A Wedding on the Banks (22 page)

Frost heave: an uplift in soil caused by the freezing of internal moisture.

—Random House Kernerman Webster's College Dictionary

Pothole: that which makes you long for the horse and buggy.

—Donnie Henderson

Saturday evening fell with fat drops of rain that had old-timers predicting that nature just might splatter them one more time with a blanket of white before she let them go headfirst into spring. The temperature dropped sharply to the low forties and threatened to dip further as night came calling. The road that followed the river out of St. Leonard and into the heart of Mattagash was coating itself with a thin, slippery shield as it snaked through Giffordtown, past Vera's and Goldie's houses, down the swoop of hill where Alphonse Gifford's house leaned on its haunches, and into the main cluster of homes, which clung to the bank in a paranoid frenzy.

An occasional yard light belonging to a Craft or a Fennelson bit into the blackness of the road and lit it up in small patches. These were the marks of the upper class, these pole lights that came alive with nightfall and died a slow death with each dawn.

“Fifteen dollars a month,” the owners could think to themselves as they drove into their well-lit yards and sat silently in their cars for a few minutes to give thanks that their circumstances allowed these social lighthouses to blink out to all of Mattagash:
Fifteen
dollars
a
month. Fifteen dollars a month. Look what we got! Where's yours? Where's yours?

If the Crafts and Fennelsons and Sicily McKinnon Lawler preferred to light up their yards and therefore their financial circumstances, the Giffords felt differently. The last thing Vinal or Pike wanted was a well-lit yard. A bright circle of illumination was not the perfect place to drag a freshly killed deer. Not in July or August, that is. It was not the best place to roll a set of tires, or lug a heavy battery. And Vinal could only imagine the kind of loudmouthed reflections that would occur if a yard light were introduced to a pile of shiny hubcaps. When the Lord said “Let there be light,” and saw that it was good, it was not Vinal and Pike Gifford he had in mind. Yet on the Saturday evening before Amy Joy Lawler's wedding, both Gifford yards were ablaze in prisms of light never found on the pages of Genesis. The wet road that looped down the hill and into Giffordtown was beaded with green, blue, red, yellow, and white drops, like splattered paint on the pavement. On both sides of the road, the bedecked Gifford houses put on a light display heretofore unknown in northern Maine, at least on the American side of the border. It was true the French Canadian Catholics on the other side of the river sometimes came up with illuminated Nativity scenes that rivaled the Mormon Tabernacle Choir in their numbers.

“Who are all those people crowded around Mary and Joseph?” Sicily once asked Amy Joy, as they took a holiday drive through Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec.

“Relatives,” Amy Joy had answered.

“Well,” Sicily noted, “it looks like a hockey game.”

Thirty miles away, at Petit Pierre's Pizza, fifteen large pizza pies were loaded onto the front seat of the Ford pizza pickup, which had a large pizza painted on each door. Beneath the thick, red letters spelling PETIT PIERRE'S PIZZA was the slogan “A Pizza for the People.” Behind the wheel was Freddy Broussard, Pierre's only son, who handled all the long-distance deliveries and was heir apparent to the pizza throne. Freddy also looked out at the world through eyeglasses made heavy by their loaded prescription. Freddy's eyes were 20/60. This may have prevented him from becoming a fighter pilot at Loring Air Force Base, as had been his childhood dream, but it had drawn him closer to the new clerk at J. C. Penney's. Holding each bill close to her face for inspection, Irma Gifford was slow but reliable as far as the J. C. Penney manager was concerned. But to Freddy Broussard, who had watched for days from among the men's handkerchiefs and socks before daring to speak to her, she was a large-eyed wood nymph, a river goddess, a nearsighted yet lithe vision among the aisles of sundries. The music of her cash register, as it clicked, popped, and pealed, was a symphony to his ears. They were meant for each other. They saw the world through the same eyes, so to speak. They would be happy for life as long as they had glasses.

When the call for pizza came from Mattagash, Freddy slipped into the back where Petit Pierre couldn't hear him. His father would be outraged to learn that his son was courting a Mattagasher, an English-speaking, low-life Protestant. It was true that Freddy himself had only a slight trace of French accent left, but what counted was in the blood. In the blood, as far as Petit Pierre was concerned, Freddy spoke only French.

Irma came to the phone. Yes, of course he could visit her after he made his deliveries. He would take her riding over the potholes and frost heaves in the Ford pizza pickup. They could sit with the motor running, winding down the windows every half hour so they wouldn't be carbon-monoxided together, although Freddy found that notion romantic. Perhaps if Petit Pierre wouldn't give his blessing and his pizza empire to Freddy and Irma, they would venture into a suicide pact. They would hurl themselves blindly, again so to speak, from the Mattagash ledges into the thickly swirling Mattagash River. And they would never be found. Oh, two heavy-duty pairs of prescription eyeglasses might wash ashore the following spring, but the flesh and blood that bore them upon their noses would be gone forever.

Freddy spun away from Petit Pierre's Pizza in a thick cloud of aroma conjured up by fifteen hot pizzas. He had six to deliver in St. Leonard, on the way. Nine more would end up in Mattagash. Winnie Craft had let everyone know that five pizzas were ordered by Sicily Lawler's wedding party, so if anyone wanted a single one delivered they would be able to get one. Winnie ordered one. So did Sarah and Bert Fogarty. Then Winnie called her nephew Peter Craft at his filling station to tell him the good news. Peter's wife quickly ordered two, one to be eaten for supper, one to be frozen for the shortage that was sure to follow.

Freddy sped past Sheriff Roy Vachon and his patrolman Wayne Fortin, who were cruising the rainy streets of Watertown. Freddy Broussard left wet tire marks behind him as he leaned forward over the wheel, trying to see beyond his own thick glasses as well as the windshield. With his precious cargo aboard, he left the safety of Watertown for the slippery, bumpy road to Mattagash. To Irma.

He had delivered all six St. Leonard pizzas by the time the big hot dog sign at Henri Nadeau's Quick Lunch and Gas loomed into sight. Freddy reminded himself to check his gas gauge. A quarter tank. He'd better fill up. The Mattagash round-trip would be sixty miles, and if Irma consented to go riding, they might need gallons more. As Henri pumped the Ford's tank full, Freddy Broussard leaned back against the seat and contemplated the weather, love, and the heavy perfume of pizza. It was turning colder and the rain was fleshing up into what looked like sleet. He reached a hand out to the passenger seat and found the small bouquet of flowers, fresh from their container in the floral cart at the Watertown IGA. Imagining Irma's sweet smile of surprise when he presented them to her, Freddy Broussard did not see the sleek black shark slide in below Henri Nadeau's gas tanks. The Plymouth's fins were wet from the ocean of the night, and it sat silently, Henri's Budweiser sign blinking red against its shiny skin. When the pizza pickup left Henri Nadeau's yard, the shark was following.

“He wouldn't be this far from Watertown unless he's got at least five,” Vinal Gifford said to Pike, whose mouth watered.

“How do we stop him?” asked Pike. He could almost smell the scent, the innocent trail his prey was leaving behind.

“First we gotta pass him,” said Vinal. “Then we'll think of something.” The black shark slid out of the pickup's wake as Vinal floorboarded it. The Plymouth rocked dangerously, the frost heaves tossing it up on the waves of the road, the potholes battering the frame, rattling the fenders. Freddy Broussard inched over on the narrow road to let the leviathan pass. He shivered as two pairs of beady eyes stared out of the front seat at him. Then the Plymouth swam away, off into the black night, and was gone.

At the WELCOME TO MATTAGASH, POPULATION 456 sign, the Plymouth bounced to a halt. It was best to commit a crime within the confines of one's own township: The Giffords loathed the notion of extradition. Vinal and Pike got out and slammed their doors. The sound echoed out into the rapids of Mattagash Brook, where it joined the Mattagash River. One clear day, or maybe it was a rainy, sleety day, an ancestral Gifford had made that same river trek as had the earliest McKinnons, and this was still the old river. But Vinal and Pike had no sentiments for yore, not while they were able to sniff pizza in the present.

“This keeps up and it's gonna snow,” Vinal said, and tugged his jacket collar about his neck.

“This is our shortest summer so far,” said Pike.

Within minutes the headlights of the Petit Pierre's Pizza pickup shone through the mist and lit up the faces of what appeared to be mountain men, standing in the middle of the road and waving their arms.

“Oh no!” Freddy thought. He reached a hand up to touch the Saint Christopher medal he wore around his neck, the one his mother had given him when he began making his long-distance deliveries. It was meant to protect him from Mattagash, that wooded area of wild men and moose and black bear. Being the patron saint of travelers, Saint Christopher might be able to save Freddy Broussard, but he couldn't vouch for the pizzas. “Holy Tabernacle,” Freddy muttered, remembering his French expletives. He pulled cautiously up to within a foot of the men, rather than run them down. Vinal Gifford came around to the driver's side and tapped gently on the window, which Freddy reluctantly rolled down.

“Don't be alarmed,” Vinal Gifford said. “This is a test. This is only a test.” He had heard this statement from the emergency broadcast system many times during his long career in front of the television set.

“What?” asked Freddy. “What do you guys want?” Rain had swept onto his lenses, but he could see the faces very well. He would remember those faces in detail, in case he needed later to look at mug shots.

“Well,” said Pike, who had stepped behind Vinal. “What've you got?”

“Just pizzas,” Freddy said.

“Pizzas?” Vinal was disgusted. “We were told this was a gold shipment.”

“No,” said Freddy in a near panic. He had read that in life-and-death situations such as this, the smart thing was to simply tell a thief, “Here, take all my money.” But how could he tell thieves who expected gold, “Here, take all my pizzas?” Freddy's Adam's apple seemed to be growing inside his throat, choking off his wind.

“No,” he managed to say again. “I'm the pizza man.”

“Pizza man?” asked Pike. “You mean to tell us you ain't the gold man?” Freddy shook his head, terrified.

“Well,” said Vinal. “Do we kill him, partner?”

“Nah,” said Pike. “Pizzas is better than nothing. We're real disappointed, mind you,” he told Freddy. “But we'll take them pizzas.”

“You don't happen to have any pop with you?” asked Vinal. He was about to lean his head into the pizza pickup when Freddy Broussard pressed down on the gas pedal and sped away from the ill-shaven faces in his window. His mother had told him about the wildness still pumping in the blood of some Mattagashers. Freddy and Saint Christopher wanted no part of it.

The Giffords were stunned. Never had they, singly or as a duet, been so insulted. Who did this little four-eyed Frog think he was dealing with, for Chrissakes? And where did he think he was? New York City? Did he think he could jump onto one of them fancy moving stairways and disappear? Or into one of them buses that runs underground? Did he think he was going to find a
crowd
to hide in? You can't run away in Mattagash, Maine. You'll wind up staring straight ahead at the end of the road. It's kaput, unless you're a goddamn crow. He would have to turn around eventually. His pizza might be cold by then but, he'd be back. Pike and Vinal could take the cold pizza home, the way their ancestors might have done with partridge, or a fine mess of trout. They could take the pizza home to women who would stoke the oven, if not the hearth, and make the pepperoni all warm again, the crust crispy. A man did what he had to do to keep food on the table for his family. Game was game.

“What if he delivers them first?” Vinal asked the awful question.

“Let's get him!” cried Pike. The Plymouth screamed out of the ditch, swerved on the wet road, righted itself, and gave pursuit. The fins shook and the mud flaps spit off the April grime and then stayed airborne. The car came upon the hapless taillights of the pizza pickup, which was weaving badly. Freddy did not know this treacherous road under normal circumstances. At times he felt sheer weightlessness as a frost heave thrust him heavenward off the road. But then he was reminded again of being earthbound when his front wheels hit the lurking pothole. Pizzas bounced painfully about the interior. Freddy looked in his side-view mirror. He could see the teeth of the Plymouth's grille nipping at his heels, could see the fins cutting through the night, the beady eyes of the headlights. What kind of feeding frenzy was this? Freddy pushed the accelerator further. Sixty miles an hour on these bumps and curves! He might as well be piloting an F-14 after all. That would be safer, it appeared, than delivering pizzas. There was no way he could lose the attackers and yet he couldn't go faster. The Plymouth-shark behind him seemed oblivious to speed as it swam above the road.

On the small hill that swooped down to Giffordtown, Freddy thought he might have a chance to make it to his delivery. There, he could rush inside and phone the sheriff back in Watertown. There was no doubt that these mountaineers meant to kill him. Why else would they pursue him? For his
pizzas?
But as he left the hill and followed the sharp turn into Giffordtown, he was not at all prepared for the light show that awaited him. He knew Irma's house must be nearby. She had told him three miles above the sign, on the right, a long drive up to the house on the hill. Freddy saw no hill. He saw no house. His weak, wretched eyes were bombarded with a dazzlement of blinking colored circles that soon formed squares and triangles as his muscles strained further.