Spooner (56 page)

Calmer had been at this same post yesterday when the meter ran out on Cowhurl, listening to Handel’s
Messiah
on the hi-fi with the volume so high it shook the cups and saucers. Loud music had given Lily headaches. The wind had been
whistling out of the north, gusting to fifty miles an hour, and between that racket and the
Messiah
, neither the sound of Cowhurl’s new snowblower nor the sound of the crashing Jaguar had made it across the street, although
the snowblower itself did. It was a top-of-the-line self-propelled model that continued on even after Cowhurl was picked off
the controls, clearing a path twenty-seven inches wide out to the street and then across it, bouncing first into the curb
in front of Calmer’s house and then heading north up South Ninth Avenue, wandering from one side of the road to the other,
finally reaching a small cul-de-sac called Whiting Court where it vanished. No trace. And you had to wonder how many citizens
had been stabbed with the thought this morning as they celebrated the birth of the Savior that if they had only been a little
quicker last night getting out of the house that fucking snowblower could be sitting in their own garage right now.

But back to Christmas Eve:

Calmer had sensed a stir outside and tried to ignore it, afraid to go to the window on the chance it was carolers, but the
movement continued and eventually not knowing what was going on began to intrude on the music, and he left the sofa and went
to the front door and peeked out just as the first police car pulled into Cowhurl’s driveway. Even at this distance the flashing
lights were half hidden in the storm. A house or two farther up the block, he thought, all you would see would be the reflection
of the lights in the snow whirling above the car.

Minutes passed and there were other lights, an ambulance, then a fire truck, more police, members of the press, and finally
the county medical examiner. Calmer was still at the door watching when Cowhurl’s wife was taken from the house and escorted
to a police cruiser. She was wearing a fur coat and overshoes, smiling for the photographers when she saw they were taking
her picture. There was an officer stationed on each of Mrs. Cowhurl’s arms, holding on, but this was years before women’s
lib found its way to the Dakotas, and handcuffs were not deemed necessary.

C
hristmas Day, Calmer pulled the curtains away from the front window and sat down on the sofa and sipped at an eggnog he’d
made, laced with rum and nutmeg. The Robert Shaw Chorale was singing Christmas carols on the hi-fi, and he gazed trancelike
across at Cowhurl’s yard. Thirty inches of snow had fallen overnight, and except for the yellow crime-scene barriers and the
footprints and tire tracks of various officials and official vehicles that had come back early Christmas morning to gather
evidence, and the lone police car stationed in the driveway, you would never guess that anything out of the ordinary had happened
over there at all.

Peace…

Peace…

About one-thirty, two of Cowhurl’s three grown sons arrived together, one in an overcoat, the other in a parka. The one in
the overcoat was a doctor of education, just like Cowhurl; the other was working toward his D.Ed. degree up in Fargo. There
was a third son, Calmer remembered, who had seemed like a nice kid but was no student. Neighborhood reports had him up in
Canada, living in Toronto with a colored girl. Later that week, when the boy failed to show for the funeral, a neighbor remarked
to Calmer that it was no wonder the poor woman went crazy on Christmas Eve, with a son like that.

Although he was interested in the events across the street, Calmer took no pleasure in Cowhurl’s slaughter, and instead, by
nature and habit, put himself in the position of the sons. Seeing them arrive, he’d considered walking over and knocking on
the door—something he had not done once in the years since he’d been demoted, had not spoken once to the man in all those
years—but in the end couldn’t think of what he might say if they invited him in. The sons knew who he was and must have been
given some version of what had happened.

Half an hour later, Calmer finished off his third or fourth or fifth eggnog of Christmas Day and, feeling like some exercise
for the first time since he’d gotten sick, put on his parka and mittens and went outside to shovel snow. The temperature had
turned warm when the first front blew through, up into the high thirties, and then dropped again overnight, leaving a crust
of ice three inches thick beneath the snow, which could not be shoveled but had to be chipped away piece by piece. An afternoon’s
work, at least.

Contrary to habit, he did not estimate the job or plan the work, just began where he began and went on from there, sweating
even as the wind continued to blow a steady thirty miles an hour from the north, and when he’d finished his own sidewalk and
driveway, he crossed the street and began on Cowhurl’s. First the walk that ran parallel to the street, then the one that
led to the house.

The wind rose and the temperature fell, and gradually the alcohol wore off and he stopped sweating, and his undershirt was
soaking wet and cold as the snow itself.

His toes had gone numb even before he’d crossed the street, and now his fingers hurt like ten little ice cream headaches.
Again and again, he took off his mittens and stuck his fingertips in his mouth, and before he’d finished there was no feeling
even in that, and his eyelashes were thick with frost.

He was chipping away the last few yards of Cowhurl’s walk when a car pulled into the driveway, a man and woman inside, and
for a long moment they sat where they were, staring at the house, not a word between them, and seemed as far away from one
another as it was possible to be and still be in the same car, and in time they got out and walked past Calmer to the house,
single-file, their faces vaguely familiar but buried in their collars and scarves. They were together but in that way married
people are together when it’s all over and every man for himself. Calmer stepped politely into the snow to let them pass,
and they went past without a nod.

He finished the job just as the last bits of daylight dappled the late-afternoon sky, and started home, wondering if there
was any eggnog in the house, thinking he should have one because it was Christmas.

A
s Calmer crossed the street for home, though, a car turned onto it, coming left off Twenty-sixth at the end of the block,
and he stopped for a moment and watched the snow dancing in its high, double beams. He looked away then, suddenly dizzy, his
eyes losing the shape of the street itself, the sense of near and far. He leaned against the handle of the shovel, afraid
of falling, and tried to remember if he’d eaten anything today. The thought crossed his mind that his heart might have momentarily
stopped—not a heart attack but something in the way of a musician who finds himself out of step with the orchestra and takes
a few beats off to come back in on time.

The car began to slow, and Calmer gathered himself and moved slowly out of the way. He was almost to his front door when he
heard the tires sliding across the ice and then gently bouncing into the curb—a heavy, wet noise, maybe the same sound Mrs.
Cowhurl’s Jaguar had made running over Cowhurl’s head, although he was pretty sure it hadn’t sounded like that to Cowhurl—and
there were two cheerful toots on the horn and then the hum of the automatic window. Calmer turned, his feet stinging like
the dickens, and tried to make out who was behind the wheel. He had a powerful urge to pee.

The car was low to the ground, and probably some shade of yellow under all the dirt. Ice was frozen a foot thick in the wheel
wells, and the brake lights lit up the fog coming out of the exhaust.

“Calmer?”

He recognized the voice even before he bent to the open window and saw the face. Larsson lit a cigarette and laid his arm
out the window, nineteen years old again, chatting up some girl on the sidewalk, hugging his door as he tried to talk her
into taking a ride.

He was wearing an old letter jacket from the university, and a leather cap with fur earflaps. The car was a Cadillac, and
the turn signal on the dashboard blinked on and off, throwing two distinct reflections off the lenses of his bifocal glasses.

Calmer looked into the car, and the warm air blowing out the window carried a waft of liquor. He thought again that he might
like an eggnog.

“Some business,” Larsson said, glancing over in the direction of Cowhurl’s place. The Peace sign was still blinking from the
roof, and Larsson pulled at his cigarette, burning a perfect circle in the dark. “Some business,” he said again, and Calmer
turned without a word to go back into his house and pee.

“Calmer?”

Calmer kept going; Larsson was as dead to him as Cowhurl. “You spare me a few minutes, you think? It doesn’t have to be right
now. Maybe tomorrow?”

He’d waited months to hear from Larsson after he’d been demoted and put back in the classroom, his salary cut in half, believing
that Larsson would come to him with something else. He’d promised him as much when it happened.
Don’t let’s us make a big fuss, Calmer, you got my word all this will get worked out
. And Calmer was a long time—he was embarrassed at how long—seeing what Larsson’s word was worth.

“I don’t see the point, Larsson,” he said now. Surprisingly matter-of-fact, but these days, what wasn’t surprising? Who could
have guessed that he would enjoy cooking and cleaning for himself, enjoy leaving a drink on the coffee table without a coaster
while he tickled up a fire, playing the hi-fi too loud, going whole weekends without answering the phone or the doorbell?
Or that Christmas alone would be so peaceful?

“We need to talk, Admiral,” Larsson was saying. “We got a disaster on our hands.”

“We?” he said.

“Everybody. The whole school district.”

“You’ve got the wrong house,” he said, and started inside again.

“Criminy sake, Calmer, I need a few minutes of your time.”

Calmer said, “I have to pee.”

“You and me were friends once,” Larsson said, “still are, as far as I’m concerned. What do you say, I come by early tomorrow
and pick you up? They got a champagne brunch at the club, I promise to have you home before the games start.” The games, as
if Calmer cared about the games.

And
promise
, as if Calmer had no memory at all. Or maybe it was Larsson who didn’t remember; maybe that was the secret of success. Calmer
felt unfaithful to Lily even giving him the time of day. Worse than that, in some way he still liked him.

He wondered if Larsson had seen him crossing the street and stopped on some impulse to make peace. Larsson would believe he
could do that, throw his arm around your shoulder and make you forget he’d ruined you. From what Calmer knew, he’d been doing
it all his life. Big-shot jock at college in Vermillion, big-shot banker—he owned the bank where Calmer’s house was mortgaged—president
of the school board, member of the state board of regents, the board of the Flatt Valley Hospital district, president of the
United Way. A big shot with the Methodist Church and the alumni association, a big fund-raiser for the university. He’d cut
ribbons and shoveled first shovels of dirt all over the state, and his picture was in every issue of the alumni news, and
in the
Morning-Ledger
three, four times a month, always the same message:
It all comes down to teamwork, pulling together for the common good
.

And in spite of all that, in spite of what he was and what he’d done, Calmer liked him, couldn’t help liking him even if there
was nothing about him he liked. And it wasn’t only Calmer—everybody in town had a tender spot for Dean Larsson, just as everybody
who’d ever come in touching range of Merle Cowhurl despised him.

Larsson had been the first person to interview Calmer about the job in Falling Rapids, the meeting commencing at Larsson’s
office at the downtown branch of his bank and ending up a dinner and several drinks later at a place called Minerva’s, and
on the way out of that eating establishment he’d hung his arm around Calmer’s shoulder and told him that as far as he was
concerned, he was exactly the ticket. Brains and common sense both, the rarest possible combination to find in the field of
public education.

He’d said, “Anything you need to make this happen, Admiral, you let me know.” From the beginning he’d called him Admiral,
impressed with Calmer’s career in the navy.