A Short History of a Small Place

by T. R. Pearson

  For Pinky’s part he’d only started to go numb and so could still make his tongue work sufficiently to get out “But your honor ...

  And Daddy said the judge pointed the gavelhandle at Pinky and told him it was a good thing there was no law against being a horse’s ass. Then he beat on the bench again and said, “Dismissed!”

  And Pinky came in right behind him with “But your honor ...

  And again the judge beat the bench and said, “Dismissed!”

  Then once more it was Pinky with “But your honor ...”

  And Daddy said this time Judge Mortenson didn’t beat the gavel but stood up with it in his hand and whipped it at Pinky as hard as he could and Pinky tried to cover himself with his arms and all the Jeeters and Throckmortons behind tried to cover themselves with their arms and all the people on the bench behind them tried to cover themselves too, and Daddy said the gavel struck the front edge of the plaintiff’s table and kicked up into the air spinning like a pinwheel, and even before it had a chance to rattle across the hardwood floor Judge Mortenson hollered, “DISMISSED!” and lit out to his chambers with the tails of his robe flying behind him.

  Of course, Daddy said, the gallery became all unglued with stomping and hooting and whatnot, and some people stood around and told each other how they’d never seen anything like it before while most everybody else tried to reach across the front bannister and slap the mayor’s back or scratch the monkey or shake Miss Pettigrew’s fingers. Understandably, however, that was not how it was for the plaintiff’s relations, who did not get up right away since they had nothing to hoot or stomp about, and that was not how it was for the plaintiff himself, who Daddy said had circled out from the backside of the plaintiff’s table and stood alone in front of the bench. The bald Jeeter came up behind him for a half minute and tried to tell him a kind thing and console him but Pinky bucked her away with his shoulders and so got left to himself once more, and Daddy said Pinky stuck his hands in his pockets and studied the floor planking like it was the most sorrowful conglomeration of grooved boards and ten-penny spikes he’d ever had the misfortune to stand on and look at. Daddy said plain and simple it was Poppa all over again.

  As Daddy recollected it, the mayor broke loose from the crowd first hauling his shopping bag behind him and then Miss Myra Angelique and Mr. Britches made their way clear of the gallery and approached Pinky from his blind side so that he never got wind of anybody coming before they had already arrived. And Daddy said Pinky looked at the mayor and looked at Miss Pettigrew and looked at Mr. Britches and then looked at the floor again, and Daddy said the mayor told him, “Pinky, I’m sorry for all this,” said it right in front of everybody though the gallery was still buzzing somewhat and so probably did not catch all of it. But Pinky still looked at the floor, Daddy said, even after Miss Myra Angelique had told him she was sorry too, which most of the gallery did hear since they had seen what was going on by then and had all quieted down to listen. Then the mayor set the bag beside him and pulled out from it the two boxes with the shirts in them and the box with the necktie in it and he tried to give them to Pinky as he told him, “We want you to have these, Pinky. We owe this to you at least,” and Miss Myra Angelique said, “Take them, Mr. Throckmorton, please take them,” and Daddy said still Pinky left his hands in his pockets and looked at the floor. So the mayor gathered all the packages up in the bend of one arm, and Daddy said right there in front of everybody he put his free hand on the back of Pinky’s neck and told him, “I’d be pleased if you’d have these, Pinky, I’d be very pleased,” and not of a sudden but soon enough Pinky said, “Thank you, mayor,” and reached out his hands for the boxes.

  So the gallery got a double bonus that afternoon in Eden since they had already witnessed a trial nobody had ever seen the likes of before and now they got the chance to hear Pinky Throckmorton say Thank you, which not a one of them could have predicted. And as for himself, Daddy said, Pinky very nearly got alright or anyway became undevastated in a hurry and most everybody decided it was on account of the two shirts and the necktie which the Pettigrews did not have to give to Pinky and did not need to give to Pinky but which they gave to Pinky anyhow because they were decent people. But in Daddy’s view the two shirts and the necktie part of it did not amount to much of anything and it was only the decent part of it that counted, because Daddy believes and has always believed that the big and obvious things don’t hardly ever make any difference and it is only the countless little things all taken together that ever do or undo what gets done or undone. Daddy said most all the satisfaction the gallery got came from the two shirts and the necktie, but the satisfaction that was Pinky’s came mostly from the four fingers and the thumb on the back of his neck which never would have ended up where they ended up if the mayor had not been decent and which never could have undone everything that was undone if Pinky had not recollected that he was a little decent himself. So he very nearly got alright, very nearly recovered from what Daddy called the jilting, and before he left the courtroom Pinky hooked his arm around the bald Jeeter’s, and managed to pat Mr. Britches on top of his porkpie and say, “Hey monkey.”

  V

  Mr. Pipkin wrestled his hat off his head so as to allow his ears to breathe for a few minutes and one of the firefighters stood up from the runningboard long enough to climb out of his rubber overhauls right there in front of all of us, and once he had them balled up in his arms he said to Mr. Pipkin, “I’s just before suffocating,” and then he redirected himself towards what Daddy called the cutting edge of the throng which me and him and Mr. Newberry had become a part of ever since we’d moved up next to the sawbucks, and he said to all of us, “I was, I’s just before suffocating.” Then he draped his overhauls over a section of firehose and sat back down on the runningboard.

  Mr. Pipkin pushed his hat down onto his head and prized his ears back up under the band of it once he figured they were properly oxygenated, Daddy called it. And then, of course, he set in to clawing and picking at himself which Mr. Newberry said was a kind of hobby with the firechief, so it wasn’t until after Mr. Pipkin had studied over most all of his wounds and temporary deformities that he said to Sheriff Burton, “Well let’s suppose he is, then.”

  “Ain’t no supposing to it, Pipkin,” the sheriff shot back at him. “Where you think this sneaker come from?”

  And Mr. Pipkin watched the sheriff shake the sneaker at him again, and then he looked up at the top portion of the water tower which was still illuminated by the spotlight on the cab of the firetruck, and then he watched the sheriff shake the sneaker at him a little more before he finally said, “I still don’t see no monkey.”

  And the sheriff told him, “He’s up there alright.”

  “Fine,” Mr. Pipkin said. “Then let’s suppose he is.”

  And the sheriff asked Mr. Pipkin if he was a jackass or what.

  So Mr. Pipkin just picked at himself and ruffled the hair on his legs until the sheriff agreed to suppose along with him, and then Mr. Pipkin said, “Fine,” and left off his hobby for a bit. “Now Myrick here tells me,” he started in, jerking his head towards the fireman directly beside him, “that he read somewhere or another how what that monkey puts out’ll eat through your clothes and burn your skin up. He says it’s like acid and you could probably clean a patio with it.”

  “Myrick, did you tell him that?” the sheriff wanted to know.

  And Myrick shook his head yes he did.

  “Well, where’d you read such a thing?” the sheriff asked him.

  And Myrick engaged in what looked like thinking for an appreciable few moments before telling Sheriff Burton, “Somewhere.”

  “I never heard anything like that,” the sheriff said, talking to Mr. Pipkin now. “What comes out of a monkey probably ain’t much different from what comes out of us. Probably ain’t any different from what comes out of Myrick.”

  “Well maybe not,” Mr. Pipkin said, “but let’s just suppose that monkey’s up on top the tower, a
nd let’s just suppose I send one of my men up after him, and let’s just suppose that monkey cuts loose all over whoever it is I send, now can you guarantee me my man won’t get his clothes eat right off him and his skin all burned up?”

  “Listen, Pipkin,” the sheriff said back to him, “even if that monkey was putting out straight acid, you and me both know he hasn’t had any pressure in years and doesn’t do anything but dribble anymore.”

  And before Mr. Pipkin could respond, Myrick leaned over to him and said something into his ear, so that when Mr. Pipkin did open his mouth again he told the sheriff, “Myrick here tells me it don’t matter if it is a dribble.”

  And the sheriff asked Myrick if he was a jackass or what.

  By that time didn’t none of us think that monkey had a hope of setting foot on solid ground again if he didn’t bring himself down, since to a man the firemen came out for Myrick and his data, Daddy called it, which meant after all the supposing about the monkey Mr. Pipkin finally supposed not him nor any of his men would go up and get it, and as for the deputies they told Sheriff Burton they’d rather not risk being doused with anything that could clean a patio and all three of them appeared set to pluck their badges off their pocket flaps and attempt to retire again if the sheriff pressed them on the matter. So Sheriff Burton set in to casting around for an alternative and after five minutes or so of not much of anything to see or hear except Mr. Pipkin pursuing his hobby, the sheriff told the throng of us there how he had been considering and now had definitely decided upon the formation of a crack monkey retrieval squad composed entirely of civilians, and maybe Mr. Small had stared into the sheriff’s ear for about ten minutes too long, I don’t know, because he got to be squad leader. Of course nobody much even tried to volunteer except for boys whose Momma and Daddy would not let them climb up the water tower, so it looked like the monkey retrieval unit would be all leader and no squad until Mickey, Carlton, and Jerome Roach stepped forth out of the throngs without any older, more responsible Roach to hinder them since Mr. Roach had gone home to eat supper and Mrs. Roach had gone home to cook it. Now the Roaches had owned a monkey previously, which was at present, of course, reposing in a legal envelope, so on behalf of Carlton and Jerome, Mickey explained to the sheriff how the three of them were highly experienced in handling the creatures which was more than qualification enough for the job since the sheriff was not looking for any qualifications at all, so after five or ten seconds of ponderous examination and review, Sheriff Burton took the Roaches on as squad for his squad leader.

  Naturally when the sheriff and his deputies and his newly appointed monkey retrieval squad leader and newly formed monkey retrieval squad collected there in front of us to talk tactics, we paid the most of our attention to them and so nobody whatsoever saw Aunt Willa limp out of the darkness from across the street and slip on up behind us to the base of the water tower, and I suppose she had already said it two or three times before anybody ever heard her say it since she always talked in that same flat, lifeless voice that you couldn’t really hear unless you were listening for it and nobody had been listening for it. Then she said it again and we all heard part of it. Then she said it again and we all heard all of it and turned around to find Aunt Willa calling out to Miss Pettigrew’s monkey in a voice that could not possibly carry up past the breadsack.

  “Come on down h‘yer,” she said. “Come on h’yer, you ape.”

  So the throng did an immediate about-face and me and Daddy and Mr. Newberry were suddenly so far off the cutting edge that all we could see was the backs of people’s heads, which meant of course that the sheriff and the deputies and the crack monkey retrieval squad and the firemen and the firechief Mr. Pipkin were just as suddenly farther off from the business at hand than we were and, being authorities, none of them could hardly stand it, not even Mr. Small and the Roach boys who figured they were fullblown authorities now too. Consequently, the sheriff and the deputies and the monkey retrieval squad and the firemen and the firechief Mr. Pipkin pushed their way on through the throngs of us there and collected around Aunt Willa who didn’t pay them anymore notice than she’d paid anybody else and who was entirely occupied with watching the top rim of the water tower and saying, “Come on down h’yer, you ape” everytime she could get the breath to say it.

  Now as it was me and Daddy and Mr. Newberry could hardly hear Aunt Willa from where we were but we watched the top of the tower anyway since none of the three of us had anywhere near the knowledge of monkeys Myrick possessed and thought maybe an ape had the ears to pick up what a human couldn’t. But apparently some one of the authorities imagined the monkey could use all the help he could get and so dispatched Carlton Roach after the official sheriff’s department bullhorn which was in the trunk of the patrol car Mr. Small had delivered his soliloquy off of. However, even after the bullhorn along with Carlton Roach disappeared back into the throng, me and Daddy and Mr. Newberry did not hear anything in the way of amplification for what seemed an improperly lengthy amount of time, and they didn’t find out until the next evening at the viewing that Aunt Willa had refused to talk into the bullhorn at first since she had never talked into one before and would not talk into this one until the sheriff himself put it up to her face and held the trigger down so that Aunt Willa did not have to do anything more than she had been doing already.

  So now it was “Come on down h’yer, you ape” in that same flat, lifeless tone but loud enough to sail a ways past the top of the water tower and with some nearly unbearable squeaking before and after it on account of the bullhorn, and maybe it was the squeaking and maybe it was the words themselves but anyhow some one or the other of them drew Mr. Britches out to the top edge of the tower and first we saw the crown of his porkpie followed by his hairy face underneath it and then he looked at us and we looked at him until he drew back out of sight for a few moments and then reappeared a little closer to the ladder from where he looked at us once more and we looked at him again. Of course Aunt Willa continued to call out for him with every breath and probably that monkey had been around her enough to know she’d keep doing it until the last trumpet drowned her out or until he hauled his little self on down the ladder whichever came first. So the next time we saw him he already had one foot on the top rung and was clutching at the railings, and then he brought the other foot into view, the one with the sneaker still on it, and proceeded directly on down the ladder without hardly stopping for anything, not even to relieve himself.

  Mr. Britches had just barely touched the ground with his five unsneakered toes when the crack monkey retrieval squad converted itself to a breadsack retrieval unit and the Roach boys set in to fighting for the right to go up the ladder with Mr. Small as their moderator only since he preferred to stay where he was. Somehow or another Jerome got first crack at it and Mickey got slated as his backup just in case he fell off. Carlton was put down for third since he’d been sent after the bullhorn and so had performed a duty already, and Mr. Small was charged with talking a fireman into going up if the Roaches got all broken to pieces in the process and could not continue. But as it turned out fetching the breadsack only called for one Roach, that being Jerome of course, and when he brought it down he was relieved of it immediately by a deputy who was in turn relieved of it by Sheriff Burton who stretched it out full length in front of him and studied it for awhile in silence until he finally opened his mouth and said, “Merita.” Then the sheriff unknotted the neck of the sack and drew out Miss Pettigrew’s clutch purse which he studied just like the sack itself before he ever began to fumble at the latch of it. Sheriff Burton gave over the breadsack to the deputy on his right once he got the purse open so as to free his hand to reach inside it and remove first one scrawny white rose and then one scrawny red rose, both of which he gave over to the deputy on his left so as to keep his hand free to reach back inside Miss Pettigrew’s purse and extract from it not even a half sheet but a quarter sheet of paper folded once in the middle. Then the deputy who had the breadsack
, who also happened to have the sneaker, got the purse along with the two of them, and the sheriff unfolded the piece of paper with both hands and looked carefully at the side that had been folded shut before flipping it over and looking just as carefully at the side that had been folded open. And once he’d satisfied himself that he’d seen all there was to see of it, he allowed the piece of paper to circulate among the authorities and the throng crowded in around them, and it was the people in the front who told the people in the middle who told us people in the back that Miss Pettigrew’s piece of paper said “heart’s ease” in blue ink. So then most everybody was saying, “heart’s ease” to himself or to somebody else or just into the air except for the sheriff who had set in to calling for Aunt Willa and so most everybody else set in to calling for Aunt Willa with him but nobody could raise her anywhere. And then the sheriff yelled for Aunt Willa and most everybody yelled for Aunt Willa with him except for the deputy to his left who said, “Sheriff?” And then the sheriff yelled for Aunt Willa again and most everybody yelled again with him except for the deputy to his left, who said, “Sheriff?” And then the sheriff wondered out loud where she went and a whole load of people wondered right along with him except for the deputy to his left, who said, “Sheriff?” Then nobody said anything until the deputy said, “Sheriff?” again, and Sheriff Burton spun around and screamed at him, “What in the hell is it?”