The Bible Salesman (9 page)

When he got up close he saw it was a girl, a kind of big-boned, blond, curly-headed girl with a dress so thin it seemed to show her skin beneath. The curls dropped around her face. As he stepped under the tent, thunder sounded far off. A chilled breeze came up.

The girl nodded and smiled, said hello, threw up her hand. He glanced over the baskets of squash, apples, tomatoes, shelves of canned string beans, cranberries, beets, tomatoes, jelly. She was kind of pretty. He
liked
a nose with a hump in it, and her lips were big, kind of like a colored girl’s lips. He’d never told anybody that he liked the way a lot of colored girls looked. He glanced up and down the road and down the wagon path that led away behind the stand, probably to a house or farm where maybe she lived.

She was reading a big book. He couldn’t see the title. He picked up a peach, pressed it with his thumb, picked up another two.

“Where’d you get peaches and apples and tomatoes this time of year?”

“Oh, we got a hothouse for the tomatoes, and a truck stops by with some fruit and other stuff.”

He stepped up to the table. A closed cigar box sat beside four books and a stack of paper sacks. “I reckon I want a few peaches,” he said.

She looked up and smiled, picked up a bag, held it open for him. “They’re mighty good,” she said. “I just ate one myself.”

“Do you wash off the fuzz?” he asked.

“I wipe it off while I run water on it. That’s a odd question.”

“I didn’t see no water around was why I thought about it.”

“There’s some in that bucket over there.”

Henry looked. He’d forgotten he was selling Bibles. “My aunt always made me wash off the fuzz, and then once I got more or less growed up I started eating them with the fuzz on. It was supposed to make you itch, but it never itched me that I know of.”

She placed the bag in the hanging scale tray.

“That looks like about eight cents,” she said. “I’ll take a nickel, though. I’m Marleen Green, and I’m pleased to meet you.” She put out her hand.

She was kind of pert and
forward
, by golly, and he saw the it — not there in every girl’s face, something to do with the way she looked at him, and then too it had something to do with the little dimple in her cheek, and the dip under her nose that seemed to pull her upper lip up just a tiny bit in a way that made a slight urge drop from his head into his chest, arms, on down. He reached a hand across the table. “Pleased to meet you. I’m Henry Dampier.”

She squeezed his hand nicely.

“Do you mind if I sit down?” he said. He couldn’t have cared less about selling a Bible.

“Nothing would make me happier. I’m not doing much business.”

He thought: And the evening and the morning were the first day. “My aunt and uncle had a garden every year. My aunt still does, and my sister’s helping her out.”

“What kind of work are you in? Architecture?”

“Architecture?”

“I like to say odd things. I asked a woman in here yesterday if she was going to the memorial service and she looked at me funny. ‘Aluminum’ is a funny word too. If I ever bought a parrot I’d teach him to say ‘aluminum’ when somebody sneezed. Anyway, you look real smart, and I just read a book about architecture, about this man named Frank Lloyd Wright and all the ideas he had. He tried to fit any house he built to the habits of who it was for, and then a crazy man burned down his house, Wright’s house, and killed his wife with an ax. Idn’t that just awful? What kind of work
do
you do?”

“I’m a Bible salesman. It’s kind of a second job. I work for the government too. Killed his wife with an
ax
? Where’d you read that?”

“A book from the library. They have a bookmobile that comes through here every two weeks. The man with the ax was their cook.”

“Gosh.”

“I guess he got inhabited. I hope you’re not a census taker. My cousin shot a census taker and had to go to prison. That’s not your government job, is it?”

“Oh no, I’m not one of those. It’s something I’m not supposed to talk about.”

“You can trust me, but I won’t ask you any questions. Do you know what
e-t-c
stands for?”

“Et cetera. And so forth.”

“A lot of people don’t know that. My brother couldn’t even spell it, and he put that ‘and’ in front of it. I’m going to paint over it. He didn’t go past sixth grade. My mama didn’t go past sixth grade either, but she can spell better than I can. How long have you been a Bible salesman?”

“Not too long. I started in the spring. And the government stuff I just started a few weeks ago.” Henry had never met a girl so full of words and talk and interesting all at the same time. He bet he could talk to her about Genesis. “Do you go to church?” He took a bite out of a peach.

“Not anymore. A lady came to my house and took me to Trinity Baptist, up the road there, three or four times when I was twelve, and then they brought us some canned food right before Christmas and it made my daddy so mad he wouldn’t let me go back.” She raised her eyebrows and smiled. “I don’t know if he’d let me buy a Bible or not.”

He shook his head. “I’m not here to sell you a Bible, necessarily. In fact, I didn’t mean to get into all that. My main thing these days is my heart condition.” Where had
that
come from? The Bible salesman with yellow socks — up at Calhoun Crossing, in the mountains — kept talking about his heart condition. He’d had a Bible with a cutout place for a whiskey flask, and he had all these stories. “I don’t mean to get into all that, either. I’ll tell you one thing, them peaches are mighty good.”

“They
are
good peaches. What kind of heart condition?”

“They don’t know. Can’t figure it out. Sometimes I get real weak and have to sit down for a spell, or lay down. I have to lay down right much.” Why was he lying?

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah, the doctor — actually there were three doctors, up in Durham, North Carolina, at Duke Hospital — and they told me I might not live as long as most people, but I don’t aim to let that slow me down none.” He needed to stop.

“Do you have any hobbies?” she asked.

“Hobbies?”

“Yeah, you know, hobbies.”

“I, ah, collect exotic cards.”

“What kind?”

“Pictures. Kind of like postcards.” This is it, thought Henry. She’s the one. She seems like she’s in love with me. This is where I need to just go ahead and go ahead. “I got these cards in my room up at the motel, right up there.” He pointed to the motel. Jump in, jump in. Abraham did. “If you want to come up and see them, I’m going to be around for another day or so.”

“I’d better not. My daddy got in a fight with Mr. Sawyer, the man that runs the place up there. But I’ve got a book from England that you can open up and castles will pop up. I could bring it here to the stand tomorrow, if you want to come see it. We live down that wagon path back there. And I got some poems too. That’s my hobby, writing poetry. I’ll be here at three-thirty.”

“I’ll be selling Bibles, probably, but I’ll make time.”

They sat and talked and laughed — she laughed a lot. He told her about the cat and snake burial. She told stories about her little brother. He had painted some baby kittens with house paint, and poured molasses in her daddy’s shoes, and tried to hitchhike to Atlanta.

A car stopped and two women bought jelly, canned beets, and tomatoes.

As Marleen talked and laughed and then looked Henry right in the eye, he realized he’d be twenty years old when he got his first sex relation. That seemed about right, given all he’d been learning from the Bible. He could . . . it was just all over him, in his throat and heart and hands.

Then he told her about his Uncle Jack, about him leaving Aunt Dorie and how sad he was, how sad she’d been. About Aunt Dorie later marrying his Uncle Samuel, the good part of that being his cousin Carson coming to live with him.

The next afternoon, Clearwater was gone, researching, and Marleen and Henry sat in the fruit stand and looked at the pop-up book resting in her lap.

“They just pop right up, don’t they?” said Henry.

“They sure do.”

Henry could feel her thigh warm against his as just the slightest wisp of wet air, dewlike, was blown in from the slow rain. “Are you sure you can’t come up and see my cards tonight?” he asked her.

“I don’t think so. I don’t like Mr. Sawyer. But if you come down that wagon path right after dark, I’ll meet you, because I can say I’m going up to my sister’s to spend the night. It looks like it’s going to clear up.”

To spend the night. To spend the night. To spend the night. The heavens had opened, the floodgates were asunder. He would “go in unto” her. Within hours. “That’s good. That’s good. I’ll meet you. We’ll do something.” His breathing had picked up.

“Don’t go past the little bridge over the creek,” she said.

“Right after dark.”

“Right after dark.”

He started singing “Yankee Doodle” on the walk back to his room, where he was supposed to meet Clearwater before dinner, and there Clearwater was, waiting in a lawn chair. He stood. “Pack up,” he said. “We got to move.”

“Now?”

Clearwater nodded toward a new car near Henry’s room, a black Packard. “We got to get that car on out of here.”

“But I’ve got an appointment, kind of.”

“We got to move it. Now.”

“Can I —”

“Let’s go. I’ll follow you in the Chrysler.”

“I was thinking —”

“We’re going to a paint shop in South Carolina. The maps are in there. Look them over and let’s get going.”

“Could I just stop by that fruit stand down —”

“Fruit stand?
Have you lost your damn mind?”

Henry quickly packed his suitcase and loaded it and his valise into the backseat of the stolen car. What would she think? Maybe she had a telephone. He’d call information. A Mr. Green. What road, what route?

The map led Henry to a paint shop in Caleb, South Carolina, about two hours northeast of Jeffries. As long as he called her before dark everything would be okay. They left the new car, and Clearwater dropped Henry off a hundred yards or so from the Spangler Motel. The sun was setting.

At the front desk he asked the lady if he could call information on her phone. And if he got a number could he call it and pay her for the charges. She said fine. He called information. No Greens were listed in Jeffries. He asked the operator if she could give him the address of the Night’s Rest Motel in Jeffries. She said she wasn’t supposed to give out addresses but she could if it was some kind of emergency. He said it was an emergency. The address was Route 6. He’d write her a postcard.

Clearwater was waiting outside at a picnic table when Henry started for his room. The place they’d meet for breakfast, he said, was across the road — Rita’s Café. “What took you so long?” asked Clearwater.

“I needed to make a call.”

“That fruit stand?”

Henry looked at him.

“You found you a woman down there, didn’t you?”

“I think I did.”

“Did you get you some snatch?”

“Not yet.”

In his room at a small desk with a lamp, sitting in his underwear, an oscillating fan on the dresser turning its face one way and then the other, Henry penciled a message on a piece of notebook paper, erased, penciled, erased, and then wrote in ink on one of several postcards he’d bought on the way out of Cloverdale Springs.

Dear Marleen, Hello from the archetect (sp?). Ha Ha. I am very sorry that I didn’t make it back to see you tonight. I got called away on business. It was serious business or I wouldn’t have left out like I did. I can explain it to you when I come back to see you which is something I’m planning to do as soon as I can get a way to do it. I really want to come back. In the meantime you can write to me in care of general delivery in Atlanta. I was really looking forward to seeing you tonight. I am really sorry. More soon.

Sincerely Yours,
Henry Dampier

The next morning at breakfast, Henry wanted to talk about her — but the words wouldn’t come. He wasn’t proud of his intentions, somehow. He didn’t know how to explain what was going on. There was this big mix of falling in love and his first “go in unto.” All at the same time. Marleen, Marleen. Marleen Green.

After Clearwater sold the freshly painted car, they headed south toward Florida in the Chrysler, Henry driving.

Clearwater sat in the passenger seat, studying maps. He always fiddled with maps. Maps of mountains, rivers, showing little circles for heights and depths. He reached around an open map, changed the radio station a few times, landed in the middle of a song. “Do you know who that is singing?” he asked.

“Nope.”

“Roy Acuff. I used to know him in Knoxville. We messed around some together, played music. He ran for governor a few years ago.”

“What did you play?”

“Instrument?”

“Yessir.”

“Guitar.”

“You still play?”

“I quit.”

“Why?”

“I just did. It wadn’t very profitable.”

“Where’s Knoxville?”

“Knoxville, Tennessee. You don’t know Knoxville is in Tennessee?”

“I didn’t take any geography for some reason,” said Henry. He was eating a banana. He thought about Marleen. She would know. “I know all about Hank Williams, though.”

Clearwater had trouble with the way Henry peeled only an inch or so of the banana, then nibbled. And how could somebody with their head out their ass not know about Roy Acuff? “Why don’t you just peel the whole thing and eat it?”

Henry rolled down the window and threw out his banana peel. “That’s just the way I do it. I don’t like to touch the thing itself.”

They were driving by a wide, bare field that seemed snow-white under the full moon now high in the sky. Henry didn’t see how he could talk about Marleen. He was going to be a perfect assistant to Mr. Clearwater, quiet and obedient, and then he’d sure enough have a big job. He could probably go back to Washington, DC, for meetings and stuff. He’d only been the one time — with the safety patrol in the eighth grade.

They stopped for a blinking red light, just south of New Bilbow, Georgia. The radio news said the Night Shooter had just shot another motorist between the eyes up somewhere in North Carolina. They still hadn’t caught him.