A family with a congenital malformation. Passed on from Angelo to Gia to Rudolfo to Petri. Well, he thought, we will be seeing some old pictures, and maybe that will end it. Then I can go back to my realty office, and Sharp can go back to Berkeley.
Or, he thought, was Angelo Bastioni possibly a Neanderthal, or partly Neanderthal? Mousterian blood, left over from the old days, from the cold winters? Angelo Bastioni, formerly a chipper of flint axes, more recently in the dairy business. Now deceased.
“Maybe we ought to forget this,” he said aloud. “I don’t see what we have to gain out here.”
The vet said, “I tend to agree.”
At the wheel the sheriff said, “It’s up to you people. I’m doing this for you, not for myself.” He slowed the car. “I’ve got plenty of other things to do.”
“This is quite important,” Wharton said. “Getting to the bottom of this.”
“The bottom of what?” Runcible said. “It’s been established that the skull was deformed from the start. Possibly we can find some trace of an hereditary taint of some kind.” He felt tired and irritable; the digging at the graveyard had not been a pleasure to him. “What’s the point of stirring up some old secret, that there’s bad blood of some kind in some early family—” He gestured. “Whose present-day representatives live out here like Okie share-croppers. Or worse. Like something out of Steinbeck.”
Sharp said, “Obviously we can’t stop.”
“Why not?” Runcible said.
“When the first Neanderthal skull was found,” Sharp said, “years ago, it was thought to be merely a deformity.”
At that, the sheriff drove on. Runcible lay back against the seat. What can I do? he asked himself. It is out of my hands. I can’t stop this man, this nut from the university, from pursuing this. From digging around and dragging old crap up to the light of day.
And he thought, Nothing good is going to come to light in this lousy scummy area. Out of these chicken wire shacks and rotten old ex-stores that haven’t been repaired or worked on in forty years.
There ought to be a county condemnation order made out against this dung heap, he thought. On sanitary grounds. On reasons of health. A pollution of our assets…our carefully maintained houses and farms are menaced. This could at least be zoned, he thought.
“Where do you want to stop?” Sheriff Christen asked.
Sharp said, “At that house with a light. Where you see a light.”
I’m not going in, Runcible said to himself.
When the car had stopped, and the sheriff had turned off the motor, Runcible said, “I’m staying here. I’m not going into that pig pen and wallow around with people that dawn man wouldn’t have had in his home.” He found, to his amazement, that he was almost unable to speak. He felt terrible rage towards the other men in the car.
Seth Faulk, after a pause, said, “What is it, Runcible? Now that this has led into an undesirable real estate area, you’re no longer interested.” He, too, sounded angry. “You lost interest when you figured it might cost you some money.”
“Money,” Runcible said, “Listen, it’s pride that would keep me from setting foot in there. I don’t have any dealings with these oyster peddlers. Somebody ought to take a match and burn these shacks down. This whole business gripes me; really gripes me. We started out with something of importance, something scientific. Now what do we have? I’ll tell you what we have. We’re going to go to a lot of trouble to prove that there’s nothing around this area—we can’t dig up anything more important to humanity and mankind in general—than the degenerate ancestors of a bunch of degenerates. I’ll tell you what I call that. I call that foolish. I call that moronic. And anybody interested in it is moronic. Listen, you think I sent all those telegrams and made all those phone calls and dealt with really important people in the university circles such as Bowman and Freitas—Freitas, who I understand is about the foremost authority in his field in the United States—to get out here in this place and find out that some sub-nebbish’s grandfather had a club foot and a missing palate and talked like he had his elbow stuck in his gullet?”
His voice had risen, and the sound of it had evidently carried to the shack. The door opened, and a man appeared on the porch with a lantern. “Who’s there?” he called in a stern, nervous voice.
The sheriff said, “This is Christen. Sheriff Christen. And the vet, Doc Heyes.”
The man came cautiously towards them. “What’s all the racket? You got a drunk man there?”
Ignoring the man and his lantern, Runcible said, “We have to keep this on a level that has meaning.”
Sharp said, “It isn’t possible to determine the meaning in advance.”
“You have to wait,” Wharton said. “We don’t know what results we’re going to get by the time we’re through.”
“That’s how contemporary science operates,” Sharp said as he got out of the car. To the man he said, “Sorry to bother you. We’re looking for a particular person but we don’t know his name.”
In the light of the lantern, Runcible saw the man shaking hands with Dudley Sharp. Wharton, too, got out, and so did Seth Faulk. The sheriff remained behind the wheel. The vet hesitated, and then he, too, stepped from the car and came around beside Sharp and Wharton and the man with them.
“I guess I’d better go in with them,” Sheriff Christen said to Runcible. “So that guy from the university doesn’t go prying into any more than he has to. These people have rights; they live in this area, too. I’m supposed to look out for them.” As he got out he leaned back and said in a hoarse whisper to Runcible, “I don’t like that guy, that Sharp. He’s always grinning; you know?” He tapped Runcible on the shoulder in a friendly manner, but Runcible did not stir. He showed no sign; he ignored the sheriff.
The door slammed. He was alone in the car. The six men moved together up the path, to the chicken wire and tar paper shack, the man’s lantern lifting and falling in the darkness.
In all they visited three little old houses. Michael Wharton had been out here, before, and this half-abandoned town fascinated him. It had, to him, the ancient aura; it survived from the past, and it was the past that had always captured him. This trip was sheer delight.
But, he thought as he sat on the sofa in the third crowded tiny living room with its lamps and carpets and fringed mats and hooked rugs, this is no pleasure for Runcible. In each case the Realtor had remained in the car with an expression on his face of weariness and resentment.
They had seen a number of old pictures, now. The oyster farmers had been glad to trot out faded, crushed photograph albums tied up with yellow tassled cords; they had spread out one brownish picture after another and given complete accounts of the individuals shown. They were childishly glad to have someone come by and take some interest in them. How lonely this was out here, he realized. There was nothing for these people, now. Their chickens and sheep. Their oyster barge. And TV. In each cramped little living room a TV set sat on its table, and the members of the family had their chairs placed around it. That was why so few lights had shown. Reception was not good out here; the picture was blurred and grainy. But the people were glad to have it. And he could not blame them. In fact, as this elderly woman told them about another great aunt, and pointed again and again to the portrait photo, he found his eyes straying to the TV screen, which had been left on. Red Skelton was doing something with a bathtub, and in spite of himself he began to watch.
Sharp’s voice broke him from the spell of the set. “Look,” Sharp was saying to him and the vet and Seth Faulk and the sheriff. He did look, then.
On the sofa lay a group picture, showing four men. Three of the men appeared perfectly ordinary; the pictures had been taken, he guessed, about 1890. The mustaches indicated that. The men evidently were at a mountain cabin; he saw a chopping block, an ax, the clapboard side of the cabin, a dog. The men wore overalls. All had a stern, solemn expression. The fourth man, he saw, had a gigantic jaw. Even in this old picture the
jaw was conspicuous. And, he thought, the man seemed stooped and smaller than the others.
The old woman droned on. Sharp pointed to the fourth man, and she continued on that topic, without a pause.
“Oh indeed,” she said. “Yes, that’s the chupper jaw.”
“Was that his family name?” Sharp said.
The old woman—she wore a dark silk dress and black stockings, and her hair was hidden by a scarf—smiled and said, “No, not the family name at all.” It seemed to amuse her and she laughed.
“Why, then?” Sharp said. “I never have heard that word.”
To himself, Wharton thought, I have.
He said, “Chopper. Chipper.” What was it exactly?
“Chupper,” the old woman repeated.
“But it’s from some other word,” Wharton said.
“I never heard it pronounced anything but chupper,” the old woman said.
“Where was that taken?” Sharp asked. “That picture.”
“On the Ridge,” the old woman said. She had told them all her name, but Wharton had not caught it. “On the east side, the other side. It was wilder in those days. Nobody living there hardly.”
“They weren’t farmers, were they?” Wharton said.
“No,” the old woman said. “They operated the lime pits. That’s how they got the name chuppers. Anybody who worked at the lime pits got called a chupper. They didn’t like that; it always made them mad.”
Sharp persisted, “But why the jaw?”
“Everyone who worked at the lime pits nearly always had the chupper jaw.” She wanted to go on to the next picture; obviously there were more relatives to show. But Sharp stopped her.
“Did just men get it?” he said.
“No,” she said. “Women too.”
“Did women work at the pits?”
She stared at him in confusion. “No, of course not.”
“Do you have any more pictures of the chupper jaw?” Wharton said, “I’d like to see more, if you don’t mind.”
Considering at length, the old woman said, “I believe I can lay my hands on another picture.” Rising, she squeezed by them and out of the living room. They heard her rummaging in a drawer somewhere.
The old woman returned with a packet. Seating herself, she opened the packet by unwinding a red thread. On her lap she laid out more pictures, and from them she selected one.
This old photograph showed a young woman. Again they saw the jaw, and the heavy brows. The woman had a brutish expression, sullen and inert, as if some heavy force had settled over her; she gazed at the camera without comprehension or interest. Terrible, Wharton thought. What a terrible misfortune it was for them.
And, he thought, these people are now the bones back at the graveyard. Under the wooden crosses. Where Walt Dombrosio and Jack Vepp rooted around; they dug these people up and confronted us with them.
“It looks worse,” he said to the old woman. Now he remembered the name she had called herself. “Mrs. Neeldo,” he said.
Mrs. Neeldo said, “It is worse. This picture was taken—” She studied it, and then the group picture of the four men. “Taken twenty years later.”
At once Sharp said, “The malformation worsened over the years?” He leaped up in agitation.
“Yes,” the old woman said. “It finally got so bad they couldn’t hardly eat or talk.”
“What did they eat?”
Mrs. Neeldo said, “Oh, they ate a lot of porridge. Soft foods. They didn’t have no teeth, some of them. They had them taken out.”
“Why?” Sharp said.
“So they could talk better.”
“What finally happened to them?” Sharp said. “There’re no more chupper-jawed people, are there? Aren’t they all dead?”
Mrs. Neeldo, reflecting, said, “I believe the last person with a chupper jaw died in 1923. Just a moment.” She called into the next room, “Arthur, when did the last person you know of have the chupper jaw, and when did he die?”
A man’s voice from the other room answered, “You were right; about 1923.”
“But,” the old woman said, “most of them moved away anyhow. Before then.”
“Why?” Sharp said.
“Well,” Mrs. Neeldo said, “it was so terrible; it was getting so much worse. All of them living on that side of the Ridge were getting it. We didn’t get it over here.” In the group picture she pointed out one of the men, not the man with the chupper jaw. “That was my great uncle. He worked cutting down trees with these others. That man with the jaw; his name was Ben Taber. When that picture was taken he wasn’t working at the lime pits; he had quit. He came over the Ridge for a while and lived here, in Carquinez.”
“They thought by moving away from the lime pits—” Wharton began.
“Yes,” Mrs. Neeldo interrupted. “They had a settlement by the pits. Roads were so bad, then. Nothing but dirt.”
“What caused the jaw?” Wharton said.
“The water on that side,” Mrs. Neeldo said.
“The water,” the vet said, after a time.
“Yes,” she said. “It had some kind of salt in it that gave them a poison. They got it from their wells that they dug.”
The vet said, “The lime pits aren’t far from Poor Man’s Hollow.” He stared at Wharton. “Actually, not far from Carquinez.”
“This is Carquinez,” Mrs. Neeldo said. “Oh, you mean the new town. That’s so. Well, we don’t get over there very much.”
“Where did they move to?” Sharp said.
“Up north,” Mrs. Neeldo said. “Up into Oregon. Along the coast somewhere. I can find out the name of the town for you. As far as I know they’re still up there. Those people.”
“The lime pits,” Seth Faulk said. “The water. We’ve always known our water supply was contaminated.”
“Can I smoke?” Sheriff Christen said, reaching into his breast pocket. Wharton could not tell if he understood; his face showed nothing.
“Surely, Sheriff,” Mrs. Neeldo said. “I’ll get you an ashtray.” She rose and hurriedly looked about the room.
When they had left the house and got back into the car. Leo Runcible glared at them without speaking. At last, when Christen had started up the car and was heading back towards the Ridge, Runcible said,
“What did it have to do with?”
Wharton said, “The water.”
“I knew that damn water was going to give us a black eye some day,” Runcible said. “That water company ought to be put under arrest. That repairman—he looks like some shambling cave man himself. He’s worse than a Neanderthal; he’s something on the level of the Peking man. The first time I saw him I knew there was some god damn thing wrong with the water; he must live in it. That stuff comes out of the pipe as black as sheep shit. My god, you go to fill a glass and it’s swill; it’s unfit for animals. You can see the bugs floating around in it.”
Wharton said, “It’s minerals in the soil or something.” None of them felt like speaking.
Staring out of the car window, Leo Runcible thought, You morons. That’s what you are; a bunch of morons. I told you so.
“Here’s how I feel,” he said, when none of the rest of them had said anything for a time. During his long stay alone in the car he had had time to do a good deal of meditating. “You’re probably aware now what a moronic idea it was to go out to that god-forsaken podunk, those oyster shacks and people with nothing to do all day but whittle on the pier. Isn’t that right? I mean, let’s be reasonable. Haven’t you pushed the thing far enough as it is? We’re alt conscious of the foolishness that this has turned into; I mean, my god. Nobody wants this. I see no point in this. Do you?”
None of them answered.
“Well, I’ll tell you.” Runcible continued. “Let’s just forget the whole thing. Let sleeping dogs lie. Isn’t that right? Isn’t that a grain of common sense in this whole foolish god damn mess? I say, if we have any sense—and I know we do—let’s get the hell out of here. Are you with
me? Do you follow me? Let’s not rush out like a bunch of howling wolves and spill over our chins.” To Seth Faulk he said, “That newspaper of yours; it won’t be any bigger or better; it won’t have done any better job of serving the community by printing a lot of inflammatory crap about the water supply and the boogie man that’s going to get us. I mean, who benefits? There are ways and ways. And I’ll tell you; the quiet way is the best way.”
Presently Wharton said, “We only have the viewpoint of one old woman. We have no evidence that the water supply is—or was—involved.”
“There you see,” Runcible said, spreading his hands in the darkness of the car. “What the hell—some old crone in there gives out with her ten-dollars’ worth of spiel—my god, she’s probably been sitting in there for thirty-five years boning up that pitch. Do you call this science? I’ll tell you what I call it; I call it old wives’ tales. Isn’t that so?” He addressed the five of them in the car with him.
The vet said, “There are some things for the good of the area that aren’t worth making public.”
“There, that’s what I mean,” Runcible said. “Let’s face facts; are we adults? Are we grown men? Or are we like those horses’ asses at Donkey Hall, a bunch of overgrown boys playing pranks, goosing women by sticking electric shocks up their skirts? I know something that you know; there’s been bubonic plague in California for years, now. And it’s hushed up. You have to hush it up. We live in this area. We have our homes here. Our kids go to school here. Am I right?”
It had seemed such a reasonable statement to make, earlier, as he had sat alone in the car. We have our families and businesses, here, he was telling them; he spoke in his most powerful, mature manner, the one he used at the crucial moment in a sale, when the client was wavering on the now-or-never brink. Whether to sign or not.
“We have a responsibility,” he said. “To the merchants here, to the families, the farmers. To the area itself.” And then, in the darkness, he saw Sharp sitting there, outlined against the car window. And he thought, My god, that’s right. That bastard does not live here. He’s from outside the county.
The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike Page 25