by Paul Hawkins
"Why would he do something just to spite you?"
"You know what it is to be young and headstrong – sometimes men just fight to see who's bigger, I guess. Nothing more complicated than two roosters in the same barnyard. But it sure would help the family business now – it would help launch us to great things."
Ernest looked at this man, a man almost the age of his father, a man who had tried on too many careers in his time and was making a new start in the role of sheriff one notch too late in life. His affability seemed forced.
"I have more assets that I can keep track of," Ernest said. "I'll look into it, but if it has to do with land then it probably still belongs to my father."
Larr nodded and smiled. He shook hands again and proceeded on down the street, and White wished once again he did not have to interact with so many people who were parts of his father’s life but not his own.
But it was not the fault of his father when another old face intruded into his life – Ben Sweet. Sweet accosted Ernest one day when he was leaving his law office, splashing on cologne on his way to visit Atalanta.
The dark young man was suddenly at the side of his car. He leaned in the window and his black hair cascaded over his brow. He had been a peer of White’s growing up, a rival and a nemesis in some ways – easier at everything that made one popular back then. He had inherited and squandered a family dry goods business in a spate of youthful intemperance, and his face was worn out more than years alone could account for.
"Why Ernest White," he said, a little slurred. "I reckon that perfume cost more than half the county. Careful how you slosh it on."
"I’m in a hurry, Ben."
"Lend me some money E.L. Times have been rough and I know you’re flush."
Ernest had his hand on the ignition. He paused. "I know what you’ve been through, Ben, and I'm sorry about it, but it takes more than money to fix a life."
"Ernest, remember how we used to be friends..."
A faint flush of color came to Ernest's cheeks. "We were never friends. I appreciate your circumstances, but we both know you used to ride me as much as anyone else. Listen, I have a foundation set up to help in cases like yours. Its administrators are generous and I'm sure if you complete the forms and described your intended use..."
Ben laughed." Use? My use? To eat, E.L. – to feed my family. Isn't that use enough?"
Ernest reached into his pocket and held out some bills. "Here, take it."
The man scowled but took it. "That's fine for a day, Ernest."
Ernest said nothing but turned his car to life. Then he dropped it into gear.
"I thought we used to be friends!" the man shouted after him
"You know better than that," Ernest shouted back as he drove away.
He hurried because he was running late. He steered his white and gold phaeton at reckless speed over to the light rail depot to meet Atalanta. She was just stepping off as he arrived. He jumped out and hurried over but then tried to walk the last few steps looking slow and unworried and calm. He slid into a casual pace beside her.
"Remember how you’ve been bugging me to teach you ballroom?" he said.
"I have not been ‘bugging you.’ I simply said that I bet those girls you’ve met in Europe all know how to dance ballroom and I sometimes feel like it’d be nice to learn just a few steps."
"Uhm-hmm, that’s not how I remember the conversation, but close enough. Now put this on."
He held out a blindfold.
"What?"
"Just put it on. Trust me – I have a surprise."
She looked hard at him, but his face was bland and pleased and smug, and so she grudgingly obliged. After that he led her by the hand into his car, got her seated, and then he dropped it into gear and took them on a short drive at his usual reckless rushed-and-halting pace.
"Ernest..."
After a little more driving he had arrived at their destination and lurched his car to a stop.
"We’re here," he said, "but leave it on. Just a few steps more."
He led her out of the car and she followed him carefully across sidewalk and then onto grass, and she could hear unfamiliar noises all around them faintly, like plucking strings and tuning instruments.
"Ernest..."
"You can take it off now," he said.
She took the blindfold off and looked around. She was standing in the town green, with paper lanterns hanging in the trees all around her winking green and gold, and a make-shift hardwood dance floor had been carefully laid out in the park’s center, and at its end on a dais sat nothing less than a small orchestra of about thirty or so. Townspeople had gathered around the edges of the spectacle and stood watching them. Evening had almost fallen and the conductor of the orchestra turned to him as if waiting for a signal.
"Now," Ernest said.
The conductor understood and raised his baton and immediately and harmoniously the players began, and the music rose on the air, and Atalanta looked at him and he took one of her hands in his and put her other one on his shoulder, and then he placed his other hand on the small of her back.
"Like this," he said. And slowly he began to lead her across the floor.
"Not so forced, not so forced," he said. "That’s it - why, young Missy, have you been dancing ballroom all your life?"
"Ernest White!"
"I do believe I have been duped," he said, still leading her carefully. "You glide like an angel – you’ve made a mockery of me."
She smiled, and he laughed and she laughed too, and he led her gracefully from steps to step, and she fell into the art of it with a natural and unconscious grace, and soon the two moved effortlessly as the band played on. Other people of the town moved on to the floor to join them, some of them oldsters with seldom-exercised but time-taught grace, and some of them younger folks with less skill but enough unselfconsciousness to give it a try, and laugh at themselves as they did so, and Ernest nodded and they smiled and laughed to him.
Atalanta’s eyes were warm and soft and full of love and surprise. "Why Ernest White," she said. "You have astounded me."
"Yes..?"
She smiled and laughed away a few tears. "Is this supposed to be the part where you ask me to marry you?"
His face opened in surprise and quickly caught itself and smiled and sealed. "It should be, shouldn’t it? But no, net yet. You have your father you can’t leave, and I have mine I can’t wait to get away from. And we hardly know each other yet."
"Yes."
"But," he said, and he looked at her and felt time dilate, "but we have each other and we have now, and no one will ever be able to take it from us, will they?"
"No they won’t," she said.
And as they danced he held her closer, and the evening deepened into its own rich time of shadows and stars and lantern lights, and he felt like he never wanted to be away from her again.
*
Oh, and there was still the matter of her.
"Don’t worry about that," Ernest said with a flip of his hand. "I’ve taken care of it. I wrote her a letter."
"A letter?"
"Yes?"
Atalanta looked at Ernest. "You don’t break up with someone in a letter."
"Why not? To tell truth, the idea of her being angry frightens me, so I’d rather do it long distance. And I used nice stationary and phrases like ‘it’s my fault’ and ‘sometimes people need room to grow.’ It was a glowing, eloquent message that nonetheless got straight to the point and made sense."
"You’re an idiot Ernest."
"Hmmm?"
"All you’ve done is sown the wind – you’ll reap the whirlwind. She will be back here and you will have to face her, and you had better have more fortitude than you did when you picked out your breakup stationary at the drugstore."
He looked at her. "I know you’re right – and she’ll be back soon. Her month with her aunt is about over."
Atalanta stared at him with disbelief and disappointment until he reddened.<
br />
"It was fine stationary! It had flowers..."
*
And as summer wore on the weather got hotter and things got more complicated. All the world seemed to be tightening up and growing more irritated with cicadas buzzing high up in the trees and everybody bumping into each other. It made Ernest itch like crazy not knowing if he had misjudged the state of his father. The man just lingered on and that made him yearn to leave.
"You never can tell with these things," the doctor had said, and snapped his satchel shut.
"He tricked me," Ernest muttered. The doctor just about turned and asked him what he had said, but then thought better of it.
Ernest recounted the doctor’s opinion to Atalanta.
"Well you’re glad, aren’t you?"
"Glad? Maybe, in the most philosophical of ways I suppose, but, if he isn’t going to die after all then I want to get the heck out of here."
"You know I can’t leave," she said. "I have to take care of my father."
It was a hot day and Ernest broiled in his suit and leaned forward on the park bench hoping to catch even a little breeze on his face.
"I know. Look, I could pay some local nurse to care for him, and you’d be free."
"It’s not that easy. It’s not just his legs – I’m the only one in his life since mother passed away. I’m the only thing that keeps him from crawling in the bottle completely."
He stared at her. "Maybe he needs a wake-up call."
"Ernest!"
"Maybe if you left he’d finally have to decide if he wants to live or die."
"Ernest White, sometimes I think the most important thing in your life isn’t me but you getting out of here, and you’d sooner leave with her and be free than be with me and stay here and put up with it."
"That’s not true..."
"The people here can be trying, but you’ve got to let them roll off your back," she said. "You think I haven’t learned – the poor little daughter of a widowed railroad man? You think I haven’t felt them looking down their noses at me every day, not good enough for the old names of this town and the crowd that goes to church every Sunday and passes judgment the rest of the week? You have to let them roll off your back, Ernest. People will drive you crazy everywhere."
"These people drive me especially crazy. They’re always wanting things – they know my every raw nerve. They think they know me and half of them think I owe them something."
"Well I hope you’re not going to throw it all that at my feet if I make you stay here."
He looked shocked. "Atalanta no! If I stay here I’ll make them march to my own terms soon enough, I promise. Damn it’s hot."
"Well then you have to decide," she said firmly. "I hear she’s coming back tomorrow."
"I know. Damn it. Let’s break the train rails."
*
The next day was even crazier than the last one. Everyone seemed too tightly wound. He actually had a case to resolve at his office – two sisters each wanted to file a breach of promise suit against the same man – though neither one wanted him.
"He’s a skunk," one said.
"Not just a skunk – a polecat."
Ernest hunched over as he tried to task the deposition.
"Worse than that – a rat. He had your name tattooed on his buttock."
"Well pardon me if he found me tattoo-worthy," one sister said.
"Which buttock?" Ernest asked. "It might be important."
"How could it be important?"
"Look, I don’t know – it may keep him from having to drop his trousers in court. Who’s the lawyer here?"
"The left one." She held out her hands and looked at them as if trying to figure out some spatial reference. "I mean the right one. Look, I don’t know. I never want to see it again."
"Well you sure didn’t have a problem wanting to see it Saturday night!"
"Of all the nerve. I can’t help it if he chose me over you!"
"Help it? Honey, you went out of your way to steal him from me. Don’t think I didn’t have an inkling when you bought that fancy sweater..."
"Whoa – whoa!" Ernest said. "You are jointly suing the respective party, correct? Or am I take to take it you want to sue each other now?"
A long smouldering pause. "Naw, he aint worth havin’."
The other sister nodded. "She’s right – he aint worth having – though he might’ve been if that temptress hadn’t all but thrown herself at him to try to lure him from my bridal bed with her salacious ways and her Hollywood underwear!"
"Your bridal bed? Missy, if you think for half a second he had any intention of actually making good on all his honey talk to you..!"
They got into a hell of a fight right then and there and Ernest could not take dictation quickly enough. Finally he had had it with them and ushered them to the door. "I can’t write up a solution if you two haven’t settled things between yourselves already. You want to nail his hide to a door but there’s nothing I can write up to cover that. Now go out and cool off and come back when you can agree on what to do."
"Some lawyer you are."
"There’s no cure in law for what you want to do. They sell guns and bear-traps down the block. Now come back when you can cool off," he said, and with a forceful hand to each of their backs he steered them out onto the street then shut and bolted the door. Once they were locked outside he took a drink from his flask.
Almost immediately there came a rapping at his door again. He looked up to see Michael, the boy wrapped in metal braces whom he had taken a protective liking to when he was first in town. He was not so sure about the friendship anymore. Michael had proven too cynical for him. He had let himself grow too skeptical and surly inside that cage – he had taken the easy road of hating everybody, of blaming everybody. He cast a pall on White’s mood. He lied too much, and scoffed too much, and drank. But at the boy’s persistence he let him in.
"What is it?"
"Doc said to get you. Your mom asked that you come by – Larr’s over fretting your father again."
"About what?"
"I don’t know. But lately he’s taken to being your old man’s personal devil – chewing his ear off in some soft relentless torment. Doc thinks he wants something."
"Wants what?"
"How should I know? Something he wants to get from a man before he dies."
Ernest scowled at him. "You’re always the bearer of good news."
"Don’t blame me – Doc asked me on behalf of your mother."
"Good God – can’t anyone manage themselves anymore?" White said. He dashed up and took his hat from a stand. Michael pivoted and watched him go.
"So you’ll go out to see him?" Michael asked.
"Yes, because it’s my mother’s request. Do you 100% swear you’re telling me the truth?"
"Why would I lie?"
"To get a rise out of me – you tell too many tall tales lately to get attention – you’ve been drinking."
"That’s neither here nor there," he said. "It takes the edge off me. It makes folks staring at me easier to take."
"Enough with that feeling sorry for yourself shit," he said. With that White turned his back on Michael and hopped in his car and sped away.
White got to the house and sure enough the sheriff’s car was there. His mother let him in and hugged him, but White raised a finger to his lips and stood quietly outside his father’s door to hear what he could. He heard Larr’s slow drawling voice and saw his adoptive father lying in bed in that sickroom’s hot atmosphere of antiseptic and sweat.
"I think your brother Chris would have wanted you to sell me that strip of land."
"Gawd, Noah, you're just fretting over it again because you got nothing else to fuss over anymore. You're sheriff now. You should be happy."
"But it doesn't make up for the family name being taken down a peg. Hell, Larr was a big name in this valley once, but Chris used his fortune to fix that. It'd be nice to be respectable again."
"You are
respectable. And your family’s brought the business back. As to that land, you’re barking up the wrong tree. If it was owned directly by Chris White, then it belongs to E.L."
"He says otherwise."
"Look, he’s a good boy but his head will never substitute for a ledger. I read all the paperwork I signed. I know."
Larr nodded, then his eyes lidded a little. "Say Isaiah, someone said they seen your boy steal a box of tools off the carpenter's truck when it was back of Parker's house."
"Ernest?"
"Naw, not E.L. - your colored boy - your hired boy."
"Ash aint exactly a boy anymore, and he wouldn't steal no tools. Some folks are just looking to make him trouble."
"He found trouble then brought it back here. Look Ike, you don't need to stick your neck out protecting folks you owe no allegiance."
The sick man's face soured and weakened like a creased pillow case. "Ash was good to me when no one else was. Sure he’s seen trouble, but he was here for me before Chris struck it rich – before anyone would have anything to do with us, he helped me out."
"That’s because no one else would have him. He has a checkered history, Isaiah."
"So does the whole world. Look, I don’t know what you’re angling at, but don't come around just to trouble me, Noah. I'm not well. The doctor found something wrong in my stomach but says I'm too weak to operate on. I won't let the boy see how weak I am, though."
"Ash?"
"No, E.L. – it'd give him no end of pleasure. My misery has always given him pleasure because he thought it confirmed a weakness about me."
"Sometimes I think you give your brother's son too much consideration, Ike. He's always been thankless."
"I've done what I could. I have to think about my own mortality now. Noah, please go jawbone down at the hotel if you're full of the word. But don't worry me about Ash or trouble me about E.L. I'm sick and tired. I haven't been able to leave this bed for a week."
"Very well, Ike. I'm sorry to have disturbed you. But that boy of yours had better watch himself."
"Ash?"
"Naw, E.L."
"E.L. didn't inherit the common sense God give a junebug, but he wouldn't do anyone any harm – not knowingly. Don't trouble me about that boy. I tried my Lord's best by him but now I'm through."
