by Jan Karon
‘What time d’ye need it?’
‘Ten o’clock on the dot.’
‘I’ll git it loaded an’ be back before ten. How’s that?’
‘That’ll work. Can Sammy use a little extra cash?’
‘Yessir, he can. That citation costed him a hundred an’ fifty dollars.’
‘Ask him to be ready when you bring the mulch. We’ll stop at Lew’s to see the car; I need to get my hog-ring kit out of the glove compartment. Then we’ll run over to Children’s Hospital to the hedge project. We can knock it out in maybe four hours.’
‘Yessir, this is y’r last chance to prune before winter. I can go over with ye, I can give a hand.’
‘Thanks, but I want him to be stuck with me for a while. Just the two of us. It’ll be good punishment for rotten behavior.’
Harley cackled. ‘I ain’t never knowed nobody like you, Rev’rend.’
‘An’ I ain’t never knowed nobody like you, Harley.’
How was he really feeling about all this, about some out-of-control kid stealing his car and wrecking it?
He went deep and discovered the truth. He was furious.
Chapter Seventeen
We should have a Main Street Grill reunion,’ he said.
‘Great idea,’ said Mule. ‘I’ll give Percy a call after church tomorrow—invite him to join us at Feel Good. Maybe Tuesday.’
‘Save your breath,’ said J.C. ‘Percy and Velma are out of town.’
‘Where?’ he said.
‘On a cruise in the Bahamas.’
‘On a cruise? In the Bahamas?’
‘He deserves it,’ said J.C. ‘For forty-some years, he got up at four o’clock every morning so he could open at five.’
‘For forty-some years, I’ve gotten up at five, and I’ve never been on a cruise.’
‘If you get up at five instead of four, you don’t get a cruise. You get a road trip in a ’49 Chevy Cabriolet.’
Mule stirred his coffee. ‘Anytime you say, boys, y’all can look like you’ve been on a cruise in th’ Bahamas.’
‘Here it comes,’ said J.C. ‘He gets ten percent every time he drags some poor geezer up to A Cut Above. They put th’ guy in th’ box, hit th’ spray nozzle, and out walks George Hamilton.’
‘Who’s George Hamilton?’ said Mule.
‘I know what I’m havin’,’ said J.C. ‘Two eggs over easy, peppered bacon, a buttered biscuit, cheese grits, and, out of respect to my wife, the captain, a fat-free yogurt.’
He studied the bill of fare.
Welcome to our new Saturday morning breakfast menu
Special today only:
Heuvos Rancheros
For restroom key, ask Mindy.
He thought that might be poor positioning for the restroom key alert.
‘They have a special,’ he said.
‘What is it?’ said Mule. ‘I love specials.’
‘How quickly you forget,’ said J.C. ‘You hate specials.’
He turned the menu over. ‘And look here. A new lunch item. Baked potato with cheese and chipotle.’
‘Baked potato with what?’ said Mule.
‘Cheese and chee-pote-lee,’ said J.C.
‘What kind of language is that?’
‘Here’s Ms. Basinger, you can ask her.’
‘I thought you weren’t servin’ anything people can’t pronounce,’ said Mule.
Wanda was wearing a cowboy hat and didn’t look too happy this morning. ‘Most people can pronounce chipotle.’
‘Not th’ people I know.’
‘That figures,’ she said, topping off their coffee.
‘So what is it?’
‘Smoked chili pepper.’
‘Smoked chili pepper,’ said Mule, aghast. ‘Why?’
‘Because I like it, Mr. Skinner. I used to live south of the border.’
‘Which border?’
He thought Wanda’s eyeballs were capable of rolling pretty far back.
‘Look who just flew in,’ said Mule.
Omer Cunningham walked over, grinning. He’d always liked Omer, a big, easygoing guy whose perpetual grin displayed teeth as big as dimes. ‘Piano keys!’ someone had said.
‘Any room for me, boys?’
‘Always,’ he said, indicating the chair next to his own.
‘How y’all doin’?’
‘Anybody we can,’ said Mule.
‘Nice day up there. Not bad down here, either.’
‘I see you flying south a lot,’ he said.
J.C. toweled his face with a paper napkin. ‘Yeah. Always headed south. You goin’ someplace special?’
‘Real special,’ said Omer. ‘There’s a halfway house in Holding. I take corporate clients up every two weeks to raise money for th’ place. A hundred and fifty bucks a head an’ I’ve got a waiting list. I fly in and out of a little grass strip down there.’
‘I’ve heard of that halfway house,’ he said. ‘They do a good job.’
‘It’ll break your heart,’ said Omer. ‘What I do don’t help much, but it keeps me out of trouble.’
Mule looked depressed. ‘If I had a plane, Fancy wouldn’t let me take it out of th’ yard.’
‘I hear your sister-in-law might run for mayor next time,’ said J.C.
‘She’s not talkin’ about it,’ said Omer. ‘I believe that’s a rumor.’
‘I might run a piece on that.’
‘How can you make news out of a rumor?’ said Mule.
‘People do it all the time, buddyroe.’
‘I don’t get it. Here’s your headline: Esther Cunningham Is Not Talking About Running for Mayor. That’s not news.’
‘I’ve been busy gettin’ my potatoes out of th’ ground,’ said Omer. ‘So what is news around town?’
‘Spray tan!’ said Mule.
J.C. let a word fly.
‘The biggest news in th’ high country is right here under our noses,’ Mule informed the table. ‘The revolutionary, widely popular, affordable way to look young and carefree!
‘You know what one of those booths can cost?’ he asked J.C. ‘Up to a couple hundred thousand. I’m not sayin’ that’s what Shirlene paid, but right here in Mitford, you’ve got Los Angelees goin’ on.’
‘Bull.’
‘An’ are you takin’ care of our own by helpin’ her get started in this town? No way. And listen to this, she’s takin’ care of our own by givin’ ten percent of every sale to the Children’s Hospital—and she’s a dadblame newcomer! That’s a story right there.’
Mule was ticked; this had obviously been building up.
‘Are you nuts?’ said J.C. ‘We announced she was coming. We gave her a nice intro. If she wants to educate th’ public, let her run a paid ad.’
‘She didn’t have to invest her future in Mitford, she could have set up business in . . . in . . .’
Mule was stuck for a town.
‘Charlotte!’ said Omer, naming the first town that came to mind. ‘Go, Panthers.’
‘Right. You ran a story on Feel Good changin’ its name, what’s th’ difference? No wonder people fight over th’ New York Times up at th’ bookstore, they’re starved to death for somethin’ to get their teeth into.’
Mule had never read the Times in his life; he was lining up all the artillery he could muster.
‘If y’all want out of here before th’ lunch crowd,’ said Wanda, ‘you need to tell me what you’re havin’, pronto.’
J.C. glowered at the proprietor. ‘What’s with th’ cowboy hat?’
She glowered back. ‘Yippee-ki-yay. Bad-hair day.’
‘You go, Omer.’
‘Two poached eggs, medium, please, ma’am; whole wheat toast—hold the butter—and turkey sausage.’
‘I’
ll be darned,’ he said. ‘That’s what I’m having. Make it two.’
‘Make it three,’ said Mule.
‘I don’t have all day,’ said J.C. ‘Make it four.’
Mule gaped. ‘Amazing. That’s th’ first time in twenty years we’ve ordered th’ same thing!’
‘It’s th’ turkey sausage,’ said Wanda. ‘A no-brainer for this table.’
• • •
HE WAS ALWAYS STRUCK by how much Sammy looked like Dooley. The optician said he was definitely ready for an upgrade on his prescription, but still . . .
There was nothing to say.
He drove; Sammy looked out the passenger window and jiggled his right leg. The old, inflamed scar on Sammy’s cheek, the fresh cut on his forehead—the boy’s face was raw history.
Sammy Barlowe knew right from wrong, no question about it. Yet he was pressing them all to the mat, especially the old guy he couldn’t make angry enough to come after him.
Lew’s wrecker was parked around back, the Mustang still in tow. He wasn’t prepared for seeing it, not at all. Dear God.
Sammy breathed a four-letter word, which pretty much expressed his own astonishment.
‘Is it true you told Chief Guthrie you don’t care if you live or die?’
‘Yeah.’ Sammy spit into the gravel.
‘I care that you live. Harley cares. Kenny cares. Cynthia cares. Dooley cares. Your little brother and sister care. But you don’t care—you can go either way?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Baloney.’ He turned and walked to the front of the station. ‘What do I owe?’ he asked Lew.
‘Here’s your bill, it’s a whopper.’
‘I’ll say.’
‘Tough haulin’ it up th’ bank. That’s a ruined piece of machinery, all right. When I seen it, it scared me pretty bad, I thought it was you. Anyway, it’s hid out back ’til I can get shed of it. No use for bad news to get around worse’n it has to.’
‘Amen.’
‘Here’s all th’ stuff that was in it.’ Lew handed over a plastic bag. ‘Me an’ my wrecker’s seen a few close calls, but this broke me out in a sweat.’
Sammy walked up, shrugged. ‘It ain’t nothin’.’
Lew shot Sammy a cold look. ‘God is good, but he ain’t Santy Claus. You definitely won’t be gettin’ another chance like that.’
• • •
FOUR HOURS ON THE MONEY, including a packed lunch they ate in the cab with the heater going.
Sammy had worked hard, they’d made it happen. They were in under the wire of a cold front moving in tomorrow. He felt a certain lifting of his spirit.
‘Well done,’ he said. ‘Come in with me.’
‘I’m too d-dirty t’ come in.’
‘Come in anyway,’ he said.
‘I don’t want nothin’ to do with hospitals.’
‘Come in anyway,’ he said, agreeable.
They walked along the hall to the men’s toilet and washed up, then headed to ER. There went Dr. Young, living up to his name by literally racing along the hall.
‘We’ve been working on the hedge out front, we’re pretty dirty,’ he said to the charge nurse, Robin Presley. ‘Who can we see today?’
‘Father Tim! Thank goodness you’re here. It’s a boy from Dyson County.’
Robin wiped her eyes. ‘He’s th’ age of my baby brother. We admitted him a little bit ago, it’s very bad. Is your friend comin’, too?’
Sammy looked suddenly older, the way Dooley used to look when he felt threatened. ‘I ain’t d-doin’ it.’
‘Let’s go, y’all,’ said the nurse. ‘It’s real busy in there, so stand back. And no contact with th’ patient.’
When they reached the double door of the emergency room, he looked around. Sammy was coming, anyway.
‘Caught in a garbage truck compactor. They’re gettin’ ready to fly him to Charlotte. He’s seventeen years old.’
Robin opened the door and, even with staff moving about the bed, he saw the patient clearly. The room dipped. He reached for the doorjamb, held on; Sammy turned and fled.
• • •
HE REPOSITIONED A FEW of the larger branches in the truck bed, needing time. He had prayed for the boy, the doctors and nurses, all of it masking a kind of interior howl. Hospital patients had come and gone in his life, but nothing had rocked him quite like this. ‘Jesus,’ he whispered, opening the truck door.
‘Why’d you do that? Why’d you make me do that?’ Sammy shouted.
‘I didn’t need to see that, they won’t any reason t’ make me see that. That’s some kind of God that’d do that to somebody, that’s some kind of God you think so much of. No way would I do that t’ nobody, hurt somebody like that!’
Yelling, sobbing, then opening the passenger door and getting out and shouting into the cab.
‘Is it all jis’ lies? I thought you was all about th’ truth. Dooley says you’re about th’ truth, but how can you be about th’ truth if God is all about lies? I don’t git it, I don’t want t’ git it, I ain’t goin’ t’ git it!’
And there came the stream of vitriol the boy had grown up with.
‘An’ him bein’ seventeen—was that some kind of setup t’ teach me a lesson about bein’ good like Dooley, or good like Kenny, or good like you? I don’t see why I ever ended up with you, anyhow, how come I had to end up with you?’
Uncontrolled weeping.
He held the anger away from himself and did not enter into it; he could not enter into it. ‘My dear brothers,’ Saint James had written, ‘take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to anger.’ He had listened, and he would say nothing.
Then Sammy, slamming the door and storming away, headed for the highway.
Probably for the first time in his life, Sammy Barlowe had started to feel something more than his own pain.
• • •
HE SAT VERY STILL for what seemed a long time, trying to collect the pieces hurled into the air and falling.
Then he started the truck and drove out of the hospital lot and onto the highway.
Grace may be a no-brainer for God, but for him it was clearly impossible to deliver. If mock grace was going to bring anything to the table, the heart must be kept free of malice. But how? Yank out the bitter weed, and in a flash, back it comes, and more of it. He found there was even a type of repulsion to be rooted out of his feelings, this having to do with Sammy’s general hygiene and the way spitting was used as a nonverbal form of in-your-face loathing. And yet this was the package that had been set before him.
He didn’t know how to help Sammy make something of himself in the competitive world of pool. It was beyond his powers. All he and Sammy had was the card currently dealt: the restoration of a garden gone wild. Together, they were making a place for the human spirit to find ease, if only for a fleeting moment. He’d learned that even the fleeting moment counts for something, counts for much. In a fleeting moment, Paul was convicted on the road, Charles Wesley’s heart was strangely warmed, Lewis’s ‘land of longing’ was left behind at the moment, Lewis said, ‘when God closed in.’
Who was he, anyway, to tamper with the damage of a young life? All he knew to do, for now, was keep his mouth shut, and in the silence let the Holy Spirit do the talking.
Outside Wesley’s town limits, he pulled off the highway a few yards ahead of Sammy; left the motor running, waited. Sammy climbed back in the truck.
There was nothing to say. He drove, kept his eyes on the road.
They rounded the curve across from the lawn-mower repair.
‘God A’mighty.’ Sammy slumped forward, elbows on knees, his face hidden.
The trees a riot of color; the brilliant red of the staghorn sumac . . .
Chapter Eighteen
I’ve been wondering
how to tell Irene,’ said Cynthia. ‘What do you think?’
‘I suggest you keep it simple and make sure she’s sitting down. Irene, you have a sister. Don’t hurry to the next piece of business, but don’t tarry, either. Then say, A twin sister. One piece of information at a time. Things will develop from there.’
‘Easy for you, darling. You’ve been delivering surprises to people for decades.’
‘Let’s catch our breath,’ he said, ‘and pray the prayer that never fails.’
They held each other and spoke the few and familiar words, and she drew back and looked at him and smiled. ‘That’s better.’
‘All will be well,’ he said.
‘I regret never seeing any of her films. I did a search, she’s a three-time Oscar nominee. We could be the only ones left standing who don’t know her work.’
He was busy getting out of his lace-up church shoes and into his loafers. ‘She may find that refreshing.’
‘I wouldn’t think so. This dress is so dowdy, I have no idea why I bought it. How’s my hair?’
‘Perfect.’
‘But you didn’t really look.’
‘I don’t have to. Your hair is always perfect.’
Wrong word. She liked her hair to appear ‘tossed by a breeze,’ she once said.
He went to his sock drawer, which shared space with his handkerchiefs, and took one from the pile of fresh inventory.
‘I hate to wear a coat over this dress, it will smash the collar, but it’s freezing out there.’
‘Wear a coat,’ he said.
The bookstore had tissues, a staple item that went wherever a parson set up shop—but a little backup never hurt. He took another handkerchief, this one a gift from Walter, and monogrammed; he would make sure it didn’t stray. ‘Your green coat would be good.’
‘My green coat? With this? Ugh.’
His wife was beside herself. Moving from the quiet domestic life into the private drama of a three-time Oscar nominee was disconcerting. How did they manage to have such a big life in such a small town?
• • •
HE WOULD HAVE ROUGHLY fifteen minutes with Kim, something she requested, before Cynthia arrived with Irene.
