Kent Haruf - Benediction

She came back to the front counter and handed the phone to Rudy. The other clerk, Bob, was there now too.

She said it would be all right, Willa said, if that’s what we want to do.

They looked at Alice. She wouldn’t look at them.

Let’s go choose one, Alene said.

They followed Rudy back to the corner of the store and stood below the suspended bicycles and watched as Bob stepped up on a stool and handed down the bicycles from the chained hooks, the three that would be the right size for her, and Rudy stood them on their stands on the old scarred wood floor.

Here you go. Now take a good look. You can’t go wrong with none of them. Any one of these here will do good for you. Which one do you like?

Don’t rush her, Bob said. Let her take her time. Nobody likes to be rushed.

I’m letting her. That’s what I’m saying. Take your time, honey.

Alene put her arm around Alice and they stepped forward and the girl touched the rubber handgrip of the handlebars of the one purple bike and Rudy said, You go right ahead and try the seat there. And that seat’s adjustable.

She sat on the seat and gripped the handles and gazed forward as if she might be riding, going someplace, and didn’t show a thing on her face.

You prefer this one? Rudy said. You don’t want to change your mind and try this red one?

I think she’s made up her mind, Alene said. Haven’t you, honey.

Yes.

She climbed off the bicycle and Rudy wheeled it up to the counter through the aisles, all of them following again in single file, as in a ceremony, without talking, and then Alene paid and they all went out to the sidewalk in the brilliant hot light of midday and crossed the street and put the bike in the trunk of the car and Bob tied a piece of twine to the trunk lid to hold it down. The two store clerks shook hands with the Johnson women, in a formal way, and shook Alice’s hand too, and then went back to the hardware store and the Johnson women and Alice drove back to the west side of Holt to Berta May’s house and lifted the bicycle out onto the street.

Berta May had been waiting for them and had come outside now and was watching from the porch.

Is that it? she said.

Yes, Grandma.

Who’s going to teach you how to ride?

I don’t know.

I’m going to help, Alene said.

Why, do you know how to ride a bike?

They say you don’t forget. I used to ride out in the country on the roads.

Then I bet you do remember, Berta May said.

We’re just going to try anyway.

She and her mother held the bike and Alice sat down on the seat.

You know these are the brakes.

Alice squeezed the handles.

And this is how the gears shift, by twisting.

I know.

Okay. I imagine you do. Probably more about it than I do. Let’s give it a try.

Alice pushed off, pumping the pedals, and the two women stepped along beside her, walking fast, starting to trot, fumbling their hands out to touch her, and she went pedaling on, they couldn’t keep up and then she wavered and leaned sideways and tipped over but caught herself. She stood the bike upright. They tried again, Willa leaning and trotting alongside, Alene a little faster, their faces red and flushed by the hot day and the excitement, hurrying along in their soft summer dresses and summer shoes. The girl went a little farther and wobbled again but caught herself before she fell. Behind them, Lorraine had come out from the Lewis house and Berta May was still watching from her porch.

Do you need a hand? Lorraine called. Maybe I can help you.

Would you, please? Alene called back.

The two Johnson women fell back and Lorraine walked alongside as Alice began to pedal and then Lorraine ran beside her, steadying the bike. All right, go on now. Go on. You’re on your own. Don’t stop. You’re doing fine.

Alice went ahead, wavering in the gravel road, pedaling, the tracks of her tires making long teetering lines in the dirt, and went up a hundred feet and made a wide turn and came back, then Lorraine began to trot along beside again. Put on the brakes, she said, and Alice stopped too fast, tipping forward, but Lorraine caught her.

Not so hard next time. Not so sudden.

The Johnson women came hurrying up, flushed and sweating, panting.

That’s really good, Alene said. How did it feel? Let’s see you go again.

I’m going to.

They gave her a little push and she went back the other direction to the north and before she reached the railroad tracks she made a sweeping turn and came back. She pedaled up to the women and stopped by putting her feet down in the road.

Wonderful, Alene said.

Alice looked at each of them. Thank you, she said, her eyes were shining, the hair around her face was sweaty and dark.

How about going again? Lorraine said.

Did you see me, Grandma? she called.

Yes. I did, Berta May called back. Good for you.

She rode off toward the highway. A car was coming but she saw it and veered to the side and the car passed by, and then farther away they watched her turn and start back to them. When she was in front of Berta May’s house she stopped and stood the bicycle at the curb and grabbed the store bag from the backseat of the Johnsons’ car and ran past her grandmother on the porch and into the house.

Presently she came back out. What are you doing? Berta May said.

I’m riding. She had put on the new black shorts and black shirt with the red sleeves and the black socks and she rode back and forth in the gravel street in the late afternoon while the women all gathered in the shade and watched her.

In the evening, after the Johnson women went home, Lorraine brought a table from the house and set the supper dishes on it out on the porch, and Berta May and Alice came across the yard carrying bread and garden beans and radishes, and they sat all out in the cooling air and sat Dad Lewis up at the table with a blanket over him.

After supper Alice got on her bike to ride in the street.

Dad watched her from the porch. I hope she don’t get run over out there. You better pay good attention to her.

The light had gone out of the sky by now and the street lamps had come on and she rode, going back and forth, from pool of light to pool of light.

AFTERWARD IT WASN’T CLEAR what Lyle expected the sermon to accomplish. But he wasn’t even half-finished when some of the congregation, men mostly, hurrying their wives and children with them, but some women too, began to rise up from their pews and glare at him and walk out of the church.

The sermon came after the call to worship and the first hymn and after Wandajean Hall sang “Softly and Tenderly Jesus Is Calling” as a solo anthem in her thin sweet wavering soprano, and it came after the reading of the Bible text but before the offering and the doxology and the Lord’s Prayer and the benediction, because they never got that far in the normal order of worship. By that time the people who were so angry and outraged that they felt they had to leave had already marched out the big doors at the back of the sanctuary, leaving Lyle’s wife Beverly and their son John Wesley and the two Johnson women and the old usher and the remainder of the small congregation still sitting in the church, still looking around at one another in embarrassment and disbelief, many of them just as angry and outraged as the others had been but unwilling to make any display or public objection in church on Sunday morning, still waiting along with the pianist who was still seated down front at the piano.

It began simply enough. He gave the reading. He took up the Bible and stood out at a little distance from the pulpit. He didn’t often do that. But he had done it once or twice before so people were not immediately bothered or surprised by it. So he began to read to them without benefit of the barrier of the pulpit between him and them. Just his reading and the Bible. He didn’t wear a suit or suit coat this morning, not even a light summer suit. Instead he was wearing a white shirt open at the neck with the sleeves rolled up and a pair of black slacks and a black belt with a silver tip, his dark hair fallen as usual across his forehead. He looked good. There were women who came to church for that reason though they would never have said so.