Casserole Diplomacy and Other Stories Read online

Lisa ripped open her gown, groping at her heavy breast.

  She shrieked and leaped from the hospital bed. “It’s gone!” she shouted. “It’s gone!”

  I dropped to my hands and knees and grappled for the lump. I needed the evidence. Lisa was pulling at my clergy shirt.

  There. I had it.

  She jerked me to my feet and threw her arms around me. She was laughing and crying. She thrust her breast at me. “Feel it.”

  I felt it. The lump was gone. Or rather, it was in my left hand. We just stared at it.

  That Sunday, worship was a tad tense, but at least the sanctuary was packed. Lookie-loos, reporters, even the police were there. I was sweating, wishing I’d polished my sermon a little more—I’d pulled it together later than usual Saturday night. It had been a very weird week.

  The service started off smoothly though. Call to Worship. Only the usual peculiar noises from the basement. Prayer of Adoration and Confession. No lambs slopping up out of the floor.

  First hymn. And it was a bad one. Don’t know what I was thinking when I picked it. Maggie, the organist, butchers it every time.

  I could see little bumps of dark goo—as Mrs. Miller called it—bubbling around Maggie’s Phentex-slippered feet.

  The hymn finally ground into its Amen without an eruption of slime violence. The bubbles glooped back into the carpet, leaving only a thin, viscous film.

  Jennifer Keeley (her maiden name), recently divorced from her husband Roger (speaking of slime) and raising three kids, rose to read from the Old Testament—Leviticus 25, the Jubilee section.

  Roger had gone off to find himself last year after being fired from Sears, but all he found was a twenty-three-year-old “chickie-poo” with big red hair and even bigger boobs. That’s how Jenny put it. I never much liked Roger. His little adventure seemed to tear the guts out of Jenny’s self-confidence.

  I slipped down into the front pew as I usually do for readings—a much better view, and it allows me to nip over my sermon notes without the congregation seeing.

  Jenny cleared her throat and began to read. “And you shall hallow the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants; it shall be a jubilee for you when each of you shall—”

  She faltered. I looked up. She was fiddling with the buttons on her blouse—or rather, clenching them.

  Then I could feel it. The slippery tendril of energy coming from somewhere behind me in the pews. Suddenly I could taste it, a corn-syrup sweetness with an after-taste of fish. Made me think of portly Edgar McDonald for some reason, a quiet member of the Board of Managers whom everyone liked.

  I was about to turn and confirm the source when I heard a soft pop, then a ping, and then Jenny’s green skirt hit the floor around her high-heeled ankles. I don’t know what Edgar hoped she was or wasn’t wearing under that skirt, but he wanted to know, wanted to know something fierce. I hope the pink cotton underwear and knee-high nylons were worth it.

  Jenny’s face streaked scarlet. I assumed embarrassment at first, but then I heard it inside my head, the soaring howl of her humiliation and rage. “Sweet Jesus,” I muttered, as I watched the acrid power roar out from her, blasting every stitch of clothing off Edgar McDonald’s pasty Scottish body.

  There was a collective gasp, and then a silence so sudden and so deep that God should have been checking in on us.

  Glenda, Edgar’s wife, generally had that demure, eyes-downcast look. Not at this moment, though. In fact, she had the look of someone with a confirmed hunch. And if Jennifer Keeley didn’t kill Edgar outright, I was certain Glenda would.

  Mrs. Miller started in on her nitro pills—I could feel her eyes searing my head. The press went wild, flashes blinded me. Jenny yanked up her skirt and started down the aisle. I could feel her pooling her energy. I intervened—I had visions of her splattering poor Edgar into bloody little bits of middle-management flesh. It would take weeks to clean him off the newly-painted ceiling.

  “Get the hell out of my way, Dave,” Jenny growled at me.

  “Jenny. . . ”

  “Y’know, Dave, it’s high time I had a little chat with Roger,” she said.

  Roger? Yeah, Roger, her ex.

  She tugged on her skirt. “There are a few things I’ve been meaning to say to him,” she said, “but I just haven’t been able to work up the nerve before now.”

  Indeed, Jenny suddenly seemed to have her old confidence back. I got the hell out of her way.

  People started yelling. Someone threw a sports jacket over Edgar. The press and police surged forward.

  There seemed to be no use continuing to worship, so I just raised my hands and hollered out the benediction. Maggie, the organist, leapt in with the chords of the choral Amen, but they were drowned out by all the shouting.

  The air conditioner in the manse’s living room was losing the battle. I was down to my underwear, T-shirt and bare feet. Not a pretty sight.

  The spaghetti sauce was plop-plopping on simmer in the kitchen while I was waiting for the noodle water to boil. I like my big meal at lunch time.

  I set my beer on the end table, grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. I hoisted my feet up onto the hassock. Monday is my day off. Mondays, beer, and TV are a tradition for me, a tradition that started with my first congregation, where the retiring minister, a wrinkly Edinburgh Scot, stayed on as a parishioner, having ministered there for nineteen years. He insisted that Monday was the cleric’s Sabbath, and was to be spent with a good thick book and a bottle of good scotch whisky. To help him relax. I never could get the hang of the whisky.

  And after the mayhem following yesterday’s service, I certainly needed to relax.

  I sipped my beer and flipped to the read-along cable news channel. Along the bottom of the screen I read, “—rain falling in Africa. Astronomers announced today that the Hubble Telescope has detected another fold in space. This second wrinkle is between the orbits of Uranus and Neptune. Last week, astronomers announced the discovery of the first fold. They assure—”

  I turned off the TV and got out of my chair, beer in hand, and began to wander. Out the living room window I could see four 1967 Corvettes—each a different colour—parked in Joe Frederick’s driveway. The kind he goes on and on about. The kind he never used to have.

  Two houses up is Brigitte’s place. She’s a single mom on social assistance. The ceiling in her kitchen fell in last month and that slimy troglodyte-cum-landlord told her if she wanted it fixed she could bloody well go turn a few tricks and make the money herself.

  Brigitte’s finally lost it, I thought. She was outside, standing on a kitchen chair, picking leaves off the spindly maple tree the city had planted last year to “green up” the neighbourhood. I got my binos and took a closer look. Gadzooks. She was picking money off the tree. Fifty dollar bills, and stuffing them into a green garbage bag.

  The phone rang. I set the binoculars on the TV and went into the kitchen. The noodle water was boiling finally.

  “Hello?”

  “Reverend?”

  Oh joy—Mrs. Miller. I gave up trying to get her to call me by first name years ago. And I sure as heck don’t call her by hers. What is it anyway? Starts with an L, I think.

  “Mrs. Miller. Well, what can I do for you?” (This is my polite way of helping parishioners get to the point when they phone.)

  “Francis wants to talk to you.”

  Francis is Mrs. Miller’s forty-five-year-old handicapped son. I could hear him in the background. “Hi Dafe. Hi Dafe. Hi Dafe. C’mon. C’mon. C’mon. Hi Dafe.”

  “Put Frank on the phone.”

  “No. He wants you to come here. He wants to say . . . He . . . Please, Reverend, come talk to him.” Mrs. Miller has never actually asked me for anything before. She’s always told me what to do, what she thought I should be doing that I wasn’t, mostly ordering me around like a ten-year-old kid. Like she orders Frank around, actually.

  “I’ll be right over,” I said, and hung up. I turned
off the gas under the spaghetti sauce and the noodle water, then poured my beer down the sink. It’d be flat by the time I got back anyway. What good is beer without fizz?

  I slipped on my Birkenstocks. Figured I’d just walk over. Mrs. Miller lives quite close to the manse. Too close.

  Jeepers Murphy! I need to put on some shorts; I’m in my flipping underwear. I hate summer.

  The midday heat was stifling.

  I nipped across the street and scooted down a back alley, taking the shortcut to Mrs. M.’s big two-story house.

  I noticed that the Berkowitzes had replaced the chain-link fence around their back yard with a heavy, high board fence, and painted it a lovely emerald-green colour. There was such a curious sweet-cinnamon energy swirling in their back yard, and suddenly I was able to look right through the new board fence as if it weren’t even there. Just because I wanted to see what they might be up to.

  Mr. and Mrs. Berkowitz were lying under their oak tree, which was now much taller and fuller than it used to be, giving them sweet, cool shade in the midday heat. They were nude, lying on the afghan she’d crocheted last winter. There was a plate of Fig Newtons between them. They were talking and laughing and eating Fig Newtons, and all the while Mr. Berkowitz stroked Mrs. Berkowitz’s breast with the backs of his curled fingers.

  I always knew they really liked each other.

  Frank was up in the mountain ash tree when I got there. Mrs. Miller was on the lawn, in front of her favourite perennial bed, demanding that he come down right this instant.

  Frank is a worker, always cutting grass or raking leaves or shovelling snow around the neighbourhood. He has a regular paying clientele of church and non-church folks. I’ve always wondered how much of that money Frank got to keep—I figured the old bat was probably robbing him blind. I’m sure that this is my own hardness of heart. Mrs. M. just can’t be that mean. And not that she needs the money either. Her dead husband left her and Frank very well cared for financially.

  “Leave me alone! Leave me alone! Bossy, bossy, bossy! I want to leave, I want to. You’re not the boss of me y’know, you’re not. I’m grown up.”

  “Hey, Frank,” I called out.

  “Hi Dafe!” Frank gave me a big grin. “I’m gonna fly away, Dafe, live by myself. Just wanna say, ‘Bye. I’m gonna fly!’ Bye Dafe!”

  “How’d he get up in the tree?” I whispered to Mrs. Miller.

  “Don’t talk ’bout me!” Frank hollered. “Not nice!”

  “I’m sorry, Frank. You’re right. It’s not nice. I’m sorry. How’d you get up in the tree?”

  “I fly!” he said. “I fly!” He began flapping his arms. “Bye Dafe! Bye Mom! Bye!”

  “No!” Mrs. Miller pleaded. “No, Francis! Don’t leave me!”

  But he did. Flapping his arms and kicking a little with his big feet, he leapt from the tree and flew up over the two-story house. He looked jerky at first, like when he walks, but soon his arms flapped smoothly with the strength years of raking and shovelling had given him. And then he was gone.

  Mrs. Miller started shaking all over. I’d seen her shake like that before when she was so mad at me she could hardly talk. But I was sure it wasn’t rage that had control of her now.

  She started to wail, tears erupting from her eyes. I cuddled my arm around her—she’s actually quite tiny—and walked her up the stairs to the porch. Tea, I was thinking. I’ll make her some tea. My own heart was breaking for her. For Mrs. Miller. Good heavens, I thought, what’s the world coming to when I feel sorry for this little demon?

  “I’ll make us some tea,” I said.

  Tuesday morning I stopped in to visit Julia Castle, an elderly woman on our membership roll who never comes to church.

  “David, how timely. I was thinking I might call you today and ask you to come by,” Julia said. “I have something to get off my chest. Please come in.” She stepped back, sweeping me inside with her hand. Her apartment was refreshing and cool.

  I have spent many hours here with Julia over the past ten years. Although her heritage is staunch Scotch Presbyterian, she hasn’t been to church since she was in her twenties. She professes atheism, but gives regularly to the congregation and reads systematic theology for fun. Julia is frightfully well-read (she thinks television is for idiots). In fact, I don’t think the woman sleeps much anymore, but instead spends her long nights devouring books.

  She made tea and brought out the Peek Freans, my favourite, and some home-made scones. Julia hasn’t made scones for tea in years. Serving me with her Royal Albert Country Rose china, she chatted lightly about her various neighbours’ feats and foibles.

  Finally, she sat in her Queen Anne chair with Matthew Fox (named after the theologian), her golden Lhasa Apso, curled up in her lap like a cat. Matthew Fox looked quite comfy. Stroking him lightly, she sighed.

  “I am afraid that I am finally losing my faculties,” she said. “And since I have no other living relatives, as you know, I want to confirm with you your role as executor of my will.”

  I took a Peek Frean. Julia isn’t one for histrionics.

  “I don’t really know how to explain,” she said, “so I’ll simply come out and say it. I have been having delightful intercourse with Matthew Fox all week.” I have explained to Julia on several occasions that we rarely use the “I” word for anything but sex anymore. She doesn’t seem to pay heed to my advice. On the other hand, Julia doesn’t get out much, so it probably doesn’t matter. “You see,” she continued, “he . . . he has been participating. In fact he is becoming quite the interlocutor. I am discovering that he has a unique and poignant perspective. Quite refreshing, I might add.”

  I swallowed my Peek Frean.

  “The first thing he said to me was ‘No.’ Just like a child. An important first word for anyone wishing to develop a critical mind, don’t you think? ‘No, what?’ I asked him. We were about to have tea, just like this. ‘No, thank you,’ he said. ‘That’s very good,’ I told him—it’s always important to reward good manners—but that wasn’t what I meant. I explained that I wanted to know why he said ‘No.’ ‘I don’t like Peek Freans,’ he said, ‘and we always have Peek Freans now. You used to make scones. I like those better.’ So I made him some scones. He was quite beside himself with delight.”

  Matthew Fox looked up at her, a perfect Disney-dog gaze.

  “It’s not you, Julia,” I said, thankful that I would no longer have to share the Peek Freans with the dog. “You’re not losing your marbles. The universe has gone kind of wonky. Not really in a bad way, though.” Slime grabbing Mrs. Miller by the head wasn’t such a bad thing, was it?

  I told her about Mrs. Miller and about Frank and Lisa and Brigitte. I left out the part about the Berkowitzes. “I’m not really sure what God has in mind,” I said to her as a kind of conclusion.

  Julia stroked the rim of her teacup with her index finger. “Honestly, David, it sounds to me as if God is quite out of the picture. God just doesn’t have this rich a sense of humour; God has more of a knock-knock joke sense of humour.”

  I chewed. Atheists will use anything to get a leg up in the existence-of-God debate.

  Julia fed Matthew Fox a piece of scone.

  I stopped in at Mrs. Miller’s on the way home from Julia’s. I’m not sure why. I just felt I needed to.

  I had never heard Nathan shout before, but he was shouting now. “You asked me to come, and I agreed. But I’ve had enough. I’m leaving!”

  Whoa. Wait a second. Nathan is dead, remember? You buried him, for Pete’s sake. Three years ago.

  “Please, Nathan. Please stay.” Mrs. M. was actually begging.

  She must have felt me come into the dining room because she turned to me, her eyes wide. “I just want to talk to him, if only for a while. It’s been so long. Please, David, please make him stay.”

  David. Wow, she was desperate.

  “Hey, Nathan. Uh, good to see you again. You’re looking great.” He looked younger than I remembered. In fact,
he looked better dead than he had those last couple of years before his heart attack.

  “Hi, Dave. You’re looking pretty good yourself. You lost some weight?”

  I blushed. “Yeah,” I said. “I’ve been working out this summer.” That was a bald-faced lie, but I pumped my arms up and down to show him anyway. I made a mental note to order some new short-sleeved clergy shirts—mine were getting snug around the biceps.

  “Reverend!” Mrs. Miller stamped her foot.

  “See?” Nathan said. “You always nose in, take over the conversation, work it around to something you want to talk about. And since I’m here anyway: that’s not all. Remember how you were always accusing me of running around on you, rolling in the hay with some secretary from work? Well, I’d have been nuts to: you’d have skinned me alive. So just so you know, I never did, even though you never believed me. You’re just a jealous, bitter-hearted woman. And you have been from the day Francis was born.”

  “That’s not true. Tell him that’s not true, Reverend.”

  I held up my hands, more to protect myself than to defer. I’m as afraid of her as Nathan was. But he’s already dead and I’m not, and I don’t want to be, so I just kept my mouth shut.

  There was silence. A stalemate. But something had changed in Mrs. Miller. I could taste it, more like black pepper, less like aspirin. She looked at Nathan and spoke, her voice soft, quiet, like I’ve never heard it before. “Did you ever love me, Nathan?”

  “Yes, Lil, I did. For a long time. Then, after Francis was born, things changed. Inside me, inside you; between us. And it was never the same after that.” He sighed. “How is Francis?”

  “He left home, Nathan. He flew away.”

  Nathan simply nodded, as if Frank’s flying away was an ordinary thing. An expected thing.

  “What’s going on, Nathan?” I asked.

  He looked at me and shrugged. “The universe is growing up, Dave. It’s transmogrifying—I think that’s what Calvin would call it.”