Free Driftless by David Rhodes Page A

this manner she had been led to the Words Friends of Jesus Church and into her current circumstances. The opportunity had come unexpectedly, while she was waiting for a barber to trim her hair in a tiny three-chair shop in Cincinnati.
    As the steady snipping of long-handled stainless steel scissors performed thin, rapid, rhythmic, metallic insect music, she turned the pages of limp glossy outdoors magazines. Oily smells from colored bottles on the shelf along the mirror combined with the odor of men in vinyl chairs and pictures of trophy animal heads to create a not exactly pleasant atmosphere, and her discomfort—not with the room itself so much as her condemnation of it—was reflected in her face shrinking around her eyes.
    “So you attend the Bible college,” said the barber nearest to her, resuming a conversation he had attempted to start earlier. Of the three men cutting hair, this one seemed the most dedicated to establishing personal connections, and Winnie thought he might be the owner. His arms, hands, and wrists moved with an effortless, rubbery fluidity. As the youngest person in the room and the only female, she assumed she was fair game for conversation. One of the social obligations of being younger, and female, entailed letting people talk to you.
    “Yes, I’ll graduate soon.”
    “Congratulations to you, Ma’am,” the barber said, gesturing with his rubbery limbs. “We need good preachers and I understand there’s a shortage of them in all denominations.”
    “Whether I will be good remains an open question,” said Winnie. “I will try to be.” She put down the magazine and smiled in what she hoped was a professional manner.
    “As far as I’m concerned,” spoke a man sitting next to her, waiting to have his hair and beard trimmed, “women make just as good pastors as men. The Man Upstairs made both men and women and I doubt there’s a whisker’s worth of difference between them in church work.” He smiled at her in a kind manner, though his mouth seemed somewhat crooked.
    Winnie attempted to ignore the problems caused for women in the church when even those men in favor of gender equality thought in terms of men upstairs and measured the lack of difference between men and women in whiskers. She reminded herself to listen for the intention of what people say and ignore the words. And the intention seemed reasonably cheerful.
    Besides, this was one of those rare opportunities for her to be available, open to others—when divine matters had been spoken of in public. As she knew, most people thought very little about God. Their busy lives consisted of eating, drinking, social climbing, fornicating, and all the attendant thoughts needed to secure perpetuity for those activities. They marched in an ultimately joyless parade of orifice functions finding expression in a complex society. Only on rare occasions did the human spirit break free from these fugacious concerns and seek a greater joy. And Winnie’s primary responsibility, as she understood it, was to nurture those moments while not intruding into other people’s privacy.
    “I don’t imagine genitalia matter much,” she said, trying to look both amiable and sincere.
    “You both are missing something,” said a middle-aged man with sideburns seated on the middle stool, staring at himself in the mirror. He spoke with authority, as though he was accustomed to having people listen to him. “The reason there aren’t enough preachers is
     that fewer and fewer people believe such rank superstition. Religion is irrelevant to the modern world.”
    Winnie gathered her long skirt carefully around her hiking boots, tilted her head back, and shook it. She then remained suspended in a moment of hesitation, as though standing at the end of a high diving board from which she felt the compulsion to jump.
    “Actually,” she said, leaping forward, “there has been an increase in church attendance in the past twenty years. People flock to