“As long as the mayor doesn’t hear about this,” Kune muttered. “As long as city council remains ignorant. Maybe we’ll scrape through.”
Joel-Andrew did not understand that everyone headed for the town meeting. Joel-Andrew had never even seen a town meeting. At least one with any teeth.
“If only the press stays dumb,” Kune said. Then he reconsidered. “Jerome is usually discreet.”
As Kune and Joel-Andrew entered the tavern, the Beagles barked their fight song. Pool legends were being made, records set. Ollie Jones blushed plumpish and proud. He had just pulled a run on the stripes, then a two-rail kick-shot on the eight ball after being badly corner hooked. Ollie’s face beamed red beneath his doggie hat. GAR players mopped their foreheads with little forage caps, put extra salt in their beer, suffered weight loss.
Joel-Andrew stood bemused. The room was not as big as warehouse, but the back bar seemed as long as a train headed out of Salt Lake City. Elaborate Victorian carving frame sparkling mirrors. The mirrors reflected red and doleful faces of the GAR, the doggie caps of the Beagles, the long and colorful dresses worn by the Beagle Auxiliary, and the colorful—and long—but not so lacy dresses of some wide-hipped and generous ladies. A jukebox played tunes from World War I. With the increasing crowd, Frank recruited help from his steady customers. Before long Frank had three more bartenders polishing glasses and tapping kegs.
“It is an awfully large bar,” Joel-Andrew said.
“The town used to park the fire truck in back,” Kune told him. “When the fire station was built in the 1950s, Frank added the gallery.” Kune pointed to the gallery halfway filled with figures that flickered, and halfway filled with figures that did not. One flickering figure had red hair and wore a lovely purple gown. Another flickering figure looked like a tugboat with arms.
“Janie and her bouncer,” Kune said. “My-oh-my.”
A couple of Indians sat at the bar, and one Indian sat at a table. The one at the table flickered, diaphanous as sunlight through leaves.
“Kune,” said Maggie. “You’ve come to see Maggie. You were always a dear man.” Maggie had a table near the windows. She motioned to empty chairs. “Get a seat while you can.” A potted plant beside Maggie shed flower petals.
The two men approached, sat, watched the flurry around the pool tables reflected in the elaborately mirrored ceiling. Antique neon competed with flashing modern beer signs. The old jukebox circled rainbows of color, and mirrors reflected bent heads of fishermen and loggers as they guzzled; the heads covered with watch caps, cowboy hats, ski and baseball caps. The Beagles barked, woofed, gamboled puplike.
“It’s raining hard in Oregon,” Maggie said to Joel-Andrew, “hard enough to wash the mud off a saint.” Her voice held guarded admiration. “The Rogue River is taking houses and barns, Jeep pickups and chain saws. There’s a cop down there who’d love to skin your dogma. You’re a tidy little preacher.”
“That big suburb of Seattle,” Joel-Andrew tried to be kind.
“You already talk like someone from Point Vestal.” Maggie’s toothless mouth crinkled when she smiled, her eyes bright as liquid moonlight. “Even Kune, and he ought to know better.”
Joel-Andrew decided one should always speak truth to power. “You seem to be flickering,” he said to Maggie. “Are you well?”
“It’s the twirly light from the jukebox,” Kune told him. “You look a little flickery yourself.” Kune’s yellow eyes glowed.
Maggie looked at Obed and muttered something invisible. “And study your Chinese real hard,” Maggie added. “Real hard.” Obed stood, stretched, looked impressed, humble.
As old people entered and were seated by Frank, Joel-Andrew retreated further into contemplation of Maggie. Joel-Andrew knew a lot about the power of the Lord, and—because of the power of the Lord—was smart enough to know that other power existed. Kune became vibrant, looked speeding, then gradually became morose as pellagra. Kune watched as Frank—without once reaching for his sawed-off pool cue—arranged seating with the skill of a choreographer. One may say what he likes about Frank’s morning coat and stuffiness, but when it comes to protocol one may look to Frank.
People over a hundred were seated front and center around the pool tables. Those in their nineties ranked behind. The sixty- and seventy-year-olds grouped around Samuel, who—because he was a preacher—came first in line after those in their eighties. Raw kids under fifty were tucked in here, there, everywhere; which accounts for Collette being seated beside Joel-Andrew. The pool tournament hit an ascending note, crescendo. Ollie Jones fought off the last charge of the GAR. Ollie was so hot, he could make three rails in the spittoon. Ollie sank them in every pocket not hanging from a pair of pants. As he dropped the last ball, the Beagles’ fight song rose together with strident march music from the jukebox.
Eighteen men and a priest came through the doorway. “The ministerial association,” Kune said to Joel-Andrew. “The methodical man with them is Jerome. Bev, sitting over there, you have met.”
“I was well acquainted with your grandfather,” Maggie mentioned to Collette. “He was a bonny man.”
Collette, who held other opinions, let it pass. For one thing, Collette felt embarrassed because she knew that even then the pickled Irish cop, her grandfather, lay in the storeroom of the tavern. However, Collette knows how things are done in Point Vestal. She was not about to sass Maggie for at least another forty years.
With the pool game ended, Kune lost interest. He looked into red-glowing mist beneath the tavern’s neon sign. From the Strait a foghorn sounded, and a strong smell of tide flats entered the room with each opening of the door.
“I’ve seen it all before,’’ Kune told Joel-Andrew. “They’ll jaw for two hours. The crux of the problem will be discovered somewhere in the 1920s because of the Suffragettes or the Industrial Workers of the World, the IWW. The 1920s were very hard on Victorians. Resolutions will be proposed. They will pick a scapegoat and censure him. When this town makes a scapegoat, matters get less than jovial.” He smiled modestly. “That scapegoat will be either you or me. Time to take a walk.” He stood. “Where are you crashing? Can’t sleep in the rain.”
Joel-Andrew sat bemused, watching Maggie. In the middle of gusting wind and rain, a warm little breeze came from beneath the door and swirled around their ankles.
“I sleep in the basement of The Parsonage,” Kune said. “That is, I sleep there when I sleep at all.”
“Mostly he walks,’’ Collette told Joel-Andrew. “He’s been doing it ever since he killed that woman in Seattle.”
“Missy,’’ Maggie said to Collette, “until you know what you’re talking about, it’s best to hold your tongue.”
“That is,” Kune said, “I sleep there when I can even find The Parsonage.” Kune’s yellow eyes blinked. He adjusted his watch cap, checked the ties on his walking shoes. “All this because some fool saw August Starling in the drawing room of the Starling House.” He moved smoothly, quietly, was through the doorway and gone.
“Preacher man,” Maggie said, “our Kune has given you his blessing.”
Joel-Andrew sat confused, but reverent. He understood Kune’s action. He had also just heard that Kune was a murderer. A slow realization about the roots of Kune’s bitterness came to him. Joel-Andrew’s compassion stretched toward Kune, and he prayed to the Lord for guidance.
“They’re afraid,” Maggie said about the crowd, “so they’re going to pick a scapegoat. They don’t have any usable Chinamen or Indians. Kune stepped out of here, so they would pick on him, not you.”
Chapter 12
Tall. Staunch. Patriarchal. Samuel fought the good fight. He thrust, parried, and tussled the ministerial association. Halos of bar light rode above heads of preachers and made Janie’s Tavern a concordance of purity. Samuel’s tall dockworker’s frame and large dockworker’s hands cast shadows across the walls. Shadows walked like eighteenth-century figures proclaiming The Rights of Man, proclaiming Revolutio
n.
Samuel was backed by Suffragettes, the IWW, three Nam vets, a disgruntled Anabaptist, one old buster from Coxey’s Army, a drinking Universalist, two Quilliute Indians, and a ninety-three-year-old spinster who was shirttail cousin to Eleanor Roosevelt. Samuel was also backed by Bev and the bouncer who looked like a tugboat with arms. Maggie stayed out of it.
The ministerial association was backed by the GAR, the Beagles, the Martha Washington Brigade, the Republicans, Democrats, Birchers, the Mothers Against Transgression and Sensuality (MATS), the Forest Service, Janie, and the WPA foreman who had installed the 307-step staircase.
It was not—everyone agreed—a problem of politics. It was a problem of morals. So—it was further agreed—the way to whip the problem was kick it softly with heavenly intervention. The question debated was: “Should we direct Gerald, our town policeman, to shoot Kune on sight?”
Joel-Andrew sat dismayed. Beyond the windows, darkness seemed even darker with Kune gone, like the darkness that once danced on red- and pink-toned walls of the Starling House. Somewhere in history August Starling still danced.
Joel-Andrew told himself anybody would shudder, even the Amish.
Bev’s mother led the Suffragettes. She dressed in the same manner as when she wore the sash and carried the cause in 1919: straw hat, skirt six inches above the floor, patent leather boots with buckskin tops, petticoats without frills, tan stockings, envelope chemise. She orated, scraping the bark off Mothers Against Transgression and Sensuality. Joel-Andrew had known some tough old bats in his time, but this was the first ever who could take the snap out of a buggy whip.
How the question diverted from August Starling, to shooting Kune, Joel-Andrew could not say. He could say sensations of dark thrill, of expectancy and dread washed through the meeting as Starling’s name was first mentioned—as if, Joel-Andrew thought—a cadaver were introduced as guest speaker.
A Victorian lady suddenly leveled a blast at the Suffragettes. Words were flung about “purity” and “unseemly showing of body parts.” Bitter words; and the words had something to do with Freudian psychology, a Mademoiselle from Armentieres, Charles Darwin, the RKO movie company, the Teapot Dome, that trashy Wilson, and the sainted Warren Gamaliel Harding. Somebody named Robert Benchley came in for abuse, and all this somehow related to the rising sewage rates.
“When will they talk about August Starling?” Joel-Andrew asked Maggie and Collette. “August Starling is badly troubled.” As he spoke, circling neon illuminated the stage onto which Janie stepped. Her red hair and purple gown glowed darkly. Janie spoke with warmth and with very few flickers—and at length—about the Red menace, the sainted cause of Presbyterianism, the curse of Prohibition, the Boston Police strike, and the Trotskyite mobsters of the IWW.
A member of the IWW said, “——.” The bouncer threw him out.
Samuel spoke of Sacco and Vanzetti.
“They are not here to talk about August Starling, not exactly,” Collette told Joel-Andrew. “They talk about the tourist business.” Collette’s blue eyes were more excited than when she found a rusty trivet for her antique store. She breathed reverently. “History. Perfect Americana.”
“They’re here because they’re afraid,” Maggie told Joel-Andrew. “August Starling is worse than anything out of a book. August Starling was the worst man in this town, because he actually believed what the town wanted to believe . . . only the town didn’t have the innards to admit it.” Maggie’s voice sounded like a contained wind, one you hoped would not grow stronger.
“I don’t know what that means,” Joel-Andrew said helplessly. “These are good people, are they not?”
“Like horses with blinders,” Maggie assured him. “August Starling did not have blinders. He cut through all the Victorian charm and became a real Victorian.” Maggie belched discreetly, looked where Obed watched her with admiration. “It’s no different in Seattle.”
“Patchwork quilts,” Collette breathed. “Ethan Allen, duck decoys, weathervanes. Revereware. The Democratic Process.” Collette blinked back tears of passion. She fought to keep from hollering. “Iron skillets, copper wash boilers, sleigh bells, muskets, Dixie dollars, cider presses, Democracy in action.”
Joel-Andrew looked around the tavern where Frank’s pickup bartenders worked with the precision of a well-trained choir. Joel-Andrew saw faces; old ones, older ones. He saw starch and lace. Lights from beer signs twisted, glowed, blue, red, white. Faces of the ministerial association mingled among faces of shopkeepers. Janie’s red hair flamed like battle-banners. Green covers of pool tables, the mirrored ceiling of the bar, the racks of shiny beer glasses, picked up light and cast it across Pilgrim brows of cow breeders, top fallers, bank tellers: and across the bald head of Jerome who took methodical notes. At Joel-Andrew’s feet, Obed muttered something vaguely Oriental.
“Because,” Maggie said, “Seattle is as Victorian as this town but Seattle don’t know it.”
“Our people are afraid,” Collette explained. “If word gets out that August Starling is back, tourists will be scared to visit.’’
“Because August Starling is the very heart and gut of tradition.” Maggie pointed to a group of elderly and distinguished gentlemen, only a few of whom flickered; gentlemen accompanied by ladies with rosy cheeks and flowing gowns. “No drug pusher or whore ever went hungry in Point Vestal.”
Joel-Andrew figured he would get everything figured out once the meeting ended. The Lord brought August Starling back to town, and if The Lord did not want August Starling back in town then The Lord would not have opened the road. Joel-Andrew stood, ready to ask for the floor.
“Don’t,” Maggie said. Flickers of amusement crossed her old, old face—or possibly—her old, old face flickered with amusement. “They don’t get to poot often, so they’ve got a few poots left.”
“Because,” Collette explained, “they are not really going to shoot Kune. I don’t think Gerald owns a gun. They can’t even ostracize Kune. He’s already done that to himself.”
Obed chewed indifferently on a fallen potato chip. Bev spoke, articulate, funny, angry. Her silver hair flowed as smoothly as her voice. She faced the Martha Washington Brigade, both the members who flickered and those who did not, and said something about “the pigs finally arriving in the pasture.” The Martha Washington Brigade gasped, adjusted its collective skirt, crossed its collective ankles, assumed superior smiles. Bev humorously suggested that perhaps the Martha Washington Brigade was Irish.
“When it starts to get that dirty, it’s hoot-and-holler time,” Maggie explained. “You’ll notice Frank just picked up his pool cue.”
Cries of “Lucky Lindy Is Our Man” mixed with yells of “Fifty-four-forty or Fight”; the cries tangling with denunciations of Rudolph Valentino, Janis Joplin, John Foster Dulles, and Lawrence Welk. Pushing and shoving came from the gallery. The bouncer twirled a Pentecostal in one hand, a Nazarene in the other.
Frank rapped with his pool cue and quieted the mob. It became one of Frank’s finest moments. He apologized for his comparative youth, hoped his experience with tourists counted for something. He admired the purity of Mothers Against Transgression and Sensuality, admired the cultivation of the Martha Washington Brigade. He said words in behalf of motherhood, Sunday school, Grover Cleveland, the White motorcar, the New Home sewing machine. He modestly admitted that he had made a study of tourists. “And,” Frank said, “tourists are mad for novelty. When tourists hear of a black hearted creature like Starling, tourists will break the road apart getting into town.”
“That just deflated hoot-and-holler time,” Collette told Joel-Andrew. “Now we’ll have a vote of confidence in August Starling, plus a resolution saying that Kune is depraved.”
“August Starling . . .” Joel-Andrew stopped speaking, helpless.
“The plot unfolds,” Maggie said. “August Starling now stands at the crossroads where you first left him when you came to town.” Maggie’s voice flickered like a school of silver minnows
. “You’ll remember the road divided. August Starling went along the dirt fork. His horse and buggy disappeared. He gave a little dance and headed home in 1893. You walked on down the hill into town.”
“It is a very confusing town,” Joel-Andrew admitted. “But I remember that much.”
“When Starling got home, in 1893, he entered the drawing room. Then he got kicked out. While he was in the madhouse, his business friends stole his new house and his business.
August Starling now stands at the crossroads, twisting his hankie, and yelling, ‘Dolor—dolor—oh, woe, oh, woe is me.’”
“Trust her,” Collette said. “Maggie knows.”
Someone announced a Beagle victory and a new pool hero. Ollie Jones grinned and blushed. Jerome snapped his notebook shut, looked benevolently at the crowd. Frank laid down his pool cue.
“Take a hike to the crossroads,” Maggie told Joel-Andrew. “Kune will be there, along with August Starling.”
Joel-Andrew wanted to explain the will of the Lord, but Maggie did not listen. Then Joel-Andrew thought he should explain the will of the Lord to everyone. He rose, his green eyes flashing with authority. “Understand the will of the Lord,” he began in tones of power. He stopped before a rising murmur. A vote was taken. He was voted down 17-0 by the ministerial association, Samuel abstaining.
Chapter 13
The Night Seemed darker than it ought as Joel-Andrew headed for the crossroads. His violin case bounced on this back, and his sandals squished from fog and mist. Even his brain felt squishy. Were it not for the loving power of the Lord, Joel-Andrew might have despaired.
His methods used to work. Then he remembered a young girl standing in an alley in San Francisco, and tried to push the memory from his mind. From the moment he saw her, his methods changed. True, prophets had a long record of being ignored, but it seemed that the nice people of Point Vestal lived quiet lives and should be open to original messages. After all, this was hardly Seattle.
The Off Season Page 8
