Mercy Me

by Margaret A. Graham

  “Beatrice,” I said, “now you listen to me. I have got a foolproof strategy that will take care of the problem you’ve got with the neighbors. Take them something to eat.”

  “What!” She sounded like she was going to come through the receiver.

  “You heard me. Like as not, the wife can’t cook, so a dish of something will be a treat they can’t turn down.”

  “You must be kidding!”

  “No, I am not. Make your specialty, that lemon meringue pie. Pile it up high. As soon as they come home from work, march yourself up them steps and knock on the door. Whichever one comes to the door, introduce yourself. If they don’t invite you in, give them the pie anyway and suggest in a nice way that they can return the plate when it’s convenient. If they ask you to come inside, do. Visit with them a little while, then ask them to come visit you sometime.”

  “You must be out of your mind!”

  “I am, but so are you, remember?”

  “Esmeralda, there is no way in the world I can do that. They come in fighting like the gingham dog and the calico cat! They like as not throw that pie right back in my face.”

  “Have you not had a pie throwed in your face before? You will live, I guarantee.”

  “No. There is no way in the world I could do that.”

  I got very quiet, and I stayed that way a full minute, although every second was costing me.

  “Esmeralda? Esmeralda, are you there?”

  Before she started clicking the phone and cut us off, I answered. “I’m here.”

  “Well, why don’t you say something?”

  “I did.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Beatrice, what I’ve suggested is no big thing. One time not long ago, you said you wished there was something you could do for the Lord. I don’t look at it that way, because I try to do everything for the Lord, but if that’s your way of thinking, I won’t question it. Well, now, here is something you can do for the Lord, and you’re balking like a mule.”

  “To do for the Lord?” she repeated, and I knew I had scored a bull’s-eye.

  “That’s right. Jesus said, ‘Love your neighbor.’ Are those two upstairs your neighbors or are they not?”

  “Oh, Esmeralda, I wish you wouldn’t put it thataway.”

  I sighed loud enough for her to hear. “Do as you like, Beatrice. If you can’t do a little thing like that for Jesus, I don’t know what to make of you. I got to hang up. This is costing me an arm and a leg.”

  That’s the way you had to handle Beatrice sometimes—shame her. That poor girl was so timid and so scared, and I knew it would be very hard for her, but it was the right thing to do. I couldn’t wait to hear how it turned out. I had a bigger bombshell to land on her once she got over this one.

  That night after supper, I went out on the porch, feeling good about what I had accomplished, and I sat on the glider for a while, enjoying myself. The fireflies were as thick as ever I’d seen them. Reminded me how we children used to catch fireflies and put ’em in a fruit jar to watch ’em light up. All the neighborhood kids would gather outside of an evening and have the most fun playing in the yard—games like Giant Step and so forth. We’d wind up under the streetlight on the corner, telling ghost stories and getting so scared we had to have somebody go with us when we ran home.

  Sitting on the glider is where I do my best praying and thinking. I had a lot of both to do that night, and the time slipped up on me. I was about ready to get up and go inside when I saw a woman coming down the street. I didn’t see her until she came under the streetlight, but that’s when she stopped. I figured she needed to hitch up her pantyhose or something, but she didn’t bend over or nothing. It was curious she would stop like that. I craned my neck, trying to see if she was anybody I knew—and I knew nearly every woman in Live Oaks. Well, as I came to think on it, I didn’t know one who would be out that late at night by theirselves.

  I was real puzzled. She began walking a few steps one way, turned around, and walked a few steps the other way. She must be lost, I thought. Then she just stood there. A few cars went by on the street, and when the first one passed, I could see in the headlights that this woman was not dressed right. She didn’t have on enough clothes to hide her nakedness!

  Well, I don’t have to be hit over the head with a sledgehammer to know a thing when I see it. That woman was nothing but a streetwalker!

  After discovering that fact, I couldn’t go to bed. I watched her hour after hour as she plied her trade, but one car after another whizzed past her. Business was not good, which was a credit to the community.

  When she finally gave up and disappeared into the darkness at four o’clock in the morning, I got up, thoroughly disgusted, and went to bed.

  As wide awake as the owls hooting in the trees, I lay there thinking what I must do. I decided I would keep this to myself and see how it went. Let one word slip out that there was a prostitute in town and every woman in Live Oaks would lock up every husband or boyfriend they had got. Let them find out for theirselves; I for one was not going to tell a single soul, not even Beatrice, who lived a hundred miles away.

  I did tell the Lord, though.

  Saturday night, I kept watch again. At about midnight, a white truck slowed down, went around the block, and came back. I knew business was picking up. Whoever it was stopped and looked like he was talking to her through the window. Then the door opened, she got in, and they went on down the street. The truck never came back.

  It made my heart heavy knowing that such was going on right under my nose, so it was a relief to get up Sunday morning and go to the house of the Lord. In class I had nothing to say to the W.W.s, and I could tell that made them curious, but I had too much on my mind to bother about them. I hardly heard a word Thelma was teaching.

  In the worship service, during the long prayer, Pastor Osborne prayed for rain—not just showers, but for real rain such as we needed, the slow, steady kind that lasts until the ground gets good and soaked. In my heart I said, Thank you, Jesus.

  Well, brother, if I had known what the fallout would be, I never would’ve asked Pastor Osborne to pray for rain! After church, people didn’t hightail it to the all-you-can-eat restaurant but stood around outside, not saying much. But what they did say, they said in a shifty kind of way.

  “What in the world is going on?” I asked, but nobody said nothing. Then some little kid piped up, “Preacher Bob prayed for rain.”

  “Well, what’s wrong with that? We shore need it!”

  Clara whispered in my ear but loud enough for others to hear, “Well, what if it don’t rain?”

  “So what? When you’ve prayed, have you never had the Lord say no? Mercy me, I have!”

  She twisted those thin lips the way she does when she feels she’s way ahead. “It’s the children, Esmeralda. How do you explain to little children that the Lord don’t answer their preacher’s prayers? What are they going to think of the Lord, much less Preacher Bob?”

  “The Lord can take care of himself,” I snapped. But I wasn’t so sure the pastor could, not with all those vultures perched to gobble him up alive.

  Mabel Elmwood whispered something in her husband’s ear, he nodded, and then she called for everyone’s attention. “Our senior elder has something to say.” She looked up at him like he was Moses come down from Mount Sinai.

  Roger Elmwood cleared his throat, and in that politician’s voice of his, he said, “Friends, it is the better part of wisdom to pray for rain only in the privacy of one’s own closet. That way we don’t run into questions when it don’t rain. We have a responsibility to those who are weak in the faith, for children and young people who are not yet mature Christians, to avoid creating a problem that could possibly turn them away from the Lord.”

  Every one of those fainthearted, pious members standing around either said amen or expressed their agreement by nodding their heads up and down.

  I, for one, came right back at him. “Well,” I said, “I th
ink it is the better part of faith to pray for rain in public and bring your umbrella! Splurgeon says faith honors Christ and Christ honors faith.”

  Well, then Thelma just had to put her two cents in. “The weather report on Channel 9 says there won’t be rain until next month, if then.”

  “Have they not been wrong more times than they have been right?” I asked. “I tell you, no weatherman has got God in his pocket. The Lord will do what he wants to do without asking them!”

  I got a lot of looks that said “You poor thing” as the crowd took off for the restaurant.

  Every day I looked for rain, but it didn’t come. And every day the talk about it got bolder. The talk went on over the telephone, in stores, down at the washerette, the barbershop, and the beauty parlor—everywhere I went. The weather just got hotter and drier, not a cloud in the sky. The only reason the W.W.s didn’t let me in on their grapevine was that they didn’t want to be caught short if it did rain. Hedging their bets, don’t you know. But by Friday it still had not rained, and they couldn’t stand it no longer. Two of them came up the walk, and since they’d waited a long time to throw in my face about the preacher praying for Maude and getting no answer, I figured this was the time they would bring it up.

  I served them ice tea on the porch. Clara didn’t say much; she seemed nervous and mumbled something about how we all of us believe in prayer. Still hedging her bets.

  Mabel Elmwood, who is usually quiet until everybody else has had their say and she can tell which way the wind is blowing before she puts in her two cents, had no hang-up about speaking out.

  “I feel so sorry for Roger,” she began in her mealymouth way. “He says that praying for Maude posed a real problem for the elders, who could not support Pastor Bob’s view. Fortunately, Maude died, making it plain to see that it is not right to pray for animals. Roger says Preacher Bob should’ve learned his lesson then and been more careful about what he prayed for in public.”

  “She’s talking about rain,” Clara said, as if I didn’t know.

  “Yes, praying for rain is a risky thing to do,” Mabel continued. “It shows poor judgment on the preacher’s part. You see, Roger says Preacher Bob does not have to deal with the questions, it’s the elders. As the spiritual leaders, they are the ones who have to answer all the questions this kind of thing raises.”

  Clara reached over and put a pillow behind Mabel’s back. “Thank you,” Mabel said. “This old glider is uncomfortable.”

  I could have crowned her!

  “Now what was I saying? Oh yes. Preacher Bob should not have been so sure of himself to pray publicly for rain after the experience of the mule.”

  I could not stand another word. “Pastor Osborne is not sure of himself, he is sure of God, which is more than I can say for most of them elders.”

  Well, she brushed me off like I was some kind of historical female. “The elders are thinking about bringing Preacher Bob in for counseling.”

  I tell you what, I was about to blow a gasket. The nerve of them people! What them two wanted was a rise out of me so they could go back and tell everybody what I said and the way I acted. Well, I said nothing, and when they saw I was not going to play their little game, they got themselves up and left.

  After them two went home, I was so mad I lay across the bed and beat the pillow with my fists. I had not had a spell like that since before Bud died. It was Friday, and not one drop of rain had fallen. I couldn’t bear to think of that poor man getting up in the pulpit Sunday morning with all those self-righteous, backbiting hypocrites looking up at him. “Lord,” I said, trying not to be mad, “whyn’t you do the preacher and me one big favor and send us a gully washer before Sunday?”

  Upon my word, I am telling you the gospel truth—twenty-five minutes later, if you go by my bedroom clock, I heard a rumble. At first I thought it was a plane flying overhead. But the rumbling come closer, and then right over my house there was a big boom. I could not believe my ears! I jumped up and went out on the porch. That cloud was as black as midnight! Sheet lightning was flashing all around, and the wind was picking up. “Lord, is this what I hope it is?” I asked.

  Sure enough, in a few minutes, big drops were peppering down. The thunder was booming, and the rain was coming fast. The smell of it was delicious! I watched it coming down the street, washing everything in its path, the runoff flooding alongside the curbs, rushing down the drains. I was so happy I could’ve run outside in that rain buck naked!

  10

  It rained all Friday night, a slow steady rain. Saturday morning a drizzle set in, but in the afternoon the sun came out long enough for me to take a look at the garden. It did my heart good to see puddles running down between the rows. My tomatoes, kind of beat down by the rain, looked like they didn’t know what to make of it. But they popped right back up and started growing. So did the weeds. Weeds are like sins—they grow faster than the good stuff.

  By the time I got back in the house, it was coming down again. It rained off and on all Saturday night, but it didn’t keep that woman from walking the street below my house. I watched her a little while, but it was such a good night for sleeping, I decided to go to bed. I made up my mind that when the weather let up and I could hide in the bushes, I was going to get the license number of that white truck if he picked her up again.

  By Sunday morning it had quit raining, except for drops falling off the trees. A lot of people didn’t show up for church, but those that did—well, sheep never looked so sheepish.

  Monday morning I got a note from Beatrice telling me she had taken the pie upstairs.

  I went upstairs with that pie like you told me to. My knees were knocking even though he was not yelling and she was not crying. When they let me in, I asked them what they fight about and he laughed and said, “Any little thing comes up,” and she laughed too. I was so nerviss I didn’t stay long but I did remember to invite them to come to see me sometime and they both started talking about how busy they were. Esmeralda, I really don’t think I can handle them visiting me but I asked them to bring my plate back so I guess one of them will have to come downstairs.

  They did not fight last night. I fell asleep listening to them up there laughing.

  Esmeralda, I did this for Jesus. I hope you are satisfied.

  I was. I was pleased as punch. She was making a good start, and I felt I could drop the other bombshell on her, so I wrote her right back. I cut it short about the rain and all, then wrote:

  Beatrice, I have got the letter you wrote a while back about that pigtail man. It’s right here on my lap. You say in your letter he comes in the store every day and he asked if you liked to go to the picture show and if you liked to bowl.

  Have you got no sense? That man is showing interest in you. Before you have a dying duck fit, give it some thought. I have been asking the Lord for some time to give you a man friend—not a husband, just a man friend. When we pray we have got to look for an answer, so that is what I’m asking you to do.

  From what you say, this Carl sounds like he is on in years. Don’t let that turn you off. You and I are not spring chickens running around with roosters. At your age you can’t expect to get a man who has not been preowned even if now he is not owned lock, stock, and barrel. A widderwer is your best bet. Next time Carl comes in the store, you take a good look at him and write me what you find out.

  I was surprised Beatrice didn’t call me right up after she got my letter. After two or three days I was beginning to wonder if Carl had quit coming in the store. I hoped she was just too busy. One good thing about Beatrice is she never gets mad at me, and I must admit I have been pretty hard on her at times.

  There’s a hedge runs around my place, and before that streetwalker put in her nightly appearance, I took a little stool out there and positioned myself behind the hedge where I could get a close enough view to read any license plate that came along. I had my pencil and pad resting on my knee, and at about ten o’clock, there she was. Well, I tell you, I wa
s so close I could nearly see the whites of her eyes! Her skirt was short, and them skinny legs were wobbling on heels as high as ever I’d seen. There was something draped around her shoulders like a scarf, and it looked like that was all she had on. Mercy me, I had seen such women on TV, but seeing one live was something I could do without.

  She was not an older woman. Most of them aren’t old, I’m told, but she looked old in the face. And she was twitching like a scairt rabbit. Under any other circumstances, I would’ve felt sorry for her. I tell you the truth, that woman was so thin that when she was on the other side of the lamppost, there wasn’t enough of her showing for me to see! That lifestyle sure takes its toll.

  Well, I’ll tell you what, that little old stool is not the most comfortable thing to sit on, and as the night stretched on, I got leg cramps to beat the band and a backache to break all records. As cars were few and far between and none of them stopped, I was beginning to think my misery was all for naught.

  Even the streetwalker got tired and leaned up against the lamppost. I would’ve gone back inside, but I couldn’t without her seeing me. I was stuck right there on that stool until she made up her mind to leave. Finally, she sat down on the curb, but still she didn’t go home. She must’ve been desperate, to hang on like she did.

  Along about three o’clock, I heard a vehicle turn the corner, and when it got in sight, I saw it was a white pickup. The driver knew right where he was headed and hardly slowed down before he stopped at the streetlight. Without a word spoken, she hopped in, and in my disgust, I almost forgot what my mission was. Fortunately, it was an easy number and a South Carolina plate. I didn’t even have to write it down.

  I was excited about getting the evidence, and I didn’t sleep much. The next morning I was at the sheriff’s office by eight o’clock. As usual, Sheriff Thigpen was the only one in the office, and he was reading the newspaper.

  “Good morning, Esmeralda. What can I do for you?”