CHAPTER EIGHT

A MAN HIRED Tiny Darling to pull the seats out of the old Trinity Church in Grafton. The church had shut down years back and the little congregation had moved on to Sunday services in Chesley or Stone City. Some had stopped going at all.

The man had come up from Morrisville with the thought of remodeling the church and renting it out as housing. He wanted to make his reputation as the one who saves old churches by turning them into apartments.

“That’ll never happen,” said Tiny, “but whatever you say.”

“You’re not looking ahead.”

“There’s houses going empty in this town. And that’s houses.”

“Aha. This is not a house, it’s a church. Prices are rising in Morrisville and Stone City. Where will people go?”

“They say Texas is popular.”

“I will call it the Trinity Apartments.”

“Here’s what I’ll do on the chairs,” said Tiny. “Ten dollars apiece.”

“Five.”

“Seven,” said Tiny

“Done.”

It was cold and dark inside the church. Water stains streaked the walls, the rugs had turned to threads, birds had built nests between the ceiling beams.

The chairs were made of bentwood and black iron and joined in rows of eight on either side of the aisle. They’d come from a movie theater in Chicago about a hundred years ago.

The legs were fixed to the floor with bolts petrified by time and rust. But Tiny had wrenches and ratchets and pipes, and every bolt gives up some way. As he worked he thought about the Trinity. The Holy Ghost always seemed like the wild card. What was his job? Tiny was not sure.

He rigged a plywood ramp down the stairs and dragged the chairs out and loaded them on a flatbed truck. They’d go to the landfill except for four he set aside to put on his back porch.

Church chairs at Tiny’s house would be something to talk about, should anyone show up in the mood for conversation.

At noon he pulled his gloves off, got his lunch from the cab of the truck, and sat in the churchyard eating and drinking a beer.

Louise’s mother came along the sidewalk with her walking stick. Mary Montrose had gotten small these days. She wouldn’t like him drinking beer in the shade of the church but she only asked what he was doing.

Tiny pushed one of the wooden seats down for Mary. It was a hot day and his neck and shoulders felt strong and useful from the pulling and dragging.

“I’d live in a tent before I took an apartment in that building,” Mary said. “They say thousands of bats come flying out of the steeple at night.”

Tiny reconsidered the nests he’d seen. He didn’t know how bats lived. Thousands seemed a high estimate. He gave the beer can a shake, tipped it up, put it in the paper sack.

“It’s rough inside, I can tell you that.”

“If it can’t be a church, I’d just as soon let it go,” said Mary. “I remember Louise and June standing on the stage saying their pieces at Christmas Eve.”

June was Mary’s other daughter, a year or two older than Louise. She lived out West, in Colorado if she hadn’t moved, and didn’t come home much anymore.

“Far as that goes, Louise and Dan Norman got married in there, didn’t they?”

Mary nodded.

“Once she’d divorced me.”

Mary had an old person’s look in her eyes, as if the view from the churchyard was unlike anything she’d ever seen. “You and Louise were not married.”

This was not necessarily senility on Mary’s part. She had hardly acknowledged the marriage when it was on.

“The way those girls would laugh in church,” she said. “They had their own words to the songs.”

“Like what?”

“Let me think,” said Mary. “Do you know the song ‘Make Me a Blessing’?”

“No.”

“Well, there is such a song. But they would say ‘make me a sandwich.’”

“Oh. That is kind of funny.”

“They thought so. And they would try not to laugh out loud but that only made it worse. Their shoulders would get to shaking, and pretty soon you could feel it all down the row. The minister hated us. They were just high-spirited girls.”

“I saw Louise the other day,” said Tiny. “She was washing her truck with a chamois. I was too married to her.”

“You believe what you want to believe.”

Tiny helped Mary get up, gave her the walking stick, and watched her make her uncertain way across the grass. How much longer would she go on? Tiny wondered. Or his own mother? It was hard to picture the world without them. After a bad storm the sky sometimes appeared a paler blue, too frail to hold up the sun. Maybe it would be something like that.

End of the day, the job half done: a grid of pale ovals on the floor marked his progress, showing where the legs of the chairs had been bolted down.

Tiny drove the flatbed to the landfill off the Mixerton Road north of the Rust River. He loved the landfill. It felt like another country —the bulldozers and the burial mounds they made, the sound and the dust, the swarms of birds.

He parked and stepped into the doorway of a corrugated building. The supervisor looked up from a fishing magazine.

“And what do we have today, Tiny?”

He came out to see the chairs in case they were something the landfill workers could use, but on consideration they had chairs enough.

Tiny drove along the ridge road. A bulldozer climbed a mountain of dirt and refuse. Fertilizer sacks darted in the wind like ghosts at Halloween.

Tiny stopped the truck and ran the lift. The church seats clung to the bed till it was pitched too steep and then they began to scrape and slide to the ground.

One night Louise drove through a thunderstorm to see a woman named Marian about a clock. She lived in Dogwood Crescent, a fancy neighborhood on the west side of Stone City. Louise parked the Scout beside a tall brick house with electric candles shining in bands of windows.

Louise never owned an umbrella, as she associated them with old people, so she ran across the street holding a newspaper over her head. Lightning turned the street white, and then came the thunder.

The woman Marian answered the door. She had blue eye shadow and long silver hair and she wore a red kimono with white lilies. Louise stood bedraggled and dripping in the entrance.

“I’m Louise, from the shop,” she said.

“Britt,” called Marian.

A younger man came to the front of the house in a white turtleneck sweater and burgundy jacket. His slippers were black with gold medallions.

“Take the lady’s newspaper and coat. She’s come about the clock.”

“Oh, very good.”

Britt took the newspaper from Louise and read the headlines. “Teens kidnapped at gunpoint, forced to drive man across town,” he said.

“Is this the time to be reading the news? Where are your manners? Are you hungry, Louise? My son is a chef.”

“You sent me a photograph of a clock,” said Louise.

“So I did,” said the mother. “Make Louise something to eat, Britt. In the meantime I will take her to see the clock.”

It was on a desk in an alcove with a heating grate by the living room. The base housed a garden scene in which two girls rode swings, tiny porcelain hands holding the wires, one girl swinging forward as the other swung back. The case was mahogany with gold inlay. A trellis laced with tiny roses formed an arch over the swings.

“When was it made?” said Louise.

“Oh I wouldn’t know. The thirties or forties I should think. It belonged to my aunt.”

“Why are you selling it?”

“I’ve grown tired of hearing it tick. I suppose that’s an odd reason, but these things happen. And Britt doesn’t care for it either.”

Britt stepped into the alcove. “No, the clock, I hate it,” he said. “Please come eat while it’s hot.”

The kitchen had a fireplace with a fire going. Britt had set the table for one—a bowl of soup, a basket of homemade bread, red wine in a proper glass. Louise didn’t understand why they were making such a production out of selling a clock.

She spread a pressed white napkin in her lap. Steam rose from the bowl. Britt and Marian sat on either side of Louise, watching her intently. She picked up the spoon and tried the soup.

“Good God, this is excellent,” said Louise.

“What did I say, Britt?” said Marian. “Britt lacks confidence.”

“Jesus,” said Britt. “You don’t have to tell her that.”

Louise tore a piece of the bread, dipped it in the soup. She took a drink of the wine. “Now, about the clock,” she said. “I’m not sure I can give you what it’s worth.”

“We will not talk money at the table,” said Marian.

Louise figured she would keep the clock, having acquired it with so much ceremony. Dan met her at the door of the farmhouse.

“I was beginning to think I lost you,” he said.

“Is the house leaking?”

“Just that corner where it always does. I put a bucket down.”

“Look what I have.”

They took the clock up to the bedroom and Louise set it on the dresser and plugged it in. With her finger she gave one of the children a push to get them swinging.

Dan leaned his arms on the dresser and studied the clock. He found a thin red button on the side and pushed it. A bulb hidden behind the trellis lit the painted girls on the swings.

“Will the ticking bother you?” Louise asked.

“No. Will the light bother you?”

“Yes.”

“We can turn the light off.”

And she understood this as a kindness, because Dan loved the small and incidental lighting of appliances, clocks, radios in the dark. Louise thought this might have something to do with memories of the sheriff’s cruisers and their busy dashboards.

Her hair was wet from the rain and she dried it with a towel and then sat in a white nightgown brushing her hair at the bureau.

They could hear the wind and rain and the clock. When she came to bed she was all over him like a shadow.

Jack Snow drove home from the Little Fox, an old-style strip club that suited his taste in sexual exhibitionism. Pole dancing he didn’t care for. It looked more like work than dancing.

At Wendy’s place he found that his key no longer opened the door. He knocked and knocked. Rain hammered the roof and overflowed the gutter, making curtains of water around the porch.

Wendy came to the living room window. She held a phone and dialed. Jack’s phone rang. They talked with the window glass between them. Her lips moved and a little time passed while the signal traveled from the living room to wherever it went and back to the porch.

“You can’t live here anymore, Jack. Your things are in the garage. We’re done. I’m sorry it’s such a rotten night, but the locksmith came today, and I don’t make the weather.”

“What is this about?”

Her phone flashed red. “Hold, please. I’m getting another call.”

She sat on the arm of the couch and covered her mouth with her hand.

“That’s my dad. He wants to know should he come over and make you go. He doesn’t mind.”

“Look at me. I’m standing in the rain.”

“What should I tell him? He’s on hold.”

“I’ll go. What else would I do?”

“When?”

“However long it takes to load the car.”

“All right. One second please.”

There was standing water on the porch, and Jack walked around on his heels to keep the leather of his shoes from getting soaked.

“Okay,” said Wendy. “He’s on his way over.”

“What’d I just say?”

“He doesn’t trust you. I don’t think anyone ever did trust you but me, Jackie. And even I didn’t, very much.”

“What happened? Why are you doing this?”

“They’re watching you. They know what you’re doing. My parents hired the sheriff. Well, he used to be the sheriff. He investigated you.”

“What I’m doing? What we’re doing.”

“That’s the other thing. I quit. Why didn’t you tell me you were in prison?”

“Hey. A lot of people are in prison. At least open the door and say goodbye.”

“That’s what my dad said you would say.”

“You’re making a mistake. The business is about to take off.”

“You should take off.”

Jack backed the Mustang into the garage, where he found three boxes on the concrete floor. Opening them to make sure she hadn’t kept his music system, he saw that she had baked him a pie, wrapped it in wax paper, and laid it on top of his shoes and moccasins. He took the pie out and placed it on the floor, determined not to take her charity. But it looked good, so he put it back in the box.

He loaded the trunk and closed the lid and tried the key to the door in the garage.

“Not this one either,” said Wendy from the other side.

“Thanks for the pie,” said Jack.

“Oh. You’re welcome. It’s apple.”

“Hey, Wendy.”

“What?”

“Remember when I said you were smart?”

“No.”

“Well, I’m not so sure about that anymore. I think you might have a learning disorder.”

“You don’t scare me.”

Jack power-braked in front of the duplex. Smoke rolled from the burning tires in the rain. If she was watching at all she would only find this comical or sad. He took his foot off the brake and the Mustang bolted.

“Ain’t my night,” he said.

Perhaps his car would spin out and crash into her father’s car coming the other way. A fiery collision. How ironic that would be. But Jack didn’t want to die. That was the problem in that scenario.

He went up to the trainyard and carried the boxes into the warehouse. He sat in the office eating apple pie and drinking whiskey. Later he made a bed of packing quilts and fell asleep next to the catalytic heater.

The crow rescued by Louise from the street only to die days later came back to the thrift store. It happened in a roundabout way.

Roman Baker, the father of the twin vets, was retired and often came to the animal hospital to sit in the waiting room.

He would read magazines, do crosswords, look out the window, watch the reaction of dogs when they realized there were cats inside cat carriers.

The twins weren’t happy about his hanging around but they could hardly object as he was their father and still owned the building.

When the crow died the old man decided that it should be stuffed and mounted and given to Louise. The twins disagreed, saying she might not appreciate the gesture.

He went ahead, enlisting the services of a locally famous taxidermist who had his own radio show and agreed to do the work at cost.

When the crow was finished the twin Roman Jr. said he would take it to Louise. He’d had a crush on her since he was fourteen and she was in her early thirties. He was almost thirty now himself and had two children but remembered how the image of Louise haunted his younger years. He would probably run off with her today. Not that he would ask or she would say yes. Just something to dream about.

A sign on the thrift shop door said Louise would be back at two-thirty. Roman Jr. sat down on the steps with the crow in an ungainly package of brown paper.

In a little while Louise pulled up riding a powder-blue motor scooter. She put the kickstand down and took off a black helmet. She shook her head and her red hair fell to the shoulders of a Morrisville-Wylie letter jacket.

“What’s that?” said Roman Jr.

“A Vespa. Someone wants to sell it to me so I thought I should know how it works. I like it.”

“I’ve got something for you.”

She sat beside him with the helmet at her feet. “If this keeps up I will be in the Fortune 500.”

Roman handed her the package.

“Now, this was our dad’s idea,” he said. “He’s always looking for something to do. Anyway, remember how hard you took it when that crow died?”

“It bothered me. Yeah.”

“Anyway, Dad knows this taxidermist, he’s got a show on the radio.”

“Oh Jesus, Roman. Not the crow.”

“Well, no, it is. It is the crow.”

“Will I want to see it?”

“I don’t know. I’ll take it and hide it somewhere if you don’t want it.”

Louise unwrapped the package. The crow stood on driftwood, feathers interlaced and smooth. The beak pointed down and to the side, as if the crow were listening intently to sounds of the wild.

“It does look natural,” said Louise.

“Yeah. The guy does a hell of a job.”

“Please thank your dad for me.”

Louise put the crow in the shop window on a wooden table engraved with sunflowers, where it remains to this day. She hung a tag on it saying I’M NOT FOR SALE.

On Saturday mornings Lyris would drive out to the Red Robin Bakery for cinnamon rolls and coffee and bring them back to Louise’s store.

She imagined that the people at the bakery would get to know her, saying, “I wonder where Lyris is this morning. I’m sure she’ll be here any minute to pick up her cinnamon rolls.”

Lyris drove back to town with the coffee and the rolls. The coffee cups were in a cardboard holder made for four cups. If you only had two cups you had to wedge them in diagonally across from each other—if they were placed on the same side the holder would tip over every time.

Lyris and Louise stood at the counter drinking coffee and pulling the rolls into strips. “I see you have a crow now.”

“A weird story,” said Louise.

She told it, from the day the bus hit the crow and the strange customer came in to the day Roman Jr. turned up with the package.

“You said a tall woman,” said Lyris.

“Could have reached anything in the store without a ladder.”

“Albert tried to interview a woman a while ago. Said she was really tall.”

“What was her name?”

“I forget. She had white hair.”

“Platinum,” said Louise. “Was she trying to find a rock?”

“I don’t know.”

“This one was.”

“The interview fell apart. She attacked a bartender with a yardstick.”

“That you do not do.”

“He tried to take it from her. She hit Albert too.”

“This must have been some interview.”

That afternoon Louise dyed Lyris’s hair magenta in the back room. Lyris sat on a wooden chair wearing a white plastic bonnet that made her look like a pilgrim maiden. Louise stood behind her with a crochet hook drawing locks of hair through small holes in the bonnet so that some hair would get the dye and some wouldn’t.

As Louise worked they watched a documentary about the Ouija board on an old Admiral television set with rabbit ears.

“Of course the thing moves,” said Louise. “People’s hands are on it.”

“I used to know somebody who was good at the Ouija board,” said Lyris. “It scared me. The staff at the orphanage would pay her to tell them things.”

Louise worked the dye into Lyris’s hair. “Like what?”

“This one guy, he was an electrician, he lost his wedding ring, and she said where to find it.”

“I know. A motel.”

Lyris laughed. “No,” she said. “Behind the sink.”

“Sometimes it seems like you thought the orphanage was okay.”

“It was the Four Seasons compared to the foster homes.”

After letting the dye soak in for twenty minutes, Louise wrestled the bonnet from Lyris’s head, washed her hair in the sink, and dried it with a heavy avocado-colored blow-dryer from the store. They looked at her hair, a lovely mix of brunette and wine red, in the mirror above the sink.

“I believe you are the prettiest girl in town,” said Louise.