The Bible Salesman Page 11

  “Bumper stickers. Oh man. I read a article about them, no wires for hanging, no nothing. Just wet the back and stick it on.” Carson drove with one hand, talked with the other, looked back and forth between Henry and the road. “So I called this guy in Virginia, and he could send them to me for two cents each with nothing on them, and man they do stick good. Wet it with a wet rag. So I figured it’d be just the thing for the printing shop, and Mr. Ferguson says, okay, if I wanted to take it on — he wouldn’t have time to mess with it — and I was thinking about sports teams, you know, stuff like that, and I was thinking one for every car in North Carolina, then in the South, then in America, okay, so I ordered this waterproof ink — a lot of people wouldn’t have thought about the waterproof — from this place that had a special deal. I got red and black, and I figured out how to run it on the press, just practiced with cutout paper, same size, and then I got to thinking about what I could print on there, you know, where I could sell a lot of them, and all that, and I was thinking about a bunch of ball teams, maybe State, Carolina, Wake Forest, East Carolina, places like Ballard, all the minor league baseball teams, Little League, you know, figure out a way to get the mascot drawed on there — there’s ways to do that — and some more colleges, and so then we got your call and I asked Mr. Ferguson for a vacation day, and I figured why not hurry up so I could sell them on the way to Swan Island, and maybe while I was down here too, so I just out of the blue thought about ‘Jesus Saves,’ and then I thought ‘God Is My Co-Pilot’ and then ‘Where Will You Spend Eternity?’ ”

  Henry was thinking about Marleen, calling her on the phone.

  “So, see, I’m not talking about every car in America exactly, but I’m talking about every Christian car in America, and that’s a lot of cars, and so what I did on the way down is I sold them for five cents each at these stores, service stations, grocery stores, and a couple of stores bought fifty, and I’m selling them for five cents each, and then I’ll come back to the store in a month to pick up the ones they ain’t sold — that they don’t want to keep — I buy them back and for the ones that are already sold or ones they know they want to keep I collect five more cents, see — I got it all wrote down — and then they get to sell them for whatever they want to, I said fifteen cents, so they make five cents each, and I figure ten cents is wholesale, and if they don’t want some I give them back a nickel apiece, but I’ve only got that two cents for the blank bumper sticker in it up front, plus the ink, which ain’t nothing, and then, so I’ll make at least seven cents on each one, so those seven hundred in the backseat, hell, man, that’s forty-nine dollars clear profit, and I haven’t even tried. I haven’t even tried.”

  Henry had the phone number on a piece of paper in his billfold.

  “That’s selling at wholesale, and I could sell them retail and make twenty-five more dollars on that first forty-nine. I’ve already called the guy up and ordered a thousand more and on Monday I might order more. And listen, they go like hotcakes, I’m telling you. And my phone number is right there on the bumper sticker, and my business name, so when I get back home I bet you I’ll be getting orders — it says ‘Carson’s Premier Printing, Simmons, N.C., phone 6-5912’ and all. It’s not like just anybody can do this, not everybody has a printing press — and so heck, man, I’m starting my own company. Trucks, sooner or later, shipments, orders. So I got to thinking on the way down here. If I order two thousand, that’s forty dollars my cost, okay, and then I could find forty churches. I know I could find forty churches. And you know they’d buy fifty each. I’ll tell them just put one in each hymnbook. That ought to work. Sell them at ten cents each and that’s two hundred dollars total —”

  “You sure you got the math right?”

  “I got the math right. I figured it. What you’ve got then is, see, one dollar per church I’m spending and I’m making five. So what you could do if you want to go in with me is you buy five thousand and I buy five thousand and you don’t have to do nothing. You spend a hundred dollars, and what I’ll do when I sell one of your bumper stickers is I keep five cents and you keep five cents, and so you’re making good — you’ll get back two hundred and fifty dollars for every hundred dollars you spend, and what I’ll get is two fifty for being out on the road selling them along with mine. You don’t lift a finger. What do you think?”

  “Sure. Here.” Henry got out his billfold, handed two twenties to Carson. “I can get the rest back at the hotel,” he said. He looked to be sure the phone number was in its place.

  “Damn. You are making some money.”

  “And listen. I got a fruit stand I can get some sold at maybe. I got to tell you about that.”

  “Where?”

  “Down in Jeffries, Georgia.”

  “You bought a fruit stand?”

  “No. No, it’s just one I know about — where I met this girl.”

  “Yeah? Fruit stands, grocery stores will be good places to sell. Watch this. This Gulf station coming up. I’ll pull in. Where’s Jeffries? What about the girl?”

  “Not far from Atlanta. There’s this girl that runs the fruit stand, and I’m definitely going back to see her first chance I get. I got this ride to see her with these two old ladies, and I’m supposed to call her tonight. She don’t have a phone, but her sister does, where she’ll be. Her name’s Marleen Green. Marleen. Marleen. Marleen Green.”

  “Yeah, take her a bunch of bumper stickers. I want to hear about it, but wait, just watch this. We stopped at nine stores on the way down here — I just stopped at ones on the right side of the road ’cause I knew we didn’t have time to stop at them all. That way I could remember. It added some time to the trip, but we sold three hundred bumper stickers easy as pie. That’s thirty dollars in one day, not even trying. Do you realize that that’s over ten thousand dollars in one year? Ten thousand dollars, on bumper stickers? Let’s see — thirty, thirty, nine hundred, nine thousand, two times nine hundred, eighteen hundred. That’s ten thousand eight hundred dollars in one year.”

  They pulled into a service station, the parking area covered with rocks and bottle caps.

  “But it’ll have to be more than just driving back and forth to the beach,” said Henry, “and you’re not going to sell any on Sundays, and you just might have got lucky here at first. Beginner’s luck. Selling Bibles, I can tell you, it really comes and goes. Oh, I’ve got to tell you about this cat with a tooth stuck through a copperhead’s head.”

  They were inside the Gulf station.

  “Wait a minute,” whispered Carson. “Watch.”

  The store owner, a man with his arm in a sling, bought forty bumper stickers. Twenty jesus saves, and ten each of the other two.

  Back in the car and on the road, Carson said, “That’s the way it is everywhere. Now, what about this woman?”

  Henry told Carson about Marleen.

  Carson wanted to know if he got into her pants.

  Henry told him no, but that he probably would before long.

  “What? You probably will?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve changed my ideas about a lot of things.”

  “What happened?”

  “I started reading the Bible.”

  When they arrived at the homeplace, Aunt Dorie sat waiting on the front doorstep. She stood slowly, a big smile on her face. As Henry walked toward her, she said, “I’d run to meet you if it won’t for my foot.” They hugged, and she sat and patted the step beside her. Henry sat. Carson parked himself in a metal lawn chair close by. Dorie held Henry’s hand in her lap. “I want you to tell me what-all you been doing. It must be pretty fine, and Carson, you’re going to have to do something about the phone. It’s been ringing off the hook. People wanting more of them bumper stickers. There it goes right now.”

  Carson jumped up. “This is something like wildfire,” he said.

  “Where’s Uncle Samuel?” Henry asked Aunt Dorie.

  “He’s in Raleigh. He’ll be back before supper. He’s so good to me, Henry.”
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  “I’m glad.”

  Caroline sat and talked with this older friend of her brother’s about the Grand Ole Opry, about Roy Acuff, whom he knew, Red Foley, whom he’d met, about schoolteaching, which Caroline was doing, first grade, about his first school principal, his armed service experience in France, about Russia getting an atomic bomb, the possibility of war in Korea, and about losing a child, before he lost his wife. He seemed kind and asked her question after question about her teaching, and while he asked, it came to her that Glenn never asked those kinds of questions. It also came to her that he looked like Clark Gable, for sure. Henry had mentioned him in his letters, but not how handsome he was. He seemed like a man who had been places, but was also kind and thoughtful. They got to talking about their favorite songs and he, off-key, sang a few lines of “Sentimental Journey.” They both laughed. Glenn loved her in his own way, but he’d yet to say “I love you.” His word was “care.” He’d been needy and eager in a sexual way, and she finally gave in. Though she knew it was wrong, it was somehow difficult to back out of it, avoid it — Glenn was unpleasant when she tried to talk about waiting. And how in the world had it turned out that she was sitting on the beach with this kind man who was talking to her, the sun going down, time suspended? Where were the boys?

  When she got back to her room — Preston had offered to take her to dinner, and there was no reason to say no — there was a note on the door. Carson had called and would call back.

  During supper with Carson, Aunt Dorie, and Uncle Samuel, Henry explained what little he could about his secret job. He wished Uncle Jack were there.

  He talked a lot about Bible selling, the lessons he’d learned from Mr. Fletcher, and how they’d panned out. He told the cat-snake story. He talked about Indian Springs, the hotel there, the fiddle player, how people visited from all over.

  He got the latest news about Aunt Ruth, Uncle Delbert, others in the family. And Aunt Dorie made him promise he’d come home for a while as soon as possible.

  While they sat around the table after the meal, Uncle Samuel asked Henry what was the most important thing he’d learned in the last few months.

  “It looks like I learned today to get in the bumper sticker business.”

  “Well, I guess as long as it’s Christian bumper stickers,” said Uncle Samuel. “Yep, it looks like he might be onto something.”

  Henry imagined Uncle Jack talking about bumper stickers — his chin tucked into his neck, the way he would sit back on the back two legs of his chair.

  “Have you-all been down to Swan Island anytime lately?” Henry asked Uncle Samuel and Aunt Dorie.

  They hadn’t.

  “The Electra that used to be so nice is plumb run-down,” he said. He wanted to remember aloud about the time they went with Uncle Jack, but knew not to.

  “I think,” said Carson, “if we wait to go back till tomorrow morning we could stop at some churches. Some of the big ones that might have an office or a preacher house next door.”

  “Parsonage,” said Aunt Dorie, and then to Henry, “Did you get to spend any time with Caroline?”

  “Just a few minutes. Mr. Clearwater, the man I was telling you about, was talking to her when we left.”

  “Oh. How old is Mr. Clearwater?” said Aunt Dorie.

  “I don’t know. Maybe forty. What would you say, Carson?”

  “Something like that. Pretty old.”

  “He was in the war,” said Henry. Then he understood. “Oh no, he’s way too old for her. And somehow I don’t think he’s all that interested in women. I mean, I don’t mean he’s a fairy or anything, but he just . . . I think he had a wife and a bad marriage a long time ago, something like that. I didn’t get to ask Caroline about Glenn. Are they still going out?”

  “I think Glenn will come to his senses and ask her to marry him before the summer’s over,” said Uncle Samuel. “I’ve more or less pushed him to make a move before he gets too ugly to marry.” He laughed and looked around. “And I’ve helped him out with his business school.”

  “I guess they’re almost engaged,” said Aunt Dorie. “Shouldn’t you-all try again to call her? We’re all through eating, it looks like.”

  Carson phoned the hotel, asked for Caroline, and after a minute, talked to her, told her that over half the stores they’d stopped at on the way down had called to say they wanted more bumper stickers. They could make some quick money by waiting until the next morning to come back and take care of all the reorders.

  She said that that would be fine, that she might take a walk on the beach, for them not to worry, and not to speed on the way down in the morning.

  Then Henry called Marleen’s sister’s phone. This was the night. Friday. Between nine and ten. Marleen’s sister, Tina, answered. A baby was crying. She was expecting his call and talked to him a minute — the boy she’d “heard so much about.” Marleen came to the phone, and Henry, just inside the closed pantry door for privacy, felt the pantry become a kind of hallowed place. He looked at a row of canned tomatoes, one jar at a time, the “Ball” imprint standing out, the jars reflecting the lightbulb in the pantry ceiling. He listened to news, told his, and waited through one or two awkward silent spells. He told her about Swan Island, the bad condition of the Electra, the mattress on the steps. She told him about her grandma’s fall, her daddy’s hernia.

  “I’ll call you next Friday, same time, same place,” he said. “But I’ll probably be at a coin phone, with a lot of nickels and dimes. You’ll be there, right?”

  “I’ll be here,” said Marleen.

  “Well . . .” Maybe she would say something that could kind of get them started to saying good-bye. “Bye until next week, then,” he said.

  “Good-bye. Be sure to call me, now.”

  “Bye. I will.”

  “Bye.”

  “. . . Bye.”

  “. . . Good-bye . . .”

  Before they went to bed Henry and Carson played carom and listened to The Country Squire Show on the radio, then Henry looked on the back table in the garage and found his cast net. In their bedroom after lights-out he and Carson talked about Korea. Carson said if a war happened it probably wouldn’t last long because America had atom bombs and the North Koreans and Chinese didn’t.

  Caroline told Preston about her visit to the Electra when she was fourteen, about Aunt Dorie not wanting to dance. About the moon — and telling about that moon helped usher a kind of sea smoke into her heart, just as he, with his fingers, started at her wrist and continued on down toward her fingertips, a gentle, soft touching, and she, involuntarily almost, reached to the tie at his chest, grasped it, and as he kissed her, she moved her hand down the length of it — as if holding her fingers around the stems of flowers — feeling and hearing a voice say that all this had been ordained before stars were born.

  On Monday morning, Henry said good-bye to Carson and Caroline — she acted funny the whole time they were at the beach. Then at Johnson and Ball Construction and Industrial Machine Repair Company over in McNeill, the place Blinky ran, or pretended to run, Henry learned to drive and manage a forklift and a dump truck. A man named Skinny, with orange-framed glasses, was his teacher. The FBI had connections that he’d never dreamed of.

  Just over the first bridge outside McNeill was a turnoff onto a narrow dirt road that crossed a small bridge over a creek. The creek appeared to run from the channel to a large pond. Henry had a notion. He turned the big lumbering dump truck onto the side road and stopped. Clearwater pulled in behind him. Carson had stuck a “Jesus Saves” bumper sticker on the front bumper of the Chrysler and said he was going to order ten thousand more.

  Henry reached for his cast net in a bucket in the floorboard and climbed down from the cab. He walked to Clearwater’s car window. “Get out. I want to show you something.”

  “What?”

  “How to throw a cast net. You can show me how to light a match in a thirty-knot wind. Mr. Blinky never did. Remember?”

  “We
need to get on the road.”

  “That gig’s not till next Sunday. We got all kinds of time.”

  “Something might come up.”

  “Aw, come on.”

  Clearwater got out, and Henry walked him over to the bridge, then down an embankment, until they stood beside the creek.

  “Okay,” said Henry. “You take in the cord like this, shake it so all the weights are clear, and then catch it at about one-third of the way down and pick up a weight from down here, hold it here, and then get you another weight and spread out the net, and you’re ready to go, see, and then you just stare out there for a little ripple that says ‘finger mullet,’ and if you don’t see one you can throw blind. You’ve got to spin your right hand when you fling it, and so you go like this.” Henry flung the net and it opened into a circle, landed, sank into the water. He started pulling in, hand over hand. As the bunched net got close he saw the silver minnow sides flashing, reflecting sky light. He thought of the disciples. “Okay, okay, we got a few. See. That was easy. Pull it up and then just grab this here to unpucker it in the bucket, like this, shake it, pull it up, and the fish fall out. You want to try it?”

  Clearwater didn’t know what to do. He took the net. He cast a few times, with Henry talking him through the process. No luck.

  They started up the bank to the bridge.

  “Now you got to teach me that match-lighting trick,” said Henry. “Thirty-knot wind.”

  Clearwater took a deep breath. He reached into his shirt pocket for a box of matches. The morning sun was just coming from behind clouds.

  “Okay. Put the match between your first and second finger, like this. Then you strike it, see? Like that, and cup your hand, and bring your other hand in so no air comes up from below or from either side. See?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Blinky says it works in a wind up to thirty knots. Try it a few times without striking it. That’s what he makes people do. . . . Okay. Good. Almost. Good. Now, see, you got to get your other hand in there — the heel of your other hand right up against here. . . . There you go. Good. Good. Now try striking one.”