“Art is in Montana,” said Wally. “I know that for a fact.”
“You sure?”
“Sure, I’m sure.”
Todd the governor’s man took Clint aside. “I’d rather you didn’t make a change in plans without consulting me,” he said. “The governor is committed to being here. He’s on his way. He’s expecting to be in the parade. You can’t invite the governor of Minnesota to come all this way up here and then shove him off in a corner.”
Clint took a deep breath and counted to ten, but ten wasn’t enough, so he counted to twenty, meanwhile he looked the man straight in the eyes, which were pink and piggish. And his breath smelled of cigarettes.
“You’re a guest in this town, mister. Don’t forget it.”
Todd put his face closer to Clint’s. “Not talking about me. Talking about the governor of Minnesota.” And he poked Clint in the chest.
“You poke me once more and I’m going to see to it that the police find pictures of naked Boy Scouts in the glove compartment of your car. And if you went up for fifteen years, mister, it wouldn’t bother me one bit.”
That knocked Todd back on his heels. He tried to grin as if it were a terrific little joke between the two of them but the grin didn’t come out right.
“You think we don’t have that kind of stuff around here, guess again. So don’t push me, asshole.”
“All I was saying—” said Todd, but Clint cut him off. “You want trouble, mister, we’ve got more than you can handle. So don’t press your luck.” And he turned away. A big washtub of icy water sat in the shade and he fished out a bottle of Dr Pepper and opened it with his army knife and took a swig.
He was proud of himself. Some very nice lines, like something Gene Hackman might’ve said, or Edward G. Robinson. He crossed the street with a slight swagger, thinking of John Wayne, thinking of how Todd had come here expecting to run into Extremely Nice Lutherans who would kiss his fingers because he worked for the G-O-V-E-R-N-O-R—and instead of butt-kissing, the man got a good slap in the chops, which he’d had coming to him for a long time now.
He got to the other side and in the window of the Mercantile he could see Todd standing stunned across the street. He hadn’t moved an inch. Clint turned on his heel and headed west toward the park and the stage wagon and the parade elements gathering there.
LeRoy drove up and down the streets in the patrol car, appealing for Flag participants. “Everyone who can, report to Leonards Field,” he said in an authoritative voice over the car’s loudspeaker. “The Living Flag is being assembled now. I repeat: All residents—this is an official notice—you are asked to report to Leonards Field.”
Irene had left Cindy Hedlund at Art’s Night O’ Rest to wait for CNN. She stopped by home to change into her nice white linen pants and white blouse. She headed downtown where a couple hundred folks were milling around and trying hard not to stare at the CNN truck and Ricky sitting at the control board.
He was smoking a cigarette and gesturing as he talked into his headset. From the gestures, you gathered that the person at the other end was not so bright.
Arlene said, “I hope Clint is going to take a few days off. He looks peaked to me.”
“He’s always looked peaked.” Irene was looking up the street at a woman standing in the shadows under the awning of Skoglund’s Five & Dime. She knew right away who it was. She had known for a long time. She thought of walking over to the woman and telling her, “I know who you are and I think you ought to look me in the eye. Know that what you do has consequences for other people. And you are not anonymous. On the Internet maybe but not here.”
Oh, but why? If he really thought that some chicky looking for a father figure could make him happy, fine. Go and God bless you. But he wasn’t going to be taking much money with him. The Ford garage was worth peanuts and she doubted they could get much for their house. For Sale signs tended to stay up until the paint peeled. Hjalmar and Virginia put their house up for sale and while they waited for a buyer, they dwindled and got frail and were carted off to the Good Shepherd Home, and when Hjalmar’s mind went, Virginia cut the price almost in half, and two years later, it was bought for half of that by a hermit who ripped up Hjalmar’s beautiful lawn and planted peonies and ginkgo trees. Sic transit Hjalmar. So if Clint walked out on her, he might have to hitch a ride. He and his chicky might have to live in her car for awhile and apply for food stamps. Nothing like poverty to dampen a hot romance.
At the football field, Irene was given a white hat and wound up in a middle stripe between Cliff with his birdcage hairdo sprayed with lacquer and teased into a white globe around his pink scalp and Mr. Diener who she had never cared for but there he was and what could she do—you couldn’t have everybody angling for a better position or the Flag would never get made—so she sucked it up and planted her feet next to his blue sneakers and looked straight ahead.
“I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about your husband,” he said. “I don’t like to pass on gossip but I figure you ought to know what’s going around.”
“I pay no attention to gossip,” she said through clenched teeth.
“I don’t either necessarily but I think that if Clint is running around with a young woman from St. Cloud, he deserves a good talking-to and it seems to me you’re the one who ought to do it.”
“The woman is standing over there if you want to go talk to her,” said Irene.
Mr. Diener turned and looked.
“You can’t change people,” she said. “Past a certain age, a man is going to do pretty much what he chooses. Why waste your breath?”
“Sometimes a man loses his mind and he has to be brought back to reality.”
“It’s going to take more than a lecture from me, believe me.”
And there she had to stand, while the Flag was built stripe by stripe, by Gary who stood in for Father Wilmer who was feeling light-headed. Gary was bouncing around 15 feet in the air in a cherry-picker on a truck from Mist County Power & Light and talking over a bullhorn: “Stripe Number 4, straighten your lines! You reds, you’re not there—you’re up here! We got too many white people, we need more red ones! All you tall white people, I want you to be red so the red stripes stand out more—all you short reds change places with the tall whites—let’s do this without talking, people! People, listen to me. We have a national TV network here—you remember what a success it was last year—so let’s get this thing going. This might be seen around the world—around the world—think of it—and we don’t want the world to think we are unable to form a straight line even after we’ve been asked to eleven times—it’s very discouraging, people.” The Flag fell silent. “I don’t have to be here, people,” cried Gary. “And CNN doesn’t either. Lots of other towns have Fourth of July celebrations too. We’re not the only fish in the pond. Where’s the community spirit? Where’s the love of country?”
“Aw, quit your bellyaching,” muttered Mr. Diener. He was peering at the woman in the shadows. She seemed to be on a cell phone.
Irene watched her. She looked very cool and collected. She was talking loudly. Irene picked up the words “Leaving tonight” and “I don’t know” and “It’s up to him.”
Irene got back to Art’s Baits & Night O’ Rest and not a soul was around, though the shrimp was on ice in Cabin No. 2 and beer filled the cooler and a bottle of rosé wine. Viola had left the keys sitting on the TV set. Simple as that. There was the key to Art’s cabin. She walked onto his porch and opened the door with the BEFORE YOU KNOCK ON THIS DOOR TO ASK A QUESTION, KINDLY CHECK
THE LIST OF RULES POSTED IN YOUR CABIN sign and went in. The place stank of cigarette smoke and dirty laundry. Boxes stacked everywhere, on the sofa, on the floor, and narrow passages through the boxes to the bathroom, which was unspeakable. The place reeked of loneliness. This is what happens to people who live alone. They den up and growl at intruders. There are no guests, only intruders. She had always disdained Art and now she had sympathy for him, the old devil. He
didn’t clean or bathe, having nobody to clean or bathe for, and he was simply waiting to die. He cared nothing about material things, it was all junk to him, and here it was—dressers full of battered spoons and bundles of soiled ties, dried-up shoes, arrowheads, nylons (Nylons? Nylons), Necco Wafers, fistfuls of buttons, fishing lures, stale candy, sparklers, used postcards, razor blades rusting in their packages, a great deal of coinage, chunks of chalk, a box of tassels, lots of driftwood—he didn’t care about any of it, was simply filling space to give his life some shape—and in one box marked DO NOT TOUCH she found a revolver in a plastic bag with a box of shells. Smith & Wesson. It felt good in her right hand, also in her left. A nice wood grip. You could point this at a man and he’d know you meant business. You weren’t just nagging at him now. Nothing says “STOP” like a pistol. A universal language.
It was so easy to load. A little plate with an indent for the thumb: You pushed it forward and the cylinder flopped out to the left and you stuck the brass cartridges in and slapped it shut.
She held it out in front of her and aimed it at the carton of tassels and shot BOOM and bits of cloth blew up in the air just like a man’s flesh would if you shot him. It’d tear him up pretty bad. Not that she would ever do that to Clint. But he’d know what a gun can do, having been in the Navy. If she pointed this gun at him, suddenly the fantasy would be over and everything would become very real.
26. SHOWTIME
Clint located the choir on the beach near the changing shed. They stood in three straight lines, heads down, and Miss Falconer was standing silent, looking them over, as he approached. He was about to say hi when she slapped her fist into her hand and said, “I am ashamed of you. Each and every one of you. I ask you to stand in formation and I go away for two minutes and I come back and you are throwing sand at each other. You people. It’s almost more than I can bear. You have this opportunity to sing on national television for millions and millions of people and to represent our community and you cannot be trusted to be alone and unsupervised for two minutes!!! Where is the maturity? You seniors think you’re big stuff, and you can’t even keep order. And you know something—some of you years from now will look back on this year as the best year of your life. That’s the truth. For a lot of you, it’s all downhill from here. So enjoy it while you can. And if I ever catch you throwing sand again, you’re going to be leaving this school a lot sooner than you think.” She stopped when she saw Clint.
“We’re ready for you,” he said. “Let’s see if we can’t squeeze you in on the parade route.”
At the football field, bullhorn in hand, Gary was in full cry. Irene had escaped along with a few others and he was trying to hold the Flag together. “If any of you think you can do better, come on up. Be my guest. It isn’t as easy as you may think, trying to get people to stand still in formation. You whites—Stripe Number 1—you right here—you’re starting to fall out. Did I say to fall out? No, I did not.” He thanked people for their patience even as he was exhausting it and told the blues to squeeze in as tight as possible around the folks with the star hats. “C’mon, take a deep breath and move in tight, people. This doesn’t have to take all day. Let’s do it. C’mon, lady—move in close there. He won’t bite you.” And small-town people, who never crowded onto a bus, who hate crowds, who would naturally stand about 37 inches from somebody they’re talking to, squeezed in a little tighter, and Mr. Diener squeezed next to Gloria Dietzmann whose hair smelled of sauerkraut and who was complaining about her legs. Her sister Marie used to yodel “There’s A Star-Spangled Banner Flying Somewhere” and it was always a big hit, modulating higher and higher and then a big double-time finish, and she imagined she had a big future as an entertainer and moved to California, but yodeling, unfortunately, is only good for short bursts—a whole evening of it is too much—and it took her ten years to figure that out and now she’s playing in a bar in Lincoln, Nebraska, and looks about 75 though she’s only 61.
Gary was ratcheting on and on—“Let’s squeeze in tight, people—let’s connect the dots—I know it’s a hot day but let’s just exhale and squeeze in tight—let’s make this the best Living Flag that we ever made.” And then they had it. And then Berge cried out, “Three cheers for the red, white, and blue!” So they cheered, “Hip hip hurray! Hip hip hurray! Hip hip HURRAY!!” And then Mr. Detmer called for the Pledge of Allegiance and they did that. Someone yelled out, “How about ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’?” so of course they had to sing that. Some soprano started it too high and the old ladies were screeching like they needed oiling. There was an epic poem by Mr. Stenerud, poet laureate of the Knutes, “Tip Your Hat to the Flag,” including the lines “when time just seems to drag” and “though other nations brag” and “let not your footsteps lag” and “this is no jest or gag” and “though protesters rail and rag” and finally
So let us e’er be vigilant,
Let not our efforts fag,
So that our kids and grandkids
Will tip their hats to the flag.
And then there was the sound of heavy wheezing on the public address system and an old whiskey voice said, “Breathes there a man with soul so dead, who never to himself hath said, this is my own, my native land.” And it was Art. He wore camouflage pants and an Army jacket with several gold medals and campaign ribbons and a pair of reflective sunglasses. He had gotten off the bus and made his way back home like an old abandoned dog and stepped into the Sidetrack Tap and found it empty. No Wally. And then he remembered how years ago he was thrown out of the Sidetrack for cursing at Democrats and when he got back in, for revenge, he wired a battery to the drain of the urinal and then sat at the bar waiting for Wally to take a piss. Wally had a steel bladder but eventually he went to the pisser and Art flipped the switch and waited for the scream and then he was going to yell, “Sic semper tyrannis” and run like hell. He waited a couple minutes and Wally came back. “Took you awhile,” said Art. “Yeah, I got to reading a book someone left in there,” said Wally. So Art waited and waited and had a few beers and then he had to go pee. He was pretty sure he had turned off the switch but he thought, “Oh, what the heck, I’ll use the stall,” but someone was in the stall, and suddenly he had to empty his bladder urgently. He went to piss in the sink and then heard footsteps and switched to the urinal and made contact and felt a hot burning sensation in his groin and let out a yell. The memory was vivid still. He looked at the beautiful display of liquors in the glass cabinet, Kahlúa and Drambuie and sloe gin, green and red and amber, stuff he’d never thought to drink before—he was strictly Jim Beam and beer for a chaser and peppermint brandy if he had a cold but here was a pantheon of liquors untasted and what better time than now? He poured himself a splash of Finnish vodka, just to rinse his mouth, and then he had a little swig from each one—a licorice drink and a sweet whiskey liqueur and some strawberry concoction—and then he started pouring liquor on the floor and throwing bottles against the glass cabinets—“That’s what I think of you!” he yelled. “Look out! I know who you are and I will not be stopped!” And that put him in a mood to go out and witness to his townsmen.
“Most of you folks consider yourselves patriots,” he said to the Living Flag and a few hundred onlookers, “but how can you say you love your country if you don’t follow the Constitution?” He had found the bullhorn lying on the steps—Gary had gone off to take a leak—and now Art had something to say.
The Living Flag was starting to erode around the edges. “And how can you celebrate freedom when a man’s own motel is taken over without his permission and his own possessions are removed from the premises?” cried Art, wild hair and all, eyes raging, an arm up in the air, and what appeared to be a pistol in his pants pocket. “There are individuals in our midst who don’t belong here and it’s time to root them out!” he said as Gary removed the bullhorn from his hand. Art careened a few steps and stopped—“I am not leaving!” he yelled. And then he was gone.
27. IN THE GARAGE
Clin
t was herding the choir toward Main Street when his cell phone rang. An urgent report from Billy P. on the hill: The cannons could not fire on account of cars parked in the line of fire—someone had removed the yellow No Parking tape and the cannoneers were upset and about to pack up their gunpowder and go home—
Cars to the right of them, cars to the left of them,
Someone had blundered—
“Who is in charge of the parking?” he wondered.
“Tow the cars! That’s an order!” he thundered.
And the phone rang again. It was Angelica asking if he could find her a place to change into her Miss Liberty outfit and ten minutes later he met her in the alley behind Bunsen Motors and led her in through the shop to Clarence’s office. She carried the robe, the crown, and tablet in a shopping bag. She had brought an iron too.
“Where’s Kevin?” he said. She said Kevin was having a fit.
He didn’t like crowds and he didn’t want her to march in the parade. He wanted to get a move on. They were supposedly driving to South Dakota tonight. “I hope he likes to make love with you,” he said.
“Let’s not talk about it. How’s the car business?” she said.
“Terrible. Never worse.”
“Maybe you ought to get out of it.”
“The thought has occurred to me.”
A red Taurus sat in the showroom with red, white, and blue bunting hung over it, and a sign: FORD—FOLLOW THE DREAM.
“Not the car I was dreaming of,” she said, “but maybe I could drive it and find my dream.” She took his arm. “What’s your dream, darling?”
His dream had been this tall woman with reddish hair and a silver pendant around her neck. “Is Kevin in his camper?” he said. He had already checked with LeRoy who located the camper in the yard at Art’s Baits, parked next to the Hospitality Suite.
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