by Cameron Judd
He’d said too much to Rawls. He never should have revealed where Melinda Buckingham’s friend worked. Rawls would make trouble for him, because that’s just what Rawls, and Parvins in general, were wont to do.
Curtis chided himself as a thoughtless blabbermouth while he edged toward the refreshment table, where three plastic dime-store platters filled with cookies sat on a vinyl tablecloth. He felt the eyes of the committee members upon him as he swept up a handful of commercially-made oatmeal wafers. They were stale to the point that they could have been discs of cardboard, but Curtis Stokes was a hungry man and not at all picky.
He’d planned to head for the door with his allegedly edible stash, but plopped onto a folding chair near the back instead. The lighted room, with its refreshment table, air conditioning, and human activity, was a more pleasant place to be than the dark, shadow-striped parking lot where Rawls Parvin might still linger. Curtis would remain and munch his cookies for now, and hope that Rawls moved on in the meantime. Despite Rawls having helped him get across the parking lot, Curtis wasn’t particularly enamored of the younger man’s company.
He was starting his third cookie before he took heed of the fact that the person doing the talking at the moment was Old Man Caine Darwin himself, richest man in the county. Darwin was standing at a portable podium facing the table where the committee members sat, most wearing earnest expressions obviously intended to let old Darwin know that they were listening hard, and that whatever he had to say was fine with them. Curtis Stokes, observer and analyzer of humanity, had detected one unquestionable reality long ago: Wealth brought respect, and respect brought power.
He’d also detected, uncomfortably, that Old Man Darwin looked down on him. Not once, but twice, the old man had nearly bumped him with his big old Cadillac when Curtis was doing no more than minding his own business, walking on the shoulder of the road. Curtis had persuaded himself it was accidental both times, but still …
Darwin spoke on: “… and in conclusion, let me quickly summarize the points I have just shared with you. One: I have believed for years that Kincheloe County and Tylerville have needed to leverage our local heritage to better advantage; specifically, we have needed to find a way to tap into the potential of heightened tourism. Two: the logical time is now, on the cusp of our bicentennial celebration and the simultaneous statewide heritage emphasis. Three: given that tourists must see our community here as a desirable destination if we are to attract them, we must provide an attraction. Four: the most attainable attraction for us, in my judgment, is the creation of a well-written and produced outdoor historical drama, to be premiered on Bicentennial Day next year, and repeated annually with a cast combining hired professional actors and capable and carefully auditioned local talents. Five: I am willing to personally finance the start-up of this production as part of my legacy to this community and my personal contribution to the celebration of its 200th year. Now, are there any questions?”
INDEED THERE WERE QUESTIONS, but first came standing applause, led by Hadley King, who rose and clapped with emotional vigor. He even threw a soft “Bravo!” into the burst of adulation. Darwin seemed humbled, even embarrassed, by the treatment. Even Curtis Stokes was on his feet and clapping, the town’s craziest man saluting its richest. Custer Crosswaite remained flopped across his chair in his sprawled, languid, can’t-impress-me posture, clapping very lightly and briefly.
“Please,” Darwin said, motioning with flapping fingertips for all to sit down. “Please … that’s enough. We all do what we can, and this is what I’m able to do.”
The chairman brought the applause to a close and motioned his committee to sit again.
King cleared his throat and spoke. “Ladies and gentlemen, we are privileged this evening to see what promises to be the beginning of a new local tradition in local arts, and a new feather in the cap of Kincheloe County and Tylerville.”
“Hadley, that’s ‘caps,’ not ‘cap,’” said Custer Crosswaite, suddenly turning grammar coach. “The county and the town are two different things, so they ain’t going to wear the same cap, y’see. Am I right, or am I right? Tell me, Hadley! Am I right?”
“Custer, you are right. Now, can we please, please, please get through the rest of this meeting without further silliness?” King chided.
Custer stared at him. “That depends on my mood, I reckon.”
“Well, tell your mood to get quiet and cooperative, or take it outside and give it a walk around town while the rest of us try to move forward with a bit of maturity and demeanor.”
Custer stood, gave a loud grunt of disdain, then said, “Throwed out of an open-to-the-public meeting! I never heard the like! I ought to hire me a lawyer and sue!”
“You do that. Have a good evening, Custer.”
“Back atcha, Hadley. No hard feelings.” Custer looked over to Caine Darwin, who stood leaning against the podium. “Thank you for having that big fat wallet, Caine. And for being willing to open it. Right kind of you. Will your new play have any dancers in it?”
“Good night, Custer,” King said firmly before Darwin could answer.
Custer Crosswaite gave a “harumph!”, turned on his heel and stalked on his long, skinny legs toward the door. He passed through a faint shadow cast by cookie-nibbling Curtis Stokes, yelped and mimicked the spasm for which Curtis was famous, then was gone, letting the door slam a little too loudly behind him.
Moments later the door reopened and Custer thrust his head back inside. “Betcha that play won’t have nothing in it about that spider lodge business in the ’70s, will it, Caine?” Then he was gone again, this time not returning.
Chapter Eighteen
“WELL, AS USUAL, OUR friend Mr. Crosswaite has added his own unique seasoning to our evening,” King said. “Now that he has moved out into the good night, I will use the question he posed to you as a transition to ask you for a bit of further information, Caine. Unlike Custer, I’m not much concerned as to whether this historical drama will include dancers, but I am concerned about where the play would be put on, what sort of facilities would be required to accommodate it, and how the funding for such can be obtained for the long term.”
“Excellent questions, Mr. Chairman,” Caine Darwin said. “And I think I have some excellent answers for you.”
“Please go on.”
“All of us here are familiar with the old Merkle Dairy farm and the building on the east end of that property where the Merkle Milk Bottling Plant operated for so many decades.” Heads nodded all around, except for Eli’s. He’d heard mention of the Merkle Dairy operations and seen some old photographs in the back issues of the Clarion, but knew nothing about it beyond that.
Darwin continued: “The landscape there has one important feature that lends itself to usefulness for the proposed project … and my personal conversations with Constance Merkle, the sole owner now of that old family property, gives me near total assurance that the relevant portion of that tract would be made available to the city and county through a joint purchase at a very reasonable cost. Very reasonable, I must emphasize. The terrain forms a natural amphitheater that, I am advised by a consulting engineer I hired to preliminarily look the site over, would be easily converted into a fine outdoor theater. With such a location and a well-built outdoor facility, we could enhance and mold the public identity of our town in the same way such dramas have bolstered awareness and attractiveness of towns including Cherokee and Boone over in North Carolina, and Bardstown in Kentucky, and Big Stone Gap in Virginia.”
Mrs. Wilks raised her hand and was recognized. “Why is Constance interested in selling her farm? She’s treasured the family history associated with that property for all her life. Remember it was the old Forsythe property before Constance married into the Merkle family about the same time she inherited the old family lands.”
Darwin looked turned his eyes to Eli and Melinda, both of whom were scribbling away on their notepads. As journalists, they were present not only as members of t
he committee, but also to cover the meeting as a news event should newsworthy items come up.
“My journalist friends, I must ask you to exercise discretion regarding what I say next. It involves some private and sensitive information about a person who is not present with us tonight, and though I have permission from her to tell this information to the committee, I don’t know if she wishes it to be conveyed to the public at large. Recognizing that this is a public meeting and that you are free to report its content, I still wish to ask you to leave unreported for now the matters I share related to the health of the absent individual. Merely as a politeness and privacy protection for her. And I will consider it a personal favor from both of you. Might I get such an agreement? It is, after all, something that could be presented publicly at a later time.”
“I think we both can go along with that,” Melinda said unhesitatingly. Eli raised no objection, simply nodding, though he was unsure what David Brecht would think about leaving part of an open meeting unreported. But then, David wasn’t present.
What Darwin was concerned about was announcing in a public setting the sad fact that the woman under discussion, landowner Constance Merkle, was suffering from a fast-degrading medical condition that seemed likely to shorten her life. It was her desire, as a widow without children, to use her land in a way that would benefit her community even before she was gone and also honor her late husband’s memory. Though Darwin left unstated the nature of her illness, Melinda would later tell Eli that the widow Merkle was reputed to drink heavily, and there had been whispers about liver disease for at least two years. And only recently she had heard her militantly anti-alcohol father make a comment about encountering Mrs. Merkle on the street and seeing physical evidence, in her eyes and complexion, of creeping cirrhosis. Not that Ben Buckingham was a doctor.
Darwin said, “My suggestion would be that the theater be named to honor Claude and Constance Merkle, Claude posthumously, of course, and Constance … well, that will depend upon the state of affairs when the project was finished.”
“Is Connie really that sick?” Mrs. Wilks asked.
“I fear she is,” replied Darwin, with King and a couple of other committee members nodding confirmation. “Her situation is quite sad.”
“Are there public funds available to help us defray the costs?” asked Mae Rankin, another committee member.
“It is my intention to fully fund the construction of the theater out of my own pocket,” Darwin said. “I also have spoken to Benton Sadler, probably the most politically connected man in our region, and Benton is certain that the ongoing operational cost can be covered in part through governmental grants, both state and federal. He’s prepared to twist the governor’s arm to gain his support for this project, perhaps as a flagship Homecoming ’86 project, and that will go a long way in helping us find supporting funding. But even if such never materializes, I am perfectly capable and ready to bring my checkbook into play for the entire cost.”
There were extended oooos and aaahhhs from Wilks, King, and Rankin, and Eli pondered the power of money to impress and goad.
“Given that, Caine, I might suggest that the facility be named the Merkle-Darwin Theater. Or Darwin-Merkle, whichever seems best,” King said.
“A kind thought, Hadley … but such discussions are best left until later. And I must mention that the city fathers are likely to be the ones who name the theater, but I am certain any recommendation we give them would receive serious consideration.”
“Who would write the play?” asked Mrs. Rankin. “Is Kermit Hunter a possibility? He is, after all, the American dean of historical dramas.”
“Mr. Hunter, I regret to say, is busy with prior commitments and is not available. But I don’t regret it overly much, because I believe we may have an excellent and original opportunity right at hand.”
“How so?” asked King.
Darwin paused to gather his thoughts. “I possibly am coming at this backwards in bringing up this idea in public without first broaching it to the relevant party in private. But now that the ball is in play, I will go for a touchdown.” He paused and cleared his throat. “It was my pleasure in recent months to read an excellent novel that included a significant amount of history of frontier East Tennessee and Kincheloe County. A novel written by our very own Eli Scudder, a newcomer to our community and our newspaper, yet somehow possessed of the ability to capture Kincheloe County’s historical essence in a most engaging way. I believe that Mr. Scudder’s unquestionable abilities might be just what is needed to provide the book of our proposed drama. And to make myself clear, Mr. Scudder, I’m of course not seeking a volunteer effort from you. This would be a paying job, well worth your time and skill.”
Eli was suddenly aware that all the committee members were staring at him. He was also abruptly grasped just what Darwin was saying, and that he was being invited to step onto a path opening before him without any prior alert. He’d never met Darwin before this night, and certainly had no awareness that the richest man in Kincheloe County even had been among those who’d read his humble mass-market paperback, must less been so impressed by it.
Darwin grinned at Eli, who fought off an impulse to jump up and bolt from the room. There had been no mental preparation for this moment, nothing at all to hint something like this was coming. He was on the verge either of hyperventilating or of losing his ability to breathe at all.
“Eli!” Melinda whispered at his side. “Are you all right? Do you hear what he’s saying? Do you hear?”
“Well, Eli, I know I’ve caught you by surprise,” Darwin said. “My apologies. Please let me make it up to you by hiring you, paying you generously, and possibly providing you a new career path as a playwright, along with such as Paul Green, Kermit Hunter … “
“Have you ever written a play, Eli?” asked King, who seemed so excited by what was going on that he was almost dancing in his chair.
Eli wasn’t sure his voice was working. Even if he could find it, he had no idea how to respond to this strange offer. He might have merely sat there, rendered stupid by surprise, had not Melinda slipped her hand into his, under the table, and given it a squeeze. That broke through his paralysis and let him draw a welcome normal breath.
He cleared his throat. “No, Mr. King. I have not written any plays. The closest I’ve come to anything theatrical was appearing in a school play in junior high. I don’t think I have the experience you would be looking for.”
Darwin didn’t seem surprised to see his selected writer seeming to back away from a silver-platter opportunity. He looked unwaveringly into Eli’s face and said, “Before you wrote Farlow’s Trail, what was your prior novel-writing experience?”
“Uh … none, sir.”
“So what led you to undertake the rather unexpected task of writing an entire novel without experience or training?”
“It was really just having the intuition, just knowing, that I could do it.”
“Well, young man, this old codger talking to you here has a similar intuition. Based upon reading your novel, I ‘just know’ that you could adapt the history of our community and region into a very engaging and successful stage drama. I even have a somewhat episodic approach in mind that I think would make the project easier to achieve as well as to stage.”
“I … I’m … sir, I hardly know what to say. I’m flattered, but I need some time to consider this. I’m already obligated to my job, and my publisher is making my novel as the first of a trilogy and looking for a fairly fast delivery of the second book, so I’ve already got a full plate. And with the bicentennial coming next year, that’s very little time to write, cast, and rehearse a drama in a venue that isn’t even built yet. I’m intrigued by this, and glad you have such faith in me, but the whole business gives me a sense of wariness … not any doubt of the good will behind the idea, but just a fear of agreeing to something that might not be right for me, or me right for it.”
Darwin was unfazed, and nodded firmly. “Such ca
ution reflects good sense, and I would not expect you to give an answer tonight, beyond agreeing to give this a week’s worth of thought. May I ask you to call my secretary and make an appointment with me for a week hence? Early afternoon preferred. My office is downtown in the Briley Building, second floor.” He strode over suddenly and laid a business card on the table before Eli. “If by that time you have decided this is not for you, we can start seeking an alternative. By that point I will know as well the status of the associated property purchase and at least the broad range of development and construction time we’re looking at.”
Melinda tapped Eli’s ankle with her foot and gave him a very quick and subtle nod. “Say yes,” she mouthed in silence.
He went along. “I’ll give you that week, Mr. Darwin, and let you know. Of course in the meantime I will need to know the details of compensation, rights, and so on.”
“There will be a proposal package in your hands within two days, Mr. Scudder.”
“I’ll give it very serious consideration, sir,” Eli said. “Thank you for your confidence in my work.”
“I read your novel, Mr. Scudder. That is all it took.”
THE MEETING RAN LONGER than anticipated, and by the time King called it to a close, no one was in the mood to linger. Eli and Melinda made their departure run past the refreshments table and grabbed coffee and cookies, and were on the verge of heading out the door into the night when Curtis Stokes, who had slipped out of the room a few minutes before the meeting closed, crept up and tapped Eli on the shoulder from behind, startling him.
