by Stan Hayes
“Right,” said Moses. “The guy says they guarantee it’ll top out at a hundred and twenty-five.”
“Jeeezus. What a scooter. When’dja get it?”
“Couple weeks ago. Just trucked it over from Atlanta and stuck it in here ’til you got back. Figured you wouldn’t want half the town tellin’ ya the news.”
“You’re right, I do appreciate that. But I don’t see how you stayed off of it for two weeks.”
“Hell, I didn’t. I’m out here sittin’ on it six times a day. All these guys’ve gotta be relieved that they don’t hafta keep the secret any longer.”
“Well, hell; let’s go ride.”
Moses rolled the Shadow, which is what they’d call it from then on, onto one of the trucks’ lift gates, which eased it down to ground level. Moses straddled it, pulling the clutch lever in. He ran the kickstarter through a couple of times to free the clutch plates, released it, set the ignition advance to full retard, closed the choke lever, eased the throttle twistgrip open a crack, and kicked. Once. Twice. Three times and BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM, the Shadow’s sixty-one cubic inches of v-twin leapt to life, drawing applause from the HCBC employees, Beverly Tyler among them, that had gathered on the dock. Her applause was an ironic headwag and an unavoidable small smile. Still grinning, Moses toed the gearshift up into first, eased out the clutch and was off with a backward wave. Jack ran around to the front of the building, cranked the Harley and took off out Seventh Street in pursuit of the shrinking Shadow.
As she pulled the old Hudson wagon up to the hotel alley’s intersection with Main street, Serena’s scan of the traffic also picked up the Reverend Osborne Abercrombie on his way to the cafe. Giving him a hasty wave and a hey-preacher smile, she turned right and disappeared behind a following semi-trailer rig. Jesus, she thought, you could land a plane on that forehead.
At that moment, the Reverend concluded that he’d had enough. Enough of politely passing the time of day, day after day, with that auburn-haired vixen. Enough of her saucy, green-eyed smiling responses. Enough of her, the daughter of one of the town’s most important men (and a deacon!), keeping the church (and him!) at arm’s length. And enough, in particular, of the unbidden, unrequited tendency toward erection of the pastoral penis. The situation simply had to change. She was available. He was available. He had buried his wife Ellen more than two years ago. And even if he weren’t powerfully attracted to Serena Mason, various of his parishioners had for months been giving him not-so-subtle hints that it was time for the church to be led, once again, by a married man.
It wasn’t that he didn’t have things to offer her. The First Baptist Church was Bisque’s largest, and the majority of its socially prominent citizens could be seen there on Sunday mornings. As pastor, he defaulted to the upper levels of the town’s pecking order. And, he thought, I don’t look bad for forty-two. Wish I had more hair, but I’m not upset by what I see in the mirror. Even features, prominent forehead, honest brown eyes. My suits fit well; Hart, Schaffner & Marx, Palm Beach; serge, glen plaid, covert; maybe not tailor-made, but the worthy members whose stores provide them make sure that their wares are shown to the best possible advantage in the pulpit. And God knows I’m well-spoken.
These things alone, he knew, weren’t enough to bring Serena to him. Even after eighteen years of marriage, he still had no idea about how women make up their minds about men. As an experienced observer of humanity, however, he had come to some conclusions about her likes and dislikes. His only source of information, Reba Turnipseed, had provided him with a few insights about this remarkable woman. With the Lord’s help, they’d be enough to give him the basis for a successful campaign for her hand.
First among these insights that Reba had provided him was her impression of the relationship, if it could be called that, between Serena and the beer baron Kubielski. While Reba has a very good opinion of him as a person, she says, she doesn’t believe that they’re “good for each other,” and that, being Jewish, he doesn’t present serious potential as a husband. At least not in Bisque. But she’s been back here for ten years; if a husband’s what she wants, maybe my timing’s pretty good.
The second insight, while less encouraging, must be confronted. It is that, despite her deep roots in Bisque, she’s here only because of the boy, and that her residence here will end contemporaneous with his departure for college. She is, Reba says, an artist; she sculpts. And, even though no one save Baron Kubielski is admitted to her rooftop studio, there seems to be a market, hitherto solely in New York, for what she sculpts. The only evidence reputed to be her work that’s ever been available to Bisque’s eyes was the effigy of the Baron’s organ behind which he shamelessly drove around some years back.
Third, and perhaps most troubling, is Reba’s opinion that, although sporadic, Serena and the Baron have maintained an eight-year sexual liaison that appears to be mutually satisfactory. Although her facts concerning this licentious union are necessarily sketchy, she is firm, as only she can be, in her conviction that it’s alive and well today.
Given these insights, the pastor mused, what’s my strategy? As much as I fear doing it, I’m forced to base what I do on an assumption, that assumption being that Serena doesn’t want to do anything forever, which both frightens and comforts me. She’s an artist. Is her art truly appreciated by Baron Kubielski, or is this the fatal niche in their accommodation? Everything that I know about the man suggests to me that this is the relationship’s Achilles heel. It could be the gap into which I can insert the cold chisel of God’s love, followed by a warmer insertion of my own.
As opposed to what seems to be the Baron’s cavalier notice of her art, I shall prove my love for Serena through an understanding of what she does. I shall give her as many opportunities as I can to appreciate what I know about her art. I must begin to see her socially, in a series of gatherings that are stacked- how can a man of God conceive of this duplicity, yet I do, and happily- in my favor. Perhaps, as a start, a simple party given by some church member with whom she’s friendly. In the meantime, I shall do what I can to make sure that she hears more good things from me about art in general, and ultimately her art, in the next few weeks than she’s heard from the Baron since they met. Once we’re friends, anything can happen.
“Go ahead and get the sandwiches out of the ’frigerator, will ya, honey?” shouted Jolene Marsh, chairwoman for Bisque’s Salvation Army Funding Plans Committee. She was determined, under any circumstances, to be an effective chairwoman, and if all that it took was shanghaiing Serena Mason, well that was easily done. She knew that the appreciation of her efforts would begin with Reverend Abercrombie’s, who knew where it would end? The Reverend’s influence was far-reaching in Bisque, and readily usable for lots of purposes, religious or sectarian. And if what he had in mind in getting Serena to show up was what she thought it was, well, his gratitude would be considerable if she reciprocates his interest.
“Where’dya want this bowl of blackberries?” asked Terry, struggling a bit as she slid the three-tiered silver tray onto the table beside them. “Don’t they have sump’m that goes with ’em?”
“Yep. There’s a dish of hard sauce that goes over ’em; probably right behind where the sandwiches were. You sure you wanta stay for this thing, baby? It’s bound to be dull as dishwater.”
“It won’t be if Jack’s mom’s coming. Do you really think she’ll show up?”
“If she doesn’t, she’s no friend of mine. And she is my good friend.”
“But why’s she coming? This isn’t something she’d be interested in. She doesn’t even go to church.”
“This isn’t about church. It’s about helping people who aren’t as fortunate as we are. We’re going to help the Salvation Army raise the money they need to do that for the poor people of Bisque. This gathering’s mostly about getting businesses to give us things that we can raffle off to make money, and Miz Mason’s a pretty good business woman. I think she’ll have some good suggestions.” And possibly
boost old Abercrombie’s self-image right through the roof, she thought. It’s about time old Cueball had some competition; foolin’ around with Ríni for all these years, and not marryin’ her. Not that I think she’d ever be a preacher’s wife, but who knows? The guy obviously believes in miracles; guess you could say he practices what he preaches.
By five-fifteen, the Marsh living room was full of well-behaved Christian housewives, an artist and a preacher. Jolene, fulfilling her implied bargain with the holy man, had handed Serena over to him upon arrival. “You know Reverend Abercrombie, of course,” she’d said, and Serena had allowed as how she did.
“Daddy says you’re some sermonizer,” she said as Jolene ushered a lady in a hat toward the tier of little sandwiches.
“Well,” he said, modifying Preacher Professional Post-Sermon Smile for the occasion, “that’s high praise indeed, coming from Deacon Redding. Maybe you should join us some Sunday and decide for yourself.”
“I have a hard time sitting down for that long, I’m afraid,” she said. “Guess Daddy’ll have to go on representing us.”
“Hm. Well, I hope you’ll change your mind some day and join him.”
“They say anything’s possible, but I wouldn’t bet on it. But you don’t bet, do you? How about a sandwich?”
They hovered briefly over the buffet table before Abercrombie was called away for protocol with the Salvation Army’s Major Murphy. By the time he could get back to her, the business of the gathering had been done and people were gabbling the appropriate goodbyes to friends, acquaintances and holy folk. The Reverend pounced as she was escaping Jolene’s hug. “Mrs. Mason…”
She turned to him, unable to avoid a look up at the expanse of brow. “Call me Ríni, why don’t you? After all, we’re neighbors.”
“Why- thank you, ah- Reenie. I wondered if I might ask a favor.”
“Shoot.”
He’d begun to understand that it was going to take everything he had to deal with this directness. “Well. I understand that you sculpt, and I wondered if I might see some of your work.”
“Word gets around, doesn’t it?” she said, smiling. Goddamn that Reba anyway. “What kind of sculpture do you like?”
“I can more easily tell you what kind I don’t like. None. Sculpture’s a miraculous gift. How people shape beautiful things from ordinary materials is absolutely beyond me.”
A spark of insight momentarily dimmed Serena’s just-for-polite-society smile. “Wish more people felt that way,” she said, looking at him squarely for the first time. “It’s not a common attitude, as far as I know. Stop by tomorrow, if you like. Around six? My studio’s on the hotel roof.” There’s some recycled Reba-news for you, she thought. “The desk clerk’ll tell you how to find the door to the roof. You’ve gotta knock hard.”
The reverend was early, but she’d anticipated it. Good thing Snare, alias Penis Flytrap, has gone to New York, she thought as the Reverend’s thumping resumed within seconds after it had stopped. This alabaster version of Cordelia’s bust’ll be about all he can take. Hauling the door open, and now more or less prepared for a top view of the expanse of ecclesiastical headskin, she greeted him. “Howdy, preacher.”
“Good afternoon.” Clearing the last step, he looked around the rooftop. “What a wonderful place to work. I can see how inspiration would come to you quite easily.”
“It’s not bad, once you get used to the weather and the trucks. I can’t understand why trucks can’t have mufflers that’d make them as quiet as cars. Their engines can’t be that much bigger.”
“That’s a question that I have absolutely no qualification to address,” he said, smiling. Have you asked your brother? The car dealer, I mean.”
“No, I haven’t; too obvious, I guess. But you didn’t come up here to discuss trucks. Come on over here and I’ll show you what I’m working on.” As they approached her workstand, she said, “I generally have a glass or two of wine while I work, but I can offer you water or a Coke instead-”
“Oh, nothing for me right now, thanks,” he said, his eyes fixed on the bust, a two-foot-high piece of pink-veined white stone that stood on the workstand, embedded in sand. In spite of a quickly-drying throat, he managed to say, “I’d just like to look at this marvelous thing right now.”
“I hope it’ll be at least mildly marvelous when I’ve finished. Still lots of polishing to do.”
He’d recovered enough from the sight of Cordelia’s alabaster breasts to ask, “What kind of stone is it?”
“Alabaster. This is the first piece of stone that I’ve carved since I was in school, more than ten years ago. It’s a lot easier to work than marble or granite.”
Now he was back on his feet. “Those pink striations running through it create a really nice effect. Where did you get it?”
“From a sculpture supply house in New York. It was quarried in Colorado.”
“I think I know who it is.”
“You can guess if you want to, but my models’ identities’re confidential.”
“Well, she’s a very striking woman, for Bisque anyway.”
“I’ll say she is; for Bisque or anywhere else. I’m lucky she’ll model for me.”
“When this is done, I’m sure she’ll say that she’s the lucky one. I’m in absolute awe of your talent. How many women sculptors do you suppose there are?”
“Not that many, relative to men, as far as I know. And thank you for not saying ‘sculptress’. There’ve always been a few, though. Ever heard of Camille Claudell?”
“No,” he said, wrinkling the massive brow. “Who is she?”
“She was a student- and mistress- of Rodin. Probably the best-known woman in sculpture. Died in pursuit of her art- and Rodin.”
“Really. When did she die?”
“Back during the war, ’43-’44, I think. She’d been in an asylum for many years.”
“My goodness. Rodin was no help to her?”
“Far from it. Ibsen wrote a play about them. When We Dead Awaken. He abandoned her at the point where she could’ve become well-known for her work. As Ibsen would have it, he just wasn’t interested in having an artistic competitor in his bed.”
“That’s a very sad story. A slow death at the hands of love and art.”
She looked at him, not disguising her surprise. “That’s it, in a nutshell. She was destined to be lonely, because she wanted to do something with her life that society decreed women shouldn’t do. She chose to live and love like a man, and to be an artist. But she wasn’t a man, and she pursued her desires, even after pursuing them drove her crazy.”
“I must read that play. Do you have it?”
“No. I left a lot of books behind when we left New York. And a lot else besides,” she mused.
Seeing sadness come over her, he sensed opportunity. “Do you know anything about Stone Mountain?”
“Not much,” she said, startled at the change of subject and remembering the only time she’d seen it, from a room in the Henry Grady Hotel back in June. “beyond the fact that it’s in Atlanta.”
“It has Lee’s head sculpted out of one side. I was reading in the Atlanta paper the other day that some people are trying to get work started on the original design, the one done by the fellow- Borglum, I think that’s right- the one that did the presidents’ heads on Mount Rushmore?”
“Yes,” Serena said, “Gutzon Borglum.”
“The paper said that Lee’s head is seventy feet high. Ever since I read about it, I’ve wanted to see it. Would you like to drive over there one day and take a look?”
The surprise returned to her eyes as she looked at him, appraising this unexpected ploy. “Sure,” she said after some seconds of silence. “When?”
It was the Reverend’s turn to be surprised. “Well,” he said, looking skyward as he came to grips with the unexpected ease of victory. “How would one day early next week, or the week after, be? Wednesday’s prayer meeting, and I begin working on my sermon on Thursdays. Say Mo
nday or Tuesday? If we leave early, we could be back by five or six, I would think.”
“Yes, it’s quite a drive. We’d better say week after next. I’ll need to make sure my desk clerk’s ready to work straight through whatever day we choose. Can I let you know tomorrow?”
A welcome, if unusual, breeze ruffled Cordelia’s glossy hair and the tops of the massive oak trees across the street as she looked down on the flow of main street traffic. “When am I leavin’ for New York?” Cordelia asked. “I’m lookin’ pretty damn smooth.”
“Yes you are. I swear, I know your nipples now better than I know mine. Maybe next week,” Serena said as she rubbed the alabaster bust with a cloth and jewelers’ rouge. “After the polishing’s done. I’ve got several coats of wax to put on and rub out. Then we’ll crate these cute little tits up and ship ’em to the gallery.”
“Well, they look damn good. Be sure you crate ’em up good so I won’t break.”
“You can count on it. But you know, if all I wanted to do was sell it I probably wouldn’t have to ship it.”
“Really? Who could you sell it to?”
“A most unlikely, and hitherto unknown, art enthusiast. Only he wouldn’t be able to display it at home.”
“Why not?”
“Because preachers just don’t have nude sculpture. Not Baptist preachers, anyway.”
“Ríni!” Cordelia shrieked. “You showed my tits to Abercrombie? No!”
Serena stopped polishing and turned to look at her. “I’m afraid I did, sugar. Since I didn’t tell him you were the model, I didn’t think you’d mind.”
“Well you were wrong! Anybody with one eye’d know it’s me. When you told me that you wanted to do me in marble, and I sat again for you for weeks with my tits hangin’ out, the only people I thought would see it would be Yankee strangers and family. I don’t want Pap to see this!”