Life Goes On

by Philip Gulley

  The next day was Friday, my sermon-writing day. When Frank arrived, I was seated at my desk, joining paper clips into a length while quibbling on the phone with my wife about where to have lunch. We meet for lunch every Friday. It’s our standing date, our ongoing effort to keep the marital flame ablaze. So far all it’s done is provide one more thing to argue about, namely, where to dine. I prefer hamburgers and onion rings from the Coffee Cup, while Barbara is fond of tuna-salad croissants with pasta salad and a fruit cup at the Legal Grounds Coffee Shop.

  “How can you stand that place?” she said. “It’s so greasy. They’d fry the orange juice if they could figure out a way.”

  A week before, the Coffee Cup had caught fire after Vinny tried dousing a match by immersing it in dishwater. It was the first time the fire department had ever been called to put out a sink. It was that greasy.

  “It’s the same old people talking about the same old things,” she said. “You don’t even like some of them. Why do you keep going there?”

  I like to think that eating at the Coffee Cup is my way of heeding Christ’s call to make disciples of all nations. Men not known for their spiritual prowess stop past my table to solicit my opinion on certain religious matters, like whether their sister’s pastor, who says people are only saved if they’ve been baptized in the name of Jesus, is full of beans.

  “Maybe you know her minister,” they say. “He pastors over in Ohio.”

  It puzzles me why people think I know every minister in a three-state radius.

  Occasionally, someone will accost me while I’m eating lunch. When Kyle Weathers’s cousin had a minister in Alabama who left his wife and kids to run off with the church organist, I was a handy target. “What is it with you ministers anyway? Standing up there tellin’ the rest of us what to do, then pullin’ a stunt like that,” Kyle complained. “You oughta be ashamed of yourself.”

  I apologized on behalf of all ministers everywhere, then returned to my hamburger and onion rings.

  But every now and then, an opportunity will arise for me to minister. Like when Vernley Stout, the bank president, had to have a double knee replacement, and he asked me to pray for him. Vernley was eating a triple cheeseburger and drinking a milkshake, while pondering aloud why God had caused his knees to go bad. It was all I could do not to point out that Vernley’s being a hundred pounds overweight might have had something to do with it. Instead, I prayed for Vernley and even drove to the hospital in the city to visit him.

  Seeing Vernley writhing in the hospital bed, twisting in pain, with Frankenstein stitches down both knees, deepened my appreciation for tuna-salad croissants with pasta salad and a fruit cup. So I gave in and took my wife to the Legal Grounds for lunch.

  “Now isn’t this better than the Coffee Cup?” Barbara said, as she speared a chunk of watermelon from her fruit cup.

  It was better, if only because being in the same room as Deena Morrison, the owner of the Legal Grounds, was far more appealing than spending my lunch hour with the mechanics from Harvey Muldock’s garage. Of course, I couldn’t tell my wife that, so instead I said, “Yes, and I don’t feel greasy like I do after I’ve been to the Coffee Cup.”

  “Exactly,” she agreed.

  I finished my fruit cup, left a dollar tip for Deena, kissed my wife good-bye, then walked back to the meetinghouse office.

  It was one of those early summer days a person would have to work hard to ruin. Which isn’t impossible, of course, as some people have a knack for spoiling perfectly fine days. People who, when they reached heaven, would complain that the light hurt their eyes and ask God to dim His radiance, and while He was at it, could He please tell the cherubim and seraphim to pipe down, for crying out loud.

  But my day was remarkably free of such people. Even Frank was in a pleasant mood when I arrived back at the meetinghouse.

  He congratulated me for keeping my job another year, then told me to close my eyes, that he had a surprise for me.

  “You’re not going to kiss me, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  I heard him rise from his desk, open the closet door, then grunt. “Okay, you can open your eyes.”

  There was a large box on Frank’s desk, tied shut with string. Small holes were cut in the top of the box. I heard a slight rustle.

  “Well, go ahead, open it up,” Frank said.

  I untied the string and peered in the box. Two black eyes peered back. I saw a flash of white teeth and heard a snarling sound.

  “Whatever it is, it’s growling at me. Does it bite?”

  “It might at first, but probably not after it gets to know you.”

  “What exactly is it?” I asked.

  “A ferret.”

  “Oh.”

  I continued to look in the box. “Well, Frank,” I said after a while, “I don’t know what to say.”

  Frank beamed. “I knew you’d like it. I got it from Ernie Matthews. Did you know he raises them?”

  “Yes, I had heard something about that.”

  “Well, I thought you and your boys might enjoy it.”

  “I’m sure we will.” I knew I had to choose my next words carefully, so I thought for a moment, then said, “But Frank, you’re the one who’d probably like the company. If you want to keep it for yourself, I certainly wouldn’t blame you.”

  “Nope, having a pet isn’t for me. I want my freedom. Oh, by the way, he’ll need a cage so he doesn’t chew on the furniture. I think they sell them over at the hardware store. And Ernie told me they’ll spray if you don’t get ’em neutered.”

  I nodded. “Well, it’s good to know those things, I guess.”

  “Oh, one more thing. You have to be careful what you feed them. They’re prone to diarrhea. Other than that, they’re real low maintenance.”

  “I guess I better this little guy home,” I said.

  I picked up the box, held it at arm’s length, and loaded the ferret in the backseat of my car. It was scrambling around inside the box, scratching to get out.

  First, a cage, I thought.

  I drove to Grant’s Hardware. Uly Grant was standing behind the counter with his son, Billy.

  “Hey, Uly. Hi, Billy. How are you, buddy?”

  “Fine, except I have head lice,” Billy said, just as I reached down to rub his head.

  I drew my hand back. “Sorry to hear that, Billy.”

  “That’s okay. Today’s my birthday.”

  A thought passed through my mind. “Twelve, right?”

  “Yep.”

  “Say, Billy, I’ve brought you a birthday present. But you and your daddy will need to come out to the car.”

  Billy grinned. Uly came out from around the counter. “Sam, this is awful nice of you. How’d you know it was his birthday.”

  “Uh, it’s in the church calendar. Remember?”

  “Oh, that’s right.”

  We walked through the door to my car. “It’s right here in the backseat, in the box.”

  I slid the box across the seat, placed it on the sidewalk, and opened the lid. The ferret poked its head out of the box.

  “Oh, boy, a rat!” said Billy, thoroughly pleased.

  “Not exactly,” I said. “It’s a ferret.”

  To say Uly was thrilled was a stretch, but it was Billy’s birthday, and their dog had just died, so he kept quiet.

  “You’ll love it too,” I told Uly. “They’re a lot of fun. Very gentle animals.”

  “I thought I heard where a lady over in Cartersburg got attacked by one and it bit her nose off,” Uly said.

  “That was an urban legend,” I said. “It never happened. These little guys are gentle as lambs.” I reached out to stroke the ferret’s head. A low snarl rose from it’s throat and the fur on its neck stood up. I snatched back my hand. “They do get a little cranky when they’re hungry, though.”

  Uly looked skeptical. “Well, I suppose we can keep it. Billy, what do you say?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Gardner.” He rea
ched up and gave me a hug, which was all it took to give me head lice, though it took several days for me to notice.

  Frank was waiting when I came into the office the next morning. “So how’d the boys like it? What’d you name it?”

  I thought quickly. “Furhead,” I said. “Furhead the Ferret. And the boys love it.”

  Then I changed the subject.

  The next day I began itching in earnest. I asked Barbara if she noticed a rash on my head. She parted my hair to observe my scalp, then recoiled. “Lice!” she shrieked. “You’ve got head lice!” She ran to the bathroom to wash her hands. “Get out of the house and don’t come back inside,” she yelled from the bathroom. “Go get a haircut.”

  The last time I’d had a burr haircut was in the first grade. Ever since then I’d worn it just off the collar. So when I came home from Kyle’s barbershop shorn like a sheep and smelling most unpleasant, Barbara and the boys were beset with curiosity.

  Levi sniffed around me. “What’d they put on you, Daddy?”

  “Kerosene,” I said glumly. “I have to keep it in my hair for twenty-four hours.”

  “Back away from your father, honey,” Barbara warned Levi. “You,” she said, pointing at me, “are sleeping in the garage tonight.”

  I felt like a leper, with open sores oozing pus. My penance, I thought, for unloading the ferret on Billy Grant and lying to Frank. Still, it wasn’t all that bad in the garage. It was not unlike being a monk—a deep sense of guilt, coupled with a bad haircut and an uncomfortable place to sleep. Now I knew why monks got up early.

  When I woke the next morning, I considered phoning in sick to church, but figured I’d lied enough lately, so I put on my good clothes and walked with my family to meeting for worship.

  A few people mentioned my hair. Dale Hinshaw was positively gleeful. He thought my burr haircut signaled a theological shift, that I was giving up my liberal ways and getting serious about obeying the Word, specifically 1 Corinthians 11:14: “Does not nature itself teach you that for a man to wear long hair is degrading to him.” Dale was so pleased with my conversion, I didn’t have the heart to tell him it was head lice.

  Frank was standing in the entryway, passing out the bulletins. He bent down to Levi. “Say, little man, how’s ol’ Furhead getting along?”

  Levi looked puzzled, then it occurred to him Frank was probably talking about me, whose hair did, in fact, appear rather furry.

  Levi laughed. “Fine, but Mom made him sleep in the garage last night.”

  “Don’t you have a cage for him?” Frank asked.

  “Nope, just the garage. But Mom said he could come in the house once he takes a bath and gets the smell out.”

  “Well, sure, that makes sense.” Frank reached in his pocket. “Here, I brought a carrot for you to give him.”

  “I’m not sure he likes carrots. He doesn’t eat many vegetables.”

  “What does he like?” Frank asked.

  Levi thought for a moment. “Well, this morning for breakfast he had Cocoa Krispies.”

  “Are you sure that’s good for him?”

  “Mom said he was gonna get fat, eating like that. She fixed him oatmeal, but he wouldn’t eat it.”

  “I didn’t know he was that picky,” Frank said.

  “Mom said it’s like having another kid.”

  “Gee, I hope he’s not too much trouble. I suppose if you want he can come live with me.”

  “No, we like having him.”

  “Well, okay then.” Frank leaned closer to Levi and whispered in his ear, “But you tell your Dad if he potties on the carpet, he can come stay with me.”

  Levi laughed. “Okay, you can have him if he starts doing that.”

  Frank rubbed Levi’s hair, which was all it took to give him head lice, though it was several days before he noticed.

  On Monday, Levi and Addison had their hair buzzed and their heads swabbed with kerosene. I took Tuesday off to wash all the bedding and clothing. We hung the bedding on the clothesline to dry, which occupied the boys a good part of the day, playing fort among the sheets.

  Frank came to work on Wednesday sporting a burr haircut, reeking of kerosene, and appearing thoroughly miserable. It was hard to feel sorry for him.

  He deserves it, I thought. If he hadn’t given me that stupid ferret in the first place, we’d still have our hair.

  But I didn’t say that. Instead, I apologized for passing on the head lice, and even though my knees had been stiff the past few days and I worried they might need to be replaced, I invited Frank to join me for lunch at the Coffee Cup, reasoning if I was going to have an operation, it might be wise to go into it weighing a few extra pounds.

  Six

  The Fourth

  It was Dale Hinshaw’s idea for Harmony Friends Meeting to build a float for the town’s Fourth of July parade. He’d been badgering us for years to participate, but we had resisted, even when he’d pointed out that every other church in town had a float in the parade. “For cryin’ out loud, the Catholics got a float and they ain’t even Americans. They’re Vaticans. We got foreigners in this town who’ll build a float and march in the Fourth of July parade, and we won’t.”

  That is not entirely accurate. We’d marched in the 1976 bicentennial parade dressed like the old-time Quakers who founded Harmony in 1824. My chief memory of growing up in this church was being forced to wear humiliating costumes at public pageants—a bathrobe in Christmas Nativity scenes, a bedsheet draped over my shoulder when I played Jesus at the Palm Sunday pageant, and clothes like those belonging to the man on the Quaker Oats box as I marched down Main Street in view of my friends.

  Since that time, we have not had a youth group at Harmony Friends Meeting. The children in our meeting hit adolescence, get wind of some scheme by the adults that will earn them the ridicule of their peers, and promptly flee to the Methodist youth group.

  For the past four years, I had labored to begin a youth group, carefully nurturing the faith of the church’s young people, only to have Dale scare them off when he asked them to gather at the school flagpole on the National Day of Prayer wearing T-shirts that read A Prayer a Day Keeps Satan Away.

  I was able to woo them back by promising Dale we could have a float in the Fourth of July parade so long as he left the youth of the meeting out of it. I had a vested interest in this. My older son, Levi, had been eyeing the Methodists, and I didn’t want to give him one more reason to bolt.

  It’s not easy being the child of a pastor because of people like Dale. Dale believes God has called my entire family to ministry. He quizzes my sons about their beliefs and whether they’ve given their hearts to the Lord. When Levi had turned ten, Dale informed him he’d reached the age of accountability, and that if he died now, he’d go to hell unless he’d accepted Jesus as his Savior. He gave my son Bible tracts to place in the school rest rooms on the toilet tanks, just in case a child’s appointed time to meet the Lord occurred in a bathroom stall.

  Fortunately, building the Fourth of July float has distracted Dale. He formed a Float Committee—Asa Peacock, Harvey Muldock, and Ellis Hodge. At their first meeting, Ellis suggested building a replica of the meetinghouse along with a banner reading You Have a Friend at Harmony Friends! Asa had hoped for something a little snazzier, preferably something involving his new tractor, while Dale was pushing for a float that would convict people of their sins and bring them to their knees in humble repentance.

  Dale has been spending a great deal of time at the Bible bookstore in Cartersburg surveying the merchandise. He’s ordered bulk quantities of Bible tracts to distribute along the parade route. One of them is called Why Is Mary Crying? According to the tract, Mary is crying because Catholics are worshiping her instead of her son, and Dale believes it’s time someone set the record straight.

  Another tract is Flight 581, which tells about a couple who were on their way to Las Vegas to pursue a variety of sins and perversions, only to die in an airplane crash. Thankfully, they were se
ated next to a minister who was going to Las Vegas to start a new church and was able to lead them to the Lord before the plane hit the ground.

  But Dale’s favorite tract was called Reverend Tremendous, about a beloved pastor who was active in ecumenical affairs and social justice work, but forgot that he was saved by grace and not works, so went straight to hell for his efforts. Dale gave me one of those.

  In mid-June, after much negotiation and compromise, the Float Committee settled on a design—a ten-foot plywood replica of our meetinghouse made by Ellis and pulled behind Asa’s tractor. In what can only be described as a stunning lapse of judgment, they left it to Dale to select the Scripture for the banner. He settled on Jeremiah 26:6: “I will make this town a curse for all the nations of the earth.”

  “Don’t you think that’s a bit negative?” Asa asked Dale. “It’s just a Fourth of July parade, after all, not a revival.”

  “You know, Asa,” Dale said. “If you wanna tickle people’s ears, that’s your business. But I think it’s time somebody in this town stood up for the truth.”

  Asa let it go, reasoning that amidst the customary chaos of the parade, no one would likely notice their float.

  Harvey Muldock leads the parade in his 1951 Plymouth Cranbrook convertible, and is followed by my father, driving his 1939 Farmall Model M tractor. Then comes Harvey’s brother-in-law, Bernie, the town policeman, who runs his siren, which people don’t mind since it drowns out the high-school band, which follows. Behind the band is the street department in the town dump truck, then the fire department riding on the tanker, followed by the Shriners from Cartersburg on their minibikes, wearing their fezzes and weaving in and out like a braid of hair. After the Shriners, Clevis Nagle pedals his old-fashioned bicycle, with its big front wheel.

  Those are the professionals. After them come the amateurs—the Little League teams, the church floats, the bowling teams from the Starlight Lanes, and a politician or two, passing out candy.