Harriet Beamer Takes the Bus (19 page)

H
ARRIET,
S
NAKE, AND
P
EARL PULLED INTO
C
OLLINSVILLE,
Illinois, just a little past 5:00 p.m. — just like they said. Although grateful to be out of the sidecar, she was going to miss Snake and Pearl. They stopped right out front of a small white clapboard church. The only way Harriet could tell it was a church was by the pointy steeple and the rundown sign out front that read: H
APPY
T
IMES
G
OSPEL
P
REACHING
C
HURCH.

“This is where the revival is?” Harriet said. “In that little bitty church?”

“It might be small in stature, but it’s mighty powerful and big in the Holy Spirit,” Snake said. “Want to join us?”

Harriet felt her eyebrows arch like a gothic cathedral. She had been intrigued by the snake-handling preacher, but to actually join a service … well she wasn’t too sure.

“Oh, I … I don’t know. I’ve never —”

“Come on,” Pearl said. “You’ll be blessed.”

Harriet nodded, and the next thing she knew she was sitting in a wooden folding chair inside. It was warm, with air as thick as wool. Dozens of people filed in as three men, including Snake, stood at the front. A large woman wearing a large brimmed hat banged on the piano as a man in a white shirt plucked a banjo. Harriet saw another woman, younger than most, shaking a
tambourine as folks started singing without even being told which hymn. They stood and joined hands and sang and swayed back and forth. Some danced in circles with their heads thrust back like they were in a trance of some sort. Harriet could not understand how any of this had anything to do with Jesus even though folks were shouting his name and saying praises.

Harriet noticed a particularly fat woman near the front go out into the aisle. She tossed her head back and swirled around, uttering words Harriet couldn’t understand. She swayed and sang in the strange language until all of sudden, as though she had been shot from behind, she dropped to the floor. She was quickly ministered to by two men in white shirts and dark pants. They dabbed her forehead and helped her to her seat as she called, “Thank you, Jesus. Thank you.”

Harriet swallowed and looked at Pearl who was singing and swaying with the others. Harriet couldn’t help but feel a touch nervous, but at the same time she felt a wash of peace, a peace that passed her understanding. She didn’t want to leave, but at the same time she didn’t know how to act. Her heart raced and then slowed as she closed her eyes and tried to move while what she could only believe was the Holy Spirit led.

But when Snake and the other two men reached into a box and pulled out rattlesnakes Harriet wanted to cry and run from that place. But she couldn’t. She watched as Snake raised the rattler above his head. “They shall pick up vipers,” he shouted. “And not be hurt.” He danced and shouted, danced in circles as the music swelled. Snake then took a second snake from the cardboard box and draped it around his neck. Harriet was beginning to feel a bit dizzy from the heat and the excitement. Then a young woman reached into the box. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen. She held the snake and kept saying, “Praise Jesus. Praise Jesus.” She danced also until she lowered the snake back into the box. She shouted something Harriet couldn’t make out, and then she started to writhe and jerk on the floor.

“Is she all right?” Harriet asked Pearl. “It looks like a fit of epilepsy.”

Pearl laughed as she continued clapping. “No, no, she’s fine. She’s been slain.”

“Slain? But —” Harriet didn’t know what to say except, “My little old Presbyterian heart can’t take this. I better leave.”

Pearl nodded. Harriet made her way into the aisle as Snake approached. He held both her hands and prayed in the midst of the seeming chaos, asking God to give her extreme traveling grace. At least that’s what Harriet thought he said. It was so loud.

Pearl walked out with Harriet where the air was cool and misty.

She sat on a small green bench on the church lawn and took a deep breath. What she really wanted to do was cry. What she just experienced was strange and overwhelming. “That was … was something.” Harriet didn’t know exactly what to say. “I never saw anything like it.” She fanned herself with a bus schedule she pulled from her tote.

Pearl patted her shoulder. “Guess we should have told you, but it’s a little tough to explain. We leave it up to the Holy Spirit.”

“No, no. I’m glad I went. But I hope you don’t mind if I don’t stay for the whole service.” She puffed and fanned. “And for right now I need to check with Amelia to figure out where to go next.”

“I would imagine,” Pearl said, “that the best thing would be to get to a big city like Saint Louis and go from there.”

“Yes, I am heading there but —”

“But it’s been a long day. Maybe you should spend the night in Collinsville and then catch the express into Saint Louis in the morning — and from there? Well, you’ll figure it out, but I’m thinking it might be a good idea to train right into Kansas City, Missouri, it’s right on the border. I know the Amtrak goes there, not sure about the locals.”

Harriet yawned as she looked around at the street. Other than music and the rattle of the tambourines drifting through the windows of the small church, Harriet figured no one really knew
what was happening inside. Not that it was a bad thing — just different.

“That sounds like a plan. I need a rest. No offense but riding in a sidecar is not the most gentle ride. I think my rump felt every bump. I got knocked around like a teacup in a UPS truck. I’m looking forward to a comfortable bed.”

“Now, I’m sure that fancy phone of yours will help you find a hotel and then maybe a taxi to get you to a motel. Doubtful that the buses are still running,” Pearl said. “May God bless you and make his face shine upon you.”

Harriet pulled out her Moleskine and read David Prancing Elk’s Indian blessing aloud: “And may the warm winds of heaven blow softly upon your house. May the Great Spirit bless all who enter there. May your moccasins make happy tracks in many snows, and may the rainbow always touch your shoulder.”

“That was so sweet,” Pearl said.

“I learned it from a Cherokee Indian in North Carolina. I haven’t got it memorized yet.”

“God has his hand on you, Harriet,” Pearl said. “He didn’t set you on this journey without a purpose.”

And right at that moment Harriet felt a wave of peace and relief wash over her like a warm summer shower. It was like daisies had bloomed in her heart and she had a brand-new reason to keep going. For the first time since she started the whole thing, she knew beyond a doubt that someone out there, along the bus routes, needed her — or she needed them. Or at least that’s what she decided to believe.

Humphrey was not feeling well, not well at all, according to Henry. It had been a week and a half since he’d come to California, so it seemed natural that he would miss Harriet terribly. That afternoon, while Henry typed feverishly on his manuscript, Humphrey lay at his feet letting go an occasional whimper or whine.

“I know, old man,” Henry said, leaning back in his black office chair. “But she’s okay. She’ll get here. God is watching over her.” Then he leaned down and patted Humphrey’s head. “But do you really understand?”

Humphrey looked up, rolled onto his side, and let his tongue loll out.

“I think she’ll be here before the week is out.” Henry yawned and stretched and then went back to his work. But that only lasted a few seconds.

“Hey, whaddaya say we call her?”

Humphrey scrambled to his feet, danced a jig, and barked twice. Two loud, happy barks.

“Okay, okay.” Henry opened his phone and tapped Harriet’s picture. He waited. And waited, and then the phone went to voicemail. He sighed. “Mom, it’s me. I’m just calling to see how you’re doing and where you are. Call me back.”

He closed his phone.

Humphrey, his red eyes drooping, looked up at Henry. He lay back down. This time on his belly and rested his head on his paws.

“Don’t be sad, Humphrey. She’ll get here safe and sound.” Henry swallowed as he pictured his mother squashed into a motorcycle sidecar. “I hope.”

Henry went back to his work. He wrote:

Henry kept writing and writing, losing all track of time. His words were free now for some reason. He could feel Cash’s pain. He could even feel Polly’s pain. He cried, but only a little because he didn’t want Humphrey to see him. The last time he had cried
was when his father died, and he’d held on to Harriet so tightly that he could feel her breaking apart, breaking apart right in his arms. And now he wanted Cash to hold Polly like that, to forgive him for killing Madeline. But why? Why would anyone forgive a murderer?

Henry hung his head and then looked at the picture of Prudence on his desk. It was taken back east in Cape May during the tulip festival. She was smiling so wide he thought she might break. He lightly touched her image. “I love you, Pru. I really do.” That was when he knew what he wanted. He was ready. Ready to try again. Ready to have another child.

“I never told Harriet,” he said to Humphrey, “but losing those babies was so hard on Prudence. We were so happy the second time — well, we were happy both times, but the second seemed different. Prudence said it felt different.” He leaned down and patted Humphrey’s head. “She carried him the longest, almost ten weeks when … well, we never told Mom. We wanted to surprise her when we visited and Prudence had a big baby bump.” He sniffed back his tears.

Because of a convention in town the DoubleTree Hotel in Collinsville only had one king-size room available. Harriet took it without batting an eyelash. Her joints ached, her head ached, and if she had to pull her suitcase one more block she’d scream. All she wanted to do was take a shower, get into her jammies, and relax.

She didn’t even care that all she had was a ten-dollar bill to tip the bellman.

She took off her sneakers first, visited the bathroom, and then opened her suitcase. And that’s when she saw it. The blueberry pie that Bunny gave her back at Aunt Fran’s had exploded.

“Oh, for crying out loud,” Harriet said. She pulled the paper plate covered with aluminum foil out of the bag. Blueberry had been squeezed out onto her best nightgown. “This must have happened
on the motorcycle ride.” She remembered the way Snake bungee corded the case down on the back of his bike. “This is bad.” She found blueberry goo on her underwear, her new crew socks, and some even managed to slip down into the bottom of the case and stain her pink capris.

She didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. What she did know was that she didn’t have the energy or the time for either. This catastrophe was better handled post haste.

“No. I … I have to find the laundry.”

She worked fast and pulled out all her clothes. Separating what had met with unfortunate blueberry surprise and what had survived unscathed. She held up her capris. “This will never come out — not in a hotel laundry anyway.”

She put all the soiled clothing into the bathtub to rinse and then hurried to the phone. She called the front desk.

“Oh, hello, dear. I’ve had a bit of a blueberry-pie disaster. Is there a laundry available for the guests?”

“Yes, ma’am. But did you say blueberry disaster? In the room?”

“Oh, no, not exactly. In my suitcase.”

Harriet heard the desk clerk chuckle.

“Well, I guess it is a little funny. But right now I need to wash my clothes.”

She hung up and returned to the mess. “Oh dear. I might have to buy new clothes.”

Harriet bundled her clothes into one of the large, fluffy hotel towels, dropped her phone in her pocket, and made her way to the laundry. It was a nice room with five washing machines and five dryers with a table in between. The hotel provided laundry soap, and she even found stain pretreatment spray, which she used most happily.

Then she stood there. What now?

A woman with her own bundle of laundry walked into the room. Harriet watched her get the machine started and then leave the room.

“There see,” she said out loud. “I guess it’s all right to just leave while they wash.”

On the elevator she even said to a man standing with her, “And so what if someone steals my clothes? I’ll buy new stuff and I doubt the blueberry stains will come out anyway.”

The man looked at her like she had sprung a leak in her brain pan. He got off at the next floor.

Back in her room Harriet finished wiping out her suitcase and ordered room service. Expensive room service. But Harriet didn’t mind. She ordered dinner — pasta and salad and iced tea. Something light but wholesome. She had been cramming down the carbs lately, and her tummy felt it; and given the late hour, she didn’t want to sleep on a heavy meal. Even after a hot shower, while waiting for room service, her body ached. She noticed a couple of bruises on her legs that she didn’t remember getting and a large purple bruise on her right bicep. But nothing was broken. That was the important thing. She had to slip into a pair of capris and the only top that didn’t have blueberry on it since her nightgown was in the wash. She sat on the bed and unlocked her phone.

Harriet saw that she missed a call from Henry, but called Martha first.

“Now, you are not going to believe what I did this evening,” Harriet said.

“Oh … I’ll believe anything at this point,” Martha said.

“You know how I love pie, but let me tell you this — never pack blueberry pie in your suitcase.”

Martha laughed. “What happened?”

“It was a disaster,” Harriet said, and then she related the whole messy story.

“That’s funny,” Martha said. “But at least it wasn’t a total loss.”

“I’m just glad I sent the bib on to the kids. I was gonna pack it.”