Flabbergasted: A Novel

by Ray Blackston

Allie looked confused. "She came outside to put a flashlight in her trunk. I can't figure out what she was doing with it."

  "Maybe looking for shells in the dark last night?"

  "Guess so." And she shrugged her shoulders as if to dismiss the topic.

  I draped the navy towel back over the stair rail. "You hungry?"

  "Sorta. They're having a Sunday morning service at our house in an hour," she said, standing now, trying to smooth a wrinkle from her shorts. "But I think ... well, I'm not sure, but Darcy gave me her car keys."

  "Then let's go get some breakfast."

  She glanced down the street at her beach house, then up at our porch. "Okay, but you need to know that I always go to church on Sunday. Wherever I am, if there's a church nearby, I go. It's an unbreakable rule."

  I slipped my sandals back on. "Just hope it's casual dress."

  She dangled Darcy's keys from her finger. "I'll drive," she said.

  And at 6:55 A.M. on the last Sunday in May, a missionary girl who woke embarrassed but innocent on Litchfield Beach drove me to breakfast in a lime green Cadillac convertible.

  A diner on Highway 17 served us coffee in pastel cups and toasted English muffins on seashell plates. We covered the muffins with honey poured from little square packets. It was all we could afford, since our money sat in our rooms back at our houses. Allie had found eighty-seven cents and a five-dollar bill in Sherbet's glove compartment, compliments of Darcy, the rich girl who knew Morse code.

  "Have you ever been to Australia, Jay?" asked Allie, yawning as she spoke.

  "No ... you?"

  "No."

  "But you want to go?"

  "Yeah," she said, cutting her muffin in half. "There's a mission opportunity there, but I feel that if God sends me anywhere, it'll be back to Ecuador."

  "Then go visit Australia."

  "Not on my income. Not unless I get a windfall from Jehovah."

  I signaled the waitress for a coffee refill, then dipped my finger in the honey. "You didn't like Ecuador?"

  Allie had both hands around her coffee mug. She sipped it slowly and said, "I loved it. It's just that most missionaries tend to stay in one place for years and years, and I may not get to see all the places I want to see."

  "You have time. You're what, twenty-five?"

  "Twenty-six."

  "Plenty of time left to see Australia."

  "I hope so, because me and Darcy talked about going two years ago but her driving scares me so much that I'm afraid if we were in the Outback she'd wreck and no one would come by and we'd have to kill a kangaroo for food but since I just love the way they go hop hop hop if I went to the Outback I'd have to become a vegetarian first."

  I licked honey from my finger. "They don't teach punctuation at missionary school, do they?"

  "No. How about at stockbroker school?"

  "Not there, either."

  I went over to a newsstand in the diner and bought a local paper with our last two quarters so we could scan for churches. She looked over my shoulder to examine the list; I sniffed her hair and thought, Please, anything but Pentecostal. Because after Friday night with the white semiglossed mosquitoes, then last night tube-snoozing on black rubber, I was in no mood to whoop, holler, or dance before Jehovah.

  "Do we have any change left for a tip?" she asked, watching our busy waitress rush to serve a neighboring table.

  "Only twelve cents."

  "That'll never do." She motioned for me to pick up my plate and cup. We walked our dirty dishes back to the kitchen and handed them to the dishwasher, a high school boy all sleepy looking, his arms covered in soap. With his hands in the bubbles, he looked at us with a curious smile.

  "We're poor today," said Allie. "It's the least we could do."

  "This is a first," said Soapy Dishwasher Boy.

  "Have you ever been to Australia?" she asked, wiping her hands on her shorts.

  "On dishwasher's pay? I can barely go to Wal-Mart."

  A few miles down the highway, past the general stores selling hammocks and rockers, two cars turned left into the driveway of a whitewashed church building.

  Baptist. Service began in ten minutes. I was still sleepy, and my spiritual interest was low as I pulled into the turn lane.

  "It'll do?"

  "It'll do," said Allie.

  I parked Sherbet in a grass lot that contained, at most, twenty other cars. Morning dew glinted off the grass; seagulls circled the church. Down a path of flat stones, we walked between pink and red azaleas, then paused to brush the remaining sand from our legs and ankles.

  "I feel grody," said Allie, tucking her hair behind her ears.

  "Yeah, and my hair's all sticky."

  The church was small and of a simple A-frame construction. As we approached the front steps, I saw a stack of bulletins atop a chair. Just help yourself.

  An elderly couple stood in front of us. They lifted each other by the elbows, then reached the top step, breathing hard. "Like Methuselah after StairMaster," Allie whispered.

  I motioned for her to go ahead of me. We picked up our bulletins and walked down worn hardwood floors, past eight rows of unpadded pews, and took a seat in the front.

  I preferred the middle or the back, but Allie said the front pew had less distractions.

  To our left, a bifocaled lady began playing the piano. The instrument was an old stand-up model, with chips and dents in the legs. She played the melody with a mechanized coordination, her whole body dipping into the chords as if recollecting details with a long-lost friend.

  When she finished the song, the room went quiet and she sat at the end of our pew.

  A side door opened. The preacher walked out to the podium, his wing tips clunking across the wood floor. His pale forehead contrasted against a tanned face and neck. He placed his Bible on the podium, looked out at the congregation of forty, and said, "Today's Scripture reading is-"

  We made eye contact. I raised my left thumb in front of my chest. He cleared his throat, tried to restrain a grin, but could not do it and reached under the podium for a glass of water. Allie looked confused again.

  "Today's Scripture reading is from the Book of Jonah," said the preacher. "Turn there with me."

  I found Jonah in the pew Bible, to the west of Galatians, and checked my bulletin. Across the bottom it read:

  Asbury Smoak, Pastor

  He began his sermon immediately-no more hymns or memorized creeds, no offerings taken by men in dark suits. In fact, he was the only one in the room wearing a suit.

  After reading through the first chapter of Jonah, Asbury explained how people too often have their own agendas, attempt to manipulate their circumstances, and wake up in their very own Tarshish. This keeps God extremely busy undoing things, like when your fishing line gets tangled in your buddy's and neither can fish until all is untangled, rewound, and recast into the proper spot.

  "Amen, Brother Smoak," echoed someone from the back row.

  I closed my eyes tight, just to clear my head again. People might've thought I was praying, but how could anyone pray after a night of being surrounded by wedded bliss and incognito Presbyterian romance while sleeping on a beach beside a missionary girl whom you never touched, then waking up in your very own Tarshish with a preacher who pets sharks on the head?

  This never happened in Dallas. In Dallas, life was normal.

  Asbury began telling us of the good that came to Jonah after being redirected, and that twelve years earlier he'd been redirected himself, at age fifty-six. Said he was older than the seminary professors, but that was okay because he knew God had him preaching for a purpose, and there was a purpose for each person seated there today.

  I was glad that purpose was seated there today, because up till then the weekend had seemed very random.

  After praying a long, worthy-of-Sunday prayer, the preacher dismissed us. I thought about what he'd said, then turned to Allie to explain my brief history with Pastor Asbury Smoak.

  "Hello, Miss," sa
id Asbury, stepping down from his tiny pulpit.

  "Enjoyed your sermon," she said, extending her hand.

  "Thank you. And how's the thumb, Jay?"

  `Just a scratch. Been cut deeper'n that plenty of times."

  Pastor Smoak said to excuse him for one second. He handed cash money to the piano lady, then shook hands with all the departing beachgoers, polishing off each shake with the patented preacher nod.

  The seminaries must teach that-the official nod.

  After the shaking and the nodding, Asbury said he had fish fillets thawing and wondered what were we doing for lunch.

  As long as we didn't have to sing to it, I was game. "No plans, Preacher."

  Allie shrugged and said, "Okay, but only if we cook the fish, because after eating so much weird food in Ecuador, raw fish on a church retreat would only conjure vile remembrances, memories inappropriate to share while lunching with clergy."

  Asbury smiled and closed the door to his church. He asked us to meet him around back at his grill beneath the oak tree. Allie yawned when we walked outside the church and into sunlight. Then I yawned, twice, just to make her feel better.

  "So, you actually rubbed the shark on the head?" she asked, standing in the shade of the massive oak.

  "Yeah, but he was only a three-footer. Strong little guy, though."

  "I caught a catfish once, when I was eight."

  I leaned against the tree. "Did he bite you?"

  "No. My dad put it in a bucket. He wanted to eat it, but I wanted it to be happy. So when Dad turned his back, I dumped the catfish back in the lake."

  "Nature lover."

  "You need a shave."

  We sat down on a picnic bench, and she shut her eyes. Said she was taking a three-minute nap.

  So I sat there in a coastal daze, trying to piece together exactly how I had arrived at this place in time. Images flashed quickly before me: a job transfer; the real-estate lady; my two Sunday visits; a ride to the beach from sneaky Steve Cole. One blink and there I was-on a picnic bench behind a tiny Baptist church on the Carolina coast, about to grill lunch with a fisherman preacher and an unpredictable missionary poet.

  A vague connectivity weaved through it all. But it remained only thatvague.

  Asbury returned in cutoffs, a marlin T-shirt, and his red baseball cap. He carried a jug of iced tea in one hand, a platter of fillets in the other. I offered to help, but he said, "No, son, I got it. And besides, you look a little beat. Didn't sleep too well?"

  "Sand in my bed."

  He spread the fillets across tinfoil, then lit his grill. Allie and I joined him to admire the assortment: three fillets thick and pinkish, two of a darker texture, and one nearly colorless.

  Allie asked if she could have the white piece on the end. But Preacher Smoak said, "No, ma'am, that's my pompano, and I've been saving it for myself."

  She frowned, stuck out her bottom lip, and launched into a story about what had happened to her once after eating mushrooms and ripe bananas deep in the Amazon jungle.

  I had never thought about that angle of missionary life. Nor did I care to.

  "And no one had brought any tissue or t.p. or anything," said Allie. She finished her story in a barrage of nonstop sentences, then held her stomach and laughed at the memory.

  "Okay, okay," said Asbury, sweaty from the heat. "You can have the pompano."

  "Works every time," she whispered to me. And my preconceived notions of religious folk in South Carolina-uptight, petty, and dull-were now completely shattered. I simply wished to survive the weekend, to return safely to my desk in the much saner world of stocks and bonds.

  Preacher Smoak adjusted the gas, then grabbed his spatula to begin grilling. Allie picked up the platter of fillets, holding it steady as he spaced the fish.

  "How long were you out of the country, Allie?" he asked.

  "Eleven months," she replied. "I'd always wanted to try the mission field. I loved it."

  He wiped off his spatula with a paper towel. "You had to raise support?"

  "Most of it," she said, sniffing the raw fish. "Might sell my house if I go back."

  The preacher nudged the fillets carefully into two lines and said, "I have a good mission idea myself."

  She looked surprised. "You, Preacher Smoak, are going overseas?"

  "Nope," he said. "I own a house, too. A very old house; some would call it historic. It's a good hour south of here, deep in the lowcountry, sittin' empty. Been in the family for decades. Can you pour us some tea, Jay?„

  Once again, I was serving refreshments. "Okey-dokey," I said, setting his plastic cups out on the picnic table. "Ever lived down there, Preach?"

  I only asked the question to be social, for I didn't really feel a part of their missions conversation. My two main missions had always fluctuated between making money and dating. Money being the easy part.

  "For a few years when I was a kid," he said. "The place needs lots of work. Floors are falling in on one side, the porch sags, the whole thing needs a good scrape and paint. I'd like to turn it into something useful ... shame to let it go to waste."

  A hot wind blew the cups off the table. Allie rushed over and held them vertical. I poured.

  As I dripped iced tea on the table, she turned to face Asbury. "You done any work to your house yet?"

  He flipped the fillets and said, "No money to get it going. And my congregation is too old to help out. So maybe one day I'll sell the place and buy myself something nice. Or maybe Jay here can come back down and hammer nails with me."

  I let his request go as delicious scents of fish seeped from the grill.

  The preacher pinched a corner off the pompano, savoring the bite before sliding the fillet onto Allie's paper plate. She rolled her eyes, but he just winked and kept on grilling.

  Beneath the shade, Asbury served lunch, and we ate the fish and washed it down with very sweet tea. It suddenly occurred to me that I had no idea what I'd just eaten.

  "What was this, Preacher Smoak?"

  "Grilled wahoo," he said, wiping his chin. "Bought it fresh at the docks."

  At least he was honest; I'd figured he'd caught it himself.

  Allie said she had to go to the ladies room. Asbury gave her directions, then sat beside me on the bench. He put one arm around my shoulder and allowed his male curiosity to surface.

  "So, Jay, you and her spending a lotta time together?"

  "A little, just hanging out ... drifting around on floats."

  He gulped a last ounce of tea. "Did she let you hook your foot through the loop?"

  "Yeah, she did."

  "That's always a good sign." And he began clearing the table.

  I helped him out, gathering paper plates and plastic forks and tossing them in his trash barrel. "You married, Preacher Smoak?"

  "I was. My wife has gone to be with the Lord."

  I felt bad for asking, and for a moment, neither of us spoke. Then I changed the subject. "That old house you spoke of sounds like quite a project."

  "Yep. Been a delayed project for over a decade now."

  "I've been renovating my own house up in Greenville."

  He leaned down to disconnect the propane from the grill. "Well, then, since you're so experienced, would you mind freeing up a weekend to lend me a hand?"

  I didn't want to commit myself, although the preacher had let me help catch the shark on Saturday and grilled us lunch on Sunday. Besides, I was sympathetic toward him, living alone like he did.

  So I said maybe.

  Allie returned, and so did Asbury's curiosity. He wiped his hands on his shorts, then pointed over at the grass lot. "Noticed that car you two arrived in," he said. "Can I have a look?"

  "Sure," said Allie. "It belongs to a girlfriend."

  Sherbet sat heavy and alone on the grass. When he arrived at the hood, Asbury ran a tanned finger across lime paint. Preacher envy.

  He smiled, raised an eyebrow. "Can we go for a short drive?"

  "Certainly," Allie s
aid. Asbury opened the passenger door for her, and after she was in, he slid in himself and put his arm across the back of the seat.

  "I had a '63 once," he said. "Back when I didn't need to appear so ... conservative."

  "To the ocean, Jeeves," said Allie. And I was back at the wheel, cranking the engine, with no idea where to go.

  "Which way, Preach?"

  Asbury turned his cap around backwards and said, "Hang a left."

  A two-lane road led us over a bridge of crabbers and fishermen, then to a marsh rising lush and green with the arrival of summer. Old beach homes stood tall and weathered across the marsh, and there were no stores or gas stations or restaurants, only white sand and old houses.

  The first few homes rose crackly and white, flanked by cousins in drab shades of beige, all anchored deep on creosote posts. The few cars in motion appeared sluggish and drowsy, the islanders idle and content. Only an egret, with its quick stab at a passive fish, showed any sign of adrenaline. A sense of leisure permeated the place, as if vast reserves of time had been sealed in mason jars, stored away for the sake of repose.

  "These house names are hilarious," said Allie. Slivers of ocean showed themselves between fat wooden stilts. The speed limit was twenty-five; I slowed to fifteen.

  "My friends own those two tall ones," said Asbury. "Ted's Turf and The Shuler Shack."

  I turned Sherbet between a row of beach homes on the ocean side and another row on the marsh side. Skinny and aged, the island's south end sported only these two rows separated by a paved road. Then it narrowed even farther to where only the road and the oceanfront homes remained, the inlet to our right affirming yet another rising tide.

  "Welcome to Pawleys Island," Asbury said, proud of his geography.

  "I've heard about this place," Allie piped up. "They call it the shabby island?"

  "Something like that. We don't tell too many people about it." He reached for the bill of his red cap and spun it back around.

  The road ended at a sandswept cul-de-sac. I parked there, scattering gulls with one honk of the horn. They fled toward the ocean.