by Nick Poff
“What have you got planned for me today?” Rex asked, not bothering to look up from his Rice Krispies.
Ed and Rick exchanged devious grins. “Today I want you to get to know the Hausers,” Ed said. “You’ll need to go to the hardware store and pick up some new filters for their furnace, and then install them.”
Rex sent Ed a puzzled glance. “That won’t take long.”
“No it won’t,” Ed agreed. “However, while you are in the Hauser basement changing the filters, I expect either Herb or Gwen or, if you’re really lucky, both of them will be there with you, chattering away. At some point they will notice how messy the basement is, and they’ll ask you to ‘tidy up a bit’. Once you have begun tidying, one of them will see a box they had forgotten about and open it. Then surely another box will be opened. At some point you will be repacking boxes and tidying up. If you’re out of there before lunch, I’ll buy you lunch.”
“The Hausers are your initiation in the wild and wonderful world of Ed’s clients,” Rick told him. “You might as well get it over with.”
Rex reached for the juice pitcher with a scowl.
“They’re really very nice people,” Ed assured him. “They’re just a bit absent-minded and chatty.”
“Oh-kay,” Rex muttered as he topped off his juice glass.
“And if Gwen’s been baking,” Rick added, “and she asks if you want to take some home, say yes, no matter what it looks like.”
“Geez, Rick, don’t scare the kid,” Ed admonished.
“I don’t have to eat it, do I?” Rex demanded.
“No. Just say it looks marvelous, and you want to take it home to share with us.”
“Wow, this is just as bad as being nice to customers at the Pit Stop,” Rex grumbled.
“It is,” Ed told him. “But it pays better. So don’t bitch.”
###
Ed had one specific chore on his own morning agenda while the Hausers kept Rex occupied. He wanted make a thorough inspection of the Cooley Street house and determine what, if anything, needed to be done before Rick put the house on the market.
When he pulled up in front he was pleased to see Al, the house painter he’d hired, hard at work on the side of the house facing Celeste Burns’ place. Al waved at Ed. “Going great,” he shouted. “I’m thinking Friday after Labor Day at the latest, if the weather holds.”
“Thanks,” Ed called. “I can always count on you, Al.”
He walked through the yard admiring Josh’s simple but elegant landscape work. Josh had a genuine feel for creating homey Midwestern arrangements. Ed had often found himself sneering at some of the grounds surrounding homes near the country club and other moneyed areas of town. They looked pretentious to his eyes.
Once inside, Ed found himself nodding with pleasure. Their decorating choices were great. Rex’s work with the painting and flooring was excellent. All in all, they had pulled off exactly what Ed was hoping for; a home with the essence of the Denisons’ mid-century occupation, but with all the amenities and functionality needed for a family approaching the twenty-first century.
“Damn, we’re good,” Ed whispered with a sense of accomplishment. Unless he was missing something that Rick’s eye might catch, they were almost ready to sell.
Ed’s emotions were mixed, though. He felt his usual relief at the completion of a project, but he was reluctant to let this one go. He knew it was because of Evie and Daniel. Through Daniel’s journal, he felt he had gotten to know them, and selling the house seemed to be abandonment, and the Denison siblings had already been abandoned so often. “I wish there was some way I could make it up to you,” he whispered.
The rooms were devoid of furniture, so Ed went to the hearth where he had discovered Daniel’s hiding place and sat down, feeling the loose stones shift beneath him. It didn’t seem right, he thought, to leave without Daniel’s entire story. Muriel seemed to think Ernie Jacks would fill in the blanks, but Ed wasn’t at all convinced of that. Even if Muriel tracked him down, Ed doubted Ernie would tell them anything. Why should he? If his embarrassment and guilt over the Denisons had led him to cover his identity, why should he feel any need to say anything to the two gay guys who bought and renovated the house for a lousy buck? He was probably just relieved to get it off his hands, once and for all.
Ed sighed in frustration. His mind’s eye swept through the house once more, trying to determine if there was some nook or cranny he had not explored. He couldn’t think of any. He glanced at the other side of the hearth’s stone wall. He blinked a few times. “Oh, Stephens,” he muttered. “How could you be so stupid?”
He quickly got down on his knees on the opposite side. He ran his hands gently over the stones, hoping to find some crack or fissure that would indicate the same sort of hollow he’d found on the other side. The stones seemed to be perfectly solid, but when he flopped on his belly to have a closer look he found what he was looking for. It wasn’t as detectable as the other one had been, but he could tell the seal of the stones had been broken.
Ed carefully used his fingers to pry the stones apart. They gave, but he couldn’t get his fingers under the ones he needed to lift. He ran out to his truck and grabbed a chisel, a hammer, and a crowbar. Carefully inserting the crowbar into the crack he realized the bottoms of the irregular stones had somehow caught together. Once he was past that obstruction, it was a simple task to lift away two of the stones.
“There’s no way I would ever have found this if I hadn’t found the other one first,” he whispered as he set the stones aside.
He peered into the recess, and his heart skipped a beat. There was another spiral notebook. He carefully pulled it out and saw another notebook, and what looked like paperback books tucked to one side. One of the notebooks was marked DANIEL DENISON BOOK 1 1960. The other made Ed whoop with joy, for Daniel had written upon its cover DANIEL DENISON BOOK 1 1961.
Ed hugged the notebooks to his chest in relief. He was all set to drive over to Rick’s office when he groaned, remembering; Rick and Vince were in Fort Wayne for a meeting with a land developer and wouldn’t return to Porterfield until after lunch.
“Well, shit,” he shouted in the empty room. He sat back on the new carpet and toyed with the idea of opening the notebook without Rick when he suddenly remembered the other books in the hiding place. He reached inside and removed what turned out to be two paperbacks that had become stuck together over the years. The cover of the top book raised his eyebrows. Border Fever was the title, and the cover depicted two hunky men in ripped shirts.
“Why, Daniel, you scamp,” Ed muttered. “What kind of trashy stuff were you reading between chapters of Tale of Two Cities?”
He pried the bottom book lose, ripping the cover in the process. It was The City and The Pillar by Gore Vidal, the book Daniel supposedly gave to Ernie for Christmas.
“Now I’m confused,” Ed said.
He smoothed out the tattered cover, and discovered the first few pages were also stuck together. He carefully pulled them apart, and then he gasped when he saw what was written on the inside cover.
Ed recalled what Muriel had told them just the other day, repeating what Greta Cobb had said. No one had a shred of privacy with Gladys Jacks around.
“Oh, Daniel,” Ed said softly. “Why didn’t you stop and think for a minute before you handed this book to Ernie?”
Even with the cover now ripped Ed could easily read the words: DANIEL DENISON.
###
Rex and Rick were sprawled on the den couch. Ed sat in one of the wing chairs by the fireplace, the notebooks and paperbacks in his lap. The storms that had been threatening for days had finally arrived. It was pouring down rain with occasional rumbles of thunder. Ed had turned on a lamp so he could see well enough to read. The setting and the general atmosphere put him in mind of the climactic scene in an old murder mystery movie. Any moment he expected Peter Ustinov to stride in, dressed as Hercule Poirot, and give his explanation of each clue that led him to t
he guilty party.
“I glanced through the book once I got home,” Ed said quietly. “I didn’t see any sense to plow through the stuff that didn’t have a bearing on Daniel’s death. The trouble started with good old Professor Forrest.”
“Who’s he?” Rex asked.
“He is a Dickensian scholar Daniel knew from Crestland College,” Rick explained. “Daniel had written to him and asked him to come and talk to his sophomore English class before they began A Tale of Two Cities.”
Rick turned to Ed. “How in the hell could someone as innocuous as a Dickens nerd get Daniel into trouble?”
“He wasn’t as innocuous as Daniel thought,” Ed said grimly.
Tuesday, February 7, 1961
Imagine my surprise, after the warm and enthusiastic reception my class gave Professor Forrest, when I was called to the principal’s office to discuss his visit. When I saw Hilda seated in Mr. Gorham’s office, I knew something was seriously wrong.
I had no idea there was a student in my class with John Birch parents. Even if I had known this, I still would have invited Professor Forrest to talk. What could be the possible harm in sharing the experiences of a Dickensian scholar, even with the child of radically right parents? Turns out I didn’t know as much about Professor Forrest as I thought.
Mr. Gorham gently explained that the unidentified student’s parents had called him to complain about Professor Forrest’s visit. Apparently, in his earlier years, Professor Forrest was an active socialist, and those damned Birchers seem to have an actual list of people in education with connections to any sort of leftist ideology, which, as we all know, makes one a communist sympathizer. Well, not to people with a grain of common sense, but who ever accused a John Bircher of having something as basic as common sense?
Mr. Gorham asked for my side of the story. I told him in all honesty that I knew nothing about Professor Forrest’s politics or thoughts in general regarding communism. I only knew him as a Dickens scholar, and an interesting one at that. I had no intentions with his visit other than entertaining the class, and hopefully get them enthused to dig into Dickens.
Hilda backed me up, of course. Mr. Gorham seemed rather embarrassed by the whole thing. He told us he fully accepted our explanation. He then suggested Hilda and I co-author a letter to the parents in question apologizing for our completely inadvertent exposure of a leftist to their child, and swear it will never happen again. Mr. Gorham told us he would read the letter and cosign it.
The entire matter is absolutely preposterous, but as Hilda reminded me outside of Gorham’s office, we apparently live in preposterous times.
“Can you believe that?” Ed exclaimed. “’Preposterous’ is a fucking good word for it, all right.”
“I don’t understand,” Rex said. “The professor wasn’t talking about politics. He was talking about Dickens. What’s the big deal?”
“As Daniel wrote,” Rick said bitterly. “It didn’t have to make sense to those people. My dad used to get absolutely furious at the things those Birchers would demand of the schools. Why, at one point, they asked for copies of every book Dad used in his history classes. They wanted to make sure, since the books were written by intellectuals, that they hadn’t slipped some coded message about how great communism is into the text.”
“Being smart,” said Ed, “was almost a crime in itself to them.”
“Well, not so much being smart,” Rick clarified. “But critical thought was definitely frowned upon. You see, Rex, if you’re encouraged to think for yourself, you may begin to question, and if you do that, sooner or later you’ll be questioning authority, and that was a big no-no with people on the right.”
“It still is,” Ed muttered. “How else did we get Reagan for eight years?”
“I get it,” Rex nodded. “It’s how they kept people in their place, right?”
“More or less,” Rick agreed. “C’mon, baby, read what happened with that letter Daniel and Mrs. P. had to write.”
Ed turned his attention back to the notebook. Thunder loud enough to shake the house sent both cats scurrying out the room. The lamp flickered, but remained on. Ed looked at the next entry and groaned. “You’re not gonna believe this.”
Wednesday, February 8, 1961
I am in utter shock. I genuinely do not know whether to be angry or frightened. Before Hilda and I could even properly address the absurd scandal created by Professor Forrest’s visit, that queen of horrible harridans, Gladys Jacks, took it upon herself to pay Mr. Gorham a visit. From what Mr. Gorham told Hilda and me after school, the woman stood in front of his desk and insisted I be fired! Mr. Gorham said his efforts to reason with the woman were all but useless.
Therefore, Mr. Gorham is calling for a substitute to take over my classes. Hilda and I are to join Mr. Gorham in his office tomorrow morning at nine o’clock for a “discussion” with Gladys and her cronies.
I was so shaken I walked home in a daze, almost sliding on the ice once or twice. My stomach was sick with anxiety. I snuck into the bathroom and stole one of Evie’s tranquilizers in an attempt to calm myself. It has helped, but I’m still absolutely dreading that meeting tomorrow.
Speaking of Evie, I’ve told her none of this. She’s doing so well, and enjoying her little daily rituals. At this point I don’t want her to be concerned with anything other than the daily melodrama on The Secret Storm. Surely, surely, Mr. Gorham can settle this matter without my resignation!
“What’s The Secret Storm?” Rex asked.
“An old soap opera,” Ed told him. “Mom used to watch it back then.”
“Could they really get him fired for something so stupid?” This was Rex’s next question.
“Maybe,” Ed said. “If they made a big enough stink, and got enough people on their side…” He shook his head in disgust.
“And I don’t think this is going to get that far,” Rick said sadly. “I’m almost afraid to hear what happens next.”
Thursday, February 9, 1961
I am home from the meeting in Mr. Gorham’s office. I’ve taken another one of Evie’s pills. I may need more.
Gladys Jacks and her sergeant at arms, Dick Messner, were already there when Hilda and I walked in. The look on that woman’s face; how to describe it? Fanatical? Hateful? Vicious? No, I know the word now. Vengeful. I soon found out why, not so much by what she said, but by what she did not say.
She barely gave Hilda and me chance to be seated. She tore into my “blatant disrespect for American decency” by inviting Professor Forrest to speak to my class. The whole time she was carrying on, Dick Messner stared at me as though through the sight on a rifle.
But, oh, the screaming harpy wasn’t finished, not by a damn sight. She said she had evidence that Professor Forrest was a homosexual. Just what this evidence is, we did not learn. Before we could rebut anything she said in voice that was more of a hiss that Professor Forrest was a known communist and a homosexual, and I was a fellow traveler, spreading leftist and homosexual propaganda to my students. She looked almost triumphant when she revealed that piece of information.
Hilda and Mr. Gorham were visibly distressed. Mr. Gorham asked if Gladys was ready to back up her accusations against me. She smugly said, as she sneered at me, that she was. Suddenly I realized what this was all about. Somehow she had discovered the truth about Ernie and me. How, I do not know, but I could see it in her eyes. It all made sense to me then. This wasn’t about Professor Forrest at all. It was about me, and what she assumed I’d done to her son.
At that point the meeting disintegrated into a free-for-all. The only thing settled was Mr. Gorham’s decision to place me on a leave of absence while he “investigates the matter”. I again was so sick to my stomach I could barely get up from my seat. Gladys and Dick left looking smug and satisfied.
Hilda had to return to her classes. Mr. Gorham kindly drove me home as it was snowing quite heavily. He told me not to worry too much, that he’d seen this sort of foolishness before, and it w
ould blow over; the school board and other rational minds would prevail. I thanked him with a weak smile, and trudged through the snow into the house.
How will I survive this?
“Oh, Daniel,” Ed whispered. There was one entry left. He glanced at Rick and Rex, who looked about as sick as he felt.
Thursday, February 9, 1961 (10 pm)
I purposely waited until Evie went to bed to take this book out again. How can I tell her what’s going on???
While Evie was engrossed in her television programs, I did something I have never done – I called Ernie at the store. I could tell immediately from the guilty sound of his voice that he knew everything, in fact, knew even more than I. He told me to sit tight; he’d see me after the store closed at six.
I think I can honestly say this is the first time I was not pleased to see him walk through the front door. I’d had time to think, and thanks to another one of Evie’s pills, think calmly. What exactly was Ernie’s part in this whole debacle? And why did I have to call him? Why hadn’t he given me some sort of warning?
Ernie had two books with him, the Gore Vidal paperback I had given him at Christmas, and a pulp novel I’d never seen before. Ernie told me he had bought the pulp several years earlier, mostly because of the garish picture on the cover of two muscular men with ripped shirts, and had kept it hidden in a shoebox in his closet. After I had given him The City and The Pillar, he had stashed it away there as well. He didn’t think, he said, that Gladys knew it was a homosexual story, but he didn’t want to take any chances.
He then told me Gladys went into his closet to check on a suit she wanted him to wear for some upcoming church occasion. She claims she stumbled over the shoebox, revealing its contents. Maybe. I believe she was acting on an instinct I don’t even want to think about.