The Diva Wore Diamonds

by Mark Schweizer

  “You should be so lucky,” said Meg.

  Chapter 4

  Saturday morning loomed like a movie special effects spectacular, something out of Twister or maybe Lord of the Rings, Part Two. I woke at 7:30 to the sound of distant thunder—not just the occasional clap, but the rolling kind, the kind that comes in waves that make the windows rattle, the thunder that makes you think that maybe there are bowling alleys in heaven and makes you wonder if angels have their own bowling shoes or if they have to wear rentals. But maybe that’s just me.

  We had our windows open, and, until this morning, the weather had been pleasant and cool. Now the air was warm and heavy and uncomfortably sticky. I gave Meg a kiss, left her to her Saturday morning dozing and headed for the kitchen to make some coffee, closing the windows along my trek through the house. Archimedes, sitting primly on the kitchen counter, greeted me with two great blinks as I walked in. He hadn’t been around for a few days, but he sensed the storm and obviously preferred waiting it out in the house. I didn’t see Baxter, but knew he’d probably taken refuge under the bed in one of the guest rooms, his usual place during a thunderstorm. Fearless in most circumstances, Baxter was a sissy when it came to thunder. I started the coffee, then went outside to the garage and fetched a couple of mice out of the fridge for the owl. Coming back in, I saw some towering thunderheads toward the southwest, huge clouds with puffed edges standing straight up. The overshooting top, that cauliflower-like bubble of cloud that peeks out of the flat top of the thunderhead, told the story. This was going to be bad. The clouds were gray and menacing and were lit almost continuously from inside by diffused lightning. The storm was still a long way off, though. I judged fifty or sixty miles.

  I went back inside, fed Archimedes his breakfast and took a cup of coffee to Meg. She was sitting up in bed watching The Weather Channel.

  “Thanks,” she said with a smile, then nodded toward the television. “The storm is over Kingsport. High winds, hail, and a lot of lightning.”

  “Eighty miles away,” I said. “I thought it was a little closer than that.”

  “It’s big. Should hit us around noon.”

  “Yep,” I said. “I’m going to go for a run, and then I’ve got to get into town. I’ll get breakfast at the Slab.”

  “I’ll come with you,” said Meg. “Not running. Breakfasting.”

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll be ready in an hour.”

  “Me, too,” lied Meg.

  •••

  The Slab Café was packed. Meg and I had figured that the crowd would be sparse, thanks to the big storm a-brewing. Luckily for Pete, Brother Hog had made the Slab Café the rendezvous point for all the protesters. And since everyone was rendezvousing anyway, why not have some breakfast? Every table was full, every barstool occupied. Luckily for us, one of the tables was occupied by Pete and Cynthia, and they’d saved a couple of seats.

  “Wow,” said Meg. “I had no idea the Slab was this popular.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Pete. “Hog brought in a couple of vans full of customers, and then some came in on their own.” He pointed to the corner by the door. About thirty protest signs were stacked neatly against the wall.

  “Who’s flipping the flapjacks?” I asked.

  “José’s back there cooking. Wormy’s washing dishes. Noylene’s got the floor, and Pauli Girl should be here shortly to help out. I called her about a half-hour ago when I saw what was happening.”

  Noylene scuttled by and splashed our coffee cups full in a mad dash to the kitchen. “Be right back,” she called over her shoulder. “Y’all want waffles, right?”

  “Well, actually…” said Meg, raising a finger in a futile gesture and looking in desperation at the swinging kitchen door. It was too late. Noylene was gone.

  “Right,” said Cynthia. “Waffles for everyone.”

  “I’ll have mine with waffles,” I said.

  “That storm is gonna wash these guys out,” said Pete. “They’d better get to praying pretty quick. If they wait too much longer, they’re going to be soggier than Noah’s houseplant.”

  The cowbell hanging on the door banged with a jangle, and Pauli Girl raced to the kitchen to clock in and get her apron on. Noylene appeared a few seconds later with an armload of orders. The folks in the Slab on this dreary morning were not of the tourist variety and so were not at all antsy about getting fed in a hurry. They had plenty of time.

  The four of us, as well as the other patrons, had our repasts in front of us and were well on our way to feeling mighty satisfied by 9:30. Belgian waffles with maple syrup, whipped butter and walnuts on a summer morning in early June just can’t be beat. In fact, it was 9:30 on the nose when Brother Hog opened the front door, stuck his head into the Slab and called, “It’s time to start! Let’s get moving, folks!”

  Everyone, except the four of us, got up, collected their slickers, purses, umbrellas and placards and made their way to the cash register where Noylene was stationed.

  “It’s like music to my ears,” said Pete wistfully, as we listened to the register ding every time the drawer opened. “The register and the cowbell. Someone should write a concerto.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the Slab was shed of customers, and the tables were piled high with dirty dishes. Noylene and Pauli Girl came out and fell, exhausted, into a couple of chairs at the next table. They were joined by Wormy and José, who came out of the kitchen a moment later.

  “Thank God that’s over,” said Noylene. Pauli Girl nodded her agreement.

  “I think they’ll be back for lunch,” said Cynthia. “At least that’s what I heard. Some of them anyway. They think The Ginger Cat’s too expensive, and they don’t want to go into the Bear and Brew since they’re picketing it.”

  “That’s just good manners,” said Meg.

  “Well,” said Pete, getting to his feet, “we’d better get this place cleaned up and ready for lunch, then.”

  “They may be back here earlier than that,” Cynthia said, with a glance to the front windows. “Look outside.”

  In the last thirty seconds, the sun had all but disappeared, the air pressure had dropped noticeably, and the trees were starting to wave their branches in a somewhat alarming fashion.

  “Lookit my arms,” said Pauli Girl, holding her arm out for inspection. “All the hair’s standing up.”

  “Weird,” said Noylene.

  “I’m takin’ my break,” said Wormy, helping himself to a waffle that had been mysteriously left uneaten on a moderately clean plate.

  “Me, too,” said José. He didn’t make a move for a waffle, but did get up and pour himself a cup of coffee.

  “I’ll go see how the prayer meeting’s going,” I said.

  “I’m coming, too,” said Meg. “For a little while, at least.”

  “Count me in,” said Cynthia.

  Pete gave Cynthia his best puppy-dog look. “I thought maybe you’d help out here,” he said. “Look at this mess.”

  “Nope,” said Cynthia. “You’re on your own. I’m the mayor.”

  •••

  By the time we’d battled the wind and walked across the park, the vigil was in full swing. Brother Hog was standing on a soapbox—an actual soap box. I don’t know where he got it. I wasn’t sure I’d even seen one before. On the side of the wooden box was the old Ivory Soap logo accompanied by the slogan “99.44/100 % Pure: It Floats.” Brother Hog was perched on top, his comb-over struggling valiantly to remain atop his head. The rest of the crowd, forty or so people, huddled together against the upcoming storm. The giant storm clouds had rolled in, and the rumbling of the thunder was beyond ominous. The flashes of lightning that we saw were still hidden in the folds of the great clouds, but they were frequent and not a little frightening.

  “I’m not going to stay out here very long,” said Meg.

  “Me, neither,” I said.

  The Bear and Brew wasn’t open, and no one would even be there for another half-hour or so, but Russ Stafford joined u
s on the sidewalk behind the faithful gatherers.

  “I sure hope that referendum passes,” he said. “It’d be good for business.”

  “I have no problem with it,” I said. “I certainly wouldn’t mind a beer with my pizza on a Sunday afternoon.”

  “Now you all know why we’re here,” said Brother Hog in a stentorian voice. He hadn’t been preaching at tent revivals all those years for nothing. He had the lungs of a Wagnerian tenor.

  “We don’t need to be serving any liquor on the Lord’s Day. That day is set aside for the worship of God in His Holiness. Now, we can’t do nothin’ about how people choose to spend that day. Many will go to sporting events. Many will choose their own relaxation over the worship of God Almighty. Can’t do nothin’ about that. But we can do something about this, and what we can do, we should do.”

  “Amen, brother,” came a voice from the crowd.

  “So, let’s pray that God will intervene in this election and that His will be done.”

  The wind had finally gotten hold of the end of Brother Hog’s hair, and it was unwinding at a rapid pace. He didn’t see it until it came floating by his face on its second revolution, at which point he grabbed the end and stuffed it down his shirt. Most people didn’t notice or didn’t care. They had their own well-being to worry about.

  “Let us pray,” yelled Brother Hog, over the wind. A huge clap of thunder made everyone jump. It was close.

  “Dear God, all powerful and ever living King of the Universe…”

  We felt the first raindrops. No. Not rain. Hail. The wind picked up, and a few umbrellas went inside out with a whoosh. About half of Brother Hog’s congregation made for shelter.

  “We ask that you, in your might, and by your power, stop this unholy act of irreverence by whatever means that you see fit. We ask that you allow your sovereign people to observe your Holy Day without the influence or temptation of alcohol and that this establishment,—” he stabbed a finger at the Bear and Brew— “be fated as Sodom and Gomorrah was fated in days of old.”

  “That’s a little harsh,” yelled Russ, struggling to be heard above the wind. “The Bear and Brew is hardly Sodom and Gomorrah.”

  “He’s just getting wound up,” I hollered back. “It’s the revivalist in him.”

  Another clap of thunder, nearer still, got the remaining faithful looking around worryingly.

  Brother Hog continued, now shouting above the storm that seemed about to break all around us.

  “Grant our boon, O God, and in your power, show Your will, Your Holy and Righteous will, to the inhabitants of St. Germaine, that they might know and fear the LORD!”

  It was at that moment that the lightning struck, a sheer bolt of blinding light that illuminated the clouds and hit so near us that the explosion of sound was simultaneous, and we could feel the electricity snap in the air. Half a beat later, there was an explosion, then another, and the whole roof of the Bear and Brew burst into flames.

  •••

  We learned later that the lightning strike, in that mysterious way that lightning sometimes travels, had managed to negotiate a path from a roof vent to the storage room behind the kitchen and ignite the five-hundred gallon natural gas tank that fueled the pizza ovens. We didn’t have any municipal gas service in St. Germaine, and everyone that used gas, either for heat or for cooking, had their natural gas delivered and pumped into their storage tanks at regular intervals. Some of these tanks were buried in the backyard, marked by a silver metal dome that jutted six inches above the soil, but most sat on blocks behind people’s houses. A few businesses, like the Bear and Brew, had the tanks inside.

  The volunteer fire department was on the scene fifteen minutes after the fire started, but they were ineffective at best. The building was a total loss; the back half of the roof had fallen in moments after the trucks had driven up. Besides, the firefighters couldn’t possibly have poured more water on the fire than the storm itself was providing. It was as though God blew up the building, then decided to put out the fire, just to show that He could.

  Meg, Russ Stafford, Cynthia, and I had backed into the Appalachian Music Shoppe, a smallish store just across from the Bear and Brew, to get out of the weather. Ian Burch, the proprietor, a musicologist trying to eke out a living selling replicas of medieval and Renaissance instruments, had been in the back when the explosion happened, but came running to the front window as the sound of the blast rattled some of his shawms and recorders off their shelves.

  Brother Hog and the protesters disappeared a matter of moments after the supernatural event. The ones who had come to the prayer meeting by church van piled back in quicker than you could say “Mene, mene, tickle the parson,” and the vans were long gone by the time the fire trucks pulled up. The folks who had their own cars walked quickly away in the manner of children who realize that something they’ve been involved in has suddenly gone very wrong. It was like when you were a kid, and you and your friends would dare some other kid to throw a firecracker at Old Lady Porter’s cat, and when he did, the “pop” made Mr. Whiskers dash into the road where a moving van flattened him, and everyone walked away, stiff-legged, as fast as they could in different directions, hands in pockets, trying to look as inconspicuous as possible. Most of these folks went to find a store where they could lie low, wait out the heavy rain, and pretend they hadn’t been involved.

  I’d asked Russ if there had been anyone inside the restaurant, and he indicated that the building had been empty.

  “No one comes in before ten,” he said through clenched teeth. “We open at noon. Well,” he added, “we used to.”

  “Maybe it’s not a total loss,” suggested Cynthia.

  As if in answer to Cynthia’s observation, the rest of the roof fell in with a crash that we could hear over the rain and behind the closed glass door of the Music Shoppe.

  “Wow,” said Ian Burch, in his high, squeaky tenor, having collected his assorted rauschpfeifes from off the floor and set them back on the shelves. “It’s sort of like that preacher called down the wrath of God upon the Bear and Brew.”

  I looked over at Meg. She raised her eyebrows in return.

  “That fat, little son-of-a-bitch,” Russ growled. “I’ll sue his damned pants off. Him and his church.”

  “You have insurance, don’t you?” asked Meg.

  “I’m not gonna file a claim,” said Russ. “New Fellowship Baptist Church is responsible. New Fellowship Baptist Church is gonna pay.”

  Chapter 5

  Celebration Sunday had awakened under a quilted blanket of fog, low-hanging tracts of “smoke” that gave the Smoky Mountains their unique character as well as their name. This was the Appalachians in June. At the intervals where the smoke vanished from the headlights, the hills in the lower gaps were awash in color. Meg and I drove slowly down the mountain, taking our time, not just because of the fog, but because the wildlife was plentiful and unconcerned by traffic. We slowed for a family of deer—a doe and two fawns—that had decided that the flowers beside the road would make a perfect breakfast. They looked up, startled, as we drove past, then dove into the purple blossoms of the rhododendron. By the time we arrived in town, the sun had managed to chase most of the fog back into the hollers, and the day was looking as the celebration and welcoming committee of St. Barnabas thought it should.

  We’d rehearsed in the new sanctuary for the first time on Wednesday evening. Moving our rehearsals back from Thursday evening to Wednesday hadn’t helped our sight-reading any, but we were out of the courthouse at last and glad of it. The choir loft, still situated in the back of the church, had been outfitted with new chairs, music racks for folders, new hymnals—the works. The organ wasn’t quite finished, but most of the ranks were there and functional, having been voiced and tuned late in the week. I was playing the Bach Little Prelude and Fugue Number 4 in F Major for the prelude and had even managed quite a bit of practice in the last week. The choir had been working on Behold, the Tabernacle of the Lord by
William Harris, perfect for the first Sunday back in our new church and one of the choir’s favorites. In addition, there was new service music, three hymns, the Psalm, and Sicut Cervus, the lovely Palestrina motet, to be sung during communion. It would be a full day.

  I was in the church office, making copies of my latest literary effort and a couple of easy hymn descants to pass out to the choir, when Kimberly Walnut, our brand new Christian formation director, walked in.

  “Good morning, Hayden Konig,” she chirped, rattling her single piece of paper as if to say, “If you’re going to be using the machine for a while, I’m really in a hurry, so you should get out of the way and let me go first.” I wasn’t buying it.

  “Good morning, Kimberly Walnut,” I replied. The photocopier chugged away happily. “I hear you have quite a Bible School planned for next week.”

  Kimberly saw that she wasn’t going to get to the copier any sooner, gave a disgusted huff through pursed lips and crossed her arms in annoyance.

  “Yes,” she said. “It’s a program I did with a large church in Kentucky when I was in seminary. It’s called Bible Bazaar 31 A.D. It’s all centered around a bazaar in biblical times. The kids all dress up. The adults as well. We do plays and skits about stories in the Bible and help the kids do activities. You know, like sandal-making and carpentry and pottery and baking and things like that. We didn’t have enough time to do it all ourselves, so New Fellowship Baptist and Sand Creek Methodist are going to join us. We should have quite a turnout.”

  “Sounds great,” I said. “Meg and I signed up. I’m the tax-collector. I think Meg is one of the tent-mothers.”

  “Meg said you’d write our creation play. Is it finished yet?”

  “She said what?”

  “She said you’d be happy to write our creation play. It’s for the second day.”

  I sighed. The photocopy machine finished its chore with a final click, and I retrieved my papers from the tray.