God and the Bush Family

by Christopher Hensley

 

Mr and Mrs Bush always watched the sun set after dinner. Since this was August, they sat on their front porch instead of in their tiny kitchen. It was Sunday, and since they were churchgoing people, they still had on their best clothes. Mr Bush was slowly rocking in his chair, while Mrs Bush fanned herself gently. Mrs Bush was thinking how such a simple thing as a piece of cardboard and a stick could make you cooler.

 “In a way,” she explained to her husband, “it’s like we’re fooling God.”

“Ya’ see, God made the summer and all this heat, and we’re foolin’ the heat, so’s it’s almos’ like we’re foolin’ God.” She felt that it was necessary to say “almos’.”

“Don’ nobody fool God,” Mr Bush replied matter-of-factly. “He’s everywhere and sees everythin’.” 

Mrs Bush had got the fan for free at a distant relative’s funeral last July. It was the kind with the stick handle like on a popsicle and a flat cardboard top that won’t fold. On this particular fan was printed a picture of the Last Supper. Mrs Bush thought this picture was especially nice because it had “the most beautiful colors I ever seen!” 

The only thing that spoiled the blazing reds, blues, yellows and purples was “SMITH FUNERAL HOME-24 HOUR AMBULANCE SERVICE” which was printed across the apostle’s faces in heavy black letters. To Mrs Bush, the words seemed to be supported by Jesus’ outstretched arms. When she first realized this, it made her feel calm, secure and special, as if someone had kissed her.

Sitting on the porch in the evening heat, drinking sweet tea and watching idle clouds of dust swirl and die on the road, Mrs Bush pretended she was someone else; she liked to pretend that she was young and beautiful. Tonight she was Scarlett O’Hara, and it was 1861, and she was sitting on the porch of her Atlanta mansion. It she sort of squinted and looked out of the corners of her eyes, she could even pretend that Mr Bush was Rhett Butler. 

She was sitting like this, squinting out of her eyes, when Mr Bush leaned over the porch rail and spat a huge chunk of chewing tobacco onto the clay road, making a little brown stain on the red surface.

Mr Bush would have nothing to do with a hand fan, even if it meant he had to be uncomfortable and hot. As far as he was concerned, hand fans were for women. 

“But,” he would say when Mrs Bush asked him is he wouldn’t like to use her fan for just a few minutes–she’d even fan him, “I shore wouldn’t mind having a little ol’ electric fan. Not a big ‘un, mind ya’, but jes’ enough so’s I could be cool these hot nights.” 

Mr Bush was seventy-six, and had already had two heart attacks. He knew if he had another one, it would probably kill him. “A man’s gotta take care of hisself when his heart goes bad,” he would say when Mrs Bush asked him to do anything. “The clinic doctor said I shouldn’t get angry or upset or overheated or tired or eat food thas’ been fried,” he would recite, as if he were saying, “The Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost. Amen.” 

Then he would say, “After all, this’s the only heart I got,” and he would tap his fist lightly on his chest like he was trying to belch.

Ever since his second attack, he would watch TV during the day while Mrs Bush was at the Knitting Mill where she worked picking up empty cardboard spools that looked like little Indian teepees. Mr Bush was proud of his TV. He had bought it after his first attack for $25.00 at the Salvation Army Store. It was a Philco, and when he bought it, he told Mrs Bush, “You jes’ watch. This ol’ TV’s gonna be around long after we’re gone. It it’s a Philco, it’s made to last.” He said this like he was making a commercial. It didn’t matter, though, because Mrs Bush was pretending that she was Ladybird Johnson, and she was visiting poor people.

Today, as every day that summer, they were sitting on their porch, waiting for the sun to go behind the distant hills. Then they would go inside. She would sew or watch TV, and he would always watch TV until the test pattern came on at midnight, and he could go to bed. It didn’t really matter to him what was on; he even liked the National Anthem.

“Seventy-six years,” he would say, “And I don’ never git tired of hit.”

“Ya’ know,” Mrs Bush said, fanning herself. Swish. Swish. Swish, squinting at Mr Bush. “Hit’s jes’ so beautiful how the road seems to go up and meet the sun. Lak’ a pathway right to heaven.” 

Mr Bush allowed as how he had never quite seen things that way, though Mrs Bush said practically the same thing every evening. It was true. The narrow reddish-copper colored dirt road they lived next to ran about ten yards from the house, then past about 200 yards where it made a sharp flat turn and headed towards town. Until you were right on top of it, you couldn’t even see the curve, so when they were married fifty some years ago, Mr Bush had planted a tree on it. 

“This way, you’d figger that there weren’t no road there goin’ straight, so’s you’d figger it turned one way or t’other. After all, we don’t want nobody gittin’ kilt on our property.”

The sun was fading and Mrs Bush was getting tired of squinting  her eyes and not saying anything. She wondered what Scarlett O’Hara would say in a situation like this. “I was thinkin’ ‘bout the sermon today. ‘Bout how folks cain’t tell when they’re gonna die, ‘bout how you could go right now or even a hunnert years from now.”

“You’re lucky,” Mr Bush said, without turning. “You got plenty of years to sit back and enjoy life. Me? Why, I don’t suppose I got more’n a few years, with this ol’ heart of mine.” 

He tapped his chest for emphasis and sighed. 

“Why I could just go anytime. One minute, I’d be sittin’ here talkin’ to you, and the next I’d be laid out as dead as you please, not even able to swat the flies off’n my nose. Wham.” He finished with as much satisfaction as if he had just finished his own elegy.

“Oh, you shouldn’t talk lak that. Doctor said if you took it easy, there’s no reason you shouldn’t live as long as anybody else.”

“Might, but I shore don’ feel like it these days.”

“Lord. Lord. Talkin’ lak this don’ do nobody no good.” 

It occurred to Mrs Bush that Scarlett O’Hara would never have gotten into such a morbid conversation. She wanted to change the subject. The sun seemed to take a sudden dip, and it’s edge caught on the horizon. It’s rays focused straight down the road in front of the Bush’s.

“Jesus,” whispered Mrs Bush. “Don’ that look even more lak the glory road than the glory road itself? Why jes’ look at how the sun makes them bars of light long the road. Makes you want to follow right up ‘em. And look at how you cain’t even see the tree at the curve for the glare. Why, you cain’t even tell where the dirt road ends and the sun begins.” 

Mrs Bush felt good. Not only had she said what she thought Scarlett O’Hara would have said, but she thought she had some up with something that most people never would have noticed. 

Mr Bush slowly stood up so he could lean over the rail and get a better look. He had forgotten about the way the porch rail wobbled because he still hadn’t fixed it when Mrs Bush asked him to, and he threw all his weight against it trying to lean way out past the shadow of the house. He leaned and it wobbled. He just managed to keep himself from falling. As he jumped back, Mrs Bush jumped up to grab him.

“Phew!,” he said and clutched at his chest. “Phew!,” and he leaned back against the house. All he could see was that railing and the ground on the other side of it, only the ground didn’t look like his yard at all. It looked like a huge dark trench like the ones he had to dig during World War II. He could feel Mrs Bush fanning him: Swish. Swish. Swish. He became aware of Jesus’ face smiling at him, then disappearing, then smiling at him, then disappearing again. Each time he felt that Jesus was about to say something to him, but each time, his wife’s hand jerked Jesus away again. So, instead of Jesus’ words, he got little puffs of cool air across his face: Swish. Swish. Swish. 

“Are you sick,” Mrs Bush was pleading. “Did you hurt yourself? Say something.”

He tried to speak through the blackness that was the blood rushing to his head. “I’m … ok … Jes’ give …me … a minute … and I’ll be … ” 

Suddenly a fist reached inside his chest and began to squeeze it like a vise. He looked down surprised that he had somehow reached inside his own chests with his own hand, but all he saw was his own trembling fist right on top of where the other inner fist was. He looked at Mrs Bush, and his eyes bugged out, bloodshot. 

“I’m having … another … ”

Mrs Bush gasped and turned pale. She forgot all about Scarlett O’Hara and dropped the fan. It fluttered to the wooden floor and lay facedown. 

“I’ll git the car keys and drive you to town. To the hospital.” 

She stood for a moment staring at her husband, then seemed to realize what she had said and ran into the house. In a moment, she was back. Carefully, she helped Mr Bush down the steps and around the corner of their house into their Buick.

Mr Bush slumped into the passenger side of the front seat. As Mrs Bush got into the driver’s side and tried to start the car, she had a vision of her husband. With his bugging eyes, his limp pale body, his heaving chest and his strange color, he looked to her like some kind of fish–some huge fish, drowning in air. She backed onto the road and turned towards town. She realized that since she had gone into the house she had been reciting, “It’ll be alright. It’ll quit direckly.” 

This made her feel better. As she put the car into drive, she began to pretend that she was Florence Nightingale and Mr Bush was some poor soldier who had been wounded and needed to be taken to the doctor. She pushed the accelerator to the floor. This is an ambulance, she thought, and I must get this man to safety. The big Buick surged forward, sending up a small cloud of dirt like steam. The last few rays of the sun hit Mrs Bush full in the eyes. Suddenly, there was nothing except a great blinding light all around her. She was pretending she was a saint and entering into heaven when the Buick carrying Mr and Mrs Bush, went crashing into the fifty year old tree. 

 

Christopher Hensley is 73 years old, was born and grew up in Charlotte North Carolina. He spent 50-plus years in the music business, including time as VP of artist development for RCA and EMI Music. He and his wife currently split their time between the Catskill Mountains in the summer and Thailand in the winter.

About this story, he says, “I wanted to capture that evangelical sense of belief—the idea that deliverance can come suddenly, even violently, and often without warning.” A quieter thread running through the piece is about how small, seemingly inconsequential actions (like an unrepaired porch rail) can ripple forward and shape one’s fate. “I was exploring the danger of complacency—the idea that we often don’t see what life holds just around the next corner,” he adds.