by Jim Kraus
It’s not because I’m not trying. And it has nothing to do with faith. It just takes work.
He decided a change of scenery would help clear his thoughts. Petey was sound asleep on the windowsill in the office and did not wake up when Jake grabbed his keys from the hook in the kitchen.
He stopped at the RV and tapped at the door.
“I’m going into town for lunch,” he said. “Would you like to come along? Get out for a while.”
“Where to?” Tassy asked. “I don’t have a lot of money.”
“I was thinking McDonald’s. And I can treat you to lunch.”
“No. I don’t like to do that. I have enough for McDonald’s. And that sounds good. But let me make the bed first. If Eleanor stopped by and saw a messy bedroom . . . well, I just wouldn’t want to disappoint her like that.”
Soon enough, Tassy climbed into the truck and fastened the seat belt.
“What about Petey? Doesn’t he want to go?”
“He was sleeping. Let sleeping cats lie, I always say.”
Tassy scrunched up her face.
“I’ve heard that before. What’s it mean? And isn’t it with dogs instead?”
Jake nodded. “It is. Usually. But I don’t have a dog, so I have to use a cat. And it means that if there is possible trouble out there—like a sleeping dog—you don’t wake it up to find out for sure. You just let it sleep.”
“Oh. Now it makes sense.”
Tassy rolled the window down and the wind tousled her hair, a hundred delicate wisps dancing around her face like a spherical halo. “Do they have a newspaper in this town?”
“They do. The Potter Leader-Enterprise.”
“That’s a funny name for a paper.”
“Because of it being Potter County, I think.”
“Oh. That makes sense. Does it have ads for jobs and stuff like that?” Tassy asked.
“I’m sure it does.”
“Could we find a copy? I need to look for a job. I can’t stay in their RV forever.”
“Probably have a newspaper stand at the McDonald’s,” Jake said as he pulled in. Jake ordered a Big Mac meal; Tassy ordered a single burger and a small fry. Plus a cup of tea with lots of honey.
They found a booth and as Tassy unwrapped her food, she looked up at Jake. “Can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure. I don’t have any secrets,” Jake responded, hoping he told the lie well.
“You’re not from around here, are you? Where did you grow up?”
“No. I grew up in Pittsburgh. Not downtown, but east of the city. In Shadyside. A nice place.”
“Then why are you here? This is sort of out in the middle of nowhere, isn’t it? That’s what you told me when we first met, wasn’t it?” Tassy nibbled at each fry carefully and precisely.
“They needed a pastor.”
“I bet lots of churches need pastors, don’t they?”
“Maybe,” Jake replied. He hoped he did not look uncomfortable. “But I guess I see this as a challenge.”
“Did . . . like, God tell you to come here? I heard other people talking about how God told them to do this or that and then they do it and everything works out or they get healed or some sort of miracle happens. You know—those church pastors on television. So what I’m asking is, did God tell you to come here? To Coudersport and all that? Did you hear his voice or see a sign or have a dream or something like that?”
Jake took a large bite of hamburger and held up a finger indicating that he had to stop talking and chew. And he hoped he could come up with a coherent answer.
“Well . . . he didn’t really do that. Not like a voice from the sky,” Jake explained.
“Then he didn’t make you come here? You picked it out on your own?”
He dragged a trio of fries through a dollop of ketchup. He shrugged. “I don’t know. Though I am sure that if God didn’t want me here, he wouldn’t have let me come.”
Tassy tilted her head, like she was hearing an odd ratcheting noise.
“Okay. I guess. I’m here because I got tossed out of a car by a really stupid ex-boyfriend. I just wonder how other people get to where they’re going and how they know once they got there if it’s the right place to be. Because I don’t know if I’m supposed to be here or not. I can’t tell. I keep thinking people will find out the truth about me and make me leave. I’m afraid of being . . . you know . . . left on my own. And without knowing what to do next. Not having hope is hard. You know what I mean, Pastor Jake?”
Jake nodded.
More than you will ever know, Tassy. More than you will ever know.
As Jake and Tassy sat in McDonald’s, having a most unexpected existential discussion, in a booth across the restaurant perched a clutch of older ladies: one of them the mother of Emma Grainger, Veterinarian. Without being obvious, she kept glancing at them, noticing how the young woman ate with the delicacy of a songbird and how Jake laughed and tilted his head back when he did.
She then slipped out her old flip phone from her purse, which was resting in her lap as she ate, and dialed a familiar number. She leaned in closer to the table and turned her back to the rest of the room.
“Do you know who’s having lunch at McDonald’s? Yes. In the middle of the day. And do you know who’s with him?”
She waited a moment.
“Well, I don’t either,” she said with exasperation. “That’s why I’m calling you.”
Wilbur Brookings sat in his office at the very back end of the Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative. It was the biggest office in the building and the only office without a single window. Wilbur tacked up a series of outdoor posters, along with maps indicating the electrical grid as well as the major transmission lines that snaked across Potter County.
He had gotten through half the pile of incoming reports from the weekend.
As general manager, Wilbur had many job responsibilities, very few of them he actually enjoyed. He started out as a linesman, working on transmission pylons. That was a job he loved, but he was promoted out of it after only a few years.
He stirred his coffee, in a blue Tri-County Co-op mug, and stared at one of his posters—a large trout, leaping out of the water in pursuit of a small mayfly. He put his chin in his palm and his elbow on the desk.
What did Pastor Jake say Sunday? I told myself I was going to remember it. Something about working.
He wondered if his wife would remember. He wondered if Jimbo might recall it—he seemed to have a good memory. He tried to remind himself that at the next elders’ meeting he should bring up the possibility of taping the sermons.
Up until now, I wouldn’t have bothered. But the new guy has something to say. And I haven’t taken notes since high school. But I might listen to a tape. How much could that cost? A couple hundred bucks for a tape recorder? Do they still make tape recorders? Maybe it is all on digital stuff now. So it should be even cheaper. We should look into it.
Oh, now I remember. He said it was from Matthew, I think. Something about doing small things well, with great love—and that would please God.
Well, I’m doing small things well here. I hope God is pleased with the work. Maybe I just need to change my attitude. Maybe that’s what he was trying to get us to understand. Could be.
He drew in a deep breath, and then began to work through the second half of the weekly reports.
“If I get done early, I’ll take a walk down to Kaytee’s for lunch. That will be my reward.”
Jake pulled up to the veterinarian’s office a few minutes before 7:00. He prided himself on his punctuality. Actually, his on-time standard was at least ten minutes early. He had never liked to hurry, not even as a child. He would always be the first child at the bus stop for school. Always.
He was also early getting ready for this evening.
Not the most fashionable dresser, Jake spent an inordinate amount of time this evening standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom. He had tried on, and had discarded, three
shirts, and had settled on a sort of quarter-zip-up sweater-shirt that Barbara Ann told him he looked good in. And he wore a pair of dark, almost-black jeans, with a relatively new pair of black slip-on shoes.
Petey had watched it all while lying in the short hallway that led to the bathroom, carefully observing Jake and his predate ministrations. He’d chirped softly every now and again, as if making kind but condescending comments on Jake’s obsessiveness. He sat on each shirt, in succession, as Jake discarded them.
“It has been a long time since I’ve been on a date,” Jake explained to the cat. “Even if this may not be as much of a date as most dates are. I know. I know. Emma is being friendly and knows I am new in town—so it’s sort of like a Welcome Wagon date. Not a real, potentially romantic date.”
Jake tried not to think about that aspect of his life. The last romance did not end well, and that brought out his cautious, anxious nature.
“You open yourself up, Petey, and bad things happen, you know? I shouldn’t have been so candid with Barbara Ann. I knew it was a mistake when I started talking about all of that. But I expected her to understand, not to tell other people.”
Jake had run his hand through his hair. People with thick hair didn’t always need a comb or a brush. Jeff the Barber had done a good job with it, and the result was a cross between tousled and controlled—just the right amount of both.
He’d smiled at himself in the mirror.
“This is as good as it is going to get.”
He parked in Emma’s driveway, making sure the passenger door was even with the sidewalk.
Do I just go inside and call for her? Is there a private entrance? Do I have a cell phone number for her?
Emma appeared at the side of the house, making his worries for naught.
“Hi!” she called out as she walked toward him. “I forgot to tell you to ring the bell on the side door. Unless you have Petey along and need a quick checkup.”
“No, it’s just me tonight. I gave Petey the number for Domino’s Pizza and a twenty-dollar bill. He should be fine.”
Emma stopped and laughed with gusto. She was in jeans and some sort of silkish, white blouse, with a paisley scarf around her neck, her hair pulled back with two gold pins.
“Does Coudersport even have a Domino’s?” Jake asked.
“No,” Emma replied. “Closest one is in Port Allegheny, I think, and that’s like forty miles from here.”
Jake thought Emma looked very nice.
“So what’s the movie tonight?” Jake asked. “I was going to look but forgot all about it until this evening. I wasn’t sure if the theater had a website either.”
“They do. And the movie . . . I forget the title. The latest explosion-filled epic about mutant machines taking over the earth. I think. Someone said there’s a lot of action, and all the dialogue could be written on a three-by-five note card.”
“Oh, so this is an intellectual movie? I don’t like to think that much at the movies.”
For a second, Emma took him seriously, but then realized he was being funny and she smiled back at him.
“Jake, you had me scared for a second. I have known guys who would have said just that without the slightest hint of irony.”
Jake opened the truck door.
“And they would have no idea what irony meant, either,” she added.
The Coudersport Theater was a small jewel box of a theater, appearing much like it must have looked back when it was built in the 1920s.
“This is amazing,” Jake said as they walked to their seats. “I had no idea it was this beautiful.”
“ ‘An unexpected pleasure,’ some travel critic wrote. And they use real butter on the popcorn,” Emma added.
“Then it doesn’t matter what the movie is,” Jake replied. “You had me at ‘real butter.’ ”
Petey nudged hard at the kitchen door and after the third tug, it squealed open.
I wonder if I can get Jake to install one of those little doors for animals.
The door closed behind him, and Petey made his way across the graveled lot to the house on wheels. He walked slowly on the gravel; there were lots of sharp angles that hurt if he stepped hard.
He meowed at the door, and Tassy hurried to open it.
“Petey,” she cried. “How did you know I needed company tonight?”
I know these things, Petey said to himself. I am a good cat.
Tassy retreated to the couch and patted at the cushion next to her.
“Come on. Come on up.”
I’ll take my time, Tassy. I like you, but there is no reason to be doglike here and rush into things. Cats are deliberate creatures, and good cats are even more deliberate.
A flat-screen television was mounted to the wall opposite the sofa, but because the RV did not get cable, the television only received a few channels and none of them very clearly. Instead of watching television, Tassy found herself reading more. She borrowed books from Pastor Jake, and Eleanor brought a paper grocery bag filled with mysteries (hers) and Westerns (Vern’s). On her last trip to town, she bought the most recent copies of People and Us magazines. Those she doled out sparingly, reading only a story or two at a time. She knew her money was extremely limited, and without a job she would have to ration out those sorts of luxury purchases. Midway through this week’s People, she picked the issue back up and began to finish the latest story on the Kardashians.
“Suit yourself, Petey. If you don’t want to be petted, that’s all right with me.”
With that, Petey jumped up on the sofa and headed straight for her lap.
“I could swear you actually understand me.”
Petey meowed in reply. Tassy tossed the magazine to the side and began to pet Petey and he responded by purring loudly.
“Petey, can I ask you a question?”
Petey churred softly and tilted his head as if expecting a tough query.
“Well . . . here’s the thing. I don’t know if I should be here. I told that to Pastor Jake. He said it was okay to have questions. He said answers to some questions are long in coming, but that I should never give up hope. That sounds right, doesn’t it?”
Petey meowed.
“So do I tell people the truth? Is that what they want to hear? What if the secret you have is really, really big, and sooner or later the truth will get out? What do I do then? Do I tell people?”
Petey rolled onto his back and stared up at Tassy.
I’m not sure what she is asking. And I’m not a mind reader. God sent me here, sure, but he did not give me any super powers. She’s seen too many superhero movies. Or those horrid vampire ones. Gack. Who thinks a deathly pallor is attractive?
He knew he couldn’t give a concise answer to a nebulous question, so he decided to take action instead.
Maybe she’ll get the metaphor here.
He grabbed at her hand with his front paws, using no claws, of course, and pulled it close, then mimed biting her hand, but instead, at the last minute, licked the back of her hand, gently and tenderly.
You know . . . sometimes the fact that you can do something doesn’t mean you should do something. Some things you are able to do will cause pain in others.
“I’ll think about it, Petey. I’ll think about it. Pastor Jake said to be truthful . . . but I don’t know. I’ll think about it.”
Both Jake and Emma were smiling as they walked out of the Coudersport Theater.
“Not exactly at the Noel Coward level of urbane, witty dialogue,” Emma remarked.
“What?” Jake almost shouted, “I couldn’t hear from all the explosions.”
She playfully pushed him on the shoulder.
“It was loud, wasn’t it?”
“I bet there weren’t more than fifteen seconds of quiet in the whole movie. Maybe when that one robot died.”
Emma tucked her purse under her arm.
“No Academy Award for scriptwriting, but it was entertaining—in an explosive way.”
Jake opened
the truck door.
“It really was. I couldn’t do a steady diet of these movies, but once in a while they are good, brainless fun.”
He started the truck.
“Is there a place around here to go for coffee? or a piece of pie? or something?”
Emma smiled at him, as if relieved that he asked to continue the Welcome Wagon date past expectations.
“Sure. Head back east on Route 6—Second Street. There’s a diner that’s open until 11:30. Which is like four in the morning on Coudersport time.”
When they arrived, they settled into opposite sides of a booth by the window.
Barbara Ann had always sat next to Jake in a four-person booth, leaving Jake a bit smothered, but he’d never told her. She was all elbows when she ate, which meant that Jake had to cede at least a quarter more of his rightful booth space. That was why he’d always asked for a table.
“They have good homemade pie. And by ‘homemade’ I mean they actually make it here. Not that they live here—but it isn’t made in a factory.”
Jake ordered cherry pie, not heated, with ice cream, and regular coffee.
Emma picked a triple berry pie with whipped cream and decaf coffee. “After I turned thirty, coffee after dark keeps me up until it’s light again.”
She’s a little bit older than I am. A little bit. Although she didn’t say how far past thirty she is. I guess it doesn’t matter.
If she was watching her weight, Jake was glad it didn’t spill into her dessert selection. She took a large forkful and declared her choice as “delicious.”
Jake tasted his pie and nodded. “Good job. Good pick.”
They didn’t talk much as they ate. They exchanged a few comments about the movie, and Jake remarked how surprised he was that Coudersport still had a downtown movie house.
“I think it’s a labor of love for the owners. I don’t know them well, but I don’t think they’re getting rich off showing movies. They probably make more money off the popcorn than the tickets they sell. I sometimes just go in and get a box of popcorn without seeing the movie.”