The Honk and Holler Opening Soon (17 page)

By whose hand, they could not guess.

The following week they had bad weather—rain, then sleet and snow. The temperature stayed below freezing until Friday, prompting cancellation of choir practice, the Ladies’ Auxiliary meeting, and the Hope Missionary Annual Banquet. Even the Wednesday night service was called off, the first time since a flu epidemic the previous winter had put nearly half the congregation in their sickbeds and scared the others into staying home.

But by Sunday the weather had warmed and the slush on the streets had mostly disappeared, conditions which prompted thirty-two members and one guest to come to church.

As they made their way to the front steps, keeping their eyes on the sidewalk to avoid loose stones and deep cracks in the concrete, they didn’t notice the patch of new shingles on the roof, damaged last spring by the broken limb of a sycamore tree. And as they entered the small vestibule, they paid no attention to the framed painting of the Last Supper which had been straightened and wiped free of cobwebs.

But when they entered the sanctuary, they did not move far beyond the door before they stopped and stared in silent wonder.

The plywood covering the broken windows was gone, and where there had been cracked and shattered glass, windows were whole again, their new panes glistening in shafts of sunlight. The sagging ceiling tiles had been removed and in their place, new ones fitted neatly into the metal supports. And the walls, only last week stained and discolored, had been freshly painted a pristine white.

At first they were hushed as, turning, their eyes swept the room.

Then, as they moved down the aisles, they spoke in whispered conversations, their hands fluttering, pointing out to their neighbors the marvels they might have missed. By the time they were settled in their pews, their voices were quavering with excitement.

Even as Reverend Thomas took the pulpit, they were still buzzing with questions, leaning forward, then back, as one, then another, offered some explanation as to how such a miracle had been performed.

“Brothers and sisters,” the Reverend intoned, “we cannot question this morning that the Lord has blessed us.”

“Amen.”

“And we know today, as we have always known, that God does hear our prayers.”

“Hallelujah.”

“Amen.”

“A benevolent God who has sent one of you among us to restore His house.”

“Praise the Lord.”

“And now, whoever you are, we would like to recognize you for your most unselfish contribution . . . for putting your hand to the repair of this holy place of worship.”

Thirty-two heads turned to see who would stand.

“We would surely like to offer you our thanks.”

Long moments of silence passed.

“Then we must suppose that whoever you are, you have beautified God’s house for His glory and not your own. As Proverbs twenty-nine, verse two tells us, ‘Let another man praise thee and not thine own mouth.’ So we honor your silence and lift our thank-ful voices to God.

“Let us pray. Our Heavenly Father . . .”

As Reverend Thomas led them in prayer, and as they stood with bowed heads and closed eyes, they could not see the smile that graced Galilee Jackson’s face. But even if they had, they would most certainly have attributed it to the joy in her heart for God’s blessing.

*

“Oh, Mr. Boo, you should’ve seen their faces,” Galilee said as she placed Bui’s cocoa on the coffee table. “I just wish you’d been there.

“Now, at first, they guessed Reverend Thomas was the one did all that work. Sister Maybelle says to me, ‘It had to be the Reverend. No one else here’s able to lift a hammer, let alone climb a ladder.’

“So I reminded her that the Reverend works six days a week over at the plastics plant. See, Mr. Boo, he has to work another job, given the little dab the church can afford to pay him.

“And at night, well, ever’ night ’cept Wednesday and Sunday, he baby-sits his grandbaby ’cause his daughter works the late shift at the nursing home and no way she can pay a sitter on her salary.

“Your cocoa too hot, Mr. Boo?”

Bui took a sip to show her it wasn’t, then swished the scalding liquid in his mouth until it cooled enough to swallow.

“So then Sister Maybelle considers what I said and she says I’m right, so she starts to squelch the notion that the preacher did it, and that runs through the crowd and pretty soon they’re all nodding their heads, saying, ‘No, ’course the Reverend didn’t do it,’

like they’d realized that all along.

“Well, that sets them off again, all of them guessing who it might’ve been. Then somebody said it could’ve been Jennings Washington on account of him being so handy with tools and the like. But we all know Jennings ain’t been in a church but one time in his whole life and that was the day he married Grace Abbott.

’Course, they kept their voices down to a whisper so Sister Grace wouldn’t hear, ’cause she was sitting right there in the third pew.

“Well, they guessed and guessed, but they couldn’t come up with a name. By then they were squirming in their seats, anxious for Reverend Thomas to take the pulpit, figuring he’d solve the mystery for them.

“But when the Reverend got up and told them he didn’t know, they were stunned. Just stunned. And when he asked for whoever done it to stand up, you should’ve seen them. Twisting their necks like a bunch of chickens. And I did the same, ’cause I figured if I didn’t, they might guess I knew a thing or two about it.

“Oh, I came this close to telling them, Mr. Boo. Just this close.”

Galilee held her thumb and index finger close together to illus-trate for Bui, who studied the gesture with curiosity.

“But you know why I didn’t?”

Bui shook his head, still puzzling over the strange sign Galilee had made with her hand.

“ ’Cause they got enough misery in their lives to think about.

Brother Junior, his wife in the nursing home, doesn’t even know who he is, but he goes to see her ever’ day, bless his heart. Brother Arnold? Got sugar diabetes so bad, he’ll end up getting his feet cut off, just like his daddy did.

“Sister Martha, whose granddaughter is . . . well, there’s just no nice way to say it.”

Galilee leaned forward and lowered her voice. “She’s a lady of the night, if you get what I’m saying.”

When Bui realized some response was required of him, he leaned forward, too, and nodded.

“And Sister Hannah, God love her, her home burned down last spring, and oh, she had such lovely things. Now, she’s living with her son and daughter-in-law and their six kids in a two-bedroom trailer.

“So many bearing so much sadness.”

Galilee shook her head, then reached for her cocoa. “So I said to myself, ‘Galilee, no reason you have to pop up and tell them about Mr. Boo right now. Give it some time, let them wonder. Let them get their minds off their troubles and think about something good, something fine, even if it’s just for a little while.’

“Now you know why I didn’t speak up, don’t you, Mr. Boo?”

Bui nodded as if he had taken in every word.

“Well, we’ve spent enough time jawing. Wish we could just sit here all morning talking, but we can’t. No sirree. We’ve got work to do.”

Bui followed Galilee to the dining room and sat down at the table while she got out the tablet in which he practiced his ABCs and the books she was using to teach him to read—the same books she’d learned to read from when she was a child.

“Okay, let’s take up where we left off Saturday morning,” she said as she handed a small, thin book to Bui.

*

“Look, Molly O, you want to take some time off, go out there and look for her yourself ?”

“Where would I look, Caney? I already called every place I could think of.”

“Maybe you ought to call her boyfriend again,” Vena said.

“I did.”

“And?”

“He’s gone, too. Got fired at that club a few days ago.”

“Well, maybe he and Brenda got back together and went on to Denver. Didn’t you say that they had a gig there when they finished in Las Vegas?”

“That’s what she said.”

“How about I make some calls to Denver. See what I can find out.”

“I don’t know, Caney. I just don’t know.”

Molly O had her purse in one hand, the other on the doorknob, but she looked like she’d forgotten where she was going . . . or just didn’t care.

“Go on and get your hair done,” Caney said. “Might make you feel better.”

“Well, whether it does or not, I’ll be back by ten.”

As she walked out, Bui drove across the lot, his trunk door open, slapping air. He waved at Molly O, then pulled around the building to park in back.

Vena refilled coffee for Bilbo and Peg at the front table, then took an order for a waffle and a breakfast special to the pass-through and handed the ticket to Caney, who had wheeled into the kitchen.

When they heard a banging noise coming from out back, Caney said, “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know, but Bui’s out there, I think.”

Vena hurried to the door and yanked it open as Bui struggled to remove something from his trunk. When he finally managed to lift it, they saw him grappling with a large object covered with a stained tarpaulin.

Staggering with the weight, he carried it, chest high, to a grassy spot beneath the pecan tree in the back. When he finally lowered it to the ground, he leaned against it, waiting for his breathing to slow.

“What’ve you got there, Bui?” Caney asked.

Bui turned and smiled, then, like an artist unveiling a creation, he jerked the tarp off with a flourish.

“A doghouse!” Vena squeezed past Caney and went outside.

“Bui, did you make it?”

“Yes,” he said proudly.

Made from scrap lumber in the basement of the church, the doghouse resembled a barn—almost. Bui had painted it red and covered the pitched roof with sheets of tin, but he’d turned the corners up in the style of a Buddhist temple.

“I make for dog a home.”

Vena squeezed Bui’s hand. “She needed a home.”

“Everyone need home.” He looked away then, staring off across the Oklahoma countryside, but seeing a place halfway around the world.

“It’s perfect.” Vena knelt and peered inside. “Just the right size.”

“You like dog home?”

“Oh yes, Bui, I do.”

As Bui hunkered down beside her, he said, “Miss Vena, dog got name?”

“What?”

“Name for dog?”

“Just dog, I guess.”

“No, dog not name.”

“Well, I suppose we could call her—”

“I got name. I got name for dog.”

“Okay, Bui. You built her a house, you get to name her. What do you have in mind?”

“Spot.”

“Spot?”

“Dog name Spot.”

“Hell, Bui,” Caney said from the doorway. “She doesn’t have a spot on her.”

“Dog name Spot,” he said with authority.

“Okay, then. Spot it is.”

Vena stood and dusted off the knees of her jeans. “Well, I’ll go get Spot and we’ll see how she likes her new home.”

“No, first I make for Spot the panse.”

“Pants?” Vena asked.

“Pants!” Caney laughed.

“Yes, I make for Spot the panse.”

“Well, if you think Spot needs pants, then get after it, pardner,”

Caney said. “But she’s gonna look pretty damned foolish.”

“Good,” Bui said, convinced that “pretty damned foolish” was something he could achieve.

*

Vena hadn’t been gone more than ten minutes before Caney found an excuse to stay near the front window, watching for her to come back.

She took off now and then during the lull between lunch and dinner. She was hardly ever gone more than fifteen or twenty minutes, so Caney figured she just went to the Texaco station up the road, but he didn’t know why.

He hadn’t guessed she went there to use the phone.

She still hadn’t managed to get a lead on Carmelita, but she had reached a nurse at Sun Valley Hospital in San Antonio where Helen worked for eight years. And though the woman couldn’t tell her much since she’d only been there five months before Helen left, she’d given Vena the names of a few people who might be more help.

Vena had been able to get in touch with only two of them so far, as they’d left Sun Valley a few years earlier, but both had given her pretty much the same information: they had liked Helen, but spent little time with her outside the hospital, and they were shocked to learn she had died.

But each of them had told her about a Mickey Murasaki, an anesthesiologist who had been Helen’s friend.

Vena had tried to reach him several times without any luck, but today he answered on the first ring.

“Sure,” he said, “I knew Helen pretty well . . . and I was so sorry when I heard she was dead.”

“Were you close to her?”

“Yeah, I was. And because I was, I’ve heard a lot about you. We went to dinner every few weeks, a movie or concert now and then.

A couple of years ago we went to a conference together in San Fran-cisco.”

“Mr. Murasaki, can I—”

“Call me Mickey.”

“Okay. You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, Mickey, but . . . well, were you and Helen . . .”

“Involved? No, I’m of a different persuasion. But we liked each other. Really liked each other. And I still have trouble when I think about her.”

“Mickey, do you know why she left? What I’m trying to find out is what happened to her there in San Antonio.”

“Vena, I don’t know, and that’s one of the things that bothered me, still bothers me.

“I came in one day last spring and found out she’d called in sick.

That wasn’t like Helen at all. She never missed a day of work that I know of. Helen was a dedicated nurse, the best I ever worked with. She really cared about her patients. Too much, maybe. She took their troubles home with her.

“So I called to see what the problem was, see if she needed anything.

“She said she was okay, told me not to worry. But she sounded different. I don’t know . . . sad. Anyway, she said she’d be back the next day.

“But she wasn’t. And she didn’t show up the day after that. So I went to her apartment. But when she didn’t come to the door, I asked the manager to let me in to check on her. He said she’d moved out.”