by Harvey Click
“This ain’t my idea of searching,” Jason said.
“Be patient. I’ll tell you a true story, and perhaps you’ll learn something from it. I was something of a hell-raiser when I was young, every bit as impetuous as you. I took peyote long before you were born, long before there were hippies to discover it. Earned my bachelor’s at Berkeley and my master’s at Duke, majored in philosophy and minored in art history. Then I bought a big white Harley Davidson and went all over the country, flying up hills and swooping down. From east to west, then up to Canada and clear down to Mexico, I made a big cross over the face of the map.”
He frowned. “No, more like a graph of the equation X equals minus one over Y, now that I think of it. We zoomed west along the axis of abscissas, veered up to Canada along the curve whereby negative X approaches zero, hurtled straight down the ordinate axis, then took our time returning along the curve whereby negative Y approaches zero, Marmalade and I.”
He drew the figure in the air with his walking stick. “Surely you know how to read a graph, boy? I met Marmalade in Buffalo. She had just graduated college and was going to be a schoolmarm. Her golden hair was all primly done up when I met her, but before long it was streaming out behind her in the wind like the tail of a comet as we sailed along the highways. What a transformation! Her name was Marmara, but I called her my Marmalade.
“After our road trip we moved to Athens, Ohio, and she taught high school there while I lectured at the university. We had a few happy years together there, yes, very happy years indeed.”
He turned his chair away from Jason and faced the lake with his head leaning heavily down and his shoulders shaking, and Jason thought maybe he was crying. Suddenly he hurled his handful of pebbles violently into the lake, causing an explosion of ripples like a fireworks finale.
“It’s a damned ugly memory,” he said. “Luckily it’s a blur.”
Jason felt a little sorry for him, with his head hanging down like that. “I useta have a dirt bike,” he said, “but I busted the frame when I hit a tree stump.”
Drew looked at his wristwatch. “Well then, it’s precisely 9:54 on the dot, an ideal time to pursue our search. Let’s return to the Oval.”
Jason pushed the chair in silence. In the distance in the center of the green, he noticed a small congregation of students apparently watching someone, and when he got closer he heard a familiar voice booming out from their midst: “That’s right, you’ve all been suckered by the biggest racket on earth, the protection gang!”
Drew turned his big head to look back at him. “That’s your man Hempy, isn’t it?”
“Yep.”
They were close enough now that Jason could see the big bearded man towering a bit higher than his congregation because he was standing on a wooden soapbox.
“Well, perhaps now you have a bit more faith in my methods,” Drew said.
Chapter Five
“You’re legally obliged to pay them whether you want their ‘protection’ or not. You’re legally obliged to pay them because some overlords sit around in a district that’s not even a state and scribble zillions of laws saying that you’re legally obliged to pay them. You’ve probably never read the laws and you probably couldn’t make head or tail of them even if you did, but they dictate everything you’re allowed to do and not allowed to do. If you don’t pay the ever-increasing fees the protection gang wants, they’ll point guns at you and put you away in an ugly little room for a very long time.
“Some of the money they’ve stolen from you they use to arm up their goons to make sure you pay your money. Some of the money they use to arm up their gangs against competing gangs. The competing gangs are fearsome—they spy on us, have enough weapons to blow up the whole damn planet, and are making more weapons as fast as they can steal the money to afford them. Our own gang’s the same—they spy on us too, have enough weapons to blow up the whole damn planet, and are making more as fast as they can steal the money to afford them.
“They ruin our economy to keep half of us permanently poor so we depend on the scraps they throw us from their table. They do this because they know as long as we depend on their scraps we’ll vote for them.”
Jason stopped listening because he suddenly noticed a man wearing a shabby brown tweed suit and a brown fedora half hidden behind a tree thirty feet away. It was Madison Hatter. As soon as Jason noticed him, Hatter turned and hurried away into a nearby building.
“You’re not safe from them no matter where you try to hide,” Hempy was saying. “They control everything they can get by with controlling, but they want to control more and more, and in fact every year they control more than they did the year before, and you control less.
“If one of the competing gangs threatens their stolen loot, they’ll stick you in a uniform and ship you off to some hellhole to have your ass shot off. If you sell a bag of dope to a consenting adult, they’ll stick you away in an ugly little room for a very long time. They do this because they know that drugs, at least some drugs, are able to free the mind from its shackles, and they know that free minds demand a free society.”
He gave his thick brown beard a fierce tug and glared at his congregation. His eyes fell on Jason, and his fingers froze in his beard.
“Well then, my freedom-loving friends, I’ll be here again tomorrow at the same time,” he said. “But before you leave, for just twenty dollars I can confirm you as a minister of The Church of Your Choice, which is the fastest-growing denomination in the country. As a minister, you won’t need to worry about the draft when the overlords bring it back, and you can even get out of paying most of your income tax. It’s all perfectly legal, and the details are all here in this nicely embossed bible that comes free with your twenty dollars.”
He took a thin black pamphlet from his canvas satchel and held it up. “Now, who wants to be the first one to step forward and be ordained into The Church of Your Choice?”
The congregation quickly dispersed, except for Jason and Drew and a serious-looking young man with a shaggy red mustache.
“Well,” Hempy said, ignoring Jason as he stepped down from his soapbox and approached the guy with the red mustache. “There’s a sensible young man. Are you ready to be ordained?”
“Filthy capitalist pig!” the man said. “The poor are living in wretched little shit holes because of fascist trash like you. You’re happy to let them starve just because you don’t want to pay your taxes, you greedy bourgeois sack of shit.”
“Fuck off,” Hempy said. “That goes for your gang of Marxist cutthroats too, you thieving socialist parasitic piece of Stalinist crap.”
He stuffed the pamphlet back into his satchel and tried to look anywhere except where Jason was standing while the young man with the red mustache ambled away with a sneer.
“Lo there, Mr. Hempy,” Jason said gravely.
Hempy nodded with equal gravity and said, “Well, isn’t this a fine surprise?” He consulted his big silver pocket watch and said, “It’s nice to see you, Jason, but unfortunately I’m in a great hurry and must run.”
“Not just yet,” Jason said. “Reckon you know I’m here looking for Holly.”
“Can’t help you there, Jason.”
“Why not?”
“It’s a matter of property rights. Holly’s not my property, so I can’t speak for her.”
“You can at least tell me where she is.”
“No, I can’t. Again, it’s a matter of property rights. Holly’s privacy is her own property. Tell you what, is there a phone number where she can reach you if she wants to call?”
Jason took Drew’s folded flier from his wallet and handed it to him. “They’s a number here where she can leave a message, I guess.”
“Okay then, it’s been so very nice to see you.” Hempy picked up his soapbox and turned to leave.
“Wait a minute,” Jason said. “She run off without even saying goodbye. That ain’t right, and the least you can do is tell me why she done it.”
“Look, Jason, this is…” Hempy pulled his beard and chewed his lip. “How do I say this? Jason, you know as well as I do that you and Holly are very different.”
“Whaddaya mean, different?”
“I mean Holly grew up in San Francisco and then we moved to Seattle, which is a sophisticated city as well, and then we moved to Denver and some other very civilized places. She’s seen much of the country, museums and national parks and whatnot. We moved to West Virginia for a few months because the heat was…um, because we wanted to get away from the hubbub for a little while and learn some survivalist skills.”
“What you’re saying is, I’m some kinda dumb hillbilly and she ain’t.”
“I’m saying it was just a summer romance, Jason, and now summer’s over.”
“It’s okay, Daddy, I’ll talk to him.”
Jason spun around and saw Holly standing there close enough to touch. She was wearing a new denim jacket he’d never seen before, and her hair looked a little different somehow, maybe a shade lighter, and she looked a bit plumper, but it was Holly, just as pretty as ever.
A young man stood beside her, several inches shorter than Jason and skinny with a short curly beard, long curly brown hair, and dorky wire spectacles.
“This is Cosmo,” Holly said.
The two young men stared hatefully at each other without speaking. Jason curled his upper lip the way he’d seen a bad guy do in a cowboy movie. Cosmo retaliated by squaring his shoulders and puffing out his chest, but since his chest was puny and he had no shoulders he only succeeded in making himself look like a scrawny scarecrow wearing a green army jacket.
“Let’s go off somewhere and talk,” Jason said.
“We can sit on that bench,” Holly said.
“No, I mean somewhere privater than that.”
“The bench is private enough.”
Drew, who had been quietly watching, said, “Well, Jason, I’ll take myself back home now, but I want to see you again tomorrow, precisely at 10:00. I want to hear how all this turns out.”
“I done found what I want so I don’t need you no more,” Jason said.
“You will,” Drew said. “I’ll see you at 10:00.”
Though his legs were thin and withered, his arms worked like powerful pistons as he wheeled himself along the sidewalk in the direction of High Street. Jason watched him for a few seconds, his heart pounding with anxiety more than happiness, then turned and followed Holly to the bench. She pulled a book bag off her back and placed it in the middle of the bench so he couldn’t sit right beside her.
“What’re them books for?” he asked. “Are you in college now?”
“Yes.”
“Then you musta been planning this for a good long time.”
She didn’t say anything. The bench was right out in the open, with students hurrying past them, and Jason didn’t feel comfortable. Hempy had picked up his soapbox and was carrying it away, but Cosmo was still standing there watching them no more than twenty feet away.
Jason curled his lip at him again and said, “Who’s that twerpy-looking thing anyhow? Why don’t he go away? Why’s he standing there watching us?”
“Why’d you follow me here?” Holly said. “Maybe it’s the same reason why he’s standing there.”
“No, it sure as hell’s not the same reason. I followed you here ‘cause I love you. Don’t try to tell me that scrawny little piece a kindling wood loves you.”
“Damn it, Jason, why do you have to be so difficult?”
“It’s true—I love you and you know damn well I do. Have you been fooling ‘round with that sissy-looking thing?”
“What I do is my business.”
“That’s what you been doing, ain’t it? I can’t believe my own two eyes. Why, he don’t look like he could even lift a pencil. Have you been letting him paw your tits with them scrawny hands?”
Holly sighed and said, “They’re called breasts. Cosmo would never call them tits. That’s the difference between you and him in a nutshell.”
“Look here, Holly, I don’t care what you and him maybe did or maybe didn’t do. You don’t even need to tell me. I love you, and that’s that. Why do you think I come all this distance looking for you?”
Holly smirked. “All this distance! How far’s that, about two hundred miles? I’ll bet this is the farthest you’ve ever been away from that pigsty, isn’t it?”
“This ain’t fair, Holly. You run off in the middle of the night without even saying goodbye. You know damn well I deserve something better’n that.”
“I didn’t say goodbye because I knew you’d cause trouble, just like you’re doing right now. I’ve been planning to write to you and explain everything.”
“Well, I saved you all that writing ‘cause you can explain it to me right here and now.”
Holly pulled open her new denim jacket and patted her belly. She had definitely gained a few pounds.
“How do I look, Jason? Do I look any different?”
“You look beautiful, just like a pitcher.”
“Do you think maybe I’ve put on some weight?”
“Maybe a few pounds, but that don’t matter nothing to me. A couple extra pounds don’t matter if you love somebody. It just means they’s a couple more pounds a you to love, that’s all.”
Holly sighed. “My God, just how dense are you, Jason? Didn’t your pa ever tell you about the birds and the bees? Don’t you even know what pregnant looks like?”
Jason was too stunned to answer for a while. “Is it mine?” he asked at last.
“Yes, it most definitely is yours. And that’s the whole problem in a nutshell.”
“I don’t see no problem. I’m ready to marry you, Holly. I’ll marry you tomorrow soon as the sun comes up.”
She sighed again. “Jason, have you ever heard of nature versus nurture?”
“Nope.”
“No, of course not. It means biology versus upbringing. Cosmo is studying sociology, and he’s told me all about it. You see, genes are only part of the story, education and culture are the other part. Do you understand what I’m talking about?”
He said, “Nope,” but he understood at least enough that his blood was beginning to simmer.
“You’ve got the genes to be gorgeous, Jason, and that’s why I was interested in you for a little while, that and the fact there wasn’t anybody else in that God-forsaken town worth a second look. I admit you’re a hunk, I admit you’re much better looking than Cosmo, for example.”
“I sure’s hell hope so,” Jason said. “He don’t look like nothing at all. Why, my ass would make him a Sunday face.”
Holly sighed and said, “But you don’t have the genes for brain power—I hate to say that, but it’s a simple fact. Fortunately my genes gave me brain power, so my baby has half a chance in that department. But genes are only part of the story, the other part is good parents, good education, a good place to live with a culturally uplifting environment. Glum Fork is definitely not that place.”
“That don’t matter, we can live wherever you want. As for education, I been thinking ‘bout going to college myself. I’ll probably look into signing up ‘fore the day’s over.”
Holly smirked. “Sure you will. Maybe you’ll be a brain surgeon or a nuclear physicist.”
“I can be whatever I want to be.”
She sighed. “Jason, can’t you at least try to be halfway reasonable for just once in your life? These things are hard enough for me to say, and you’re deliberately making it harder.”
She sounded like a schoolteacher who had to explain a simple concept over and over to a particularly stupid student. He had heard the same tone from her more than once before, but this time it hurt worse, much worse.
“That’s my baby too,” he said quietly.
“Oh? Are you the one carrying it around in your body? Look, Jason, the day I found out I was pregnant I made up my mind I was going to leave you, go to school, and find an intelligent father for my baby—
and if I don’t find him then I’ll raise my child by myself in an intelligent manner. End of story.”
Jason put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed maybe a little too hard. “No, you’re not having somebody else raise my baby, and you’re not having somebody else paw your breasts either.”
“Get your hand off me. Now! Cosmo’s standing right there watching you.”
He took his hand away and said, “Yeah, he’s watching all right, and he looks like he’s ‘bout ready to shit his baby pants. I could snap that twerp’s neck like a toothpick and he knows it.”
He doubled his fist and glared at Cosmo, who stepped back a few feet.
“Did you hear what you just said, Jason? And do you think I want someone who would say something like that raising my child?”
She sounded like a schoolteacher again. Jason tried to ease his flaring temper and make his voice come out as calm as he could.
“Look, Holly, you’re all wrought up right now, that’s all this ‘mounts to. It’s a big change in your life, and you’re not thinking straight right now ‘cause it’s all so sudden-like. You’re forgetting all them good things we had together, them walks and talks and all that. Maybe you’re forgetting ‘bout that old barn we useta go to, out there on that twisty old gravel road, and all them nice times we had in there. You’re forgetting that bringing up a baby ain’t ‘bout college ideas, it’s ‘bout feelings and love and…and all that kinda stuff.”
Holly folded her arms tightly against her breasts and made her face look like a boulder.
“You know damn well I’m right,” he said. “You useta love me. I know you did ‘cause you said so. Now all of a sudden you act like you don’t care two hoots about me. You ain’t asked me how I’m doing or nothing. You ain’t even asked ‘bout how my pa’s doing.”
“I haven’t asked about your pa because I don’t care about your pa,” she said. “Is that plain enough for you to understand? Your pa’s just like you, some lowlife drudge who’s too pig-dumb to do anything better than dig coal out of the ground.”