“Sure I do.” Actually I’d forgotten all about him. My heart was beating hard enough to make my eyeballs feel like they were pulsing in their sockets. My tongue tasted like an old piece of carpet, and when he handed me the coin, I almost dropped it.
He gave me a final critical look. “The jeans are okay for now, but you ought to stop at Mason’s Menswear on upper Main Street and get some slacks before you head north. Pendletons or khaki twill is fine for everyday. Ban-Lon for dress.”
“Ban-Lon?”
“Just ask, they’ll know. You’ll also need to get some dress shirts. Eventually a suit. Also some ties and a tie clip. Buy yourself a hat, too.Nota baseball cap, a nice summer straw.”
There were tears leaking from the corners of his eyes. This frightened me more thoroughly than anything he’d said.
“Al? What’s wrong?”
“I’m just scared, same as you are. No need for an emotional parting scene, though. If you’re coming back, you’ll be here in two minutes no matter how long you stay in ’58. Just time enough for me to start the coffeemaker. If it works out, we’ll have a nice cup together, and you can tell me all about it.”
If. What a big word.
“You could say a prayer, too. There’d be time for that, wouldn’t there?”
“Sure. I’ll be praying that it goes nice and smooth. Don’t get so dazed by where you are that you forget you’re dealing with a dangerous man. More dangerous than Oswald, maybe.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Okay. Keep your mouth shut as much as you can until you pick up the lingo and the feel of the place. Go slow. Don’t make waves.”
I tried to smile, but I’m not sure I made it. The briefcase felt very heavy, as if it were filled with rocks instead of money and bogus ID. I thought I might faint. And yet, God help me, part of me still wanted to go. Couldn’twaitto go. I wanted to see the USA in my Chevrolet; America was asking me to call.
Al held out his thin and trembling hand. “Good luck, Jake. God bless.”
“George, you mean.”
“George, right. Now get going. As they say back then, it’s time for you to split the scene.”
I turned and walked slowly into the pantry, moving like a man trying to locate the top of a staircase with the lights out.
On my third step, I found it.
PART 2THE JANITOR’S FATHER
CHAPTER 5
1
I walked along the side of the drying shed, just like before. I ducked under the chain with theNO ADMITTANCE BEYOND THIS POINTsign hanging from it, just like before. I walked around the corner of the big green-painted cube of a building just like before, and then something smacked into me. I’m not particularly heavy for my height, but I’ve got some meat on my bones—“You won’t blow away in a high wind,” my father used to say—and still the Yellow Card Man almost knocked me over. It was like being attacked by a black overcoat full of flapping birds. He was yelling something, but I was too startled (not scared, exactly, it was all too quick for that) to have any idea what it was.
I pushed him away and he stumbled back against the drying shed with his coat swirling around his legs. There was a bonk sound when the back of his head struck the metal, and his filthy fedora tumbled to the ground. He followed it down, not in a tumble but in a kind of accordion collapse. I was sorry for what I’d done even before my heart had a chance to settle into a more normal rhythm, and sorrier still when he picked up his hat and began brushing at it with one dirty hand. The hat was never going to be clean again, and, in all probability, neither was he.
“Are you okay?” I asked, but when I bent down to touch his shoulder, he went scuttering away from me along the side of theshed, pushing with his hands and sliding on his butt. I’d say he looked like a crippled spider, but he didn’t. He looked like what he was: a wino with a brain that was damp going on wet. A man who might be as close to death as Al Templeton was, because in this fifty-plus-years-ago America there were probably no charity-supported shelters or rehabs for guys like him. The VA might take him if he’d ever worn the uniform, but who would take him to the VA? Nobody, probably, although someone—a mill foreman would be the most likely—might call the cops on him. They’d put him in the drunk tank for twenty-four or forty-eight hours. If he didn’t die of DT-induced convulsions while he was in there, they’d turn him loose to start the next cycle. I found myself wishing my ex-wife was here—she could find an AA meeting and take him to it. Only Christy wouldn’t be born for another twenty-one years.
I put the briefcase between my feet and held my hands out to show him they were empty, but he cringed even further down the side of the drying shed. Spittle gleamed on his stubbly chin. I looked around to be sure we weren’t attracting attention, saw that we had this part of the millyard to ourselves, and tried again. “I only pushed you because you startled me.”
“Who the fuckareyou?” he asked, his voice cracking through about five different registers. If I hadn’t heard the question on my last visit, I wouldn’t have had any idea what he was asking… and although the slur was the same, wasn’t the inflection a little different this time? I wasn’t sure, but I thought so.He’s harmless, but he’s not like anyone else,Al had said.It’s like heknowssomething. Al thought it was because he happened to be sunning himself near the rabbit-hole at 11:58 in the morning on September 9, 1958, and was susceptible to its influence. The way you can produce static on a TV screen if you run a mixer close to it. Maybe that was it. Or, hell, maybe it was just the booze.
“Nobody important,” I said in my most soothing voice. “Nobody you need to concern yourself with. My name’s George. What’s yours?”
“Motherfucker!” he snarled, and scrambled yet further from me.If that was his name, it was certainly an unusual one. “You’re not supposed to be here!”
“Don’t worry, I’m leaving,” I said. I picked up the briefcase to demonstrate my sincerity, and he hunched his thin shoulders all the way up to his ears, as if he expected me to hurl it at him. He was like a dog that’s been beaten so often it expects no other treatment. “No harm and no foul, okay?”
“Get out, bastard-ball! Go back to where you came fromand leave me alone!”
