Seeing the path cleared for an attack, Randy stuck an arm above his head and with one finger straight out fired several shots.
“Bang! Bang! Bang!” he shouted and swooped down on the vulnerable Ginger. Scooping her up by her well-brushed hair, he swung her around above his head as though she were a lasso. The startled Cynthia stepped down from the camper with Ginger’s makeup kit just in time to see the body of her favorite doll flung far out into the Mattagash River. Her cries of agony paralleled those of her mother just two days before when Thelma thought her babies were on fire. Cynthia jumped up and down several times, braids flapping from the sides of her head like wings, and her tears seemed endless. Thelma rushed from the camper and Junior, who had been napping in the tent, crawled out rubbing his eyes.
“What in hell was that?” he asked Thelma.
“Sissy!” Thelma shook her oldest child. “Tell Mama what it is! Did you see something?”
Cynthia, who was unable in her agony to speak, simply nodded, mouth wide open, face twisted with grief. She pointed to the river.
“You saw something in the river?” asked her father, who suddenly noticed Randy for the first time at the end of the camper, where he stood kicking ground with his new PF Flyers.
“What did she see, Randy?” he asked.
“I dunno. A sea monster, I suppose.” The PF Flyers went back to work.
“A sea monster? Are you crazy? Listen, baby,” Junior said, trying to take the girl into his arms. “It must’ve been a log. There’s no such thing as a sea monster.”
But Cynthia, who had just been witness to murder, fought him off, kicking the ground until her frustrated parents gave up and waited for her to come around enough to tell her story.
“She gets that from your mother,” Thelma whispered. “Gets into such a tizzy that she’s all nerves and can’t talk.”
When the pain of loss subsided enough to make speech possible, Cynthia wiped the discharge from her red nose on the sleeve of her sweater. “Randy drowned Ginger,” she said, and went back to sobbing.
“Oh my God!” shouted Junior. “Who’s Ginger?!”
“It’s her favorite baby doll,” said Thelma. Despite all the television commercials about the Mercury-like ability of the PF Flyers, Junior caught Randy fifty yards from the camper. He dragged him back to camp and stood him up to face his sister. By this time, Cynthia had been fueled by Thelma’s coddling and was wailing like a wronged southern belle.
“My baby, my baby,” she wept on her mother’s breast.
Marvin Randall “Randy” Ivy III, unable to be sent to his bed until the camper was prepared for bedtime, was sent to the Packard where he was to stay, forever if necessary, until he apologized to his sister and promised to buy her another doll out of his own allowance. This coffer had already been crippled by the promise to purchase a set of toy tableware for Regina Beth, Randy having nailed all twenty-four pieces of the latter to the telephone pole by the bridge. His hammer set had been locked in the trunk of the Packard to further the punishment, and now Randy himself was confined to the isolated cell of the Packard’s backseat.
“I don’t know what’s in that child to make him do what he does,” Thelma said, trying to mop the perpetual flow of Cynthia’s nose. “There’s no dispositions like that on my side of the family.”
“Will you quit trying to blame someone else because you should have beaten his little ass years ago and didn’t? You always pampered that kid, Thelma.” Junior had not yet vented his anger about the Packard incident, and if Thelma pushed him any more, by God, he would.
“You always told me not to spank him because he was a boy, and boys shouldn’t be spanked. He was your little man, you said. Gonna follow his daddy’s footsteps straight into the Ivy Funeral Home.”
Junior’s eyes narrowed slightly and Thelma noticed the change. When his eyes narrowed, it was time to retreat.
“Is the doll gone for good?” she asked her husband, who looked down the fast-moving Mattagash River and said, “I suppose.”
This sparked Cynthia again, and only with the solemn promise that they would drive to Watertown the next day and procure a replacement for Ginger could Thelma soothe the little girl.
Junior went back to his nap and dreams of large-breasted choir girls on the calendar in the MALE EMPLOYEES ONLY restroom of the Ivy Funeral Home. Half into sleep, the blast of the Packard’s horn assaulted him like the mating call of a frenzied moose. He bounded from the tent, stepping forgetfully on his still sore ankle, just in time to see his prized Packard, with a vengeful Randy at the helm, coast slowly down the incline and into the Mattagash River. The front fender, slamming into a large rock ten feet offshore, stopped the Packard as water swirled up above the tires.
Randy, who had already decided that they could have the rest of his measly allowance to buy the family a new Packard, let up on the horn. As silence crept in over the front seat, he settled down, his father’s son, and waited for the enemy on shore to make the next move.
SARAH PINKHAM KEEPS WATCH: BIG BROTHER WITH BINOCULARS
“Nobody’s got that much attention since Grammie caught her tit in the wringer.”
—Winnie Craft, About Violet
La Forge, Sarah’s Party, 1959
In all her years in Mattagash, Sarah Pinkham had never personally known a loose woman. There had been gossip. There had been brown-eyed children born to many blue-eyed couples over the years, and more than once a woman whose husband was out of town would send her children to their grandmother’s for the night and close the Venetian blinds. But gossip and whispers were one thing. Doing exercises in skimpy leotards and hanging underthings out where the world could glimpse them was suggestive of something deeper.
Violet La Forge was the first loose woman Mattagash had ever encountered in the flesh. And the vigilance committee Sarah Pinkham had managed to organize over coffee and doughnuts meant business. That their husbands lingered too long in Albert’s dooryard whenever Violet was outside exercising was evident even to the fishermen’s wives in rooms 1 and 2. That the men from Mattagash told jokes back and forth about the dances Violet did in her scarves at the Watertown Hotel was evident to everyone but Violet. It was all too much to ask of any decent homemaking woman in Mattagash to have trash like that flaunted beneath their noses. And if flaunting it beneath their noses wasn’t bad enough, Sarah Pinkham had it flaunted beneath her own bedroom window.
When Albert sweated and tossed in his sleep, Sarah lay awake and wondered if Violet was exercising in his dreams, the thin material stretched across her large breasts. And the indefinable fear that rose up inside her was borne on the knowledge that she could watch Albert closely all day but could not follow him inside his head at night.
At night Albert Pinkham went inside his mind and closed the door. There was no way for her to jiggle the lock and make him come back out. No key to have duplicated so that she might check for herself in the morning, sorting over disconnected images and parts of dreams that had piled up during the night. But if she could, and found Violet La Forge’s smiling face there amid the pictures, she would tear it into a thousand shards. She would scatter it about in Albert’s brain until it was lost.
It was only Albert’s subconscious, his private place to go to in sleep and release the daily tension. But to Sarah it was a bachelor pad. One night she deliberately coughed loudly when a dream seemed to hold Albert longer than usual. He sat up saying, “What’s that?” Hearing Sarah say, “It was the dog barking at a car,” he went back to sleep.
Sarah realized that her husband needed a good night’s rest, and that she must stop kicking him in the shins when she had overused the coughing method. But even the fresh smell of the river drifting up to the windows at night now pained her, as though it were the perfumed breath of Violet La Forge, taunting her as it slipped into her husband’s nostrils and bewitched him. Something had to be done before Albe
rt Pinkham went the way of all flesh.
“Has she done anything outright?” Martha Fogarty asked, hoping that Sarah knew firsthand of several things.
“She exercises in them leotards in broad daylight. That’s enough, don’t you think?” Sarah asked Winnie Craft.
“Lord, you wouldn’t catch me in them little tight things,” said Winnie. “I been too embarrassed to even wear a pair of pants since way back when Lennie was a baby.”
“That ain’t the point. Even if you could, you wouldn’t wear ’em. No decent woman, not even one that looks like her, would flaunt herself like that.”
When Sarah reminded them that decency was involved, they soon lost track of that glimmer of objectivity that hit Mattagash minds at intervals but invariably flickered out, leaving behind a trail of smoke that impaired the sight more than ever.
“The woman has got a flower’s name,” said Sarah.
“She does wiggle more than her share,” said Winnie.
“Them things fit her like Scotch tape,” said Martha.
“And the men hang around here like old dogs frothing at the mouth whenever she’s outside.” Sarah let this drop like a dainty bomb.
“Does Freddie?” asked Winnie.
“Does Bert?” asked Martha.
“Sometimes,” said Sarah.
The vigilante committee decided upon a letter, not wanting to address the modern dancer directly. They gathered after supper to compose it. Several other women, tired of children who looked too much like their husband’s family, or wishing for a wet drop of excitement to fall into the dry days and nights, came along to hear the outcome. Sarah’s parlor filled up quickly. Sandwiches had been made and salads had been brought. Coffee brewed. Among the gathered literati, Martha Fogarty was chosen to take charge of the composition, hers being the best handwriting.
“Do we start with ‘Dear Violet’?” asked Winnie.
“That sounds too friendly,” said one of the group.
“How about ‘To Miss La Forge’?” asked Martha.
“What is this blue stuff? It’s good,” said Winnie, who was bulging like a barrel from years of overeating.
“It’s called Hawaiian Delight,” said Flora Gardner. “I got it out of the Bangor Daily News. A woman from Portland sent it in. She got it from her sister in Boston. It was a chain letter recipe. If you broke the chain all your baking for one full year would turn out bad.”
“It’s real good,” said another woman, and the whole room silently conceded that, at least at this gathering, Flora had taken the prize for a recipe that was most uncommon.
“It takes a whole can of Eagle Brand milk,” Flora offered, then said no more, merely adding to the mystery of the recipe.
“Why isn’t Sicily here?” asked Winnie.
“I didn’t think she’d want to leave Marge. And Pearl is back in town,” Sarah told her, concealing the real reason—that she suspected Edward Lawler had been a frequent guest of Violet’s when the moon was full and most eyes were closed. All eyes except Sarah’s, who watched the comings and goings of life at the motel the way a serious birdwatcher keeps up a vigil for rare and exciting birds. When this nasty little episode with Violet was over, she would let the cat out of the bag about Ed Lawler. She never liked Ed. He always thought his education placed him a head and shoulders above the other men in town. Her Albert might have only gone to the fifth grade, but he did own his own business. And Sarah really did like Sicily. She wasn’t like the other McKinnons, who thought they could walk on water. Especially Pearl. She wouldn’t enjoy telling on Ed for Sicily’s sake. But it was a small town and she was obligated to tattle.
“Did you see Eva McPherson’s mother’s ring the kids all got together and bought her?” Winnie asked the group as a single entity.
“It’s the prettiest thing,” she went on, not waiting to hear if anyone had. “The oldest and the youngest was both born in January. The second-oldest and the second-youngest was both born in August. Then Perry was born in June and Penny in October, so she’s got a red stone on each end, two light greens next to each red one, then that little opal and that pearl right fair in the middle. It’s the prettiest mother’s ring I ever saw. Just like you went down to the jewelry store and asked the man to do it like that on purpose.”
“How about ‘To Miss La Forge’?” Martha, pen still poised over paper, patiently asked again.
“I doubt if she is a ‘Miss.’ She’s probably got a dozen husbands and kids somewhere,” said Sarah. “Just put ‘To Violet La Forge’ and let it go at that.”
TO VIOLET LA FORGE:
IT HAS COME TO OUR ATTENTION THAT YOU EXERCISE IN PUBLIC A LOT WEARING VERY LITTLE. ALSO YOU ARE A DANCER AND STRIPPER OVER IN WATERTOWN. AS MOTHERS OF CHILDREN, WE THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE TOWN AND GO SOMEWHERE ELSE TO LIVE, AS YOU ARE NOTHING BUT THE CENTER OF GOSSIP HERE AND DON’T FIT IN.
—CONCERNED CITIZENS
P.S. WE STILL HOPE GOD WILL FORGIVE YOU AND SAVE YOUR SOUL. PLEASE BE GONE BY THREE O’CLOCK TOMORROW.
Violet La Forge, not knowing she was the uninvited guest of honor at Mattagash’s first autumn social event, donned her leotards and began a series of vigorous exercises on the pavement outside her room.
“Well, as I live and breathe, speak of the devil,” Sarah said, and guided the committee to the window. They took turns peering through Sarah’s small binoculars at Violet, who always began her exercises with a few minutes of yoga. She was in the lotus position. Only twenty feet away and magnified in the binoculars, her breasts took on mythic proportions. Those committee members who were only along for curiosity and a cup of coffee soon became embroiled and the binoculars became as popular as one pair of opera glasses at the opening of Madame Butterfly.
“She thinks she’s the best thing since sliced bread,” said Martha, aiming the binoculars just as Violet thrust her legs into a bicycle exercise.
“Let her,” said Sarah. “When we’re done with her, there’ll be only bread crumbs left.”
THE GIFFORD OUTHOUSE: A HOME AWAY FROM HOME
“Once when we was little and the only bathroom at the school was still the old outhouse, I dropped my little butterfly barrette down one of the holes by accident. And I asked Chester Lee Gifford to get it out for me. He said, ‘I don’t dig around in shit.’ I said, ‘Well, you live in it, Chester, what’s the difference?’ And he grabbed me and dragged me inside the outhouse and stuffed my head down one of the holes and kept me there until I almost passed out. Mr. Fortin was on duty that day on the playground, and he saw the commotion around the outhouse and came and got me out of there. That’s the kind of insane boy Chester Lee was.”
—Patsy Fennelson, Schoolmate to Chester Lee,
Later a Housewife, 1960
Chester Lee Gifford, named for his uncle Lee, lay sprawled on his bed in a stream of warm September sun that struggled through the unwashed windows of the Gifford house. He twirled one panel of the plastic curtains into a tight roll, imagining that the ugly parrots that covered it were having their necks wrung. He wore no shirt and dots of sweat formed among the curly hairs on his chest. Two days’ growth of beard spread across his face and neck. He slipped his tongue across the buildup on his front teeth. His head felt like a run-over pumpkin, the combination of wine-liquor having taken its toll. It was on mornings like this that Chester Lee appreciated the no-work lifestyle set for him by his ancestors.
Snapping the curtain in midair, he let it fly in a swish that resembled the flapping of wings, and the tortured parrots were free to escape. Chester lit up a cigarette and threw the match onto the bare wooden boards of the floor. Downstairs, the kitchen had linoleum on the floor, an imitation of red brick that Bert Gifford had discovered in a logging camp owned by one of the large landowners and toted home to Ruth. It was a true Gifford reaction, their own “Finders Takers” philosophy. But the red linoleum was a source of pride to the entire
Gifford family.
An outhouse sat out back, shrouded with houseflies and unpleasant odors. This structure was still functioning even among a few of the better citizenry of Mattagash, but those who had them were forced to have them, and each fall the money from the potato harvest was made in hopes of using it for the purchase of a commode. The bathtub would be added the following harvest, or whenever the money might be raised. In the meantime, the outside toilet was a source of embarrassment to the owner, with folks from Watertown driving by on Sundays with relatives from out of state who didn’t believe that outhouses were still in existence, and laughing behind the locked doors of their cars as they drove through Mattagash counting the eyesores so that they might take the statistics back to Boston, where even Watertown was laughable.
Those few unfortunates who were still destined to relieve themselves in bathrooms not connected to their homes tried to beautify the situation. The women painted them bright colors and planted flowers about the door. They placed bricks in the earth path for a cobblestone effect, or painted two discarded car tires white and sank them in the ground where they became a gateway for the outhouse path. The seat, usually a two-holer, was scoured twice a week with a scrub brush and lye soap, and air fresheners bought from the Fuller Brush man hung promisingly from the inside ceiling. The men moved them often to newly dug holes, covering up the old ones so that the refuse would not pile high enough to be unbearable to sight and smell.
Only the Giffords took a natural pride in their outhouse, never lifting a finger to improve upon what they considered a functional machine. It remained unpainted, the rough boards turning gray in the weather, and the smell permeating the area enough that the two skinny dogs, Chainsaw and Dusty, chose to sleep on a neighbor’s porch in order that their dreams be unbroken by such an assault on their noses. The man-hours and work involved in moving the building to a new site was not the problem for the Giffords that it was for others in Mattagash. When the pile of feces began to scale the top of one hole, all bodily activity was simply transferred to the remaining hole. Even when that one was no longer usable, the family was not panic-stricken. Small mounds appeared behind the outhouse and along its sides, while crumpled catalog pages of bicycles or of kitchenware were left outside to blow with the wind onto the main road until the town issued an ordinance that the family move the outhouse and clean up around it. But issuing an ordinance to a Gifford was like tacking a notice up on some tree in the woods asking the animals to stop defecating in the forest. The law simply didn’t apply to them, and it went unheeded. The sheriff-delivered letter did have enough of an impact that Chester Lee would disappear into the bowels of the American Legion Hall and Bert would take to his bed complaining of his back, citing as proof the monthly ADC check from Augusta. There was nothing the town could do but undertake the unpleasant chore themselves, hiring a highly paid demolition crew, complete with gas masks and gloves, to go in and set things in order.
The Funeral Makers Page 11