The Nearly Complete Works, Volume 3

by Donald Harington

  A logging trail led from the main road to a pretty spot where the Little Buffalo River began as just a spring coming out of the side of the mountain, and collected in a pool for a while before tumbling on down the mountainside. The hole of water looked like it might have some fish in it, but after half an hour of casting he knew it didn’t. So he figured as long as he was here he might as well take a quick dip, and he stripped his clothes off and jumped in. The water being spring-fed was a bit cold for this time of year. He would have to remember to tell Sharline about this spot, in case she wanted a bath.

  After he was out of the water, as he had no towel to dry off he moved on up the slope a ways to a slab of rock where the sun would dry him, slowly but nicely. There he reclined for a while and thought about how this little stream of water would run on for a number of miles and then join up with Swains Creek at Stay More. Thinking of Stay More, he realized that they’d have to make a trip there pretty soon to get some more Chism’s Dew. He didn’t mind. It wouldn’t be too hard to revisit his old haunts, even the old Stapleton place that had belonged to his grandfather and still contained what few belongings Hoppy had in this world that weren’t inside of Topper.

  Hoppy heard a car engine stop not far away, and in a little bit he saw a couple coming down through the woods. They came right on down to the water before Hoppy recognized them and realized they must have in mind to rench off the sweat they’d worked up chopping weeds in the garden patch. The feller was talking as he always did (he probably talked in his sleep too), but Hoppy was too far away to hear what he was saying. He probably wasn’t needing to do a lot of persuading, because before you could say Jack Robinson the girl had peeled off her overalls and her underthings and had jumped in the pool, squealing at the coldness of the water, and then the feller had jumped right in after her. And pretty soon they were splashing each other and laughing and having such a time as never you did see. Hoppy realized that his jealousy wasn’t because of the situation itself but because not so long ago he had tried to get Carl to take a bath in the creek with him, and he could still hear “Carl’s” words: “I’m sorry, I just caint. I’m just too shy, I reckon. Maybe when I get to know ye better, I could.” She must’ve got to know Arlis a whole lot better in a awful short time.

  Hoppy was tempted to holler something just to let them know that they were being watched. But he held his tongue. And pretty soon they commenced behaving in a way that would have kept him from giving himself away. It’s one thing just to go skinny-dipping together when you hardly know each other, but it sure is a different story to start fooling around in a dead-earnest fashion. Just what was she thinking, anyhow? Maybe the problem was, she wasn’t thinking nothing at all, she was pure-and-simple overcome with lust, red in the comb. And maybe Arlis was so all het up that he wasn’t even stopping to think that he was betraying his good friend Hoppy, who had brought him entertainments for three years now. Well, I’ve shore brought him a fine entertainment this time around, Hoppy said to himself, and he wasn’t talking about “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Come to think of it, that pitcher show had been somewhat on the raunchy side, at least by suggestion, depending on how you looked at it, and maybe that had incited both of ’em into this wantonness.

  They were having a real problem making a good connection in the water, even though she’d climbed him and had her legs wrapped around his hips. They were both groaning more from frustration than from pleasure. So finally they climbed out of the water and into a bed of leaves on the bank. Hoppy caught sight of Arlis’ pecker, which may have been the main reason they hadn’t been able to connect: it was a sockdolager, worthy of a studhorse, and as he mounted her and tried to put it into her, Hoppy was reminded of his reel called “Assortment,” the way all the men in those pitcher shows had equipment that was oversize and made you feel that you didn’t have nothing to write home about. Thinking of his wicked pitcher show as he watched this couple and listened to his truelove a-crying out as the feller finally poked it into her made Hoppy realize not just how inferior his tool was but how inferior pitcher shows were to the real thing: it was mightily more stimulating to see it actually happening than watching “Assortment,” and Hoppy was abashed to discover, once the insertion had been accomplished and the vigorous movements swole up on both sides, that his own equipment was a-swelling considerable. The main advantage of the real thing over the pitcher show was not just because it was in three dimensions and full color and with the fragrance of the morning woods but because you are occupying the same piece of earth as the actors, you could almost join them, or pretend you were joining them or taking their place or whatever.

  All his life Hoppy had hated himself for one thing or another, but never as much as he now hated himself for watching so keenly and breathlessly. He was having so much fun that he began to suspect, in remembrance of last night’s pitcher show, that this was all just a dream. It wasn’t a midsummer night’s dream, but it sure was midsummer, and the whole idea of his truelove fucking the daylights out of this country storekeeper was so dreamlike it couldn’t possibly be real. As he watched—and it just went on and on and on, like those actors in “Assortment” who could hold off coming forever—he kept expecting to wake up at any moment, but he never did. He remembered how watching the “Assortment” had affected that bastard preacher Emmett Binns and had made him so horny he was ready to pay Sharline for gratification. But Hoppy was hornier now than that preacher or anybody had ever been, and he began to give serious thought to the idea of joining the couple and taking over after Arlis was spent…if ever he was, because he never seemed to stop or slow and both of them were moaning and groaning and Sharline had already gone into one of her squealing spells at least twice and was building up to the third one. Hoppy couldn’t help himself; he grabbed aholt of his pecker and commenced pumping it. If the fairies had been right in telling Sharline to tell him that his problem was he lived inside his penis, then he was really setting up home inside his penis right now, giving it all the attention that he could spare from the intense attention he was giving to the noisily coupling couple. “Oh Lord God, I’m a-going!” Arlis said at long last.

  “Don’t go!” Sharline said. “Come!” And with that she let out a howl of ecstasy that they must have heard back in town.

  And Hoppy came too. But he choked back whatever expression of fulfillment he might have been tempted to utter. Then in shame he rolled over and buried his face in the leaves and just remained like that for a long time, until finally, when he looked up again, the couple had gone. He decided that the hatred he felt for himself was overmatched by that he felt for Arlis and for Sharline.

  So when it came time that night for the pitcher show, he was not in a good mood, and the turn-out wasn’t enough to help his mood. Compared with the crowds they’d been getting at the camp meeting it was piddling. Hoppy wondered if word had got around so fast that he wasn’t going to be showing cowboy movies. One feller with his family came up to Hoppy and asked him, “Is this some kind of childern’s pitcher show you’re a-showing tonight?” Hoppy assured him it was mainly for grownups but kids would probably enjoy it too. And sure enough most of the paying audience was just kids: of maybe a hundred, at least sixty weren’t old enough to vote. Hoppy didn’t ask Sharline how many tickets she’d sold. He wasn’t speaking to her. He wasn’t in any kind of mood for asking her nothing. When it came time for them to do their juggling acts, his mind and his heart weren’t in it, and he kept dropping his balls. In the one act where they tossed balls to each other, keeping eight or nine in the air at once, he overthrew her badly and she couldn’t catch anything, so he just quit and let her do her chiffon fascinator act, which the audience appreciated, although he didn’t much care for the way she swung her hips and wiggled her bottom and swayed her whole shapely body. He noticed Arlis sitting in the front row clapping harder than anybody. And when they switched over from juggling to magic, Hoppy wasn’t any good at all. His hypnotism failed to entrance anyone, his levitation act cau
sed Sharline to fall, and his disappearing act got rid of only half of her. He was glad when it was dark enough to start the pitcher show, but real sorry that they wouldn’t be starting with the first episode of “The Painted Stallion.”

  Before the show started, Sharline stood in front of the audience and made a little speech. “I reckon most of you folks has heard,” she began, “that the pitcher shows we was fixing to show ye got stole from us, so we’ve had to make a replacement. You may have noticed that Landon “Hoppy” Boyd aint wearing his Hopalong Cassidy hat tonight, and I aint wearing mine, which is just like his. Because we can’t show you any Hopalong Cassidy pitcher shows. But we’ve got a real clever and sightly show called “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” that’s prettier than any dream you ever had! You’ll just love it to pieces!”

  She sat down next to Arlis, who had been saving her a seat, and Hoppy started up the projector, and that dadblasted “OVERTURE” showed up on the screen and that lavish music started. After just a few minutes of it the audience started getting restless, and the kids started talking amongst themselves, so noisy you could hardly hear the music if you wanted to, but hardly nobody wanted to. The Overture wasn’t half over when some kids started throwing rocks at the screen, trying to hit that drawing of the fairy lady swimming toward you. Hoppy was using the duck tarp painted white with alabastine for a screen, since his regular screen had burnt at the camp meeting fire and he hadn’t replaced it yet. The duck tarp was pretty sturdy, but if enough sharp rocks was thrown at it there would sure to be holes. Hoppy wished there was some way to make the projector run faster so that Overture would be over.

  When the pitcher show finally started and the written proclamation came on the screen, Sharline stood up again to read it out for the benefit of the unlettered. When the Duke was making his speech to the Amazon queen, the first folks to walk out walked out. They didn’t even bother stopping to ask Hoppy for a refund. But before long, about when that business of Hermia’s daddy wanting to kill her if she wouldn’t marry Demetrius got started, a group of teenagers came up to Hoppy and one of them said, “Give us our money back. We don’t keer to try to figger out what in heck is a-going on.” Hoppy gave each of them their money back. When the fairy dancing started, a farmer and his wife and their five children got refunds too. The folks who did stay because there wasn’t anything in this world better to do spent most of their time talking and not paying much attention to the show. An occasional teenager threw a rock at the screen…or an egg. Several of them booed. The shrunken audience seemed to have only two members who were really watching the show: Sharline and Arlis. The show wasn’t half over before Hoppy’s worst fears were confirmed: there just wasn’t any market for this kind of show.

  Finally Hoppy just let a reel run out and leave the screen blank but illuminated, and he walked out there and stood in the glare of that light and faced what was left of his audience. He wasn’t accustomed at all to public speaking, but he managed a few words. “Folks, I’m real sorry. I’ve made a bad mistake, getting aholt of this pitcher show, which just aint what you expected and what you paid for. If you’ll line up, I’ll give ye all your money back. Thanks for coming, and I hope one of these days soon to have some good old Hopalong Cassidy pitchers to show ye again.”

  But nobody got up to leave, and nobody, of the maybe fifty that was left, got in line to get their money back. Hoppy waited, wondering if perhaps they wanted to have another gathering of tale-telling like the other night. Arlis, who had suggested the tale-telling, stood up and began to speak, but he wasn’t suggesting any oral stories. “They’s obviously some clods and half-wits who don’t have the sense to know a great pitcher show when they see one, but I recognize all of you good folks who are still here as the smartest folks in this town. And you want to see the rest of it, don’t ye?”

  There were cries of “You bet!” and “Let’s do it!” and “Yessireebob!” and “Darn tootin!”

  Arlis said to Hoppy, “The next reel, please.” Hoppy didn’t like the tone of Arlis’ voice, as if he was telling Hoppy what to do, but Hoppy was glad to do it, and he resumed showing the pitcher show. A few folks went to sleep when all that sleeping started in the pitcher show, but they woke up and watched the rest of it. There weren’t any more rocks or eggs thrown at the screen. And when Puck made his final speech and “finis” came on, everybody clapped. Hoppy clapped himself, not in appreciation of the show but of the faithful audience.

  Hoppy calculated that the paid admissions plus what Sharline had made from popcorn and candy came to almost one-tenth of the cost of the film, which wasn’t bad for the first night. Nine more showings and the film would be paid for.

  So his mood wasn’t too terrible at bedtime but he had to remind himself what had put him in a bad mood in the first place. When Sharline climbed into bed with him and tried to get frisky or at least feisty, he rolled over and turned his back to her.

  “Hey, hon, what’s troubling you?” she asked.

  “Haven’t you had enough?” he grumbled.

  “I never have enough,” she declared.

  “I believe it,” he said. He climbed over her and got out of the lower bunk and then climbed into the upper bunk. “Why don’t ye go play with your fairies?” he suggested.

  And maybe she did. Because later, when he couldn’t sleep, he heard her go out.

  Chapter sixteen

  She hadn’t come back when he woke with the sun well up into the sky. He reckoned that if her fairy friends hadn’t put her up for the night, then Arlis had. Or they had gone somewhere for the night, because Hoppy knew that Arlis lived with his mother the postmistress of the town, and if he was shacking up with Sharline he wouldn’t want his mother to know it. Hoppy had to wonder if he honestly did give a damn where the—what had Binns called her? slut? yeah, where the slut had spent the night. But the truth was, he really did care. And it hurt. Into his morning coffee he poured the last of the Chism’s Dew, just a jigger or two, not enough to kill the pain, but enough to keep the whole real world from being all black and white like the pitcher shows.

  It was nigh on to noon before she showed up again. She was wearing her nicest dress, that he’d bought her at Clarksville and was meant for special occasions. She was also wearing a pair of fancy shoes that he hadn’t bought her. She was carrying under her arm a stack of something…a sheaf of thick papers or something. She handed one of them to Hoppy, and he held it at arm’s length and read the big printed letters on it:

  HIGH CLASS PICTURE SHOW COMING TO YOUR TOWN!

  Lavish Hollywood Production of

  “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” with all-star cast

  Performances at __________, Ark.

  Week of ___________

  EVERYBODY YOUNG AND OLD WELCOME!

  The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.

  Lovers, to bed; ’tis almost fairy time.

  —Wm. Shakspear

  “Where’d you get this?” he asked her.

  “Did you know this town’s got a feller who does print jobs?” she said. “Matt Spotwood, right over yonder on the main road. It’s a law office, but he’s got a printing press in the back room, and he did this poster for us. Three hundred of them!”

  “Us?” said Hoppy. “Who’s ‘us’?”

  “Why, you and me, silly! Arlis helped out with what to put on it, but it’s mostly mine.” She stepped back and frowned at him, as if she was expecting him to praise her, or thank her, and he wasn’t doing it.

  “How much did Matt Spotwood charge ye for all these?” Hoppy asked.

  “Just a little, not as much as he’d usually get, on account of he admires this pitcher show too and wants to see it again and again! And of course we’ll have to let him and his family in free.”

  Hoppy had never used posters or any other form of advertisements in all the years he’d been showing pitchers. To make it work, you’d really have to get to the town a week or so early to put up the posters. But he had to have a high regard for this h
ere poster: it was neatly printed, with big black letters in fancy type on a stock of thick cream-colored poster-paper. It bothered him that maybe the reason Sharline and Arlis had done it was because they were feeling guilty about their adultery—well, at least their fornication.

  “I was fixing to move on,” Hoppy declared. “I’ve done already shown the show to this town. I might as well get on up the road to the next town.” He hoped she got the significance of his saying “I” instead of “we,” because he certainly wasn’t thinking of taking her with him.

  “But Arlis thinks you could show the pitcher show here for another night or maybe even two or three. He’s already gone out and put up these posters hither and yon all over creation, telling that the show will be here the rest of this week.

  “Taking over, is he?” Hoppy said. “He didn’t even stop to think to ask me if I wanted him doing that?”

  “He just wants to help,” she said. “He just has some good idees for making the pitcher show a success. Wait till you hear some of his other idees. He thinks we ought to sell sody pop, and tonight he’ll bring a tub of pop bottles in ice from his store.”

  “Ice? Where in hell does he find ice?”

  “Not hell, where it would be too hot!” she laughed. “The mail truck brings these big blocks of ice that he keeps in his sody pop cooler.”

  “You know a lot about Arlis, what with all the time you’ve spent with him. Did you spend the night with him last night?”

  “I did not.” Her face didn’t give away anything.

  “Well, you weren’t here.”

  “You weren’t being nice to me. You climbed into the top bunk.”