Benediction (19 page)

Not very much.

He is, Lorraine said. But he won’t take all his pain pills.

You ought to take your pills there, Dad, said Bob.

I will when it gets bad enough. I want to be awake as much as I can. I don’t want
to faze out.

Yeah, but if you’re in a lot of pain, Dad. We wouldn’t want to think you was hurting
too much.

I appreciate that. That’s what they keep saying too.

He won’t listen to us, Lorraine said.

No, he always had his own mind, didn’t he, Bob said.

And I still got it, Dad said. What’s left of it. You sound like I’m not here already.
I don’t want no pity either. You remember that. He looked at the two men and looked
at Lorraine. All right, will you show me the accounts? You better do it soon. I seem
to sleep all the time now. I seem to want to sleep.

Rudy stood and laid the store accounts in their folder on the bed beside Dad and he
picked them up. Hand me my glasses there will you, honey? he said. Lorraine gave him
his glasses and he looked briefly at the papers and then pushed the folder across
the bed to her. You look at them, he said.

I will. Can they be left here?

We have other copies, Bob said.

I’ll look at them later.

So, Dad said. Everything’s all right down there?

Yes sir. No problems to talk about this week.

I don’t guess I’d much care if there was. I’m too tired.

You need to rest. That’s the best thing. Leave this to us.

He studied them for a while. I was thinking about that old spinster lady again after
you left the last time. She come to my mind. When I was laying here. What’s her name?

Miss Sprague, Rudy said. The old lady with the freezer, you’re talking about.

Yes, her.

Did you change your mind? You want us to repossess it?

No. But she’s all alone, isn’t she.

There’s nobody over there except her, that I know of. Never has been. So far as anybody
else knows either.

I want you boys to help her.

How do you mean?

I don’t know. But I want you to find some kind of help for her. Somebody to look in
on her.

You mean hire somebody.

Something like that. You figure it out. Lorraine can help you. I don’t want her left
alone over there in that house of hers.

Yes, we can do that, Lorraine said.

You can pay for it out of the store. Get some kind of caretaker for her. Some older
woman or somebody. But it needs to be taken care of.

We will, Rudy said.

And another thing. I was remembering that fellow Floyd down there in Oklahoma.

About his story, you mean?

The one that drowned, Dad said. That’s not funny no more. The man went over the side
of that boat into the lake and didn’t come up. He was alive, then he died and his
life has to mean more than just a story some guy that comes up here from Texas tells
us that’s on some combine crew.

You want us to do something there too? Rudy said. I don’t see what we can do about
that.

No. I’m just saying. Telling you what I’ve been thinking about while I’m laying here.
It’s not funny to me no more. Not this morning, anyway.

If that’s how you feel, Bob said.

That’s how I feel.

Then we don’t have to mention it again.

Dad lifted one hand from the bedsheet and inspected it front and back and let it fall
back down. I don’t know if I’m going to see you fellows again, he said. I got a idea
this might be it. But I want both of you to know how much I appreciate all the days
and years we’ve been together at the store. I trusted you. I believed in you. You
two fellows—you’ve been more to me than somebody I just hired. You were friends to
me. I want you to know that. Dad’s eyes welled up as he was talking.

Thank you, Dad, Bob said. We feel the same way.

Well, I wanted you to know. I wanted to have it said out.

The two men were teary eyed now too. They sat side by side, tall and short, on the
two hard wooden chairs in the hot room, their hands in their laps.

So, Dad said. All right. Lorraine’s going to be the store manager. Like we talked
about. For a while anyhow. And you two fellows are going to still be assistant managers
together.

They didn’t say anything.

You understand me, don’t you.

We understood this was coming from what you was saying before, yes sir.

And I want you to get along with each other. Put aside any bad feelings.

We don’t have no bad feelings, Rudy said.

Good. Then I’m going to say one more thing. I want you to pay yourselves a ten-thousand-dollar
bonus, each one of you.

What’s this, Dad? We don’t expect nothing like that.

Now don’t interrupt me. You don’t need to say nothing about it. I’ve been laying here
thinking and that’s what I want. He paused to study them. Now I’m wore out. Come over
here, if you would.

The two men looked at him.

Come over here, please. I’m asking you to come closer. They slowly rose from the chairs
and stepped up beside the bed. Dad reached and shook Rudy’s hand and then Bob’s. I
thank you for all these years, he said, for what you done for me. Good-bye, you fellows.

Good-bye, Dad. We’ll be thinking of you.

They glanced across the bed at Lorraine, sitting on her chair in the corner crying
quietly. They went out to the living room and stood looking toward the kitchen. Mary
noticed them and came out.

Would you let us know if we can do anything? Rudy said sadly.

Was he able to talk a little?

Yes. He was able to talk a little. He said some things to us. We’re sure going to
miss him. That’s all there is to it.

In the bedroom Lorraine moved onto the bed and lay beside Dad.

Are you all right, Daddy?

Yeah, I am.

She took his hand.

That went pretty good, don’t you think it did? he said.

Yes. You know how much they think of you.

Well, I think a lot of them too. But they never say much, do they. They never say
much to me.

You don’t let people, Daddy. You never have.

You think that’s what it is?

Yes, I do.

Well. I don’t know about that. I couldn’t say.

I
N THE DAYS FOLLOWING
the sermon Lyle began to wander in the town. After supper with his wife and son,
he’d put on a jacket and cap and begin to walk—after the sun was down. It was usually
nine or ten before he began.

He stayed away from the center of Holt and the bright streetlights. When it happened
that he had to cross Main, he waited until the street was empty and then he crossed
and went on walking up and down the dark sidewalks and passed over the tracks to the
north side where the houses were small and meager, with empty weed-filled lots. At
the end of town, he looked out at the starlit windblown fields, and then turned back
into the neighborhoods.

He stood in front of houses in the shadows of trees and looked in through the windows
opened to the summer nights, watching people. The little dramas, the routine moments.
People moving about in the rooms, people eating and getting up from the table and
crossing in the flickering blue light of television and at last turning out the house
lights and going out of the darkened rooms, while he stood outside waiting to see
if they would come back.

Once he saw a man in his undershirt kneel down before a woman in a robe sitting on
a sofa, his face raised up to her, and the woman leaning forward, drawing him to her,
running her fingers through his thin hair and taking his face in her hands and kissing
him a long time, and then the man rising and rubbing his back while she sat still
and watched him walking away with his hair all mussed up.

One night he stood so long in front of a house that a man called the police. He actually
watched the man on the phone having the conversation.

A police car pulled up at the curb and the officer put on his cap and got out.

What do you think you’re doing here? he said.

Just standing here, Lyle said.

These people said you were looking in their window.

I didn’t mean to disturb them. I’m sorry if I have.

Let’s see some identification.

Are you charging me with something, Officer?

Let’s look at your driver’s license.

Lyle took out his wallet and handed the license to him. The man examined it under
his flashlight, then put the light up into Lyle’s face.

Rob Lyle. That’s you.

Yes.

The preacher.

Yes.

Is there something wrong with you? What are you doing out here?

I’m just walking. Having a look around town.

Your family knows where you are?

They know I’m taking a walk.

It doesn’t bother you to look in other people’s houses? You think that’s all right.

I don’t think I’m doing any harm. I didn’t mean to.

Well, these people don’t like it. This man called you in.

What did he say?

That you were looking in his house.

Did he say what he was doing in his house?

Why would he say that?

People in their houses at night. These ordinary lives. Passing without their knowing
it. I’d hoped to recapture something.

The officer stared at him.

The precious ordinary.

I don’t know what you’re talking about, but you’d better keep moving.

I thought I’d see people being hurtful. Cruel. A man hitting his wife. But I haven’t
seen that. Maybe all that’s behind the curtains. If you’re going to hit somebody maybe
you pull the curtains first.

Not necessarily.

What I’ve seen is the sweet kindness of one person to another. Just time passing on
a summer’s night. This ordinary life.

Well, people are pretty good, generally. Most of them. Not all of them. I see the
other side.

Lyle looked around at the houses. The officer watched him.

You’d better go. People don’t want you looking in their windows, good or bad. I’ll
wait here till you leave.

On Saturday night he was walking on the east side of Holt a block off Highway 34 when
two men rode up in a pickup.

Is that you, Reverend?

Lyle looked at them. Yes, it’s me.

We thought it was. Just stay there a minute.

They got out and came over to him.

What are you doing out here, Reverend? Taking the night air?

Yes.

It’s pretty late. Why would you be out here now?

Did you want something? Lyle said.

There is something, the first man said and he slapped Lyle across the face. Lyle fell
back and the other man moved closer. What did you think of that? the first man said.

Lyle didn’t say anything.

Tell us about love, the man said. Turn us the other cheek now.

That’s what this is about, Lyle said. I see.

What did you think it was about?

I didn’t know.

You forgot already.

No.

No, he didn’t forget, the second man said. He still loves them desert sons of bitches.
He still has that on his mind.

The first man said, You believe all that, I guess, don’t you.

Yes.

He slapped Lyle again. Lyle faltered backward. He wiped his hand across his mouth,
smearing blood on his cheek.

Now what do you say?

I ask you to stop this, Lyle said. It won’t get you what you want.

He thinks he’s proved something.

Do you?

No.

But you hate me now, don’t you.

I don’t hate you. I don’t like you very much.

If I slap you again, you’ll start to hate me then.

Let’s go, the other man said. Somebody’s going to see us.

All right. We’re done here. But you need to watch what you say, Preacher. You better
mind your mouth, you’re about to get yourself in real trouble.

They went back to the pickup, the headlights came on and they drove off toward the
highway. Lyle watched them until they’d disappeared around the corner, then he looked
at the houses along the street. No lights had come on. He looked up at the sky, all
the flickering stars, and started back toward the parsonage, crossing Main Street
and going on into the sleeping residential neighborhood, and at the parsonage he stood
at the bathroom sink to rinse his face with water. His wife appeared in the doorway.