The Bible Salesman (21 page)
“Do you know what’s biting over there?” asked one of the car owners. He wore a white sweatshirt, blue shorts, and shoes without socks.
“No idea,” said Henry. “Does that Buick go pretty well on the sand?”
“Better than a lot of jeeps. You planning on doing some reading?”
“Yeah, maybe.” Henry held up the book in his hand. It didn’t look like a Bible — more like a hardback novel. It was a wedding gift, sent from his Bible-selling teacher, Mr. Fletcher, The Bible: An American Translation. In his note that came with it, Mr. Fletcher called it the Chicago Bible, because it had been translated up there. He said he was sorry to miss the wedding and he appreciated his invite.
Once he and Marleen set up camp near the southern end of the island, Henry walked with the cast net and a bucket over to the sound side. He hauled in enough finger mullet for the afternoon’s fishing.
There wasn’t much that Henry could teach Marleen about surf fishing. She’d fished in Georgia, knew how to cast, and had read about it after they decided where to honeymoon.
They sat in their wood-and-cloth beach chairs and watched the tips of their rods. The rods rested in metal pole holders stuck in the sand. It was turning cool enough for both of them to wear long pants and long-sleeved shirts.
Nothing was biting, so they talked. Henry had brought along his new Bible. He’d been reading it like a novel, telling Marleen how it was different from the one he grew up with.
“Why don’t you order some free ones and give them away? How many of the others did you give away?”
“I lost count. I doubt I could get the Chicago ones. You remember I told you about Trixie’s Bible that Uncle Jack used to talk about — there are no miracles; nobody can see into the future? Listen to this, especially the last sentence. It’s from Ecclesiastes. I can’t get over it.” He read:
For there is one fate for both man and beast — the same fate for them; as the one dies, so dies the other; the same breath is in all of them, and man has no advantage over the beast; for everything is futility. All go to one place; all are from the dust, and all return to the dust. Who knows whether the spirit of men goes upward and the spirit of the beast goes downward to the earth? And I saw that there is nothing better than that man should rejoice in his work, since that is his portion; for who can bring him to see what shall be after him?
“I used to believe,” said Henry, “that that would be God’s word because it’s in the Bible. Maybe it is. But it’s David’s son talking.”
“Are you going to read that to Aunt Dorie?”
“I might.”
“Why not — it’s in the Bible.”
“Everything is in there. I don’t know what I can say to Aunt Dorie. Well, I’ll tell her I believe in hope and fear — the things the fiddle player at Indian Springs said. You know. But that’s kind of general, until you start talking about something specific.”
“I want you to take me to Indian Springs.”
“I will. I promise,” said Henry.
“Let’s go there next year for our first anniversary. Remember when I wondered what we’d be doing in a year — last year this time?”
“Oh yeah. That was a bad time. Mr. Clearwater. Do you remember having any thoughts about what he was up to that one time you saw him?”
“I thought he looked businesslike. Handsome. Nice. Kind of big ears, but not too big, I guess.”
“He did look a little like Clark Gable.”
“I didn’t see that.”
“Look! You got a bite. Get him.”
The rod tip was bending forward, springing back, bending forward. Marleen jumped from her chair. She grabbed her rod, reeled in a two-and-a-half-pound redfish, took it off the hook, admired it, dropped it into their bucket.
They settled back in their chairs.
“Where were we?” asked Henry. “Oh, on Clearwater.”
“He didn’t look like a bad person.”
“Let’s talk about something else.”
“What should we name our first child?” asked Marleen.
“You been thinking about that?”
“First, if it’s a boy. Two names. I pick one. You pick one.”
“Danny,” said Henry.
“Howard, my daddy.”
“Or maybe Jack.”
“I’m glad we’re going to see him finally,” said Marleen.
“You’ll like him. He really wants to meet you.”
“What about a girl?” said Marleen.
“Ah, I guess Dorie, or maybe Ruth or . . . I don’t know.”
“Tressie,” said Marleen. “Tressie Ruth would be good. What about Henry Junior?”
“I don’t think so. Two Juniors would be too much. Have you noticed that Glenn Junior’s looking more and more like Mr. Clearwater?”
“You’re sure about all that?”
“Sure as blood.”
“He does have big ears.”
“I know Caroline sees it, and she’s going to know that I see it, and she’ll have to bring it up. She asked after Mr. Clearwater when I came home last summer — and she was calling him Preston instead of Mr. Clearwater. That should have told me something.”
“Why don’t you bring it up to her?”
“I couldn’t. I wouldn’t know what to say. Maybe she’ll tell you.”
“When I get pregnant we’ll have some good talks, I’ll bet.”
They headed to their tent as the bright low sun slowly dropped toward the long line of trees far across the Pamlico Sound.
“Look,” said Henry. “Look how far my hand shadow goes down the beach. In a minute it’ll go on across the sand and then onto the water and then on out into outer space.”
“I never thought about that,” said Marleen. “Let’s do it. Let’s both do it.”
They each held up a hand, standing there near the southern tip of the island, their backs to the sun setting over McGarren Sound, their shadows lengthening across the sand, then out onto the ocean.
“It’ll be our whole bodies,” said Marleen. “Our whole bodies blocking a speck of sunlight from outer space, and . . . and if you could travel as fast as light, then you could get right out there in space a little ways and then you could see us standing here together for . . . how many light-years is it across the whole universe?”
“Two hundred billion. I have no idea.”
“Let’s look it up. Maybe nobody knows. But that’s how long our shadows will be out there — together.”
“That’s a long time.”
“Almost forever,” said Marleen.
“ ‘And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.’ I wonder if the Twenty-third Psalm is any different in the Chicago Bible.”
They built a campfire, and Henry filleted and fried their redfish, served it with sliced apples and loaf bread. After dark, and more talking, they settled in the tent. With a flashlight, Henry looked for the “house of the Lord for ever” at the end of the Twenty-third Psalm, the way he’d always seen it.
The L
ORD
is my shepherd; I shall not want;
In green meadows he makes me lie down;
Beside refreshing waters he leads me.
He gives me new life;
He guides me in paths of righteousness, for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk in the darkest valley,
I fear no harm; for thou art with me;
Thy rod and thy staff — they comfort me.
Thou layest a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
Thou anointest my head with oil; my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and kindness shall follow me all the days of my life;
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord to an old age.
“Marleen, listen.” He read the entire psalm to her. “That last sentence has got some meat on it.”
They talked more after getting into their sleeping bags. In a while, Marleen invited Henry into hers. After the magic, and after Henry was back in his own sleeping bag, they talked about the end of the world, the atomic bomb, and how the Bible talked about fire at the end. Henry said it would be fire or water probably, and one fifty-percent guess was as good as another.
They were quiet for a while. Henry said, “Had you rather burn up or drown?”
“Let’s don’t talk about that.”
“Okay.”
They lay there awhile. The wind was up a little.
“Let’s sleep outside,” said Marleen. “And imagine our shadows flying together through space.”
While she smoothed out her spot in the sand, Henry smoothed out a spot for his sleeping bag, put it down, wiped the sand off his feet, and crawled in and lay on his back.
“Come over and get in with me for just a minute or two,” she said.
“Okay.”
No moon, no lights, clear sky, the waves so regular as to be hardly noticed — and the sky so bright with stars, scattered like sand thrown up by the handfuls.
“It feels like we’re moving through space with the ground slipped out from under us,” said Henry.
For advice and support, I thank Pat Strachan, Liz Darhansoff, Peter Workman, Peggy Leith Anderson, and Shannon Ravenel. For suggestions, stories, and other support, thanks to Louis Rubin, Hilbert Campbell, Robert Siegel, Sterling Hennis, Sharon Boyd, Kristina Edgerton, Tom Rankin, Billy Ray Brown, John Justice, Captain Mark Batson (safe and vault acquisition and security), Jim Watson, Catherine Edgerton, David McGirt, Nancy McGirt, Yvonne Mason, Clifford Swain, Buddy Swain, Joe Mann, Mike Craver, Lewis Nordan, June Highfill, George Singleton, John Hart, Buster Quin, Jan Henley, George Terll, P. M. Jones, Hannah Jones, John Penick, Zama Dexter, Bobbie Hicks, Johnnye Lott, Roseanne Osborne, Dr. Larry M. Taylor, and the woman at a November 19, 2006, fund-raiser for the North Carolina Council of Churches who told me a story about a red dress and a funeral.
Particularly helpful and inspirational during the creation of this story were several nonfiction narratives — in particular
Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine
, by Harold Bloom;
Beasts, Horns, and the Antichrist
, by Broderick D. Shepherd; and
The Story of the New Testament
, by Edgar Goodspeed.
C
lYDE
E
DGERTON
was born in Durham, North Carolina. He is the author of eight previous novels, including
Walking Across Egypt and Lunch at the Piccadilly
. He has been a Guggenheim Fellow, and five of his novels have been
New York Times
Notable Books. Edgerton teaches creative writing at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. He lives in Wilmington with his wife, Kristina, and their children.
