Staggerford (11 page)

Mrs. Kite handed Miles her husband’s ranger hat. It had a round, flat brim wide as a pizza platter.

Outside, in the wind, Imogene discovered that Miles had not brought his car.

“But we always walk,” he told her. “It’s only three blocks.”

“Pruitt, are you out of your mind? I’m wearing a cap and gown.”

“So what? It’s dark.” He took her hand and pulled her along the street.

Here and there they met clusters of small children wearing masks and carrying bags for candy. Two such youngsters
followed close behind them at a trot, and one said to the other, “What’s he got on?”

“He’s a cop,” said the other.

“No, I mean the other one.”

“That’s a woman. She’s got a witch robe on.”

They came abreast of Miles and one of them said, “Are you really a cop?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Where are you taking that woman?”

“To jail. She’s under arrest.”

“Pruitt, you’re impossible,” said Imogene.

“Why is she under arrest?”

“She’s been acting very gouchy.”

They walked some distance together, the four of them, before one of the children said, “Do you mean grouchy?”

“No, gouchy. It means crude.”

The children lost interest and veered off toward a house where they knocked on the front door.

“Pruitt, you’re impossible. And don’t walk so fast, I’m wearing heels.”

“Sorry.”

“And I wish you wouldn’t try quite so hard to be funny.”

“I can’t help it. I’m an ack-comedian.”

Wayne and Thanatopsis Workman lived in a modern apartment at the back of a large old house belonging to a man who had become rich selling tractors. It was a commonly held opinion in Staggerford that the high school principal ought to be living in a house of his own and thus paying his share of property taxes, but Miles could understand the Workmans’ reluctance to leave this apartment. The retired tractor dealer doted on them. Like most people, he loved Thanatopsis, and he had remodeled the apartment to suit her taste—lots of orange carpet and figured wallpaper and fancy light fixtures to warm up the large, high-ceilinged rooms. He bought them new appliances for the kitchen and he built a new garage in the back yard. Best
of all, he spent all but three months of the year out of sight, sunning his sinuses in Long Beach.

Imogene and Miles were the first to arrive. When Thanatopsis greeted them at the door and shrieked at their costumes, Miles felt his heart leap. He had never known anyone like Thanatopsis, whose enjoyment of life was so headlong, and whose habit it was to call up this surge of gladness in everybody’s heart. Miss McGee called her a treasure. The only person who seemed not to love Thanatopsis was her husband, and Miles wondered what ailed him. Didn’t Wayne understand what a treasure he had in this girl? Miles also wondered why he (Miles) always thought of her as a girl. She was as close to thirty as Imogene, but whereas he thought of Imogene as a woman (if not as a turkey) he thought of Thanatopsis as a girl. It must have been her smallness, her freshness, her habit of wrinkling her nose when she laughed.

Thanatopsis kissed Imogene and she kissed Miles and she led them by the hand into the living room. She wore a tight oriental gown as richly designed as a Persian rug. It glittered with sequins.

“I hope we’re not too early,” said Imogene. “You know Pruitt.” Her black tassel hung over one eye.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” said Thanatopsis. “I’ve been so excited about this party I’ve had everything ready since ten o’clock this morning. I simply couldn’t wait. I got up at five and cleaned house and made the snacks and by ten I was ready. You should have come at ten and spent the day. Don’t you just love these fall days? I was outside in the yard most of the afternoon. I just couldn’t seem to get enough of the kind of day it was. I raked leaves and I turned over the soil in the flower beds and then you know what I did?” She laughed. “I lay down flat on my back. On the ground. The wind was coming up by that time and I lay there and watched the leaves coming down out of the cottonwood. We’ve got this cottonwood tree in the back yard that must be the tallest tree in town, and when you lie on your back and look up, the top branches seem to be miles away, and when the leaves are swilling around and
falling on you it makes you dizzy. Oh, I just
love
a day like this.”

“Pruitt made me walk over here in this outfit. You know how tight Pruitt is. He never starts his car from one year to the next.”

“Let’s
all
go outside in our costumes,” said Thanatopsis. “What a fantastic idea. When everybody gets here we’ll all go out for tricks and treats.”

“Where’s Wayne?” asked Miles.

“He’s still getting ready. He’s been dawdling all day—just having a good lazy time, dawdling and watching football on TV. Wayne loves his Saturdays, and I know how important they are to him. Poor Wayne gets so tense at his job that he needs Saturdays to relax. I just love to see him spend Saturdays dawdling and relaxing and coming down to earth again after a week at school. You know, Wayne is so
serious
about everything. That’s what makes him a good principal of course, but I’m trying to make him a little less serious. Right now I’m working on his Saturdays—making them worry-proof. I’ve decided it’s the one day each week he’s not to think of school. Tonight I put him in charge of the drinks. He’s out in the kitchen, Miles, looking over his liquor supply. Why don’t you go out there and and help him get organized?”

As Miles left the room Imogene was saying, “And the worst of it was he wanted to run all the way. And me in heels. If he wanted to get here so fast why didn’t he take his car out of the garage for once?”

Wayne Workman was sitting on a kitchen stool, reading the label on a bottle of rum. He wore a suit and tie. A cigarette stuck out from under his shaggy mustache and the smoke was getting in his eyes.

“Hello, Pruitt, what will you have?” Miles was called Miles by everyone except Wayne Workman and Imogene Kite.

“A screwdriver.”

“Make it yourself. The ice is in that bucket.” He went back to his reading.

When Wayne Workman first came to town, people remarked
that he resembled Miles. Both men were tall and square-jawed and although Wayne’s hair was not red, it could be mistaken for red at first glance. So Miles, who from the beginning felt a latent antipathy toward this man, grew a mustache; but that was about the time mustaches became fashionable and Wayne grew one of his own, so Miles shaved his off. Now the resemblance, with or without mustaches, was disappearing as Miles gained weight and Wayne stayed lean.

Miles mixed two screwdrivers, one of them for Imogene. “What about Thanatopsis?” he asked. “Shall I mix her one?”

“Pruitt, will you please stop calling my wife that crazy name?”

“Sorry. It’s a habit I somehow—”

“Her name is Anna Thea. It’s a perfectly good name and anybody with average intelligence should be able to say it.”

“Sorry.”

“Pruitt, how do you make a daiquiri? The last time Mrs. Stevenson was here she asked for a daiquiri and I didn’t have what I needed. What do I need?”

“Lime juice.”

“I don’t think I have any lime juice.”

“Wayne, why aren’t you wearing a costume?”

“Well, I’m glad you noticed. But I’m not sure I should tell you.”

Miles shrugged and mixed a screwdriver for Thanatopsis.

“Where did you get that ranger outfit?”

“From Imogene. It belonged to her father.”

“It’s kind of tight on you.”

“Miles sucked in his belly.

“Pruitt, would you really like to know why I’m not wearing a costume?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a test.” He put out his cigarette and lit another. “I decided to wear one of my everyday suits and see if people notice that I’m not in costume. This is one of the suits I
wear as principal, and it’s possible that some people will subconsciously assume that I’m in costume. I want to see who those people are.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“Well, if they think this suit is a costume then deep down inside they probably don’t think of me as a real principal. They think of me as an impostor.”

“Are you serious?”

“I’d like to know where I stand with certain people.”

“Like who?”

“Like Doc Oppegaard. He’s chairman of the school board this year, and I’ve never been sure exactly where I stood with him. I’m on the good side of quite a few prominent people, Pruitt. I get along well with Mayor Druppers. But when the time comes, the chairman of the school board is the kingpin.”

“When the time comes for what?”

“Well, let’s face it, Ansel Stevenson isn’t going to last forever. I mean one way or another he’s going to be replaced before too long. How do you like the sound of Superintendent Workman?”

“Superintendent Workman?”

“How do you like the sound of it?”

“Swell.” Miles downed his screwdriver.

“I played golf last Sunday with Mayor Druppers. He’s not such a bad golfer for his age.”

“That so?”

“He shot an eighty-nine.”

“Mmmmm.”

“Myself, I shot an eighty-three.”

“Nine holes, or eighteen?” Miles regretted this remark, but he couldn’t seem to help it. Wayne Workman for some reason always brought out the worst in him.

The Gibbons arrived, and Coach Gibbon came out to the kitchen dressed in a Staggerford High School wrestling uniform. The red tank-top shirt revealed the pimples on his broad shoulders and the tights revealed a great pouch of genitalia. He nodded at Miles and Wayne without looking them in the eye. His mind was on the tie with Owl Brook,
and he seemed to be studying, with a scowl, the point of his long nose.

“Nice game last night,” said Wayne, whose rare pleasantries were reserved for Coach Gibbon and for members of the school board.

“Aw, that goddamn Fremling. Did you see what happened on our try for point? Finally this year I get a team with some size and I figure we’ll beat Owl Brook for once, and what happens? That goddamn Fremling turns out to be a fat-assed weakling. Give me scotch and water.”

“Help yourself. The ice is in that bucket.”

As Coach helped himself he asked, “How come you aren’t wearing a costume?”

“I’m glad you noticed. Did it ever occur to you that some people might think I
am
wearing a costume?”

“I don’t getcha.”

“I mean they might look upon me as an impostor in my job.”

“Let’s go into the living room,” said Miles.

“I mean subconsciously they might think that.”

“I expect we’ll do all right in wrestling, though,” said Coach. “We’ve got Lawrence Winters at one ninety, and Willy Samuels at one eighty, and Clyde Albertson at one seventy, and Bill Clifford at one sixty, and John Innes at one fifty, and Jack Worley at one forty, and Charlie Zeney at one thirty, and Doug Smith at one twenty, and some little pipsqueak of a freshman at one ten.”

“Let’s go into the living room,” said Miles.

“How do you mix a daiquiri?” asked Wayne.

“I told you. You need lime juice.”

“I’m not asking you, I’m asking Coach.”

“You need lime juice,” said Coach.

“That’s what I thought,” said Wayne.

Miles downed his second screwdriver and mixed a third.

“Now what I’d like to do is take ten pounds off Lawrence Winters and wrestle him at one eighty, take ten pounds off Willy Samuels and wrestle him at one seventy, take ten pounds off Clyde Albertson and wrestle him at one sixty, take ten pounds off Bill Clifford and wrestle him at
one fifty, take ten pounds off John Innes and wrestle him at one forty, take ten pounds off Jack Worley and wrestle him at one thirty, take ten pounds off Charlie Zeney and wrestle him at one twenty, take ten pounds off Doug Smith and wrestle him at one ten, and take ten pounds off the little pipsqueak and wrestle him
at
a hundred.”

Miles went into the other room, where Thanatopsis was laughing and explaining to Imogene and to Stella Gibbon, “Tonight we’re really having two parties. It’s always two parties when you invite the Stevensons. The first party, which is always very proper, ends at ten thirty when the Stevensons go home, and the second party, which is sometimes very
im
proper, ends whenever we please.”

Miles handed Thanatopsis and Imogene their drinks, and he asked Stella Gibbon what she would have. Stella was dressed as a Staggerford cheerleader (short red skirt, anklets, tennis shoes, a red 5 on a white wool sweater) and this outfit, together with her new front teeth, made her very attractive. Since going to work part-time as Doc Oppegaard’s dental assistant, Stella had acquired a mouthful of new bridgework, which (it was said) hadn’t cost her a penny.

“Fix me something strong, Miles, and sweet. I’m dying for something strong and sweet. I tell you that husband of mine has been nothing but a sourpuss ever since that game last night, and then at the office today it was nothing but rush, rush, rush. We had an impacted wisdom tooth and a broken incisor and neither one of them was scheduled ahead of time. I’m supposed to be done at noon on Saturdays, but I was still there at quarter to two. I mean, I couldn’t leave Pappa Doc alone with those patients on his hands, could I?”

“How about a Tom Collins?”

“That sounds wonderful, Miles honey.”

In the kitchen Wayne Workman had finished reading his rum bottle. “Pruitt, I was just saying to Coach that I have come up with a new plan to encourage Indian attendance. I don’t see how it can miss. I’m going to spring it on the faculty Monday afternoon, but I don’t suppose it will do
any harm if you learn about it beforehand. I’m going to tell Superintendent Stevenson and Doc Oppegaard about it tonight, and you can listen if you want to.”

“Swell.” Miles finished his screwdriver and made himself another. The alcohol relieved his toothache.

Next to arrive were the Stevensons. The superintendent came stooping into the kitchen nodding benevolently at Miles and Coach and Wayne. He wore a flannel shirt and a pair of large overalls. “I’m here as a farmer,” he said. “I grew up on a farm and I know the kind of healthy life a farmer leads. My one regret is that we sold the family farm. If I had spent my life as a farmer instead of a schoolman, there’s no doubt I would be enjoying robust health to this day.” His overalls were the right length but much too big around. The straps over his shoulders seemed to be the only parts touching his body.