Crash Gordon and the Mysteries of Kingsburg (25 page)

“I don’t have a clue,” Gordon admits without irony, shouting to be heard. The speedometer’s red needle is floating somewhere between 130 and 140 and almost all of Gordon’s mental energy is directed toward willing it to go back down.

“I’m talkin’ ‘bout security!” Johnny hollers. “There is none! No stocks or bonds or insurance policies can protect you from the hairy fist of fate–much less havin’ fancy new clothes or the right kind of silverware. It don’t matter how good a neighborhood you live in, or who you get married to, shit’s still gonna happen that you never saw comin’. So why make yourself miserable worryin’ about things you can’t control, anyhow?”

“Look out!” Gordon shouts.

“Wha?!”
Johnny yelps. He slams on the brakes. The El Camino goes into a long, screeching skid down the old tar road. First it turns sideways and then it goes into a spin. For a moment, Gordon thinks they’re going to flip over and catch on fire, as he’s seen happen so often in movies. But then that moment passes.

“What was that?” Johnny asks when they’ve come to a complete stop, engine flooding, the air smelling strongly of singed brake pads and smoking tires. He cranes his sunburned neck, looking around wildly. “What’d you see?”

“You were about to miss the turn for the cemetery,” Gordon says sheepishly.

Just as Johnny gets the engine started again, Mal’s hearse cruises past them almost silently. They follow it through the cemetery gates and then turn aside to park in the gravel driveway near the mausoleum. When Gordon gets out, he takes a long look at the cemetery’s fence with its row of tall sculpted cypress trees pointing up at the sky like some dark green demon’s fingers, and it finally hits him:
They’re going to put my father in a grave.
Six feet of dirt will be covering Mal’s body. He won’t be coming back–
ever.

A long black limousine pulls up beside them and Cynthia gets out, wearing her oversized Gucci sunglasses. “Gordon, I want a word with you,” she says, lighting a cigarette. Gordon gives Johnny a helpless shrug, thanks him for the ride, and then reluctantly goes off with her.

“I’m not too happy about that little stunt you pulled with Johnny,” his mother says when they’re some distance away from the mausoleum, “but we can talk about that later. Right now I want to show you something.” She makes a beeline through the tombstones as if she knows exactly where she’s going. She moves fast for a pregnant lady. Gordon has to jog a little to catch up with her.

“There…” she says, coming to a stop and pointing at an old bronze plaque set in black granite at her feet. “Say hello to your grandmother’s old lover.”

The plaque reads: “Maxwell Blaine Olson. Born October 5th, 1897. Died April 17th, 1959.” Nothing more except for a tiny flying angel blowing a trumpet in bas-relief.

“He was a yellow journalist,” Cynthia says, blowing mentholated smoke from her nostrils like an angry cartoon rhino. “They met just after your grandmother won that contest for the Sunny Maid Raisin Queen–even though she should’ve been disqualified because she was already married. She was such a prima donna. Always wanted to be famous.” His mother winces and lets out a short gasp of air, then bears down harder on her cigarette. Its tip glows a fiery red.

“Anyway,” she says, with added nostril smoke, “Maxwell here came out to the house to do a story on her. He was kind of a charmer. Came off as some kind of big shot writer, like the next Hemingway or F. Scott Fitzgerald. And your dingbat grandmother fell for it. She was so flattered by him that she started going behind your grandfather’s back, letting Maxwell diddle her in his little downtown office. It went on for years. They finally got caught, of course. Some policeman saw them through the blinds and thought it might be rape–probably because she screamed while she had her fake orgasms. I don’t know why, but Milt forgave her. They stayed married and tried not to talk about it. But the upshot is that no one knows for sure who your dad’s real father was. So there’s a chance you could be standing here on top of your dead Grandpa.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Gordon asks her.

“I don’t know. Something about the way your grandmother was carrying on in church today just raised my hackles. She’s still a goddam prima donna. I’m the one who just lost a husband, but do you see me carrying on like it’s all about me? No, that’s her job. She’s always been so dramatic.” She huffs out that last word like a transvestite mimicking Joan Crawford. “But really, she’s just a selfish hypocrite. I guess I’m tired of being the only one who sees through her act.”

It’s the longest speech his mother has ever addressed to him. Gordon wonders if she’s trying to find a way for them to bond. But this is his Grandma Helen she’s talking about, the only adult–aside from Johnny Hoss–who’s been consistently kind to him throughout his young life. There’s also something disingenuous about Cynthia’s assertion that Maxwell Olsen could be his grandfather. His real grandfather, Milt, had distinctively crooked pinkies, and although Mal didn’t manifest that particular genetic trait, it was passed along to Gordon, who did. And his mother knows that.

Gordon says, “Just because Grandma Helen had an affair, that doesn’t mean she’s a bad person. And why shouldn’t she cry? Her son’s dead.” If he had just died, Gordon wants to ask her, wouldn’t she cry? But he’s pretty sure he already knows the answer. She wouldn’t shed a single tear.

“If I ever found out your father was having an affair,” Cynthia responds with swift vehemence, “I would’ve wrung his stupid neck.” She flicks her cigarette onto Maxell Olson’s headstone and grinds it out, leaving a tarry streak against the flying angel’s wing.

There’s nothing more to say after that. They walk in silence to join the other mourners near Mal’s gravesite. Half of Kingsburg seems to be there. As they approach, they see Arnie Andersen wearing bagpipes and two of the other nameless Hoo-Hoos harnessed up with snare drums. A black Weber kettle barbecue has been rolled close to the open grave. A pyramid of charcoal briquettes, freshly doused with kerosene, writhes with flames at the kettle’s center.

“Oh, look,” says Cynthia. “The Hoo-Hoos are about to salute your father. I was hoping they’d do that.” She winces again, as if she’s having gas pains.

“What kind of a hokey mystery cult is this?” Gordon asks her. “Are they having a weenie roast?”

“Show some respect,” she snaps back at him. “Those men were your father’s best friends. You have no idea how much they’ve already done for us.”

Gordon and his mother are led over to some folding chairs set up next to a huge wreath of somber, drooping flowers tied up with a white satin sash. A gilt-edged card reads: “In Deepest Sympathy.” The barbecue blazes just across the grave from them. Gordon looks around for hot dogs or hamburger patties, but finds none. A white picnic tent has been set up to prevent the sun from shining on Mal’s coffin (
How did that get here?
Gordon wonders.
Did I miss pallbearer duty?
). A shellacked plywood podium with an attached microphone stands in front of the coffin. Father Simperman asks them all to rise and say a prayer. After that, Wayne Covington steps up to the podium with a few sheets of yellow notepad paper, which he tries to make inconspicuous.

“Hi there, everyone. I just wanted to say a few words today about Mal on behalf of the Hoo-Hoo Club,” says Wayne, “which, um, is a brotherhood of lumber merchants that’s existed for almost a hundred years–and before that, even, under different names.” He’s a little nervous. He stares down at his notes, which Gordon can see reflected in Wayne’s gold-rimmed, aviator-style bifocals. “Mal Swannson was a righteous man, a good friend, and a Hoo-Hoo
par excellence
,” Wayne reads with a slight nasal twang. “Had he lived, he surely would’ve been our next Snark of the Universe–” looking up to clarify–“which is kind of like the President, only in some ways more powerful.”

It’s obvious from the way Wayne is reading that he doesn’t have the speech memorized. He sounds like a malfunctioning robot. His ad-libs aren’t helping. He goes back to his notes. “Timber, mining, and oil were the businesses that made this country great, and the Hoo-Hoo Club played a large role in their development. They supplied the lumber to build your homes, while others supplied the copper to provide electricity, the steel to build railroad tracks, and the oil to fuel furnaces and make the gasoline that runs in your cars. Back then, a gentle patriarchy ruled the land, with names you could trust like Rockefeller, Vanderbilt, duPont, Frick, and Morgan. The Hoo-Hoo Club’s Snark of the Universe always held a high rank among these Illuminati. I’m only telling you this now so you can have some idea of the importance of the office Mal was to have held.”

Wow, my dad was right up there with the Rockefellers and the Vanderbilts
, thinks Gordon.
Is this guy crazy, or what?

Wayne turns to his second sheet of paper and reads: “Sadly, this gentle patriarchy gave way in our century to the more nefarious corporate hucksters from the greedy media and drug companies. The honorable George Hearst’s son, William Randolph, pioneered the techniques of yellow journalism –” There’s that phrase again, thinks Gordon–“later to be perfected by the Big Three television networks. The German drug manufacturer, Bayer, made us crave headache remedies despite the fact that no one even knew what a headache was in the previous century. And perhaps most malignant of all was the foolishly beloved Walt Disney, whose plan was to brainwash every one of us with the spoken words of his animated animal creations. Now a vast cloud of bamboozlement covers this once-great land, making us dependent on cartoons, game shows, and pharmaceuticals.”

He’s got a point
, thinks Gordon,
even though he sounds like a paranoid nutcase.
Television, newspapers, and magazines really
do
seem to act like a toxic gas, dumbing down the general populace with a smog of triviality. Which is why Gordon has always preferred library books. As for drugs… well, he probably wouldn’t be alive without them. In the Darwinian view of natural selection, maybe he shouldn’t be. Was that also part of the whole drug company conspiracy–a plot to keep the physically frail alive so they can further degrade the gene pool of the human race? Maybe deep-thinking Wayne has the answers....

Nope. Apparently he’s going to skip right past biomedical ethics and move on to the deification of Gordon’s dad. “If Mal were with us today,” Wayne is saying, “I think he could have single-handedly stemmed the tide of bamboozlement.” Gordon wants to raise his hand and ask, “Just what is bamboozlement, Wayne? A cloud or a tide–or is it both, just as light exhibits the characteristics of both particles and waves?” He doesn’t get the chance. Plunging ahead quite heedless off his own garbled metaphors, Wayne says, “Mal was a very charismatic guy–as I’m sure you all know–and he could hold his own in a debate with just about anyone, even the King of Spain. Once he said to me, ‘Wayne, we should get our butts in gear and return the Hoo-Hoo Club to its former days of glory. People still need houses, but they can get along without Mickey Mouse and
The Price Is Right!”

That sounds more like something Wayne would’ve written than something my dad would’ve said, but whatever…
thinks Gordon.

“Well, anyway, he will be deeply missed by all of us,” Wayne concludes. “Not only was he a great husband and father–he was also a powerful and soulful Hoo-Hoo.” A little sob catches in Wayne’s throat as he dips into the big side pocket of his navy blue belted leisure suit and pulls out a medium-sized rubber iguana. Or at least that’s what it looks like. The moment feels charged with significance.

Shaking the rubber iguana above his head like a cudgel, so all the mourners can see, Wayne cries out, “We’ll be paying our respects to Mal now with a little ceremony.” His voice is cracking. “Each man, when he’s initiated into the Hoo-Hoo Club, receives one of these sacred Jabberwocks–which represents the tiny lizardperson who resides in every one of us. This one was Mal’s. No other human being is worthy of such a mojo-laden totem, so we’re consigning it to the fire at Mal’s graveside. I do this now with a heavy heart.”

The bagpipes suddenly come to life like a peacock vomiting. The snare drums join in with a solemn stutter as Wayne tosses the flaccid Jabberwock onto the barbecue, where it sizzles like fatty meat, then quickly blackens and starts to melt. The emerging smoke–roiling with black plumed serpents of soot–is blown by a hot wind into the downcast faces of the mourners. The stench of burning plastic makes their eyes and nostrils sting.

Amid the ensuing flurries of hand-fanning and coughing, Father Simperman takes over at the podium. He starts in again with his folksy muttering: “…
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust
…
He is the resurrection and the life… take Mal to a far, far better place….
” And so on. Gordon barely hears him. He’s more interested in the grim wrestling match taking place between the bagpipes and Arnie Andersen, who looks like he’s trying to squeeze the rigid gizzards out of a tartan-clad Thanksgiving turkey. But then something said by Father Simperman leaps out at Gordon. He recognizes it as a phrase from Ecclesiastes. Somehow, it seems to perfectly sum up the new way that he looks at the world in the aftermath of Mal’s plane crash:

“All is vanity, striving after wind.”

It sounds so catchy to him that he thinks it should be a radio jingle–or at least a popular bumper sticker. He hears T. Rex singing it inside his head–a mantra set to the tune of “Cosmic Dancer”–while Mal’s coffin is loaded onto three green woven straps that hold it suspended over the deep, root-scarred grave. Someone flips a switch and an electric winch begins to whine. The green straps lengthen from a system of pulleys and the coffin begins its descent. When it thumps down on the muddy bottom, Gordon’s mother stands up and lurches forward. Gordon instinctively grabs her before she pitches over. She has a wild, furious look in her eyes, but it’s unfocused. Bearing down on some terrible inner turmoil, she gnashes her teeth and shrieks right into Gordon’s face.

Then she wets herself. Warm rivulets of fluid splash onto Gordon’s shiny shoes and the black polyester slacks covering his skinny legs. What kind of a crazed, atavistic response to death is this? Not yet having a handle on the situation, Gordon thinks his mother is trying to piss on Mal’s coffin, like some hopelessly forlorn dog marking its territory. But then someone shouts: “Her water’s broke!” and Gordon understands–it suddenly dawns on him–she’s about to have a baby. Other hands are steadying Cynthia now, helping her toward the limousine that will take her to the hospital. Gordon is able to step away from the throng with his arms hanging oddly limp and useless at his sides (the first sign of cataplexy). In a moment he’ll quietly slump to his knees in his second bout of narcolepsy, but before that happens he’s able to savor the irony of his mother making such a scene, in light of her recent grumbling about his grandmother.