“My Uncle Smitty—”
“Would you be offended if I opened a window?”
“Not at all.”
Bowen got up and struggled with the window behind his desk without freeing it. “I’m gonna end up with a fucking hernia—”
“Here, let me help.”
They got on either side of the window and heaved upward as hard as they could. Bowen pulled his face to one side and wrinkled his nose fiercely. “It’s not as if it was some kind of animal droppings,” Joe said.
The bottom of the window casement tore free; wood fragments and dried putty flew across Bowen’s desk. His finger was bleeding. He walked around and opened his door. “Let that air out while I get a Band-Aid.”
The secretary poked her head in. “What’s going on in here?”
“We had a little trouble with the window.”
“I’d better ring up maintenance.” Turning to Joe, she asked, “May I ask what you’re wearing?”
Joe was getting angry. “I mixed a few scents, trying them out. But socially speaking, I’ve had better luck shitting my pants.”
Bowen returned and went straight to his desk. “Leave that open, Mildred,” he said to the secretary, pointing at the door. “Let’s try to bear down and get through this as fast as we can. Okay, ‘Smitty’ is your uncle. Smitty’s got his tail in a crack. You want to help Smitty. Why?”
“I have an aunt who I like very much. She depends on him. They are like a little couple.”
“They are.”
“Yes.”
“And what does she do?”
“She is a retired schoolteacher.”
“So, she has a pension?”
“A small one, and a small income from a small family ranch.”
“Which belongs to?”
“Uh, to Lureen. To my aunt.”
“And Mister Smitty got his stake in the shrimp business by?”
“Mortgaging the ranch.”
Bowen sucked on a paper clip pensively.
“It’s none of my business, Mr. Starling. But why don’t you let this wonderful fellow just go to jail?”
“I’m pursuing my aunt’s interests, as I see them, as best I can.”
“Okay,” said Bowen, dropping his hands to the desk decisively. “I sense that we can speak to one another with candor.”
“I sense the same,” said Joe earnestly.
“May I be very direct with you?”
“Please.”
“Joe, your aftershave stinks to high heaven.”
“I really can’t do anything about that now.”
“As to Mister Smitty, yes, we can try to get the charges dropped. Yes, I foresee that being a discussable possibility. Under this scenario, Smitty fails to recoup the thirty thousand. In addition to which, the insurance company is out of pocket, I am guessing, another thirty, in fees, and in ascribable overhead.”
“What overhead?”
“They’ve got twelve floors in Denver.”
“I see. Well, look, let’s examine the cost of dropping this. You get me some specifics and I’ll try to sell it to my uncle.”
“But remember, he doesn’t have to buy it,” said Bowen. “He can go to jail.”
“I admit it’s tempting,” said Joe.
“The first time he stoops for the Lifebuoy in those big showers, he’s going to meet some very nice Indians.”
“Like I say,” said Joe, “the temptation is there.”
24
It was a long drive back. He listened to a local radio station for a while and absorbed himself in the community announcements. Money was being taken up to purchase bibs for senior citizens. A truculent Boy Scout made the following statement: “This week we decided what badges we are going to do. The two main ones are Tending Toddlers and Science-In-Action. And we are going to bring dues of twenty-five cents even if we are sick.” After that a member of the Lions Club explained the problems they had had building a concession stand for Little League games. They had to find out if the neighbors would object. Zoning ordinances required it be a certain distance from the street. That meant they had to move the backstop. A building permit would have to be applied for. To meet Class A Residential zoning requirements, the concession stand would have to go between the pitcher’s mound and first base. The planning board granted a special-use permit. So, after five years, they were now prepared to build the concession stand. Finally, before Joe shut the radio off, the fire chief said they were sick of putting out prairie fires started by the railroad.
Oh, this is an odd little life, he thought, turning onto Smitty and Lureen’s street. Great shafts of sunlight came down between the old trees that lined the badly cracked sidewalk. A newspaper boy jumped the curb with his bicycle and a man in a wheelchair, wearing a tam-o’-shanter and smoking a cigar, coasted down the slight incline of the sidewalk serenely, the spokes of his wheels sparkling in the afternoon sun. Two young carpenters with a long plank resting on their shoulders, made a wide turn at the corner and disappeared. Pigeons poured out of the abandoned Methodist church like smoke and ascended into the sky; they were the reincarnated souls of miners, railroaders, and ranch hands. Things seemed so right to Joe, he was able to enfold himself in the breaking wave. Ambiguity was at a safe distance now; it was not necessary to have an opinion about anything.
Lureen led Joe into the parlor. She set out tea. He cast his eye over the curios and the lugubrious draperies that declared this an inner world. He felt he had arrived.
“I’ve been to see the lawyer for the insurance company.”
“Oh,” said Lureen, “I wonder if that was a good idea.”
“I think it was. We talked about the possibility of dropping the charges.”
“Let them charge him. He’s innocent. They can take it to court. I almost prefer it. It’s in the rumor mill anyway. It might be good to have Smitty’s name cleared publicly.”
“Are you certain this is your wish?”
“My wish is that it had never happened. But since it has, it has to be cleared. You know, I blame my own mother for this. She doted on me and I’m grateful for that. But to her dying day, she went around town saying, ‘My daughter is an angel from heaven, but my two boys’—Smitty and your father—‘are common swindlers!’ Words like this from a mother hang on in a small town for years.”
Looking at Lureen as she poured the tea and thinking of the multitude of first- and second-graders who had gone on from her bare schoolroom greatly strengthened by her attentions, he couldn’t help thinking his grandmother had been partly, and maybe entirely, right.
He was so fond of Lureen that, against his own inclinations, he said, “If you change your mind and I can help, let me know.”
Lureen looked off and thought for a moment. “When you were a little boy, you sucked your thumb. You sucked your thumb until you were seven years old. And the orthodontist said it had given you a severe overbite and that if you didn’t quit immediately, it would have to be corrected by surgery. Remember? It was in August and you were such a desperate little boy. But it was Smitty who sat up with you at night when you cried and put a sock over your hand and stayed up night after night with you — for a week! — until you succeeded. Night after night! He never had a drink until you quit. These people who want to put him in jail don’t know anything about that side of Smitty.”
Motoring along, unable to sort out his feelings about his aunt and uncle, he mused about his early days with Astrid — the high flying, the courtship, the glands titrating explosive juices into their systems, followed one noon by Astrid’s announcement that she was considering suicide.
Later, she rejected it, saying, “Suicide is far too peculiar for me. It’s something that should be done by science majors or Mormons. It should be done by people we know little about, like ship brokers and risk arbitragers.”