THE BEEHIVE DINER buzzed.
Below a hornet nest suspended in tree branches, Victor, who’d just come from the morning mass that consisted, unfortunately, of just five of its total forty-six souls, sat at a counter stool, loosing bits of bacon gristle from between his teeth with a toothpick. His gums bled as he swigged at his cup of black coffee and swished. Swallowed.
Larry Branch sat next to him. Victor had known Branch all his life: a small-engine repairman, Branch had owned the Two-Stroke Shop in town for thirty years. Now semi-retired, he fixed Black and Decker engines for Sears in St. Johnsbury. He claimed to love it; said he could still get his fingers dirty, listen to the farm report on AM 640, and call it quits by 4 P.M. without having once to deal with a single customer. An old independent Yankee finding peace at Sears.
God works in mysterious ways, Victor thought as he opened the Lamoille Register to the sports page.
The waitress ambled over and rested a bowl of oatmeal and a small pewter pitcher of maple syrup in front of Victor. “Boy must make you proud,” she said, nodding at a photo of Victor’s son on the front of the sports page, the boy’s arms thrown up, face jubilant yet nearly savage in victory.
Pride bloomed in Victor, and crossed himself, secretly admonishing himself and reminding himself to keep his pride in check.
“He needs to work on his mechanics if he wants Division One teams looking at him,” Victor said. “He throws off his back foot too much, and across his body when he should just throw the ball away. Andrew Luck, he’s not.” Victor always compared Brad to more talented QBs in conversation. Partly to practice humility. Partly not to jinx his son, who was blessed with talent. Victor was thankful each day of his life for this blessing. The kid was everything Victor had almost been. Should have been. Victor did not deserve such a son.
Victor removed the toothpick from his mouth. “He’s got interest from a couple Ivy schools. Scholarships from plenty of Division Three programs. I’d like to see a bigger program redshirt and develop him. But from this state it’s a tough slog just to get any Division Three to look at you. Let alone Division One. He wins a fourth state championship this year, he may get a glance. He set every state record there is to set, a year ago.” There he was again, unable to help himself from the seamy vortex of vanity. Much as he tried, he couldn’t be humble for long. Could not resist the temptation. There were worse transgressions than vanity, he knew. “He could use some help from the Lord.”
He held up his mug. “Hit me again, Gwynne.”
Gwynne topped him and stood with a hand on her cocked hip. She glanced at the front page of Victor’s newspaper. “Awful ’bout that poor girl.”
Victor looked at the headline: LOCAL GIRL SLAIN IN ATTORNEY’S HOME. He had avoided the story, and just seeing the headline now caused a trickle of sweat to leak from under his arms down along his sides. Last night had been a long and arduous one, and had not gone as planned in some respects. “Merryfield should know you can’t do certain things in this world and expect not to have trouble,” he said. Even as he said it, he felt the spike of hypocrisy stab him in the ribs.
“That’s a terrible thing to say, especially from a deacon,” Gwynne said. “I’m sure he didn’t expect a child to be killed.”
“Of course not.” Victor was sweating profusely now. “But you can’t just have men marrying men and—”
“Why’s that?” Branch spun to face Victor. His faded canvas ball cap bore the logo of his son-in-law’s company: Cut-the-Crap Plumbing. “All these folks yak ’bout marriage like it’s the greatest damned thing since the microwave when half of us have been divorced. Been married twice myself. Divorced twice. Let the homos have their insurance and let half of ’em get divorced just like the rest of us.”
“You can’t make it legitimate,” Victor said. “Where’s it end? Brother marrying sister?”
“Half a what you probably do with your wife ain’t legitimate according to the blue laws still on the books. Who knows what all any of us get up to?” Branch winked at Gwynne.
“I don’t do anything of the kind with my wife,” Victor said.
“Missing out,” Branch said.
People thought it was easy, living up to the Lord’s standards. But the Lord sometimes asked that hard tasks be done by his flock. Just ask Abraham. “They certainly don’t need to be teaching it in our schools,” he said.
“Jesus,” Branch said. “If a kid’s bent that way, he’s bent that way. You can’t teach a kid to be homo. You can teach respect though. School ain’t gonna turn ’em the other way any more than you would have turned me off girls.” Branch took off his cap and scratched at his bald crown. “What the hell you so afraid of anyway? What do you care what two men do with their dicks? Long as they aren’t molesting kids.”
Victor bristled as Branch handed Gwynne a ten-dollar bill. He didn’t care at all for this kind of talk.
“Keep the change, darlin’,” Branch said and headed toward the door.
Victor watched Branch go. The man was as full of crap as an outhouse at a chili contest. He acted as if he knew something. Maybe he did. But not about God.