that?-they dropped me off at the airport thinking I was flying to New York with all my black clothes, but I left those black clothes in the men's room back in Charlotte."
She looked confused and pulled a magazine from the seat rack. "Well," she said, "I think what you're doing is sweet. I met my husband while I was vacationing in Florida. Eventually, one of us had to move."
"I'm not moving to South America, ma'am. Just going for a visit."
The lady smiled, decided against the magazine, and looked through my window. She started to say something, then leaned her head back against the seat and shut her eyes.
We passed over the coast of South Carolina, and our Latino pilot said it was sunny in Charleston. I wondered if Preacher Smoak was down there steering his boat, his crew flying a marlin flag.
By noon we were over Key West; and by early afternoon, Costa Rica. The steady hum of jet engines lulled me off as I tried to pronounce odd words. The pages of my Spanish/English dictionary were already wearing at the corners from rapid flipping, and I felt wholly unprepared for a visit to a new land. In her second surprise Instant Message, a quick one on my last Friday in Greenville, Allie had said some of the adults spoke English, though none spoke it well. Then she had typed why don't you come visit NOW, before wall street totally consumeth?
The Hispanic lady slept, her orange bow mushed against her seat. Nervous and wide-eyed, I watched our descent. Dark mountains rose through cloud cover, and I thought there just could not be room for a runway in this terrain.
Three pings and the pilot spoke.
I could only make out the word Quito.
"What did he say?" I asked the lady.
She rubbed her eyes. "He said we are thirty kilometers northeast of Quito and will be on the ground in six minutes." Then the pilot said it again, in English.
Approaching Quito, Ecuador, the pilot quickly dropped altitude; we had passed over a boundless chain of peaks, the Andes. Below the horizon, between slivers of gray cloud, the green canopy of rainforest draped the earth in a tangle of treetops.
I saw the blinking lights of a runway surrounded by mountains, us in near free fall, a tingly, sinky feeling caroming back and forth between my stomach and lower back, now sweaty palms, steep descent, and wow, this wasn't Dallas, this wasn't even close, this was my comeuppance, my omega-and a logical time to summon the good doctor.
With muscles tensed, eyes scrunched, I began a hasty composition.
"It's like landing in a salad bowl," the lady next to me said, wide awake and gripping the armrests.
Two bumps, a brief skid, and we were on the ground. Applause burst forth. The lady made the sign of the cross and exhaled, the jet engines whirring themselves into a low, metallic drone.
"That was better than Disney World," I said in genuine relief.
"Hope Mickey likes bananas." And she rose from her seat to open the overhead.
Squished together in the aisle and having survived the nauseous descent, the passengers tended toward chattiness, with scant similarity to the hushed reserve of American flights.
A stranger in a strange land am I. That was my thought as I looked around at the mass of people filling the aisles. I was one of maybe three with light-colored hair. I stood in the aisle parsing speech unfamiliar, with all tourists and South Americans moving slowly toward the cockpit.
An elderly gent was late in rising from his window seat, so I motioned for him to cut in. He squeezed into the aisle and mumbled something undecipherable, although his utterance seemed appreciative.
We reached the front, and sunlight pierced the exit, the old man, then me.
"Nice flight, Miss," I said to Marlena.
"Nice shirt, senor," she shot back, with the official flight-attendant's nod, which, come to think of it, was quite similar to the official preacher's nod.
They make you walk across the tarmac in Ecuador. No rolling tunnels or flexible hallways to ea
se the burdens of travel. Didn't matter-the afternoon was very warm, the chatter very Spanish.
Halfway down the jet's stairs, I took inventory of the glassed faces staring back from the lobby. Olive-skinned strangers, some young, some old, some small, actually they all looked a bit small ... but there was no Allie.
I had that sinky, tingly feeling again.
On the stairs below me, the Peruvian lady looked up and blew a kiss toward a mustached man behind the glass. He sent back three.
I, too, wanted someone to send back three.
Instead, the elderly gent turned and sneezed at my leg, then a young boy bumped me from behind.
"Perdon," said the youngster.
"Perdon," I replied, trying to parrot his accent.
Two steps from the bottom, I glanced up a fourth time. Allie Kyle was standing at the end of the lobby, waving, and she was in that pale yellow sundress again.
Her hair was grown out past her shoulders. She was quite tan.
Suddenly it occurred to me that we really didn't know each other very well. There was a pounding in my chest.
I stepped onto the tarmac and waved back.
The old pickup had dents and rust spots covering the shell, a cracked mirror, and a brunette driver with an affinity for carving poems in sandbars. Her Spanish towel was laying across the seat, its loopy red words hiding torn upholstery. The air was thin, and she wore no makeup. Didn't need it.
"Only four more hours till we reach Coca," said Allie, steering the truck down and around a steep mountainside. We had just switched places.
Ecuadorian drivers love their horns; she'd passed three other vehicles, and each one signaled their displeasure like children who've discovered doorbells. All three passed us back, with volume, and she returned the greeting. We were sweaty and dusty inside the truck, but I barely noticedthe spiraling terrain and ridiculous views had all my attention.
"I'll drive again anytime," I offered. `Just say when ..."
Flabbergasted: A Novel Page 24
