A New Song

by Jan Karon

  “You might say I’ve cut hair from sea t’ shinin’ sea.”

  “I’ll be darned.” Now what was he going to do? His egg biscuit began to petrify in his stomach.

  “You’ll have t’ set out here, since I got t’ watch th’ register, but I’ll take care of it for you. I didn’t want t’ say nothin’, but I wondered when you was goin’ to get it off your collar. I thought maybe that was your religion.”

  Father Tim laughed uneasily and clapped his hip. He’d paid for his biscuit with pocket change; maybe he’d left his wallet at home. Sometimes he did. He hoped he did.

  “You can pay me anytime. I run a little tab for Roger ’n’ Ernie.”

  Oh, well, how bad could it be? He didn’t recall that Ernie or Roger looked too butchered; pretty normal, to tell the truth.

  “Fine,” he said. “Fifteen minutes?”

  Roanoke dragged the battered stool from behind the cash register and set it by the front window.

  “Couldn’t we, ah, move the stool back a little?” He didn’t want to be on display for every passing car and truck on the island.

  “I need th’ light,” said Roanoke, squinting at his hair.

  Though he’d spent considerable time at morning prayer in his study, he prayed again as he clambered onto the stool.

  Roanoke brought a box from the book room, followed by Elmo the Book Cat. It was the first time he’d seen Elmo out in general society. The elderly, longhaired cat sat on the cement floor, flicked its tail, and stared at him, as Roanoke laid his barbering paraphernalia on the window seat.

  “Here you go,” said Roanoke, throwing a torn sheet around Father Tim’s shoulders. The sheet smelled of fish. Maybe that was why the cat was staring at him.

  “Back when I was drivin’,” said Roanoke, leaning into his work, “I run thirty-seven states and two provinces of Canada. One time I was caught in a tornada, it blowed me over an embankment and totaled my truck, but I walked away without a scratch, which was th’ closest I ever come to believin’ in God.”

  Father Tim felt the scissors snipping away, saw the hair thump onto the cement. The cat watched, still flicking its tail.

  “I hauled a lot of orange juice outa Florida in my time. If I was haulin’ fresh, a load would run around fifty-five hundred gallons. Concentrate, that’d weigh in around forty-seven hundred.” Snip, snip.

  Barbering certainly loosened the tongue of the usually taciturn Roanoke; he’d turned into a regular jabbermouth. Come to think of it, Father Tim had noticed the same phenomenon in Fancy Skinner and Joe Ivey. Clearly, nonstop discourse was very closely related to messing with hair.

  “I even hauled chocolate syrup outa Pennsylvania, a lot of chocolate comes outa Pennsylvania, but I never hauled poultry or anything livin’, nossir, I wouldn’t haul anything livin’.”

  “Good idea.”

  “I never got pulled but one time. Now, there’s some drivers, they can be wild, they’ll run their rigs hard as they can run ’em to git up th’ next hill. Regulations say you cain’t drive but ten hours a day, but cowboys, that’s what we called ’em, they’ll go up t’ eighteen, twenty hours, drivin’ illegal.

  “Cowboys is only about two percent of th’ drivers out there today, but they give th’ rest of us a bad name, you know what I mean?”

  “I do!”

  Snip, thump. “I do a little roofin’ now, a little house paintin’, cut a little hair, a man can make a livin’ if he’s got ambition.”

  “I agree!”

  “Got rid of my car, ride a bicycle now, it’s amazin’ how much money you can put back when you shuck a car.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “I was raised in a Christian home, but I fell away. See, my first wife run off with a travelin’ preacher, I brought ’im home, give ’im a good, warm bed an’ a hot meal, an’ first thing you know, they hightailed it.”

  “Aha.” So that was why Roanoke was never especially thrilled to see him; he’d been tarred with the same brush. He had a sudden, vivid recall of van Gogh’s self-portrait in which he sported only one ear. Please, Lord . . .

  Elmo yawned and lay down, without removing his gaze from the customer on the stool.

  “Now, you take me, I never run around on my second wife, an’ they was plenty of chances to do it. Lot lizards is what we called ’em, they’ll pester a man nearly to death. But I stayed true to my wife an’ I’m glad I did, because you never know what you’ll pick up on th’ road an’ bring home to innocent people.”

  “Right.”

  “I never did pills, neither, nossir, th’ strongest thing I ever done when I was drivin’ was Sun-drop, it’ll knock your block off if you ain’t used to much caffeine in your system. You want a Sun-drop, we got ’em in th’ cooler.”

  “That’s OK, I don’t believe so. Maybe another time.” Boy howdy, this was an education and a half.

  Thump, thump, snip.

  “But things is changed. It’d bring a tear to a glass eye to hear what a owner-operator pays these days to run a big rig.”

  “How much?”

  “More’n sixty cent a mile. You have to be tough to make a livin’ with truckin’.”

  “I’ll bet so.”

  “I’m goin’ to clean your neck up now. How’s our time runnin’?”

  Father Tim looked at his watch. “You’ve got a little under one minute.”

  “We’re goin’ to bring you in right on th’ dot,” said Roanoke, flipping the switch on his electric shaver.

  Cynthia waved from the porch. Jonathan and Barnabas were waiting at the gate.

  “Look at me!” said the boy, jumping up and down.

  “I’m looking. That’s a new shirt!”

  “And new pants!”

  He opened the gate. “Where did those snappy new clothes come from, buddyroe?”

  “UPS!”

  “Dearest, where’s your hair?” called his wife from the porch.

  “In a Dumpster behind Ernie’s! What do you think?”

  “I love it!” she said, sitting down on the top step. “We’ve got a surprise for you!”

  His wife was herself wearing something new and boggling. Red shorts, which were plenty short, a strapless white top, and espadrilles.

  He scratched behind his dog’s ears and fairly bounded up the steps.

  His sermon was finished and walked through, thought for thought, precept upon precept. In the study, Jonathan had paced to the bookcase at his heels, then to the wall with the painting of the Roman Colosseum. Exhausted at last, Jonathan fell asleep on the rug, where Father Tim stepped over him without missing a beat.

  The rest of the day lay ahead, shimmering like silk. They would swim in the ocean, they would go out to dinner in their new duds, and tomorrow they’d hear the organ raising its mighty voice to the timbers.

  He felt as young as a curate, as bold as a lion.

  “Having a little boy is different,” said his wife, drying her hair after their frolic in the ocean. “We’re going out to dinner and it’s only five-thirty.”

  “Like a bunch of farmhands,” he agreed, pulling on his brand-new shorts and golf shirt. One thing he could say about golf, which he’d never played and never would, he sure liked the shirts.

  “I sketched Jonathan today,” she said.

  “Aha!”

  “For the new Violet book. I think he’ll weave into it beautifully, just what I’ve been needing to . . . round it out, I think.”

  He heard someone knocking, and Barnabas flew at once to the door, his bark as throaty as the bass of St. John’s organ.

  He zipped his shorts and padded down the hall barefoot, stunned to see Father Jack and Earlene peering through the screen.

  Good Lord! He’d completely forgotten to tell Jack Ferguson they weren’t going home to Mitford!

  Beet-red with embarrassment, he let the eager but surprised couple into the living room, and braced himself for the inept explanations he’d be forced to deliver, not only to the Fergusons but to his wi
fe.

  Dadgummit, now Father Jack would have a story to tell on him, which would spread through the diocese like fleas in August.

  “Welcome to Dove Cottage,” he said, trying to mean it.

  They had gone to Mona’s and eaten fried perch, hard crabs, broiled shrimp, yellowfin tuna fresh off the boat, hush puppies, french fries, and buckets of coleslaw. They had slathered on tartar sauce and downed quarts of tea as sweet as syrup, then staggered home in the heat with Jonathan drugged and half asleep on Father Tim’s back.

  As they walked, Cynthia did her part to deliver after-dinner entertainment, loudly reciting a poem by someone named Rachel Field.

  “If once you have slept on an island

  You’ll never be quite the same;

  You may look as you looked the day before

  And go by the same old name.

  You may bustle about the street or shop;

  You may sit at home and sew,

  But you’ll see blue water and wheeling gulls

  Wherever your feet may go.”

  “I declare!” said Earlene. “You’re clever as anything to remember all that. I wonder if it’s the truth.”

  “What?”

  “That part about never being quite the same.”

  “I don’t know,” said Cynthia. “We’ll have to wait and see.”

  They sat on the porch and watched the gathering sunset through the trellis, where the Marion Climber had put forth several new blooms.

  “Now, Jack,” he said, “don’t go home and tell this story on me.”

  “I make no promises.” Father Jack chuckled.

  He gave a mock sigh. “Is there no balm in Gilead?”

  “Not as long as Jack’s around,” said his wife.

  He wondered if Jack had discussed his Mitford trip with the bishop. Very likely they’d talked and Jack had mentioned it, a casual thing.

  “Talked to the bishop lately?” he asked.

  “Nope. Not a word. Saw him at the convention a while back. He’s put on a good bit of weight.”

  “Who hasn’t?” asked Father Tim, feeling relieved.

  “I guess you heard what happened at Holy Cross over in Manteo.”

  “All I know about this diocese is what you tell me, Jack.”

  “More’s the pity. Anyway, Bishop Harvey was making his annual visitation at Holy Cross, got there and saw about eight people sitting in the congregation. He was pretty hot about it, as you can imagine. He got vested, kept looking for somebody else to arrive, they didn’t, so he asked Luke Castor, said, ‘Father, didn’t you tell them I was coming?’

  “Luke said, ‘No, but obviously they found out somehow.’ ”

  “You have to take Jack with a grain of salt as big as your head,” said Earlene.

  The sunset delivered a great, slow wash of color above the beach-front cottages and turned the patch of blue to violet, then scarlet, then gold.

  “Oh, the blessing of a porch,” sighed Earlene. “When Jack and I walk out our front door, we just drop off in the yard like heathens.”

  “That’s one way to put it,” said her husband.

  Earlene gave her hostess a profound look. “Don’t let anybody talk you into a retirement home!”

  “Never fear!” exclaimed Cynthia.

  “It’s not that bad, Earlene,” said Father Jack. “You may not have a porch, but somebody else does the cooking three meals a day.”

  “You’ve got a point, dear,” said Earlene, feeling better about lacking a porch. “And after supper in the dining room, some of us play gin rummy, or sometimes pinochle.”

  “Lovely!” said Cynthia.

  Father Tim peered at his wife, thinking she was holding up gamely, though she appeared to be gripping the arms of her rocker with some force.

  Earlene Ferguson did not care for silences in conversation, and was doing her level best to caulk every chink and crack, so he didn’t know how long the music had been drifting across the street.

  “Listen!” he said, during a chink.

  “What’s that?” asked Father Jack.

  “Just listen.” César Franck . . .

  There was a brief silence on the porch.

  “Goodness!” said Earlene. “Somebody’s sure playing their radio loud. That’s a problem we have at the retirement home, with so many being half deaf, plus, of course, our walls are thin as paper—”

  “Hush, Earlene,” said Father Jack.

  He’d never quite appreciated the wisdom of having a king-size bed until his wife introduced him to its luxuries on the second night of their marriage. As a bachelor, he’d spent several decades rolled into the middle of a sagging mattress like a hotdog in a bun.

  Now, with the addition of a three-year-old in their lives, the chiefest virtues of a large bed were amply demonstrated. He looked in on Jonathan, who was sprawled across Cynthia’s pillow, and went to the guest room and tapped on the door.

  “Jack? We’re going to step down to the beach for a few minutes.”

  Jack came to the door and cracked it. “How long have you been married?” he asked, grinning.

  “Not too long,” said Father Tim.

  He unrolled the blanket and they spread it on the sand.

  “Full moon, my dear, and no extra charge.”

  “Heaven,” she breathed, kneeling on the blanket. “Heaven!”

  “Didn’t I tell you I’d give you the moon and stars?” He sat next to her and smelled the faintest scent of wisteria lifted to him on the breeze. He would go for months, used to her scent and immune to its seduction, then, suddenly, it was new to him again, compelling.

  “How are you holding up being married to a parson?”

  “I love being married to my parson.”

  “The Fergusons didn’t throw you too badly?”

  “Goodness, Timothy, what kind of wimp do you think I am? I don’t know much, but I do know that the wife of a priest must be ready for anything.”

  “That’s the spirit!”

  She lay back on the blanket, and he lay beside her, loving her nearness, loving the sense that sometimes, if only for a moment, he couldn’t tell where she left off and he began.

  Lulled by the background roar and lap of the waves, he gazed up into the onyx bowl spangled with life and light, and took her hand. “ ‘Bright star,’ ” he quoted to her from Keats, “ ‘would I were steadfast as thou art . . .’ ”

  “You’ve always thought me steadfast,” she said, “but I’m not, I’m not at all, Timothy. I’m sometimes like so much Silly Putty.”

  “You’re always there for me, sending off for new clothes, taking in children, drumming up the parish tea, standing with me at the church door. I don’t deserve this, you know, it scares me.”

  “You’re all I have,” she murmured, drawing him close, “and all I ever wanted. So stop being scared!”

  “Yes,” he said. “I’ll try.”

  The windows and front doors were thrown open to a fickle breeze, the creaking ceiling fans circled at full throttle. Here and there, an occasional pew bulletin lifted on a draft of moving air and went sailing.

  Peering loftward through a glass pane in the sacristy door, he couldn’t help but notice that the soprano had returned to the fold and was cooling herself with a battery-operated fan. He also saw that every pew in St. John’s was filled to bursting.

  Air-conditioning! he thought, running his finger around his collar. Next year’s budget, and no two ways about it.

  Standing next to him in the tiny sacristy, Marshall Duncan pulled the bell rope eleven times.

  . . . bong . . . bong . . .

  On the heel of the eleventh bell, Ella Bridgewater, fully rehearsed and mildly fibrillating with excitement, hammered down on the opening hymn as if all creation depended on it.

  Marshall opened the sacristy door and crossed himself reverently as the crucifer led the procession into the nave.

  Glorious! His congregation was standing bolt upright, and singing as lustily as any crowd of
Baptists he’d ever seen or heard tell of.

  “Lift high the cross

  the love of Christ proclaim . . .”

  He threw his head back and, with his flock, gave himself wholly to the utterance of joy on this morning of mornings.

  “. . . till all the world adore

  his sacred Name.

  Led on their way by

  this triumphant sign

  the hosts of God in

  conquering ranks combine.”

  The organ music soared and swirled above their heads like a great incoming tide; surely he only imagined seeing the chandeliers tremble.

  “Blessed be God,” he proclaimed at the end of the mighty Amen. “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit!”

  The eager congregational response made his scalp tingle. “And blessed be his kingdom, now and forever!”

  He lifted his hands to heaven, and prayed.

  “Almighty God, to You all hearts are open, all desires known, and from You no secrets are hid: Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of Your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love You, and worthily magnify Your holy Name; through Christ our Lord.”

  “Amen!” they said as one.

  He didn’t sense it every time, no; if only he could. But this morning, the Holy Spirit was moving in the music and among the people of St. John’s; He was about the place in a way that left them dazzled and wondering, unable to ken the extravagant mystery of it.

  For this moment, this blessed hour, heaven was breathing its perfume on their little handful in the church on the island in the vast blue sea, and they were honored and thankful and amazed.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Worms to Butterflies

  “Father?”

  “Puny!”

  “Th’ most awful thing has happened, I don’t know how to tell you. . . .”