Макс Коллинз - Shoot the Moon (and more)

And it wasn’t the cotton candy, either.

It was Elam and Hopp and this snowball that had caught me up on its way down the mountainside in the process of becoming an avalanche.

“Ya look kinda pasty, kid,” Elam said.

“Must be the cotton candy,” I said.

Elam was on my right. Hopp on my left. They began talking through me.

Hopp said, “So what’s the deal?”

Elam said, “We got to leave the money behind. For now.”

“For now?” Hopp asked.

“Right. We can’t stay around here much longer. This damn celebration, Flounder’s Day or whatever, is gonna bring some people into this town, and unless we want to spend all day mingling with the crowd, we better get outa here.”

“What about the money?” Hopp said.

“We’ll come back for it. After dark. After this Centennial thing shoots its wad and the sidewalks of this Podunk get rolled up proper. We just pull up to the bank, use our key to get back in, grab the money and run.”

“Can I say something?” I said.

Elam nodded. “But make it fast, kid.”

“Somebody’s going to miss those two bank employees. They’re bound to be missed. If you come back here later, there’ll be cops all over. Or a trap of some kind. That only makes sense. I think we should all get out and get away from here, while we can.”

“No,” Elam said. “That angle’s took care of. Before we left, we had both of them bank employees call and say they wouldn’t be home till late tonight. The girl was from Iowa City, single, twenty-four, lives with another girl who’s gonna be gone the rest of the weekend, anyway. The man is from here, but he called his daughter and told her he was called out of town on business for the rest of the day.”

“Oh,” I said.

“What now?” Hopp asked.

“We walk out to that farmhouse where Kitch’s goofy pal’s got that car waiting,” Elam said. “The important thing now is we do it before this celebration thing gets going full steam.”

All during this conversation I had been playing with the sticky paper cone from the cotton candy, twisting it around my fingers like a dunce cap that was too small for me. Now, as Elam was talking, telling Hopp we had to get out of here, I spotted a trash receptacle by a tree nearby, and got up to get rid of the paper cone. I tossed it in the can and, as I turned to rejoin Elam and Hopp, I saw something.

I saw that the park had filled up with people.

Behind where we’d been sitting, the benches were full. People were sitting quietly. Quiet as church.

I sat back down between Elam and Hopp, and said, “Uh, don’t look now, boys, but...”

Hopp said, “We gotta get outa here.”

Elam said, whispering, “Cool it. Leave me think a second.”

Up on the bandshell one of the official types, a man, was fiddling with a centerstage microphone. He was tapping it, blowing into it, even talking into it, anything to try and see if it was on or not, while another official type, a woman, stood out front to see if anything was coming out of the speakers. Finally, in the middle of a sentence, the official type on the stage discovered the mike was now on. His embarrassment (the part of his sentence that came out over the mike was “... wrong with this silly thing?”) drew some titters from the crowd. Then the official type who’d been standing out front, the woman, hollered at one of the teenage helpers to adjust the amplifier, which apparently was off in the bushes somewhere. There followed some feedback and squeals and such until the microphone was adjusted properly.

What this meant, obviously, was that something official... a ceremony or presentation of some kind... was about to take place.

Elam, being no dummy, sensed this and said so.

Hopp said, “Let’s just get up and leave before whatever this is gets started.”

I said, “Good idea.”

Elam’s whisper turned harsh. “We’re in the front row, you dummies...we got to be careful. We got to wait for just the right moment.”

Hopp said, “The right moment is now.”

I said, “I agree.”

I figured the longer we waited, the more chance there was the show would get on the road before we could.

But Elam had his reasons for staying put. He jerked his thumb over toward the place where the park and the street met: the two Highway Patrolmen were standing there, with arms crossed. There was nothing in their faces to suggest they suspected us, or anybody, of anything. They looked bored, actually. Still, I could understand Elam’s hesitation for calling attention to ourselves by getting up and leaving from these front row seats, with the entire town of Wynning sitting and standing behind us.

Up on the stage, five men sat in five chairs. The microphone was in front of them. They were dressed in suits and looked official, but in a different way than the clipboard, plastic-badge hurry-scurry bunch who’d been ordering teenagers around all morning. These men had the look of say, a mayor and city council members. (Which is what they turned out to be.)

And then the sound of sirens shattered the peace and quiet of the park, like crazy people let loose, screaming.

They were police type sirens, and Hopp hopped to his feet the moment he heard them.

So did just about everybody else.

The five people on the stage jumped out of their five chairs. The townspeople sitting on the benches behind us got to their feet, too. Teenage kids who’d been sitting on the grass behind the benches and off to the sides also leapt to their feet, and those folks who’d already been standing, stood a little taller.

And clapped.

Brother, did they clap.

Everyone was standing and applauding, and though Hopp hadn’t realized it at the time, when those sirens goosed him off that bench, he was leading a standing ovation.

And so Hopp and Elam and me, we just stood there and clapped till our hands got red, not knowing why the hell we were clapping, but when you’re in the front row and a standing ovation is going on, you don’t ask questions: you just stand and clap and grin like everybody else.

Over in the street, in front of the concession wagons and Highway Patrol car, in front of the stolen Mustang and the bank, in an open place vacated by the high school band members who had disappeared somewhere, two more Highway Patrol cars slid up and stopped, and behind them came a long black Cadillac, the sort of car you see in a funeral procession or gangster movie.

The high school band reappeared, bringing up the rear of the black Cadillac. They were marching and playing “On Wisconsin.”

(No, I do not know why a high school band in Wynning, Iowa, would be playing “On Wisconsin.” Why don’t you ask the Chinese lady in the Tacomobile?)

And then the black car came to a stop, too, and the Highway Patrolmen were out of their cars and swarming all over everywhere. I never saw so many Highway Patrolmen in my life. I have to admit, thinking back, I can only count six of them, but at the time it seemed like there was a Highway Patrolman for every citizen in that park.

A little man in a well-tailored conservative brown suit, with a nicely chosen yellow-and-white pattern tie, followed a pair of Highway Patrolmen from the black Cadillac to the stage. The pair of Highway Patrolmen cleared an imaginary path for him through a non-existent throng: the Wynning citizens were clapping wildly, but were a mild-mannered, mini-mob who stayed in their places while whoever this was made his grand entrance.

Soon the little man, who had short brown hair and was about forty and handsome in an ordinary sort of way, was standing on the stage, near the microphone.

When the applause finally began to dwindle, one of the five men who’d already been on the stage — a pudgy, jolly-looking bald man with glasses — spoke into the mike. “It is with great pride and pleasure that the people of Wynning welcome to this, our 100th Founder’s Day Celebration, our esteemed and honorable...”