by Pete Dexter
It was Seagraves who saw Paris Trout first. The policeman — he didn't look old enough to be out of high school — was walking a step behind him, proud as a colored boy in new tennis shoes.
Trout himself was wearing a passive expression that was familiar to Seagraves from the days they had spent together in trial. Seagraves saw Trout had shaved himself pink-cheeked, he saw the weight in his coat pocket.
The policeman had ears that stuck straight out under his hat. He stopped Trout at the edge of the circle of spectators and waited while Carl Bonner weighed the case against a science teacher at the officers' academy. The science teacher pleaded a skin condition, which Carl Bonner disregarded for a lack of expert medical testimony.
The spectators were laughing at the exchange between the science teacher and the court, and Seagraves was hoping Carl Bonner would let him off. Fifty cents might mean something to a teacher. Seagraves couldn't say that, though, without embarrassing the man worse than he already was.
"Fifty cents," Bonner said, and pounded the table with the claw hammer they were using for a gavel. Then he sat up higher in Judge Lewis's old chair and looked over the spectators. "Is that all?" he said.
"One more, Your Honor .... " It was the young policeman. He stepped in front of Trout and bowed.
"Well, bring him on," Carl Bonner said.
There was some hooting and whistles when the crowd saw who the officer had brought in, but more of the spectators went quiet. The antique policemen — seniors from the high school — led him the rest of the way. Carl Bonner looked down at Paris Trout and smiled. "What have we here?" he said.
"An unidentified suspect," the policeman said. "Arrested on North Main Street, cheeks as smooth as a baby's behind. Suspect has refused to provide identification or proof of residency."
Carl Bonner was still smiling. "The court is able to identify this suspect," he said.
Harry Seagraves saw Bonner's intention. He stood halfway up and whispered in his ear, "Don't fool with this."
Bonner bent to listen, and then he straightened back up. "Paris Trout," he said, "you have been charged by this court of violating city ordinance 404A in that you have appeared in public shaved during the week constituting the hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of this city. How do you plead?"
Trout stood beneath Bonner, with no intention of answering.
"Mr. Trout?"
Seagraves got up again and cupped his hand in front of Carl Bonner's ear. "Let him the hell go," he said. "I'm not clowning with you, let him out." As he dropped back into his chair, Trout followed his movement. That familiar flat, murderous look on his face. Carl Bonner seemed to be thinking something over. Then he cleared his throat and spoke. "Mr. Trout," he said, "seeing how it is a well-established fact in the city of Cotton Point that you still possess the first nickel you made, this court has little hope of recovering any fine it might impose. Mr. Trout?"
Trout was still staring at Seagraves. He turned his head now and fastened his look on Bonner. Bonner returned the look, calm-faced. "It is the decision of this court that you be remanded to the stocks for a period of time not to exceed one hour and that your sentence begin immediately?
There was more whistling, but it was all from the youngsters. The old-timers, the courthouse secretaries, the businessmen celebrating on the way home — they all had gone quiet. Some of them began to walk away even before the antique policemen led Trout to the stocks. He went with them at first, and then, seeing what they meant to do, he stopped dead in his tracks and would not be moved. The antique policemen took an arm each, but they could not pull Trout any closer to the stocks. As they tried, he turned his head and looked at Harry Seagraves one more time. The antique policemen dipped, taking his legs, and carried him the rest of the way.
Trout began to struggle sincerely. He got an arm loose and punched one of the boys in the neck, knocking off his hat. The crowd was quiet, and the sounds of the hissing and grunts and curses were clear all over the courthouse lawn.
The antique policeman who had been punched got one of Trout's arms in up behind his back, bending him over. And in that space, suddenly cleared, Seagraves saw her, framed in the crowd. Frozen in what was happening. He saw that for all her words to the contrary, she and Paris were still connected. Seagraves raised up out of his seat. "Here, now," he said, "there's no need for that."
Carl Bonner sat still. The antique policemen got Trout's wrists into place. One of them brought the upper piece of the mechanism down and held it there while the other secured it with a wooden bolt. Trout cursed them and stood, bringing the stocks up off the ground with him. One of the antique policemen tripped and fell, the other took the full force of a kick from the old man high on the leg.
The one on the ground tackled Trout's legs and brought him and the stocks down. The one who had been kicked jumped on top, his elbow landing across the top of Trout's nose. When Seagraves pulled the boy on top off, Trout was bleeding.
"Leave go," Seagraves said.
The antique policeman holding on to his legs would not let go.
"This here's a live one," he said.
"Leave him go," Seagraves said again, and lifted the boy by the front of his uniform. The material tore. Trout lay on the ground, his hands still caught in the stocks, his blood-splattered shirt rising and falling as he breathed. Seagraves began to loosen the bolt, but then, remembering the pistol, he knelt in such a way to cover what he did from view and reached into Trout's coat pocket and removed it, dropping it into his own.
"I'll leave this for you at the hotel in the morning," he said.
Trout wiped at his nose with his shoulder. Seagraves pulled the bolt free of the stocks. Trout sat up, rubbing his wrists, then dabbing at his l nose. He looked behind him at the spectators and then pointed his index finger at them, moving in a deliberate way from one end to the
other.
"He's still sentenced to one hour," one of the antique policemen said.
"Be still," Seagraves said.
Trout got to his feet — no one tried to help — and tucked his shirt into his pants and straightened his coat. In no hurry. He stepped over the stocks lying at his feet and then walked through the spectators who were still there to the street. He made a left turn, in the direction of the nursing home.
"The old sumbitch was strong," one of the antique policemen said to the other. " 'Bout broke my leg where he kicked me."
The other one was wiping at some grass that had stuck to the front of his coat. "I got him for you," he said. "I got him good in the nose."
Seagraves walked back to the judges' table, where Carl Bonner was sitting in his black robe, looking vaguely pleased. The crowd broke and headed different directions. He looked for Hanna, but she was gone. Some of the women were unnerved, Seagraves could see it in their faces. He reassured them as they passed, smiling, as if what had happened were all some part of the festivities.
They knew about Paris Trout, though, and knew he wasn't part of any celebration.
In a few minutes Seagraves took the flask out of his pocket and offered Carl Bonner a drink.
"He went crazy, didn't he?" Bonner said. He drank and returned the flask.
"He was already crazy," Seagraves said.
Bonner shrugged. "Everybody's got to obey the same law."
"No," Seagraves said, "they don"t." He put the flask back in his pocket without drinking; the good feeling was gone.
"Well, nobody was hurt," Bonner said.
Seagraves reached into another pocket and came out with the pistol. He laid it on the table in front of the young attorney without a word.
Carl Bonner shrugged. "Paris Trout isn't the only one that owns a pistol," he said.
"He's going off to jail, probably next month," Seagraves said. "He can't file his motions at the courthouse then. In one week you can refile your petitions, and you and your client can have any kind of divorce you want."
Carl Bonner shook his head. "There's no satisfaction, is
there?" he said. "All the trouble I've been through on this, and in the end I beat him because he goes to jail." He pushed the gun away, back toward Seagraves. "All that effort, he never bent .... "
"Bent to what?" Seagraves said.
Carl Bonner did not answer.
* * *
"I SAW YOU AT the courthouse today," he said.
She was lying on her back, and the light from the moon lay across her stomach and shoulders. He was close to the wall, watching her muscles in the dark. Somewhere firecrackers were going off.
"It doesn't matter," she said.
"You never think of something like that," he said, "that a policeman is going to bring Paris Trout to kangaroo court. You give people credit for more sense .... "
She put a hand out in the dark, finding his face, and then rested a finger across his lips. He dropped deeper into his pillow.
"You looked stricken," he said a little later.
He lifted his head to see if she was looking stricken now. A small, perfect breast in silhouette against the window. She blinked, and he saw a tear roll over her eyelid. It came to him again that she still had feelings for Paris Trout. "What were you thinking," he said, "when they wrestled him to the ground?"
"Nothing," she said, "I just saw it."
"Did you remember what he'd done to you?"
It was quiet a moment. Then: "No. It seems like someone else he did that to."
He kissed the palm of her hand and then her cheek. It was wet. "You felt sorry for him," he said. His head was right over hers now, but she looked past him toward the ceiling.
"It's like watching someone die," she said. "The distance . . ."
He pushed himself up, arm's length, and moved his head until he was directly in her line of sight. She said, "Sometimes, when a person is dying, you wonder who it is that's wandering away and who is left behind."
It was still in the room, and Seagraves lay back on his pillow. He'd had similar thoughts himself, about the people he'd loved.
"At the bottom of things," she said, "he might be stumbling around in the dark."
"You believe that?" he said.
She said she didn't know. "I don't think he's come to the bottom of things yet," she said.
Seagraves pulled her into him then, one of his hands resting in the small of her back, the other in her hair. "In a month he'll be gone," he said. "He can't buy himself out of any federal penitentiary. Carl Bormer will file the divorce papers, and he's out of your mind."
She was pressed into his shoulder and did not answer.
"You could teach again," he said. "Go into business, whatever you want. This thing today, it shouldn't of happened .... " He was trying to find her now, but he couldn't. "It's what you want," he said, "to be loose of him."
"What I think," she said, pulling away, "at the bottom of things, I may be stumbling in the dark too, and he might be down there with me."
"You want me to let you alone?" he said.
She said, "I don't know."
* * *
THE PAGEANT WAS SCHEDULED to run three performances. Friday and Saturday night, Sunday afternoon. Admission was free, and Charlotte Hock intended to see all of it, unless Mr. Trout kept her late Saturday evening. She could not read his mood and was afraid to ask his schedule.
On one hand, he was talking to himself more, sitting in his office with his face in his hands, mumbling words she could not understand. On the other hand, when he spoke to her, he sounded unnaturally cheerful, a condition she attributed to the town celebration.
He had seen his mother every morning that week and twice had gone back to visit her in the afternoon. Charlotte Hock had never seen Mrs. Trout and was curious if there was a family resemblance.
He came into the office late Saturday morning, about nine-thirty, and reported that he had been in an accident. A produce truck had run into his Ford and bent the door so it wouldn't open. He was soaked through from the rain.
"My goodness," she said, "are you injured?" She could see he wasn't. He disappeared into his office and spent the next hour at his desk composing a letter. At least that is what he was doing the times she passed the open door and looked in.
She went by several times, waiting for him to notice her so that she could ask about leaving early. He never took his eyes off his work, though, not even when she stomped her wooden peg against the floor, pretending to trip. She decided to wait until he was finished and ask him then.
He came out of the office at ten-thirty, wearing his coat and hat. He was still soaking wet. She thought he might be going to see his mother again. "Charlotte," he said, "did you drive today?"
"Yessir," she said, "I always drive." She was proud of the fact that A a peg leg didn't stop her.
"Let me borrow your car a little while," he said.
It took her a moment to understand what he wanted. He had never asked to use her car before; he had several of his own parked in the alley with signs stuck to their windows.
"My car?" she said.
"Mine's tore up," he said.
She thought of the other cars in the alley but did not dare to ask why he didn't drive one of those. She found her purse behind the counter and looked through it for her keys. He didn't seem to be in any hurry, which was out of the ordinary too. She thought it would be a good time to ask about leaving early.
"Here we are," she said, and took the keys out of her purse. She had owned the car a year, drove it up into her backyard every night, and locked it there, out of sight. No one else had driven it, no one else had even ridden in it. She pictured it running into a produce truck.
"I'll be back before lunch," he said.
"Yessir." And then, as he was walking out, she said, "Mr. Trout, you think I might could leave an hour early today?"
He didn't say yes, he didn't say no. He heard her, though, because she saw him deciding. He stopped a moment and cocked his head. And then it was decided, but he never told her the answer.
He slammed the door on the way out, but it didn't mean anything. She thought it was probably because he was hurrying. She could hear the rain lacing the front window. She didn't think he would borrow her car if she was fired.
The office door was still open. She waited until she heard the car turn from the alley into the street and then went inside. She had never been in the office alone before, she thought he might have kept pictures of his mother in his drawers. She walked farther in, listening for the car — the muffler was bad, so she would hear it — and then saw that he'd left what he was writing on top of the desk.
It was a note card, not a letter. She could not read it from there. She listened again, making sure the car was gone, and then stepped behind the desk. She did not pick the card up for fer he had memorized where it was.
It was printed in pencil, dated Sunday, which was incorrect. It was the Saturday. She thought the celebration might have confused him.
To whom it may concern: I just do not care to continue this the way it is going. In this connection, I will not be able to do my full duty. I can do only the best that I can.
Paris Trout
— I was convicted by the highpocket boys and the courthouse gang who went tampering with the jury.
Charlotte Hock, no longer listening for her car, sat down in the desk chair, put her face in her hands, and began to cry. Mr. Trout, she thought, had gone and stolen her car and run for
the state line.
* * *
HE DROVE BACK TO the hotel in the rain and got out without turning off the engine. The clerk seemed surprised in some way to see him there. He thought it showed, what he intended to do.
He locked the door when he was in his room and studied himself in the bathroom mirror. He ran a comb through his hair. Water flew off and splattered against his cheeks and his neck. He straightened his tie and studied his teeth; then he pulled back his lips with his fmgers until he saw the face that he recognized, a family resemblance. It satisfied him, and he left the mirror and moved to his dresser.
There was a cocked double — barrel shotgun lying across the top along with several pistols, most of them revolvers. The ones he chose were automatics: a .45 caliber Commander, which he stuck into his belt, and a smaller .38 caliber Colt, which he put in his coat pocket.
He opened the top drawer of the dresser, where he kept his ammunition. The maid had put his socks and undershorts on top, and he dumped them all on the glass floor, hearing the shells hit and scatter. The full clips made a heavier sound and did not roll away.
He kicked the socks and underwear to the side and picked up the clips: two for the forty-five, one for the thirty-eight. He put them in the empty pocket of his coat. He went back to the mirror, and then he walked out of the room, feeling the weight in his pockets. His own
true weight.
The rain had stopped, the car was still running, idling high. The windshield wipers rubbed and stuck, steam rose off the hood. There were horses in the street, a few young girls with batons. The beginnings of a parade. He watched a timid girl approaching a horse, wanting to put her hand against its nose. She inched closer and then the horse threw its head, and she jumped back. She collapsed, laughing, in the arms of the other girls.
Then, untangling herself, she turned and her eyes caught Trout sitting behind the car window, and what was in her face changed. He knew he had caught her at something. He rolled down his window, and she took a step in his direction and stopped.
"You want to come with me?" he said.
"No sir," she said. "I'm in the parade."
He pushed the clutch to the floor and forced the car into first gear. The transmission ground, and the child covered her ears. He turned in front of the horse and drove across town. The streets were half hidden by long puddles, some of them a foot deep. The engine coughed and caught but did not stop.
There was an empty parking spot directly in front of the nursing home, marked DIRECTOR, and Trout took it. His brakes were gone from running through the standing Water, and the front tires of Charlotte Hock's car hit the curb and bounced back.