Signs and Wonders

by Philip Gulley

  Bob phoned the pastor of the Baptist church to see if he would conduct his father’s funeral. He was sympathetic, clucking his tongue in all the right places. Then he told Bob he was leaving town the next day to attend a Mighty Men of God Conference in the city and suggested Bob give Sam Gardner a call.

  Sam doesn’t go to Mighty Men of God Conferences, or any kind of conference for that matter, after the Finance Committee took the money from his professional expense account to fix a leak in the meetinghouse roof. So when Bob called him to do the funeral, he was without an excuse and consequently stuck with the unenviable task of thinking up something nice to say about Robert Miles, Sr.

  “Let’s keep it simple,” Bob suggested. “No showing. Just a funeral and a graveside service. Tell the Circle not to bother with a dinner.”

  Not that the Friendly Women’s Circle would have bothered with a dinner anyway, having boycotted the Herald and Bob since March, when, on a slow news day, he’d written an editorial calling for an investigation of the Circle and their fund-raising efforts for Brother Norman’s shoe ministry to the Choctaw Indians.

  You do not dump on the Circle and then expect them to drop everything and whip up a funeral dinner in your hour of need. Atonement must be made, and forgiveness sought, which will not be granted, though it should be asked for nonetheless, in order to provide the ladies of the Circle one more opportunity to recall their disappointment with you.

  The funeral was held on Thursday morning at ten o’clock. By nine forty-five, all the seats were taken, and Johnny Mackey and Sam had to carry extra chairs in from the garage. Bob Sr., it turns out, was a member of the Odd Fellows Lodge, which they hadn’t remembered until Kyle Weathers pointed it out at the Monday night lodge meeting.

  “Yeah, we joined the same day, April 16, 1977. He showed up a few times, then got mad and stopped comin’. But he’s still a member. His name’s on the books.”

  So the Odd Fellows turned out for the funeral in all their splendor, wearing their ceremonial sashes, and hijacked the proceedings, telling Sam it was their sacred obligation to honor their fallen brother. That was fine with Sam, since it meant he wouldn’t have to stand at the lectern and lie about how they were better people for having known Bob Sr., but are grateful he’s in a better place because he hadn’t been happy for the past several years, so in that sense his death was a blessing.

  Instead, Harvey Muldock went forward and repeated the Odd Fellows prayer, then talked about how in our Father’s house were many Odd Fellow lodges, and that Bob Sr. had gone to prepare a place for them. He mentioned the last time he’d seen Bob Sr. alive, on Monday morning, riding through town with his son and Johnny Mackey in Johnny’s pickup, and how Bob Sr. had seemed so full of life. Then, just that quick, like a snap of the fingers, he was gone. Harvey shook his head at the mystery of it.

  They loaded Bob Sr. in the hearse, now in fine repair and sporting a fresh coat of wax, and drove to the cemetery on Lincoln Street across from the Co-op. The Odd Fellows bore him to his grave, then clustered around the tent. Sam read the Twenty-Third Psalm and said a prayer thanking God for sending them Bob Sr., trying not to sound too happy that the time had come to give him back.

  People turned to look at Bob. He knew he should say something nice about his father, but nothing came. Fifty-some years he’d spent with his father and now he was unable to think up one good word to say. Nothing. Couldn’t say his father had ever taken him fishing. Or played pitch and catch. Or tucked him in bed and told him he loved him.

  “Uh, well, I appreciate you all being here. I know my father wasn’t the easiest man to get along with. Not much pleased him.”

  Everyone looked at the ground.

  Arvella tried to salvage the occasion. “He did like Chee-tos,” she said.

  People nodded their heads in agreement, then began drifting away from the tent in small clusters, discussing lunch plans.

  This is what comes from not loving, Bob thought. You die and the nicest thing people can say about you is that you liked Chee-tos.

  Bob has never been the kind of man to make solemn vows. But standing next to his father’s casket, considering an empty hole and an emptier life, he pledged that by the time he died, there’d be something good to say about him.

  Fifteen

  Halloween

  People have been gearing up for Halloween. Ned Kivett at the Five and Dime brought out the candy corn he didn’t sell last Halloween and set it on the checkout counter, next to the plastic vampire teeth and fake blood. Amanda Hodge was selling pumpkins on the sidewalk in front of Grant’s Hardware Emporium, next to the wheelbarrows. She had planted the pumpkins back in the spring, after the last frost, weeded around them during the summer, then picked them in mid-October. They were beautiful pumpkins, like fat, full moons.

  Pastor Jimmy at the Harmony Worship Center ordered his flock to boycott Halloween. When his sheep began to murmur against him, he proposed they hold an end-times party instead, where the children could dress as their favorite character from the book of Revelation and get candy.

  “How’s that any different from Halloween?” they asked. “Why don’t we just send our kids trick-or-treating, like we’ve always done?”

  Pastor Jimmy is not fond of being second-guessed. He believes he speaks for God and people should do what he says. But he’s in the wrong town for unquestioned obedience. With a scarcity of entertainment opportunities, second-guessing is a cherished pastime.

  “So whadya got against trick-or-treating anyway?” they asked him.

  He said it was coercive, that threatening to trick someone who doesn’t give you a treat was tyranny and a poor example to the children.

  “What about last Sunday when you told us if we didn’t tithe, God would punish us? Wasn’t that tyranny?”

  Pastor Jimmy made a mental note to preach on Nadab and Abihu, who were consumed with fire after bucking the Lord. That he wasn’t the Lord escaped his notice.

  Sam Gardner is all for Halloween, mostly because Pastor Jimmy and Dale Hinshaw are against it. Dale believes the youth of the town are just itching to worship Satan and sacrifice a household pet or two, and Halloween is the only excuse they need.

  At the October elders meeting, Dale suggested the meeting put on a haunted house in the meetinghouse basement. He wanted Sam to dress in a devil’s costume, and have rats and sulfur and screaming. Maybe a fake severed limb or two. Then, when the kids were scared and crying for their mothers, they’d not let them out of the basement until they accepted Jesus as their savior.

  Dale has been watching the Reverend Johnny LaCosta and taking him seriously. The week before, he’d found his cat dead on the street in front of his house and was certain devil worshipers were behind it. The cat had tire tracks on it, but Dale knew for a fact it had died from ritual torture.

  Sam sat wondering why Halloween has taken such a hit. When he was growing up, Halloween was mostly about popcorn balls, throwing corn on wooden porches, and an occasional flaming bag of manure left on a grouch’s doorstep. The problem, he decided, was people like Pastor Jimmy and Dale, self-appointed guardians of truth, who saw demons lurking behind every bush.

  “I don’t think a haunted house is a good idea,” Miriam said.

  “There was a time,” Dale said, “when people cared about Satan infesting our youth. But if you don’t care, I can’t make you care. If you want to turn this town over to the Satanists, that’s your business.”

  This was vintage Dale Hinshaw, exaggerating potential danger in order to make resistance to his ideas seem reckless and un-Christian. New elders are a bit shocked the first time Dale questions their commitment to the Lord, but by the third or fourth meeting they’re accustomed to it. They smile politely, thank Dale for his concern, then move on to the next agenda item, which is what they did when he suggested turning the meetinghouse basement into hell.

  “Some of our teenagers have volunteered to play their guitars during meeting for worship,” Judy Iverson said. “Wh
at should I tell them?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Sam said. He would have agreed to a drum-beating tribesman with a bone through his nose if it got Bea Majors off the organ.

  It went downhill from there. Harvey Muldock proposed hanging a sign in the bathroom cautioning people not to use so much toilet paper. Fern Hampton complained that certain people weren’t closing their eyes during prayer. Dale made a valiant effort to resurrect his haunted house. It was ten o’clock before Miriam could herd the ponies back to the corral, say a closing prayer, and send folks home.

  The next morning at breakfast, Sam asked his boys what they wanted to be for Halloween.

  “A pirate,” Levi said.

  “I want to be a football player,” said Addison. “That means you’ll have to buy me shoulder pads, a helmet, football pants and shirt, and a jock strap in case I get hit in the crunch.”

  Sam chuckled. “I think you mean crotch, not crunch. And I hate to burst your bubble, kiddo, but you might want to come up with a different costume.”

  “How about a bum with a game leg?”

  “That’s better,” Sam agreed.

  “Will you buy me crutches?”

  “We can borrow a pair from Johnny Mackey at the funeral home.”

  The day before Halloween, they went up to the attic and rooted around in a trunk of old clothes for costumes. Sam sawed off the end of a rake handle and fashioned a peg leg for Levi the pirate. Barbara sewed him an eye patch, then taught Addison how to walk with crutches.

  Sam took the boys trick-or-treating, while Barbara stayed home to pass out candy. Having lived in Harmony most of his life, Sam knows who gives the best treats. They stopped at Opal Majors’s house for popcorn balls. Arvella Miles makes caramel apples, so they visited there. Dale Hinshaw hands out Bible tracts about a little boy who was struck by a car on Halloween and died before he could ask the Lord’s forgiveness for trick-or-treating, thus ensuring his eternal damnation. They skipped Dale’s house.

  Dale has always been more vigilant in his faith than most, but in the past couple years his religion has had an edge to it. His insurance business has been dying, and he’s been looking for someone to blame. He listens to radio and television preachers and believes everything he hears. Discernment has never been Dale’s strong suit. He likes easy explanations. He likes having someone else to pin his troubles on—the gays, the liberals, and the one-world-order people.

  Dale’s problems are his own doing. People come in for a quote on homeowners’ insurance, and the next thing they know Dale is asking them if they would mind going to the Lord for a word of prayer.

  “Yes, I do mind,” they would like to say. “I came in here for insurance, not a revival.” But they can’t say that, for fear Dale will tell everyone they’re atheists. Instead, they smile awkwardly and say, “Well, sure, that would be fine.” The next thing they know, Dale is looming over them, urging them to their knees, beseeching the Lord to forgive their many sins.

  Dale believes Satan is attacking his business because he’s been praying with his customers. His response has been to pray longer and more fervently. The more he prays, the more his customers are inclined to drive to Cartersburg for their insurance needs.

  It worries Sam that more people seem to be thinking like Dale. If the weather is clear, and he turns the antenna just so, he can get Channel 43 from the city. He listens to preachers tell vast arenas full of people how God wants them to be rich and how if they’re sick, it’s because they’ve sinned. The preachers are draped in gold jewelry. The only jewelry Sam has is his wedding band, which Barbara bought at Kmart on a blue-light special. Sam would like to grab those preachers by their tailored lapels and haul them to a children’s hospital, so they could tell him what sin those children committed.

  He can watch only about five minutes before he starts talking back to the television set. Barbara marches in and shuts it off. “Why do you watch that nonsense?” she asks. “You know it makes you mad. Why do you bother?”

  “Sermon ideas,” he tells her.

  He’s been working on a sermon in favor of Halloween, explaining how it began in the ninth century as All Hallows’ Eve to honor the less-famous saints who would otherwise be forgotten, the Christians who were martyred in obscurity, perhaps burned at the stake in a small, out-of-the-way town. Sam feels a connection to them and wonders if he will likely be hounded to death in a small, out-of-the-way town.

  The Sunday after Halloween, he preached about appreciating the little-known saints, like Ananias of Damascus, who restored the Apostle Paul’s sight, then was never heard from again. He was a saint who did his work, then went quietly away, not expecting to be called down front during worship and given a certificate to the local Bible bookstore.

  “This is the model for Christian service,” Sam said in his sermon. “To labor for the Lord quietly, then move on, with no concern for honor or tribute.”

  There are some people Sam wished would quietly move on, though he refrained from naming names. Everyone knew he was talking about Fern Hampton, who the month before had thrown a fit when Sam inadvertently failed to call her name during Teacher Recognition Sunday. Fern had stomped out of worship. They tried to appease her by creating a special award and presenting it to her the following week, but it hadn’t helped. Five weeks later, she was still pouting.

  Sam has a theory: the people who talk most about being Christian are the ones least likely to act like Christians. He’s been conducting an experiment during the elders meetings by observing how often each elder mentions his or her commitment to the Lord. Fern Hampton and Dale Hinshaw are running neck and neck with thirteen mentions per meeting. Miriam Hodge and Asa Peacock, who are too busy laboring for the Lord to boast about it, have gone three meetings without a mention.

  After Sam gave his sermon, Dale Hinshaw stood and talked about the end-times party at the Harmony Worship Center and how twenty-three children had rebuked Satan, given their hearts to the Lord, and pledged to tithe their allowance. “I just want to say how glad I am that some churches still have a burden for the lost, and I just pray this church will return to the Lord and just plead for his gracious, tender mercy, before he hauls off and smites the whole lot of us.”

  Trying to follow the logic of Dale’s arguments had given Sam fierce headaches—stabbing pains between the eyes moving to a general throbbing at the back of his head. He’d gone to see Dr. Neely, who’d asked him when he had the headaches.

  “Mostly during elders meetings,” Sam had told him.

  “Isn’t Dale Hinshaw an elder at your church?”

  “Yes,” Sam said.

  “And I suppose you’ve been trying to make sense out of what he says?”

  “Yes,” admitted Sam.

  “Don’t,” Dr. Neely said. “It’ll tax your brain. Just smile, then change the subject. Trust me on this. I’ve seen it before.”

  Sam had taken his two boys by Dr. Neely’s house for Halloween. The doctor and his wife live in a small house the next block over, having sold their old home place to Sam and Barbara two years past. Some thirty years before, the Neelys’ little boy, Jack, had died of leukemia. His name and height were still marked on the wall behind the curtains in Sam’s dining room.

  Dr. Neely had peered at Addison, momentarily confused. He looked like Jack. The dust of freckles, the short thatch of hair, the gapped-toothed grin. He’d stooped down. “And what are you supposed to be, young man?”

  “A bum with a game leg.”

  “Oh, yes, I see. Would you like me to take a look at your leg? Maybe I can fix it. I’m a doctor, you know.”

  “It isn’t really hurt. I’m just pretending,” Addison explained.

  “Oh, well, that’s good to hear. I’d hate to see a little boy with a game leg.”

  Dr. Neely straightened up. Sam could hear his bones creak.

  “How’re your headaches, Sam?” he asked.

  “Much better, thank you.”

  He dropped two Milky Ways in the boys�
� sacks and rubbed their heads. “You got some fine sons here, Sam. Take good care of them.”

  “I sure will. Boys, what do you say to Dr. Neely?”

  “Thank you,” they cried out.

  That’s why Sam liked Halloween. The slight smile of a neighbor as he leaned forward to drop Milky Ways into bags. Walking door to door with his boys—Levi and his Magic Marker pirate’s stubble, Addison hobbling along on Johnny Mackey’s crutches. The fat, orange moon floating just above the trees. Amanda Hodge, selling her pumpkins on a Saturday morning, earning college money so as not to be a burden. Even Ned Kivett’s candy corn, aged to perfection. Even that.

  Listening to Dale speak, Sam thought of Pastor Jimmy and Dale boasting how they loved the Lord, but never trusting love’s power to redeem. Seeing evil where evil wasn’t. In a way, Sam felt sorry for them—fear and anxiety being heavy yokes to bear.

  Meanwhile, he was grateful Christmas was still two months away, that he had a brief respite before Dale went on the attack against Santa Claus. Sam could hear him now.

  “Did you ever notice how Santa is spelled with the same letters as Satan? And that he wears a red suit just like Beelzebub? I tell you, people, we need to be standing firm against this. It troubles me that the rest of you have turned your faces from the truth. Here’s a guy who breaks into people’s houses, and you’re teaching your children it’s okay.”

  Classic Dale, looking for evil where there wasn’t any. Which is why when Sam had driven past Dale’s house the week before and his cat had darted out from underneath a parked car and Sam swerved but hit him anyway, he hadn’t stopped to tell anyone. Who needed the trouble? Not him, that’s for sure.

  In addition to popcorn balls, throwing corn on wooden porches, and an occasional flaming bag of manure left on a grouch’s doorstep, another Halloween staple of Sam’s youth was the Great Pumpkin Toss, which began as most grand traditions do—inadvertently.