Serendipity Green

by Rob Levandoski

  And how can he—being who and what he is—not think about the problem this collection of ancestral bones is going to create for him? Will developers want a farm with a cemetery on it? Will it affect the price? Will voters vote for someone who sells his ancestors’ remains? What will it cost to dig these bones up, and bury them somewhere else? How much will fifteen cemetery plots cost? Will he have to buy fifteen new caskets? What would that cost? And what kind of a stink will Katherine Hardihood raise about all this? “That woman has more brass than a marching band,” he tells his long-dead relatives buried there, afraid that maybe he isn’t the luckiest sonofabitch alive after all.

  This new predicament requires an immediate strategy session. Those tacos with the kids will have to wait. He walks straight and fast for his car, as straight and fast as those early Aitchbone men walked when an Aitchbone woman rang that dinner bell he sold for one hundred bucks to that top antique dealer.

  D. William Aitchbone drives into Tuttwyler. He waits impatiently for the light at Tocqueville and South Mill.

  Red.

  Yellow.

  Green.

  As he drives up South Mill the impressive Victorians and Greek revivals click by like perfect teeth. Then he pounds the brakes. The car squeals and twists, narrowly missing the fender of a Jeep Cherokee. “That crazy bastard,” he screams, the bastard being, of course, Howie Dornick, owner of the freshly painted clapboards in front of him.

  And so D. William Aitchbone finds himself out of his car, screaming “Crazy bastard!” over and over, charging the freshly painted two-story frame, invading its rotting porch, banging on its door with two fists, grabbing the man who opens it by the sleeves of his undershirt, shaking and jerking him about, screaming “Crazy bastard!” square into the man’s stunned, crazy-bastard face. Then he finds himself retreating back across the grass. He finds himself swiveling and pointing a single sharp finger at the man, the way the Japanese on Guadalcanal pointed their bayonets at the man’s war hero father. “That isn’t white, Howie! That is a far cry from white!”

  PART II

  “By convention colors exists, by convention bitter, by convention sweet, but in reality atoms and void.”

  Democritus

  11

  Hugh Harbinger closes the front door and jiggles the knob to make sure it’s locked. He drags himself down the sidewalk and folds himself into the back seat of an 1984 cinnamon-gold Ford Crown Victoria station wagon. Back in the house his Jack Russell terrier, Matisse, is running back and forth across the sofa, growling, yipping, abandoned.

  “Did you take your pill?” Eleanor Hbracek whispers to him over her headrest.

  Hugh Harbinger, thirty-seven since the fifth of June, squirms like a boy of twelve. “I took my pill.”

  Now Bob Hbracek growls over his headrest. “Buckle up.”

  “You don’t have to buckle in the back seat,” Hugh Harbinger protests.

  Bob Hbracek ignites. “You do in my car.”

  With the help of Eleanor Hbracek’s persuasive eyes, Hugh Harbinger surrenders. “I’m buckled.”

  Having successfully laid down the law, Bob Hbracek backs his Crown Vic down the driveway and heads up Delano Drive to Pearl Road.

  Bob and Eleanor Hbracek are Hugh Harbinger’s parents. Hugh’s last name used to be Hbracek, too. For reasons Bob and Eleanor still can’t understand, he changed it to Harbinger about ten years ago.

  They turn left on Pearl. It’s August. It hasn’t rained for fifteen days. Thanks to the city water ban, every lawn in Parma, Ohio is as cinnamon-gold as Bob Hbracek’s Crown Vic. Parma is a Cleveland suburb, populated primarily by Eastern Europeans who, enriched from their union jobs at the steel mills and auto plants, bought up street after street of bungalows in the fifties and sixties. Poles. Slovaks. Ukrainians. Slovenians. Germans. Lithuanians. Hungarians. Their taxes built good schools and good parks and paid for top-notch police and fire protection. Their spending power attracted one of the first covered malls in Northern Ohio. Parmatown it’s called. Retired from Ford two years ago this September, Bob Hbracek now spends a lot of time at the Parmatown mall, sitting in the food court with his UAW buddies drinking coffee and shaking their heads at all the strange people moving in. The Hindus. The Chinese. The Koreans. The Vietnamese. The Arabs. And the blacks. Yes, even the blacks are moving in.

  Pearl takes them south through a corridor of fast-food restaurants, auto dealerships and discount stores. The Saturday morning traffic is horrendous. It’s 10:30 before they reach the Interstate 71 interchange. Eleanor Hbracek has already sucked her way through half a roll of pineapple Lifesavers. “We’re going to be on time for the parade, aren’t we?”

  “With plenty of time to spare,” her husband answers, merging onto the highway, free at last to let the eight cylinders under the big hood of his Crown Vic do their stuff.

  “Wait until you see Princess Pogawedka,” Eleanor Hbracek says to her son. “She’ll give you goosebumps.”

  In just thirty-eight minutes they are whooshing across Wyssock County, new housing developments as far as the eye can see. “If I was a younger man I’d move out here,” Bob Hbracek says. “This is like Parma used to be.”

  Hugh Harbinger can’t resist. “White?”

  Eleanor Hbracek quickly offers both her husband and her son a Lifesaver. “You father just means there’s more elbow room out here.”

  Hugh Harbinger waves off the peace offering. “White elbow room.”

  “Let’s not argue about the Negroes again,” Eleanor Hbracek pleads. But Bob and Hugh do argue about the Negroes. They cover every Negro topic Bob is proficient in: real estate values, affirmative action, welfare reform, drugs, babies having babies, foodstamps and professional basketball. When Bob runs out of Negro topics, they argue about immigration, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, gun control, homosexuality, and seat belts. They argue all the way to Tuttwyler. It takes Bob Hbracek ten angry minutes to find a place to park. Finally out of the Crown Vic, they follow the crowd toward the village square.

  Hugh Harbinger can’t believe he’s come to Squaw Days. Then again, these days there are so many things he can’t believe he’s doing. He can’t believe he’s back in Parma living with his parents and that he doesn’t have a fucking penny to his name after so many six-figure years. He can’t believe he’s eating red meat and drinking Pepsi again. He can’t believe he’s reading the Parma Post instead of the Village Voice and is no longer walking Matisse down to Washington Square for a nightly romp in the dog run, or sipping expresso with Jean Jacques Bistrot at the Peacock, meeting Buzzy at Zulu Lulu for hummus and pita. He can’t believe he’s no longer copulating with Zee Levant, popping 100 milligrams of Solhzac every morning, antidote for the clinical depression that crippled him at the height of his genius. More than anything, he can’t believe he’s no longer the design world’s most coveted color consultant, no longer deciding what color clothes people will be wearing, what color cars they’ll be driving, what color sheets they’ll be sleeping on, what color they’ll be painting their walls and their fingernails, what color food dehydrators and bread-makers they’ll be wasting their money on.

  Hugh Harbinger has never been to Tuttwyler before. At first the old brick buildings surrounding the square reminds of him of Greenwich Village. But the display of giraffes in Paula Varney’s shop remind him this isn’t The Village. The wooden Indian in front of the Pizza Teepee, holding that big wooden pizza with the intricately carved pepperoni slices reminds him this isn’t The Village. The hundreds of straight, white, overweight Ohioans milling about remind him this isn’t The Village. He spots the Daydream Beanery. That does remind him of The Village. “I’m going in for an espresso.”

  “You just stay put,” his mother says. “The parade’s going to start.”

  Hugh Harbinger twists his face like a disappointed twelve-year-old.

  “You can have your espresso when we get home,” his mother says.

  Hugh Harbinger surrenders and accompanies Bob and Eleanor Hbr
acek to the curb. The Squaw Days Parade begins.

  The first parade unit is a black sheriff’s car. Its rack of blue lights is blinking. Its siren is blaring. The crowd applauds. The deputy driving the car waves as if he’s the Queen of England.

  The next parade unit is the VFW color guard. Two of the veterans carry a long canvas sign between them. ARTIE BROWN POST, the sign reads. The crowd applauds. When Eleanor Hbracek asks who Artie Brown is, Bob Hbracek answers, “How in the hell should I know?”

  The next parade unit is a brand new school bus fitted with a hydraulic lift for handicapped students. A long sign on the side reads: SCHOOL STARTS IN 16 DAYS. The adults in the crowd cheer. The kids in the crowd jeer. Then everyone laughs as if they’re in an old movie directed by Frank Capra. “So far,” Hugh Harbinger whispers to his mother, “I think the school bus wins the governor’s trophy.”

  The next parade unit is a troupe of young unicyclists. For some reason they’re dressed like chipmunks. The crowd applauds them.

  The next parade unit is a clump of cub scouts. They’re followed by a clump of brownies. They’re followed by a clump of 4-H kids, some of them pulling goats, some carrying chickens and rabbits, some just waving like the Queen of England. The crowd applauds them all.

  Next comes a candyapple-red Ford mustang. There’s a boom box sitting on the roof, blaring “Mustang Sally.” The crowd sings along. Some in the crowd dance. Bob Hbracek tells his son, “It’s a ’66.” A sign on the door of the Mustang reads: BILL BLAZEK FORD. Even parades have commercials these days.

  Next comes someone in a cupcake costume. There is a large plywood butcher’s knife sticking from its back. Fake whipped cream is dripping from the wound. The crowd applauds defiantly. “I don’t get it,” says Hugh Harbinger.

  Bob Hbracek, the union man, does get it. “They used to make snack cakes here until the workers organized with the AFL-CIO. The bastard owners moved the whole kit and caboodle to Tennessee.”

  “So the cupcake’s a protest,” Hugh Harbinger says.

  “Yeah,” Bob Hbracek says. “A protest.”

  “I like it,” Hugh Harbinger says. “Very Salvador Dali.”

  This Bob Hbracek doesn’t get. “Huh?”

  Hugh Harbinger now hears the clicky-clacky-click of drumsticks on metal. The crowd claps and cheers. Suddenly there’s a whistle. Threet-threet-threet-threet. Then there’s an off-key blast of trombones and clarinets, sousaphones and flutes. He recognizes the tune. It’s “Louie-Louie.” Bomp-bomp-bomp. Bomp-bomp. Bomp-bomp. Bomp-bomp. Bomp-bomp-bomp. The sign carried by two meaty majorettes—who, in their shimmering red and gold bathing suits look for all the world like a pair of ornamental carp—tells the crowd that this is the MARCHING WILDCAT BAND OF WEST WYSSOCK HIGH. The band director, dressed like Davy Crockett, urges the crowd to sing along: “Lou-eeeea, Loooo-i, ohhhh no! I godda go. Yah yah yah-yah.”

  The next parade unit is an American-made Japanese luxury sedan. Hugh Harbinger recognizes the paint job.

  “That’s one of my colors,” he tells his parents.

  “It is?” Eleanor Hbracek says proudly, as if her son had just brought home a drawing of a seven-legged cat from kindergarten.

  Bob Hbracek is not proud. “It’s gray. Gray has been around forever.”

  “Actually, it’s pewter,” Hugh Harbinger says.

  “Pewter’s been around forever,” Bob Hbracek says.

  “Not that shade of pewter,” Hugh Harbinger says.

  The pewter-colored car reaches them. Everyone but Hugh Harbinger starts to clap. The sign on the car’s door tells everyone that the man in the back seat waving like the Queen of England is none other than Danley McCutcheon, Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

  Everyone in Tuttwyler is thrilled that Interior Secretary Danley McCutcheon has come to Squaw Days. Everyone except for the driver of the pewter-colored luxury sedan. While he is smiling for all he’s worth, he’s feeling like the unluckiest sonofabitch in the world. He knows something the crowd doesn’t. He knows that the waving man in the back seat should have been the Vice President of the United States, not the secretary of the measly goddamn Interior.

  Many more parade units pass by. Scouts. Clowns. Little League baseball teams dangling their legs over flatbed trucks. Mayor Woodrow Wilson Sadlebyrne waving like the Queen of England from a fire truck. Former Mayor Donald Grinspoon, wearing a scarf and goggles, bouncing by on an oil-farting old Harley. Sheriff’s deputies on prancing appaloosas. The Senior Squares square-dancing club do-si-doing through the horse biscuits.

  Hugh Harbinger now hears the DOOM-doom-doom-doom of Indian drums. The crowd, merely enthusiastic up to now, grows ecstatic. Hundreds of necks stretch in unison. A cheer rattles up the street. Then there she is, Princess Pogawedka, standing high on the back of a farm trailer, pulled along by a huge blue tractor. The princess is wearing a white buckskin dress, long fringe cascading from her sleeves and hem. A single feather rises straight up from her beaded headband. Princess Pogawedka—the woman portraying her, that is—has stained her skin the color of butterscotch pudding. She wears a black wig with waist-length pigtails. A baby is strapped on her back. As far away as he is, Hugh Harbinger can make out the baby’s Cabbage Patch face. Princess Pogawedka is not alone on the trailer. All around her sit people dressed as Indians and pioneers. There also are a pair of ceramic lawn deer on the float. And a full-size teepee. And a few evergreen shrubs still in their black plastic garden-center tubs.

  The happy cheers suddenly give way to a heavy Booooooo! Walking behind Princess Pogawedka’s trailer are a pair of men. They are weaving back and forth across the street like drunken Neanderthals. Their faces are painted white. They are wearing fake frizzy beards. They are wearing felt Lil’Abner hats and baggy bib overalls. They are carrying enormous papier-mâché clubs. They are throwing candy into the crowd.

  “Who are those two clowns?” asks Hugh Harbinger.

  “They’re not clowns,” Bob Hbracek says. “That’s the Tuttwyler brothers.”

  “John and Amos,” Eleanor Hbracek says.

  “The ones who clubbed the squaw and her papoose to death,” Bob Hbracek says.

  “Why are they throwing candy?” Hugh Harbinger asks, swatting away a miniature Tootsie Roll.

  “It’s just a little treat for the kids,” Eleanor Hbracek says.

  Even in the East Village Hugh Harbinger never saw anything this perverted. Not even in Soho. Not even on Gay Pride Day. Not even on St. Patrick’s Day. “Why would parents let their kids take candy from a couple of guys who clubbed a woman and her baby to death?”

  “For christsake, Hugh, they’re not the real Tuttwyler brothers,” Bob Hbracek says.

  The next parade unit is the West Wyssock Junior High School Band. They are wearing Indian headdresses made out of colored construction paper. They squeak and honk their way through “America the Beautiful.”

  The parade ends. The crowd follows the junior high school band out South Mill. Bob and Eleanor Hbracek join the juggernaut. “Where we going now?” Hugh Harbinger wonders.

  “To the cemetery for the memorial service,” Eleanor Hbracek says.

  “Memorial services for who?” Hugh Harbinger asks.

  “For everyone who’s died since 1803,” she says. “It’ll give you goosebumps.”

  Hugh Harbinger is impressed by the big houses on South Mill. Impressed with the Victorians. Impressed with the Greek Revivals. Impressed with the Tudors and the colonials and the arts-and-craft bungalows. “You know,” he says, “these houses shouldn’t be painted white.”

  “They’re pretty painted white,” Eleanor Hbracek says. “They make you feel like you’re living in the past.”

  “In the past,” Hugh Harbinger informs her, “these houses would have been painted every color imaginable. Especially the Victorians. When those babies were built, they were painted up like cheap whores.”

  Eleanor Hbracek hopes no one in the crowd has heard her son’s language. “What a thing to say.
”

  “It’s true,” her son says. “You know what they used to call Victorians? Painted Ladies.”

  “Which ones are the Victorians?” Bob Hbracek asks.

  “Even the Greek Revivals were painted in bright colors,” his son says. “Yellow ochre. Pumpkin orange. Indigo blue.”

  “Which ones are the Greek Revivals?” Bob Hbracek asks.

  Eleanor Hbracek defends the homeowners. “I think they look nice all white.”

  The word nice eats through Hugh Harbinger’s Solhzacnumbed nerve endings like sharks through a school of San Francisco Bay grunion. He has hated that word since high school Latin, when Brother Peter Paul Tummler, explaining how old words often take on new meanings, said that nice, now meaning pleasing or good, is from the Latin word nescius, meaning ignorant. Everything else Brother Tummler taught that semester farted right out Hugh’s ears. But the fact that nice really meant ignorant could not escape his ears. It soaked into his brain, prickling his already tender synapses, transfixing him, supporting his earliest suspicions about life’s terminal absurdity, justifying his adolescent withdrawal and rebellion. From that right-after-lunch Latin class on, Hugh would reject anything deemed nice by others: Nice clothes, nice music, nice girls, nice times, nice thoughts, nice art, nice words. No longer could he conform or be average. Conformity and averageness were nice things, ignorant things. How, he wondered, could anyone intentionally accept ignorance? And so he went go off to the Cleveland Institute of Art where his aversion for all things nice was immediately recognized as genius. And where does a brilliant American art school graduate go but into advertising? Where to but New York City? Where to but the anything-but-nice, anything-but-ignorant streets of the East Village? To friendships with people like Jean Jacques Bistrot and Buzzy. To rampant, unemotional copulation with the very rich Zee Levant.