Raintree County

by Ross Lockridge Jr.

  AN INGENIOUS AND FORBIDDEN GAME AND THEN RETURN

  TO THE ALIEN EARTH FROM WHICH SHE

  HAD

  —COME, Mr. Shawnessy said. The Great Man will soon be here.

  —I see why you stay here, John, the Perfessor said. One is not confused about human beings on this little crossroads. One has only a few neighbors, and all of them are innocent cretins. It’s a good naked life. Perhaps you are trying to regain Paradise here.

  —You err, Professor. The Republic is established here in all its sophistication. We are very far from the Edenic nakedness. A Waycross housewife would endure whipping before she’d let the man next door see her bottom bare.

  —Thus, the Perfessor said, over Raintree County, the backside of creation, is draped the majestic garb of the Republic.

  —Yes, the State is the Individual writ large. The Republic is only people.

  Mr. Shawnessy made a vague gesture with his arm at the intersection, which he and the Perfessor had just reached. On foot and wheel, the citizenry of Raintree County converged on the street leading south to the Station. A band of business men, flushed and cherubic, marched in the street bearing a banner:

  HOWDY DO, SENATOR!

  FROM

  THE SOLID MEN’S CLUB OF FREEHAVEN

  Behind them marched a deputation of Civil War veterans, falsely vigorous men in faded, tightfitting uniforms, bearing a banner:

  HURRAH FOR COLONEL JONES

  AND THE SOLDIERS’ PENSION

  Behind them marched a delegation of healthy ladies, bearing a banner:

  THE SITTING AND SEWING SOCIETY

  GREETS YOU, SENATOR!

  Behind them rolled a score of bicyclists, teetering crazily on their seats atop the huge front wheels, bearing a banner:

  WHEELCOME, SENATOR!

  FROM

  THE WHEELMEN OF MIDDLETOWN

  Every now and then a band went by, blaring foggily. And all the time small boys broadcast firecrackers on yards and sidewalks.

  —Look at them! the Perfessor said. Aren’t they pitiful! All confidently believing that they are going to see the greatest man of the age. Is this your republic of enlightened individuals?

  —Here, Professor, are hundreds of republics. And here, too, is one Republic. E pluribus unum, as the emblem on the coin has it.

  —How is that? the Perfessor asked.

  —Show me the man who can solve the problem of the One and the Many, and I will follow in his footsteps as in those of a god.

  —If Socrates were living today, the Perfessor said, he’d be reduced to sitting on a crackerbarrel outside Joe’s Saloon chewing tobacco and telling dirty stories. That’s what America does to greatness. The Greeks were way ahead of us. They never made the mistake of attaching undue importance to the Individual. And they were right. We Americans make the modern error of dignifying the Individual. We do everything we can to butter him up. We give him a name, we assure him that he has certain inalienable rights, we educate him, we let him pass on his name to his brats, and when he dies, we give him a special hole in the ground and a hunk of stone with his name on it. But after all, he’s only a seed, a bloom, and a withering stalk among pressing billions. Your Individual is a pretty disgusting, vain, lewd little bastard—with all his puling palaver about his Rights! By God, he has only one right guaranteed to him in Nature, and that is the right to die and stink to Heaven.

  Conscious of having come an effective climax, the Perfessor snorted and puffed eloquently on his cigar.

  —As for your Republic, he went on, what is it but a brute aggregate of these pointless individuals, all of them worshiping the same illusions, trampling each other in their haste to applaud a fourflusher like Garwood B. Jones!

  —You don’t get the Republic by adding bodies together, Mr. Shawnessy said, beginning to be pushed about by the crowd. The Republic is an image that men live by. All life is a self—but in the Republic this self finds a greater self. The Republic begins with love and possibly guilt. In accepting the Republic, man gives up—a little regretfully—brute, naked selfishness. Government, like dress, is the badge of lost innocence.

  —Well, then, John, isn’t it a good thing to lose one’s innocence? Is there any virtue in virginity?

  The several bands had all taken up their stations around the Station, and in vying with each other all were defeating music.

  Blow ye the trumpet, blow!

  —Here where the two roads cross, Mr. Shawnessy said gently, I study and study the riddle of the Sphinx, the intersection of my life with the Republic.

  —Your little town seems a solid and steadfast institution, the Perfessor said, with its Bank, its Feedstore, and its Post Office. But all this is a frail mist hovering precariously over the Great Swamp. Only Nature with her blind fruitions is finally meaningful. Nothing can save us from the swamp at last.

  —Professor, I consider you definitely worth saving, and I won’t let you go back into that swamp.

  —Thank you very much, the Perfessor said, for keeping me out of that great dismal place.

  He made a jaunty movement with his malacca cane.

  Near the Station, the crowd was so dense that Mr. Shawnessy and the Perfessor could hardly get through. Women in dowdy summer gowns jockeyed the Perfessor’s nervous loins. Citizens with gold fobs and heavy canes thrust, lunged, cursed. The bands blared tunelessly. Firecrackers crumped under skirts of women, rumps of horses. From the struggling column of bodies, bared teeth and bulgy eyes stuck suddenly.

  Mr. Shawnessy stopped by a small board building.

  —Just a moment, Professor, I see the Post Office is open.

  He stepped into the little room and looked into the postmaster’s cage.

  —Anything for me, Bob?

  He studied the fat, steaming face of the postmaster, dispenser of the government mails.

  —Just a minute, John.

  The postmaster ran his eye along the pigeonholes.

  Out of the ocean that beats forever on the walls of my island self, a few words—like manuscripts found in a bottle or a legend graven on a broken oar.

  He remembered hundreds of letters and newspapers. He reached into the pigeonholes of hundreds of lost days and pulled out hundreds and hundreds of lost sheets of paper, and the shimmering mist of their words poured over him from the brightness of departed summers.

  Dear Johnny, I take my pen in hand to . . . Dear John, I seat myself and . . . My dearest Johnny, It is a painful task for me to . . . John Wickliff Shawnessy, Esq., Dear Sir, We are in receipt of . . . Dear Son, It pleases me to hear that . . . My dear Professor Shawnessy, We wish to bring to your attention a . . . My sweet husband, Do you miss your . . . Shawnessy, you goddam nogood bastard, if you think nobody’s on to . . . My Darling, It’s been a long time since . . .

  Did you want to assure yourself that I was still there? Were you reaching out for me with frail words across the vast spaces of the Republic? (There are no vaster spaces than divide next to next.) But did you want to touch me with words and find me out and reassure yourself that I was there, that I moved somewhere beneath the same day as yourself and that my eyes, falling upon these curved forms dropped on whiteness, would remember you and be touched?

  Out of the time that was not my time, out of the world I never knew—fragments of the immense puzzle of myself, letters and newspapers. They brought me tidings of myself and told me what I was and what I must do, brought me the noise of great names and roared them over and over in my ears to be certain I couldn’t forget.

  —Nice of you to stay open on the Fourth, Bob.

  —Just till the train comes in, John. I’m shutting up right away. I want to see the Senator arrive. Here they are. A letter and your newspaper.

  Mr. Shawnessy gave a quick glance at the envelope and then stuffed it along with the rolled newspaper into his pocket, for he had heard a distant whistle. Joining the Perfessor, he stood a little apart from the crowd near the station platform.

  —John, said the Perfes
sor, what in the hell is that big book under your arm?

  —Mr. Shawnessy! Yoohoo!

  A woman’s voice shrilled at him from the station platform.

  —Yes?

  —Time for the train. The committee is assembling.

  —Hold this for me, Professor. Amuse yourself by examining the beautiful and secret earth of Raintree County. Perhaps you may find something here to delight your pagan soul.

  —My God! the Perfessor said, flapping pages. Look at all the pictures of cows, manure piles, and Raintree County citizens.

  —Yoohoo, Mr. Shawnessy!

  —Coming.

  Mr. Shawnessy and the Perfessor pushed through the crowd to the station platform where a place had been reserved for the official Welcoming Committee.

  The Perfessor pulled a pencil and a notebook out of his pocket.

  —Be sure to say something memorable, John. Something that the world will not willingly let die. I’ll see that it appears in tomorrow’s Dial misquoted and with typographical errors.

  They joined the rest of the committee on the platform. A woman from Freehaven, wearing a large badge on her breast, stood holding a horseshoe of flowers. A man in Civil War uniform stood holding a box containing a gold medal. A solid-looking citizen, talltophatted and tailcoated, stood holding a large mantel clock, which showed the time to be nine-twenty-eight.

  —My Gracious! Mr. Shawnessy, the woman said, I’m so flustered. How does a person act anyway in the presence of a great man like Senator Jones?

  —Just don’t accept any cigars, Mr. Shawnessy said. Confidentially, I always found that Garwood’s cigars were the worst I ever smoked.

  —O, Mr. Shawnessy! You’re such a tease, the lady said, arching her back and giving him a sidelong glance. But honestly, I wish the Sitting and Sewing Society had chosen someone else to make the presentation speech.

  The man standing there holding the clock said,

  —I feel a little silly standing here, holding this clock.

  —For my part, I find it much easier to use a pocket watch, Mr. Shawnessy said.

  —This is a gift of the Solid Men’s Club, the man said. It cost one hundred and thirteen dollars, the best that money could buy in the City of Indianapolis.

  —Are you giving him anything? the lady said.

  —Just a bouquet of rhetoric, Mr. Shawnessy said.

  —When did you last see Garwood, John? the Perfessor asked.

  —It’s been nearly twenty years. I haven’t seen him since ’72, when he and I were opponents in the election for Congressional Representative.

  Senator Garwood B. Jones impinged from the East in the guise of a blacksnouted locomotive, pulling three special cars, draped with red, white, and blue bunting. When the train was a quarter of a mile distant, the band began to play ‘Hail to the Chief.’ The crowd strained and stared for a first glimpse of the statesman whose name was a household word throughout the Republic. People moved almost directly into the path of the train, waving the banners of welcome. Professor Stiles was making curves fast in his notebook.

  Mr. Shawnessy was deeply unprepared for the man who stood on the platform of the third coach. In a few seconds, he had to make revisions to the form of Garwood Jones that time had taken twenty years to make. The Senator had the belly sag of a fat old man. His hair was a yellow white. He had a stained look as though he had been in too many smokefilled rooms. The famous cigar in the left corner of the mouth pulled the whole face down and left, as if the features, recognizing their true center, were trying to regroup themselves around it. The head was still leonine, but fraudulently so, a mask worn too long without retouching. The eyebrows, thick and black, had a dyed look; and when the Senator, without removing his cigar, smiled his famous smile, his teeth were marmoreal in their chill perfection. It was reported that he had several plates in reserve and that he used now one, now another, depending on his mood and the acoustical situation like an expert violinist changing his Stradivarii.

  Only the handsome blue eyes, that always had a faint cynicism in their depths, were unchanged.

  The train stopped and left the figure of the Senator gesturing hugely, close to the startled crowd. The head jerked up and down, the teeth clenched hideously on an unlit cigar, the great, grotesque thing smiled, winked, stretched out its arms, incredible in its black senatorial coat and loose black Lincoln tie.

  Shocked and disturbed, Mr. Shawnessy stared at the big Greek mask of Senator Garwood B. Jones and wondered about the ego beneath it, putting on this costume with cynical unbelief, no longer caring if the crowds were at first a little shocked by the greasepaint and the theatre hoarseness of the voice, before they slipped into the suspension of unbelief necessary for the enjoyment of the play.

  Yet this voice had shaped the future of the Republic from platforms where faces converged in dim banks and shifting masses. And this mask concealed a baffling human being who had come back out of triumphant years to the valley of his humble beginnings, Raintree County.

  Briefly the Senator bobbing on the train platform, the environing faces, the little station, the banners, and the bands achieved a pictorial fixity, and over this image was shed the antique, golden light of the Republic.

  —Hello, John, the Senator said, stepping down from the platform.

  His big voice boomed jovially. His blue eyes had the faint mockery that was neither friendship nor contempt but an indefinable mixture of the two that Mr. Shawnessy had never wholly understood. The Senator’s entourage swarmed out of the car, flanking the Great Man and walling out the crowd. A half-dozen reporters pulled out notebooks and began to make notes.

  —Glad to see you, Garwood, Mr. Shawnessy said.

  He and the Senator clasped hands, as the crowd applauded. Mr. Shawnessy cleared his throat. His voice was high, uncertain, tremulous.

  Senator, he said, we have . . .

  IMPRESSIVE WELCOMING RITES

  FOR THE GREAT JONES

  (Epic Fragment from the Cosmic Enquirer)

  One of the highlights of the Senator’s Homecoming Day was the reception in the little station at Waycross. Visibly moved by this return to the haunts of his childhood, the Senator recognized and called by name several old friends and acquaintances. Among these, the local schoolmaster, a Mr. J. P. O’Shaughnessy, who had been a schoolmate of the Senator’s in the old Pre-War days, came forward as the head of the Reception Committee and delivered a quaintly humorous address of welcome, most of which could barely be overheard because of the commotion in the Station. The Senator, calling upon his celebrated gift for impromptu discourse . . .

  —John, said the Senator, in a hoarse whisper when Mr. Shawnessy had finished his speech, give me a little information, will you? Is there anything left in the town that was here in 1850?

  —The church was here then, Mr. Shawnessy whispered.

  —Where is the goddam thing?

  —Right on this street.

  —Ladies and Gentlemen, the Senator said in a great voice. The emotion I feel as I . . .

  VIEW OF CHILDHOOD HOME

  FILLS STATESMAN WITH

  EMOTION

  (Epic Fragment from the Cosmic Enquirer)

  In his reply, the Senator described the emotion in his breast as one that could find no fit utterance in words. He showed an amazing memory for the most minute details of his old stamping grounds, accurately recalling in his speech one of the oldest buildings in the town, the church, which he said he had often passed on his way to buy eggs from an old widow who resided a little way out in the country. The Senator found a few wellchosen words to express his feeling for his parents and especially his mother, than whom, he asserted, no finer or more virtuous woman ever lived. He concluded his short talk by saying that he was tired after his long trip and must be excused from a lengthy address as he intended to speak more fully of the weighty matters on his heart in the Address of the Day, which he would deliver in the Fourth of July Ceremonies that afternoon. Pursuant to this speech, the Senator listened t
o short addresses by three other members of the welcoming committee, who . . .

  —Senator Jones, the Sitting and Sewing Society of Raintree County wish to tender you this token of their esteem, a symbol of good luck from the Gardenspot of Indiana and America, beautiful Raintree County. To a weaver of immortal garlands of eloquence, I give this garland of living and lovely petals, taken from the very soil that sired a great man.

  —Madame, said the Perfessor in a low voice, is the Senator a horse or a flower?

  —Madame, the Senator said, dropping shy lids on his beautiful eyes, I accept this lovely floral tribute. Believe me, Madame, I shall treasure this beautiful bouquet and shall be by it reminded that no more beautiful flowers grow anywhere in the world than those which are to be plucked in our own Raintree County, Gardenspot of the Universe, home, as you say, Madame, of beautiful flowers and, Madame, with your permission, of beautiful ladies.

  —Your Excellency, the man with the clock said, as Delegate of the Solid Men’s Club of Raintree County, we have a little gift here we would like to uh tender unto you, in appreciation and uh token of uh our esteem and cordial uh appreciation of uh the uh cordial and friendly uh feeling uh you have always uh manifested and shown and uh demonstrated toward the business men of our county, and which we appreciate it very much.

  The Senator accepted the clock and, holding it like a bulky baby with soiled diaper, replied,

  —My friend, this beautiful clock will occupy a prominent place on the mantel of my home in the Nation’s Capital, Washington, D.C. I assure you, sir—and I wish to extend that assurance to each and every member of your enterprising and forward-looking organization—that I shall never gaze upon this clock without remembering the happy hours which I have spent with old friends, business acquaintances, and rural people in Raintree County. And you may be sure, my friend, that this clock shall record no single second during which my every thought, my every endeavor shall not have been devoted to the furtherance of Raintree County’s best interests.