All Flesh Is Grass (10 page)

Me and Gerald Sherwood and Stiffy Grant—what kind of common bond could there be among us? And how many of these dialless phones could there be in Millville; for how many others of us did that unknown bond exist?

I moved the light and it crept across the bed with its patterned quilt—not rumpled, not messed up, and very neatly made. Across the bed and to another table that stood beyond the bed. Underneath the table were two cartons. One of them was plain, without any lettering, and the other was a whiskey case with the name of an excellent brand of scotch writ large across its face.

I walked over to the table and pulled the whiskey case out from underneath it. And in it was the last thing in the world I had expected. It was not an emptied carton packed with personal belongings, not a box of junk, but a case of whiskey.

Unbelieving, I lifted out a bottle and another and another, all of them still sealed. I put them back in the case again and lowered myself carefully to the floor, squatting on my heels. I felt the laughter deep inside of me, trying to break out—and yet it was, when one came to think of it, not a laughing matter.

This very afternoon Stiffy had touched me for a dollar because, he'd said, he'd not had a drink all day. And all the time there had been this case of whiskey, pushed underneath the table.

Were all the outward aspects of the village bum no more than camouflage? The broken, dirty nails; the rumpled, threadbare clothing; the unshaven face and the unwashed neck; the begging of money for a drink; the seeking of dirty little piddling jobs to earn the price of food—was this all a sham?

And if it were a masquerade, what purpose could it serve?

I pushed the case back underneath the table and pulled out the other carton. And this one wasn't whiskey and neither was it junk. It was telephones.

I hunkered, staring at them, and it now was crystal clear how that telephone had gotten on my desk. Stiffy had put it there and then had waited for me, propped against the building. Perhaps he had seen me coming down the street as he came out of the office and had done the one thing that would seem entirely natural to explain his waiting there. Or it might equally well have been just plain bravado. And all the time he has been laughing at me deep inside himself.

But that must be wrong, I told myself. Stiffy never would have laughed at me. We were old and trusted friends and he'd never laugh at me, he would never do anything to fool me. This was a serious business, too serious for any laughing to be done.

If Stiffy had put the phone there, had he also been the one who had come back and taken it? Could that have been the reason he had come to my place—to explain to me why the phone was gone?

Thinking of it, it didn't seem too likely.

But if it had not been Stiffy, then there was someone else involved.

There was no need to lift out the phones, for I knew exactly what I'd find. But I did lift them out and I wasn't wrong. They had no dials and no connection cords.

I got to my feet and for a moment stood uncertain, staring at the phone standing on the table, then, making up my mind, strode to the table and lifted the receiver.

“Hello,” said the voice of the businessman. “What have you to report?”

“This isn't Stiffy,” I said. “Stiffy is in a hospital. He was taken sick.”

There was a moment's hesitation, then the voice said, “Oh, yes, it's Mr. Bradshaw Carter, isn't it. So nice that you could call.”

“I found the phones,” I said. “Here in Stiffy's shack. And the phone in my office has somehow disappeared. And I saw Gerald Sherwood. I think perhaps, my friend, it's time that you explained.”

“If course,” the voice said. “You, I suppose, have decided that you will represent us.”

“Now,” I said, “just a minute, there. Not until I know about it. Not until I've had a chance to give it some consideration.”

“I tell you what,” the voice said, “you consider it and then you call us back. What was this you were saying about Stiffy being taken somewhere?”

“A hospital,” I said. “He was taken sick.”

“But he should have called us,” the voice said, aghast. “We would have fixed him up. He knew good and well …”

“He maybe didn't have the time. I found him …”

“Where was this place you say that he was taken?”

“Elmore. To the hospital at …”

“Elmore. Of course. We know where Elmore is.”

“And Greenbriar, too, perhaps.” I hadn't meant to say it; I hadn't even thought it. It just popped into my mind, a sudden, unconscious linking of what was happening here and the project that Alf had talked to me about.

“Greenbriar? Why, certainly. Down in Mississippi. A town very much like Millville. And you will let us know? When you have decided, you will let us know?”

“I'll let you know,” I promised.

“And thank you very much, sir. We shall be looking forward to your association with us.”

And then the line went dead.

Greenbriar, I thought. It was not only Millville. It might be the entire world. What the hell, I wondered, could be going on?

I'd talk to Alf about it. I'd go home and phone him now. Or I could drive out and see him. He'd probably be in bed, but I would get him up. I'd take along a bottle and we'd have a drink or two.

I picked up the phone and tucked it underneath my arm and went outside. I closed the door behind me. I snapped the padlock shut and then went to the car. I opened the back door and put the telephone on the floor and covered it with a raincoat that was folded on the seat. It was a silly thing to do, but I felt a little better with the phone tucked away and hidden.

I got behind the wheel and sat for a moment, thinking. Perhaps, I told myself, it would be better if I didn't rush into things too fast. I would see Alf tomorrow and we'd have a lot of time to talk, an entire week to talk if we needed it. And that way I'd have some time to try to think the situation out.

It was late and I had to pack the camping stuff and the fishing tackle in the car and I should try to get some sleep.

Be sensible, I told myself. Take a little time. Try to think it out.

It was good advice. Good for someone else. Good even for myself at another time and under other circumstances. I should not have taken it, however. I should have gone out to Johnny's Motor Court and pounded on Alf's door. Perhaps then things would have worked out differently. But you can't be sure. You never can be sure.

But, anyhow, I did go home and I did pack the camping stuff and the fishing gear into the car and had a few hours of sleep (I wonder now how I ever got to sleep), then was routed out by the alarm clock early in the morning.

And before I could pick up Alf I hit the barrier.

7

“Hi, there,” said the naked scarecrow, with jaunty happiness. He counted on his fingers and slobbered as he counted.

And there was no mistaking him. He came clear through the years. The same placid, vacant face, with its frog-like mouth and its misty eyes. It had been ten years since I had seen him last, since anyone had seen him, and yet he seemed only slightly older than he had been then. His hair was long, hanging down his back, but he had no whiskers. He had a heavy growth of fuzz, but he'd never sprouted whiskers. He was entirely naked except for the outrageous hat. And he was the same old Tupper. He hadn't changed a bit. I'd have known him anywhere.

He quit his finger-counting and sucked in his slobber. He reached up and took off his hat and held it out so that I could see it better.

“Made it myself,” he told me, with a wealth of pride.

“It's very fine,” I said.

He could have waited, I told myself. No matter where he'd come from, he could have waited for a while. Millville had enough trouble at this particular moment without having to contend once again with the likes of Tupper Tyler.

“Your papa,” Tupper said. “Where is your papa, Brad? There is something I have to tell him.”

And that voice, I thought. How could I ever have mistaken it? And how could I ever have forgotten that Tupper was, of all things, an accomplished mimic? He could be any bird he wanted and he could be a dog or cat and the kids used to gather round him, making fun of him, while he put on a mimic show of a dog-and-cat fight or of two neighbors quarreling.

“Your papa!” Tupper said.

“We'd better get inside,” I told him. “I'll get some clothes and you climb into them. You can't go on running around naked.”

He nodded vaguely. “Flowers,” he said. “Lots of pretty flowers.”

He spread his arms wide to show me how many flowers there were. “Acres and acres,” he said. “There is no end to them. They just keep on forever. Every last one purple. And they are so pretty and they smell so sweet and they are so good to me.”

His chin was covered with a dampness from his talking and he wiped it with a claw-like hand. He wiped his hand upon a thigh.

I got him by the elbow and got him turned around, headed for the house.

“But your papa,” he protested. “I want to tell your papa all about the flowers.”

“Later on,” I said.

I got him on the porch and thrust him through the door and followed after him. I felt easier. Tupper was no decent sight for the streets of Millville. And I had had, for a while, about all that I could stand. Old Stiffy Grant laid out in my kitchen just the night before and now along comes Tupper, without a stitch upon him. Eccentrics were all right, and in a little town you get a lot of them, but there came a time when they ran a little thin.

I still held tightly to his elbow and marched him to the bedroom.

“You stand right there,” I told him.

He stood right there, not moving, gaping at the room with his vacant stare.

I found a shirt and a pair of trousers. I got out a pair of shoes and, after looking at his feet, put them back again. They were, I knew, way too small. Tupper's feet were all spraddled out and flattened. He'd probably been going without shoes for years.

I held out the trousers and the shirt.

“You get into these,” I said. “And once you have them on, stay here. Don't stir out of this room.”

He didn't answer and he didn't take the clothes. He'd fallen once again to counting his fingers.

And now, for the first time, I had a chance to wonder where he'd been. How could a man drop out of sight, without a trace, stay lost for ten years, and then pop up again, out of that same thin air into which he had disappeared?

It had been my first year in high school that Tupper had turned up missing and I remembered it most vividly because for a week all of the boys had been released from school to join the hunt for him. We had combed miles of fields and woodlands, walking slowly in line an arm's length from one another, and finally we had been looking for a body rather than a man. The state police had dragged the river and several nearby ponds. The sheriff and a posse of townspeople had worked carefully through the swamp below Stiffy's shack, prodding with long poles. They had found innumerable logs and a couple of wash boilers that someone had thrown away and on the further edge of the swamp an anciently dead dog. But no one had found Tupper.

“Here,” I told him, “take these clothes and get into them.”

Tupper finished with his fingers and politely wiped his chin.

“I must be getting back,” he said. “The flowers can't wait too long.”

He reached out a hand and took the clothes from me.

“My other ones wore out,” he said. “They just dropped off of me.”

“I saw your mother just half an hour ago,” I said. “She was looking for you.”

It was a risky thing to say, for Tupper was the kind of jerk that you handled with kid gloves. But I took the calculated risk and said it, for I thought that maybe it would jolt some sense into him.

“Oh,” he said lightly, “she's always hunting for me. She thinks I ain't big enough to look out for myself.”

As if he'd never been away. As if ten years hadn't passed. As if he'd stepped out of his mother's house no more than an hour ago. As if time had no meaning for him—and perhaps it hadn't.

“Put on the clothes,” I told him. “I'll be right back.”

I went out into the living room and picked up the phone. I dialed Doc Fabian's number. The busy signal blurped at me.

I put the receiver back and tried to think of someone else to call. I could call Hiram Martin. Perhaps he was the one to call. But I hesitated. Doc was the man to handle this; he knew how to handle people. All that Hiram knew was how to push them round.

I dialed Doc once more and still got the busy signal.

I slammed down the receiver and hurried toward the bedroom. I couldn't leave Tupper alone too long. God knows what he might do.

But I already had waited too long. I never should have left him.

The bedroom was empty. The window was open and the screen was broken out and there was no Tupper.

I rushed across the room and leaned out of the window and there was no sign of him.

Blind panic hit me straight between the eyes. I don't know why it did. Certainly, at that moment, Tupper's escaping from the bedroom was not all that important. But it seemed to be important and I knew, without knowing why, that I must run him down and bring him back, that I must not let him out of my sight again.

Without thinking, I stepped back from the window and took a running jump, diving through the opening. I landed on one shoulder and rolled, then jumped up to my feet.

Tupper was not in sight, but now I saw where he had gone. His dewy tracks led across the grass, back around the house and down to the old greenhouse. He had waded out into the patch of purple flowers that covered the old abandoned area where once my father and, later, I myself had tended rows of flowers and other plants. He had waded out some twenty feet or so into the mass of flowers. His trail was clearly shown, for the plants had been brushed over and had not had time to straighten yet, and they were a darker hue where the dew had been knocked off them.