Universal Harvester(27)
The Samples were spending their Saturday morning in Omaha, down at the Old Market; for a while they’d been able to come in every weekend, but after the gas crunch hit they made it every other weekend. They’d had their usual big breakfast; Lisa finished about half of her pancakes and was presently running around in a toy store while her parents browsed the shelves. Everything seemed a little pricey. Irene remembered her mother telling her they raised the prices right before Christmas.
“Keep an eye on Lisa,” she said to Peter, retrieving her coin purse from her handbag. “I’m going to make sure there’s still time on the meter.”
“I don’t think they’ll ticket you if we run just a little over,” he said.
“I’m just going to go check the meter,” she said.
There were still eight minutes left on it when she got to the car; she put another dime in. Better safe than sorry. On the sidewalk a few meters down she saw a young man with a beard reaching into a garbage can. He had a long army-green overcoat on; it was wrinkled and dirty. She could see the crust of a sandwich poking up from the coat’s breast pocket.
The scene made her feel terrible; it was November now, and getting colder, and the shop windows were all lit up with Christmas scenes and snowflakes. In her purse was a doggie bag with the rest of Lisa’s pancakes from breakfast; they’d probably sit in the refrigerator for two days before getting thrown out, and Lisa wouldn’t miss them.
“There’s a little breakfast left,” she said, approaching—gingerly, without making eye contact.
He took the pancakes out of the bag and began eating, quickly, with his hands. She turned away, not wanting to stare, but he said: “Ma’am?”
“It’s all right,” she said.
“‘To knowledge, temperance; to temperance, patience; to patience, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity,’” said the bearded man, delivering the verse very quickly, as if passing along a recipe he knew by heart. It was hard to understand him; he was still chewing. With his free hand he retrieved a crumpled tract from the pocket of his coat. “Here.”
“I’m sure, yes,” she said. She tucked the tract into her purse.
“We have meetings on Sundays,” he said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve.
“That’s fine,” she said, turning now finally, heeding an uncomfortable feeling in her chest that told her it was time to go; the bearded man returned to his garbage can, rooting around shoulder-deep. But the exchange stayed with her as they rode back. She’d found a church in Crescent, but she seldom got the chance to go; she didn’t like to bother Peter on his days off. He worked so hard. On their visits to Tama she thought of her attendance at Grace Evangelical as a sort of inoculation, a booster shot to carry her through next Christmas.
Outside the car the wind was blowing; Peter had to focus on the road. Lisa sang a little song to herself whose melody Irene didn’t recognize, then nodded off to sleep, and then the car was quiet, except for the engine and the sound of the wind.
*
This is what it said on the tract that the man eating from the garbage gave Irene:
And if thy hand serve as a snare to thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having thy two hands to go away into hell, into the fire unquenchable; where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thy foot serve as a snare to thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life lame, than having thy two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire unquenchable; where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched. And if thine eye serve as a snare to thee, cast it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire, where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched. For every one shall be salted with fire, and every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. Salt is good, but if the salt is become saltless, wherewith will ye season it? MARK 9:43–50
We are called as witnesses to the wickedness of the last generation; as it was in the days of Noah, so also shall be the coming of the Son of Man (MT 24:37). We are called to be light unto the world, but the world apprehends it not (JN 1:5). He that receives you receives me, and he that receives me receives him that sent me (MT 10:40). Many are called ones, but few chosen ones, says the Lord (MT 22:14). We seek not Jehovah in the earthquake, nor the wind, nor in the fire, but in the still small voice that speaks to us after these things have passed (1 Kings 19:12). He who hears the Word of God is of God. If God did not want to speak to you, you could not hear (JN 8:47). It is no accident that you have received this tract today.
Answer the call of the Lord who speaks to you and reject this doomed generation. You are invited to join us in worship at
—and here the print broke off, and there was a space for the zealot to rubber-stamp the name and address of his local congregation: but the space on this one was blank.
There was a drawer at the house in Crescent named after a similarly purposed drawer she’d known from the dining room service at her grandmother’s house: the anything drawer. Things went there that weren’t ready to be thrown away—savings account passbooks, bifocals, buttons. The day after their excursion to Omaha, cleaning out her purse, Irene read over the verse from Mark on the front of the tract. She scowled mildly—it seemed a little dour—but tucked the tract down into the anything drawer. It wouldn’t take up much space. It didn’t seem proper just to throw it away.