Captain Saturday

by Robert Inman

  CAPTAIN SATURDAY

  A Novel by

  Robert Inman

  Cardinal Publishing

  Copyright © 2002 by Robert Inman

  Electronic edition Copyright © 2012 by Robert Inman

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means without permission from the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Originally published by Little, Brown and Company, January, 2002

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Inman, Robert

  Captain Saturday : A novel / Ebook edition

  ISBN 978-1-62050-959-3

  Jacket Design by Lee Inman Farabaugh

  Jacket Illustration by Steven Stines

  For Paulette the girl I couldn’t do without

  “The difference between the man who just cuts lawns and a real gardener is in the touching…. The lawn cutter might just as well not have been there at all. The gardener will be there a lifetime.”

  --Ray Bradbury

  Fahrenheit 451

  “We shall never be content until each man makes his own weather and keeps it to himself.”

  --Jerome K. Jerome

  Also by Robert Inman

  Home Fires Burning

  Old Dogs and Children

  Dairy Queen Days

  Coming Home

  The Christmas Bus

  CONTENTS

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Praise for Captain Saturday

  Book One

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Book Two

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Book Three

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Book Four

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Book Five

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-One

  Twenty-Two

  Twenty-Three

  Twenty-Four

  Twenty-Five

  ABOUT THE BOOK

  Will Baggett, TV weatherman, is Raleigh, North Carolina’s biggest celebrity. With adoring fans, a nice house, a son in medical school, and a beautiful wife who is one of the town’s top real estate brokers, Will’s life is pretty much exactly the way he wants it.

  But his well-ordered world comes crashing down when a heartless conglomerate buys the TV station and decides that Will is a relic of the past. Trying to get his job back, he gets himself arrested and does grave damage to his pride and his future TV prospects. That’s when Will starts to realize that more than just his career is in jeopardy: his marriage is coming apart and his son doesn’t like him very much.

  Just when he thinks he’s hit bottom, the past he thought he didn’t have comes calling in the form of his cousin, Wingfoot Baggett, who takes Will for some R&R back home on the Cape Fear River. There, some long-neglected accounts are waiting to be settled.

  How Will comes to term with his history, resolves his troubles with the law, gets to know his son – and himself – and tries to recapture the magic of his marriage is the subject of this graceful, comic, and poignant novel. It is also a story about how the New South, with its booming economy and newly sprawling cities, is stamping out the Old South and in the process losing a sense of tradition and identity.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Robert Inman is the author of five novels: Captain Saturday, Home Fires Burning, Old Dogs and Children, Dairy Queen Days, and The Governor’s Lady, as well as a collection essays, Coming Home: Life, Love and All Things Southern, and a family holiday book, The Christmas Bus.

  Inman has written screenplays for six motion pictures for television, two of which have been “Hallmark Hall of Fame” presentations. His script for The Summer of Ben Tyler, a Hallmark production, won the Writers’ Guild of America Award as the best original television screenplay of 1997. His other Hallmark feature was Home Fires Burning, an adaptation of his novel, winner of a Houston Film Festival Silver Medal.

  His playwriting credits include Crossroads, The Christmas Bus, Dairy Queen Days, Welcome to Mitford, A High Country Christmas Carol, The Christmas Bus: The Musical, and The Drama Club. He wrote the book, music and lyrics for Crossroads and The Christmas Bus: The Musical. Inman’s plays are published by Dramatic Publishing Company.

  Inman holds two degrees from the University of Alabama, including a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. He left a 30-year career in television journalism in 1996 to become a full-time writer. He and his wife Paulette live in Conover and Boone, North Carolina. They have two daughters, Mrs. Larkin Ferris and Mrs. Lee Farabaugh.

  Visit the author’s website at www.robert-inman.com.

  PRAISE FOR CAPTAIN SATURDAY

  “Inman is a witty, utterly charming storyteller, who portrays the human comedy with a full appreciation for its tenderness and pain…. Captain Saturday is a book full of hard-won hope, a celebration of the power of renewal, and some wise advice about how to live well in any weather…. Yes, Captain Saturday captures the changing culture and economy of the South beautifully, but its real region is the human heart…. Inman’s books have been bottled up in the genre of Southern literature long enough. This one deserves a wider audience.”

  --Ron Charles, Christian Science Monitor

  “At once deeply affecting and warmly humorous, this fourth novel by Inman faintly echoes the bittersweet reflections of such literary forebears as Flannery O’Connor…. Peopled with vivid, endearingly quixotic characters and filled with dead-on insights into a shallow New South that defines itself by club memberships and designer labels, this richly-textured epic is a paean to the vagaries of the human heart.”

  -- Publishers Weekly

  “A reflective and rewarding examination of modern American values…. For readers who may be struck by the ephemerality of ‘things’ and want to learn to reconnect with ‘people,’ Captain Saturday shows how one poor, benighted TV weatherman turns the worst kind of adversity into a transformational, if not transcendent, learning experience.”

  -- John Harper, Orlando Sentinel

  “A novel ringing with authenticity, both poignant and funny, that leaves readers questioning their own understanding of what is truly valuable.”

  -- Nancy Dorman-Hickson, Southern Living Review

  “It is to Inman’s credit that he doesn’t make caricatures of these Southern characters. He develops them beyond the stereotypes, turning them into sympathetic and interesting people…. Inman writes another funny, warm and very timely piece of Americana.”

  -- Ann DeFrange, Sunday Oklahoman

  “Inman’s most ambitious and finest novel….A gregarious, engaging work of fiction.”

  --William Starr, State (Columbia, SC)

  BOOK ONE

  ONE

  When Will Baggett drove his automobile in Raleigh, a lot of people honked at him. Of course, the personalized licensed plate -- ZATUWILL? -- had something to do with it. Personalized licensed plates are popular in North Carolina, available for an extra twenty-five dollars if you’re vain, cute, clever, or just want to be recognized. In Will Baggett’s case, it was the latter. Being recognized was part of Will’s business. He was, arguably, the most recognizable man in Raleigh because he was Raleigh’s most popular TV weatherman. Twice a night on Channel Seven, Will would t
ell you if it would rain or shine or anything in between, and do it with wit and charm. The folks who owned and ran Channel Seven were delighted with Will’s recognizability and popularity. In fact, they reimbursed him the twenty-five dollars extra it cost for a personalized license plate. Will was good for business.

  As Will left his home on LeGrand Avenue and drove through Raleigh early on a Friday afternoon in April, he got lots of honks and waves. It was a lovely Spring day, the air clear and cleansed by a thunderstorm the night before, warm but not too warm in the embrace of a high pressure system that had established itself along the coast between Wilmington and Myrtle Beach. Other motorists had their windows rolled down, and they honked and called out to Will as they recognized his face or caught a glimpse of the license plate.

  “Yo, Will! What’s the weather?”

  “Tune in tonight and see,” he called back, his spirits buoyed by the lovely day and the good cheer of the good people of Raleigh who had made him their favorite TV weatherman. Yo Will! What’s the weather? It was a catch-phrase in Raleigh, thanks to a series of promotional spots on Channel Seven in which local citizens were filmed leaning from car and house windows, poking their heads out of manholes, riding bicycles, standing on street corners -- all of them calling out, “Yo Will!”

  It was impossible to escape Will Baggett in Raleigh, even if you were one of those odd people who never watched television. His face was on billboards and in newspaper ads and on brochures which Channel Seven distributed at the counters of a string of fast food restaurants throughout the city. There was a whole series of brochures -- tips for saving on your utility bills in the winter, safety advice for tornado season, hurricane plotting charts, lawn care do’s and don’ts -- all of them written by Will from his own research and personal experience. He had never been in a tornado, but as any Channel Seven viewer knew, he enjoyed his lawn almost as much as he enjoyed doing the weather on TV.

  Will’s face was everywhere, and so was his voice. Just now, on the radio in his car, Will could hear himself giving a brief forecast for the Triangle area. Hey, Friday! Get your barbecue grill ready, because it’s a glorious start to the weekend, folks. Saturday, clear and pleasant with a high of seventy-eight, just a hint of a breeze from the northwest. Now Saturday night and Sunday, that’s a different story, but you won’t know the whole picture unless you tune in tonight at six.

  Just about any time of the day or night, you could hear Will on the radio. He tape-recorded a morning drive-time forecast before he left Channel Seven each midnight, and he updated it from home in the late morning. If you listened to the radio, you would think Will Baggett worked all the time. And that was the idea: a man who loved his job and was always standing by to help you through your day.

  Will encouraged his celebrity. He was thoroughly at home with it. He did a lot of ribbon-cutting and contest-judging and banquet-emceeing. He spoke to garden clubs about soil moisture content and to classes of school children about the dangers of lightning. He was on billboards and brochures and the radio, and he had the personalized license plate, and when people waved and called out, he considered it a payoff, evidence that they thought him a good fellow, and useful to boot.

  The billboards were Channel Seven’s idea, but the brochures and the around-the-clock radio forecast were Will’s. It was all part of the packaging, and Will instinctively understood packaging as well as he understood weather. When you got down to it, the details of the weather were pretty routine stuff -- pressure gradients on a map, temperatures and precipitation and computer models. What you had to do was personalize the weather: relate it to how people lived, whether they needed an umbrella or sunscreen; and make an unbreakable connection in their minds between the weather and the weatherman. Will Baggett was the weather in Raleigh. He told people, only half-jokingly, that he worked for God. If you didn’t believe it, ask the minister who phoned and asked him to be sure they had good weather for the Vacation Bible School picnic.

  Will’s first stop on this spectacular April Friday afternoon was a police roadblock on a busy street not far from his LeGrand Avenue home. Will glanced at his watch and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel as his car crept along in a line toward a young officer who was checking drivers’ licenses. Will was wearing sunshades, but he took them off as he pulled up. The shiny silver name tag above the officer’s shirt pocket said his name was Grimes.

  “What’s the problem?” Will asked.

  “Routine license che…” he peered in the window. “Hey! I mean, yo Will!”

  “Hi, officer Grimes. How are Raleigh’s Finest today?”

  Grimes turned to another officer who was a few feet away, handling the opposite lane. “Charlie, look. Will Baggett.” The other officer turned, grinned, popped off a little salute. “Yo, Will!”

  “Heard you speak at the Police Athletic League banquet last month,” Grimes said.

  “Enjoyed it. Great crowd. Good kids. Laughed at my jokes.”

  “And the way you stayed around for an hour after, signing autographs…”

  “Part of the job,” Will said.

  “Say, could I get your autograph?”

  “I’ll do better than that.” Will reached into the glove compartment for the stack of five-by-seven glossy photos he kept there. Traffic was backing up behind. Several cars to the rear, somebody honked his horn. “I been watching you since I was a kid,” Officer Grimes said, ignoring the honk. “Grew up in Smithfield. Channel Seven was about all we watched. My grandaddy said the knob was rusted onto Channel Seven.”

  “What’s your first name, Officer Grimes?”

  “Cleo. That’s short for Cleotus, not Cleopatra.”

  Will wrote across the bottom of the photograph, To my friend Cleo Grimes. With admiration and warmest good wishes, Will Baggett. He handed the photo out the window.

  “Could I have one for my girlfriend?”

  Will autographed another photo for one Samantha Dugan. Thanks for watching! He shook officer Grimes’ hand. “Cleo, you have a nice day. Tune in at six.”

  As he pulled away, it occurred to him that Cleo Grimes had never asked for his driver’s license.

  An hour later, Will peeked out from behind the stage curtain of the multi-purpose room at an elementary school in the bedroom suburb of Cary. The floor was filled with a seething, chattering mass of children -- wide-eyed kindergartners and first graders cross-legged on the front row, sullen sixth graders along the back wall, and everything in between. Teachers were scattered among the crowd, islands of adult battle fatigue in a sea of squirming arms, legs, tennis shoes, giggles, whines, near fistfights. The air was thick with the heat of massed bodies in the unairconditioned April afternoon, and the aroma of meat loaf and cauliflower still lingered from lunch hour in the adjacent cafeteria.

  The principal -- a stout woman, gray hair gathered in a ponytail and tied with a bright red ribbon -- beamed at the crowd from in front of the stage, seemingly oblivious to the chaos. “Children…” It took a minute or so for the disorder to quieten to a dull roar. “Children, we have a special treat this afternoon. Is there anyone here who watches television?”

  Hands shot skyward, the noise level mushroomed. The Simpsons! Barney!

  “…and you all watch the local news…”

  Naaaahhhh. Booorrrrring.

  “…well, a local television celebrity is here with us today. Let’s give a big welcome to The Weather Wizard!”

  Will entertained them for forty-five minutes, dressed in a long, black velvet cape and a tall, pointed hat decorated with glittering stars, half-moons and lightning bolts. He did magic tricks, enlisting volunteers to help and keeping up a running chatter with the audience. He made a stuffed rabbit appear and disappear with the tap of a wand and had the place in hysterics while he pulled several yards of silk scarf from a teacher’s ear. And then when he had them eating out of his hand, even the sixth graders, he talked about the dangers of lightning, about scooting for home at the first rumble of thunder, about lyi
ng down in a ditch (never, ever under a tree) if you were caught in an open area when a storm hit. He told them about hunkering in a bathroom on the ground floor of your house in case there was a tornado warning. And he reminded them to drink plenty of water while they were outside playing during the hot summer months coming up. Finally, he told them to go home and share all they had learned with their parents and be sure and watch the news and weather on Channel Seven every evening without fail, especially tonight, because they would be the stars of the show. Charlie, the Channel Seven news photographer who had slipped in a side door mid-way through the performance and reeled off several minutes of videotape, would make sure of that.

  There was a small crowd of parents and school staff waiting for him out front, and he chatted and signed autographs for several minutes before heading back to Raleigh and the Channel Seven studios on Wade Avenue. The Weather Wizard costume was stowed away in the trunk of the car until next Tuesday, when he would make another appearance.

  He only did elementary schools. Junior high students had lost the last of their innocence and thought a guy dressed up in a goofy cape and hat and talking about lightning safety was geeky. And junior high teachers, he had once said to a group of them, should get combat pay.

  Will had done the Weather Wizard bit just once at a junior high. The show had bombed and his son Palmer, one of the seventh graders, had thrown up mid-way through the performance. After it was over, the principal took Will to the school nurse’s office where Palmer was scrunched in a tight, miserable ball on a cot, face against the wall. Will sat on the edge of the cot and put his hand on Palmer’s thin shoulder. Palmer flinched and pulled away. “Son, are you okay?”