“Oh? A hymn?”
“Not exactly. But something, something that shakes people up maybe. Actually, I’ve already got one started about what Jesus might dream. See, I have these drea—”
“You don’t need to be shaking people up. Especially when you’re in a halfway house.”
“I’m just thinking about it.”
“Did you say you’re thinking about preaching?”
“It went through my mind. I even did a little sermon into a tape recorder.”
“Well, I pray for you every day, son. That you get a good occupation. I pray for your health. I pray that you will serve God and be happy in your work, whatever it is, and that you will hear His call for whatever it is He wants you to do.”
“Well, I’ve been thinking a little bit about maybe becoming a skin doctor. I was reading something about that. A dermatologist. But right now I’m happy doing music and masonry —and eating creamed potatoes. How do you get those little lumps in there?”
“You don’t overcook the potatoes to start with, and then you don’t mash them up all the way. But listen, you ought to consider moving up to something else. I think it would be wonderful if you did become a preacher—if you were really called to do that.”
“I don’t know. I’d have to get ordained. I’m not sure I’d like the ordainers.”
“I’ve always prayed that my children could maybe live out some of the dreams I couldn’t live out because I didn’t have time—bringing them up. Elaine did teach for a while but now she’s in that other work, computers. Seems like computers ain’t nothing but speed. They just do stuff faster. I’d be afraid if I worked on them things I’d die sooner.”
“Die? You ain’t . . . what dreams did you have?”
“Oh, nothing. Eat that last piece of cornbread. I’ll tell you some other time. It’s time to clean up this mess.”
“I don’t think I could preach the stuff I been hearing. And the Sears twins are always bringing up America and stuff at the same time they bring up Jesus. It’s like they think Jesus was an American or something. Which he won’t.”
“Son, listen, you can’t judge your own life by what you don’t like in somebody else’s. Those twins have a big place to run. They have to be concerned with stuff you never have to think about. Now sometimes I think they’re a little too big for their britches, but that’s not one of the things I was put on earth to worry about. You’ve got to learn not to get quite so upset at other folks’ ways.”
“I think they’re too big for their britches, too. The problem is, everybody’s afraid to tell them. Next time that Ned tells me to build that wall again, I’m going to tell him to do it hisself.”
“You had to build that thing again?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Well, I don’t blame you.”
“It don’t make no difference to him that somebody’s got to do it. He just wants to see results. You know what they do when somebody dies? Like one of the professors or something?”
“What?”
“They send their family a rose for every year they’ve worked there, or something like that, but if it’s more than twelve, they send them a dozen roses and a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. Something like that.”
“That Boj angles is good, too.”
Chapter 14
Wesley, Ben, and Vernon are eating french fries in the Columbia Grill.
“We could use that bass singing, like a bass guitar, I mean, on all the stuff we do straight—without instruments,” says Ben to Vernon. “That sounded pretty good, man. What made you think of that?”
“I just pretended I was a bass guitar and made sounds I’d be making with my fingers.”
Mary, the waitress, asks, “Y’all want some more fries?”
Ben and Wesley are sitting across from Vernon. “You got any money?” Ben asks Vernon.
“My daddy don’t let me carry money.”
“I got some,” says Wesley. “Yeah, we’ll take another order.” Wesley pulls out his billfold. “I think I got some more.” He looks. “Yeah, I got two dollars.”
“We need to work up some more songs, too,” says Ben. “That thing at the Activity Club is supposed to last a hour—just gospel stuff. I’m getting tired of that crap. That’s two gigs we’ve played without any instruments, too.”
“ Four months and we can be doing all blues,” says Wesley. “We might even have that album behind us.”
Vernon is trying to read the small print on his can of Coke.
“I believe that when I see it,” says Ben.
“Anyway, I been writing this song about Jesus in a kind of blues style,” says Wesley. “I just read all this stuff about Jesus straight through, the red ink and all that, and it’s something, and I figured I would write a new Jesus song, figured I could put in some stuff about Jesus being in the world today because it’s like whatever he’d be would be kind of weird.”
“Sing it,” says Vernon.
“Well, I just started working on it. But, see, I figured I could turn everything around in the song and have Jesus be what he wouldn’t be. Something like—get kind of a blues vamp going —dada, dada, dada, dada, Jesus was a banker with a white Continental, joined a country club in 1962. He had a house —let’s see—he had a mansion on the lake, played golf once a week, da da da, da da da, something rhymes with ‘two.’ Watched Monday Night Football. Something like that. I don’t know. I hadn’t got it worked out. But you get the idea.”
“What the hell’s wrong with Monday Night Football?” asks Ben.
Vernon clunks his Coke can down on the table and sings, Jesus was a ugly nigger woman.
“What you say, man?” says Ben. “What the hell you say?” Ben glares at Vernon, snatches his Coke can, crunches it in his hand. Coke pours out on the table, flows toward Wesley. Wesley moves back, grabs napkins from the napkin holder and starts blotting it up.
“He said it’s what he ain’t,” said Vernon. “He didn’t say it’s what he was. It’s about what he ain’t. Why you getting mad because I’m—”
“ ’Cause you saying ‘nigger.’ That’s what the problem is.”
“I said what he ain’t. If I was saying that’s what he was, you ought to get mad, but that ain’t what I was saying.”
“Listen here—”
“Wesley said it would be about what he ain’t and I just thought that up, so why are you getting mad at me about saying what he ain’t?”
“Shut up, man. You don’t go asking me questions.”
“Well, I didn’t mean nothing.”
“I don’t care what you mean. Besides that, Jesus was a honkey.”
“Hey, watch it,” says Wesley.
Mary sets the french fries on the table, looks hard at Ben, says, “You got to be kidding me,” and leaves.
“But maybe,” says Wesley, “see, maybe we could do that —maybe we could say all of that in the song.”
“You crazy?” says Ben.
“Don’t you see?” Wesley gets a french fry, the salt shaker, salts it.
“Salt them all, man,” says Ben.
Wesley salts the fries.
Vernon gets one, dips it in the ketchup left on the already used french fry plate. “I like to dip mine,” he says.
“That’s too goddamned bad,” says Ben. “You got a lot of nerve, you know that?”
“Wait a minute. Look, Ben, he’s right,” says Wesley. “It’s like Jesus was at the bottom of the barrel. People were spitting on him and stuff, like if somebody was to call you a ‘nigger.’ ”
“I don’t want to hear it, man. From neither one of you. Especially in no god—nodnamned song.”
“But see, the song could be about how people hated him at the end,” says Wesley, chewing on a hot french fry, then holding his mouth open. “That’s all. I mean it was a bad time. And that’s what they would say. And see, we could say that too. That don’t mean you believe in it.”
“Forget it, man, it’s a crazy idea. I ain’t singing no so
ng that says ‘nigger’ in it. You crazy. You better be glad Shanita ain’t here.”
“Well, we could write that in about ‘honky’ too. Then we could say he was a Jew somewhere in there. What do they call Jews, anyway?”
They are quiet for a minute.
“Jews, I guess,” says Ben.
“Well, I’m going to write it anyway. Jesus driving to work in a car or something like that. Let’s get out of here. I got to work on that song.”
Wesley leaves a quarter tip.
Ben has a letter waiting on the table by the door when he and Wesley get back to BOTA House. He opens it and reads as they start up the wide stairs to their room.
“My damn sister, asking for money,” he says.
“Where is she?”
“Memphis, out of work.”
“Why don’t she ask your mama and daddy?”
“Ha.”
“What do they do?”
“My mama and daddy? They play cards and drink. When my daddy ain’t propped up in a corner in the floor with vomit all over him, he’ll have people over and they sit around a card table, playing cards and drinking Winn-Dixie wine, or liquor if they can get it.”
Ben sits in his chair by the window, lights up. “They start playing cards about four o’clock in the afternoon and play until there’s a fight or somebody falls down, passes out or something. When we was little there’d be so much noise we couldn’t sleep. There was four of us, and we slept on couch cushions in two little closets. That’s no shit—nit, man. We had coats for covers. And Sears asked me why I ran away from home and why I didn’t stay home and help my mama and daddy get out of the conditions they was in. I can’t remember exactly how he said it, but that’s what he meant. Nodnamn.”
Wesley thinks about the orphanage. He sees long, empty halls.
“I tell you,” says Ben. “I’d like to kill that son of a bitch.”
“Sears?”
“My old man. He used to—hell, Sears too. Anyway, my old man used to get drunk and piss in the closet on them couch cushions and we’d have to sleep on it. There’s the wall, the dark wall with crayon marks and no light in there, and I’m sleepy, man, I mean sleepy, and there’s that smell and I touch my hand down there and it’s damp and so I turn it over.”
“Namn.”
“Yeah, that’s right. You just turn them over and hope it ain’t seeped through. Some hot day in July or something my mama would soak them in water and let them stay in the sun one at a time for a few days till they dried out. At that orphanage at least you didn’t have to sleep on piss, did you?”
“Not ’less it was your own. We had a lot of little boys peeing in the bed. They’d have to hold their noses in it for two minutes. Two minutes is a long time.”
“He’d get drunk and he didn’t know the closet from the bathroom. He actually pissed on us, man. More than once. I’d hear it splattering on somebody. Or feel it on myself. Then he’d get to crying and stuff.
“That pamphlet thing Sears put in our box on Father’s Day. ‘Honor thy father and mother’ and all that. Ain’t that a gas? See, that’s the way he think. That’s the kind of head he got. Sears, I’m talking about. That’s what in his head, and don’t make no difference what goes on out there in the world, you know, what’s really going on, that’s just the way he think, the way he made up his mind to think no matter what’s going on. Yeah, I could kill his ass too. You sleep on piss for fourteen years, see you don’t want to kill somebody that didn’t.”
“I didn’t sleep on piss for fourteen years. That won’t get you nowhere—you kill me.”
“Naw, I mean, you know, somebody that comes along and tells you how to think about your own stuff, talk, how to talk nice. That’s what I mean. You at least got your rule—some kind of compromise. You ain’t, you know, weird about it. This dude talks to me like I’m some little baby. You know what I mean?”
“Yeah. I know what you mean. What are you smoking anyway?”
“I got some good stuff. Whew.”
Wesley pulls off his socks, throws them onto his bed.
“Yeah, man,” says Ben. “They’d play cards. And if they didn’t have enough people my mama would play. And there’d be cockroaches and stuff. And they’d just sit there having a good old time. I mean, they’d be laughing and . . . having a good old time.”
“What about fourteen years—did you leave when you were fourteen?”
“Yeah. Two nights after my little sister did.”
“Who put the plaque on the broom closet door is all I want to know.” Ted is presiding over the Monday executive committee breakfast meeting.
“I put it in the right place to start with,” says Coach Guthrie. “I don’t know what happened after that. I know I wouldn’t put it up beside no broom closet.” He looks around at the others.
“Well, we got her calmed down, thank goodness,” says Ted. “Hampton,” he says to the new dean, “you did a good piece of work on that. A-plus.”
“Thank you, sir. I’ve had some experience with hysterical women in my time.”
“I’m glad you called over there and got all the details. I couldn’t imagine who’d been doing all that screaming.”
“I heard it was one of them retarded people in the Project Promise?” says Big Don. “Is that right?”
“Yes, the one that prayed out loud at the banquet, which worries me a bit because it illustrates how risky this kind of thing can be. Mrs. Clark’s trust fund holds over two million dollars, as you-all know. But, she seems to understand finally, thanks in large part to you, Hampton.
“Now,” Ted continues, “the band thing—this little tour—is going to work for us, I think. I been getting some very positive phone calls about their performance at the fair. People are excited. We need to get as much publicity out of it as possible —recruiting, et cetera. Look toward something bigger.”
“We’ve already got a problem on it,” says Ned. “I talked to Herb Boiling this morning. He was driving the tractor at the fair, and he said the band was doing some kind of long song about ‘making love’ or something. I don’t know what it was. Anyway, one of the band members cursed him. It was something about the route they were taking around the fair grounds. The boy actually cursed Herb. One of the blacks.”
Ted frowns, wipes his fingers across his mouth. “I want to know who that was. We can’t have that, not with Ballard’s name on it. Get right on that.” He’s looking at Ned.
“I certainly will.” Maybe this is something we can assign to Colonel Trent, thinks Ned.
“I told the Pilot to cover the Christmas luncheon,” says Coach. “They called and said they were working on another article on that Benfield boy, about his ‘transformation’ or something, living with that old Rigsbee lady, attending church, getting that retarded boy playing in the band.”
“He’s in the band too?” asks Big Don.
“Oh, yes, and we do need to get Benfield in a grammar course,” says Ted. “Can we do that now?” he asks Ned.
“Not before spring semester.”
“Well, as soon as possible in any case. That’ll make our ties to him more definite. In fact, maybe he can give a little testimony at the LinkComm Christmas luncheon—the nursing home thing.” Ted turns his Parker fountain pen—tip to tip —between his fingers. “Maybe we could write something out for him. I think both we and LinkComm could get some good exposure on this, this time around. Snaps agrees. And of course those people at the rest home need all the support we can give them.”
Ned is realizing that the band-impropriety matter is exactly the place to test the new dean’s loyalty. “Hampton, would you talk to the gospel band about these improprieties?”
“Sure. I don’t mind handling it.” Well, I’ll be damned, Trent thinks. I didn’t know this was the kind of thing I’d be asked to do. Talk to a gospel band about cursing. This is some kind of test or else Ned is afraid of it.
“How much weight has your daughter lost, Hampton?” asks Coach. “She�
�s sure gone down some.”
Trent draws up a little. “I don’t know exactly, but she’s happy with the program.” He glances at Stan, the assistant treasurer, the very quiet one. Why isn’t he talking?
“It is a good program,” says Ted. “It is a good program.” He checks his hair in the mirror. “Oh yes, Mysteria, do you have those PVA schedules for next week?”
“Yes sir.”
“How about bringing them in.”
Each member of the executive committe looks over the PVA schedule. Coach reads silently with his lips moving.
“Ned, we need to schedule Greg to videotape the LinkComm luncheon. Be sure he’s not covering dog surgery that morning. What kind of coverage are we getting for the luncheon, anyway?”
“Good. Very good, so far. This band idea has actually already helped some. Good Morning Charlie is going to cover it. We got a tentative TV promise, and one from the Star, so it looks good. And I think it’s a very good idea to have Benfield give a little testimony. Something about Ballard’s influence on his life, how he became a Christian. Something short. Why don’t you bring that up to him when you talk with the band, Hampton? I’m sure he’ll agree to do it. He’s quite outgoing. ‘Course you’d know about that—him dating your daughter and all.”
“Yes. He’s outgoing.” Hampton’s eyebrows come up, the corners of his mouth go down.
Stan is wondering if the president is going to mention the memo sent from the faculty senate to the president. Someone mailed Stan a blind copy. There are several requests on it. One is for clarification on whether or not an airport expansion is in the works.
“What about the senate concerns regarding the airport?” Stan asks Ted.
Ted is viewing his reflection in the polished surface of his desktop. If he tilts his head just right, he can see if his rooster tail is holding down. How does Stan know about that memo? he thinks. “What about it?”
“The senate was wondering about it, I think. Wondering if there was—”
“Yes. That’s also something we need to discuss this morning. As all of you know, nothing has been decided on any airport. There haven’t even been any official discussions of it. Of course, when it is decided, if it is, it could be one of the best boosts for businesses in Summerlin imaginable—and in Bethel and Listre, too. And students could get out and in of here lots easier. Speakers too. We could get that American Eagle commuter service in here. I’ve already checked on that. And with growth of this area, we of course get growth of Ballard University.
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