The Bible Salesman Page 7

  “Will they know you’re the one that turned them in? That you’re the spy?”

  Clearwater brought his finger to his mouth, shook his head.

  Henry nodded. “I need to know where I can have some Bibles mailed to. I need to order some. Is there a place we’ll be staying for a while?”

  “We’ll be back and forth through Atlanta right much. That’s where we’ll be heading tomorrow.” Clearwater was in bed on his back. He turned onto his side. “I want to go to sleep.”

  “Did you know there were two different stories about the beginning of the world in Genesis?”

  “No.”

  “I don’t see how they can both be wrote by the same God.”

  Clearwater turned onto his back, came up onto his elbows, pulled back the covers, and swung his feet to the floor. “I guess I’ll have me a little drink. You want one?”

  “I don’t see why not.”

  Clearwater produced the bottle. “See if there ain’t some glasses in that cabinet.”

  Henry found two glasses, the bright-colored aluminum kind with the turned-out lip. He had to tell somebody about all this Genesis stuff, and having a little drink would be a way to get Mr. Clearwater talking.

  “Get you some water if you want to mix it,” said Clearwater as he poured the drinks.

  “Uncle Jack always drunk it outen the bottle.”

  Mr. Clearwater handed him a glass.

  Henry smelled the whiskey, sloshed it around in his glass, took a sip. It almost burned. “What kind of church were you raised in?” he asked.

  “It was called something, but I don’t remember. I was pretty little.”

  Henry started taking off his pants.

  “Won’t that belt end fit through a loop?” asked Clear-water.

  “Oh, yeah. I guess so.”

  “Could you see if it will.”

  Henry fastened back his pants, checked the belt. “It does.”

  “Good. One more thing. You think you could get a hat or some hair oil to keep your hair down in back like I asked you?”

  “My daddy’s hair was like this is what my Aunt Dorie always told me,” said Henry as he touched his hair. “I just like to use water on my hair.”

  “Yeah, I know. Now I need to go to sleep.”

  The next morning as they stood inside the paint shop near an adding machine on a low table, Henry saw Clearwater pick up a nickel and a dime from the floor and pocket them. He wondered how he might bring up his concerns about the Bible again. Then while taking a leak in the bathroom, he noticed a penny in the urinal. As he came out, Clearwater went in. When Clearwater came out, Henry returned — just to see. The penny was gone. Did he put chewing gum on the end of a pencil and then drop the penny in the sink and wash it?

  Outside, they looked at the fresh green paint on the Oldsmobile.

  “Looks pretty good, don’t it?” said Clearwater.

  “Sure does. It looks like it’s been painted for a while or something.”

  “That’s right. They age it with damp cloths and this fine sand that comes from somewhere in Arizona.”

  On the road, Henry fit his fingers into the scallops of the Oldsmobile steering wheel. He followed the Chrysler. They stopped at a used-car dealer’s lot in downtown Thomasville, Georgia, far south of Atlanta. And when he came out Clearwater gave Henry his two tens and a five-dollar bill.

  That afternoon as they rode together, Clearwater told Henry to stop just beyond, but out of sight of, the Night’s Rest Motel in Jeffries, Georgia, about five miles southwest of Atlanta. Henry would walk in and Clearwater would drive in, as usual. But before Henry got out of the car, Clearwater told him they’d take a two-day rest, and that he’d be driving into Atlanta to observe some criminal activity.

  “Can I come?” asked Henry.

  “I need to do it myself.”

  Henry sat on the bed in his room. It felt hard and the springs creaked. Tomorrow he’d go out for a serious day of Bible selling. He might iron one of his suits. The woman at the desk probably had an iron. A floor lamp stood in the corner, and a lightbulb on a cord hung from the middle of the room. Maybe he would go take a shower. One had been advertised on a sign in the office. He took off his suit and hung it and his sport coat on hangers in the wardrobe.

  He walked to his window and looked down the road. A roadside fruit stand. He washed his face and hands, decided to postpone the shower, dressed in his underwear and second suit, picked up his valise, and walked out to the road. The air was hot and humid, and the sun was behind a heavy cloud in the west. The fruit stand was maybe fifty yards down the road, under a couple of funeral home tents, it looked like, white plywood bins all around. The paint was thin enough to see through to the plywood, even from far away. A big hand-painted sign, black paint on the white paint, said squash, fruit, turnips, canned goods, jelly and ect. Somebody sat in there behind a table, beside a hanging scale. He would sell a Bible or two. They’d have cash on hand.

  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?”