Alex looked out the large front window at the ruddy mountains that formed the backdrop for the small valley town of Beckskill, and watched as the wind moved the almost naked branches of the trees that lined the street. A few of the remaining leaves blew off and grazed the window of the general store directly across the street from the bar before drifting down to the sidewalk. It's so lovely here in the fall, he thought. Paula always loved the colors.
As he gazed out at Beckskill's main street, he wondered if the new factory would be enough to save the town, to provide the jobs that would keep the young people from moving to Albany or Kingston. The farmers whose lands surrounded the town were unenthusiastic about a plastics factory on the banks of the Beckskill River, but the desperate merchants and economically strapped townspeople were praying that when the matter came to a vote at the next town meeting, they could muster enough votes to ensure its passage. The negotiations and planning sessions between the town council and the Craigo Corporation had been concluded successfully, and all that was now lacking was the formal permission of the community. The Craigo representatives had chosen Beckskill primarily because the town council had offered to cede the desired land to the corporation free of charge, which was, of course, an attractive inducement. All that was now needed was one final town meeting, and then the papers could be drawn up and construction could begin.
We shouldn't have gone into business here, Paula. It seemed like a good place back in the forties, but with Hunter Mountain so close, who comes to Beckskill to ski? The town was supposed to grow, Paula, that's what the real-estate people told us, and it has been shrinking bit by bit every year.
But maybe now . . . maybe now . . . with the factory . . .
A dilapidated pickup truck pulled to a halt in front of the bar and Alex watched as Old Johann Schilder climbed out and hobbled toward the door. Alex glanced at his watch. Barely six o'clock. Schilder was early. The radio and the old bowling machine were the only diversions in the bar, and Alex kept most of the lights off most of the time so as to save money; but a customer was coming, so he switched on the lights, turned on the radio, plugged in the bowling machine, and smiled his best proprietory smile as Johann Schilder walked into the room.
"Hallo, Alex," the old man said. "I haf an idea, a damn good idea."
Alex laughed as he drew the old man a beer from the tap. "Another idea, Johann? You still think you're my business manager?"
"It is money you vant to make, ja? Attract the customers? So, I haf an idea." Schilder had come to America from Germany decades before Alex had come from the Ukraine, but neither man had ever successfully shed his accent.
"All right, Johann, what is the idea?" Alex asked with forced cheerfulness and no enthusiasm.
"You go to a printer, haf him make up signs, ja? You hang de signs on de trees on de side of de road. People see de signs and dey come." Schilder smiled proudly, and his wizened face collapsed into a mass of deep wrinkles.
Alex shook his head. "You're getting old, Johann. I tried that five years ago, and I got a ticket from the state troopers." He placed the glass of beer down in front of the old man, who studied the foam for a few moments before taking a sip.
Alex took the fifteen cents from the bar top and put it in the cash box, and returned to washing the glasses. Schilder looked around the room and asked, "Vhere is Reichhardt?"
Alex shrugged. "You're early today. Maybe he don't get here for an hour or so."
Schilder grunted, and then took another small sip. He drank only one glass of beer per hour, never more than six a night, and he had years of practice in making each beer last. After a few moments he said, "Alex, you got to get married."
"Never mind, Schilder. Just drink your beer."
Schilder was armored with the presumptuous insensitivity of old age. "You can't just live out your life vit no family."
"Johann, don't give me no advice, okay? I don't need any."
"Every man needs a vife, somevone to cook and clean."
"So how could I support a wife? On what I make here?" He dismissed the thought with a wave of his hand.
"Vhen I vas your age—"
"I know, Johann, I know. Drink your beer." Alex could be no sterner than this. Schilder, Reichhardt, and the other local families were his only steady customers and he could ill afford to drive them away. Soon, he knew, Fritz Reichhardt would show up and the two old men could keep each other busy. He was correct, for Reichhardt meandered in a half hour later, and Alex's two barroom fixtures stationed themselves on the corner stools where they always sat, nursed their beer, and jabbered away in their Swabian German.
As the sky began to grow gray with the approach of dusk, Alex turned on the outside light to illuminate the tavern sign. The light was one solitary bulb in a casing once shiny and attractive, now tawdry and dull. As the sun set behind the mountains, Alex stood behind the bar and cleaned the mirror, and dusted the unused bottles of liquor, and wiped the bar top, and washed the glasses, and washed the glasses, and washed the glasses.
"Him, he looks like shit," Reichhardt said, and Alex looked up from the sink and followed the gaze of the two old men who were staring out the window. Clayton Saunders was walking through the door of the general store across the street, carrying two cases of Old Bohemian beer toward the jeep parked at the curb. Saunders's hair cascaded over his shoulders in long, stringy, matted bunches, and he did not appear to have shaved for the past week. His patched old dungarees had been unwashed, and only infrequently removed, since he purchased them a year before, and his long, tattered, ill-fitting Salvation Army vintage coat hung decrepitly upon his tall, lanky frame. Saunders loaded the beer into the back of the jeep and then went back into the general store for the rest of his order, which consisted of a bag of groceries and two more cases of beer.
Old Man Schilder nodded in agreement with Reichhardes sentiment, and then repeated his words. "He looks like shit."
"Ja, ja," Reichhardt muttered. "It's disgusting. Look at vhat he buys. Him and his sister, dat's all dat lives up dere on de mountain, and look how much he buys to drink." He frowned and shook his head.
"And look how he's dressed. Like a bum, like a dirty bum."
Alex yawned and returned his attention to the sink. He hummed along with Eddie Fisher on the radio as he went mechanically through the motions of washing and drying. Then Schilder turned to Alex and asked, "Alex, dese bums come here to drink. Saunders and his sister and dere no-good friends, dey come in here and get drunk. Vhy you don't trow dem out?"
Alex shrugged. "Their money is as good as any-body's, Johann. I can't afford to drive away paying customers."
He spat. "Ach, you don't need dere money. Maybe if dey didn't hang around here, more people vould come, maybe." He and Reichhardt nodded vigorously, and Alex smiled but did not respond. He knew that his problem stemmed from the lack of customers, not from the nature of the ones he had.
Clayton Saunders heaved the last of the beer into the back of the jeep and then ambled over to Alex's bar. The two old men stared at him malevolently and he grinned at them as he walked by, nodding his head in what he considered a mockery of country charm and saying, —Mornin', 'mornin'," though it was early evening. He slid onto the stool directly in front of Alex and clapped him on the shoulder with unwelcome familiarity and said, "So, Alex! How 'bout a shot of bourbon and a beer?"
The older man frowned inwardly. Bourbon, beer, vodka, beer, gin, beer . . . The young man seemed to drink more than all his other customers put together. Alex was an experienced tavern keeper, and he certainly did not disapprove of occasional excessive drinking, but the sheer quantity of Saunders's consumption disgusted him. Nonetheless, money was money, so he poured the shot and began to draw the beer from the tap.
"So what's new here in town?" Saunders asked with annoying informality. Alex shrugged in reply, his eyes averted from Saunders's steady and piercing gaze. You seen my sister around? I was supposed to meet her here about now." Alex shrugged again. "Talkative today,
aren't you, Al!" Saunders laughed. He tossed the bourbon down his throat, emptied the beer glass in two swallows, belched loudly, wiped his mouth on his sleeve, and then tossed a five-dollar bill on the bar top. As he walked back toward the door he said, "Do me a favor. If Becky shows up, tell her I went home and she can go fuck herself for all I care."
"Goddamn bum," Schilder muttered.
Saunders turned to him with exaggerated slowness and asked in his best John Wayne accent, "You talkin' to me, old-timer?"
"Ja, I talk to you," Schilder replied hotly. "Vhy you don't get a job?"
Saunders laughed. "Why I don't get a job? I don't get a job 'cause I don't need a job."
"You don't work. Nobody shouldn't work. You, you live off udder people. "
"No, I don't, old-timer. I live off stock dividends and bank interest and rents." He smiled, knowing that one of the reasons for Schilder's dislike of him was the fact that the old man's son-in-law, Frank Bruno, rented and worked land that Saunders owned and Bruno could not afford to buy.
"Dividends and rents," Schilder echoed angrily. "Interest from de bank. Dat isn't vork! Dat's living on udder people's vork!"
"My God, a socialist!" Saunders responded wondrously. "A commie, right here in Beckskill! I gotta introduce you to my friend Russell. You two could get together and set up some barricades or something."
"I knew your parents," Schilder said, ignoring the remark. "Dey vas good people. Dey turn over in dere graves from you and your sister."
"Yeah, Mom and Dad were okay," Saunders agreed, still smiling. "They sure did okay in this town. They could buy and sell all you guys."
Alex clenched his jaw. So unfair, so unjust. He's only twenty-one, his sister is only nineteen, and their parents left them so much when they died in that plane crash. Thousands of acres of good farmland. Probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in stocks, and hundreds of thousands more in the bank. Must be that much, from the way the people in the bank over in Corinth fall all over them. And insurance, there must have been insurance.
So unfair. So wealthy, so young . . .
"But, hey, money don't mean nothin'," Saunders was saying. "Me 'n Becky, why, we's jus' honest, Godfearin' folk what don't act uppity 'round our neighbors."
His sarcasm was infuriating. "Vhy you don't take a bath?" Schilder demanded. "Vhy you don't get a haircut?"
"Why you don't mind your own business?" Saunders replied good-naturedly as he took out a cigarette.
"You goddamn bum!" Schilder shouted.
Saunders's face still smiled, but there was no humor in his narrow eyes as he said, "Careful, there, old-timer. We don't want our friend Frank to see his rent go up, now do we?" Schilder was seething, but he forced himself to remain silent as Saunders walked out the door, climbed into his jeep, and drove away toward his mountain.
"Piece of trash," Alex muttered. So much time ahead of him . . . so young . . . so much money . . .
The time passed. Alex rubbed his eyes and then looked up at the wall clock. It was almost seven, and soon what passed for the evening rush would begin; the rush of ten, perhaps fifteen people coming to unwind after a hard day in the fields, after the long commute back home from the factories and offices in Albany and Kingston. Alex looked around the room. The nut rack was filled, the outside light was on, the glasses were clean. He was ready.
Soon Schilder's son-in-law, Frank Bruno, came in with his wife Jacqueline for their evening drink with friends and, perhaps more importantly, to make sure Papa got back to his house safely. They sat down at the bar and smiled at Alex as Bruno said, "Evening, Alex." He sipped the beer that Alex had drawn for him and then asked, "How's business?" The same question, every night.
"Fine, Frank, fine." The same answer.
"Has Pop been behaving himself?" The same humorous small talk.
"Well, he ain't reached his limit yet." Laugh.
Fred and Joanne Wallenstein came in about seven, and the Eggers brothers soon thereafter. Then Walter and Ruth Rihaczeck, the Warshays, old Bill McGee and Mrs. Pullmann, who had been keeping company lately, and a few other townspeople. By eight, business was booming.
"Hey, Alex! 'Smatter, the keg dry?" Laughter, and another sixty cents toward the mortgage.
"You got any beer nuts? Yeah, them there. Gimme three bags."
"Hey, Alex, give us a pitcher and three glasses, will you?" Two dollars for the electric bill.
At around 10:30 Dr. Timothy Ostlich entered the bar and heaved his massive girth onto one of the stools, which seemed to groan beneath it. Ostlich was the town's only physician, and as such had prospered according to the potentials of his trade. His suit was expensive and finely tailored, his fingernails were manicured, his short salt-and-pepper hair was carefully clipped; but any effort he made to be well groomed and dignified was offset by his florid, fleshy face, his multiple chins, and his enormous stomach. He looked around the room and muttered, "Schilder, Rihaczeck, Bruno, Brown . . . Alex, has Imhof been in tonight?"
"No." He shook his head. "I haven't seen him for a few days."
"He's in Syracuse, visiting his son," Bruno said from one of the tables behind Ostlich.
"Well, five out of six . . ." He paused and then said, "Alex, we have a slight problem."
Alex frowned in confusion, and then realized what Ostlich's muttering referred to. Of the six members of the Beckskill town council, five were present in the bar at that moment. Only Mike Imhof was absent. Inasmuch as the town council had only one piece of important business at the moment, Alex surmised the nature of the problem. "The factory? Something has happened?" His voice was suddenly very nervous.
Ostlich turned away from the bar. "Walter, Johann, Frank. Can you come here for a moment?"
"What is it, Doc?" Schilder asked as he drew closer. "Something about the factory," Alex offered.
"Ach, damn de damn factory," Schilder grumbled, and then went back to sit with Reichhardt. "Vhy don't dey just build de damn ting and stop all dis jabbering."
"Don't pay any attention to him," Alex said quickly."Tell us what's wrong?"
"Maybe nothing," Ostlich said. "But . . . " He licked his lips. "Alex, might I . . . ?"
"Yes, yes, of course," he said impatiently as he poured the rotund physician a glass of sherry. "So?" he asked.
"Well," Ostlich began to his raptly attentive audience, "you remember that when the people from Craigo came to scout out a location for the plant, they said the best site—"
"Was old Edith's place," Bruno finished for him. "So what's the problem? She died a few years ago, she didn't have any family, and the town can take over the property just by paying the back taxes to the county. We've all known that, ever since—"
"Frank," Ostlich broke in, "we assumed that Edith Sweet didn't have any family, and we assumed that taxes were owed on the land. But she did have a family—a brother, Vernon. And he's living there in the old house right now!" He mopped his brow. "I just came from trying to talk to him about selling the property to the town. My heart almost stopped when I saw him."
"Vernon Shveet?" Old Man Schilder said from the other end of the bar. He glanced at Reichhardt. "Did I hear dat right? Vernon Shveet has come back?"
"Do you know him, Mr. Schilder?" Ostlich asked.
"I remember vhen he left, back in de tventies," Schilder replied.
"But do you know him, so as to talk to him, to be able to persuade him . . ." Ostlich turned to the others. "As far as I can tell, he has no intention of selling the land."
"What!" Alex cried. "He has to! We are all depending—"
"Take it easy, Alex," Bruno said. "This is a problem, but it isn't unsolvable. We can have the county take the land away and give it us by the—what is it?—the eminent-domain thing, isn't it?"
Everyone turned to Walter Rihaczeck, who was a clerk in the legal department of the Sperry Corporation. He was the closest thing the town had to a resident lawyer. He shook his head. "Right of eminent domain. That takes time, Frank, lawyers and court appearances.
I don't know if Craigo'll wait."
Ostlich turned back to Schilder. "Can you talk to him about this? If you remember him, maybe he remembers you, and—"
"Did you see him, Doc?" Schilder asked.
Ostlich blanched slightly. "Yes, I saw him. God help me, I saw him."
"Ja, so you saw him, so you know vhat he looks like. Vell, let me tell you vhat I remember about Vernon Shveet. His mind is as crazy as his body. He's a mental case, he's stupid, he's simple."
"He's retarded?" Bruno asked.
"Yes, I think he is," Ostlich said. "And he is horribly deformed."
"He vas a monster," Schilder said. "He looked like one of dem tings . . . you know, dem tings on de Cat'lic churches."
"A gargoyle." Ostlich nodded. "Yes, the poor, poor man."
"Ja, the poor, poor man," Schilder mimicked sarcastically. "I remember he vas maybe tventy, tventy-five years old, right before he left town vit dat freak show, he vas playing with himself, right in de middle of de dry-goods store. It vas disgusting."
"If he's retarded, he might not . . ." Bruno began, and then paused. "I mean, he wouldn't know that it was wrong."
"You're missing something there," Rihaczeck said. "If he's retarded, really retarded, he probably isn't competent to make decisions about the property." He looked to Ostlich. "How bad off is he? You said you talked to him, right?"
"I said I tried to talk to him," Ostlich corrected him. "All Sweet did was . . . well, all he did was coo."
"Coo?"
"Yes, like a pigeon or a baby. He made soft little noises." Ostlich seemed a bit ill at ease.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute," Bruno said. "Let's get this all from the beginning. Doc, how did you find out that this Vernon was living in Edith's house?"
Grogo the Goblin Page 4
