John Gardner: The Sunlight Dialogues

PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS

(All characters in this novel except for May Brumstead, Mr. Perkowski, Pete Mollman, and Dr. T. M. Steele, are purely fictitious.)

Fred Clumly (b. 1902), Chief of Police, Batavia, N.Y., 1957–1966

Esther Clumly, his wife

The Sunlight Man, a lunatic magician

The Hodge Family:

Arthur Hodge Sr, U.S. Congressman, builder of Stony Hill Farm

Will Hodge Sr, his eldest son, a Batavia attorney

Millie Jewel Hodge, Will Sr’s wife (divorced, 1964)

Clarence Jewel, her father

Gil, her favorite brother, a suicide at eighteen

Will Hodge Jr, son of Will Sr and Millie, a successful Buffalo attorney

Louise, his wife, mother of their children Madeline and Danny

Mary Lou Hodge Carter, daughter of Will Sr and Millie, wife of George Carter

Luke, Will Sr’s youngest son, a farmer

Arthur Hodge Jr, the Congressman’s second son, an electrician, a man of system; father of seven daughters

Ruth Hodge Uphill, the Congressman’s daughter, married to the brother of the Fire Chief in Batavia

Ben Hodge Sr, the Congressman’s fourth child, a farmer and man of religion

Vanessa, his wife

Ben Jr, his son; died in the Korean War

Nick and Vemon Slater, young Indians paroled into the custody of Ben Hodge Sr (The elder, Nick, was later transferred to Luke Hodge)

David, Ben Sr’s Negro hired boy, also a parolee

SECONDARY CHARACTERS

THE POLICE:

Dominic (“Miller”) Sangirgonio, Clumly’s right-hand man

Jackie, his wife

Tommy (“Einstein”), his son

Stan Kozlowski, Prowlcar 19; son of a farmer

Mickey Salvador, eighteen, a guard in the city jail

His mother

His grandmother, a seer

John (“Shorty”) Figlow, sergeant at the desk; a nervous man, unhappily married

Borsian, a State Trooper

Baltimore, Negro janitor in Batavia City Jail

CITY OFFICIALS:

Walt Mullen, Mayor

Judge Sam White, brother to Congressman Edward (“Ted”) White

Phil Uphill, Fire Chief Jerome Wittaker, Mayor Mullen’s assistant

OTHERS:

R. V. Kleppmann, a confidence man and survivor

Mrs. Kleppmann, his wife Walter Boyle, a thief

Walter Benson, a good citizen living in a suburb of Buffalo, N.Y.

Marguerite, his wife

Oliver Nuper, the Bensons’ boarder

Gretchen Niehaus, one of Nuper’s mistresses

Albert Hubbard, owner of a nursery inherited by his sons

The Woodworth Sisters: Agnes (deceased), Editha (aged 108, a poetess), and Octave (aged 97), daughters of Rev. Burgess Woodworth, original pastor of the Batavia First Baptist Church

Clive Paxton, owner of a trucking firm; father of Kathleen Paxton

Elizabeth, his wife

Professor Combs, her elderly lover

Freeman, a rootless wanderer

MINOR CHARACTERS (A SELECTION)

Merton Bliss, the last of the New York State liars

Robert Boas, a drunkard

May Brumstead, beloved matron of the Batavia Children’s Home

Ed Burlington, a news reporter, former Sunday School student of Mrs. Clumly

Helene Burns, a teacher; good friend of Taggert Hodge

Dr. Burns, a psychiatrist

Bill Churchill, a professional mourner

Edna, a madam

Bob Faner, next-door neighbor of Will Hodge Sr

Mr. Hardesty, neighbor of Luke Hodge

Pete Mollman, a publisher and printer in Millstadt, III.

Harold (“Buz”) Marchant, a Chicago physician, friend of Will Jr

Mrs. Palazzo, Will Hodge Sr’s landlady

Mr. Perkowski, a Batavia grocer

Jeff Peters, friend of Millie Hodge

Chief Poole, Batavia Police Chief when Clumly was young

Raymond, hired man to Will Sr when he ran Stony Hill

Solomon Ravitz, Buffalo TV personality

Dr. Rideout, Genesee County Coroner

Rosemary, a madam

The Runian Sisters, former occupants of Luke Hodge’s farmhouse; murdered by their nephew and hidden in the manure pile

T. M. Steele, well-known Batavia physician and surgeon

Walt Sprague, last of the true Upstate New York Republicans

Bob Swift, a foolish newsman

Rev. Warshower, Will Hodge Sr’s minister

Rev. Willby, Esther Clumly’s minister

Riding horses in a back pasture, gone wild. Woods. Inside, on a hill, a house as black as dinosaur bones. Grass grows up through the driveway’s broken asphalt, but there is a car. This is the house of the oldest Judge in the world. The Judge has company.

“Take any ordinary man, give him a weapon — say, x caliber—” (he chuckled wickedly) “—put him in the middle of a wilderness with enough ammunition to fire three times in four directions — these are Holy numbers — and behold! you’ve created order.” He blew out smoke like dust.

“As to that,” Fred Clumly said, “I wouldn’t know.” He had turned his badge in long ago, and even before that he had found the opinions of his friend the Judge, if the Judge was his friend, obscure. It was now no longer necessary to figure out what the Judge was saying. Clumly was retired. In Batavia, opinion was divided, in fact, over whether he’d gone away somewhere or died.

The Judge leaned forward, parting the yellow tobacco smoke with the side of his hand, so that Clumly could make out somewhat more clearly the great gray concrete head and the glint of the eyes. “The world is a vast array of emblems,” he said, “exactly as the old hermetic philosophers maintained. I state it for a fact.” His large fist closed.

Clumly nodded thoughtfully for a long time, his shrivelled head bobbing like a dried pod on his frail stick of a body. “As to that—” he said.

The Judge sighed and, like an old, slow lizard, withdrew to the gloomy secretness of his smoke. They were both silent for a long time. The room grew darker, as the time of day required. The Judge said, “What ever happened to that boy of yours — the religious one — what’s-his-name’s son, your top man?”

“We lost track of him,” Clumly said. “Went away, I heard. A town like this—”

“Tragic,” said the Judge, nodding.

The former Police Chief scowled, considering. “As to that—”

“They all go away somewhere, sooner or later,” the Judge said. “I’ve been watching it eighty-some years. Do you know where they go?”