The first week of December found Ray from the street department leaning precariously from a ladder while hanging a strand of Christmas bulbs from the marquee of the Royal Theater across the street to Grant’s Hardware, then back across Washington Street to Owen Stout’s law office. Kyle Weathers and a clutch of old men were watching from the barbershop, placing bets on whether this would be the year Ray fell from his ladder to a sure and certain death.
Sam Gardner walked past, careful not to cross under the ladder and usher all manner of bad luck into his life. He paused to watch Ray secure the lights to an iron hook over Owen Stout’s window.
“How’s the weather up there?” Sam asked.
Ray, never one for conversation, grunted.
“Been nice talking to you,” Sam said, walking on.
“Yep.”
He walked past the barbershop, looked through the window, and waved.
“Boy, you sure did a number on his head,” Stanley Farlow said to Kyle Weathers. “I haven’t seen a haircut like that since I was in the army. How’d you cut it so close without drawing blood?”
“Practice,” Kyle said proudly. “You know my motto. Every haircut a walking testimony.”
Sam continued on, pausing to view the Christmas display in the window of the Rexall drugstore. Thad Cramer, the pharmacist, was arranging magazines on the shelf beside the counter. He’d owned the Rexall since Sam was a boy and would sneak peeks at the Police Gazette. He still felt guilty whenever he saw Thad, so he hurried along the sidewalk toward the meetinghouse.
Overhead, the sky was a scuddy gray. The morning radio had predicted the first snowfall of the season, and Sam had spent a good part of the morning hunting his rubber boots, which he’d finally found in the basement behind a box of canning jars. He used his search for the boots as an excuse to nose around for his Christmas presents, but had come up dry.
Frank was seated at his desk, reading a book.
“Morning, Frank.”
“Hey, Sam.”
“Say, Frank, how’s the December newsletter coming along?”
“Not done yet.”
Sam sighed. “You know, other churches send out their newsletter before the month actually gets here. That way if there’s a church event early in the month, people know about it in time. I hate interfering with your reading, but do you think maybe you could finish the newsletter today?”
“Probably not,” Frank said. “I’m on strike until I get a raise.”
“What do you mean, you’re on strike? You hardly do anything as it is.”
“Insult me all you wish. It will not lessen my commitment to justice in the workplace. See my button.” He lowered his book. Pinned to his checkered flannel shirt was a large red button that read Workers of the World, Unite!
“Oh, brother.”
“We’re all on strike.”
“We? Who’s we?”
“Donna Lefter, the secretary at the Baptist church, and Sister Rosalie over at the Catholic church, and Harriet Combs at the Methodist church.”
Sam shook his head in disgust. “Frank, I don’t have the time for this nonsense. It’s three weeks from Christmas, and we have a lot of work to do.”
Sam started to walk into his office.
“You wouldn’t cross a picket line, would you, Sam?”
“What picket line? I don’t see a picket line.”
Frank pointed to a line of masking tape fixed to the floor at the entrance to Sam’s office. “All we want is an extra fifty dollars a month and another coffee break. We want new photocopiers too. Ours are all junk.”
“I can’t believe this,” Sam said, clearly exasperated. “Who’s gonna finish this newsletter? I don’t have time. I’ll have to bring in some extra help.”
“Scabs! You’d bring in scabs? You’re not going to be a union buster, are you, Sam? I thought Quakers were on the side of the poor and the oppressed.”
“Well,” Sam said weakly, “I suppose we are. Can I least go in my office and call Miriam Hodge?”
Miriam Hodge was the head elder of Harmony Friends Meeting.
“Go ahead. It was her idea anyway.”
“What was her idea?”
“My going on strike,” Frank said, leaning back in his chair and grinning. “I told her I needed a raise, and she said she didn’t think we had the money, and I asked her what could be done, and she said, ‘Well, Frank, I suppose you could always go on strike.’ So here I am.”
Sam went into his office, pulling the door closed behind him. He emerged several minutes later. “Okay, it’s a deal. I’ve spoken with Miriam, and she thinks we can come up with fifty dollars extra a month and another coffee break.”
“Are you serious?”
“You bet, Frank. You deserve it.”
“Sam, I don’t know what to say. I really appreciate it. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. Thank Brother Norman.”
“Brother Norman? Why him?”
“The Friendly Women are going to pay for your raise out of Brother Norman’s shoe fund.”
Since time immemorial, the Friendly Women’s Circle had been the big money behind Brother Norman’s shoe ministry to the Choctaw Indians, through which hundreds of Choctaw feet had been shod over the years.
“Isn’t that nice of them?” Sam continued. “Of course, that means some Choctaw children won’t have shoes this winter, but you deserve a raise.”
“Darn tootin’,” said Frank. “Besides it’ll be good for them. Toughens ’em up.”
Sam frowned. This conversation wasn’t taking the turn he’d anticipated.
“You’re a cold man, Frank.”
Frank stared straight ahead, still as a Choctaw Indian.
Sam glanced at his watch. “Well, I must say I’m a little disappointed in you. I’d like to stay and discuss this with you further, but I have a Library Board meeting.”
When Sam left, Frank picked up the phone and dialed Donna Lefter at the Baptist church. “So how’d it go with you. Did you get your raise?”
“The pastor’s going to talk with the deacons,” she said.
“You won’t believe what Sam did. He told me he was going to talk to Miriam Hodge about giving me a raise. So he goes in his office to call her and comes out and says they can give me a raise, but it’ll have to come out of the shoe fund for the Choctaw Indian children. Thing is, I know for a fact Miriam’s not home today. She’s at her sister’s house in the city. He was trying to make me feel guilty. It was all I could do to keep a straight face.”
Donna Lefter hooted over the phone. “Boy, for a pastor, he sure is sneaky.”
“Not sneaky enough, though.”
“So are you really going to go on strike?”
“Of course not. I’m just pulling his chain. I would like a raise, though. Been here six years, and I’ve not had a raise in all that time. And the longer I’m here, the more stuff they give me to do. Now Sam’s working only half a day on Wednesdays, and the work’s backing up. Guess I’ll stay over today and get it all done.”
“Why’s he taking Wednesdays off?” Donna Lefter asked.
“He told me he’s going to some men’s group, whatever it is they do.”
Donna Lefter chuckled. “What is it about pastors anyway? They always have to belong to some kind of support group.”
“I tell you who needs a support group,” Frank said. “Church secretaries, that’s who!”
“You got that right, mister.”
“Then again, even if we did have one, we wouldn’t have time to go.”
“Amen to that,” Donna said.
“Take care.”
“Bye, Frank.”
Frank busied himself for the next several hours typing and duplicating the newsletter. He pasted the labels on, licked one hundred and fifty-three stamps, and affixed them to the newsletters, which he carried two blocks to the post office. Then he went home, gargled to get the glue taste out of his mouth, and soaked his feet.
While Frank was perched on a kitchen chair, steeping in Epsom salts, Sam was headed through the country to his scrapbooking class in Cartersburg. He had three more sessions before the class ended for Christmas break, and he was nowhere near done. At this rate, he’d have to either scale back his plans or hire it done.
He arrived early. Mrs. Hilda Gruber was seated at her desk, anticipating his arrival, her metal-edged, knuckle-rapping ruler within easy reach.
Sam’s star had taken a considerable fall after his Super Glue accident, and Mrs. Gruber was in no mood to coddle him.
She opened the closet so he could retrieve his materials, then frisked him to make sure he wasn’t carrying a tube of Super Glue.
“Sit down,” she said, pointing to a seat.
He took a seat, hardly able to look Hilda Gruber in the face, so deep was his shame.
She rose from her chair, walked around her desk, and stood in front of Sam, looming over him.
“You’re a deep disappointment to me,” she said, rapping her ruler on Sam’s desk for added emphasis, tapping out each word. “I had such hopes for you when you showed me your wife’s childhood pictures. I thought you were starting to understand what it meant to be a scrapbooker. Now look at you. Glue splotches on your scrapbook. Your hair’s a sight. You’ve fallen behind. Can you give me one good reason why I shouldn’t flunk you?”
Sam thought back over his brief career as a scrapbooker, how he’d lurched from one disaster to another. “I guess not.”
“It’s simply too dangerous having you around. We took a vote after you left last time and think it’s best that you gather your things and leave,” Hilda Gruber said, with a tap of her ruler.
“Now?”
“Now!”
Sam sagged inside himself. There went his wife’s Christmas present. Looks like I’m back to giving her pot holders, he thought.
He placed his belongings in a paper sack and shuffled out the door before the others arrived. It was a long drive back home, and by the time he pulled in the driveway he was thoroughly despondent.
Barbara cooked his favorite supper to boost his spirits, but it had little effect. After supper, he watched the evening news, then went to bed.
Barbara, beside herself with worry, phoned Frank. After exchanging pleasantries she asked Frank if Sam had seemed different lately.
“Not too much. I mean he got his hair cut, but that’s all. Why do you ask?”
Barbara hesitated. Then, unable to bear the burden alone any longer, she decided to confide in Frank.
“Has Sam told you what he’s doing on Wednesday nights?”
“Just that he’s going to a men’s group.”
“I wish that were true,” Barbara said, her voice catching. “If I tell you something, you have to promise you won’t say anything to him or anyone else.”
“Of course I won’t. What’s going on?”
“I think Sam might be really sick and that he’s been getting treatment on Wednesdays and not telling us.”
“Don’t you think he would say something? You know Sam. If he’s sick, he let’s everyone know it.”
“I don’t think he wants to ruin Christmas for the boys,” Barbara said. “I think he wants to wait until after Christmas to say anything.”
Still somewhat skeptical, Frank asked, “What do you think is wrong with him?”
Barbara paused before speaking, as if speaking the word might make it come true. “I think he has cancer and that he’s been getting chemotherapy and that’s why his hair fell out.”
“Oh, Lord. That’s terrible.” Frank fell quiet and didn’t say a word for several moments.
“Are you still there?” Barbara asked.
“Yes. I just feel horrible about this. I played a joke on him today. I told him I was on strike and that I wouldn’t be doing any more work until I got a raise, and when he left the meetinghouse he was all agitated. I had no idea.”
“We have to watch out for him,” Barbara said. “Don’t let him work too hard. Okay, Frank?”
“You got it.”
Frank thought for a moment. “Do you get Midwest Romance magazine?”
“No.”
“Well, I was reading it the other day, and it had this story about this man who had this weird disease and he—”
“I know, he died. Karen Grant told me.”
“What I mean is that maybe Sam doesn’t have cancer. Maybe it’s something else and they’ll cure it. Maybe he’s got one of those diseases that you get from being bit by a mouse and they’re giving him antibiotics or something once a week.”
“Oh, I hope that’s it. I don’t know what I’d do without him.”
“He’s gonna make it, Barbara. Don’t give up hope.”
“Thank you, Frank,” she said quietly, then hung up the phone.
Having told Frank, she felt better for sharing the weight of worry and busied herself washing the supper dishes, which served as a helpful distraction. Then she took her bath, slipped into her nightgown, went to bed, and fell asleep, her body pressed against her hairless husband’s.