The Bass Wore Scales (The Liturgical Mysteries) Read online

  The first one of the unfortunate symbols of Pentecost hit Thelma Wingler right in the head. It happened right in front of us. There was a flurry of feathers followed by a light thunk. Thelma didn’t say anything; just jumped up, screamed and grabbed her hair with both hands. As the bird bounced off her head and into the pew beside her, we could see that it was a dove. The second bird to come down was a pigeon. A big pigeon. It was, as they say in the hills—eatin’ size.

  It was another direct hit, this time clobbering Calvin Denton, little Robert’s father, who jumped to his feet and began to use his golfing words. All of them. Loudly. The reading of scripture stopped abruptly as the entire congregation turned toward him in astonishment.

  “Holy smokes,” said Meg, as mothers reached for their children, doing what they could to cover their ears. “He’s speaking in unknown tongues!”

  “I’d speak in unknown tongues too if a three pound pigeon hit me in the head,” I said. “But, you’re absolutely right to be upset. He’s not supposed to speak in unknown tongues unless there’s someone in the congregation to interpret.” I paused. “I guess I could do it.”

  “I don’t think anyone needs an interpretation,” said Carol Sterling, who was sitting next to Meg. “We get the picture.”

  By now the rest of the birds, a mixture of doves and pigeons, had landed. Out of the eight, five managed to crash into unsuspecting parishioners. Three landed harmlessly in the aisle or on an empty seat. There was more screeching and general pandemonium, and several folks bolted for the door, not knowing how many other birds were likely to come crashing down on them. Two ushers finally appeared and began collecting the poor birds and putting them in a couple of men’s hats. I didn’t think the birds were hurt; they were certainly fluttering hard enough to break their falls, and as the furor subsided, we looked back up toward Father George. He was nowhere to be seen.

  Georgia, one of the lay Eucharistic ministers, disappeared for a moment into the sacristy, then came back out, walked into the congregation and whispered something to Tony Brown, our retired priest. I could just imagine what he thought of the entire proceeding. Father Brown got up and followed Georgia into the sacristy. She came out a moment later and began the Creed.

  “Apparently, we’re not getting a sermon this morning,” I said.

  “I guess not,” answered Meg, joining in with the congregation. “….Maker of heaven and earth. Of all that is, seen and unseen.”

  By the time the Nicene Creed was over, Father Brown had appeared in a robe and chasuble and offered the Prayers of the People. The rest of the service was comparatively uneventful.

  * * *

  “Whew,” said Meg, during coffee hour. “That was one for the books. I’m always amazed at what we can come up with to celebrate God’s Spirit with us. Has anyone heard from Father George?”

  “He just walked out,” said Bev. “Right in the middle of the service. Can you believe that? I called his house and left a message on his machine.”

  “Hey,” said Georgia. “You don’t think he’s dead do you? The way things have been going around here for the last couple of years, he could be dead. Murdered in his office.” She sounded hopeful.

  “Nope,” I said, as Billy Hixon walked up. “He’s not dead.”

  “Who’s not dead?” he asked.

  “Father George.”

  “Oh,” said Billy and changed the subject. “You’re going to be here on Tuesday, right?”

  “Yeah. I’ll be here. Did you get hold of the bishop?”

  “Not yet, but I’ve left several messages with his secretary.”

  I looked over at the cookie table and saw Moosey and Robert filling their pockets.

  “What do you think about all this Satan stuff?” I heard Robert ask.

  “Well, you know how Santa Claus turned out,” answered Moosey. “It’s probably just your dad.”

  * * *

  After church, Meg and I headed out for our weekly picnic. Our lunch was on ice, securely in the trunk of Meg’s Lexus, and consisted of cold lobster and dill sandwiches, Meg’s special German potato salad and cheesecake for dessert. All this served with a Pinot Noir recommended by Bud.

  “We’re meeting on Tuesday at noon for our Bad Writing Circle,” Meg said. “At the Bear and Brew.”

  “I’ll be there. I’m not letting you three women gang up on me. Have you written any wonderfully bad sentences?”

  Meg took a sip of her wine. “Maybe. I’m certainly working on it.”

  “Not as easy as you thought, is it?”

  “No, but I’ll get the hang of it. I picked up an old typewriter at the church. Elaine brought a couple up from the basement.”

  “You didn’t want to use you mother’s?”

  “Nope. It’s an Underwood, but not like yours. This one was probably made in the ‘50s. I had to put a new ribbon in it, but it works just fine. And you were right about one thing—it’s much more fun than typing on a computer.”

  “I’ll be there at noon,” I said, “but I’ve got to keep it short. I have something at three.”

  “Oh, yes. The Blessing of the Racecar.”

  “I told Billy I’d be there. He’s trying to get the bishop to come up for the service, but I think that’s a pipedream.”

  “The bishop might come,” Meg said, “if he finds out about the media coverage.”

  “What media coverage?”

  “Well, Channel Four will be there. Then there are two TV stations from Charlotte, at least five newspapers, the NPR station from Asheville, and a crew from ESPN.”

  “Holy smokes!” I said. “I didn’t know this was going to be such a big deal.”

  “Anyway,” Meg continued. “I’m pretty sure that once the bishop finds out who’s going to be here, he won’t want to miss it. By the way, is there a liturgy for blessing a racecar?”

  “I’m pretty sure there’s not. Maybe Princess Foo-Foo can come up with one.”

  Chapter 5

  I made my way into the Bear and Brew just in time to see Meg and Ruby join Elaine at a table near the back. The Bear and Brew had been an old feed store and still had the irregular pine floor boards and tin signs advertising Allis Chalmers tractor parts, Buckthorn Hogfeed, Columbia Steel Windmills and most everything else the farmer’s supply stores at the turn of the century had to offer. Now, though, instead of the smell of fertilizer, leather harnesses and saddle soap, the permeating aroma was pizza—right out of the oven—with just a hint of beer. I took a big whiff and felt right at home.

  “Afternoon, Hayden,” Ruby said. “You’re right on time. We haven’t even looked at a menu yet.”

  “We thought you’d be late,” said Elaine, “and we’d get a chance to order an artichoke and spinach pizza before you showed up.”

  “I like pizza so much, I’ll even eat one covered with artichokes and spinach.”

  “Really?” said Meg. “It has Peruvian goat cheese on it.”

  I sighed. “Yes. Even with Peruvian goat cheese.”

  “Great,” said Ruby. “Then we’ll get a large one.” She said this to Pauli Girl McCollough, whom I just noticed was standing by the table with an order pad in her hand.

  “Pauli Girl! I didn’t know you were working here,” I said.

  “Well, we just opened.”

  “Hey, that’s great. Aren’t you a little young to be serving beer?”

  “Yeah. I’m not allowed to serve you beer. I can serve you pizza though and take your drink order, but the beer comes from the bar anyway, so Lisa will bring it to you.”

  “Fair enough. What do you have? Beer-wise?”

  Pauli Girl smiled. ““I don’t know. They won’t tell me.”

  “Never mind. I’ll just go on up to the bar. You ladies want anything?

  “No, thanks,” came the consensus from around the table. “We’re all having raspberry tea,” said Meg.

  “Are you all donning red hats as well?” I grumbled as I went off to the bar. I returned shortly with a pint of
Guinness.

  “I’ve been looking at the Bulwer-Lytton website,” said Elaine. “So I can get a feel for what they’re looking for.”

  “I did the same thing,” said Ruby. “I wasn’t terribly impressed. I know that I haven’t taught English for a number of years now, but it seems like the winners all tend to follow the same formula. The sentences are long; tightly constructed; mainly consisting of an elaborately over-inflated metaphor or simile that in the end is punctured by a ludicrously mundane or trivial final clause. We should be able to construct one of those by the numbers.”

  “Wow,” I said. “I’m impressed. So, do you have a sentence to enter into the contest?”

  “Nope,” said Ruby, smiling. “Not yet.”

  “Me, neither,” said Elaine.

  “I almost had one,” said Meg. “But it escaped at the last moment.”

  “Fine,” I said. “Here’s mine.” I pulled a piece of paper out of my shirt pocket and read.

  Lola, last evening’s surprise winner of the Weehawken Symphony Competition, now hung grotesquely from the stage, her darkening features evoking the opening strains of her triumphant performance of Beethoven’s 3rd piano concerto (opus 37 in c-minor), and her corpse swinging above the recently-tuned Bösendorfer like a giant meat-metronome set on andante or maybe piú lento, or even scherzo if anyone thought this was a musical joke and one bit funny.

  “It’s pretty good,” Meg said thoughtfully. “And yet…”

  “I don’t get it,” said Ruby. “A Bösendorfer is obviously a piano, but, not being a musician, I don’t know what those other terms mean.”

  “Metronome?” I asked.

  “No. The Italian. Tempos?”

  “Yes,” I explained. “Tempos. See, the metronome is set to different tempos to tell you how fast the music goes.”

  “Well, yes. I know that,” said Ruby. “I just don’t know what they mean.”

  “I got the first two,” said Elaine. “Andante and pew something.”

  “Piú lento,” I said. “It means very slowly.”

  “Yeah, I’ve heard of that one. But what was the third one?”

  “Scherzo. That’s what makes the whole thing funny,” I said defensively. “A scherzo is a musical joke.”

  “Oh,” said Meg. “So when you wrap it up with ‘if anyone thought this was a musical joke and one bit funny,’ that’s part of the joke, because scherzo means musical joke.”

  “Yeah,” I said, as the three women nodded in understanding. “Although when you take it apart like that, it’s not quite so good.”

  “No, no,” said Ruby. “It has several components that I really like. For example, giant meat-metronome is really clever. And I presume that Beethoven’s 3rd piano concerto actually does have a dark and ominous beginning.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes it does.”

  “All the better,” said Meg. “But these are all details that we, as readers or better yet, judges, wouldn’t know if we weren’t musicians.”

  “So you guys think that the musical references are too obscure?” I asked.

  The three women nodded.

  “Or are you convinced that this entry is so good that none of you stand a chance and you’re trying to put me off my game?”

  The three women nodded.

  And, just in time, the pizza arrived.

  * * *

  We walked out of the Bear and Brew, and the town square had been transformed. Pete, our stalwart mayor and never one to miss an opportunity, had told me yesterday about his plans. In the hour or so we spent eating pizza and discussing my shortcomings as an author, the news trucks had arrived, and the talent had begun to set up in Sterling Park across from St. Barnabas. Dave and Nancy had cordoned off Main Street on the west side of the square, and Junior Jameson’s car was sitting on a trailer right in front of the church steps. Pete was directing a couple of city employees who were putting some red, white and blue bunting across the front of the church. Billy Hixon had the entire crew of Hixon Lawn Care out putting finishing touches on the park, and when he saw me, he shouted and waved me over. That is, I thought he might have shouted. His mouth moved, but I heard no sound above the din of a lawnmower, several weed-eaters and two leaf blowers.

  “We’re almost finished,” Billy yelled as I walked up. “I wanted everything to look good.”

  “You guys just mowed this three days ago,” I hollered back.

  “WHAT?”

  “YOU GUYS JUST MOWED THIS…”

  The roar suddenly came to a halt as all the machines finished in astonishing synchronization.

  “They all finish at the same time?” I bellowed.

  “You don’t have to yell,” said Billy. “They’re finished. And all at the same time.”

  “Oh yeah.”

  “Anyway, it looks good,” said Billy, surveying the grounds as his crew loaded the bags of clippings and tools into the two pickup trucks displaying his logo. “We’re going to be on national news.”

  “Is the bishop going to be here?”

  “Yep,” said Billy. “He said he’d be here by two o’clock. I don’t think I can get him to wear his cope and mitre even though I told him it’d make for better press.”

  “Just the purple shirt then?”

  “I think so. And his big ol’ cross. But what’s the point of being the bishop if you won’t wear the outfit?” Billy complained. “I think this is something we should find out before we elect them.”

  “I agree,” said Pete, walking up to us. “It’d look a lot better on TV and in the paper if he was in full ecclesiastic regalia.”

  “You can still probably get a couple of acolytes out here in their robes with a couple of candles,” I suggested.

  “Already done,” said Billy. “And Benny Dawkins is bringing the incense pot.” He looked up toward the front of the church. “If we can get a couple of folks up on the steps in vestments, it’d help.”

  “Well, Bev’s in the office,” I said, “and Elaine will be here, right? We just finished having lunch.”

  “She’s here now,” said Pete. “I just saw her walk into the church.”

  “I’ll get her,” Billy said. “Maybe Georgia’s in there, too.”

  “You’re married to Elaine,” I said, “so you can probably talk her into it. Do you have anything on Georgia or Bev?”

  “I’ll appeal to their civic pride,” said Billy, with a grin. “And they probably don’t want to have to mow their own lawns for the rest of the summer.”

  * * *

  Bishop O’Connell showed up at 2:50 pm. Billy was getting worried and had already given me a copy of the blessing just in case I had to preside. There wasn’t much to it since everyone knew that the entire service wouldn’t occupy more than a thirty-second bite on any of the networks, and newspapers would do well to get a photo and a caption out of the whole extravaganza.

  It was a fact of life in the Episcopal Church that we didn’t mind blessing all kinds of things, and Episcopal Bishops, in particular, knew that this was part and parcel of their ministry. Last year, during a “Blessing of the Animals” service on St. Francis’ Day, Bishop O’Connell was photographed blessing a possum, so the St. Barnabas Racecar, dedicated to the glory of God, wasn’t too far out of bounds. Since I didn’t have any duties to attend to, I stood off to the side with Meg and Pete and enjoyed the show as well as the beautiful afternoon.

  The clock at the top of the courthouse said three o’clock, but then again, that clock always said three o’clock. It had stopped thirty years ago and had never been fixed. The town council had decided that for what it would cost to fix the clock, it would be more economical to have the St. Germaine Town Clock tell the correct time exactly twice a day. It was no coincidence that almost all of our downtown events happened at three. I looked at the clock, then at my watch, and in precisely ten seconds, they lined up perfectly.

  The church bell started ringing, the two front doors to the church opened and out walked the procession—two acol
ytes; Benny Dawkins swinging his thurible; Bishop O’Connell, Bev, Georgia and Elaine, all wearing cassocks; and finally, Billy Hixon, Lucille Murdock and Junior Jameson. Billy was grinning ear-to-ear. Lucille was clutching her purse with both white-gloved hands and blinking nervously behind her thick glasses. Junior waved to the crowd that now numbered close to two hundred. This was a good turnout for St. Germaine, but as I surveyed the crowd, I could tell that there were more out-of-towners than locals.

  “Where’d all these people come from?” I asked Pete.

  “I put an ad in the Watauga Democrat,” admitted Pete. “Just a little one, but Junior Jameson is almost famous. If he starts winning races, we’ll be set.”

  “Has he ever won?” I asked.

  “Not a Winston Cup race,” said Pete. “I don’t think he’s even had a top twenty finish.”

  “That’s not too good, is it?” said Meg.

  “Nope,” answered Pete, “but that’s all about to change.”

  Benny Dawkins started his walk-around. The car had been driven off the trailer and was now on Main Street at the bottom of the steps. The hood was up, but the doors and the trunk were closed.

  “Shouldn’t the doors be open, as well as the hood?” I asked. “For the blessing.”

  “They’re welded shut,” said Meg. I looked at her in astonishment.

  “So?” she said, “I happen to like NASCAR racing. What about it?”

  Benny walked around the car three times with his thurible, directing the fragrant smoke into and around the racecar, although the faint breeze blowing across the square whisked the fog away almost as soon as it appeared.

  “Our help is in the name of the Lord,” called out Bishop O’Connell.

  “Who has made heaven and earth,” answered the Blessing Party, consisting of those on the steps.