Cold Flat Junction didn’t have a center: no “main road” lined with stores, just a few scattered ones, like the diner and the filling station. There were the white clapboard schoolhouse and the church, and Rudy’s Bar and Grille that I’d seen before, and the post office, but there wasn’t any central point. It was as if Cold Flat were waiting for something to give it shape. There wasn’t a courthouse, and I didn’t recall seeing a police station, either. I knew the Sheriff got called to Cold Flat on a regular basis to break up fights and so forth, which was probably the only form of entertainment they had, and which probably took place mainly in Rudy’s Bar and Grille. There wasn’t even a movie house; that alone would have wiped the place off my map.
As I walked a runnel of path made by people who’d tramped down the earth to a smoothness between the station and “town,” I thought about how I was going to get my information. Remembering all of the arguing in the diner when I’d asked about the Tidewaters, I didn’t think it would be hard to get people to talk; the problem was getting them to agree. I didn’t want to be too direct; I didn’t want to just come out and ask for Jude Stemple. So I was trying to make up another first name that would throw people off that it was Jude I wanted to talk to. I wanted a name that probably didn’t exist among the Stemples—which was why I discarded Bob and Tom and so forth. As I came closer to the Windy Run Diner I was rejecting most names. Names from the Bible were good, but my knowledge of the Bible being what it was, I had to really think hard to bring any up.
I was right outside the Windy Run when I finally settled on Abel (Cain being too famous and too unpopular). A gust of wind coursed down the narrow road, blew my hair in my face, and sent leaves and sandwich wrappers and circulars skittering around the steps. I went through the louvered door and up to the counter, where I sat down and pulled a menu from between a sugar jar and salt and pepper shakers. I read it over, top to bottom, seeing “Louise Snell, Prop.” at the head.
Louise Snell must’ve wanted everyone to know she owned the diner. Then I replaced the menu, and without trying to seem interested, I glanced about the room and recognized a few of the dozen or so people sitting there. I recalled the woman with the thick glasses, and the heavy one named Billy. Also, the couple in one of the booths looked familiar. But then, it wasn’t strange that they’d all be here, since it was the same time of day as before. Customers did that in the Rainbow, too. You could pretty much guess where the Wood boys would be at noon, or Miss Ruth Porte every evening at six, or Dodge Haines at three. I guess it makes you comfortable, knowing where you’ll be at a certain time and in a certain place. I know it does me. Clockwork habits make me feel safer.
There really must not have been much going on in Cold Flat Junction, for the waitress remembered me. “Well, hi there, sugar. Your folks get their car fixed up okay?”
A gravelly voiced man down at the end of the counter shouted, “If it’s Toots worked on it, probably it’s still up on the lift.” He thought this was terribly funny, and so did a couple of others in blue cloth caps. Toots must be the garage mechanic, I supposed.
I didn’t care to be so well remembered, but I just said yes and studied the menu. I decided to order a hot roast beef sandwich to see if it was really as “common” as my mother said. I couldn’t even remember having had one before. I asked for a Coke, too. I hoped the waitress wouldn’t ask me any more questions, for I couldn’t remember exactly what I’d said in here, except for asking about the Tidewaters. And I hoped they didn’t remember that, as it might seem strange that here I was again, asking now about the Stemples. I decided not to say anything until after I’d eaten my sandwich and give them a little while to get used to my presence. And since nobody brought up the Tidewaters, and whether I’d found Toya, I was fairly sure they didn’t remember. What they did was cast glances my way, but pretty soon they even got bored with doing that and went back to asking for refills on coffee. The heavyset woman asked Louise about “Betsy”—had she got over that cold? Louise answered no, she’s still sick and missing school. Betsy, I decided, must be Louise’s daughter.
I read my paper placemat so I’d have something to do. It was a collection of pretty easy puzzles, such as join-the-dots. I looked up when I heard a series of clicking noises. There was a partially open door off beyond the counter, and I saw the end of a pool table and a skinny kid in a white T-shirt with the short sleeves rolled up, I guessed to show off his muscles, what there were of them. He held a cue stick upright and was smoking a cigarette in quick jabs. Another boy came into view, then, and he was taller and even skinnier than the first, as if he’d been pulled, head to toe, like taffy. I hadn’t noticed the poolroom when I was here before; maybe the door had been closed. The noise came from the clicking of the billiard balls.
It was then that the waitress, Louise, set my hot roast beef sandwich before me. Steam gusted from its surface in a way my mother would have approved of. The sandwich was lathered in dark gravy, which was also poured over the floury-looking potatoes and into a deep little well in the center. It looked really good for something “common.” I ate and watched the boys in the poolroom, only occasionally flicking glances towards the other customers around the counter, especially Billy, for he was the one making the most noise. Billy would reach out for Louise whenever she passed on her way to the kitchen or the coffee maker. She’d slap his hand away and he’d laugh as if this were the funniest thing. Well, it was the same way Dodge Haines and a couple of others acted in the Rainbow around Charlene and Maud. I guessed it must be standard diner-café behavior; it must be that a lot of men don’t feel manly if they just sit and drink their coffee and talk—they have to grab the waitresses and act like comedians. I had never seen the Sheriff stoop to grabbing and patting. That was a comforting thought.
When Louise came to take away my empty plate (how could I have eaten it all?) and asked me did I want some fresh rhubarb pie? (my mouth puckered at the thought) I told her no, thanks, and asked if she knew anyone named Abel Stemple who I’d heard lived in Cold Flat Junction.
“Abel Stemple? Now let me think.” She screwed up her face and looked towards the ceiling in a cartoon version of Somebody Thinking.
Billy got into it, as I thought he would. “You say Abel Stemple, little lady?”
(I hated being called “little lady.”)
“Ain’t no Abel Stemple. I never heard of no Abel; did you, Don Joe?” And he turned to one of the men wearing a blue cap.
Don Joe scrubbed and scraped at his whiskers, coughed, and said no, he never.
Billy then asked Tiny, the other man in the other blue cap, who shook his head and kept his eyes on the counter. Billy was pretty much taking possession of the name now, and he sort of rolled it out to each of the others in the diner, as if it was one of the billiard balls. He seemed happy, relieved almost, to have this task of making sure there wasn’t an Abel Stemple in Cold Flat Junction. He confirmed this fact with each of the customers.
“You sure that’s the name?” he asked of me. “You sure Abel’s the name? We got Stemples living here”— and he rounded up a lot of head nods and people saying yes, they did, and that’s right— “but no Abel, I don’t think.”
So I pretended to uncertainty. I scratched my head and squinted up my eyes in an effort of remembrance. “Well, I think it’s Abel. I must be wrong. Maybe it was . . . Abner?”
Billy shook his head decisively, sure of his ground now, sure that I was asking after Stemples that had never been seen to walk this earth, and I was dead wrong.
“Only Stemples I know lives down a ways on Lonemeadow Road,” said the thick woman sitting between Billy and me at the counter. Light reflected off the lens of her glasses, so that I wasn’t sure she was looking at me. There was that same road again, and I hoped it wouldn’t remind them I’d also been asking about the Tidewaters. Funny, but I’d all but forgotten completely about Toya Tidewater.
That started a disagreement, just as it had over the Tidewaters. But that was all right, for
it took attention away from me. No one had asked, or seemed to care about, why I wanted to know. Even though this was eating up precious time (it being now a quarter to three), I let them argue. There were, I thought, plenty of Stemples to go around. Another bunch of them lived, according to the man and wife sitting in the booth, over at Red Coon Rock. Then there was a family often (Louise thought) on a farm just off Sweetwater Road, and she talked about most of the ten as she wiped and wiped the counter. But it was Billy who put his foot down that I most likely wanted the Stemple that had the place in Flyback Hollow.
Well, he was right, for in another second he said, “Jude Stemple. At least, Jude can tell you if there’s an Abel, but take my word there ain’t and never was. Not in Cold Flat Junction, there ain’t. Maybe it’s a Stemple packed up and left. Still, I been living in Cold Flat all my life and I expect I’d of knowed if there ever was an Abel Stemple.” His look at me was hard and narrow, as if I’d called his memory into question.
Again, I pretended to consider. “You know, maybe that’s the name. Where’s Flyback Hollow?” (Billy had pronounced it “Holler,” which momentarily confused me.) I hoped no one would perk up and ask me why I wanted to know.
But they were all too interested in giving directions, and all disagreeing as to where this Flyback Hollow was. I thought, good heavens, with Cold Flat Junction being as small and depopulated as it was, I couldn’t imagine everyone in it not knowing every square inch. Finally, though, Billy commanded them all to be quiet and told me that I was to go along Windy Run out there, down past Rudy’s bar and right along to where the school was and then to go off in a kind of westerly direction until I saw Dubois Road, and to keep on that for a ways until I came to “the Holler.”
I balled up my paper napkin and thanked them all very much and slid off my stool.
“Where you from, dear?” asked the woman in the booth. I was afraid someone would. I couldn’t remember what I’d said before, so I told the truth and said La Porte, and that kind of brought down the house.
“You are?” said the heavyset woman at the counter. “Why, Billy, that’s where they found that dead woman!”
“I guess I know where they found that woman, God’s sakes. I happen to know the po-lice over there. That sheriff you got—DeGhyne?—I knowed him for years.”
“Oh, stop talkin’ just a minute, Billy, and let the girl speak,” said the heavy woman.
Louise’s eyes had gotten really big. “Go on, sugar, and tell us whatever happened over there. I mean, did they find out if that woman got murdered, or what?”
Again, I screwed up my eyes and looked blank. “What woman’s that?”
THIRTY-ONE
I was glad that I had my money out with my check, so that I could simply slap it down by the cash register (the cashier was the same one, and he was still reading a comic book) and bang out the door calling back “Thank you, thank you,” for they all looked a little dumbstruck to hear a person, even a kid (since kids were generally supposed never to know what was going on around them)—to hear that anyone who was living around where a body was found (maybe murdered) would not have heard about it. I could see, in my hurry to leave, that mouths were beginning to form questions and hands were beginning to motion to me.
I couldn’t understand this. La Porte was, after all, only fifteen or twenty minutes away, and why, if this was so fascinating to them, didn’t they just all pile on the Tabernacle bus and go there?
But then I thought no: They wanted news; they sat around and waited for news; they hoped for news. But that didn’t mean they were going to go out and get news. They did not leave the Windy Run Diner to search out news, no matter how fascinating. It was like what we called, or used to call, Living Pictures. As I scuffed along the road called Windy Run, kicking up pebbles, I was thinking this. It was such a strange notion, I stopped in front of Rudy’s Bar and Grille and frowned over it. Living Pictures was something we used to do in school when I was little and in the first or second grade. What would happen was, a child (or even two, depending on the picture) would be dressed up in costume, for instance, to look like the Blue Boy or some other famous subject in a painting. The child would sit or stand inside a huge box, which was supposed to be the picture frame. This box was covered on one side (the audience side, for it was an entertainment) with some sort of gauzy material that you could see through, but as if you were seeing through smoke. Living Pictures was quite effective.
What I thought now, though it was a strange notion, was that all of the people inside the Windy Run Diner might have been in one of these Living Pictures. It was all like what is called, I think, a “tableau.” They talked and moved, that’s true. But there was this strange feeling I had that whatever they did, they didn’t do in the outside world, that being the world beyond the Windy Run Diner. And so they would not leave the diner to go out and get some “news,” no matter how interesting it might be. I thought about this staring at the plate glass window of Rudy’s.
Rudy’s was a clapboard house with a tilted front porch and signs in the window advertising “Dogs—Burgers—Suds,” another big sign about the county fair in Cloverly (a much bigger town with a fairground), and a blue neon tube formed into writing that said “Beer—Eats.”
I walked on down the road, then, and noticed a sign on my left that had an arrow pointing the way to Red Coon Rock (home, I understood, to some branch of the Stemple family). I looked off in that direction, past square houses, and beyond them, across the flat, beige landscape. Where in that land would there ever be an outcropping of rock, at least enough to earn it a name? Near home, we had a place called Chimney Rock, which was farther up in the mountains and was a great, huge slab of rock surrounded by other huge rocks. But for the life of me, I couldn’t imagine more than stones and pebbles out there where I was looking now.
Soon I came to Schoolhouse Road and saw the place where Mrs. Davidow must come for the Hotel Paradise eggs. Henhouses sat in rows in the backyard. From this distance they looked like plantings in furrowed earth. I could hear the hens, too; warm clucks wafted on chilly wind, kindly clucks, slow and easy like old people over tea, like Miss Flyte and Miss Flagler (who probably wouldn’t appreciate the comparison).
Not very far from the henhouses was the schoolhouse where I had played pick-up-sticks with the silent girl, the pick-up-sticks champion. The playground ran along the side of the school, and in it now stood a boy, maybe seven or eight, alone there, his arms wrapped around a basketball or volleyball. Since he was standing near the high-up hoop, I guessed he must have been trying to toss it through, but not now: he stood perfectly still there with the ball hard against his narrow chest, looking at me.
In another moment, a woman in a dark dress came out of the door at the rear of the school and stood at the top of the stone steps. She was too far off for me to make out anything about her, except for the black dress that looked out of place against its background of white school and pearl-colored sky. With her hand shading her eyes, she looked all around, as if searching for someone. I thought she must be looking for the boy, but she gave no sign of it as she looked in his direction, and he, anyway, was looking still at me. At last she dropped her hand, but still stood there looking around; and then, finally, she turned and walked back through the door, which I could hear shut softly behind her.
And it was like that as I walked farther—I mean, as far as the few people I saw were concerned: I didn’t see any of them up close, but rather sitting on stoops, or walking, or maybe by their cars, or a child here or there playing with something I couldn’t make out. But they seemed to be people always holding you at a distance, like the dark blue line of the woods, far off.
I came to the end of Schoolhouse Road and walked along one that didn’t seem to be marked. The only house I passed was a big one with yellow shutters sitting on a large lot and with flowerbeds, which was unusual for Cold Flat Junction. There were climbing roses growing up one side of the door and ivy half-covering the other side. Some fla
t boxes of tomato-plant seedlings sat on the porch.
I didn’t have the time, really, to be dawdling about this way, lingering before schools and houses. Already it was three o’clock, which gave me only an hour or so before I’d have to be getting back to the station. I found the Dubois Road sign a little farther along and just kept walking its dusty, unpaved length until what few houses there were fell away, to be replaced by a couple of rusty mobile homes with rusty tricycles overturned in the front yards. After that there was nothing for a while except, ahead of me, trees and undergrowth. I was surprised by the trees, for in my gaze across toward the horizon, the trees surrounding all of this flat land appeared to have been much, much farther away. Here, though, was a little pocket of them—oaks and maybe sumacs (I knew nothing about trees)—that stretched back and got thicker, with branches overhanging the narrow road that got harder and more rutted. It must have been difficult for cars to go back and forth. Finally, I came to a hand-lettered sign in the shape of an arrow, whose whitewashed paint had mostly worn away. It said Flyback Hollow. So this was it.
Billy had mentioned that not many people lived in this part of Cold Flat, and I didn’t come to any house at all in another five minutes of walking. Then off to my right I saw a small gray shingle house, and in another three or four minutes came on a queer place that had originally been a log cabin and now had a shingled wing added on to it. It stood on what must have been an acre or more of land, but it was hard to tell where the land ended, what with the trees behind it. On the sinking porch lay a mongrel dog, who looked up when I came along and perked its ears, but made no sound. It was probably old. There was a lot of junk out in front—two-by-fours, boxes of building stuff—and I thought this must be Jude Stemple’s, as it looked like a lot of carpentry might be going on. I heard the slow, regular thwack, thwack of wood being chopped, and followed the sound, and the picket fence, around in back. And there was Jude Stemple, chopping firewood.
Hotel Paradise Page 27
