Abbeville

by Jack Fuller

  The look on Uncle John’s face was the one he gave to loggers and secretaries, the face with which success always gazes upon failure.

  “Someday perhaps you will learn not to dissipate your strength,” he said. “Spread it, and it withers. Keep it for yourself alone, and it can be preserved. Do you ever see that girl I fired?”

  “Occasionally,” Karl said. “For a cup of coffee.”

  “It is all right to sip the coffee now,” said Uncle John. “You are married. And in need of stimulant.”

  “It is nothing like that,” said Karl, standing. He would not ask for a place to sleep. Not even for the coins it would take to get a meal.

  “If you go to her,” Uncle John said, “do remember about the mercury.”

  As he left the building, he wondered why he had ever thought Uncle John would have anything worthwhile to tell him. He walked what felt like miles toward the place where Luella worked, punishing himself the whole distance for imagining that the conversation with his uncle would turn out well. But when he drew near, his spirits lifted. He hadn’t seen Luella since everything had fallen apart, and he hoped it might be easier now to be friends. Perhaps she would not feel obliged to lecture him on the rise of the proletariat and they could talk about important things.

  When he reached the building, the sign of the realty firm still hung out over the sidewalk, but the windows were boarded up. Next door a cobbler was at work saving shoes that in other times would have gone into the trash.

  “Do you know where Southwest Real Estate moved to?” Karl asked.

  The cobbler took the nails from his mouth and set them on his bench.

  “Same place the car dealer did a few months before,” he said.

  “Busted Boulevard.”

  “What about Luella Grundy?” Karl asked. “A redheaded woman. You couldn’t have missed her.”

  “Oh, I miss her, all right,” the cobbler said. “Seeing her coming and going was the light of my day. She went somewhere with that lucky fella of hers.”

  “You wouldn’t know where,” said Karl.

  The cobbler picked up the nails.

  “Nowadays people vanish, like everything else,” he said.

  17

  THE DOOR OF THE VAULT SEEMED HEAVIER this evening as Karl put his shoulder into it. Locking the safe was a daily ritual, even though the cash was long gone. He went to his desk, which was no longer cluttered. The lights flickered, the way they had back in the days of the dynamo. Why had he ever thought he could chase away darkness, even from this one small place? Always at the end of the day comes night. And in the end of the ends, it takes you with it.

  The building stayed lighted now only because it fell under the protection of the bankruptcy court. The notice of auction had finally appeared. Everything would go under the gavel within a month. He would not be there to see it, but he had assurances that no one would be bidding against Fred Krull for the house and its contents, and Krull promised to rent it to the family for a dollar a month until, little by little, Betty was able to buy it back.

  It hardly seemed possible that so much time had passed—the good years when business boomed and Karl kept his promises, then the terrible fall, how it compounded on the way down faster than it had on the way up. Then did not stop.

  “What do you want from me?” Karl had asked point-blank in Ansel’s office in Potawatomi.

  “What do you have to offer?” Ansel replied, not even deigning to stop arranging and rearranging the things on his meticulous desk.

  “I know what I want,” Karl said.

  “We’ve all had unrequited desires,” said Ansel.

  “I need you to understand one thing first,” Karl said. “You had no right to claim Cristina. It was her life, not her father’s or yours or mine.”

  “But she got yours, didn’t she,” Ansel said. “For better or for worse.”

  “Fritz goes free,” Karl said.

  “That will cost you,” said Ansel, hands flitting from here to there as if he were tending a web.

  “Whatever it takes,” said Karl.

  “Well then,” said Ansel. “Let’s get down to business.”

  And so later tonight Karl was leaving for the county jail to await transport to Stateville to serve a two-year sentence. He turned off the lights and locked the door behind him. The air outside was brittle. He had gone to the bank with his coat unbuttoned to take in the sunshine of the morning. Now it was winter dark, and as he stood at the door a chill went down to his belly.

  The Coliseum was shuttered. Abbeville could have used a little high-kicking fiddle music right now. You could probably get somebody to play for pennies. But who had pennies? Karl stopped and looked into the window of the general store that he had sold to Will Hoenig. The new owner sat in his white apron on a pile of empty wooden Coca-Cola crates, blood from the butcher block dried brown at his waist, one hand rubbing the other. The chill of the meat locker had always made Karl’s hands stiffen, too. He squeezed his right hand into a fist and shivered again. Even in the meat locker he had never felt like this.

  He stepped back from the window and began moving toward the rail crossing again. Up ahead he could hear laughter. Someone had probably just misplayed a pinochle hand, and the others were letting him know it.

  At the doorway of the garage, Karl stopped and looked in. Fred Brock was dealing. They all turned except Brock, who finished flipping the cards then squared the deck. Now that Karl had been seen, it wouldn’t be right just to slink away. He opened the door and took one step inside to face them.

  “Well,” old Henry Mueller said, “are you just going to stand there like the Grim Reaper or do you have the guts to sit down and play?”

  “You fellas look a mite too accomplished for me,” Karl said.

  “He looks like he’s quaking in his boots, don’t he?” said Will Trague, who had started the garage out of his blacksmith business with money from Karl’s bank.

  “We’re playing for matchsticks,” said George Loeb. “Pull up a chair. We need someone to be the banker.”

  The others suddenly started studying their cards.

  “I’ve got chores up to the house,” Karl said. “You know how it is.”

  “Be sure to tell Cristina that if she needs anything . . .” said Loeb.

  “To call any of us,” said Mueller.

  It touched Karl that he could count on these men. But he wondered if it crossed Henry’s mind, as it kept crossing his own, that Cristina would have been better off if she had stuck with Henry’s nephew.

  He left the garage and walked quickly toward the rail crossing, whose lights had just begun to flash. He pulled out his pocket watch. The moon was new, so he had to move closer to the crossing signal and hold the watch up to catch the red, blinking light. He felt the rumble of the train beneath his feet as his finger felt for the catch. In the distance he saw the train’s swinging light. The watch’s hands stood at 8:09. The freight was right on time.

  He had talked to Cristina before going to Harley Ansel. He had laid out the alternatives, none of them good.

  “It tears at me,” he said, “but Harley will be able to send me away no matter what. Now all I can do is try not to pull anyone down with me.”

  “You do what’s right, Karl,” Cristina said. “That’s all any man can do.”

  Across the tracks stood the church where Karl had prayed often for the dead German’s soul. How many nights had he gone there to ask God for guidance? At first how to protect those who depended on him. Then later how to do the least harm. He stepped past the lowered counterweight of the crossing arm. The bells were sounding the two-note warning: It’s wrong. It’s right. It’s wrong. It’s right. The rail curved beneath his shoe as he stepped forward and looked south again. The ground shook, and the light on the engine flickered like a flare.

  People had been hit at this crossing several times before. Kurt Handke had gotten his wagon stuck. The engine had hit behind him as he’d tried to pull loose, then dragge
d him and the horses back under the wheels of the tender, heavy with a fresh load of coal. Maude Goebel, whose husband had died a month before, had been late to church one Sunday and tried to beat the streamliner. Some whispered that she hadn’t really tried.

  The track beneath his foot began to pulse. Tick-tick. He stopped. In this life God’s grace is nothing you earn, nor is punishment the proof of sin. This is the first great mystery, and it is only made bearable by the second, which is love. As he shifted his weight to move forward, his foot slipped. His shoe wedged itself between the rail and the planking of the crossing. He looked down the track. The light was closing in on him. The engineer blew the horn. It was as if the bobbing light had hypnotized him. He could not move. Then he looked away from it, reached down, found the lace, and pulled it. The power of the train sucked all the breath from him as he fell.

  The next thing he knew he was lying on the ground, one foot shoeless, as a hundred freight cars passed.

  When the caboose rolled by, one of the trainmen was looking out the window. Karl picked himself up and waved so the man would not be alarmed. The shoe now was nothing more than a strip of torn hide. He pried it loose from the rail.

  The bells had stopped, but the sound of the train was still so full in his ears that he barely heard the voice behind him.

  “Are you all right?”

  It was Will Hoenig.

  “I almost ended up on the cowcatcher,” Karl said, limping a step in his direction.

  “You need a hand walking?” Hoenig asked.

  “God seems to want to keep me going,” said Karl. “To what purpose is a question only He can answer.”

  “Anyone in Abbeville can answer that one, Karl,” said Hoenig.

  Karl hobbled away from him toward the house. At night you could not see that it had grown shabby for want of paint.

  “Karl, what happened?” Cristina said, looking at his one bare foot, the dust all over him.

  He took her in his arms and could feel her breath coming in sobs, though she was not letting herself make a sound. Maybe a man could only live if he didn’t fight the forces that tossed him about. Maybe he could learn to love them as he was supposed to love God.

  “I’m so afraid,” Cristina said as he pressed himself against her sorrow.

  “I will be able to handle whatever comes,” he said, “if I know you can.”

  And as he held her, he could actually feel them both giving in to the greater mystery.

  “I guess I’d better get ready,” he said.

  “So soon?” she said. She increased her hold on the whole length of him.

  “I don’t want anybody saying we couldn’t face it,” he said.

  The sheriff arrived late. When he appeared at the door, Karl’s valise was sitting outside, packed. The sheriff did not take off his widebrimmed hat of natural straw or open his tan jacket. Around his waist hung a belt with a pistol and a pair of handcuffs in a leather case. He did not wear a star. He did not have to. Just by looking at him, anybody would know to respect this man’s authority.

  “Had a little trouble up to Milford,” he said.

  “It’s all right, John,” Karl said. “I’ve got nothing but time.”

  John Hawk had been an acquaintance of Karl’s for years. He had succeeded Karl as Abbeville’s sheriff when Karl had gone to France. Karl had spoken for him at several campaign events when Hawk had run for sheriff of all of Cobb County. That was back when Karl’s endorsement had been something candidates wanted.

  “Well, I guess it’s time you come with me,” Hawk said.

  Karl took the old leather bag his father had gotten him mail order when he had sent him off to learn the ways of the world. It carried the marks of that journey and many others. Water spots, scuffs, a sticker from the World’s Columbian Exposition.

  As he passed the bureau in the foyer, he put his hand into the big old ceramic bowl that Cristina kept filled with sweets for him. He offered Hawk a stick of gum.

  “That’s mighty good of you, Karl,” said Hawk.

  “I’m still a Republican,” said Karl, “even if I can’t vote anymore.”

  Hawk went to the car first to let Karl make his farewell.

  “Good-bye, my love,” he said to Cristina. “Please forgive me.”

  Cristina held him.

  “The one thing I will not be able to bear,” she said, “is your being sorry.”

  “For abandoning you again,” he said.

  “Don’t you think I can tell the difference between running off and being taken?” she said. “Go now and number the days. Each will be one less.”

  Karl started to leave, then turned and gave her hand one last touch—leaving in it the gold watch. After that he could not look back.

  Outside, the sheriff had the car running. Karl opened the door and slipped in next to him. The heater was cranked up so high that Karl had to open his coat. Then he offered his wrists for the cuffs.

  The sheriff barely glanced in Karl’s direction as he shifted into gear, let out the clutch, and got the car rolling forward.

  “Put your hands down, Karl,” he said. “You’re no criminal.”

  “I admitted to the judge that I am,” said Karl.

  He looked straight ahead through the windshield as the car swung onto the road out of Abbeville. The sheriff cleared his throat.

  “A lot of folks feel as though they wouldn’t’ve made it if you hadn’t stretched for them,” the sheriff said.

  “Harley Ansel didn’t charge me with aggravated helping,” said Karl. “I made mistakes. I really thought I could ride it out and cover them.”

  “Then Harley should’ve charged you with being a damn fool,” said the sheriff. “There’s not room in Stateville for all of us that’s been one of those.”

  Sheriff Hawk turned north at the corner, but when the highway curved east, he did not follow it.

  “You missed the turn,” said Karl.

  “I ain’t taking you to the county jail tonight,” said Hawk, “if that’s what you were thinking.”

  “It’s trouble if I don’t show up,” said Karl.

  The wheels under them spun on the unoiled gravel, one of the many corners Fritz had cut.

  “You hungry?” asked Hawk.

  “I hadn’t even thought of it,” said Karl.

  “Gert’ll be pretty upset if you don’t at least make an effort,” said Hawk.

  “Gert packed me a meal?” said Karl.

  “She’s made a proper dinner, Karl,” said the sheriff, “with all the fixings. You’re going to stay the night with us. First thing in the morning I’ll take you to meet the Stateville van.”

  Karl looked at him and did not know what to say.

  “Tonight’ll count against your sentence,” said the sheriff, “so don’t you go worrying about that.”

  18

  WHEN I WOKE UP IN THE OLD HOUSE, I realized I had slept as I had not in months. I’m sure there were dreams, but I could not summon them. I had a quick breakfast and set out for Potawatomi.

  The records of Grampa’s trial turned out to be remarkably accessible. An elderly lady at the courthouse bade me sit and read the newspaper while she dispatched a young man to fetch them from the basement.

  “I just hope the mice haven’t gotten to them,” she said.

  The day’s newspapers sat neatly scalloped on a big table that, though worn by what looked like a century of use, had obviously been polished that very morning. I could not help but contrast this with the few encounters I’d had with officialdom in the city. Once I’d had to make four separate trips to the Illinois Secretary of State’s office to accomplish the simple transfer of the title of a car. That office resided in a monstrous state building not more than a decade old, yet it was already shabbier than the Potawatomi courthouse.

  “Mr. Bailey?” said the woman. “Here’s your material.”

  The file was not thick.

  “You may not take it out of this room,” she said. “But the desks over
there are comfortable. If there is anything you would like to copy, it is seven cents a page, I’m afraid.”

  I thanked her and sat down. The papers inside were yellow and brittle with years, typed by hand on an old manual typewriter that registered the variable impact of the fingers in the density of ink on each letter. Though this gave the sheets an uneven appearance, I was amazed that there were no corrections. The typist must have had to start a whole page over if she made a mistake. The cost of error had been very high in those days.

  I had hoped to find a grand jury transcript to learn what secret things Harley Ansel had said about Grampa. But beyond the indictment itself, there was no grand jury record in the file. The only hint came in the transcript of the sentencing hearing after Grampa’s guilty plea:

  JUDGE: Does the prosecution wish to make any statement?

  PROSECUTOR: I draw Your Honor’s attention to the checks the defendant drew on the Bank of Abbeville in the months after October 29 of 1929. Your Honor will find purchases of tailored clothing from Chicago and various other luxuries. I would draw your particular attention to the draft paid to one Hempstead & Strong, London, England. The accompanying invoice shows that this was in payment for a handmade bamboo fishing pole and brass reel.

  DEFENDANT: rod.

  JUDGE: You will have your opportunity to speak, Karl.

  DEFENDANT: It was a fishing rod, not a fishing pole.

  PROSECUTOR: I stand corrected, Your Honor. Obviously the purchase was even fancier than I had thought.

  DEFENDANT: I had money in my account to cover those checks.

  JUDGE: Karl, hush, now.

  PROSECUTOR: Money you could have used to pay some of your debts.

  JUDGE: If that is the reason for the prosecution’s recommended sentence, I have a problem. A man spending his money unwisely is not a crime.

  PROSECUTOR: It goes to the defendant’s state of mind, Your Honor. He didn’t give a damn.

  JUDGE: Harley, you know better than to use that kind of language in my court.

  I looked over the list of items in the transcript, and it was clear that Grampa was trying to continue a lifestyle that had become untenable. I felt the tug to do that myself every time I looked at Rob or Julie. To be honest, I also felt it when I saw a sharp new sports car pass me on the expressway, the kind you could hop into, put the top down, and flee.