The Presence

by T. Davis Bunn

  “Y’all haven’t been fightin’,” Jeremy said. It was not a question.

  “No,” Catherine answered, still subdued, her eyes on her husband. “It’s not that.”

  “You look all lit up like a Christmas tree,” Jeremy remarked to TJ.

  “Everything’s fine, Jem,” TJ replied quietly.

  “Let it wait till we’re home,” Catherine repeated, handing up the cooler. “Here comes little Miss Hurricane again.”

  When they were packed and ready to roll, Jeremy elected to let Catherine drive so he could sit in back with Macon. That way, he told the girl, he wouldn’t have to reach over anyone when it came time to feed her to the bears. He was gruffer with her than with the other four grandchildren because she was his favorite, and he was embarrassed by how much he cared for her. With her child’s perception, she sensed the truth and answered with a love as strong as his own.

  Jeremy divided his attention between Macon, who was giving her doll a detailed account of the weekend, and his two friends in the front seat. As he watched, he listened to his own inner voice, an old habit he relied on constantly.

  Once a business associate asked him how on earth he had figured that a deal was going to come down as it did. It was plain as day, Jeremy replied; there for all the world to see. Maybe for you, the man said. You know, it just amazes me how much people don’t see, Jeremy told him. It’s like they’re so afraid of seein’ something that’ll rock their little boat that they go through life with blinders on. All they hear is the storm inside their heads. Then when somethin’ happens they coulda seen a mile off if they’d wanted to, they go screamin’ around the place like chickens with their heads cut off. What did I do to deserve this? Why is life so cruel to me? Jeremy shook his head. I don’t know what’s worse—watchin’ it happen, or tryin’ to tell somebody about it and listen to ’em call me a fool.

  So he observed the pair in front as carefully as he knew how, and he listened to what his gut was telling him. There hadn’t been a fight. He was sure of that. When Catherine glanced at TJ, it was with a light of real pride, real love, real support. Maybe they had just had a special weekend—man and wife. But Jeremy didn’t think that was it. Something had happened. He had that itchy feeling down his spine, the feeling that sometimes came before a big deal opened his way. Something had happened.

  TJ had always been a silent kind of fellow, but there was a different stillness about him today. It seemed to overwhelm the car, touching everybody but Macon, who was the happy bundle of energy she always was. TJ sat and stared out the front window, although there was no rigidity to his frame, no sullenness, no anger. The man had changed somehow, Jeremy was sure of it, but he couldn’t put his finger on why he felt that way. Back on the boat dock there had been a distance to his gaze, as though he were looking out into eternity.

  Macon set her doll down on the seat between them, straightened the starchy little dress and patted the hair in place, then settled back against the door so she could look directly at Jeremy.

  “Uncle Jeremy, it’s time for a story,” she announced.

  “A story! What on earth gives you the idea I can tell stories?”

  “‘Cause you always do, and you never do till I ask,” she replied.

  “What’s in it for me?”

  “For us,” Catherine corrected. “We all get fifteen minutes of peace from little Miss Precocious Maximus.”

  “That’s me,” Macon explained to Jeremy.

  “What’s that you say?”

  “What Gram said. Precious something. She means I’ll be quiet if you tell me a story.”

  Jeremy stuck his lower lip out and nodded his head thoughtfully. “And will you?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “Depends if I like it.”

  He leaned over close to her face and squinted at her. “Did somebody try and tell me you’re just five years old?”

  “Going on seventeen,” Catherine said.

  “Can I start it off?” Macon asked.

  “Might as well,” Jeremy decided. “Man’s gotta be smart enough to know when he’s beat.”

  “Okay,” she replied. She kicked the edge of the seat and scrunched up her face in deep concentration.

  “I know! I know!” she cried. “Once upon a time, a preacher died and went to heaven.”

  Jeremy silently counted off several seconds before he asked, “That’s it?”

  “Honey, that’s the end of a story, not the beginning,” Catherine told her.

  “No, it’s not. It’s my story and I can start it any way I want to. Right, Uncle Jeremy?”

  Jeremy bobbed his head from side to side and stalled with “How long ago was once upon a time?”

  “Aaahboouut, threedaysago.”

  Jeremy drummed his fingers on the window and hummed a toneless “Three days, three days,” then snapped his fingers. “But, honey child, you forgot to tell me the most important thing.”

  “I did?”

  “Why sure. You didn’t tell me where the man was from. Shoot, if’n you’d said the man was from that little podunky town in South Carolina—what’s its name, Farmville—why, I’d’ve known in a minute what you was talkin’ about.”

  “Make it a long one,” Macon said, and curled up in her corner of the seat.

  “‘Course I’d heard about Father Coughlin passin’ away. Whole county talked about it, seein’s how he was the only Catholic preacher that side of Greenville. Rumor had it the bishop up north was having trouble fillin’ the spot, on account of how a lot of the locals didn’t care too much for Catholics—most of ’em bein’ Baptist and all. So while the priests were waitin’ for the bishop to make up his mind, they got to callin’ it Purgatory, South Carolina.”

  “What’s that?” Macon asked.

  “Don’t interrupt, honey,” Catherine said.

  “What’s what?” Jeremy asked.

  “Purga—I can’t say it.”

  “Purgatory? Well, that’s kinda like a bus stop in the sky. People who aren’t sure where they’re headed kinda sit around there and hope God is havin’ one of His good days.”

  “Don’t be blasphemous, Jem,” Catherine said. “Honey, purgatory is something Catholics believe in. They say it’s a place where people go after they die if they’ve sinned too much to be let into heaven. They stay there and wait for a while and then God lets them into Paradise.”

  “Did you understand what she just said?” Jeremy asked Macon.

  The little girl nodded. “Cath’lics go there if they’re bad. Tell the story, Uncle Jeremy.”

  “Rule number one in raising children,” Catherine said. “If they ask you a question, tell them the truth.”

  “You know what?” Jeremy said to Macon. “You’re ‘bout the remarkablest little girl I ever laid eyes on.”

  She slid back in the seat, made herself smaller than normal with pleasure. Her eyes fastened on his face.

  “Well, like I said, old Father Coughlin dies and goes to heaven. And when he gets to the pearly gates, Saint Peter’s there to greet him. He opens up that big book of his, the one where all God’s children’s got their name written down, and puts a little tick beside his name. Then just before he gives the father his wings and halo, Saint Peter asks if he’d mind watchin’ over things for a second.

  “‘I’ve been sittin’ here nigh on two thousand years,’ Saint Peter said, ‘and I’m in bad need of a coffee break.’”

  “I’m not sure this is something I want my grandchild to hear,” said Catherine.

  “I knew there was a reason I never told stories when grown-ups were around,” Jeremy said. “They don’t know how to be seen and not heard.”

  “Not to mention the fact that my daughter would skin you alive if she heard you talk like that.”

  “She would not,” Macon piped up. “Momma says Uncle Jeremy’s got more sense in his big toe than most people got in their whole body. Momma says the world would be a better place if there was more people like Uncle Jeremy. Momma says—”


  “All right young lady, that’s enough.” Catherine held up her hand. “You just mind what you say, Jeremy. You’re neither too big nor too old to get a piece of my mind.”

  “She means a spanking,” Macon explained.

  “I know she does,” Jeremy replied. “This is about the noisiest story I ever told. Now where was I?”

  “Father Coughlin’s waiting for Saint Peter to get back,” Macon said.

  “He sure is. Feels pretty good too, he does. He hasn’t had it all peaches and cream, tryin’ to keep his flock together in the middle of Baptist country. But standin’ there lookin’ at Paradise stretched out beyond him, Father Coughlin decides it’s all been worthwhile.

  “He hasn’t been standin’ there for more’n a couple of minutes when, lo and behold, who should show up in front of the pearly gates but Preacher Jones, the minister of the biggest Baptist church in Farmville. The father pops down behind Saint Peter’s desk—out of habit, you know, like he was still on earth and had to decide whether to face the preacher and feel the daggers in his back or hide behind a tree. He crouches there and watches the preacher look around, tryin’ to get his bearings, and he thinks about some of the things he had to put up with. He remembers how Preacher Jones had called the father’s congregation ‘no-account idol-worshiping, godless heathens.’ He recalls the time the preacher wrote a letter to every Catholic in town, urgin’ them to become Baptists and save their immortal souls. He remembers the revivals where loudspeakers shouted out the town’s shame over havin’ those ‘Yankee Pope-lovers with their loose morals and shameful ways come down and take away good factory jobs from the Baptist brethren.’ Father Coughlin thinks about all those things and a couple of others your grandmother here won’t let me mention, and he decides it was time for a little fun.

  “The father kind of eases himself up, little by little, from behind Saint Peter’s desk. It takes a moment for Preacher Jones to realize who it is, but when he does his eyes bug out and his jaw hits his chest. Coulda knocked that preacher over with a feather. He takes this scary look around, and you could tell exactly what he was thinkin’—like, hey, did I take a wrong turn somewhere? Father Coughlin knows it too, and says, ‘If it’s heaven you’re lookin’ for, you’ve found it.’ Then he makes his face real stern. ‘ ‘Course, we’ll have to see whether it’s the right place for you.’

  “Preacher Jones is busy remembering the same things as Father Coughlin. You can tell on account of how he commences to sweat. But being Baptist, he decides the best thing to do is bluster. ‘What d’ya mean by that?’

  “‘Exactly what I said,’ the father told him. Then the Catholic man makes this big to-do about turnin’ a couple of pages in Saint Peter’s book. He leans down close and starts squintin’ his way up and down the page, runnin’ his finger up and down the lines, flippin’ the pages back and forth, pretendin’ to search that old book. Couldn’t make hide nor hair of it, of course. Peter wrote everything down in that old language, you know, Arabic.”

  “Aramaic,” Catherine corrected.

  “Just what I said. Anyway, all the while Preacher Jones is busy bein’ about as scared as any man ever deserves to get.

  “Finally Father Coughlin heaves this big sigh, pulls at his lower lip with two fingers, and scrunches up his forehead like he’s real concerned. He flips one more page, decides Preacher Jones has cooked about long enough, and says, ‘It don’t look like your name is down here anywheres.’

  “The preacher had to grab hold of the gate to keep his legs from bucklin’. His voice gets all squeaky with panic. ‘Could you look one more time? Maybe you missed it.’

  “‘I done checked it twice already,’ the father said. ‘I think you oughta go on down and ask by that other door. See if they got your reservation.’

  “Old Preacher Jones looks about ready for his second fatal heart attack of the day. ‘Couldn’t you maybe just write my name in there yourself?’

  “Father Coughlin gets this shocked look on his face and slams the book shut. ‘Not on your life!’

  “Then old Preacher Jones drops down on his knees and starts cryin’. ‘I’m beggin’ you, brother, one Carolina Christian to another. You just gotta let me in.’

  “This was about the most fun Father Coughlin’d had in years. He gets this sublime expression on his face and says, ‘Well, maybe there is one way.’

  “Preacher Jones grabs for it like he was catchin’ hold of a lifeline. ‘Anything, brother, anything at all.’

  “‘Well, it means you gotta become a Catholic.’

  “‘I what?’

  “‘Yessir,’ Father Coughlin says, ‘we got us a special on Catholics this week. All you gotta do is convert, then confess your sins and get absolution. After that I can let you in.’

  “Preacher Jones leaps to his feet, ‘I’d rather roast in hell!’

  “‘Fine,’ said Father Coughlin, and points straight down. ‘Door’s right along there. Just follow the smoke.’

  “That makes Preacher Jones freeze up solid. ‘You’re serious, aren’t you?’

  “‘Dead serious,’ Father Coughlin says, which I think you’ll agree was in right bad taste.

  “Preacher Jones thinks it over a while and decides becomin’ a Catholic was maybe a tad better’n burnin’ in hell for all eternity. So he sighs real long and says, ‘Okay, tell me what I gotta do.’

  “But just then, lo and behold, up steps old Saint Peter.”

  “Uh oh,” Macon said.

  “Uh oh is right. He isn’t the least bit pleased. He storms up, turns a fiery gaze on Father Coughlin, and the poor man shrivels up like a popped balloon.

  “‘You think this is a game?’ Saint Peter roars.

  “The father does a major cringe. Desperate don’t even begin to describe the look in that poor man’s eyes.

  “‘How’d you like to regret this for all eternity?’ Peter bellows.

  “Preacher Jones, now, he’s stepped back a ways, just in case little bits of Father Coughlin start flyin’. Has his eyes open all big and innocent, watchin’ it all come down on the father. He has one big toe diggin’ a hole in the cloud, and looks like a little kid who just found out he’s gonna get a lollipop instead of a spankin’.

  “‘I’d be happy to show him the other door,’ Preacher Jones says to Saint Peter.

  “Peter’s not havin’ any of that, though. He swings around and says, ‘You just remember what side of the pearly gates you’re standin’ on and keep a civil tongue in your head!’ Then he turns back to the father and says, ‘Now, what am I gonna do with you?’

  “Now old Peter’s a kindhearted saint. He’s gotta be with a job like his. But he’s shrewd too. He knows he’s gonna let the father in, see, but he doesn’t want him knowin’ that just yet. Not till he’d really seen the error of his ways.’

  “Well, by this time the father’s sweatin’ harder’n a farmer who’s just finished a day of croppin’ August tobacco. He kind of gibbers a minute, then says, ‘How ‘bout I apologize to Preacher Jones real nice like?’

  “‘No,’ Peter says, ‘I don’t think that’s gonna do it.’

  “Father Coughlin realizes the time for worryin’ about pride is long gone, on account of he can feel the flames around his ankles. He flings himself facedown at Peter’s feet, twists the folds of the old man’s robes in his fingers, and sobs fit to beat the band.

  “‘Please, sir!’ he cries. ‘Pleeeeze don’t send me down below. I been good all my life. Please don’t make me burn.’

  “That’s all Peter wants, see, just to be sure the father is really and truly sorry. But just as Saint Peter is ready to lift the man up and dust him off and send him through to Paradise, Peter catches sight of Preacher Jones.

  “The reverend’s kind of sidled off to one side, thinkin’ he is safe over there from Peter’s eyes. He’s got his hands behind his back and is rockin’ back and forth on his heels, wearin’ the biggest grin you’d ever hope to see. Yep, this was a dream come true for Pre
acher Jones. He points his nose up in the air, sniffs long and hard like he’d just caught a whiff of barbecue on the wind.

  “You gotta remember now, gloatin’ ain’t real high on the list of things to do in Paradise. So you might say Saint Peter was as put out with Preacher Jones as he was with the father.

  “Then the light dawns in old Peter’s eyes. He lifts the father back up to his feet, dusts the cloud off the front of his robe, and tells him to get ahold of himself ‘cause he’s not goin’ to hell.

  “‘I’m not?’ the father asks, wipin’ his eyes.

  “‘No, you’re not,’ Peter answers. ‘You’re goin’ back to earth and convert.’

  “‘Convert to what?’

  “‘You’re gonna have this major inspiration from your heart attack, see, and in your very first sermon you’re gonna tell the world you’ve decided to become a Baptist.’

  “‘A Baptist!’

  “‘That’s right. And not in just any old church either. You’re gonna join Preacher Jones’s church. Hey, maybe we should make you assistant pastor. How’d you like that?’

  “About this time Preacher Jones comes bouncin’ up all panicky-like. ‘In my church?’

  “Peter turns around, tuggin’ hard at his beard to keep his mouth from turning up at the edges. ‘Well, now, it ain’t your church anymore, is it?’

  “Anybody with a grain of sense could see what was goin’ through Preacher Jones’s head. Here he is, all dead and everything, about as far out of the picture as anybody can get, and what’s old Peter gonna do but send his arch-rival back to convert and join his church. And there ain’t nothin’ he can do about it. This is a very worrisome development. Yep. Preacher Jones is about to become the first angel in heaven with an ulcer.

  “Father Coughlin’s still kinda shell-shocked too. ‘You want me to go back and be assistant pastor in a Baptist church?’

  “‘Yeah, see, they’re a little shorthanded right now,’ Peter says, ‘since Preacher Jones here died so sudden-like. It won’t be for too long, though. Just a couple of weeks. They’ll be gettin’ this bright young fellow in, and then you can come back up and take your rightful place in Paradise.’