Jeremy flushed, pleased at Simon's gratitude. He wanted very much to ingratiate himself, for Simon was at once his musical hero, his best friend's father and, Jeremy dared to hope, perhaps someday his father-in-law as well. "I'm glad you like it," he said, smiling.
"Lemme see it, Dad," Lucas said.
"Here," Simon handed it to him, "Be careful with it. It's very old and fragile."
"I think it's a first edition," Jeremy said. "A first printed edition, I mean. I know that there were probably handwritten ones that go back centuries and centuries, back to the Middle Ages."
"Sure, sure there were," Simon lied. Nineteenth-century foolishness—
"Hey, listen to this!" Lucas said excitedly. "There's a preface by"—he squinted at the handwritten signature—"Dr. William Price—"
"He was a druid," Simon said authoritatively. "Early nineteenth century." Damn!
"Yeah?" Lucas said. "Well, listen. 'Herein are set forth the ceremonies and spells whereby the powers of the underworld can be tamed and brought to use by those who devote themselves to the old religion. But be warned, reader! This is not a game, nor is it a responsibility to be taken lightly. With this book can the dead be raised, the souls brought forth from the Pit, the demons enslaved and the powers of the world be confounded. Woe to him who thinks not piously upon these dread secrets.'" He looked up. "This is great! Dad, you gotta use this in your act!"
"Yeah, yeah, sure," Simon said. Another few months and I might not have an act, he thought. I might not even have this house!
"Impious garbage!" a voice boomed from behind them. They all turned to see Reverend Wilkes hobbling across the lawn in their direction. "Blasphemous nonsense! I heard that, I heard that, boy, and it isn't 'great' at all! It's dangerous, damnable nonsense!"
Simon sighed. I don't need this right now, he thought. "It's all in fun, Reverend. It isn't serious."
"It is serious!" Wilkes shouted. "You are leading young people to damnation, Simon Proctor! You are acting as an agent of Satan, and there are many souls being lost to God because of you!"
Simon Proctor took the book from his son and closed it. "Listen, Reverend, don't take this all so seriously. Really! Nobody else takes it seriously!"
"No? Well, God takes it seriously!" His visage darkened. "And whether you know it or not, Satan takes it seriously!"
"Oh, please," Simon said tiredly. "Please."
"Do not beg me, young man," Wilkes said. "I beg, you! I beg you! Stop this dangerous, blasphemous impiety. It is not a joke, Simon, it is not just show business. You will feel the wrath of God for this, I warn you!" He looked at his nephew. "Jeremy, come home this instant!"
"Yeah, yeah, okay, Uncle Fred. I'll be right there." Jeremy turned to Rowena. "Can I come over later on, after supper?"
"Sure," she said happily. "I have to study for a biology test. You can help me."
He laughed. "Gee, Row, I don't remember too much about that stuff. I think I got a D in bio when I was in high school."
"Jeremy!" his uncle shouted. "This instant!"
"Okay, okay, okay!" To Rowena, "I'll see you later." He followed his uncle as he crossed the street back to the parsonage.
"Studying for a test," Lucas nodded approvingly. "You're a real fun date, Rowena."
"Oh, shut up, Lucas!" she snapped.
Lucas sat down on the bench beside Karyn. "Babe, I got a math test tomorrow. Can you help me with my homework tonight?" he simpered. She poked him in the ribs and whispered, "Shhh! Be nice!"
Rowena repressed her annoyance and turned to her father. "Are you hungry, Daddy?"
He smiled lovingly at her. "I could eat a horse."
"Okay." She grinned. "I'll go get supper started." She began to walk toward the door.
Karyn got uneasily to her feet and said, "Hold on, Row. I'll give you a hand." She followed Rowena into the house, leaving Simon and Lucas alone on the lawn.
Simon pulled his shirt collar closed. "Getting chilly out here."
Lucas nodded. "Yeah. Probably gonna snow."
"Yeah." Simon shifted his weight from foot to foot nervously. He and his son were not comfortable in each other's presence. There had been too little closeness between them for too many years. "It's kind of early for snow, though."
"Yeah, kinda early." He lighted another cigarette.
Simon nodded. "So. You and Karyn going to get married?"
Lucas grimaced. "No. What the hell for?"
Simon shrugged, not really wanting to pursue the topic, not feeling that he had any right to comment on his son's life because he had had so little to do with it. "Just curious."
"Well," Lucas said, dragging on the cigarette. "I'm gonna go in and take a nap. I'll see you later."
"Yeah. See you later." He watched as his son ambled into the old house. He waited a few moments before following him in, and he passed those few moments by examining the old book he held. "Foolishness," he muttered, ". . . concocted . . ." He shook his head. "Shit!" Then he entered the house, slamming the door loudly behind him.
A cold wind whistled through the bare branches of the old oak. The sky grew gray and filled with dark clouds.
Chapter Four
October 31
And the snows came early that year to Bradford, New Hampshire. Just after dusk the first few flakes of white drifted lazily down from the colorless sky and crowned the few remaining blades of brown and withered grass with baby's-breath spots of crystal. There was a stillness in the midst of the snowfall, as if the wind had for some reason ceased its circuit, as if it had elected to exempt the first few delicate flakes from its ruthless buffeting. Soon the snow was falling heavily, covering the little country town with its first winter blanket months before winter, adorning it and clothing it, making it as white as a wedding gown. Or a shroud.
Simon Proctor sat behind the old mahogany desk in the study beside the library on the first floor of the old Proctor Inn, staring morosely out at the thick white clouds which were enveloping the old oak. Nature mirroring mood, he reflected.
Simon looked back down at the pile of bills which rested upon the stained ink blotter on the surface of the desk, and he sighed. I can handle this month, he thought, maybe next month. Land tax, heating oil, insurance, phone, credit card bills—all marginally manageable. But the month after that the loans would start to fall due, the loans he had contracted to finance the film, the loans against which he had used his house and future earnings as collateral.
He sat back in his swivel chair and looked once again out the window. "So I have three months," he muttered. Three months in which to make enough money to extricate himself from his situation, three months in which to solve an unsolvable problem. One month of repose before beginning the concert tour to publicize the film.
Sighing once again, Simon reached into his breast pocket and drew out a cigarette. Lighting it, he shook his head. Impossible; he thought. "Never do it," he muttered. I can't sell out a concert hall anymore, record sales are down, nobody's going to go to see that stupid, stupid film. I'll be lucky if I break even on the concert tour itself. And then . . . ?
Bankruptcy, perhaps? Homelessness? That's a possibility. Shame, despair, nervous collapse, suicide . . . all possibilities.
He exhaled a long fume of smoke. "Shit," he muttered.
Floyd Proctor pushed open the creaking old door and walked into the study. "Simon, I want to talk to you."
Simon glanced up at him quickly and then returned his attention to the bills. "Not now, Pop. I'm busy."
Floyd seated himself beside the desk. "Don't look busy to me. You never look busy to me."
He tossed the pen he held down onto the desk angrily. "Goddamn it, Pop, not now, okay? Just leave me alone, will you?"
Floyd leaned forward. "Can't do that, sonny, because I never get left alone, and neither does Row. We have to live with the crap you peddle every day of the week, week after week, month after month, year after year. Did you know that I ain't got no friends left 'round here? None wort
h speakin' of, anyway, 'ceptin' Fred Wilkes. Poor Row ain't got one friend in this whole damn world 'ceptin' young Jeremy, and I ain't too happy 'bout that friendship."
Simon pretended to busy himself with the bills. "Jeremy seems like a nice kid."
"Yeah," the old man nodded, "seems so. But he spends too much time with Lucas, and that's bound to corrupt him. Now, Lucas is a lost cause. Never gonna be nothin' but a bum, just like his father." Simon bristled, but Floyd went on as if he had not noticed. "But Rowena still has some decency in her, and I don't want to see it ruined. She's all I got left to show for my life."
Simon threw the pen down again, more forcefully. It bounced off the desk top and clattered against the window pane. "For Christ's sake, Pop, will you leave me be?!"
"Nope," the old man said stubbornly. "You're gonna hear me out, Simon."
"You always say the same goddamn things! What's the point of listening? What's the point of your saying them?"
"The point is that you don't listen, and I'm gonna keep right on saying the same things until you do!"
Simon gazed at the wizened old face which stared back at him, and he felt a twinge of guilt mixed with unwilling affection. Old Floyd had worked hard all his life and each crease in the ancient face seemed to be a battle scar from life's wars. Each hair which had fallen from the now bald head seemed to have departed from the strain of labor and worry, not a small part of which had been provided by Simon.
Floyd had worked multiple jobs for decades, running a small general store, running the old inn which was as unprofitable in this century as it had been over the past two, farming the small plot of land out back until arthritis barred him from it, working as the town's postmaster for forty years until the government retired both him and the town's status as a postal district, merging it with the postal zone of Caritonville, twenty miles away. At least he got a federal pension from his efforts. Were it not for that, Floyd would have been totally dependent upon his son, and that would have killed him.
It still might, Simon thought, if he ever finds out that he made a mistake signing the house over to me, if he ever learns that I may very well have lost the family home. Simon forced himself to speak gently. "Look, Pop, don't take things so seriously, okay? Row's going to be fine and Lucas is going to straighten out too, you just wait and see."
Floyd shook his head. "The boy ain't never gonna straighten out as long as you keep on twistin' him. And Lord knows how many other troubled kids you been twistin' with that disgustin' garbage of yours."
"Damn it, Pop—!"
"You just listen to me, sonny" Floyd stood up and leaned forward over the desk, resting his swollen, arthritic knuckles upon it. "What you been doin' is wrong, it's just plain wrong! You're shamin' me, Simon, and you're shamin' your daughter, and you're shamin' the memory of your mother. Why, there never lived a more God-fearin' woman than my Bessie. She took you to church regular, tried to raise you up like a good Christian boy" He stood up straight. "And look at you! Just look at you! Prancin' around like some goddamned idiot, talkin' about the Devil, makin' dirty movies, wearing all that damn faggy makeup, wearing earrings, for Christ's sake!"
Simon leapt to his feet. "Pop, will you just shut up and get the hell out of here?! I don't need this aggravation!"
"Don't you talk to me that way, boy! Why, I got a good mind to slap your face!"
Simon took his father's arm firmly in his hand and pulled him roughly toward the door of the study. "I'm busy, goddamn it!" he shouted as he pushed his father out into the hallway. He slammed the door and locked it. Simon Proctor sat back down at the desk and tried to concentrate on the bills, tried to ignore the furious pounding of his father's fists upon the locked door. Floyd's angry knocking from behind him was matched by the heavy thudding of the snow-drenched wind upon the window before him.
Stereo, he thought absently.
The wind blew the snow around Bradford in frenzied tornadic circles, assaulting the branches of the naked trees and weighing them down with piles of frozen whiteness. House lights were dimly visible through the thick snowfall, oases of warmth and calm in the midst of the relentless attack of nature. The weather vane atop the old church spun madly about, testifying mutely to the fact that the wind seemed to be blowing in from all directions at once.
The wind hurled snow against the windows of the parsonage across the street from the Proctor Inn, and Jeremy Sloan watched it quietly, enchanted by its pristine, awesome beauty as well as seeking to avoid having to listen to his uncle. The spoon which he held in his right hand moved lazily through the steaming bowl which rested on the table before him. He stirred his supper absentmindedly.
Reverend Wilkes looked up at him. "Jeremy!"
He was startled momentarily. "Hmm? Yeah, Uncle Fred?" Wilkes gestured impatiently at the bowl. "Eat your stew."
"Okay, okay."
"Food is a gift of God. It's a sin to waste
"Okay, okay!" he repeated, taking a spoonful of broth and vegetables and slopping them into his mouth. "I'm eating it, okay?"
Wilkes returned his attention to his own bowl of stew. They ate in silence for a few moments. Then he said, "I want you to fix the lectern tomorrow."
"What's wrong with it?" Jeremy was struggling to find a piece of meat somewhere in the thick brown stew. He could not.
"Steps are loose." Wilkes blew on his spoon of broth to cool it off. "Don't want to fall down when I preach this Sunday."
Jeremy nodded. "Okay. I'll check 'em out in the morning."
A few more moments of silence. "Spoke to Jed Rutherford, over in Piermont yesterday. Says he needs a few new hands at the lumber mill. If you get there early Monday, I'm sure he'll take you on."
Jeremy sighed. "Uncle Fred, I really don't want to work in no lumber mill."
"I know, I know," Wilkes said with disgust. "You want to spend your life playing games with that Lucas Proctor. Well, everybody's gotta do something with their lives, Jeremy. You're out of high school, not going to college. Gotta get a job. Lumber mill's as good as anything. An honest dollar's an honest dollar."
Jeremy didn't want to argue about it. He returned his attention to his meal, as did his uncle. Jeremy reached across the table for the plate piled high with sliced whole wheat bread. His uncle glared at him. "You got a tongue, boy?"
Sighing, Jeremy withdrew his hand. "Please pass the bread."
Nodding with satisfaction, Wilkes pushed the plate nearer to his nephew. "You been behaving yourself with that little girl?"
"Huh?"
"You heard me, boy. You been behaving yourself with the Proctor girl?"
Jeremy blushed. "Cut it out, will you, Uncle Fred?"
Wilkes's eyes blazed at him. He seemed the embodiment of Mosaic wrath, an Old Testament prophet with large, bushy brows and a craggy face, an enormous head bristling with wild white hair atop a thin, stooped, almost delicate body. "You answer me, boy!" he demanded.
"Of course I've been behaving myself with Rowena,"' he said angrily, angry at his uncle for asking so personal a question, angry at himself for not having the backbone to refuse to answer it. "I like Rowena, I like her a lot."
Wilkes studied Jeremy's face suspiciously. "You do anything to hurt that little girl, and I'll whip you to within an inch of your life."
Jeremy sighed. "Yes, Uncle Fred."
Wilkes nodded, satisfied. They both returned to their meal. After a few minutes of silence, Wilkes said, "You come to church Sunday."
"Yes, Uncle Fred." Jeremy sounded resigned, depressed.
"I know there aren't many people left in the congregation. I know it's a small church, always has been. But that doesn't mean that folks who're still here can't go when the services are held."
"Yes, Uncle Fred."
Wilkes nodded. "See if you can bring that poor girl with you, the one that Lucas Proctor has got into trouble."
Why argue the absurdity of the idea? Jeremy thought. "Yes, Uncle Fred."
"Most disgraceful thing I ever heard of in my
whole life. Poor girl's not even old enough to be out on her own, let alone having a baby, let alone that miscreant's baby."
"Yes, Uncle Fred."
He looked up at Jeremy. "And I don't like you spending so much time with that Lucas Proctor."
"Yes, Uncle Fred."
"Now, I know that he's Floyd's grandson, and Floyd and I go back more years than either of us cares to remember, but he's just no good, that boy, no darn good."
"Yes, Uncle Fred." Jeremy was staring out the window at the snow.
"Probably takes after that strumpet Simon used to be married to. Bad blood, most likely. Always comes out."
"Yes, Uncle Fred."
Wilkes paused. "You listening to me, boy?"
"Yes, Uncle Fred."
"What did I just say?"
"Yes, Uncle—what?"
Wilkes threw his spoon down angrily. "Consternation, Jeremy Sloan! You give me your attention when I'm speaking to you."
"Yeah, I'm sorry, Uncle Fred. What were you saying?"
Wilkes resumed his tirade and Jeremy looked directly at him, not hearing a word. Every now and then he would glance out the window at the Proctor home across the road, looking for some sign of Rowena, a shadow against the curtain perhaps, or a visible movement in the lighted window of her bedroom. The snow was falling more heavily now than before, almost obscuring the house lights across the way.
The snow seemed to rush down Bradford's street, striking the old monument to the town's Civil War dead, whipping around the barren flag pole in front of the Grange hall, blanketing the buildings and making even the dirty old gas station look clean and new. The wind threw the snow in all directions as it howled and whistled through the moonless night.
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