St. Dale

nightscape of the New York skyline. Looming just past the Intimidator’s shoulder stood the glittering shapes of the Twin Towers, bright peaks against a blue twilight. In the composite photo, Earnhardt stood taller than the towers. At the other end of the poster, the traditional image of Earnhardt in racing mode was superimposed on an enormous moon image set in a slate blue sky above the cityscape. This black-and-white image wore sunglasses, and sported the Goodwrench logo on his white helmet: the man in the moon, waiting for the green flag. At bottom right, where the Hudson River ought to be, sat the black number 3, scaled to dwarf the skyscrapers in the background.

“What do you think they’re trying to say in that poster?” Bill Knight asked Harley, tapping the menu. “That Earnhardt’s death was more significant than 9/11?”

“They’re not trying to say anything,” said Jesse Franklin, looking distressed at the misunderstanding. “Ray told you: that poster dates from 1994-the year of his seventh championship. The NASCAR awards banquet is held in New York City. That’s all it means.”

Justine, who had come over to examine the poster as well, said, “Yes, but isn’t it odd that they would pose Earnhardt beside the Twin Towers, and that we lost them in the same year?”

Bill smiled, partly in relief that his hasty conclusion had been wrong. “It’s easy to spot omens after the fact,” he told her. “Anybody can be Nostradamus on those terms. But Monday-morning prophets are as useless as Monday- morning quarterbacks. If you had looked at that poster back in 1994 and foreseen the disaster, then you’d have my attention.”

“But, look,” said Shane. “That year was his seventh championship. His seventh. In 1994. And it was seven years later that the Towers fell.” He did a quick calculation on his fingers. “He died in February, 2001. February to September. Seven months after he died.”

Ray Reeve shook his head. “You’ve lost me there, son,” he said. “Maybe if those towers had been in Charlotte, I could see Earnhardt being a thread in a doomsday prophecy, but Manhattan was not his turf. I just can’t see it as any more than a coincidence.”

“And you can stop humming that Twilight Zone music, Bekasu,” said Justine, turning around to glare at her sister. “We’re trying to make sense of two tragedies here.”

“It’s a poster, Justine.”

Justine sniffed. “You wouldn’t recognize a miracle if it stepped on your foot. I know they say that seeing is believing, but maybe it works the other way, too. Maybe believing is seeing.”

“Well, I think you all ought to stop talking about it,” hissed Cayle, glancing around nervously. “Terence lives in Manhattan, you know. We might upset him with all this talk about 9/11.”

Terence and Sarah Nash were already seated at the table with Matthew, helping him decipher the menu, seemingly oblivious to the discussion taking place at the Seventh Championship poster. Sarah Nash had discovered that neither of her table partners knew what hush puppies were or why they were called that, so she had embarked upon the tale.

The others took a last look at the poster, and walked back to their seats. Harley and Ratty had pushed two large tables together so that those who were not hard-of-hearing could converse with anyone else in the group, but there still wasn’t room enough for everyone, so Bill Knight and Bekasu Holifield volunteered to sit at a smaller table nearby. They had tried to make this offer seem like a sacrifice, but their feigned reluctance to leave the group convinced no one.

Bill Knight studied the menu (what was red slaw?), still thinking about the concept of hindsight prophecy, and wondering how he should phrase his thoughts on the matter when he recorded it in his little notebook. He had set the notebook beside his fork in hopes that something would occur to him before the end of lunch. The motion of the bus tended to make his handwriting illegible. Hindsight prophecy: He supposed that it was human nature to look for omens in connection with significant events. Portents would be a sign that there is order in the universe: that things are predestined and foreseeable. The idea of a chaotic, random universe in which events have no meaning was more than some people could bear. He didn’t much like the thought of it himself. Perhaps that was what drew him to the ministry: God was a promise of order in a world of chaos.

Bekasu, who had sat down next to him, noticed his look of preoccupation. “I love my sister,” she said, “but sometimes I need a break from Planet Justine.”

“She’s an original,” said Bill, smiling politely.

“About that Manhattan poster,” said Bekasu, talking behind her upraised menu so the others wouldn’t overhear. “They really don’t mean to be blasphemous.”

“No, no,” said Bill. “I wasn’t offended, and I don’t think Terence Palmer even noticed. They’re so obviously sincere. Misguided, perhaps, but sincere. Perhaps they are postmodernists.”

Beksau smiled. “If you accused Cayle or Justine of being one, they’d say they were Presbyterian, but I take your point. The theory that people try to make a connection between random events in order to give the universe a semblance of meaning. Justine, searching for the mystical significance of all the threes, or a connection between two tragedies that some of them probably do see as equal.”

“Yes. If it’s only a set of coincidences that they are trying to impose order on, we needn’t consider it, but some of the things I’ve heard are a bit puzzling, I admit.”

Bekasu looked uneasy. “Well, Cayle for one may have good reason to think there’s a supernatural connection with Earnhardt.”

“Yes, she told me about her encounter on the road to Mooresville.”

Bekasu twiddled her spoon. “She swears it really happened. I don’t know what to make of it. I’ve known her forever, and she’s not a flake. Now if it were Justine, I’d know exactly what to think. Justine is capable of finding the Holy Grail in a Coke machine. But Cayle…I guess as a minister you must be used to it.”

He shook his head. Marriage counseling and fund-raising for charity were more in his line. Beans-and-rice suppers for Latin American political causes, yes; divine revelations, no. “You don’t expect to hear things like that these days,” he said. “Not outside of a supermarket tabloid, anyway. I suppose that if Cayle had told me that she’d met Mother Teresa, I might have been skeptical, but at least I’d have been more-”

“Respectful?” said Bekasu, smiling. “Well, I don’t know if I believe it, either, but I’m enough of a contrarian not to want anybody’s elitists electing our saints. I don’t think we should doubt her because of who she saw. Besides, I think there’s more than one kind of saint.”

Bill Knight stared for a moment at a forkful of barbecue. “Okay,” he said. “Angels-like St. Michael. Prophets and mystics-St. John the Baptist, Joan of Arc. Humanitarians-Mother Cabrini.”

“Don’t forget the political saints,” said Bekasu. “People who become saints because canonizing them was one in the eye to the enemies of the church.”

“Thomas More,” said Bill. “Well, I’m an Episcopalian, so obviously we don’t claim him, but Rome does.”

“Exactly. And have you considered the people’s saints? I mean the ones who got in by popular demand. Thomas Becket was one of those.”

“Surely he was also a political choice? Archbishop of Canterbury-defending the church against secular law?”

“Yes-canonizing him was a papal rap on the knuckles for Henry II, but don’t you think he was also a grassroots favorite?”

“Becket? Well, he became powerful despite the fact that he was a Saxon in Norman England, so by definition a member of the lower orders.”

“In other words, a redneck,” said Bekasu.

Bill stared at her. “Yes, but of course he transcended his humble beginnings.”

“Well, then I’d say that’s something he and Earnhardt had in common.” She nodded toward the image of the man in the tuxedo against the backdrop of Manhattan. “And I’ll tell you another resemblance. Neither one of them got above their raising, as we say down here. Remember Becket giving away the archbishop’s fine clothing to the poor and wearing a hair shirt? And here’s Earnhardt-fortieth richest person in America-and where does he live? Iredell County, where he started. Not Palm Beach. Not Palm Springs. Not New York or L.A. Mooresville. Ordinary people loved him for it.”

“Well, I grant you the similarity, but of course it doesn’t make him a saint.” Bill had begun to shred his paper napkin. “A Roman historian named Priscus said pretty much the same thing about Attila the Hun. How modest and