The Novels of Lisa Alther

by Lisa Alther

  Most of all, she had not expected to see Clem walk up to the dais and light the wick sticking out of a Dr Pepper bottle filled with kerosene. The hard-driving gospel music continued: ‘It’s God all over the ocean./It’s God all over the sea./It’s God all over creation/And it’s God all over me.’ Two parishioners were now speaking in tongues, and several more were shouting to Jesus fervently and snapping their bodies at the waist like whips.

  Clem called out over the din in a calm voice, ‘Remember, brothers and sisters. Only those anointed by the Spirit. Don’t misread the signs, brothers and sisters. If you do, you’ll get hurt. The devil is lurkin’ here tonight jes waitin for a chance to deceive. So don’t misread your state of grace.’

  Then Clem slowly ran the fingers of one hand through the flame from the Dr Pepper bottle. He held out the bottle, offering it to the audience. A man in green work clothes, the one who had set the black box on the altar, came forward. He took the bottle and ran his hand back and forth through the flame. A couple more men came forward — and passed the bottle back and forth as though it were a joint at a pot party.

  Then Clem walked calmly to the mysterious black box and unlatched it. Reaching in, he pulled out a snake. Ginny gasped.

  She could see even from the back of the room that the snake, patterned in varying shades of brown, was a copperhead. Every southern child, Ginny and Clem no exceptions, grew up terrorized by copperheads. Their protective coloration allowed them to blend into the leaves of a forest floor. And unlike rattlesnakes, they gave no warning prior to striking. The Major had considered it his personal crusade to instill in his children a healthy horror of copperheads, such that Ginny, even now and in Vermont, where it was too cold for copperheads, spent all her time on woodland walks scouting the ground diligently for color irregularities that might indicate a lurking copperhead. She knew from the Major how to slash X’s with a pocketknife over the fang marks in order to suck out the venom.

  She stopped clapping, stopped mouthing words to the unfamiliar gospel songs, stopped doing the chicken scratch, and gaped in fascinated horror as Clem took the copperhead gently in his two hands and held it up to his face. With one little finger, he turned the copperhead’s head — and its fanged mouth — until he and it were gazing into each other’s eyes. There was a faint smile on Clem’s dark Melungeon face.

  At any moment, Ginny expected the snake to bury its poisonous fangs in Clem’s cheek. She clutched the bench in front of her and was mentally reviewing her slashing and sucking techniques. Meanwhile, no one else seemed remotely concerned, or even interested. The singing, the clapping, the dancing continued. Five men up front continued to pass the flame of the Dr Pepper bottle over various parts of their bodies.

  Clem lowered his hands and held out the copperhead to one of the men, who calmly took it in one hand and held it up to his face. Clem reached in the black box — a celestial snake pit apparently — and casually took out another copperhead. This continued until five copperheads and two diamondback rattlesnakes were being passed around, and until Ginny was in a state of nervous collapse in the back row.

  Eventually, all the snakes found their way to Clem. He ended up holding two in his hands, with two more wrapped around his arms and one hanging around his neck. A rattlesnake lay on the podium, and he caressed its pale belly with his stockinged foot. The second rattlesnake lay at striking distance just behind him, positioned on an open Bible on the altar, its tongue darting in and out rhythmically.

  Clem said something to the men playing the instruments, and the music stopped abruptly. All eyes focused on Clem. He cleared his throat and said quietly, ‘They says this here can only be done with music. They says the rhythm of the music hypnotizes the snakes. Well, ah don’t hear no music now, friends. The Lord does what He wants to when He wants to. I ain’t tamin’ these here serpents, brothers and sisters. You know that. The Lord is. He’s here among us right now. He could kill me any second by turnin’ one of these devils loose. But He ain’t, ‘cause He’s usin’ me as a channel to display to you His power over Satan.’

  Ginny glanced around nervously, prepared for anything now — to see God even.

  ‘These serpents is deadly,’ Clem continued. ‘Don’t kid yourselves, brothers and sisters. They’re powerful. But they ain’t as powerful as the Lord! Behold the power and the glow-ry of your Lord!’ He raised the snakes in his hands on high.

  Emotion of some sort — awe? terror? — surged through the room like a gust of wind. Ginny felt it grip her stomach.

  Then Clem dumped all the snakes back into their box and fastened the lid.

  Next he turned around and started preaching, quoting the gospel according to St Mark: ‘“And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” — In a quiet eloquent voice, Clem simply pointed out that everyone present had either witnessed or participated in all these things, except for their visitor, who was attending services for the first time. He considered this fact — that all the brothers and sisters had witnessed and participated and that no one had been hurt — a sign of God’s approval of their undertakings. The state had a law against what they were doing. They might be thrown into prison at any moment because of their faith. But what were the prisons of men compared to the prison of the flesh? The true believers in any era had always been hounded and persecuted abominably. But their souls flourished as their flesh suffered.

  As Ginny walked down the hill with Clem, neither said anything for a long time.

  ‘What did you think?’ Clem finally asked.

  ‘Well — I don’t know — I mean, it was amazing, wasn’t it? Actually, I don’t know what to think, Clem.’

  ‘Don’t think, then. What did you feel?’

  ‘I felt…,’ Ginny pondered the question. ‘I felt scared. I’m terrified of copperheads.’

  ‘So are we all. So were we all, that is. But didn’t you feel the presence of our Lord, restrainin’ the snakes and protectin’ His believers?’

  Ginny searched her memory of the evening for evidence of God’s presence. She realized that that search was based on the fallacious assumption that she knew what God’s presence would feel like. ‘I just don’t know, Clem,’ she said, anguished. She knew she was ripe for conversion. From Psychology 101 at Worthley, she recognized in herself all the symptoms of Incipient Conversion Syndrome: She was severely demoralized in her personal life; all the various traditional ties and beliefs had failed her, were failing her. She knew that if she didn’t watch out, she’d be fashioning copperhead necklaces with the best of them.

  ‘Ginny, I almost killed you ten years ago,’ Clem was saying fervently. ‘I’d purely love to make hit up to you by givin’ you a new life in Christ.’ He gazed at her searchingly with his dark soulful eyes.

  ‘I don’t know, Clem.’ She had without question been dazzled by the evening’s performance. She needed to be alone to sort out her array of responses — the primary one appearing to be the recognition that Clem had not changed after all; he was still dealing in Death, still trying to subdue it to his command.

  ‘Think about hit,’ Clem instructed her. ‘Come see me when you’ve made your decision.’

  What decision? she wondered as she drove back to the cabin. It was one thing to acknowledge the existence of a God, of powers and forces beyond your intellectual grasp. After all, something had been going on. Clem’s leg had regenerated itself, and the copperheads hadn’t struck, the flame hadn’t singed. But it was quite another thing to play hot potato with copperheads yourself.

  11

  Wedded Bliss

  ‘…and so there she stood with her packed bags. I just looked at her. I couldn’t believe she was leaving. Jesum Crow, she’d given me no warning. I thought everything was fine. I had no idea she was unhappy.’ Ira frowned and drew deeply on his cigar
as he described the breakup of his marriage to a woman from New Jersey whom he had met during his senior year at the University of Vermont.

  ‘What was she so unhappy about?’ I asked in disbelief, gazing fondly at his sensitive face, which was bronzed from the winter sun.

  He looked up. ‘I asked her that as she stormed out. She screamed, “I’m unhappy because it’s never occurred to you that I might be unhappy! You’re so content that you make me sick!” I still don’t know what she meant. I thought we had a very nice life together.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘She left me.’

  ‘You mean you didn’t yell at her, or drag her back into the house, or beat her up or something?’

  ‘Who, me?’

  ‘Well, isn’t that what she wanted from you?’

  ‘Did she?’ he asked, perplexed. ‘But I’m not like that, Ginny. I just wanted a quiet gentle woman to come home to after a hard day. I’m so lonely here in this big empty house all by myself.’

  There was nothing more appealing to me than a big empty house after the crammed cabin — unless it was the concept of myself as a ‘quiet gentle woman’ after my years as a semi-pro-fessional Valkyrie. I gave Ira a quiet gentle smile.

  We were married on the beaver pond a month after my move to his house. He wore his best black quilted jumpsuit. I bought a violet one for the occasion, feeling that white would have been stretching credibility. The minister from the Community Church wore a navy blue Ski-Do suit, as did Ira’s best man, the loathed Rodney Lamoureux. Ira’s sister Angela, in a pale green jumpsuit, sang the theme song from Doctor Zhivago.

  When Ira tried to slip the wedding band on my finger, I wrested it from him and zipped it into my pocket, thinking of the Major’s missing finger. Ira looked at me with distress, his sensitive mouth trembling. But the awkward moment was glossed over by the tactful minister, who signaled Ira to kiss me and be done with it.

  Mona and Atheliah lurked on the outskirts of the gathering on their skis. They hadn’t wanted to come at all, had finally agreed to only as a personal favor to a misguided sister. I saw this ceremony, taking place on our very battleground, as a healing ritual for the community. Perhaps now the Stark’s Boggers and the Soybean People could put behind them their mutual enmity and move on into a bright united future. I was the sacrificial virgin, as it were.

  This was how I saw it. Mona and Atheliah saw it as a sell-out, a betrayal of the memory of Eddie Holzer. Nevertheless, as Ira and I roared off on his Sno Cat, hotly pursued by the wedding guests on their machines, Mona and Atheliah did deign to throw handfuls of long-grained unsprayed brown rice from a knapsack on Mona’s back. I was touched. Symbolically speaking, they were signaling their wish that Ira’s and my union be fruitful.

  On our wedding night, at a motel near the Granby Zoo in Quebec, Ira first made love to me. As he undressed, I discovered with a jolt that his handsome tan ended at his neck. His actual body was pasty white. He was a very proficient lover, though, screwing with an enviable vigor, as though he had a train to catch. His sensual good looks — his quivering nostrils and sweaty forehead and high cheekbones — had suggested that he would be good in bed. Unfortunately, I was not. After many minutes of vigorous activity, Ira looked down, gasping for breath, sweat pouring down his face, and panted, ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t wait for you any longer, Ginny. Jcsum Crow, I don’t think a woman could expect more than three hundred and ninety-six strokes from any man!’

  I was readily agreeing as he came into me in a great burst.

  ‘What was I doing wrong?’ he asked later.

  ‘Nothing. You’re a marvelous lover. But the first time with anyone is always difficult.’ How could I explain to him that my sexual activities in the past had always taken place under threat of imminent discovery by punitive authority figures? I was conditioned to associate sex with terror. Now that intercourse was allowed — applauded, required even — I was incapable of response.

  Upon our return from the Granby Zoo, Mom and Dad Bliss flew up from Florida for a belated reception, which was staged by the Women’s Friendly Circle of the Community Church. The Friendship Hall was a large bright open room with pine-paneled walls and a linoleum floor. Furnished with folding tables and chairs, it was identical to every parish hall, rod and gun club, Moose lodge, and civic center in the nation.

  The Stark’s Boggers clustered at one end, as far from me as possible. The minister, however, did come over and request that I call him Uncle Lou. He was a short round man with wispy hair and pink cheeks and thick rimless glasses.

  ‘I’m sorry not to have called on you yet,’ he began, tugging at his stiff white collar and stretching his chafed neck. ‘If you’ll pardon my saying so,’ he whispered with a confidential chuckle, ‘it was around town that Ira’s bride was of the Catholic faith.’

  I looked at him and said nothing.

  ‘What church did you say you attend?’

  I hadn’t said. ‘I don’t go to church.’

  His face turned a brighter pink. Instantly I felt sheepish and apologetic, ready to assure him that I was Baptist, Methodist, Dutch Reformed, whatever he liked. ‘But I was raised in the Episcopal church.’

  ‘Oh, that’s a nice faith.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Sometimes these interdenominational marriages work out fine. Just fine.’

  Ira kept dragging friends and relatives over to meet me. He was anxious for me to like them, anxious for them to like me. After he’d introduced us, he’d rush off in search of a new victim, leaving the current one and me staring mutely at each other.

  I asked one such woman, Ira’s former high school English teacher, who had a jovial smile and frazzled brown hair, ‘Well, how are you?’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Nice supper tonight’

  ‘It wasn’t so bad.’

  ‘Well, I certainly do like Stark’s Bog.’

  ‘I hope you’re not like the last one.’

  Just then Ira whisked up with an aunt in tow — a large old woman in an aqua lace suit. ‘This is Ginny, Aunt Bernice. She used to live back on the Stockwell farm,’ he explained before racing away.

  She said, ‘So you’re the one.’

  ‘How do you do? I don’t think we’ve met before.’

  ‘You don’t, huh?’ Her steely eyes glinted.

  ‘No, but I’ve seen you in the store some.’

  ‘Could be. Could be.’ She stared at me, waiting to see what I wanted from her.

  ‘Well!’ I said in cheery desperation. ‘I think I’ll just have another piece of this lovely cake, if you’ll excuse me.’ I’d used this excuse four times. I had wedding cake crumbling out my ears.

  I stood all alone munching. It wasn’t that the Women’s Friendly Circle was unfriendly. It was just that we had nothing much in common other than Ira. And unlike southerners, who were reared to chat amiably for hours with total strangers, Vermonters weren’t bred for volubility. If Ira hadn’t kept dragging people over, I could have stood alone all evening and left without exchanging a word with anyone. Making the best of bad material, I chose to think of this trait as ‘tolerance.’

  But then Rodney came sauntering over. He looked almost human in his suit and tie. ‘Enjoying yourself, Mrs. Bliss?’ he asked with an evil grin.

  ‘Sure. Why not?’

  ‘Well, live it up while you can.’

  I looked at him questioningly.

  ‘Look, let’s not play games. Ira’s my best friend, and he’s made a bad mistake. You treat him good, or you’ll have me to answer to. He’s been hurt enough by women.’

  ‘Why don’t you mind your own business, Rodney?’ I gasped as he slithered away.

  Ira rushed over. ‘Are you having a good time?’ he demanded, studying my face for clues.

  ‘Yes, of course. Marvelous!’ I said, laughing gaily.

  ‘I know it’s difficult for you — an outsider among all my people.’

  ‘Yes, but they’re wonderful,’ I assured him
, too brightly. Could this marriage be saved?

  ‘These things take time. I just know once they get to know you they’ll love you as much as I do.’ He leaned down and kissed my cheek. I smiled bravely, as he wandered off in search of introducible friends.

  Uncle Lou came up again and asked, “Now what church did you say you attend?’

  ‘I don’t attend any church.’ I sighed.

  ‘Well, then,’ he said, businesslike, ‘look me right in the eye, and people will think we’re just talking.’

  Aren’t we, I wondered as I stared into the watery blue behind his thick lenses.

  ‘Dear Lord, help this Thy servant who has strayed to recognize her arrogance in casting off Thy church. Bless her union with Ira Bliss, and if it be Thy will, grace it with children. Guide her, Father, in setting up a fine Christian household that will be a haven of peace and goodness in a heathen world. Help her to pursue works that will make her a credit to her community and an aid and comfort to her husband and children. Amen.’

  ‘Amen,’ I said fervently. This was in fact my wish: to win over the Stark’s Boggers and become a credit to their community, to provide as much aid and comfort to Ira as he had been supplying to me. ‘But don’t you think it’s possible to have a good marriage without going to church?’

  ‘Possible,’ he conceded, closing his eyes and shaking his head sadly. ‘But doubtful. Doubtful.’

  Much more crucial to the health of our marriage than our ensuing record of church attendance was the fact that our next 172 attempts at intercourse were dismal, from Ira’s point of view. They were easy to count because we made love every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday night. Ira had read in the Reader’s Digest that the average American couple had sex twice a week. Hence we would have it three times a week. Tuesday night was his volunteer fire department meeting, at which he drank Genesee beer and played poker into the early morning. Thursday was our square dancing night with the Stark’s Bog Wheelers ‘n’ Reelers. Saturday night we went on his Sno Cat back to the beaver pond with everyone else in town. Sunday night was his Cemetery Commission meeting. That left Monday, Wednesday, and Friday for sex. He wrote it in on the kitchen calendar in red pencil each week so that we would be sure not to forget. I had wanted order in my life, and order was what I was getting.