A Change of Heart (7 page)

L
abor Day found the children back in school and people returning to church. Sunday school had resumed at Harmony Friends Meeting after a three-month respite from Christian education, which most of them could ill-afford. Certain other Christians in town wonder aloud what it must be like to love the Lord only three-fourths of the year, but the Harmony Friends aren’t fazed by sarcasm. The Sunday after Memorial Day they shut down Sunday school, begin worship an hour earlier, and let the censure roll off their backs.

Every now and then a new member, aflame with pious zeal, will stand the Sunday before Memorial Day and harangue them for coasting through the summer. He (it’s always a he) will read from Revelation about being lukewarm and warn that God will spew them out of his mouth. The old-timers sit stoically in their pews, unfazed by this moist and gruesome prophecy.

The Tuesday after Labor Day, Sam Gardner walked his sons to school. Levi was in fifth grade, Addison in third. They attend the same school, the one Sam attended, three blocks south of the town square; it’s a squat brick building that appears unfinished, which, in fact, it is. The town ran out of money after three stories and had to leave off the fourth floor and the clock tower. Consequently, no one in Harmony is ever sure of the time, except when Darrell Furbay, the fire chief, sounds the fire whistle at noon. How he knows the correct time is something of a mystery.

After depositing his sons in their classrooms, Sam walked to the meetinghouse, stopping by the Legal Grounds for a cup of coffee, his third of the day. He would be visiting Dale Hinshaw later in the morning and needed extra caffeine to steel his resolve. Though Dale’s brush with mortality had softened him, he now appears to have returned to his former sanctimonious self. The Sunday before, he had publicly rebuked Sam for reading the offertory prayer from a sheet of paper, instead of trusting the Lord to give him the words, as he had promised in Matthew 10:18–20: “When you are dragged before governors and kings for my sake, do not be anxious for how you are to speak or what you are to say; for what you are to say will be given to you in that hour; for it is not you who speak, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.”

Sam pointed out that he hadn’t been dragged before governors and kings; he was merely praying over the money basket.

Ordinarily, Sam had one of the elders give the offering prayer, but that Sunday he had resorted to a written prayer because he was tired of the elders giving the same tired prayer every Sunday: “Dear Lord, we just want to thank you for all the blessings you’ve given us, and we just want to return a small portion of everything you’ve given us, that you might build your kingdom. Amen.”

Sam has always wondered why the elders pray about giving “a small portion.” This phrase has stuck in people’s minds; the offering plates are invariably heaped with one-dollar bills. So he’d written a prayer extolling God’s many blessings and how, after everything God had done for them, they were pleased to return “a generous portion” for his kingdom, and that’s when Dale had cautioned him against written prayers.

“So what do you have on the calendar this morning?” Deena asked him at the Legal Grounds.

“I promised Dale I would stop past to visit him,” Sam said. “But I’m starting to regret it.”

“He sure was feeling his oats this past Sunday, wasn’t he?”

“Yes, I fear our old Dale is back.”

“Maybe you can sweeten him up with a raspberry Danish. I have one more left before I can wash this tray. I’ll wrap it up and you can take it to him.”

It didn’t help. As it turned out, Dale didn’t care for raspberries, and a number of other things, including Sam’s tinkering with the worship service and the church’s decision to cancel its annual revival. “Don’t think I don’t know what’s going on,” he told Sam. “I have a heart attack and you take advantage of me being gone to ramrod your liberal agenda through. I was born at night, but not last night. I know what’s happening.”

Sam didn’t stay long. It was the Tuesday before the Friendly Women Circle’s annual Chicken Noodle Dinner, and he’d promised the ladies he’d bless the noodles, a rather elaborate process that involved readings from the Old and New Testaments, a hymn, and a prayer, preferably given from the heart and not read from a paper, Fern Hampton had informed him.

When he arrived at the meetinghouse, the ladies were arrayed around the noodle table, rolling out their last batch. Sam did the requisite reading from the Old Testament about the Lord causing manna to fall from the heavens, giving nourishment to the Israelites. Fern spoke of how in much the same way the Lord had exalted the lowly noodle, using it to nourish the saints of the church, while also providing funds for Brother Norman’s shoe ministry to the Choctaw Indians, not to mention kitchen improvements. Then Sam read from the New Testament about Christ’s body given for us, blessed a plate of noodles, and dispensed them to the ladies one at a time, their pious faces lifted upward, their hands clutched in prayer. Then it was time for the prayer, asking God’s protection for the women of the Circle, that no calamity would keep them from their sacred duties, and that, were the dinner to be a success, all the glory should go to God and not to them, his humble servants.

The ladies, deeply moved, finished their last batch of noodles with a zeal not seen in years, then moved to the kitchen to bone out the last of the chickens. A record crowd was expected. The weatherman from Cartersburg was calling for sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-sixties and this year’s Sausage Queen, Addie Lefter, had agreed to dish up the first helping of noodles.

After a tumultuous year—Tiffany Nagle had confessed to vegetarianism not five minutes after being crowned the Sausage Queen—Addie was looking forward to restoring the luster to that venerated position. Addie is the granddaughter of Morey Lefter, the kingpin of the Lefter school bus cartel, who drove a school bus for forty-six years with only one accident. He’d backed into Fern Hampton’s Lincoln Town Car in 1974, though no one minded, for most believed she deserved the comeuppance and Morey was simply an instrument of the Lord.

Morey had six sons, all of them school bus drivers. Addie is the daughter of his youngest boy, Clarence, and the first redhead to wear the Sausage Queen crown. The men of the Odd Fellows Lodge, who judge the contest, have historically preferred blondes, but the only blond in this year’s competition was Buffy Newhart, who has such a profound overbite she can open a pop bottle with her front teeth, which she did in the talent contest the week before the parade. After that, Addie was a shoo-in.

Regrettably, the Corn and Sausage Days festival has been a swirl of controversy. The Odd Fellows Lodge, in a tip of the hat to Morey’s years of exemplary public service, invited him to ferry his granddaughter in this year’s parade, despite the fact that Harvey Muldock has escorted the Sausage Queen in his Plymouth Cranbrook convertible since 1963. Even though he’d been wanting to retire from the parade for several years, he was nevertheless incensed and refused to let them use his convertible. The plan was to have Morey lead the parade in a school bus with Addie waving to the masses from the back door of the bus.

The town promptly divided into Harvey and Morey factions. Sam had tried brokering a peace in order to avert a riot on the day of the parade. After he’d blessed the noodles, he met with Harvey and Morey on neutral territory at the Coffee Cup, where he encouraged them to take the high road for the good of the town. He had gotten them to agree to ride in Harvey’s convertible, with Morey driving, Harvey riding shotgun, and Addie in the backseat. Unfortunately, Bob Miles stirred the pot in that week’s edition of the
Herald
by lambasting the Odd Fellows Lodge for setting Harvey out on an ice floe to die.

The morning of the parade, a half hour before it was to commence, Harvey was nowhere in sight. They phoned his house, but no one answered, so Sam and Morey were dispatched to find him. They knocked on his front door, but couldn’t rouse anyone, so they went around to the back door, but Harvey was nowhere in sight.

“Is his car in the garage?” Morey asked.

They peered through the window, and there sat Harvey in his Cranbrook. Sam tried opening the garage doors, but they were locked from the inside.

“Wonder what he’s doing in there?” Sam asked, tapping on the glass.

“I seen a movie once where this fella locked himself in a garage and killed himself,” Morey said. “Sure hope he didn’t do that. It’s hard to get the stink out of a car once somebody dies in it. Remember Ralph York? Had a heart attack in his school bus in ’67 and we didn’t find him until the next Monday morning. Had to sell the bus to a country-western band, it stunk so bad.”

“I don’t think the engine’s running,” Sam said. He tapped on the window again, this time louder and with more urgency.

“Maybe he’s dead already. Maybe he had a heart attack. Stand back and I’ll kick in the door.”

Sam pounded on the door, next to the jamb. The old door rattled in its frame. Startled, Harvey turned and looked at them.

“He’s moving,” Sam said.

They heard the door of the Cranbrook open with a metallic screech, then close with a dull thud. Harvey swung open the garage doors and stared at them. His eyes were red and puffy, as if he’d been crying.

“Hey, Sam.” He didn’t acknowledge Morey.

“Hi, Harvey. How you doing?” Sam asked.

“Okay, I guess.”

“We came to get you for the parade.”

“Not going. It appears they want someone else.” He glanced at Morey, finally acknowledging his presence.

“I thought we was gonna do it together,” Morey said. “Me and you and Addie in the Cranbrook.”

“Over forty years I’ve been leading the parade and now they just cast me aside like yesterday’s newspaper, without so much as a how-do-you-do.”

Sam had been coddling people all week and was growing weary of it. “Harvey Muldock, there’s a young Sausage Queen down at the school who’s been waiting for this day all her life. And here you are, throwing a temper tantrum. You oughta be ashamed of yourself.”

“Aw, Sam, don’t be so hard on him,” Morey said. “Tell you what, Harvey. Why don’t you do the driving. I don’t need to be in the parade.”

Harvey reddened, clearly embarrassed. “No, that’s all right.” He paused. “Just not easy getting old, I guess. You’re not much good to anyone but doctors and morticians.”

“Well, we sure need you,” Sam said, softening. “Everyone’s waiting for you. They won’t start the parade until you’re there.”

“Then we better get going, men,” Harvey said, straightening his shoulders. “Let’s take the Cranbrook. Morey, you drive.” He handed Morey the keys.

They piled in the Cranbrook. Morey backed out of the garage, down the driveway, and into the street. He slipped the gearshift down three notches and surged forward with a burst of power. Harvey sat next to him, gripping the dashboard, trying not to appear overly nervous about someone else driving his car, but failing miserably.

“What a beauty this is,” Morey said wistfully. “Wouldn’t want to sell it, I suppose?”

“No. I’m giving it to my son. Gonna drive it up to Chicago one of these days, park it in his garage, get me a new pickup truck, and that’ll be the end of the parades for me.”

“You can carry the Sausage Queen in a pickup truck,” Morey pointed out. “Wayne Fleming hauls his Little League team in the parade in his pickup truck.”

“Sausage Queens aren’t hauled,” Harvey said. “They are escorted, and in a vehicle befitting their station in life.”

They pulled up to the school, where the parade was organizing. Morey piloted the car through the crowd, around the floats and past the high-school band to the front, where Addie Lefter was waiting, resplendent in her Sausage Queen gown, sash, and crown.

Harvey leaped from the passenger’s seat, hurried to her side, and ushered her to the Cranbrook, where she took her rightful place in the backseat.

“Let the parade begin,” he cried, slipping into the passenger’s seat. Morey goosed the accelerator, and the Cranbrook jumped forward.

“Steady, steady. This isn’t a school bus,” Harvey cautioned. “Four miles an hour and no faster. You don’t want to outrun the band. Drop her down a gear.”

They rolled up Washington Street, past Sam’s house and Grant’s Hardware. People lined the route, waving and cheering. What a glory it was. A red-headed Sausage Queen, so beautiful it made the old men weep, thinking back on the Sausage Queens of their youth. Oh, to be young.

Dale Hinshaw was standing in front of the Rexall holding a cardboard poster with the words
John 3:16
printed on it. They looped the corner at Kivett’s Five and Dime and passed the Legal Grounds Coffee Shop. Deena and Dr. Pierce stood out front, arm in arm, her head resting on his shoulder; they were smiling contentedly, looking every bit the newlyweds.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. After the parade, everyone walked over to the meetinghouse, where the ladies of the Circle were waiting with hearts eager to serve the Lord through the ministry of chicken and noodles. Addie ladled out the first serving as Bob Miles snapped her picture for the
Herald.

The Circle labored over the steam table through the afternoon, dishing out their heavenly concoctions. They never faltered, not once. When the last plate was served, Fern looked at the clicker in her hand. Seven hundred and eighty-three meals, she announced to the Circle. A record. Then her voice caught, and she burst into tears.

Sam and Barbara and their boys stayed past six o’clock, helping clean up, then walked home in the late summer evening underneath the canopy of maple trees that arched over the streets.

“What a day this has been,” Sam said, as he slid his arm around Barbara and pulled her near.

“Yes, indeed,” Barbara agreed, settling into his embrace.

“Gross,” Levi said. “They’re going to kiss.”

“Right in front of God and everybody,” Sam said, and kissed Barbara flush on the lips.

The boys groaned with disgust.

“I’m proud of you,” Sam told Barbara.