John Gardner - The Sunlight Dialogues

For he’s a jolly good fellow

For he’s a jolly good fellow

For he’s a jolly good fellow

Which nobody can …”

Clumly cleared his throat. The room was blurred. “I don’t want anything like that, of course,” he said, blushing. “That’s not what I’m saying. All I’m saying is, when I step down I want people to know — a few people, anyway — I want ’em to know I was a man that did the best he could. He made mistakes, but he fulfilled his responsibilities as best he could.”

“Fulfilled,” the Judge said.

“Correct. That’s what I said.”

“You got the boy a doctor?” the Judge asked.

Clumly nodded. “We transferred him over to Vets. He’s there now. I realize you can’t hide a thing like that. I wouldn’t want to, come right down to it. If a man can’t do the job—”

The Judge set down his pipe. Clumly waited, but for a long time the old man merely thought about it. At last he reached his decision, or so it seemed, and leaned forward. “A singular ambition, distinctly American,” he said. He chuckled silently. “A Retirement Day parade.” Then he stood up and drank from the glass as if it were water.

Clumly said, “You’ll use your influence? — on the other matter, not the parade. As for that—”

Again the Judge chuckled. Experimentally he said, “Surprise!” He chuckled again.

Clumly had made another mistake, he could see. Again blood prickled up his neck.

But the Judge said, “Go in peace, Clumly. You’ll have worse news than this is, the next time I see you. That’s my prediction.”

Clumly bowed his head, compressing his lips.

The Judge put his hand on Clumly’s arm. “Cheer up, your lot’s no worse than mine, in the end. You get plenty of fresh air—” He waved in the direction of the curtained windows, “—and you haven’t got woman troubles.”

Chief Clumly glanced at him in perplexity.

The Judge put a finger to his lips. “As for the advice you wanted,” said the Judge, “I will say nothing at this time. That reminds me, though, I’ve got an article you might like to read. Tell me what you think.”

“An article,” Clumly said, uneasy.

The Judge hunted through the papers on his desk and at last found it. It had been cut from the magazine it came in and was held together with a paper clip. “Ah yes,” the Judge said. “Here.” He held it out.

“Thank you,” Clumly said. He glanced at the title, “Policework and Alienation.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” the Judge said, and smiled.

And so they parted.

5

Second only to William Hodge Sr, Merton Bliss was the bluntest man in the whole of Genesee County. He was shingling the wellhouse roof when Hodge drove up, late that afternoon. The sagging barn behind him was black with age, sunk in brightly blooming burdocks. Bliss pushed back his cap with the side of his hand then drew it back to where it was in the first place, as if his object were merely to let in some air, and sat on his irontoed shoes smiling like a halfwit. He was an odd-looking man. His nose was so narrow and flat at the sides it looked like he’d ironed it. Hodge pulled into the shadow of the wellhouse and looked up. “That how you observe the Sabbath?” he said. Meant to be a joke.

Merton considered it, looking up at the visor of his cap. “Idle hand is the Devil’s instrument,” he said. When he smiled, his mouth made a sharp and narrow V. “I hear that boy of yours killed somebody now.”

“Hah,” Hodge said. The feeling that his life was in ruins welled back. He opened the car door, swallowing, and slid his briefcase across the seat toward him. “We did what we could for those boys,” he said, evading the center of his grief. “There was no way we could know it would come to this.”

“Always does,” Merton said. He had the clearest Western-New York twang in all Western New York— a’s that stretched for a rod or more, and r ’s as rich as elderberries. “It’s in their blood, them Indians. Bill Covert had one of ’m — it must be some forty years ago now. He was a goll-ding good worker, so Bill put up with him, don’t you know. But he was trouble, nothin but trouble. He use to set traps in the milkhouse for Bill — just foolin, of course. Old Bill, he’d walk in with a pail in each hand and when he stepped through the door he’d trip a lever the boy had, and by golly a great big ten-by-ten beam would come dropping on his head. Aye-uh. And then another time when Bill was climbing up the mow and he was no more’n a foot from the top of the ladder, why all of a sudden whooey down he went sir, tail over tincup. That Indian boy’d sawed that ladder more’n nine-tenths through. He had a sister, Bill did. That poor girl was drove halfway crazy by that goll-ding Indian. One night around the middle of February, it was so cold you had to fold your blankets with a hammer, that poor girl went out to that brick johnny they had behind the house, and that Indian boy snuck out behind her, and the minute she’d just got comfortable he hauled off and threw a pail of water at the door. Well it froze in two seconds. Sealed her up just as tight as a bankvault, and then he went back for more water and did it again. By golly, Hodge, it took us a week and four days to break her out. That’s God’s own truth.” Once more he looked at the visor of his cap, solemn.

“Hah,” Hodge said. He opened the briefcase, resting it against his huge stomach and looking down as well as he could by pulling in his chin. “I brought that deed by, Merton.”

“I thank you kindly. Them Indians of yours are the worst I ever seen though. That’s the truth. They’d be trouble no matter what, but living with that son of yours, why it’s lucky they didn’t scalp that man instead of jest blowing his head off. That Luke. I was driving down the road behind Hobe Dart one time — you know how Hobe drives, bat out of Hades and more’n half-sound-asleep at the wheel — well Hobe swerved over in the left-hand lane, not watching where he’s going, and as luck would have it there’s Luke bearing down on him ninety miles an hour in that semi truck of Paxton’s. Man, I thought, there’s a wreck for sure, and I just pulled on out in the field. Damn lucky I did. How they missed each other I never will know, but by golly they did it — why that whole goll-ding semi was up on two wheels! Whooey! Whooey! Well they no more missed each other than that son of yours throws on his air brakes and goes scootin off the road maybe sixty miles an hour and he drives in a circle around Brumsteads’ barn and then— whoomm! — he’s away after Hobe and I thought he’s going to kill him. I just set there in the field with Eleanor, and I says to her, ‘Eleanor, that Hodge boy’s crazy.’ I guess Hobe got away. I hope he did. What’s the matter that boy of yours, I wonder?”

Hodge said nothing, his chest full of dynamite. He was only half-listening. It was Tag who’d let out the Indian. He was through denying it to himself. What was he to do? As for Luke—

Luke’s young, he could have said. And there was all that trouble he and Millie had had. That was hard on a boy, no question. And the trouble when he and Will Jr broke up, when they couldn’t see eye to eye on anything—“Damn country shyster,” Will Jr had said: but had apologized later, more hurt at having said it than Hodge had been at having had it said. And then Luke’s troubles in college after that, and then all the trouble with Mary Lou’s husband …

As though he were reading Hodge’s mind, Merton said, “And then that son-in-law yours. Lordy. I’ve said to Eleanor a hundred times, Something funny bout that boy. You go look at where he lives. The downstairs all more or less straightened up and clean, as much as you can hope for in a house with nine kids, but on that second story, not a sign of a shade or a curtain on the windows, old clothes piled up to the ceiling almost, and in one of those bedrooms — you know it’s a fact as well as I do — that boy’s got old motorcycle parts. I said to Eleanor, ‘He’s not right upstairs.’ Heh. I’d throw him out if I was Ben. What’s Ben want him there for anyways, big good-for-nothin boy like that? Why he don’t even carry insurance on his life, man with nine little kids. Don’t you worry how I know. They’d be out in the cold if it wasn’t for Will Jr. He’s the one buys their insurance for’m. That son-in-law yours, all he wants to do in this live-long world is go huntin with that yappin little beagle of his — it bites, too; I been bit by it myself — or go riding around out on one of them six, seven motorcycles. Rides in the hill-climbs, way I heard. Man with nine little kids and a wife. Lord. And then down in the cellar he does mechanic work. Why it’s criminal! I bet you that house must be a hundred and fifty years old. Worth a fortune if Ben fixed it up. Must have twenty-five rooms in it, ain’t that right? But that brother of yours just lets it slide, rents out the best half to that son-in-law yours for no more’n forty-five dollars a month, big old house, and lets him do mechanic’s work down-cellar. Shoot! I been by there at night, every light in the whole goll-ding house is on — must cost five hundred dollars a month just to light — and I hear those motorcycle motors down-cellar, and you look up there and it looks like the whole doggone house is on fire, just a great big blue cloud of that gasoline smoke all around it as thick as a fog. It’s poisoning the place. And with nine little kids! Seems to me like somebody’d talk to him.”