Suncatchers (41 page)

Perry stepped inside the kitchen and saw Dinah's present on the table. He picked up the little book with blank pages and ran his hand over the cover. He imagined Willard, cheerfully starting his car and backing out of Jewel's driveway, heading off down Blossom Circle toward Lily Lane, finishing the rest of the little rhyme: “I wish I may, I wish I might, Have the wish I wish tonight.” Perry walked back to his bedroom with the book in his hand.

27

A Voice Clear and True

“Good grief, where were you yesterday?” Cal said when Perry answered the telephone the next morning.

“Oh, I was in and out,” Perry said.

“Mostly out, I'd say. I must've tried calling you a dozen times or more. Started about four o'clock and finally gave up at eleven.”

“You were making phone calls on a Friday night?” Perry said. “Must be a real exciting life you lead.”

“Not nearly as exciting as yours obviously,” Cal said.

Perry wondered what Cal would say if he knew he'd spent the whole evening playing Monopoly with his neighbors, that the last time he'd tried calling, at eleven, Perry was just forcing Jewel to liquidate all her holdings and turn over all her assets to him. Or if he knew Perry was spending most of tonight at the Palmetto Miniature Golf Course and Batting Range with the church youth group.

“Got your first three chapters,” Cal said.

“I thought you probably had,” Perry replied.

“You said there are three more coming?”

“Yep, probably in a couple of weeks. I've got drafts of the next nine, but I'm revising in groups of three. And I've started my first draft of the
CAST
section. It'll actually probably end up as Part Two, but I wanted to write it last.”

“
Stage Right: The Drama of a Fundamentalist Christian Church
—clever title, but I wonder . . . I mean, I
like
the organizational idea of the five parts—the setting, the conflict, the theme, and all that. That's good. But, well, you don't think the first impression of the whole thing might look too
cute
, do you? Like we've forgotten we're serious researchers.”

“Have you read the chapters? Is that what you think—they're cute?”

“Oh, Perry, no, for the love of—you know they're good. You haven't lost your touch, not a bit. I'm not talking about the actual content, although it's sure not what I was . . . expecting.”

“Or maybe hoping?”

“Well, all I can say is that your Gospel Lighthouse is nothing like the fundamentalist churches I know about down there. I can't help but worry a little. I mean, it just doesn't sound . . . well, representative of fundamentalist churches in general.”

“You mean it doesn't reinforce the stereotype some people are so fond of.”

“
Fond of?
You think I'm—? Oh, come on, Perry. What's gotten into you? I hope you know me better than that. I just want this thing to be on target, that's all.”

“You want to come down here and validate my research? You're welcome to. You don't do a sociological study just to perpetuate a bias, Cal. You look at the group the way it
is
. I'm sorry it's not to your liking. But I'm not making up anything.”

“Oh, stop being testy, Perry. What's wrong with you? I'm giving you my opinion, my
response
to what you've sent me. That's what I always do, remember?”

“Right, but you usually don't already have your mind made up about the group I'm studying. Maybe I should have gone to Sand Hill, Georgia, and done the whole thing on—what was it, Beulah Tabernacle? Maybe it was
your
church that wasn't representative of fundamentalist churches in general—ever thought of that?”

Cal didn't say anything for a few seconds. When he spoke, his voice was tight. “Between visiting aunts and uncles and grandmothers and third cousins, I must've been in a dozen different churches down there until I left home and escaped to college. From what I can tell, this Gospel Lighthouse of yours isn't like
any
of the fundamentalist churches I got dragged to.”

“Well, it doesn't matter, does it? You don't choose a subject based on how typical it is. I don't remember you even mentioning it in the other projects. Nobody ever asked if the preschool was
representative
of all preschools for kids with disabilities. Or if the Lithuanians I studied were like the ones in other parts of Illinois or over in Pittsburgh.”

Perry heard a muffled bang. Was Cal pounding his desk in frustration? “I'm just thinking of
you
, Perry. You've got me worried. Here you are stuck in a little one-horse town during a low point in your life with a bunch of very persistent, abnormal people who would love to pour you into their little mold. They're experts at preying on people's weaknesses and laying a guilt trip on you every time you loosen your necktie. I
know
these people, Perry. And I know you. Or I used to. You . . . well, whenever I talk to you now, you just don't seem the same. You make this place sound . . . well, perfectly sane and reasonable, almost like—”

“Like what?”

“Well, like they've gotten to you or something. Like you're starting to think they're onto something good. I can't put my finger on it, but there almost seems to be a tone of
approval
in a lot of what you say—and even in what you've written in these chapters.”

“Approval? Cal, I'm writing social science research. I've got a Ph.D. in the field. I
thought
I was a professional researcher, but you make it sound like I'm writing copy for a promotional brochure. Look, I've been here eight months and have attended every function of this church—observed, listened, taken reams of notes, written drafts, all the same stuff I did on my three other books. I'm writing what I
see
, Cal. I have no agenda. Nobody here's paying me to make them look good, and I don't—”

“Hey, wait a minute. Here's something else I can't figure out.” Cal sounded genuinely perplexed. “I can't
ever
remember you getting so worked up over anything. Never in all the twelve years I've known you.”

“And I can't ever remember you questioning my objectivity! Read me one sentence that carries this ‘tone of approval' you mentioned.”

Perry heard Cal turning pages. “Okay, here's one. ‘The first-time visitor would no doubt admire the new burgundy carpet in the sanctuary, but he might take a closer, more appreciative look if he understood the lesson of brotherly harmony behind its purchase and installation.'”

“Well? That's it? Didn't you read the paragraphs after that?”

“Oh, sure.”

“And you don't think the details of the incident prove the assertion of brotherly harmony?”

“I didn't say that.”

Perry had actually wrestled over the question of whether to include the carpet purchase in the
SETTING
section or to save it for the
CAST
. That was the problem with organizing the chapters—everything overlapped. You couldn't isolate the church setting from the people from the activities from the purpose. But he had decided to put it with the setting since he knew he had plenty of material to round out Eldeen in the
CAST
section without describing her role in the carpet controversy.

It had started at a Wednesday evening business meeting back in early August when Brother Hawthorne had asked the members to vote on authorizing a committee to shop around, select samples, and present a recommendation to the congregation for replacing the bargain-quality blue-gray carpet that had been laid in the sanctuary twenty years ago.

When the committee had compiled and presented its findings to the congregation two weeks later, Bernie Paulson had opened the discussion with a speech Perry had written down verbatim: “I think we should go with the dark brown. It's practical and economical both. Face it, who looks down at the carpet when you're in church anyway? All we need is something to put our feet on, nothing fancy.”

It had been a muggy evening during the hottest week of the whole summer, and the air-conditioner was laboring. Eldeen was fanning herself with an old bulletin she had pulled out of her Bible, and someone behind them had whispered, “I think we need to get the air-conditioner checked before we talk about new carpet!”

Trudy Gill had risen and stated a preference for the moss green carpet because green was such a restful, versatile color and would always look nice with any flower arrangement. It would cost a little more than the brown but not as much as the burgundy, she had pointed out, so they would be hitting a happy medium.

But Mayfield Spalding, who usually sat morosely in the back pew and never said a word, had agreed with Bernie. “Buy the brown and put the extra money in the missions fund!”

Willard had expressed an interest in the burgundy. “I'd like to see us dress our sanctuary up a little,” he had said. “The burgundy has an elegant look, I think, and would provide a nice contrast with the light paint on the walls.”

“The dark brown sure wouldn't show dirt,” Marjorie Eckles had offered.

“The burgundy is dark, too,” Willard had added.

“But look how much more it'd cost!” Denny Pyle had said, rising to his feet. “I don't know about the rest of you, but I was raised on plainness. Plain food, plain clothes, plain old hard work, the plain gospel, plain hymns—I say we get the plain brown. We don't need to get mixed up in all this high-falutin' decoratin'!”

Jarvis Tillman had agreed. “We gave Pat a real nice wedding in this very room, and nobody even noticed that the carpet was old and worn-out. You can make a church look nice without having to bust the budget on things that don't really matter. As long as we got something on the floor, I don't think we need to worry about how many threads per square inch it's got and all that. Just get something that'll wear a decent amount of time and'll hide the wear and tear. I think the dark brown is the way to go.”

Curtis Chewning thought the dark brown looked too “industrial and depressing.” He said he thought the decor of a church shouldn't be showy but should certainly uplift the soul. “I know the Bible tells us we're made of dust and to dust we shall return,” he said, smiling, “but I don't think God necessarily expects us to forgo beauty just to remind ourselves of our temporal, depraved condition every time we look down at the carpet.”

“Of course, a
doctor
wouldn't be as concerned about the cost of something as the rest of us with a regular-size income,” Perry heard Woody Farnsworth say under his breath.

Not even during the business meeting when the subject of paving the parking lot had been discussed had Perry witnessed such dissension. Nobody was really angry—not yet—but he noticed that people were fanning themselves faster.

Myrt Silvester reminded everybody that the church carpet didn't get as much wear as a normal carpet since they weren't using the sanctuary every day. “So it doesn't seem like we need to be all that worried about buying the very best quality, or else we'll all be sick of it by the time it finally wears out.” A few people tittered politely, but most of the faces remained set in uncompromising lines.

“I don't know about that,” Grady Ferguson said. “It might not be used every day, but when it is, it gets a lot of wear. I'd say a couple hundred people tramping around on it six hours a week or so might average out the same as a family using it every day. Phil, you've done cost efficiency studies for different companies—you can figure that out for us, can't you?”

“But everybody doesn't walk in the same places,” Martha Joy Darrow said. “Like Burton and me—we come in and sit back here in this same spot every service. We never even go up front as a general rule. In a house the wear is more evenly spread out, don't you think?”

Somebody behind Perry said, “Maybe if we had an invitation at every service, more people
would
go up front!” Perry couldn't tell whether the person was serious or was just trying to lighten things up.

“We're getting off track!” Bernie Paulson declared. “The point is, which carpet will meet our needs—not exceed them but
meet
them.”

“The Lord does expect us to use our money wisely,” Phil Spivey said. “There's no use being extravagant. Maybe we don't even need to buy it right now. This carpet doesn't look all that bad to me. Why not wait till after the parking lot is done next spring?” There was a stirring of bodies and a swelling undercurrent of responses to this remark.

So far Brother Hawthorne had remained silent on the front pew, rubbing his jawline thoughtfully as if considering whether to grow a beard. As he tried to keep up with his note-taking, Perry kept looking up at Brother Hawthorne, wondering what he was thinking and when he was going to take over and smooth things out. Usually the discussions at business meetings were far more leisurely than this.

Perry had just written down “P. Spivey—suggests postponing purchase” when he felt a ponderous movement next to him and realized that Eldeen was standing to face the rows behind them. On the other side of him, he sensed Joe Leonard tensing, probably in dread of what was coming. Jewel, sitting next to Willard, glanced over toward Eldeen anxiously.

The room grew silent. Brother Hawthorne cleared his throat and started to rise, then saw Eldeen standing and slowly sat back down. Perry couldn't tell whether his expression was one of relief or resignation. Someone in back whispered something, and someone else hissed, “Shh!” The air conditioner emitted a low moan and seemed to shift gears. Perry heard a large insect bat against the window and then flutter its wings, producing a faint rhythmic clicking.