A New Song

by Jan Karon

  He broke a sweat before he reached Mona’s, where he found Ernie paying for a sausage biscuit and a cup of coffee at his wife’s cash register.

  “I’m only allowed over th’ yellow line as a payin’ customer,” said the genial proprietor from next door. “Get your order and come over to my side—chew th’ fat awhile.”

  “Well . . . ,” he said, pleased to be asked, “don’t mind if I do.”

  “That’ll be two bucks.” Mona extended her hand to her husband, who shelled out the tab, mostly in change.

  “I’ll have what he’s having,” said Father Tim.

  The red-haired Mona had a no-nonsense look behind a pair of glasses with brightly painted frames. “So you’re hangin’ with the guys this mornin’?”

  He nodded, feeling suddenly shy and excited about having someone to hang with.

  “They get too rough for you,” said Mona, “come on back to where it’s civilized.”

  “Right,” he said.

  “This yellow line . . . ,” said Father Tim, stepping over it, “it must be a real conversation piece.”

  “Thing was, Mona kept nosin’ around my side sayin’ old books wouldn’t pay th’ light bill. Then I’d go over to her side raisin’ Cain because she hadn’t hiked her prices in four years. We nearly ended up in divorce court.”

  “Aha.”

  “We had to learn to mind our own business, you might say. Thing is, I’ve come to believe all married people ought t’ have a yellow line of some kind or another.”

  Ernie held the screen door open to Books, Bait & Tackle.

  “Welcome to where th’ elite meet to eat. Boys, watch your language, Preacher Kavanagh’s goin’ to join us this mornin’.”

  “Tim,” said the preacher, nodding to the assembly. “Call me Tim.”

  Ernie set his bag on one of the scarred tables by the drink machines. “You remember Roanoke, he don’t much like preachers. But he’s harmless.”

  Roanoke nodded curtly and poured a packet of sugar into a Styrofoam cup.

  “That’s Roger Templeton over there, an’ his dog, Lucas. Lucas is blind. Roger’s his Seein’ Eye human.”

  “Tim, nice to meet you,” said Roger, who was holding what appeared to be a block of wood in his lap. Roger was a tall, slender man, probably in his sixties, with a pleasant face. The filmy eyes of his brown Labrador appeared to rest on the newcomer with some interest.

  “Set your sack down,” said Ernie, “and pull up a chair. It’s not fancy, but it’s all we got. Junior, come out here and meet Preacher Kavanagh.”

  A sandy-haired, bearded young man came through the door of the book room. He wiped his hand on his work pants and extended it with solemn courtesy.

  “How you do, sir, glad to meet you.”

  “Glad to meet you, Junior.”

  “Junior’s off work today, he hauls for Otis Bragg. You know Otis, I reckon.”

  “Oh, yes. Otis is a member at St. John’s.”

  Roanoke snorted.

  Ernie launched into his sausage biscuit with considerable gusto. “Well, boys, we got a lot of work to do to get Junior’s ad in before th’ deadline. Tim, we’re glad you’re here, because you’re an educated man and know how to put things. Course, Roger’s pretty educated hisself. He was runnin’ a billion-dollar corporation before him and his wife retired to Whitecap.”

  Roger smiled as he deftly used a pencil to make marks on the block of wood. “Half a billion.”

  “Don’t sound as good to say half a billion.” Ernie gulped his coffee. “Junior, you got your notepad?”

  “Right here,” said Junior. He removed a ballpoint pen and notepad from his shirt pocket, which was machine-embroidered with the name Junior Bryson.

  “What’s your ad about?” asked Father Tim.

  Junior looked at Ernie.

  “You tell ’im.” Ernie said to Junior.

  “Well, sir, I’m tryin’ to find a wife.” Junior’s face colored.

  “Aha.”

  “So, me an’ Roanoke an’ Ernie an’ Roger come up with this idea to advertise.”

  “That’s been known to work,” said Father Tim, unwrapping his sausage biscuit.

  “We recommended advertising off the island,” said Roger.

  “Right,” said Ernie. “Everybody on Whitecap knows Junior, and he knows everybody.”

  “Does that mean there aren’t any candidates on Whitecap?”

  “Not to speak of,” said Ernie. “Besides, our advice is, get a woman you have to go across to see, makes it more . . . more . . .”

  “Romantic,” said Roger.

  Junior beamed and nodded.

  “If I was you,” said Roanoke, “I’d run me a big ad with a border around it.” He drew a cigarette from a pack of Marlboros in his shirt pocket.

  “That’d cost more,” said Ernie.

  Roanoke struck a match. “Might be worth more.”

  “Read what you have so far,” said Roger.

  “White male, thirty-six, five foot eleven an’ a half . . .”

  Roanoke sipped his coffee. “I’d say six foot.”

  “Right,” said Ernie. “Sounds better.”

  “That’d be a lie,” said Junior.

  “Put a lift in your shoes,” said Roanoke.

  “I ain’t goin’ to lie. Five foot eleven an’ a half with kep’ beard—”

  Ernie shook his head. “I wouldn’t mention a beard. Some women don’t like face hair a’tall.”

  “Might as well git things out in th’ open,” said Junior.

  “Keep readin’,” said Roanoke.

  “Five foot eleven an’ a half with kep’ beard, likes country music, fishin’, and Scrabble, drives late-model Bronco.”

  Roanoke leaned forward. “What’d you say Scrabble for? You ought t’ say poker or gin rummy.”

  Ernie frowned. “It’s th’ Bronco I wouldn’t say anything about. I’d say more like a . . . like a . . .”

  “A Mustang convertible!” suggested Roanoke, unsmiling. “Maybe you could borry the preacher’s car.”

  “Yessir,” said Junior, grinning. “I’ve seen your car around, it’s a real sharp ride.”

  “Thank you.”

  “We got to hurry up,” said Ernie, checking his watch. “If this is goin’ to run in th’ Diplomat, Junior’s got t’ call it across in thirty minutes.”

  “Read it again,” said Roanoke. He wadded up his biscuit wrapper and lobbed it into a box beside the Pepsi machine.

  Junior cleared his throat and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “White male, thirty-six, five foot eleven an’ a half with kep’ beard, likes country music, fishin’, and Scrabble, drives late-model Bronco . . . plus, I’m addin’ this . . . lookin’ for serious relationship, send photo.”

  “I wouldn’t put nothin’ in there about a serious relationship,” said Roanoke. “That’ll scare ’em off.”

  Junior gazed helplessly at his advisors. Then he zeroed in on Father Tim. “What do you think, sir?”

  In truth, he’d hardly been thinking at all. “Well . . .”

  Junior’s pen was poised above the notepad.

  “Actually, I like your idea about getting things out in the open.”

  Junior nodded, looking relieved. “Well, good! It’s wrote, then.”

  The sweat was trickling down his back as he made a quick sweep through the book room, finding a ragged copy of Conrad Richter’s The Trees. He knew he’d never read it again, but he recalled his early fondness for it with such reverence that he couldn’t resist. Especially not for fifty cents.

  He found a cat asleep in one of the numerous book-filled boxes stationed around the room, and nearly leaped out of his running shorts when it sprang up and hissed at him.

  “That’s Elmo th’ Book Cat,” said Ernie, standing in the doorway. “He’s older’n dirt. That’s his sleepin’ box, it’s full of Zane Grey paperbacks. You ever read Zane Grey?”

  “Tried,” he said, his eyes roving the shelves. “Couldn’t.�
��

  “Ever read Louis L’Amour?”

  “Never have.”

  “That’s my main man. Listen to this.” Ernie grabbed a book off the shelf, thumbed through the pages, and adjusted his glasses.

  “ ‘We are, finally, all wanderers in search of knowledge. Most of us hold the dream of becoming something better than we are, something larger, richer, in some way more important to the world and ourselves. Too often, the way taken is the wrong way, with too much emphasis on what we want to have, rather than what we wish to become.’ ”

  Ernie looked up. “A world of truth in that.”

  Father Tim nodded. “I’ll say.”

  “This is his autobiography. Looky here.” Ernie turned to the back of the book and displayed a long list. “That’s some of th’ books he read. He read thousands of books and kep’ account of every one. Plus he traveled and wandered all over th’ world an’, with no education to speak of, turned around an’ wrote hundreds of books his own self.”

  Ernie scratched his head. “I guess if I could, I’d just read books and not strike a lick at a snake.”

  “Sounds good to me!”

  The proprietor took a paperback off the shelf. “Here you go, I’m givin’ this to you. Take it an’ read it, and tell me what you think.”

  “I’ll do it.”

  “To my way of thinkin’, Last of the Breed was L’Amour’s best book, and if it don’t keep you on th’ edge of your pew, nothin’ will.”

  “I thank you, Ernie. Thank you!”

  “I take you for a big reader, yourself.”

  “I guess you could say Wordsworth is my main man.”

  “Wordsworth, Wordsworth . . . ,” said Ernie, trying to place the name.

  “I’ll bring you something, see what you think.”

  “Good deal,” said Ernie, looking pleased.

  At the cash register, Father Tim fetched a dollar and change out of his shorts pocket for the Richter book and the eight-page Whitecap Reader.

  “Seen your neighbor yet?” asked Ernie. “Guess I ought to say heard ’im, is more like it.”

  “What neighbor is that?”

  “Th’ one behind th’ hedge.”

  “Didn’t know there was one behind the hedge.”

  “You didn’t?” Ernie looked incredulous.

  “Should I have?”

  “Seems like somebody would’ve told you.”

  He waited for Ernie to elaborate, but he didn’t. “Maybe you could tell me.”

  “Well . . . it’s what’s left of th’ Love family, is what it is.”

  He thought Ernie looked pained, as if regretting that he’d introduced the subject.

  “Aha.”

  “See, there was a whole clan of Loves at one time. Redmon Love, th’ grandaddy, bought that big trac’ of land up th’ road where you are, built him a fine home in there and put a wall around it. Then planted a hedge both sides of th’ wall. It’s grown up like a jungle th’ last twenty years or so.”

  Father Tim looked at his watch. If he was going to ride bikes this morning, not to mention walk his dog, he’d better get a move on.

  “Th’ Love house was th’ finest thing on any of these islands, a real mansion, but you can’t see it’s back there ’less you’re lookin’ for it.”

  “I’ll be darned.”

  “Mr. Redmon had somebody come in from upstate New York and make him a tropical garden, had palm trees and monkeys an’ I don’t know what all.”

  “Monkeys?”

  “Well, there ain’t any monkeys in there now, but used to be. I used to hear ’em when I was a kid.” Ernie paused and gave a loud rendition of what, it might be supposed, was the call of a monkey.

  “Like that,” said Ernie.

  Father Tim nodded, impressed.

  “Used to be macaws in there, too, an’ some said elephants, but I never went for that.”

  “Pretty far-fetched,” agreed Father Tim, rolling up his newspaper and putting it under his arm.

  “Anyway, th’ whole clan built around th’ mansion. You’re livin’ up from th’ place his second grandson used ’til, oh, I don’t know, maybe two or three years ago, then they pretty much stopped comin’.”

  “Right. So who lives behind the wall?”

  Ernie looked at him soberly. “I wouldn’t say nothin’ to your wife.”

  “Really?”

  “No use to make ’er worry.”

  “ Who?”

  The screen door slammed behind two fisherman. While one examined sinkers and knives, the other ordered bait.

  “We need a half pound of shrimp, a dozen bloodworms, and a pound of squid. Better make that a pound and a half.”

  “Catch you later, Tim,” said Ernie. “Come again anytime, you hear?”

  He dropped by St. John’s to see how the organization of the church library was developing. Marion Fieldwalker and her volunteers were cataloging, dusting, shelving, and generally making sense of books that had been stacked in a room off the narthex since the time of the early prophets. He cheered them on and made a pot of coffee as his contribution to the effort.

  There was no reason at all, of course, for his wife to know he’d taken this little detour. . . .

  He was zooming by his desk as the phone rang.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey!” said Dooley.

  “Hey, yourself, buddy! What’s going on?”

  “The Reds whipped th’ poop out of th’ Blues last night!”

  “Hallelujah! Tell me everything!” He thumped into his groaning swivel chair and leaned back.

  “You should of seen ol’ Mule, he come t’ bat four times with runners on base, got a base hit ever’ time!”

  Ah, it was music to his ears when Dooley lapsed into the old vernacular.

  “I scored four runs on ’is hits. We whipped ’em by seven runs.”

  “Man alive!” he said, rejoicing with his boy. “Well done!”

  “Waxin’ th’ Blues was great, we cleaned their plows. You should of been there.”

  He should have, it was true. “Good crowd?”

  “Ever’body, nearly. Ol’ Coot Hendrick, he was there shakin’ hands like he was President of the United States. Ol’ Mayor Cunningham, she throwed out th’ first ball.”

  “How are Poo and Jessie and your mom?”

  “Great. I had supper with ’em Saturday. Poo’s gettin’ really tall, Jessie’s quit suckin’ her thumb.”

  “Have you seen Lace?”

  Silence. “A couple of times.”

  “Really? You took her to a movie?”

  “Are you kidding? She hardly looks at me. Anyway, she’s not allowed to go out with guys ’til next year. She’s still fifteen.”

  “Aha.” He noted that Dooley’s speech had returned to the prep school mode.

  “But I saw her with some friends a couple of times, like when I took Jenny to a movie.”

  He rubbed his chin and frowned. That wouldn’t have been his agenda for Dooley’s summer, but who was he to judge? Jenny was their pretty, soft-spoken neighbor who’d regularly come looking for Dooley, knocking on the back door year after year, summer after summer. What if his own neighbor, his very wife, had not come knocking on the rectory door?

  “Is Lace still tutoring Harley?”

  “She comes when I’m working, she gave him A-plus on something. I don’t know what it was, but he was pretty excited, I think it was math.”

  “Are you ready to go back to school?”

  “I don’t want to go back.”

  “If you’re going to be a vet, you have to go to school,” he said, stating the obvious.

  “Yeah, right. So I’m goin’ back, but I’d rather stay home.”

  “You’ve got eight days, make the most of it. As we discussed, the Barnhardts will swing by with Joseph to return you to academe.”

  “ Where?”

  “By the way, Harley says you’re doing great with your curfew.”

  “He said he’d whip my tail
if I messed up.” Dooley cackled. The thought of the thin, toothless Harley whipping him was clearly a great amusement.

  “What are you guys eating these days?”

  “Harley made pizza last night, it was great.”

  “With everything?” He loved the details.

  “No anchovies, no onions, tons of sausage and cheese. He could get a franchise.”

  “How’s our tenant?”

  “She asked me twice if I’d show her your house, said she wanted to see what y’all did, the addition and all. I said maybe when you come in October, you’d show it to her. Why would she care anything about the addition? She’s not going to do one.”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Anyway, I think Lace is taking lessons over there before she goes off to school, she leaves in a week. She’ll hate that school.”

  “Please. Keep your opinions on that school to yourself.”

  “I promise you those girls are weird. They write and draw and read and wear totally weird clothes like lace-up shoes and glasses with wire rims. I mean, they can’t even dance, they step all over you.”

  “How’s your bank account?”

  “Huge.”

  “How huge?”

  “I made six hundred dollars so far.”

  “I owe you six to match it, that makes twelve, what’s the total?”

  “With what I saved last year, that makes seventeen hundred, even.”

  “You can buy a sharp little ride for what you’ll have by the end of summer.”

  “I don’t want an old car, I told you over and over.”

  “We’ll both be old as the hills if we wait ’til you earn enough for a new one.”

  Dooley sighed.

  “Look,” he said, feeling guilty, repressed, and prehistoric. “Cynthia and I will kick in another five hundred, that brings you up to twenty-two hundred.”

  “Thanks! Hey, really! Thanks, Dad.”

  “You’re welcome. Now stay out of trouble.”

  “I’m stayin’ out.”

  “Good. Well done. If we’re still here, you’re going to love this place next summer.”

  “Why?”

  “Sand. Water. Girls. Shrimp and hush puppies. I don’t know, good stuff.”

  “And I’ll have a car.”

  “You’ll have a car. Right.”

  “Look, I’ve got to go.”