Serendipity Green (7 page)

And so they sit on the sofa eating rhubarb pie, drinking stale instant coffee. “I thought you might be at the Eagles club tonight,” she says.

“Not on Fridays. Too many people go there on Fridays.”

“Howard, did you read today's
Gazette?
”

“I don't subscribe.”

“Did you hear about last night's council meeting then?”

“Nope.”

“Howard, have you ever heard of privatization?”

“Nope.”

She explains: “It's when the government turns public jobs like yours over to private businesses.”

“Oh, I guess I've heard about that.”

“Bill Aitchbone wants to privatize your job, Howard.”

“Why would he want to do that?”

“He says to save the village money.”

“Would it?”

“Howard, you'd be out of work.”

“I've been out of work before. After the snack cake line was closed, remember?”

“And do you remember how long it was before the village finally hired you? You were on your final week of unemployment.”

“I think I still had two weeks to go.”

“Bill Aitchbone doesn't really want to privatize your job, Howard. His privatization plan is just a ploy to force you to paint your house.”

“Why is everybody so concerned about my house?”

“Because it's an eyesore, Howard.”

“Well, I ain't gonna paint it.”

“Then Bill Aitchbone will push his privatization plan through the council. He owns them.”

“He don't own the mayor. Mayor's got a veto, right?”

“He owns us all.”

“He don't own me.”

“The Bill Aitchbone's of the world own anybody they want to own.”

“Well, he don't own me. You want more pie?”

“It's good, isn't it? Even with last summer's rhubarb.”

Howie Dornick takes their empty plates to the kitchen, returning with fresh slices. “The coffee's all gone. I could make some more.”

“None for me.”

“So, if I paint my house, I keep my job with the village?”

“Yes.”

“They can stick their job where the sun don't shine, for all I care.”

“I'm not telling you what to do. I came as a friend. To tell you what's cooking, that's all. Bill Aitchbone's chairman of the Squaw Days Committee now, and—”

“I thought Donald Grinspoon was chairman.”

“Not any more.”

“You sure?”

“I'm on the committee, Howard. Bill Aitchbone is the chairman. And he wants to put his stamp on it. God only knows what else he's got planned, but he's got a real bug up his behind about your house.”

“Well, I ain't gonna paint it.”

“I'm not telling you what to do.”

“I ain't.”

“Then you'll lose your job.”

“I'm Civil Service.”

“Civil Service only protects people in jobs that exist.”

“I ain't gonna paint it.”

“I don't blame you for being stubborn, Howard. Not the way this town has treated you.”

“I got this house free and clear when my mother died. Mortgage paid in full.”

“You're lucky. I've still got nine years on mine.”

“I ain't gonna paint it.”

“I'm not telling you what to do.”

“Not for Bill Aitchbone. Not for anybody.”

“What about for yourself, Howard?”

“So, you think I should paint it?”

“It needs painting, yes. You know it does. But whether you do or not—”

“Well, I ain't.”

“I'm all for being a thorn in Bill Aitchbone's side, Howard, but—”

“If you were me, you'd paint it?”

“I just wanted you to know what was going on.”

“You use brown sugar in your pies? Mother always did.”

6

There is a saying about the month of March in the Midwest: March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.

But in fact, March in the Midwest has no discernible coming in or going out. March in the Midwest is wretched from start to finish. March in the Midwest is deep wet snow one day, razor-blade rain the next; crocuses and daffodils pushing through the thawing ground only to be withered by night frost; frogs burrowing from pond bottoms only to knock themselves unconscious on the ice; March in the Midwest is taking sweaters off and putting sweaters on; men itching to mate with any woman and to mow anybody's grass; women itching to rearrange anybody's kitchen cupboards; March in the Midwest is cloudy; 39 degrees; 31 long days.

No, there are no lions or lambs in a Midwestern March. Only dead skunks on the road.

On the first Tuesday of this March, Katherine Hardihood backs her boxy Plymouth Shadow from the garage and navigates over and around flattened skunks to New Waterbury for the county library meeting.

During her twenty-seven years with the library no one ever attended these meetings other than librarians and library board members. But since January these meetings are suddenly very popular. That's when the Reverend Raymond R. Biscobee first showed up to demand that the new computers be taken out. “The filthy books you folks put on the shelves for our children to read are bad enough,” he told the board in January, “but now that you've hooked up to this Internet thing, our children can call up filthy pictures and chitchat with pedophiles from every country in Europe.” The board promised to look into his concerns and went on to discuss the need for a new roof at the Pennville branch. “The Pennville branch hasn't had a new roof since 1971,” board member Margaret Bale said.

In February, the Reverend Raymond R. Biscobee was back with a contingent of “good Christian mothers and fathers,” as he loudly declared them, who had met at Darren Frost's house and formed a group of concerned parents called EDIT, Erase Destructive Internet Trash. Extra folding chairs were brought over from Barrow Brothers Funeral Home. The board promised to look into their concerns and went on to discuss the sewage problem at the Hillsboro branch. “You've got a sewage problem at all the branches,” someone in the audience called out.

Now it is March and EDIT has grown from a contingent into a juggernaut, with a slate of officers and an agenda that includes not only the filth available on the new computers, but also the filth to be found in the library's magazines and videos and albums and books. Given this wider purview, EDIT now stands for Eliminate Destructive Influences Today. Katherine Hardihood has trouble finding a seat even though extra chairs have been brought over from not only Barrow Brothers Funeral Home, but the Moose Club as well. Sam Guss of the
Gazette
finds himself sitting between big city reporters from the
Cleveland Plain Dealer
, the
Akron Beacon Journal
, and the
Wooster Daily Record
.

The library board sits like a row of empty glass bottles on a fence as members of EDIT rise one by one to shatter their humanity.

One EDIT member, Eileen Shagreen, who lives three houses down from Katherine Hardihood on Oak Street, and has three children at G.A. Hemphill Elementary School, and a fenced-in backyard with two free-running rottweilers, tells the board she is particularly upset that the Tuttwyler branch put up a huge Halloween display with children's books about witches and goblins—the servants of Satan—while the Christmas display had only one little book about baby Jesus hidden among the Santa Claus and snowmen books. Eileen Shagreen sits down to a Gatling gun of applause,
clap-a-clap-clap
.

“I'm sure we try to treat all holidays equally,” board member Paul Withrow answers.

“That's exactly the problem,” someone in the crowd calls out.
Clap-a-clap-clap
.

The Reverend Biscobee rises and demands that
Lake Toads and Land Frogs
be taken off the shelves.
Clap-a-clap-clap
.

“I can't for the life of me see what's wrong with a book that teaches children to respect people different from themselves,” board member Charles English says. “We live in a very diverse country.”

“Thanks to New Worlders like you,” someone in the audience calls out.
Clap-a-clap-clap
.

Carl Clegg, a hog farmer from Bartholomew Township, complains that his wife once saw a “boy no older than thirteen checking out a how-to book on homosexualism.”

“We don't have how-to books on homosexuality,” board member Margaret Bale answers.

“Queer,” someone shouts.
Clap-a-clap-clap
.

Darren Frost, in whose house EDIT was born, rises with a stack of pornographic pictures he's downloaded from the library's computers. “Men having sex with men,” he says, passing the pictures out. “Women having sex with women. People having sex with animals. Naked little girls and boys not even developed yet having sex. Too bad you don't have color printers in the libraries, then you could really see how disgusting they are.”
Clap-a-clap-clap
.

After all the members of EDIT who want to speak, speak, and Darren Frost's pictures are gathered up and slapped down like God's gavel on the table, the president of the library board, smiling comfortably, introduces the library director, Dr. Venus Willendorf.

Dr. Willendorf unfolds her arms and stands up. As is always the case when she publicly presents herself like this, every woman in the room immediately feels as barren as Abraham's Sarah while every man immediately feels the need to father a thousand children. This is because Dr. Venus Willendorf's breasts have the dimension of ostrich eggs, and her narrow waist attaches these magnificent orbs to a high and wide set of hips that frame a lush and protruding lap. So men and women alike start to breath uneasily as she rises, knowing that her mind is just as fertile as her breasts and hips; that when her lake-blue eyes are finished washing over them, she will slowly part her heavily lipsticked lips, and drown them with her estrogen-enriched confidence.

And so Dr. Venus Willendorf begins: “What children read or look at—whether in a book or on a computer screen, whether at home or at the library—is ultimately the responsibility of their parents.”

EDIT boos en masse.

“Librarians are neither censors, baby-sitters, nor surrogate parents.”

EDIT boos en masse.

“Despite its obvious potential for abuse and misuse by some, the Internet is an important new learning tool. As President Franklin Delano Roosevelt once said, ‘The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.'”

EDIT boos en masse.

“Not counting the three successive nights your Mr. Frost spent surfing for his pictures, there have only been five reported incidents of anyone, adults or children, using the library's computers to view pornography. We need to keep our cool and not throw the baby out with the bath water.”

EDIT boos en masse.

“Finally …”

EDIT applauds en masse.

“… while the Wyssock County Public Library District cannot in good conscience stop offering materials that some might from time to time find objectionable, we have heard your concerns, loud and clear, and we will study ways to discourage children from viewing adult-oriented material, without infringing on parental rights or responsibilities.” Dr. Willendorf sits down and folds her arms over those breasts.

EDIT boos en masse. Hisses en masse, too.

“Please!” begs the president of the library board, holding up his hands in a half surrender, comfortable smile still spread across his face. “I hope you weren't expecting us to march over to the computer terminals with baseball bats right this minute!”

The president's attempt at humor falls flat and, en masse, EDIT demands that the library board do exactly that. “I'll supply the bats,” Darren Frost, president of the Little League, offers. The meeting ends.

As EDIT retreats down the rows of folding chairs borrowed from Barrow Brothers and the Moose Club, the library board president goes straight for Katherine Hardihood. The library board president is D. William Aitchbone. “It's going to be hard to get the toothpaste back in the tube on this one, isn't it?” he says.

“I just hope the board doesn't fold,” she answers.

Aitchbone chuckles, knowing exactly what she means. “Now Katherine, I may wear a politician's hat on the village council, but I wear a librarian's hat here.”

Katherine Hardihood twists the white knit cap in her hands, wanting to pull it straight down over Bill Aitchbone's head, until only his Adam's apple is showing. “I hope so.”

He changes the subject—to the subject he cares about most. “So, what do you think about my privatization plan, Katherine? I saw you at the council meeting.”

“Of course you saw me. Other than Sam Guss, who else goes to those boring meetings?”

“It would be good if Howie Dornick went once and a while.”

Katherine Hardihood pulls the knit cap over her own head. “I'm sure he hears what goes on.”

“Let's hope he does more than hear,” D. William Aitchbone says. “Let's hope he listens.”

“Whether he listens or not is up to him.”

“He needs a good friend right now, Katherine. Someone to help him do the right thing.”

Katherine Hardihood puts on her mittens, wishing they were brass knuckles. She turns to leave. D. William Aitchbone puts his hand on her shoulder and swivels her about, just the way he had swiveled Woodrow Wilson Sadlebyrne that night by the gazebo when the February snow was blowing horizontally. “I'm ready to stand up to these EDIT people, whatever it costs politically. Between you and me, they're a bunch of nutballs. But they do have a right to have some input.”

“Input, Bill?”

“Maybe put one of them on the board. There'll be an empty seat in the fall. Reverend Biscobee's a good man. Be good to have someone from the clergy on the board. What do you think, Katherine?”

What Katherine Hardihood thinks—what Katherine Hardihood knows—is that D. William Aitchbone is threatening her with her job, just as he is threatening Howie Dornick with his, just to get a coat of paint on that little two-story frame house on South Mill, just down the street from his impressive Queen Anne. “I'm just a branch librarian, Bill. Who sits on the board is up to somebody's else.”