"Clare!" He had forgotten all about her. He'd hung up on her What will she think of me now f he wondered. He ran to the phone and called her up. A very groggy and hoarse Mr. Simpson answered the phone.
Archie asked to speak to Clare.
"It's not yet six o'clock, on a Saturday, Archie. I doubt she's up. Let me go see," Mr. Simpson said.
A few minutes later Clare picked up the phone. "Archibald? What happened yesterday? Is everything all right?"
"I'm sorry I hung up on you. Clyde Olsen was on the other line. He said my grandmama broke her hip."
Clare's voice softened. "Oh, Archibald, I'm so sorry. What can I do? How can I help?"
"Can you come over? Now? I need to talk to you. I—I need to see you."
"I can come, but it will take me a while because I'm walking everywhere these days."
"Couldn't you ride your bike, just this once? I really need to see you as soon as possible." He didn't know why, but as he spoke he felt a lump form in his throat, as though he were trying to keep from crying—and he was. He felt ridiculously emotional.
"All right, I'm there," she said.
Archie said, "Thank you," then realized he was talking to the dial tone and hung up.
Clare arrived on her bike in less than forty-five minutes. It looked as if she was still in her pajamas. She wore a pair of baggy flannel pants with bands around the bottom of both legs to keep the fabric from getting caught in the chain ring and a worn-out long-sleeved Tar Heels T-shirt. She had thrown on an old tattered jacket with a broken zipper over the shirt. When she took off her helmet, her hair was in tangles.
Archie thought he had never seen anyone look more beautiful in his life. He grabbed her and hugged her hard. "Thank you for coming." He let go.
"Well, look at you!" she said. "You're glowing."
"Really?" Archie blushed. "I think you are."
"Tell me what's happened, Archibald."
Archie told her about his grandmother's broken hip and how he had come home from the hospital and had tried to say the prayer for three hours, but he had been too worried over his grandmother to concentrate. Then he told her what had happened out in the tobacco field. When he had finished he said, "Nothing had changed, you know? Grandmama was still in the hospital, but I felt wonderful. I felt God's love, really strong inside me, and I felt everything was okay. I wish I could always feel like that, no worries."
"You can," Clare said.
"I tried to hold on to that feeling, but I couldn't. I want to. I mean, it's addictive, that kind of thing."
Clare laughed and placed her hand on the top of Archie's head. "You have been blessed," she said.
Archie nodded and looked into Clare's shining eyes. "I think I have. I don't know why, but I have."
Clare took his hand in hers. "Come on. Let's go climb your mountain and get praying."
Archie glanced at his watch. He had promised his grandmother he'd go by to visit and take her bed jacket to her after noon. It was only seven-twenty; he had plenty of time.
The two of them climbed in silence. The day was raw and gray—a pure gray, Archie called it. He had wanted the day to be sunny to match the way he felt, and instead it looked like it might rain. This time as they went up the mountain, Archie had no problem keeping up with and even passing Clare. At first he had followed behind her noticing that she looked thinner than he had remembered. Then he felt he couldn't get to the top fast enough, and he surged ahead. Once they reached the top, Archie ran to the trees and dropped to his knees. Clare sat down beside him. Together they recited their prayer over and over. As the morning moved on, the sky grew darker and it rained. Archie tilted his head up and let the rain fall on his face, big, heavy drops of water.
"This is perfect," he said, getting to his feet. "This will be my baptism. This is holy water pouring down on me."
Clare stood up, too, and lifted her face to the sky. "We will be purified. Our sins will be washed from our bodies and souls. We will go forward from this day and sin no more."
Archie kicked off his Nikes and, ignoring the cold, pulled off his socks, jacket, and shirt and spread his arms wide. "I'm ready, God!" he said, shouting to the sky.
The rain came down harden Thunder rolled overhead. Clare pulled off her shoes and socks and ran with Archie over the mountaintop, the wind and the rain pushing against them. They cried out to the thunder and to the rain and to the wind and sky, calling them their brothers and their sisters. They ran toward the east, and toward the west, toward the north and the south. They climbed up onto the boulder and, clasping hands, raised their arms and let the rain bless them and purify them. Archie let out a howl, and Clare laughed until tears ran down her face.
After several more minutes, the rain began to slacken and the wind died down. The thunder rolled away and the sun pushed through the clouds.
Archie spoke in a whisper: "We have been purified." He turned to Clare and took her hands in his. "We are like Adam and Eve in Paradise." Clare squeezed his hands, and together they turned and jumped off the boulder. They walked hand in hand back to the trees and knelt on the ground. Again they said their prayer the same line over and over again. Each time Archie said the words "I AM," he felt the power of the words in his body, and most forcefully in that spot just above his belly button.
Archie and Clare prayed and prayed until they felt emptied of all but the prayer, Then they grew quiet and still and remained that way until the sun burned the backs of their heads and Clare said it was time to leave.
Without speaking they took each other's hand and descended the mountain. When they reached the bottom and came out from behind the house, Archie spotted a familiar car in the driveway: Callie Butcher's hearse-mobile, as Armory liked to call it, an antique black Cadillac. Then they heard a woman's voice from inside the house exclaim, "There he is! Thank the good Lord!"
Miss Nattie Lynn and Miss Callie Butcher pushed open the screen door and stepped out onto the porch.
"Lord have mercy, child, you gave us a scare," Callie said, waving her cane at the two of them. "We saw that soggy bowl of raisin bran with the sour milk in the kitchen and thought ... I don't know what. Where have you been? Your grandmama has charged us to look after you, and you were nowhere to be found. And look at you; you're soaking wet—both of you. Now, y'all come on in here and get out of those clothes before you catch your death, and let us fix you something to eat."
The two women turned back into the house, and Archie and Clare followed them.
Once inside, Callie, short and humpbacked, took over ordering Archie to find some dry clothes for Clare and ordering Clare to take the clothes into the bathroom and to clean up and change. Then she told them both to hand over their wet things so she could wash them. They did what she asked. When they came into the kitchen, both of them clean and in dry clothes, Nattie Lynn set a plate of grilled peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches down on the table and ordered them to sit. Then she poured them each a glass of milk and told them to eat.
Archie and Clare did as they were told. The two old women sat down between them, with their mugs of coffee, and Nattie Lynn said, "Now then, why don't you tell us who this young lady is, Archibald. I don't believe we've had the pleasure."
Archie swallowed a bite of sandwich and said, "This is Clare Simpson, a very good friend of mine."
Clare grinned at Archie.
"Simpson," said Nattie Lynn, looking up toward the ceiling.
Callie said, "Mildred and Scott Simpson's little girl?"
"Yes, ma'am," Clare said, looking at her.
Callie shook her head. "Why, that just can't be. You were just a baby not too long ago."
Clare swallowed a big gulp of milk, then said, "I'm almost sixteen years old now, and I'm tall like my mama."
"Well, I declare. You're all grown up." Callie turned to Nattie Lynn. "Isn't she?"
"Oh my, yes indeed. Baby Doris—sixteen years old already."
Clare choked on a bite of her sandwich, and Archie patted he
r on the back. "Are you all right? Can you speak?" he asked.
Clare nodded, and Callie, seeing that she was fine, turned back to her friend and said, "Her name is Clare, honey, not Doris."
Nattie Lynn shook her head. "Oh no. I remember Mildred telling me her name was Doris. It's Doris. Isn't it?" She looked to Clare for confirmation.
Clare glanced at Archie, then said, "I am Clare, Miss Nattie Lynn."
"Well, I'm sure you're not," Nattie Lynn said.
Callie patted her friend's hand. "Honey, if she says her name is Clare, then her name is Clare. She ought to know. Anyway, there's no use going on about it."
Nattie Lynn frowned and stared down at her hands wrapped around her mug.
Clare rested her hand on Nattie Lynn's shoulder. "I'm sorry I've upset you, and here you have gone to such great trouble to fix us this lunch and make me feel so welcome."
Nattie Lynn looked up at Clare's shining eyes. "Nonsense," she said, "it's just a sandwich."
Clare shook her head. "Not 'just a sandwich'; there's a secret ingredient you've added to it, something special. I'm not sure what it is, but I bet you make all your meals special."
Nattie Lynn blushed and waved her away. She looked at Callie, who was smiling across from her. "I reckon I do have a way with food."
Clare turned to Callie. "And Miss Callie, what do you love?" she asked.
"Me? Why I love animals," Callie said, her brows raised; she was surprised by the question.
Clare smiled and nodded. "I believe God has prepared a special place in heaven for people who have been so good to the animals."
Callie's face turned sad and she lowered her head, her humped back looking even more bent. "I've had animals all my life. I grew up on a farm, and then when I was on my own, I always had cats and dogs and my parrot, Sugar Pie." Callie looked up at Clare. "She died last year you know. Now I have no more animals, just my dear friends." She reached out and patted Nattie Lynn's hand, and Nattie Lynn smiled.
"Have you ever thought of volunteering down at the animal shelter? They always need people to love the pets."
Archie didn't know what to make of the whole scene. Within minutes Clare had Miss Callie excited about working at the shelter and Miss Nattie Lynn sharing the secrets in some of her famous recipes for the first time in her life. Clare kept talking to them, and never once did Archie hear them complain of heart problems or arthritis the way they usually did when the women got together.
Clare asked them odd questions. She asked them what their strongest held belief was. She asked them why they thought they were put on this earth, and what did they feel was the cross they were given to carry through their lives, and what was their greatest joy.
By the time Clare told them she had to get going, Callie and Nattie Lynn were so fired up with energy, they offered to drive her home, and the two women set out toward the barn to fetch her bike as though they were going to lift it into the trunk of Callie's hearse-mobile themselves. Archie refused to let them lift the bike. He loaded it into the trunk and waved good-bye to them as they rolled down the driveway, relieved they had forgotten that they had come there to try to convince him to return home with them.
When they had gone Archie stood staring after them and wondering what had just happened. He thought about the way Miss Nattie Lynn had confused Clare's name, thinking she was someone called Doris. The woman had been upset by the confusion, but Clare had managed to make her forget about it and had redirected her thoughts. Clare seemed sincere with her compliments and her interest in the two women, just as she had with his grandmother and with him, too, but Archie wondered if it was just Clare's way with people, or had she manipulated them on purpose, to get herself out of an uncomfortable situation?
Chapter 13
WHEN ARCHIE RETURNED from visiting his grandmother that night, he fell into his bed exhausted. The hospital had drained him. His grandmother's room had seemed airless. She had slept most of the afternoon, and the rest of the time she'd tried to convince Archie to go and stay at Nattie Lynn's house, but Archie had refused. He turned on the television to try to distract her but the sounds of the voices coming from the box and the flashes of light as the scenes changed annoyed him. Television, he realized, was just one more obstruction between him and God, and right then he vowed never to watch it again. He turned it off and stared at his sleeping grandmother, He tried to pray, but he couldn't concentrate. He felt tired and restless at the same time. Later he watched her eat dinner and then said good-bye and rode home on his bike. It had felt good to get out in the fresh night air. The temperature had dropped, and the cold air blew down on him from the mountains. It kept Archie awake and alert, but once home he felt the fatigue and couldn't wait to climb into bed.
Lying on the bed Archie closed his eyes and prayed. He wanted God. He wanted to feel the bliss, the ecstasy that he had felt in the tobacco field and again up on the mountain with Clare, being baptized by God's holy water He didn't want to worry about his grandmother. He didn't want to keep wondering what would happen if she died. She had looked so frail that afternoon, lying in the bed, doped up on pain medication. Seeing her that way scared him.
Archie prayed. "Use me, Lord. I want to serve you. Show me how to serve you. Please, God, show me." Tears fell from his eyes; his desire was so great, and so was his fatigue. He was tired, yet he couldn't sleep. He grabbed his wool blanket, rose from his bed, and went outside to sit in the rocker on the porch, where he rocked and prayed until at last he fell asleep.
Over the next two weeks, Archie spent as much time as he could each day praying and meditating on the mountain. When he came down in the evenings, he would find messages waiting for him on the answering machine. His grandmother's friends called to check up on him and to let him know they had been by to see him. Other callers just wanted to know how his grandmother was doing. Reverend Fox asked why he hadn't seen Archie in church lately and offered to find him rides to church and to the hospital. Bruce, Art, and Mr. Flyte from his baseball team wondered why Archie hadn't shown up for tryouts, and two friends from his home-schooling group wondered where he had been and if he still planned to go on the camping trip to the Smokies with them. Archie deleted the messages. All of those people seemed like friends he had known in another lifetime. They had nothing to do with him now.
Sometimes at night he would sit down at his desk and draw. One night, though, he picked up his colored pencils and tried to finish his drawings for another story about the Back Street Thrasher but the story seemed stupid to him and his illustrations a waste of time. He sat with his work and stared at the frames on the page. He had drawn the sequence like a comic strip, just like the other illustrations he'd taped to the walls of his bedroom. He looked at them and wondered how his stupid drawings served God. He drew a tree in the space he'd left blank on the page, then tore the whole thing up. Nothing felt right to him anymore, except praying and waiting for God. He'd told Clare that all he wanted to do was pray, and she had said that he could then move on to the next stage and instead of saying "Be still and know that I am God" for three hours, he should say "Be still and know that I am" for four hours, and spend the rest of the time in silence and stillness.
Archie was surprised that taking away the word God and just saying "Be still and know that I am" changed the prayer's meaning. Instead of thinking about God's presence in all things, he thought about God's existence. "In my stillness I will know that God exists," he said, and he knew that it was a knowledge that would come from within and not because someone in church told him so.
Every day he said the words and waited for the transformation. He lived for the ecstatic experience of God's presence in him. Each time he sat down to pray, he tried to find his way back to that place within, but the harder he tried, the more elusive it became. He spoke to Clare about it after trying for several days, and she told him to fast and to pray six hours a day saying "Be still and know." Those words, he believed, opened a whole new world to him. "In my stillness I will kno
w all things," he said, and he believed it was true. The more he was able to still his mind and thoughts, the more he would understand his purpose and the way in which he could best serve God.
With this new sense of knowing all things, Archie no longer believed he needed Clare to guide him through the stages. He knew what he had to do. He fasted every few days, only drinking water and eating a couple of slices of bread. His only showers were when it rained and God could wash him clean. He wore the same pair of jeans and the same sweatshirt every day and slept only two or three hours a night, spending the rest of those dark hours seeking God. In the mornings he went to the hospital to visit his grandmother, She was not getting better and the doctor told him she could not yet move to the rehabilitation nursing home. On the day she was supposed to leave the hospital, she'd come down with a urinary tract infection, and the nurse told Archie she would have to stay another couple of days.
Archie believed he had caused her illness, and he feared it would be just like his grandfather's death all over again. Every time he went to visit his grandmother she became more distressed. He still refused to move to Miss Nattie Lynn's. He told her he was doing just fine, but she wouldn't listen.
"You're not doing fine, sugar" she said to him. She shifted on her bed and tried to get comfortable, but Archie could see that all her shifting wasn't working. Beads of sweat had formed on her forehead, as though all the restlessness was exhausting her;
She pushed off the top blanket and gestured to Archie. "Look at you. Your hair needs cutting and a good washing. It's so dirty and greasy it looks brown—a brown rat's nest. And look at your clothes. You wear the same old ratty jeans and holey sweatshirt every time you come, and I hate to say it, Archie, sugar but you don't smell sweet. But even worse, you look ill. You're skin and bones, and those pretty blue eyes of yours look like someone took Clorox to them. And you've got deep, dark hollows going all around them. It scares me to see you like this. Your granddaddy used to look like that anytime he took sick. Now, I want a doctor here to take a look at you."