Huckleberry Fiend (15 page)

“My God. Do you give that speech every time some kid asks about the tableau?”

“They love it. It’s something a kid can relate to, as they say back home.”

“I guess it is.”

“Come on. Time for the pièce de résistance.”

We crossed the hall to the only room that had a door on it— a rude plank one with the bolt padlocked. “In a way this one was the hardest,” said Tom, “because there wasn’t a drawing to go by— only of this door— and little bits here and there. But the description is the richest of any of the scenes I used for the tableaux. Can you guess what it is?”

I had a feeling it could be only one thing. “Jim’s dungeon?”

“What else?” He unlocked the padlock and opened the door. The thing was nation gaudy, in the lexicon of the other Tom.

A wax figure of Jim was sitting on the bed, playing his Jew’s harp to charm the animals Tom had insisted upon. True to the book, he had a ten-foot chain on his leg, attached to the leg of the bed. You could just barely see that the leg had been sawed in two, but in case you missed it, there was a scattering of sawdust on the floor. “I thought,” I said, “they ate the sawdust.”

Tom smiled delightedly. “They must have left a crumb or two.”

On the floor were several of the accoutrements of prison-breaking— the picks with which Tom and Huck dug Jim out, the saw they made from a case-knife, the fox-fire they used to dig by (made of real bits of wood and translucent orange paper, with a lightbulb underneath), and a couple of tin plates with “messages” scratched on the bottom.

On a low, crudely constructed table sat Uncle Silas’s brass warming pan with a crust on it— Tom and Huck’s “witch-pie.” I was sure the new Tom wouldn’t have done things halfway, but exactly as his namesake would have. Just to make sure, I asked: “Tell me— is there anything under that crust?”

Tom practically preened himself. “Of course. A real rope ladder I made out of a sheet.”

Next to the witch-pie were finely wrought and carefully painted spiders, caterpillars, and bugs. Hunkering under the table were a couple of real-looking frogs. The shirt the boys stole from Uncle Silas for Jim to keep his journal on hung on the wall, covered with hen-scratchings. It looked as if Tom had used the prescribed ink. “Real blood?” I asked.

“My own.”

“As I recall, Jim used the blood he got when the rats bit him.”

Tom laughed. He seemed to have forgotten his lost love. “I couldn’t find any likely-looking rats. Had to resort to a Swiss Army knife.” He held out his arm so I could see the scar.

“I hope you didn’t get an infection.”

“Oh, I did. I had to get a tetanus shot.” The man did his adopted name proud.

I continued my inspection. Off in a corner was a potted plant, to represent the mullen that Jim had been instructed to call “Pitchiola” and to water with his tears.

But the real centerpiece— Tom’s crowning achievement— was Jim himself, in bed with his menagerie and his grindstone. (Technically, the rope ladder should have been there too, but, as Tom had wanted to show the witch-pie in its intact magnificence, he’d apparently decided the ladder couldn’t be in two places at once; and anyway, there would hardly have been room for it.)

“Go on,” urged Tom. “Go up close and look. Touch the rats if you like.”

One rat cavorted on Jim’s lap, another on his shoulder; a third lay tamely on his straw tick, apparently soothed by the sorrowful notes of the “juiceharp.” Touching one as ordered, I found it authentically furry. Garter-snakes, painstakingly painted, each with buttons tied to its tail to “let on” they were rattlesnakes, wriggled contentedly all over Jim and his bed. One even hung from the grindstone. Casually scattered at the foot of the bed were pens made from a brass candlestick and a pewter spoon, an old nail, and an iron bolt.

Jim’s coat of arms was elaborately rendered on the grindstone— a runaway slave, complete with bundle, on a bar sinister; a dog couchant, and under his foot, a chain embattled; Tom and Huck’s names scratched sideways, as gules for supporters; and at the bottom, Jim’s motto, “Maggiore fretta, minore atto,” which, according to the original Tom, meant “the more haste, the less speed.”

Underneath the coat of arms were the four “mournful inscriptions” Tom had prescribed:

1. Here a captive heart busted.

2. Here a poor prisoner, forsook by the world and friends, fretted out his sorrowful life.

3. Here a lonely heart broke, and a worn spirit went to its rest, after thirty-seven years of solitary captivity.

4. Here, homeless and friendless, after thirty-seven years of bitter captivity, perished a noble stranger, natural son of Louis XIV.

“I’ll bet,” I said, “you did the grindstone yourself.”

“It wouldn’t have been regulation otherwise. I used the nail for a chisel and the iron bolt for a hammer, exactly as Jim did.”

“Was it fun?”

“To tell you the truth, it was the most fun of making the whole museum. I made the pens too. Huck wasn’t kidding— ‘it was most pesky tedious hard work and slow’.” He paused. “And I loved every minute of it.”

“Tom, I’ve got to hand it to you. This whole thing is a real act of love.”

“Wait a minute— you still haven’t seen it all. Open the closet door.”

As I did, a light went on, revealing another wax figure of Huck, posed like Kemble’s final drawing, Huck tipping his straw hat with his right hand, his left over his heart, a sweet, boyish smile on his face. Over the figure’s head was a banner: “The End, Yours Truly Huck Finn.”

I burst out laughing— and delighted laughter too. However misguided, the museum really was an act of love, and this last little touch, so obviously meant to please, was genuinely charming. I thought this new Tom, twisted psyche and all (I didn’t know about his conscience), might be possessed of a sound heart.

“And now,” he said, “to business. Could you use a drink?”

“Mark Twain,” I said.

Tom’s library, to me, was more pleasing than Pamela Temby’s. All walls held floor-to-ceiling books, the furniture consisted of two old-fashioned overstuffed chairs and a desk that looked like an original from the
Territorial Enterprise
, and there was a fireplace.

The “business” Tom spoke of was mostly drinking beer (Twain’s beverage during his Virginia City tenure), but also consisted of showing me his collection, which was at least as extensive as Pamela Temby’s. “I bought a lot of these things when I moved here,” he said, “intending to display them in the museum. But when I saw what the town was like, I didn’t think they’d really be appreciated. Besides, then I got the idea for the tableaux, and I couldn’t be stopped.”

“It’s almost a Tom Sawyer museum,” I said. “Even Jim’s dungeon was really Tom’s creation.”

“That was my original idea. But I knew I had to do the raft scene. When you think about it, it’s really the most eloquent evocation of boyhood in all of Twain.”

“ ‘Life is mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft’,” I quoted.

Moroseness seized him suddenly. “Yeah. If only you could live it on one. I find I’m spending more and more of my time in the raft room.”

“What was your previous favorite?”

“Oh, ‘A General Good Time.’ By a long shot.”

“Which one is that?”

“That’s the caption True Williams gave the sketch showing Peter and the Pain-Killer.” His speech was becoming ever slower and sadder, his face the visage of a condemned man.

I thought I understood some of his problems and in a way, they weren’t that different from mine— I might not spend my time hand-chiseling grindstones, but I still had my old baseball glove from junior high, and, if Sardis were to be believed, quite a few boyish little notions. I genuinely wanted to cheer Tom up. It was entirely coincidental that the line of questioning I chose to do it happened to be slightly on the self-serving side. “Tell me, Tom, what’s the greater pleasure— the museum or collecting?”

He smiled sadly. “It’s almost a toss-up. They’re both my life.” He looked down at his beer. “Unfortunately, the sum total of it.”

“Are you still collecting?”

“Oh, avidly. I’ve bought two letters in the last month.”

“Something I’ve always wondered— what do collectors get out of it?”

“I will never get to meet Mark Twain, but as close as I can come is having an original manuscript or letter.”

The sadness melted as he warmed to his subject. He spoke passionately, emphasizing every word. “If you really respect someone— feel you have an intellectual rapport with him— that can give you something the history books never will. When I hold one of his letters, and read it, I feel as if I know what motivated him— there’s a chemical reaction that takes place. It’s electric.”

“I think I can understand that— I’ve spent some time in the Bancroft Library.”

He seemed not to have heard me. “It’s hard to explain to somebody who’s never experienced it, but if Mark Twain is truly your hero, whatever’s written about him, you can’t wait to get your hands on, and once you have an opportunity to peer into his mind, it’s almost like being able to listen in on the phone. When you have the opportunity to own a really witty letter, it’s a certain feeling— a very exciting feeling. You think, ‘What a brilliant person! What a mind!’

“You know one of the things wrong with the current generation? They don’t have the same hero structure we had.” He drifted off somewhere. “The Lone Ranger… Mickey Mantle… Look at Reagan. That’s why people like him— he’s a role model. In a pathetic sort of way. When we can’t find the heroes we need today, we have to look backwards until we do find them. Mark Twain was one of those great people that come around so very infrequently— a guy who was wildly successful, but he was so real, and the more you look into it, the better you feel. I could see myself sitting around with him in one of those old men’s clubs, just swapping stories. That could be something that could be the highlight of your life.

“Here was a man who went out West to seek his fortune and he didn’t make it, but he went on to find a much richer vein than any Comstock Lode— in his own mind. He was a
character
.” He sat back in his chair, having spent his passion. He spoke quietly. “If I were an author, I’d want to be like him— a real character. I guess that’s what it’s all about.”

“I think you’re a thoroughgoing character. Anybody would.”

He looked sad again. “Do you? I don’t know— I’m just a librarian.”

“I’ve heard there’s a very choice manuscript on the market.”

“Have you?” His voice was listless.

“I think the seller was using the name Sarah Williams— has she contacted you, by any chance?”

“No.” He seemed to have virtually no interest in the subject.

“Did you ever run into a woman named Beverly Alexander?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Isami Nakamura?”

He shook his head, apparently not even curious about who these women were. He seemed utterly to have run out of steam, and I left him to his melancholy, wondering vaguely what had set it off. Perhaps he’d been struck by the same thought I’d had: If the shade of Mark Twain somehow materialized to swap stories, Tom wouldn’t have any to offer, having never lived life at all.

* * *

“How’d it go?” asked Crusher.

“You really missed something.”

“Are you kidding? I flew all over the state.”

“I just met a man who’s devoted his whole life to hero worship. I mean, this guy hasn’t got a single thing going for him, and he’s just starting to realize it.”

“Well, if it’s made him happy—”

“He’s the saddest sack I ever saw. He’s kind of having an overdue midlife crisis. Apparently, he finally realized he was lonely, fell in love with the first woman he met, and of course she didn’t want him. Who would? He’s one-dimensional.”

“You trying to tell me something?”

“Well, look, there’s nothing wrong with flying, but the actual world, by definition, is that thing down there.”

“You don’t think I’m a down-to-earth guy?”

“Well, sure, but—”

“I’ve got my head in the clouds.”

“Oh, head, that’s nothing. But all ten fingers and all ten toes? Shoulders, liver, pancreas— don’t you think that’s a little extreme?”

“You didn’t mention heart. But, come to think of it, my last girlfriend did. I’ll tell you something, Paul— I haven’t been too lucky in love lately.”

“You should get out more— and I don’t mean out in the ozone. I guarantee you if you’d gone with me today, you’d have had an enriching adventure.”

“But I did have one.”

“Yes, but it wouldn’t make good chitchat over a late-night brandy.”

“I don’t drink— it interferes with the flying.”

“The point is, you need some material to charm the ladies with. Look, do me a favor. Next time we go somewhere, stay on the ground with me. Just come along and enjoy whatever happens and then the next time you go on a date, tell her all about it.”

“By God, I’ll do it! I’ve noticed they kind of doze off when I get on the theory of aeronautics.”

“Great. How about tomorrow? I need to go to L.A. to see a movie producer about a priceless missing manuscript.”

“L.A.? But I could fly out over the ocean, maybe circle back, swing over Lake Arrowhead—”

“Do you want to get laid or not?”

“You really think it’ll fly?”

“Trust me.”

* * *

One thing about a cat— when you get home from a hard day of interviewing eccentrics, he’ll be there to greet you. “Hi, Paul,” said Spot, “it’s been hell without you.”

“I missed you too, old buddy. Did Sardis call?”

“Can’t say, really. I’ve been busy thinking about the phenomenal versus the noumenal. If the phone rang, I didn’t hear it.”

Spot’s English isn’t so good, so usually I have to keep up both ends of the conversation, but this has its advantages. I find he never says stuff like, “How should I know, jerk? Why don’t you check your machine?”

Unfortunately, no matter how tactful he is, we’re so close I always know what he’s thinking. “Okay, okay,” I said, “I’ll check the damned machine.”

I meant to, I really did. I think it’s wrong to tell an animal you’ll do something, and then go back on your word. But the fit was on me— I felt like storming Sardis’s apartment.