VOICE EATER
BY MEREDITH ANNE AVERA
No one out there doin’ it like Hank Williams anymore. Old man had a voice like a touchstone, like he could reach the Lord on high with the crystal-clear tenor flying through the air, an arrow arcing to His own heart. The clarity of it, the piercing through the mind like Jesus calling straight from his stone grave. And it helps when the customers come and hum along, since they know the hymns by heart. All the voices in the mini-mart resonating. Familiar, their tones, their faces.
Opened the store this morning. Set out the near-expired goodies on the countertop, neon discount stickers clinging to the plasticine packages. Turned the radio on, tuned it to the good station.
Outside is a beautiful day, sun scraping up through the Alabama sky, whispering through the trees, its fingers grasping at the dusty shop windows, making little prints on its way to the Reese’s cups and the Co’Cola bottles. Someone’s gotta wipe all that down, gotta stock the candy up this afternoon. Cleanliness is next to Godliness is what Mama always said. Her voice comes so easily, slipping into the background like she’s still rocking the cradle.
“Gonna be a hot one,” Randy says. He’s got his electrician uniform and heavy boots on, already dotting with perspiration. He was in church yesterday, too. Saw his balding head bent over the offering plate and now he’s spreading his voice through the gas station like it was always meant to be there.
This is what you say: “Hope you have a nice day, sir,” before you hand him his change, his reheated sausage biscuit. “See you on Sunday.”
Words crawling up and over his skin. Repeated every time, every customer, because it’s just that easy. When Randy leaves, the bell on the top of the door jingles, but his voice lives on in the space between the air, in the vibrations carrying through your ribs and your throat. They taste good on the tongue.
And it stays; and it stays; and it stays. Through the early morning fisherman coming for the bait cooler, ice cold worms wriggling in their aerated dirt, through the folks working out of town filling up their tanks and paying the total with exact change just like always. His voice stays with everything that is done, everything that has been done. Songs about the Glory Land through the speakers and Sunday’s sermon. They twist like they’re supposed to, combining in one intonation that bounces over and over inside, till their words become your own, coming out of a mouth that no longer belongs to you. It was always this way. What man could choose his own words when there are holier things to say, to hear behind the forehead? Again. Again.
Realize that there’s not a moment now when your own voice cuts through. Head filled with the good word, with Brother Amos’ perfect preaching and Hank Williams’ crooning and the talk of the town about the church and the grace of God. No use thinking anything different. To hear someone else, a stranger’s words or, stranger yet, a stranger’s voice—it’s ugly.
Fill the mind with what’s good and Holy and the Promised Land is ours.
“Twenty on pump two.”
And here is someone that wasn’t in church on Sunday. A new person, with pressed slacks and hair combed around his face. This person has never been in this min-mart before. Everyone who has been in the min-mart is also in church on Sundays and prayer service on Wednesdays and holds themselves familiar.
This man holds his twenty dollar bill out like he can’t wait to get rid of it. Soft hands, unworked, and fair skin. The notion comes that this is something that would worry another cashier, someone far away from here.
Then Hank Williams cuts through the silence. Static.
“You here for long?” Your voice comes out harsh. The script is broken.
He sighs, pushes back his hair, flicks his green eyes to the nice car idling through
the window. Gotta clean that dust off that window before the end of the day.
“No,” he says. “I’m not.”
Oh, how the Lord calls us to be pleasant to the stranger, to the traveler. “Just passing through?”
“On business. I’ll be working for a few. Weeks with a,” he pauses. This voice has new intonations and ideas, and it carries through the air, threatens to disrupt the vibrations. “A man by the name of Fields. He does live here, right?”
An electric grin. Brother Amos’ voice is coming back and rocks through your throat as the mouth opens out of sheer instinct. “Brother Amos Fields,” and a pause for breath. There’s a shocking difference between what came out and what was expected. “What a man. Count yourself lucky to get to work with him. Oughta come to one of his sermons.”
“I’ll see about it,” the stranger says, moves to turn.
“I’ll save you a seat this Sunday. Brother Amos knows how to preach.”
“Is that so?” He fixes his gaze on the sun outside, now hiked up just above the tree line. “I might just have to stop by, then.”
Then, he’s out with a doorbell jingle and a heavy absence takes up the air, a soundless sucking of all the movement, all his newness. Mama used to say that “Folks should spend their Sundays doing nothing else but putting their bottoms in a pew,” so perhaps the stranger will go ahead and come.
It’s easy to miss Mama’s voice. Used to be much more constant up there behind your eyelids, but now there’s just Brother Amos and sometimes Hank Williams. And it’s like they talk to each other up there. Inside. Full of wisdom and glory and song. Laughing about the worries of the common men. An accompaniment to the day.