Signs and Wonders

by Philip Gulley

  Deena wasn’t sure what to talk with Ervin about when he walked her home. “Dear Abby” always said to talk about a man’s interests, but she didn’t know much about manhole covers.

  “So, Ervin, how did you come to be in charge of the manhole covers?”

  “Just lucky, I guess. I tell you, Deena, manhole covers are a lot more complicated than most folks realize. But people don’t even give them a second thought. They just think they’ll always be there when they need them. They just drive right over ’em. People sure are gonna be surprised some day when they wake up and all the manhole covers are gone, I tell you that right now.”

  “That’s a good point, Ervin. I must say I’ve never given it much thought myself.”

  “A lot of people are that way. They’re book smart, but they don’t have any common sense. Take me for instance, I’ve never been to college, but I know a whole lot more than people who’ve got two or three college degrees. Here I am, only twenty-four years old and already in charge of all the manhole covers.”

  “That’s certainly impressive,” Deena agreed. “Oh, look, I’m home. Thank you for the walk, Ervin. It was a pleasure to meet you.”

  He stopped past the next three evenings to ask her for a walk. She thanked him, but told him she didn’t feel well. Fern collared her at church the next Sunday. “You know, someone who’s sick as much as you are ought to have good health insurance. Did Ervin ever mention his benefits at the street department?”

  Deena is weary of the pressure. Besides trying to find her a husband, the Friendly Women have been hinting that it’s time she joined their venerable organization. Back in April, a group from the Circle visited and invited her to join so she could help make noodles for their annual Chicken Noodle Dinner.

  “I’d love to be in the Circle,” she told them. “But you only meet in the daytime and I work then. If you met in the evening, I could join you.”

  Fern Hampton smiled a pinched smile and said in a tight voice, “Now, Deena dear, you have to be flexible. We’ve been meeting in the daytime since our beginning. We can’t change our meeting time just to accommodate one person. That wouldn’t be fair, would it?”

  “I don’t see why we can’t meet evenings,” Gloria Gardner said. “There are quite a few young women at the meeting who work days. We retired folks can meet anytime. I think we need to accommodate the younger women.”

  They’ve had this same talk once a month for the past ten years. The noodle makers are dying off, and the younger women aren’t stepping up to the plate. They don’t want to make noodles. They want to open a food pantry or attend a women’s Bible study. Noodle making is not high on their list of priorities.

  Fern believes it’s a spiritual matter, that if the younger women loved the Lord, they’d quit their day jobs and make noodles with the Friendly Women.

  The younger women don’t like the Chicken Noodle Dinner. It’s too much work for the small amount of money they raise. When the Friendly Women visited her, Deena had suggested they hold an auction.

  “I think an auction is a wonderful idea,” Gloria Gardner said.

  Fern Hampton squirmed in her chair. “An auction? I’m not sure about that. That doesn’t seem very dignified.”

  Fern has annoyed so many of the women for so long, that when they sensed her discomfort with an auction, they championed the idea and scheduled it for the first Saturday in June. This turned Fern against Deena, who had not only spurned her nephew Ervin, but obviously didn’t respect Fern’s counsel on such matters.

  Fern was willing to forgive those transgressions until Deena, who wasn’t even a member of the Circle, barged in, without permission, and solicited donations for the auction. She talked Harvey Muldock into offering a tune-up at his garage. The Kroger gave a canned ham. Kyle at the barbershop donated a shave. Oscar and Livinia at the Dairy Queen contributed a dozen Dilly Bars. Dale Hinshaw gave a lawn mower that only needed one wheel, and Bea Majors volunteered a free evening of organ music. Deena offered to prepare a free dinner for two at the Legal Grounds, candlelight and soft music included.

  There is a sad lack of romantic opportunities in Harmony, which Deena believes is the reason she’s still single. They have couples bowling on Saturday nights at the Country Lanes. There’s Italian Night at the Coffee Cup on Wednesday nights, but it isn’t all that inspiring—Chef Boyardee spaghetti from a can and Bea Majors on the organ.

  The Circle held the auction in the meetinghouse basement. It was crowded, there not being anything else to do in town. Fern came with her nephew Ervin. Though Fern had initially resisted the auction, she couldn’t bear to see something happen without her having a say, so she came on board and declared herself in charge of the evening. She stood at the lectern, moving through the list of items, trying to talk fast like a real auctioneer. She didn’t have a gavel, so she used a meat-tenderizing mallet instead. She’d just sold off the canned ham when Deena slipped out to use the rest room. It was just the opportunity Fern had been looking for. “The next item up for bid is dinner with Deena Morrison.”

  Many of the men present wanted to bid on a dinner with Deena Morrison, but their wives wouldn’t have approved. Ervin was the only bachelor present. “Five dollars,” he shouted.

  “Going, going, gone to my nephew Ervin for five dollars!” Bang! went Fern with her meat-tenderizing mallet, as quick as she could, before Deena returned.

  Dinner with Ervin was not what Deena had in mind, which she pointed out to Fern afterward. “It wasn’t dinner with me. It was a dinner for two prepared by me.”

  “Well, now, Deena dear, I’m sure if you want to prepare the meal, that’ll be just fine with Ervin.”

  But what upset Deena most of all was that she had gone for only five dollars and that Bea Majors and her organ playing had gone for fifty.

  “Five dollars,” she told her grandmother Mabel. “Well, it’s good to know what I’m worth. I have a law degree, own a successful business, have been told I’m reasonably attractive, and I go for five dollars while Bea Majors goes for fifty. I don’t know why I stay in this town.”

  Deena has always been a disciple of positive thinking, but lately it’s been a difficult philosophy to sustain. She sits in church and watches the mothers with their children and aches to have a family. The worst Sundays are when Pastor Sam dedicates a baby. She doesn’t even go on those Sundays anymore.

  Another voice in her says she doesn’t need to be a wife or a mother to be happy, but that voice is growing quieter. She wants to love and be loved. When she was a little girl, she’d dream about who she’d marry. She had an idea of what he’d look like. But now she’s flexible, more willing to revise her image of the perfect husband, which is why she ended up going out to dinner with Ervin after all.

  The next Friday night, they drove to Cartersburg to the Masonic Lodge’s catfish buffet. Ervin complained about his job at the street department the whole time. “It’s the politics I don’t like. The boss’s nephew started a year after me and they already got him in charge of painting sidewalk curbs. Now you tell me if that’s right. That don’t seem right to me.”

  He tried to hold her hand across the pile of catfish bones, but she sat with her hands in her lap. When it came time to pay the check, Ervin said, “Well, I guess this is on you, seein’s how the dinner was your donation to the auction.”

  Deena paid, and they got in Ervin’s car and pulled out onto the highway. Ervin went home the long way, through the country. He drove slowly, every now and then pointing out a place of interest. He draped his arm across the backrest, his fingers scant inches from Deena’s shoulder. The car rolled to a stop.

  Oh, Lord, please don’t let him try to kiss me, she prayed. Then she got mad. If he thinks a five-dollar bid entitles him to a kiss, he’s crazy. He might have won the dinner, but dessert was not included.

  “Care for a breath mint?” he asked. “It’ll get rid of the fish taste.”

  “No, thank you.” Right now, the fish taste was her best defen
se.

  She wondered what she should do if he tried to kiss her. She’d read in “Dear Abby” that it was best to say no in a firm voice. Don’t be passive, “Dear Abby” warned. Hold your head up, look him in the eye and say, “NO!”

  Ervin reclined his car seat. She could sense his hand moving across her headrest, like a spider inching closer.

  “You have pretty hair,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Of course, long hair isn’t good for bathroom drains. It clogs ’em up something terrible. If we get together, you should maybe get it cut.”

  Her stomach rumbled. She thought it was her nerves, but she wasn’t sure. Maybe it was the fish. She could still taste it. Her mouth felt watery. She needed to spit. Her stomach rumbled again. There wasn’t time to roll down her window, so when Ervin leaned in for a kiss, she threw up on him instead.

  The rest of the way home Ervin drove considerably quicker. Deena apologized. He said it was okay, but she could tell by the way he set his mouth that it wasn’t okay. He dropped her off in front of her house. He didn’t even open her car door—he just sat there while she got out of the car, then drove off with scarcely a good-bye.

  As for Deena, she was feeling better. Her mother had always said vomiting made a person feel better, and she was right. Deena felt much improved. She went inside, brushed her teeth, and took a shower. It was too early to go to bed, so she put on a fresh change of clothes and went for a walk through town.

  She wondered if she should write Ervin a letter of apology for throwing up on him, then decided against it. That’s what he gets for bidding only five dollars, she told herself. I’m worth more than five dollars. He should apologize to me. Stopping the car to kiss me—what nerve! Who does he think he is? Who does he think I am?

  The next morning, she went to the Legal Grounds Coffee Shop early to bake muffins. A little after seven, Fern Hampton stopped in. “Oh, I see you’re feeling better. Ervin said you weren’t feeling well. He said you were feeling so bad he had to help you into the house. I tell you, Deena dear, there aren’t many gentlemen left like him anymore. Don’t you just want to be with him forever?”

  Deena held her head up, looked Fern in the eye, and said, “No!”

  Fern gave a pinched smile. “Now, Deena dear, don’t be hasty. After all, you’re not getting any younger. A girl in your situation can’t afford to be picky.”

  “I’m not interested. Now could I get you some coffee?”

  “No, thank you,” Fern said crisply, as she turned and marched out of the Legal Grounds.

  It was early yet. Deena poured a mug of coffee, sat down, and remembered how Wayne Fleming used to come to the shop about this time of day, before the customers arrived. They would talk, she and Wayne, and laugh and hold hands. She misses that. She didn’t think she would, but she does. When she sits in the meetinghouse on Sunday mornings and sees his wife lean into him, she misses it. On mornings like this, when everyone else in town has someone to sit across from and she doesn’t, she misses it.

  A silent prayer formed itself in her mind. Lord, I am so lonely. Please send someone into my life who will love me, who I can love back.

  Some people think Deena’s a snob, that she regards herself too highly. She is picky, that is true, but she believes pickiness is just another word for discernment. She would rather be alone than married to a man who thought an evening with her was worth only five dollars. She feels a strong obligation not to diminish her gene pool with the likes of Ervin.

  One of the Friendly Women gave her a book on how to be a submissive wife, which she pitched in the trash. She doesn’t want a boss; she wants a husband. But not just any husband—one she can love and respect, who’ll love and respect her back. Someone she can sit across the table from on Saturday mornings and hold hands. Someone who, when supper is finished, would dry and put away while she washed. Someone who might read the Herald and say, “Well, would you look at that. The Friendly Women are having an auction this Saturday. Let’s go.” And if he went, and her name came up, he would bid all the money he had to be with her.

  Five

  The Furnace Committee

  The meeting of the Furnace Committee was held the last Tuesday in June, Dale Hinshaw presiding. The committee was formed in the late 1990s to purchase and install a new furnace in the Harmony Friends meetinghouse. Everyone assumed the committee would disband with the new furnace in place, but Dale has kept it going. They meet once a month to inspect the furnace, change the filters, and fire the burners. That takes about fifteen minutes, after which they set up a card table in the church basement and play poker for matchsticks. There is a long list of men waiting to serve on the Furnace Committee.

  Their wives wonder why it’s necessary to check on the furnace so often and sometimes question their husbands. In defense of their furnace ministry, the men clip articles from the newspaper about entire families dying of carbon monoxide poisoning from bad furnaces. They cut out stories of houses burning to the ground and firemen saying, “We’re not quite sure, but it looks like the fire started in the furnace.” Once, they found an article about a church in Michigan whose furnace blew up during the worship service; a deacon was burned and nearly died. The Furnace Committee clipped that article and had Frank, the secretary, run it in the church newsletter along with the caption, This would never have happened in a church with a Furnace Committee!!! That kept their wives quiet a whole year.

  They play cards for about three hours—Dale Hinshaw, Harvey Muldock, Asa Peacock, and Ellis Hodge. They talk about fishing and tell jokes and discuss certain people in the church who aren’t quite as holy as everyone thinks. It’s about the only time Dale Hinshaw is bearable. The rest of the time he’s a little too pious to suit the other three, but on Furnace Committee night he leaves his Bible at home.

  They talk about their children. Ellis Hodge talks about Amanda, whom he and Miriam adopted from his no-good brother, Ralph. She’s in the eighth grade and is playing on a traveling girls’ softball team this summer, which perplexes Ellis, but he goes along with it.

  Asa Peacock has two children, both of whom are grown and live out of state. Dale and Dolores Hinshaw have three sons, Raymond Dale, Harold Dale, and Robert Dale.

  “So, Harvey, how are your kids?” Dale asked at the June meeting of the Furnace Committee.

  “Oh, they’re fine. Susie’s expecting again. Number four. Denise’s husband, Henry, just got promoted. He’s the foreman now. Bought hisself a new bass boat last week. We’re going fishing next month.”

  “How’s your boy doing?” Dale asked.

  “All right, I guess. He was home last week for a visit.”

  “Is he married yet?”

  “Nope, not yet.” Then Harvey changed the subject, even though Dale had more questions he’d wanted to ask about Harvey’s son.

  Harvey’s son is James. They call him Jimmy. Harvey has never really understood him. Jimmy makes sculptures out of scrap metal, watches foreign movies, and sews his own clothes. Harvey likes Norman Rockwell, watches old World War II movies, and wears Dickie pants and shirts that he buys at the Co-op. There’s not much common ground, and Harvey sometimes wonders if Jimmy is even his child, except they look a lot alike.

  Jimmy doesn’t come home much. He drives down for a short visit the week after Christmas and comes home for a long weekend every June. Harvey and Eunice don’t even try to buy him anything for Christmas. They used to buy him flannel shirts, but when they visited him in Chicago, they found the shirts still in their wrappers in the bottom drawer of his dresser. Now they just give him money in a card.

  When Jimmy was in high school, Eunice came home one day and found him in his bedroom crying. When she asked him what the matter was, he wouldn’t say, but she finally got it out of him that he thought something was wrong with him, that he had certain feelings for other boys. He begged her not to tell Harvey, so she hasn’t.

  But being a mother, she had to do something, so she took Jimmy to talk wi
th Pastor Taylor, who was the minister back then at Harmony Friends Meeting. No one had ever told Pastor Taylor anything like this, so he wasn’t sure what to do either. Pastor Taylor preferred the old days, when people didn’t feel compelled to tell a pastor their secrets. Some things he didn’t want to know. He said a little prayer for Jimmy, then suggested maybe Jimmy go hunting and fishing a little more and things would turn out all right.

  “You probably just haven’t met the right girl,” Pastor Taylor said.

  When Jimmy went away to college, Eunice would pray he’d bring a nice girl home some weekend, but he never did. Then when he graduated from college, he moved to Chicago and has lived there ever since.

  On his last trip home, he’d suggested to his mother maybe it was time to tell his dad he was gay, but Eunice wouldn’t hear of it. “I wish you wouldn’t,” she said. “It will only hurt him and he won’t understand. I know your father. He’ll think it’s his fault. I don’t think you ought to come out of the attic just yet.”

  “It’s coming out of the closet, Mom, not coming out of the attic.”

  Jimmy was secretly relieved not to have to tell his father. He had talked about it with a therapist, who had recommended he tell Harvey. It had sounded like a good idea in the therapist’s office, three hundred miles from his father. But when he was sitting across from his dad at the kitchen table in late June, it didn’t seem like a good idea after all, so he kept quiet.

  The thing is, Harvey has suspected for some time that Jimmy might be gay. He isn’t married, he’s never had a girlfriend, and he isn’t a Catholic priest, so he must be gay, Harvey reasoned. But he’s never said anything to Eunice. He doesn’t want to hurt her. She wouldn’t understand. She would blame herself, thinking maybe she had something to do with his being that way.