While Daddy prayed for him, I looked out the window at old Yellow, Willard’s dog, moping in the yard under a car up on blocks, like he had what Willard had.
Some folks from The Hand said Willard Peyton was a miser, and had more money than any one of them made in a year, stuffed in a tin can and put in the ground behind his shack.
I went out in the sun awhile, petted Yellow, waiting for Daddy to finish up. When I went back inside, the free 800 number was flashing across the bottom of the screen, for all the viewers who wanted to order the P.S. charm by phone.
“I just wonder who’ll take old Yellow in,” Willard Peyton said, letting his head fall back on the pillow after Daddy’s prayers. “I tell you, Royal, if this is a minor stroke like they say, I’d like to know what a major one is. Old Yellow don’t have no one but me.”
Daddy said, “Job said in III: 25, ‘That which I have greatly feared has come upon me.’ When doesn’t it? When doesn’t it?”
Then Daddy kissed him and motioned for me to put the sound back on the TV, and we headed home.
“We could take Yellow,” I said as we rode along.
“We add dog food bills to cat food bills, we’ll be eating Alpo our own selves. Someone from The Hand will take the dog when the time comes.”
“He doesn’t have any family, does he?”
“He’s the last.”
“Will The Hand get the money he’s rumored to have?”
“I don’t know, honey,” said Daddy, “but we’d lose more than we’d get, if we was to inherit it. Willard Peyton’s been coming to The Hand since back in the days when we had cotton-stocking, gingham-dress, sawdust-trail revivals. He’s old stock, and we’d gain nothing with his passing.”
“Still and all, I wonder what he’s got.”
“‘The love of money is the root of all evil,’ Opal. I Timothy VI: 10.”
“I don’t love it. I don’t have it to love. I just wonder what it’d be like to have any.”
“Never mind,” Daddy said, sighing.
“We never seem to save any we get.”
“Well, sweetheart, money’s like manure, does no good till it’s spread.”
Another sigh from him. I got mad at myself for mentioning money, rattled on about how glad I was to be starting my new job down to Bunch Cleaners. He said he was glad I was glad, but I don’t think either of us was that glad I was getting paid three and a half an hour to go through dirty clothes looking for loose change, and put clean clothes on hangers under plastic.
When we got back home, the whole house smelled of roast chicken, and Mum came out barefoot to meet us, saying, “Jesse Pegler was by to bring regards from ACE. I said what you doing here when your Daddy’s live on TV now? He said it wasn’t live no more. Did you know it wasn’t live no more, Royal?”
“No, Arnelle, I did not. It’s not my business to keep track of Guy Pegler. … Poor old Willard is going to croak.” Daddy went over and plopped down in his Barcalounger in the living room.
Mum said to me, “Jesse Pegler said to say he was by. Calls you Oh-Pull.”
I laughed and clapped my hands together. “He always says Oh-Pull.”
“Says Oh-Pull,” Mum giggled.
“What’s got into you two?” Daddy said. “I’m telling your mother Willard Peyton’s going to pass, and you two are all worked up over some boy saying a name funny.”
“He was looking for you, I think,” Mum told me. “He’s not just some boy, Royal. He’s Guy Pegler’s youngest, and a real nice boy. Real nice!”
“I don’t give a hoot,” Daddy said.
“There’s something I want to take up with you, too,” Mum said, “talking of giving a hoot. I don’t give a hoot for you expecting payment of any kind for a miracle our Lord performed! Royal, I didn’t like you saying in your sermon the Cheeks should have wrote us a check.”
“That was not what I said, Arnelle, so you didn’t listen.”
“You might just as well have said it. I hate to think we got money on the brain and that’s all. They offered us a CheckCheek Security System, free of charge, equal in value to one thousand dollars, and that is payment enough if you wanted to accept it.”
“Did he walk way over here?” I said.
“He had his daddy’s fancy car.”
“I’d like to know a way to get money off the brain for sure,” said Daddy. “We took in peanuts again, and every bit of it was loose change. Not a dollar bill in that plate. You’d think paper was gold.”
“I know a way to get it off the brain,” Mum said, undoing her apron strings, meaning she wanted us to kneel down and pray.
“Amen,” Daddy said, and got up from his lounge chair. “Where’s Bobby John?”
“He’s over to Drive-In Burger. Jesse Pegler drove him over.”
Mum got down on her knees, holding on to the Barcalounger for support.
Daddy got down, and I did.
“Oh Lord,” Daddy began, “help us to see the goodness though the bad. Help us to see this fine morning, the chicken smells coming from the kitchen, Opal here had a nice young fellow, son of a preacher, come calling on her—”
“Hey, Daddy!” I complained. “Don’t tell Him that. That’s not for sure he came to see me.”
Eight
JESSE PEGLER
SEAL AND I WERE working for ACE that summer.
One of the things we were supposed to do was go up to teenage drivers at the sunrise service and present them with “It’s Up to You” bumper stickers.
We handed out about forty, then went back to my father’s study to watch the show. Seal took notes on everything: camera angles, choir members whose faces didn’t “light up” as they sang, the need for more closeups of blacks and Hispanics—you name it and Seal was scribbling it across an ACE pad with her gold ACE pencil.
She was stretched out on the rug
