I told him to go ahead. I called Arnie at the hospital, but he was in surgery. There wasn’t much left to do but amble over to the Surfer and wait for Buford. I clicked on the TV. Buford was still about eighty miles out but had speeded up. New predictions indicated Miami didn’t have seven hours left. It was now estimated to be less than three hours. As I watched, the television began to beep, and a message printed across the bottom of the screen. At the same time the now weary weatherman seemed reinvigorated.
“This just in from the Weather Center. Buford has veered sharply north. The indication now is that it will miss the Miami area... I repeat... Buford will miss the Miami area. Where, or if, it will come ashore has not been passed along to us as yet. Stand by; we will try to get a prediction on that.”
So Tommy had been right about why his numbers didn’t work. The hurricane wasn’t going to hit Miami. I locked up and went around the corner to the Surfer’s Bar to watch the outcome on satellite TV with a Budweiser in my fist. I made a mental note to get up early so I could tend to Arnie’s horses.
The next day word on the street was that Lightning had made off with over eight thousand dollars. In other news, Buford had come ashore briefly. The hurricane had veered in about a hundred twenty miles north of Miami at Hobe Sound, bounced around some, then headed northeast and out to sea. Later on in the day the news crew came on television to report the damage. For the most part it was just a few signs knocked down, with only one serious incident. There were few cars on the highway because of the relentless warnings. But it was reported that two Miamians driving a van with no radio did not receive any warning that the hurricane had veered north and was headed directly for them. On U.S. 1, just past Hobe Sound, their van was lifted and tossed into forty feet of Hobe Sound inlet water. Tommy, Lightning, the accordion, and the bag money went in the drink together. Only Tommy and Lightning came out. It was reported that the two behaved rather badly and had to be restrained by police from diving back into the tortuous sea to regain their possessions.
I still don’t know if all the hysteria is warranted — but it looks like there might be some merit in at least having a radio.
Claud
by David Braly
I first saw him when I was seven years old. A realtor who specialized in country estates was showing us the living room of a house on a seventy acre nonworking “farm” in Connecticut. It was a red brick house with white storm shutters, and nearby there was a gentle rock-strewn brook that tumbled quietly through an ancient oak grove. The house would be ample for my parents, my two sisters, and myself without requiring a housekeeper or other help. The living room had a vaulted ceiling, built-in bookcases, a maple floor, a stone fireplace, and tall, clear, very large multipaned windows. The broker, a perpetually smiling middle-aged man of lofty stature and prematurely silver hair, was pointing to a three-pronged electrical outlet as proof that the old house had been rewired. Being a child, I saw no significance in the fact, since the wires were inside the walls, i.e. invisible, and therefore it shouldn’t matter whether they were old or new, but my father seemed pleased to hear it. I assumed that he was only being polite. My father — and my mother too, for that matter — were polite to a fault. It was at that moment that a lanky, slightly stooped man of sixty or more years dressed in a denim workshirt and faded overalls walked through the front door. He nodded to us as he crossed the living room toward a door that led into the hall. He disappeared through the door.
For a moment everyone was too stunned to say anything.
“That’s just Claud Heister,” said the broker at last. He laughed. “He comes with the house.”
My parents laughed, so I and my sisters — although too young to understand the joke — did also. The broker resumed showing the remainder of the property, and Claud Heister was forgotten.
After the tour my father told the broker that he would call tomorrow to let him know if he was interested in making an offer. I was hoping that he would be interested. I really liked the place. There was plenty of room to play and to ride the horse that I believed I would receive someday. My sisters, who at five and four were too young to understand what was happening, watched and listened to the conversation without perception or bias. But I wanted him to buy.
My parents had been actively looking for a house in Connecticut for almost a month. It was to serve as a weekend and holiday retreat from our home in New York City. Most of our friends owned retreats in Connecticut or the Hamptons. For me, the place we had seen that day was perfect.
It turned out that my view wasn’t an isolated one. After we’d all slid into my father’s Imperial, my father asked Mother what she thought of the farm. “I think it’s perfect,” she said.
“Good,” he said. “I feel the same. It’s larger than we’d discussed, and will cost more than we’d budgeted, but we can swing it.”
Swing it they did. Several days of negotiation ended with the purchase. There was a further delay in our going there while Mother acquired exactly the right sort of furniture she wanted for the living room, dining room, master bedroom, and the two bedrooms that we kids would occupy. Furniture for the other rooms could wait, but Mother insisted on acquiring the basic stuff immediately.
Finally, after days of impatient waiting, moving day arrived. This was the long-awaited moment when the movers would haul all the furnishings from the storage warehouse in the Bronx to the house in Connecticut. They would follow the Imperial, and later Mother would direct them in the placement of the new furniture. Actually, because Mother had complete charge of where things went, there was little need for the rest of us, but Father was the family’s only licensed driver and they couldn’t have kept us children away without enduring more crying, whining, and complaining than it would have been worth.
When we reached the farm, my father parked beyond the front porch so the movers would have plenty of room. He had already cautioned us children to stay out of the way and out of the house, and he did it again right after we left the car. When Father went to open the front door of the house, he found it unlocked. He looked surprised but not concerned. The movers backed their van up to the front porch and began unloading. I remember that the first item they took out was the long mahogany cabinet that now belongs to my sister Alicia. Mother followed the movers into the house to show them where she wanted it, while Father strolled over to a garage that once had been a barn. My sisters and I stayed to watch the movers.
The movers came out and went back in with another item while Mother remained inside. The process was repeated several times before she came out again. It was while she was outside pointing to the piece of furniture she next wanted taken inside that Claud came out the front door onto the porch. When Mother turned and saw him, she sort of gasped. Evidently he’d been inside the house the whole time that they’d been taking in furniture. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I was in my room and didn’t hear you folks arrive or I woulda been out earlier to help you.”
Before she could say anything, one of the movers said, “We can always use some free help.”
Claud went right to it, helping move the lighter pieces, and Mother said nothing. Of course, what could she say? She didn’t know what he was doing there, but she wasn’t really sure that he had no business being there because sometimes Father arranged for things without telling her. She tried to ignore the circumstances and treat him like he was just another one of the movers. After the lighter stuff had been taken inside, he disappeared. I doubt that she forgot about him exactly, but I suspect, knowing her, that she refused to admit to herself that the whole situation wasn’t resolved by his temporary disappearance.