by Jack Cady
While Unc loaded the chipped sow in the backseat of the Duesenberg (it was a chore, but as he said later, you could get by with almost anything in the backseat of a Duesenberg), the lady bargained with Chloe who had snapped up the role of agent. They agreed on a commission figure of five hundred dollars, two hundred of which the lady paid along with eleven thirty-five for her pig and a buck, six-bits for Willie. Willie, the original, later demanded a snort for modeling. George bought him a tub full.
Chloe was sharp. Unc would have done the job for thirty dollars. He did not realize the value of art. Most artists never do until they bump someone like Cecil B. DeMille. It was not until the pig was loaded that the situation began to fester.
"Five hundred!" Unc yelled, almost silly happy.
The lady looked worried. "You can do it?"
He watched her as if in devout belief that there would always be a gold standard. She took it for devotion, that was clear. "For five hundred I’d . . ." He was thrashing around in his head for ultimates.
The lady looked pleased and thoughtful. "You would?"
Chloe interrupted and tried to raise the price.
Then it occurred to Unc that any yacht named Godiva had to have a figurehead that would put the front end of a Rolls to shame. A little hesitancy flickered across his face. The guy and woman insisted on a full-length woman, nude to the waist. The lady insinuated coyly that it might not hurt if the figure wore a satisfied smile. The guy kept looking at Chloe, stating that a very substantial type model should be used. Chloe blushed and kept trying to stop up my ears.
They left it at that. The lady and her escort eventually arrived in Boston and started writing letters to Uncle George.
The first was from the man with specifications for length and mounting. Unc did not allow anyone to read the next letter which was from the lady. He started to walk around with a worried look. Whatever was in the letter could have made little difference because trouble happened before their car had disappeared.
Unc had to have a bare model. You can joke about it now, but in thirty-two in small-town Indiana; or now when I think of it, the prospect of a nude would have caused a riot, a church burning and a jail delivery.
If Unc had been a normal man he could probably have done the job from memory. I mean he was pretty grown-up and had once visited a relative in Indianapolis for a week.
But he was not normal. When he did doc’s sow he borrowed the sow. When he carved the duck he had given it a good kick first and then worked like stink before it died, but that part had been unforeseen and unfortunate. If he was going to do a nude woman he had to have a nude woman. He was in a bind. As always when in doubt he sought out Willie.
"Marry Chloe," Willie said, tipping the jug. "Art is the iron wrought from the hot forge of suffering." I had tagged along to the courthouse with Unc who packed a prohibition quart. Willie leaned back grinning at the flaking walls of his courtroom. He looked a little flaky himself. Willie was a middling large man with scraggy gray hair and more than a wink for the law. He was also a philosopher, especially with the quart sitting on the bench.
"That’s a helluva sentence," I told him. Unc said nothing but I knew I would catch a word or two about that ‘helluva’ later.
Willie slowly waggled a finger. "Art," he said seriously.
"Art?" Unc said.
"Art," Willie repeated.
"My masterpiece," Unc murmured.
"Freedom," I said. "From every mountaintop, let . . ."
"Go home," Willie told me. "Have another snort of your whiskey, George."
Unc had several. Then he and Willie went to the pool room and talked. There were a lot of people around. I guess that explains how Chloe found out.
The short, sharp and nasty little brawl that developed took place at our house when Chloe stormed in after Unc. I am not sure what had her most angry. It seemed to be the idea of getting her man because he needed to see her naked which is maybe the whole point anyway. But it may have been the idea, as she said, "Of parading my everything over seven seas for every porpoise and dockhand to admire." Chloe could be quite conceited at times.
Whatever the reason she threw the ring at him, then remembered that she had made most of the payments and grabbed it back. She never married Unc although she tried to make him suffer. That succeeded for about two hours until further developments slugged him. The same day another letter came from the rich lady. Three weeks later Chloe was holding hands with one of the Rileys. The turkey growing Rileys, I mean. Not the dirt farmers. Geraldine split her time between the store and Willie’s courtroom.
Uncle George was heartbroken but he went back to work. All summer he turned out figureheads that looked like wadded burlesque handbills. They would not have startled your grandmother. I think he finally jointed arms on the whole lot and jobbed them to Si Hansen for scarecrows. It was then that Geraldine came strongly to his aid. The sewing circle started whispering that she had always been a willful child.
Geraldine was always so pretty and so kind. I was nine and planned to marry her myself if she would only wait, even if she was on the rail-skinny side.
She was nearly as tall as Unc with beautiful brown hair and a good eye. But, like I told you she was twenty-eight and an old maid. She must have suffered for Unc a good deal that summer, because finally, as autumn rolled in, she slipped down to the store with her heart in her mouth and her hand on her zipper. It had good results. Unc went enthusiastically to work, sometimes late at night with the blinds pulled. I went catfishing and pondered.
Chloe could never have gone to the store at night, but even the sewing circle was not about to lock horns with Geraldine. Everyone makes at least one mistake in their life and Geraldine had that real good eye . . .
When the work was done Unc was wearing a sort of dazed look. He decided to deliver the figurehead to dockside himself. He had thrown away none of the rich lady’s letters.
He packed the figurehead in Willie’s casket without showing it to anyone, then took a train to Boston. The casket was a demonstrator Willie had picked up in 1925, figuring to need it sooner or later. He could never pass a bargain which is the reason it was lent. In payment for its use Unc promised to install a built-in bar.
Despite the letters Geraldine did not protest his leaving. She showed neither doubt nor hesitation. When I asked her what she thought she smiled and said, "Lots."
Everyone else thought exactly what they pleased which was not a little. Geraldine was not fretful. No letters came for her, but she kept busy pricing yard goods and occasionally slipping Willie wet goods. About December she took to hanging around the courtroom. Lectures on philosophy, maybe.
Unc was gone until the following January when he pulled in with the coffin bolted to an old truck chassis. It looked sort of avant-garde and was. He later realized that he had invented the trucking industry’s sleeper cab and with it made a fortune.
It was late Saturday morning. I was the only one to meet him. He whirled me around, set me back on the ground and headed for the house. I pried up the lid of the coffin and there was his figurehead dressed in a real bathing suit and a satisfied smile. It was too many for me. I headed for Chloe and Geraldine’s house and hid behind the woodpile.
As soon as Unc cleaned up he rushed over. Chloe met him at the door waving a fresh engagement ring.
"Ha," she said.
"Ha, hell," he told her, real frantic, "where’s Geraldine?"
She arched a little, pouting, and said that she didn’t know. Unc hollered around for a while fairly desperate, then began to believe her.
"Pete Riley," she flourished the ring.
"Really," he seemed interested, "short fellow, dark hair, talks nice?"
"Him exactly."
"How ‘bout that?" He dug around for his billfold, opened it and shook his head sadly. "You didn’t get any rebate on the other one?"
Chloe disappeared inside the house to come back with a hot stove lid. By that time Unc was on his way to town.
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br /> I took a shortcut and made it to the courthouse ahead of him where I ducked behind the rail of the jury box. Unc and Willie adjourned to the courtroom.
"What happened?" Willie breathed into an empty glass and pulled out a shirttail, giving the glass a high polish.
"Where’s Geraldine," Unc wanted to know. He leaned forward, scary-like.
"Get my letter?" Willie breathed at him over the rim.
"I’ll . . . Why did she do it? Leaving with a poet . . . I’ll—!" Unc was screaming.
"Easy," Willie told him. "She didn’t. I lied. You figure you’re the only one with the license?"
"You drunk?" George was stumped. "License to what? Drink?"
"Lie."
"Oh."
"You need a drink."
"Not now, Willie. Where is she?"
"Where she’s been all along. Right here in town, be home if there isn’t some errand." I figured Geraldine had finally gotten a price on yard goods.
Willie poured one reverently. "What happened," he came at Unc again.
Unc looked worried. "Nothing I’ll tell. Well, no, one thing. Godiva II got back to sea."
"With your figurehead?"
"Not the one I took, another one. My masterpiece—I brought the first one back."
"You need a drink."
"No! Now Willie, dammit," he paused sort of uncertain. "I’ve been busy and I kind of quit." He said it and said it meek.
Willie gave a real horrible laugh followed by a giggle. "Didn’t need to," he told Unc. "All you had to do was grease your hair and buy cake-eater shoes."
Unc jumped halfway up. "It’s okay," Willie settled him, "I need a drink. You’re okay, George, you’re okay. Who is on Godiva II?"
"Emma . . . Uh, the rich lady." And, he said that meek too.
Willie leaned back in his chair gasping with laughter. "Couldn’t put her on the bow, huh? Had to go all the way to Boston to trip over yourself."
"Ah, George," Willie waggled his head philosophically, "you’re a product of the time. Love one woman while you’re with another . . . don’t realize it ’til you find you can’t flaunt the first one. Whyn’t you borrow a swimsuit?"
Inside the jury box I doubled up biting my fists. Unc stood up yelling horrible, kicked the chair from under Willie and took off. Willie lay for a while looking thoughtful. "Puck," he said, "dusted em both, by God." He reached to pull the bottle down for company. By that time I judge Unc had found Geraldine.
They were married in less than three weeks which pleased several old ladies. It gave them something to talk about. They were disappointed at the sewing circle. Cousin George did not arrive for two years and Uncle George used to stop the busybodies in the middle of the square on Saturday night. He would introduce Cousin George to them as the baby Geraldine carried for twenty-four months. My cousin took after his parents for skinniness and grew up a copy of the rail-splitting Lincoln. He never made it as far as politics, being side-tracked by the wholesale fertilizer business.
What happened in Boston was anybody’s guess for a long time. Unc told everyone that the rich lady had given her boyfriend some money and a from-behind kick in the right direction. Everyone theorized that Unc was the replacement but it could not be proved. Since Willie elected to keep quiet I figured it was splendid judgment if I did the same.
However, I did find a notice from a Boston paper in Unc’s luggage which told about the unveiling of the figurehead in the rich lady’s honor. It was at the time of the official renaming and return from drydock. There was an apologetic reference to some kind of disturbance that was in language I later learned was used in Boston to describe a riot. They have a different way of handling sportive material up there.
The mystery remained for a while and then was forgotten. It was only by chance that I learned a little more some ten years later when Godiva II’s captain at the time of the refit came through town on his way west. He was retiring and looking for a little patch of desert or whatever retired captains are chasing. Perhaps because he was getting older, or because he knew no one to the westward, he stopped to have a drink and a yarn with Unc.
I was pretty well grown then, sitting on the porch beside them while the captain had a cold one and settled himself deep in a rocker. They chewed over old times for a while, then talked about the rich lady who had married a Portuguese Admiral. Presently the captain eased a look at Unc and said, "George, I’ll never understand an artist. There you were with a death grip on two and a half, maybe three million dollars and you settled for a bust on the head with a bottle that knocked you off the platform. You passed, George, you just plain passed. I know you could have married that woman."
Uncle George allowed that it was probably true. In the house Geraldine was singing and Unc just kind of eased back and hummed along on the same tune.
"It’s your cussed persistence for exactness did it, George," the captain said. "I’m sorry I’ve got to say it, but it is. You fouled up Godiva II. You really did."
"Reality," said Unc, breaking into his own humming. "Art is the evocation of reality."
The captain worked that one around pretty sad-like. While he did he knocked off another cold one.
Finally, he said, sort of lumpy and dreamy, "The soul of a schooner is like the soul of a little bird. Under the weight of its own wings it soars, but the soul of Godiva II is dead."
He paused, as if studying for a soft way to say something and hawed around for a little bit, then must have decided to heck with it. "I know you did your best," he told Unc, "but my hand to heaven," (and he lifted it) "you hurt her best by at least three knots and her feeling of joy. We’d get her offshore with a fair wind and following sea . . . I’ll swear to you George, she just kind of sagged."
Weird Row
We drive the Reno strip before dawn and it’s all bright lights and casinos: gin and tonic at five AM, fancy ladies with drooping eyelids, the clank of old-fashioned slots and the zippity hum of electronics; an occasional rattle of coins. Dawn sees some gamblers weary with defeat and completely busted. They park before used car dealers and wait for the lots to open. They sell their cars cheap in order to get breakfast and bus fare home.
Me, and Pork, and Victoria (my comrades) drive through this glossy city as morning rises quick above the desert. We say very little, because Pork is dreamy and Victoria is crazed. We flee like refugees, though we don’t flee far.
Storyland sits at city limits, between the town and the desert. When we approach, it looks like a hangar for monster airplanes, being of round metal roof and immense. It does not look like a book barn, though it is.
Once inside, Storyland stretches into distance like a stadium with fluorescent lights. Lights hang way, way up there, sending glowing messages from an awkward heaven. This is a freakin’ church, a financial cathedral.
My comrades and I take our places before stainless tables, with dumpsters at our backs. I’m in the center with Pork on my left. Victoria giggles on my right. Dust collectors hum, conveyer belts slide slicky-sounding, and we snag packages from conveyors which trundle before us. We open packages. We work like dogs and are paid like dogs. Employee turnover is fantastic. Still, a few genuine nut-cases hang on; plus us. We like it here. We say we’re on Weird Row. We’re talkin’ revolution.
The packages contain books, audios, videos, but mostly books. Thoughts and amusements of two thousand years trickle through our hands.
It works like this: The Corporation owns Storyland and sends books to every country in the world. Packages go out, but packages also come in. Packages arrive because when The Corporation receives orders it shops the Net. It finds needed books at small bookstores in Denver or Ashtabula or Cape Town. The small stores ship the books here for Storyland to resell. Workers who are higher paid repackage the books and send them to customers. Those workers get higher pay because what they do is boring. We, here on Weird Row, get the best part of the job.
Books on necromancy mix with Bibles, and children’s picture-books rest be
side dusty philosophies from two hundred years ago. History, evolution, how to raise a family cow . . . you name it, we open it . . . all kinds and colors of books spit forth, plus: there is packaging.
"Plus," Pork reminds me, "there’s Package Police." He checks the terrain with heavy-lidded gaze as he speaks. Conveyers hum all around, and other teams open packages. We don’t speak to other teams. Who needs ’em?
Pork looks rested. Many years ago there was a song titled "Mr. Five by Five." That’s Pork. Five foot tall and five foot around, like a giant bowling ball with a fluffy head. He has hazel eyes and the kind of beard you find on billy goats.
"There’s also denouements." Victoria generally sounds cultured. She is virginal and sweet and only slightly insane. She has no business in a candy-fanny town like Reno. Victoria should be gliding along marble halls while wearing a satin gown. She should be waving a wand that casts sparkles. Victoria is knock-down-dead gorgeous, little and cute, like a movie queen, like Hepburn. "There’s visualizations," she says, "and actualizations and excitements. There’s also a certain amount of stardust."
I make no big claim to sanity, either. If I am sane, why am I in Reno? My name . . . ? It seems a guy would remember . . . I’m sure my mom recalls it, but she lives in New Hampshire. Around here they call me Smoke. Because I do, whenever I can sneak a butt. I’m skinny and going on thirty with bright eyes and yellow teeth; a nice smile to go with it, a tidy little cough. I lust after Victoria. Fat chance. Lotsa luck, buddy.
"Package Police," Pork says, again. Even wide awake and rested, Pork sounds dreamy. Dreamy is dangerous. When he gets too dreamy, Pork fondles books.
The Corporation can’t allow that. A man who fondles books is liable to steal something: a notion, an essence, an idea. A man who fondles books might learn a trade, develop a philosophy, found a religion. All through history, book fondlers have been known to commit creative acts. Around here, Book Fondling is a godawful sin.