Mr. Mercedes (55 page)

“Because it's in the way,” Jacobs said. “Beyond Skull Mountain lies the road to Germany.”

“That's right! And the head Kraut! Hitsmer!”

“The author of so many evils,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Nothing. Do you mind if I just call the bad guys Germans? ‘Krauts' seems kind of mean.”

“No, that's great, Krauts are Germans, and Germans are Krauts. My dad was in the war. Just the last year, though. He fixed trucks in Texas. Were you in the war, Mr. Jacobs?”

“No, I was too young. For Korea, too. How are the Americans going to take that hill, General Morton?”

“Charge it!” I shouted. “Shoot their machine guns! Pow! Budda-budda-budda!” Then, going down way low in my throat: “Takka-takka-takka!”

“A direct attack on the high ground sounds risky, General. If I were you I'd split your troops . . . like so . . .” He moved half of the Americans to the left and half to the right. “That creates a pincers movement, see?” He brought his thumb and forefinger together. “Drive on the objective from both sides.”

“Maybe,” I said. I liked the idea of a head-on attack—lots of bloody action—but Mr. Jacobs's idea appealed to me, just the same. It was sneaky. Sneaky could be satisfying. “I tried to make some caves, but the dirt's too dry.”

“So I see.” He poked a finger into Skull Mountain and watched the dirt crumble and bury the hole. He stood up and brushed the knees of his jeans. “I've got a little boy who'd probably get a kick out of your soldiers in another year or two.”

“He can play right now, if he wants to.” I was trying not to be selfish. “Where is he?”

“Still in Boston, with his mother. There's lots of stuff to pack up. They'll be here Wednesday, I think. Thursday at the latest. But Morrie's still a little young for soldiers. He'd only pick them up and throw them around.”

“How old is he?”

“Just two.”

“I bet he still pees his pants!” I yelled, and started laughing. It probably wasn't polite, but I couldn't help it. Kids peeing their pants was just so funny.

“He does, at that,” Jacobs said, smiling, “but I'm sure he'll grow out of it. Your father's in the garage, you say?”

“Yeah.” Now I remembered where I had heard the man's name before—Mom and Dad at the supper table, talking about the new minister that was coming from Boston.
Isn't he awfully young?
my mother had asked.
Yes, and his salary will reflect that
, my dad replied, and grinned. They talked about him some more, I think, but I didn't pay any attention. Andy was hogging the mashed potatoes. He always did.

“You try that enfilading maneuver,” he said, starting away.

“Huh?”

“Pincers,” he said, tweezing his thumb and finger together again.

“Oh. Yeah. Great.”

I tried it. It worked pretty good. The Krauts all died. The battle wasn't what I'd call spectacular, though, so I tried the frontal assault, with trucks and jeeps tumbling off the steep slope of Skull Mountain, plus Krauts tumbling off the back with deathcries of despair: “
Yaaaahhh!
”

Mom, Dad, and Mr. Jacobs sat on the front porch while the battle raged, drinking iced tea and talking about churchy things—in addition to my dad being a deacon, my mom was in the Ladies Auxiliary. Not the boss of it, but the next-to-boss. You should have seen all the fancy hats she had in those days. There must have been a dozen. We were happy then.

Mom called my brothers and sister, along with their friends, to meet the new minister. I started to come, too, but Mr. Jacobs waved me back, telling Mom we'd already met. “Battle on, General!” he called.

I battled on. Con, Andy, and their friends went out back again and played on. Claire and her friends went back upstairs and danced on (although my mother told her to turn the music down, please and thank you). Mr. and Mrs. Morton and the Reverend Jacobs talked on, and for quite awhile. I remember often being surprised at how much adults could yak. It was tiring.

I lost track of them because I was fighting the Battle of Skull Mountain over again in several different ways. In the most satisfying scenario—adapted from Mr. Jacobs's pincers movement—one part of the American army kept the Germans pinned down from the front while the rest looped around and ambushed the Germans from behind. “
Vat is zis?
” one of them cried, just before getting shot in the head.

I was starting to get tired of it and was thinking of going in for a slice of cake (if Con and Andy's friends had left any), when that shadow fell over me and my battlefield again. I looked up and saw Mr. Jacobs, holding a glass of water.

“I borrowed this from your mother. Can I show you something?”

“Sure.”

He knelt down again and poured the water all over the top of Skull Mountain.

“It's a thunderstorm!” I shouted, and made thunder noises.

“Uh-huh, if you like. With lightning. Now look.” He poked out two of his fingers like devil horns and pushed them into the wet dirt. This time the holes stayed. “Presto,” he said. “Caves.” He took two of the German soldiers and put them inside. “They'll be tough to root out, General, but I'm sure the Americans will be up to the job.”

“Hey! Thanks!”

“Add more water if it gets crumbly again.”

“I will.”

“And remember to take the glass back to the kitchen when you finish the battle. I don't want to get in trouble with your mother on my first day in Harlow.”

I promised, and stuck out my hand. “Put er there, Mr. Jacobs.”

He laughed and did so, then walked off down Methodist Road, toward the parsonage where he and his family would live for the next three years, until he got fired. I watched him go, then turned back to Skull Mountain.

Before I could really get going, another shadow fell over the battlefield. This time it was my dad. He took a knee, being careful not to squash any American soldiers. “Well, Jamie, what did you think of our new minister?”

“I like him.”

“So do I. Your mother does, too. He's very young for the job, and if he's good, we'll only be his starter congregation, but I think he'll do fine. Especially with MYF. Youth calls to youth.”

“Look, Daddy, he showed me how to make caves. You only have to get the dirt wet so it makes kinda almost mud.”

“I see.” He ruffled my hair. “You want to wash up good before supper.” He picked up the glass. “Want me to take this in for you?”

“Yes, please and thank you.”

He took the glass and headed back to the house. I returned to Skull Mountain, only to see that the dirt had dried out again and the caves had collapsed. The soldiers inside had been buried alive. That was okay with me; they were the bad guys, after all.

 • • •

These days we've become
gruesomely sensitized to sex, and no parent in his or her right mind would send a six-year-old off in the company of a new male acquaintance who was living by himself (if only for a few days), but that is exactly what my mother did the following Monday afternoon, and without a qualm.

Reverend Jacobs—Mom told me I was supposed to call him that, not Mister—came walking up Methodist Hill around quarter to three and knocked on the screen door. I was in the living room, coloring on the floor, while Mom watched
Dialing for Prizes.
She had sent her name in to WCSH, and was hoping to win that month's grand prize, an Electrolux vacuum cleaner. She knew the chances weren't good, but, she said, hope springs infernal. That was a joke.

“Can you loan me your youngest for half an hour?” Reverend Jacobs asked. “I've got something in my garage that he might like to see.”

“What is it?” I asked, already getting up.

“A surprise. You can tell your mother all about it later.”

“Mom?”

“Of course,” she said, “but change out of your school clothes first, Jamie. While he does that, would you like a glass of iced tea, Reverend Jacobs?”

“I would,” he said. “And I wonder if you could manage to call me Charlie.”

She considered this, then said, “No, but I could probably manage Charles.”

I changed into jeans and a tee-shirt, and because they were talking about adult things when I came back downstairs, I went outside to wait for the schoolbus. Con, Terry, and I attended the one-room school on Route 9—an easy quarter-mile walk from our house—but Andy went to Consolidated Middle and Claire all the way across the river to Gates Falls High, where she was a freshman. (“Just don't be a fresh
girl
,” Mom told her—that was also a joke.) The bus dropped them off at the intersection of Route 9 and Methodist Road, at the foot of Methodist Hill.

I saw them get off, and as they came trudging up the hill—squabbling as always, I could hear them as I stood waiting by the mailbox—Reverend Jacobs came out.

“Ready?” he asked, and took my hand. It seemed perfectly natural.

“Sure,” I said.

We met Andy and Claire halfway down the hill. Andy asked where I was going.

“To Reverend Jacobs' house,” I said. “He's going to show me a surprise.”

“Well, don't be too long,” Claire said. “It's your turn to set the table.” She glanced at Jacobs, then quickly away again, as if she found him hard to look at. My big sister had a wicked crush on him before the year was out, and so did all her friends.

“I'll have him back shortly,” Jacobs promised.

We walked down the hill hand in hand to Route 9, which led to Portland if you turned left, to Gates Falls, Castle Rock, and Lewiston if you turned right. We stopped and looked for traffic, which was ridiculous since there were hardly any cars on Route 9 except in the summer, and then walked on past hayfields and cornfields, the stalks of the latter now dry and clattering in a mild autumn breeze. Ten minutes brought us to the parsonage, a tidy white house with black shutters. Beyond it was the First Methodist Church of Harlow, which was also ridiculous since there was no other Methodist church in Harlow.

The only other house of worship in Harlow was Shiloh Church. My father considered the Shilohites moderate to serious weirdos. They didn't ride around in horse-drawn buggies, or anything, but the men and boys all wore black hats when they were outside. The women and girls wore dresses that came down to their ankles, and white caps. Dad said the Shilohites claimed to know when the world was going to end; it was written down in a special book. My mother said in America everyone was entitled to believe what they liked as long as they didn't hurt anybody . . . but she didn't say Dad was wrong, either. Our church was larger than Shiloh, but very plain. Also, it had no steeple. It did once, but a hurricane came along back in the olden days, 1920 or so, and knocked it down.

Reverend Jacobs and I walked up the parsonage's dirt driveway. I was interested to see that he had a blue Plymouth Belvedere, a very cool car. “Standard shift or push-button drive?” I asked.

He looked surprised, then grinned. “Push-button,” he said. “It was a wedding present from my in-laws.”

“Are in-laws like outlaws?”

“Mine are,” he said, and laughed. “Do you like cars?”

“We all like cars,” I said, meaning everyone in my family . . . although that was less true of Mom and Claire, I guessed. Females didn't seem to totally understand the basic coolness of cars. “When the Road Rocket's fixed up, my dad's going to race it at the Castle Rock Speedway.”

“Really?”

“Well, not him, exactly. Mom said he couldn't because it's too dangerous, but some guy. Maybe Duane Robichaud. He runs Brownie's Store along with his mom and dad. He drove the nine-car at the Speedway last year, but the engine caught on fire. Dad says he's looking for another ride.”

“Do the Robichauds come to church?”

“Um . . .”

“I'll take that as a no. Come in the garage, Jamie.”

It was shadowy and musty-smelling. I was a little afraid of the shadows and the smell, but Jacobs didn't seem to mind. He led me deeper into the gloom, then stopped and pointed. I gasped at what I saw.

Jacobs gave a little chuckle, the way people do when they're proud of something. “Welcome to Peaceable Lake, Jamie.”

“Wow!”

“I got it set up while I'm waiting for Patsy and Morrie to get here. I should be doing stuff in the house, and I
have
done a fair amount—fixed the well-pump, for one thing—but there's not a whole lot more I
can
do until Pats gets here with the furniture. Your mom and the rest of the Ladies Auxiliary did a terrific job of cleaning the place up, kiddo. Mr. Latoure commuted from Orr's Island, and no one's actually lived here since before World War II. I thanked her, but I wouldn't mind if you thanked her again.”

“Sure, you bet,” I said, but I don't believe I ever passed that second thanks on, because I barely heard what he was saying. All my attention was fixed on a table that took up almost half the garage space. On it was a rolling green landscape that put Skull Mountain to shame. I have seen many such landscapes since—mostly in the windows of toyshops—but they all had complicated electric trains running through them. There was no train on the table Reverend Jacobs had set up, which wasn't a real table at all, but sheets of plywood on a rank of sawhorses. Atop the plywood was a countryside in miniature, about twelve feet long and five feet wide. Power pylons eighteen inches high marched across it on a diagonal, and it was dominated by a lake of real water that shone bright blue even in the gloom.

“I'll have to take it down soon,” he said, “or else I won't be able to get the car in the garage. Patsy wouldn't care for that.”

He bent, planted his hands above his knees, and gazed at the rolling hills, the threadlike power lines, the big lake. There were plastic sheep and cows grazing near the water (they were considerably out of scale, but I didn't notice and wouldn't have cared if I had). There were also lots of streetlamps, which was a little peculiar, since there was no town and no roads for them to shine on.