Out to Canaan (19 page)

“What do you think it is?” asked Minnie, who hoped the caramels wouldn't stick to her upper plate.

“Age. Diabetes. And
guilt,
” she announced darkly.

“Guilt?”

“Yes, for leaving those poor people in the lurch who've looked after him all these years.”

“My goodness,” said Minnie, “we don't look after our preacher at all. He looks after himself.”

“Yes, but you've got a Baptist preacher. They've been
raised
to look after themselves.”

“I declare,” said Minnie, who had never considered this possibility.

At The Local, he saw Sophia Burton, who wasn't even a member of Lord's Chapel, and was flabbergasted when she burst into tears by the butcher case.

“I'm sorry,” she told him.

“Don't be sorry!” he implored, not knowing what else to say.

“It's just that . . . it's just that you've been so good to us, and . . . and we're
used
to you!”

Didn't he despise change? Didn't he hate it? And here he was, inflicting it on everyone else. If his wife wasn't so excited about the whole adventure of being free, he'd call Stuart up, and . . . no, he wouldn't do any such thing. Actually, he was excited, himself.

“I'm . . . pretty excited, myself,” he muttered weakly.

“That's easy for you to say!” Mona Gragg, a former Lord's Chapel Sunday School teacher, strode up to him, clutching a sack of corn and tomatoes. For some reason, Mona looked ten feet tall; she was also mad as a wet hen.

“When I heard that mess on Sunday, I just boiled. Here we've all gotten along just fine all these years,
plus
 . . . you're still plenty young, and no reason in the
world
to retire. Did Grandma Moses quit when
she
was sixty-five? Certainly not! She hadn't even gotten
started
! And Abraham, which Bishop Cullen was so quick to yammer about on Sunday . . . he moved to a whole new
country
when he was way up in his
seventies
and didn't even have that
kid
'til he was a
hundred
!”

Mona stomped away, furious.

“One of my ah, parishioners,” he said, flushing.

Sophia wiped her eyes and smiled. “Father, now I can see why you're retiring.”

He checked out, liking the sight of Dooley bagging groceries at one of Avis's two counters.

“How's it going, buddy?”

Dooley grinned. “Great! Except for people raisin' heck about you retiring.”

“Ah, well.” For some reason he didn't completely understand, Dooley seemed to approve of his plans. It wasn't the first time Dooley had stood up for him. A year or so ago, when Buster Austin had called the rector a nerd, Dooley had proceeded to beat the tar out of him.

As he left The Local, he saw Jenny parking her blue bicycle at the lamppost.

He left one end of Main Street feeling like a million bucks, and reached the other end feeling like two cents with a hole in it.

Up and down the street, he was besieged by people who had heard the news and didn't like it, or, on the rarest of occasions, proffered him their sincere best wishes.

Rodney Underwood was shocked and, it seemed, personally insulted.

Lew Boyd shook his head and wouldn't make eye contact. Why in heaven's name his
car mechanic
was piqued was beyond him.

The owner of the Collar Button rushed into the street and extended his deepest regrets. “What a loss!” he muttered darkly, sounding like a delegate from a funeral parlor.

A vestry member called him at the rectory. “This,” she announced, “is the worst news since they found somethin' in Lloyd's limp nodes.”

He phoned Stuart Cullen.

“Gene Bolick crossed to the other side of the street!” he said, feeling like a ten-year-old whining to a parent.

“Denial! If he doesn't have to talk to you, he doesn't have to acknowledge the truth. He'll get over it. It takes time.”

“And some people are mad because I'm retiring so early! I feel like a heel, like I'm running out on them.”

“Let them squawk!” Stuart exclaimed. “When people don't express their anger, it turns into depression. So, better this than a parish riddled by resentment and low morale.”

“Then,” Father Tim said miserably, “there are those who feel it's merely a blasted inconvenience.”

“They're right about that,” said Stuart. “By the way, your Search Committee is already up and running, but it'll be a long process. So hang in there.”

His bishop hadn't been any help at all.

The hasty trim he'd gotten from his reluctant wife had carried him through Stuart's visit, but wouldn't carry him a step further. And blast if Fancy Skinner wasn't booked. That was the way with those unisex shops, he thought, darkly. He made an appointment for a month away, and deceived himself that he could talk Cynthia into an interim deal.

“No, a thousand times no. I can't cut hair! Go to Wesley, where they have the kind of barbershop you like, where men talk trout fishing and politics!”

“I know zero about trout fishing, and even less about politics,” he said. “Where did you get that idea?”

“Oh, phoo, darling!” she said, waving him away.

“I'll trim you up!” said Harley, who was getting ready for the party in his basement.

“Oh, I don't—”

“Law, Rev'rend, I've cut hair from here t' west Texas, they ain't nothin' to it, it jis' takes a sharp pair of scissors. Now, th' right scissors is ever'thing. I've cut with a razor, I've cut with a pocketknife, but I like scissors th' best. I ain't got a pair, but I got a good rock I use t' sharpen m' knife, so you git me some scissors, an' we're set. What're you lookin' for—mostly t' git it off y'r collar, I reckon.”

“I don't know about this, Harley.”

Harley looked at him soberly. “You ought t' let me do it f'r you, Rev'rend. I don't want th' Lord sayin' ‘What did you do f'r th' Rev'rend?' an' me have t' tell 'im, ‘Nothin', he wouldn't let me do nothin'!' I know what th' Lord'll say, he'll say, ‘Harley, that ain't no excuse, you jis' git on down them steps over yonder, I know hit's burnin' hot, but . . .' ”

“Oh, for Pete's sake,” said the rector. “I'll get the scissors.”

There went Harley's grin, meeting behind his head again.

“Ummm,” said Cynthia, looking at him as he dressed for Harley's housewarming party.

“Ummm, what?”

“Your hair . . .”

“What about it?”

“It's sort of scalloped in the back.”

“Scalloped?”

“Well, yes, up, down, up, down. What did Harley use—pinking shears?”

“Scissors!”

“Not those scissors I cut up chickens with, I fondly hope.”

“Absolutely not. He used the scissors from my chest of drawers, which I keep well sharpened.”

“You would,” she said, looking at him as if he were a beetle on a pin. “Why don't you sit on the commode seat and let me sort of . . . shape it up? You know I hate doing this, but you can't go around with that scalloped look.”

Certainly not. He sat on the commode seat, draped with a bath towel, glad he'd soon have the whole dismal business behind him.

Cynthia had done the deed and dashed downstairs. He was putting on a clean shirt when Dooley wandered into the bedroom.

He looked at the boy, fresh from a day's work, and now fresh from the shower. Clean T-shirt, clean jeans; hair combed, shoe laces tied. Upstanding! Getting to look more like a millionaire every day!

The rector might have been a statue in a park, the way Dooley walked around him, staring.

“Man . . .” said Dooley.

“What are you looking at?”

“Your hair.”

“What about my hair?” He was beginning to feel positively churlish at any mention of his hair.

“It's cut in a kind of V in the back. I've never seen that before.”

“A V? What do you mean, a
V
?”

He stomped to his dresser and, with his wife's hand mirror, looked at the back of his neck in the trifold mirror. It wasn't a V, exactly, it was more like a U. What was the matter with people around here, anyway?