Almost Friends

by Philip Gulley

  Charlie stumbled from the bedroom into the hallway, clutching his chest, the heart attack stepping up his static electricity so that he looked like Albert Einstein, his hair jutting out and fairly crackling. He lurched down the hallway toward her. “Give me the phone,” he whispered.

  He studied the keypad, dialed Sam’s number, and was rewarded with a frantic beeping. “Busy? Who in the world could he be talking to this time of night?”

  Another spasm struck him, and he fell to one knee. “Call Johnny Mackey,” he wheezed, his voice the texture of broken glass.

  Ironically, not five years before, Charlie Gardner had led the charge against the town installing 911 service. “For crying out loud, if we got problems, we can dial four extra numbers. What’s the big deal? How long can that take?” A few naysayers can keep an entire populace in the Dark Ages and his voice, along with that of Dale Hinshaw, who’d spoken at length against the one-world government, had been enough to scotch the enterprise.

  “What’s Johnny Mackey’s number?” Gloria asked. “Where’s the phone book?”

  But Charlie’s sun was setting in the west, and he didn’t respond.

  In the end, she ran across the street to Harvey Muldock’s, who phoned Johnny Mackey, the town mortician and owner of the sole ambulance in a twenty-mile radius. Unfortunately, having been wakened from his slumber the past two nights by Dale’s phone ministry, Johnny, like the rest of the town, had taken his phone off the hook.

  That left Harvey Muldock to load Charlie in the backseat of his car and drive the twenty-five miles with Gloria to Cartersburg. Every mile or so, he would reach into the backseat and thump Charlie sharply on the chest and shout encouragement. “Hang in there, buddy. We’re almost there.”

  When they arrived at the hospital, Charlie was stiff as a fish, his skin a moonlike, ghastly white.

  Sam, back at his house, was up and pacing, sensing danger, his mind dismissing one possibility even as another rushed to fill the void. He studied his wife and sons to see if they were breathing. He walked through the house checking the doors, then went outside and walked the perimeter of his home. Everything seemed fine. No fire, no burst water pipes, no serial killer crouching in the bushes waiting to maim his family.

  He heard the slight scuff of shoes against pavement and saw a motion in the corner of his vision. My Lord, he was about to be mugged. Probably beaten within an inch of his life. Maybe even killed. He’d read numerous newspaper stories of such things, though they usually happened in places far from Harmony, which meant they were overdue here.

  A lifetime of Quaker pacifism had rendered him defenseless in such matters, and he fell to the ground where he curled in a ball, his hands covering his head.

  “Sam!”

  The mugger knew his name. A killer in their midst all these years.

  “Sam, it’s me, Eunice Muldock. What are you doing on the ground?”

  “Checking for aphids,” Sam said. “They’ve infested our roses. What are you doing out this time of night?”

  “It’s your father. Something’s wrong with him. They tried calling you, but couldn’t get through. Harvey’s taking him to the hospital.”

  “Dad? What’s wrong with him?”

  “We don’t know. Your mom thought maybe he’d had a heart attack. He looks pretty bad. Now when Harvey had his heart attack, he didn’t even know it. He thought it was gas. Then later on they ran a test on him, and it showed he’d had a heart attack. He thinks he had it shoveling snow, but he’s not sure. So now he doesn’t shovel snow. We have the Grant boy shovel our walks. ’Course a young fella like you can shovel your own snow, but when you get to be as old as us, you got to hire it done.”

  This was typical of emergencies in Harmony. A house could erupt in flames, spitting fireballs and igniting every residence within a hundred yards, and the neighbors would stop the firefighters to chat about past infernos. “Yeah, now this here, it’s a pretty good fire, but I remember in 1964, no, it was ’63, when Myron Farlow’s barn went up. You could see the flames all the way into town. Boy, now that was some fire. Bubbled the paint on the water tower half a mile away, I swear to God. Fires, they burnt a lot hotter back in those days. These fires today, I don’t know, they just don’t seem all that hot.”

  While Eunice chattered on, Sam turned and rushed into his house, up the stairs into their bedroom, where he proceeded to pull on his clothes. He roused Barbara from her sleep. “Dad’s been taken to the hospital. I’m going down there. You stay here with the boys, and I’ll call you when I find something out. Put the phone back on the hook. See you later.” He bent down and kissed her good-bye, hoping his words had registered with her.

  On the drive to Cartersburg, his mind was in turmoil contemplating his father’s death. Barbara had been urging him to spend more time with his father, which he’d neglected to do, even after his father had invited him to go on a fishing trip. “Dear Lord, please let him live. I’ll spend all my time with him. Just let him live.” He prayed aloud the entire way, driving as fast as he dared on the twisty, narrow country roads.

  Harvey and his mother were in the emergency room when he arrived. His mother was a knot of worry, twisting her hands and peering every few seconds at the doors, willing a doctor to emerge with good news. Sam rushed to her side and hugged her. “What’s wrong? How’s Dad?”

  “Oh, Sam, it was awful. He’s all pale and everything.”

  “That’s the funny thing about it,” Harvey piped up. “I turned red when I had my heart attack. Came in from shoveling snow just as red as a tomato. I remember because Eunice took one look at me and said, ‘Harvey Muldock, you’re red as a tomato.’ Now I didn’t know at the time I’d had a heart attack, but they say I did. So I don’t shovel snow anymore. You know who shovels our snow?”

  “The Grant boy.”

  “That’s right. How’d you know that?”

  “Just a lucky guess,” Sam said.

  “He does a pretty good job, I suppose. ’Course he ought to for what I pay him. Ten dollars.”

  Sam turned to his mother. “Have you talked with the doctors yet? What are they saying?”

  “Not yet. We’ve only been here a little while. They said it might be an hour before they knew something.”

  “We made pretty good time,” Harvey said proudly. “Thirty-four minutes, door to door. That’s going the short way, past the Hodges’. What way did you come?”

  “Same way.”

  Harvey leaned back in his chair. “Now I remember when my Uncle Harvey had his heart attack. I was named for him, you know. Anyway, it was the second day of July, nineteen and sixty-nine. We went that way and the bridge was out just past the Hodges’ place. You know that bridge, there over White Lick Creek. Big storm that day had knocked the bridge out. Ten inches of rain, most rain we ever had. That’s how I remembered the date. Anyway, we had to turn around and bring him back through town and take the long way past Jessups’ farm and through Tilden. Fifty-six minutes it took us that time. He nearly died. He looked the same as your Dad. That’s how I knew your Dad was in bad shape, on account of it happening to my uncle.”

  He paused to breathe and was commencing to launch into a detailed review of other heart attack victims he’d known when Sam cut him short.

  “Sure appreciate you bringing Mom and Dad down here, Harvey. Eunice seemed awful worried, so maybe you ought to go back and be with her. I’ll call you just as soon as we find something out.”

  “Oh, I can wait,” Harvey assured Sam. “Besides, I’m curious to see how things turn out.”

  Heart attacks, Sam had learned over the years, were a spectator sport in certain Harmony circles. Like veterans swapping stories of their army days, Harvey and the old men of the Coffee Cup regaled one another with tales of aortic embolisms and arteriosclerosis. Sam wasn’t anxious for his father to be the heart du jour at the Coffee Cup. He placed his hand under Harvey’s elbow and helped him to his feet. “We’ll be talking with you then, Harvey. Thanks again for
all your help.”

  “Anytime, Sam. You call me anytime you need me.”

  “Thank you, Harvey,” Gloria Gardner added. “You’re a good neighbor.”

  “Well, we do what we can,” Harvey said modestly, pulling his pants higher with a mighty tug. Harvey Muldock had the highest waistline of anyone in town; his belt landed scant inches below his armpits. “You keep in touch now.”

  “Will do,” Sam assured him.

  Sam and his mother sat quietly in the waiting room. A man entered after a while, pressing a bloody bandage to his arm. A nurse whisked him away.

  “Wonder what happened to him?” Sam said.

  “Maybe he’s a burglar and he cut his arm breaking out a window,” his mother speculated.

  “Could be he got hurt rescuing a small child,” Sam said, trying to be positive.

  “I bet he got drunk and got cut in a bar fight.”

  “Mother, let’s try being a little more charitable, shall we.”

  It felt odd scolding his mother. Then again, he was her pastor, and it was his job to appeal to her nobler qualities.

  “You’re absolutely right,” she said, patting his hand. “You’re a good minister, son.”

  “Thank you, Mom.”

  The double doors opened with a whoosh of air; a doctor walked into the waiting room and came toward them. “Mrs. Gardner?”

  “Yes, that’s me.” Sam’s mother rose to greet him. “This is my son, Sam. He’s a minister.”

  The doctor smiled politely and shook Sam’s hand. “Well, the Lord must have heard your prayers. It looks like your father’s going to make it.”

  “Thank God,” they chorused.

  “He’s not out of the woods, but he is stable. He’s going to need a bypass operation. We don’t do that here, of course. He’ll need to go to the city. My nurse is going to work with you to set up a date for that. Sooner the better, though.”

  Sam reached his arm around his mother and pulled her to him.

  “Thank you, Lord,” he whispered. But even as he prayed, he knew the landscape of his world had altered, that the rock who’d been his father had cracked and no mortar on God’s earth, however strong, could repair it.

  Eleven

  Sam Takes Leave

  "What do you mean, you need three months off?” Dale Hinshaw screeched at the Harmony Friends monthly business meeting.

  “I want to care for my father,” Sam said, with a calmness he didn’t feel. “He and my mother need my help.”

  “I suppose he’ll want it off with pay,” Stanley Farlow muttered to no one in particular, though making sure everyone heard it.

  “In the olden days,” Sam said, with an appeal to tradition, “pastors took several months off each summer for rest and renewal. I’ve been here six years, now my father needs me, and I’d like to help him.”

  “It’s fine with me,” Asa Peacock said. “I let a field lie fallow every now and then. Don’t see why Sam can’t take some time off. Especially to help his father.”

  Dale frowned, then began thumbing through his Bible. “I’d ask you to consider the ninth chapter of Luke’s Gospel, verses fifty-nine and sixty. ‘And he said unto another, “Follow me.” But the man said, “Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.” Jesus said unto him, “Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God.”’ Well, there you have it, Sam. Do you want to follow Jesus or your father? Seems pretty clear to me.”

  Everything was clear to Dale Hinshaw, which was another reason Sam needed time off.

  “Does anyone else have a leading on this?” Miriam Hodge, the clerk, asked.

  “I’ll tell you my leading,” Dale chimed in.

  “We’re well aware of your thoughts on the matter, Dale. Let’s give someone else the opportunity to speak.”

  “I’m against it,” he continued. “Faith is what Sam needs. Not time off.”

  He turned to Sam. “Nothing personal. Just trying to keep you on the narrow way that leads to heaven.”

  Miriam’s hands twitched, forming a choking motion.

  “I say we give Sam three months off,” Jessie Peacock said. “With pay. He’s more than earned it.”

  “Friend Jessie speaks my mind,” Judy Iverson said. Judy could always be depended upon to be charitable.

  They sat in silence for several moments. Miriam searched each face, gauging the mood, then proceeded carefully. “Are Friends clear that we should offer Sam Gardner three months off to care for his father? With pay.”

  “If you ask me, it’s a big mistake,” Dale said.

  “We’re not asking you,” Jessie Peacock said. “So zip it.” Jessie had been awakened the past three nights by Dale’s telephone ministry, and the lack of sleep had apparently made her edgy.

  “When would he start?” Opal Majors asked.

  “His father needs help now, so I imagine immediately,” Miriam answered.

  “Who’ll be our minister while he’s gone?” Asa Peacock asked.

  “For our first two hundred years, Quakers didn’t have pastors. Surely, we can minister to one another for three months,” Miriam suggested.

  “Sounds like a lot of work to me,” Stanley Farlow grumbled.

  “Or,” Miriam continued, “we could phone the superintendent and see if the seminary has a student minister who might join us for that short time.”

  “A new minister,” Asa Peacock said. “That sounds interesting. Let’s do that.”

  The room buzzed with anticipation of a fresh face, all the other fresh faces having fled.

  “Are Friends agreed we should release Sam for three months with pay and that I should contact the superintendent and ask for an interim pastor while Sam is gone?” Miriam asked.

  “Approved,” they chorused, and with that Sam Gardner was a free man.

  Miriam phoned the superintendent the next morning and explained their need.

  “Got just the man for you,” he told her. “In fact, I believe you’ve met him. I’m thinking of my nephew.”

  Miriam had indeed met his nephew and had been singularly underwhelmed.

  “Actually, we had something else in mind. We’d like you to contact the seminary and arrange for a student pastor to be with us.”

  “You sure about that? You know these students nowadays. They’re awful liberal.”

  “Nevertheless, that’s what our monthly meeting approved.”

  “So be it. I’ll call Dean, and we’ll send you over a nice young man.”

  “Why does it have to be a man?” Miriam asked. “We don’t care about gender. We want competence.”

  “Does Dale know this?”

  “It’s time Dale Hinshaw learned he’s not the only person in our congregation.”

  Dale, she was sure, would fly into fits if they hired a woman pastor, which made Miriam all the more determined. “In fact, I think we’d prefer a woman. It’s time we broadened our horizons. Yes, you tell Dean Mullen we’d like a woman pastor.”

  “Dale won’t like this,” the superintendent warned.

  “What Dale Hinshaw likes or doesn’t like is of little concern to me these days,” Miriam said. “He hasn’t exactly endeared himself to the rest of us lately.”

  Later, Miriam would wonder if wanting to provoke Dale had been worth it. But for now, she was quietly pleased at the prospect of irritating him.

  Had she not lost her objectivity, she would even have concluded that her behavior was no better than Dale’s. But revenge is a sweet dish when eaten warm, and Miriam Hodge was hungry.

  On the second day of class, Krista Riley was summoned to Dean Mullen’s office. It felt a bit like being called before the principal, like being ten years old and ordered to report for a stern lecture. But Dean Mullen greeted her with a smile and ushered her into his office. “Sit, please sit. Can I get you something to drink? Perhaps you’d like a donut.”

  “No, thank you.”

  “Coffee?”

  “That would be nice, thank you. A little
sugar, please.”

  Dean Mullen poured two cups of coffee and carefully placed Krista’s on the table beside her chair.

  He sat across from her, eased back in his chair, and smiled pleasantly, his eyes crinkling. “Well, Krista, how are your studies?”

  “So far I enjoy them, though I had no idea there’d be this much reading.”

  The dean chuckled. “Yes, well, it pays to sharpen your scythe before the harvest. And speaking of harvest, we have an opportunity for you.”

  “An opportunity?”

  “Yes, I got a phone call today from the superintendent of the yearly meeting. Seems one of our meetings is in need of a pastor. Place called Harmony, a couple hours from here. Their regular pastor, Sam Gardner, is taking the next three months off. His dad had a heart attack, and they need his help.”

  “That seems like a lot of driving each day.”

  “You wouldn’t go there every day. Many of our students pastor churches at a distance. They drive to their churches on Thursday after class and come back here on Sunday afternoon.”

  “If I took the job, where would I stay?”

  “I’ve been told they have a furnished apartment for you.”

  “When would I do my studying?” Krista asked.

  “As you had time, same as everyone else.”

  “What can you tell me about the meeting?”

  The dean hesitated. “Well, it’s in a nice little town. Very peaceful, a quiet town.”

  “Yes, but what about the congregation? What are they like?”

  “Tremendous cooks,” Dean Mullen said. “They have a Chicken Noodle Dinner every year that’ll knock your socks off.”

  “So it’s a peaceful town with good cooks.”

  “You’ve got it!” exclaimed the dean. “That sums it up nicely.”

  Krista sighed. “What kind of church is it? Progressive? Traditional? Middle-of-the-road?”

  “It’s rather hard to say. It defies an easy description.”

  “But it’s just for three months?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Three months, that’s all. Meanwhile, you’ll gain some experience and earn a little spending money. Interested?”