Kings Of The Earth Part 8

The tall guy didn't even turn to look at him. He just ducked his shoulder a little bit to give Tom access to his beer. He certainly didn't make any effort to give the stool back. Tom decided he looked like Xavier Cugat. He had that Cuban's arrogance.

Tom drank a little and tried to listen in on their conversation, but Cugat was talking in something below a whisper. Plus he had an accent that made his voice kind of dip and rise and slur around the corners, like the coaster over in the amus.e.m.e.nt park. Tom drank a little more and lit a cigarette. After a minute or two Cugat left off and Nick stuck out an elbow and pushed him back a little. He said while you're at it this is Tom. This guy right here. The guy I was telling you about.

Cugat swiveled slow, like a cat stretching, and he fixed his hypnotic eyes on Tom. He eased out a slow smile. It made that skinny little mustache of his slide outward and up at the edges and get even thinner. Like a paper cut that hasn't healed over.

"Hey," said Tom through his cigarette.

Cugat slid a hand toward him. "Tom," he said, "I am very pleased to meet you." He was still using that roller-coaster voice, but he'd turned up the volume on it a little. "I am Henri."

A Canuck, then. That explained a few things. The Canuck bowed like some kind of old-time parlor magician, his black hair parted up the middle and slicked back. Tom half-expected him to reach over and fish a quarter out of his ear.

Nick said Henri was from Canada and Tom said he'd figured that out.

Nick said hey he could be from France couldn't he or he could live right around here and still have an accent since there was no law against having an accent that he knew of, and Tom said he guessed that was pretty much true but he'd been thinking Canada anyway for some reason.

Henri reached inside his jacket and took out his cigarettes-a flat box of those Matinees-and Nick looked from the pack to Tom and back again as if this were the secret, as if Tom possessed X-ray vision and had looked through the Canuck's jacket and identified his country of origin by his smokes. Fine.

"So, Tom"-here Henri paused to light up, making everybody wait for the rest of what he had to say as he fitted the Matinee between his lips and hunted down his Zippo and spun the thumbwheel and fired up the cigarette and squinted against the rising smoke and inhaled dramatically and held it for a second and then another second and then finally blew it out again-"I have heard a great deal about you." It was turning out that Henri wasn't big on getting his sentences out all at once.

Nick bounced his eyebrows up and down and said yes, Tom was the guy he'd been talking about all right. Henri'd come all the way down here from Montreal and he couldn't go home without seeing Tom. Yes, sir, the three of them sure as s.h.i.t had a little something to do if Tom was willing.

Tom was pretty sure he was. In the back room Luke and the Smoky Mountain Boys were caterwauling about some guy tracking a dead girl's footprints in the snow, but he blocked it out of his mind and took a quick look at Henri's Matinee cigarette and began to envision for himself a future in international trade. Then they had a few more beers and didn't talk about anything for a while.

Preston.

YOU'D THINK AFTER all this time you might start looking at it as a turkey coop, but I don't guess anybody ever will. It'll always be just a school bus with turkeys in it. I guess it's the color. There's nothing else in this world the color of a school bus. They call it yellow but it's not quite yellow, and it's not orange either. I'd say it's something somewhere in between margarine and Velveeta. It's not a natural color. Then again I guess if we wanted kids to grow up natural we wouldn't put them on a school bus in the first place. all this time you might start looking at it as a turkey coop, but I don't guess anybody ever will. It'll always be just a school bus with turkeys in it. I guess it's the color. There's nothing else in this world the color of a school bus. They call it yellow but it's not quite yellow, and it's not orange either. I'd say it's something somewhere in between margarine and Velveeta. It's not a natural color. Then again I guess if we wanted kids to grow up natural we wouldn't put them on a school bus in the first place.

The bus where the Proctor boys keep turkeys isn't quite that original color but it's close. At least most of it is. They got it thirdhand or maybe fourth from an old hippie over near Whitesboro. I understand he got it special for that big show down by Woodstock. The show wasn't really in Woodstock but everybody said it was. That's what they called it. Woodstock.

Where that old hippie got the bus to begin with I never heard. After the show was over, though, he came back and drove it around for three or four years-you'd see him in it here and there, just going to the grocery store or something or maybe to work, if he worked-and then I guess he got sick of putting gas in it. This was during the energy crisis. He pretty much junked it in a field out behind where he lived. You could see it from the Thruway if you knew where to look, especially during the wintertime when the leaves were all down. He'd painted it up psychedelic for that concert, so it got to where it was kind of a landmark.

Then one day it just wasn't there anymore. I was coming back from Herkimer on business and I always kept an eye out for it but it wasn't there that time. I didn't know where a person would take a junked school bus all dolled up like that or who'd want one, but from then on every time I'd go by I'd miss it. It was kind of like a pulled tooth. You'd notice it by its not being there. Anyhow a week or or ten days later I was taking Margaret out to supper at a place over on the road to New Hartford and I thought we'd go by where that old hippie lived and just take a look on account of we were there anyway and I was curious about it. Sure enough. Wouldn't you know that bus was in the barn and he was giving it a fresh coat of paint. It was pretty much that original school-bus yellow or as close to it as he could get. I don't think you could match that color without the specs on it. He was using a roller on a pole, just rolling it on like he was painting a house. He was covered with it himself. I think he had as much on himself as he had on the bus. I said to Margaret I bet that's latex house paint he's using and sure enough it turned out later that it was. It didn't stick for beans and you can still see the psychedelic paint job in places. I guess he was trying to reform that school bus. He figured he'd take the hippie out of it so somebody'd buy it from him. But you can't cover up a school bus with latex house paint. I figured even an old hippie would know that much, but that one sure didn't.

Tom.

THEY LEFT THE W WOODSHED and stood around in the parking lot. The lake was making some little lapping noises out past the scrub and the junk but they could hear it only when the wind turned the right way. Otherwise all they could hear was the noise from the amus.e.m.e.nt park. Bells ringing and rollers screeching on rusty tracks and that awful circus music from the carousel. and stood around in the parking lot. The lake was making some little lapping noises out past the scrub and the junk but they could hear it only when the wind turned the right way. Otherwise all they could hear was the noise from the amus.e.m.e.nt park. Bells ringing and rollers screeching on rusty tracks and that awful circus music from the carousel.

Nick asked Tom if he had his car with him and Tom said he thought he was still man enough to walk the four blocks from the body and fender place under his own power.

Nick said the two of them would go back there with him then, but Tom said no. Business and pleasure. Whatever they were going to do they would do right here in this lot or maybe in some other lot even emptier than this one, but they wouldn't do it at home.

Nick said that was pretty much what they had in mind and he was just trying to make it easier. He thought they could do it in the body and fender lot, maybe. Tom said was he nuts. The body and fender lot was lit up like they were selling used cars over there. The body and fender guys had a thing about security. They had a couple of closed-circuit television cameras set up. No way they'd do any business in the body and fender lot, not unless Henri here wanted to end up in a foreign jail. By which he meant, you know, an American jail. Which would be foreign to him.

Nick said fine you go get the car and come back and pick me up, and we'll follow Henri. Tom said where to and Henri said that Tom would most a.s.suredly find out soon enough.

Tom went and got the car. He didn't fetch any more dope from the closet upstairs because what he had in the glove box would do for a sample. If Henri wanted to buy more they could work it out based on that. When he got back Nick was waiting and Henri was behind the wheel of a big Caddy whose idle was even lower than the inaudible lapping of the water in the lake. Henri put the lights on and Nick jumped into the VW and they took off. Tom asked how long Nick had known this guy Henri and Nick said forever. Nick said he appreciated Tom's help and Tom didn't know what he was talking about but he didn't pursue it. He kind of appreciated Nick's help in connecting him up with this guy, but he let it go. After a few minutes and a half-dozen false starts where Henri would touch his brakes to size up some parking lot and change his mind at the last second and hit the gas again, they came to a campground that seemed to suit him. It was dark. There were a few trailers there but not many, most of them permanently dug in. None of them had any lights on. They belonged to summer people, gone home to Syracuse or Rochester, though Henri didn't know that. Henri cut back to his parking lights and Tom did the same and they drove among the trailers until they were out of sight of the road.

DeAlton TELL YOU THE TRUTH I liked it better before you threw all that yellow on it. You had something before. You had something that belonged in a museum. I liked it better before you threw all that yellow on it. You had something before. You had something that belonged in a museum.

I'm not kidding. You've got to be future-minded. You've got to take the long view.

I know. You've got a point. Maybe someday but not now. You park that thing outside the Everson Museum in Syracuse they'd just haul it away even if it still had all that psychedelic s.h.i.t on it. They don't know the value of anything.

But I still don't think you've done it any favors with that yellow paint. Or yourself either, as far as that goes.

So what do you want for it?

f.u.c.k. You must be crazier than you look, and that's saying something.

Hey. You know I don't mean anything by it. Not after all we've been through.

Good. That makes me feel better.

I know you know.

So what'd you pay for it new or whatever?

Christ Almighty. You must have been plenty high.

Yes, sir, I knew you then and I know you now.

You missed a spot above that taillight. Right there.

And these days it doesn't even hardly run. I'm surprised you got it into the barn. Tell you the truth I don't see how you're going to get out from underneath it.

That tire's almost bald right there. And the other one too now I look at it. Plus you could get high just sniffing the seat cushions. You probably don't notice it anymore but I don't know how you'll ever get that smell out. You're going to need yourself one understanding customer. You're going to need one majorly simpatico simpatico dude. dude.

Oops. There's another spot you missed right there.

All right. I'll tell you what. Why don't we add up what I owe you, take away a hundred for my trouble, and see if we can't work out something that doesn't hurt either one of us too much.

I know. I know.

Hey, it's your choice. You wait, though, you'll end up paying somebody else to haul it away. Plus if this thing gets in the wrong hands you're in deep s.h.i.t.

Jesus. Have you ever even thought about running a Shop-Vac through it? A broom? You ever emptied the ashtray? That's what they call evidence, pure and simple. Don't you doubt it for a minute.

All right. Good. This is your lucky day, old buddy. Be glad I came along when I did.

Preston.

YOU NEED A SPECIAL LICENSE to drive a school bus. It's not a Cla.s.s A, I don't think, but it's something like it. Not the same level as what you need for driving a semi truck but it's on that order, on account of the technology's different from a family car. The gearbox mainly. So you could have just about knocked me over when I came around front on the riding mower and saw that yellow school bus stuck in the turn and DeAlton at the wheel. At least he wasn't hauling kids. He nearly tipped it over in the ditch. to drive a school bus. It's not a Cla.s.s A, I don't think, but it's something like it. Not the same level as what you need for driving a semi truck but it's on that order, on account of the technology's different from a family car. The gearbox mainly. So you could have just about knocked me over when I came around front on the riding mower and saw that yellow school bus stuck in the turn and DeAlton at the wheel. At least he wasn't hauling kids. He nearly tipped it over in the ditch.

We had a circus getting it out. I mean three rings. It took all five of us and the tractor and the Buick I was driving then. We could have used the horse if she'd still been with us but she wasn't. Audie drove the tractor. He always had a touch for it and even now, when he can't see so good, he still gets the fussy work. One of these days he's going to run that thing into the woods and kill himself, but he hasn't done it yet.

A state trooper came along at one point and asked if we could use any help but DeAlton waved him on. The trooper volunteered to get up in the bus and steer if we wanted but he said no thanks, we could handle it ourselves. DeAlton looked a whole lot cooler to that state trooper than he did to the rest of us. He made it seem like we had the whole operation under control, which if you know the Proctor boys was questionable to say the least. I think the way he spoke so cool to that trooper gave Creed and Vernon a little faith that we might actually get the job done, so that was all right.

It took the better part of the afternoon and we lost the pa.s.senger side mirror on a fence post, but we got that bus up the dirt lane and put it behind the barn. We hoisted up one end and then the other with a block and tackle so we could take the tires off and set it down square on the dirt. Dug it out a little on the front end where it was high. DeAlton said you could live in it if you wanted to or you could keep chickens in it or maybe turkeys. He said if his uncles wanted to look at it the right way he'd just expanded their living quarters by a hundred percent. They could sleep on the benches. Pipe heat out from the stove. He thought I could probably help with that and I guess I could have if it hadn't been the dumbest idea I'd ever heard.

Vernon asked him what a valuable addition like this was worth and DeAlton said he thought he'd never ask. I'd have gotten in between them over that deal, but they're family.

Tom.

HENRI POPPED THE TRUNK and then ran around to unscrew the lightbulb from the trunk lid. and then ran around to unscrew the lightbulb from the trunk lid.

"That's one careful dude," said Nick.

"He'd been all that careful," Tom said, "he'd have ditched that bulb already." Not that he would have thought of it himself, but saying it made him feel superior.

"Still," said Nick. "You've got to respect Henri. He's a professional."

They both opened their doors and Tom reached up to switch off the dome light, wishing he'd thought of it about a half a second before. While his eyes readjusted to the darkness he turned to Nick and asked him why Henri had the trunk open anyhow, but Nick didn't answer. He was gone and the door was closing behind him. Tom put one leg out onto the gravel and then remembered to get the Baggie from the glove box, which wasn't easy in the pitch dark and with as much beer as he had in him. He hoped there were some rolling papers in there but he couldn't remember.

When he got out Nick already had the VW's hatch open. He looked at Nick in the light that bounced off the lake from the stars and asked him what he was doing and Nick said wasn't it obvious. He couldn't take that s.h.i.t home on his motorcycle now could he. There was a little bit more than would fill up the saddlebags in case he hadn't noticed. And sure enough there was. Over behind the Caddy, Henri had switched on a little penlight and was pa.s.sing it over a trunkful of gra.s.s. Bricks of it in plastic wrap and bales of it in burlap sacks. There must have been two hundred pounds, maybe more. Nick got an eyeful and nodded his head once, and Henri cut the light. He clearly wasn't interested in whatever little bit of dope Tom might have wanted to talk about.

1960.

Audie.

I HATED MY MOTHER'S NAME HATED MY MOTHER'S NAME on that stone all those years just waiting. Now she was under and waiting with her name. Creed called the headstone man but he didn't come right off. He was the son of the man put it in. That's how long it'd been since my father went on ahead. The father carved for my father and the son carved for her. All she needed was the numbers because the rest was already there. on that stone all those years just waiting. Now she was under and waiting with her name. Creed called the headstone man but he didn't come right off. He was the son of the man put it in. That's how long it'd been since my father went on ahead. The father carved for my father and the son carved for her. All she needed was the numbers because the rest was already there.

Ruth.

THE SUMMER Pa.s.sES and her sons cut the hay and bring it in and the late rains wash the low hummock of her grave. Rivulets run from it. Gra.s.s sprouts up and weeds. In the woods the leaves turn and fall. Preston Hatch comes up with a garden rake over his shoulder and a pocketful of seed, and he roughs up the earth of the grave and he plants gra.s.s. He gleans hay from the cut field and he covers the seed over. He bows his head and he says a prayer but not for rain. That much he counts on without reservation, and snow too, with the changing of the seasons. and her sons cut the hay and bring it in and the late rains wash the low hummock of her grave. Rivulets run from it. Gra.s.s sprouts up and weeds. In the woods the leaves turn and fall. Preston Hatch comes up with a garden rake over his shoulder and a pocketful of seed, and he roughs up the earth of the grave and he plants gra.s.s. He gleans hay from the cut field and he covers the seed over. He bows his head and he says a prayer but not for rain. That much he counts on without reservation, and snow too, with the changing of the seasons.

When the monument man comes up the dirt lane he stops at the house next door as the more promising of the two. It has been raining lightly all afternoon and he is in a foul mood for having to work in it. He has a ball cap and a three-day growth of beard and a cigar screwed in between his teeth like a carriage bolt. Margaret comes to the door when he knocks, and without even withdrawing the cigar or saying that he is sorry for her loss he asks which way to the stone. She points up the hill. Then she points to the Proctor house and advises him to go there first, since it isn't her grave and it wasn't her mother who pa.s.sed away to fill it. It was theirs. Their mother and their grave. And he'd better learn to feign a respectful measure of sympathy if he plans to be spending his time among the bereaved.

"Yes, ma'am," he says, and he touches his cigar to the brim of his ball cap and leaves.

The brothers are in the barn. He goes to them without moving the truck, his feet sticking in the barnyard mud, and they come out to meet him halfway. Which of them has made out the words on his truck will stay a mystery.

"Whyn't we go on in," he says when they have made their introductions. Tilting his head toward the barn.

"Not with that seegar lit up," says Creed. Just like that. Seegar Seegar.

"Sorry," says the monument man, extracting the cigar and hiding it behind his back and blowing smoke leeward from the corner of his mouth. "I should know some folks don't care for the stink." It is the first sympathy he has shown. "My own wife, for example."

"It ain't that."

"I don't hardly notice it myself."

"It ain't the smell," Creed says. "You don't want no fire in a hay barn." He laughs either at the idea of it or at the monument man's ignorance. Maybe both.

The monument man looks over at the barn as if a sprinkling of hot ashes might do it a world of good.

"You're welcome to chew if you want," Vernon says. Showing his own wrecked teeth.

"That's all right," says the monument man. "I got work to do anyhow." He sticks the cigar back between his teeth and he yanks down his ball cap to shield it against the rain, and then he walks back to the truck.

He drives up through the pasture to the edge of the little graveyard. He pulls around to the wooded side of it where there is more protection from the weather and less chance the tires might get stuck if the rain gets any worse. It sure does seem to be settling in. A wind has risen from the east. He gets out of the cab and compares the stencil he cut in accordance to his father's old records against the lettering already on the stone and decides it's all right, and satisfied he takes a towel and rubs the stone dry and marks it and mounts the stencil to the face of it with rubber cement. He masks off the stone around the stencil and puts down tarps to catch the sandblasting compound. The air compressor he leaves in the truck bed since he has plenty of hose.

It won't be a long job. Just the two digits. He can't afford to waste effort on it because his father sold these packages complete and now that the old man is in the ground himself the time and materials are coming straight out of his own pocket. The old man probably made five or six of his long solitary fishing trips to Saranac Lake on the work his son has yet to finish. It's all there in the contracts, so there isn't a thing he can do about it. If there's anything these old-timers know how to hang on to it's the paperwork for a headstone. He's learned that lesson once or twice.

He preps the sandblaster and puts his goggles and his gloves on, and he knocks the dirt out of his respirator and puts that on too. He takes off one glove to check that the stencil is glued down tight and won't go anywhere or leak compound around the edges and ruin the stone. He puts the glove back on, then he goes back to the truck and pulls the rope on the compressor. Beneath the sound of it he picks up the shuddering gun and kneels on the tarp he's spread over the grave and squeezes back the trigger.

For a moment it's raining everything. Water and sandblasting compound and pulverized granite. Against the onslaught the monument man settles his mind and counts steadily, metronomic by long practice, and moves the gun evenly across the face of the rock. One pa.s.s and he releases the trigger and then another pa.s.s from the other direction. After this second pa.s.s he stops and puts the gun down and sprays water from an Indian pump over the stencil and a.s.sesses the cut. His father would have disconnected the gun and blown the cut clean with compressed air but he is not his father and he hates to waste motion and it's raining anyhow. Once he is satisfied as to his progress he begins again, confident that he knows within a pa.s.s or two how many it will take to finish. Thinking as he goes that he knows of no work more permanent than this. Wondering will his own children take it up when he is through, but thinking it unlikely.

He releases the trigger and rubs a fist over his goggles and turns to look left, down the hill toward the house and the barn, where amid the fierce cloud of grit and granite borne downwind like the locusts of old he spies a single figure upright. The voiceless brother. His hands covering his face and his elbows lifted up like wings. Enduring the torrent of rain and rock. The monument man nods to him in acknowledgment of whatever might have brought him here, mistrust or curiosity or even love, and then he turns once more to finish his work.

Preston.

I BLAME BLAME my own impatience. If I'd waited to plant the gra.s.s until after they'd come to put the year on the stone I don't guess I'd have had to do it twice. But to tell the truth it seemed like they weren't ever going to come. And then it'd been winter and what then. So I planted it once and it began to come up pretty well and then they came to work on the stone and it got all trampled down again and I had to do it over. I didn't mind. You owe some things to the dead even if they're not your own dead. I guess in some way they're all your own. my own impatience. If I'd waited to plant the gra.s.s until after they'd come to put the year on the stone I don't guess I'd have had to do it twice. But to tell the truth it seemed like they weren't ever going to come. And then it'd been winter and what then. So I planted it once and it began to come up pretty well and then they came to work on the stone and it got all trampled down again and I had to do it over. I didn't mind. You owe some things to the dead even if they're not your own dead. I guess in some way they're all your own.

1954.

Creed.

I LEARNED TO LIKE LEARNED TO LIKE a drink over to Camp Drum after I come back from Korea. Not before. Before I went liquor just put me in mind of the old man. He was a drinker and he had a brother drank too. Uncle Walt. We called him our drinking uncle. He was an awful drunk. He's dead now. My mother didn't have no time for him but she was stuck with my old man. Stuck till he died too like his brother. I think that's why I never got married yet. I seen her and how it was and I never wanted nothing to do with it. a drink over to Camp Drum after I come back from Korea. Not before. Before I went liquor just put me in mind of the old man. He was a drinker and he had a brother drank too. Uncle Walt. We called him our drinking uncle. He was an awful drunk. He's dead now. My mother didn't have no time for him but she was stuck with my old man. Stuck till he died too like his brother. I think that's why I never got married yet. I seen her and how it was and I never wanted nothing to do with it.

There was quite a few drinkers in my squad up to Camp Drum. One boy from Tennessee said he liked to make his own back home. His own whiskey. He said he made it out of corn and I said we had enough corn back to the farm for that. We had plenty. The cows wouldn't miss a little of it. I decided I'd make my own like he did even though I weren't much use in the kitchen. He said it weren't a kitchen you needed and he showed me. He drew it all out the best he remembered it. He said you didn't want it anywhere near the kitchen. You wanted it a good distance away. He said the main thing you needed other than the parts and the corn was good luck to stay away from the law. I thought he was joking. He was a great one for jokes. I still got that paper he drew me. That boy from Tennessee.

So that was what we done at Camp Drum. There weren't much else to do since we was all through with the war. Our part of it. Old Camp Drum sets up there near Canada. I guess the army wants to watch out in case Canada comes down like North Korea did but it never happened that I know of. It was cold up there and there wasn't nothing to do and you could get a drink pretty easy. Some boys like that one from Tennessee were in the habit already when we got there. I don't guess Camp Drum'd seemed so bad if I'd gone there from home but I come straight from Korea. So I got to like whiskey all right. Not too much. I could afford it on my army pay but I knew when that give out I wouldn't be able to. I begun saving up the last I got of it for parts like that Tennessee boy put down on paper for me.

Preston.