Life Goes On (14 page)

It was going to be a long winter. I could tell that now. And if I made it through without violating my commitment to nonviolence, it would be a miracle.

T
he weather broke at the end of January. It had been a cold winter with heavy snow, the schools had closed four times, and parents all over town were deep in prayer that the weather would improve, which it finally did. Ned Kivett at the Five and Dime was so desperate for warm weather, he set up his annual bathing suit display a month early. He dressed his new mannequin in a bikini and propped her up in the front window, causing no small amount of scandal among certain townspeople.

It was the first bikini to ever appear in the window of the Five and Dime. Before this, Ned had only sold one-piece bathing suits that covered everything but the wrists and ankles. He had received the bikini by mistake. At first he thought it was a pair of ear muffs and an eye patch, though a closer look revealed it was, in fact, a bikini, and not a very large one at that. If the weather hadn't been so bad, he would have returned it. But the cold weather and the gray days have weakened his moral defenses, so he put it on the mannequin instead.

While the Friendly Women were busy circulating petitions demanding Ned cease and desist, the men at the Coffee Cup began speculating about who might purchase the bikini. After much deliberation, it was decided only three women in town could actually wear the bikini and do it justice—Heather Darnell at the Coffee Cup, the recently dethroned Sausage Queen, Tiffany Nagle, and Deena Morrison.

Bets were placed as to which of the three would eventually purchase it. The smart money was on Tiffany Nagle, so you can imagine our surprise when Dr. Pierce waltzed into the Five and Dime on a Wednesday afternoon, plunked down twenty dollars, and waited while Ned undressed the mannequin, packed the bikini in a plain brown wrapper, and handed it over to Dr. Pierce, blushing all the while.

This led to all sorts of theories about Dr. Pierce among the Coffee Cup crowd, none of them complimentary, until Asa Peacock pointed out he probably bought it for Deena, his bride-to-be. “Probably for their honeymoon,” Asa said.

“That's gonna be some honeymoon,” Kyle Weathers observed, with more than a touch of envy.

The Coffee Cup fell silent as the men contemplated Deena's honeymon.

“So has anyone heard where they're going?” I asked, feeling it my duty as a minister to shift the focus of their attention away from Deena and her bikini.

“Someplace warm, I'd guess, with a bikini like that,” Bob Miles said.

“Where'd you and Barbara go, Sam?” Asa asked.

“Cincinnati, to see the Reds play.”

“That's some wife you got there,” Vinny Toricelli said. The other men nodded their agreement.

“Me and Jessie went to Peoria to visit her aunt,” Asa said. “I think about it every time I hear our song.”

“What's your song?” I asked.

“‘Moonlight Over Peoria.' Do you know it?”

“I don't believe so.”

“It didn't get a lot of play time around here,” Asa conceded.

We discussed other trips we'd taken, being careful not to sound too enthusiastic. Travel is viewed with suspicion in our town, as it implies a dissatisfaction with staying home. Travel to the neighboring states is fine, so long as one doesn't make a habit of it and is quick to declare that, although it was a fine place to visit, they wouldn't want to live there. In 1971, Harvey and Eunice Muldock visited Puerto Rico and came back with pictures. People still talk about it, and not charitably.

As for honeymoons, they are opportunities to visit relatives you haven't seen for a while, so spouses can know what it is they've gotten themselves into.

Travel to Europe is acceptable, but only in the event of war, to put down the occasional fascist uprising. Otherwise, it's pretentious and people will think you're a snob. Dr. Neely and his wife visited France this past August. The trip was a gift from their daughters, so they had to go. But they did the right thing and told everyone they had a miserable time, were glad to be home, and if they never went back it wouldn't be too soon. People have been willing to forgive
them, because if they hadn't gone, then Dr. Pierce would never have come to town and he and Deena wouldn't have met. So it was God's will that Dr. Neely and his wife went to France. Yet one more example of God bringing something good from tragedy and hardship.

The trustees at the church have been painting the inside of the meetinghouse, on the assumption Deena will be getting married there. She had told me she might be married in the city, where she grew up, though I haven't told anyone, for fear the trustees will lose their motivation for sprucing up the meetinghouse. I encourage them each afternoon by mentioning how grateful Deena is for their thoughtfulness, then suggesting that while they're at it they might as well replace the carpet.

The carpet was installed thirty years ago. It was donated by the late Esther Farlow, who knew six months in advance she was going to die and used that time traveling from one carpet store to another before finding the carpet she wanted—an utterly repulsive lime green shag. Esther, I now suspect, was passive-aggressive and wanted to annoy us in perpetuity, knowing once a church has installed carpet it takes an act of God to get it removed.

To my utter amazement, the trustees let loose of ten thousand dollars and had new carpeting installed. They sought no one's counsel but their own. They simply ripped out the old carpet and replaced it, figuring it would be easier to apologize than to ask permission.

The carpet is a muted gray, the meetinghouse walls a soft blue with white trim. It is a vast improvement, well worth the headache I
received from the paint fumes. I've been spending a lot of time in the back booth of the Coffee Cup, writing my sermons there until the fumes dissipate and I can return to my office. Though I might not go back. It has been a pleasant experience. Heather keeps my glass of iced tea full, and Vinny lets me eat all the day-old pie I want.

The restaurant patrons have been diligent in providing me a variety of illustrations and ideas for my sermon. They tell bawdy jokes about traveling salesmen and farmers' daughters, then grant me permission to use them in my messages. That sets off a round of chortles and snickers. They seem to delight at the opportunity to lead me astray.

“You hang around here long enough, and we'll expand your vocabulary,” Vinny promised. “You ministers spend all your time with little old ladies. You need to get out more, like Jesus did. You never saw him hanging around with church people. He ate with sinners.”

“Yes, and it got him killed,” I pointed out.

I told Vinny if he wanted me to stay he'd have to install a phone jack at my booth so I could call people, and three days later, there it was, along with a sign:
The Harmony Friends Meeting Annex.
Some people spend their winters in Florida, which I can't do, given our town's feelings about travel. So I'm spending my winter at the Coffee Cup, in the warm fellowship of sinners.

There are benefits I didn't anticipate, which make my time here all the more pleasant. Fern Hampton won't come near the place, citing the moral depravity of its patrons. In fact, they're quite virtuous. They just act depraved so people like Fern will keep their distance.

I've even been doing some counseling here. I've noticed people feel freer to stop by and visit, people who would never show up at my office and admit to having problems, but who will join me at the annex, sip on their coffee, and unburden themselves.

Dale and Dolores Hinshaw have been stopping by. After their brief separation, I'd met with them twice and suggested to Dale that he might spend less time saving the lost and more time with his wife, so he's been bringing her to the Coffee Cup for lunch. Though that isn't quite what I had in mind, it seems to be working. She told me it had been two weeks since she'd had the urge to choke him.

If they hadn't been married so long, I'd be worried about them. But there is, I'm discovering, an inertia inherent in some long-term marriages that makes parting difficult. Divorce would require opening new checking accounts and cleaning out the basement, which, when you're past fifty, strikes some people as too much work. So they put up with one another and maybe hope that God in His mercy might call their spouse home and grant them freedom.

Couples who should never have married in the first place stay together sixty or seventy years so the dreadful task of cleaning their basement will fall to someone else, namely, their children. My parents get along well, though I live in mortal fear they will stay in their home until their deaths, leaving me to deal with the staggering accumulation of their union. For years, I have urged them to have a garage sale, which they've refused to do. Now my only hope is that they will divorce and be forced to clean their own basement.

There was a woman in our town, years ago, named Myra Stapert,
whose pack rat husband died, leaving her with a house full of junk, which she remedied by setting the place on fire and moving to an apartment over Grant's Hardware. People rushed to assist her, giving her clothing, food, Tupperware, mismatched sets of dinnerware, and old television sets. Within three months, she was worse off than before, a victim of charity. Her only option was to leave town in the middle of the night. We never heard from her again.

I shudder to think what Deena and Dr. Pierce's children will think when they happen upon her bikini fifty years from now, tucked away in a trunk up in the attic. Or maybe find an old, yellowed picture of their sainted mother standing on a beach dressed very simply. “Is that Mom? That looks like her, but that can't be her, can it? She wouldn't wear anything like that, would she?” I'm glad I won't be around to have to deal with the fallout.

Or when Dale and Dolores pass away and their oldest son, Raymond Dale, will clean out the top drawer of Dale's desk and find the letters he wrote to Dolores when she left him for a week. He'll recognize his father's spidery handwriting. “Why did you leave? Please come back. I promise I'll change. I'll get the money back. Please come home. I miss you. I need you.” Letters Dale wrote, but never mailed. They're still there and soon he'll forget about them and one day, years from now, Raymond Dale will discover them and the image of his parents that has sustained him all these years will be shattered.

Myra Stapert had the right idea when she burned all the evidence.

When people came to church the last Sunday in January, they walked in, saw the new carpet, and had a fit. Why weren't they told? Had this been discussed? Did the trustees have the authority to do
such a thing? Why gray? Why not red? For that matter, what was wrong with the old carpet? With all the starving children in the world, was it good stewardship to throw money away when we already had perfectly good carpet?

Fern Hampton demanded to see the bill of sale, so she could find out which trustee had the temerity to order new carpet without consulting her. But it couldn't be found. The trustees had the good sense to dispose of everything that would connect them to this heinous crime.

“I think it was Harvey Muldock's idea,” Asa told Fern, who promptly stormed off to Harvey, only to be told it was Ellis Hodge, who admitted to nothing except to say he thought it was Dale's idea. Dale sent her to Stanley Farlow, who forwarded her to Bill Muldock, who told her he'd heard it was her idea.

It hasn't been an easy winter for Fern, having to oversee the town's morality when it seems bent on depravity. She stopped by the Five and Dime to harangue Ned Kivett for selling bikinis.

“What bikinis?” he asked. “I don't see any bikinis.” He pointed to his mannequin, now attired in a floor-length gown. “Does that look like a bikini to you?”

He has ordered more bikinis, which he keeps behind the counter, out of children's view. He only sells them to people twenty-one and older, if they promise not to wear them inside the city limits.

The church elders postponed the January meeting because of the painting, so we met the first week of February instead. After we had waded through the committee reports, Miriam Hodge asked if
there was any new business. With Dolores home, Dale has revived and happily announced he would be launching five hundred salvation balloons the next week, targeting the annual convention of Unitarians in the city. Miriam wanted to minute our appreciation to the trustees for sprucing up the meetinghouse, but Fern nipped that in the bud, then demanded we investigate rumors of financial improprieties concerning the trustees and their purchase of the carpet.

Winter, I'm starting to believe, gives us too much time to contemplate the world's evils—bikinis, world travel, new carpet, and Unitarians. Then again, we have to think about something, and it's always more fun to meditate on someone else's sin instead of our own.

I
t's been two months since Miriam Hodge advised me to speak my mind. I've been looking for the opportunity, but no one has cooperated. I kept hoping Dale would do something stupid so I could take exception, but he'd been most compatible, going so far as to recommend the church give me a raise. Everyone has been unusually reasonable, except for Fern Hampton, and I wasn't about to stand up to her. Speaking my mind was one thing; suicide by Fern was another.

Dr. Pierce and Deena had returned to our Sunday school class, buoying my spirits. And several of the alumni from the Live Free or Die class had stopped attending, which was icing on the cake. The questions I pulled from the hat each Sunday were startling in their boldness, obviously written by someone who didn't know certain questions shouldn't be asked. It reminded me how often we in the church ask the same safe questions, give the same pat answers, and then applaud our intellectual vigor.

My first year of seminary, I met a man who'd retired from there years before. His wife had died and he had nowhere else to go, so he
passed his days at the seminary where he'd taught. He set up residence in the student lounge and, in addition to teaching me Ping-Pong, enlightened me on a range of other topics.

I complained to him one day that my faith had died, how I mourned its passing, that I wasn't sure what to believe, and if it were up to me, I'd just as soon return to what I had once believed. He laughed, then asked if I had ever heard of Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

“Wasn't he in those old detective movies?”

“No, that was Sherlock Holmes. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was on the Supreme Court.”

“Oh,” I said, wondering what a Supreme Court justice had to do with my problem.

“Holmes said that the mind, once expanded to the dimensions of larger ideas, never returns to its original size.”

I thought about that for a moment.

“You've been stretched, Sam. Now you have to fill your mind with a grand vision. That's why you're here.”

So that's what I did. I read and listened and cleaned the attic of my mind in order to make room for the new. I learned how to interpret the Bible, how to ask questions and think theologically. Unfortunately, I didn't learn that some churches don't appreciate grand visions, or higher biblical criticism, or theology, for that matter. Except, of course, the theology they grew up with and prefer to keep, lest new knowledge require a change of heart and mind.

In my first church, I was counseled to stick to the customary, not rock the boat, and above all not upset a certain Sunday school class,
whose members hadn't had a new thought since 1962 and didn't want one. Eventually, I returned to the clichés of my childhood faith, put my theology books in storage, and made sure to visit the people in the nursing home. I kept that pattern the twelve years I pastored that church and fell into it again when I returned to Harmony. Sixteen years of letting my mind atrophy like a spent balloon, once stretched but now withered.

But lately I've been leaving church positively buoyant. It's such an odd sensation I wasn't sure what to make of it. I thought at first it was the cough medicine I'd been taking, which has a tendency to make me loopy-happy, but it finally occurred to me it was something else entirely, a feeling so foreign to me it took a while to name it. I was optimistic.

“What's wrong with you?” my wife asked on a Sunday evening in late February. The boys were in bed and we were sitting in front of the fireplace, watching the sparks jump. “You don't seem yourself lately. You seem, almost…” She paused to think of the word.

“Content?” I said.

“That's it,” she agreed. “Content.”

“Everything is going so well. I love our Sunday school class. I never dreamed we'd have a Sunday school class like this.”

“It has been fun. Deena and Dr. Pierce are wonderful additions.”

“For the first time, I feel I can invite people to church without being embarrassed,” I said. “Even Dale has settled down.”

My wife smiled and reached for my hand. “I'm glad things are going better, honey.”

We stayed up another hour, reading and enjoying the fire, content beyond measure.

It has been said by old soldiers that it's the bullet you don't hear that kills you. My phone rang early the next morning, my day off. It was Bea Majors on a self-appointed inquisition.

“I heard Dr. Pierce said during Sunday school he didn't believe in the Virgin Birth of Jesus.”

“I don't think he came right out and said it like that, Bea. Why don't you ask him?”

“I did. And do you know what he told me?”

“I haven't the faintest idea.”

“He told me he'd learned a long time ago how babies were made.”

“Bea, what would you like me to do about it? We don't kill heretics anymore. It's against the law.”

“Well, I just want to say I've been playing the organ in this church for fifty years, and I'm not sure I can continue to play for a minister who doesn't believe in the Virgin Birth.”

“I never said I didn't believe in the Virgin Birth. It's Dr. Pierce who doesn't believe in it.”

“Oh, so you admit that he doesn't.”

Now I was utterly confused. “No, I don't know that for sure. I just thought we were talking about him, not me.”

“So how come all of a sudden you want to talk about Dr. Pierce and not yourself. Have you got something to hide, Sam?”

“Not at all, Bea.”

“Then maybe you should tell me what you think of the Virgin Birth.”

“I don't know what to think of it, quite frankly,” I said.

“So you don't believe it either?”

“I didn't say that. I said I didn't know what to think of it.”

“Sam, maybe you just need to find yourself a new organist. I think maybe I need to go somewhere else to church.”

“Bea, why don't I come by your house and we talk. This seems awfully sudden.”

Bea Majors was the worst organist in the Western world. Why I was talking her into staying was an even greater mystery to me than the Virgin Birth.

“No, Sam, I've made up my mind.”

“Bea, I wish you'd reconsider.”

“I don't think so,” she said rather stiffly. “I've given it all the thought I need to. Good-bye.”

I set the phone down, more than a little troubled.

It was too much to hope Bea would go quietly into the night. Instead, she began working the phones, notifying the rest of the congregation I didn't believe in the Virgin Birth and was probably, at that very moment, sacrificing firstborn children on the church altar.

By suppertime, I'd received half a dozen phone calls from members of the church demanding I explain myself. I held them off by saying, as firmly as I could, that I agreed with the Apostle Paul on the Virgin Birth. That seemed to satisfy them, though I knew if they discovered Paul never mentioned it, I'd be in trouble.

I wasn't too worried they would find that out. They're nice people, but not well versed in Scripture. Many of them have cherished proverbs that they attribute to the Bible.

“Well, you know what the Bible says about that, when the cat's away, the mice will play.” Or “Like it says in the Bible, a hog in satin is still a hog.”

I had stopped correcting them long ago, having learned that people who talk the most about the Bible often know it the least, but resent having it pointed out. So I cultivated the habit of nodding my head in agreement, as if marveling at their exegetical prowess.

But that didn't work this time. On Tuesday afternoon, Miriam Hodge stopped by the meetinghouse to tell me three people had phoned her demanding my resignation. Dale and Dolores, who just the week before had been my new best friends, joined forces against me. Although I was heartened to see them united for a common cause, I was somewhat distressed that their common cause was getting me fired.

“This is so silly,” I said to Miriam. “I never said I didn't believe in the Virgin Birth. All I did was mention to Bea that I didn't know what to think of it. That's all I said.”

“Sam, this is easily solved. The church newsletter comes out next week. Why don't you write on the pastor's page that you believe in the Virgin Birth? That ought to pacify them.”

I sat quietly, considering her request. “Does this mean you weren't serious two months ago when you told me I needed to stop trying to make people happy who'll never be happy anyway?”

“Did I say that?”

“Yes. You also said I should stop kowtowing to everyone and I needed to give up the illusion everyone is going to like me.”

“I said all those things?” Miriam asked.

“You also told me it was time I grew up.”

“That was a bad day for me,” Miriam said. “I'm going through the change right now and it's making me edgy.”

“No need to apologize, Miriam. You were absolutely right.”

I stood, walked around my desk to Miriam, put my arm around her shoulder, and walked her to the door. “I appreciate your advice, but I won't be writing anything in the newsletter. I'm not going to be held hostage by unreasonable people. I'm not sure what I think of the Virgin Birth. I do know I'm not going to say I believe it just to make people happy. If they don't like it, they can go somewhere else to church.”

“Fair enough, Sam. But I don't think they want to go somewhere else. I think they want you to do the going.”

“I'm willing to take that risk,” I said. “I guess we're going to have to decide what kind of church we're going to be, whether we'll be rigid and hidebound or tolerant and generous in spirit.”

“Yes, I suppose you're right, Sam. But I'm not looking forward to the discussion.”

“You know, Miriam, it might turn out to be a blessing. We could end up deciding what's most important to us.”

“I know that and you know that. What concerns me is that Dale and Bea will decide what's most important is to have you crucified.”

I laughed. “At least I'd be in good company.”

“That you would, Sam. That you would.”

I thanked her for stopping past and hugged her good-bye.

I turned to walk into my office.

“You,” Frank said, perched in his secretary's chair, peering at me over the top of his bifocals, “are a dead man walking.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean Dale has a bullet with your name on it. You are not long for this world. You're history. Yesterday's news. The word at the Coffee Cup this morning is that you'll be gone by Easter.”

“Thank you, Frank. Your honesty is certainly an encouragement to me.”

“Just keeping you informed, that's all.”

“That's very kind of you.”

“So how come you're denying the virginity of our Blessed Mother?” he asked.

“I've done no such thing. As far I'm concerned, she's a fine example of femininity and if I had a daughter, I'd name her Mary. I'm just tired of a few nutty people getting worked up over nothing.”

“Oh, so now you think the Virgin Mary is nothing.”

“You know, I could find a new secretary if I had to. One who treats me with a little more respect and doesn't twist my words.”

Frank smiled, then leaned back in his chair. “Who'd want this job? The pay's lousy and you have to put up with crazy people. I'm only sticking around to see how you get out of this.”

“Your loyalty is touching, Frank.”

“Well, Sam, you go about your business stirring up trouble, and I'll watch your backside. Even though it's not in my job description and I haven't gotten a raise in three years.”

“If I survive this, I'll ask the elders to do something about that.”

“That's all right. It'd probably just kick me into a higher tax bracket.
Besides, I'm hoping the Lord will let me slip into heaven on your coattails.” He paused for a moment. “Course now that you've insulted his mother, those coattails probably aren't nearly as long.”

He walked from the office, twitching with laughter.

I returned to my desk to start work on my sermon. The phone rang. I wasn't in the mood to be rebuked, so I let the answering machine pick it up. It was my superintendent up in the city, calling to see if what he'd heard from Bea Majors was true, that I had stood in the pulpit and called the Virgin Mary a floozy.

He'd be driving down to Harmony next week, he said, to meet with the elders and me. He went on, his voice cold and mechanical through the answering machine speaker. “I'll expect you to say that Mary was a virgin. If you don't, I'll have to recommend they let you go.” A sharp click followed, then the room fell silent.

That's when I realized this wasn't going to go away, that my critics had marshaled their forces, and I was soon going to be out the door.