Something Rich and Strange: Selected Stories (43 page)

Preacher Thompson had pretty much stayed out of all this till Harry said that, but then he suggested that Harry play the thief who gets saved, leaving Terry as the other one. The Splawn brothers, Donnie and Robbie, were nominated to be the Roman soldiers. To the credit of the church, when Preacher Thompson asked for a show of hands as to whether we should let this be our Easter project, it was close. My hand wasn’t the only one that went up against it, and I still believe it was empty stomachs as much as belief in Larry and his scheme that got it passed.

But it did pass, and a few days later Preacher Thompson called me up and asked, since I was on the church’s building and grounds committee, if I would help build the crosses. You see, I’m a carpenter, the only full-time one, male or female, in the church, so whenever the church’s softball field needs a new backstop or the parsonage needs some repair work, I’m the one who usually does it. And I do it right. Carpentry is in my blood. People around here say my father was the best carpenter to ever drive a nail in western North Carolina, and after my mother died when I was nine, he would take me with him every day I wasn’t in school. By the time I was fourteen, I was working fulltime with him in the summers. I quit school when I was sixteen. I knew how I wanted to make my living. I’ve been a carpenter for the last fifteen years.

It was hard at first. Since I was a woman, a lot of men didn’t think I could do as good a job as they could. But one good thing about being a carpenter is someone can look at your work and know right away if you know what you’re doing. Nowadays, my reputation as a carpenter is as good as any man’s in the county.

Still, I was a little surprised that Preacher Thompson asked me to work on a project my ex-husband was so involved in. But, being new, he might not have known we had once been married. I do go by my family’s name now. Or maybe he did know, figuring since the divorce was over five years ago we had forgiven each other like Christians should. Despite its being Larry’s idea, I did feel obligated since I was on the building and grounds committee, so I said I would help. Preacher Thompson thanked me and said we would meet in front of the church at ten on Saturday morning.

On Saturday, me, Preacher Thompson, Larry, and Ed Watt, who’s an electrician, met on the front lawn. From the very start, it was obvious Larry was going to run the show, telling us the way everything should be, pointing and waving his arms like he was a Hollywood director. He had on a white, ruffled shirt that was open to his gut, his half-ton of gold necklaces, and a pair of sunglasses. Larry was not just trying to act like but look like he was from California, which meant, as far as I was concerned, that, unlike Jesus, he actually deserved to be nailed to a cross.

Larry showed me where he wanted the three crosses, and he gave me the length he wanted them. His was supposed to be three feet taller than the other two. Preacher Thompson was close by, so we acted civil to one another till I walked over to my truck to go get the wood I’d need. Larry followed me, and as soon as I got in the truck and cranked it, he asked me how it felt to have only a pillow to hold every night. “Lot of advantages to it,” I said as I slowly drove away. “A pillow don’t snore and it don’t have inch-long toenails and it don’t smell like a brewery.” I was already out of shouting distance before he could think of anything to say to that.

I was back an hour later with three eight-inch-thick poles, just like the ones I used to build the backstop for the softball field, and a railroad crosstie I’d sawed into three lengthwise pieces for the part the arms would be stretched out on. I’d also gotten three blocks of wood I was going to put where their feet would be to take the strain off their arms.

As I turned into the church parking lot, I saw that Wanda Wilson’s LTD was parked in the back of the church. She was out by the car with Larry, wearing a pink sweatshirt and a pair of blue running shorts, even though it was barely 60 degrees, just to show off her legs. When they saw me they started kissing and putting their hands all over each other. They kept that up for a good five minutes, in clear view of not just me but Ed Watt and Preacher Thompson too, and I thought we were going to have to get a water hose and spray them, the same way you would two dogs, to get them apart.

Finally, Wanda got into her LTD and left, maybe to get a cold shower, and Larry came over to the truck. As soon as he saw the poles in the back of the truck he got all worked up, saying they were too big around, that they looked like telephone poles, that he was supposed to be Jesus, not the Wichita Lineman. That was enough for me. I put my toolbox back in the cab and told Preacher Thompson Benny Brown was coming over with his post-hole digger around noon. I pointed at Larry. “I forgot all about Jesus being a carpenter,” I said. “I’m taking all of this back over to Hamrick’s Lumberyard.” Then I drove off and didn’t look back.

Why is it that some men always have to act like they know more than another human being just because that other human being happens to be a woman? Larry’s never driven a nail in his life, but he couldn’t admit that I would know what would make the best and safest cross. I guess some people never change. Ever since the divorce was made final, Larry has gone out of his way to be as ugly as possible to me. The worst thing about being divorced in a small town is that you’re always running into your ex. Sometimes it seems I see him more now than I did when I was married to him. I can live with that.

But it’s been a lot harder to live with the lies he’s been spreading around town, claiming things about me that involved whips and dog collars and Black Sabbath albums. You’d think nobody would believe such things, but like the bible says, it’s a fallen world. A lot of people want to believe the worst, so a lot of them believed Larry when he started spreading his lies. I couldn’t get a date for almost two years, and I lost several girlfriends too. Like the song says, “Her hands are callused but her heart is tender.” That rumor caused me more heartache than you could believe.

I have no idea what they did after I drove off that Saturday, but the Sunday before Easter the crosses were up, so after church let out just about everybody in the congregation went out on the front lawn to get a better look.

I’ve always said you can tell a lot about a person by how carefully they build something or put something together, but looking at Larry’s crosses didn’t tell me a thing I didn’t already know. Instead of using a pole for the main section, he had gotten four-by-eight boards made out of cedar, which anybody who knows anything about wood can tell you is the weakest wood you can buy. The crossties and footrests were the same. I’m not even going to mention how sorry the nailing was.

I walked over to the middle cross, gave it a push, and felt it give like a popsicle stick in sand. I kneeled beside it and dug up enough dirt to see they hadn’t put any cement in the hole Benny Brown had dug for them but had just packed dirt in it. I got up and walked over to the nearest spigot and washed the red dirt off my hands while everybody watched me, waiting for me to pass judgment on Larry’s crosses.

“All I’m going to say is this,” I said as I finished drying my hands. “Anybody who gets up on one of those things had better have a whole lot of faith.” Of course Larry wasn’t going to let me have the last word. He started saying I was just jealous that he’d done such a good job, that I didn’t know the difference between a telephone pole and a cross. I didn’t say another word, but as I was walking to my truck I heard Harry Bayne tell Larry he was going to have to find somebody else to play his role, that he’d rather find a safer way to prove his faith, like maybe handling a rattlesnake or drinking strychnine. I went back that night to look at the crosses a last time. I left convinced more than ever that the crosses, especially the taller middle one, wouldn’t support the weight of a full-grown man.

On Good Friday I went on over to the church about an hour before they were scheduled to start, mainly because I didn’t believe they would be able to get up there without at least one of the crosses snapping like a piece of dry kindling. There were already a good number of people there, including Larry’s cousin Kevin, who wasn’t a member of our church or anybody else’s, but who worked part-time for Larry and was enough like Larry to be a good salesman and a pitiful excuse for a human being. Kevin was spitting tobacco juice into a paper cup while Mrs. Murrel, who used to teach drama over at the high school, dabbed red paint on his face and hands and feet, trying to make him look like the crucified thief Larry had talked, paid, or threatened him into playing. Besides the paint, the only thing he was wearing was a sweatshirt with a picture of Elvis on it and what looked like a giant diaper, though I’d already heard the preacher explain to several people it was supposed to be what the bible called a loincloth. Terry Wooten was standing over by the crosses, dressed up the same way, looking like he was about to vomit as he stared up at where he would be hanging in only a few more minutes.

Then I saw the sign and suddenly everything that had been going on for the last month made sense. It was one of those portable electric ones with about a hundred colored light bulbs bordering it. “The Crucifixion Of JESUS CHRIST Is Paid For and Presented By LARRY RUDISELL’S Used Cars Of Cliffside, North Carolina” was spelled out in red plastic letters at the top of the message board. Near the bottom in green letters it said, “If JESUS Had Driven A Car, He Would Have Bought It At LARRY’S.” It was the tackiest, most sacrilegious thing I’d ever seen in my life.

Finally, the new Jesus himself appeared, coming out of the church with what looked like a brown, rotting halo on his head—it was his crown of thorns—fifty yards of extension cord covering his shoulder, and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. He unrolled the cord as he came across the lawn, dressed like Kevin and Terry except he didn’t have any red paint on his face. Larry didn’t have a fake beard either. He wanted everyone to know it was Larry Rudisell up on that cross. He walked over to the sign and plugged the extension cord into it.

You know what it’s like when the flashbulb goes off when you’re getting a picture taken and you stagger around half blind for a while? Well, that’s about the effect Larry’s sign had when it came on. The colored lights were flashing on and off, and you could have seen it from a mile away. Larry watched for a minute to make sure it was working right and then announced it was twenty minutes to show time so they needed to go ahead and get up on the crosses. Preacher Thompson and the Splawn brothers went and got the stepladders and brought them over to where the crosses were. Terry and Kevin slinked over behind the sign, trying to hide. It was obvious Larry was going to have to get up there first.

Larry took off his sweatshirt, and I realized for the first time they were going to go up there with nothing except the bedsheets wrapped around them. It wasn’t that cold right then, but like it always is in March, it was windy. I knew that in a few minutes, when the sun went down, the temperature would really fall fast.

While Donnie and Robbie Splawn steadied the cross, Larry crawled up the ladder. With only the loincloth wrapped around him, he looked more like a Japanese Sumo wrestler on
Wide World of Sports
than Jesus. When he got far enough up, Larry reached over, grabbed the crosstie, and put his feet on the board he was going to stand on. He turned himself around until he faced us. I’ll never know how the cross held, but it did.

It was completely dark, except of course for Larry’s sign, by the time Terry and Kevin had been placed on their crosses. As I watched I couldn’t help thinking that if they ever did want to bring back crucifixion, the three hanging up there in the dark would be as good a bunch to start with as any. I looked over my shoulder and saw the traffic was already piled up, and the whole front lawn was filled with people. There was even a TV crew from WSOC in Charlotte.

At 6:30 the music began, and the spotlights Ed Watt had rigged up came on. I had to admit it was impressive, especially if you were far enough away so you didn’t see Larry’s stomach or Terry’s chattering teeth. The WSOC cameras were rolling, and more and more people were crowding onto the lawn and even spilling out into the road, making the first traffic jam in Cliffside’s history even worse.

The crucifixion was supposed to last an hour, but after twenty minutes the wind started to pick up, and the crosses began making creaking noises, moving back and forth a little more with each gust of wind. It wasn’t long before Terry began to make some noises too, screaming over the music for someone to get a ladder and get him down. I didn’t blame him. The crosses were really starting to sway, and Terry, Kevin, and Larry looked like acrobats in some circus high-wire act. But there wasn’t a net for them to land in if they fell.

Preacher Thompson and Ed Watt were running to get the ladders, but at least for Larry, it was too late. His cross swung forward one last time, and then I heard the sound of wood cracking. Donnie Splawn heard it too, and he tripped on his Roman Soldier’s robe as he ran to get out of the way. Larry screamed out “God help me,” probably the sincerest prayer of his life. But it went unanswered. The crosses began to fall forward, and Larry, with his arms outstretched, looked like a man doing a swan dive. I closed my eyes at the last second but heard him hit.

Then everything was chaos. People were screaming and shouting and running around in all directions. Janice Hamrick, who’s a registered nurse, came out of the crowd to tend to Larry till the rescue squad could get there and take him to the county hospital. Several other people ran over to stabilize the other two crosses. When Terry saw what happened to his boss, he stained his loincloth. His eyes were closed, and he was praying so fast only God could understand what he was saying. Kevin wasn’t saying or doing anything because he had fainted dead away the second his cousin hit the ground.

It’s been three weeks now since all this happened. Larry got to leave the county hospital, miraculously, alive, on Easter morning, but his jaw is still wired shut, and it’s going to stay that way for at least another month. But despite the broken jaw and broken nose, he still goes out to his car lot every day. Since people over half the state saw him hit the ground, in slow motion, on WSOC’s six o’clock news, Larry’s become western North Carolina’s leading tourist attraction. They come from more miles away than you would believe just to see him, and then he gets his pad and pencil out and tries to sell them a car. Quite a few times he does. As a matter of fact, I hear he’s sold more cars in the last two weeks than any two-week period in his life, which is further proof that, as the bible tells us, we live in a fallen world.