The Bible Salesman (2 page)

A full-length mirror leaned against the wall beside the dresser, bottom left corner broken off. He dropped his boxer shorts, kicked them into the corner, turned sideways, drew in his stomach, expanded his chest, clinched his fist, hardened his arm muscles. He turned and faced the mirror, crossed his arms. He turned his head left, right. Checked his hangings. They always looked bigger in a mirror than when you looked down.

He stopped up the tub drain with the chained stopper and let the water run longer than he ever did at home. Aunt Dorie let him use only just enough water to reach the back of the tub. He stepped in and sat slowly. The water was hot. It had been almost two weeks since he’d had a shower at a barbershop. He slid down so his head rested against the back of the tub and closed his eyes. He thought about this possible new job. Mr. Clearwater looked like he made a lot of money.

He wet and then soaped his head, neck, arms, under his arms, his chest and back, pushed his midsection up out of the water, soaped his hangings and the crack of his ass. He then slid down into the water, pushing his knees up, splashed water over his chest. He stuck fingers in his ears, dropped his head back into the water, held it there and shook it to rinse his hair. He sat up. The water was gray. He splashed water over himself some more, stood, stepped out onto a small, round rug, dried himself with the towel, wrapped it around his waist, walked back to the standing mirror, and looked at himself again.

He dressed in clean clothes from his suitcase. The white shirt was wrinkled, but the pants weren’t too bad. He buckled his belt. He found his long black comb in the inside flap of his suitcase and combed his hair back while standing in front of the full-length mirror. Back at the sink he wet the washcloth, wrung it out, and smoothed down his hair. Like Uncle Jack.

What kind of job might it be? Anybody driving a new Chrysler could probably pay a good salary — or worked for somebody who could.

It was four o’clock, not too late to sell a Bible or two and maybe get invited somewhere for supper. He walked north along the road to a row of houses he’d seen from the motel office. He carried his valise and, in his head, lessons from Mr. Fletcher.

My job is to teach you how to sell Bibles, gentlemen. Period. End of story. From an economic point of view there are two and only two sides to every customer encounter: making the sale or not making the sale. Economics is the invisible hand that moves the world. So: two sides — the head, the tail; a sale, no sale. Kaput. The end. And you will squeeze every opportunity out of every moment of every customer encounter to make that sale. So now, gentlemen. Let’s start by writing down a definition of Bible selling.
Bible selling . . . is the act . . . of getting customers . . . to behave in ways . . . assumed . . . to lead to . . . Bible buying. Bible selling is the act of getting customers to behave in ways assumed to lead to Bible buying.
Let’s all read it together now, and then you’ll memorize it, and I can promise you it will be one of the last statements you remember as you pass from this mortal realm into the next
Bible selling is the act of . . .

He walked past three houses that didn’t look inviting — dirt yards. Except one of the yards was raked. Next, after a short stretch of woods, three houses with lawns and shrubs sat back a ways from the road. He checked in his valise to be sure the Bibles were arranged, pulled out the box containing a Bible, walked up and knocked on the screen door. He heard steps. The inside door opened and a woman stood holding a cooking pot and a drying rag.

“How do you do, ma’am? My name is Henry Dampier, and I have a little something in this box that is mighty nice that I’d like to show you if you don’t mind. It’s something I think you might like — if I could step inside for a minute, maybe.”

“I appreciate it, but I ain’t interested in buying nothing today. My cat died this morning. I’m behind on everything. I just got to washing and drying my dinner dishes.”

“Oh, mercy. That cat was probably just like a member of the family.”

“She was. She sure was.” The woman stood without moving, not much life in her face, her eyes.

You do
not
want to keep standing out there on the porch with the screen door between y’all. You want to get inside, and you do that by looking and talking in ways to make her like you in about ten seconds — that’s all you got.

“Oh Lord,” said Henry. “I remember when we buried Trixie, my uncle’s dog. It was all tears around the house when Trixie died. My sister especially. What was your cat’s name, ma’am?”

“Bunny. I called her Bunny Rabbit.”

He saw that her hand which had been against the door screen was still there. “I’m awful sorry. Did I introduce myself?” It was a matter of seconds now.

“You did, but I done forgot your name.”

“Henry Dampier, ma’am. I tell you what, ma’am. Have you buried Bunny yet?”

“No, I ain’t been able to bring myself to do it. Burt — Burt’s my husband — he’ll do it when he gets home.”

“I was going to offer to say a little prayer at Bunny’s grave.”

Sometimes, gentlemen, you’ll need to improvise. Jazz musicians do that when they put new notes where a melody used to be. They get off the beaten path, but brilliantwise.

“I’d be happy,” said Henry, “just to step around back and bury her, if you got a shovel. I’m very partial to cats.”

“Oh, that would be real nice, Mr. Dampier.” She stepped out onto the porch. “I been here by myself, and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it, so I was going to wait until Burt got home. Bunny’s under the back steps.” They were slowly moving toward the porch steps.

“If you want to,” said Henry, “you can stay in the house and I’ll do it, if you’ll tell me a good place for a grave. I don’t believe I got your name — not that I really need to, but it’s always —”

“I’m Martha Kelly.” She reached out her hand, and Henry took it. “Well, that would be real nice,” she said. “You can see her rear end out from under the steps. I just couldn’t bring myself to . . . She’s over fifteen years old. Anywhere out in the edge of the woods would be good — straight back beyond the middle apple tree back there. The shovel is leaning against the back of the house. Lord, it’s been a blue, blue day. She was like a, well, like a child. Just . . . just knock on the back door when you’re finished. Oh my goodness. Poor Bunny. Poor Bunny.”

“I’ll just leave my valise right here on the porch,” said Henry, “and my little box.”

I’m here to tell you that there is one thing more important than sickness and health, life and death, love and war, food and water, and that is the sale. The sale. Understand that, if you want to sell a lot of Bibles. And you’re hanging on to that possibility that you are leading her in the direction of her own behavior that’s going to lead to her buying a Bible, and you won’t turn loose without a sale, see, until you see clearly that you risk either getting killed or embarrassing yourself into stupidity.

“What are you selling?”

“I’m selling Bibles, ma’am. God’s holy word.”

Bunny’s rear end was like she said: out from under the steps. Yellow. Henry couldn’t see her head. He grabbed both back feet and pulled so she’d slide out. First he noticed the head was swollen way,
way
up. It was gigantic. Then he saw a . . . a snake — “Oh my gosh.” He turned the cat loose and stepped back. The snake was hanging from her mouth, not moving — clearly dead too. “Oh my gosh.” It was a copperhead, a small one. He squatted to examine. Somehow the snake’s head . . . He looked around, picked up a rock and a short stick, wedged them into Bunny’s mouth. Her front right big tooth was through the middle of the snake’s head, and the snake’s fangs were in Bunny’s — what? —
lip
, which was twisted somehow. Oh my goodness, get them buried before the lady sees, he thought. She would die. That head was big as . . . big as a cantaloupe.

He looked into the neighbors’ backyards. Nobody out there to see. He got the shovel underneath Bunny’s midsection, lifted her — she was stiffening — and with the snake dangling, he started to the woods, his body between Bunny and the back door of the house. The snake, a little less than two feet long, held.

Just inside the tree line, beyond the middle apple tree, he lowered Bunny and the snake to the ground, dug a hole about two feet deep and plenty long — it was nice soft topsoil, no clay — and buried them. He patted the pile of dirt with the shovel. He thought about a cross, looked around for a big rock, found one, placed it at the head of the grave. That was one awful-looking cat head. Poor Bunny.

He stepped out of the woods and saw Mrs. Kelly coming, from just beyond the apple tree. As they met, he saw that her eyes were red.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this, Mr. Dampier.” She held a tissue in her hand. “She hadn’t been hit by a car, had she?”

“Oh no. No ma’am.”

“When I went out to put water in her pan I saw her poor rear end and called and she didn’t move, and I knew in my heart that that was the end. I think she died in her sleep, peacefully.”

“Yes ma’am. That’s what it was. That’s what it looked like.”

“I was worried she might, you know, have been hurt somehow.” She looked over his shoulder toward the grave. “I lost my brother, Walter, in the war, and I haven’t been able to deal with things very well since then. I have these nightmares. He was my only brother and . . . Were her eyes closed? That’s one thing I always worry about.”

“Oh yes ma’am. They were real closed.”

“Would you show me the grave — walk with me out there?”

“Be glad to.”

They stood at the foot of the grave. Henry tried to think of something to say. “I’ll say a little prayer if you like,” he said.

“Oh, that would be nice,” said Mrs. Kelly.

They bowed their heads. Henry prayed, “Dear Lord, for the long life of Bunny we are grateful, and surely goodness and mercy has followed her all the days of her long life, and now she shall dwell in the house . . . or close to the house of the Lord forever. Amen.”

“Amen,” said Mrs. Kelly. “I always heard animals don’t go to heaven,” she said. “I was a Catholic when I was growing up, and that’s what I always heard.”

“That’s what I always heard too, and I’m a Baptist, so I said ‘close to’ instead of ‘in’ for some reason. I don’t know. It’s . . . you never know.” Henry started moving away from the grave, back toward the house — he took a step or two.

But Mrs. Kelly stayed put. “I been thinking I ought to of had her buried in something,” she said.

“You mean . . . you mean like a
dress
?” asked Henry. He saw a little dress with that giant head sticking up out of it. Bunny would need a
man’s
hat.

“Oh no, like a shoe box or something. I just don’t . . . I could get the box Burt’s work boots come in. That hard cardboard would be fine to keep the dirt off her.”

“You want to rebury her?”

“Yes.” She looked up at Henry. “If you would. I want to see her again, one last time. I should have at least looked at her. I never got to see Walter. He had some kind of head injury, and none of us got to see him.” She brought her tissue up to her eye. Then she started crying for sure and dropped to one knee. “Oh, Bunny. My beautiful Bunny.”

Henry, holding the shovel, eyed the back of her house, where’d he’d planned to set the shovel back. He stood still, feeling some heat around his neck. Maybe he could sing something.
My Bunny lies over the ocean? My Bunny lies over the sea?
“I remember Trixie,” he said, “this dog my uncle had. We just dropped her in a big hole and then threw the dirt in right on top of her. Never thought about a box. I think just plain dirt is the more or less normal way for an animal.”

Mrs. Kelly, sniffing, said, “It’s not too deep, is it? It wouldn’t be a great bother to dig her back up, would it?”

“Oh, well, no, no ma’am. It’s not too deep.”

“If you don’t mind,” said Mrs. Kelly. “I’ll go get the shoe box.” She stood and started for the house.

Henry looked at the grave. No choice now. He started digging. Something would come to him. Improvise. He lifted Bunny on the shovel out of the grave. If I get rid of the snake maybe I can make up something, he thought. He thought about her brother, Walter. He looked toward the house. Mrs. Kelly was coming down the back steps with the box. He didn’t want to get venom on his hand. He pulled out his handkerchief and, using it as a glove, pried Bunny’s mouth open, pulled the snake’s head off the tooth, looked up at Mrs. Kelly, her head down. She was almost to the apple tree. He flung the snake. The cat’s head was enormous, the lips misshapen and bloody at the snake bite. The eyes — where in hell were the eyes? He tied his handkerchief around Bunny’s head. He arranged the cloth, tucked.

Mrs. Kelly was standing there with the box.

“I’m just arranging a burial shroud,” he said. “It’s the way they bury all cats in England nowadays. I was just reading about it. It’s a custom over there. Catching on here. I’ve done a few before.”

“Her head looks swolled up.”

“Oh no ma’am. That’s from the way I arranged the handkerchief. Let me see that box. Poor thing.” He almost snatched the box and, moving fast, put himself between Mrs. Kelly and Bunny, slipped Bunny in the box headfirst, shut the lid, and said, “Let’s close our eyes in prayer. Our Heavenly Father, as we gather here, let us realize that Bunny has paid the final price, has reached her final destination, her final resting place” — he had one eye open and was moving the box into the hole with his foot — “and is now prepared for the kind of privacy that comes to all of us who have breathed our last breath after a faithful time of service of loving our masters, amen, and now I’m just going to pick up the shovel and cover her up with some mother earth and —”

“Her head looked swolled up to me.”

“Oh no ma’am, it was the way you tuck a burial shroud that made it look that way. It’s a kind of protection. It’s called a burial tuck.” Henry shoveled dirt onto the box. It made a sound like hard rain, and then the box was out of sight. If she said to uncover it, he would have to just walk off, he figured. Tell her he had to be somewhere.