All Flesh Is Grass (5 page)

I went out and closed the door behind me and started down the street. I didn't know what to do and stood at the first street corner for a moment to make up my mind. I could go home, of course, but I shrank from doing it. It seemed a bit too much like hunting out a hole to hide in. I could go down to the village hall and there might be someone there to talk with. Although there was a chance, as well, that Hiram Martin, the village constable, would be the only one around. Hiram would want me to play a game of checkers with him and I wasn't in the mood for playing any checkers. Hiram was a rotten loser, too, and you had to let him win to keep him from getting nasty. Hiram and I had never got along too well together. He had been a bully on the schoolground and he and I had fought a dozen times a year. He always licked me, but he never made me say that I was licked, and he never liked me. You had to let Hiram lick you once or twice a year and then admit that you were licked and he'd let you be his friend. And there was a chance, as well, that Higman Morris would be there, and on a day like this, I couldn't stomach Higgy. Higgy was the mayor, a pillar of the church, a member of the school board, a director of the bank, and a big stuffed shirt. Even on my better days, Higgy was a chore; I ducked him when I could.

Or I could go up to the
Tribune
office and spend an hour or so with the editor, Joe Evans, who wouldn't be too busy, because the paper had been put out this morning. But Joe would be full of county politics and the proposal to build a swimming pool and a lot of other things of lively public interest and somehow or other I couldn't stir up too much interest in any one of them.

I would go down to the Happy Hollow tavern, I decided, and take one of the booths in back and nurse a beer or two while I killed some time and tried to do some thinking. My finances didn't run to drinking, but a beer or two wouldn't make me much worse off than I was already, and there is, at times, an awful lot of comfort in a glass of beer. It was too early for many people to be in the place and I could be alone. Stiffy Grant, more than likely would be there, spending the dollar that I had given him. But Stiffy was a gentleman and a most perceptive person. If he saw I wanted to be by myself, he wouldn't bother me.

The tavern was dark and cool and I had to feel my way along, after coming in from the brilliance of the street. I reached the back booth and saw that it was empty, so I sat down in it. There were some people in one of the booths up front, but that was all there were.

Mae Hutton came from behind the bar.

“Hello, Brad,” she said. “We don't see much of you.”

“You holding down the place for Charley?” I asked her.

Charley was her father and the owner of the tavern.

“He's catching a nap,” she said. “It's not too busy this time of day. I can handle it.”

“How about a beer?” I asked.

“Sure thing. Large or small?”

“Make it large,” I told her.

She brought the beer and went back behind the bar. The place was quiet and restful—not elegant, and perhaps a little dirty, but restful. Up front the brightness of the street made a splash of light, but it faded out before it go too far, as if it were soaked up by the quiet dusk that lurked within the building.

A man got up from the booth just ahead of me. I had not seen him as I came in. Probably he'd been sitting in the corner, against the wall. He held a half-filled glass and he turned and stared at me. Then he took a step or two and stood beside my booth. I looked up and I didn't recognize him. My eyes had not as yet become adjusted to the place.

“Brad Carter?” he asked. “Could you be Brad Carter?”

“Yes, I could,” I said.

He put his glass down on the table and sat down across from me. And as he did, those fox-like features fell into shape for me and I knew who he was.

“Alf Peterson!” I said, surprised. “Ed Adler and I were talking about you just an hour or so ago.”

He thrust his hand across the table and I grabbed it, glad to see him, glad for some strange reason for this man out of the past. His handclasp was firm and strong and I knew he was glad to see me, too.

“Good Lord,” I said, “how long has it been?”

“Six years,” he told me. “Maybe more than that.”

We sat there, looking at one another, in that awkward pause that falls between old friends after years of not seeing one another, neither one quite sure of what should be said, searching for some safe and common ground to begin a conversation.

“Back for a visit?” I inquired.

“Yeah,” he said. “Vacation.”

“You should have looked me up at once.”

“Just got in three or four hours ago.”

It was strange, I thought, that he should have come back to Millville, for there was no one for him here. His folks had moved away, somewhere east, several years ago. They'd not been Millville people. They'd been in the village for only four or five years, while his father worked as an engineer on a highway project.

“You're going to stay with me,” I said. “There's a lot of room. I am all alone.”

“I'm at a motel west of town. Johnny's Motor Court, they call it.”

“You should have come straight to my place.”

“I would have,” he said, “but I didn't know. I didn't know that you were in town. Even if you were, I thought you might be married. I didn't want to just come barging in.”

I shook my head. “None of those things,” I said.

We each had a drink of beer.

He put down his glass. “How are things going, Brad?”

My mouth got set to tell a lie, and then I stopped. What the hell, I thought. This man across from me was old Alf Peterson, one of my best friends. There was no point in telling him a lie. There was no pride involved. He was too good a friend for pride to be involved.

“Not so good,” I told him.

“I'm sorry, Brad,”

“I made a big mistake,” I said. “I should have gotten out of here. There's nothing here in Millville, not for anyone.”

“You used to want to be an artist. You used to fool around with drawing and there were those pictures that you painted.”

I made a motion to sweep it all away.

“Don't tell me,” said Alf Peterson, “that you didn't even try. You were planning to go on to school that year we graduated.”

“I did,” I said. “I got in a year of it. An art school in Chicago. Then Dad passed away and Mother needed me. And there wasn't any money. I've often wondered how Dad got enough together to send me that one year.”

“And your mother? You said you are alone.”

“She died two years ago.”

He nodded. “And you still run the greenhouse.”

I shook my head. “I couldn't make a go of it. There wasn't much to go on. I've been selling insurance and trying to handle real estate. But it's no good, Alf. Tomorrow morning I'll close up the office.”

“What then?” he asked.

“I don't know. I haven't thought about it.”

Alf signaled to Mae to bring another round of beers.

“You don't feel,” he said, “there's anything to stay for.”

I shook my head. “There's the house, of course. I would hate to sell it. If I left, I'd just lock it up. But there's no place I want to go, Alf, that's the hell of it. I don't know if I can quite explain. I've stayed here a year or two too long; I have Millville in my blood.”

Alf nodded. “I think I understand. It got into my blood as well. That's why I came back. And now I wonder if I should have. Of course I'm glad to see you, and maybe some other people, but even so I have a feeling that I should not have come. The place seems sort of empty. Sucked dry, if you follow me. It's the same as it always was, I guess, but it has that empty feeling.”

Mae brought the beers and took the empty glasses.

“I have an idea,” Alf said, “if you care to listen.”

“Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

“I'll be going back,” he said, “in another day or so. Why don't you come with me? I'm working with a crazy sort of project. There would be room for you. I know the supervisor pretty well and I could speak to him.”

“Doing what?” I asked. “Maybe it would be something that I couldn't do.”

“I don't know,” said Alf, “if I can explain it very logically. “It's a research project—a thinking project. You sit in a booth and think.”

“Think?”

“Yeah. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? But it's not the way it sounds. You sit down in a booth and you get a card that has a question or a problem printed on it. Then you think about that problem and you're supposed to think out loud, sort of talking to yourself, sometimes arguing with yourself. You're self-conscious to start with, but you get over that. The booth is soundproofed and no one can see or hear you. I suppose there is a recorder of some sort to take down what you say, but if there is, it's not in sight.”

“And they pay you for this?”

“Rather well,” said Alf. “A man can get along.”

“But what is it for?” I asked.

“We don't know,” said Alf. “Not that we haven't asked. But that's the one condition of the job—that you don't know what it's all about. It's an experiment of some sort, I'd guess. I imagine that it's financed by a university or some research outfit. We are told that if we knew what was going on it might influence the way we are thinking. A man might unconsciously pattern his thinking to fit the purpose of the research.”

“And the results?” I asked.

“We aren't told results. Each thinker must have a certain kind of pattern and if you knew that pattern it might influence you. You might try to conform to your own personal pattern, to be consistent, or perhaps there'd be a tendency to break out of it. If you don't know the results, you can't guess at the pattern and there is then no danger.”

A truck went by in the street outside and its rumble was loud in the quietness of the tavern. And after it went past, there was a fly buzzing on the ceiling. The people up in front apparently had left—at least, they weren't talking any more. I looked around for Stiffy Grant and he wasn't there. I recalled now that I had not seen him and that was funny, for I'd just given him the dollar.

“Where is this place?” I asked.

“Mississippi. Greenbriar, Mississippi. It's just a little place. Come to think of it, it's a lot like Millville. Just a little village, quiet and dusty and hot. My God, how hot it is. But the project center is air conditioned. It isn't had in there.”

“A little town,” I said. “Funny that there'd be a place like that in a little town.”

“Camouflage,” said Alf. “They want to keep it quiet. We're asked not to talk about it. And how could you hide it better than in a little place like that? No one would ever think there'd be a project of that sort in a stuck-off village.”

“But you were a stranger …”

“Sure, and that's how I got the job. They didn't want too many local people. All of them would have a tendency to think pretty much alike. They were glad to get someone from out of town. There are quite a lot of out-of-towners in the project.”

“And before that?”

“Before that? Oh, yes, I see. Before that there was everything. I floated, bummed around. Never stayed too long in any spot. A job for a few weeks here, then a job for a few weeks a little farther on. I guess you could say I drifted. Worked on a concrete gang for a while, washed dishes for a while when the cash ran out and there was nothing else to do. Was a gardener on a big estate down in Louisville for a month or two. Picked tomatoes for a while, but you can starve at that sort of work, so I moved on. Did a lot of things. But I've been down in Greenbriar for eleven months.”

“The job can't last forever. After a while they'll have all the data they need.”

He nodded. “I know. I'll hate to have it end. It's the best work I ever found. How about it, Brad? Will you go back with me?”

“I'll have to think about it,” I told him. “Can't you stay a little longer than that day or two?”

“I suppose I could,” said Alf. “I've got two weeks' vacation.”

“Like to do some fishing?”

“Nothing I'd like better.”

“What do you say we leave tomorrow morning? Go up north for a week or so? It should be cool up there. I have a tent and a camping outfit. We'll try to find a place where we can get some wall-eyes.”

“That sounds fine to me.”

“We can use my car,” I said.

“I'll buy the gas,” said Alf.

“The shape I'm in,” I said, “I'll let you.”

3

If it had not been for its pillared front and the gleaming white rail of the widow walk atop its roof, the house would have been plain and stark. There had been a time, I recalled, when I had thought of it as the most beautiful house in the entire world. But it had been six or seven years since I had been at the Sherwood house.

I parked the car and got out and stood for a moment, looking at the house. It was not fully dark as yet and the four great pillars gleamed softly in the fading light of day. There were no lights in the front part of the house, but I could see that they had been turned on somewhere in the back.

I went up the shallow steps and across the porch. I found the bell and rang.

Footsteps came down the hall, a hurrying woman's footsteps. More than likely, I thought, it was Mrs. Flaherty. She had been housekeeper for the family since that time Mrs. Sherwood had left the house, never to return.

But it wasn't Mrs. Flaherty.

The door came open and she stood there, more mature than I remembered her, more poised, more beautiful than ever.

“Nancy!” I exclaimed. “Why, you must be Nancy!”

It was not what I would have said if I'd had time to think about it.

“Yes,” she said, “I'm Nancy. Why be so surprised?”