“Pardon?” He raised his eyebrows politely.
“Your whole class will he going.”
“Yes, thanks. We are going to the political speech and rally in Trimbull. We are all thinking how lucky it is to be taking the citizenship class in an election year. It is most instructive.”
“Yes, I'll bet it is. Who are you going to see?”
“Greg Stirrs… “He stopped and pronounced it again, very carefully. “Greg Stillson, who is running independently for a seat in the U. S. House of Representatives.”
“I've heard of him,” Johnny said. “Have you discussed him in class at all, Ngo?”
“Yes, we have had some conversation of this man. Born in 1933. A man of many jobs. He came to New Hampshire in 1964. Our instructor has told us that now he is here long enough so people do not see him as a carpetfogger.”
“Bagger,” Johnny said.
Ngo looked at him with blank politeness.
“The term is carpetbagger.”
“Yes, thanks.”
“Do you find Stillson a bit odd?”
“In America perhaps he is odd,” Ngo said. “In Vietnam there were many like him. People who are… “He sat thinking, swishing his small and delicate feet in the blue-green water of the pool. Then he looked up at Johnny again.
“I do not have the English for what I wish to say. There is a game the people of my land play, it is called the Laughing Tiger. It is old and much loved, like your baseball. One child is dressing up as the tiger, you see. He puts on a skin. And the other children tries to catch him as he runs and dances. The child in the skin laughs, but he is also growling and biting, because that is the game. In my country, before the Communists, many of the village leaders played the Laughing Tiger. I think this Still-son knows that game, too.”
Johnny looked over at Ngo. disturbed.
Ngo did not seem disturbed at all. He smiled. “So we will all go and see for ourselves. After, we are having the picnic foods. I myself am making two pies. I think it will be nice.”
“It sounds great.”
“It will be very great,” Ngo said, getting up. “Afterward, in class, we will talk over all we saw in Trimbull. Maybe we will be writing the compositions. It is much easier to write the compositions, because one can look up the exact word. Le mot juste.
“Yes, sometimes writing can be easier. But I never had a high school comp class that would believe it.”
Ngo smiled. “How does it go with Chuck?”
“He's doing quite well.”
“Yes, he is happy now. Not just pretending. He is a good boy. “He stood up. “Take a rest, Johnny. I'm going to take a nap.”
“All right.”
He watched Ngo walk away, small, slim, and lithe in blue jeans and a faded chambray work shirt.
The child in the skin laughs, but he is also growling and biting, because that is the game… I think this Stillson knows that game, too.
That thread of disquiet again.
The pool chair bobbed gently up and down. The sun beat pleasantly on him. He opened his Book Review again, but the article he had been reading no longer engaged him. He put it down and paddled the little rubber float to the edge of the pool and got out. Trimbull was less than thirty miles away. Maybe he would just hop into Mrs. Chatsworth's Mercedes and drive down this Saturday. See Greg Stillson in person. Enjoy the show. Maybe… maybe shake his hand.
No. No!
But why not? After all, he had more or less made politicians his hobby this election year. What could possibly be so upsetting about going to see one more?
But he was upset, no question about that. His heart was knocking harder and more rapidly than it should have been, and he managed to drop his magazine into the pool. He fished it out with a curse before it was saturated.
Somehow, thinking about Greg Stilison made him think about Frank Dodd.
Utterly ridiculous. He couldn't have any feeling at all about Stillson one way or the other from having just seen him on TV.
Stay away.
Well, maybe he would and maybe he wouldn't. May-be he would go down to Boston this Saturday instead. See a film.
But a strange, heavy feeling of fright had settled on him by the time he got back to the guest house and changed his clothes. In a way the feeling was like an old friend-the sort of old friend you secretly hate. Yes, he would go down to Boston on Saturday. That would be better.
Although he relived that day over and over in the months afterward, Johnny could never remember exactly how or why it was that he ended up in Trimbull after all. He had set out in another direction, planning to go down to Boston and take in the Red Sox at Fenway Park, then maybe go over to Cambridge and nose through the book-shops. If there was enough cash left over (he had sent four hundred dollars of Chatsworth's bonus to his father, who in turn sent it on to Eastern Maine Medical-a gesture tantamount to a spit in the ocean) he planned to go to the Orson Welles Cinema and see that reggae movie, The Harder They Come. A good day's program, and a fine day to implement it; that August 19 had dawned hot and dear and sweet, the distillation of the perfect New England summer's day.
He had let himself into the kitchen of the big house and made three hefty ham-and-cheese sandwiches for lunch, put them in an old-fashioned wicker picnic basket he found in the pantry, and after a little soul-searching, had topped off his haul with a sixpack of Tuborg Beer. At that point he had been feeling fine, absolutely first-rate. No thought of either Greg Stillson or his homemade bodyguard corps of iron horsemen had so much as crossed his mind.
He put the picnic basket on the floor of the Mercedes and drove southeast toward 1-95. All clear enough up to that point. But then other things had begun to creep in. Thoughts of his mother on her deathbed first. His mother's face, twisted into a frozen snarl, the hand on the counterpane hooked into a claw, her voice sounding as if it were coming through a big mouthful of cotton wadding.
Didn't I tell you? Didn't I say it was so?
Johnny turned the radio up louder. Good rock “n” roll poured out of the Mercedes's stereo speakers. He had been asleep for four-and-a-half years but rock “n” roll had remained alive and well, thank you very much. Johnny sang along.
He has a job for you. Don't run from him, Johnny.
The radio couldn't drown out his dead mother's voice. His dead mother was going to have her say. Even from beyond the grave she was going to have her say.
Don't hide away in a cave or make him have to send a big fish to swallow you.
But he had been swallowed by a big fish. Its name was not leviathan but coma. He had spent four-and-a-half years in that particular fish's black belly. and that was enough.
The entrance ramp to the turnpike came up-and then slipped behind him. He had been so lost in his thoughts that he had missed his turn. The old ghosts just wouldn't give up and let him alone. Well, he would turn around and go back as soon as he found a good place.
Not the potter but the potter's clay, Johnny.
“Oh, come on,” he muttered. He had to get this crap off his mind, that was all. His mother had been a religious crazy, not a very kind way of putting it, but true all the same. Heaven out in the constellation Orion, angels driving flying saucers, kingdoms under the earth. In her way she had been at least as crazy as Greg Stillson was in his.
Oh for Christ's sake, don't get off on that guy.
“And when you send Greg Stillson to the House of Representatives, you gonna say HOT DOG! SOMEONE GIVES A RIP AT LAST!”
He came to New Hampshire Route 63. A left turn would take him to Concord, Berlin, Ridder's Mill, Trimbull. Johnny made the turn without even thinking about it. His thoughts were elsewhere.
Roger Chatsworth, no babe in the woods, had laughed over Greg Stillson as if he were this year's answer to George Carlin and Chevy Chase all rolled up into one. He's a clown, Johnny.