Plexus (59 page)

“I'd like to go by way of the Great Lakes, if you could arrange it.”

“Arrange it?
That's my business! How many in the party? Any cats or dogs? You know the lakes are frozen now, don't you? But you can catch the iceboat this side of Canandaigua. I don't have to draw a map for you, do I?”

I leaned forward as if to communicate something private and confidential.

“Don't whisper!”
he shouted, banging a ruler against the counter. “It's against the rules.… Now then, what is it you wished to convey to me? Speak clearly and pause for your commas and semicolons.”

“It's about the coffin,” I said.

“The
coffin?
Why didn't you mention that right off? Hold on a minute, I'll have to telegraph the dispatch master.” He went over to the machine and tapped the keys. “Got to get a special routing. Livestock and corpses take the deferred route. They spoil too quickly.… Anything in the coffin besides the body?”

“Yes sir, my wife.”

“Get the hell out of here before I call the police!” Down came the window with a bang. And then an infernal racket inside the coop, as if the new station master had run amok.

“Quick,” says Herbie, “let's get out of here. I know a short cut, come on!” And grabbing my hand, he pulls me out by the other door, around by the water tank. “Flop down, quick,” he says, “or they'll spy you.” We flopped in a puddle of dirty water under the tank. “Shhhhh!” says Herbie, putting his finger over my lips. “They might hear you.”

We lay there a few minutes, then Herbie got up on all fours, cautiously, looking about as if we were already trapped. “You lay here a minute and I'll run up the ladder and see if the tank's empty.”

“They're nuts,” I said to myself. Suddenly I asked myself why I should be lying in that cold dirty water. Herbie called softly: “Come on up, the coast is clear. We can hide in here a while.” As I gripped the iron rungs I felt wind go through me like an icy blast. “Don't fall in,” says Herbie, “the tank's half-full.” I climbed to the top and hung from the inside of the tank with frozen hands. “How long do we stay this way?” I asked after a few minutes. “Not long,” says Herbie. “They're changing the watch now.
Hear 'em? George'll be waiting for us in the caboose. He'll have a nice warm stove going.”

It was dark when we clambered out of the tank and raced across the yard to the end of the freight train standing on the siding. I was frozen through and through. Herbie was right. As we opened the door of the caboose there was George sitting before a hot stove, warming his hands.

“Take your coat off, Hen,” he says, “and dry yourself.” Then he reaches up to a little closet and gets down a flask of whisky. “Here, take a good pull—this is dynamite.” I did as instructed, passed the flask to George who took a good swig himself, and then to little Herbie.

“Did you bring any provisions?” says George to Herbie.

“A chippie and a couple of potatoes,” says Herbie, fishing them out of his pockets.

“Where's the mayonnaise?”

“I couldn't find it,
honest,”
says Herbie.

“Next time I want mayonnaise, understand?” thunders George Marshall. “How the hell do you expect me to eat roast potatoes without mayonnaise?” Then, without transition, he continues: “Now the idea is to crawl under the cars until we're near the engine. When I whistle, the two of you crawl from under and run as fast as you can. Take the short cut down to the river. I'll meet you under the bridge. Here Hen, better take another gulp of this … it's cold down there. Next time I'll offer you a cigar—but don't take it!
How do you feel now?”

I felt so good I couldn't see the sense of leaving in a hurry. But evidently their plans had to be executed in strict timing.

“How about that chippie and the potatoes?” I ventured to ask.

“That's for next time,” says George. “We can't afford to be trapped here.” He turns to Herbie. “Have you got the gun?”

Off again, scrambling around under the freight trains as if we were outlaws. I was glad Herbie had given me the
woollen muffler. At a given signal Herbie and I flung ourselves face downward under the car, waiting for George's whistle.

“What's the next move?” I whispered.

“Shhhhh! Someone may hear you.”

In a few minutes we heard a low whistle, crawled out from under, and ran as fast as our legs would carry us down the ravine towards the bridge. There was George again, sitting under the bridge, waiting. “Good work,” he says. “We gave 'em the slip all right. Now listen, we'll rest a minute or two and then we'll make for that hill over there, do you see?” He turned to Herbie. “Is the gun loaded?”

Herbie examined his rusty old Colt, nodded, then shoved it back in the holster.

“Remember,” says George, “don't shoot unless it's absolutely necessary. I don't want you to be killing any more children accidentally, you understand?”

There was a gleam in Herbie's eyes as he shook his head.

“The idea, Hen, is to get to the foot of that hill before they give the alarm. Once we get there we're safe. We'll make a detour home by way of the swamp.”

We started off on a trot, crouching low. Soon we were in the bulrushes and the water coming over our shoe tops. “Keep an eye open for tramps,” muttered George. We got to the foot of the hill without detection, rested there a few moments, then set off at a brisk pace to skirt the swamp. Finally we reached the road and settled down to a leisurely walk.

“We'll be home in a few minutes,” says George. “We'll go in by the back way and change our clothes. Mum's the word.”

“Are you sure we shook them off?” I asked.

“Reasonably sure,” says George.

“The last time they followed us right to the barn,” says Herbie.

“What happens if we get caught?”

Herbie drew the side of his hand across his throat.

I mumbled something to the effect that I wasn't sure I wanted to be involved.

“You've got to be,” says Herbie. “It's a feud.”

“We'll explain it in detail tomorrow,” says George.

In the big room upstairs there were two beds, one for me, and one for Herbie and George. We made a fire at once in the big-bellied stove, and began changing our clothes.

“How would you like to give me a rubdown?” says George, stripping off his undershirt. “I get a rubdown twice a day. First alcohol and then goose fat. Nothing like it, Hen.”

He lay down on the big bed and I went to work. I rubbed until my hands ached.

“Now you lay down,” says George, “and Herbie'll fix you up. Makes a new man of you.”

I did as instructed. It sure felt good. My blood tingled, my flesh glowed. I had an appetite such as I hadn't known in ages.

“You see why I came here,” says George. “After supper we'll play a round of pinochle—just to please the old man—and then we'll turn in.”

“By the way, Hen,” he added, “watch your tongue. No cursing or swearing in front of the old man. He's a Methodist. We say grace before we eat. Try not to laugh!”

“You'll have to do it too some night,” says Herbie. “Say any goddamned thing that comes to mind. Nobody listens anyway.”

At the table I was introduced to the old man. He was the typical farmer—big horny hands, unshaven, smelling of clover and manure, sparse of speech, wolfing his food, belching, picking his teeth with the fork and complaining about his rheumatism. We ate enormous quantities, all of us. There were at least six or seven vegetables to go with the roast chicken, followed by a delicious bread pudding, fruits and nuts of all kinds. Everyone but myself drank
milk with his food. Then came coffee with real cream and salted peanuts. I had to open my belt a couple of notches.

As soon as the meal was over the table was cleared and a pack of greasy playing cards was produced. Herbie had to help his mother with the dishes while George, the old man and I played a three-handed game of pinochle. The idea was, as George had already explained, to throw the game to the old man, otherwise he became grouchy and surly. I seemed to draw nothing but excellent hands, which made it difficult for me to lose. But I did my best, without being too obvious about it. The old man won by a narrow margin. He was highly pleased with himself. “With your hands,” he remarked, “I would have been out in three deals.”

Before we went upstairs for the night Herbie put on a couple of Edison phonograph records. One of them was
The Stars and Stripes Forever
. It sounded like something from another incarnation.

“Where's that laughing record, Herbie?” says George.

Herbie dug into an old hatbox and with two fingers dexterously extracted an old wax cylinder. It was a record I've never heard the like of. Nothing but laughter—the laughter of a loon, a crackpot, a hyena. I laughed so hard my stomach ached.

“That's nothing,” says George, “wait till you hear Herbie laugh!”

“Not now!” I begged. “Save it for tomorrow.”

I no more than hit the pillow and I was sound asleep. What a bed! Nothing but soft, downy feathers—tons of them, it seemed. It was like slipping back into the womb, swinging in limbo. Bliss. Perfect bliss.

“There's a pisspot under the bed, if you need it,” were George's last words. But I couldn't see myself getting out of that bed, not even to take a crap.

In my sleep I heard the maniacal laugh of the loon. It was echoed by the rusty doorknobs, the green vegetables, the wild geese, the slanting stars, the wet clothes flapping
on the line. It even included Herbie's old man, the part of him that gave way sometimes to melancholy mirth. It came from far away, deliciously off key, absurd and unreasonable. It was the laugh of aching muscles, of food passing through the midriff, of time foolishly squandered, of millions of nothings all harmoniously fitting together in the great jigsaw puzzle and making extraordinary sense, extraordinary beauty, extraordinary well-being. How fortunate that George Marshall had fallen ill and almost died! In my sleep I praised the grand cosmocrator for having arranged everything so sublimely. I slid from one dream to another, and from dream to a stonelike slumber more healing than death itself.

I awoke before the others, content, refreshed, motionless except for a pleasure waggle of the fingers. The farmyard cacophony was music to my ears. The rustling and scraping, the banging of pails, the cock-a-doodle-doo, the pitter-patter, the calls of the birds, the cackling and grunting, the squealing, the neighing and whinnying, the chug-chug of a distant locomotive, the crunch of hard snow, the slap and gust of the wind, a rusty axle turning, a log wheezing under the saw, the thud of heavy boots trudging laboriously—all combined to make a symphony familiar to my ear. These homely ancient sounds, these early morning notes born of the stir of everyday life, these calls, cackles, echoes and reverberations of the barnyard filled me with an earthling's joy. A starveling and a changeling, I heard again the immemorial chant of early man. The old, old song—of ease and abundance, of life where you find it, of blue sky, running waters, peace and gladness, of fertility and resurrection, and life everlasting, life more abundant, life superabundant. A song that starts in the very bowels, pervades the veins, relaxes the limbs and all the members of the body. Oh, but it was indeed good to be alive—and horizontal. Fully awake, I once again gave thanks to the Heavenly Father for having stricken my twin, George Marshall. And, whilst rendering devout thanks,
praising the divine works, extolling all creation, I allowed my thoughts to drift towards the breakfast which was doubtless under way and towards the long, lazy stretch of hours, minutes, seconds before the day would draw to a close. It mattered not how we filled the day, nor if we left it empty as a gourd; it mattered only that time was ours and that we could do with it as we wished.

The birds were calling more lustily now. I could hear them winging from treetop to treetop, fluttering against the windowpanes, swooshing about under the eaves of the roof.

“Morning, Hen! Morning, Hen!”

“Morning, George! Morning, Herbie!”

“Don't get up yet, Hen … Herbie'll make the fire first.”

“O.K. Sounds wonderful.”

“How did you sleep?”

“Like a top.”

“You see why I don't want to get well too quick.”

“Lucky guy, you. Aren't you glad you didn't die?”

“Hen, I'm never going to die. I promised myself that on my deathbed. It's just too wonderful to be alive.”

“You said it. I say, George, let's fool them all and live forever,
what?”

Herbie got up to make the fire, then crawled back into bed and began chuckling and cooing.

“What do we do now?” I asked. “Lie here till the bell rings?”

“Exactly,” said Herbie.

“I say, Hen, wait till you taste those corn muffins his mother makes. They melt in your mouth.”

“How do you like your eggs?” said Herbie. “Boiled, fried or scrambled?”

“Any old way, Herbie. Who gives a damn? Eggs are eggs. I can suck them raw too.”

“The bacon, Hen, that's the thing. Thick as your thumb.”

Thus the second day began, to be followed by a dozen
more, all of the same tenor. As I said before, we were twenty-two or three at the time, and still in our adolescence. We had nothing on our minds but play. Each day it was a new game, full of hair-raising stunts. “To take the lead,” as George had put it, was as easy as drawing one's breath. Between times we skipped rope, threw quoits, rolled marbles, played leapfrog. We even played tag. In the toilet, which was an outhouse, we kept a chessboard on which a problem was always waiting for us. Often the three of us took a shit together. Strange conversations in that outhouse! Always some fresh titbit about George's mother, what she had done for him, what a saint she was, and so on. Once he started to talk about God, how there
must
be one, since only God could have pulled him through. Herbie listened reverently—he worshiped George.