"Getting a little shabby," said Marshall.
The curtain was patched a lot, and there were some tears and holes that hadn't been patched yet.
"It's shabby at noon, Daddy," said Toolie. "At night it's good enough." Toolie sounded a little impatient.
"We need a new one."
"While we're wishing, we need a new truck a lot more," said Ollie.
Toolie turned to him—looking a little angry, it seemed to Deaver, though he couldn't think why Toolie should be mad. "We don't need a new truck, we just need to take better care of this one. Deaver here says it isn't carbureting right."
All of a sudden the cheerfulness went right out of Ollie's face. He turned to Deaver with eyes like ice. "Oh, really?" said Ollie. "Are you a mechanic?"
"I used to drive a truck," said Deaver. He couldn't believe that all of a sudden he was in the middle of a family argument. "I'm probably wrong."
"Oh, you're right enough," said Ollie. "But see, I take all the huge amounts of money they give me to buy spare parts and use it all up in every saloon and whorehouse in the fringe, so the engine just never gets repaired."
Ollie looked too mad to be joking, but what he was saying couldn't possibly be true. There weren't any saloons or whorehouses in the fringe.
"I'm just saying we can't afford a new truck, or a curtain either," said Toolie. He looked embarrassed, but then he deserved to—he had as much as accused Ollie of doing a lousy job with the truck.
"If that's what you were doing," said Ollie, "why'd you have to get Teague here on your side?"
Deaver wanted to grab him and shout straight into his face: I'm not on anybody's side. I'm not part of your family and I'm not part of this argument. I'm just a range rider who needed a lift into town and helped you unload eight tons of junk in exchange for breakfast.
Toolie was trying to calm things down, it looked like, only he wasn't very good at it. "I'm just trying to tell you and Father that we're broke, and talking about new curtains and new trucks is like talking about falling into a hole in the ground and it turns out to be a gold mine. It just isn't going to happen."
"I was just talking," said Ollie.
"You were getting sarcastic and nasty, that's what you were doing," said Toolie.
Ollie just stood there for a second, like some really terrible words were hanging there in his mind, waiting to get flung out where they could really hurt somebody. But he didn't say a thing. Just turned around and walked away, around the back end of the truck.
"There he is, off in a huff again," said Toolie. He looked at his father with a bitter half-smile. "I don't know what I did, but I'm sure it's all my fault he's mad."
"What you did," said Marshall, "was humiliate him in front of his friend."
It took Deaver a moment to realize Marshall was referring to him. The idea of being Ollie's friend took Deaver by surprise. Was that why Ollie worked so close to him so much of the morning, teaching him how the electrical stuff was done—because they were friends? Somehow Deaver'd got himself turned from a total stranger into a friend without anybody so much as asking him if he minded or if he thought it was a good idea.
"You need to learn to be sensitive to other people, Toolie," said Marshall. "Thank heaven you don't lead this company, the way you do what you like without a thought for your brother's feelings. You just run roughshod over people, Toolie."
Marshall never exactly raised his voice. But he was precise and cruel as he went on and on. Deaver was plain embarrassed to watch Toolie get chewed on. Toolie did kind of pick a fight with Ollie, but he didn't deserve this kind of tongue-lashing, and it sure didn't help matters much to have Deaver standing there watching. But Deaver couldn't figure how to get away without it looking like he disapproved. So he just stood there, kind of looking between Marshall and Toolie so he didn't meet anybody's eyes.
Over at the truck, Katie was sitting on the top of the pyramid, sewing. Dusty and Janie were setting up the fireworks for the end of the show. Ollie had the hood open, fiddling with something inside. Deaver figured he could probably hear every word Marshall said, chewing out Toolie. He could imagine Ollie smiling that mean little smile of his. He didn't like thinking about it, particularly knowing that Ollie thought of him as a friend. So he let his gaze wander to the pyramid, and he watched as Katie worked.
It seemed an odd thing, to sit so high, right in the sun, when there was plenty of shade to sit in. It occurred to Deaver that Katie might be on top of the pyramid just so he'd be sure to see her. But that was pure foolishness. What happened this morning didn't mean a thing—not her talking to him, not her pressing close to him, meant nothing. He must be a plain fool to imagine a smart good-looking woman like her was paying heed to him in the first place. She was on top of the pyramid cause she liked to look out over the town.
She raised her hand and waved to him.
Deaver didn't dare wave back—Marshall was still going strong, ragging on Toolie about things that went back years ago. Deaver looked away from Katie and saw how Toolie just took it, didn't even show anger in his face. Like he switched off all his emotions while his father talked to him.
Finally it ended. Marshall had finally wound down and now he stood there, waiting for Toolie to answer. And all Toolie said was, "Sorry, sir." Not angry, not sarcastic, just simple and clean as can be. Sorry, sir. Marshall stalked off toward the truck.
As soon as his father was out of earshot, Toolie turned to Deaver. "I'm sorry you had to hear that."
Deaver shrugged. Had no idea what to say.
Toolie gave a bitter little laugh. "I get that all the time. Except that Father likes it better when there's somebody there to watch."
"I don't know about fathers," said Deaver.
Toolie grinned. "Daddy doesn't live by the standards of other men. Mere logic, simple fairness—those are the crutches of men with inferior understanding." Then Toolie's face grew sad. "No, Deaver, I love my father. This isn't about Ollie or how I treat him, just like what I said to Ollie wasn't about the truck. I'm too much like my dad and he knows it and that's what he hates about me." Toolie looked around him, as if to see what needed doing. "I guess I better head to town for the official permit, and you need to get in there and report to Moab, don't you?"
"Guess so."
Toolie stopped with his mother to see if she needed anything from town. Scarlett recited a list, mostly staples—flour, salt, honey. Things they could get without paying, cause it was their right to have it from the community storehouse. As they talked, Ollie came by and tossed a dirty air filter at Toolie's chest. "I need a new air filter just like that one only clean."
"Where are you going, Laurence?" asked Scarlett.
"To sleep," he said. "I was up all night driving, in case you forgot." Ollie started to walk away.
"What about brake linings?" asked Toolie.
"Yeah, see if they've got a mechanic who can do that." Ollie ducked into a tent. Anger was still thick in the air. Deaver noticed that Scarlett didn't even ask why.
She finished telling her list to Toolie, sometimes talking over what they would probably get donated by the audience in a place like Hatchville. Then Toolie set out, Deaver in tow. Deaver wanted to take his saddle with him, but Toolie talked him out of it. "If they tell you to get a ride today, your cab driver can come out and pick it up. And if you end up riding to Moab with us day after tomorrow, you might as well leave the saddle here." As if he was holding the saddle hostage to make sure Deaver came back.
Deaver wasn't sure why he didn't just say no thanks and then pick up the saddle and carry it with him anyway. He knew they hadn't wanted him in the first place, and it was just good manners or maybe guilt or embarrassment or something that made Toolie want to keep the saddle so Deaver had to come back at least one more time. Funny thing, though: Deaver didn't mind. It had been a long time since anybody went to any trouble to try to get him to stay with them. Them saying he was Ollie's friend. The way Katie treated him. That was part of it. A lot more
of his feeling came out of just working alongside them, helping unload the truck and set up for the show. Deaver had enough sweat spilled in this field that he really wasn't hoping to leave for Moab today. He wanted to see what all the fuss was about. He wanted to see the show. That's all it was, nothing more.
Yet even as he reached that conclusion, he knew it was a lie. Sure, he wanted to see the show, but there was something more. An old hunger, one so deep and ancient, so long unsatisfied that Deaver mostly forgot he was even hungry. Like some part of his soul had already starved to death. Only something was happening here to wake up that old hunger, and he couldn't go away without seeing if somehow maybe it could be satisfied. Not Katie. Or not just Katie, anyway. Something more. Maybe by the time he left for Moab, he'd find out what it was he wanted so bad that it made his dream of joining Royal's Riders seem kind of faint and far away.
He and Toolie walked a direct route to the town hall, not winding through the whole village the way they had that morning. There were still children excited to see them, though. "Who are you!" they called. "Are you Noah? Are you Jesus? Are you Armstrong?"
Toolie waved at them, smiled, and usually told them. "No, my daddy plays that part."
"Are you Alma?"
"Yes, that's one of the parts I play."
"What's the show tonight?"
"Glory of America."
All the way through town Deaver noticed how bright-eyed the children were, how daring they thought it was to talk right to somebody from the pageant wagon.
"Sounds like your show's the biggest thing they ever see," Deaver said.
"Kind of sad, isn't it?" said Toolie. "In the old days, a show like this—it would've been nothing."
Deaver went with Toolie into the mayor's office. The secretary had neat, close-cropped hair. Plainly he was the kind of man who never spent a week without a barber—or a day without a bath, probably. Deaver wasn't sure whether he despised or envied the man.
"I'm with the pageant wagon," said Toolie, "and I need to change our temporary permit to a regular one." Deaver saw how he put on an especially humble-but-cheerful tone, and he couldn't help but think that his own life would have been a lot easier if he'd only learned how to act like that toward his foster parents or the bishops of the wards he lived in. Of course, Toolie only had to act like that for a few minutes today, while Deaver would've had to keep it up for days and weeks and years on end. Like crossing your eyes—sure, you can do it, but keep it up too long and you get a headache.
And then he thought how when he was little, somebody told him that if you cross your eyes too often they'll stick that way. What if acting all humble and sweet worked that way? What if it got to be such a habit you forgot you were acting, the way Marshall's and Scarlett's fancy acting voices came out of their mouths even when they were picking up a range rider in the middle of the night. Do you become whatever you act like?
Deaver had plenty of time to think about all this, because the secretary didn't say a word for the longest time. He just sat there and eyed Toolie up and down, not showing any expression at all on his very clean and untanned face. Then he looked at Deaver. He didn't exactly ask a question, but Deaver knew what he was asking anyway.
"I'm a range rider," Deaver said. "They picked me up out on the road. I need to call Moab."
A range rider—town people pretty much despised them, but at least they knew what to do with them. "You can go right in there and call." The secretary indicated an empty office. "The sheriff's out on a call."
Deaver went on into the office and sat at the desk. An old salvage desk—might be one of the ones he found and brought in himself in the old days when he was a kid. Not ten years ago.
He couldn't get an operator—the line was tied up—and as he waited, he could hear what went on in the other room.
"Here's our family business license from Zarahemla," Toolie was saying. "If you just look us up in the business database—"
"Fill out the forms," said the secretary.
"We are licensed by the state of Deseret, sir," said Toolie. Still polite, still humble.
There was no answer. Deaver leaned over the desk and saw Toolie sitting down, filling out the forms. Deaver understood why Toolie was doing it, all right—giving in to get along. This was how the secretary proved he was in charge. This was how he made sure the show gypsies knew they didn't belong here, that they had no rights here. So Toolie would fill out the forms, and as soon as he was gone the secretary would call up the business database, verify their license, and throw out the forms. Or maybe he'd go through the forms line by line, looking for some contradiction, some mistake, so he could have grounds to throw the pageant wagon out of Hatchville. And it wasn't right. The Aal family had natural troubles all their own, they didn't need some short-haired overwashed flunky in the mayor's office adding to their trouble supply.
For a moment, pure rage flowed through Deaver, just like this morning when Marshall put his arm around him and called him son. His arms trembled, his toes pumped up and down, like he was getting ready to dance or wrestle—or punch some power-hungry bastard right in the face and break his nose and cover him with his own blood, mat it in his hair, all over his clothes, so even when he didn't hurt so bad, there'd be stains in his shirt to remind him that people can only be pushed so far and then one day they bust out and do something about it, show you what all your power's good for—
And then Deaver got it under control, calmed himself down. There was no shortage of volunteer self-trained sons-of-bitches in the world, and this secretary wasn't the worst of them, not close. Toolie was doing the right thing, bowing down and letting the man feel important. Letting him have the victory now, so that the family would have the greater victory later. Cause when they left this town, the Aals would still be themselves, still be a family, while this secretary, he wouldn't have a speck of power over them. That was freedom, the power to leave whenever you wanted to. Deaver understood that kind of power. It was the only kind he'd ever had or ever wanted.
He finally got an operator and told him who he was and who he needed to talk to and why. It took the operator forever to check the computer and verify that Deaver was indeed a range rider and that he was therefore authorized to make an unlimited number of calls to regional headquarters in Moab. At last he got through. It was Meech, the regular dispatcher.
"Got the scrapings?" asked Meech.
"Yeah."
"Fine, then. Come on in."
"Quick?"
"Not quick enough to pay money for. Just catch a ride. No hurry."
"Two, three days all right?"
"No rush. Except I got approval here for you to apply to Royal's Riders."
"Why the hell didn't you say so, dickhead!" cried Deaver into the phone. He'd been on that waiting list for three years.
"I didn't want you to wet your pants right off, that's why," said Meech. "Please note that this is just permission to apply."
How could Deaver tell him that he never expected to get permission even for that? He figured that was the way they'd freeze non-Mormons out, by keeping them from applying for the job in the first place.
"And I got about five guys, Teague, asking if you'll transfer your right to apply. They're pretty eager."
It was legal to sign over your spot to somebody farther down the list—it just wasn't legal to accept money for it. Still, the outrider waiting list was long, and there were bound to be some men on it who never meant to apply, who signed up just to make a little money selling their spot when it came along. Deaver knew that if he said yes and Meech gave him the names of those eager applicants, he'd start getting promises and favors. What he wouldn't get, though, was another chance to apply. "No thanks, Meech."
The secretary appeared in the doorway, glowering. "Just a second," Deaver said, and put his hand over the phone. "What is it?"
"Are you aware of the public decency laws?" asked the secretary.
It took a second for Deaver to figure out what he was talking
about. Had the secretary heard Meech hint about selling the right to apply? No—it was the public decency laws the secretary was talking about. Deaver thought back over his phone conversation. He must have said hell too loud. And even though dickhead wasn't on the statutory list, it fit quite easily under "other crude or lascivious expressions or gestures."
"Sorry," he said.
"I hope you're very sorry."
"I am." He did his best to imitate the humble way Toolie'd been talking before. It was especially hard because he was suddenly in the mood to start laughing out loud—they were going to let him apply to the outriders!—and he figured the secretary wouldn't like it if Deaver suddenly laughed. "Very sorry, sir." He picked up that sir bit from Toolie, too.
"Because in Hatchville we don't wink at sin."
In Hatchville you probably don't piss, either, you just hold it all inside until you die. But Deaver didn't say it, just looked right at the secretary as calmly as he could until the man finally took his unbearable burden of righteousness back to his desk.
That's all Deaver needed, a misdemeanor arrest right when he was about to apply to be an outrider. "You still hanging on there, Meech?"
"By my fingernails."
"I'll be there in two days. I've got my saddle."
"Ain't you cool."
"Am too."
"Are not."
"See you, Meech."
"Give your erosion reports to the reporter there, OK?"
"Got it," said Deaver. He hung up.
The secretary grudgingly told him where the reporter's office was. Of course the reporter wasn't transmitting—that was done at night, over the same precious phone lines used for voice calls during the day. But he'd enter it into the computer today, and he didn't look thrilled at getting even Deaver's relatively slim notebook.
"All these coordinates," said the reporter.
"It's my job to write them down," said Deaver.
"You're very good at it," said the reporter. "Yesterday's desert, today's grass, tomorrow's farm." It was the slogan of the new lands. It meant the conversation was over.
Folk of the Fringe Page 17
