The Sea Surrendered Her (Preacher Book 1) Read online

  So I asked: “Aren’t we going for a beer?”

  “No,” he said without ever turning around, blistering with indignation, and seemed to ignore any confrontation with his business altogether. He pivoted instead, and quite unexpectedly, towards a liquor store. Its name read Cozy Corner.

  I spoke the obvious: “We can’t possibly get a beer in a liquor store. I thought….”

  “I don’t really feel like a beer anymore,” he said.

  When he opened the door a bell went ring-a-ding-ding, thereby announcing his intent to enter in, which he promptly did.

  c

  THE CLANG OF WIND CHIMES simultaneously tickled the deep inner crevices of my ear as I stood outside Cozy Corner waiting on Michael’s imminent return with the hound, and a homeless man, whom I hadn’t noticed until now, was hunched over on the opposite side of the street, as if he and the chimes somehow complimented each other.

  “Got a buck?” He said.

  I poked myself in the chest: “Who, me?”

  He yelled back. “I was talking to the dog. But if you’ll kindly deliver your wages, I’m okay with it.”

  I looked both ways, tugged the hound on his leash and crossed the street, stopping maybe three feet short of the homeless man, where I pulled my wallet from the back pocket of my jeans and bent down at his level. He wore this plaid coat with a hole where the elbow is usually hidden and a filthy pair of slacks. His skin was leathery as a baseball glove, marked by a few distinct scars on his cheeks and hands, with a grizzled beard to warm his chest, and gloves hid his fingers, all of which was dried by an extra coating of snot.

  I said: “You look familiar. Have I seen you before?”

  “Hey man, I ain’t from around here.”

  “Me neither. And that’s why I just have to ask, have you ever been up to New York? I could swear.....”

  The homeless man scowled: “Do I look like a little lost puppy? I ain’t been following you around. I ain’t been following nobody but the breeze, man. Hey Déjà vu, you got a name?”

  “Preacher,” I said.

  The pronunciation of my name seemed to shovel a spoonful of horseradish in his mouth. He shook it off and said: “Preacher – You some sort of holy man or something?”

  “Coincidently, I came down from New York to pastor a local church. How about you, got a name?”

  “Man, I go by many names. I go by so many I can’t even remember the one I was born with.”

  “How about we just stick with your present name then?”

  “Driftwood, South Carolina, 29907,” he grinned.

  “That’s the town we’re currently in.”

  “I told you, I’m following the breeze, man.”

  After sorting through the crease of my wallet I pulled out a five and a one. I returned President Lincoln back but surrendered Washington. The homeless man grudgingly accepted the bill, now that he’d spotted higher currency, and licked his chapped lips: “Hey, how come you gave me a measly dollar when you’ve got five?”

  I shuffled the wallet into my pocket and said: “Because you only asked for one.”

  “Five bucks if I can read your thoughts.”

  I stood to leave. “I don’t think so.”

  “You’re thinking of…..pink elephants. NO WAIT! You’re thinking of…TITTIES!”

  “Nice try.”

  In order to laugh, which was more of a series of hisses through his throat, he revealed what little was left of his baked bean teeth. He then pressed an index finger in-between his brows and said: “But I made you think of them, didn’t I!”

  “Yes, I admit you succeeded, but only after you said them.”

  “Give me one more try, I can do better! You’re a spiritual guru. No, you’re running from something. No wait – that’s not all!”

  “Very clever, but I just told you I wasn’t from around here, so…”

  “Hey, you didn’t let me finish. You’ve been running so hard – you wake up in the morning with your ankles throbbing. Death surrounds you like an ashy cloud of pulverized concrete. That’s what you’re running from. But that pine box, it’s your bed, man – the same one you tuck your memories into at night. It’s your dreams! There’s an elevator in your head and you need to take a ride to the ground floor!”

  The man who’d identified himself as Driftwood, South Carolina, 29907 was clearly on a roll. It didn’t appear as if he was going to stop talking any time soon, and so I said: “Okay, now you’re just itching at the creep factor.”

  “Don’t blame me. You’re the one thinking it. I told you I could read your mind, and you didn’t believe me.” 29907 held the palm of his hand out. “Now where’s my President Lincoln?”

  I grudgingly reached into my back pocket and delivered the goods. 29907 accepted it, and immediately proceeded to stretch it out with both hands, as if her were taking in Mount Rushmore, and not just a face that happened to appear on it.

  He grinned: “All in a day’s work!”

  I started my return journey across Bay Street, back to the Cozy Corner, and said: “I’m giving you the extra five to make you stop, not because you think you succeeded in reading it.”

  “Fine, don’t believe me,” Driftwood, South Carolina, 29907 called after, “But that little girl’s been swimming through your head, and she’s going to drown, Preacher. You’d better climb out of that pine box and pull her from the water, or you’ll be sinking down right after!”

  c

  RING-A-DING-DING SAID THE BELL again, promptly announcing Michael’s welcome return, this time with the neck of an unopened bottle, which protruded out from its crinkled paper bag and dangled in place from his furious fingertips.

  29907 yelled: “Hey, you need some help with that thing?”

  “I think we’ll manage fine, thanks,” I said.

  “Alright, but come Christmas, when you’re sitting out here on the street with us asshole mind-readers, don’t say I didn’t tell you so.”

  c

  “WHAT’S GOING ON?” I CHOKED the hound on his leash in yet another attempt to keep up with Michael, who was returning the same way, and in the same manner, of which we’d only just come. “There’s screaming in your house. You’re not making any sense. I’m having conversations with human zip-codes.”

  “Look, Preacher, I’m kind of distracted right now.”

  “Michael, how long have we been friends, – best friends?”

  “You already know that answer.”

  “I sure do, – since we were little kids. And in that time we’ve been forthright about everything. You can tell me.”

  Michael only stopped long enough to spin around, and in the calmest voice possible (which was quivering now), said: “Desarae’s leaving me for another man.”

  “Wait, what?”

  c

  A ROLLING SUITCASE AND PINK carry-on sized handbag had already been packed and set out on the rug upon Michael’s return. From the front door where I stood I caught sight of Desarae charging out of the bathroom, down the hallway, and towards the bedroom, probably rounding up the essentials.

  “Where are you going?” Michael.

  “Nowhere,” she said, “Absolutely nowhere.”

  “You’re going to stay with him, aren’t you?”

  Desarae had all the physical makings of a Bibeau sister, same blond hair blue-eyed make-up with precisely the same height and skin tone. If it felt as though I were staring at Elise in the mirror, it’s because they were identical. And not only twins, the two of them had a rare but identical triplet wandering somewhere out there.

  “Maybe…maybe not, but what do you care? You apparently don’t want to talk about it. You just left me like you always do. I confess my deepest, darkest secret and you just walk away for a fix, so…” She brushed his shoulders in the hall.

  Michael followed into the bathroom and then trailed back after her dizzying route, down the hall into the bedroom. “You want to talk? You’re telling me that you want to talk? Then let’s talk.”
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  “I don’t like you’re attitude,” came her voice.

  “You don’t like my attitude? My wife is cowgirl balls deep with another man!”

  “That’s not nice!”

  “How long has this been going on?”

  She reappeared in the hall sobbing, “Only a couple of months.”

  “How often?”

  “Lately?” She wiped another oncoming flood of tears. “Almost every day.”

  Blood visibly filled the skin around the rim of Michael’s ears. He said: “That’s probably where you learned that slurping, sucking Hail Mary move.”

  “Don’t mock me. I was being vulnerable.”

  “So you’ll break it off then.”

  Desarae had no answer to give.

  He said: “Please tell me you won’t see him again.”

  She started to say something, opened her mouth, and clamped it shut. Then she opened it again and said: “I think so. Yes.”

  Michael flung his fingers over the corner desk. It was one of those nineteenth century secretary desks that might have ended up in a Dickens novel. A weeklong pile-up of mail and magazines scattered across the floor and coffee table. He then swore. It was a four-letter word…all caps. It started with an F and ended with a K. It wasn’t FORK.

  “Michael, you’re angry right now.”

  “That would probably be an accurate observation.”

  “I’m not talking with you while you’re angry.”

  Michael tucked both hands behind his head (there was an overabundance of breath to be found in his lungs) and paced the floor. He did a couple rounds of that and then finally said: “What’s his name?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “Desarae, what is his name?”

  “I’m not giving you his name, not while you’re treating me like this.”

  “Treating you like what? You didn’t just confess, Desarae. You made it clear that you’ll keep on seeing him!”

  “Quiet,” she hissed. “The whole neighborhood can hear!”

  “Let them!”

  “Great, even the upcoming pastor of our church knows.” She turned to acknowledge me now, and with a frantic flicker of her fingers, said, “Hi, Preacher.”

  I half waved back from the front door.

  Michael sunk into the dark and ugly place. “Why don’t you call me when you’re through giving him the horizontal bop?”

  She turned back towards Michael for one final confrontation. “I can do better. We’ll finish this conversation when you’re ready to talk like a grown-up.”

  “What’s to talk about? Dez, I can’t believe you’re about to walk out that door to be with another man!”

  Desarae stopped only long enough to look at me, and except for the maelstrom of emotions filling her eyes, said in the calmest voice possible: “You must think I’m a whore.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came.

  She slammed the door, almost taking the hound and me out with the swing. A picture fell off the wall, which hit the floor and tumbled around a bit without its frame cracking. Michael and Desarae’s marriage was a different story. That spiraled, landing face down on the floor, and shattered.

  c

  “DO YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THIS?”

  Michael refused eye contact.

  “No,” he said, “I just want to be alone.”

  I paid careful attention to the bottle; I thought it might be a Kentucky Bourbon, which he was staring rather blankly at. Its neck protruded from the paper sack with a cap bound tightly within his fingers, no doubt positioned to unscrew at the first sign of my dismissal.

  “I don’t think I should leave under these circumstances.”

  “Please, just go. I need time to think.”

  “I can understand, if that’s what you want, but the Bourbon, you don’t need that tonight.”

  “My father was a bartender. For heaven’s sake, it’s what I do for a living. I think I’ll manage. Here, take the bottle if ou don’t believe me. I’ve got another.”

  He surrendered the bottle I accepted it, paper bag and all, and said: “You’ve never been an abuser. Don’t start now.”

  “I’m not, – save your sermon for Sunday, Preacher.”

  “If you need anything, I’m right across the street.”

  “I know where you live.”

  Indeed he did. There was nothing left for me here beyond his lack of consent. And so I left.

  c

  ESTELLE WAS TENDING TO THE ROSES which had once belonged to my grandparents, bending down to smell the very pedals that she’d faithfully trimmed for so many years, longer than anyone around here could remember. Paper-thin skin made it transparently clear that she was an elderly woman of heightened age, and dementia had long ago devoured the tissue in her brain.

  I was almost to the stairs of Ira and Adele’s plantation-styled home, architecturally designed with its signature southern charms, and the first of two wraparound porches, each flanked with floor-to-ceiling shuttered windows, to let the hound inside the grand entryway and out of my life, at least for now, when she said: “Are you going inside to see Ira Preacher?”

  “It’s twenty-and-one, Estelle.” I stated that fact as gently as I could. “We’re in an entirely new millennium. I’m afraid my grandfather’s been dead for some time now.”

  Estelle patted my hand anyways. “Are you going up there to meet him?”

  “Yes, something like that.”

  “Ira is a good man,” the hand patting continued, “a good, good man. Tell him hello if you see him.”

  “Estelle, I think you’ll be telling him that long before I do. But just in case I do see him, I’ll be sure to give him your well wishes.”

  “Oh, I almost forgot. Audrey Hepburn is paying a visit.”

  “Audrey Hepburn,” I said.

  "Mm-hmm, I’d know Audrey Hepburn anywhere. I loved her in Roman Holiday. She’s in the Stable now.” She pointed down the driveway to my own private residence. “And she asked for you.”

  “She asked for me.”

  “She most certainly did. I asked her if she knew Ira. I told her all about how Ira was present with John Ford during the battle of Midway, you know. And he ran up the beaches of Normandy on that awful, awful day. It wasn’t his fault that those D-Day pictures were blurry. The studio that developed them did that.”

  The patting finally came to an end. I was already halfway up the steps when I said: “If any Hollywood producers come around looking to make a movie on my grandfather, you be sure and tell them that I said you’re the only qualified person to advise the writing of the script.”

  This much excited her. “Oh, I will. He was friends with Hemmingway and Steinbeck, he went fishing with Eisenhower, smoked a cigar with Churchill, and Castro; that one was a Cuban; and then there’s Picasso, John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Marilyn Monroe….”

  “Don’t forget Bill Mauldin.”

  She was talking mostly to herself now, and the roses that she’d tended to for an unimaginable span of time, and also the eternal night of memories which consumed her only remaining reality. I continued on before she could read off and finish the entire list of people that my grandfather was friends with or met or waved hello to from across the field of battle or perhaps more importantly photographed in his lifetime, and continued walking until her voice dampened into illiteracy. It was a long list, and I had a sermon to write.

  “Bill Mauldin, and a certain children’s author name Theodore Geisel, but the world knows him as Dr. Seuss. And then there’s Ingrid Bergman and Rod Serl…..”

  c

  THE MAGNIFICENT CRAFTSMANSHIP that made up the front door and which welcomed visitors to the much grander hammer-and-nail marvel that was PREACHER HOUSE presently creaked opened. I stood there for a moment looking in without crossing the threshold, mostly because the hound was standing in the way, and so finally I said: “The Sisters unpacked an entire moving van of their own personal belongings into a house already furnished
with Ira and Adele’s things. Should we enter and see what it is?”

  The hound growled.

  “Look dog, I’ve been tasked with looking after the property. Now how can I possibly do that if I don’t even know what’s in there?”

  The hound wouldn’t budge. Everything about him was emotionless, except for the eyes, and his sailboat ears just hung there. There was another attempt to enter, and another growl to go along with it.

  I said: “You wouldn’t – you’d never bite the hand that feeds you.”

  Again, more growling, so I held my hands up in defeat, even granting him a slight theatrical bow: “Fine, it’s all yours. Have a good night.” I closed the door while pronouncing good night. When I was almost positively certain he couldn’t hear me, I added: “And don’t come knocking on my door for dinner.”

  c

  DESPITE BEING SEVENTEEN and several months out of high school, Amanda Webber seemed even now borderline boyish to me. It’s how I always remembered her. She was the eldest of three teenage sisters, all of whom lived next door. But she was the only sibling with short hair, which in turn gave definition to her acne scarred face, and her body was thick in places, but not fat, though Amanda’s clothing of choice certainly didn’t compliment her athletic figure.

  Bull frogs were joining in with the cricket choir when I crossed the back lawn, and the moon, large and magnificent, was only just now crowning the wooded trees across the Ashley River. That’s where I caught sight of the Webber girl, illuminated by the light of the rising moon. She was sitting on the dock, feet dangling into the long grass, while an ambient-tipped cigarette hung from her mouth.

  I said: “Beautiful full moon tonight, isn’t it?”