by Man Martin
I turned. Carmello stood by a device whereby one attempts to ring an overhead bell by walloping a lever in the ground. Even now his sleeves were rolled up on his meaty forearms in preparation for a mighty swing. The barber, however, had been interrupted in this manly pursuit, and an oversized wooden mallet lay at his feet. With one hand he rubbed his bald head and in the other he held a baseball which closely resembled the one I had recently misfired. In his eyes flashed a rage of the sort seen in Seville when a barber catches his girlfriend slipping love notes to the local organ grinder or when he gets conked on the noggin by a fastball.
Miss Terwilliger and I had to pool all our persuasive powers to dissuade the fiery hair-dresser from embarking on the grisly vendetta the mishap had inspired. Then I heard my niece’s delighted shout, “Oh, it’s adorable.”
Jim was presenting Mary the large stuffed rabbit that had formerly hung in the back of the booth. Jim, it transpired, had pitched the remaining ball in my absence and brought down the pyramid of milk bottles. Mary wrinkled her nose happily and rubbed the bunny’s face, and then – a stab of pain to see – kissed Jim on the cheek: injustice on injustice, on top of everything else, he’d won the rabbit on my nickel!
Miss Terwilliger took my arm and said in a voice of throaty feminine excitement, “No more pitching for you, Bertram! You simply don’t know your own strength. You brute!” Miss Terwilliger spoke the last in a tone of admiration rather than rebuke, pronouncing the word “brute” as if it contained four consecutive “r’s.”
I saw all now, all. Sam the conductor intended to keep me occupied chasing stray fastballs and placating injured barbers to leave Jim a clear field with Mary. Once again my life, without my consent, was being managed.
I saw Buddy Boyle, third in line at the kissing booth Lottie was working, a determined glint in his eye and a bouquet of tickets clenched in his fist. Poor fool – imagining by this simple stratagem he could evade the design that had been laid out for him. That would not be me, I silently vowed; I would not play the dupe for Sam’s machinations. But just then, I heard the orchestra start a familiar-sounding tune. I attempted to disengage myself from Miss Terwilliger, but too late.
She was singing already.
“There is glory in the coming of the dawn,
“When God’s creation wakes up to greet the day,
“And all of nature hushes for the robins and the thrushes
“When they sing to us that spring is on its way.”
It was, of course, the song I’d heard two days ago entering Medville, rendered indescribably worse by Terwilliger’s fruity bellowing. I made up my mind to quash this sentimental drivel and said,
“My head, it just starts throbbing
“When I hear some bloody robin,
“And I know another migraine’s on its way.”
I admit that under the influence of Sam’s cacophonous din, I involuntarily may have sung the preceding words rather that spoke them. I attempted to make Miss Terwilliger un-clutch my sleeve. Jim and Mary were heading off together, and I needed to move quickly lest they get out of my sight.
“There is music for anyone who hears,” Miss Terwilliger continued, refusing to unclutch.
“There’s a hymn in the buzzing of the bees.
“In every little flower there waits God with all his power;
“You can hear all heaven’s chorus on the breeze.”
Again, I did my best to unbunk this drivel,
“I find it very irritating
“When the bees are pollinating,
“And all I ever seem to do is sneeze.”
Miss Terwilliger threw herself into one last chorus, which I missed because at that moment there was a tugging on my free sleeve. I looked down, and the little mismatched boy was at my side solemnly pointing to my posterior. I discovered I had inadvertently backed into the child’s cotton candy and was now wearing a white puffball stuck on my backside. I removed this and returned it to the owner as the strains of music finally died away.
I saw Jim’s and Mary’s heads above the crowd and pulled Miss Terwilliger along in their direction.
“The Tunnel of Love!” she crowed, not unhappily. “Oh, Mr. Wiggly, you rascal!”
The Tunnel of Love
Seeing this was where they were indeed heading, I picked up the pace. I knew at all odds I must overtake them before Sam the conductor started up another song.
Naturally, of course, I was too late. The music started as Jim and Mary were walking beside the exposition tent, which featured poorly rendered portraits of the scientific luminaries of our modern age along with their inventions.
Taking a cue from these drawings, Jim gestured at a picture a man with the akimbo eyes of a confirmed lunatic standing behind a yellow onion he had evidently mounted on a pedestal – presumably meant to be Edison and his light bulb, and sang, at first in a near-monotone.
“Of all the great inventors you hear about these days,
“Oh, can you recall, oh can you recall?
“Who made ours lives much better in, oh, so many ways,
“The greatest of them all? The greatest of them all?”
Another cascade of strings and Jim broke into the real thing, the earlier part being just preamble.
“Whitney made the cotton gin, which wasn’t fit to drink.
“And Freud said that we’re thinking thoughts not even fit to think.
“Braille, he found an alphabet of writing for the blind.
“And Einstein, he proved… uh, hmm… tsk, tsk. Oh, well never mind.
“But of all the great inventions that ever have been found,
“Petrarch was the one learned what makes the world go ‘round,
“And that’s why his discovery’s considered so profound.
“It makes the world go ‘round, it makes the world go ‘round.”
You can imagine my horror; Buddy Boyle had passed along my scholarly information to employ as a ruse in my niece’s seduction. By this time they had arrived at the ticket booth for the Tunnel of Love. A sign featuring Cupid on the wing and an arrow notched for firing surmounted an entryway where rowboats got up to look like gondolas were conducted along a winding canal into convenient darkness and back into sunlight again; there the passengers emerged, the men with touseled hair and lipstick marks pasted over their smirking faces. Nor was the picture of the honest Roman Cupid, the prankster sowing mischief and confusion everywhere he went, but the popularized sentimental baby turning his rosy little cheeks to smile at us as he looks over his shoulder so we can get a good view of a second pair of rosy cheeks at the other end. Why the sight of a flying infant’s gluteus is adorable is beyond me, but many people find it so.
Jim disengaged himself briefly to buy a ticket – Mary had been hanging on his arm! – and they boarded one of the little gondolas preparing to disembark. Miss Terwilliger and I boarded one behind them. Meanwhile, Jim continued singing,
“Sir Fleming he found penicillin growing on the bread,
“And Dr. Guillotine, he taught the French to get ahead.
“Jekyll found a formula that made him want to Hyde,
“And Madam Mary Curie ‘radiated her insides,
“But of all the great discoveries, one tops all the rest,
“That butterfly-y feeling that you get inside your chest,
“So of all the great inventors, Petrarch was the best!
“Petrarch was the best! Petrarch was the best!”
We climbed onto our seat, and to my revulsion Miss Terwilliger, having gotten entirely the wrong impression from my haste to get to the Tunnel of Love, curdled up beside me. You probably think I mean cuddled. I do not; I mean curdled. I had thought things could get no worse, but as our boats glided into the darkened cavern, I recognized Mary’s voice singing along,
“And that giddy happy feeling like I’m about to burst.”
“A lot of people had it since,” Jim responded, “but Petrarch found it first.”
“So Pe
trarch is the reason that there’s yearning in my sighs.” Mary gave a yearn-filled sigh to demonstrate.
“And he’s the explanation that the stars are in your eyes,” Jim sang, turning up her chin to look into her eyes.
“So when I find I’m short of breath and my heart is beating fast.”
Jim seemed to be leaning closer than was strictly necessary, but Mary offered no objection.
“You can look old Petrarch up and give him thanks for that!”
They sang the next two lines together as the canal rounded a corner and they disappeared from sight.
“Inventors come and go, but Petrarch’s work will last.
“Yes Petrarch’s work will last! Petrarch’s work will last!”
Sudden abrupt silence. Had a cricket found its way into Medville’s Tunnel of Love at that moment, you could have heard it chirp. And I knew that they were kissing.
Consolation
I consoled myself that whatever occurred between Jim and Mary was finished now: Morning Glory Downs had been cleared of the tents and pavilions from the Spring Festival, and things would return to the way they had been. Or almost the way they had been.
The days between the festival and the next town hall meeting passed quickly, as days sometimes do in Medville. It’s an unaccountable experience, and I’m not sure if it happens anywhere else. Looking back on it, I have no recollection beyond a darkness gathering in the corners of my vision after we emerged from the Tunnel of Love. The darkness closed in until Jim’s and Mary’s faces were centered in a single circle of light. Then that light also went out. When the darkness cleared, seemingly a moment later, I was awakening in my bed aware that time had passed and this was the day of the town hall meeting. I also have a vague memory of pages falling of their own accord, a day at a time, from the wall calendar and drifting to the floor in graceful scrolls. (This last is so preposterous, however, it must have been only a dream.)
As usual, my feathered visitor greeted me from the windowsill. I shooed him away, and slammed and locked the window, but in a desultory way; my shooing and slamming lacked verve; they did not speak of one who shoos and slams wholeheartedly. You’ll find the same aspect of human nature in Dickens. The first ghost and Ebeneezer is all a-twitter: knees knocking, teeth chattering, hair standing on end – the whole nine yards if not more. By the third ghost, although he’s far from happy about it – like birds, ghosts have their place, and it’s not the bedroom – his reaction is far more blasé. “Oh, you’re another ghost are you? Which one this time? Past, Present, Future?”
I had another shock in store. When I approached the breakfast table, Mary was humming. At first, I didn’t recognize the melody, but then I caught her singing, “Petrarch was the best, Petrarch was the best.”
“You and Jim Hansom have been seeing quite a lot of each other,” I said with an irritated squeak on the word “you.” I was now aware – although I had no specific memories of it – that Jim had been calling on Mary each day, and sometimes they’d eluded me to take a private walk in the downs. I had strategically allowed Jim to nurture his misguided dreams of winning Mary’s affections for fear otherwise he might renege on his support of the Super-Duper Mart. I opened the morning Bugle with a defiant rustle, and just above a story about some dirty doings by the German Chancellor, was an announcement for that evening’s town hall meeting.
Not a moment too soon, I thought, setting my mouth in a grim expression. With Jim’s support, the Super-Duper Mart would become a reality, although it was a bitter triumph considering what I had nearly sacrificed in return. Mary set my breakfast before me, giving my forehead a distracted kiss.
“What is that?” I asked.
“It’s pancakes.”
“I don’t want pancakes,” I protested. “I want poached eggs.”
“I thought you’d like something different,” she said. Her good mood seemed undimmed by my bad one.
I stared at the pancakes, overcome by an uncomfortable feeling they were staring back. They had been topped off with a haphazard hand; the condiments were askew.
“It’s a face,” Mary said brightly, reading my look. “The two pats of butter are eyes, and I made a smile with the syrup.”
I shuddered, but before I could comment, my eye was caught by a fresh atrocity. “Good Lord, what’s wrong with the tomato juice? It’s orange.”
“That’s because it’s orange juice,” Mary said laughing as if someone had made a joke.
I steeled myself to consume this provender, resolving when Mary became Mrs. Wiggly, I would not wait until after the honeymoon to hold a serious discussion about appropriate morning cuisine. Perhaps when the Super-Duper Mart was built and the money began rolling in, we might move away from Medville altogether, get her away from its unwholesome pancake-leaning influences such as Jim Hansom and Sam the conductor.
I felt somewhat better when I went through the morning mail. A letter from Pennyfeather said he had important news regarding my stock holdings and that he would arrive the next morning to discuss it with me. The Super-Duper Mart, I thought happily. Well, I would have good news for him in return, if only Sam and his infernal musicians keep from interfering!
Then I shouted, “Mary!” She had been pouring my coffee, a dazed smile on her face as she stared out the window, and lost in reverie had served approximately two cups into a container with a maximum capacity of no more than a cup and a half. Brown cascades ran down the sides of the cup and saucer, creating a widening lake on the table.
Taking her eyes from the window, she cast a dreamy gaze on this disaster, and said, as if it were of no more consequence than a naughty kitten having gotten into the yarn, “Oh, dear, I’ll get a rag to wipe it up.” She went to the sink, but she soon forgot her mission and abstractedly looked out the window again. I even thought I heard her sing softly, “Petrarch was the best.”
I raised the orange juice trembling to my lips, my equanimity shattered.
The Town Hall Meeting
Storm clouds were beginning to gather as Mary and I rode in my Model T to the town hall meeting. Not metaphorical storm clouds, but actual, literal rain-full clouds, although, looking back on it, I can see these may have operated in a metaphorical sense also.
We took our seats. Jim attempted to sit next to Mary, but by pretending to be oblivious that the seat was already taken, I wedged myself between them, forcing Jim to edge aside. The first and only order of business came up, the Super-Duper Mart, and from the disapproving rumble that went through the room, it was immediately evident that local sentiment ran strongly against it. Mary herself, unaware of or indifferent to her financial stake in the proposition, made a face as if she’d been offered a pancake with two black-olive eyes and a mustard frown. Leaning forward, I made eye contact with Jim, silently reminding with him of his agreement.
Jim raised his hand, and recognized by the mayor, got to his feet as if about to face a firing squad. “Don’t you see folks,” he began. He was not starting off in best form; he said “don’t you” instead of “doncha” and his naïve charm was conspicuous by its absence. He paused for an uncomfortably long time at as loss for what to say.
“Think of the convenience,” I prompted him with a stage whisper.
“What?”
“The convenience! The convenience!”
“Yes, right,” he said. “Think of how convenient it will be.” Another lengthy pause.
“No more driving to the store!” I whispered. No one seemed to notice I was feeding Jim his lines although I scarcely could have been less subtle had I employed semaphore flags or an Aldus lamp.
“No more driving to the store,” he repeated. It was like operating a faulty ventriloquist dummy. Then he seemed to catch his wind. “Think of that – no more driving to the store. Right now, if you need groceries you have to drive all the way there, looking at flowers and birds and butterflies, but from now on,” he snapped his fingers, “you can say good-bye to all that.
“And the weather! Pu
tting up with the sunshine is bad enough, but think about when it rains – in the Super-Duper Mart it won’t ever rain. Of course, there’s nothing as pretty as the sound of the rain on a tin roof,” he said, casting a glance at Mary who stared back in frigid disbelief. “But that’s something you can do without for a little more convenience. Think of it, there won’t be any fog either, or ice.”
“Or snow,” said the little mismatched boy whom someone had unwisely let into the room. He did not sound cheered by the prospect. People exchanged dubious glances; Jim’s eloquence was working something less than magic.
“Or snow either,” Jim agreed. “Or ice freezing over the lake in winter. Or falling leaves to rake up every autumn. Why, when I was a kid,” Jim said, “we’d make big piles and jump in them. Later they’d burn the leaves, and the smell would be everywhere. I actually used to like that smell, can you imagine? Thank goodness that’s going to be a thing of the past. Plus weeds coming up in the spring, good-bye to that.”
“Roses come up in the spring, too,” Miss Terwilliger pointed out.
“And so do mosquitoes and poison ivy,” I added.
“And butterflies and daffodils,” said a voice from the back.
“Well, anyway,” Jim said. “I spoke my piece, and you know how I feel about it. I think we ought to bring in the Super-Duper Mart. For the convenience.” He took a seat, and complete silence followed. Mary gave him a look one normally reserves for slugs in the cabbage. After a few seconds, the mayor banged his gavel, although there was no more need to call the room to order than a colloquy of mannequins.
“Well, I guess it seems,” the mayor temporized, “we’ll put the question before us to a vote.” A smile played across the Wriggly lips; I sensed the town, albeit reluctantly, would follow Jim’s lead and approve the Super-Duper Mart.
But just before the mayor’s gavel came down to call a vote, there was a voice at my side. “I can’t believe any of you are considering this!” It was Mary. Her face was bright red; her dimple nowhere to be seen. “It isn’t bad enough you’re ready to do away with the birds and flowers and trees…” She was looking dead at Jim as she said this, and had her eyes been daggers, he would have wound up being a pretty fair imitation of a Swiss cheese. “But our town! This is your home! And where are they going to build this thing.”
