‘Actually,’ said Brenda mildly, ‘they’ve been going about five years. The owner says business is better than ever.’
‘Really? There must be more money around than there used to be.’
‘There is,’ said Donny firmly.
‘Hey stranger,’ a voice boomed. He looked up and Larry Bottel stepped in front of him, holding out a hand. He was wearing a blue shirt with thin stripes of alternating white and orange – the effect was dizzying.
They shook. ‘Hi Larry, how’ve you been?’
‘I’m back here now, selling real estate. And business is good,’ he said. ‘Listen, I was real sorry about your dad. Never knew a nicer man.’
‘Thanks, Larry. He liked you, too.’ Had he? He’d never said one way or the other about any of his friends, had simply seemed to accept them, and that was that. Except for Cassie. He’d made that clear, though not by saying very much, just once remarking, ‘Your mother would have liked that girl.’
Larry now grew confidential, moving his face in closer to Michael’s. The skin on his cheeks was puckered and bumpy. Too much sun? Booze? ‘Michael, I heard about the house. I don’t know what you’re planning to do, but if you decide to sell, I hope you’ll remember your old buddy from the drugstore. And don’t worry, we can handle rentals too, if that’s the way you want to go.’
How did Larry know the house was his? If it wasn’t Atkinson himself, it was someone Atkinson had blabbed to. There was no point getting irritated about this – the inevitable leaks of a little town. ‘Sure, Larry. But I’m not going to do anything right away.’
‘Okay,’ said Larry. ‘Hope that means you’ll be around for a while.’ He scanned the street, a hand over his eyes to shade the sun. ‘Listen, I’ve got to scoot and meet my kids. But come round some time. We’re down near Viner’s cottage, just next door. And bring your family, too.’ Suddenly he leaned forward confidentially again, ‘Hey, your old girlfriend’s back in town.’ Michael didn’t say anything. Larry slapped him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t worry – I won’t tell your wife.’ He laughed hard at this.
‘Jesus,’ said Michael appreciatively as he rejoined the Washingtons.
‘Some things don’t change,’ said Brenda.
‘Larry’s not that bad,’ said Donny. ‘He just can’t help himself. You’re playing cards and having a few beers and suddenly he tries to sell you a mobile home. But he’s not like Jeffers.’
Jeffers had been a wheeler-dealer whom Alvin had spotted from the beginning. Michael remembered Alvin standing by the cigarette rack, picking at his own cashews from the rotating machine and saying, ‘I give Jeffers two years. Then he’ll be bust or in jail.’ Jeffers managed both within eighteen months.
He had been a Gatsby-like exception; what other wealth Stillriver had then contained was solid, low key and hard won. No one used to be rich here, thought Michael. Strictly speaking that wasn’t true. They’d found oil on Paskett’s forty acres years ago, which bought Paskett a swimming pool (where Michael and seemingly half the town’s small children had taken swimming lessons) and eventually an expensive divorce. But otherwise wealth was uncommon, and rarely flaunted. When Alvin had bought a Cadillac, he’d felt the need to explain to Michael that he was merely fulfilling a vow he’d made to himself as a boy in the Depression. Not precisely plutocratic. Who else? Lonergan was well off – his emporium had always thrived in the summer months, but as a strict Baptist Lonergan only splurged on a finer grade of grass seed for his lawn.
‘Let’s go down by the City Hall,’ said Donny. ‘The kids can stand on the wall there and get to see.’ So they kept walking along what was becoming an increasingly crowded Main Street. Every now and then Michael noticed someone staring at him; once an old boy in a straw hat tapped his wife and pointed him out with a bony finger. Feeling self-conscious, Michael concentrated on looking at the storefronts on either side of the street, and discovered that virtually every one now pandered to the summer tourist trade. Again, he felt himself in a parallel universe, switching between the new commercial realities and the Main Street he remembered from boyhood. In two blocks he counted six realtors where formerly there had been only Harold Riesbach, who had also sold insurance to make a decent living. The bakery was now a clothes shop, the hardware store was divided into three upmarket boutiques; the former dime store sold expensive-looking teak carvings; the movie theatre had been divided into offices.
It had long been a resort town, and in the other, non-season nine months the town drew into itself perfectly happily, using the money summer brought in the way a hibernating bear draws on his reserves of fat. You bought groceries at Dumas’s or Schiffer’s, your paper in the drugstore, drank coffee and ate terrible sweet rolls in the bakery, filled up your car at the Standard station (the Shell station was more expensive on gas, better at repairs), and saw the doctor (Dr Fell for over forty years) in the brick one-storey building he’d put up in 1959, next door to the funeral home you paid him to keep you out of.
The difficulty was that you could do none of these things now – buy groceries, get gas, see the doctor. So what kind of life could you have in this town outside the summer months? What good was a T-shirt or ice-cream shop in late November; how much of a January morning could be spent looking at wood carvings?
‘Changed a bit, huh?’ asked Donny.
‘I’ll say,’ said Michael. ‘At least the park’s still here. And the bandstand.’ Scene of Thursday night concerts all summer long.
‘Remember how we used to roll down the hill as kids? Well, you can’t do it any more. The place is packed. People get here two hours early just to find a place for their folding chairs.’
As drums from down the street signalled that the parade was on the move behind them, he came to the drugstore. Six years earlier Alvin’s store had been on its last legs. He knew that Alvin had sold it at last, to a beer distributor from Detroit who fancied himself a retailer. It was hard to see why: entering the store, Michael saw changes everywhere, none of which made any commercial sense. The neat aisles were gone, replaced by standalone units that wasted space and made the store look messy. Newspapers were now by the front door, violating the fundamental retail principle of drawing the purchasers of inexpensive items deep into the store, where they would pass many other things to buy.
And then, taking a minute to overcome his disbelief while he figured out what was missing, he realized it wasn’t a drugstore at all any more. Mr Beer Distributor had decided to dispense with a pharmacist, which rather defeated the underlying purpose of what was traditionally known as a drugstore. Marilyn would have died at this, he thought, and felt awash in memories, the thousand incidents and minor episodes that built a corpus – yes, it seemed heavy as a body to him – of sights and smells and noise. The comical incidents were naturally the most enjoyable to remember: the evening Frank Conroy, who lived in the squalid apartment upstairs and worked at the wireworks, had bought and drunk three pints of Rocking Chair bourbon after his half-day Saturday shift, then marched through the store just before closing, singing a song about a French-Canadian whore. Or when an intensely nervous Michael had sold prophylactics for the first time, to a construction worker who came in from the bar next door and must have been surprised, on opening the bag Michael had so discreetly handed over, to find three dozen condoms rather than the three he had asked for.
There were also poignant moments, as when the ancient, almost historical farmers would come into the store, on what for many was one of only two or three trips to town each year. Marilyn knew them all and would insist on serving them herself. ‘Hello Claud,’ she’d say to an old man in a clean pair of overalls, his face mahogany-coloured from years of working in the sun. ‘Marilyn,’ he’d acknowledge shyly, before using a big, calloused hand to extract his money from a deep pocket, then count the coins out on the counter with painstaking care while Marilyn handed over the pouch of chewing tobacco or pack of Lucky Strikes or Pall Malls. Even to the young Michael they seemed to be the last vestiges o
f the county’s past, as they shuffled in and out like the black-and-white figures he’d seen at school in a documentary about the Dust Bowl in the Depression.
There were bad memories too: the time Margaret Mercy, a middle-aged recluse who refused to take her epilepsy medication, suffered a fit just there by the perfume counter; or when Oscar Peters walked through the second and perpetually locked glass front door (he needed one hundred and seven stitches); and the tension in the air the time a Detroit lady complained about the smell when a family of Mexicans stood in the aisle looking at the rotating Timex watch display. It had taught him to avoid generalizations about human nature, for just when you decided that people were essentially good, Mr Nice Guy turned out to beat his wife with a tuning fork. Before your cynicism took over completely, however, you discovered that some exemplar of wickedness was a secret philanthropist, paying the school tuition of Korean orphans and reading on the sly to the residents of an old folks’ home.
Looking around him now, Michael felt as if the location of his own life’s unofficial schooling had been knocked down. Jesus Christ almighty, he said to himself, or so he had thought until a woman in plaid pants frowned. ‘Sorry,’ he said, but she had left the store. He walked out into the oncoming distraction of the Homecoming Parade, remembering the look on Alvin Simpson’s face when he’d told him he was switching majors from pharmacology to engineering.
‘You okay?’ asked Donny.
‘Yeah.’ He motioned at the store. ‘It’s just changed so much.’
‘And it’s about to change again,’ said Donny. ‘I hear he’s going bust.’
The grim state of the store bothered him. Why? If he wanted his past behind him, why care that the scene of that past had changed? Perhaps because one of the very things he had escaped from was no longer there to flee. It was like encountering a long-lost love, one held immutably in the imagination for many years, only to discover that they had changed so completely that the person you were in love with didn’t exist any more. He didn’t want to think what Cassie would be like now, though this was not an avoidance he could sustain for long, since within sixty seconds of leaving the drugstore he had spotted her, standing with her two children, deep in the crowd across the street.
At first he assumed his imagination was simply being over-active. Years before in New York he had suffered agonizingly from phantom sightings of her, outside Paul Stuart on Madison Avenue, at the bar of Gallagher’s restaurant off Broadway. All illusory, of course, which made him doubt what he seemed to be seeing now. But there she was, crouched down in her blue jeans and sneakers, with an arm around the little boy – Jack, wasn’t that what Nancy had said? – whom he’d seen from his car outside Buckling’s Gun Shop. Next to Cassie was a little girl. That must be Sally, thought Michael, watching as Cassie pointed down the street towards the advancing parade. He knew he wasn’t hallucinating when he saw her upper teeth bite down on her lower lip.
He was confident she hadn’t seen him, and soon he could no longer see her, for the parade had reached them and blocked his view. He was relieved, for he felt his blood was rushing everywhere inside him, and his arms twitched, and a tic had suddenly declared its presence with short, repeated strokes above his left eye. In an effort to slow his breathing he forced himself to watch the parade.
God knows, there was plenty to look at. For if in his childhood the parade had been a pretty limp affair – the high school band blaring John Philip Sousa, one solitary majorette, the Homecoming Queen waving from a chair on a flat bed towed by the town’s fanciest car, and that was that – now it was a larger, virtually professional production.
Why don’t you join the band? had been the standing insult when you dropped a pass or lost a fly ball in the sun, and the band in his high school years had been the bolt-hole for geeks and losers. But now it clearly enjoyed greater status, since half the high school seemed to be in it. They marched by, spruce in their gold and purple uniforms, playing ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon’ at an accelerated clip. They were followed by members of the American Legion in a mix of uniforms, veterans from World War II, a few of Korea, and two guys he recognized who had been in Vietnam. Then a succession of store-sponsored floats – the Wild Thyme Shop, The Emperor’s Ice-Cream Store, Potpourri and More, Bottel’s Bakery, the Dairy Queen, and the Atlantic County Bank. Two of them had teenage girls sitting on top, wearing two-piece bathing suits and throwing taffy candy, which small kids scrambled for on the pavements. On others sat the families of the business owners, from babies to grandparents. And one – the bank – had nobody on the float at all.
Then came a series of antique cars – a Model T, driven by a South Beach man Michael recognized, its honking horn sounding like a goose in pain, two pre-war Dodges, a Studebaker, then a mini-convention of Corvettes from the early 1960s. A cavalcade of Shriners followed, fat middle-aged men riding large three-wheeled motorcycles and wearing maroon uniforms with gold trim and commanders’ hats with white plastic bills, weaving wide-wheeled figures of eight in an intricate motorized ballet. The float with the Homecoming Queen came next, a tall blonde girl with a toothy grin, wearing a ball gown of blue taffeta with long white gloves unrolled up to her elbows. Then, incongruously, the Collinsville Clown Band, announced by a blast of Dixieland jazz. They were famous for their outrageous costumes, heavy boozing, and adroit musicianship – in roughly equal proportions.
Which made the group behind them all the more peculiar. Four men marched together, side by side, their faces cast with fixed expressions of a disturbing, solemn grimness. Each carried a rifle, slung over the shoulders by a strap, and they all wore camouflage hunting fatigues and short-sleeved shirts of combat green, the sleeves just long enough to bear a badge, a large black ‘M’ in a circle of white.
There was something ridiculous about them, but something sinister too. The tallest, a heavily-muscled man with a reddish tan, a blond crew cut, and wide, innocent-looking eyes, seemed to be the leader, for he very slightly preceded the others, marching in crisp strides that smacked of the parade drilling ground. Michael poked Donny as the weird quartet passed by. ‘That guy looks familiar,’ he said, pointing to the tallest one.
‘Sure he does. That’s Raleigh Somerset. And that,’ he added, taking in all four with a sweep of his hand, ‘is the famous Michigan Marines you were asking about. All four of them,’ he added scornfully.
‘They don’t belong in the Homecoming Parade.’
‘Of course they don’t – nobody thinks so. But when they tried to keep them out they threatened to go to court. It seemed easiest just to let the dumb shits march.’
A hand touched his shoulder, and he turned round to find Jimmy Olds standing behind him, in his uniform of blue starched shirt, dark tie and dark sunglasses. ‘Hey Jimmy.’
‘Nice to see you back. Here for long?’
Michael couldn’t see his eyes through the dark glasses; Jimmy’s tone was friendly but semi-professional. ‘Don’t know yet. Any news?’
Jimmy shook his head. ‘Afraid not. Still interviewing people. We’ve talked to just about everybody we can think of. Even students of your daddy from forty years ago.’ He shook his head again, then seemed to recognize how hopeless he was making his efforts sound. ‘Something will turn up,’ he said feebly. ‘Say, Maguire wanted to know if I’d seen you. You called him yet?’
‘I got here yesterday, Jimmy. Let me catch my breath, will you?’
‘I was just asking.’
‘He does push it a bit,’ Michael said.
Jimmy nodded. ‘I know he does. Fact is, if he weren’t a fellow professional, I might even describe him as an aggressive little prick.’ When Michael laughed Jimmy allowed himself a small smile. ‘I’ll let him know you’re back, Michael. Look after yourself.’
When he turned round the parade was ending. He looked but could not see Cassie or her kids in the dispersing crowd across the street. He scanned up and down Main Street fruitlessly, finding many familiar faces, but not Cassie’s.
W
asn’t that Kyler’s daughter, and hadn’t she got fat? Look at that lady in the wheelchair – could it really be Mrs Fell? God, Candy Simmons looked old. And, up by the ice-cream store, wasn’t that Ethel, about the size of a twelve-year-old girl but with a woman’s face? But where was Daisy? And what was Ethel doing here alone? The final squad car moved gently through the crowd with its roof light flashing, strobe-like. He walked around and behind it, looking for Cassie, but she had disappeared. Just as well, he thought, since he had no idea how she would react to seeing him. He looked again for Ethel, but she was gone too.
‘We’re going home now,’ said Brenda as he rejoined them in front of the drugstore. ‘Why don’t you come to supper?’
‘Thanks, but I’ve got a lot to sort out.’
‘You sure?’ It was Donny.
‘Yeah, I’m sure. But thanks anyway.’
‘You should take your time, you know. There’s not a lot to do in Stillriver that can’t wait.’
There was no real other side of the tracks to Stillriver. Even if you included the trailer park, no one lived in outright squalor; only the Back Country had people on the margin, the invisible rural poor who scratched out an existence which no one made documentaries about and politicians found demographically insignificant. In Stillriver itself, the four square blocks around the wireworks were about as close to a low-rent district as the town allowed. They contained single-storey breezeblock bungalows, erected by the wireworks company on land it then owned in an effort to attract new employees during its sole period of expansion just after the World War II. Other than the shoreline, this was the lowest-lying part of town, sitting next to a long trough of swamp which separated the town’s perimeter road from the neat grid of the town’s residences. Stillriver’s sewage had drained into the swamp from one side; from the other water came down from the higher land of the Meadows; the result was a vast, primitive cesspit, its grey ooze studded here and there by scraggly cedars, the one species of tree that could live in such revolting liquor. Long after a processing plant had been built on the other side of town, the swamp’s smell had lingered, sulphurous and sour as a paper mill.
Stillriver Page 13
