The Organist Wore Pumps (The Liturgical Mysteries)

by Schweizer, Mark

  “Lovely service last Sunday, Hayden,” called Joyce Cooper, one of the St. Barnabas parishioners enjoying a late breakfast two tables over. Joyce was also on the worship committee.

  “Thanks,” I called back. “Once we sing Lo, He Comes With Clouds Descending, we know that Advent is definitely upon us.”

  “My favorite hymn.”

  “Maybe mine, too. This week, anyway. Hey, won’t I be seeing you again in a few minutes over at the church?”

  “Oh, shoot,” said Joyce, making a wry face. “Worship meeting. I know I usually go, but I have a doctor’s appointment this morning. Tell Gaylen where I am, will you?”

  “Sure,” I said. “But I’m not sure you want to miss this one. This is the pre-meeting before the Jesse Tree showdown.”

  Joyce laughed. “I always like that one. Besides, I wanted to meet our new deacon. I heard he’s already claimed an office.”

  “Deacon Mushrat,” I said.

  “What?” said Nancy.

  “You heard me the first time,” I said. “Deacon Mushrat.”

  “I know I should be there,” said Joyce, “but I can’t cancel.”

  “I understand,” I said. “In fact, I myself feel a doctor’s appointment coming on.”

  Joyce laughed and went back to her breakfast.

  “Deacon Mushrat,” said Pete. “Great name. I like him already.”

  “You’d be the only one so far,” I said.

  “Do y’all need some more syrup?” asked Pauli Girl on her way back to the kitchen with a tray full of dirty dishes. She pronounced it “seerp,” and gave Dave a wink he could hang his hat on.

  “Wouldn’t mind,” said Dave with a big grin.

  “Be right back with it,” said Pauli Girl, smiling back just as big.

  As soon as she turned, Nancy slugged Dave in the arm. Hard. “Don’t you even think about it,” she growled. “She’s seventeen.” Nancy and Dave had been an on-again-off-again couple for a few years now. They were currently off-again.

  “I wasn’t thinking about anything,” said Dave, the picture of innocence. “Except maybe more pancakes.”

  Pauli Girl was the middle child of Ardine McCollough, a slender, hickory-hard mountain woman who hid more scars than she’d ever let on. Bud, our backward and bashful wine connoisseur, was the eldest. The McCollough children were fathered by P.D. McCollough, a no-account, abusive, all around bad egg who met his fate, some say, at the hands of his dear wife. The only things that P.D. ever gave his kids, besides the occasional black eye, were their names— and he named them for the thing dearest to his heart: beer. Three kids, three beers. Bud, Pauli Girl, and the youngest, Moose-Head. Moosey.

  Pauli Girl was, far and away, the best looking girl in St. Germaine and had no shortage of boys flocking around her at any social function. This was her last year at the high school, but she’d enrolled in a work-study program and so was allowed to work twenty hours a week during school hours. She put in at least another twenty after school and on weekends. I knew she helped her mother with living expenses, but I was also pretty sure she was socking away everything she could. Pauli Girl would be leaving at the end of the year. I didn’t know if she’d try college, or a job, or even a tech school, but I knew one thing: she wouldn’t be back.

  “We appreciate you holding the table for us, Pete,” Nancy said.

  “No problem,” said Pete. “Besides, Hayden said he’d call the health department on me if I didn’t.”

  “It’s the Patriot Act,” I said with a shrug. “I had no choice.”

  “Hmm,” said Pete.

  •••

  When Gaylen Weatherall had first come to St. Barnabas as rector, I had agreed to go to two staff and/or worship meetings a month, two more than I was accustomed to attending. When she’d been elected Bishop of Colorado, I was off the hook. Now that she was back, I found myself, once again, corralled into the Thursday morning meeting.

  When I walked in, Marilyn, the church secretary, was at the head of the conference table in her customary seat. Gaylen was sitting to her right, pouring coffee for herself, Marilyn and Elaine Hixon. Kimberly Walnut, our Director of Christian Formation, was across the table sipping a can of Red Bull. Bev Greene walked in behind me, and following her was Deacon Mushrat, a stocky man of medium height, his blonde hair just about the desired length for starring in an 80s music video. Georgia was right about the micro-suede jacket, although the one he was currently wearing was green with dark brown elbow patches. His black socks were clearly visible through the open toes of his sandals. His pants were tan polyester Sans-a-Belt.

  Now, make no mistake, I have nothing against the expando-pant industry. In fact, I myself have several pair of expando-pants in my wardrobe—cotton twill dress slacks that go from a size 38 waist to a size 44 in an instant, thanks to an ingenious inventor named Kenny J. Pierce of El Paso, Texas, who decided that middle-aged men needed maternity pants just as much as pregnant women. Having said that, Sans-a-Belt was a different animal entirely, being basically a pair of plastic pants with a built-in girdle. We aficionados of the expando-pant bristled whenever we were lumped together with the Sans-a-Belts.

  Gaylen greeted us all and poured coffee for Bev and me when she’d finished with the first round. Donald Mushrat sat down at the other end of the table from Marilyn and turned his cup upside down on the table as if he were at a restaurant. He carried a clipboard with a yellow legal pad that, once he was seated, he dropped in front of him from a height of about six inches, bouncing it off the top of the wooden table with a loud rattle. Then he reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a fountain pen, all the while smiling benignly at Gaylen without saying a word.

  There was a chill in the air. Gaylen Weatherall and Donald Mushrat were not on friendly terms and he hadn’t even been at St. Barnabas for twenty-four hours.

  “Let’s get started, shall we?” said Gaylen. “We’ve got a lot to talk about, including our stewardship campaign. Donald, would you open our meeting with a prayer?”

  Deacon Mushrat stopped smiling, planted his elbows on the table, clasped his hands, bowed his head, knit his eyebrows together, and looked as though he was trying to work up a sweat.

  “Lord, you are God,” he began, in a North Carolina accent so thick you could slice it, fry it up in some ham fat and serve it with grits. “You are the Triune, the Theotes, Omniscient, Revelatory, Immutable, the First Principle. You are the Alpha and the Omega. You are the Logos. You are El Shaddai. You are so awesome that you even know what I am going to pray next!”

  I shot a glance between my fingers at Marilyn, but her eyes were squinched tight.

  “O God, forgive those among us who do not understand the need to follow your Word, your awesome Holy Word, and as we begin this awesome stewardship campaign, forgive the congregation for their continued failure to tithe. For ‘The tithe is the Lord’s, a full ten percent,’ and ‘Bring your tithes into the storehouse,’ and ‘Test me in this, saith the Lord.’ And Gracious Father, I just pray you would forgive the leaders of our fellowship for their ignorance and laziness. Raise up great men of God, O Lord, and place them in front of these people that they would know your ways.”

  Bev kicked me under the table.

  “And Lord, we just pray for all the born-again believers at my last parish that you allowed me to bring into your salvation, and I’d like to mention just a few by name...”

  “Amen,” interrupted Gaylen.

  “Amen,” everyone echoed.

  “Awesome,” I said.

  “Good God,” muttered Bev.

  •••

  “Now,” said Gaylen, “our stewardship program should be pretty straightforward this year. We aren’t under any financial strain at the moment and the pledge cards should go out this week.”

  “How many of the St. Barnabas parishioners tithe?” asked Deacon Mushrat. “If I may ask?”

  “Almost everyone in the congregation gives what they can,” said Gaylen.

  “
That’s not what I asked,” said the deacon, turning down the corners of his mouth. “Ten percent. That’s what the Lord demands.”

  “Well,” said Bev, a hard edge on her voice, “since we aren’t privy to everyone’s tax returns, we don’t really know who’s giving ten percent and who isn’t.”

  “And some people give to other things as well,” added Elaine. “The soup kitchen, the Salvation Army, Habitat for Humanity...”

  “That’s not the tithe,” said Deacon Mushrat. “The tithe comes into the storehouse. The storehouse is the church.”

  “Thank you, Donald,” said Gaylen. “If you’d like to lead a Bible study on the Book of Malachi during Advent, I’m sure there are many of us who would like to attend. Marilyn will be happy to put an announcement in the bulletin and the newsletter.”

  Marilyn smiled and Donald made a note on his clipboard.

  “As I was saying,” continued Gaylen, “the pledge cards will go out this week. I’ll mention the stewardship program during announcements for the next couple of Sundays and we’ll try to get all the cards back in before Christmas.”

  “How about finalizing the budget?” asked Deacon Mushrat.

  “It’s already done,” said Bev, giving him a sickeningly sweet smile. “We did that in October. Of course, now we’ll have to add your salary to the total.”

  The deacon made another note.

  Gaylen flipped a page of her pad. “Now...the Jesse Tree. Who won the battle last year?”

  Mushrat looked confused.

  “The Chrismonites,” said Elaine. “We weren’t in the new church, though, so there wasn’t really a tussle. The old ladies made chrismons all summer and hung them on the tree in the rotunda of the courthouse.”

  “The year before that, we didn’t have a tree,” I said. “We’d just burned down.”

  “And the year before that...” said Elaine.

  Gaylen held up her hands. “Okay,” she said. “Who does the Christmas parade this year? And who’s in charge of the town Christmas crèche?”

  Everyone looked in my direction. It was a long-standing tradition that the Kiwanis Club and the Rotary Club, rival civic organizations, took turns organizing the St. Germaine Christmas Parade on alternate years. About twenty years ago, during a particularly successful run of Christmas parades by the Kiwanians, thanks to a three-hundred pound Santa they’d recruited from Elk Mills, the town council had given the parade to the Kiwanis Club for the foreseeable future. The Rotarians, lacking a really big Kris Kringle, but having plenty of sheep, decided that they’d start a Living Nativity in Sterling Park. It was a smash hit! The Christmas parade was only one evening, but the Living Nativity went on for several nights and the Kiwanians weren’t going to take this affront lying down. They immediately petitioned the council to have their own Living Nativity, and it was Pete Moss in his role as Solomon that finally proposed the compromise. The Rotarians and the Kiwanians would swap duties each year. One year, the Christmas parade, the next year, the Christmas crèche. And thus it has been ever since, except for that fateful year when St. Germaine had two Living Nativities going at the same time.

  I thought for a few seconds.

  “The Rotarians have the parade. Cynthia says it’s going to be a doozy. The Kiwanians have the crèche.”

  “Then this shall be our decree,” said Gaylen, using the royal pronoun. “On such years as the Kiwanians are in charge of the town Christmas crèche, the Jessetonians shall decorate the Jesse Tree. On such years as the Rotarians present the crèche, the Chrismonites shall hence prevail.”

  “Amen and so be it,” I said.

  “Anything special for the Second Sunday of Advent?” asked Kimberly Walnut.

  “Well, the choir is singing Hugo Distler’s Kleine Adventsmusik. It’s a short cantata. Seven variations on Savior of the Nations, Come. We’re doing different movements throughout the service. We have a few instrumentalists coming in from Appalachian State.”

  “It’s quite lovely,” said Elaine. “Fun to sing.”

  “Will we be starting up the Children’s Moment again?” asked Kimberly, hopefully.

  “That would be awesome!” said Donald Mushrat.

  “I think not,” said Gaylen.

  “I have something for the first week in January,” said Kimberly Walnut. “We’re having a lock-in for the kids. It’s our ‘Cocoon’ program. We’ll have activities, and Bible study, and prayer time. We’ll write letters to God...that sort of thing. Then we’re going to have a church service with communion the next morning. It will be a life-changing experience for these children.”

  “I hope you’ll let me be involved,” said the oily Mushrat.

  •••

  “Could you ride with me to Boone?” Gaylen asked, as the meeting disbanded. “Actually, I need to have some blood drawn, and I don’t want to have to drive myself home. I thought we might chat.”

  “Be happy to,” I said.

  Gaylen’s late model Volvo was parked in front of the church and she beeped the doors unlocked with her remote as we walked up. It was still a cold morning, although the sun had melted the frost that covered the park almost every day in December.

  “Very nice car,” I said, as I got into the passenger side, flipped on the heated seat, and buckled myself in.

  “It was a present to myself when I became bishop,” said Gaylen with a little laugh. She started the car and then fastened her seat-belt as well. “I figured I’d have to drive all over Colorado and I’d need a good car. Who knew I’d be back here in a couple of years? I do like the heated seats, though. And the stereo.”

  “How’s your dad doing, by the way?”

  “He’s doing okay. He has good days and he has bad days. Mostly, I think he’s just tired.”

  “Tired?”

  “Physically tired, spiritually tired, emotionally tired. Just tired. I can see it in his eyes.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  We turned down Maple Street, drove past the Holy Grounds Coffee Shop and headed out of town.

  “Well,” said Gaylen with a sigh, “we all get old. We all die.”

  “That’s pretty fatalistic, especially with Christmas coming up. I have a better plan.”

  “You know something I don’t?”

  “December 21st, 2012. It’s the new date of the Rapture. I’m just trying to hold on till then.”

  Gaylen laughed. “So you won’t be planning any Christmas Eve services that year.”

  “Nope.”

  “Well, I guess I won’t bother writing a sermon.”

  The town disappeared behind us and Maple Street turned to State Road 413. We were heading into Boone by a back road, a little longer, but infinitely more scenic than the main highway. The mountain laurel and the fir trees still had some color, but everything else was stark and bare and covered with the haze that gave the Smoky Mountains their name.

  “Worst case scenario,” I said. “The Rapture doesn’t happen and you preach the same sermon you did the year before.”

  “What about the choir?”

  “We’ll do a couple choruses of Rudolf the Red-Nosed Bishop during the offertory. Hey, watch out there...”

  A family of skunks was crossing the highway in the fog and Gaylen didn’t see them right away. When she did see them, she touched her brakes. Nothing happened, or felt like it didn’t. The rear tires hit a patch of black ice that had been sheltered from the morning sun behind a large rock cliff. The car started to fish-tail badly, but seemed to correct itself. As the back of the car whipped back into the center of the road, three baby skunks appeared in the windshield, looking at us with huge, terrified eyes. Gaylen spun the steering wheel, more out of instinct than anything else.

  I felt the car leave the road and hit the first tree with a screech of torn metal. The airbags deployed, smacked us back against the seats, then deflated in an instant. I tasted blood. We hit the second tree.

  Then darkness.

  Chapter 5

  I saw a bright lig
ht, blinked, and turned my head. I’d been napping on my gurney in the emergency room.

  “Attaboy,” said the doctor flicking his pen-light into my eyes, first one and then the other. “Sorry to wake you up, but you had quite a rap on the ol’ coconut.” He clicked the flashlight off and dropped it into his breast pocket. “You remember anything?”

  “Yep,” I said, trying to shake off the cobwebs. “I remember.”

  After we’d hit the second tree, Gaylen and I had sat there, motionless, for a few minutes. Then a voice came on a speaker telling us that the sensors had sent a message to the OnStar security switchboard saying that the airbags had deployed, and were we all right? Gaylen didn’t answer, or couldn’t, and I replied that we’d had an accident and were somewhere off the road. The operator said she’d stay on the line and send help immediately. I was suddenly very grateful that Gaylen had splurged on the new Volvo with all the bells and whistles.

  Nancy and Dave showed up before the ambulance and had me out of the car by the time the ambulance arrived on the scene. We hadn’t moved Gaylen, but waited for the EMTs, fearing some internal injuries. She was conscious but couldn’t say anything. The ambulance was long gone by the time I’d told Nancy and Dave and two Boone cops what had happened. Then I climbed into Nancy’s car, rode to the hospital, and walked myself into the emergency room.

  “Better call Meg,” I said.

  “She’s on her way,” said Nancy.

  Gaylen had been wheeled into surgery before we’d arrived at the hospital. I was luckier. I wouldn’t need any surgery—just a fiberglass cast on a broken left arm, a couple of months getting over a broken left collarbone, and some stitches in my scalp. No sign of a concussion, presumably what the doctor was looking for when I was so rudely awakened.