Prayers of Agnes Sparrow (16 page)

Vidalia laughed. “You know, I bet you’re right. I bet he followed them back and is standing over them like a drill sergeant.”

“And speaking of no shows, I didn’t see Hezekiah, either.” He had been attending church kind of regularly—if you can call two weeks in a row regular.

“Never came home last night,” Vidalia said. “Probably stayed the night at Olivia's.”

My heart skipped a beat. I hated the way talk of Hezekiah had started to affect me. It was out of my control, but for some reason just the thought of him produced strange feelings inside—feelings I wanted to have for Zeb but couldn’t muster.

Vidalia grabbed my arm. “Where’d you go? I lost you there for a second or two.”

I pushed my glasses up on my nose. “I’m sorry, Vi, it's just that … well, lately … oh, I don’t know …” I didn’t want to tell her what was really on my mind. “I was just thinking about Agnes. I better get inside and give her the bulletin and fix her lunch.”

Vidalia looked into my eyes. “Uh, huh, you do that. And let me just tell you, Griselda, you better think twice before you allow yourself to get hung up on Hezekiah.”

“I’m not hung up on him.” I took a breath. “I better get inside.”

A
gnes was still watching television. Her face was red like she had suffered an asthma attack while I was gone. She held on to her emergency inhaler.

“Did you take your treatment?” I handed her the bulletin.

“I’m okay, Griselda, just a little coughing fit. It might have been the spices in the sausage.”

“Well, I think you should take a treatment just to be safe. You’ll feel better and, and so will I, Agnes.”

I changed clothes, tossed in a load of laundry—whites with plenty of Clorox. For lunch I made Agnes her usual tuna sandwiches and soup with Fritos and milk. My stomach was a little upset so I opted out of lunch and continued separating laundry. The phone rang. It was Vidalia.

“Griselda,” Vidalia said, “did you know anything about the Pearly Gates Singers coming to town?”

“Pearly Gates Singers? No, I never heard a word about it. When did that happen?”

“I just ran into Ruth at the market—had to pick up coffee and bread—and she told me.”

“How did Ruth know?”

“Well, you’re about to find out. She's heading to your house.”

I hung up and turned my attention to Agnes, who was swallowing the last of her sandwiches. “Did you know about the Pearly Gates Singers coming to town?”

She choked and spit her last bite onto her plate. “What? When? I never heard a word.”

“Vidalia said Ruth Knickerbocker told her and is coming over here to tell us.”

Agnes let out a little whoop and holler.

“Imagine that, Griselda, the Pearly Gates—here … in Bright's Pond.”

The doorbell chimed.

“That must be Ruth,” I said. Sure enough I opened the door and there was Ruth looking like she had just snagged the last of the Full Moon pie.

I grabbed her hand. “Come on inside and tell me about it. Vidalia just called.”

“Ah, I told her not to, but news like this is hard to keep down, I suppose.”

Ruth said hello to Agnes from the entryway. She took my hand. “Can we talk in the kitchen,” she whispered.

“I suppose, but why so secretive?”

“Just don’t want Agnes to hear.”

I shot Agnes a quizzical look; she shot one back and waved me on, knowing full well I’d tell her anyway. Ruth and I sat at the kitchen table with coffee and pie.

“How did this come about?” I asked. “The Pearly Gates only go to big towns like Scranton and Philadelphia.”

“Rassie Harper arranged it. I let on that I was gonna do his show by that remote thing. You know … me and Agnes, right here in the viewing room, if he could get the Pearly Gates Singers to come.”

“But you said you didn’t want to go on the radio.”

“I ain’t. Rassie and Vera don’t know I ain’t gonna do it. By the time I tell them, everyone will be expecting the Pearly Gates Singers, and Rassie wouldn’t dare cancel and make a lot of people unhappy, especially after the Pearly Gates get it on their schedule and all. They’ll expect to be paid, you know.” She sipped coffee and swallowed hard. “I went right directly home from church instead of stopping out anywhere, like I usually do, and the phone was ringing off the wall when I got inside. It was Rassie Harper telling me he arranged for them to come and now I had to get Agnes.” She slapped the table and laughed.

“Why, Ruth Knickerbocker, you’re positively sly.”

“Like Lucy Ricardo. I just had to give them the what for after the way they laughed at Agnes.”

I couldn’t help myself and I started to laugh like I hadn’t laughed in a long time. “We got to tell Agnes,” I said. “She’ll get a kick out of it.”

“Does she know what happened on the show Wednesday?”

“No, but that's all right. She’ll be good-natured about it.”

“You don’t suppose there's a chance she’ll want to go on the radio show, do you?”

I swallowed the last drop of my Maxwell House. “That's just silly talk. Agnes won’t go on Rassie's show.”

Ruth finished her pie while I went out back and found Arthur. He was up one of the dogwoods, trying to grab a robin.

“You come down from there, you mean old varmint.” I tossed a stone past his head. He leapt to the ground and ran into the house.

“Maybe it would be better if you told her,” said Ruth as we walked to the viewing room.

Agnes didn’t have quite the reaction I expected. No, sir, she didn’t. Ruth slid out of the rocker and onto her hiney, and I had the sudden sensation that Hades had just frozen over.

“I
’ll do it,” Agnes said. “I’ll go on the show.”

That was when Ruth fell off her rocker and landed with a thud on the floor.

“But Agnes … “I helped Ruth back to her seat. “I thought you were against the publicity and—”

“I’m not gonna do it for that reason. I think the good Lord's purposes can be served quite nicely over the airwaves—just like Sheila Makefield and the PTL Club.”

Ruth straightened herself and regained her composure. “But, Agnes, that Rassie Harper—he just wants to poke fun at you. And that miserable sister-in-law of mine too. They aren’t believers. They’re just out to make fun and laugh at your—”

“My size?” Agnes said. “Call me a shyster? A fraud miracle worker?”

“Well, I’m sorry, Agnes, but it's the truth.”

“I know what they want. And name-calling never troubled me. I was listening to you in the kitchen, and what's more I was listening to Rassie's show Wednesday.” She looked at me. “I’m not exactly living in a cave, Griselda. I know what's what.”

“How come you didn’t say anything?”

“No need … till now.”

Agnes took a breath that struggled to get into her lungs. “You tell Vera to tell Rassie to set it up and I’ll be here.”

Ruth looked scared. “It's by remote. I don’t know what that means exactly. I mean we aren’t gonna have to put wires on our heads like they did with Bubba?”

Bubba was Ruth's dead husband—inoperable brain tumor. He started falling down for no good reason and then went completely deaf in one ear before he saw the doctor. By then it was too late. Agnes prayed but God needed Bubba in heaven, and Ruth took much comfort in knowing her Bubby Hubby, as she called him, was there, helping out wherever he could. That's how Bubba was—a helpful man, a carpenter by trade, and Ruth figured God needed help building all those mansions.

I was always amazed at the human brain's capacity for turning tragedy into a comfortable resting place.

“Wires on our heads?” Agnes laughed. “Of course not, Ruth. They’ll probably put an antenna outside and run wires into the house.”

“Kind of like a makeshift radio station in the house,” I said, “with microphones and dials and stuff.”

“Well, I don’t like it,” Ruth said. “I just wanted to get the Pearly Gates Singers to town.”

“And you did,” Agnes said. “They’ll be here next month. Just think. The Pearly Gates Singers … here in Bright's Pond … April, 1972. Something to tell the grandkids about, don’t you think?” Agnes's countenance dropped when she said it.

“Maybe we can find a way for you to see them.” I patted my sister's hand.

“That's okay, Griselda. Just knowing they’re here will be fine.”

Ruth left a little while later with the funniest look on her face. “I’m sorry, Griselda, I didn’t expect all this, but if Agnes is happy about it, then I guess we should be too.”

“I don’t know if happy is the word for it, but at least she isn’t jumping mad, you know?”

Agnes had been eating M&Ms and washing them down with orange juice —a combination that made me sick to think about.

“I don’t get it, Agnes,” I said. I started pulling the sheets off her bed.

“What? I like M&Ms and orange juice.”

“No, not that. You were dead set against the sign and now that doesn’t trouble you anymore and now this radio show.”

Agnes reached for her inhaler. “I decided to give the people what they want, Griselda. It's just easier that way.”

“Easier doesn’t make it right.”

I carried the bedclothes into the laundry and put fresh ones on Agnes's bed: blue and yellow striped ones. “There you go. Let's get you back to bed. You’ve been on that sofa all day.”

“I am getting tired. What time is it, anyway?”

I looked at the clock on the mantle. “My goodness, Agnes, it's nearly five-thirty.”

“I thought I was ready for dinner.”

I put a tray of fish sticks into the oven and unwrapped a macaroni and cheese Janeen brought by. I was just cutting the stalks off of a bouquet of broccoli when the doorbell rang.

“Cora,” I said, “what brings you by?”

“I just heard all about the Pearly Gates Singers and Agnes going on Rassie Harper's radio show. It's all the talk down at the Full Moon. I had to come by. I want to be on the show too.” She pushed past me. “Agnes,” she said, “I want to be on the radio with you. I got to tell everyone about my miraculous heart healing.”

The next thing I knew, Zeb, Janeen Sturgis, and Edie Tompkins were in the viewing room, shouting reasons why
they should be on the radio show too. Five minutes after they arrived Boris Lender, Ivy Slocum, and Hazel Flatbush came with their own reasons for being on the show. Forty minutes later I remembered the fish. It was burnt to a crisp. You should never over bake Mrs. Paul's.

I could believe it of the others, wanting to horn in on the radio show, but Zeb? He didn’t seem the type to me, but ever since the Jesus pie incident he had been acting a little bit weird and flighty like he had been given some special notoriety that entitled him.

Agnes did a good job of quelling the crowd and pretty much told them that under no circumstances would she have them on the radio show. But I had a sneaking suspicion they were going to try.

“The idea isn’t to proclaim our glory,” she said. “I don’t want nooooo boasting over healed bodies or paid-up mortgages or even Jesus pie. I just want to tell people whatever the Lord sees fit to proceed from my mouth that day. My mouth—not yours. And not Rassie Harper's, either.”

Disappointed, but eager to hear Agnes on the radio, the folks left. Agnes and I ate spaghetti with sauce. We had plenty of desserts, seeing as how everyone who stopped by brought something, including a cherry cobbler that went down tart, but landed sweet in my stomach. Arthur didn’t seem to mind that the fish was burnt.

T
he next day, Monday morning, Hezekiah showed up for work—oblivious to any of the preceding day's activities or surprises.

“Morning, Griselda,” he said, coming in the back door with an arm full of wood as usual. “Should I make a fire for Agnes? I’ll be here most of the day to tend it.”

It was another cold Pocono Mountains morning, and a fire would be cozy, but I was still concerned about Agnes's breathing.

“I’m not sure it's a good idea with her breathing and all.”

“I heard that,” called Agnes, “I’d like a fire. I’m breathing just fine. Morning, Hezekiah.”

“Good morning,” he called.

I went back to stirring oatmeal. “You heard her. Just keep an eye out today and make sure she uses that nebulizer.”

“I will, Griselda.” I deliberately avoided asking him where he was the day before. It really wasn’t any of my business.

He brushed by me just barely touching my shoulder with one of the logs. A splintered piece snagged my sweater.

“I’m sorry, Griselda. Did I get you with a piece of wood?”

“Yeah, just a second, you caught my sweater.”

I unstuck the wood as he stood close enough to me that I could smell his toothpaste.

“Did I ruin your pretty sweater?”

“No. I’ll just pull the thread through the back.”

He looked right into my eyes for a second, and I felt my heart beat. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can be all feet sometimes.” He smiled and headed for the viewing room. That was when I noticed Hezekiah was wearing a brand new pair of black shoes and white socks. Looked like the Society had paid him a visit.

I heard the dried oak he was carrying fall to the floor.

“A fire would be pleasant,” Agnes said.

“I’ll have her going in just a few minutes.”

Then I heard him balling up newspaper, and before I could get breakfast to Agnes he had a fire roaring. I will admit it felt nice on my face. Arthur found a spot on the hearth.

We all ate breakfast together, and Agnes, although I think she was champing at the bit, waited until I cleaned up the
dishes before mentioning the Pearly Gates Singers to Hezekiah. He wasn’t all that impressed.

“I never heard of ’em,” he said. “Any good?”

Agnes chuckled. “I think they’re the best gospel singers around. I hear them on the radio and occasionally on Sheila Makefield.”

“I’m glad for you, then,” Hezekiah said. “I hope they put on a good concert, except how—”

“How will I get there?” Agnes beat him to the punch. “I won’t get there, but I’m sure the men will rig up a speaker and pipe it into the house. That's what they did that time the evangelist Billy Bray came by. You remember that Griselda, although I’m sure I’ll enjoy the Pearly Gates more.”

I did remember. It was about three years ago and it worked out kind of nice for Agnes. Pastor Speedwell and Studebaker connected a wire from the church microphone to a speaker they set up just inside our front door. Pastor measured too short and the wire was cut wrong but it didn’t matter. Agnes said later that Billy Bray screamed so much she probably didn’t even need the speaker. She might have been right. The church rafters shook that night, and Fred Haskell got saved, baptized, and made a member of the church all in one fell swoop. Agnes had been praying for his salvation, and Fred ran right over after the service, leaping and jumping up a storm on account of getting “his ticket to paradise,” as he called it, thanks to Agnes.