Pushed: The Tale of Marjorie May Oliphant
God does not push people down stairs for reading trashy romance novels. At least Ben Piper didn’t think that his God did things like that, he liked to think that The Creator has better things to do and leaves the pushing of people down stairs to the lesser angels and such. Mrs. Margery Oliphant, however, held another opinion of her God, who she claimed was the same as his God. Piper remembered his daughter’s last Girl Scout meeting that Margery attended. She spoke to the girls saying, “Look here little children of little faith. I am living, and hobbling, proof that our God is a vengeful and wrathful God! He led me to the straight and narrow at the age of 57. It is not too late, for anyone! He’ll get your attention, even if He must push your sorry souls down stairs. That is the kind of God we have, willing to do anything to save the wretched scum that walk His good earth.” He remembered that day well, it was just over a week before Margery became a local legend, without the help of God.
At first people in the seven church town, with a collective congregation of 200 on Easter and or 232 on Christmas, smiled knowingly at the ramblings of a notoriously personal woman who was embarrassed to talk about why, at the age of 57, had to go in for hip-surgery. Then people speculated if her husband could afford her surgery on his pension, since she never had an income in all thirty-nine years of their marriage. Others declared that there was no way he couldn’t afford the surgery since all he bought was beer and paid the satellite TV bill. Many thought it funny that she no longer sat on the bench by the old wishing well reading Nora Roberts’s books covered in brown paper cut from grocery sacks, but rather the Bible with “KJV” boldly printed on the spine. Some made jokes about the small hickory cane not being able to support her ample size, let alone her new hip. Still others chuckled to think of a small round woman standing before a congregation giving testimony about a God that went around pushing over-the-hill housewives down steps. People didn’t realize that Margery was serious when she spoke of what exactly transpired on the fresh cemented steps of the local library. No one really believed her until Nurse Sabrine Stevens, who commuted the forty-mile drive to the hospital every day, let it slip a few days after the incident that the poor woman had what looked like bruises on her back. Yet, everybody knew she had fallen face first; Jessie Roberts and Michael Napper on break at the Feed-Seed-and-All-Night-Necessities store saw it happen.
With this revelation of news, the questions and curiosity of locals began to seep around the town, like gossip dripping from a fount and oozing under every door seal. The whispers started to gather in kitchens making cookies for the school bake sale, in the teachers break room drinking coffee, under the swing set and monkey bars, amongst the pews before the pulpit. After just a couple of days, eyes followed Margery from the moment she left her house. By the beginning of the next week three quarters of the town had memorized her schedule.
On Monday, while she sat on the sturdy oak bench reading her red-lettered Bible, Council Woman Janise Wolfe approached Margery. It should be noted that Janise Wolfe was no longer on any real council, she had been on the County Fair Board for a number of years, but now she was on the School Board and nobody really considered that a council position. Nevertheless, the title bestowed on her while she was head of the Fair Commission stuck years later.
Council Woman Wolfe waited politely for Margery to finish the passage she was on and then asked, equally politely, if Margery would like to talk to the ladies group about the trails of surgery for a woman in her prime, this Tuesday night. After a slight hesitation, Margery agreed.
That next night, at the meeting of the First Ladies Auxiliary for Those that Help Themselves, cookies were served at six, debate concerning whose cookie recipe was best continued until six-thirty, and Margery walked into the room at seven. She was wearing a long lavender cotton dress, with a simple cotton sweater that bore the likeness of yellow spring flowers on its breast pockets. Her make up was heavy, but tastefully done; the purple-tented eye shadow showed well with her dress. She stood as straight as possible, with her cane held firmly in her hand, and yet she still managed to give the impression that she was a good two inches shorter than her five foot one inch frame. She gave the impression of trying to have good posture but being drawn into her self. The ladies parted en masse before her as she made her way to speak with Council Woman Wolfe who stood at the front of the meeting room, dressed in jeans and a loose fitting scarlet blouse.
“Thank you Mrs. Oliphant for coming, I love your dress. Very becoming,” the Council Woman said. She felt like a harlot wearing a neon sign in her oversized blouse and minimal makeup. She, briefly, contemplated if God, in His assault, had given Margery an aura that made all others around her feel despicable, or, at the very least, inappropriately dressed. She pushed these thoughts aside and said, “Please have a seat, we are just about to begin. Or would you like some refreshments, Anna Jane’s snicker doodles are quite tasty. No? Okay, then if we could all find our seats let’s begin.”
They opened with the reading of the last meeting’s minutes. Opal Early, a retired superintendent of the local high school from the fifties that had never married, acted as the treasurer and the secretary for group for the past five years and she took offense if anyone corrected her figures or minutes. New business was discussed, mainly the Labor Day celebrations coming up in September: 1) their annually hosted Pancake Dinner and 2) the float that would be representing the women’s organization in the local parade. Anna Jane offered her husbands flat bed trailer; the older ladies rejected this idea because they did not want to sit on hay bales and ruin their nicer dresses. Larissa Trimler offered to ask Mr. Rochelle Johnson if they could borrow his recently purchases pristine antique 1947 Plymouth Special Deluxe (dark turquoise with real leather seats), since he had offered to give her a ride and she was sure he would agree if she asked him. This idea was rejected because only three people would be able to ride in the car and the other eight members of the organization wouldn’t be in the parade at all.
“Ahem,” a silence, not unlike the shuffling stillness that sometimes falls when a long-winded preacher delivers his closing prayer, engulfed the meeting room “I know I am not a member, but perhaps you may think about the trolley the Chamber of Commerce just purchased. I know they are looking for somebody to clean it up, just minor cleaning really. It runs fine, just needs to be washed, maybe waxed, some of the seats need the fabric stitched back together. They may let you borrow it in the parade, if you are willing to clean it...”
The vote was unanimous. It was decided that calls would be made the following week and next Tuesday, if all went well, a date would be chosen to clean the trolley. If the Chamber did not agree it was decided that the Ladies Auxiliary would ask Anna Jane’s husband for the use of his trailer. The older ladies decided they would rather be in the parade and uncomfortable than not at all. They tabled further discussion on the speaker for the Pancake Dinner until next meeting as well, since it was getting late and some ladies had to leave to fix dinners for husbands that didn’t know how to survive one night alone in the kitchen.
“Now it is my great privilege,” announced Council Woman Wolfe, “to step aside and allow Mrs. Margery Oliphant to speak with us about her recent ordeal.” A hesitant applause gave soundtrack for Margery’s assent to the podium.
“Ahem,” she cleared her throat nervously, “Well, Council Woman Wolfe asked me here to speak about my hip surgery. I don’t know much about it, I was under anesthesia you know.” She chuckled slightly, cleared her throat again, and continued, “I wasn’t scared to have the surgery done though, not with the knowledge that I know have. I can still feel His hands on my shoulders, guiding me, helping me. Pushing me in the right direction. I know some of you are skeptical about my claims that I was pushed by God down the stairs, but I am here to tell you the truth: God pushed me to get my attention. I am pushing you to repent and lean back on God’s hands as I have done.”
She closed her eyes and braced her hands on the podium for support. “We’re all deplorable creatures that deserve to break our necks as we fall down to Hell, we deserve the punishment that is waiting at the end of our fall, but do not get me wrong we are pushing ourselves there. God is not pushing you to Hell; He is pushing you, more like a nudge, to get your attention. I was lost in my evil ways, reading from sinful books of sinful deeds, and He had to get my attention. I was lost in my world of filth and Fabio. My sisters in Christ hear my words and listen to what I am saying: we’re all teetering on the steps of Hell and if we do not see this then we shall all fall from the hands of God. The Lord saved me that day; He saved me from a fall far worse than that which I have endured. I gladly went to surgery, I gladly go under the knife of man, to bear the scars, and—” She choked for a moment on her own emotions, “And bruises so that I may bear witness to all. God is willing to push us to show us the truth, to show us His love.”
Her right fist raised to strike the air and bring her point home: “He is a vengeful and a wrathful God, we deserve the Hell that is waiting for us. Do not wait as I did, all these years, and have Him have to physically push you to get your attention; focused on Him now, for the salvation of your souls. You may not be as lucky as I have been. Repent, it is the will of the Lord.”
To say that a thunderstruck silence ensued after this speech would be an understatement. An open mouthed, breathless, wide-eyed state of shock might be more appropriate. Larissa Trimler unsteadily rose from her seat and spoke, “Thank you, thank you so much. I have never in all my Presbyterian years heard the Lord’s message put in such a way. You’ve made me realize that I shouldn’t be insistent towards Mr. Rochelle Johnson just because he is available and so is his bank account. You’ve opened my eyes; your experience has changed me. I don’t know what to say, oh, thank you Margery.”
A small voice from the back of the room said, “My snicker doodle recipe is from a box. I just have to say that. I didn’t mean to mislead anyone; I mean it is a perfectly good way to make cookies. I’ve always felt it was wrong to claim it as my own, but the praise I received from them made it seem okay. I’m so sorry. Thank you Margery, I didn’t have the courage to say that until just now.”
“Sometimes while I’m reading the treasury report I see a miscalculation. I always fix it before the next meeting.” Everyone turned to look at Opal Early as she made this declaration, “I wouldn’t really mind if someone said anything; but after the meeting, not during.”
One by one the other ladies stood and told the group something personal that they had never said before. Each felt as if hearing from Mrs. Margery Oliphant had given them courage to say what they wanted, after all after a speech like that it felt okay to say anything because nothing could be as profound as what they just heard.
Finally, Council Woman Wolfe rose and said, “Ladies, I feel that we have all witnessed something so thought provoking and meaningful that we are obliged to do all we can to share with the others in this town. I have always felt that as a public figure I could do more, I just never have, and the shame of this weighs heavy on my heart. I would like to invite Mrs. Oliphant into our organization, and, if she accepts, to be our honored speaker at the Labor Day Pancake Dinner.”
Eagerly all looked up at Margery, who was still clutching the podium, “I will have to discuss this with my husband. Is it okay if I have an answer for you next week?” She seemed to be in shock from her own powerful speech. They all agreed that it was more than okay, stated their hopes that she would accept, thanked her again, and the meeting came to a close at 7:48 on the dot. Ms. Opal Early noted the time carefully, so that she wouldn’t make any mistakes at next week’s meeting.
The following Tuesday, Margery wore a dark blue long sleeved floor length dress. It had green roses embroidered on the collar and the cuffs. Her olive eye shadow tastefully matched the details. She gladly accepted the group’s invitation, both to be in the organization and to speak at the Pancake Dinner in three weeks time. Larissa Trimler called for volunteers to make pancakes, seven of the ladies agreed to bring at least two large cake pans full. No blueberry. Plain pancakes only.
Anna Jane brought the news that the Chamber had agreed to lend them the trolley. Council Woman Wolfe was about to close the very productive meeting when Margery stood up. She had been sitting quietly for most of the meeting, nodding at appropriate times and frowning slightly at others. “Would it be okay, Council Woman, if we closed in prayer? After all God is with us always and we need to acknowledge Him, even if the name of this society is for those that help themselves.”
“Why of course. Would you do the honors?” The Council Woman was the last to lower her head; she silently kicked herself for not making this suggestion when it was the obvious thing to do.
The ladies of the First Ladies Auxiliary for Those that Help Themselves met the Saturday before Labor Day and scrubbed the Chamber’s trolley till it shown. Council Woman Wolfe wore a good T-shirt and non-holey jeans and still managed to feel underdressed next to Margery in her auburn button down three-quarter sleeved blouse that was bespectacled in a Robin’s Egg blue paint mixture. Margery explained that this was the color of her kitchen. Her husband had told her that if she wanted it done she would have to do it herself. The ladies congratulated her on having completed a task most women would have insisted their husbands hire a crew to complete. She nodded, smiled, and asked each in turn to describe their own kitchen to her for future decorating ideas.
Ronnie Jenkins, the owner of the Hardware store located in the back Carol Jenkins’ Beauty Boutique, had to send out a special order early the next week for Robin’s Egg blue paint. Four separate ladies had asked him if he carried any, and when he asked why the sudden interest all the ladies told him that Mrs. Margery Oliphant’s kitchen was that color and they admired her to the point that they thought it wouldn’t hurt to have their kitchen, or at least the border, that color. Each was going to do the job herself.
The next morning, being a friendly citizen Ronnie told the men he drank coffee with about the ladies’ sudden interest in Mrs. Oliphant. By noon, the small town gossip that had started to die down started back up again. Wednesday morning Bill Hornworthe told the men’s group that Margery had been to speak to the Sunday school at the Baptist church, and then gave a brief testimonial at the Methodist service. Arnold Richards mentioned that he saw her talking to a group of teenagers that had taken to hanging around her bench beside the wishing well. Sheriff Piper recounted the basics of the speech she had given to his daughter’s Girl Scout troop the previous Friday. By Thursday, the facts from Margery’s amazing encounter, and her astounding conviction in her faith, spread through out the community and into the surrounding areas. The preachers were calling each other on the phones, speculating about the size of the coming Sunday’s congregation, and taking friendly bets on which church’s would be the largest. Some were predicting over 250 people to be in services come Sunday. No body even dared to guess how many people would be in town the night before for the Pancake Dinner.
Yet, Ronnie, who had lived on the same street all his life, couldn’t help but wonder about Margery’s sudden change of social circles, or the sudden appearance of a social life at all for that matter. For the past thirty years, that the couple had lived in the town, Margery had been nothing more than a housewife. They had no children, and she hardly ever left the house unless it was to go sit on the bench by the wishing well and read. She continued to go even after the well dried up some twenty years back. Her husband, Calvin Oliphant, eight years her senior, had been a manager at some gravel yard, working his way through the hoops and was able to retire at the age of 63. That was two years ago. Since then, and before that, there was never any word from the Oliphant house. No one trick-or-treated there. The Christmas decorations were minimal. Never a manger scene, that much was certain. The only events that Ronnie could think of that he’d ever seen Margery and Calvin at together was twice a year at the Lutheran Church. He didn’t remember seeing them there this Easter. By the end of the week, on the Friday before Labor Day weekend, Ronnie had stopped his wondering and written off the whole event as a religion-makes-people-different kind of thing.
The float of the First Ladies Auxiliary of Those that Help Themselves was fifth in the parade line up. Sister Margery Oliphant sat at the very front of the trolley, waving a fifty-cent American flag and wearing a patriotic red blazer over a white cotton top and dark blue slacks. She chose more natural make up, but still heavy on the eye shadow. Other ladies in the Auxiliary also wore heavier eye make up, but only, as they explained, so their faces would show better in pictures.
The local newspaper reporter, who moonlighted as a telemarketer though nobody acknowledged this fact, snapped over fifteen pictures of the ladies on the trolley, all the while saying “Big smile, that’s right, come on show the people your cane!”
Children shouted greetings and the neighborhood teenagers not on other floats hooted and hollered loudly from the crowd. The fire truck, four floats back, sounded its siren and the horses at the end of the parade line up jumped at their reigns. The high school band played the school song over and over to the drum major’s constant cadence of “Get in step: Left, Left, Left, Right, L— I Said get IN STEP!!!”
At seven o’clock that night, Council Woman Janise Wolfe began the Annual Labor Day Pancake Dinner. She said the opening prayer herself and then, mostly to expel the anticipation that hung as a tangible fog in the room, she immediately turned the microphone over to the evening’s Honored Speaker: Mrs. Margery Abigail Oliphant. Margery stood to her full height before the podium. She seemed not to be leaning on her cane; she held a large stack of prepared notes. Ronnie Jenkins marveled at how she seemed to have grown two inches in the past two weeks, others marveled at how it was they had never seen this great woman before.
Margery’s eyes were lit with the fires of importance as she began her speech, “My dearest brothers and sisters in Christ, I’m honored. I knew there was a reason for my being. I have felt this for some time. The day God pushed me down the stairs was the day I was born anew. He saw that I was living in sin, in filth of my own making, and He knew He had to do something drastic to get my attention. He gave me a push in the right direction. I have since then been changing my life completely around! We as mortal sinners cannot see the pathetic existence of our lives. We know not that the Earth carries our physical and spiritual weight with contempt. The Earth is horrified at our being and she shudders when a new sinner is born. I am living proof that God loves each and every one of us enough to—“
The corkboard on the wall lit up with the opening of the community hall’s door. People turned, curious to see who dared to arrive late, in the middle of such a powerful speech. Calvin Oliphant, in his old work crew jacket and holding a beer, leaned casually against the back wall. His eyes were hooded, his face turned towards his now silent wife.
“—to, um, to be pushed for our greater purpose. This is what I am saying. Listen to me, hear my plea.” Margery finished speaking in a hesitant and hurried voice. Then, leaning heavy on her cane, she descended from the podium and worked her way through the crowd to stand by her husband. The Council Woman rose to thank their honored guest. The audience members, listening politely to the Council Woman, saw the light shine on the corkboard and then darken with the closing of the door.
Six hours later, at one-thirty AM Sunday morning, Sheriff Ben Piper knocked on the Oliphant’s front door. His beeper sounded from his belt clip; therefore, he was looking down when the door opened. Distractedly, still trying to turn the noise off, he said, “Mr. Oliphant, I’m sorry to bother you sir, but a neighbor heard a noise and—“
Sheriff Piper looked up and choked on an intake of breath. Margery Oliphant stood in the doorway, her head tilted slightly to the left, wearing a light green sleeveless nightgown. Rusty crunchy specks splattered her breast. Her eyes were circled black. Her shoulders and upper arms ranged from fresh dark purple to sickened yellow. Her knuckles were white; her fingers reddened gripping a gun’s handle. Behind her on the floor, face up with his eyes separated by a gaping black hole, laid Calvin Oliphant in a congealed pool of blood.
“He pushed me.”