Donald Pollock - The Heavenly Table

“You got it all wrong, my friend,” the man said. “The truth is you been chosen. God’s giving you the chance for a better resurrection, just like he did your old woman. Without taking hold of some of the misery in the world, there can’t be no redemption. Nor will there be any grace. That shouldn’t come as no surprise if you study on it. Look what He let them Jews do to His own son. Most of us got it damned easy compared to the suffering that went on that day. But what they call ‘preachers’ nowadays, they don’t want to tell people the truth. Ol’ Satan’s tricked them into believing the way to salvation can be had for a little bit of nothing. Why, some of them even go around in their fancy clothes claiming that the Lord wants us all to be rich. How does such a man sleep at night, telling lies like that? Using God to fatten his own pockets? Pure sacrilege, that’s what it is. You wait and see, those kind will burn the hottest come the Judgment Day. It’s just a shame their flocks will end up roastin’ with ’em. No, you got to welcome all the suffering that comes your way if you want to be redeemed.”

“You really believe that?” Pearl said, staring down at the man’s bloody toe while recalling the beaver hat and calfskin gloves the Reverend Hornsby back at the church in Hazelwood used to wear a bit too proudly.

“Friend, you and those boys of yours could drown me in that river right now and it would be the most blessed thing ever happened to me.”

“I don’t know,” Pearl said. “I can see where sleepin’ out in the cold and goin’ hungry from time to time might do a man some good, but, mister, we’re about starved clear out.”

The hermit smiled. “I ain’t et nothing in over a week except a few tadpoles and the creatures I’ve found in this beard of mine. I wouldn’t want no more than that.”

“If that’s so,” Pearl said, “what is it I get for all this redeeming you talkin’ about?”

“Why, one day you’ll get to eat at the heavenly table,” the man said. “Won’t be no scrounging for scraps after that, I guarantee ye.”

“The heavenly table?” Pearl repeated. He hadn’t heard of such a thing before, and wondered if maybe he had been dozing on whatever Sunday morning Reverend Hornsby preached on it.

“That’s right,” the hermit said, dropping the toenail to the ground. “But keep in mind, only them that shun the temptations of this world will ever sit there.”

“So what you’re a-sayin’ is that them that has it good down here don’t ever get to see the Promised Land?”

“Their chances are slim to none, I reckon. Too many spots on their garments, too many wants in their hearts.”

Gathering up some sandy dirt in his hand, Pearl let it trickle through his fingers. It was obvious the old man was a thinker. “Well, let me ask you this then,” he said. “What about this here noise I got in my head? I’d give the rest of my life for just one night without it.”

“Lean over here,” the man said. He put his ear against Pearl’s and held his breath. From a distance, they looked like two spent lovers watching the water pass by. A blue-winged dragonfly hovered above their gray heads, then darted off into a bunch of brown cattails. “Mercy,” the hermit said, after listening to the buzzing inside Pearl’s head for several minutes, “sounds like you gettin’ ready to hatch you a star in there.”

“You think it will ever go away?”

“Oh, I expect so,” the man said. “That’s the one good thing about this here life. Nothin’ in it lasts for long.” Then he glanced over at the bird in the cypress tree and reached for his staff. “Well, it’s been nice talkin’ to ye, brother, but I see my little friend is ready to go. Who knows? Maybe one of these days we’ll have us some wings, too.” Just as he stood, a loud commotion erupted down at the water and Cane whooped and slung a large catfish up onto the bank. The man shook his head as he watched it flop around in the mud. “Best you tell them to throw that thing back in,” he said to Pearl.

“I can’t do that, mister. That’s their supper.”

“Mark my word,” the man said, “you let them eat that cat, before long them boys will be wantin’ everything the easy way.” Then he stepped down into the river and started to make his way across. At its deepest point, the water rose above his chest, and his beard suddenly popped up to float along in front of his face like a buoy. A mass of insects scurried to the top of the nest of whiskers to keep from drowning, and Pearl watched as the white bird swooped down from the tree and began plucking them off one by one and placing them on the hermit’s outstretched tongue.

No sooner had the man disappeared into the tree line than the sizzle in Pearl’s head sputtered to a stop, never to start up again. He entered briefly into a complete and profound silence, and in that glorious moment, he began to see God in a new light. If life was going to be hard, at least the hermit had provided a good reason for it, even a great one. From then on, Pearl seemed to intentionally follow the road that promised the most misery, and the only thing that brought him satisfaction was the worst that could happen. Hoping to replicate that perfect moment again, he plugged his ears with sawdust and clay and chewing tobacco and pebbles and chunks of wood, but the outside world always managed to seep through. He even considered piercing the thin tympanums with a thorn, but he worried that God might look upon such a selfish act as the desecration of a holy temple. Slowly, after countless failed experiments, he came to realize that he wouldn’t know the great silence again until he went down into his grave. That moment by the Foggy River had been just a preview of the eternal peace to come if he stayed the course and didn’t weaken. “I will be redeemed,” he kept repeating to himself. He wished for it more than anything, more than food or land or love, or even life itself.

EDDIE STILL WASN’T back the next morning when Eula came into the kitchen and found Ellsworth standing by the counter drinking his fourth dipper of water. Her eyes were puffy and she was still in her nightdress, a shapeless gray sack she had slept in as long as he could remember. She handed him five dollars for the store. “Whatever you do, don’t lose it,” she said. “It’s all we got left.”

He nodded his throbbing head ever so slightly, then took another gulp. His pipes hadn’t felt this dried-out in years. After carrying the five gallons of wine over to the barn, he had stayed up trying to finish off what was left in the barrels. By the time he’d lurched and groped his way back up the stairs, it was nearly three o’clock in the morning. Looking down at the money in his hand, the old guilty ache started up again, and he thought back on all the years it had taken Eula to save the thousand dollars he had lost. Jesus, the patience it had taken, one quarter at a time, one dime, one penny even. And now here he was hiding wine behind her back. Shit, he was no better than his Uncle Peanut. Might as well go out and hunt up a dog turd to nibble on.

“Remember,” she went on, as she turned away to light the stove, “twenty pounds of salt and the rest in sugar. No, wait. Get five pounds of Folgers, too. You might as well shoot me if we run out of coffee. And try not to stay away all day, either.”

Without another word, or any breakfast for that matter, Ellsworth went to the barn and hitched the mule to the wagon and made his way out to the road. He wanted to get away before she started in about Eddie and the drinking again. She was probably right, he had to admit. He thought about the way his uncle used to flop around on the floor whenever he ran dry, his eyes damn near popped out of his head and the sweat pouring off of him like rain. He debated the problem all the way to Nipgen, pointing out the pros and the cons to Buck the mule, and trying to be as rational as he could be under the circumstances. Finally, just as the little burg came into view, he made his decision. Though he couldn’t do much about the way he’d spoiled his son or the book learning Eula had insisted upon, he could get rid of those barrels, and, yes, by God, even the jugs if he had to, before Eddie came back home. It was an awful sacrifice to make, but if he did it now, before the boy got any worse, maybe he’d never have to clamp a stick in his mouth to keep him from chewing off his tongue, like his grandmother used to do with Uncle Peanut.