Albert stretched his arms wide. “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed,” he said, “you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move.” 

Murmurs rose from the adults assembled in the church alcove for Sunday school class.

“Really now, Albert!” Nicole called from the back row. Much younger than her classmates, she slouched in a gunmetal gray folding chair and adjusted her shawl, embellished with gold crowns and angel heads swirling over purple poly-silk. 

Clasping his hands before him, Albert cleared his throat and adjusted his diamond tie tack, fashioned as two crossed golf clubs. His hairpiece, black and shellacked, reminded her of tap shoes. Nicole had always been a good tap dancer.

“You can’t pick and choose what you want to believe in the Bible,” Albert said. “It’s all true.” He stepped back to the lectern and patted a worn King James edition, from which ribbon bookmarks dangled with faith, hope, and charity charms. 

“But if faith can really move mountains, why hasn’t anybody moved Mount Vesuvius? It’s still active, you know.” She pulled up ruffly petticoats to show a Vesuvius eruption in full-color ink on her right thigh, featuring bright red and yellow flames roaring from her pantie crotch. Laughter from the class. Some turned away. Others craned their necks for a better look.

“And uh—what’s that other leg show?” Next to her, old Bob adjusted his trifocal glasses and leaned in.

“Pompeiians on the run,” Nicole said, tracing little bodies with her fingernail. 

Reddening, Albert put up his palms. “Propriety here! Need I remind you that we are in the house of the Lord? Let’s stay on point, shall we?”

“This is the point, Albert! You’re saying that right this minute, we could move Mount Vesuvius to the soccer field.” She pointed out the window, where rusty bleachers and a snack hut anchored a patch of green across the street. 

Old Bob cupped his ear to catch the details, and Nicole nudged him with a wink. “Even the apostle Paul prayed about the thorn in his side,” she said, “but it stayed right where it was.”

Albert pursed his lips and raised his voice. “The answer is in your heart.”

“The faith crap don’t work,” Nicole said. “I’ve been praying for months over lots of shit, and it don’t get no better.” 

“We’ll have to take this up later,” Albert said. He slapped the Bible onto the lectern with a thud. “Class adjourned.” 

Afterwards, Nicole left and walked down the cracked sidewalk toward home. It was clear that Albert had gotten everything he’d ever asked for; it seemed to her that the heavenly deck was stacked in favor of only certain individuals.

#

Pink mimosa blossoms peeped over the power wires dangling in front of a wide screened porch, common area for a home in the city’s highlands. Formerly a merchant’s mansion, it had been divided into rent-controlled efficiency apartments that served troubled citizens. Nicole and her downstairs neighbor Lynette rocked in white wicker chairs on the balcony. The plank floor squeaked with each rocking motion. 

“I don’t know why you even stay in that class, all those old buzzards,” Lynette said. 

“I tried the Young Adult class. But it was all about progressive dinners after church and those goddamn football parties. I’d shoot myself if I had to go to another LSU game night.” 

“At least you’d be in the same age range.” Bright-blue eyeshadow rubbed off on Lynette’s index fingers as she wiped her itchy pollen-ridden eyes. 

 “I don’t fit in with that crowd,” Nicole said. 

“Then why bother with church anyway?”

“I’ve got to believe in something. Used to, I didn’t, but I saw the cosmic pendulum at the Little Rock planetarium. Now I want to matter, believe in something, anything in this life.”

“Then go somewhere else. There’s a new cowboy preacher at the old cabaret downtown.”

Nicole shook her head. “Actually, I’m thinking of something else. Kabbalah.” She unbuttoned her frayed cuff and displayed a red string tied around her left wrist. “It’s Jewish mysticism. I’ve been looking at a book about it.” 

“What the hell?” Lynette lit a cigarette, took a drag. Smoke rose in silver angels from her lips. 

“Somebody left it by the detergent dispenser; I just look at it when I’m caught up on my folding—and you know how hard it is to fold clothes in my condition? Anyway, big words in there, but the drawings are nice.” Nicole turned her head to breathe in Lynette’s smoke, to catch those roiling angels, having gone cold turkey only the previous week.

“Folks leave all kinds of crazy shit in that place,” Lynette said. “And I never saw one picture of Jesus with a string around his wrist.” 

Nicole slumped and looked at the dingy ceiling, where dirt daubers busily nested in a corner. “Then I don’t know what to do. I’ve tried all the different prayers and intercessions.”

“For starters, take off the damn string. You’ve got enough problems without trying to channel Jewish mysticism. Those people won’t even let you eat bacon.”

“I thought that was Muslims.”

“It’s all those people from over there.”

“Then that won’t do. I hate chicken.” Nicole pulled the red string from her wrist and flicked it into a Walmart bag that lined the waste can next to her chair.

“How about putting Albert to work for you?” Lynette said. “Get him to pray for your hand.” 

Lynette looked down, looked away.

“Good idea—him and his mustard seeds can put things right. Faith, hope and love—that’s what life is all about.” 

#

The following Sunday, Nicole left the church service a little early so she could get coffee and doughnuts from the parlor before Albert’s class started. Yellow ribbons on her red skirt she hoped would divert attention from the dark stains circling the underarms of her melon-colored blouse. She left the top buttons undone for interest.

Glancing in the hallway mirror, she noted that her often-admired tits were squished into cleavage that would swallow a muskrat. Excellent look, but she was a little short of breath, and she struggled to open the heavy oak door. Suddenly it swung outward, and a gust of air lifted her skirt, well beyond the frightened Pompeiians. She caught Bob looking at the artwork—and probably her leather thong.

“Well damn, this was a climb up the hill,” she said, smoothing her skirt down. Aromas of greasy fried dough, powdered sugar, and burned coffee invited her into the parlor, with the long snack table draped in a plastic sheet. 

Bob’s hands shook, and his coffee spilled over the doughnut on his saucer.

“Aw, you got a problem there,” she said. “Want another doughnut? I’m going to stack a few on my finger.”

“No thank you; I like my sweets a little soggy.” Bob set his cup down on the table and stepped aside to let Nicole reach the coffee urn. “So, will I see you in class today?” 

“Yep, me and Albert need to have a talk. Y’all are pretty good friends, aren’t you?” Nicole narrowed her eyes. “Wonder where he gets his money from. He never talks about a job.”

“I don’t want to gossip.” Bob pushed his glasses up on the bridge of his nose.

“This ain’t gossip. I’m just asking.”

Bob’s eyes drifted to Nicole’s cleavage, and he stammered an answer. “He, uh, got it from broiler chickens. His family owns all the processing plants in this part of the state—and some up in Arkansas, too.”

“All of them?” An electric shock coursed through Nicole’s chest, and she felt her chin quiver. “I used to work at the one just this side of the state line. I thought it was some national outfit that owned it.”

“Not at all,” Bob said. He leaned in and whispered, “But they might be selling out to Pilgrim’s Pride. Shhhhh. Secret. Don’t let Albert know I told you.” 

“So, he’ll be richer than ever. But did he ever have to work or actually do anything?”

Bob shifted his weight uncertainly and blinked rapidly. “He does good for others.”

 “I know, I know—camel and the needle, rich man in heaven. I ought to put him in my place sometime. See how he likes it.” 

“I’m sure he’d enjoy that,” Bob said. 

“I could make it happen.” She winked and sucked the sugar from her finger.

#

Before Albert could start on the gospels, Nicole held up her left hand. “Albert, I want you to pray for my hand, seeing as you’re so good at all this.”

Everyone turned to look. Nicole beamed at the attentive faces and rotated her position so that all could observe.

“You see here,” she continued, “the skin is all stretched out, and the nerves are damaged.” With her other hand, she pointed at droopy-scarred tissue. “I can’t hardly use it but just as a helper hand.”

“A helping hand?” someone asked.

“Helper hand, helping hand. Same thing.” Nicole shifted her gaze to make eye contact with the whole class. “It’s a hand that can’t pull regular duty, but you can use it to help your other one. Like I’ll put mine underneath a stack of laundry to steady it.”

“I have a helper hand,” someone else said, and several ladies chimed in. Nicole raised her voice to talk over them.

“Anyway, the problem started with carpal tunnel syndrome, when I was working at Albert’s poultry plant up Highway 71.” She glared at Albert, whose face remained impassive. Had to hold the birds against kind of like rubber fingers on a rotating drum.” She demonstrated with her good hand.

“Poor little chick-chicks!” someone said.

“Well, did you ever bake a chicken with feathers and a beak?  No, you did not, and you can thank me for my service. But I got the carpal tunnel, and Albert’s company fired me and told a pack of lies on the pink slip so I couldn’t get workers’ comp. I’m right-handed anyway, but everybody really needs two good hands, is my opinion.” 

The Sunday school attendees nodded affirmatively, as Bob displayed his arthritic knuckles to those nearby. 

She continued, “So, one day I was cooking, trying to fry some pork chops, and you know the little bottle of Crisco, the skinny one? I don’t have no grip, and I accidentally dropped the bottle in the skillet, so I grabbed the skillet, but the grease started smoking and splashed on my hand.” She paused.

Albert leaned against the dry-erase board, watching her through half-lidded eyes. “Continue.” He sighed and began to erase Abraham’s family tree, which he had diagrammed with multicolored markers. 

He’s right-handed, same as me. “So, I threw some water over the skillet, and it flared up, caught on fire. And I didn’t know the grease had got on my hand and burned it, because I thought it was the heat from the stove, but it was my hand on fire.” 

 “Does anything happen—to your hand, that is—when the weather changes?” someone asked, which elicited comments from others about their climate-sensitive medical issues.

 “Well, the doctor told me I will always have a problem when it rains or clouds up. Bone fever, she calls it.”

 Albert smoothed his herringbone lapel. “Bone fever. I see.”

“So, I want you to pray the fever out. To make my hand okay again.”

Albert gestured to a five-foot cross mounted on the sheetrock wall. “You must pray with all your heart to the Cross. I cannot do this for you.”

“And I’m saying that I’ve already tried. It’s like you call the number, but nobody answers. Not God, not Jesus, not even Gabriel blowing a horn.” Nicole turned to her classmates. “So he’s goldbricking, am I right?” 

Albert frowned, and his salt-and-pepper eyebrows arched almost all the way up his forehead. His toupee shifted accordingly. “We have to move along,” he said, his hand trembling as he touched his pencil-thin mustache. “I’m sure the class is ready for some parables—let’s look at the one about workers in the vineyard.”

Nicole rolled her eyes with every pronouncement and crinkled cellophane wrappers in her purse. “Don’t know why the damn vineyard workers didn’t unionize,” she muttered.

#

After church, Nicole stopped by Lynette’s apartment and reported what happened.

“Nicole, I don’t know what to tell you,” Lynette said, stirring bourbon into a pitcher of sun tea. She poured two plastic glasses full and placed them on the bistro table in her mauve kitchenette. The women sat down and sipped their beverages. 

“Look, I’ve told you all I know to do, and I don’t want to hear another word about it,” Lynette said. “I’m done. Save it for the therapist.” 

“But my therapist is out of town!” Nicole wailed, knocking over her glass in despair. A stream of sun tea spilled over the resin-coated tabletop while she banged her fist against her head. 

“All right, get out of here,” Lynette said. “You’ve got the crazies coming on.” She glared at Nicole and stooped to wipe the puddle with an old cloth diaper.

 Nicole stumbled to her apartment. Two hundred square feet didn’t give much room for her to pace, even with the Murphy bed folded up. 

It was Albert’s fault about her hand, she thought. And it pissed her off that he wore sharp suits and alligator shoes while talking about the sins of material goods.

  Later, she peeled off her clothes, pulled her bed out of the wall, and fell into a hard sleep until a nearby car alarm roused her. She checked her phone. Dang. Five o’clock. There must have been more than just bourbon in that sun tea. 

Nicole fixed a microwave turkey dinner and drank a glass of whole milk. Then called Albert. “I’m very upset about the prayer situation,” she said.

“Yes, I could tell that you were disturbed today.”

“I want to see you. Now.”

“Nicole, this is not a good time.”

“But it’s an emergency.”

Albert sighed. “Very well, then. I’ll be waiting for you—but you can’t stay long.”

#

Nicole’s rusted old hatchback made a screaming sound when she got in and slammed the door. The car was so small she could have worn it with a zipper. She’d already freshened her lipstick and packed her handbag. Driving was hard enough one-handed, so she couldn’t be stopping to check makeup and personal belongings on the way. Other people didn’t have to think about such things. She couldn’t count the number of times she’d seen drivers multitasking with both hands. That’s something Albert probably took for granted—along with his two-story home, looming large on a shaded boulevard, with a silver Mercedes-Benz sedan parked in the driveway. 

She stepped out of her car. Inspecting the premises, she doubted that Albert ever personally pulled weeds from his manicured yard. Deep green, it was mowed in stripes like a big-league outfield. She climbed stone steps to his veranda and pressed the doorbell. Chimes played a tune she recognized from church. She pressed it again. “Joyful, joyful, we adore thee,” she hummed through her smile.

Albert appeared at the door, dressed in country club casual, from delicate leather loafers to a buff cashmere V-neck. He touched his hair lightly and invited her in. “Please, the library is this way.” He gestured toward a paneled room that reminded her of playing Clue. An elaborate Persian rug warmed the hardwood floor, lustrous in the setting western sun.

“Thanks for seeing me on short notice,” Nicole said. She sat in a wingback chair, upholstered in heavy tapestry. Albert took his place in a similar chair directly opposite from her. 

“Where do we begin?” he asked. “I haven’t much time. I’m expecting company shortly.” He glanced at the antique grandfather clock just then striking the quarter hour in the hallway. 

“Just answer my question: Why haven’t you fixed my hand?” 

“What—what are you talking about?”

“Albert, I told you a hundred times about it, and you just stood there and said anybody could fix it with fucking mustard seeds. Pray, it’ll happen—that’s what you said.” 

“Prayer is a personal thing.” Albert closed his eyes.

“But you’ve made it clear that I don’t know how to do it.” She began to tap her foot. “You know everything, so fix it. I’m waiting.” 

Then she pulled a small pistol, an automatic, from her purse and held it firm in her good hand. “Open your eyes, asshole! Look at me!” 

Albert’s eyelids fluttered open. She could see his pupils dilate. “Where did you get that gun?” He drew up his arms defensively.

“My daddy left it to me.”

He peeped out from behind his fists. “I-I hope you don’t intend to use it.” 

“I guess that’s something else you have to pray about.”

Albert dropped his hands and gripped the arms of his chair. Drops of sweat, beading beneath toupee adhesive, began to filter down his forehead.

“Are you praying that I’ll shoot you?” Nicole asked.

“No!”

“So, you’re praying that I won’t shoot you.”

“That’s right.” Albert fumbled a handkerchief from his pocket and dabbed his brow.

“Well, let’s see if your prayers are answered. Me, I’m praying for the coordination to carry this off. Let’s see whose prayer wins.” 

Albert hung his head, his chin resting on his chest. “Jesus loves you, Nicole.” 

“Well good, I feel better already. Now stand up, turn around, and stretch your arms out. Put your hands against that bookshelf there. Right, put them up high.”

Albert struggled to his feet and faced the bookshelf, his palms trembling against a row of vintage Encyclopedia Britannicas. “I can’t do this. Bursitis. Both shoulders.” He looked around at her, his arms wilting.

“Damn, do I have to nail them up there? This is performative art. All’s you need now is a shiny pie plate behind your head.” Nicole admired the tableau. Cool black steel rested in her palm. But Albert’s trembling annoyed her. “Okay, show’s over.” Then she aimed, pulled the trigger, unloaded two rounds. Sulfur and metal wafted into her nose and mouth as Albert screamed and fell to the floor.

 “My hand! Your Devil destroyed my hand!” he cried, cradling his left hand, while blood poured from a hole in his side. Copious reds embellished the rug’s intricate designs in the sunset’s glow. 

“Oh good, my prayers were answered.” She smiled, returned the pistol to her purse, and snapped the vinyl closure. “Thanks. You were right. I just had to have faith.”

 As he writhed on the floor, his rug askew, Nicole rose from her chair and fluttered her skirt over him. 

“Congratulations,” she said. “I’ve given you a helping hand. Put you in my place—how do you like them apples?” She turned to walk away, but then she stopped and crouched, studying his contorted face. 

Something kept her from leaving him, not just yet. She wanted to hold onto this a little longer. She sat on the floor and spread her legs, bunching the crinoline fabric between her thighs so he couldn’t see smoking Mount Vesuvius. There wasn’t anything else to say, so she said nothing.

The doorbell rang, and Nicole flinched. She remained still, but the visitor rang the bell repeatedly. She stood and crept around the room and raised her head to look out the window. Her eyes met old Bob’s, and his hand clutched his chest. 

“Nicole! Is that you?”

“Oh shit.” She motioned him to the front door. She met him there, opened it and stood at the threshold, one hand on the knob. 

“Where’s Albert?” he said.

“Ain’t home.”

“His car is here.” 

“Well, he’s got the bone fever.” She ignored cries of pain from the room beyond.

From behind horn-rimmed glasses, Bob’s watery eyes met hers. “He’s hurt!” 

“No, he’s crying in ecstasy. We’re playing missionaries in a tent.” She laughed and tugged Bob’s lapel. He twisted away and pulled a Jitterbug phone from his pocket. He tried to call 911, but his hands shook, and his swollen arthritic fingers were no use. 

“Looks like you need a helping hand, too.” She twisted his wrist and blocked his way, knocking his glasses sideways. “Give me that phone, old man.” It fell to the floor, and she stomped on it. Then she kicked the backs of his knees.

“Holy Mother!” Bob stumbled and fell forward. Smacked his head on a marble-top table and crumpled in a heap, face up. Glasses broken, frames flattened. Silence. Nicole noted a deep indentation—now a mean blue—on his forehead. She dragged him with starts and stops into the study where Albert lay. 

She surveyed the scene and checked her purse, rattling loose change and retrieving her weapon. She pointed it first at Albert, then at Bob. All they ever talked about was going to heaven. She would lend a helping hand.

Before she left, she removed Bob’s billfold, still clean and easy to reach. She wouldn’t try for Albert’s. Bloody money was so difficult to launder.

#