Clyde took public pride in my blond blue-eyed memory. He encouraged me to quote aloud the titles of all the books of the Bible. These Incan-sounding tin-can syllables meant nothing to me. Doing them ever faster seemed any smart boy’s logical goal. Driving, Clyde would time my “GenesisExodusLeviticusNumb …” I, drowsy, counting cows, sat crackling holy syllables. Dad checked his Bulova, “Second best. But that doggone Ezekiel tripped you again. Break it down, four units. It’s ‘Easy-ki-el.’ Now, think, son.”

My coach inhaled another unfiltered Camel. He kept his car window open, a huge hand fanning. Dad admitted knowing: every costly “weed” took an entire bowl of rice out of the mouth of some little Korean girl orphan.

“Name one,” I said. “—Besides, which orphan would WANT a whole bowl of rice shoved in her li’l mouth!”

Well, this cracked Clyde up so he had to pull over. He chuckled unto coughing then, pointing at his chest, snaffled even at that. Dad retold my quip at each of that day’s far-flung motels. I was forced to rattle through the Bible books ever faster as uninterested eye-rolling adults scanned their lobby’s sunburst clocks.

3.

Desk clerks at Pecan Grove and Satellite Sputnik Lodge Acres became our all-time favorites.

Our pet client was the plump aforementioned seed-art woman (Pecan Grove Sleepytime Auto Cabins, “Serving the Weary Traveler and the Weekly Boarder with Unequal Courtesy Since 1939, New Canaan, N.C.”).

She made amazing Biblical-topic mosaics from pet-shop and seed-store grains. Verna lovingly called them her “scenes.” Exploiting the job’s abundant free time, she’d already served up twelve door-sized Last Suppers, formed of mostly oats and millet. (Trillions of innocent seeds had been introduced to Elmer’s Glue then crucified onto Verna’s pine planks.)

Pecan Grove’s cement-block lobby looked positively bumpy with earlier seedy references to Christ’s Passion. John the Beloved’s hair shone, so much glinty barley. Ours was the Golden Age of Hobbies and Shellac. This deep-voiced lady manager, wearing smocks stitched from the giant floral prints of couches, battled a drinking problem that pounced her between projects. “It helps, do I stay busy,” she spoke the homemade way many country people did then.

Verna sometimes phoned our house midweek. She complained, even to Mother, about the record number of Bibles being swiped from good ole Pecan Grove Sleepytime. “My type clients I’m gettin me here lately, they are true lowlifes, lower. If this place’s sheets could talk prior to Oxydol, they usually do! The Godless is winnin, honey. Tell your men to bring Bible replacements P.D.Q.”

But even I, at six, guessed: Verna hid the Testaments herself. She was that needy. And her new canary-seed Resurrection had to be seen to be believed.