“Or, let’s take another example,” said Mr. Dial. “What about John the Baptist? Why was he so determined to go forth in the wilderness and prepare the way for Christ’s arrival?”
There was no point attempting to reach these little Ratliffs and Scurlees and Odums, these youngsters with their rheumy eyes and pinched faces, their glue-sniffing mothers, their tattooed fornicating fathers. They were pitiful. Only the day before, Mr. Dial had been forced to send his son-in-law Ralph—whom he employed at Dial Chevrolet—down to some of the Scurlees to repossess a new Oldsmobile Cutlass. It was an old, old story: these sad dogs drove around in top-end automobiles chewing tobacco and swilling beer from the quart bottle, little caring that they were six months late on the payments. Another Scurlee and two Odums were due for a little visit from Ralph on Monday morning, though they didn’t know it.
Mr. Dial’s gaze lighted on Harriet—Miss Libby Cleve’s little niece—and her friend the Hull boy. They were Old Alexandria, from a nice neighborhood: their families belonged to the Country Club and made their car payments more or less on time.
“Hely,” said Mr. Dial.
Hely, wild-eyed, started convulsively from the Sunday school booklet he had been folding and refolding into tiny squares.
Mr. Dial grinned. His small teeth, his wide-set eyes and his bulging forehead—plus his habit of looking at the class in profile, rather than straight on—gave him the slight aspect of an unfriendly dolphin. “Will you tell us why John the Baptist went forth crying in the wilderness?”
Hely writhed. “Because Jesus made him do it.”
“Not quite!” said Mr. Dial, rubbing his hands. “Let’s all think about John’s situation for a minute. Wonder why he’s quoting the words of Isaiah the prophet in—” he ran his finger down the page—“verse 23 here?”
“He was following God’s plan?” said a little voice in the first row.
This came from Annabel Arnold, her gloved hands folded decorously over the zippered white Bible in her lap.
“Very good!” said Mr. Dial. Annabel came from a fine family—a fine Christian family, unlike such cocktail-drinking country-club families as the Hulls. Annabel, a champion baton twirler, had been instrumental in leading a little Jewish schoolmate to Christ. On Tuesday night, she was participating in a regional twirling competition on over at the high school, an event of which Dial Chevrolet was one of the main sponsors.
Mr. Dial, noticing that Harriet was about to speak, started in again hastily: “Did you hear what Annabel said, boys and girls?” he said brightly. “John the Baptist was working in accordiance with God’s Plan. And why was he doing that? Because,” said Mr. Dial, turning his head and fixing the class with his other eye, “because John the Baptist had a goal.”
Silence.
“Why is it so important to have goals in life, boys and girls?” As he waited for an answer, he squared and re-squared a small stack of paper on the podium, so that the jewel in his massive gold class ring caught and flashed red in the light. “Let’s think about this, shall we? Without goals, we aren’t motivated, are we? Without goals, we’re not financially prosperous! Without goals, we can’t achieve what Christ wants for us as Christians and members of the community!”
Harriet, he noticed with a bit of a start, was glaring at him rather aggressively.
“No sir!” Mr. Dial clapped his hands. “Because goals keep us focused on the things that matter! It’s important for all of us, no matter what age we are, to set goals for ourselves on a yearly and weekly and even hourly basis, or else we don’t have the get-up-and-go to haul our bee-hinds from out in front the television and earn a living when we grow up.”
As he spoke, he began to pass out paper and colored pens. It did no harm to try to force a little work ethic down some of these little Ratliffs and Odums. They were certainly exposed to nothing of the sort at home, sitting around living off the government the way most of them did. The exercise he was about to propose to them was one Mr. Dial himself had participated in, and found extremely motivational, from a Christian Salesmanship conference he had attended in Lynchburg, Virginia, the summer before.
“Now I want us all to write down a goal we want to achieve this summer,” said Mr. Dial. He folded his hands into a church steeple and rested his forefingers upon his pursed lips. “It may be a project, a financial or a personal achievement … or it may be some way to help your family, your community, or your Lord. You don’t have to sign your name if you don’t want to—just draw a little symbol at the bottom that represents who you are.”
Several drowsy heads jerked up in panic.
“Nothing too complicated! For instance,” said Mr. Dial, screwing his hands together, “you might draw a football if you enjoy sports! Or a happy face if you enjoy making people smile!”
He sat down again; and, since the children were looking at their papers and not at him, his wide, small-toothed grin soured slightly at the edges. No, it didn’t matter how you tried with these little Ratliffs and Odums and so forth: it was useless to think you could teach them a thing. He looked out over the dull little faces, sucking listlessly on the ends of their pencils. In a few years, these little unfortunates would be keeping Mr. Dial and Ralph busy in the repossession business, just like their cousins and brothers were doing right now.
————
Hely leaned over and tried to see what Harriet had written on her paper. “Hey,” he whispered. For his personal symbol he had dutifully drawn a football, then sat staring for the better part of five minutes in dazed silence.
“No talking back there,” said Mr. Dial.
With an extravagant exhalation, he got up and collected the children’s work. “Now then,” he said, depositing the papers in a heap on the table. “Everybody file up and choose a paper—no,” he snapped as several children sprang up from their chairs, “not run, like monkeys. One at a time.”
Without enthusiasm, the children shuffled up to the table. Back at her seat, Harriet struggled to open the paper she’d chosen, which was folded to the excruciating tininess of a postage stamp.
From Hely, unexpectedly, a snort of laughter. He shoved the paper he’d chosen at Harriet. Beneath a cryptic drawing (a headless blotch on stick legs, part furniture, part insect, depicting what animal or object or even piece of machinery Harriet could not guess) the gnarled script tumbled rockily down the paper at a forty-five-degree angle. My gol, read Harriet, with difficulty, is Didy tak me to Opry Land.
“Come on now,” Mr. Dial was saying up front. “Anybody start. It doesn’t matter who.”
Harriet managed to pick her paper open. The writing was Annabel Arnold’s: rotund and labored, with elaborate curlicues on the g’s and y’s.
my goal!
my goal is to say a little prayer every day that God
will send me a new person to help!!!!
Harriet stared at it balefully. At the bottom of the page, two capital B’s, back to back, formed an inane butterfly.
“Harriet?” said Mr. Dial suddenly. “Let’s start with you.”