Эд Горман - Moonchasers and Other Stories

Wouldn’t such a letter force the governor to look into the case more closely?

Around four that afternoon, the sunlight just starting to cool, I got up and mowed the lawn. Mom had been after Dad for two years to buy a power mower. Western Auto always has them on sale, she’d say. But Clarence could be real stubborn about some things and power mowers was one of them. I don’t want to see any of Tom’s fingers or toes getting ground up in those blades, he’d say. And when he put it that way, I wasn’t sure I wanted a power mower, either.

That night I called Barney three times. He still wouldn’t come to the phone. The next day I called him six times and the day after that I called him four — and he still wouldn’t come to the phone. He was still mad at me for hitting him.

I spent most of Sunday cruising around on my bike and about two in the afternoon, I ended up at the Dairy Queen.

And who should be sitting on one of the benches, surrounded like two teenage rock-and-roll stars, but Barney and Cushing?

They each had tall twenty-five-cent cones and they each had their own little gaggle of admirers. Barney’s were girls our age... and Cushing’s were older women in their early twenties.

That’s when I decided I wanted to punch Barney all over again. The way he was looking over at Cushing, it was easy to see they’d become friends.

Didn’t Barney remember what Cushing had done to Roy?

Didn’t Barney care anymore?

Monday, the day before Labor Day, I didn’t do much. I didn’t call Barney because I was afraid that if he did come on the phone I’d start yelling at him. I went down to the drugstore and bought a Lionel White Gold Medal novel called Murder Takes the Bus and went home and read it. At the time, I had just started reading Gold Medals and this one was very, very good. Not as good as Shell Scott, who managed to be tough and funny and sexy, but good nonetheless.

I guess I should tell you that people were still stopping me on the street and pumping my hand and saying how proud they were and wasn’t it neat that the governor was coming — and what else could I say? I said I was glad they were proud and I pumped their hands right back and I said it was indeed neat that the governor was coming.

Monday night, I wrote the letter. Four times I wrote the letter. I knew it had to be short and to the point but I also knew that it had to shake him up when he read it.

Now all I had to do was figure out how I was going to get it up on the podium without anybody seeing me.

As I was sealing it, there was a tiny, soft knock on my door. I said come in and Debbie appeared. She wore her old faded WinkyDink T-shirt (remember the TV show where you drew on this plastic sheet you put over the TV screen?) and a pair of jeans and no shoes. Her hair was done in pigtails.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said.

“About what?”

“The Tooth Fairy.”

“What about him?”

“Well, on Christmas Eve Santa Claus gets around on a sleigh and on Halloween witches get around on brooms — but how does the Tooth Fairy get around?”

“He takes the bus.”

She giggled.

“Really,” I said. “He’s got one of those twenty-trip passes you can buy for two bucks.”

She giggled some more.

“I think you left that dollar under my pillow.”

“Me? Nah. Where would I get a dollar?”

“I just wanted to thank you.”

“Thank him. Not me.”

“The Tooth Fairy? The one who rides the bus all the time?”

“That’s the guy.”

She smiled. And then she said it: “Mrs. Kelvin at the church is having me carry some flowers up and set them on the platform just before the governor gets there.”

“God.”

“What?”

“You suppose you could do me a favor?”

So I told her about the letter and how I needed to get it up there.

“You’d have to be fast.”

“I will be,” she said.

“And you’ll have to be crafty.”

“I will be,” she said.

“And you could get in some trouble if you get caught.”

“It’ll be neat,” she said.

So we went through it a couple of times, how she’d set the flowers down and then look around to see if anybody was watching her, and then how she’d set the letter down on the podium and get out of there, fast.

“You scared?”

“A little bit,” she said.

“You won’t tell Mom?”

“Huh-uh.”

“Or Clarence?”

“Huh-uh.”

“Promise?”

She held up her fingers in the Bluebird pledge. “I promise.”

That night, I actually got some sleep. When I woke up, the letter was the first thing I thought of.

Today it was all going to come tumbling down for Cushing. I couldn’t wait.

The event was right at noon. The only problem I had was passing the hours till that time came.

I rode over town and watched the city hall people put the final touches on the town square. There was so much red-white-and-blue it was almost blinding. The bandstand was draped in bunting and already a couple of chubby guys in red sport coats from the Dixieland band were there sliding their trombones and walking around as if they were pretty hot stuff, butch wax on their hair and real loud heel clips on their shoes. I guess I don’t like them because the time Clarence tried to get in with his clarinet they wouldn’t take him. Clarence acted like it didn’t bother him but I knew it did. Clarence is too nice a guy to get his feelings hurt like that. Anyway, they have a lousy band — every other song seems to be “Muskrat Ramble” and Clarence sure couldn’t have made it any worse, even though, I have to admit, his clarinet playing is pretty lousy.

Then I heard somebody say, “Hey! Here comes the heroes!”

And when I turned to look over by the bird-shit-speckled Civil War statue, there was Barney and his new best friend Detective Cushing.

Barney saw me but he pretended he didn’t. He just kept walking right up to the bandstand with Cushing.

I went home and lay down on my bed.

Debbie came in wearing a white blouse and red shorts and blue Keds. “Red, white and blue. Get it?”

I nodded.

“Where’s the letter?”

“On top of the desk.”

“You OK?”

“Not really,” I said. “But I’d rather not talk about it.”

She went over and picked up the letter. “You ever going to tell me what it says?”

“Maybe someday.”

“Boy, everybody sure is excited about the governor coming to town.” She smiled. “Everybody except Pop.”

Governor Hamling was a Democrat, a fact that Clarence wasn’t exactly crazy about.

She came over and stood above me. “You ever going to be all right again?”

“Someday.”

“It’s been a long time.”

“Just a couple days.”

“Well, that’s a long time, isn’t it?”

“I guess.”

“Come on.”

“What?”

“You can walk me over to the square. It’s about time, anyway.” And so it was.

I went into the bathroom and got ready and then we went out to the garage and got my bike and Debbie got on the handlebars and we took off.

“Boy, look,” Debbie said when we were two blocks from the square.

The highway runs right through town. Right now an entire block of traffic was crawling along with motorcycle cops at the front and back and this long black limousine right in the middle. Emergency lights — but no sirens — flashed. The motorcycle cops wore sunglasses and looked real mean.

I’d never seen — or felt — this kind of fervor before, not even for Little Richard.

Women stood on street corners waving handkerchiefs at the governor. Grumpy old men waved wrinkled old arms. And little kids jumped up and down and laughed and shouted and pointed.