by Billie Letts
Galilee took a half step, shifting her weight from one leg to the other. “Say, you mind if we sit? I stand too long, my arthritis gives me fits.” Then she looked down at her deformed feet. “I should’ve kept on dancing, I guess.”
She hobbled to the first pew, eased herself into it, then patted the spot beside her for Bui.
“You married, Mr. Boo?”
“Yes, I married.” Bui took out his billfold and opened it to show Galilee a picture of Nguyet. “My wife,” he said.
“Oh, she’s a pretty girl. Looks enough like you to be your sister.”
“Many sisters and wife, all in Vietnam.”
“That’s a long ways off, isn’t it?”
“She coming,” Bui said. “Nguyet coming to living with me.”
“Well, that’s good, ’cause it hurts to be alone, hurts real bad. I was married, too, but my man Clarence, he’s gone now.”
“Husband dead?”
“No. He just drove away one day and never came back. I still don’t know why, doubt I ever will. We had a good life, ’least I thought we did. He left when our girl was three. She never saw him again, either.”
“Bad. Very bad.”
“The church is about all I have left now. My girl, Jubilee, she lives in Michigan, but she changed her name when she went north. Says Julie’s a better name for business. And I think that’s a pretty name, all right, but not as pretty as Jubilee. You know what I mean?”
Bui nodded as if he did.
“Just listen to me go on. Talk, talk, talk. But it’s nice to have someone to talk to. You come here a lot?”
“Yes, I here a lot.”
“A church is a good place to come to, that’s for sure. ’Course, this isn’t the church it used to be, no sirree. Why, on Sunday mornings, there isn’t enough of us to fill five pews. You see, we’re an old congregation. And getting older. So many have passed now, and those still living, well, they’re like me. Or even in worse shape. That’s why a lot of us don’t get out much now, not even for church.
“When we had transportation, we could make it most Sundays, but our bus got hit by a dump truck nine or ten years back. For a while, we had a few drivers to come by for us, but they’re either dead or too old to drive now. ’Course, I’m lucky ’cause I live just down the road, so I can walk when the weather’s nice if my arthritis isn’t kicking up.
“But when we had our bus, I never walked ’cause our driver, Brother Marvin, always stopped for me. He’d slide the door open, smile and say, ‘Mornin’,Galilee. Come on in and let me carry you down the road.’ And I’d settle in the seat right behind him, which I always figured he saved just for me.
“Then I’d watch him drive. Oh, I loved to watch Brother Marvin drive. His big hands curled around that steering wheel. Beautiful hands. Long slim fingers. Why, he could’ve put his hands around my waist till his fingers touched and he’d have had room left over.
“And when he leaned forward to open the door, the muscles across his back would bulge up under his starched shirt like hard dark plums.
“He had a nice head full of hair, too, not a speck of gray. A young man, fifty at the most. And his neck, thick and strong, skin so smooth, color of cinnamon. I had to sit on my hands to keep from reaching up and stroking Brother Marvin’s neck. Oh, he was so…”
Galilee clamped her hand over her mouth, a futile attempt at silence.
“Lord, Lord,” she said, shaking her head in sorrow.
“Here I am, sinning again and me right here in God’s house.”
Bui shook his head, too, an indication to Galilee that he was as sorrowful about her sin as she was.
“I pray about my sins, Mr. Boo. ’Course, I’m too old to do much more than sin in my head, but sin is sin whether it’s an act of the body or an act of the mind. And my mind’s a nest of sin. Not all sin, mind you. I don’t think about stealing or killing, and I try to keep the Sabbath holy… but lust and malice? I just can’t seem to conquer them two.
“Now I keep thinking I’ll grow too old for lust, but looks like I’m gonna carry it to my grave. And malice, to my way of thinking, is just as much sin as any of the rest.
“It’s only natural, I guess, that I’d feel malice for my man Clarence after he did what he did to me and Jubilee. But my wickedness doesn’t stop with Clarence, no sirree. My malice stretches in a hundred directions. Tax men, dump truck drivers, pawnbrokers. Republicans and bankers, which is one and the same to me. Chiropractors. Fortune-tellers, too. Oh, the list goes on and on.
“Sometimes I get so discouraged by my hateful heart, I think I’ll just give up. Then the Lord talks to me, tells me to get myself down here to the church and pray. Pray hard. So I do, but it doesn’t seem to do any good. I just can’t stop sinning.”
Bui sighed deeply, which Galilee took for a sign of compassion.
“You don’t talk much, do you, Mister Boo? My husband was a quiet one, too. Never had much to say. But I figured that’s because he was all the time reading. You read a lot yourself?”
“No, cannot to reading English.”
“You can’t? Oh, that’s a shame. You need to learn to read. Why, I bet I could teach you. I taught my Jubilee to read before she even started school. She read good, too. Always had her face over a book, just like her daddy.
“Me, I don’t read as much as I used to. Right after my man Clarence left, I took up them Harlequin romances for the most part of five years. Read one just about every day. ’Course, they just kept me stirred up with sinful thoughts. Finally, though, I quit those and took up the Bible. Figured it’d take a while for me to balance things out. Good and evil, you know. Love and hate. But it’s hard to find that kind of balance. Seems to me most folks never do. They’ll tip over one way or the other.
“So now, I just read my Bible, though you might find that hard to believe since I told you about my lust.
“But I don’t want you to get the wrong idea about Brother Marvin, ’cause he was a good man. Spent his whole life in service to God. Visited the shut-ins. Taught the men’s Bible class. And he did all the work needed doing here at the church. Why, he could fix just about anything. He was our electrician, plumber, bricklayer, painter. I’d come down here and help him sometimes. Sort his nails, clean his brushes, hold the ladder for him.
“But he’s gone now. Killed in the bus that day right after he left off Sister May Ruth. By God’s grace, she was his last passenger. Now, without anyone to keep things up, this old church is in a pretty mess.”
“Yes,” Bui said, looking around. “Very pretty.”
“Oh, it used to be, but it’s falling to ruin now. See up there in the corner, ceiling tile all stained and sagging? Another hard rain and that tile’s going to come right down on our heads. And those two windows covered with plywood got busted out in a hailstorm more’n two years ago. Our back door won’t lock, either, and the toilet tank leaks. All falling to ruin.
“But repairs cost money and need strong young men like Brother Marvin, so I don’t know…”
“I can fix.”
“You can fix what?”
“I fixer. Can fix window, can fix door, can fix…” Bui pointed to the sagging ceiling, a word not yet in his vocabulary. “Top?”
“Ceiling?”
“Yes, I fix ceiling.”
“Why, Mr. Boo, that’d be wonderful, just wonderful. But we couldn’t pay you for your time. There’s not enough money in our—”
“No money, no sirree! I fix for no money.”
“Oh, we couldn’t ask you to work for nothing. We couldn’t do that. But I tell you what I’ll do. If you’ll help us out here in the church, I’ll teach you to read English.”
“Me? To reading English?”
“Sure! I’d be more than glad. I’d love to do it if you want me to.”
“I want.”
“Then we’ve got a deal. Brother Marvin’s tools are still out back in the shed. So’s that church bus, a pitiful tangle of metal, but you can get around it.
Couple of ladders out there, too.
“And if you need anything else, you let me know. I live up the road ’bout a quarter mile. Yellow house. Closest one to the church. You can’t miss it. You come by there and I’ll fix you a cup of cocoa and we’ll talk. I sure enjoy your conversation.”
Galilee Jackson pulled herself up, buttoned her coat and started up the aisle. When she reached the door, she stopped and turned back to Bui.
“You think you’d like to come to worship with us on Sunday, or will you be looking to find your own church?”
“My church?”
“Yeah, the place where Buddhas go.”
“My temple far away.”
“Yes, I reckon it is. But you remember this, Mr. Boo,” she said as she turned and limped through the door. “It don’t matter what house you go to… just live the life. Just live the life.”
And then she was gone.
Chapter Seventeen
CANEY STAYED in bed all morning, pretending to sleep just as he had pretended to read the day before when his eyes had followed every word of every line on every page. But he had no recollection of the story and could not have named the title, even if he’d been asked.
He started to get up twice, but each time sank into his pillow, unwilling to make much of an effort. His back was stiff, his muscles ached and his head throbbed from lack of sleep.
He’d nearly drifted off once, but then the helicopter had come rushing at him, its blades cutting through the air above his head. After that, he made sure his eyes stayed open.
When he’d heard the raccoons in the trash cans just before dawn, he thought of getting his gun and shooting every one of the little bastards, but instead, he’d buried his head in his pillow to shut out the noise.
He’d heard Vena stirring just after first light, heard her pull her clothes on and slip into the cafe in the dark. And he’d heard MollyO arrive a few minutes later, knew when she tiptoed into the room and watched for the rise and fall of his blankets, evidence he was still alive.
He’d heard, too, fragments of conversation coming from just outside his door, MollyO and Vena, whispered words not intended for him to hear.
“… a stupid stunt, Vena… not a cowboy anymore…”
“… going just fine until this helicopter…”
“… for the love of God…”
“… asked him about Vietnam…”
“… did he tell you…”
“… no, never said a word…”
And for a moment, Caney thought he might call to her, ask her to come in and sit on his bed while he told it, told her all of it; but he felt his throat tighten and his mouth go dry the way it had each time the balding psychiatrist at the VA hospital had turned to him and smiled.
Caney, I don’t believe we’ve heard from you yet.
They had called him Doc Tremble because of the way his hands would shake when they told their stories. Sometimes it was so bad he couldn’t light his pipe or write notes on the pages of his clipboard. But he showed up every Monday and Thursday and gathered them into a circle for what he called their “Common Hour.”
Don’t you have something you’d like to talk about today, Caney?
No matter how hard Doc Tremble tried, Caney remained silent. Sometimes, after the lights went out in the ward, Caney would lie awake, trying to come up with something to say at the next session. But he just couldn’t seem to find the words.
Don’t you see, Caney? That’s why it’s called the Common Hour.
In spite of the fancy title Doc had given to their therapy sessions, Caney knew he didn’t belong, knew he couldn’t claim to have anything in common with those men… men missing eyes, hands, testicles… men fed through tubes in their bellies… men who held themselves and rocked, staring, seeing nothing. Those men had given up parts of their bodies, pieces of their minds, to kill an enemy they couldn’t see, to save friends they couldn’t forget, to take a piece of ground they couldn’t own.
Since we’re out of time today, how about we start with you on Monday, Caney? You have any objection to that?
Those men had a right!
But a kid? An ignorant, clumsy kid falling out of a helicopter like some ten-year-old tumbling out of a tree-house? The only right he had was to keep his damned mouth shut.
When Caney finally wheeled out of the bedroom, Vena and MollyO tried to act like it was business as usual for him to start work in the middle of the day. But they watched him when he wasn’t looking, watched and waited to see what was going on.
He spent most of the day in the kitchen, even when he had no orders to fill, but he was sullen and snappish, finding fault and insult in almost everything they did.
He growled at Vena because he couldn’t read her tickets, and he jumped on MollyO when she wasn’t waiting at the pass-through for each order she turned in.
When Wilma Driver pointed out that he’d left the cheese off her burger, he’d come whizzing out of the kitchen and rammed a slice of Swiss between the meat and the bun.
And as Life Halstead sliced into his rib eye, he made the mistake of saying it was too rare. Caney responded by spearing the steak with a fork, rushing to the kitchen and slapping it back on the grill. When he returned, the object impaled on the tines of the fork looked like a chunk of ebonite, and when he dropped it onto Life’s plate, it clanged like a horseshoe striking tin.
But it was Bui who got the worst of it.
Caney fussed at him for leaving the door to the pantry standing open and yelled when Bui dropped too many onion rings into the deep fryer sending grease boiling over the top. When a fluorescent bulb began to flicker, Caney shouted for Bui to take care of it, then griped at him for making too much noise when he dragged the ladder inside to replace it. And when three tables emptied at about the same time, he complained that Bui was too slow in clearing them and warned that he’d better hump up or he might find himself out of a job.
By the time evening came, everyone knew that the best way to deal with Caney Paxton was to steer clear of him. Everyone, that is, except Sam Kellam.
Vena saw the black pickup when it pulled in, but she pretended not to notice as she attached a tray to the window of the familiar GMC. The 4-H boys came in now three or four times a week, each trying to outdo the others in gaining her attention. But this time she lingered, let them flirt with her longer than she usually did, giving Sam plenty of time to saunter inside the cafe.
Caney was behind the register writing checks when Sam came in. He grunted a hello, hardly taking time to look up.
MollyO put a glass and the beer he ordered on the counter, but Sam shoved the glass away and drank straight from the bottle.
“You look bushed, MollyO.”
“Well, it’s been a long day,” she said as she picked up a couple of dirty cups and headed for the kitchen.
“Your carhop’s really pulling them in, Caney.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Looks like a car auction out there.”
Caney tore a check out of the book and attached it to a bill on the counter.
“Surprising what a good carhop can do for you, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“She must be giving you some special kind of service.” Sam grinned, a lopsided smile to show he knew what was really going on, but Caney ignored him.
When Vena slipped inside, trying her best to be unnoticed, Sam swiveled on the stool to give her his “undressing you” appraisal.
“Say, Vena, I missed you on that bus. And I don’t get much of a kick from riding by myself. But from what I hear, you traded the bus for a horse.” Sam took a long pull at his bottle, then wiped the back of his hand across his mouth. “What’d you all do out there? Play cowboys and Indians?”
Caney and Vena exchanged a glance, then she went to one of the back tables and bent over her half-finished meal which was growing cold.
Sam drained the last of his beer, then held the bottle up to Vena. “How about another one of these?”
&nbs
p; “I’ve got it,” Caney said, already reaching into the cold case beneath the counter.
“Yeah, Caney, from what I hear, this is about the busiest place in town. Business so good you’ve had to hire on extra help.”
Caney set the fresh beer on the counter, picked up the empty and flipped it into the trash can beneath the window.
“And folks say this place has gone international. A real melting pot.”
“Maybe folks talk too much.”
“That they do, Caney. That they do. Matter of fact, there’s an ugly rumor going around that you hired yourself a gook. But I tell them not to go spreading lies. I tell them there’s not an ounce of truth to that because I know you’re too smart a man to do something that stupid.”
When two middle-aged couples got up from one of the front tables and brought their check to the register, Caney took their money and mumbled, “Good night.” As soon as they walked out the door, Bui rushed from the kitchen with a plastic tub.
“Well, looks like I was wrong, Caney,” Sam said. “Looks like what I heard wasn’t no rumor after all.”
Caney pulled a cigarette from his pocket, keeping his eyes on Sam as he lit it.
“Looks like a gook, smells like a gook, then it must be a gook.” Sam watched Bui as he cleared the vacated table.
“What’s your name, gook?”
Bui, so intent on his work, so desperate to please Caney, was oblivious to the conversation taking place at the counter.
“Hey,” Sam yelled. “I said, ‘What’s your name?’ ”
MollyO, hearing the anger in Sam’s voice, came to stand in the kitchen doorway, one hand pressed against her chest. Vena shoved back from the table where she had been eating, the legs of her chair screeching against the floor.
Bui, smiling despite the certainty that the man’s question was not prompted by friendliness, said, “My name Bui Khanh.”
“Boy, huh? Well, Boy, looks like you’re doing all right for yourself here in the good old U.S. of A.”
“U.S.A. very good.”
“Yeah, it’s a damned good place ’long as you’ve got a job and people to kiss your ass.”
