Big Stone Gap (8 page)

Jack Mac nods.

“Mike Tinsley was the best in everything. His varsity jacket was decorated like a four-star general’s. Remember? All-state in this and that.”

“Things have changed since high school,” Jack Mac announces, and looks off to get me to stop yapping about Mike Tinsley. Hadn’t I heard about his philandering on Sue and his terrible temper and how she moved home most weekends of their married life? Besides, don’t I know that no man wants to be compared with the man who came before?

Jack Mac pulls me close; his cheek rests above my left ear.

“How’s your mama?” I ask. He doesn’t answer for a moment. I feel him pull away to look at me. He looks me in the eye. Then he pulls me close again.

“To be honest, I wasn’t thinking about my mama right then.”

For God’s sake, Ave Maria! Asking a man about his mother. Who does that? You
are
an old maid! You have forgotten how to talk to a man. Say something smart.

“Could we just dance and not talk for a minute?” Jack Mac asks.

I nod. Don’t talk, Ave Maria. This is a man who prefers silence. You are getting on his nerves. You don’t have to think of something funny to say. You don’t have to entertain. Let go. Listen to the music and dance. Just dance. That’s all.

The song ends. Jack Mac bows graciously and formally like a duke. “Thank you, ma’am,” he says, and goes.

I am careful to park behind Theodore’s house so as not to start any more rumors. (I don’t need to be the town spinster, the town bastard, and now the town tramp all rolled into one.) And Theodore is, after all, a teacher in the Wise County public school system with a sterling reputation. He flicks the lights on. His home is simple and neat. It could be any high school teacher’s house, except for the elaborate display on the dining room table. The only indication that this is a dining room is its proximity to the kitchen. Theodore has removed all of the chairs and dishes. He has turned it into a workshop, where he choreographs his halftime masterpieces.

Tonight, meticulously lined up in rows, are one hundred toy soldiers; now they represent our high school marching band. A small turntable and speakers face the table on an antique server. Albums are stacked neatly next to the turntable. He’s got Sousa, classical, and Al Green, the rhythm and blues singer. The table is covered in butcher’s paper. Theodore has drawn the field’s yard lines onto the paper with chalk. The figurines fan out in perfect lines, in the formation of a star, leading to three small paper pyramids on the fifty-yard line. The pyramids are made of tissue paper and are scaled to size.

“You’re making pyramids?”

“The shop boys are going to build them. The Vernon girl is doing the craft work. Remember her? She made the giant globe for last year’s prom, ‘Color My World.’ ” How could I forget? I was Theodore’s date. I couldn’t believe I finally attended a prom at Powell Valley High School. I was never asked to go when I was a student. Dancing under the tinfoil stars sixteen years later was sweet retribution.

“Who’s going to get them out on the field?”

“The flag girls. Two under each pyramid.”

“Flag girls? Are you kidding?”

“Papier-mâché. They’ll be as light as fritters.”

“Great. Any blackouts?” There is a concert section in each halftime show in which the band faces the home stands and plays a number. This is traditional, but it can be dull. Theodore came up with a way to ignite the show; at the appropriate moment, the field lights shut off to reveal our lovely majorettes, with batons lit up like torches, spinning wheels of fire and spelling out words like
Win
or
Go
.

“The flag girls will have industrial flashlights under the pyramids. I’m using selections from the scores of Elizabeth Taylor’s movies, starting with
National Velvet
. As the band plays the theme to
The Sandpiper
, we’ll black out and the pyramids will light up. Then, as we segue into the love song from
Cleopatra
, Tayloe will emerge from behind the center pyramid, dressed as Cleopatra, and twirl fire.” Theodore moves the pieces around the table to show me the choreography. Then he turns out the dining room light to show me the lit-up pyramids. They do give the effect of being there, right there, in downtown Cairo.

“I think this is spectacular, Theodore,” I say, meaning it with every fiber of my being. “It’ll knock the socks off of a movie star.”

“Think so?” Theodore says as he moves the woodwinds with a ruler.

I can feel the pressure on his shoulders myself. “Elizabeth Taylor has probably had more salutes than all the presidents combined. She’s seen it all! And in a million different countries. She’s going to cry or something when she sees this kind of show in little old Big Stone Gap. You’ll be famous!”

Theodore lights up at the mention of fame. Who among us wouldn’t? What a grand concept: to be appreciated and sought after for your God-given talent. To be revered and consulted as an expert in your field. To have the awe and respect normally reserved for movie stars.

“I don’t want to be famous, Ave. I just want to be really, really good.”

“You are that! You are.” I have no problem being passionate around Theodore. I really believe in him.

Theodore moves a line of soldiers, turning the star into a triangle. I watch him masterfully make shapes and study the table as though it’s an algebraic equation. Theodore loves his work. He is forever thinking about it, studying, trying things, improving. That’s how my mother was. She was never satisfied with her sewing. She ripped out as many seams as she completed, probably more. There was a level of craftsmanship, a pride in her work that I have never known. She was so hard on herself. When she sewed, she would talk to herself, criticizing her work, then mumble in approval and smile when the fabric met the thread in glorious, tiny, uniform stitches that disappeared into the fabric in their delicacy. That was the hallmark of my mother’s work: In order to be perfect, the seam had to disappear. The overall effect of the final garment was important. The line. The fit. The movement. Her work was never obvious, so it went unrecognized.

I am not an artisan like my mother, or a visionary like Theodore. I am a pill-counting pharmacist. I simply follow the orders of doctors; I don’t even make a diagnosis. My work is not about expansion, it’s about precision. Maybe this is why Theodore wants my input. Details. That’s what I’m good at.

“To pull this show off, you’re going to need a crew on the sidelines. I can get the folks from the Drama to help. I could put a crew together for you, and then you could boss us around.”

“You’d do that for me?”

“Of course I would. Now, all you have to do in return is sleep with me.”

Theodore and I laugh so hard at this, we shake the table and all of the soldiers fall and rattle across the table like they’ve just lost a war. We keep laughing until we’re crying, and I’m wondering what the neighbors will say. What a boring life I’d have without Theodore. I wonder if he knows.

I gave Pearl the week off to study for her PSATs, the junior version of the college-entrance SATs. Since she’s been working for me, Pearl’s grades have gone from C’s to B’s. Dillard Cantrell, the high school guidance counselor, called me to express his thanks. She might make the honor roll next term. Girls like Pearl often fall between the cracks, he told me, and he would be personally thrilled to see a mountain girl exceed expectations.

Fleeta has the day off, and I’m running the store alone. June Walker, the most wrinkled woman in town, is driving me nuts with questions about face creams.

“June, you’ll have to wait for Pearl to get here from school. She knows all about moisturizers.”

“Well, she better damn hurry because I got me an emergency situation.”

The Bookmobile stops outside the Pharmacy. Pearl gets off. Iva Lou waves at me from her window and motions that she will be over at the gas station. (Things must be hot and heavy with Kent Vanhook because her usual spot on the street is open.)

Pearl comes into the store with a chic short haircut and a nice outfit. Could it be a cinch belt? It is! I haven’t seen her in a little over a week. What a difference. She has lost weight! Enough that you can tell! I am about to fall all over Pearl when June does instead.

“Pearl Grimes, you done dropped some weight. How’d you do it?”

“I joined Weight Watchers. And I eat a lot of Jell-O.”

“Well, count me in. I’m gonna eat me a ton of Jell-O so I can drop me some weight, too. Now, missie, I got me some wrinkles on my face you could hide a roll of quarters in. Which one of these here creams do you suppose I oughta slather on my mug of the night?”

“I would recommend the Queen Helene Cucumber Masque. It’s thick, but it soaks in. And you get a lot for your dollar.”

Pearl leads June Walker to a little makeup table she’s put together. I watch Pearl the Expert as she demonstrates all the different creams on June’s hand. What salesmanship. Perhaps Mr. Cantrell is right. This girl’s got a future, and it ain’t in Insko.

The pleasant jingle of the tri-bells on the door signals the entrance of another customer.

“Good afternoon, Preacher.”

“Hello, Miss Mulligan.” Preacher Elmo Gaspar, our local Church of God in Jesus Christ’s Name reverend and snake handler, stands before my prescription counter and commences to go through all of his pockets.

“Preacher, you are the most disorganized man in Southwest Virginia.”

“Ave Maria, I know I’m a mess. But you know, there ain’t no perfection in this world, only in the next.”

“You speak the truth, Reverend!” June cries through her cream.

The preacher chuckles, reminding me of the light side to his character. When I was little, every Friday morning we had assembly in the elementary school auditorium. The speaker was always a minister from one of the local churches. Of course, as we grew older, we dreaded it. But when we were kids, we loved the fire-and-brimstone Bible stories, delivered with passion and zeal by the Protestant of the Week. The Protestants were on rotation until one week when there was a cancellation and no preacher could fill in, so the spot went by default to the only Catholic priest in the area. The schoolkids used to tease me about my religion, saying Cath-licks drank blood in our service and worshipped statues. The kids were convinced when the priest showed up that he’d have horns and green skin. They were mighty disappointed when Father Rausch, a mild man with a crew cut, brought out puppets and acted out the parable of the Prodigal Son—not exactly a barn burner. I almost wished my priest had a little of the devil in him, for theatrical purposes. I wanted the Catholics to have some pizzazz. Couldn’t he have explained stigmata or weeping statues? But it was not to be. We didn’t have the stuff. The Protestants did.

The Protestants knew that the hard sell was everything (there has always been a heated, if unspoken, competition among the various sects), so they came fully loaded, ready to convert, with audiovisuals, pamphlets, and songs. When Preacher Gaspar came, he showed an actual filmstrip of what heaven would look like. The living room in the Palace of Heaven was made of pink and gold marble, and young, beautiful people in flowing gossamer robes were reclining on stones and staring into a bright light that came from the open ceiling. The light was God, and he was stopping by to visit the folks in one of the many rooms he had prepared for us. Then Preacher Gaspar showed us hell. It was layers of people stacked upon one another, in torment, feet crushing into faces, hands reaching out, begging for release, gnashing their teeth and wailing in horror. Preacher Gaspar left that image up a very long time and preached over, around, and in front of it, trying to scare the tarnation out of us. He succeeded because by the end of the filmstrip most of us were weeping. After we wiped away our tears and swore never to lie or steal or cheat anybody, we sang a song about the Bible.

“Preacher, remember that song you taught us at assembly when I was a girl?”

“Miss Mulligan, aren’t you still a girl?” he says with a wink.

“You’ll have to answer to God for lying.” I hum a bit, and then in my terrible singing voice,
“The B-I-B-L-E. Yes, that’s the Book for me! I stand alone on the word of God! The B-I-B-L-E!”

“Very good.” Preacher looks happy that I’m done serenading him and relieved that he has found his prescription order in his breast pocket.

I unfold the paper and attach it to my clipboard. It’s from Doc Daugherty: a tincture for poison, for rattlesnake bites. I keep a supply on hand at all times; after all, it’s hunting season and occasionally one of the men will get bitten.

“Going hunting, Preacher?”

“No, no. We got a revival down in the Frog Level. I’m preaching and handling. I promised Doc Daugherty I’d keep the medicine on hand.”

The preacher has been handling snakes at revivals since he was very young. There’s one story that he handled three rattlers at once and tamed them to sleep. Snake handling is mentioned in the Old Testament. It’s a way for believers to prove their faith in God; if they truly believe, God won’t let them get bitten. Preacher Gaspar’s beliefs must be sincere, because in all these years he’s never been bitten. He looks up at me and smiles. His expression is beatific, there is a saintly sweetness to him. He must be close to seventy now, but his face is unlined and youthful. He still has his own teeth, straight and white. His hair, once black, thick, and unruly, is gone, but his scalp is smooth and pink, an advertisement for his good health. His blue eyes shine with a knowingness and humor that can only come from a serene and intimate relationship with God. There is no pretense to him; he is the real article, kind and good.

“You be careful now, Reverend.”

“I will. I will.” He turns to go, then looks back at me. “Miss Ave, do you remember the rest of that song I done taught you?”

“Reverend, I’m ashamed to say I don’t.”

He sings,
“God’s words will never fail, never fail, never fail . . .”

Pearl, June, and I join in,
“God’s words will never fail. No! No! No!”

Reverend Gaspar laughs as he leaves.