“The house trailer down by …”
“The dump. In grade school the kids would come up to me in the playground. ‘Hey, Jan. Saw your father in the street uptown. When you go after him, be careful you don’t step on his fingers.’ When I grew enough to make it interesting for them, they’d pull up by the trailer and honk. No date, no phone call, just a honk. Good ol’ Jan, daughter of the town drunk, she’ll be glad to take a ride up Farnsworth Hill.”
“I never did that.”
“I know. You were the best.”
“What happened to your father?”
“During my last year of training, he drowned in a two-foot puddle. He always did things in a small way. So, you see, the next time around is for the money.”
“Tallman isn’t the place to find them.”
“Oh, I don’t know. I looked out recently and saw that the rainbow seemed to end right over our little town.”
“Do you know who he is, Mrs. Wholly?” They turned to face a wispy man with a drink-creased face standing by the side of the table.
“Pardon?”
“He’s a goddamn draft evader! Listen, buddy. How dare you sit with her? She’s a saint. A veritable saint and Gold Star Mother.”
“Not mother,” Jan replied.
“Or somethin’. And you’re sitting with this jerk. This damn commie pinko. He ought to be run out of town.” The thrown glass of beer spattered against Brian’s face and dribbled down over his chin. The edge of Brian’s hand swooped upward and caught the man across the larynx.
“My God, I’m sorry,” Brian said, as the man did a backward stumble until he hit the far wall and slid to the floor. Breathing in short gasps, the man clutched at his neck with both hands.
Jan moved quickly across the room and knelt by the fallen man. She opened his shirt and applied gentle pressure against his diaphragm until the breathing returned to normal. She turned to Brian.
“Let’s leave now. Please.”
The cemetery was a very old one. Most of the tombstones near the road had been rain-washed for so many years that only by rubbing the tips of your fingers across their smooth surface could the slight indentations of their inscriptions be felt.
The funeral entourage pulled slowly through the front gates and wound toward the open grave near the rear of the property. Cars stopped, doors slammed, and a procession of people moved across the grassy slopes and gathered around the coffin.
Brian stood directly behind the minister with Lockwood and Martha by his side. Jan, Clinton, Gordon and others circled the grave at a respectful distance.
The church on Tallman green had been full. The services had been short, and the graveside ceremony would be even shorter. The day was too bright for his mother to be buried … he had seen so little of her over the past few years … disconnected thoughts floated through Brian’s mind.
Lockwood stared intently at the coffin perched over the grave. “I worked here once,” he said.
“Shh.” Martha put a restraining hand on Lockwood’s shoulder as the priest began the reading.
When the last words had been said, a slight breeze stirred the air, and with a nearly audible sigh, the crowd moved away from the grave toward waiting cars. Brian was alone for a moment, and he looked across the cemetery to see Lockwood at the far side, standing with bent head over a small monument.
His uncle looked up and their eyes met across the sea of stones, and then Lockwood turned abruptly to walk quickly past the waiting limousine toward the rear of the cemetery. Brian knew his uncle would walk the many miles across the fields to the house.
Chapter Four
Cars filled the driveway in front of the house. Brian told the limousine’s solemn driver to let him off under the swinging sign at the oak tree. He trudged reluctantly across the lawn toward the porch, where people stood in clumps with glasses and food plates precariously balanced. Martha’s husband, Harry Rubinow, ferret-faced and out of place dressed in a loud, checkered sports jacket, seemed to dominate the group. The crowd on the porch, like seagulls hovering over the fantail of a ship, listened to his pontifications. Brian had witnessed such tableaux at universities when visiting super-intellectuals dominated cocktail parties, or when men of known wealth voiced opinions on subjects far removed from the secret of their monetary success.
Harry saw Brian on the steps and moved from the throng with outstretched hand. “Condolences, Brian. You know what we all thought of Mary.”
“Thank you, Harry. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate Martha’s help. Her arranging all this.” He waved a hand across the group and hoped his irony wasn’t too apparent.
“Martha’s all heart. Well, guess you won’t be coming down Morris Street to join the Legion, will you?” He broke into a deep laugh that was surprising for his size.
“Not hardly.”
“The old peanut farmer gives the word and the immigration starts back to the land of milk and honey, heh?”
“Something like that.”
“Live and let live; that’s my motto.”
“Good as any.”
“If you need a job, Brian, there’s always room for you in my outfit.”
“That’s kind of you, Harry, but I have a teaching position in Canada.” He wondered briefly what Harry’s ‘outfit’ was. The last he could remember, Martha’s husband had been school custodian. Maybe he needed help in the boiler room, but that wouldn’t account for the hovering sycophants that had surrounded him on the porch.
“Never make big bucks teaching. Let me tell you, things have changed a lot since you went away. Now Martha, she don’t have to work, only went down to the hospital to help with your mom. You change your mind, my office is down at the shopping center.” He winked. “Just might have a couple of sweetheart deals you’d be interested in. Remember that.” He punched Brian affectionately on the shoulder and moved away.
Clinton Robinson stood at the far end of the porch with a plate piled high with food. He ate rapidly while shaking his head in affirmation at a nearby woman. He nodded toward Brian and crossed the porch.
“I hope you’re going to take my advice and leave the country as soon as possible.”
“Is it that imperative?”
“There are a lot of people here that are going to go home, gossip and wonder.”
“Okay, I’ll make reservations and fly out tomorrow. By the way, what accounts for Harry Rubinow’s sudden popularity?”
“Money, and it’s not so sudden.”
“What kind of money?”
“Real estate, and lots of it. It seems that he’d been quietly buying up land for years; then, when the new chemical plant wanted to build out on the north side of town … Harry was waiting.”
“Yankee frugality again?”
“Must be.”
“Will you keep an eye on Lockwood when I go?”
“I’ll add it to my bill.”
Reactions were mixed as Brian made his way through the house. Some of the guests shook his hand solemnly, others stared in open curiosity, while a final group seemed to ignore him studiously. He found Jan in a corner of the sitting room, looking into an un-touched drink.
“Sorry about what happened at the bar yesterday.”
“Wasn’t your fault.”
“Forgive me?”
“For what?”
“Everything.”
Her answer was lost as a group milled around them and she disappeared into the maw of the crowd. In a few minutes Brian found himself alone in a corner with Gordon’s wife, Helen. She was a diminutive woman with bleached-blond hair worn in a large bouffant above the worried crease along her forehead.
“Where’s the good doctor?”
“He had to go back to the hospital after the services. At least today I know one place he isn’t.” She gestured with her head toward the kitchen where Jan was talking to Martha.
“Oh.”
“He told you about that little package of fun and games?”
“Gordon and I haven’t had much ch
ance to talk about anything except mother and so forth.”
“Miss Muffett over there is so forth. You went with her once—is she good in bed? Is she spectacular, hanging from her heels or something?”
“Come on, Helen.”
“What am I supposed to do to compete—suggest an orgy?”
“I know Gordon loves you and the kids very much.”
“Do you, Brian? I could kill the bitch. Let her get her own man.”
“Gordon doesn’t know that you know.”
“You think it would make any difference?”
“I don’t know.”
“I think about it every day. Some days I’m ready to throw down the gauntlet, but then I’m afraid he might pick it up. I don’t know what to do.”
“Give him time.”
She stared into her drink. “Time. I’m not sure how much I have left.”
Before he had a chance to discern the meaning of that cryptic remark, she gave him a little-girl smile and moved away.
Sitting on the edge of his mother’s bed, Brian phoned Air Canada to find he could return the rented car to Boston and catch a 10 A.M. flight. He confirmed the reservation in Howard’s name and turned to see Jan in the doorway.
“You travel under an assumed name?”
“Occasionally.”
“May I ask why?”
“Legal problems.”
She nodded. “Then you’re leaving?”
“In the morning.”
“I think that’s best.”
“Why?”
She walked to the window and looked thoughtfully across the fields. “We might become involved and that wouldn’t be good.” She kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Good-bye.”
“Hey, I haven’t left yet. Why the rush?”
“’Cause I’m leaving. There’s some vibes in the other room that give me the impression that ‘the little woman’ has put the hex on me.”
“She knows about the affair.”
“I’m not surprised. She probably wants me to tattoo a red A on my forehead.”
“Why Gordon?”
She shrugged. “Close daily contact, because he was there, because there’s no available man in twenty miles, or maybe just because he asked me.” She sat on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette. “I guess it’s over, and just as well.”
“If that makes you a free agent, how about taking a ride with me?”
“Where to?”
“Anywhere away from here for a while.”
“Best offer today. In fact, now that I think about it, it’s the only nonobscene offer today.”
“Let me change my clothes and tell Martha.”
“Not a bad idea. That suit fits you like a sack.”
“You should visit me in Canada and take me shopping.”
“I might take you up on that.”
“Back in a minute.” He took the stairs two at a time up to the small bedroom under the eaves. The cadence of voices and laughter from downstairs rose and fell as he slipped from the ill-fitting suit into slacks and a sport shirt. He stopped in the midst of putting his wallet and keys into a pocket. The room seemed unchanged, and yet something was wrong.
The photograph was gone. The picture of his father that he had salvaged from Lockwood’s fire was missing from the bureau.
He found Martha carving turkey on a cutting board in the kitchen. “Where’s Lockwood?”
“I was just fixing a plate to take out to the barn.”
“I’ll take it.” His voice was harsher than he intended.
“Brian.” Her hand plucked his sleeve. “You’ve got to remember that Lockwood still lives with the days before your mother returned to Tallman. Your grandfather never really understood him, and he had that terrible job and lived in a shack down by the river. I never saw anyone so happy as when your mother went to get him,” she said, heaping large amounts of food on a plate. “He loves you and would do anything for you.” She finished serving and handed him the plate.
“I’ll be leaving in the morning. About cleaning up the house?”
“Now, don’t you worry one bit about that. Harry’s sending some of his maintenance men up here late this afternoon. It’ll be spic and span before night. While you’re gone, I’ll stop in to check on Lockwood every other day or so.”
“I’d appreciate that.”
“I’m sorry you have to leave so soon, but it’s probably for the best.”
The tack room was dark. Burlap had been placed over the windows and the light extinguished. Brian set the food plate on the workbench and pulled the cord of the hanging light. Lockwood was huddled on the cot with a blanket pulled to his neck. The naked bulb swung above the workbench, casting alternating swatches of light and shadow on the frightened face.
“Why’d you take it?”
“I’ll leave if you want. You won’t have to fool with me.”
“That won’t be necessary.” Brian felt compassion for this man who lived a solitary, lonely life in a portion of a barn. His uncle’s feelings of love and grief had to be transmitted from his fingers to small pieces of wood … and yet his recent actions were inexplicable.
“The picture of my father, what did you do with it?”
“Leave me alone.”
Brian grasped the edge of the blanket and ripped it from the cot to reveal Lockwood fully dressed. “You always nap like that?” His uncle’s face turned toward him with a gaping mouth that dribbled a thin string of saliva. “Oh, Christ, Lockwood! What are we doing?” Brian was denuded of anger, and he sat heavily on the work stool.
“Are you going to hurt me, Brian?”
“No, Lockwood,” he said softly. “I don’t want to hurt anyone. My picture is gone, and it was all I had left.” He was so very tired. He wondered if it were possible that Lockwood’s grief could not be assuaged through his carvings so that he felt some innate need to obliterate Mary’s existence.
Lockwood sat up and looked toward him fearfully. “You want me to leave, Brian? I don’t have many things and could go in the morning.”
Brian shook his head and sat next to his uncle. “No, I want you to stay. Listen to me carefully. I have to go back to Canada in the morning, but Martha and Clinton Robinson are going to look after you. You can stay on here, and every month the bank will send you a check. When I can return, in a month or two, we’ll find a shop near the highway with a place to sell the animals and a small apartment where you can live.”
Lockwood brightened. “I’d like that.”
“I’m sorry I yelled at you, but I wanted the picture of my father back. It’s important to me.”
“We’re still friends?”
“Of course.”
“You really want the picture?”
“Very much.”
“I was going to burn it.”
“I’d really like it back,” Brian said softly.
Lockwood climbed onto the end of the workbench and felt along a beam near the ceiling. “I hollowed out a secret place.” He fumbled along the top of the beam and then jumped from the bench with the picture in his hand. He handed it to Brian. “I hope I didn’t hurt it.”
Brian unfurled the photograph. The paper had cracked to make the smiling man’s grin wider than before. “Why?”
Lockwood sat on the stool with the plate on his lap. “I’m hungry. Later we can talk about my new shop, huh, Brian?”
Brian took the photograph back to his room and put it in the spot under the eaves where he had once stored secret things. Going back downstairs, he found Jan standing on the front steps looking out over the mass of cars in the drive.
“I’ll never get my car out,” he said.
“I’ll drive.”
They went to her red Corvette which was parked off the side of the road below the house. Jan drove with a competent abandon, accelerating to the maximum speed the winding roads would allow. Brian watched her intent features as she gripped the wheel with both hands.
“You always drive this fast?”<
br />
The car slowed as she immediately decreased the pressure on the accelerator. “Only sometimes.”
“I had to get out of there. Christ.”
“You’ve been away too long. It’s never the same.”
“It’s more than that. I feel like I’m getting ready to run again. I’ve done a lot of that in the past few years. I’ve run out of bunkers, countries and bottles. Jesus, I’m not completing anything. I never got to say good-bye to my mother, and my relations with people in Canada leave something to be desired. Do you know that I completed my course work for my master’s four years ago and haven’t been able to finish the thesis?”
“Leaving Tallman tomorrow isn’t running, it’s prudent.”
“I’m having second thoughts about leaving.”
“Don’t!” The car swerved into the far lane and nearly collided with a pickup truck. The truck’s horn screeched in Doppler effect as it passed harmlessly to the rear.
“I don’t want to stay here dead.”
“Sorry. What you’re really saying is something I’ve seen a dozen times at the hospital when someone dies. Friends and relatives can’t assimilate it. They don’t want to let go.”
“Yes, I know what you mean, but they don’t have eccentric uncles and unanswered questions.”
“There aren’t any questions.”
The speed of the car increased again, but this time her full attention was focused on the road ahead. They drove in silence, with only the rise and fall of the engine providing a background for their thoughts. She avoided major arteries, driving over a haphazard pattern of country roads. The road, speckled with sun through overhanging branches, began to have a soothing effect, and Brian felt his taut nerves begin to calm.
“Friends?” he asked.
“Maybe.” She pretended to pout. “If you get me something to eat. You dragged me away from all Martha’s food, and I’m starved.”
“How about a picnic?”
“Anything, as long as it’s not raw.”
“I know a place not far from here.”
“A secret place?”
“Of course.”
They stopped at a general store with a delicatessen counter and purchased sliced roast beef and turkey breast. A nearby liquor store had chilled wine. After they loaded the car, Brian drove. “It’s only a few miles from here. As a kid I used to bike up here to go fly-fishing.”
The Laughing Man Page 5