Falling for Grace

by Robert Farrell Smith

  About two minutes later, as we were picking things up, we heard a car pull up outside Leonard’s home. There was a loud rap on the front door.

  “Leonard,” a male voice called out.

  Leonard unlocked the front door and pushed it open as far as the plastic covering would allow. Through the four open inches I could see flashing red and blue lights, as well as the blurry profile of a big man. Leonard flipped on an inside light, once again giving away his current power connection to the local electric company.

  “What seems to be the problem, officer?” Leonard yelled.

  “Could I come in for a moment?” the cop asked.

  “It’s best that we don’t corrupt the bubble,” Leonard insisted.

  “Leonard,” the cop seemed to pleadingly whine.

  “Everything’s okay,” Leonard comforted. “I thought there was an intruder. Turns out it was just someone from my church.”

  Even in the dark outside I could see the cop shake his head.

  “It was only a recording,” Leonard added.

  “We went over all this before, Leonard,” he said mournfully. “We can’t have you waking up the neighborhood every time a noise worries you.”

  “I know, I know,” Leonard said, bothered. “But aside from some scattered wheat flour things are in order.”

  “Leonard,” the cop begged.

  “Sam,” Leonard whined, apparently more familiar with this lawman than he had let on.

  “Just no more noise. Promise me?”

  “I promise,” Leonard said begrudgingly.

  “And finger crossing doesn’t count this time,” the cop said, frustrated.

  I looked down at Leonard’s hands just as he was uncrossing his fingers.

  “All right,” he consented.

  Leonard shut the door and turned to me.

  “Sam was married to my sister Tina for a couple years. They broke up when Tina and my two older sisters went into business together. The business went bust about three months into it. People just aren’t interested in competitive hopscotch or the gear that goes along with it. Anyhow, now Tina won’t talk to either Nina or Linda. My younger brother Fidel did manage to get us all together for a family picture, but I’d be a dishonest man if I didn’t admit that Tina’s smile looks a little strained.” Leonard pointed to a big family photo hanging on the wall behind him.

  “You sure have got a lot of family,” I commented.

  “Mother loved children,” he said solemnly.

  “Well,” I sighed. “I’ve caused enough trouble for one night. I should probably just leave.”

  “Nonsense,” Leonard huffed, the flour on his skin making him look like a frosted cookie. “You’re in need, and I’m an enabler. I’ve got a spare couch with your name on it.”

  I looked over at the empty couch he was referring to. It was covered with flour and sagged above the floor like an exhausted sumo wrestler.

  “We’ll throw a blanket over it and it will be as good as new,” Leonard said optimistically.

  We both worked for a few minutes cleaning the place up to the point of being sleepable. Leonard then retrieved a couple of blankets from the back room and handed me two of them. I spread mine out over the couch and then lay down. Leonard reclined on his sacks of flour eating ice cream out of a small carton and watching some TV show with an elderly detective who was able to see into the future. I probably would have drifted off if it had not been for him constantly interjecting, criticizing, and picking apart the show he was watching:

  “That’s impossible.”

  “A real detective would never leave his gun lying around.”

  “Oh, how convenient.”

  “Who wrote this drivel? I could have written a script ten times this good. In fact, I just might. Where’s my pencil?”

  I wanted to fall asleep so that I could wake up and have this night be ended, but Leonard was just too vocal. I had never seen a grown man get so worked up over a TV show. Except for maybe when the locals in Thelma’s Way would watch Days of Our Lives and argue over story lines and plot closures. After listening to Leonard complain for a while, I sat up and gave in.

  “Not tired, huh?” Leonard asked.

  “I guess not.”

  “Grace worrying you?” he questioned.

  “A little.”

  “Women,” he spat, sending flecks of ice cream across the room and onto the TV screen.

  The store-bought ice cream he was eating reminded me that Leonard had not been around when I arrived. I decided to stick my nose into his business.

  “So where were you earlier?” I asked. “I thought you never left the dome.”

  “What do you mean?” he asked back.

  “When I got here you were out.”

  “I must have just been in the back room,” he said defensively.

  “I saw you come up from the floor with groceries,” I laughed. “I helped you put the last of them away.”

  “Trust,” he said calmly. “A lot of people are counting on me. You wouldn’t want to be the one to let them down, would you?”

  “I’m not going to tell anyone that you went out.”

  Leonard Whhheeewwwed. “I appreciate that,” he said. “You’re thinking of the greater good.”

  “If you don’t want to stay in here then why don’t you just quit?”

  “And look stupid?”

  I bit my tongue.

  “Noah Taylor would have a heyday if I gave up,” Leonard continued. “He’s just looking for a chance to make me look bad.”

  “Noah Taylor is a fake,” I added.

  Brother Vastly looked at me with pride. “You’ve really turned out to be a fine young man.”

  “Seriously,” I ignored him. “The whole reason I’m here now is because of him. He told me in confidence that this December seventeenth thing was all just a big scam. And when I confronted him in the open he claimed I was just making it up because I was jealous.”

  “He does have that hair thing going on.”

  “I’m not jealous of Noah Taylor,” I said, frustrated.

  “It’s just you and me, Trust. You and me.”

  “He’s a crook.”

  “I believe you.”

  I suppose I should have been comforted by this, but there was surprisingly little personal fulfillment in the knowledge that Leonard Vastly was mentally aligned with me.

  See, everyone? I told you I was right. If you don’t believe me, just ask Leonard Vastly, the man over there in the plastic-covered single-wide.

  “Thanks, Leonard,” I lamented.

  “I’ll tell you what,” Leonard said, setting his ice cream down. “What would you say if we helped each other out. We could make it our mission to expose Noah Taylor as the fraud that he is. You and I could be like a team of do-gooders righting this horrible injustice.”

  I must have done something incredibly bad in my premortal life.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think we really are the most believable witnesses at the moment. No one’s going to listen to a single word we say.”

  “You’ve got a good point.” Leonard hummed.

  “I shouldn’t have walked out on Grace,” I scolded myself.

  “We all live with regrets,” Leonard agreed.

  My list was growing longer and longer.

  26

  Dial Tone

  It had taken a few days for Lucy to work up the nerve to call Trust. She had debated every point and position that she could think of, only to come to the conclusion that she had nothing to lose. Her father was still out of the country, her home teacher was locked up in a mobile home, and there was simply no one else she would feel comfortable receiving a blessing from.

  The phone rang and Abel answered.

  “Hello,” he said.

  “Hello,” Lucy replied, willing herself to go on. “Is Trust at home?”

  “Nope,” Abel said flippantly. “Who’s this?”

  “Do you know when he’ll be back?” L
ucy asked, ignoring his question.

  “Can’t say for sure. He stormed off about two hours ago. I don’t think he’s coming back.”

  “Ever?” Lucy asked, distraught.

  “Well, he’s got to come back sometime,” Abel duhhed. “I just don’t think he’ll be back tonight.”

  “Is your mother at home?” Lucy asked, desperate.

  “She went to sleep an hour ago.”

  “Oh.”

  “Is this that girl that Trust used to date?” Abel asked bluntly.

  Life was just too much for Lucy at the moment. Here she was, the bitter taste of swallowed pride still in her throat, and hitting up against little brother syndrome. With each rise and fall of emotion, God was becoming more and more distant to her. She could see little purpose in a creator who relished the slow discomfort of his children. What good was a world where those in need were victims of petty particulars like schedules and missed opportunities? Why would a fair God put her in such a hopeless place?

  “Hello,” Abel said sarcastically. “Are you still there?”

  Lucy hung up the phone by throwing it across the room. It slammed up against her vanity, smashing it into a dozen pieces.

  The irony was completely overlooked.

  27

  Fit to be Tied

  Roger Williams was becoming increasingly concerned. He was no closer to finding the Book of Mormon, but he was starting to . . . no, it couldn’t be. Not a single decent tip had come from the promise of being on the front cover of his fictitious book, but he still . . . it just couldn’t be. He had interviewed dozens of people, visited too many homes, and the only thing he seemed to have discovered was . . . it was too unbelievable to admit.

  Roger Williams was beginning to care for these people.

  He didn’t know what it was. Maybe it was the water. Maybe it was the air. Whatever the reason, the valley of Thelma’s Way had seemed to soften his heart and leave him less polished than he preferred to be. Out of fear he packed his bags and planned his exit. The first-edition Book of Mormon wasn’t worth losing his sense of identity for.

  Before he could escape Thelma’s Way, however, he had promised to help Ed Washington get his motorcycle across the Girth River.

  The Girth River ran along the far side of the Thelma’s Way meadow. It was thick, deep, and relatively bridgeless. There had once been a usable bridge, but it had been burned down years earlier after Paul Leeper led most of the Mormons astray. The burned bridge now spanned the river like an incomplete and charred set of Lincoln Logs. The only way across the Girth these days was to use one of the community rafts. You had to take your raft to the head of the river and paddle furiously across before the current washed you out of town completely. In his quest to find the Book of Mormon, Roger Williams had crossed the river many times. He had actually become quite good at it. So good, in fact, that now that Ed Washington wanted to get his motorcycle over to the other side, he looked first to Roger for help.

  Foolishly, or fatefully, Roger agreed.

  Ed owned one of only two motor vehicles that the town had to its name. He had been given the old motorcycle by Digby Heck after Leo Tip gave Digby his piecemeal car that he had built himself. There were no real roads for Digby to drive on, but he liked to circle around the boardinghouse acting better than all the poor people on foot. The motorcycle was actually a far more functional mode of transportation for this town. Ed rode it daily down the thin footpath that connected Thelma’s Way to Virgil’s Find. Ed was currently enrolled at the College of Virgil’s Find, taking mostly electives until such a point that he could decide what he wanted to be when he grew up. Most folks felt that Ed had better hurry up and figure it out, seeing how he had just turned forty-five and wasn’t getting any younger, or smarter, for that matter.

  Well, today was Wednesday, and Ed had no classes. He decided to fill his time finding a way to get his motorbike across the Girth River so he could try out a few of the trails over there. To the best of anyone’s knowledge, which really wasn’t saying a whole lot, no one could remember any motorized vehicle being driven on the other side of the river.

  Ever.

  Ed sensed a personal challenge.

  Unfortunately for Roger Williams, Ed’s personal challenge required the help of others.

  “Why don’t you just ride around in the meadow like usual?” Roger asked. “There’s plenty of ground to travel here.”

  Ed shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. I suppose the urge to go where no man has gone before and all is getting to me.”

  “But folks have actually gone there before,” Roger informed Ed.

  “Sure they have, on foot.”

  “Actually, Ed, I was sort of heading out for a bit. I’ve got some things to do.”

  “Please,” Ed begged him. “Pete said he’d help, but you know how Pete is. He’s not exactly an expert on things like this.”

  “All right,” he relented. “I’ll help you, but it’ll need to be quick.”

  Roger and Ed headed out across the meadow. Ed walked his motorcycle and theorized about how best to get a heavy piece of machinery across a swollen river.

  “I was thinking catapult,” Ed said enthusiastically.

  “I think you’re thinking too big,” Roger replied.

  Ed smiled happily, taking it as a compliment.

  “How about just going real fast and hoping the motorcycle will skim across the top of it,” Ed suggested.

  Roger grinned. “That’s impossible, Ed.”

  “Yeah,” Ed shrugged. “That’s what I was thinking.”

  Roger and Ed reached the banks of the Girth near the burned bridge. Eighteen-year-old Digby Heck was there, throwing a long rope with a rock attached to the end of it into the current.

  “Digby.” Roger acknowledged him.

  “Mr. Williams, Ed.” Digby looked up from his rope, then pulled the rock back in and tossed it out across the river again.

  “Do you mind if I ask what you’re doing?” Roger asked.

  “Mind? Shhheeesssh, why would I mind? I’m just dragging the river looking for the Book of Mormon,” Digby shrugged. “I figure if we ain’t found it on land, then maybe I’d find it under the river.”

  “Actually,” Roger said, “if someone had put it in the Girth, it most likely would have been washed downstream by now.”

  Digby laughed. “That’s a good one, Mr. Williams.”

  “Listen, Digby,” Roger said, using his deepest, most authoritative voice. “Do you think Ed and I could borrow that rope for a moment?”

  “I suppose I can stop searching for a few secs.”

  “What’d you got in mind?” Ed asked Roger.

  Roger answered by laying the motorcycle on one of the bigger rafts and tying it down with the rope Digby had been using. Ed and Digby just stood there as if their hands and arms were painted on.

  “Think it will float?” Ed asked after Roger tied the last knot.

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Roger replied.

  Together Ed, Digby, and Roger pushed and pulled the raft to the edge of the river. But just as they were about to test it out, Roswell Ford approached them, drawn over by his own curiosity.

  “Now just what is you three dinking ’round with?” he demanded, his old head wobbling as he spoke.

  “Ed wanted to get his bike over to the other side,” Roger explained.

  Roswell spotted Pete Kennedy and Toby Carver across the meadow. They looked to be pushing around a dead squirrel with a long stick. Roswell whistled loudly.

  “Toby, Pete,” he hollered. “Head over here ’fore Ed and Digby kill Mr. Williams.” Roswell then wagged his wrinkly right pointing finger in Roger’s face. “You can’t put me on the front of your book if you’re dead,” Roswell said, sharply reprimanding him.

  Toby and Pete scurried over to the bank.

  “Ed’s wanting to get his motorbike over to the other side,” Roswell informed them.

  Toby and Pete looked at each othe
r.

  “He could use your help,” Roswell spat.

  “I was thinking that we could tie this raft onto another and then paddle the both of them across,” Roger suggested.

  “Now, in a perfect world, that just might work,” Toby mused. “But the Girth would pull both rafts downriver before either made it.”

  “That’s true,” Pete said.

  “Well then, we could stretch a rope across the river and try pulling the thing over,” Roger brainstormed, getting caught up in the challenge of it.

  “That’d be a mighty long rope,” Ed said.

  “It could work,” Toby commented with excitement. “Teddy’s got that rope she used to hang dry all them towels she found at the dump.”

  “It still doesn’t sound right,” Pete said.

  “Why don’t you just ride your bike over here in the meadow?” Roswell questioned Ed. “You’re always going ’gainst the flow. Does your mother know you’re doing this?”

  “I’m over forty years old,” Ed said defensively, his dander flaring at the mention of his mother.

  “Well, does she?”

  “I’m my own man,” Ed argued.

  “All right, you two,” Roger arbitrated. “Let’s not get ourselves all worked up. It shouldn’t be too hard or too big a deal to get this motorcycle across the river. Doesn’t anyone here have a rowboat or a canoe?”

  “Jerry Scotch bought a real nice one a few years back,” Toby said.

  “And?” Roger asked.

  “He forgot to tie it down and it floated downriver and over the falls. Splintered into a million pieces.”

  “It takes two weeks to count to a million,” Digby Heck chimed in.

  Everyone just stared at him.

  “Learned that in homeschool,” he explained.

  These people were impossible. How Roger could have ever grown to care about them was beyond belief. This was the laziest, most backward place he had ever visited. There were probably lost tribes in Africa that would find this place repressive and slow.

  Roger was about to throw in the towel and leave the task at hand to Ed and the others while he slipped out of town. His resolve was thwarted, however, when Ed suddenly slapped himself on the forehead. Ed’s eyes lit up as an idea of gigantic proportions rumbled through his brain.