by Robert Inman
“What’s that, Mister…Abner?”
“You’re still vertical. Remember that.”
“That’s what my cousin said. His name is Wingfoot Baggett. He’s had some hard knocks, but when I asked him how he was making out, he said ‘I’m still vertical, Wilbur.’”
“Is that what your family calls you? Wilbur?”
“Yeah. I didn’t become Will until I got to college. Told everybody my name was Will Baggett. Not Wilbur.”
“A makeover,” Dinkins said with a smile.
*****
What matters and what doesn’t? he thought when he was back in his cell. All of it mattered, of course, if you put it on the plane of the entirely personal -- the coming-apart of things he had cherished, things he thought were safe and inviolate. Job, marriage, self-respect. All gone and replaced by smashed hope and riven opportunity and public humiliation and lost love and plain old bad luck. If you had carefully arranged a life that you thought mattered and it suddenly and without warning came crashing down around your ears, then that had to count for something. Prayers of intercession should be offered, the veil of the temple should be rent. Instead, life had gone on, even -- miraculously -- his own. And perhaps that meant that in the larger scheme of things, it really didn’t matter as much as he might have thought.
He suspected that the quite public Will Baggett saga was by now pretty much relegated to water cooler conversation, on a par with scandal in the White House or a rock music star with an incurable disease. He imagined that he had become mostly a curiosity to most of the world outside the Wake County Jail. The truth was that his own personal loss didn’t really matter very much to most people, who went on with their lives as if he existed only as a picture on the front page of the paper.
Okay, a good bit of it he had done to himself. Stepped off the cliff with his eyes wide open. Maybe he could have convinced Judge Broderick Nettles that the packet that fell out of his pocket in the courtroom was not his at all, that they should go in search of one Palmer Baggett, now cooling his heels over in Chapel Hill and trying to figure out how to get his ass out of a very tight sling. Maybe. And if he did convince the judge of that and it was Palmer lying here on this bunk instead of Will, then Will could, as he had vowed to Wingfoot, get his life back. Channel Thirty-Two. Or maybe another television market entirely. Get out of Raleigh and leave the mess of his marriage and his son behind. Start over. Sacramento or Houston. Cedar Rapids or Providence. The world was always in need of a good weatherman.
But hell…. he couldn’t do that. There was such a thing as a man’s responsibilities. For all of the glorious public celebrity he had so carefully crafted for himself through dint of sheer will and work, he was at bottom still just a man -- a common, ordinary, everyday man -- who had to wipe his butt and account for himself to himself.
That had been a sobering thing to face -- the idea that he was, at rock bottom, just like everybody else. He might have been on TV and he might have been a little cuter than most folks because of it, but he was really just like everybody else. He had faced it, and that might have been the toughest thing of all.
So faced with an awful choice, he had stepped willingly off the cliff because it just seemed the only possible thing to do at the time. Okay, Will -- choose. Your own ass or your son’s. He might not have been the best father who ever came down the pike, but by God, he had helped bring Palmer Baggett into the world and had changed his diapers and provided for him as best he could and he wasn’t going to cut and run now when it came down to this one awful choice.
Will, you are a noble sonofabitch. Take a victory lap.
Still, any sense of ennoblement he might feel was was greatly undercut by the other half of the equation. In being noble he had screwed himself royally. He was a mess, bruised and battered, victimized, stripped of dignity and visible means of support.
However, as Abner Dinkins had said, he was still, in the figurative sense of the word, vertical. An upright vessel, emptied of its contents. Lying here on his bunk in this barred and windowless place, he felt the thought of it begin to calm him. He felt something drain away and recognized it as both anger and fear, something he had been holding onto fiercely since they had locked him away. He had told himself over and over during the past three weeks in this place that he was not angry, not fearful. But he was. He was pissed, and he was scared to death. But now, he felt himself letting go of that, at least a good deal of it. His breath became shallow, just enough to sustain vital signs. Stillness descended, drawing a curtain against the jail noises.
He waited for a long time. And finally, it came down to this: on the surface, everything is gone; but if everything is gone, anything is possible.
NINETEEN
There were no reporters present when Will emerged from the Wake County Jail on a mid-morning in early June. He was old news.
It was raining. He had watched the weather on Channel Seven the evening before, along with his fellow inmates, and had seen how a front had stalled across the southeastern and mid-Atlantic states. An Interstate-85 front, Brent the weathercaster had called it. In Winter, it would have mean the clash of northern cold and southern moisture that inevitably signaled snow. Now, it was just lingering rain.
Will thought that Brent still looked like he was only a couple of years out of junior high school, but he had turned his boyishness into an advantage, settling into a peppy, cheerful style that might one day, if he stuck around long enough and matured a little, make him Raleigh’s most popular TV weatherman. Or, Brent might be in Chicago or Miami a year from now, trading on his youth and good looks to land a big major-market salary, one day speaking of Raleigh as the waystation where an odd thing happened to the Number One Guy and he got his big chance. Ask him ten years from now who that Number One guy was, and what odd thing had happened to him, and Brent probably wouldn’t be able to remember.
No reporters, just Wingfoot and Morris waiting for Will -- Morris under an umbrella, Wingfoot under a rain-soaked floppy hat and a soiled gray poncho.
“You look like a Confederate deserter,” Will said to Wingfoot.
“Thanks. I like your beard,” Wingfoot said to Will.
Morris tried to offer Will space under his umbrella, but he backed away and stood in the drizzle with Wingfoot. He turned his face skyward and let the rain patter against his face and dribble through his beard, listening to the wetness squishing under the tires of passing cars on Salisbury Street.
The rain felt good. So did the beard. It was soft and fine and it had just, in the past week, gotten long enough to require trimming. It was dark brown, like his hair, but there were flecks of gray, too. It had become a topic of conversation among the deputies and other inmates, and the more lush it grew, the more he seemed to be accepted as something other than the former TV star who had fallen upon hard times. The jail was a much less daunting place than he remembered from his first brief incarceration. The deputies had been mostly pleasant. Will got no special privileges, but he was quietly shielded from the jail’s roughest element. The food was decent, if uninspired. He got regular exercise and had lost fifteen pounds. Other than the three visitors -- Morris, Palmer and Dinkins -- he had been left alone by the outside world. That suited him. Anyway, most people he knew would have found it incredibly awkward, like a visitation at a funeral home. Never exactly the right thing to say. Does it hurt? Is there anything I can get you? Cookies? Magazines? A hacksaw? No need to put people through that.
Morris spoke up. “I’ve got some papers…”
Morris was in a new uniform today, or at least an old one recycled -- dark blue pin-striped suit, ecru shirt, muted red tie with tiny blue dots, matching handkerchief peeking from his coat pocket. He had new glasses, a pair of wire-rims that made him look faintly like some musician from Will’s memory (John Lennon, he finally decided) and a new haircut, pulled back severely from his forehead and plastered, wet-look, close to his skull. Morris had a major new client, a large and prestigious advertising agency.
>
“You’re looking especially spiffy today, Morris,” Will said.
Morris gave a tiny bow. “Packaging,” he said. “All the world is packaging.”
“Do you agree with that, Wingfoot?” Will asked.
“Absolutely,” Wingfoot said. “I’ve been buying sterile poo-poo for my nursery.”
“What?”
“I get it from the sewage treatment plant in Wilmington. They take sewage and run it through some kind of process and dry it and put it in nice-looking bags. It does wonders for plants and it doesn’t even smell like shit.”
“But it is still shit,” Will said.
“Like the man said, everything is packaging.”
*****
During Will’s jail time, Morris and Clarice’s lawyer had been negotiating a separation agreement. The estranged couple must, under North Carolina law, remain scrupulously apart for twelve months before a divorce could be finalized. A lot of things could transpire in twelve months, Will thought, and so he intended to make no fuss over the temporary division of assets. In the Danielle Steele novel Palmer had brought him in jail, the heroine came to her senses at the end and ran away with the man of her destiny. Perhaps, when Clarice came to her senses, she would do the same. “Whatever she wants,” Will had said to Morris. “Give her anything she wants.”
But he wasn’t quite prepared for what Morris handed him a few minutes later in the quiet of his office. Will read it thoroughly while Wingfoot stood next to the window, gazing out at the passing foot traffic on the Fayetteville Street Mall. He was still wearing the floppy hat, but had hung the poncho on a hook at the front door. Will, sitting on the leather couch, finished his reading just as Morris returned from an errand elsewhere in the office. Morris raised an inquiring eyebrow.
“Where am I going to live?” Will asked. The agreement called for Clarice to occupy the house.
“You’ll have to find a place,” Morris said. “Maybe the YMCA for starters?”
“You could go live with Min,” Wingfoot said, his back still to them. “You could work on the family history. Or you could stay with me for awhile.”
“Afraid not,” Morris said. “Terms of his probation say he has to reside in Wake County. Weekly check-ins with the probation officer.”
Wingfoot turned from the window. “So he’s stuck here?”
“Pretty much,” Morris said. “Unless the probation officer gives him special permission for an out-of-county visit.”
Wingfoot shrugged and turned back to the window.
“And what am I going to live on?” Will asked.
The agreement called for their joint assets – property, investments -- to be frozen until such time as the divorce was finalized, and then “equitably divided between the respective parties.”
“You’ve got your severance money from Channel Seven.”
“Fifty thousand dollars,” Will said. “I guess that will hold me for awhile. After that, there’s always armed robbery.”
Morris picked up a file folder from his desk and leafed through it. “Well, not quite fifty thousand. There’s fifteen percent for the bail bondsman. For starters.”
“I thought you said ten percent.”
“He went up on his prices.”
Will did some quick arithmetic. “Seventy-five hundred.”
“Then there’s my fee,” Morris said without a flinch. Morris had not the slightest hesitation when it came to talking money. He would tell you right up front that he was good and he was expensive and if you wanted a cut-rate deal you should go find one of the polyester-clad crowd at criminal court. He read from the file now. “April 18, long-distance telephone conference with Mister Baggett. April 19, prepare brief for initial court appearance on traffic charge.”
Will’s face was beginning to itch under his beard. “What brief? We went to court and sat on our butts all day and then the goddamn cop didn’t even show up and…”
“April 21, court appearance, seven hours…”
“Awright, awright,” Will waved him to silence.
Morris gave him a close look. “And then there are your expenses.”
“My expenses?”
“Motel room, meals, transportation, incidentals. I handled all that.”
“Transportation?”
“Sixty-five dollars for a taxicab to Snively and Ellis Realty. Remember? Also, there were several times when I toted you around in my own car.”
“You’re charging me for that?”
Morris smiled and held out his hands. “A man’s got to make a living.”
“Packaging is expensive,” Wingfoot said over his shoulder.
Morris ignored Wingfoot. “And you’ll be getting another bill for my more recent services. The separation agreement.”
“What services? It looks like Clarice’s lawyer did all the work.”
Morris’s gaze was unflinching. “You don’t have to accept it as is, you know. We can make a counter-proposal. Re-open the negotiations.”
“How much of a bill?” Will asked. “For your services?”
Morris waved the file. “I’d say it’ll come to another twenty-five hundred or so. Unless we re-negotiate.”
“Okay,” Will said wearily. “How much does that leave? Out of fifty thousand dollars?”
Morris plucked a check from the file and handed it to Will. The check came to a grand total of eighteen thousand, two hundred fifty-six dollars and thirty-four cents. Will stared at it for awhile, then carefully folded it into thirds and tucked it into his shirt pocket. He picked up the separation agreement, studied it again, then looked up at Morris. “I’ll need to borrow your pen.”
It was a very nice pen, a Mont Blanc, burgundy with gold filigree. It looked new (perhaps a gift from his new ad agency clients), but then with a Mont Blanc, it was hard to tell. A Mont Blanc could look new for a long time. “Remember,” Morris said as he handed the pen over, “you’ll need to put aside some of that for taxes.”
*****
He treated Wingfoot to lunch at McDonald’s. Wingfoot had a fish sandwich and a medium soft drink. Will opted for the six-piece Chicken McNuggets and water. They split a large order of fries. When their order was ready, Wingfoot tried to pay. Will wouldn’t hear of it. “This is a celebration,” Will said. “On me.”
“What are we celebrating?”
“I’ll think of something.”
They found an empty booth at the side of the dining area. Through the plate glass window Will could see that the rain had stopped for the moment, but the sky was still gray-clotted. It would start again before long. As Brent the weathercaster had said, the front would linger for awhile, maybe for a couple of days. There was nothing to push it out of the way. “Try to remember how this feels,” Brent had said cheerily to the faux-whining of Jim and Binky, the news anchors, “in August when we’ve got one of those big Bermuda highs hanging around and it’s as dry as dust and hot enough to fry an egg on the pavement.” In Will’s day, he would have announced the beginning of a Mold and Mildew Festival. But it was no longer Will’s day.
They ate in silence and watched the McDonald’s lunch crowd ebbing and flowing outside. A long line of cars snaked around the back toward the drive-in window.
“How about a fried apple pie for dessert,” Will offered.
“No thanks,” Wingfoot said.
“Look, I’m not destitute. I can afford a fried apple pie.”
Wingfoot popped the last of the french fries in his mouth and chewed thoughtfully. “What are you going to do with yourself, Wilbur?”
“Go incognito. Seek anonymity.”
“The beard helps. And the glasses.”
McDonald’s had been a test. Will had looked the clerks and the other customers straight in the eye, and as far as he could tell, not a solitary soul had recognized him. It was a good sign. Incognito.
“You’re virtually broke, homeless, and without visible means of support,” Wingfoot said. “Some places I know, you could be picked up on vagrancy
charges.”
Will finished his Chicken McNuggets and drained his cup of water, then gathered up their debris and took it to a nearby waste receptacle.
“So, what are you going to do with yourself?” Wingfoot asked when Will returned to the booth.
“As far as a job?”
“Well, that’s part of it, maybe not even the main part. But yes, for starters, a job.”
“I’ll have to find something. I’m just not sure what. I have a criminal record. Hell, I can’t even vote. Lots of businesses don’t want to hire someone with a criminal record. At the jail, they posted notices of people who would, but they were all things like cooks and carwash attendants.”
“Nothing wrong with cooking or washing cars.”
“Except that I don’t know how. Cook? I can’t boil water.”
“Auto mechanic?”
“I don’t know a spark plug from an air filter.”
“Ditch digger?”
“Now there’s a possibility.” He tapped the pocket where the check rested. “I could purchase a shovel.”
Wingfoot stared at the table and traced a small circle with his forefinger. Then he looked up again at Will. “What skills do you have, Wilbur?”
“Most of my adult life, I’ve done the weather on TV,” Will said. “I was pretty damn good at it. I was the most popular TV weatherman in Raleigh. You ask what skills do I have? TV weather skills. Unfortunately, Wingfoot, there ain’t no market anywhere for my particular weather skills -- now, or anytime in the future.”
“Is there anything else you know how to do?”
Will thought for a moment. “Mow grass.”
Wingfoot’s eyebrows went up.
“I meant it as a joke,” Will said.
Wingfoot leaned back and stared at him. Then his eyes seemed to sort of glaze over and he looked away, out the window where the rain had started again. After a moment he said, “Min wants you. I’m obligated to tell you that. She said, and I quote, ‘Tell Wilbur he needs to come home.’ “
“You heard what Morris said. I can’t leave Wake County without special permission as long as I’m on probation. Six months.”