Ash Wednesday

by Chet Williamson

"It's a partnership, you know? A bond. And there'll be ups and downs, and disagreements galore, but if both parties stick it out, you can have a long and beautiful relationship. 'Till retirement do us part,' huh?"

  "Yeah. Sure."

  "Well, then." Oakes made his smile even broader. "Enough said?"

  Jim nodded. "Enough said. Thanks." And he walked back to his office, his stomach churning with fury, his teeth gritted together so hard he imagined he could hear the enamel crack.

  ~*~

  "Quit?" said Beth that evening as they prepared dinner. "You just got the job, Jim."

  "I know."

  "Why in God's name would you want to quit?"

  Jim made the hamburger patties and told Beth about Oakes and the Eve and the Vietnam line. "He threatened me," he concluded. "I didn't even argue with him—just disagreed—and the son of a bitch actually threatened me."

  Beth said nothing. She kept her eyes on the soup she was stirring. Jim stopped patting the cold meat and stared at her. "Did you hear me?"

  She nodded. "I heard. So you want to quit."

  "Yeah."

  Beth sighed and turned to him. "Jim, we're not in school anymore.''

  "What's that mean?"

  She took the burgers and lay them in the electric skillet, speaking over the hissing they made. “It means that this is the real world now. We can't just . . . walk away from things if they don't work out right away."

  “You can always walk away from shit."

  Her voice rose, angry. "Sure you can walk away, but you've got to walk to someplace too! What really happened? You were insulted, that's all, because Mr. Oakes wanted things done the way they've always been done. That's his right.”

  “It's not just that!'' he flared back. "It's just that it's indicative.”.

  "Indicative of what?"

  "Of what I've got to look forward to there. Bullshit, repression . . .” He barked a humorless laugh. "Matthews has already made cracks about my beard, for Christ's sake."

  "You’ve only been there three months," Beth said, turning off the burner. "Can't you give it more time than that?"

  "Why? They're not going to change, and I'm damned if I will.”

  "Have you got another job, then?"

  "You know I haven't."

  ''Let's eat," she said, putting the burgers and soup bowls in a tray and carrying them into the dining room.

  "We're not done talking about this," he said, following her.

  "All right," she answered, sitting down and opening her napkin. "See if this finishes it. I teach school"—she ticked off the points on her fingers one by one—"for sixty-two hundred dollars a year. You work at Linden for eleven-five. Our car payment is a hundred dollars a month, our rent is a hundred and seventy-five. Our student loan payments are a hundred and fifty." She paused. "That's over five thousand a year. You quit, we live on my salary. Now, do you think we can even eat for a thousand dollars?"

  He stared at the food on the table for a long time before answering. "All right. I'll wait."

  "For how long?"

  He looked up at her. "Until I find something else.”

  “Or until it gets better?"

  "It won't get better."

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I just worry."

  "Don't worry. We won't starve."

  They didn't. For the next few months Jim made a conscious effort to write only what Matthews and Oakes wanted to read, and did it very well. Oakes commented on it several times, and even Matthews dropped into Jim's cubicle to congratulate him on a job well done.

  "A job well done," he told Beth at home, shaking his head and sipping a cold glass of white wine. "God, I can't wait to get out of there."

  "Have you been looking?" Beth asked, thumbing through Newsweek.

  "I've been looking. Plenty of jobs, but they're all in business and industry. Hell, they could be worse."

  "Well, what do you want?" She put the magazine down with a sigh.

  "I was a journalism major," he said dryly. "Words are my business, my business is words. It would be very nice to find a newspaper at which I could be Jim Callendar, Boy Reporter. "

  "At a hundred bucks a week."

  "It's better than selling out."

  "Bullshit, selling out. Jim, Linden Industries isn't the Bank of America or Dow or Boeing. Besides, it could be worse. You could've been drafted."

  Jim grunted. "Thank God for trick knees. Gonna have to get pretty bad before they take me." He finished his wine. "Yeah," he said, "it could be worse. I'm sort of getting used to the crap.''

  "That's good."

  He looked up quickly. "No! That's bad. I don't want to get used to it. Next thing you know I'll be happy there.”

  “And what's wrong with being happy?"

  “Maybe 'happy' isn't the word. Maybe it's 'contented.' Or 'satisfied.' I don't want to be satisfied with that."

  Beth shrugged. "Just hang on a little longer. You've seen them at their worst. So why not take the money as long as you want and run?"

  "Just so I remember how to run."

  "You'll know," said Beth, "when the time comes."

  The time did not come for nearly eight years. It was not that Jim did not think about alternatives, for he did. He looked into the possibilities of work in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, even Los Angeles. But the jobs that were available always had something wrong with them, real or imagined. For the truth, which Beth dimly suspected but which Jim would never admit even to himself, was that he did not want to leave Merridale. He was bound to it with long-standing chains of affection. His family had lived there always, he knew the people on the street, the stores where they bought the necessities and pleasures of life. There was a sense of eternity about the town. It was an ageless place whose outer face would change with time but whose heart would remain as it always was, and he had no desire to leave it. On occasion he would travel in his job, and he found the great cities exciting, but ultimately as cold and unfriendly as the steel and glass of their buildings. It was always a relief when the train pulled into Merridale Station and he stepped off, the smell of honeysuckle that covered the embankment strong and sweet and welcoming, Beth waiting in the Toyota to take him back to their apartment.

  And later to take him back to their house on Sundale Road.

  And still later, Beth waiting, not alone, but with Terry strapped securely into his car seat, muffled in bright blue blankets so that only his face was visible, red and round as a lumpy apple.

  Beth had been hesitant when Jim first brought up the idea of having a baby. The school was growing to the extent that rumors were flying of an assistant principalship that would probably be created in a year or two to aid Hatch Road's principal, Mary Spruce. Beth wanted the job. She had not always yearned for an administrative position, but found that the day to day classroom grind was beginning to oppress her, because she could not detach herself from the role of surrogate parent. Her involvement with her students had become emotional as well as tutorial, and the twin giving sapped her energies. Her days were full of loving and caring and teaching, her nights full of planning. If, she felt, she could acquire an administrative job, she would be a step withdrawn from the children, and though she loved the closeness that being in the classroom provided, she retained enough self-awareness to realize that continuing as she was could ultimately prove self-destructive. So when Jim suggested the possibility of a child, her response was guarded.

  "I'd like a baby," she said, "but if the job opens up when I'm pregnant, or in the first year, there's no way I'll get it.”

  “Why not talk to Mary?" Jim said.

  "I couldn't do that."

  "Why not? You're friends. Just tell her how you feel. You both know damn well you're the best teacher they've got out there. See what the chances are. Maybe they don't need an assistant for a few years."

  Beth talked to Mary, and found her surprisingly open. Mary told her that it could be two, perhaps as many as three, years before the school population warranted an
administrative expansion at Hatch, and Beth would certainly be considered. "The board makes the final choice, Beth," Mary said with a smile, "but I'd bet they'd go by my recommendation. And I certainly think you could handle it."

  "Even if I took a leave of absence for a couple of years?”

  “Why?" Mary took off her bifocals and looked at Beth from sharp, unglassed eyes.

  Beth told her then about their plan to have a baby, and Mary grinned, putting her glasses back on like a happy-face mask.

  "Are you pregnant now?" she asked.

  "Not yet."

  "Well, don't worry about a thing. I'll see you get maternity leave for as long as you want. As for leaving, it would be convenient if you could finish a year rather than leave in the middle of one."

  "With a little lucky timing," Beth said, and both women laughed.

  "Oh, it's time. How old are you, Beth?"

  "Twenty-six."

  “Well, you wouldn't want to wait much longer. Is Jim excited?"

  Beth nodded. "I think he wants one more than I do."

  "Reg was the same way. But when the twins came he changed his mind." Mary put a hand on Beth's shoulder. "You go ahead and do it," she said. "There'll be a job for you when you're ready, even if I have to make one." And then her sixtyish, blue-haired principal said something that amazed Beth. "And if you want to get pregnant fast, put him on the bottom and when it happens, just sit on it. Don't move a muscle." She grinned crookedly. "If you can help it." They both giggled like schoolgirls.

  When she got home, Beth told Jim what Mary had said. They laughed about it, then they tried it.

  Beth was pregnant by February. She requested maternity leave for the 1973-74 school year, and was granted it. By June she was starting to show, and the mounding of her stomach brought out all the protective instincts that Jim had never realized he'd had. He also got a job moonlighting for the Merridale Messenger.

  Jim had known Bill Gingrich since Jim was in high school. When his eighth-grade English class had gone on a tour of the Messenger offices and press room, Gingrich had acted as guide. Jim had been fascinated by the workings of the small weekly, and talked to Gingrich for such a long time that he nearly missed the bus back to school. His interest in journalism grew, and in his freshman year he became a junior reporter for the Merridale High Sentinel, which was printed at the Messenger's offices. Jim would consistently volunteer for the little-loved job of going to the offices Wednesdays after school to pick up the papers for Thursday distribution.

  He'd always used the time to talk to Gingrich, who spoke gruffly but was secretly pleased to have an audience to whom he could tell his stories of working on the Lansford Courier in the forties.

  So when Jim entered the Messenger offices twenty years later and told Gingrich his name, Gingrich, a little balder and a lot fatter, grinned. "Jimmy—the kid who used to make me tell all my war stories!"

  Jim laughed. "Was I that big a pest?"

  "Nah. Hell, I liked it. So what can I do for you?"

  Jim told him that he was looking for a part-time job, explaining the situation with Beth and the expected baby. "I suppose I could stock shelves or something," he said, "but I'd rather do something that I know about and like. Frankly, Mr. Gingrich, I don't know where else you could get my experience for the money I'm willing to take."

  "What kind of stuff do you want to do?" Gingrich wasn't smiling anymore.

  "What do you need?" Jim shrugged. "I'll do it."

  "Well, there have been two things that've been a pain in the ass lately. One's the advertising. I guess I'm just getting too old and fat to toddle around town trying to sell the shit."

  "You mean you don't have a permanent-space agreement with any store owners?"

  "Oh, a few, but most of 'em only advertise when they've got a sale or a little money to burn. Keeping them buying regularly's like pulling teeth. The other thing's the 'Around the Square' column. Lettie Parker'd been handling that for me, but her husband got transferred and I've been doing it myself. There's a lot that people call in, but never enough to fill it up, so I gotta go hunting and I got no time to hunt."

  "What kind of hunting?"

  "Calling churches, the Lions, Moose, the high school, asking them what the hell's going on, then writing it up. A few little gossipy things—who went to Europe on their vacation, who visited who in Florida . . ."

  Jim smiled. "Sounds like Marie Snyder'd be a natural for it.

  Gingrich barked a laugh. "That old bitch? But you're right. She'd be a damn good source. I'd doublecheck everything from her though."

  "I will."

  "You will? Hold it, kid. We haven't talked money yet. I'm not a rich man, in spite of my luxurious surroundings." He gestured expansively around the cluttered office at the scattered papers, dented furniture, and a multitude of empty Styrofoam coffee cups.

  Jim chuckled, still liking the man and his style. "Oh, I think we can come to a mutually acceptable agreement."

  "Listen to him. He even sounds like a journalist. You use those two-dollar words in my quarter rag, kid, and you're out of work." He frowned. "How's five bucks an hour for working the advertising sound? And twenty-five a week for 'Around the Square'?"

  Jim thought for a minute. "How many hours a week will the ad stuff take?"

  "Seven or eight. Thursday or Friday nights or Saturdays." Sixty-five a week. Jim thought it would help, and he'd probably enjoy it. He nodded. "Sounds good."

  "Hot damn, I got me a sucker. Wanta start next week?”

  “Sure."

  "Tell you what," Gingrich smiled. "How about another column? Write it all by yourself, an extra fifteen bucks a week."

  "Great. What about?"

  The older man shrugged. "Leave it up to you. Just connect it with the town somehow. And not too political or controversial, y'know."

  Jim nodded cynically. "I'm used to that."

  "I bet you are, working at Linden. Everybody's running scared, especially with that dumbo Nixon and this Watergate mess. It's gonna open a few eyes before it's all over, see if it doesn't."

  "Wait a minute," said Jim carefully. "I thought you were a Nixon man."

  "Ha! That stinker? Don't believe everything you read in the paper, kid, especially mine. As goes Merridale, so goes the Messenger. I've been a Roosevelt Democrat my whole damn life. The paper supports Republicans because it's bought by Republicans. Hell, you run Mussolini as a Republican, this town'd vote for him." He shook his head sadly. "And I'd probably write an editorial supporting him. Welcome to yellow journalism."

  Jim liked Bill Gingrich's brand of yellow journalism. The Saturday visits to the town merchants to peddle ads were not at all unpleasant. On the contrary, he enjoyed talking to these men and women who had put their stake in Merridale, and even if he didn't come out of a store with a sale, he came away with a feeling of warmth and communication nonetheless, of his batteries being charged in the dynamo of small-town humanity, so different from the calculated heartlessness of Linden Industries. These businesses were manned by human beings, not automatons whose sole loyalty was to profit. And in the stores and small businesses of Merridale there were no scapegoats to blame, no gray faceless clones far down the line. In Merridale if something went wrong, it was the owner who took the blame, and if he succeeded, it was due to his own efforts. Rugged individualism still survived here—in Stephen's Drugs, Byer's Book Store, the Friendly Gift Shoppe, and dozens of other one- to five-man businesses that ran up and down and across Market and High Street like marchers in a parade.

  That was the very image Jim used for his first fifteen-dollar column. It was shamelessly pro–small town and pro–small business, and he wrote it in a white-hot patriotic fervor that seemed strange to him even as he did it. "Good stuff," Gingrich said after reading it. "A little thick for my blood maybe, but everybody else'll eat it up." He looked at Jim a bit suspiciously from over the top of his glasses. "You really meant what you wrote here, didn't you?"

  Jim smiled.

&n
bsp; "Don't be embarrassed," said Gingrich. "Nothing to be ashamed of. I'm just a little surprised you feel this way.”

  “I like Merridale."

  "Yeah. I do too. Only reason I've stayed here so long." He leaned back and propped his feet on the desk top. "Got a lot of nice folks here. Got a lot of assholes too. Now the secret is that there are assholes everywhere you go. You can't escape them. But me, I've learned that I like the Merridale assholes better than the assholes anywhere else." He grinned. "They're Norman Rockwell assholes. I like Norman Rockwell. How about you?"

  "He's okay."

  "You'll weaken with time. Wait till you have your kid and he starts getting bigger. You'll love Norman Rockwell."

  Jim wasn't sure of that, but he was sure of his love for the town. It shone through his columns and even in "Around the Square." He discovered that people were not merely willing but anxious to report on the most pedestrian doings of their lives and organizations. It amused him and delighted him as well, for in a solipsistic way they were right: Don and Rachel Martin's trip to Vermont and the St. John's Chicken Corn Soup Supper were, in the universe of Don and Rachel Martin and the ladies of the church, far more important than the talks between Henry Kissinger and the representatives of Ho Chi Minh, or all this fuss in Washington about the burglary at that Watergate place, or the earthquakes in Nicaragua. No one from Merridale had ever been to Nicaragua, except for Pastor Craven and his wife, and that had been a good fifteen years earlier.

  Oh, yes, Jim thought and thought again, Merridale was as self-centered as a Broadway star on opening night. But was that such a flaw? After all, he was beginning to believe himself that the world revolved around the town. "All is dross that is not Merridale." When one lives their whole life in one place, doesn't that place become life itself? Life and death and birth.

  And in October 1973, as was his father, Terence John Callendar was born in Lansford General Hospital and taken home to Merridale, where he was shown off to sundry relatives and loved, Jim felt, as no baby had been before. Beth was an excellent mother and spent more time with Terry than Jim had ever expected her to. "I've got him for a year, all to myself," she told him, "before I have to go back to the school. So I'm really going to make it count." Jim wished that he had more time to spend with the two of them, but Linden stole his days, and the Messenger took most evenings and much of the weekend. It was far from an ideal situation in which to form a strong father-son bond, but he tried, writing after Terry had gone to sleep, and getting up early on Saturday mornings so that he could often finish his ad work by noon.