T. Parker: California Girl

“You wouldn’t have to sweat the taxes if it was church property,” said Bob.

“No, I wouldn’t.”

“How large is your congregation?”

“Measure not faith by the bushel,” David said flatly. It sounded biblical and he figured Bob would get the gist of it. The fact of the matter was he had no real congregation of his own. Except for the inmates he ministered to at the county jail. Nick had helped him get that gig.

David had been driving past the old drive-in theater almost every day for the past three years, on his way up to First Presbyterian in Anaheim. First Presbyterian kept him busy with the youth group, let him do some weddings and funerals, but that was about it. David felt the minister was threatened by him. He hardly ever got to preach. Felt like he was wasting his time.

But when he drove past this old theater he always wondered. The speaker stands like rows of neglected crops. Three of the four original screens destroyed by weather and neglect. Nothing but the skeletons of the frames. The one big blank screen still standing, a pointless miracle. Pigeons along the top. The snack bar with the windows broken out. And the sign out front with the GROVE DRIVE-IN THEATER letters busted down through the years to GROVE DRI -IN HEATER, to G OVE DRI N EATER, then finally to nothing at all.

And the blank marquee over the entrance. Something about that blank marquee got to David, more than the empty screen. It was what he saw when he considered his future as a Presbyterian.

“It’s on city sewer?”

“Oh yes.”

“And the hundred-year floodplain ends just south of here, right?”

“That’s true-no extra flood insurance to pay.”

And the zoning was right, thought David, and the seismic activity was negligible and the orange groves to the north were going under for tract homes next month, and so were the orchards to the east, and busy Beach Boulevard was one block away and the population of Orange County would double in the next ten years.

And he had the capital commitment from Roger Stoltz’s people.

“I’ll have an offer on your desk by noon Friday,” he said.

“That was easy,” said Bob.

“It won’t be what you’re hoping for.”

“The owner in Pasadena is motivated.”

“So is God in heaven.”

EIGHT WEEKS later the Reverend David Becker broadcast his first sermon from the leased podium in the Grove Drive-In Church of God. Four worshipers sat on folding chairs in the chapel proper-the former snack bar-to see the first “drive-in sermon” in person. More important to David were the thirteen automobiles parked outside on the pleasant August Sunday, speakers hooked over their side windows to carry his voice into each vehicle.

“My dear friends,” he began. “I thank you all for attending this first service of the Grove Drive-In Church of God. God loves you. This is my primary message and it will always be the primary message of this ministry. Please, wherever you are-here in the chapel or out in your station wagon or sedan or maybe in that beautiful Corvette I saw just a minute ago-bow your heads and pray with me. Dear God in heaven…”

David had accepted the counteroffer on a Tuesday, arranged his financing the next day through Stoltz’s friends at Orange Savings & Loan, resigned from the ministry of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) on Thursday, and spent the next seven weeks scraping, painting, carpeting, slurrying the lot, tearing down the old movie screen frames, repairing and replacing faulty speakers and wiring, hiring an organist with her own portable instrument, erecting offering boxes accessible through the windows of exiting cars, and creating a series of marquee announcements designed to bring them in by the carload.

When he was finished with his first sermon David stood out by the exit to watch the cars go by. He gave each driver an open and sincere smile. He didn’t mean to pressure them into offerings, but if they took it that way, fine. Sometimes that’s what it took to coax a little faith from a tight wallet. Dressed in khaki trousers and loafers, with an open-collared dress shirt under a sky blue sweater, David felt more genuine than he’d ever felt inside the Presbyterian robe. And he felt somehow closer to his congregation, too.

All twenty-seven of them, he counted, while he waved and the cars drove away.

When they were all gone he paid the organist. Then he sat on one of the folding chairs in the former snack bar and said a long prayer of thanks. David now suspected that he would not waste his life. He understood that he had answered a risky and unusual calling. He felt that he had just barely, by the grace of God, gotten away with something. It was the happiest day of his life. He heard a car engine growl to a stop next to the snack bar.

After amen he reached down to the offering boxes, which he’d made portable by way of two-piece stanchions and removable hinge plates welded to the uprights outside. He opened them and with one hand removed all of the bills.

“That was a very good message,” she said.

He recognized her immediately. She was petite, with dark red hair cut short. Mid-thirties. Capri pants and big sunglasses and a snug red sweater.

“Funny to see a minister with a big handful of cash,” she said with a canny smile.

“In a drive-in snack bar chapel,” said David. “But you’re not exactly dressed for the Resurrection.”

“The whole point of drive-in worship, correct?”

He smiled and nodded and looked at her. No ring.

“But your message was still good, Reverend. The sermon is everything. If you can’t deliver on that, they’ll just go to the next place. I’m Barbara Brewer.”

David dropped the bills back into one of the boxes. Stood and smiled. “David Becker.”

“There’s hardly enough there to buy a week of groceries with,” she said. “For one.”

David studied her. Rested a finger on his mustache and pursed his lips. Furrowed his brow but his eyes were bright with humor and faith. “I’m very content and thankful right now,” he said. “It’s hard to explain.”

“It shows. And you should be. You just left the Presbyterian Church of America in the dust and nobody knows it but you and me.”

“True. How about breakfast? The Sambo’s up on Beach has good pancakes.”

“We’ll go dutch. I was the one in the new Corvette.”

“I know.”

AFTER A BREAKFAST that lasted nearly two hours and a frighteningly revealing walk on the beach in Laguna, David took Barbara to the old family house on Holt Avenue.

He pulled the Corvette into the driveway and parked. The house had turned old suddenly, like a once-pretty aunt, as the tract homes grew up around it. The porch looked out of style and the slat construction seemed old-fashioned next to the stucco walls of the subdivision. A year ago groves of Valencias and a walnut orchard had surrounded the old house. Now Barrington Woods.

David made no move to get out. Even the Submarine-waxed and polished as always-had become an eyesore amid the snappy new Ford wagons and Chevy sedans parked in driveways off the freshly poured streets. Barrington Woods smelled of cooling asphalt and sawdust and new-lawn fertilizer. He thought of the way all those years ago the Vonns’ house had seemed ugly and futureless to him.

“We don’t have to do this now,” she said.

“I want you to meet them.”

“I believe I should.”

Monika smiled when she opened the door and saw them on her porch. It wasn’t the big carefree smile that David had grown up with, but a controlled one. In the last year David had sensed in her a new conservation of energy.

While Max, as if siphoning his wife’s fuel, got more expansive and adamant by the month. Max spread his arms and hugged them both. He was wiry and strong as always. David smelled the usual gin and Canoe and Lucky Strikes. Heavy on the gin today.