The Bible Salesman (3 page)
“I can’t thank you enough, Mr. Dampier,” she said. “Burt will be home about suppertime. If you’ll come back by, I’m sure he’ll want to buy a Bible.”
“I need to get on now, Mrs. Kelly, and what I’m going to do is give you a, a couple of Bibles. You’ve been through a lot today. I like to give away a complimentary Bible now and then, and I think you deserve a couple. Let’s go pick them out.” He patted the top of Bunny’s grave a few times with the shovel, leaving imprints.
Back at the motel Henry noticed that Mr. Clearwater’s car was gone. He ate supper across the street at Mae’s — a patty of ground beef with mashed potatoes, biscuits, and string beans. Back in his motel room, he undressed and put on his pajamas. He knelt by his bed and prayed. “Dear God, help me to make the right decision in all I decide to do. Guide and direct me in the right path, oh God. In Jesus’ name. Amen.” He thought about Bunny, that head.
He sat on his bed and opened his Bible to Genesis. He read again, kind of fast, the first two chapters, then went back to the places he’d underlined. Aunt Dorie used to underline a lot in her Bible.
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
Then God made light, Henry read, and heaven, and earth, and plants by the third day. Then he made the seasons and sun and moon and stars on the fourth day. Then he made all the animals and creatures on the fifth day. He’d underlined “all the animals” and “fifth.” He kept reading:
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
So
God created man in his own image,
in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them. . . .
And the evening and the morning were the sixth day
.
Thus the heavens and the earth were finished.
So it was the sun, then animals, then people. But then later, in Genesis 2:
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. . . .
And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him.
And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them.
First way: animals, then people. Second way: people, then animals.
Nobody had ever talked to him about two completely different orders
. Why? It almost hurt him to think about it — how could anybody read that and not talk their head off about it? One version, but not both, could be right. One was wrong. And the Bible was supposed to be right all the way through.
And then there was that other thing, where he had stopped reading a few nights earlier. As plain as the nose on your face, in Genesis 6:
And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,
That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.
He saw these sons of God walking around on earth marrying the daughters of earth men. But Jesus was supposed to have been the only begotten son of God. “Dear God,” he prayed again. “Help me to understand thy word. Guide and direct me.” These verses were clear. Plain English. Second Timothy 3:16 said, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God.”
The next morning Henry and Clearwater sat across from each other, eating breakfast at a table in Mae’s Café. Henry told him about the cat. But he kept it short. “My Bible-selling teacher talked to us a lot about selling Bibles, and I had to keep thinking what he said about ‘improvise.’ ” He wanted Mr. Clearwater to bring up the job thing, so he’d keep quiet about all that in Genesis — for the time being, anyway. He dipped the corner of his toast into his mixed-together eggs and grits.
“Okay,” said Mr. Clearwater. He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “This job. It’s not the kind of business I can tell just anybody about. I work for the FBI.” He pulled out his billfold and opened it. A badge. He was a G-man! “We infiltrated a gang of car thieves about six months ago,” he said. “They work from here to California, mostly in the southern part of the United States, and then all up and down California. They steal a car — hot-wire it, normally — get it painted unless it’s black, an ignition system installed, and then they might sell it, or drive it to California, or turn it over to somebody else, whatever. I get the ones that they’re selling, usually. Hadn’t had to drive anything to California yet. And what I need is a driver, because that’s my Chrysler out there, and sometimes I’m dealing with two cars at a time, and even when I’ve got just one car, I like to have somebody driving for me.”
“So you know J. Edgar Hoover — you’re a actual G-man?” This was far better than Henry could have imagined.
“Oh yes. J. Edgar and me are pretty good buddies. I’ve shot pool with him, eat supper with him, but he don’t let nobody know that he shoots pool, see. He’s a Christian, like you . . . and me.”
“I’ll take it. It sounds like a good job.” He wished he could tell Uncle Jack. Aunt Dorie would be afraid, though.
Clearwater extended his hand. “Good. We’ll start tomorrow. I think we’ll have a pickup tomorrow afternoon. Be ready at three o’clock to leave here in the Chrysler and meet me at a place I’ll draw out for you on a map. And in a few months from now, when everything is lined up, we’ll be making a big number of arrests, all on the same day. All you’ll have to do in the meantime is drive for me. You’ll make more money than you do selling Bibles, I can tell you that. Twenty-five dollars for every car we move, and that’ll be, oh, up to three or four a week.”
Henry’s mind went:
A hundred dollars in a week
.
“Then some days we just sit,” said Clearwater. “It’s kind of off and on.”
Henry looked around at other people eating breakfast. They were so normal. Nothing like this going on in their lives. They were farmers and regular people. “Can I keep selling Bibles?”
“As long as we’re clear about when you go out and when you get back. I need you on call, more or less.”
“Am I supposed to dress up like you?”
“Not necessarily. You might get a hat or some hair oil and put the end of your belt where it belongs.”
“What’s a pickup?”
“I said you might get a hat or some hair oil and use your belt loops.”
“Sure. Yes sir.”
“A pickup is a car delivery. Somebody will deliver me a car. And another thing: You don’t ever, under
any
circumstances, tell anybody what you’re doing. In fact, you have to take an oath. We’ll do it on one of your Bibles before our first gig. If you do tell somebody, it could cause the whole FBI undercover department to fall apart.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be getting coded messages — general delivery — here and there, and messages at certain motels. This one, for example. I don’t actually do the stealing, normally, though I have been asked to do that once or twice. They deliver me a car to drive somewhere, or to get painted, and then we’ll do it all over again. You’ll be waiting for me somewhere, I get the pickup and drive it to you. All you do is drive. And if you ever by chance get arrested and I’m not around, then all you have to say is ‘Code Mercury,’ and then your name and my name, Preston Clearwater. No matter what they do or ask you, or how many times, that’s all you have to say.”
“Do these car thieves ever kill anybody?” asked Henry.
“You don’t ever know with these types.” Clearwater motioned for the waitress.
“It don’t sound too dangerous, though. Just driving.”
“It’s not at all dangerous. I’ll get this breakfast. You can pay your part when we eat from here on out.”
Henry was astonished that he could make so much money doing anything, especially while gaining a kind of glory. It sounded like a comic book adventure, or something from the movies. He’d be serving God in a different way. Good against evil. He remembered the pictures in Aunt Dorie’s
Children’s Book of Bible Stories
: David facing the giant, Goliath, and then the picture of him about to cut Goliath’s head off; he saw the picture of Jesus and the money changers — of Jesus chasing them away from the temple. He’d be dealing with bad people. He’d be righting wrong in a way he’d never dreamed of. Parts of the Bible had to do with all this, parts about the Pharisees, and Babylonians, and Roman soldiers, with sin and evil, and good — and all that was true, for sure — and all of that is what he would be a part of, in modern times. He’d probably figure out these Genesis things. He was going to go ahead and read past Genesis 6, anyway, just to see if there were more confusions. This was way back when maybe things got a little mixed up, before people could read and write, when all they could do was tell things.
Clearwater felt like he’d stumbled onto a gift. This boy had some enthusiasm, some energy, and as long as he kept him the right distance from the action — in the dark, that is — he’d be able to work Blinky’s route on down into Georgia and Florida, and then back up into the Carolinas, where they could visit some mill bosses, some big tobacco men, relieve them of a few fine cars. He’d gotten a raise on the cars from twenty-five percent to forty percent, and if he didn’t get caught or otherwise mess up, then by the time he met with Blinky again, his two-year road quota would be made and he’d be able to move up into more advanced jobs.
That night Henry continued reading in Genesis. About Abraham and Sarah, when their names were Abram and Sarai. He hadn’t known about a name change until he jumped ahead and figured it out. But when he jumped ahead he found out about Abraham saying for some reason that his wife Sarah was his sister. He had forgotten that Abraham had a wife, then he remembered: they’d had a baby when they were real old. And he certainly had never heard about what he read in Genesis 16, and then reread.
Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, bare him no children: and she had an handmaid, an Egyptian, whose name was Hagar.
And Sarai said unto Abram, Behold now, the Lord hath restrained me from bearing: I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her. And Abram harkened to the voice of Sarai.
Henry saw that “go in unto” meant go to bed with her and have a sex relation. It was as plain as day. He kept reading. Abraham
did it
. God wrote it and didn’t worry a whiff about it, not a whiff.
Nobody
was bothered by it.
Something was wrong. The God that wrote this was not the God he’d been taught to pray to.
Why should he not have a sex relation or two before he was married? Outside of marriage, like Abraham.
He kept reading, skipping around, past Joseph’s coat of many colors and his brothers and the hidden cup. He’d heard all that. Then he read in Genesis 38 about a woman named Tamar, and when he finished that one he had to put down his Bible and walk outside and look up at the sky and say, “What in the world?”
So that more or less settled that. He wouldn’t have to wait until he got married. Why shouldn’t he do what they were doing in the very Bible — the good guys, with no consequences? Else the consequences would be mentioned, because God would want them mentioned.
It was three a.m. and he needed to go to sleep. He didn’t know what to pray.
MR. SIM SIMPSON BEATEN, NEW CAR STOLEN
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Clarence “Sim” Simpson reported yesterday that he was assaulted by a stranger and his DeSoto automobile was stolen and driven away, leaving him helpless and injured on the ground in the parking lot behind Clark’s Furniture Store just south of town. Simpson was carried by bystanders to Leeds Hospital and released after treatment for a skull fracture.
Mr. Simpson is a retired Army master sergeant and now owns several grocery stores in the area.
Simpson reported that his car was taken in broad daylight by a man with long black hair, wearing a derby hat and sunglasses. The man was alone, seated in Simpson’s car, and claimed the car was his when Simpson approached him. Simpson said the man must have hot-wired the DeSoto while Simpson was buying a sofa in Clark’s Furniture Store.
“I thought he’d made a normal mistake and got in the wrong car,” said the injured Simpson. “And when he picked up a crow bar out of the floor board, I couldn’t imagine what it was for. Next thing I knew I was flat on my back.”
A witness, Ned Seagroves, reported that the car headed south on County Highway.
GENESIS
WHEN HENRY WAS SEVEN
H
enry held the army blankets like he might hold a dog — leaning back just a bit so he wouldn’t topple forward. Mrs. Albright’s faded red plank house, his destination, stood down the hard-frozen dirt road, the morning sun lighting the side of it.
New electric wires, strung from poles, hummed and seemed to silence the rest of the world. Frost sparkled in the road ditch. Henry was glad he wore his hat with the warm, furry earflaps — Aunt Dorie had pulled them down tight over his ears.
He was on a mission for God and Jesus, taking the blankets to Mrs. Albright and her son, Yancy. Trixie followed along behind, stopped, sniffed, squatted to pee near the ditch, steam rising through slanting sunlight. The hair around her mouth was gray.
“That is one odd bird down there,” Uncle Jack had said over and over about Yancy, the son. “One odd bird. And all them cats. I bet she’s got a sandbox in there as big as a barn door. God a-mighty.”
Last night Henry and Uncle Jack played carom, with Uncle Jack leaning over Henry’s back, a matchstick in his mouth, showing Henry how to hold the carom stick like a pool cue. Uncle Jack was a little bit hard and cold sometimes, but funny too. Aunt Dorie was warm — and always the same. Uncle Jack forgot he had his matchstick in his mouth and kissed a baby on the head one time and made it cry.
