Sometimes a Great Notion (102 page)

Jonathan Bailey Draeger wakes in his motel in Eugene, checks his watch, and reaches to the desk beside the bed for his notepad. He finds the appointment and reads it again to be sure: well . . . he isn’t due at Evenwrite’s to eat for three hours; one hour to get dressed, one to drive over . . . and one to put off the ordeal at the Evenwrite household . . .

Actually, he isn’t feeling that much distaste for the prospect. Be a nice concluding episode. He lies back against the pillow, holding the notepad in one hand, and, smiling to himself, at the picture Evenwrite’s name summons up, writes: “Status does not automatically generate aspirations to rise, just as food does not necessarily stimulate hunger . . . but a man seeing another in a position superior to his, eating food higher off the hog, so to speak . . . will go through heaven and hell to sup at the same table with the superior even if he has to provide the hog.” And adds: “Or the turkey.”

And Floyd Evenwrite, stepping from the tub, calls to his wife to ask how long it will be before their guest arrives. “Three hours,” she calls back from the kitchen. “Time enough for you to get you some rest before he gets here . . . out all
night
, for goodness’ sakes, what kind of ‘business’ could be so important to keep you out all
night?
”

He doesn’t answer. He pulls on his trousers and shirt and carries his shoes into the living room. “Three hours,” he says aloud, sitting down to wait. “Three by god hours. Time enough for Hank to stand up an’ shake hisself . . .”

(Viv came back in with soup and sandwiches and we set up the TV trays to eat off of while we watched the bands and the twirlers parade around; we spoke about every five minutes, and then it was something like “She’s good, that one in spangles . . .” “Yeah, she is, isn’t she? Real good.”

I was just
beginning
to appreciate what a thorough job the kid had done . . .)

In the doctor’s office once again I took his offered cigarette, and this time sat down. I felt myself no longer vulnerable to the scurrilous comments and cattities.

“I warned you”—he grinned—“that you might be a little disappointed.”

“Disappointed? With his little phrases of advice and endearment? Doctor, I’m overjoyed. I can recall periods when that statement would have seemed like an hour’s chat.”

“That’s funny. You two never talked much? Old Henry always made out he was a great one for talking. Maybe, would you say, you just didn’t care to hear what the old boy was talking about?”

“Whatever do you mean, Doctor? My daddy and I might never have said much, but we kept no secrets from each other.”

He gave me his most knowing of smiles. “Not even you from him? The tiniest secret?”

“Nope.”

He leaned back, creaking and wheezing in the swivel chair, and fixed his eyes on the past in rotund reverie. “Seems, though, that people were always keeping one thing or another from Henry Stamper,” he recalled. “I’m sure you don’t remember, Leland, but some years ago there was a story circulating around town”—he shot a quick look at me to make sure I did remember—“about Hank and his relationship with a—”

“Doctor, we aren’t a nosy family,” I instructed him. “Our relationships are not always posted on the family bulletin board . . .”

“Still—oh yes, I didn’t mean to imply . . . But still, the point I was making is that the whole town was aware of this story—true or not—while old Henry seemed completely ignorant.”

I felt myself becoming more and more irritated by the man, less, I think, by his insinuations than I was by his attack on my helpless father. “I’m sure you don’t remember, Doctor,” I said coldly, “that while old Henry quite often seemed completely ignorant, he nevertheless succeeded in besting all the rest of the sharpies in this town in some business deal, time after time after time.”

“Oh, you misunder
stand . . .
I’m not disparaging your father’s judgment . . .”

“I know you aren’t, Doctor.”

“I was merely—” He halted, flustered, finding me a little harder to intimidate than last time. He filled his cheeks to start again, but there was a knock on the door. The nurse opened it to advise him that Boney Stokes was here again.

“Tell him to stop in a moment, Miss Mahone. Fine old fellow, Leland; he’s been here, faithful as a clock, ever since—Say . . . ! Boney, come on in a minute . . . you know young Leland Stamper?”

I started to stand to give the old skeleton my chair, but he put a hand on my shoulder and shook his head soulfully. “Don’t get up, son. I’m going right on down to see your poor father. Terrible thing,” he said in a voice dripping grief. “Terrible terrible terrible thing.”

The hand held me in the chair as though I were a wedding guest; I muttered a hello, while fighting back the urge to cry out, “Unhand me, graybeard loon!” Stokes and the doctor spoke a moment about old Henry’s deteriorating condition, and I tried once more to stand. “Wait, son.” The hand tightened. “Mightn’t you tell me how things are at the house, so I could pass it on, say just perchance Henry should come to for a bit? How is Viv? And Hank? My, you’ve no idea how heartsore I was hearing how the poor boy had lost his closest companion. ‘A good friend gone,’ my daddy used to say, ‘is a shadow across the sun.’ How’s he taking it all?”

I told them I hadn’t seen my brother since the day of the accident; they were both openly shocked and disappointed. “But you’ll be seeing him today, won’t you? Thanksgiving Day?”

I told them I saw no reason to trouble the poor boy, and that I was planning to leave on the bus to Eugene this afternoon.

“Going back East? So soon? My, my . . .”

I told the old man I was packed and ready. “My, my is right,” the doctor echoed, and went on to ask, “And what do you imagine you’ll do, Leland . . . now?”

I thought at once of the letters I had sent to Peters, because the skillful emphasis placed on the “Now” at the end of his question made me momentarily think—as I’m sure he hoped it would—that this gossip glutton knew more than he was saying; perhaps he had somehow captured the letters and was onto the whole plot from beginning to end! “What I
mean
”—the good doctor probed onward, sensing that he was near a nerve—“do you plan to return to college? Or teach, maybe? Or is there a woman . . . ?”

“I haven’t exactly made plans,” I answered lamely. They leaned down on me; I stalled for time with an old psychiatrist’s trick. “Why do you ask, Doctor?”

“Why? Well, I’m
in
terested, as I told you before . . . in all of my people. Back East to teaching, huh? I suppose is what it will be? English? Drama?”

“No, I’m not finished with—”

“Ah, then back to school?”

I shrugged, feeling more and more like a sophomore in the dean’s office with his counselor. “Perhaps back to school. As I say, I haven’t made any plans. The work here looks like it’s finished . . .”

“Yes, looks like. So you say perhaps back to school?” They continued to pin me against the chair, one with his eyes, one with a hand like a pitchfork. “Why do you hesitate?”

“I don’t know what I’ll do for the money . . . it’s too late to apply for a grant—”

“Say!” the doctor interrupted, snapping his fingers. “You know, don’t you, that that old man in there is just as dead as if he was in the ground?”

“Amen, Lord.” Boney nodded.

“You
realize
that, don’t you?”

Taken aback by his gratuitously frank statement, I waited for him to continue, feeling less like a sophomore than like a suspect. When were they going to bring in the spotlights?

“Maybe your father won’t be declared legally dead for a week, or two weeks, who can say? Maybe a month, because he’s stubborn enough. But stubborn or not, Leland, Henry Stamper’s a dead man, you can bet money on it.”

“Wait a minute. Are you accusing me of something?”

“Accusing you?” He fairly beamed at the idea. “Of what?”

“Of having something to do with that accident up—”

“Good gosh,
no.
” He laughed. “You hear that, Boney?” They both laughed. “Accusing you, that’s something . . .” I tried a laugh myself, but it came out sounding like Boney’s cough. “All I was saying, son”—he gave Boney a broad wink—“is that, if you’re interested, you come in for about five thousand dollars when he is finally declared dead. Five grand.”

“That’s true, very true,” Boney intoned. “I had not thought about that, but it’s true.”

“Why is it true? Is there a will?”

“No,” Boney said. “A life-insurance policy.”

“I happen to know about it, Leland, because I help Boney here—and myself, o’ course; the doctor must have his ‘cut,’ as they say—by directing potential clients to his agency—”

“Daddy started it,” Boney informed me proudly. “Nineteen-and-ten. Coastal Life and Accident.”

“And some ten years ago Henry Stamper came in here for a physical, not particularly thinking about insurance, and I directed him—”

I held up my hand, feeling a little dizzy. “Wait just a moment. Are you asking me to believe that Henry Stamper has been making payments on a policy naming as beneficiary a person he hasn’t
seen
in twelve years?”

“It’s all very true, son . . .”

“And didn’t
look
at a half-dozen times in the twelve years prior to that? A person to whom his last words were ‘suck in yer gut’? Doctor, there is a limit to human credulity . . .”

“Say now,
there’s
your reason,” Boney exclaimed, shaking my shoulder slightly, “for going back to the house. You
must
get that
policy
, you see. To return to school.”

His enthusiasm brought on a slow, dawning suspicion; “Just why”—I looked up the length of that stick arm—“is it I
need
a reason to go back to that house?”

“And when you see Hank”—the doctor overrode my question—“tell him we are all . . .
think
ing of him.”

I turned from the stick figure to the lard man. “
Why
are you all thinking of him?”

“Lord, aren’t we all old friends of the family, all of us? Say, I tell you what: My grandkid drove me here. He’s sitting this very minute out in the sitting room. While I’m visiting Henry, the grandkid can drive you out in his automobile.” They worked like a team. I was no longer a sophomore, or a wedding guest, but a suspect in the hands of two Kafkaesque interrogators skilled at keeping their victim from getting any idea what he was about. “How ’bout it?” Boney asked.

The doctor rose, blowing and wheezing, from his chair to answer for me. “Can’t beat that kind of service, can you?” He circled the desk at me; I felt trapped by the pressure of his juggernaut advance.

“Wait a minute, now; what
is
it with you people?” I demanded, fighting my way to my feet. “What skin is it off your nose whether I see my brother again or not? What is it you are pushing?”

They were both genuinely innocent and astounded by my question. “As a doctor, I merely—”

“Say, I tell you what.” Boney’s hand snagged me once more. “When you see Hank you reckon you could tell him—and the wife—that our grocery truck’s gonna be coming out that way again. Tell him we will be more than happy to start up delivery again now that the truck’s making that loop. Tell him to signal what he needs on the flagpole just like always. Would you do that for me?”

I finally gave up seeking a reason for their grasping pressure; I just wanted out from under it. I would leave pressure to Hank; he was more accustomed to it. I told Stokes I would give Hank the message, then tried to move toward the door; his old white thorns of fingers hung on and the two of them followed me into the waiting room, reluctant to let me get away now that they had set me moving.

“Maybe,” the doctor said, “say, Boney, maybe Hank’d like a turkey for the day. I’d bet
money
that with the excitement these last few days they didn’t think to buy a turkey.” He fished under his smock for his wallet. “Here, I’ll just
pay
for a bird for Hank, how’s that?”

“That’s a very Christian gesture,” Boney agreed solemnly. “Don’t you thing it is, son? Thanksgiving dinner without a old roasted gobbler just ain’t Thanksgiving dinner, is it?”

I told them I shared their feelings about Thanksgiving exactly and again tried to make a break for the glass door, but again that spiny hand detained me and, moreover, I saw that the pimply Adonis who had stolen the Hershey bar from the café blocked my way.

“This is the grandkid,” Boney informed me. “Larkin. Larkin, this is Leland Stamper. You’re going to give him a ride out to the Stamper house while I have my visit out with old Henry.”

The grandkid scowled, snuffed, shrugged, and began zipping up his Jimmy Dean jacket, giving no indication that he remembered our previous meeting.

“Yes, now that I think about it”—the doctor still toyed with his wallet—“I bet money there’s a lot of people in town would chip in to buy old Hank a Thanksgiving dinner . . .”

“We’ll get a basket!” Boney exclaimed. I started to say that I doubted that Hank was in such dire straits just
yet
, when I realized that they weren’t offering him the charity because he
needed
it—“Cranberry preserves, too, son, yams, mincemeat . . . whatever else he needs, you have him just phone me, won’t you? We’ll take care of it.”—but because
they
needed to offer it.

“Larkin, you just drop Mr. Stamper off and hurry right back for me. We got things need attending to . . .”

But needed it for
what?
was the hanger. What and why? This overblown offering wasn’t like Les Gibbons’ need to drag the champ down off the throne. Because the champ was already down. So now why all this need to bug him with their benevolence? And not just these two clowns, but seemingly much of the rest of the town felt the same need. “What is it,” I asked the grandkid as I followed him across the parking lot through the blowing rain, “that they want from my brother, do you know? bestowing all this bounty on him. What do they need?”