“I’m pregnant,” she said.
“I know,” John answered.
He wondered who the father was but knew it was Daryl. Sarah confirmed this with a silence. The ass-kickings made sense now. Sarah’s early harvest and flight. The crime was always simpler than its confusing evidence.
“What are you going to do?” John asked.
“I thought I knew,” she said. “But what was right for me before, isn’t now. And I started seeing signs everywhere. I’m not religious, but I feel like someone is trying to tell me something.”
“I think we create our own signs, to tell ourselves which way to go,” John told her. “I think we always know what’s right inside, but sometimes we need to manifest physical proof.”
“Well, I slaughtered a lamb on my way over here,” she said, with a nervous laugh. “Hit it with my truck. Dead as fucking dead.”
She choked off a snuffling, her chest beginning to heave with hiccups of grief.
“Tell me that’s not a fucking sign,” she said, looking up at him.
John stepped forward through the doorway, enclosing her in his arms. She accepted his hug, her lucky red hat falling from her head as she leaned into his chest. John felt the heat of her body and strength of her arms as she returned his embrace. He rested his chin on the top of her head and patted her back. He could feel her tears wetting the front of his shirt. A breeze blew across the porch, but he felt warm. Sarah’s hair was soft against his cheek and he felt he could fall asleep right here, standing up. They swayed together on the deck, not quite a two-step.
“Thank you,” she said, letting go. “I needed that.”
John reached down for her hat. Sarah wiped her nose. John wished he lived in an age when men still carried handkerchiefs. But he knew Sarah didn’t need anyone to blow her nose. He wasn’t the man for that job anyway. He just wanted to do the right thing once in a while. He held Sarah’s hat out for her.
“You keep it,” she said, the blue of her eyes radiant beneath the remnants of her tears. “You’re going to need it more than I am.”
“Are you sure?” John said.
“No,” she said, finding a lighter tone in her voice. “Just wear it when you visit me in San Francisco. And don’t flinch when I ask you to run out for ice cream and pickles.”
“You’re certain?” John asked, unsnapping the plastic strap on the back of the cap and adjusting it so it would fit his head.
“Of what?” Sarah asked.
John remembered Sarah asking him on his first night in Boonville, “Is anybody ever really ready for anything they do?” Sometimes until the event takes place, you don’t know. You can only hope you’ve prepared yourself, because ready or not, the episodes of your life unfold without much rehearsal. He felt he had a different answer for her question now.
“Thank you,” he said, pulling the cap on over his tousled hair.
“It looks good,” she said, coming forward and kissing him lightly on the lips.
It could have been a hippie girl thing, but there seemed to be more than friendship in the kiss. John was determined not to read too much into it, although Sarah smiled with Mae West sassiness as if to say, “Think whatever you want, big boy.” John knew they would meet again under better circumstances. He would need a break from the loneliness of Grandma’s cabin. A night in San Francisco might be the ticket; dinner, candlelight, conversation. Strolling along together in the fog. He’d gladly try to satisfy Sarah’s cravings.
Sarah told him to check at the Boonville Hotel in a week or two and she would leave her new address or a telephone number with Hap. She needed to be alone for a while, set up a home and a studio, create a stable environment for the change coming in her life. She wasn’t going to fuck this up. John said he knew she wouldn’t and he looked forward to seeing her again when they both felt better.
“Before you go, would you help me with something,” John asked, adding, “It’s not even illegal.”
“If it doesn’t take too long,” she said. “I really have to go.”
“It will only take a minute,” John said.
He led Sarah off the porch to the giant squirrels. As the two stood at the base of the sculptures, John thought the squirrels seemed like overly protective mothers guarding their young. John grabbed onto one of the makeshift handles and told Sarah to do the same. They leaned their weight into the large piece of wood. John thought the squirrel handles might snap, but the totem began to turn, damp soil churning from beneath as bugs and spiders scurried from their hiding place. The outer rim of a dark circle appeared in the ground, the base of the sculpture moving a few inches to the left. They paused, counted to three. Using all their strength, they turned the squirrel so it faced the valley.
“One more to go,” John said, moving to the other squirrel.
Before taking hold of the handle, he looked up at the giant carvings facing in opposite directions. They seemed confused, a weather vane pointing both north and south.
“I don’t know how your grandmother carved something so huge,” Sarah said. “She must have had help, at least putting them in place.”
“I don’t know, either,” John replied, willing to let that remain the eighth wonder of Boonville. “I guess Gibsons think big.”
They took their grips on the second squirrel. This totem moved easier than the first, joining its partner in the new view. Seeing both squirrels pointing in the right direction, John felt a surge of relief. Sarah seemed to feel the shift too, acknowledging they had accomplished something by giving John the thumb’s-up signal.
It may not have been what Grandma intended, John thought, but it’s what he could live with.
He wriggled one of the squirrel handles from the side of the second sculpture. It’s face was mashed from being wedged into the larger piece of wood, but it still held John’s features enough to be recognizable. He tossed it to Sarah.
“Here’s a souvenir,” he said. “Don’t bother making a cross.”
“I won’t,” Sarah said, walking to her truck and propping the squirrel on the dashboard.
John remained standing in front of the cabin wearing her lucky red hat, flanked by the two giant sculptures. Sarah closed her door and started the truck, leaning her head out the window and looking back before she drove away, her blue eyes appearing as if they had never seen a tear.
“Take care, Squirrel Boy,” she called out. “You’re a local now.”
John watched the truck pull out of his driveway, heading for the winding road that led to the floor of the Anderson Valley and then into, and out of, the town of Boonville. He turned to go back inside, but stopped on the steps of his cabin to take another look at the view and the backs of Grandma’s squirrels, reflecting briefly on the last two weeks and the changes they had brought into his life, understanding he lived here now, this was his home, and thinking to himself, “Yee-haw.”
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank my wife, Nicola, my son, Dashiell, and my daughter, Lucinda, who mean everything to me.
And my friends for their love, strength, inspiration, and support, without which this novel would never have been completed: Mathieu Salgues, Tony Barbieri, Joshua Jennings, Stephen Hulburt, Jason Leggiere, Shawn Phillips, Joe Lucas, Leonardo, Awadagin Pratt, Jonathan Lethem, Klas Eklöf, and Jay Leahy.
And my father and mother for naming me Mailer and getting the ball rolling. My brother and sister, Wayne and Margaret. My Papa. My entire family, especially Bruce, Ling, Zack, Jessica, and Ben. Penny Scanlon, Joy Andrea Larkin, Judy Bernhard, and Byron Spooner. My other sisters, Erin Hurley and Sarah Morrissette. Also, Christina McKay, Bobby Blanchard, Creedence Perkins, and Tom Avvakumovits.
Mary Miner, Luke and Justine, and the memory of Robert Miner.
Laura Jones, for restoring my faith in life.
And the rest of The Tribe, especially Luisa Smith, Tom Stoen, Margaret Hirsh, Timothy “Speed” Levitch, Barry Sherman, Coltrane Gardner, Rod Werner, Jana Giles, Mary Ellen Tseng, Tom Wh
elan, Jay Berry, Mark Ganter, Sean Foley, Scott and Georgia Thunes, Stacey Hubbard, Geoff Wolf, Darcy West, Dan O’Conner, Walker, Mart Bailey, Andy Shen, Chris Ellinger, Steve Werlin, Mike and Helena Crane, Sunyata Palmer, the Horowitz family, Donovan Dutro, Paul Ricci, Mark Vronin, and Nick Carr.
The Miami boys, especially Jimmy Glover, Jason Schrift, Brian Wojcik, and Jay Walsh.
Quotidian Gallery, Caffe Valeska, Caffe Trieste, The Columbus Hotel (a.k.a. the Hotel Tevere), Books Revisited, Tosca, the 92nd Street Y, the Presidio YMCA, and the Cypress Quartet.
And Elvis Costello, Tom Waits, Randy Newman, Bruce Springsteen, Coleman Hawkins, Lester Young, Los Lobos, Lucinda Williams, Bob Wills, Cole Porter, John Hiatt, Lyle Lovett, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, the Cowboy Junkies, Beethoven, Bach, Wagner, and the San Francisco Opera for supplying the music.
And to Shelby Hearon, Bill and Em Smith, Norman Mailer, Christina Garcia, Carl Hiaasen, Isabel Allende, Calvin Trillin, Naomi Wolf, Paul Sigenlaub, Jim Stonebreaker, Judith McNally, Alex Peer, Ray Rossen, and Ranney Johnson, whose support and kind words kept me on track when I really needed them.
The Anderson Valley Advertiser and Christopher Street for publishing my work. And the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association for believing in Boonville, and selling it.
My agent, Jack Scovil. Creative Arts Book Company, especially Josh and Emma. HarperCollins, especially Alison Callahan. And Laura Joplin.
And the memory of Michael Arevedo.
And the town of Boonville.
And Panther Pride.
About the Author
ROBERT MAILER ANDERSON was born in San Francisco in 1968, three years before his parents were divorced. He was the fifth generation of his family—a clan comprised largely of railroad workers, San Quentin prison guards, and tamale vendors—to be raised across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Rafael. He spent every other weekend and summers with his father in Mendocino County, reading, playing sports, and accompanying his father to his business, a home for juvenile delinquents, where young Anderson encountered some “hard cases” who were later convicted of, among other crimes, armed robbery, rape, and murder. One former resident, David Mason, was executed by the state. Several others are on death row.
At age fourteen, Anderson moved in with his father “full time” and, due to financial constraints, the group home. He started high school in Ukiah, where he was routinely kicked out of classes. He took a year off from school and played golf. He developed a gambling habit. He began contributing articles to the Anderson Valley Advertiser, where his uncle, Bruce Anderson, was editor and publisher. Eventually, he graduated from Anderson Valley High School in Boonville. He played three varsity sports and was MVP of the NCL III in baseball. He was student body president until he was impeached.
Pursuing a career in baseball, Anderson matriculated to the University of Miami, where he did not play. He was then transferred to the College of Marin, where he pitched and played first base for a semester and a half before packing his possessions into the trunk of a “borrowed” Cadillac, cashing his student loan check, and heading to Mexico.
When the money ran out, he moved to New York City, where he had a series of unfulfilling jobs: selling suits, telemarketing, moving furniture, and temping. He did stand-up comedy, once. He played basketball at West Fourth Street. He was accepted into a creative writing tutorial taught by Shelby Hearon at the Ninety-second Street Y.
In 1995, Anderson’s short story “36-28-34-7” was published by Christopher Street. He began referring to himself as “the heterosexual voice of gay lit.”
Anderson lives in San Francisco with his wife and two children, son Dashiell and daughter Lucinda. He is co-owner of Quotidian art gallery and is on the board of the San Francisco Opera Association. Boonville is his first novel.
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Copyright
“I never saw a moor” and “Surgeons must be careful” reprinted by permission of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON, Thomas H. Johnson, ed., Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1951, 1955, 1979 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.
“Second Fig” by Edna St. Vincent Millay. From Collected Poems, HarperCollins. Copyright 1922, 1950 by Edna St. Vincent Millay. Reprinted by permission of Elizabeth Barnett, Literary Executor.
Hardcover publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the Creative Work Fund.
A hardcover edition of this book was published in 2001 by Creative Arts Book Company. It is here reprinted by arrangement with Creative Arts Book Company.
BOONVILLE. Copyright © 2001 by Itzy. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
First Perennial edition published 2003.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Anderson, Robert Mailer.
Boonville / Robert Mailer Anderson.—1st Perennial ed.
p. cm.
ISBN 0-06-051621-6
1. Inheritance and succession—Fiction. 2. California, Northern—Fiction. 3. Young men—Fiction. 4. Hippies—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3601.N546 B6 2002
813'.6—dc21
2002027590
EPub Edition © SEPTEMBER 2012 ISBN: 978-0-06-203442-7
03 04 05 06 07 RRD 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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