Actually, Miller had toned the story, giving Mrs. Clara Collins much less than she’d asked for, a bare announcement where she’d wanted a screaming banner. He’d just come back from Mick’s and his daily late-afternoon ration of hamburger-ash and beer the day before, Thursday, having left his assistant Lou Jones behind, regaling the boys with horror stories from the history of coalmining. Jones had a knack. He’d turned a grisly tale of management goons working over a hapless unionizer into a goddamn song-and-dance act that had had the whole klatch laughing and crying at the same time. Miller didn’t know much about Jones, he’d just turned up one day announcing he’d decided to seek his fortune with the West Comedown Comical. Miller had laughed and taken him on. There had been some hint of a job as an all-night disk jockey that he’d just involuntarily surrendered (“Obscenity was the uncouth charge,” Jones had said), but on the other hand that might have been several jobs back. Jones was, in brief, a complacent drifter, gifted with an uncommonly facile feedback system, making his way any way he could, keeping a perverse eye out and telling good stories about what he saw. Miller was glad to have him, and though his humor sometimes had a way of biting too deep, he generally enjoyed the guy.
Clara Collins had not only wanted more attention for her announcement, she’d wanted Miller to attend the Sunday night meeting. She’d jumped up when he entered, nearly knocking the chair over. Her purse had swung, sweeping a stack of copypaper to the floor. “I don’t mean to trouble ye, Mr. Miller, I only stopped by a minute—”
“No trouble, Mrs. Collins. Good to see you.” He’d picked up the copypaper, tossed it carelessly on the desk. “Sit down.” He’d hung up his coat, dropped into his swivel chair, pulled out his pack of cigarettes, but, catching her look, had tossed them on his desk without lighting one. The beer, as usual, had made him drowsy.
She’d sat awkwardly beside his desk, knobby knees apart, had glanced around nervously at a restless activity she was ignorant of. “We’re all meetin’ Sunday over to Mr. Bruno’s house,” she had said, boldly yet somehow whispering it. “We’d be honored ifn you could see fit to come.”
“That’s very kind, Mrs. Collins.” He’d suppressed a yawn, reached again for the pack, stopped himself. “But I’m afraid I’m tied up. Is there some special reason—?”
“Well, that’s jist it, Mr. Miller.” She’d straightened up, smoothing the plain print dress out over her broad thighs. He’d known of course what was coming. “Sunday’s the eighth of the month. Mebbe … mebbe it’s the end a the world!”
“Oh yes. Your husband’s note.”
So she’d explained again about that, had told him what had been happening at Evening Circle. He’d heard the pressman Carl Schwartz’ voice out front saying good night to Annie — like Lou, he called her Anus Poopa — and it had set him to thinking of Carl’s disaster story, the assault on Dinah Clemens. Miller could still picture vividly the room as it was the first time he went there. Aqua-blue with pink and white lily pads, the walls; bed an old iron antique, lumpy mattress, a single sheet stretched tautly on it. Dinah had a certain sense of order. There were pillows and blankets in the wardrobe, which she’d got out later. It had been Ox’s idea.
“Willie Hall? That’s the fellow who used to be Oxford Clemens’ buddy at the mine, isn’t it?”
She’d said it was, talked about Willie and his wife Mabel, Oxford’s late foster mother Marge Clark. Miller, watching Clara, had realized she had something in common with Dinah — not just the rawboned hillbilly part, but something attractive, too. Also had realized he was getting a hard-on. “It was Willie’s idea, Mr. Miller,” she’d said, “to meet at Mr. Bruno’s.”
“Why this Sunday, Clara, and not some other month?” Why had he called her by her first name, why the tenderness? Horsey woman, well along in years, tough reddish hands, not his type at all, and yet there was this throb between his legs. Maybe it was just the beer.
She’d told him why she was counting on February, but he could see she was troubled, not all that confident. He had listened to her voice, hearing Dinah Clemens. They’d gone the night they won the regionals. Five green guys ages fifteen to seventeen, Miller the youngest. Ox had taken them in the back door so they wouldn’t have to face any of the old guys in the bar who might recognize them. Ox had kept insisting that Tiger go with the one called Dinah. It was the one thing Ox had been set on, and Miller hadn’t seen the point in arguing. He’d assumed Ox Clemens knew better than anyone which one was best, and if it was all some kind of gag, well, hell, he didn’t have to go through with it. That in actuality it had been the very opposite, had been virtually an act of consecration, Miller hadn’t found out until they were climbing the back steps to her room, the girl telling him she’d heard so much about him from her brother. “And then I read about that there shepherd boy, Mr. Miller,” Clara had said, “and it all seemed to fit.”
“And you talked with—?” He’d realized then that he had a cigarette between his lips. What the hell. He’d lit up.
“I went by right after the meeting and asked, and his sister she said, sure, come along, we’ll be expectin’ you. Y’know, Mr. Miller, I think Mr. Bruno he already knows!”
“It’s possible.” When he’d glanced at the large shadowy space between her knobby knees, he’d been repulsed by a sense of a-sexuality there, yet the erection had kept drumming away. What was it? Was it plain sincerity that was exciting him? Or only the provocation of his waterjugs? He’d undressed by the bed. Dinah had hung her few clothes in the old wardrobe that leaned up against one aqua-blue corner, had frocked her strong freckled shoulders with a pink robe. Miller had looked at Clara’s shoulders: yes, she almost certainly had freckles there. “Will Abner Baxter be there?”
Clara had slumped a little, relaxing some of that raw aggressiveness, her taut belly briefly softening. “I dunno, Mr. Miller. I hope so.”
“Is he a real minister, or—?”
And she’d commenced to tell him about how one gets the call and gives testimony of it to the local church board, and he’d kept hearing Dinah telling a young kid who was asking all the wrong questions how a girl got to be a whore, and the difference between local preachers, district ministers, and elders. Her voice had had a husky soothing quality, all the harsh sounds of the words rounded off; it was rustic nasal from the mountains, all right, bluegrass in cadence and twang, but the warmth and kindness and earnestness in it were all her own. She’d rubbed his chest and abdomen. “You’re a good boy with my brother. I’m much obliged.”
“So Baxter still has to wait a year?”
“That’s right.” Clara had seemed confused. Her hands had pressed nervously on her thighs. Of course, if you thought the world was ending, what sense did it make to talk about next year? “Well, all we kin do, Mr. Miller, is hope for the best.”
Miller had swung around to his old Underwood, had run copypaper in, and had rapped out the one-paragraph box about her proposed meeting. “I can put that on the front page for you.”
“But do ye think it’s … enough?” He’d felt a shrinking.
“Any more than that, Mrs. Collins, and I’m afraid you’ll get a lot of people you don’t want.”
That hadn’t entirely satisfied her, and he’d felt like, with Dinah, trying again, but she’d finally agreed it was the best. When she’d left, Miller had called Happy Bottom at the hospital and, holding on, had made a date. Off at nine. They’d have sandwiches somewhere, spend the night at his place.
At home later, he’d just undressed to shower when the phone rang. It was Marcella, calling to tell him of the planned Sunday night meeting, and repeating Clara’s invitation to come. Her soft Catholic voice was something else: instead of cornfields, terraced gardens, secret and undiscovered. Yes, he thought, but no, the Nazarenes were too much for him, Baxter especially, that was a pose he could never fake. So he again refused but pretended great interest, and asked her to tell him afterwards all that happened.