A Change of Heart

by Philip Gulley

  When he arrived at the meetinghouse, the ladies were arrayed around the noodle table, rolling out their last batch. Sam did the requisite reading from the Old Testament about the Lord causing manna to fall from the heavens, giving nourishment to the Israelites. Fern spoke of how in much the same way the Lord had exalted the lowly noodle, using it to nourish the saints of the church, while also providing funds for Brother Norman’s shoe ministry to the Choctaw Indians, not to mention kitchen improvements. Then Sam read from the New Testament about Christ’s body given for us, blessed a plate of noodles, and dispensed them to the ladies one at a time, their pious faces lifted upward, their hands clutched in prayer. Then it was time for the prayer, asking God’s protection for the women of the Circle, that no calamity would keep them from their sacred duties, and that, were the dinner to be a success, all the glory should go to God and not to them, his humble servants.

  The ladies, deeply moved, finished their last batch of noodles with a zeal not seen in years, then moved to the kitchen to bone out the last of the chickens. A record crowd was expected. The weatherman from Cartersburg was calling for sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-sixties and this year’s Sausage Queen, Addie Lefter, had agreed to dish up the first helping of noodles.

  After a tumultuous year—Tiffany Nagle had confessed to vegetarianism not five minutes after being crowned the Sausage Queen—Addie was looking forward to restoring the luster to that venerated position. Addie is the granddaughter of Morey Lefter, the kingpin of the Lefter school bus cartel, who drove a school bus for forty-six years with only one accident. He’d backed into Fern Hampton’s Lincoln Town Car in 1974, though no one minded, for most believed she deserved the comeuppance and Morey was simply an instrument of the Lord.

  Morey had six sons, all of them school bus drivers. Addie is the daughter of his youngest boy, Clarence, and the first redhead to wear the Sausage Queen crown. The men of the Odd Fellows Lodge, who judge the contest, have historically preferred blondes, but the only blond in this year’s competition was Buffy Newhart, who has such a profound overbite she can open a pop bottle with her front teeth, which she did in the talent contest the week before the parade. After that, Addie was a shoo-in.

  Regrettably, the Corn and Sausage Days festival has been a swirl of controversy. The Odd Fellows Lodge, in a tip of the hat to Morey’s years of exemplary public service, invited him to ferry his granddaughter in this year’s parade, despite the fact that Harvey Muldock has escorted the Sausage Queen in his Plymouth Cranbrook convertible since 1963. Even though he’d been wanting to retire from the parade for several years, he was nevertheless incensed and refused to let them use his convertible. The plan was to have Morey lead the parade in a school bus with Addie waving to the masses from the back door of the bus.

  The town promptly divided into Harvey and Morey factions. Sam had tried brokering a peace in order to avert a riot on the day of the parade. After he’d blessed the noodles, he met with Harvey and Morey on neutral territory at the Coffee Cup, where he encouraged them to take the high road for the good of the town. He had gotten them to agree to ride in Harvey’s convertible, with Morey driving, Harvey riding shotgun, and Addie in the backseat. Unfortunately, Bob Miles stirred the pot in that week’s edition of the Herald by lambasting the Odd Fellows Lodge for setting Harvey out on an ice floe to die.

  The morning of the parade, a half hour before it was to commence, Harvey was nowhere in sight. They phoned his house, but no one answered, so Sam and Morey were dispatched to find him. They knocked on his front door, but couldn’t rouse anyone, so they went around to the back door, but Harvey was nowhere in sight.

  “Is his car in the garage?” Morey asked.

  They peered through the window, and there sat Harvey in his Cranbrook. Sam tried opening the garage doors, but they were locked from the inside.

  “Wonder what he’s doing in there?” Sam asked, tapping on the glass.

  “I seen a movie once where this fella locked himself in a garage and killed himself,” Morey said. “Sure hope he didn’t do that. It’s hard to get the stink out of a car once somebody dies in it. Remember Ralph York? Had a heart attack in his school bus in ’67 and we didn’t find him until the next Monday morning. Had to sell the bus to a country-western band, it stunk so bad.”

  “I don’t think the engine’s running,” Sam said. He tapped on the window again, this time louder and with more urgency.

  “Maybe he’s dead already. Maybe he had a heart attack. Stand back and I’ll kick in the door.”

  Sam pounded on the door, next to the jamb. The old door rattled in its frame. Startled, Harvey turned and looked at them.

  “He’s moving,” Sam said.

  They heard the door of the Cranbrook open with a metallic screech, then close with a dull thud. Harvey swung open the garage doors and stared at them. His eyes were red and puffy, as if he’d been crying.

  “Hey, Sam.” He didn’t acknowledge Morey.

  “Hi, Harvey. How you doing?” Sam asked.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “We came to get you for the parade.”

  “Not going. It appears they want someone else.” He glanced at Morey, finally acknowledging his presence.

  “I thought we was gonna do it together,” Morey said. “Me and you and Addie in the Cranbrook.”

  “Over forty years I’ve been leading the parade and now they just cast me aside like yesterday’s newspaper, without so much as a how-do-you-do.”

  Sam had been coddling people all week and was growing weary of it. “Harvey Muldock, there’s a young Sausage Queen down at the school who’s been waiting for this day all her life. And here you are, throwing a temper tantrum. You oughta be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Aw, Sam, don’t be so hard on him,” Morey said. “Tell you what, Harvey. Why don’t you do the driving. I don’t need to be in the parade.”

  Harvey reddened, clearly embarrassed. “No, that’s all right.” He paused. “Just not easy getting old, I guess. You’re not much good to anyone but doctors and morticians.”

  “Well, we sure need you,” Sam said, softening. “Everyone’s waiting for you. They won’t start the parade until you’re there.”

  “Then we better get going, men,” Harvey said, straightening his shoulders. “Let’s take the Cranbrook. Morey, you drive.” He handed Morey the keys.

  They piled in the Cranbrook. Morey backed out of the garage, down the driveway, and into the street. He slipped the gearshift down three notches and surged forward with a burst of power. Harvey sat next to him, gripping the dashboard, trying not to appear overly nervous about someone else driving his car, but failing miserably.

  “What a beauty this is,” Morey said wistfully. “Wouldn’t want to sell it, I suppose?”

  “No. I’m giving it to my son. Gonna drive it up to Chicago one of these days, park it in his garage, get me a new pickup truck, and that’ll be the end of the parades for me.”

  “You can carry the Sausage Queen in a pickup truck,” Morey pointed out. “Wayne Fleming hauls his Little League team in the parade in his pickup truck.”

  “Sausage Queens aren’t hauled,” Harvey said. “They are escorted, and in a vehicle befitting their station in life.”

  They pulled up to the school, where the parade was organizing. Morey piloted the car through the crowd, around the floats and past the high-school band to the front, where Addie Lefter was waiting, resplendent in her Sausage Queen gown, sash, and crown.

  Harvey leaped from the passenger’s seat, hurried to her side, and ushered her to the Cranbrook, where she took her rightful place in the backseat.

  “Let the parade begin,” he cried, slipping into the passenger’s seat. Morey goosed the accelerator, and the Cranbrook jumped forward.

  “Steady, steady. This isn’t a school bus,” Harvey cautioned. “Four miles an hour and no faster. You don’t want to outrun the band. Drop her down a gear.”

  They rolled up Washington Street, past Sam’s house
and Grant’s Hardware. People lined the route, waving and cheering. What a glory it was. A red-headed Sausage Queen, so beautiful it made the old men weep, thinking back on the Sausage Queens of their youth. Oh, to be young.

  Dale Hinshaw was standing in front of the Rexall holding a cardboard poster with the words John 3:16 printed on it. They looped the corner at Kivett’s Five and Dime and passed the Legal Grounds Coffee Shop. Deena and Dr. Pierce stood out front, arm in arm, her head resting on his shoulder; they were smiling contentedly, looking every bit the newlyweds.

  The rest of the day passed in a blur. After the parade, everyone walked over to the meetinghouse, where the ladies of the Circle were waiting with hearts eager to serve the Lord through the ministry of chicken and noodles. Addie ladled out the first serving as Bob Miles snapped her picture for the Herald.

  The Circle labored over the steam table through the afternoon, dishing out their heavenly concoctions. They never faltered, not once. When the last plate was served, Fern looked at the clicker in her hand. Seven hundred and eighty-three meals, she announced to the Circle. A record. Then her voice caught, and she burst into tears.

  Sam and Barbara and their boys stayed past six o’clock, helping clean up, then walked home in the late summer evening underneath the canopy of maple trees that arched over the streets.

  “What a day this has been,” Sam said, as he slid his arm around Barbara and pulled her near.

  “Yes, indeed,” Barbara agreed, settling into his embrace.

  “Gross,” Levi said. “They’re going to kiss.”

  “Right in front of God and everybody,” Sam said, and kissed Barbara flush on the lips.

  The boys groaned with disgust.

  “I’m proud of you,” Sam told Barbara.

  “What for?”

  “For not entering the Sausage Queen contest. It would have been a terrible embarrassment to the other girls when you got all the votes.”

  “You think?” Barbara asked, with a chuckle.

  “I know,” Sam said. “I know.”

  Eleven

  A Long Stretch of Afternoon

  The end of September found Asa Peacock in his barn, staring out at the rain, listening to the weatherman on the radio prophesy an even wetter October. Miniature rivers coursed through the fields, carrying the topsoil down to the creek. Much more of this and his land would belong to a farmer downstream. A northwest wind had blown for three days and was starting to lay the beans over. Asa was wishing he’d gone into the insurance business like his brother. Fifty-six years old and retired down in Florida, golfing every day without a worry in the world.

  It was twelve o’clock and off in the distance he could hear the noon whistle from the fire station in town. Vinny would be serving ham and beans at the Coffee Cup. Ham and beans on Monday, meat loaf on Tuesday, Wednesday was beef manhattan day, spaghetti on Thursday, and a fish sandwich on Friday if you were Catholic, a cheeseburger if you weren’t.

  He was on his own for lunch. Jessie had driven up to the city to visit her sister. He ran across the barnyard, hopscotching around the puddles, and into the mudroom, where he pulled his boots off. He surveyed the leftovers in the refrigerator and elected to go with ham and beans at the Coffee Cup.

  It was a ten-minute drive. He drove slowly, observing the runoff in the ditches and stopping on the bridge over the White Lick Creek to watch the frothy torrent of water and mud. He went past the Hodges’ farm. A combine was stuck in the mud up to its axles. Ellis would never live that down.

  People have long memories in Harmony. Stanley Farlow blew up his truck twenty years ago and people talk about it as if it were yesterday. It happened in the fall, about this time of year. He’d doused a brush pile with gasoline, thrown a match on it, and hustled back to his truck. To his eternal regret, his truck became mired in the mud ten feet from the brush pile. The fire crept across the grass and began licking at the tires. It took him three minutes to run the half mile back to the barn for his tractor, an impressive time for an elderly gentleman wearing clodhoppers, though not impressive enough. They heard the explosion all the way to town.

  Asa rolled down Main Street. The square was thick with farmers waiting for the front to pass. He had to park two blocks away, in the funeral home parking lot, then hoof it through the rain over to the Coffee Cup. He stepped through the door, shook off the rain, and looked around for a seat. There was only one open, next to Dale Hinshaw at the counter. A desperation seat. A seat that came with a price—a half hour of Dale Hinshaw questioning your commitment to the Lord and speculating about the imminent return of Jesus.

  Asa studied the bulletin board, hoping someone would vacate a booth, but with the rain coming down, they were there for the long haul, so after a few minutes he took the seat next to Dale.

  “Hey, Dale. How ya doin’?”

  “Just thankin’ the Lord to be alive.”

  So that’s who we should blame, Asa thought.

  Heather Darnell stopped in front of him, a glass of water and tableware in one hand, a paper place mat in the other, which she arranged neatly in front of him. Asa gazed at her discretely. Such a beauty. She smiled. Thirty-two beautiful teeth, not a cavity among them. Her hair was done in a French braid. Asa loved French braids.

  “Hi, Mr. Peacock.”

  “Hello, Heather. How are you?”

  “Just dandy. What can I get for you?”

  He studied the menu at length, even though he knew what he wanted, a clever ruse to keep her in his vicinity.

  “Hmm, how about ham and beans and a glass of sweet tea,” he said, handing her the menu.

  “You get two sides with that. What would you like?”

  “Oh, I didn’t know it came with any sides. Maybe I better see the menu again.”

  He had developed ordering into an art form.

  He studied the menu once more, looking up every now and then to gaze at Heather, who was waiting patiently. She was so much nicer than Penny, Vinny’s wife. With Penny, you were lucky to get a menu. Penny terrorized the customers into submission, bending them to her will. “What’ll you want and make it snappy. I don’t have all day. And don’t be making a mess everywhere, or you’ll clean it up. I’m not your personal slave.”

  “We have good coleslaw,” Heather volunteered.

  “Coleslaw it is, then, with a dish of pudding,” Asa said, returning the menu with a flourish.

  She hurried off to place his order. His eyes followed her. He inadvertently licked his lips.

  “Matthew 5:28,” Dale said, snapping Asa out of his reverie.

  “What?”

  “Matthew 5:28. Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”

  It was going to be a long lunch. He glanced around to see if a booth had come open. No such luck.

  “So what are the doctors sayin’ about your heart?” he asked Dale, changing the subject.

  The one thing Dale liked even more than quoting Scripture was discussing his ailments. He took Asa on a verbal tour of his body, starting with his toes, which had lately been aching with all this rain, and concluding ten minutes later with his scalp, which itched something terrible after his wife had switched brands of shampoo.

  “So,” Dale said, summarizing his ailments, “with all these other problems, I just hope I live long enough to get a heart transplant.”

  “We all hope that,” Asa said with a charity he didn’t feel.

  “I can’t help but wonder what the Lord’s kept me around for,” Dale pondered aloud.

  “There are many of us who wonder the same thing,” Asa said.

  “I tell you one thing,” Dale said. “If the Lord sees me through this, I’m gonna start my Scripture eggs ministry up again.”

  Three years before, Dale had housed a dozen chickens in his basement, feeding them scraps of paper with Scripture verses printed on them, then distributing their eggs to people who in his estimation needed saving—mostly Catholics, Democrats, and
Masons. Mercifully, the chickens soon died of a poultry disease and the town was temporarily spared from Dale’s attempts to save them.

  Fortunately, Heather appeared and placed Asa’s food before him. “Ham and beans, coleslaw, one pudding, and a glass of sweet tea. Enjoy.”

  “Thank you, Heather.”

  She turned to Dale. “Can I get you anything else, Mr. Hinshaw?”

  “No, that’s about it.”

  Heather bustled off. Dale stood, stretched, extracted a five-dollar bill from his wallet, and laid it on the counter, an exorbitant tip for Dale, who customarily left a Bible tract. Vinny rang him up at the cash register, Dale shuffled out the door into the rain, and all over the Coffee Cup people relaxed. Penny cleared away his dishes, swiped a wet rag across the counter, and then picked up the five-dollar bill and studied it.

  “That tightwad,” she said rather heatedly. “He’s got a lot of nerve.”

  “What’d he do now?” Asa asked.

  She handed him the five-dollar bill, which wasn’t a five-dollar bill at all. Though it appeared genuine on one side, on the other it read: Disappointed? You won’t be if you accept Jesus as your Savior.

  “Well, that’s Dale for you,” Asa said, handing it back.

  “That right there is why I don’t go to church,” Penny said. “Here Heather is working hard, trying to make it on her own, and Dale pulls that kind of nonsense. The cheapskate.” She called him a few more names that, though justified, were unsuitable for public places. Then she wadded up Dale’s “tip” and flung it in the wastebasket.

  She appeared to be launching into another tirade when the bell over the door tinkled and Ralph Hodge walked in. Ralph Hodge, who, while he’d lived in this town, was a pastor’s dream, the man they had warned about from their pulpits, the “before” picture, a walking abomination. That God hadn’t struck him dead was a puzzle to many. And yet in his depravity he served a purpose. No matter how bad things got, people could take comfort they hadn’t fallen as far as he had. But now Ralph was sober and holding down a job, and the town was sorely in need of a new bad example.