God in Concord Part 13

The trouble was, Julian wasn't ready. Last month it might not have mattered so much. He'd been feeling fairly desperate last month. But now, it was funny the way life was opening up. It seemed good to be alive. And he couldn't deny that the last sentence of Charlotte's letter filled him with a curious excitement.

The gristly maleness that had been holding Julian upright for so many years was softening. The steel plates he had erected to s.h.i.+eld himself from his wife's excesses were coming down. Every day Julian unbolted another section of sheet iron.

It was time to go to work. Julian made himself a bag lunch, filled a thermos with ice water, and walked next door to the landfill. He stopped at the ticket house beside the place where incoming trucks were weighed and said good morning to Bill Sawyer. Eddie Tanner was already at work in the crawl dozer, running up the hill with his big bucket full of sewage sludge.

It was another hot day. The air was heavy with humidity. Julian climbed into the cab of the Trashmaster, sat down on the worn sheepskin of the bucket seat, took his sungla.s.ses out of his pocket, and waved at Eddie Tanner.

Below him yesterday's trash lay mounded, partly exposed by the rain of last night, which had washed away much of the covering layer of dirt. Reaching out his bare brown arm, Julian turned the key, pulled the horizontal lever that raised the blade, stepped on the throttle, and s.h.i.+fted into first gear. At once he knew something was wrong. The turbocharger began to scream. It was revving too fast. The machine lunged forward. It was out of control, plunging downhill.

Julian grasped the emergency lever for the air shutoff, and it came off in his hand. He put his foot on the brake, and nothing happened. He pulled the emergency, and it flopped back and forth. The spiked wheels of the eighteen-ton machine wallowed downhill, and the engine roared. Steering was impossible. Julian's heart was in his mouth. Off to one side he caught a glimpse of Eddie Tanner shouting at him with his mouth open, but Julian couldn't hear. Christ, he was going over the edge into the soft fill.

Wrenching at the articulating lever, he tried to keep the two halves of the machine from c.o.c.king into an angle that would tip the whole thing sideways. With a bone-jarring wham, the front end dropped six feet. Julian lurched from side to side as the grinding engine gunned through the loose dirt where rocks rose up like boulders in white water. With crash after jarring crash, the machine b.u.t.ted into them and slithered sideways. By a miracle it reached the hard bottom of the landfill without buckling and rolling over, but it still careened wildly out of control. Directly in its way the ticket house loomed up, and Julian saw Bill Sawyer's white face as he dove out the door just in time. In an instant the house was reduced to splinters, crushed beneath the spiked rollers. Now the runaway machine rammed up the driveway. Julian howled out the window at the approaching cars, and they veered left and right, backing up insanely, trying to get on of his way. But now the front end of the machine was yawing sideways, dropping off the road, charging up the steep slop of the cliff below Route 126. As it barged upward at frightening angle, Julian saw the chance he had been waiting for. Grasping the blade lever, he jerked on it with all his strength, raising the plow as high as it would go, then letting it fall. At once it dug itself into the hillside and shudder there, burying itself deeper and deeper down. The turb charger was still screaming, the engine was still roaring four thousand revolutions per minute, the hundred and fifty thousand dollars the town of Concord had paid for the machine was burning up with the engine, but Julian had brought it to a dead stop.

Exhausted, he hung his head and waited for his pounding heart to quiet down. When he looked up again, he saw Bill Sawyer running toward him with his eyes bugging out of his head. Some of the householders whose cars had been threatened were running up, too, wanting to know what the h.e.l.l. Eddie Tanner leaped up into the cab, shouting, "Jesus!" and supported Julian while his shaky legs fumbled for the metal step.

It took only a few minutes more for the engine to seize up. The whole thing suddenly exploded. Pieces of metal rocketed into the air and the side plates blew off.

Eddie and Julian stood beside the machine they had handled day after day, year after year, and watched it die.

*32*

While these things are being done,

beauty stands veiled and music is a

screeching lie. a""A Plea for Captain John Brown"

"It was no accident," Julian told Homer Kelly. "Somebody put sand in the oil line that goes to the bearings. And that's not all. They disconnected the air shutoff and cut the brake lines with a pair of tin snips and used bolt cutters on the emergency."

"Good G.o.d." Homer stared at Julian's ashen face. For a moment he was too appalled to say anything more. He got up from the table in Julian's kitchen and put his hand on Julian's shoulder. "Listen here," he said, "have you had any lunch?"

Julian shook his head and looked down at the table.

"Low blood sugar," said Homer. He opened Julian's refrigerator and poked around inside. "There's some baloney in here. Have you got any bread?"

Wordlessly Julian pointed at the bread box, then found his voice. "There's something else. It's what I called you about this morning. Something happened last night." In a flat monotone he told Homer about the leaking gas and the drilled hole in the pipe.

Once again Homer was staggered. "Show me," he said.

He was almost too big to wedge himself down on all fours in the narrow hallway and get his head into the closet housing the water heater. But by looking out of the corner of his eye as Julian aimed the flashlight, he was able to see the bright silver of the drilled hole and the scattering of metal shavings.

"Right," he said, backing out, heaving himself to his feet, and barking his head on the door frame. "It's odd the way somebody has a fondness for fuel lines."

Silently they went back to the kitchen and sat down. Homer looked at Julian gravely. "It isn't just you, it's the whole park. Somebody's going after everybody in the park." He picked up the untouched sandwich on Julian's plate and handed it to him. "Come on, eat up. And tell me about the fire in the Ryans' trailer. Did you see anybody go in there after Mr. and Mrs. Ryan left for Florida?"

"No, but I wasn't exactly standing watch. You'll have to ask the others."

"Well, come on."

They started up the driveway, and at once they came upon Honey Mooney. She was working with a sponge and a bucket of water, cleaning the aluminum siding of her mobile home.

"No," said Honey, "I didn't see anybody go in there. But all their neighbors were hanging around. Porter McAdoo was doing something to his car, Charlotte Harris was working in her garden. Both of them live right across the driveway from Dot and Scottie's place. They could have nipped over when the rest of us were indoors." Honey gestured with her sponge at an old man sleeping on a lawn chair across the way and whispered to Julian, "Eugene was outside, too, just lying there like that. Maybe he was just pretending to be asleep." Honey stared at Eugene Beaver and frowned. "You'd think he'd do something about his lawn."

Homer sauntered over to speak to Eugene, followed by Julian. "Oh, Mr. Beaver," said Homer loudly, bending over to look at him. "I'm sorry to wake you up."

Eugene Beaver jerked awake and looked up at Homer in confusion.

"Mr. Beaver," began Homer, but he was interrupted by a shout.

He turned to see a portly man running toward them, waving his arms. "It's Charlotte! Christ, she's been electrocuted!"

Julian was off like a shot. Homer lumbered after him, following Pete Harris, who was whining and flapping his hands.

By the time Homer and Pete were jammed together in the doorway, Julian was down on his knees in the Harrises' kitchen, trying to resuscitate Charlotte, who lay on her back on the floor.

"It was the iron cord," whimpered Pete. "It's not my fault. I don't know s.h.i.+t about electricity." Pete mopped his perspiring face and stared at Homer with bulging eyes. "She was ironing, right? And all of a sudden it goes zap, and there's this blue light, and there she is on the floor. Christ!"

"Look," said Homer, "call the emergency police number and ask them to send an ambulance." He dropped to his knees beside Julian. "Let me help."

Julian s.h.i.+fted to one side, and soon the two of them were working together, Julian breathing air into Charlotte's lungs, Homer applying pressure to her breastbone.

"Christ," moaned Pete again, struggling past them to the phone, stumbling over the fallen ironing board.

But it was all right. By the time the ambulance came screaming into Pond View, Charlotte's eyelids were fluttering. She was coughing and trying to sit up.

"There now," said Julian, "it's all right now." He smiled at her and allowed himself to stroke her cheek just once, and then he and Homer stood up and backed out of the way. Homer could feel Julian's arm tremble against his own.

The two young guys from the police ambulance knelt beside Charlotte and listened to her heartbeat. They tested her blood pressure and murmured questions.

Charlotte responded weakly, shaking her head as they lifted her onto the sofa. "She'll be okay now," said one of the medical technicians, nodding at Julian and Homer. "That was quick work. Good for you."

Julian looked grimly at Pete. "Show me the iron."

Pete fumbled under the ironing board and brought up the electric iron, its cord dangling. "It's never done that before, he said defensively. "Looks brand new, right?"

Homer picked up the cord. "Here's the trouble spot," he said, putting his finger on a frayed blackened place.

"Well, don't use it again," said one of the men from the ambulance, looking solemnly at Pete.

"No way."

"Maybe she ought to see a doctor. You got a doctor?"

"Well, naturally we got a doctor." Pete sounded miffed. "Dr. Stefano. We all use Dr. Stefano, everybody here at Pond View."

Walking back down the driveway with Homer, Julian was choking with anger. "It's like my gas leak. Somebody shaved off the plastic sheathing of that iron cord. Pete Harris! Pete did it, I'll bet."

"You mean he wanted to kill his own wife?" Homer shook his head in disbelief. "And you, he wanted to kill you, too:"

"Well, maybe he heard about the letter." Julian gave Homer an embarra.s.sed glance. "You know. " They sat down a couple of Julian's lawn chairs and gazed thoughtfully at the tangled shrubbery around Goose Pond.

"Look here," said Homer, "I've been thinking about people's ages. I understand Norman Peck and Madeline Raymond had genuine heart conditions. They were both in their eighties, and they probably died of natural causes. But your wife and s.h.i.+rley Mills were younger, isn't that so?"

"Alice was fifty-nine. s.h.i.+rley was only fifty-two. She had a stroke, everybody said, but she was perfectly healthy before."

"What about you and Charlotte, how old are you two?"

"I'm sixty. Charlotte, I guess she's about fifty-five, fifty-six."

"What about all the rest?"

Julian spread out his fingers and counted. "Stu LaDue, he's eighty-five. Eugene Beaver, I think he's the oldest now. He's over ninety. Porter McAdoo is about sixty-three, I think. Pete Harris must be about Charlotte's age. Honey Mooney, she's the youngest. She's only in her late forties. Her husband was much older. He died last year."

"It looks to me as if the older you are, the safer you are from these so-called accidents." Homer watched a squirrel run along a branch and make a daring leap to another tree. "I think I'll talk to that Dr. Stefano who looks after all you people. I've got a kind of a sort of a hazy idea of the beginnings a thought." He tapped his forehead. "Doesn't happen often. I congratulate me."

Julian was not amused. The lines framing his mouth deepened. "What about Charlotte?" said Julian. "Do you think she's in danger? I hate to think of her living there with Pete. He could try again, any time at all."

"Oh, G.o.d, I don't know. Keep an eye on her, will you?"

Homer went away and left Julian to his fears. He didn't now what else to do. He felt like a heel.

*33*

Love is a thirst that is never slaked. a"Journal, March 28, 1856 "h.e.l.lo," said Hope Fry, standing at the counter and looking soberly at Ananda Singh. The new fervor that had drawn her to the hardware store poured out of her like bubbles from a bubble pipe, foaming throughout the store. The bubbles of her ardor popped against the racks of pruning shears, the shelves of sandpaper, the toaster-ovens.

"My worthy opponent," said Ananda graciously. He smiled at her. "May I help you?"

"My father needs a box of screws."

After Homer's schooling, Ananda was now an expert on the subject of nails and screws. "Ah, but I must ask you. does he want wood screws? Flat or round-headed screws? Phillips-head screws?"

His strong male expertise added fuel to Hope's fire. Oh, he knew so much. "Wood screws," she said quickly. "About ... um, an inch long."

When her transaction was completed she lingered only a moment, trying to think of something to say. Failing, she hurried away, too quickly to hear Ananda's puzzled response to another customer, "What is it, please, a socket wrench?"

Next day when she came back to the hardware store to ask for a paring knife, she found Bonnie Glover sitting on the counter. Bonnie had discovered Ananda on her own. One day, looking across the street from the Porcelain Parlor where she was waiting on a woman customer, she had seen him leaning aluminum ladders up against the display windows of the hardware store. She had abandoned the customer in the middle of a sale and barged right across the street to introduce herself.

Now as Hope walked into the hardware store, Bonnie was firmly parked on the counter with her plump silky knees crossed and her high heels dangling over the nested wastebaskets. Her silvery lipstick and blue eyeshadow were in odd contrast with the rack of caulking guns beside her.

Hope dodged out of sight behind the electric drills, then melted out of the store and stalked away up the street, wondering how she could get to know Ananda Singh without inventing phony errands. Her father was acquainted with him, she knew that. Homer and Mary Kelly knew him. In fact, Ananda was living with the Kellys, down there on Fair Haven Bay. What if she dropped in on them on Sat.u.r.day morning? Probably Ananda didn't work on Sat.u.r.day. She might find him at home.

But it was only Mary Kelly who answered the door on Sat.u.r.day morning. "Well, hi, there, Hopey, what a surprise. Come on in."

"I just thought I'd walk along the river," said Hope. "I mean, I thought I ought to ask if it's okay."

"Well, of course you can walk along the river. Would you like a gla.s.s of cold cider first?"

"Oh, yes." Hope followed Mary inside and looked eagerly left and right. "Isa"anybody else at home?"

"Anyone else? Why, no. Homer's gone to get his hair cut. And then he has a doctor's appointment or something. We have a guest these days, but he's working today."

"A guest?"

"Yes, a young kid from India. He and Homer are in cahoots. He's a real old-fas.h.i.+oned full-blooded transcendentalist. You know, a Th.o.r.eau person, like your dear father." Then Mary remembered. "Well, you know him. You were on that television program together."

Hope was disappointed not to find Ananda at home. "We sort of met, that's right."

Mary seized the opportunity to act as a surrogate mother. "Really, Hope, I was surprised at you. How could you support that Walden Green project? It's counter to everything your father believes in."

Hope's feelings were in confusion. She felt guilty and rebellious at the same time. Touched by Mary's maternal scolding, she wanted to lean on her and cry. Instead she argued back, but her tone was despairing. "My father's so impossible. Oh, I get so sick of the whole thing."

Mary put two gla.s.ses of cider on the low table in front of the sofa. Sitting down beside Hope, she tried a new tack. What did you think of Ananda Singh?"

"Oha"well, he was awfully good." Hope looked at Mary and looked away. "Is hea"is he going to stay long?"

"I don't know. I hope so."

Hope took one sip of her cider, then banged down the gla.s.s and stood up, knocking over a chair. Absently she righted it, and then she wandered up and down the small living room, staring at the map of the river on the wall, peering at books and magazines, inspecting the pears in a bowl. Then, turning suddenly to Mary, she said, "I didn't know this house was big enough to have a guest room."

"Oh, yes, it has one. It's very small." Mary stood up, too, and opened a door. "You see?"