Flabbergasted: A Novel Read online

  "Years ago I had the occasion to change Ray's diaper. Then around the time he finished college, I taught him how to catch fish in the surf. His writing talent comes from my side of the family, so maybe that's why he stuck me in his book."

  My name is Asbury, and I live on Pawleys Island

  "When Ray first asked if he could use my car in his novel, I declined, thinking everyone in the South would just be honking at me for the next fifty years until I was old and deaf. Well, not only did he use my car in the story, he had the audacity to use me!"

  My name is Darcy, and I am tall and blonde

  "I just had to be in this book, so I offered Ray powdered donuts and lots of dating advice. He's a pushover."

  My name is Lydia, and I am a short redhead

  "Had to wedge my way in, too. So I gave Ray a ride to the beach in my Jeep."

  My name is Steve, and I kill bugs

  "As a bribe to get me in his book, Ray offered me a root beer and a turkey sandwich. I just happened to have left my lunch at home that day, so I took a second swig and said, `Yeah, okay Ray, go ahead, but only if I get to do something fun, something besides mop floors.' He shook my hand and agreed."

  My name is Maurice, and I am a church janitor

  "Ray-dude can still be found hanging out on my end of the beach. Like Steve Cole, he's sorta uncoordinated, but at least he wears cool shorts."

  My name is Ransom, and I am a surfer "Ray traveled more than four thousand miles to interview me. He even got stopped and interrogated at a small South American military outpost before finding my location. Then he spent two days begging for permission to use me as the female star of his novel. I bit into a mango and told him only if I got to drive Darcy's car. After all, she's my best friend."

  My name is Allie, and I work for God

  "Welcome, dear reader, to Flabbergasted."

  My name is Jay, and I will be your narrator

  Ray Blackston

  For Mrs. Kretzer, my second grade teacher, who liked my stories and poems and was the first person to encourage me to write In his heart a man plans his course, but the Loco determines his steps.

  -Proverbs 16:9

  This is not my story to tell. Even if I wanted to, I could not tell it. Two dozen orphans, a remote locale, and lack of paper allowed me to write only this brief introduction, and even it had to be scribbled hastily in pencil and sent via snail mail. My letters take two weeks to reach the United States.

  If you guessed that I am a missionary, you are correct. If you guessed that I am in my mid-twenties and have brown hair, then you are clairvoyant. If you guessed that I am about to tell you why I'm bending your ear instead of the story's rightful owner, then you need to be patient and spend a moment pondering yesterday's lesson in the village.

  Yesterday I tried to explain to the children that life is full of ups and downs, and that some of the downs are actually ups, and some of the ups, downs.

  They only wanted to know how far is down.

  I said it depends.

  Depends on what? they asked.

  I told them it depends on if you view the downs as a green valley or an endless abyss.

  After I explained what an abyss was, they said that was way too far down and that they hoped our village would never play soccer or eat jungle muffins in an abyss.

  What you need to know is, by North America's standard of logic, what happened to the narrator of this story also involved something of an abyss. Call it a deep plunge.

  The strange thing is that during my last furlough-home to visit the South, the beach, the seafood-I witnessed his plunge. Well, at least the beginning of it.

  At the last second he tried to reach out and grab my hand.

  I refused.

  But I did wave.

  Now, whether the young man's down was really an up, I'll let you decide.

  As for the orphans and the residue of yesterday's lesson, we settled on something shallower than an abyss, and with a red magic marker I wrote our lesson on a small section of plywood. It hangs on the wall of my hut:

  There are potholes on the road less traveled. Some deep, some not so deep, some you dig yourself. Most are filled with mud. Many contain rocks. Once in a while, however, you'll be walking along and step in one a bit more accommodating ... shabby, green, and pulsing with life.

  It'll tickle your feet, like clover.

  Ninety percent of life is just showing up.

  -Woody Allen

  At a quarter past midnight I set my paint roller in the pan, the pan in the tub, my bathroom the latest victim in a week of odd-hour renovations.

  Hands scrubbed, teeth brushed, I walked down the hall, cut off the lights, and fell prostrate across a mattress in my spare bedroom. A whiff of khaki latex seeped into the darkness, drifted past my pillow, and reminded me to be up at 8:00 A.M.

  In the fuzzy state between sleep and awake, I reached to set the alarm on my digital clock. But I held the button too long and had to wait for the eight to come around as I dozed and saw the numbers, saw the numbers then dozed, and around again went the numbers.

  The rumbling of a car engine woke me. It was Sunday morning. I sniffed the air, and above the fresh paint I detected the scent of females four miles away at North Hills Presbyterian Church.

  The wind strained to cool my Blazer when I ran the yellow lights, and I ran three. Greenville was an unfamiliar city, and it bloomed green across my new geography, the upstate of South Carolina.

  Sprawled between two office buildings on the uppity side of downtown, North Hills appeared manicured and popular. A tiny steeple rose from the red brick sanctuary.

  The lot was filling fast. I parked in the back row, pausing there to watch well-dressed couples with immaculate children hurry toward the building. I checked my hair in the mirror and wondered who might be inside.

  Understand that I did not resort to such tactics without good causeand the cause was not that unusual.

  Modern communication was the cause.

  Kimberly Hargrove had communicated to me, by e-mail, that she was now interested in a surgical resident at West Dallas Hospital and would no longer be requiring my attention. This humbling piece of news arrived just six days after I had moved halfway across the country. Her contribution to this story ends here. Just know that what had looked promising had totally unraveled with two Thursday afternoon e-mails.

  Relational rope burn.

  Maybe you can relate.

  Now, I'm aware that being dumped was poor motivation for what I was about to do. But what I was about to do would not have happened had it not been for a second piece of communication.

  From an older woman.

  No, not a romantic interest.

  The real-estate lady.

  Having just been transferred, I knew not a soul in Greenville, S.C.- until she had agreed to meet me at a mistreated three-bedroom in the middle of a suburban cul-de-sac. I had signed the contract on the hood of her Saab as she stood beside me in her gold jacket and black heels, looking over my shoulder and drooling for commission. Seconds later she had tromped through the yard, proudly slapped a SOLD sticker across her FOR SALE sign, and nearly turned her ankle in the process.

  "So where do the single people hang out in this town?" I inquired, noting that the sellers had even uprooted the mailbox.

  "Well, Jay," she said, leaning over to brush grass clippings from her black heels, "there's the occasional outdoor concert, and in the fall there'll be plenty of football, but your best bet is in the same places where I find clients. I usually rotate between Baptist and Methodist."

  "Churches?" I asked, not sure of her meaning.

  She pulled off her left shoe and shook out the grassy contents. "You know ... the networking th
ing. Although sometimes it looks good to tote along a Bible, just to fit in."

  "You use churches to network for clients?"

  "Almost exclusively."

  "Is that, um, legal?" I had a finance degree, and this sounded like the spiritual equivalent of insider trading.

  "Who knows. But half the city does it." She paused to empty her other shoe. "You don't have a girlfriend? You look like the type who would have a girlfriend."

  "I used to. She sorta dumped me."

  "Well, is it `sorta,' or is it permanent?" She was quite aggressive, the real-estate lady.

  I walked over to peer into the mailbox hole. "Feels permanent."

  "And she did this recently?"

  "By e-mail."

  "Sounds like an airhead to me."

  After this brief exchange, she leaned against her Saab to check over the contract. She thanked me, tore off my copy, and got into her car. I was inspecting a bent drain spout as she backed out of the driveway. She honked twice, then stopped and stuck her head out the window. "Ya know, Jay, if you really want to meet people, try the Pentecostals. They're very outgoing."

  "How so?"

  "Quite loud ... and they stand up a lot."

  "I'd prefer to sit."

  "Then pick another one. Our churches outnumber the bars by a twentyto-one margin. You'll figure it out."

  So there I sat in my Chevy Blazer on a Sunday morning in May, in the last row of the parking lot of North Hills Presbyterian Church, trying to figure it out, trying to remember the last time I'd set foot inside a church. Four, five years, perhaps?

  In retrospect, I suppose it was not the best-laid plan. And one much more common to men than mice.

  I checked my hair again. Then my slacks, my jacket, and the buttons on my light blue oxford. Just blend in, scope the field, and try not to volunteer for anything.

  I stepped out of my truck.

  Did I mention I was not wearing a tie?

  Bells rang out in two-second intervals as I crossed the parking lot and reached the front steps. Beyond the top step loomed a wooden double door, nine feet high and richly detailed. I pulled it open, and there was a middle-aged man in a midpriced suit standing in the middle of the foyer.

  He gave the customary nod and handed me a bulletin.

  Down the burgundy carpet sat pews of dark wood, detailed along the sides in the same pattern as the door. I searched for an empty slot. No one looked up. Just five hundred heads staring into bulletins, fascinated, as if Shakespeare himself had penned the announcements.

  I took a seat in row twenty-something, next to an old man whose Bible lay open beside him, the pages psychedelic from his marks. Two children scribbled in the next pew, their hands stained by magic markers. Their mother shushed them as a hymn began. The choir sounded rich and reverent, and several sopranos made an impression, although the long green robes prevented me from checking for wedding bands.

  Hymn over, the congregation stood to recite a creed, their voices a low monotone, my lips moving in mock conformity. We sat again. The old guy pulled out his checkbook.

  Six men in suits worked the aisles, passing and receiving brass plates in the quiet manner of servants. A plate reached me containing a pile of envelopes and a twenty; it left with the contents unaffected.

  The two kids turned and smiled. I made a face, and they whirred back around, giggling as their mother gave a firmer shush.

  The pastor spoke of being in the world but not of the world, of having eternal thoughts in the midst of the temporary. His sermon was lengthy, definitely not monotone, but left me the same way I'd left the brass plate.

  Blessed and dismissed, I shook strange hands, then looked around for a deacon to point me toward the singles class. Kids pulled parents through the pews, parents grabbed markers from the floor, and the elderly-the teeming mass of elderly-paused and dawdled on the burgundy carpet.

  Leaving the twenty-fourth pew (I had counted the rows during the sermon), I heard the organist playing a lullaby and wondered if I should've tried the Pentecostals.

  I caught the bulletin man midway up the aisle.

  "The college class meets in the Sunday school wing," he directed, "just past the junior highs."

  "What if I'm a bit older?" I asked. "College was five years ago."

  "Ah, the singles," he said. "They meet in the little brick building across the parking lot."

  The crowd forced me forward. "Thanks, I'll find it."

  My first glance into the building revealed three rows of chairs arranged in semicircles. A thick wooden podium faced the center. A gray-suited man rested one arm on the podium, his back to the chairs, his attention in a book.

  I strolled past the empty rows. Muted conversations made their way from around a corner. Morning sunlight angled in through sheer white curtains, and I turned to see a kitchen full of singles. They were having coffee, orange juice, and those white powdered donuts.

  The first person to make eye contact with me was a heavyset girl with short red hair, her round face beaming hospitality. She wiped a crumb from her flower-print dress, smiled briefly, and extended a hand. "No ring? Then you're in the right place."

  Disarmed by the humor, I returned the greeting. "Jay Jarvis. No hidden rings."

  "I'm Lydia," she said, letting go of my hand. "Your first time?"

  `Just moved to South Carolina last month."

  She gave me a Styrofoam coffee cup and left to greet more visitors. I was filling the cup with decal when someone tapped my shoulder. And I turned to meet one Stanley Rhone, complete with navy blue suit, sculpted black hair, and a handshake three degrees too firm.

  "From where did you move?" he asked. He looked at me cautiously, warily, in the same way toddlers view asparagus. A white hankie sprouted from his coat pocket.

  "Dallas," I replied. "My firm transferred me just this-"

  The gray-suited podium leaner had called us to attention. Fifty singles began taking their seats in the familiar social pattern of women in front and middle, with males occupying the perimeter. I took a seat at the end of the second row, behind Stanley, and tried to look alert.

  A latecomer hurried in and took her seat. "Mr. Rhone will open us," said Gray-suit.

  In the act of bowing my head, I deduced that I was a half second behind. I glanced left to check my timing and, across the heads and the silence, our eyes met.

  She was likewise in mid-drop, glancing to her right from the far end of the second semicircle. The glare through the curtain backlit the brunette hair resting at her shoulders, but that same glare prevented me from confirming the hint of a smile.

  I went with my preferred answer and shut my eyes.

  Audible grunts rose from the row behind me. The grunts seemed well coordinated with Stanley's voice inflection, a rising tone producing a louder grunt. I considered turning quietly for a one-eyed peek, but to the best of my knowledge, peekage wasn't allowed.

  Stanley finished the prayer, the grunting stopped, and Gray-suit began our lesson from Galatians. Fortunately, there were hardcover Bibles under each chair, and I unstuck some pages to reveal Psalm 139. 1 figured Galatians was to the east of Psalms, and by the time he finished reading the five verses, I was there.

  The word idolatry floated through the air, up and around behind the semicircles and past the donuts, bypassed everyone else and landed smartly in my conscience. It stirred around for a moment, clanged between my skull, then disappeared, like the sermon, to that place where all conversation fades.

  I glanced again across the room, but she quickly looked away-out the window, at the empty chair in front of her, then down at her sandals, well worn below her yellow sundress. She was one shade darker than the fifty other reverent Caucasians. Definitely American, but without the American condiments. No makeup. No jewelry.

  I figured that she, too, might be a visitor. But who knew. Regardless, I wanted to meet her.

  More Galatian words hovered over me, dropping now, searching for sin. Gray-suit spoke of fruit, of
faith, of goodness and self-control. Heads nodded their agreement, the grunter gave an affirmation, and strictly from peer pressure, I reached in my jacket for a pen.

  "Fruit, not fruits," said our teacher. "We cannot pick and choose among the attributes of God like the dinner line at a Baptist buffet."

  Everyone laughed, but she refused to look my direction. Please look my direction.

  Closing announcements followed, mentioning a food drive, a visit to see a sick person, and something about a trip to the beach over the long Memorial Day weekend.

  I had no plans for the long Memorial Day weekend; maybe she'd be going. Anxious for an introduction, I left my coffee cup on my chair and hurried toward the door.

  Too late. The dark-haired girl was already in the parking lot. After a quick and insincere nice-to-meet-ya to Stanley, I peeled off my jacket, flung it over one shoulder, and strolled toward my Blazer.

  One row over, her faded red Beetle puttered away.

  Tuesday evening while grilling chicken on my deck, I was thinking of brass plates and women, of women and brass plates, and wondered if contributing to that plate would hurry God up as far as meeting the right one. I flipped the chicken over, sprinkled it with lemon pepper, and thought maybe dropping two twenties in the plate would help me meet her this year, or a hundred bucks and we'd meet within a month, or five hundred and the person would arrive in warp speed, like Spock to Captain Kirk.

  Smoke was pouring from the grill, my dinner only two minutes from perfection, when the cordless phone rang. The voice on the other end thanked me for visiting North Hills and asked if I had any questions. I was tempted to ask about the girl in the Beetle but stopped myself and muttered something about planning to visit again soon.

  "You're in the singles class, then?" asked Mr. Kyle, who mentioned he was both an elder and the membership chairman.

  I swatted at a fly with my spatula and said, "Yessir, but I haven't been in one for a while."