Jack (Gilead #4)(49)

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He came back the next Sunday for two reasons. Actually three. He could drop those coins into the collection plate, putting various things right even if no one noticed he had done it. A metaphysics is a great help in rationalizing scruple-driven behavior. Then there was dinner. And there was the fact that that whole week he had been feeling “Blessed Jesus” and “Sweet Hour of Prayer” and even “Holy, Holy, Holy” in his fingers. So he had thought he might as well go back the next Sunday and put himself in the way of some moral edification. He remembered glorious soprano voices rising out of the congregation to second the choir. He even liked the feeling that he stirred that tentative interest, that bated warmth, church people feel toward a stray in their midst.

Things were going well enough at the dance studio. The instructors came early to sprinkle a powdery wax on the floor and walk or waltz it slippery, playing at elegance in preparation for feigning it when customers appeared. They studied charts and followed them out till they could do the steps with a little ease and flair. He would repeat them all day long with his arms around perfumey women. One two three, one two three. It was an innocuous proof of the oddness of the world, and there was music. On his way home one evening, he bought a small geranium plant with a red blossom on it and set it on his windowsill. This was a first step toward improving the impression his room would make on Della, if he ever actually nerved himself to bring her into it. But the plant deeply changed his own impression of the room. He even dreamed one night that he heard those heavy shoes on the stairs, the police, but this time when they came through the door they were distracted by the sight of the geranium, as if it refuted suspicion, dispelling the mild aversion felt toward him and his kind by the constabulary. Assuming he had a kind. Its implications seemed so great to him, even by light of day, that leaving it where it was was an actual decision. It had its effect when he set it on the dresser and on the bedside table.

Saturday came and he had a little money, so he went to a used bookstore, as he had often done lately, with the thought that he might find something to leave on Della’s front step. Nothing was adequate, no très riches heures. Nothing quaint and curious, no gem of rarest ray serene, in that musty little cave walled with failed efforts of every literary kind, growing drabber together as the years passed. Still, the sheer mass of books and the smell of them always made him imagine the existence of the pure and perfect book, poetry no doubt, just barely translated from some ancient tongue, an earthy strangeness clinging to it. The owner of the place, a large, rumpled man, sat hunched uncomfortably on a high stool and watched him, clearly suspecting him of some legerdemain that would leave him poorer by some worthless tract or memoir. This became a part of Jack’s sporadic inquiry into the nature of commerce. The man must value his time at less than nothing, because the world seemed to value his hoard of books at about exactly nothing, and the man was himself a cost, since he had to keep himself in sandwiches and chewing tobacco, not to mention all the odds and ends needed if one is to be even marginally presentable. Add to this the cost of keeping the lights on. Aside from a little sweeping, the man’s chief occupation seemed to be watching Jack, who, so as not to disturb this strange equilibrium, never stole anything. It passed the time.

Then it was Sunday again. In preparation Jack had bought himself a newer hat. He retired the old one to a dresser drawer, a sacred object despite all, since Della had touched it. He walked to the church, walked through the door, returned the greeting of the young usher, who seemed glad to see him. He sat down in what he thought of as his pew, exchanging nods with the man who sat next to him.

After the benediction, he went down the stairs, a stream of children passing under his elbow, laughing, intent on some plan they had, all of one mind like a flock of birds. There was an empty table by a far wall and Jack made his way to it, past the smiles and nods and good mornings, which he acknowledged with nods. He sat down. No one joined him, which was the whole idea and embarrassing all the same, not least because they all read correctly his wish to be alone, but would no doubt have failed to notice the ambivalence of it. Miss Jones was nowhere in sight.

It made no sense to be sitting there, trying to seem relaxed and casual, legs crossed, arms crossed, twiddling a foot, nowhere to look. He thought, the heat that made him sweat was just heat, and the light that made him feel so exposed in that dim corner was just light, and if there were a time when everything dis persed through the universe gathered into its essence, this would be heat indeed, light indeed, rid of the dilutions that sometimes made them into warmth and illumination, those blandishments. This heat would be hot enough to burn in. Ergo the existence of hell was indisputable. If he could just see where the plates were stacked, he could step into the line without drawing so much attention to himself, without having to ask anybody. It seemed like a presumption to join the line, somehow much worse than theft. You can’t actually steal food from a church supper. Too bad.

And sure enough, here came the minister, carrying two plates. He paused to speak with a family at another table. People always want to speak with the minister. They chatted and laughed a little, and then he came on to Jack’s table and set a plate in front of him and another opposite, and said, “Please sit down,” which made Jack realize he had stood up, though this man did not resemble his father. “I thought you might want a little something. Beans and rice. You know how it is. The churches have to squeeze every penny.” This was to make Jack feel more like a guest, less like a mendicant. His father would have said the same kind of thing to some shabby exotic. “Yes,” he would have said afterward, “an unusual fellow. He seemed bright enough. Maybe a little shifty.” And the stranger would have stepped out of loneliness, moved by hope or nostalgia, then slipped back into loneliness, forgotten as soon as he was gone. Jack could see that the minister was taking his measure, so tactfully it was almost painless. There was the frayed cuff. He didn’t cover it with his hand, but he could feel that slight, hard smile forming—I know what you see, I know what you think—and looked down to conceal it. The man was trying to decide how to speak to him. He said, “I’m the pastor here, Samuel Hutchins.” He held out his hand across the table.