Макс Коллинз - Shoot the Moon (and more)

(And this was shouted into the microphone)

“... Governor of the State of Iowa!”

I thought I could hear Elam moaning, but it was hard to tell as the applause again began to swell.

As the ovation continued, Hopp leaned across me to ask Elam, “What now, smartass?”

“We just gotta stick it out,” Elam said, leaning across me to answer Hopp. “We’ll just stay here and listen to what this jerk has to say. He won’t stay all day.”

“I hope we don’t,” I said.

“We’re okay as long as that goofy buddy of yours stays put,” Elam told me. “He won’t panic, will he? He’ll just wait out there till we can join him, right? I mean, if he drives in here, man, the way they got roads blocked off and cars parked in the streets, we could get stuck here till the cows come home.”

I didn’t answer.

Because I had already spotted a tall, awkward-looking apparition walking along the perimeter of the park, looking confused, searching for a familiar face in the sea of standing, clapping bodies. And he was grinning like a rabbit, coming toward us now.

“Hey you guys,” he said, joining in with the continuing applause, “what’s goin’ on? Is that really the Governor? I bet my mom’d get a kick out of this.”

One good thing about being stuck there in the first row with all those people behind us and the Governor up on stage in front of us was that otherwise Wheaty probably would be dead right now. Because there was a moment when Elam and/or Hopp would have killed him, I think, if there hadn’t been so many witnesses. And maybe I would have, too. If his mom wanted some of the action, she’d have to stand in line.

Wheat was oblivious to the danger, of course. He still thought the robbery was only a trial run, and had just gotten bored out there waiting for us. Not scared, you heard me right the first time: bored. According to Elam’s plan of action, we should have reported back to that farmhouse within twenty-five minutes of leaving it. When an hour had passed, Wheat drove in to find out what was happening.

“What about the car?” Elam whispered, over the applause for the Governor, which was just beginning to dwindle.

“It’s parked back here,” Wheat said, and jerked a thumb over his shoulder, as he squeezed in between Hopp and me.

Back beyond the crowd we could see cars parked bumper to bumper in the street behind the park.

That was the moment when Elam and/or Hopp (and maybe me) almost killed Wheat.

But the only thing that died at that moment was the applause, and suddenly everybody was sitting down and we were all listening to the Governor.

Sort of.

I mean, I can’t tell you what the Governor of the state of Iowa said that morning. It was a short speech, probably a lot like all the other pleasant, meaningless speeches you hear governors make in public, whether it’s at a Fourth of July picnic or the opening of a new supermarket.

There were some reporters taking pictures. Three of them. They wore shiny plastic badges that said where they were from, and had camera equipment in leather packing, slung over their shoulders like purses. One of them was from the Des Moines Register , another from the Daily Iowan of Iowa City, and one from the Port City Journal . All of them were young and had longish hair and were casually dressed; tomorrow’s Pulitzer Prize winners, starting at the bottom. At one time or another during the Governor’s speech, each of the three reporters was crouched directly in front of us. When they took a picture, there was a whirring sound from the camera vaguely reminiscent of somebody cocking a gun.

The presence of the reporters, and the sound their cameras made, made me uneasy. I began to squirm. Elam gave me a sharp look to let me know my uneasiness was showing, and to cut it out. Both Elam and Hopp did terrific jobs of acting inconspicuous and unconcerned. Elam, especially. Hopp just sort of sat there like a stone, the way he did when he was playing cards; but Elam looked like he really felt at home, and even managed to chuckle when something was supposed to be funny.

Wheaty also seemed to be enjoying himself. That same capacity that made him able to enjoy his stay in jail was allowing him to find fascination in these cornball Founder’s Day proceedings.

And those proceedings did have a certain fascination to them I must admit.

For example, when the Governor’s speech was over, the Mayor presented him with the key to the city. It was a small key, like the trunk key to a Toyota. Considering the size of Wynning, that only seemed fitting.

Then after the Governor sat down, the Mayor gave a stirring recounting of the history of Wynning. It seems one hundred years ago a man named Wynning and his family settled here. A town grew up. Every year a Founder’s Day Celebration had been held. This was the 100th such celebration. Thank you.

Wild applause followed the Mayor’s oration. It was like the Gettysburg Address had been spoken for the first time. The reason for the enthusiasm was clearly the Governor. Never before had a Governor attended the yearly celebration. A new page was being written into the history of Wynning. I could hardly wait for next year’s speech.

The Mayor stayed on his feet for the duration of the program. There were two reasons for this. One reason was that the Mayor was the emcee. The other was that now that the Governor had sat down, there weren’t any chairs left.

Wheaty liked the next part a lot. The Wynning Founder’s Day Queen and her court were presented. Evidently the crowning of the Queen at the beauty pageant of some sort had been held the night before. It was hard to believe a town so small could have enough good-looking young girls to populate a beauty pageant. It was harder still to believe when the girls appeared.

There were five of them, five apparent girls in bright summery dresses that seemed to have been ordered from a ten-year-old Ward’s catalog. The girls climbed awkwardly onto the stage (there were not steps up to the bandshell from the ground) and displayed thighs of varying quality.

Three of the girls were, in fact, spectacularly homely. The sun bounced off braces on most of the female teeth on that stage. Two of the girls were sisters, it seemed safe to assume, as they shared the same stark red hair and freckles, although the freckles may have been acne, I never got close enough to check; each sister did, however, have her own individual, distinctive homeliness. The other homely girl who was not a redhead or a sister of the redheaded girls either, except perhaps in spirit, had apparently entered the beauty contest in hopes first prize was a nose job. The other two girls were not homely. One was skinny and plain, but a raving beauty in comparison to the sister act and the girl with the nose. The other girl was a lovely, shapely brunette, with a heart-shaped face, large, luminous brown eyes and a dainty nose; her cheeks were flushed with excitement (for, after all, she was the one who’d been crowned Queen of Wynning Founder’s Day) and her teeth were straight and white and braceless. She had three inescapable physical characteristics, which can best be described by the following approximate figures: 38 D, and six foot two.

I heard somebody breathing hard.

It was Wheat.

His eyes were popping and his mouth was open.

He was in love.

“Kitch,” he said. “I’m in love.”

“One of the redheads, right?” I whispered.

“No! The big one! The tall girl with the long hair and the long legs and the big boobies!”

Elam said, “Shut up you two.”

After the applause trailed off, the girls began introducing themselves, giving brief personal histories that must not have come as great surprise to the assembled residents of their Toyota trunk of a hometown.