Signs and Wonders

by Philip Gulley

  Sam could barely stand to mow his own yard. Just the week before he’d proposed to Barbara that they buy a few goats to keep their grass short.

  “Now what’s this I hear about you promoting a homosexual agenda down there at your church?” the superintendent asked, before Sam had even settled in a chair.

  “I’m doing no such thing,” Sam said. “I simply invited one of our committee clerks to bring a message, and she chose to speak about that topic. I had no idea she was going to mention it.”

  “For crying out loud, Sam. Why’d you have to let her speak the Sunday before Christmas when everybody and their cousins are there? That’s what Memorial Day Sunday’s for. That’s when you have someone else speak, when everyone’s gone.” He shook his head, baffled at Sam’s ignorance.

  He held up the three letters. “These people are really upset, Sam. They’ve asked me to investigate your theology.” He shook his head in amazement. “Sam, what am I gonna do with you? Last year, I got letters that you didn’t believe in God. This year, you’ve become a wacko liberal. What’s next?”

  Sam was feeling a bit peeved. “Why am I a wacko liberal just because a woman in my congregation said God loves homosexuals? What’s so crazy about that?”

  The superintendent eyed him up and down. “Sam, you got to be a team player on this one. Can you do that?”

  Sam looked at him warily. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I don’t want you to raise this subject just yet. We got to give folks time, then maybe we can talk about it. Maybe twenty years from now, when folks are ready.”

  Sam was trying hard to make sense of this, but it wasn’t easy. He wasn’t sure what to say. What would Miriam do? he wondered. “I appreciate that you don’t want to upset people,” he said finally. “I don’t want to hurt anyone either. But are you saying we have to wait twenty years before we can say God loves gay people?”

  “Now you’re getting it.” The superintendent smiled. “I knew you’d see it my way.” He stood up from his desk. “I told my wife just this morning that you’d come around, that you were a good man, just a little ahead of your time.” He walked around the desk to Sam, clapped him on the back, and ushered him toward the door. “Keep up the good work, Sam. Give Brenda my love.”

  “Who’s Brenda?”

  “Your wife.”

  “Her name is Barbara.”

  “Well, tell Barbara hello, too.”

  It was a long drive back home. Sam filled the time by wondering why it was that spiritual progress was always hampered by those persons least willing to grow.

  Back in Harmony, Deena was presiding over an empty Legal Grounds Coffee Shop. Ordinarily her busiest month, January had been a bust after word got out of her flirtation with enlightenment. Miriam Hodge had stopped past each day to show her support, but one person can only drink so much coffee, and Miriam was starting to bloat.

  Meanwhile, Dale Hinshaw had been spending afternoons at the library reading a book on heretics. It moved Dale, learning of the various agonies visited on those who had broken God’s law in the past—brandings, the removal of tongues, the guillotine. He especially admired the creativity of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, who’d lashed heretics to a great wheel and rolled them to Rhode Island. He sighed dreamily thinking of it. Those were the good old days, he thought. He photocopied the more interesting passages and mailed them to the superintendent.

  He hadn’t ferreted out the identity of the gay man, but was pursuing several leads. While at the library, he’d examined the due date cards on the more liberal books and discovered Ellis Hodge had signed one out the month before. That explained Miriam’s tolerance for gays, Dale thought. Her own husband was one of them! He wrote down everything he knew about Ellis that supported his hunch: Ellis had refused to attend the Mighty Men of God Conference the spring before and had worn a pink shirt on Easter Sunday. (It had been white, but Miriam had inadvertently washed it with a colored load, though how was Dale to know that?)

  The fact that Ellis was married didn’t dampen Dale’s suspicions. It was probably a clever ruse to throw people off. Dale knew for a fact Ellis had lived in the barn for an entire month the previous summer. That was probably when Miriam found him out, he speculated. That Ellis was a member of the Furnace Committee troubled Dale all the more. He’d long suspected liberal sympathizers of trying to infiltrate the one remaining God-fearing committee of Harmony Friends Meeting.

  First, Ellis would seize control of the Furnace Committee, and then he’d slither his way onto the Elders Committee, where he would replace the King James pew Bibles with Bibles that called God “Mother” and “She.” But it wouldn’t stop there. Ellis would lobby the meeting to write a letter of support to save the redwoods or some other radical cause. There was no telling where it would end, Dale thought.

  Ellis had to be stopped. That was all there was to it. It wouldn’t be easy. People liked Ellis. But it had to be done. The Furnace Committee met that very week for its monthly meeting. It would have to be then. The sooner the better, so as not to let apostasy get a foothold.

  They met at seven o’clock. By seven-fifteen they had fired the burners, checked the filters, and were seated at the card table.

  “Who’s turn is it to deal?” Asa Peacock asked.

  “There won’t be any card playing tonight,” Dale said. “We have to have a meeting. Our faith is under attack even as we sit here.”

  “What’s that got to do with the Furnace Committee?” Harvey Muldock asked. “We’re only in charge of the furnace, and it’s fine. Let’s play cards.”

  “There’s a traitor among us,” Dale said. “Someone who would subvert our way of life.”

  Ellis chuckled. “Dale, you have to stop watching those TV ministers. They’re making you crazy.”

  “This wasn’t a TV minister. This was Deena Morrison, right here in our own church. Talkin’about a gay man right here among us. And I know who she was talkin’ about.”

  Harvey shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Say, Asa, I think it’s my turn to deal the cards. Let’s get started. I told Eunice I’d be home by ten.”

  Ellis eyed Dale. “I can’t see the good of singling folks out like that, Dale. It’s none of our business.”

  “Funny you of all people should feel that way,” Dale said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Ellis asked.

  “I think you know what it means. Do you want to tell them or do I have to?”

  “Tell them what?”

  “About why you had to live in the barn last summer.”

  “My marriage is none of your concern, Dale Hinshaw. I’ll thank you to mind your own business.”

  “What’s the big deal about living in the barn?” Asa asked. “When we was first married, Jessie got so mad at me I had to live in the barn two whole months.”

  “If we’re not going to play cards, I’m going home,” Harvey said. “Let’s get crackin’.” He began dealing the cards.

  Dale panicked. Ellis was getting away with it. It was time to play hardball. “Ellis, it’s not too late. If you repent now, the Lord’ll forgive you and you can still be on the Furnace Committee.”

  “What are you talking about? What am I supposed to repent about?”

  “Your perversion. I know for a fact it was you Deena was talkin’ about.”

  Ellis stared at Dale, then began to laugh. “Dale Hinshaw, you are the limit.”

  “You can tell us,” Dale said. “It won’t go any further. We’ll keep it right here in the Furnace Committee. Won’t we, men? Just so long as you don’t go back to being a pervert.”

  Asa glanced up from his cards. “Hmm, that’s interesting.” He looked at Dale. “I figured Deena was talking about you. I always heard the folks most against gay people are usually that way themselves. But don’t you worry, Dale, your secret’s safe with us. We won’t tell a soul, will we, guys?”

  “Not a soul,” Harvey agreed.

  “I won’t tell,” Ellis added. �
�I figure that’s between you and God and Dolores.”

  “If you need a barn to stay in, you can always use mine,” Asa offered.

  Dale was aghast.

  Harvey reached across the card table and patted Dale’s hand. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You were probably born that way. I read about it once. You probably didn’t get enough testosterone when you was little.”

  “It doesn’t change our mind about you, Dale,” Ellis said. “You’re still our friend, and you can still be on the Furnace Committee.”

  “But you need to stop talking bad about gay people,” Asa said. “There’s just no call for it.”

  “And you really should leave Deena alone,” Harvey added. “She’s a good kid.”

  Though the men could never recall Dale Hinshaw being speechless, they realized it was a difficult moment for him, so when he rose to his feet and fled the meetinghouse, they were sympathetic.

  “Poor guy,” Ellis said, after a bit. “Miriam and I read a book about gay people just last month. It’s terrible the way people treat them. Cut off from their friends and family. Dale’ll need us now more than ever.”

  “What I don’t understand is why he keeps listening to those TV preachers,” Asa said.

  “Probably he thinks he can change if he just gets preached at enough about it,” Harvey speculated.

  Ellis shook his head at the mystery of it.

  Asa studied the cards in his hand. “Right of the dealer goes first. Let’s see, Harvey, I’ll take two cards.”

  Around the table they went, betting matchsticks and lamenting Dale’s predicament, until it was time for Harvey to leave and walk the three blocks home to Eunice. It was a cold night, but he was warmed by the thought that his son, Jimmy, was not alone and hopeful that, as more people like Dale faced up to who they were, compassion and understanding might one day prevail.

  Nineteen

  All Things Work for Good

  It was a cold Saturday in February, ending one of the coldest weeks on record, which Kyle Weathers at the barbershop cited as proof that global warming was just another myth circulated by environmental wackos opposed to air-conditioning.

  “Global warming, my foot,” said Kyle, as he clipped the hairs from Sam’s right ear. “I froze my keester walking over here this morning.”

  Sam didn’t respond, not wanting to excite Kyle any further while he held a pointed instrument a scant inch from his eardrum.

  “I tell you who started that rumor,” Kyle said. “The fan companies, that’s who.”

  “The fan companies?”

  “Yes, siree. Air-conditioning gets invented and all of a sudden people don’t need window fans no more, so what do the fan companies do? They start a rumor that air-conditioning causes holes in the sky, that’s what they do.”

  “That’s an interesting theory,” Sam admitted.

  There is a lot to learn at a barbershop, provided one can separate the wheat from the chaff. Kyle knows a great deal about hair, but is fuzzy on politics and global conspiracies, though this has not kept him from offering his opinions.

  He spit on his fingers and smoothed Sam’s hair flat. “You got the worst cowlicks I’ve ever seen.”

  “I’ve always had them,” Sam said.

  “Try rubbing some mayonnaise on them before you go to bed.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “So how are things going at church?” Kyle asked.

  How things were going at the church was a subject Sam had hoped to avoid. Dale had been on a rampage since January when he tried to convene a heresy trial against the other members of the Furnace Committee. The rumor in the pews was that Asa, Harvey, and Ellis had put Dale in his place, though they weren’t talking and Dale wasn’t elaborating. The church denied Dale’s request to have Asa’s, Harvey’s, and Ellis’s tongues removed, which resulted in Dale’s threatening to leave the church and take the furnace with him.

  Meanwhile, the Friendly Women’s Circle were laboring to finish their annual fund-raising quilt before Easter, which was coming early this year. They were making an autograph quilt. Jessie Peacock had gotten the idea from a magazine. They had mailed fabric pieces to famous people asking for autographs on them, which they were piecing together in a celebrity quilt to raffle off to the highest bidder.

  It had been a contentious process. Fern Hampton was of the opinion they should confine the signatures to those luminaries who met the moral criteria of the Friendly Women. That narrowed the field considerably, and the only name they could agree upon at their first meeting was Captain Kangaroo.

  “How about Jimmy Stewart?” asked Miriam Hodge. “He’s a real gentleman.”

  “He’s also dead,” Opal Majors pointed out.

  “I didn’t know that,” Miriam said. “When did that happen?”

  “1997, I think it was. Remember? He was on our prayer chain.”

  Miriam furrowed her brow in thought. “Now that you mention it, I seem to remember something about that. Well, how about Jimmy Carter then?”

  “You want someone on our quilt who told the whole world he’d lusted after women? How come we’re all of a sudden so hung up on smut? First it was Deena with that sermon, now it’s you, Miriam. I should think you would know better,” Dolores Hinshaw said.

  “Besides, he’s a Democrat,” Bea Majors added.

  “How about Billy Graham?” asked Jessie Peacock. “He’s a nice man.”

  “Have you seen him lately?” Dolores grumbled. “His hair is down past his collar. I don’t want any beatniks on our quilt.”

  It took three meetings to decide on a dozen celebrities who wouldn’t tarnish the Circle’s wholesome reputation, though even then there were lingering doubts.

  “I’m not so sure about this Nelson Mandela character,” Fern Hampton had said as she stitched around his autograph. “Wasn’t he a jailbird?”

  A spirit of dissent had infected the entire meeting. In addition to the sporadic quarrels in the Friendly Women’s Circle, Dale had asked Harvey, Asa, and Ellis to surrender their membership on the Furnace Committee.

  Sam didn’t volunteer this information to Kyle. Instead, he told him everything was fine and thanked him for asking. Sam wants to put forth a positive image of the church so new people will come. He’s been working on Kyle for several haircuts now, extolling the virtues of the church while glossing over its defects.

  He’s afraid they’ve lost Deena. She hasn’t been back since Dale had her thrown off the Peace and Social Concerns Committee the Sunday of her sermon. After his haircut, Sam stopped by the Legal Grounds Coffee Shop to visit her. It was a visit he’d been dreading; he’d put it off for two months. He hated talking with people about why they hadn’t been to church. It felt like prying. They invariably complained about things he had no control over, usually something to do with Fern or Dale. The chances weren’t good they were going to change.

  The Legal Grounds was empty when Sam arrived, except for Deena, who was standing behind the counter. Deena smiled as he came through the door. They exchanged greetings, as he took a seat.

  “So how are things at church?” she asked, as she came around and sat across from him.

  He had hoped to ease into the topic, to discuss the weather or something such as that. But Deena was her usual forthright self.

  “Oh, they’ve settled down a bit,” he said.

  “I didn’t realize my talking about homosexuals would cause such a stir,” she said. “I’m sorry if I got you in trouble.”

  “Don’t worry about that. It’ll all work out.”

  “I thought maybe I should stay away until things settled down.”

  “It’s probably as settled down as it’ll ever be.” He paused. “Folks sure miss you,” he added.

  “That’s odd. No one’s stopped by to visit except for Miriam.”

  “But you’ve been on everyone’s mind.”

  Deena laughed. “I bet I have.”

  Their conversation wasn’t turning out quite the
way Sam had hoped. “Well, anyway, I just stopped by to say we missed you.”

  “That was kind of you, Sam. Don’t worry, I’ll be back. In fact, I was planning on coming to church tomorrow.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, I miss everyone. They kind of grow on a person.”

  “Yes, they do, don’t they,” Sam agreed.

  “Besides, how can we ever change people unless we’re in relationship with them?”

  “Well now, there you go,” Sam said. “That’s a good way to look at it.”

  “Why don’t you buy a cup of coffee, so I don’t go bankrupt and have to close this place down.”

  “I’ll do better than that. How about bringing me a chicken salad sandwich and some potato chips.”

  He stayed a half hour. They discussed his brother, Roger, while Sam ate. “I thought he was going to call me,” Deena said. “He said he would, but he never did.” She tried not to sound desperate, but she’d only had one date in nine months, and that was with a gay man.

  “Roger’s kind of bashful,” Sam explained. “But he’ll be home next month for Easter weekend. I’m sure he’d like to see you.”

  “Maybe we could all go out together,” Deena suggested. “You and Barbara and Roger and me.”

  “Sure, I don’t see why not. I’ll ask ’em.”

  Sam finished his sandwich, then went back to his office to work on his sermon. He’d been planning on preaching about the prodigal son, how the son realized the error of his ways and came home, but since Deena was returning that Sunday it no longer seemed fitting. He didn’t want Dale rising to his feet and pointing out the coincidence. Instead, he wrote a sermon on how prophets were never welcome in their hometown. Let ’em chew on that, he thought, as he typed in the final sentences.

  He got home just before supper. Afterward, he lit a fire in the fireplace and worked a puzzle with his sons. At nine o’clock, he and Barbara put the boys to bed, then turned on the television for the weather report. “It’s warming up,” Sam commented. “Only five below tonight.”