Chapter 1 #8
Outwardly, he lay as before (eyes closed, lips slightly parted, one hand under the covers, the other above) while inwardly he found himself back at his old school.
Having just learned what a plebiscite was, his classmates were holding one.
On him. On what he’d become, how he’d done.
Always there’d been fifteen of them. In the school.
Fifteen students. Then little Mag Ebner got run over by a tractor.
A tractor driven by her own mother. That made fourteen.
Somehow, for the plebiscite, they’d resurrected Mag.
And her mother. Who, after killing Mag, had put her head in the oven.
She hadn’t died then but two years later.
You’d see her out on the porch, spitting blankly into an invisible cup.
Now both were alive again, ready to vote.
Glory be. That made fifteen. Fifteen voters, excluding him.
Plus their teacher, Miss Eva. One by one they stood up, said what they thought of him.
In the end, he won: sixteen to zero. Loving him, proud of him, they urged him to go ahead and vote, vote for himself.
Which made it seventeen to zero and Miss Eva read aloud from a joint proclamation: No matter how many negative, accusatory signs might be manifesting, he, K.
J. Boone, must remember that, against heavy odds, he’d lived an extraordinary life, full of tremendous accomplishment, and had always done his best and, in sum, had done nothing wrong, not a goddamn thing, and was leaving behind no lasting harm, zero, nada, none at all: a world better for having had him in it, period, full stop.
Miss Eva had admired him early, before anyone else, and had never been shy about saying so. Which’d meant the world to him. God bless her. He felt, just now, like being honest with her. He approached her desk.
Yes? she said, warm as ever, the area around her desk smelling, as did the papers she would hand back, of rosewater.
He hadn’t thought it up.
He wanted her to know that.
Thought what up, dear? she said.
What was the—what was the word. For the thing he hadn’t thought up but one of the Mels had. Or that stooge of one of the Mels. He couldn’t remember which of the Mels that guy had been the stooge of.
With the giant hands. When you shook that bastard’s hand you felt like a baby shaking hands with a man. But you could easily lay Big Hands low.
Sit over there, you terrifying giant, he’d say. I don’t want you over here by me. Sit there, in that corner. You’re sneaky, Conrad, you make me nervous, I’m scared you’ll nab my wallet. Or pitch me out the window, you horrifying monster.
Conrad, that was it.
Fee, fi, fo, fum, Conrad.
Then big-handed Conrad would meekly slink over to wherever you’d put him.
Always sniffing after a check, that guy.
In one of those huge hands, a check looked like a goddamn postage stamp.
Because Miss Eva was being made by his mind, she knew exactly what he was talking about.
And rose in her fondness to his defense.
That petition, you mean, she said.
Petition, he said. Yes.
Oh, it was nice to be known so well.
Well, as far as that goes, Kenneth? she said.
For all its faults? That petition was powerful.
Wasn’t it? A powerful tool. You’d stand onstage there in some packed auditorium and say: Right here, signatures from seventeen thousand scientists who don’t believe the science here is rock-solid. Wouldn’t you?
Yes, he said.
He surely would. He’d hold the thing up dramatically, let it unfurl.
And unfurl.
And unfurl.
Every one of these signatures represents a scientist, he’d say. Who worked and studied and mastered his or her field. Who demurs. Who respectfully disagrees. Think about that, he’d say. And ask yourself: Is it possible we’ve got some hysteria going on here?
Then from out in that auditorium would come a sound (or, to be more precise, an abrupt diminishment of sound) that indicated: minds being changed.
Maybe not changed: softened. The sound of just a little bit of doubt sneaking in there.
Folks sitting on the fence were suddenly, guess what?
Less on the fence. Even the Luddites/pearl clutchers/prophets of doom were given pause.
You could feel it in that new quality of quiet.
Seventeen thousand scientists?
That got a person’s attention.
If later someone pointed out in the local rag that certain of the signatories (i.e., Bugs Bunny/Mozart/Abe Lincoln et al.) were not, strictly speaking, living scientists: no matter. Not every person who’d been in that crowd would see the correction.
Boom: a win.
And, well, yes, guilty as charged: even after Landon or Lerner or London from Legal had pulled him aside and pointed out the alarming prevalence of spurious signatures in the thing (Thomas Edison?
Elvis Presley? Come on, it was actually kind of funny), they’d (he’d) continued, occasionally, to use it.
To tout it. To, uh, unfurl it. As needed.
The whole thing was a kind of white lie, okay?
Like, in an opera, when, to indicate HOUSE, you put up a huge brightly colored cutout of a HOUSE.
Everyone knew it wasn’t a real house.
But it sufficed. Did the trick.
Served the cause.
Is that your confession, Kenneth? Miss Eva said.
Yes, he said, relieved to have it off his chest.
Her eyes narrowed the way they would when a student needed a correction and she was about to give it.
I don’t envy you, Kenneth, she said. Even with all your many houses.
Miss Eva had always lived in a modest house by the fairgrounds.
And often spoke of it bitterly to the class.
Her pantry was insufficient. The flour and sugar had to be kept on top of the stove, so, when cooking, she had to relocate these to the dining table, which itself was barely large enough to accommodate two decent-sized platters, which made it all but impossible to host a proper gathering.
Do you find it honorable, Kenneth? Miss Eva said. To confess only the most minor of your sins?
Thinking of her inadequate little house had apparently put Miss Eva into a snit.
Sins, my ass.
Look, he said.
You look, she said.
Something funny was happening out the schoolhouse window.
And don’t look away, she said.
Crow Creek was just pure shit, flowing past. A fisherman in hip waders was midstream, fishing away, holding his nose.
The clouds had a sulfur taint and the flowers the class had planted near the fence were in flames.
The town’s dogs raced by in a pack, seeking a source of clean water.
The leaves on the trees were turning to shit and dropping.
Plop, plop, plop. A shit-leaf plopped right into Mother’s best purse.
What was Mother’s best purse doing out here at the schoolhouse?
She’d had only that one, long as he’d known her.
Later, when she was already old, he’d bought her three new ones in Paris: Hermès, Gucci, Prada.
She’d never had any use for them. Too fancy, too badly designed.
There was no place to actually put anything.
Only her old purse would do. Now here it was, filling up with shit-leaves.
Mother was going to hit the ceiling. Here was Mother now.
Standing beside Miss Eva. Eek, hello, Mother.
She glowered at him more fiercely than she’d ever glowered at him in life.
And she’d glowered at him pretty fiercely in life.
What have you got yourself into, Kenneth? she said harshly.
He’s lying to beat the band, said Miss Eva. Lying right to my face.
It’s the drugs, he said. You two are. You’re the drugs.
It all starts to cave in on him, said Mother.
His long service to his colossal ego begins to undo him, said Miss Eva.
I’ll head home, he said.
Don’t walk away from me, said Miss Eva.
Don’t you dare walk away from your teacher, boy, said Mother.
Disregard us at your peril, said Miss Eva.
I’m making you dumb bunnies with my mind, he said.
Miss Eva and Mother strolled away down a non-shit path that opened up before them, a strip of green grass extending off into infinity, searching for some quiet place where they could sit and disparage him further.
The path was fake too, also made by his mind.
Fuck it.
Fuck this noise.
He knew he was overmedicated even as he stood on the little front porch of the school and observed once again the familiar midafternoon pattern the elm branches made on the dusty burlap mat on which they were required to wipe their feet, once, twice, thrice, once-twice-thrice is nice.
Jesus, getting into the weeds here.
Little help please, Lord.
—
He walked slowly home, observing many things along the way: tire ruts from a specific long-ago rainy afternoon on which Father got the Chevy stuck; a football lost in 1948; the familiar cluster of ancient plow parts near the Robisons’ faded red barn.
His childhood home was ugly but lovely to him.
A warped plank set itself apart from its fellows just there, under the mail slot.
The front door made the same old squeak.
He moved through the house, noting many long-forgotten things: a chip in the molding they’d always thought resembled Clark Gable in profile; the trouty smell of the under-stairs nook where his fishing gear was kept.
Above Mother’s dresser: a taped-up inspirational quote from a ladies’ magazine, yellowing with age.
On the dresser itself: two wristwatches rubber-banded together, a mirrored tray holding a modest array of cosmetics, an owl feather, a ring made of bits of string (a gift from the spirited, unmanageable Willamina).
Did the room smell of his mother? It did, it did.
For all the difficulties of his childhood, he cherished the old place still.