Name Games

by Michael Craft

  Pierce’s expression grew pensive. “I assume this endorsement was prompted by the report of the County Plan Commission?”

  I nodded. “That’s why I ran it when I did, but you needn’t doubt for a minute that the Register would back you, whatever the timing.”

  Neil was crumbling his muffin on a plate, picking out berries, popping them into his mouth; his fingertips were stained inky blue. He asked Pierce, “Do you suppose this Dr. Tenelli has a political agenda at work? I know you said he’s a revered old guy who’s dedicated his retirement to public service, but isn’t it a little fishy to call for a crackdown on porn in the name of ‘tourism’?” Neil had read details of the Commission’s report in the morning paper, and we’d both had a laugh over it.

  “A political agenda…” Pierce mulled Neil’s notion. “I can’t imagine what it would be. To the best of my knowledge, Dr. Tenelli has no connection to my opponent or to anyone in Dan Kerr’s family. And I’m sure he has no taste for Miriam Westerman’s campaign on moralistic grounds. Tenelli is a highly principled, ethical man—not a book burner.”

  “Hm.” I traced a finger around the rim of my cup. “Maybe it’s time we met.”

  “Maybe it is,” Pierce agreed. “I think you’ll like him, in spite of this obscenity business. So if you’ve got a slow day sometime next week, give me a call, and I’ll take you over to his place and introduce you.”

  “Thanks. He sounds like an interesting character.”

  Neil interjected, “The interesting character I’d like to meet is the Frenchman, Bruno Hérisson.” To Pierce, he explained, “Mark said he visited the Register yesterday. Trouble’s brewing in the refined little world of miniatures.”

  I was glad Neil had steered the conversation in this direction, as it might lead Pierce to drop some clue regarding his involvement, if any, with Carrol Cantrell.

  Pierce seemed confused by Neil’s comment, asking, “Trouble’s brewing? What do you mean?”

  Neil explained, “Bruno claims to have signed agreements with an elite group of artisans to become their exclusive distributor in America.”

  I added, “Glee Savage sniffed a juicy story there, and I think she’s right. We’ll try to see Cantrell this weekend and get his side of it.”

  “But Carrol said”—Pierce stopped himself, rewording—“Cantrell said that he alone acts as distributor to all the big-name artisans, including Bruno.”

  Uh-huh. I asked, “When was that, Doug?”

  “Just last”—again Pierce stopped to reword—“the other day, I guess. Sure, it was Thursday, Thursday morning right after he arrived. He mentioned it to me on the stairs while we were all helping him move into the coach house.”

  I had been there, of course, and recalled no such conversation. They had discussed this some other time, on their own.

  So. I knew. I was sure: Dumont’s chief law-enforcement officer, Sheriff Douglas Pierce, whom I had just publicly endorsed for reelection, had been buggering the king of miniatures.

  Or vice versa.

  Either way, the mind reeled.

  Driving away from the house later than morning, I planned to spend an hour or two at the Register checking the wire services, meeting with Lucille Haring about the makeup of Sunday’s page one, and generally catching up at my desk. Turning off Prairie Street and heading toward First Avenue along Park Street, I passed the park itself and a succession of side streets—Durkee, La Salle, Trevor. Not quite conscious of my surroundings, I was immersed in thoughts about the obscenity issue. Was I blowing it out of proportion? Was my obsession with the First Amendment merely academic, out of touch with the real-world concerns of a great many citizens? Should I keep the paper out of the debate, merely reporting the issues as argued by others, or should I commit the Register to an aggressive editorial stance in defense of civil liberties?

  These thoughts were broken as I approached the intersection of Tyner Avenue, the street where Grace Lord’s miniatures shop was located. Slowing the car, I glanced down the street and noticed activity there, with cars parked in both directions. My reporter’s instincts kicked in, and I turned from my intended route to check out the action.

  The congestion (if that term can apply to traffic anywhere in Dumont) was thickest in front of Grace’s shop, The Nook. The miniatures show would open a week from that morning, but a mob of exhibitors had already arrived to set up for the meeting and to claim prime spaces for their booths. Cars and vans jockeyed to park near a service drive; I spotted license plates from Illinois, Minnesota, and Iowa, as well as Wisconsin. The people themselves—most middle-aged, most wearing windbreakers—ant-tracked their wares from the vehicles to the building.

  The Nook, which looked something like a dollhouse in both its cutesy decorating and its diminutive scale, was far too small to accommodate this invasion, and the transformation of the adjacent space of the long-vacant Rexall store was by now in full swing. A crew of volunteers was unsoaping the plate-glass windows, revealing a buzz of activity within. Outside, more workers attempted to hang a banner across the space once occupied by the Rexall sign, but they were having a difficult time of it, thwarted by a brisk autumn breeze. Though this operation had a farcical quality, I quelled the urge to laugh, fearing that someone might fall from a ladder.

  Cruising past this commotion, I assumed that Grace Lord was there in the thick of it, but I couldn’t spot her low-set figure in the crowd. It would have been easy to pick out Carrol Cantrell’s lanky frame, but I didn’t see him either. With my curiosity satisfied, I decided there was no need to stop, so I drove a bit farther toward the Lord house, intending to turn around in the driveway and head back to the Register.

  Approaching the drive, I noticed another car parking there at the curb, well removed from the crush near the shop. It was one of those drab sedans assigned to city and county officials, conspicuous in its anonymity, like an unmarked squad car—yes, it was tagged with “Official” plates. I thought at first it might be Doug Pierce, but his sedan was a lighter shade of beige. A man was driving, and he had a passenger, but I couldn’t discern their features through the sun’s glare on the windshield. So I pulled over to the opposite curb, cut my engine, and busied myself with a few notes, waiting to see who’d emerge from the other car.

  I recognized the passenger as soon as she stepped out onto the parkway. A gust of wind caught her cape and furled it over her head, making a further mess of her ratted gray hair—she looked like a wayward witch making a clumsy landing from Oz. It was none other than Miriam Westerman, founder and leader of Fem-Snach. Attempting to unruffle the cape, she clattered a giant primitive necklace that weighed heavily upon her flat bodice.

  Then the other door opened and the driver stepped onto the street. The sun gleamed blue on his jet-black hair, which was surely dyed, worn in an outdated pompadour. When the pesky breeze got hold of it, he looked like a poodle in a suit. This was Harley Kaiser, Dumont County’s distinguished district attorney. While closing the car door, he tried to finger-comb his hair, but without success—now he looked like a poodle with a Mohawk.

  Admittedly, my vision of these two characters was tainted by prejudice.

  Miriam was the woman who had tried to steal custody of Thad from me. She was the woman who had instigated a hate-mail campaign against me when I first moved to Dumont, branding my homosexuality an “abomination against Mother Nature”—never mind her own past flirtations with lesbianism, which was just dandy in her book, since it didn’t involve men. She was the woman I had bodily thrown from my home one evening when she invaded a family gathering and spat epithets at me, including the rather clever “penis cultist.” And she was the woman who sought to violate the civil liberties of an entire community because pornography, in her view, was tantamount to “violence against women.” Miriam Westerman openly hated me. In the face of such irrational animosity, I could only return the sentiment.

  Kaiser was a different matter. As an elected official, he was instinctively sensitive to public opi
nion, accountable to every voter, or at least to fifty-one percent of them. Further, he was smart enough to recognize that he stood nothing to gain by antagonizing the publisher of the local paper. So he at least made an attempt to behave cordially to me, in spite of our polar disagreement regarding the enforcement of obscenity standards. As far as he was concerned, I had no grasp of political reality. As far as I was concerned, he’d landed on the wrong side of the issue, period, and I marveled at his lack of principle in selling out the First Amendment for the sake of some presumed political advantage. My friend Roxanne Exner had hit the nail on the head in her succinct appraisal of the district attorney: Harley Kaiser was a hot dog.

  I had previously called Kaiser and Miriam “strange bedfellows” in their alliance to rid Dumont of porn. Now, watching them from my car, I found their pairing all the more unlikely. What were they up to? Why here? Why now?

  They were doubtless asking themselves the same questions about me. Standing at the curb, they spoke over their shoulders to each other, glancing at my car, which anyone in town would recognize. So I let them continue wondering for a few moments, hoping that my presence would unsettle them. Behind tinted windows, I wrote a few last notes, then capped my pen, returning it with the pad to my jacket.

  Opening the door, I got out of the car, donning a pair of sunglasses (the autumnal slant of midmorning light was not especially bothersome—in fact, I enjoyed it—but I figured the dark glasses might make me a tad more menacing). Pretending to notice them just then, I called to the opposite curb, “Miriam, Harley—what a pleasant surprise.” It was a good act, but in light of our past run-ins, they could guess I was lying.

  Kaiser crossed to meet me in the middle of the street, extending his hand to shake mine. “Morning, Mark. Didn’t know you harbored an interest in dollhouses.” The remark could have been intended to question my masculinity, but his tone seemed innocuous enough—he was just inept at small talk. If his words carried a hidden message, he was really trying to ask, What are you doing here?

  Strolling with him back to the curb, I bulled, “Wherever there’s news, there am I.”

  Miriam had made no move to acknowledge me, so arriving where she stood on the parkway, I dispensed with further pleasantries and asked her bluntly, “What are you doing here?”

  “One might ask you the same,” she snapped back with a defiant stomp of one foot, but the gesture lost its punch—her clog merely mashed the turf.

  “Actually,” said Kaiser, attempting to keep things civil, “we’ve come to see Carrol Cantrell. He’s a distinguished visitor to the city, and we both wanted to wish him welcome.” He smiled, as if that explained everything, wrapping it up.

  “What a coincidence,” I fibbed. “I was just on my way to see him myself. We’re working up a feature.” It would be Glee’s story, of course, but for the moment, there was no harm in letting Kaiser think I was there on assignment. I found it unlikely that both he and Miriam were inclined to roll out the welcome mat for the king of miniatures as a simple matter of civic courtesy. Still, I had no theory that would better explain their visit. If I stuck with them, their motive might become plain to me. Brightly I suggested, “Let’s all pop in on him.”

  Miriam and Kaiser exchanged an uncertain glance; in my presence they did not feel free to discuss my proposed intrusion. Miriam looked vexed, Kaiser wary. He hawed before relenting, “Sure, why not? Do you think he’s at the shop?”

  “Actually, no.” I waved my arm up the street—“I drove from that direction and got a pretty good look at the mob. Carrol Cantrell is at least six foot four, so I’d have noticed if he were there. I think our best bet is the coach house.”

  Kaiser and Miriam were aware of Carrol’s lodging arrangements, but neither of them knew the lay of Grace Lord’s property, so my presence proved helpful in that I could guide them. The three of us walked in silence as I led them up the driveway beside the house, our feet crunching the gravel. Watching the DA and the feminist as they trudged toward the coach house for purposes not known to me, I found it difficult to imagine that they had grown up with Doug Pierce—their lives had taken such radically different directions.

  Out on the street, with all the activity surrounding setup of the convention, there’d been a sense of merry confusion. But here, in the shadow of the house, all was still—save for us, save for the rustle of a bird somewhere in the soaring limbs of old trees. The bright day had taken on an eerie quality, and I instinctively removed my dark glasses, pocketing them. Our lack of conversation, prompted by nothing more sinister than distaste for each other, now seemed to radiate an active malice borne of tight-lipped silence.

  I broke this lull by asking Miriam, “Did you get your school up and running?”

  Without breaking stride, she turned to tell me, “You know very well that I did. Your own paper reported it—barely. It is news, you know. Wisconsin’s—probably the nation’s—first holistic, paganic New Age day school. Ariel would benefit from our curriculum and from our all-organic diet.”

  This last comment was made purely to nettle me. Ariel was the name Miriam and her Fem-Snachers had given to Thad, claiming him as a child of the Society. I reminded her, “The boy’s mother named him Thad.”

  She was revving up for a diatribe when Kaiser shushed her, saying, “Not now, Miriam. We have other fish to fry.”

  So then—they were indeed paying this visit for some planned purpose. Trying to fathom what fish they meant to fry, I let our conversation lapse again.

  Reaching the two-story garage at the end of the driveway, I led them around to the side of the building, where the stairs rose to the covered porch of the coach house. Climbing the first few of the green-painted treads, I looked out upon the vast, shade-dappled lawn. In a flash, I saw the same serene scene that had been captured in the framed photo of Grace’s nephew, Ward Lord, whipping a Frisbee to his dog. The memory (which was not a direct recollection, but merely a visual impression of a years-old occurrence, preserved in a snapshot) gave me a perturbing sense of déjà vu, raising a mind-loop question: Did the scene there before me truly resemble the scene I recalled, or was my memory being rewritten by what I now saw? It was impossible to draw the distinction—even the trees looked the same to me, which I knew, intellectually if not in my gut, to be impossible. Continuing up the stairs, I searched for some small detail, any overlooked clue, that would prove a discrepancy between past and present. And I saw it. While making a turn at the landing, I noticed, tucked under a tree near the far end of the lawn, a garden ornament, a small stone obelisk that I had not seen before, either in the photo or in life. Though I should have been relieved by this discovery—it ratified my grip on reality—the effect of the obelisk was anything but heartening. No, the limestone monolith looked for all the world like a grave marker. This, combined with the uneasy stillness (even that morning’s gusty wind had now died, as if holding its breath), created a mood of intense foreboding, and I suddenly dreaded what I might find at the top of the stairs.

  Carrol Cantrell’s scream shattered the silence, nipping my thoughts, confirming my fears—or so I assumed. Miriam, Kaiser, and I froze, unsure, in that first instant, how to react. During this moment of suspended animation, Miriam lost her footing. One of her lumpish clogs slipped from the tread where she stood, knocking a potted geranium over the edge. Just as it hit ground, the crash was drowned out by another shriek from Carrol’s quarters.

  Through the screen door, we realized, he was talking on the phone, now howling breathlessly—the waning aftermath of his explosive look-at-me laughter. I chided myself for indulging in morbid premonitions, inspired by a harmless garden accessory, and reminded myself that the success of my career stemmed in part from a ruthless objectivity that allowed no faith in superstition. Glad to be in touch again with the here and now, I focused my attention on Carrol’s phone call. “Gawd, she’s a fright!” he dished with abandon between gulps of air. “A total, fucking ditz!” Then he yelped with delight at whatever was said o
n the phone.

  Miriam and Kaiser exchanged a disgusted look, rolling their eyes in disapproval. In truth, I didn’t much approve of Carrol’s performance either. His words, though, were not meant for our ears. He had no idea an audience was now on his porch, and if we were to let him continue unaware, we’d be guilty of eavesdropping, one-upping his bad manners.

  So I approached the door, preparing to rap on it. Just prior to my knock, we heard one last comment, delivered in a far more sober tone: “What about the Miller standard?”

  Caught unprepared for this question and confused by its meaning, I paused before knocking, mulling Carrol’s words. Was he talking about…beer? Surely not. Was he referring to the work of some noted miniatures artisan named Miller? Possibly. Glancing back toward Miriam and Kaiser, I noted that Miriam seemed oblivious to Carrol’s question. She was squatting to adjust her clog, which was quite a sight—she looked as if she were being eaten by her cape. Kaiser, on the other hand, seemed focused and intent, as if he understood Carrol’s reference to the “Miller standard.” Was it a legal term? I just didn’t know.

  So I knocked, calling inside, “Carrol? Anybody home?” There was no point in telling him we’d been hanging on his every word.

  He approached the door from the shadows behind the screen, wearing a long silk bathrobe, carrying a cell phone. “Company’s here,” he said into it. “Gotta go, love. Later.” And he snapped it shut.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” I told him lamely through the screen.

  Recognizing me, he swung the door wide. “Mark, hon!” Then, squinting into the sunlight, he saw the others. “Oh?” His hair was a mess, and he hadn’t shaven yet. It was late morning—I figured his daily rhythms were still on California time.

  “I was in the neighborhood,” I explained, “so I thought I’d drop by, and—of all people—I ran into a couple of friends who’d had the same idea.” There was a moment’s pause. It was clear he did not appreciate the disturbance, so I forged ahead with introductions, telling him, “First, this is Miriam Westerman, founder of a local feminist organization that has just opened a New Age day school.”