Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories Page 34
What I mean is, Preacher Thompson’s intentions were good. At his very first interview the pulpit committee had told him what a sorry turn our church had taken in the last few years, and they hadn’t left out much either. They told him about Len Deaton, our former choir director, who left his choir, wife, and eight children to run off to Florida with a singer at Harley’s Lounge who wasn’t even a Baptist. And they told about Preacher Crowe, who had gotten so senile he had preached the same sermon four weeks in a row, though they didn’t mention that a lot of the congregation hadn’t even noticed. The committee told him about how membership had been slipping for several years, how the church was in a rut, and how when Preacher Crowe had finally retired in November, it had been clear that some major changes had to be made if the church was going to survive. And this was exactly why they wanted him to be the new minister, they told him. He was young and energetic and could bring some fresh blood into the church and help get it going in the right direction. Which was exactly what he tried to do, and exactly why Larry was able to talk his way onto that cross.
It did take a few weeks, though. At first Preacher Thompson was so nervous when he preached that I expected him to bolt for the sanctuary door at any moment. He wouldn’t even look up from his notes, and when he performed his first baptism he almost drowned poor little Eddie Gregory by holding him under the water too long. Still, each week you could see him get a little more comfortable and confident, and by the last Sunday in February, about two months ago, he gave the sermon everybody had been waiting for.
It was all about commitment and the need for new ideas, about how a church was like a car, and our church was in reverse and we had to get it back in forward. You could tell he was really working himself up because he wasn’t looking at his notes or his watch. It was 12:15, the first time he’d ever kept us up after twelve, when he closed, telling us that Easter, a month away, was a time of rebirth, and he wanted us all to go home and think of some way our church could be reborn too, something that would get Cliffside Baptist Church back in the right gear.
Later I wondered if maybe all the car talk had something to do with what happened, because the next Sunday Preacher Thompson announced he’d gotten many good suggestions, but there was one in particular that was truly inspired, one that could truly put the church back on the right road, and he wanted the man who had come up with the idea, Larry Rudisell, to stand and tell the rest of the congregation about it.
Like I said earlier, once you’ve been bitten by a snake you start looking out for them, but there’s something else too. You start to know their ways. So I knew right off that whatever Larry was about to unfold, he was expecting to get something out of it, because having been married to this snake for almost three years, I knew him better than he knew himself. Larry’s a hustler. Always has been. It was as if he came out of his momma talking out of both sides of his mouth, trying to hustle her, the nurse, the doctor, whichever one he saw first.
Larry stood up, wearing a sport coat he couldn’t button because of his beer gut, no tie, and enough gold around his neck to fill every tooth in Cleveland County. He was also wearing his sincere “I’d swear on my dead momma’s grave I didn’t know that odometer had been turned back” look, which was as phony as the curls in his brillo-pad hairdo, which he’d done that way to cover up his bald spot.
Then Larry started telling about what he was calling his “vision,” claiming that late Friday night he’d woke up, half blinded by bright flashing lights and hearing a voice coming out of the ceiling, telling him to recreate the crucifixion on the front lawn of Cliffside Baptist Church, at night, with lights shining on the three men on the crosses. The whole thing sounded more like one of those UFO stories in The National Examiner than a religious experience, and about as believable.
Larry looked around and started telling how he just knew people would come from miles away to see it, just like they went to McAdenville every December to see the Christmas lights, and then he said he believed in his vision enough to pay for it himself.
Then Larry stopped to see if his sales pitch was working. He was selling his crucifixion idea the same way he would an ’84 Buick in his car lot. And it was working. Larry has always been a smooth talker. He talked me into the back seat of his daddy’s car when I was seventeen, talked me into marrying him when I was eighteen, and talked me out of divorcing him on the grounds of adultery a half dozen times. I finally got smart and plugged up my ears with cotton so I couldn’t hear him while I packed my belongings.
Larry started talking again, telling the congregation he didn’t want to take any credit for the idea, that he was just a messenger and that the last thing God had told him was that he wanted Larry to play Jesus, and his mechanic, Terry Wooten, to play one of the thieves, a role, as far as I was concerned, Terry had been playing as long as he’d worked for Larry. When I looked over at Terry, the expression on his face made it quite clear that God hadn’t bothered to contact him about all of this. Then I looked up at the ceiling to see if it was about to collapse and bury us all. Everybody was quiet for about five seconds. Then the whole congregation started talking at once, and it sounded more like a tobacco auction than a church service.
After a couple of minutes people remembered where they were, and it got a little more civilized. At least they were raising their hands and getting acknowledged before they started shouting. The first to speak was Jimmy Wells, who had once bought an Olds ’88 from Larry and had the transmission fall out not a half-mile from where he had driven it off Larry’s lot. Jimmy was still bitter about that, so I wasn’t too surprised when he nominated his brother-in-law Harry Bayne to play Jesus.
As soon as Jimmy sat down, Larry popped up like a jack-in-the-box, claiming Harry couldn’t play Jesus because Harry had a hearing aid. When Jimmy asked why that mattered, Larry said they didn’t have hearing aids back in olden times and Jimmy said nobody would care and Larry said yes they would care and it’d ruin the whole production. Jimmy and Larry kept arguing. Harry finally got up and said if it meant that much to Larry to let him do it, that he was too hungry to care anymore.
Preacher Thompson had pretty much stayed out of all this till Harry said that, but then he suggested that Harry play the thief who gets saved, leaving Terry as the other one. The Splawn brothers, Donnie and Robbie, were nominated to be the Roman soldiers. To the credit of the church, when Preacher Thompson asked for a show of hands as to whether we should let this be our Easter project, it was close. My hand wasn’t the only one that went up against it, and I still believe it was empty stomachs as much as belief in Larry and his scheme that got it passed.
But it did pass, and a few days later Preacher Thompson called me up and asked, since I was on the church’s building and grounds committee, if I would help build the crosses. You see, I’m a carpenter, the only full-time one, male or female, in the church, so whenever the church’s softball field needs a new backstop or the parsonage needs some repair work, I’m the one who usually does it. And I do it right. Carpentry is in my blood. People around here say my father was the best carpenter to ever drive a nail in western North Carolina, and after my mother died when I was nine, he would take me with him every day I wasn’t in school. By the time I was fourteen, I was working fulltime with him in the summers. I quit school when I was sixteen. I knew how I wanted to make my living. I’ve been a carpenter for the last fifteen years.
It was hard at first. Since I was a woman, a lot of men didn’t think I could do as good a job as they could. But one good thing about being a carpenter is someone can look at your work and know right away if you know what you’re doing. Nowadays, my reputation as a carpenter is as good as any man’s in the county.
Still, I was a little surprised that Preacher Thompson asked me to work on a project my ex-husband was so involved in. But, being new, he might not have known we had once been married. I do go by my family’s name now. Or maybe he did know, figuring since the divorce was over five years ago we had forgiven each o
ther like Christians should. Despite its being Larry’s idea, I did feel obligated since I was on the building and grounds committee, so I said I would help. Preacher Thompson thanked me and said we would meet in front of the church at ten on Saturday morning.
On Saturday, me, Preacher Thompson, Larry, and Ed Watt, who’s an electrician, met on the front lawn. From the very start, it was obvious Larry was going to run the show, telling us the way everything should be, pointing and waving his arms like he was a Hollywood director. He had on a white, ruffled shirt that was open to his gut, his half-ton of gold necklaces, and a pair of sunglasses. Larry was not just trying to act like but look like he was from California, which meant, as far as I was concerned, that, unlike Jesus, he actually deserved to be nailed to a cross.
Larry showed me where he wanted the three crosses, and he gave me the length he wanted them. His was supposed to be three feet taller than the other two. Preacher Thompson was close by, so we acted civil to one another till I walked over to my truck to go get the wood I’d need. Larry followed me, and as soon as I got in the truck and cranked it, he asked me how it felt to have only a pillow to hold every night. “Lot of advantages to it,” I said as I slowly drove away. “A pillow don’t snore and it don’t have inch-long toenails and it don’t smell like a brewery.” I was already out of shouting distance before he could think of anything to say to that.
I was back an hour later with three eight-inch-thick poles, just like the ones I used to build the backstop for the softball field, and a railroad crosstie I’d sawed into three lengthwise pieces for the part the arms would be stretched out on. I’d also gotten three blocks of wood I was going to put where their feet would be to take the strain off their arms.
As I turned into the church parking lot, I saw that Wanda Wilson’s LTD was parked in the back of the church. She was out by the car with Larry, wearing a pink sweatshirt and a pair of blue running shorts, even though it was barely 60 degrees, just to show off her legs. When they saw me they started kissing and putting their hands all over each other. They kept that up for a good five minutes, in clear view of not just me but Ed Watt and Preacher Thompson too, and I thought we were going to have to get a water hose and spray them, the same way you would two dogs, to get them apart.
Finally, Wanda got into her LTD and left, maybe to get a cold shower, and Larry came over to the truck. As soon as he saw the poles in the back of the truck he got all worked up, saying they were too big around, that they looked like telephone poles, that he was supposed to be Jesus, not the Wichita Lineman. That was enough for me. I put my toolbox back in the cab and told Preacher Thompson Benny Brown was coming over with his post-hole digger around noon. I pointed at Larry. “I forgot all about Jesus being a carpenter,” I said. “I’m taking all of this back over to Hamrick’s Lumberyard.” Then I drove off and didn’t look back.
Why is it that some men always have to act like they know more than another human being just because that other human being happens to be a woman? Larry’s never driven a nail in his life, but he couldn’t admit that I would know what would make the best and safest cross. I guess some people never change. Ever since the divorce was made final, Larry has gone out of his way to be as ugly as possible to me. The worst thing about being divorced in a small town is that you’re always running into your ex. Sometimes it seems I see him more now than I did when I was married to him. I can live with that.
But it’s been a lot harder to live with the lies he’s been spreading around town, claiming things about me that involved whips and dog collars and Black Sabbath albums. You’d think nobody would believe such things, but like the bible says, it’s a fallen world. A lot of people want to believe the worst, so a lot of them believed Larry when he started spreading his lies. I couldn’t get a date for almost two years, and I lost several girlfriends too. Like the song says, “Her hands are callused but her heart is tender.” That rumor caused me more heartache than you could believe.
I have no idea what they did after I drove off that Saturday, but the Sunday before Easter the crosses were up, so after church let out just about everybody in the congregation went out on the front lawn to get a better look.
I’ve always said you can tell a lot about a person by how carefully they build something or put something together, but looking at Larry’s crosses didn’t tell me a thing I didn’t already know. Instead of using a pole for the main section, he had gotten four-by-eight boards made out of cedar, which anybody who knows anything about wood can tell you is the weakest wood you can buy. The crossties and footrests were the same. I’m not even going to mention how sorry the nailing was.
I walked over to the middle cross, gave it a push, and felt it give like a popsicle stick in sand. I kneeled beside it and dug up enough dirt to see they hadn’t put any cement in the hole Benny Brown had dug for them but had just packed dirt in it. I got up and walked over to the nearest spigot and washed the red dirt off my hands while everybody watched me, waiting for me to pass judgment on Larry’s crosses.
“All I’m going to say is this,” I said as I finished drying my hands. “Anybody who gets up on one of those things had better have a whole lot of faith.” Of course Larry wasn’t going to let me have the last word. He started saying I was just jealous that he’d done such a good job, that I didn’t know the difference between a telephone pole and a cross. I didn’t say another word, but as I was walking to my truck I heard Harry Bayne tell Larry he was going to have to find somebody else to play his role, that he’d rather find a safer way to prove his faith, like maybe handling a rattlesnake or drinking strychnine. I went back that night to look at the crosses a last time. I left convinced more than ever that the crosses, especially the taller middle one, wouldn’t support the weight of a full-grown man.
On Good Friday I went on over to the church about an hour before they were scheduled to start, mainly because I didn’t believe they would be able to get up there without at least one of the crosses snapping like a piece of dry kindling. There were already a good number of people there, including Larry’s cousin Kevin, who wasn’t a member of our church or anybody else’s, but who worked part-time for Larry and was enough like Larry to be a good salesman and a pitiful excuse for a human being. Kevin was spitting tobacco juice into a paper cup while Mrs. Murrel, who used to teach drama over at the high school, dabbed red paint on his face and hands and feet, trying to make him look like the crucified thief Larry had talked, paid, or threatened him into playing. Besides the paint, the only thing he was wearing was a sweatshirt with a picture of Elvis on it and what looked like a giant diaper, though I’d already heard the preacher explain to several people it was supposed to be what the bible called a loincloth. Terry Wooten was standing over by the crosses, dressed up the same way, looking like he was about to vomit as he stared up at where he would be hanging in only a few more minutes.
Then I saw the sign and suddenly everything that had been going on for the last month made sense. It was one of those portable electric ones with about a hundred colored light bulbs bordering it. “The Crucifixion Of JESUS CHRIST Is Paid For and Presented By LARRY RUDISELL’S Used Cars Of Cliffside, North Carolina” was spelled out in red plastic letters at the top of the message board. Near the bottom in green letters it said, “If JESUS Had Driven A Car, He Would Have Bought It At LARRY’S.” It was the tackiest, most sacrilegious thing I’d ever seen in my life.
Finally, the new Jesus himself appeared, coming out of the church with what looked like a brown, rotting halo on his head—it was his crown of thorns—fifty yards of extension cord covering his shoulder, and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He unrolled the cord as he came across the lawn, dressed like Kevin and Terry except he didn’t have any red paint on his face. Larry didn’t have a fake beard either. He wanted everyone to know it was Larry Rudisell up on that cross. He walked over to the sign and plugged the extension cord into it.
You know what it’s like when the flashbulb goes off when you’re getting a picture tak
en and you stagger around half blind for a while? Well, that’s about the effect Larry’s sign had when it came on. The colored lights were flashing on and off, and you could have seen it from a mile away. Larry watched for a minute to make sure it was working right and then announced it was twenty minutes to show time so they needed to go ahead and get up on the crosses. Preacher Thompson and the Splawn brothers went and got the stepladders and brought them over to where the crosses were. Terry and Kevin slinked over behind the sign, trying to hide. It was obvious Larry was going to have to get up there first.
Larry took off his sweatshirt, and I realized for the first time they were going to go up there with nothing except the bedsheets wrapped around them. It wasn’t that cold right then, but like it always is in March, it was windy. I knew that in a few minutes, when the sun went down, the temperature would really fall fast.
While Donnie and Robbie Splawn steadied the cross, Larry crawled up the ladder. With only the loincloth wrapped around him, he looked more like a Japanese Sumo wrestler on Wide World of Sports than Jesus. When he got far enough up, Larry reached over, grabbed the crosstie, and put his feet on the board he was going to stand on. He turned himself around until he faced us. I’ll never know how the cross held, but it did.
It was completely dark, except of course for Larry’s sign, by the time Terry and Kevin had been placed on their crosses. As I watched I couldn’t help thinking that if they ever did want to bring back crucifixion, the three hanging up there in the dark would be as good a bunch to start with as any. I looked over my shoulder and saw the traffic was already piled up, and the whole front lawn was filled with people. There was even a TV crew from WSOC in Charlotte.
At 6:30 the music began, and the spotlights Ed Watt had rigged up came on. I had to admit it was impressive, especially if you were far enough away so you didn’t see Larry’s stomach or Terry’s chattering teeth. The WSOC cameras were rolling, and more and more people were crowding onto the lawn and even spilling out into the road, making the first traffic jam in Cliffside’s history even worse.