The Bible Salesman

by Clyde Edgerton

  Dear Mr. Humphries,

  I take pen to paper hoping this epistle finds you in good times. I am a traveling preacher of the Gospel (Missionary Baptist) and I appreciate the work the Heritage Bible Society is doing for everybody by distributing the Word of God free of charge. What a valuable contribution to our sinful society! I am a young man, twenty years of age, just starting in on a circuit ministry that will take me to Missionary Baptist churches and also other churches and tent meetings and house meetings throughout North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.

  I am doing all I can to support widows and orphans as directed by the holy scripture and when I am in a better financial predicament I will be able to make contributions to your organization for sure.

  If you can send a box or two of Bibles I am presently in Atlanta, Georgia, until sometime in July. Mail can be sent through General Delivery. I am very sure that I could give away 50 Bibles in a short while to very needy people who are hungry for God’s word and do not have the money handy to afford a Bible.

  May God Bless You,

  Henry Dampier

  Dear Caroline,

  Everything is going as usual. I’m sorry I haven’t wrote in so long. I sold seven Bibles yesterday and I am finding that a lot of housewives want a new Bible. We are headed back down through Atlanta, Georgia. Send me a letter when you all get the phone and a phone number so I can call. Mr. Clearwater the man I am traveling with has a pistol and we shot two squirrels yesterday and I fixed squirrel stew in this motel with little kitchens in the rooms. We had some chili peppers from a store in Marietta, Georgia. It was real good and Mr. Clearwater had not ever eaten any squirrel. I had lots of canned vegetables mixed in so it was not as good as it could be.

  Next time I write I will write Aunt Ruth and Ma D. Tell them that. I hope we can come before too long to see you all. Write back when you can. This time send mail to Atlanta Ga. General Delivery.

  I will let you know when we will be coming up to Swan Island. If there’s any way you could plan a vacation in Swan Island and bring Carson that would be great. Glenn could come too. I hope you and him are still getting along dandy. I forgot to mention him last time I wrote. Please tell him hello. I might not get a chance to drive home because of my new work which is too complicated to write out (plus I am not supposed to tell). What this means is I might not get the time to come to Simmons this time but will be coming to Swan Island for sure.

  Love & Kisses,

  Henry

  I’m not so concerned with what you know and say and how youbehave, although that is very important. . . . I’m interested in how thecustomerbehaves. Because her behavior will lead her to buy or it will lead her to refuse to buy. You’re a leader, a guide, a mover, a maker, a teacher, a chief, a molder, a baker. And if you don’t have a lot of confidence, you need to pretend you do.

  At about noon Henry returned to a house just up the road from the cabin camp. He’d passed it up that morning because it looked like not only a good sell stop but a good dinnertime stop. It had hanging flowers on the porch and was a good bit back from the road. He fastened his top shirt button, tightened his tie, and pulled his coat sleeves down as far as he could, tipped his hat back a bit so he wouldn’t look like a gangster. As he walked up the driveway, he noticed a black DeSoto, 1939, in the garage beside the house — facing outward. Looked a little dusty.

  It was good to get under the porch roof, out of the heat. He knocked, stepped back a few steps. A lady with a hair bun on top and crochet needles stuck through it answered the door. She was bent a little. As she pushed open the screen, Henry removed his hat and held it across his chest. He noticed that she had a little mole on her chin that looked like the tip end of a fishing worm. She had a twinkle in her eye and held a white table napkin in her hand. He felt confident about an easy sell or two. “Oh gosh, ma’am, I’m awful sorry to be pulling you away from your dinner.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind. What’s your bidness?”

  “My name is Henry Dampier, and I’m proud to be of Christian service to you. I’ve got something very pretty in this little box here that I’d like to show you if you’ve got a minute or two, but I tell you what, ma’am — I’m going to sit right here on this porch until you finish your meal, and then I’ll show you what I’ve got. I’m in no hurry at all.”

  “You come on in,” she said. “It’s mighty hot out here. We got a fan on inside.”

  “It’s been hot up in North Carolina too, where I’m from. And dry. It got so dry my uncle ate three acres’ worth of corn in one sitting.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s hot and dry up in North Carolina.”

  “Come on in and get you a bite to eat and a glass of ice tea, if you’re a mind.” She pushed open the screen door all the way. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. . . . what was the name?”

  “Henry Dampier.”

  “I’m Eloise Finley. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mrs. Finley.” Henry stepped into the living room. “Mighty fine,” he said. An oscillating fan, slowly facing one way, then the other, sat on a small table by an arched entryway to the dining room. Doilies and baby dolls in the living room. A picture on the wall of the collie protecting the sheep just like the one Aunt Dorie had. “We had that same picture when I was growing up. Something sure smells good.”

  “You ain’t been growed up too long,” said Mrs. Finley. “Let me have your hat.”

  “Thank you very much.” He didn’t see a Bible about.

  In the dining room, a round wood dining table, a half-full plate sitting near a pulled-back chair, a few bowls of food on the table, and there: another woman, older, little, sitting quietly, chewing, looking at him.

  “How do?” Henry nodded.

  She nodded back. “Tolerable, thank you.”

  Mrs. Finley said, “That’s my sister, Sarah.”

  “Howdy,” said Sarah. “Sit down there.”

  Henry sat in the chair across from Miss Sarah. “Thank you. You remind me of my Aunt Sis, Mrs. Finley,” he said to Mrs. Finley, now over at the stove. “Used to cook me cabbage. She cooked it with a spot of red pepper.”

  “I put a little red pepper in my cabbage. And collards too. I’ll fix you a plate. Is there anything you don’t like?”

  “No ma’am. This is mighty nice. I do appreciate it.” He smelled freshly cut cucumber — in vinegar? He eyed Mrs. Finley’s plate: a full potato broken open with a fork, and it looked like a half a pork chop with gravy on it, a few string beans, and slices of cucumber and tomato. “Mighty nice,” he said, looking around.

  “Sarah had a stroke a while back,” said Mrs. Finley from the stove, “but she’s about got over it.”

  Sarah looked at him.

  Mrs. Finley said, loudly, “Sarah, tell him about kissing Orvis.”

  “I didn’t kiss my husband afore we was married and I didn’t kiss him after.”

  “And tell him how many children you had,” said Mrs. Finley.

  “Eleven,” she said with a big smile. She had two teeth down bottom, and that seemed to be about it.

  “That’s something,” said Henry. “Eleven children.”

  “And I lost two besides that.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Sarah is ninety-one year old.”

  “Well, she don’t look it.” He thought: She looks ninety-eight.

  “And she still drives her car out there too. But she won’t eat like she ought to.”

  Sarah said, “You eat it.”

  “I don’t want it. It’s yourn.”

  “I don’t want no more.”

  “I was just thinking about your health, Sarah. You’ve got to eat for stamina. Vitality. Right, Mr. Henry?”

  “Yes ma’am.”

  “She fell in the garden last year, a few weeks before she had her stroke. We never could figure if there was any connection — you know, if there’d been two strokes. Anyway, she couldn’t get up, and stayed out there two or three hours till we
went looking for her late in the afternoon. We thought she’d walked down the road to our neighbor’s garden for some peppers — we didn’t grow any last year — and then when we found her right out back, there she lay in the corn rows, with her hands all dirty. Tell him, Sarah.”

  Sarah picked up her napkin, wiped her mouth, and said, “I weeded as far as I could reach.”

  Mrs. Finley placed a plate of food in front of Henry. She sat, closed her eyes, and Henry closed his. “Dear Lord,” she said, “again, for these and the many blessings thou hast given us, we are eternally grateful. In our Saviour’s blessed name, amen.”

  “Miss Sarah,” said Henry, “you think you might could drive me up to Jeffries?”

  She looked at him, chewed. Chewed some more. “It’ll cost you.”

  “That’s fine. How about a new Bible?”

  “I could use a new Bible.”

  “Two Bibles,” said Henry. “One for Mrs. Finley. Plus a tank of gas.” Marleen, Marleen. Marleen Green.

  “Sarah,” said Mrs. Finley, “I don’t think you —”

  “Aw, I can drive to Jeffries and back,” said Miss Sarah. “I did it while Orvis was alive. Many a time.”

  Henry thought, Well, that’s a load off my mind.

  “We’ll talk about that later,” said Mrs. Finley. “So it’s Bibles you’re selling?”

  “Yes’m. Selling the word of the Lord. It’s one of the most noble selling jobs I can imagine.”

  “It’s all a paved road now,” said Miss Sarah. “There and back.”

  “If it was paved there,” said Mrs. Finley, “I’d think it’d be paved back.” Then she said to Henry, “If she gets determined, there ain’t no stopping her.”

  “There was that road to Atlanta,” said Miss Sarah, “that stayed paved on just the going side for over two years — don’t you remember that?”

  “Oh, I see. That’s right. Anyway, Mr. Henry, I guess we could drop you off in Jeffries and drive on into Atlanta. I’d like to go to the dime store.”

  “That would be fine with me,” said Henry. “Yes ma’am.”

  “Let me go put on some lipstick,” said Miss Sarah. “This dress is all right, don’t you think?” she asked Mrs. Finley.

  “It’s fine, Sarah.”

  By the front door, on a little table, Henry noticed, was a framed photograph of a man in his coffin. “Who is that?” he asked.

  “Oh, that’s Orvis,” said Mrs. Finley. “Sarah’s husband.”

  It was a picture taken from the foot of the coffin, more or less, a proud old man in coat and tie, white flowers in the background. Henry looked around the room for another photograph of Orvis, then stood for a minute. “Do you-all have something a little younger?” he asked Mrs. Finley.

  “Not handy,” she said.

  Henry, his valise in one hand, Miss Sarah’s arm in his other, stepped slowly down the front steps. She was so tiny. She grasped the straps to her purse in one hand — the purse bumped a step on each step down — and the car keys in the other. Mrs. Finley, following, said, “She can’t see all that good, but it’ll be good for her to get out. She ain’t drove in . . . I don’t know how long it’s been.”

  “Has she drove since she had her stroke?” asked Henry.

  “Well . . . Sarah, have you drove since you had your stroke? I don’t remember.”

  “What?”

  “Have you drove since you had your stroke?”

  “I don’t think it was a stroke.”

  “That’s what the doctor said.”

  “He won’t all that smart, if you ask me. His secatery wouldn’t even look at you.” She halted, glared up at Henry. “I can’t stand it when a body won’t even look at you.”

  “Yes ma’am,” said Henry. “Have you driven since you got sick?”

  “I think I did. Let’s get in the car.”

  “I’ll be glad to drive,” said Henry.

  “That’s a good idea,” said Mrs. Finley. “Wait a minute. Let me go back and get my handbag. He’s going to drive, Sarah.”

  Miss Sarah halted again, frowned. “He’s going to what?”

  “Drive,” said Henry. “If that’s okay with you.”

  “I don’t think so. I want to drive. I like to drive. Where are we going?”

  “Jeffries. Up to Jeffries.”

  Mrs. Finley, coming down the steps with her pocketbook, said, “She wants to drive, I bet.”

  Henry turned. “Yes ma’am.”

  “Then it’s nothing much we can do. I’ll sit in the back.”

  The car faced out of the garage. Henry opened the driver’s door for Miss Sarah. Two bed pillows rested on her seat. She reached in and smoothed the top one. “Them pillowcases need changing,” she said. She looked up at Henry. “Why you need to go to Jeffries?”

  “To see my girlfriend,” he said. He felt like spring had come.

  “Oh. Well. That’s a good reason.” She slowly climbed into the seat. It took her a while. Henry closed the door. Mrs. Finley sat in back with her door closed.

  Henry got in, noticed a radio on the dashboard. “Oh, good. You got a radio.”

  “I thought it would be a nice thing to have,” said Mrs. Finley from the backseat.

  Miss Sarah inserted the key, turned it, stepped on the starter; the engine turned for a few seconds and then caught. She stepped on the clutch, pulled the floor gear lever into first, and drove out the driveway and into the road, looking both ways but not stopping.

  They were quiet for a few miles.

  “I didn’t even look at the gas,” said Miss Sarah. “How much gas is in there? I can’t read the dial.”

  Henry leaned over. “It’s about half full.” He felt a hope, an urgency, yeasting up. The ladies would drive off and leave him there with her. He could maybe get a kiss somehow and then the next time would be at night up at the motel, or somewhere, and . . . He’d kissed Amanda Dunn on two school hayrides in eighth grade, and then a few months later he’d kissed Gladys Fellpell — who everybody had kissed — coming home from the Fishertown skating rink in the bed of Mr. Dunn’s pickup. Gladys had told him right after the kiss that she loved him, and he was so nervous he told her he loved her too. He didn’t especially like her, though, because she wanted to talk all the time and had given him a skull ring that Aunt Dorie told him looked like it had something to do with the devil. After Gladys, Carson told him about Song of Solomon and the bra strap thing, and he’d had his three main girlfriends, Nan Faircloth, Dorothy Cox, and Betty Beal. And he’d discovered why Mrs. Long, the Latin teacher and counselor, told all the girls not to ever do heavy petting. It was because they got hot — and ready to do about anything, it looked like. But he’d saved himself. He’d promised Aunt Dorie.

  After about an hour they passed the Night’s Rest Motel. “We need to turn in right there at that fruit stand,” he said. She’d made a new sign and changed the ect. to etc. He saw the scales — and Marleen under the tent all alone, exactly as he’d seen her over and over in his mind.

  Marleen noticed the black car as it slowed, turned off the road, and pulled up too close to the squash. It sat there running. An old woman, it looked like, or a child, was driving. Instead of the engine just quitting, the car lurched backward and choked to a stop. Somebody getting out on the passenger side and . . . was it . . . ? She stood. “Henry?” It was Henry. Who were the old ladies? He’d brought his grandmas? Or he’d hitchhiked?

  She walked out from under the tent, extended her hand, palm down, and said, “Hey, Henry. I’m so glad you’re back. I was hoping you might be.”

  “Hey, Marleen. These ladies are driving into Atlanta and they want to meet you.” Marleen stood at the passenger window and Henry introduced them.

  As they drove away, he said, “I was lucky to run up on them.”

  “The one driving looked pretty old.”

  “She was. Ninety-one.”

  “Come on under the tent. What happened the other day?”

  He explained about being calle
d away, about the cabin camp on the Okaloga near Brownlee, then listened as she told about waiting for him. She was sure something had gone wrong. She wasn’t mad at all. She asked about the ladies. He told about his visit with them, that they were sisters, and about their stop at a service station and Miss Sarah thinking the man who pumped gas was one of her sons.

  A car stopped, a family — man, woman, and two girls — got out, came in, and walked among the fruits and vegetables. They made their purchases and left, and Henry and Marleen talked again — this time about the family just there, guessing how old the two girls were, the man’s job, where they were from. Henry forgot God, country, Bibles, and FBI work. Marleen forgot her sister, the chickens to kill, the bookmobile. The shape of Marleen’s face, the texture of her voice, the laugh, her loveliness, all made themselves into a new form that Henry could almost feel with his hands, as real to him as the Jesus he’d once followed down the aisle at church. Already locked into Marleen’s memory were Henry’s long eyelashes, the unruly hair sticking up on the back of his head, the blood veins up from the arms, the long fingers, animated eyes, and his mother wit. She would write a poem about him.

  They talked about aspirin and whether or not it actually stopped pain or covered it up. Henry said it just covered it up, that the pain was still there. Marleen said if you didn’t feel the pain then the pain was not there, since pain can’t happen until you feel it, even though the reason for the pain might be the very same as it was. Henry thought about it, said she was probably right.

  Two men in dirty clothes drove up and bought two apples and a jar of jelly. They sat on the tailgate of their truck in the shade and ate. They’d brought along a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and a couple of Big Top grape drinks.

  Henry thought about “have,” “know,” and “that.” He explained how you sometimes couldn’t for sure talk about an object in some ways unless you knew which particular one it was so that you could say that one. Marleen was confused at first, but then said that many times she had thought just about the very same thing. Yes, you couldn’t make any real sense about certain kinds of tree things if you talked about trees in general. You needed to say that tree, and then talk about just one, where it was, where the first limb was, what had marked it up. Marleen had the concept down: “Sometimes generalizations don’t work,” she said.