The Chain Across the Churchyard Gate Hid More Than My Bus

The first thing I saw was my own blue bus through a new chain.

The gate stood at the back of an old churchyard in Richmond. The church had moved out years before. Perry Whitcomb owned the brick hall, the gravel yard, and the narrow drive off the street. I rented one corner for $425 a month.

He did not own the bus.

I was a short, brown-skinned Dominican American woman of twenty-six, with thick black curls I tied above my round face.

Most days, paste marked my sleeves. I worked as a mobile bookbinder, fixing torn pages, sewing loose sections, and giving worn books strong new covers. My bus held a standing press, a sewing frame, and nine family Bibles that belonged to customers.

That morning, it also held my lunch.

Perry came around the hall carrying a paper cup.

Perry Whitcomb was a broad, pink-faced white American man of forty-eight, with pale eyes and a neat gray beard above a brown work vest.

“You beat the rain,” he said.

“Your chain beat me.”

He smiled as if I had praised his fence.

“We need to settle some business, Grace.”

“Altagracia.”

He had shortened my name since the first rent check. I had corrected him each time. A person could wear down a book hinge by working it too hard. I had learned people tried the same thing.

“The bus became an improvement when you hooked up water and power,” he said. “Part of the property now.”

I looked through the gate. The water hose lay beside the rear tire. The power cord ran to an outlet he had shown me himself.

“A plug doesn't turn a bus into a building.”

“You're young. Property gets complicated.”

“Then let's read our agreement.”

“I'm offering neighborly advice. Don't pour money into lawyers.”

He pulled a folded sheet from his vest. At the top, he had typed VOLUNTARY WORKSHOP TRANSFER. Below that sat a price: $600.

I had paid $18,600 for that bus before I built the shelves.

“Six hundred for what?”

“Your interest in the business equipment. Clean exit. Otherwise, we need to discuss removal charges. Call it $4,800.”

“You just said I couldn't remove it.”

He took a slow drink.

“That's why you should take the simple option.”

I made no move toward the paper.

Behind the windshield, a row of tiny books sat on the dash. Every time I used a new leather offcut, I made a practice binding smaller than a matchbox. The little books helped me test a fold, a stitch, a strip of glue.

There were thirty-one of them. One was the warm yellow of a porch light.

I had made that one the night I signed Perry's yard agreement. It had six blank pages and a crooked spine. The agreement had a second sheet he seemed to have forgotten.

I had not.

“Let me get the customer books,” I said.

“Once we settle.”

“Those belong to other people.”

“Then you have a good reason to be sensible.”

I set my tool bag down and took out my phone.

“Are you taking a picture of me?”

“The gate. The chain. The notice you taped there.”

His smile thinned.

The notice said ACCESS SUSPENDED, but it gave no amount owed, no date to fix anything, and no way to collect my things.

I photographed my paid rent receipt through the clear sleeve in my bag. Then I photographed his transfer sheet while he still held it.

“Pictures won't pay court costs,” he said.

That was the part he believed. I was a young woman working out of an old bus. He had seen me mend my own coat. He knew I sometimes bought screws four at a time.

He had not seen the metal file box under my kitchen chair.

Inside it, my vehicle title lay flat beside the signed rental addendum. I kept the originals away from paste, water, and other people's hands.

“I'll answer you in writing,” I said.

“By Friday. After that, storage starts.”

“What storage rate?”

“We'll work something out.”

I wrote those words in my order pad, with the time beside them.

Then I walked to the bus stop on the other side of the street. A city crew had left bright marks around a drain. Somewhere beyond the roofs, a freight train sounded near the river.

My first customer called before the city bus came.

“Is Mama's Bible ready?” Mrs. Bell asked.

“It needs one more day for the hinge to dry,” I said. “There's also an access problem. I'm working on it.”

I would not tell her everything was fine. Her mother's notes filled the margins. Fine had to mean something.

A white van stopped at Perry's gate.

He waved the driver in, then noticed me watching. He hurried to close the gate behind it.

Before the boards blocked my view, the driver lifted a clipboard and called, “I'm here about the workshop sale.”