by Monte Schulz
The popular sweetheart couple stood arm-in-arm on the dance floor directly in front of the platform, all pep and smiles.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, LET’S MEET OUR WINNERS…”
Another drum roll was summoned from Turkel’s orchestra as a shower of silver coins rained over the beaming sweetheart couple.
“… FROM LEXINGTON, KENTUCKY AND JOHNSTOWN, PENNSYLVANIA… JOE NORTON AND PATSY McCARDLE!”
The audience roared with delight. A cloud of balloons was released from the rafters. Firecrackers exploded here and there.
“Hey, they didn’t win!” Alvin shouted. “That ain’t fair! I tell you, they didn’t win!”
“What’d I say?” The fellow beside him laughed aloud.
Down on the littered parquet dance floor, the sweetheart couple was still smiling for their sponsors, displaying the good sportsmanship and sunny dispositions they knew paid dividends in the long run. A woman wearing a gingham apron dress rose and blew them a kiss. Maybe they didn’t win tonight, but the marathon was far from over, so the couple from Ohio persisted in waving brightly to their staunchest supporters. Alvin saw Petey sneak up onto the platform while everyone else’s attention was drawn to Joe and Patsy crossing the stage past Elrod Tarwater under a blazing spotlight to the microphone where Arthur Cheney stood with his master of ceremonies and a shiny gold trophy. Alvin thought there must have been two dozen people up on the platform now, crowding closer and closer to the microphone, swarming about Joe and Patsy and Arthur Cheney and his emcee. People around the auditorium were shouting and whistling and stamping their feet as Joe raised the trophy high over his head and Patsy gave him a kiss for the cameras and Cheney lifted his own cigar in triumph. Through the crush of celebrants under the hot lights of the auditorium, Alvin saw Petey shove close enough to swing a small pocketknife in a balled-up fist hard down onto the back of Arthur Cheney’s neck. Both Cheney and Petey disappeared into the crowd as the promoter fell. Tarwater knocked over the microphone. Alvin thought he heard Patsy scream. More policemen and trainers rushed forward from backstage.
Then the platform collapsed and the rest was pandemonium.
The evening breeze carried a honey scent of fresh blossoms from a shady home orchard in the next lot as Alvin watched ambulance attendants carry the injured on stretchers from the auditorium while dozens of police and firemen and newspaper reporters and derby patrons milled about.
The smart-mouthed fellow in the blue cassimere suit lit a cigarette in the shadows. He and Alvin had departed the auditorium together through a side door under the old bleachers just ahead of a panicked crowd. Alvin held onto his sack of popcorn and ate a salty handful as his new friend tossed the dead match away into the scruffy grass. Maybe this fellow ain’t half bad, he thought. He didn’t charge me a dime to find out the derby was a cheat. Now I got something to tell Frenchy he probably don’t even know.
Cousin Frenchy.
He’d slipped Alvin the dope about Doc Hartley coming out to the farm for a chat with Alvin’s mom and pop. Everyone knew Alvin didn’t look too good. He’d lost weight and color, and wasn’t he coughing again? He couldn’t work hardly at all in the fields, got tired too soon, wasn’t even strong enough to push a loaded wheelbarrow from one end of the yard to another. He needed treatments again. He was having a relapse. If he didn’t go back into the sanitarium, he might not be around for Christmas. Alvin had no intention of returning to the sanitarium, even though when he woke during the night, his bed sheets were damp with sweat and sometimes he coughed so hard he choked. But the sanitarium doctors had promised him he was cured, that all he needed was lots of sunshine and fresh air and a little rest from time to time. They had lied to him, so he didn’t trust them any longer, and if he was going to croak, he didn’t want it to be in one of those cold wards that had already stolen a year of his life.
Alvin watched as one of the ambulances left the auditorium for Mercy Hospital downtown. A gust of wind rippled through the dark maples overhead. More people came outdoors.
“That was a close shave,” his new friend said, flicking ash off his cigarette.
“That kid Petey’s off his head.”
“They’re all cuckoo, if you ask me.”
“You ain’t by yourself.”
The fellow approached him with a smile. “Say, we haven’t really met, have we? My name’s Chester Burke.”
He offered a firm handshake, which Alvin accepted.
“Alvin Pendergast, sir. Pleased to know you.” That was sincere, too. He liked this fellow because he’d been friendly, unlike most people Alvin knew.
“I guess you’re local, aren’t you? Live in town?”
Alvin nodded. “We got a farm three miles north of here off Wasson Road. It ain’t that far.”
“Gee, I’ll bet that’s hard work,” Chester said, after a drag off his cigarette. Another ambulance arrived.
“Sure it is,” Alvin replied, watching several attendants hurry out to meet it. They reminded him of those fellows who helped carry the dead out of the consumption wards in the sanitarium.
“My uncle hired me onto his hog farm one summer when I was about your age, but I funked it after a month and went home.”
“Slopping hogs don’t stir you up much.”
A tiny woman in a net frock stood behind the attendants as another of the injured was hoisted into the ambulance.
Chester chuckled. “You aren’t sore on farming, are you?”
“Naw, it’s a panic.” Of course he hated it, and everyone in the family knew it, too. They said he was just lazy even when he wasn’t sick, which was sort of true, but who’s got a smile and a jump in his step for something he can’t stand?
“Well, I learned myself a long time ago that it can go pretty hard with a fellow who supplies the sweat on somebody else’s safety valve.”
Alvin watched Chester take out the silver hip flask again, unscrew it and tip it toward his mouth. Nothing came out. Chester frowned and shook it over the grass and saw it was empty. Then he grinned at Alvin. “Say, is there any place a fellow can get a drink around here?”
Another loaded ambulance left the auditorium, siren wailing across the windy night. Looking over his shoulder, Alvin told Chester, “See this road here?”
“Sure.”
“Well, if you follow it down two blocks to an alleyway just past a big blackberry patch, you’ll see the old Wickland house on the corner there. Go past it all the way to the end of the alley where you’ll find a little gray shack under a big hackberry tree. It belongs to a lady named Marge Bradford, and it’s the only place you can’t get a drink in this town.”
Then Alvin laughed.
So did Chester. “That’s a swell joke, kid. I like you. I suppose not all farmers are hicks, are they?”
“My uncle Rufus says farmers raise corn, corn makes whiskey, whiskey makes Prohibition agents, and Prohibition agents raise hell.”
Chester laughed again. “Why, that’s a good one, too.”
Alvin grinned, starting to feel better somehow. “He’s a jokey old bird.”
The thick maples swayed in a cold wind gust. Chester asked, “Have you had any supper tonight, kid?”
“I ate a sandwich.” He didn’t have much appetite today.
“Well, are you still hungry a little? Reason I ask is, I thought maybe you and me’d find a night lunchroom somewhere and have ourselves something to eat. If you’ve already had your supper, I’ll set you up to a piece of pie. What do you say? I haven’t eaten since noon and I’m getting an awful bellyache.”
Alvin smiled. “I like pie.”
“Well, then, let’s shoot the works,” Chester said, disposing of his cigarette. “Follow me.”
He had parked under a ragged oak at the upper corner of the parking lot. Alvin saw a shiny tan Packard Six hidden in the shadows.
“Gee, this is a pretty swell auto.”
Alvin had never seen a Six in the flesh before, only a magazine advertisement that named Packards “The
supreme combination of all that is fine in motor cars. Ask the man who owns one.”
“It’s nifty, all right,” Chester said, unlocking the door. He climbed into the driver’s seat, and reached across to open the passenger door. “Come on, kid. Hop in.”
“Sure.”
The farm boy climbed into the car as Chester fired up the engine. The interior smelled like cigarettes and gin. A pair of old leather valises were jammed in front of a bunch of boxes in the backseat. Alvin had never been inside of a fine motorcar. He liked it.
At the stop sign on the corner, Chester asked, “Where should we eat?”
“Well, tell the truth,” Alvin confessed, “there ain’t really nothing open ’round here after dark.” Where was he going, anyhow? It’d be a hell of a long walk home by moonlight and he had already begun to feel weak. He sure didn’t want to come home wheezing and have everyone in the family see how bad off he was.
“How about the other side of the river?” Chester asked, letting another automobile pass by before he went right.
“I guess so. There’s a flock of hotels.”
“Should we drive over?”
Alvin shrugged. “All right.”
Chester turned at the stop sign, then drove quickly west along Buchanon Street. Most of the framehouses still had lights on, but the sidewalks were empty and the neighborhood was quiet. Alvin knew he had to feed the dairy cows in the morning and replace the floorboards in one of Uncle Henry’s barn stalls and help fix his old disc harrow. He also knew Doc Hartley was coming out to the farm tomorrow afternoon to give him another once-over and maybe decide it was time for Alvin’s folks to buy another train ticket on the Limited back to the sanitarium. That spooked him something fierce.
Chester asked, “Ever been across the Mississippi this time of night?”
“Not by motor.”
“Well, you see, I’ve got appointments in Hannibal and New London tomorrow. Maybe we ought to hire a couple of rooms, stay over a night or so. What do you think?”
“I ain’t got any money.”
“We can tackle that tomorrow,” Chester said, steering around another corner. The bridge was up ahead, rising out of a cypress grove. “Say, maybe you can help me out in New London. I could sure use a partner who’s willing to put in an honest day’s work.”
“What would I have to do?”
Chester laughed. “Well, you wouldn’t be slopping hogs.”
Alvin felt his face flush. Now he was really scared. This fellow was asking him to quit the farm, which he hated, without letting anyone know about it, and by noon everyone in the family would say that poor sick Alvin was too dumb to understand just how important it was that he begin his pneumothorax treatments all over again.
Chester swung the Packard onto the bridge that led west across the Mississippi River. Both windows were open and a draft swirled through, cold and nightdamp.
“Well, what do you say, kid? I won’t kick about it if you say no, but you have to choose now. I got supper waiting for me on the other side of this bridge.”
Life was strange, Alvin thought, as a sort of weary exhilaration came over him. He had walked three miles to the derby and that was a long haul when he lived on the farm, but last week his only true ambition had been to go fishing Saturday morning with Frenchy, maybe lie on a summer hammock afterward by a hackberry grove near the creek. So he said to this fellow he hadn’t even known an hour ago, “I guess I’ll take that pie.”
Chester put the Packard back into gear. “You sure you’re not going to pull out of it? It’s pretty easy to get bitter if somebody goes back on you.”
“No, sir.”
“You’re a brick, kid.”
“Thanks.”
HADLEYVILLE, MISSOURI
WHEN ALVIN PENDERGAST WAS THIRTEEN, two years before the consumption, he and Cousin Frenchy sneaked a ride one Saturday night on a melon truck driving south to market in Macomb. They figured on traveling a while before jumping off in the next county and hitching a ride back on Sunday. It was summer and the night was warm, so they just lay back and counted stars and gabbed about girls and fishing until they got sleepy and nodded off for a few hours. When they woke up, they found themselves parked behind a blacksmith shop next to a backhouse and a chicken coop full of squawking hens and a pack of children collecting eggs for breakfast. Alvin and Frenchy crawled down off the melon truck and walked out in front of the store to have a look-see, take the “lay of the land” as Frenchy put it. Not that there was all that much to see: a long dirt street, all the buildings on one side, shade trees and huge blackberry bushes on the other. Men sitting in chairs out front of the stores. Wagons parked at the curb. Horses reined to hitching posts. No automobiles anywhere. One sign on a post draped in trumpet vines across the road leading into town told them where they were: Hiram, Ky. Pop. 132. If they hadn’t just recently gorged themselves on melon, they’d have been in trouble because neither possessed more than sixteen cents in his pockets. Alvin had a peculiar feeling, walking down the middle of Hiram’s main street with Frenchy, trying to ignore the thought burning in his brain that he might never see home in Illinois again—an awfully black thought for a thirteen-year-old. Men stared at them from the storefronts clear down to the end of the road leading out of town. Alvin didn’t see any women at all. The heels of the shoes Frenchy wore kicked up a trail of dust behind him, disturbing swarms of black flies off the horse apples in the dirt. Past a livery stable, the road bent left and went up a hill lined with more blackberry bushes. The boys followed it, hoping to find a county highway and another truck driving north to Illinois. Coming down the slope toward them was a preacher dressed all in black and carrying a leatherbound Bible. Back in Illinois, Alvin’s mother attended church every Sunday, but his father never went, claiming the Lord knew how he felt about Him and didn’t require a weekly recitation of those affections. Sunday School was where Alvin learned all about slingshots and miracles, which he preferred to sitting with the adults where everybody talked about loving the gospel while they farted all morning. Church was fine so long as it didn’t last more than a couple hours and Momma cooked dinner afterward, but this particular Sunday in Hiram was different. The preacher had a little boy alongside dressed just the same as he was: black frock coat and suit, wide-brimmed hat, leatherbound Bible and comfort shoes. He had eyes like a crow and a face white as a spook. Man and boy shared the same gait, a purposeful stride that brought them straight down the road to Alvin and Frenchy. Probably they’d have walked right on by had Frenchy not whistled at the boy once they passed. Both preacher and disciple came about together just a few yards past Frenchy and Alvin. The boy wore a scowl like a wolverine. The preacher’s face was mild but stiff. Alvin was terrified. Frenchy whistled again.
“You mock those bringing the Lord’s word,” said the little boy in a fluty voice, “and He’ll see a visitation upon your house. Ask old Pharaoh if that ain’t so.”
“I ain’t got no house,” replied Frenchy, puffing out his chest, “and I ain’t got no silly-looking hat like yours, neither. And I wouldn’t wear one if I did.” Alvin smiled. Frenchy hardly ever showed much respect for anyone smaller than himself. He was always puffed up about all sorts of things and let you know about it, too.
“Blasphemer!” said the boy, eyes narrowed in fury. “Jesus’ll burn you up! You just—”
The preacher cuffed the boy, knocking his hat off. “You hush now. The Lord’s got no tolerance for curses spoken in His name.”
Then he walked on up to Frenchy, his face hardened, while the boy bent down to pick up his hat. Tears filled his black crow’s eyes, and the little one bowed his head.
The preacher looked down at Frenchy. “You boys look lost.” His voice was thick and hoarse, like he’d swallowed gravel for breakfast.
Frenchy shrugged. “We’re just walking.”
The preacher held a firm countenance. “The road to the Lord is long and confusing. We all need a guide to take us to its proper end.”
> Frenchy shuffled his feet in the dirt. Alvin hadn’t the guts to look the preacher in the eye, nor did he know just what he and Frenchy were supposed to say.
“The Lord provides in Jesus a road map for all our lives,” the preacher continued. “Did you know that?”
“Jesus can see into your heart,” barked the little boy. “You can’t lie to Jesus.”
“Hush up.”
“They’re sinners, Papa,” the boy said, backing up. Tears streaked his cheeks and his lips quivered, but he spoke firmly. “Liars and sinners, both. I reckon I smelled ’em when I got up this morning. I know I did.”
In the blackberry bushes, birds twittered and squawked. The sun was rising quickly on the morning sky. It would be a hot day.
“The Lord offers salvation in multitudinous forms,” said the preacher, “and He does so without want of recompense or gratitude. It’s His gracious heart that redeems us. Without our Lord’s guiding hand, we’d all walk in constant night, utterly lost and confused.”
“We ain’t lost,” said Frenchy, hardly a quiver in his voice. “We’re just going fishing, is all. We like to start early.”
Alvin always admired Frenchy’s talent for smart-mouthing, another one of the reasons Alvin liked knocking around with him. Also, Frenchy rowed the boat whenever they went fishing and didn’t complain about it.
“I don’t see no fishing poles,” said the little boy, sounding somewhat bolder himself. “Hard to catch fish without no poles.” He stepped closer to Frenchy and shook his Bible at him. “Jesus was a fisher of men, but I expect He’d just throw you two back.”
Before the boy could crack a grin at the joke he’d made, the preacher backhanded him across the face, knocking him down again into the dust.
The boy lay there whimpering as the preacher looked Frenchy square in the eye. Scared, Alvin backed up some, keeping one eye on the preacher and the other on the boy who lay flat in the dust, hat off, blood trickling from his nose. Alvin thought maybe he and Frenchy would have been better off staying in the melon truck.