A Fine White Dust

by Cynthia Rylant

  I didn’t even bother with breakfast. I just dressed and got on my bike and headed for the drugstore. I was determined to sit in front of it all day long if I had to, waiting for him. I just wanted to be with him.

  Now, what happened to me that morning, I can’t exactly say. But I was not myself that day. I know it, and all I can guess is that part of me was still in some dream.

  Old Rufus. I hadn’t seen Rufus in a few days, so he didn’t know I got saved. Not that he would be surprised by it. Rufus knew that I was always thinking on heaven.

  But what Rufus wasn’t ready for was the new me. And the new me was sitting outside the drugstore that morning, waiting for somebody.

  Only Rufus came along first.

  When I saw him I thought, Shoot.

  Rufus was coming and I wanted to get rid of him.

  The telling.

  “Hey, you old hound dog!” he yelled when he saw me.

  The hound dog wasn’t interested. I gave a limp little wave and sort of looked up at the clouds.

  Rufus pulled in on his bike.

  “Hey, Pete, what’s up?”

  I looked at him. He was like somebody I’d never even met, it was that strange. I was looking at Rufus and nothing was clicking. To put it plain, I wasn’t the old hound dog anymore.

  “Not much.” I was still looking around in the air.

  Rufus, like I said, was not one to waste time getting to the point. He dropped his bike and sat down.

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  Still inspecting the entire atmosphere, I said, “Nothing.”

  Rufus made a face and punched me in the arm.

  “Aw, come on, Pete. You think I’m stupid? What’s wrong with you? How come you’re sitting here so dopey?”

  Dopey. I couldn’t believe it. I’m trying to look mature, plus uninterested, and Rufus calls me “dopey.” I wanted him gone.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” I said, my voice telling on my nerves. “Just waiting for someone, is all.” I looked down the street, arching my neck like a rooster.

  “Who?” Rufus asked.

  “None of your business,” I said right back, and regretted it the minute I said it. In all our years together, I never had said that to Rufus. Never. And when those words came out of my mouth, it was a shock to us both.

  Rufus was kind of speechless. His shoulders drooped and his mouth hung open and he just stared at me with that look he usually reserved for really stupid girls.

  What was I doing on a morning in June, waiting for some preacher and throwing off Rufus and never really knowing what was happening to me?

  Before he could get his words back, I took a deep breath and said to Rufus, “Did you know I got saved?”

  I looked him in the eyes real quick, but he still had that dumbfounded stare going.

  He leaned over closer to me.

  “You what?”

  “I got saved.” I was getting annoyed. The Preacher Man wasn’t coming and that worried me, and even if he did show, stupid Rufus was going to sit there and stare at me till kingdom come. My insides were bouncing all over the place.

  Rufus sat back again. He shrugged his shoulders.

  “So?” he said. “What’s wrong with you now?”

  “Nothing!” I sort of yelled. “I just thought you might like to know I got saved!”

  Rufus looked at me, shaking his head.

  “So now you’re saved and you don’t talk to people anymore? What is it, Pete?”

  And before I could tell Rufus what it was, which I didn’t really know anyhow, the Reverend James W. Carson came walking up the street.

  Preacher Man.

  I sat there with Rufus, not saying anything, just watching that tall figure in blue moving on up the street. Like he owned the street. Like he earned the street.

  I figured he did.

  I stared at him and Rufus stared at me staring at him, until finally there he was, in front of us.

  He looked down at me and smiled. That did it. I forgot all about Rufus and just broke into this outstanding grin.

  “ ’Morning,” I said, looking up.

  “ Morning, Pete,” he answered. He had his hands in his pockets, and he was all loose and comfortable. I wished I wasn’t sitting down.

  The Preacher’s eyes went over Rufus, who was giving him a good hard look.

  Shoot, I thought.

  “Uh … this is Rufus,” I said.

  Preacher held out his hand.

  “How are you, Rufus?” he said, all those perfect teeth showing.

  Rufus reached for the Preacher’s hand, and I mumbled, “This is the preacher who … I mean, this is Reverend Carson.”

  Now, Rufus was always practical. So straight off he asked, “You the one who saved Pete?”

  They had stopped the handshaking, and the Preacher was looking down on us both. I felt real small, but Rufus, he could have been ten feet taller than the Man, the way he was acting.

  The Preacher gave a slow kind of smile.

  “Well, I guess I am, though most would say it was the Lord God Almighty who really did the saving.”

  Rufus looked at me, then looked back at the Man. Then he did a funny thing. He stood up. I hadn’t thought of it.

  “Where you from, Reverend?” he asked.

  The Preacher glanced at me with a smile, like we had some secret between us, and I loved that.

  He said, “Nowhere and everywhere. Lately I come from heaven.”

  I loved it. He was something. I was so proud of him, standing there, it was like I was showing off a thing I owned.

  Now, I should have known hard-hitting Rufus wouldn’t take such an answer. I should have remembered that about Rufus.

  It’s funny, looking back, just how quick the Preacher Man did rile up my best friend. Put those two together on the street in front of the drugstore, and it was like a tornado, hot air hitting cold and just plain getting out of hand.

  Rufus leaned up against a light pole and crossed his arms. I’d seen him do that many times—he reserved it for folks he didn’t like. In a way, it was his battle position, leaning and crossing.

  I picked up on it. And panicked. I thought, Don’t you blow this for me, Rufus. Don’t you mess things up.

  Rufus said to the Man, “I never met anybody from heaven.” He gave a cocky little grin. “Or the other place either.”

  Preacher Man looked at Rufus, and I could swear his face started getting square. It got this set look to it.

  He said to Rufus, “If you aren’t careful, son, you might get the chance.” His eyes stopped smiling and took on that powerful look. “You could get yourself a free trip to either place. One-way.”

  I sort of chuckled, trying to lighten things up, but it wasn’t working. Something was going on.

  “Have you been saved, Rufus?” asked the Preacher.

  Rufus glanced at me, then back at the Man.

  “No.”

  “Have you considered, boy, that you could burn in eternal hell fire if you die today?”

  “No,” Rufus answered, looking the Man right in the eye.

  “Lord have mercy,” said the Preacher. He looked down at me—I was still sitting—and said, “Don’t be corrupted, Peter.”

  “Huh?” I said.

  “Don’t be pulled down by the devils you cannot save.”

  It took me a couple seconds to realize he was talking about Rufus. Rufus! Pulling me down.

  “Yes, sir,” I said. And when I said it, I knew Rufus was looking right at me like a person betrayed. I knew that.

  Preacher Man looked into my eyes.

  “Be careful, Pete,” he whispered. And without looking at Rufus again, he walked into the drugstore.

  I swallowed hard and stared at the ground. I missed him already. He was right there inside that building, and I was out in front feeling like my whole life was just one big empty box.

  Preacher, come back.

  Rufus stayed quiet, leaning against the pole and looking at me. He
uncrossed his arms and straightened up. He waited. But I didn’t have anything to say, I felt so dead.

  Rufus walked over and picked up his bike. He got on and rolled over beside me.

  “Pete?”

  I was still staring at the ground. “Huh?” I said, real quiet.

  Rufus waited a minute. Then he said, “I’ll be seeing you.”

  And it was a long time before I even noticed he had ridden off.

  The Invitation

  And on the third night …

  The third night, I had to wrestle with my heaven and my hell.

  The telling.

  I moped around the rest of that afternoon, after Rufus rode off. The Preacher stayed in the drugstore the longest time. When I stuck my face to the window to see what he was doing, I saw that Darlene, standing with her apron in her hand, had him cornered, and I gave up on him coming out anytime soon. Girls never shut up once they’ve got somebody cornered.

  So I moped. I felt this awful ton of rock in my stomach and seemed like nothing in the world could knock it out.

  Except him.

  I knew I’d feel worse if I hung around the drugstore waiting for Darlene to let him go, so I rode around town, thinking and moping. I remembered how I used to look for Pop when I went around town, watching for a phone truck, watching for a lineman up a ladder. From the time I was big enough to look up at the sky, I loved to see Pop up there at the top of the telephone poles. I thought he had a power nobody else had, being up there. And the older I got, and the more I knew about electrical stuff zapping you right out of this world, the more I saw Pop as a brave man.

  I wanted to be like him.

  He told me things, back then. I guess I was six or seven. He told me he wanted to be one of those doctors who go off in the jungle to heal ignorant people. He said he never was smart enough to be anything but a lineman, but that didn’t change what he would have been if he’d had a choice.

  He’d tell me that, and I’d wonder why on earth he’d want to be a jungle doctor when he could climb higher and risk more than anybody I knew.

  That was Pop and me, when I was little.

  But the summer I was thirteen, the day I biked and moped all by myself, I didn’t look for a lineman. Or for a best friend.

  I didn’t want anything but to be with the Man. And I couldn’t wait for night to come. The dark and the heat and the tears and the Man.

  Mother cooked ham for supper, but I ate so fast I hardly tasted it. Dinner was set late, and the revival time was coming up, and I didn’t want to miss a minute of it. Walk me through all the Jungle Gardenia in the world: I’d be there.

  So supper was fast. Pop discussed chain-link fences with Mother, and there wasn’t that gloominess settling in like the night before. I could forget them and eat, then run like the devil.

  I knew I had him only two more nights. I knew Preacher Man would be moving on after the next revival night, and I was afraid that my heart would never again explode with the spirit of the Lord. Never again would he look at me like he knew me inside out, blood and bones and cells and soul. Never again would anybody look at me and know how I felt, on fire with the Lord.

  Two more nights.

  I got there a half-hour early and already the place was nearly full. I found a seat close to the front, and when I sat down, I could feel my heart pounding thump-thump-thump, so hard and loud, I was nearly embarrassed thinking somebody might hear it.

  The choir was still in back, getting on their robes, so I had a chance to think.

  I looked up at the empty pulpit. And I pictured myself walking into it. Peter Cassidy, Reverend Peter Cassidy, come to preach.

  I would look into everybody’s face. I wouldn’t miss one. I would stare into everybody’s eyes and I would tell the people to like the Lord. I would point to that big picture of Him behind me and I’d have them liking Him. I’d have them wanting to be saved so they could get into heaven to sit with Him and hear His stories and know that there really is somebody in the world who is perfect. Who loves them always. Who never changes.

  “Reverend Cassidy, you have a way. You have a gift.”

  Then I blushed. I’m no preacher, I thought. It’s not in me. Nobody’s going to faint from the glory into my arms.

  I couldn’t even convince Rufus. I’m no preacher.

  I stopped thinking about it and just sat thumbing through the hymnal, silently singing all those familiar words to myself. It was nice to be in a place where I felt so close with everything.

  Eventually Joanie Fulton came out and started up the organ. The choir began filing in, mostly gray-haired men and women. Seemed nobody young wanted to sing with them. I figured I wouldn’t want to either.

  The minutes dragged and my heart nearly pumped itself right out of my body while I waited for the Man.

  And then he came.

  And like before, he had us all. Came out, and before anybody knew it, he had us so close to him it almost hurt. Maybe that’s why the tears came. It hurt so much and felt so good all at the same time.

  People started going up as soon as he said, “Come.” They went up there to him, and you could see they didn’t care about a thing but having him touch them. My eyes were so full, I kept having to use my sleeve to clear them out. People in my pew were going up there, and I wanted to go, too. Like always, I wanted to go.

  Then, when I was stepping out into the aisle so somebody could get by me and go up, I looked toward the back of the church and saw Mother.

  She was near the very back, sitting on the far edge of a pew, like someone who has to leave early. I stood there in the aisle, and with all those people and all that crying, and with my eyes so filled up, still I saw her. And I believe she saw me.

  I say I believe, because our eyes met only for a second. Then more people came by me—Elton Fletcher raising his arms up to heaven, Fleda Lilly holding a handkerchief to her face—and by the time they had passed me, she was gone.

  Mother. For a few moments, I felt like I did when I was a little child. When she would leave me home with Pop or Granny and go out the door, and I’d say, “Mother, don’t leave me!” The door would close and I’d cry and cry and cry.

  Mother, don’t leave me.

  Why was she there? Was it really her? I never learned. I was afraid to ask her. And later, I was embarrassed by the thought of what she must have seen on my face.

  I loved the Preacher Man. She was my mother and she would have seen it. She would have known I loved him.

  So when I couldn’t find her in the crowd, I turned back to the pulpit, back to the Man, and I said “Amen” when he said it. I said “Hallelujah” when he said it. My body shook with joy and emotion beyond telling as I watched him. It shook with pain.

  At the end of the meeting, when the organ and the choir and the Preacher were silent, I was spent. Worn out. I was in a daze.

  So when I walked out into the night air and, still trembling, got my feet moving toward home, I hardly had the energy to be surprised when he stopped me.

  “Pete?” He put his hand on my shoulder.

  I turned sort of slow and looked at him. We were on the sidewalk. The last of the cars were pulling out. Most everyone who was walking home had already gone.

  “Huh?” Then I realized who it was. The happiness just broke loose over my whole body, and I smiled at him.

  “Hi, Reverend.”

  He sighed and smiled, almost sadly, pulled out a handkerchief, and wiped his face with it.

  “A good evening of salvation,” he said.

  “Sure was.” I stood fidgeting with my hands.

  “I’m worn out,” he said quietly, and I nodded my head at him in sympathy.

  “I’m going to walk down to the pop machine at the filling station,” he said, stuffing the handkerchief in the pocket of his jacket. “You want a pop?”

  I said okay, and we started down the street together. Like I said, I was so tired I could hardly muster up the nervousness I usually felt when I was around him.
So I was quiet and content, and we walked.

  We got to the machine about six blocks down and took our pops to sit on the stone wall alongside the station.

  He took the longest drink of root beer I ever saw a grown man take. Then he wiped his mouth, stood up, took off his jacket, and sat back down.

  Without his suit jacket he was like a stranger. For a minute I looked at him in his shirt, and he was nearly like any other man. That jacket did cast its spell.

  “I’m worn out, Pete,” he said softly.

  I nodded my head again.

  He looked up at the stars.

  “When I was a boy,” he said, “I had a friend named Johnny Mitchell. He’d been in the navy and he had tattoos and he brushed his teeth with baking soda.”

  I nodded, wondering where the Preacher was heading.

  “Johnny never married. He lived with his folks and he drove coal trucks, wrecking one every now and then.

  “And Johnny loved me. He bought me cheese-burgers and Juicy Fruit and he taught me how to swing on a grapevine.”

  Preacher looked at me with a sad smile.

  “He drove a Rambler and tailgated everybody, and he cussed all the time.” The Preacher took a deep breath. “But because of him, I grew up thinking I was safe.”

  Then the Preacher was quiet again. I didn’t know what to say. But what came out was, “I always want to feel safe, too.”

  And I guess it was the right thing to say, because he looked at me like I’d said something important.

  “I was always different, Pete,” he said. “Not in an obvious way. But I knew I was different.

  “When I was sixteen there was this boy in our high school. From Russia.”

  “Russia?” I said.

  “Yes, sure enough. His name was Varas. He had owl eyes and round glasses and knew math like nobody’s business. He played jazz saxophone and told great stories. But since nobody could pronounce his last name and since his family wasn’t Christian and since he was just too smart for us all to keep up with, Varas was mostly alone.”

  I shook my head in sympathy for Varas and started to say he sounded like a great guy, but then the Preacher added, “Like me.”

  “You?” I asked. At first I didn’t see his connection.