Chapter 17
A few days before the end-of-year testing cycle began, Ellen Dockerty summoned me to her office. After she closed the door, she said: “I’m sorry for the trouble I’ve caused, George, but if I had it to do over again, I’m not sure I would behave any differently.”
“Clause Twenty-five of the Texas School Administrative Code,” she said, as if that explained everything.
“I beg your pardon, Ellie?”
“Nina Wallingford was the one who brought it to my attention.” Nina was the district nurse.
She put tens of thousands of miles on her Ford Ranch Wagon each school year circling Denholm County’s eight schools, three of them still of the one- or two-room variety.
“Clause Twenty-five concerns the state’s rules for immunization in schools.
It covers teachers as well as students, and Nina pointed out she didn’t have any immunization records for you.
No medical records of any kind, in fact. ”
And there it was. The fake teacher exposed by his lack of a polio shot. Well, at least it wasn’t my advanced knowledge of the Rolling Stones, or inappropriate use of disco slang.
“You being so busy with the Jamboree and all, I thought I’d write to the schools where you’d taught and save you the trouble.
What I got back from Florida was a letter stating that they don’t require immunization records from substitutes.
What I got from Maine and Wisconsin was ‘Never heard of him.’ ”
She leaned forward behind her desk, looking at me. I couldn’t meet her gaze for long. What I saw in her face before I redirected my gaze to the backs of my hands was an unbearable sympathy.
“Would the State Board of Education care that we had hired an imposter? Very much. They might even institute legal action to recoup your year’s salary.
Do I care? Absolutely not. Your work at DCHS has been exemplary.
What you and Sadie did for Bobbi Jill Allnut was absolutely wonderful, the kind of thing that garners State Teacher of the Year nominations. ”
“Thanks,” I muttered. “I guess.”
“I asked myself what Mimi Corcoran would do. What Meems said to me was, ‘If he had signed a contract to teach next year and the year after, you’d be forced to act. But since he’s leaving in a month, it’s actually in your interest—and the school’s—to say nothing.
’ Then she added, ‘But there’s one person who has to know he’s not who he says he is. ’ ”
Ellie paused.
“I told Sadie that I was sure you’d have some reasonable explanation, but it seems you do not.”
I glanced at my watch. “If you’re not firing me, Miz Ellie, I ought to get back to my period five class. We’re diagramming sentences. I’m thinking of trying them on a compound that goes, I am blameless in this matter, but I cannot say why. What do you think? Too tough?”
“Too tough for me, certainly,” she said pleasantly.
“One thing,” I said. “Sadie’s marriage was difficult. Her husband was strange in ways I don’t want to go into. His name is John Clayton. I think he might be dangerous. You need to ask Sadie if she has a picture of him, so you’ll know what he looks like if he shows up and starts asking questions.”
“And you think this because?”
“Because I’ve seen something like it before. Will that do?”
“I suppose it will have to, won’t it?”
That wasn’t a good enough answer. “Will you ask her?”
“Yes, George.” She might mean it; she might only be humoring me. I couldn’t tell.
I was at the door when she said, as if only passing the time of day: “You’re breaking that young woman’s heart.”
“I know,” I said, and left.
2
Mercedes Street. Late May.
“Welder, are you?”
I was standing on the porch of 2706 with the landlord, a fine American named Mr. Jay Baker.
He was stocky, with a huge gut he called the house that Shiner built.
We had just finished a quick tour of the premises, which Baker had explained to me was “Prime to the bus stop,” as if that made up for the sagging ceilings, water-stained walls, cracked toilet tank, and general air of decrepitude.
“Night watchman,” I said.
“Yeah? That’s a good job. Plenty of time to fuck the dog on a job like that.”
This seemed to require no response.
“No wife or kiddies?”
“Divorced. They’re back East.”
“Pay hellimony, do you?”
I shrugged.
He let it go. “So do you want the place, Amberson?”
“I guess so,” I said, and sighed.
He took a long rent-book with a floppy leather cover out of his back pocket. “First month, last month, damage deposit.”
“Damage deposit? You have to be kidding.”
Baker went on as if he hadn’t heard me. “Rent’s due on the last Friday of the month. Come up short or late and you’re on the street, courtesy of Fort Worth PD. Me’n them get along real good.”
He took the charred cigar stub from his breast pocket, stuck the chewed end in his gob, and popped a wooden match alight with his thumbnail. It was hot on the porch. I had an idea it was going to be a long, hot summer.
I sighed again. Then—with a show of reluctance—I took out my wallet and began to remove twenty-dollar bills. “In God we trust,” I said. “All others pay cash.”
He laughed, puffing out clouds of acrid blue smoke as he did so. “That’s good, I’ll remember that. Especially on the last Friday of the month.”
I couldn’t believe I was going to live in this desperate shack and on this desperate street, after my nice house south of here—where I’d taken pride in keeping an actual lawn mowed. Although I hadn’t even left Jodie yet, I felt a wave of homesickness.
“Give me a receipt, please,” I said.
That much I got for free.
3
It was the last day of school. The classrooms and hallways were empty.
The overhead fans paddled air that was already hot, although it was only the eighth of June.
The Oswald family had left Russia; in another five days, according to Al Templeton’s notes, the SS Maasdam would dock in Hoboken, where they would walk down the gangplank and onto United States soil.
The teachers’ room was empty except for Danny Laverty. “Hey, champ. Understand you’re going off to Dallas to finish that book of yours.”
“That’s the plan.” Fort Worth was actually the plan, at least to begin with. I began cleaning out my pigeonhole, which was stuffed with end-of-school communiqués.
“If I was footloose and fancy-free instead of tied down to a wife, three rugrats, and a mortgage, I might try a book myself,” Danny said. “I was in the war, you know.”
I knew. Everyone knew, usually within ten minutes of meeting him.
“Got enough to live on?”
“I’ll be okay.”
I had more than enough to take me through to next April, when I expected to conclude my business with Lee Oswald.
I wouldn’t need to make any more expeditions to Faith Financial on Greenville Avenue.
Going there even once had been incredibly stupid.
If I wanted, I could try to tell myself that what had happened to my place in Florida had just been the result of a prank gone bad, but I’d also tried to tell myself that Sadie and I were doing fine, and look how that had turned out.
I tossed the wad of paperwork from my pigeonhole into the trash…
and saw a small sealed envelope I had somehow missed.
I knew who used envelopes like that. There was no salutation on the sheet of notepaper inside, and no signature except for the faint (perhaps even illusory) scent of her perfume. The message was brief.
Thank you for showing me how good things can be. Please don’t say goodbye.
I held it for a minute, thinking, then stuck it in my back pocket and walked rapidly down to the library.
I don’t know what I planned to do or what I meant to tell her, but none of it mattered because the library was dark and the chairs were up on the tables.
I tried the knob anyway, but the door was locked.
4
The only two cars left at the faculty end of the parking lot were Danny Laverty’s Plymouth sedan and my Ford, the ragtop now looking rather raggedy. I could sympathize; I felt a bit raggedy myself.
“Mr. A! Wait up, Mr. A!”
It was Mike and Bobbi Jill, hurrying across the hot parking lot toward me. Mike was carrying a small wrapped present, which he held out to me. “Bobbi n me got you something.”
“Bobbi and I. And you shouldn’t have, Mike.”
“We had to, man.”
I was moved to see that Bobbi Jill was crying, and pleased to see that the thick coating of Max Factor had disappeared from her face. Now that she knew the disfiguring scar’s days were numbered, she had stopped trying to conceal it. She kissed me on the cheek.
“Thank you so, so, so much, Mr. Amberson. I’ll never forget you.” She looked at Mike. “We’ll never forget you.”
And they probably wouldn’t. That was a good thing. It didn’t make up for the locked and dark library, but yes—it was a very good thing.
“Open it,” Mike said. “We hope you like it. It’s for your book.”
I opened the package. Inside was a wooden box about eight inches long and two inches wide. Inside the box, cradled in silk, was a Waterman fountain pen with the initials GA engraved on the clip.
“Oh, Mike,” I said. “This is too much.”
“It wouldn’t be enough if it was solid gold,” he said. “You changed my life.” He looked at Bobbi. “Both our lives.”
“Mike,” I said, “it was my pleasure.”
He hugged me, and in 1962, that is not a cheap gesture between men. I was glad to hug him back.
“You stay in touch,” Bobbi Jill said. “Dallas ain’t far.” She paused. “Isn’t.”
“I will,” I said, but I wouldn’t, and they probably wouldn’t, either. They were going off into their lives, and if they were lucky, their lives would shine.
They started away, then Bobbi turned back. “It’s a shame you two broke up. It makes me feel real bad.”
“It makes me feel bad, too,” I said, “but it’s probably for the best.”