The Lonely Polygamist (25 page)

On this Sunday afternoon, as he ducked under the doorway, his nose suddenly assaulted by the competing aromas of at least half a dozen aftershaves, the first thing he heard was, “The Golden One!” This from Apostle Coombs, a jolly little man prone to outbursts of good-natured shouting. Apostle Coombs hollered this greeting at every opportunity and Golden had yet to pin down whether the man was using it sarcastically—in reference to Golden’s widely known failure to become the One Mighty and Strong—or if he was simply being friendly in his obnoxious way. Along with Uncle Chick, it looked like the rest of the apostles were already in attendance. Mostly they were men of a certain age, chapped by the weather and dressed in snap-button shirts and suspenders, who looked like they should have been hanging over the rail at a cattle auction rather than fidgeting in this gloomy room, preparing to discuss the sacred business of God’s one true church upon the earth.

Every time they gathered, it was hard not to notice that they were a Council of the Twelve who numbered—since Apostle Barrett passed on last year—only eight.

Because he’d been playing hooky for two months it was, naturally, Golden’s turn to offer the opening prayer. Even as he called on God to bless them with His spirit, to guide them in their deliberations, images of Huila flashed into his mind: smiling shyly as she sat next to him on the Barge, close enough to touch, or picking her way through the glowing rabbit brush toward home, stealing a look back over her shoulder. Even as he thanked God for His generous bounty, for the truth of the Principle that guided their lives, he was in his heart thanking his lucky stars for the aluminum pan and cross-stitched potholders that sat on the kitchen counter in his Airstream, for all they represented, for the excuse they provided him to see Huila again.

No matter how hard he tried, he could not summon the will to pay attention during the meeting. Nels Jensen, as always, was doing most of the talking. Nels was a smiling second-generation Swede who was so thoroughly and annoyingly friendly that no matter how hard you might try it was impossible to work up any real dislike for the guy. He had left the Short Creek church after a doctrinal dispute with the elders there, and after showing up in Virgin only seven years ago he had already established himself as a political and spiritual force. His humble ambitions—to make more money than any single person in America, to marry as many wives and father as many children as the good Lord would allow, to one day lead the church into the latter days and help usher in the Second Coming of Christ—never seemed calculated, but just a natural part of his person, like his cheerful, rubbery accent or big velvety ears. He was deeply dedicated to Principle, believed in priesthood lineage and direct revelation and the infallibility of God’s sacred texts, none of which, according to him, was anything to be ashamed of. “Do we have to dress like bumpkins and hide out in the weeds like criminals?” he would ask in the reasonable, Scandinavian manner that never seemed to offend any of the bumpkins or criminals in question. “We should be candles on a hill, yes? How can we be ashamed of the truth?”

As the successful salesman of a broad range of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, he knew the importance of advertising, of spreading the word. During council meetings he often wondered aloud why they weren’t more missionary-minded, why they weren’t bringing the world around to their way of thinking instead of worrying all the time what the world thought of them. Someone, usually Apostle Lambson, would bring up the fact that their lifestyle was, technically, illegal, and to go out proselytizing might induce the authorities, as they had in the past, to swoop in, throw the men in jail and leave the women and children at the mercy of Social Services. Apostle Jensen would inquire agreeably if this wasn’t fear and doubt talking, and would Jesus have brought His truth to the world if He had given in to fear and doubt? Apostle Lambson would remind Nels that for all the wonderful things Jesus had accomplished, He did, let’s all remember, wind up getting Himself into some fairly serious trouble.

Uncle Chick, in his smoked-lens glasses and chambray work shirt, always listened to these exchanges with an air of weary patience, as if he had heard it all before, which he had. Patience, along with hard work and obedience and long-suffering, were the virtues Uncle Chick preached, and there wasn’t much point in arguing about any of it. God worked in His own way, in His own time. It was up to you to watch, to wait, and if you were faithful and obedient, His will would be revealed. Uncle Chick was the most practical of men, living in a most unpractical way, and so it was not difficult at all for him to abide Nels Jensen—an obvious threat to his authority, a man who viewed patience as a weakness rather than a virtue—for the simple reason that Nels Jensen paid more in tithing than all of them put together.

The only thing Golden could hold against Nels Jensen was that Nels, in nearly every way, made him look bad. He had a successful business, four happy wives and eighteen children who lived in a single three-story mansion with all the latest in features and design, including a restaurant-style kitchen and an intercom system that allowed the inhabitants of the cavernous house to keep track of each other’s whereabouts at all times. The house even had a complaints box in the foyer, all tricked out with a tidy pile of scrap paper and a pencil affixed to a string.

Whenever Beverly praised the Jensen family—which she seemed to be doing on a regular basis these days—Nola would always be sure to remind Beverly that she was sure Nels Jensen had room in that big mansion of his for another wife, and Beverly would always give Nola a look that said,
I would love to join the Jensen family, if only to get away from you
, and Golden would find himself thinking that if he ever became delusional or foolhardy enough to outfit one of his houses with a complaints box, it would need to be about the size of a refrigerator.

Before the closing prayer that afternoon, Uncle Chick asked if Golden had any questions, seeing as how he had been out of the loop for a while. At first, Golden shook his head, and then he thought of something. “Does anybody know how to get gum out of hair?”

The apostles looked at him with their mouths open: could he be serious? This was a question for homemaking day at Relief Society, not for the esteemed members of the Council of the Twelve. Apostle Russell nudged Apostle Throckmorten and wondered aloud if maybe this was the sort of thing that filled your head when you stopped coming to council meetings.

“Little crankcase grease’ll get gum outta just about anything,” mumbled Apostle Dill, suddenly screwing his face up in embarrassment at having revealed himself as a man who might know such a thing. He sighed, added, “But then, you know, you got the problem of what to do with the crankcase grease.”

On their way out, Uncle Chick appeared next to Golden, asked him how the job was going, how close he was to finishing. They stepped from the chapel doors into a cool wind scented with sage and ozone that rifled their clothes like a hundred expert hands.

“Getting there,” Golden said, praying Uncle Chick would not bring up the subject of Maureen Sinkfoyle and her unresolved marital status. “Next month or two, looks like.”

“We miss you around here, you know,” Chick said.

Though Golden wasn’t sure what “we” Uncle Chick was referring to, he started to say that he missed being here too, but Uncle Chick launched into one of his coughing fits, each cough a dull axe biting into wet and rotted wood. Chick, who had spent much of his twenties and thirties underground breathing the bad air in gypsum and molybdenum mines, had been fighting emphysema for thirty years, but only now did it seem to be taking a toll on him. Up close, in the clear afternoon light, it was difficult to miss the pallor of his skin, the bruised eye sockets behind the dark glasses, the shaking hand that pressed a handkerchief to his lips. In the week since Golden had last seen him he seemed to have developed a slight tremor of the head.

Seeing Uncle Chick like this only made the realization hit harder: he was letting the man down. With the Prophet incapacitated and confined to a wheelchair, Uncle Chick had spent the last two decades doing everything in his power to keep the church together and thriving, but the job seemed to be getting the better of him: membership was down, many of the faithful having defected to more strident sects or succumbed to the temptations of the world, and the few newcomers were mostly like Nels Jensen, who came in wanting to change everything, who wanted fresh leadership, a new vision for new times.

“You’d think an outfit like ours could only get
bigger
,” Uncle Chick had said once, a wisp of sadness in his voice, “but this one just keeps on shrinking.”

And where had Golden, Uncle Chick’s most reliable ally, been during such difficult days? Locked away inside his own grief and guilt, and lately, off in the wilds of Nevada, mingling with lowlifes and prostitutes and pining after his boss’s wife.

Uncle Chick, it seemed, had made the mistake so many others had when it came to Golden Richards: he’d given him his faith and trust.

In a gesture of sympathy, Golden attempted to pat the old man on the back, but Uncle Chick tried to push Golden’s arm away and the two men ended up temporarily entangled, and both, for their own reasons, too tired to do anything about it. They stood like that for a moment, gazing out over the valley toward black cliffs in the distance, leaning on each other like two prizefighters in the clinch, looking to buy a little time. Uncle Chick let go a gargling sigh, releasing his hold on Golden’s wrist, and pushed himself toward the dirt parking lot, where one of his wives was waiting to drive him home.

Over his shoulder he said, “You just finish that job, all right? You finish it fast as you can, and come back where you’re needed. We can’t wait on you much longer.”

FATHER AND DAUGHTER

After the drive home from church, Golden pulled up next to Old House. He circled around back, hoping to steal a few minutes of solitude in the Doll House before the Summit of the Wives commenced at four o’clock sharp.

He found four-year-old Sariah, still in her Sunday dress, in the backyard alone. She was squatting next to the back steps, carefully scooping gravel into piles with an old spatula.

“My daddy,” she said matter-of-factly, without looking up at him. She picked up a pebble, considered it closely, tossed it aside as if it didn’t match her expectations.

“Your mama know you’re out here?” Golden said. “It’s cold for you without your coat.”

“I’m
fine
,” she said, exasperated. “I’m trying to get these rocks together, if you don’t mind.” Four years old and had her mother down to a T. She was Beverly’s youngest, brown-eyed and feisty, even more self-possessed, it seemed, than the rest of Beverly’s girls. He tried not to think about what kind of trouble she might cause in the coming years.

She looked up at him. “Are you going to stay here with us?”

“I’m staying tonight. Tomorrow I have to go back to work.”

“Yes,” she sighed. “I know.”

“I don’t like going away, honey, but I have to.”

“I have to do things too,” she said, indicating her piles of rocks, “and it makes me so
tired
.”

Golden eased down into a squatting position and helped Sariah get her gravel piles arranged just the right way. From the very beginning he’d always played with the kids. Wooden blocks, mud pies, pillow forts, it didn’t matter, he was always in the middle of it, especially during those early years, living the childhood he’d never had.

It seemed that she forgot about him for a good minute or so, singing a jumble of songs and making spit bubbles, as she created her own gravel configurations with the spatula. He felt a slight sting of resentment about being so blatantly ignored, but then she looked up, smiling as if she’d gotten the better of him, her fine brown hair falling down over one eye, and he was struck by how much she looked like her older sister Glory, dead now almost three years. He shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts, but his eyes watered anyway and his daughter sensed something. She stood up, staring intently at him, and rested a chubby hand on his knee. “Daddy?”

“Yes, honey?”

“Are you mad at me?”

Pierced to his heart, he said, “Oh no, honey. No. Your daddy loves you.”

“I know,” she said, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She held out the ruffles of her dress, snagged with dead leaves and sticks, and tilted her head. “It’s because I’m so pretty.”

He wanted to pull her to him, to feel the compact heft of her against his chest, to smell her sweet breath, to tell her that he would never let her come to harm, but he held still, paralyzed by his love for her.

“I’m not mad at you either, Daddy,” she said. “Mama’s not mad either, too.”

“Well, I hope not.” He stood and, as he did so, stole the briefest of kisses, brushing his lips against her shining hair. She glanced around and batted at her head as if bothered by a fly.

He held out his hand to her. “You want to come in with me? I don’t think you should be out here all alone.”

She took her time deliberating. She looked up at the sun, placed her finger in her nostril for a moment. Finally, she said, “Where’s Cooter?” It was a stalling tactic all the smart ones learned; when you didn’t want to do something, ask a question. When confronted with a question that has no good answer, change the subject.

“Cooter’s in the back of the pickup eating his food,” he said. “We can go see him after dinner.” Though Beverly had not gotten around to putting up a sign about it, it had recently become official: Cooter had been permanently disinvited from Old House.

Sariah sighed again. It was clear she believed her existence to be an especially difficult one.

Golden held out his hand. “You coming in with me?”

She blew a raspberry of disgust, took his hand, and they went inside together.

TWO UNHAPPY PEOPLE

The following Wednesday night, in the darkened cell of his Airstream, he had nothing better to do than stand next to the three-quarter-sized refrigerator with his pants at his ankles and a flashlight trained on his penis. A half hour ago the generator had run out of gas, which meant he had no lights, no stove, no radio—nothing but darkness and a flashlight. After a long drive from Vegas and an entire afternoon spent fighting with the drywallers over who was responsible for the two thousand dollars in leftover gypsum board, he did not have the energy to do anything about it. Instead, he felt happy enough to stand in the dark and consider the gum in his pubic hair, which had not broken down and crumbled away after repeated shower scrubbings, but now had separated into three separate pellets, shiny and grayish and connected with threads of gum as hard and brittle as spun glass. Lately, this had become a habit: pants down, staring at the gum, wondering at the mystery of it and trying to come to a conclusion as to its symbolic significance. He had been taught, and he tended to believe, that there was meaning in everything, that God’s will could be found in the details too often missed by the inattentive—but this detail, and God’s part in it, had him stumped. He took the largest part of it between his fingers and was thinking about pulling it out with one mighty rip, once and for all, when something scraped against the side of the trailer.