“Good morning…” Henry lisps timidly.
The man’s head lifts from the paper, his distracted eyes focusing in upon Henry quickly. He smiles pleasantly. “Well, hello, good morning,” he says softly, his smile widening, causing friendly wrinkles to form around the edges of his eyes, the irises green and glittering with unguarded warmth from behind his spectacles.
Henry, uncertain, falters a moment in the sincerity of his attention. “H-how are you?” he asks, fingering the pamphlet restively.
“Quite well,” replies the man generously, nodding. “And you?”
“I’m… very fine!” exclaims Henry, his head suddenly pumping up and down on the end of his long skinny neck like a piston.
The man stares at Henry, smiling, blinking with bemused forbearance. His eyes take in the sight of the strange, trembling, black-coated individual before him with a sort of cheerful, genial curiosity. He folds the newspaper and places it on the table. “Would you like to sit down?” he asks quietly.
Henry nods and seats himself quickly on the edge of the chair, licking his lips and beaming at the man excitedly and all of a sudden it comes out of him in a tumbling, exuberant rush, the pamphlet sliding swiftly across the table: “Some reading material,” he offers, his upraised eyes glistening hopefully.
“Mm-hm,” the man says, glancing cursorily down at the pamphlet. He looks up at Henry and with a sigh he reclines back in his chair. “My name’s Sam,” he says, extending his hand across the table.
“Henry,” says Henry, grasping the man’s hand hungrily and shaking it. “Have you accepted the Lord Jesus as your personal saviour?”
The man smiles wistfully, glancing down at the pamphlet. “Well,” he says.
“The Lord Jesus loves you,” murmurs Henry, “and He wants you to know that whatever sins and bad things you’ve done are forgiven… an’… and’ve been paid for up on the cross… for as God’s only begotten son, He has died so that we may… may live and know His love and mercy of God’s grace.” He whispers breathlessly, his body bending towards the man, his neck craning and the features of his pale face gyrating with a terrible urgency.
“Mm-hm,” says the man.
“An’… an’ to be lifted up into heaven to sit upon the right side of the Lord. Not to fall into the eternal fire and weeping and gnashing of teeth of… of…”
“Hell,” says the man.
“An’… an’ to trust in the mysterious ways of the Lord, for the wages of sin is death,” recites Henry, his eyes closing as if his speech is written on their inner lids. He sways a bit in the chair.
“Mm-hm, well, yes,” says the man, nodding thoughtfully. He considers Henry for a moment, smiling faintly, his eyes peering hospitably through his glasses yet at the same time detached, removed, as if observing the situation from an incalculable distance through a telescope. “You attend a church in the area, do you?” he asks.
“Oh, yes. Yes… I attend many churches,” replies Henry enthusiastically. “I go to the Harveston Presbyterian, the St. Luke Lutheran, the Baysfield United, the St. Paul Anglican, the Mandaumin United, the Lawford Pentecostal, the…”
“Mm-hm, yes, I see,” says the man.
“…the Wigford Baptist, the Point George Anglican, the Wigford Presbyterian…”
“Mm-hm,” says the man, looking down for a moment. “Actually,” he notes, checking his wristwatch, “I’m heading into Wigford myself. Perhaps I could give you a lift if you’re heading in that direction.”
“Oh—yes, yes, I’d be very grateful for that, sir,” Henry enthuses. “If you’ll just… Yes…” he murmurs, jumping up from his chair and moving to the counter where he left his suitcases, gathering them up hurriedly.
The man smiles and chuckles inwardly at Henry’s frenetic bustling as he rises leisurely with his rolled-up newspaper and walks towards the door, Henry following at his heels, stumbling with the cases and whispering fervently to himself as he shuffles past Roy and Gus and Frank at their table.
“Well—looks like ol’ Henry’s got himself a new convert,” observes Frank archly.
“Yep, yep, sure does, Frank,” says the other man, tamping down his pipe.
“Heh, heh,” laughs Roy, shaking his head. “Shee—it!”
And the sun like a gleaming, white, shining nickel now one quarter of the way creeping up the sky through the torn, ragged clouds, beams down upon the man named Sam rustling his keys from his pocket and Happy Henry tramping behind him as they make their way across the parking lot to the car. Sam assists Henry with his cases, packing them away in the back seat.
Now pulling out of the lot onto the highway, Sam a man who enjoys driving, the wheel firm beneath his gently guiding hands as he’s leaned back far in his bucket seat, his profile serene, his eyes placidly and without resistance drinking in the road which runs straining and feeds itself disappearing beneath the hood of his car. Happy Henry at his side staring straight ahead, off and up to where the road wedges to its fine point on the horizon, the clouds shifting slowly overhead, the fence posts rushing swiftly forth and multiplying themselves endlessly.
Henry sees them and beyond them and in a most profound manner, sees them not at all, blanketed and overthrown as they are by the thick veil hanging always before his eyes: the veil ruffling and shimmering and composed of all his most fervent convictions and apprehensions, his highest-hoping anticipations and the passion of his highly excitable knowing, which in fact compose and funnel the perceptions of these eyes and is thus more real than all that stands or passes before them—real because true and knowingly grasped as such, the world at large fluidly streaming around to either side and washing over them yet never gaining foothold—merely rippling, trickling, subsiding, dripping, transparent, tasteless, fading, evaporating, waning, gone. Nothing is real but what is true.
Nothing is true except what is necessary, nothing is necessary except that each human soul must be saved from its own sins (whose wages are death) by the love of Jesus Christ, to know that love and trust it and live it and feel it gathering and solid in the entrails, hard, coiled, firm, in the chest and lungs, stretching out along the furthermost limits of the limbs, and deep within the narrow confines and crevices of the brain.
And so Henry turns to Sam, blinking meekly. “Jesus loves you,” he whispers tentatively, almost like a question, bending over from his seat, his eyes searching and hopeful.
“Mm-hm,” says Sam, guiding his car from the highway onto the road into Wigford, shifting gears. He turns and smiles at Henry. “Beautiful day, isn’t it?”
He turns back to the road. “Do you live around these parts? I’m from out of town myself, just here on a little business,” Sam muses reflectively, the sun gleaming on the rims of his spectacles and on his beard.
“A lot of nice country around here,” Sam remarks after a moment, his eyes taking in the broad flowing fields passing by the window, the fences and the little farms sailing past. “Quite a difference from the big city,” he smiles, turning to Henry, his expression warm and inviting, his words flowing out easily with a breezy goodwill.
“I… I live with Father,” Henry volunteers, looking straight ahead,