The Godsend of River Grove

by Rob Summers

Chapter 14 Doing Nonsense

  On Sunday morning Hila went with Eddie to the house church again and to her surprise met Kathy Hofrider, who was accompanying her grandmother Myra and a woman who turned out to be Kathy’s mother. Kathy explained that Em was in town for a visit and that Myra had persuaded her to come to church. One of Em’s conditions had been that Kathy come too.

  “So here I am,” she said to Hila as she drew her aside, “hostage to my grandma’s dream of converting Mom in one fell swoop. But since Mom already thinks she’s a Christian, that’s not likely to happen.” She glanced at her mother and grandmother, who were not far off. “I better keep my voice down.”

  “Is it true that Myra asked your mother to take care of her cats in case of Rapture?” Hila asked quietly.

  “Oh yeah, and Mom has never forgiven her even though she doesn’t believe in the Rapture. She stewed about it for five days and then called Grandma and told her to just convert her blankety old cats so they could fly away with her. One of the cats has died since then, destination unknown.”

  Hila laughed. “All the cats I’ve known were thoroughly unrepentant. That should be the test of a true evangelist: convert a cat. Any cat. “

  “Yeah, what a challenge!” Kathy said. “But since cats don’t have any money….”

  “Right, not a high priority target group.”

  Kathy took a breath and changed her tone. “Hila, I really need to talk to you. Mom will take Grandma home after church. I wonder if I could go someplace with you and—oh, but I’m forgetting I’m supposed to be at Donahue’s house after lunch for a revival planning meeting.”

  “You can have lunch with me and I can drop you off,” Hila said. “That is, if my car keeps on running. It was sounding pretty rough this morning. But Kathy, a planned revival? I hope someone tells God the plan.”

  “You have a point there; I guess it is sort of an oxymoron. I guess the idea is to maximize conditions for the Holy Spirit to move. Then we just wait and pray.”

  “Well, I don’t mean to be hard on you, Kathy, but watch out for these revivals. I sat through at least one a year when I was growing up and never once did anyone say that revival hadn’t come that week. But I don’t see that the people are any better now than they were twenty years ago. I’ve heard about real revivals and they seem to come unexpectedly, as if God had His own plan.”

  “I’ll bet he does!” Kathy said, beaming. “Maybe He’ll make it kick in before our week, or after. Anyway, if you would drop me off, that would simplify things, but…I don’t know, you may not even be speaking to me by then.”

  “About Evan and you?”

  Kathy shifted her feet. “It shows, does it?”

  “Like a lighthouse, but don’t worry.”

  Dan began playing his guitar in front, and they had no more opportunity to talk until after the service.

  In the kitchen at the Pelham’s house Kathy looked down unhappily at the chicken sandwich Hila had prepared for her. “I’m stealing your man, and here I am accepting your hospitality.”

  Hila sat down with her. “I told Eddie to go eat in front of the TV, which he’s only too happy to do. I want you to tell me all about it. And don’t feel bad. Evan and I were on the verge of breaking up anyway.”

  “And I’m pushing you over the edge.”

  “No, it’s really over. I’m just waiting for him to realize it.”

  Kathy pondered. “He and I have talked, and we can see that we’re getting closer all the time. He’s still kind of infatuated with you, but he’s going to talk it over with you. He thinks that if you’re really not that close to the Lord…”

  “Not a Christian,” Hila said quietly.

  “Yeah, that; then he would know clearly what to do. But Hila, I know you’re a Christian.”

  “Yes, he won’t have such a clear-cut excuse. But I’ll make it easy for him.”

  “How will you do that?” Kathy asked, wide-eyed.

  “I don’t know, maybe leave a book of witchcraft out on the coffee table.”

  Kathy guffawed. “Or a bag of cocaine?”

  “Sure. Both.”

  “But why would you? I mean, seriously, why give him up? Frankly, you could still have him if you wanted. All you’d have to do is bat your beautiful eyes. Those wide-set eyes.”

  Hila smiled. “No, you two are right for each other, and I thought I might love him but I don’t. You’ll have no trouble from me. Only don’t forget my wedding invitation.”

  “Get out of here!”

  “Don’t forget. And if you really want someone to worry about, then watch out for Jane Burson!”

  “Yikes! Sneaking up behind me!”

  The rest of their luncheon went pleasantly, and as it drew near to one o’clock, Hila drove Kathy through a light rain to her meeting place, a home a few miles out of town on a rural highway. Parked cars belonging to River Grovers were packed into Cliff Donahue’s driveway and overflowed onto the highway shoulder, so that she had to park at quite a distance to let Kathy out.

  She U-turned back onto the road and had not driven half a mile before the roughness of her engine became noticeably worse. She compressed her lips and fought it with the gas pedal until the engine quit completely, then rolled onto the shoulder and braked. On several attempts the engine started easily enough, but she could not keep it running longer than half a minute. Finally she got out, opened her umbrella against the rain, and looked under the hood. This proving unenlightening, she looked down to a bend in the road, considering the walk back to Donahue’s. Not too bad a distance really, and lots of people there ready to help—maybe even some amateur mechanics. This could hardly be the humiliation she had been told to expect.

  Just as she was closing the hood, a dark blue sedan approached from the direction of town. It passed her, turned around, and came back, slowing to a crawl near her. Now she could see past the flapping windshield wipers that it was Ollie and Betty. The near window hummed down electrically and Betty’s pig-eyed face was suddenly very near her.

  “Trouble?” she said.

  Hila considered telling her that, no, she had no trouble. She had simply had an urge to memorize her engine’s serial number.

  “I can’t keep it running,” she said. “It’s not the battery.”

  Ollie’s sour face appeared as he leaned across from the driver’s side. “Well, you’d better get in. We’ll give you a ride back into town.”

  The only reason Hila was expressionless was that she had been warned about this. But her heart was plummeting like an elevator with its cables cut. Worse indeed! Yes, things could get worse.

  “Thank you,” she said, but she still did not move.

  “You’d better get in. I can’t sit here in the lane all day.”

  “Just a moment.” She locked her car, then got in theirs and lay back in the leather-cushioned back seat. As the car began to move she looked up and saw that Ollie was glancing at her in the rearview mirror, and their eyes met. He did not seem to be embarrassed.

  “If you’ll take me home, I’ll just call a tow truck from there. Do you know where Cora Pelham’s house is?”

  “I know the place,” he said.

  After that, silence, however uncomfortable, seemed preferable to all three. But of course the longer it lasted the more clearly they felt how tense and unnatural was their situation. Hila was mortified. What had she been thinking? Why had she not told them to go on? But she was under orders to endure this humiliation. It was supposed to be. She half remembered a Bible verse about doing good to one’s enemy because it would be like heaping coals of fire on his head. She was feeling those coals now. And oh, how Ollie would crow to the church people about how he had provided Christian charity to the stranded backslider. How he would describe her one, cold ‘thank you’, her impolite silence! She began to be angry with God again. What could be the point of this? Had God thought her too puffed up and proud after
all her recent ‘triumphs’? Rather, He had flattened her and was presently backing up and running over her again.

  Forewarned or not, this was beyond all endurance. Once at Cora’s she would have to thank them once more, thank the devastator of her church, the man who had frightened and emotionally scarred young girls. Nothing could be worse than this. It would be better to die.

  But though she inwardly writhed all the way to the house, outwardly she maintained her cool mask. She got out and, standing near Betty’s open window, said to them, “This was very kind of you.” She was aware that her manner was that of a duchess addressing her lackeys, but could only let them make of it what they would. It was all she could do to get the words out.

  Once inside, and having called a towing service and a nearby service station, she went to Cora’s office and picked up the John of the Cross book again. She took it upstairs, changed into casual clothes, stretched on the bed, and tried to read. Bill, who had by this time wangled his own key to the house, found her there a half hour later.

  “You ready to be fitted with wings yet?”

  She did not look up from her book. “If I do it at all, it will be some other way.”

  “You’re still in your faith crisis,” he observed.

  “God’s a moron.”

  He sat down on the only chair. “Couldn’t you two patch it up for just an hour or two, just long enough for you to go to Bafilia?”

  “Listen to this,” she said. “It says a soul should love God more than anything, and that ‘This is true of the soul when nothing can make it afraid to do and suffer all things in His service.’ I quote John of the Cross. Tape that, Mr. Tape Recorder.”

  “I got it. So what?”

  “It’s that ‘all things.’ No wait, it’s also that He gets to define what is in His service. Theoretically, that means He could assign me to do nothing but paint clown faces on grapefruits, and I couldn’t complain, because He’s God.”

  “So just agree, start painting, and get over this spiritual hemorrhage. How about it? Do you realize Mom and Dad are really worried about you?”

  “I know they are. But the point is, I don’t even have to believe that what God tells me to do makes sense. I mean, He doesn’t tell me ‘believe that this makes sense.’ I’m just supposed to love my way through it. It’s like ‘I love you so much, Lord, that I’ll do nonsense for you.’”

  Bill looked at her with unaccustomed gravity. “Are you all right?”

  “Oh, so now it’s you too. And Eddie thinks I’m cracking up, and maybe even Cora does?”

  “Well, are you?” Bill sounded worried.

  “I might have been, but I did the nonsense I was supposed to do, and now I feel kind of stretched and folded but—I’m all right.”

  “Well, let’s keep it straight from now on. I’m the crazy one.”

  “You are not.”

  “OK then—emotionally disturbed if you prefer. The one on disability. I hide in my room, I play video games. I care so much about a kid’s fantasy land that I nag you to help me with it even when you’re clearly overstressed. I just keep thinking you’ll be the same old Hila soon. I want to tell you to get over it.”

  “I’ll never be the same,” she said. “You see, I’m looking at a whole life now of loving enough to do nonsense. But I did it today and I made it through. It’s rough but it kind of works.”

  “You could just drop Him.”

  “No, that’s out of the question.”

  “Hila’s in love with a moron.”

  “So I am.”

  “Who doesn’t exist.”

  “So you say,” she answered smiling.

  “Humph. You coming over this evening?”

  “Maybe. But maybe no Baffling yet. I have to think about that.”

  “OK. By the way, Mom says dinner’s at one on Thanksgiving and that Jen and Troy and the kids are coming. Uh, and she wanted to know if you thought Cora would want that ceramic goat that wasn’t broken, or if maybe you’d want it. What are you laughing about?”

  She was shielding her eyes with a hand. “That hideous thing!”

  “Is it? I never pay any attention to knick-knacks. They all look the same to me.”

  She suddenly lowered her hand and sat up straight. “Tell her I want it. Actually, this is too good to be true. I can do whatever I want with it!”

  Bill looked at her cautiously. “OK.”

  “I could bust it, stomp it, burn it—whatever!”

  “Say no more. I don’t even want to know about this.” He was rising.

  “You’re not leaving? I’ve got some fresh snacks for you downstairs that I bought yesterday.”

  “Good stuff?”

  “Real good stuff.”

  Hila gave her eyes some time to adjust to the darkness. The sanctuary at River Grove seemed bigger with the lights off and only a hint of illumination coming from without through the stained-glass windows. Using her left hand to feel the sides of the pews, she made her way to the altar platform and up behind the pulpit. She crouched down and, reaching into its hollow back, turned on her car-key light. As she had hoped, all was a-jumble within: hymnbooks, papers, extension cords—even what appeared to be a lost-and-found box, with a knit cap and an odd glove topping the pile. She removed from her coat’s deep pocket a plastic bagged object and, almost giggling, placed the bag behind the other things. Flicking off the light, she began to feel her way back to the closed doors that let out into the foyer.

  No one might find the bag for months, even years, and if someone should, he might just leave it there with the other oddments. It would be meaningless to anyone else. But to her this had been a sort of christening. They had their altar and she had hers, hers being private and interior, and theirs she had now christened as the Altar of the Golden Goat. She would never draw near it again.

  As she neared the doors, with their vertical line of light showing between, a thought struck her and she stood still. Did not this christening imply something more? The goat was not just a descriptive symbol but also a—a sort of seed, for lack of a better word. But this sort of seed shrivels rather than grows. It would drink in all the life and energy from the River Grovers and yet grow no fatter, only shrivel them as well. She had a sudden conviction that something had to give. Like a long-abandoned house, exposed to the elements, its windows broken and holes in its roof and walls, River Grove was surely going to fall. It would crumple in on itself. In the darkness she could almost imagine that she felt it happening.

  Why had she not before considered that Ollie’s three-year plan might fail? And if it would fail, and the congregation would continue to dwindle, then River Grove might have to close its doors. She recalled a Bible verse that says the devil came down very angry because he knew he had only a short time. Tomorrow the walls might crumble and the prisoners be set free. If not tomorrow then soon. Actually, nothing was surer than that.

  In the fellowship hall, Eddie and Crystal had been eliminated from the flag-tag game the teens were playing and were sitting on the smooth-carpeted floor, their backs against a wall, watching the remaining players. No one else was near enough to listen, so Crystal asked Eddie how Hila was doing. He pulled a folded sheet of notebook paper from his jeans pocket.

  “She was writing something today, writing this. She noticed I was watching her and so she wrote out another copy and gave it to me.” He handed it to her and she read it.

  Judas and Jesus were friends, so I’ve heard,

  But one peddled pamphlets and one spread the Word.

  Their friends and their neighbors could tell them apart

  Since one had a wallet and one had a heart.

  They both looked Semitic, they wore the same clothes;

  Each shopped in the market and had a big nose;

  But down on the corner the kids used to shout

  That one raised the dead and the other a doubt.

  And Jesus sai
d, “Child, turn away from your sin”;

  But Judas said, “Pal, I can pencil you in

  For an hour next Tuesday if that’s good for you.

  I’d see you before, but I’ve so much to do.”

  One wrote in red ink and the other in blood,

  And one bowed to Satan and one worshipped God.

  One prayed as he hung in the place he was nailed.

  The other one fingered a noose when he failed.

  And one went to heaven, the other to hell;

  One sat by his Father, one started to yell….

  And I never met anyone, servant or free,

  Who didn’t think Jesus was better than me;

  And some of my friends think that Judas was worse;

  They looked in his purse, and they looked in my purse,

  And saw one had his silver and one just had mold.

  One reached for a promise, one snatched for the gold.

  And one was forgiven, one cursed to his grave.

  One slaved like a king and one reigned like a slave.

  And though even some friends couldn’t tell us apart,

  The one burst his wallet, the other her heart.

  I couldn’t tell God I was better, but He

  Said He hadn’t a child much better than me.

  He knew who betrayed Him and who stood and cried;

  Who limped to the cross and who ran off to hide.

  “That isn’t too bad, is it?” she said as she finished reading. “I mean not like the other poems, not too bad. Is it?”

  “That’s what I thought, but I don’t get poetry.”

  “Neither do I. Maybe we should ask her to explain it to us.”

  At this moment the game ended and Evan asked the teens to gather in the middle of the room. “OK, we’re almost ready for prayer time and a final song. Remember, no meeting next week. It’ll be revival services every evening, so please come if you can and invite your friends. Let’s get in a circle, OK? Hila, why don’t you join us? Yes, join hands.”

  Eddie and Crystal now saw that Hila had arrived a little early and was just laying her coat aside on a chair near the open doorway. She joined the circle between them.

  “It’s popcorn prayer,” Evan said. “Everyone who wants to can just pray short, one-sentence prayers, and I’ll close.”

  They bowed their heads and slowly the prayers began.

  “Lord, please help me to pass my math and English tests.”

  “Thank You for friends and being able to get together like this.”

  “Lord, please take care of Cindi while she’s traveling to Chicago.”

  “Please watch over my mom while she has her tests at the hospital.”

  “Bless our revival, Lord. Help it to really make a difference for people. And I pray that my uncle would come.”

  “Yes, Lord, please bring people to Yourself.”

  “And please take care of Mr. Fulborne in the hospital and not let it be anything too bad.”

  “Lord, let my neighbors find their spaniel. She’s been missing for three days.”

  “Let this election get settled, Lord, because we need to know who our new president is.”

  “Please take care of my brother in the navy.”

  “Help us to live the way You want us to. We want to live for You.”

  “Help us who are in the singing group to do our best Sunday.”

  The requests slowed down and ended after another few minutes, and when Evan had closed with a sort of summary prayer, he led them in a simple, devotional song. Hila sang louder than usual, not caring that she missed the notes. When the song was done and the circle was breaking up, one of the girls called out loudly for a cinnamon roll hug, and at once the teens began to join themselves by putting arms around shoulders like a chorus line. Although she did not know what a cinnamon roll hug was, Hila started to back away; but Crystal ran to her and, putting an arm around her shoulders, pulled her back.

  “Don’t worry, you can be on the end of the line,” she said laughing. This did not seem too bad. However, as Crystal linked with the line she drew Hila to the center of the group. Then Hila watched in trapped alarm as the other teens wrapped around them in a spiral that pulled in closer and closer like a tightening watch spring; and she was squashed at the center, unable to move. The kids were laughing. Almost in a panic, she kept her eyes on a spot high on the wall and took shallow breaths until the hug broke up. Crystal was amused by her discomfort.

  “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  She whispered that it really had not been so very bad.

  “I thought it would be good for you, like dangling someone afraid of heights over a cliff. Except I’m not even sure whether that’s good for someone afraid of heights. Will you take me home tonight? Mom’s entertaining and doesn’t want to come get me unless she has to, so she asked me to ask.”

  She managed a stiff nod.

  “Hey, are you all right? I didn’t mean to traumatize you or anything.”

  “It’s OK. It’s fine. What happened to Ollie? Why is he in the hospital?”

  “It was a heart attack or something, I don’t know. Evan knows.”

  As she approached him, Evan must have read her question in her face, for he answered before she could speak. “Severe chest pains,” he said. “When they checked him out they found he had vessels in his heart that were mostly blocked, so he’s scheduled for angioplasty tomorrow. Maybe bypass surgery later.”

  She nodded, trying to look somber and compassionate. Evan, however, looked at her suspiciously. “Do you think you can find it in your heart to pray for him?”

  She swiftly calculated that the bald truth would best serve all parties concerned, but especially Kathy. “That depends on what you want prayed,” she said with a cruel smile.

  “Do you think it’s funny? Don’t you see what you’re doing to yourself with this, this hatred? I can’t think of a milder word.”

  She did her best to look wicked. “It’s true that I care more for his victims. What hospital is he in?”

  “Lincoln. You’re not going to visit him?”

  “Even if I don’t, I can call and ask about his condition. Evan, just consider, if he’s out for months, then the new pastor will have the opportunity to set things up his own way.”

  Evan rolled his eyes. “Church politics, is that all you can think of? Hila, sometimes I think your heart is a block of ice. And after he and Betty picked you up when your car broke down!”

  They were interrupted by two teens who asked to use the phone in the kitchen. Hila noticed that parents were starting to arrive to pick up their children.

  “I have to take Crystal home,” she said. “But we also need to settle whether we’re going to date anymore.”

  “Kathy told me about talking to you at your house. She said you said it was over but I hadn’t recognized it yet.”

  She instantly forgave the breaking of a confidence, for it evidenced a complete sharing of information between these two, always a good sign for a couple.

  “That’s the gist of it,” she said.

  “So that’s it? Hasta la vista, baby, and you’re out of here?” Despite his words, he did not look quite devastated.

  “No, I demanded a wedding invitation too, or didn’t she tell you that?”

  “Well, we’re hardly…”

  “You will be. Thanks for being so good to me. I’ll see you around.” She gave him her characteristic, shoulder-high wave and sailed off.

  The ride to the Beikreiders’ home started out unusually quiet, considering that Crystal was in the car.

  “Something on your mind?” Hila said to her.

  Crystal hesitated, tracing a line with her forefinger across the dashboard.

  “Go ahead and tell her,” said Eddie from the back seat.

  “I just thought you should know that you were right. Ollie tried to get me alone with him.”

  “But he didn�
��t, I mean you didn’t?” Hila said intensely as the car swerved a little.

  “Watch it! No, he didn’t. Saturday afternoon Mom was at a meeting for planning the new church flyers, which they’re doing instead of Christmas decorating because of the revival, and putting off the decorating; and I went along because I wanted to shoot some baskets on the parking lot. You remember how nice it was outside? That’s what I was doing, and Ollie came along out of their meeting and said he was going to the church retreat grounds just for a few minutes to inspect things, like check the gates and make sure no trespassers had been trashing the place, and would I like to ride along with him? He said the meeting was running long and he’d have me back in plenty of time to leave with Mom.”

  Hila pulled the car over. “I’m sorry, I can’t drive and hear this. But go on, sweetie. What did you tell him?”

  “That I’d go ask Mom. But Hila, I didn’t mean it! That was just an excuse.”

  “I understand.”

  “But he said I didn’t need to, and that we wouldn’t be gone more than fifteen minutes. He said I’m a young woman now and don’t have to go to my Mom about every little thing.”

  “Oh, I can just hear him,” Hila said, leaning back with eyes closed.

  “And he said he particularly wanted to talk to me about my future in ministry because he could see that a good looking, talented young lady like me would be serving the Lord in a powerful way, and he wanted to talk to me about that on the way.”

  Hila moaned.

  “The scum bag,” Eddie said. “But tell him what you did, Crystal.”

  “I told him I’d go, but right then I had to use the restroom real bad, and I emphasized real bad, like I was about to have an accident. You should have seen the look on his face. So he waved me on and I ran inside. I found Mom, and you can bet I stuck to her like Elmer’s. I wasn’t going anywhere. I just kept hanging on to her hand. I don’t know how long Ollie was out there, but he was gone when we came out after the meeting.”

  “Praise God,” Hila said. “You did wonderfully. Does your mother know the whole story?”

  “Yeah, she does. I think she wants to thank you.”

  Hila put the car in gear and pulled out again. “Well, thank God. Never mind me.”

  Though coatless and in party dress, Francine Beikreider came out to the car to speak to Hila. “We’ve got a home décor party going on inside,” she explained, “but they’re doing all right without me. I guess Crystal told you what happened Saturday? Hila, I can never thank you enough. You’re a godsend. Because, you know, Tom and I didn’t believe those stories about Ollie, so we never warned Crystal. If it hadn’t been for you…” Francine paused to collect herself. “Well, we don’t know. But Tom thinks it’s true about Ollie, and so do I, even though nothing can be proved. And it’s as if God was punishing him, isn’t it, for even thinking about Crystal? It’s like God struck him down. He was fine Saturday, I know that. Hila, we didn’t know what to think of you before, although we always trusted you as a good influence on Crystal, but now we understand what you were trying to do. A man like that…well, if we could vote over again…he shouldn’t even be walking around free. The man needs help.” Francine hugged herself. “Listen, I have to get back in or freeze. Crystal, come on and see the Thomas Kinkade prints that the ladies are looking at. Thank you again, Hila. Tom and I can’t thank you enough.”