Marvel and a Wonder (9 page)

“So what’s all this?” he asked, looking around.

“We come to say goodbye,” Jim Dooley said. “So to speak.” Jim Dooley’s forehead was shiny with sweat. Before he had retired, he had been both a soybean farmer and a schoolteacher. “We were expecting you last week with everyone else.”

“What was last week?” he asked.

“We’re closing it down,” Jim Wall, the former groceryman, announced, pouring himself another shot. “Everything must go.”

“There ain’t enough names in the roster,” Jim Northfield explained, his bushy eyebrows adding a comical counterpoint to his dignified lawyerly expression. “We don’t have any new members. And the old ones we have,” and here he surveyed the room, not gazing at anyone particular, though slowing before the grandfather, “they either don’t show up to the meetings or they haven’t paid their dues.”

Jim Falls went a little red in the face.

“Northfield’s right,” Jim Dooley added. “We was meant to be a civic organization. But what’s a civic organization without a town?”

“First we lost the manufacturing plant . . .” Jim Wall started.

“Then we lost the knife factory . . .”

“And after that, the hospital . . .”

“And the creamery . . .” The men’s voices began to blur together.

“Now that it’s all gone, nobody growing up here has got a reason to stay.” This was Jim Dooley again. “That café has been closed for almost ten years now.”

“God bless Ruthie, that poor girl. I can still see the way that blood was circling her head on the floor. Looked like a halo.”

“God bless.”

“And if they ever find the villain . . .”

“God knowing they will . . .”

“If they ever find him.”

“Which they will.”

“The problem is we ain’t got nothing left to point to. To hang our hats on, so to speak,” Jim Dooley said. He was getting maudlin now, his wrinkled forehead creased with regret. “All the kids, they get bused over to school in Dwyer. You got to drive an hour south for a job. We can’t even get the chain restaurants interested.”

“Those folks at Hardee’s wouldn’t even take our call,” Jim Wall confided, his wide face tightening.

“All we got left is that statue in the square. And a few family farms. And that don’t make a town,” Jim Northfield said, pouring another shot.

“It’s happening all over,” Jim Dooley said. “Every part of the country. All those jobs, factories, going overseas. And we let it happen. We got no one to blame but ourselves.”

“America,” one of the men muttered.

“Here’s to a good run,” Jim Northfield toasted, holding up his shot glass. “When it’s all over, all said and done, we can at least say we had some times up in here. It saved my marriage and kept me from murdering my boy.”

“That boy is a lawyer now, if you don’t happen to know,” Jim Dooley whispered.

The four downed their shots in silence, one of them coughing, one of them rolling his eyes, one of them humming, one of them groaning.

“Before we say goodbye, let’s all drink one more to Burt,” Jim Dooley suggested, nodding at the rectangular framed photograph.

“Old Burt Hale.”

“Old Burt.”

“That fella was lucky. He didn’t have to live long enough to see this place shut its doors.”

“It was only a few months ago.”

“It was two years, last June.”

“Why, I’ll be.”

“Oh, you will be, all right. Sooner or later, all of us will.” Jim Northfield was quicker with the bottle this time, spilling the amber liquid a little, his hands liver-spotted, white-haired, and rusty with rheumatism. “To Burt Hale. A better, more even-tempered fellow I’ve never met.”

“Here here.”

“And a wife as good-looking as an ice-cream sundae,” Jim Wall added.

“Without the nuts.”

The men chuckled at that one. Jim Northfield’s hand trembled, holding the shot glass aloft, pleased at his own joke.

“Here here!” someone else exclaimed.

“One of the best treasurers we ever had,” Jim Dooley remembered. “One of the few who didn’t rob us blind. We bought new books for the library with what he saved.”

“And got the coffee shop built at the old hospital.”

“A man who could quote from the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin.”

“And knew nearly everybody in town.”

“With a wife as good-looking as a peach pie,” Jim Wall said.

“Without the nuts.”

This time no one but Jim Northfield smiled.

“And a better sheep farmer this state has never seen.”

“Burt Hale.”

“Old Burt.”

“Old Burt Hale,” Jim Northfield repeated.

They held the glass cylinders before their lips, each of them closing his eyes, remembering better days.

“Here’s to swimming with bowlegged women,” Jim Falls mumbled, speaking finally, and then quickly downed the shot.

_________________

A red stop sign. A green lamppost. A rounded water tower, dulled from powder blue to white. A faded town, fading, harried with dusty light, midafternoon.

* * *

Gilby was teasing the albino python when Mr. Peel came in. There was definitely something wrong with it, because it still would not eat. The pinkie—its small, nude body—lay curled up beside the snake’s angular head, breathing heavily. “He won’t eat,” Gilby called over his shoulder. “It’s been a week already.”

“You might have to kill it for him and see if he goes for it then,” Mr. Peel responded, moving behind the cash register. He was wearing a white T-shirt, so old and washed so many times as to appear nearly see-through, and green canvas shorts. His black-rimmed glasses caught the light coming in from outside and made it look like he had no eyes. Gilby, kneeling there on the dirty tile floor, wondered what Mr. Peel was doing here so early on a Saturday afternoon. Saturdays he usually didn’t come in until five, when the store closed. “How’s it been today, Gil?”

“Pretty slow. We sold a couple newts and that was about it. Some lady called to say she was looking for a caiman but I told her we don’t got any. I told her I’d talk to you and said she could call back later if she wanted.”

“I’ll have to call that redneck from Florida, I guess. He’s the only one I know still dumb enough to sell ’em.”

Gilby carried the pinkie over to the counter, reached beside the cash register, and found a long, plastic-handled flathead screwdriver. He placed the small pink mouse on the counter, holding it there with two fingers, and raised the handle of the screwdriver above the tiny creature’s head, measuring out the blow.

Mr. Peel looked over his black-rimmed glasses. “Gilby, don’t do that here. The counter’s made of glass, son. Use your head.”

“Right. Sorry.” Gilby carried the squirming animal over to the floor in front of the python’s cage. He held the shivering mouse in place with his two fingers, then lifted the screwdriver’s handle once more, measuring out the proper distance and force.

“Gilby, don’t do it on the floor there. What did I build that feeding table for?”

“Right.” Gilby stood, walking a few short paces over to the feeding table—an unsquare construction of wood and metal that leaned precariously to the left, slapped with a tacky coat of black housepaint—Mr. Peel’s ingenious solution to the problem of where to store and prepare all the reptile’s medicine and food.

The mouse, being relocated a third time, let out a tiny squeak as Gilby inched his fingertips over its narrow body, pressing it against the tabletop. Once more, Gilby raised the screwdriver’s handle, squinting so as to better approximate the distance and torque, imagining it was his older brother he had pinned to the tabletop in the mouse’s place. Before he could follow through with this fantasy, delivering the deadly blow, Mr. Peel called out, “Gilby, why are we thirty dollars short?”

The screwdriver handle hung suspended in the air, only an inch or two from the trembling mouse. Gilby sniffed, closing his eyes for a second, wondering if he had miscounted or if by chance had borrowed more from the register than he should’ve. “Huh?”

Mr. Peel finished counting through the bills a third time. “We’re thirty-four dollars short, Gil. You pay any bills today?”

“That black boy came in with pinkies.”

“How many?”

Gilby closed his eyes and tried to figure it quick, but under duress, all he could come up with was the truth. “Two dozen. No, three.”

“That still leaves thirty-one dollars that’s missing.”

“I don’t know.”

Flustered, Mr. Peel counted through the bills and coins a fourth time. The final bill he laid down on top of the rest with an exhausted air, staring down at the short pile of cash, lowering his head, as if steeling himself for something.

“Gilby.”

“Yeah?”

“This is the third or fourth time this has happened this month. Now, did anyone else come in to sell anything?”

“Nope. No, a wait a minute . . .” He scratched his unshaved chin, tugging at the hair growing along there. “No.”

“And no one else came in with a bill? What about Paul? From the town council? Or the guy from the woodchip place? Was he in here?”

Gilby bit his lips, figuring it might be better to try to be creative with some outrageous lie. An imaginary bill that had come due. Some unfamiliar pet food salesman. A suspicious character lurking near the cash register while he had been busy feeding the animals.

“Gilby?”

“Huh?”

“Was there anyone else in here today?”

The sore spot beneath his eye began to throb, from Mr. Peel and his whited-out glasses. “No. Nobody else was in. There was a guy and his daughter, they bought the newts. And the black kid selling pinkies. That was it.”

Mr. Peel peered back down at the stack of bills on the glass counter. He lifted the black-rimmed glasses from his face, pinched the space in between his eyes, groaned, then replaced the frames, turning his eyeless stare back in Gilby’s direction.

“Gilby?”

“Yes?”

“Do you see we have a problem here?”

Gilby wondered if maybe this was a trick question. Did Mr. Peel think he was an idiot? “I guess.”

“You guess?”

“I guess.”

“Gilby, how long have you been working for me?”

“Three years.”

“That’s right, three years. And how I am supposed to keep trusting you with the store if I come in and find the count off?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? Well, neither do I. Can you give me one good reason I shouldn’t fire you right now and call Sheriff Burke and ask him to come down and search you for my thirty dollars?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No. Except I didn’t take it.”

Mr. Peel pulled the glasses from his face. “Gilby, I don’t want to have to fire you. I like you. I do. But Jesus. Do you want to be fired?”

“No.”

“No?”

“No.”

“Do you think I’m stupid? Is that it? Do you think I’m too dumb to notice?”

“No. I don’t think you’re stupid at all.”

“Well, I appreciate it, Gilby. I do.”

“No problem.”

And here, for a brief second, hearing the young man’s reply, Mr. Peel couldn’t help but smile. “The way I figure it, you’ve stolen about five hundred dollars from me over the last three years. And we got enough troubles trying to keep the place open as it is. I mean, I can’t have somebody in here that I can’t trust. I can’t. I mean, that’s like . . . that’s like stealing from my kids, you know? Jeez. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t want to, Gilby, but I guess I’m gonna have to fire you.”

Gilby stood, his face now red with embarrassment and anger. “I didn’t steal anything from you, Mr. Peel.”

“I wish that was true, Gilby.”

The younger man nodded, found his baseball cap beside the register, fitted it over his head, and walked slowly out, glancing behind him to see if Mr. Peel was on the phone with the police. He wasn’t. He was staring down at the mismatched pile of currency, and then, shaking his head, he began counting it once again.

* * *

Edward came up to the pharmacy counter. His teeth were itching; they felt like they were made of fur. Something was all wrong with the light in this place. It was too much. It was actually a plot to make everyone feel sick. Vis-à-vis supply and demand. Vis-à-vis sick people. Meaning more profits for the drug companies. Or something like that. There was more to this thought but he could not get himself worked up about it. Because right now. Right now. Right now. He was doing something. What? His veins felt like they had calcified. The pharmacist, a stiff with a lab coat and glasses, asked him what he could do for him. What a question. Where to begin. How about a million dollars? Would that make anyone happy anymore? No. How about an operation? The one where you remove my heart? So I am just dick and guts. Because that is all I want anymore. Is there a pill back there that has the same effects? I would like to be an animal. All I want is to roam in the woods. Civilization has become too intelligent. What do you prescribe for that? Then he remembered the .45 at the back of his pants. Ah, yes. But he was sure he was being videotaped right now. There was a camera right above the counter. “Tell me where, good sir, where your pseudoephedrine products are, and be quick about it, as I am in a bit of a hurry.”

“Aisle twelve, cold and cough.”

“Thank you, my good man, thank you, a thousand thank yous.”

He moved like a plastic skeleton, at odd angles to the ceiling and floor, searching for aisle twelve. Things in this place smelled different. Like they had been experimented with. It was the phosphates. Or the plastics. The hormones. Nothing looked or tasted the way he remembered it. It was a part of the problem of everything. Nothing rotted anymore. The torment of nature had finally been escaped. It was the chemicals that had done it, the same ones flashing in his brain. He found himself staring at a freezer full of beverages, wondering what it would be like to be an Eskimo. My good man. Aisle twelve. He was feeling better now. The lights did that too. That was how all these stores were making record profits. It was called halcyon. You couldn’t smell it or taste it except in the negative. Soda pop tasted too good because of it. All the fast food was full of it. And then again, it was okay to feel good. He was back home and his mother had not turned him out. Not yet anyway. And already he had plans. A plan. Before the California biker-gang cartels made their move into the Midwest and crystal meth was as big as it was back on the West Coast, he needed to set himself up in distribution. And production. He could corner the market. If he could get together enough cash to mix the first batch. And if his timing was right. Which was why aisle twelve. There were half a dozen boxes of different cold medicines with pseudoephedrine, and he decided he would take them all. Cradling the cardboard boxes against his chest, he limped up to the counter, his nose running once again. He set the boxes down on the black conveyer belt and the clerk—an old woman with hair like cotton candy—looked up at him, and he just nodded and said, “And this too,” placing a pack of gum on top.