Bagombo Snuff Box (27 page)

“I—I hadn’t thought about it,” said Franklin. The idea of converting
Waggoner Pump into something equally complicated hadn’t occurred to him, and
appalled him now. He was being asked to match his father’s passion for the
factory with an equal passion for something else. And Franklin had no such
passion—for the theater or anything else.

He had nothing but the bittersweet, almost formless longings
of youth.

Saying he wanted to be an actor gave the longings a
semblance of more fun than they really had. Saying it was poetry more than
anything else.

“I can’t help being a little interested,” said Merle. “Do
you mind?”

“No, sir,” said Franklin.

“When Waggoner Pump becomes just one more division of
General Forge and Foundry, and they send out a batch of bright young men to
take over and straighten the place out, I’ll want something else to think about—whatever
it is you’re going to do.”

Franklin itched all over. “Yes, sir,” he said. He looked at
his watch and stood. “If we’re going shooting tomorrow, I guess I’d better go
see Aunt Margaret this afternoon.” Margaret was Merle’s sister.

“You do that,” said Merle. ‘And I’ll call up General Forge
and Foundry, and tell them we accept their offer.” He ran his finger down his
calendar pad until he found a name and telephone number. “If we want to sell, I’m
to call somebody named Guy Ferguson at something called extension five-oh-nine
at something called the General Forge and Foundry Company at someplace called Ilium,
New York.” He licked his lips. “I’ll tell him he and his friends can have
Waggoner Pump.”

“Don’t sell on my account,” said Franklin.

“On whose account would I keep it?” said Merle.

“Do you have to sell it today?” Franklin sounded horrified.

“Strike while the iron’s hot, I always say,” said Merle. “Today’s
the day you decided to be an actor, and as luck would have it, we have an
excellent offer for what I did with my life.”

“Couldn’t we wait?”

“For what?” said Merle. He was having a good time now.

“Father!” cried Franklin. “For the love of heaven, Father,
please!” He hung his head and shook it. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said.
“I don’t know for sure what I want to do yet. I’m just playing with ideas, trying
to find myself. Please, Father, don’t sell what you’ve done with your life, don’t
just throw it away because I’m not sure I want to do that with my life, too!
Please!” Franklin looked up. “I’m not Karl Linberg,” he said. “I can’t help it.
I’m sorry, but I’m not Karl Linberg.”

Shame clouded his father’s face, then passed. “I—I wasn’t
making any odious comparisons there,’ said Merle. He’d said exactly the same
thing many times before. Franklin had forced him to it, just as he had forced
him now, by apologizing for not being Karl Linberg.

“I wouldn’t want you to be like Karl,” said Merle. “I’m glad
you’re the way you are. I’m glad you’ve got big dreams of your own.” He smiled.
“Give ‘em hell, boy—and be yourself! That’s all I’ve ever told you to do with
your life, isn’t it?”

“Yes, sir,” said Franklin. His last shred of faith in any
dreams of his own had been twitched away. He could never dream two million
dollars’ worth, could never dream anything worth the death of his father’s
dreams. Actor, newspaperman, social worker, sea captain—Franklin was in no
condition to give anyone hell.

“I’d better get out to Aunt Margaret’s,” he said.

“You do that. And I’ll hold off telling Ferguson or
whatever-his-name-is anything until Monday.” Merle seemed at peace.

On his way through the factory parking lot to his car,
Franklin passed Rudy and Karl’s new station wagon. His father had raved about
it, and now Franklin took a good look at it—just as he took good looks at all
the things his father loved.

The station wagon was German, bright blue, with
white-sidewall tires, its engine in the rear. It looked like a little bus—no
hood in front, a high, flat roof, sliding doors, and rows of square windows on
the sides.

The interior was a masterpiece of Rudy and Karl’s
orderliness and cabinet work, of lockers and niches and racks. There was a
place for everything, and everything was in its place—guns, fishing tackle,
cooking utensils, stove, ice chest, blankets, sleeping bags, lanterns,
first-aid kit. There were even two niches, side by side, in which were strapped
the cases of Karl’s clarinet and Rudy’s flute.

Looking inside admiringly, Franklin had a curious
association of thoughts. His thoughts of the station wagon were mixed with
thoughts of a great ship that had been dug up in Egypt after thousands of
years. The ship had been fitted out with every necessity for a trip to Paradise—every
necessity save the means of getting there.

“Mistuh Waggonuh, suh!” said a voice, and an engine raced.

Franklin turned to see that the parking lot guard had seen
him coming, had now brought him his car. Franklin had been spared the necessity
of walking the last fifty feet to it.

The guard got out and saluted smartly. “This thing really go
a hundred and twenty-five, like it says on the speedometer?” he said.

“Never tried,” said Franklin, getting in. The car was a
sports car, windy and skittish, with room for two. He had bought it secondhand,
against his father’s wish. His father had never ridden in it. It was fitted out
for its trip to Paradise with three lipstick-stained tissues, a beer can
opener, a full ashtray, and a road map of Illinois.

Franklin was embarrassed to see that the guard was cleaning
the windshield with his handkerchief. “That’s all right, that’s all right,” he
said. “Forget it.” He thought he remembered the guard’s name, but he wasn’t
sure. He took a chance on it. “Thanks for everything, Harry,” he said.

“George, suh!” said the guard. “George Miramar Jackson, suh!”

“Of course,” said Franklin. “Sorry, George. Forgot.”

George Miramar Jackson smiled brilliantly. “No offense, Mistuh
Waggonuh, suh! Just remember next time—George Miramar Jackson, suh!” In George’s
eyes there blazed the dream of a future time, when Franklin would be boss, when
a big new job would open up indoors. In that dream, Franklin would say to his
secretary, “Miss So-and-So? Send for—” And out would roll the magical,
magnificent, unforgettable name.

Franklin drove out of the parking lot without dreams to
match even George Miramar Jackson’s.

At supper, feeling no pain after two stiff cocktails and a
whirlwind of mothering at Aunt Margaret’s, Franklin told his father that he
wanted to take over the factory in due time. He would become the Waggoner in
Waggoner Pump when his father was ready to bow out.

Painlessly, Franklin moved his father as profoundly as Karl
Linberg had with a steel plate, a steel cube, and heaven knows how many years
of patient scree-scraw with a file.

“You’re the only one—do you know that?” choked Merle. “The
only one—I swear!”

“The only one what, sir?” said Franklin.

“The only son who’s sticking with what his father or his
grandfather or sometimes even his great-grandfather built.” Merle shook his
head mournfully. “No Hudson in Hudson Saw,” he said. “I don’t think you can
even cut cheese with a Hudson saw these days. No Flemming in Flemming Tool and
Die. No Warner in Warner Street. No Hawks, no Hinkley, no Bowman in Hawks,
Hinkley, and Bowman.”

Merle waved his hand westward. “You wonder who all the
people are with the big new houses on the west side? Who can have a house like
that, and we never meet them, never even meet anybody who knows them? They’re
the ones who are taking over instead of the sons. The town’s for sale, and they
buy. It’s their town now—people named Ferguson from places called Ilium.

“What is it about the sons?” said Merle. “They’re your
friends, boy. You grew up with them. You know them better than their fathers
do. What is it? All the wars? Drinking?”

“I don’t know, Father,” said Franklin, taking the easiest
way out. He folded his napkin with a neat finality. He stood. “There’s a dance
out at the club tonight,” he said. “I thought I’d go.”

“You do that,” said Merle.

But Franklin didn’t. He got as far as the country club’s
parking lot, then didn’t go in.

Suddenly he didn’t want to see his friends—the killers of
their fathers’ dreams. Their young faces were the faces of old men hanging
upside down, their expressions grotesque and unintelligible. Hanging upside
down, they swung from bar to ballroom to crap game, and back to bar. No one
pitied them in that great human belfry, because they were going to be rich, if
they weren’t already. They didn’t have to dream, or even lift a finger.

Franklin went to a movie alone. The movie failed to suggest
a way in which he might improve his life. It suggested that he be kind and
loving and humble, and Franklin was nothing if he wasn’t kind and loving and
humble.

The colors of the farm the next day were the colors of straw
and frost. The land was Merle’s, and it was flat as a billiard table. The
jackets and caps of Merle and Franklin, of Rudy and Karl, made a tiny cluster
of bright colors in a field.

Franklin knelt in the stubble, cocking the trap that would
send a clay pigeon skimming over the field. “Ready,” he said.

Merle threw his gun to his shoulder, squinted down the barrel,
grimaced, and lowered the gun once more. “Pull!” he said.

Franklin jerked the lanyard of the trap. Out flew the clay pigeon.

Merle fired one barrel and then, with the pigeon out of
range, clowningly fired the other. He’d missed. He’d been missing all afternoon.
He didn’t seem to mind much. He was, after all, still the boss.

“Behind it,” said Merle. “I’m trying too hard. I’m not
leading.” He broke down his gun and the empty shells popped out. “Next?” he
said. “Karl?”

Franklin loaded another clay pigeon into the trap. It was a
very dead pigeon. So would the next one be. Karl hadn’t missed all afternoon,
and after Karl came Rudy, who hadn’t missed, either.

Surprisingly; neither had Franklin. Not giving a damn, he
had come to be at one with the universe. With brainless harmony like that, he’d
found that he couldn’t miss.

If Merle’s shots hadn’t been going wild, the only words
spoken might have been a steady rhythm of “Ready .. . Pull. . . Ready . . .
Pull.” Nothing had been said about the murder of Franklin’s small dream—the
dream of being an actor. Merle had made no triumphant announcement about the
boy’s definitely taking over the factory someday.

In the small world of a man hunched over, Franklin cocked
the trap and had a nightmarish feeling that they had been shooting clay pigeons
for years, that that was all there was to life, that only death could end it.

His feet were frozen.

“Ready,” said Franklin.

“Pull! “said Karl.

Out went the clay pigeon. Bang went the gun, and the bird
was dust.

Rudy tapped his temple, then saluted Karl with a crooked finger.
Karl returned the salute. That had been going on all afternoon—without a trace
of a smile. Karl stepped back and Rudy stepped up, the next cog in the
humorless clay-pigeon-destroying machine.

It was now Karl’s turn to work the trap. As he and Franklin
changed places, Franklin hit him on the arm and gave him a cynical smile.
Franklin put everything into that blow and the smile—fathers and sons, young
dreams and old dreams, bosses and employees, cold feet, boredom, and gunpowder.

It was a crazy thing for Franklin to do. It was the most
intimate thing that had ever passed between him and Karl. It was a desperate
thing to do. Franklin had to know if there was a human being inside Karl and,
if so, what the being was like.

Karl showed a little of himself—not much. He showed he could
blush. And for a split second, he showed that there was something he’d like to
explain to Franklin.

But all that vanished fast. He didn’t smile back. “Ready,”
he said.

“Pull! “said Rudy.

Out went the clay pigeon. Bang went the gun, and the bird
was dust.

“We’re going to have to find something harder for you guys
and easier for me,” said Merle. “I can’t complain about the gun, because the
damn thing cost me six hundred dollars. What I need is a six-dollar gun I can
hold responsible for everything.”

“Sun’s going down. Light’s getting bad,” said Rudy.

“Guess we better knock off,” said Merle. “No question about
who the old folks’ champion is, Rudy. But the boys are neck-and-neck. Ought to
have some kind of shoot-off.”

“They could try the rifle,” said Rudy. The rifle leaned
against the fence, ready for crows. It had a telescope. It was Merle’s.

Merle brought an empty cigarette pack from his pocket and
stripped off the foil. He handed the foil to Karl. “You two boys hang this up
about two hundred yards from here.”

Franklin and Karl trudged along the fence line, trudged off
two hundred yards. They were used to being sent together on errands one of
them could have handled alone—were used to representing, ceremoniously, their
generation as opposed to their fathers’.

Neither said anything until the foil was tacked to a fence
post. And then, as they stepped back from the target, Karl said something so
shyly that Franklin missed it.

“Beg your pardon?” said Franklin.

“I’m—I’m glad you’re not gonna take over the factory,” said
Karl. “That’s good—that’s great. Maybe, when you come through town with a show,
I’ll come backstage and see you. That all right? You’ll remember me?”

“Remember you?” said Franklin. “Good gosh, Karl!” For a
moment he felt like the actor he’d dreamed briefly of being.

“Get out from under your old man,” said Karl, “that’s the
thing to do. I just wanted to tell you—in case you thought I was thinking
something else.”

“Thanks, Karl,” said Franklin. He shook his head weakly. “But
I’m not going to be an actor. I’m going to take over when Father retires. I
told him last night.”