All Is Swell

by Robert Farrell Smith

  For another moment there was silence.

  “Go on your way,” a voice finally yelled back. “I ain’t fit for you to waste your time on.”

  I would have been happy to obey. Apparently, Elder Boone felt differently.

  “We’re not leaving,” he informed Brother Heck.

  “Send Narlette away,” he yelled out from the coop. “I don’t want her to see me like this.”

  Narlette skipped off as if this were suddenly just a big game.

  “She’s gone,” Elder Boone hollered.

  I was born a member. I had grown up singing “I Hope They Call Me on a Mission.” I had grown a foot or two—topping out at a couple of inches over the six-foot mark. I had seen dozens of videos, taken classes, and read sacks full of books on the missionary experience. I had been prepped and readied. Or so I thought.

  Brother Heck stepped out of the coop and stood there. He looked to be about forty-five years old, and he wore no shirt or shoes, just a pair of ripped and ragged pants. He was covered in blue paint and feathers. His painted hair was sticking up in clumps and matted in strips. There were bits of straw and dirt and feathers all over him. His round belly contracted and expanded like a blue balloon with each breath. As he stepped out of the coop, he was followed by a flock of spotted blue chickens. He hung his head dejectedly.

  “What have you done?” Elder Boone asked.

  Brother Heck looked up at the two of us and then hung his head back down. With his voice and gaze directed toward the ground, he spoke. “I see you got yourself a new companion.”

  “This is Elder Williams,” Elder Boone introduced. “We just got into town.”

  “Nice to meet you,” Brother Heck mumbled, still looking at the ground.

  “Good to meet you,” I replied, trying hard not to smile.

  “Have you been smoking again?” Elder Boone asked.

  Brother Heck glumly nodded. “I’m helpless.”

  “And . . . ?” Elder Boone prodded.

  “And I felt so awful about indulging that I tarred and feathered myself. ’Ceptin I didn’t have no tar, so I used paint.”

  We stood there silently for a moment.

  “Patty’s going to be awful sore,” he said. “She was planning to use that paint on the house.”

  “There are other ways to repent,” Elder Boone offered.

  “I’m just so carnal,” he moaned. “Weak as taffy.”

  The chickens grew bored and wandered off to find something more exciting to watch. Brother Heck took a seat on an overturned paint can. He put his head in his hands, smearing more paint on his face as he did so.

  “Where is Sister Heck?” Elder Boone asked.

  “Virgil’s Find,” he replied. “She went after some fabric. Narlette needs a new dress.”

  We sprayed Brother Heck off with a hose and then helped him clean up the paint in the chicken coop. During the cleanup we gave him a lesson on repentance and respecting ourselves enough not to paint our body-temples. He seemed forlorn and overly willing to change. It was obvious he had been through this sort of thing before. He showed us where he hid his cigarettes, and we burned them in one of the metal trash receptacles out back.

  We left before his wife, Patty, came home. As we walked down through the forest and into the meadow, Elder Boone told me about the other times he had been summoned out here to help Brother Heck. Once they had to coax him out of a tree after Brother Heck had exiled himself to its tallest branches. On another occasion he had taped his legs to the spigot out back and then commenced to whip himself on his bare back with a fly swatter. As a form of punishment, that one was largely ineffective. Folks never knew what Brother Heck would submit himself to after a moment of nicotine-tinged weakness. Elder Boone also informed me that Brother Heck was one of the more active members in the area.

  We came down out of the forest and into the meadow. The place was now alive. School was out, and children ran around, climbing through the two aged and dilapidated wagons. Like small mounds of earth, they would rise and crumble above the long grass. Collectively they gave the meadow a soul. We walked past Roswell and Feeble again, past the cemetery, and home to our abode.

  I lay down on my bed and stared at the ceiling.

  “Really, it gets better,” Elder Boone said.

  “It gets better, or I get numb?”

  “Some of both, I suppose.”

  One thing was for sure, I couldn’t see it getting any worse. I was so homesick. I closed my eyes. Darkness helped. With my eyes closed I could almost imagine myself on a normal mission. I inventoried the few things I had going for me. My companion seemed like a decent person. If I had been put with anyone else, I would probably have been unable to suppress the urge to simply run away.

  My gloomy thoughts were interrupted by a knock at the door.

  Elder Boone opened the door to skinny old Roswell Ford, who was dancing with anticipation.

  “What’s up?” Elder Boone asked.

  “Feeble’s having a vision,” he hollered. “Come quickly, I’m betting this one’s a big’un.” He ran off.

  “Feeble’s having a vision,” Elder Boone repeated to me.

  “What?” I asked.

  Elder Boone ignored me and ran out the door. I followed.

  Thelma’s Way was moving. Waves of people washed across the meadow and lapped against the boardinghouse. Soon the place was surrounded by kids and adults of all makes and models. The feature attraction: Feeble Ford.

  He was on the porch, standing with his arms outstretched. He was dancing a little jig. I was amazed. Feeble had looked so planted in that chair of his; now here he was wiggling about like an over-stimulated teenager. The crowd was humming with excitement.

  “Look at Feeble.”

  “Feeble’s on one.”

  “What’s Feeble going to say?”

  Feeble was stamping his feet and shimmying as if he heard music playing. He waved his hat around, and then kicked one of the porch chairs for effect. It was very dramatic.

  I came to a standstill behind Elder Boone. The crowd stood quietly, watching Feeble’s every twitch and slither. Finally he stopped, clapped his hands, and sang, “Praise God, from Whom All Blessings Flow.” Then he pointed at me.

  At me!

  His arm shook, and his feet stamped. Then, as if they had been poured into the top of his head, words ran out of his mouth. “Things are going to change!” he yelled. “Things are going to change. Don’t take life at face value. A nickel can appear to be a dime.” He clapped his hands and fell back into a chair, closing his eyes. His red nose sizzled. His vision was completed.

  Everyone turned to look at me. I looked behind me, hoping they were focusing on something else. My short brown hair felt as if it were contracting, and my face was painted red with the blush of prophecy.

  The townfolks gawked, eyeing me like fuzzy food that had been left in the back of the refrigerator. Seconds later, almost in unison, they turned their attention from me and began the work of critiquing Feeble’s vision.

  “Awful short.”

  “Not much substance.”

  “He sure got all fired up for just a few words.”

  “I liked his last one better.”

  Roswell spoke. “Has Feeble ever been wrong?”

  The crowd collectively shook their heads no.

  “I’d wager anyone of yous that Feeble’s words will come true,” Roswell ranted. “Anyone?”

  No takers.

  “Chickens,” Roswell spat. “Afraid of a little bet.”

  “What the heck did Feeble mean?” a woman shouted, ignoring Roswell and getting back to the vision. “Things are always changing here.”

  Folks went on speculating for a few minutes. I saw Brother Heck through the crowd. He had Narlette in hand and was wearing a big pair of overalls. I could see spots of blue in his ears and on one of his elbows where we had failed to wash him clean. His graying hair was wet, and his foggy eyes looked full of thoughts he wasn’t properl
y thinking. He was tall, and his wide shoulders gave the impression of constant attentiveness. He was actually a rather distinguished-looking man, if you could mentally get past the first impression he had so vividly painted.

  The crowd broke up. People wandered off pondering Feeble’s prophetic words. Brother Heck sheepishly sidled up to us. “Elders,” he acknowledged.

  Narlette smiled.

  “Feeble had at it,” Brother Heck commented. “I hope this vision don’t make everyone crazy again.”

  Again?

  “He didn’t say much,” Elder Boone pointed out.

  “Appears he’s taken a shine to this’un,” Brother Heck said, nodding toward me. “I guess big things are in store for you.” He stuck out his hand and introduced himself, as if this were the first time we had ever met. I suppose he was wanting to start anew. I couldn’t fault him for that.

  “I’m Brother Ricky Heck,” he said proudly.

  “I’m Elder Trust Williams,” I responded, shaking his hand.

  Brother Heck took Narlette’s hand and walked off.

  “I think he likes you,” Elder Boone said.

  I couldn’t do this. This was not right. I must have gotten the wrong mission call. That was it. My real call must have gotten mixed up in the mail. I had to tell someone. Right now there was some elder in France who should be here, someone who had a command of backwoods etiquette. Someone who was fluent in ’ceptin’s and ain’ts.

  Elder Boone patted me on the back as we walked back to our home. “I’m glad you’re here,” he said.

  I missed Southdale.

  I missed civilization.

  6

  Green Eyes

  Grace Heck was clairvoyant. She could sense and tell things about others that were unknown even to them. Grace’s father figured this was a result of her having accidentally hit her head against a large piece of limestone down by the Girth when she was seven. Her mother saw the gift as coming directly from God at her birth. Either way, Grace was pretty perceptive. Unfortunately, she couldn’t seem to see her own future too clearly these days.

  When Grace had turned twenty, her whole world had changed. Her reflection in the river looked unfamiliar. She had grown up being liked by pretty much everyone, but at the moment she didn’t even know if she cared for herself. For the first time, she saw her life as lacking. What place did she as a woman have here in Thelma’s Way?

  She had hoped that having missionaries would be good for the town. But so far they had proved to be little more than an irritant—a new set of outsiders to look down their noses at everyone. Elder Frates had treated Thelma’s Way as if he were the master teacher, and they were all the same slow child who couldn’t quite grasp what he was saying. His act of trying to pompously reorganize the town was too much for Grace. She had promised herself that she wouldn’t return to church until the full-time missionaries were a thing of the past.

  She closed the cupboards and sat back in one of the wooden chairs. She looked around the quaint little home and sighed. A few months back, she had discovered this small cabin hidden deep among the thick mountain trees. She observed it for a while before bravely trying the door handle and finding it unlocked. Curiosity took her inside.

  It was a nice place, though clearly abandoned. She had cleaned it out and fixed it up a bit. She spent many days and nights in it hidden away from everything besides her books. She was always checking out books from the Virgil’s Find public library in hopes of broadening her universe. She dreamed about life outside of Thelma’s Way, about any life different from the one she knew.

  Grace was moving and simple in appearance. Her most recognizable features were her dark green eyes and her thick red hair, which was usually tied back behind her neck. The oldest of the three Heck children, she loved her family, although she found herself being more and more compelled to stay away these days.

  What with the shelter of her newfound cabin, it was becoming increasingly rare for her to leave the sanctuary of the forest and wander into the open meadow, and now, after what she had just witnessed, she was determined never to come down. She had been secretly watching as her painted father had humiliated himself in front of the missionaries. She had looked on in horror as the elders had hosed her dad off and then lectured him on the Word of Wisdom. Embarrassed was too mild a word.

  She had considered storming out of the trees and insisting that the elders leave her father alone, but something in her seemed to snap. The emptiness that had been creeping up on her for months was suddenly upon her in full force.

  All she could do was watch.

  Later, from behind the boardinghouse, she watched Feeble prophesy and point at the new elder. Curiosity wiggled through her veins, her mind flipping back and forth like the adjusting blades of a mini-blind. The new elder intrigued her. He was good-looking. Grace feared the new womanly feelings that were growing inside of her—feared and fanned.

  After Feeble finished prophesying, she slipped through the back of the cemetery and down to the Girth River. She sat down on the edge of the ground and stuck her feet into the water like prongs into a socket. Her body jolted to the touch of the water. She washed her hands and took her hair out of its tie.

  “Missionaries,” she whispered.

  Grace was lonely.

  7

  It Starts

  Saturday, our early morning companionship study was interrupted by reveille. I looked out our window to see Roswell blowing a bugle in the middle of the meadow as the sun rose. It was pre-planning meeting day. We went outside, hurrying over as if something important were actually happening. A small crowd had already gathered by the time we got there. Roswell put down the bugle and caught his breath.

  “We will now hear from Sister Watson,” he announced.

  Sister Watson, the bishop’s wife, stepped up beside Roswell.

  “I expected more of a crowd,” she said.

  There weren’t too many people in the meadow. Feeble’s vision a few days back had been a much bigger draw. But then, Feeble had had the courtesy to prophesy at a reasonable hour of the day.

  “I’m certain our ancestors are disappointed,” Sister Watson scolded. “Here it is the pre-planning meeting for our sesquicentennial, and you’re all that have shown up.”

  I couldn’t tell if she was insulting us or not.

  “Some may say, ‘But Sister Watson, the celebration isn’t for almost two years.’ To that I respond, ‘Remember the slow turtle.’”

  Everyone nodded as if they knew exactly what she was talking about. Having nothing to lose, I nodded too.

  “I feel inspired,” Sister Watson continued, “to have the full-time missionaries come up and give you all an impromptu lesson on participation. Elders.”

  I looked at Elder Boone. He was too busy pushing me forward to meet my eyes.

  “You go do it, Elder,” he said, smiling. “It will be good for you.”

  I wanted to protest, but Elder Boone shhhed me. The tiny crowd split. I reluctantly walked through and to the front. Sister Watson glanced at my tag to make sure she was remembering my name correctly.

  “Some of you may remember Elder Williams from Feeble’s last vision a couple days back. Well, Bishop Watson and I had the opportunity to meet with him the other day, and I can honestly say that he seems to have fewer flaws than the last missionary the mission sent us—the one with the funny, puffy booklets. With that, I give you: Elder Williams.”

  I looked at the small group. Brother Heck was there, and Feeble, and a few other folks I was beginning to recognize. Elder Boone smiled at me. I really hated public speaking.

  “Well,” I began. “I know that participation is important. I think that people need to participate in things that are worthwhile.

  “I came out on my mission a little later than most elders. I attended some college before coming out. It was a big decision for me. I am now happy to be serving on my mission and participating in the work.”

  Digby Heck, Brother Heck’s teenag
e son, yawned. Sister Watson tapped her watch, indicating that I had taken enough time.

  “In closing, I guess I would just like to say that I know participation is true, and—”

  “Thank you, Elder Williams,” Sister Watson interrupted.

  I walked back to my companion. This time the gathering didn’t split, so I had to sort of push my way through.

  “Thank you, Elder Williams,” Sister Watson repeated when I had settled back into my place. “I think we all need to remember that Elder Williams here is real new to the mission field. Anyhow, I was hoping for a larger crowd so that we could get the preparations to this pageant off with a bang.”

  BOOM!

  I thought for a moment that my head had exploded. My ears vibrated and rang. I looked to the side of me and saw a man pointing a gun toward the sky.

  “Yes, ma’am!” he hollered.

  “It’s a little early for firing that thing, Pete,” Brother Heck said.

  “Sorry,” Pete replied.

  “Normally you all know how I discourage Pete from shooting that thing off,” Sister Watson said. “But I’m happy to see a little enthusiasm this morning.”

  Elder Boone leaned into me and whispered, “Pete loves guns.”

  I moved to the other side of my companion.

  “As we all know, there has already been some arguing over who would play what in our sesquicentennial play,” Sister Watson continued. “But I want you all to know that those people working behind the scenes and building the stage are just as important as those who play the leads. To make things easier, I’ve decided that when the time comes, my husband and I will play the two main parts, and we’ll put the rest of the assignments in a hat and draw names. That way everything’s fair.”

  No one protested.

  “As most of you know, the celebration is about twenty months from now, on the exact date of our town’s inception. We are starting preparations early because we want to make sure that we do things right. We have a lot of props to build, as well as a stage. The play itself, tentatively titled “All Is Swell,” should be completed in a few months, and at that point we will begin handing out parts. There will be songs to learn and costumes to make. I would have had the entire script finished by now, but Paul stealing the Book of Mormon has caused me to have to rewrite.” Sister Watson took in air. “This isn’t going to be as simple or as easy as our usual town plays. But don’t get discouraged—we will have our ancestors on the other side of the veil pushing us around. Any questions?”