Alison Lurie - The Truth About Lorin Jones

As she retraced her steps along Frances Street Polly noticed something moving at the far end of the next block, right by Cameron’s place. Yes! the side gate was opening under the bougainvillea, and a man carrying an extension ladder was coming out. It was definitely not Cameron, though, but a tall blond guy about her own age in white painter’s overalls, heading for a pickup truck by the curb. But if he’d been working on the house, this guy might know when Cameron would be back. Polly started to run toward him.

At the sound of her feet on the uneven sidewalk the man shoved the ladder into the truck and turned. From a distance of about thirty feet, he gave Polly first a glance of casual curiosity, then a grin of sexual appreciation; finally he held his arms out wide, mockingly, as if to catch her.

Polly stopped short at the opposite end of the block, abashed and angry. The painter grinned, shrugged, climbed into the cab, started the engine, and drove off.

Immobilized, Polly watched the vehicle turn the corner, displaying a legend on its side: REVIVALS CONSTRUCTION. The shiny aluminum ladder winked as it caught the sunlight, and the red rag tied to its end gave her an insulting little wave as it disappeared.

She continued to stand on the sidewalk, breathing hard, though she’d only gone a few yards — furious at both him and herself. Why hadn’t she just run on past, ignoring the bastard? Or, more practically, why hadn’t she walked up and spoken to him, asked where Cameron was? She’d lived in New York for years; she was used to being joshed and leered and whistled at by pig construction workers. If this guy imagined she was interested in him, running toward him, she could have turned on the chilly, scornful look that she always directed at those ignorant creeps.

It was this awful climate: the sun, the heat, the humidity: slowing her down, mixing her up. She set her jaw, checked the map again, and started at a steady New York pace for the center of town.

By half-past five Polly had called Hugh Cameron again three times unsuccessfully. She had refused Lee’s iced herbal tea and homemade carob cookies. She had discovered that the county courthouse records office was closed for the afternoon, and she had visited two more art galleries and found out nothing. In one of them the walls were covered with overpriced schlock seascapes and posters, and nobody had ever heard of Lorin Jones. The young woman in the other, more sophisticated, gallery had no idea that Lorin Jones had ever lived in Key West.

This gallery was air-conditioned, and her conversation with its owner pleasant; but when Polly emerged onto Duval Street a new blast of depression and hot air engulfed her. Already the shadows of the buildings were lengthening; she had been in Key West for twenty-four hours and accomplished zilch. She had collected no useful information, and she couldn’t reach the bastard she’d come to interview. All she had found was a tiny drawing whose authorship could never be proven. As Polly stood on the sidewalk trying to decide what to do next, tourists and hippies and freaks pushed past her, all headed in the same direction. They must be on their way to Mallory Dock, where according to Ron and Phil throngs gathered every evening to gawk at outdoor performers and the sunset over the Gulf of Mexico. Polly had no interest in either, but the flow of traffic and her own fatigue and lassitude pulled her along with the crowd. And maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. After all, sunset on Mallory Dock was an established local ritual, one that Lorin Jones must have known of — probably witnessed.

At the dock, a raised cement jetty on the far side of a large parking lot, the tourists were already thick. The pale, light-speckled sea was dotted with boats of all sizes from dinghy to trawler: sailboats plunged and turned, motor launches idled raucously, and in the middle distance a cream-sailed schooner rocked at anchor. Farther out, low gray-green mangrove islands floated on the horizon like vegetable whales.

A few members of the crowd sat on the low wall at the outer edge of the pier, gazing across the water. Others loitered at the stalls on the inland side, buying cheap shell jewelry, palm-frond hats, slices of red watermelon, bad watercolors, clumsy woven leatherwork, hand-painted T-shirts, and crumbly homemade cookies. But the press was greatest around the street performers: two clowns, one on a unicycle; a skinny contortionist; a huge sweating giant who juggled with flaming torches; a Caribbean steel band; and a pair of white-faced mimes accompanied by a performing poodle.

According to Ron and Phil many of the same acts came to Mallory Dock year after year. Could any of them have been here in Lorin Jones’s time? Not likely; in the late sixties most of these people would have been toddlers; only the mimes looked even middle-aged.

Since it was possible that Lorin had once seen them, Polly edged into the crowd around the mimes. In spite of their strenuous antics they seemed to be suffering from the heat and humidity as she was, and perhaps from a similar depression. Their movements were dreamy, exhausted, and artificial — even arty; their costumes classical. They might have posed for Picasso in his blue or rose period, or for one of his imitators. The woman wore a faded rose tutu; her partner, wrinkled azure tights and a lozenge-patterned tunic. But their faces were painted like clowns’ faces, and the man had on an orange fright wig and a red ball nose. Were they deliberately mocking the classic images of modern art, images that must float in the subconscious of at least some of the circling, gawking tourists?

As she watched, the scrawny poodle, which had been dyed a faded pink and wore a ruff and dunce cap, was encouraged to leap onto a high stool. The male clown then did a wobbly headstand, and the woman placed a tissue-paper-covered hoop between his uplifted feet. Then, with exaggerated moues and gestures, she urged the poodle to jump through the hoop. But each time it was about to do so, the clown pretended to lose his balance. He fell to the ground, miming consternation and embarrassment while the crowd laughed. Then, miming pain and woozy comic determination, he stood on his head again, and again the woman placed the hoop between his feet. Every time the man fell, the poodle hesitated and barked anxiously. Since its human companions remained silent, its harsh, excited yap was jarring.

Yeah, Polly thought. That’s how it is. Men are unreliable and incompetent show-offs, playing to the public for sympathy when they fail. The woman encourages the poodle, who’s obviously their child; but the man lets them both down. Right on. She shook her head to clear it and eased her way out of the crowd.

As the hazy sun slid toward the pale crumpled water, she headed back up the pier, idly scanning the stalls. Then, less idly, she halted near a table heaped with batik-print shirts that looked as if someone had thrown up on them in Technicolor. Behind) it stood someone she thought she’d seen before: the workman with the ladder who’d been at Cameron’s house earlier that afternoon. At least, this guy had the same golden tan, long narrow features, and streaked light hair. And, look, his faded green T-shirt, with the sleeves rolled to the muscled shoulders, was printed with the words REVIVALS CONSTRUCTION. Maybe her luck had turned; at least she’d been given another chance to find out where Cameron was.

She moved toward the stall, then stepped back, waiting for some customers to finish their purchase.

“Hey, lady!” Revivals Construction called to her. “Don’t go away. I’ve got just the thing for you.” Up close he looked more worn than he had at a distance: his tan was leathery and engraved with lines, especially around the eyes, and his hair wasn’t blond, but a bleached and faded brown.