Salem's Lot

8

Milt Crossen’s Agricultural Store was located in the angle formed by the intersection of Jointner Avenue and Railroad Street, and most of the town’s old codgers went there when it rained and the park was uninhabitable. During the long winters, they were a day-by-day fixture.

When Straker drove up in that ‘39 Packard-or was it a ‘40?-it was just misting gently, and Milt and Pat Middler were having a desultory conversation about whether Freddy Overlock’s girl Judy run off in 1957 or ‘58. They both agree that she had run off with that Saladmaster salesman from Yarmouth, and they both agreed that he hadn’t been worth a pisshole in the snow, nor was she, but beyond that they couldn’t get together.

All conversation ceased when Straker walked in.

He looked around at them-Milt and Pat Middler and Joe Crane and Vinnie Upshaw and Clyde Corliss-and smiled humorlessly. ‘Good afternoon, gentlemen,’ he said.

Milt Crossen stood up, pulling his apron around him almost primly. ‘Help you?’

‘Very good,’ Straker said. ‘Attend over at this meat case, please.’

He bought a roast of beef, a dozen prime ribs, some hamburger, and a pound of calves’ liver. To this he added some dry goods-flour, sugar, beans-and several loaves of ready-made bread.

His shopping took place in utter silence. The store’s babitu6s sat around the large Pearl Kineo stove that Milt’s father had converted to range oil, smoked, looked wisely out at the sky, and observed the stranger from the corners of their eyes.

When Milt had finished packing the goods into a large cardboard carton, Straker paid with hard cash-a twenty and a ten. He picked up the carton, tucked it under one arm, and flashed that hard, humorless smile at them again.

‘Good day, gentlemen,’ he said, and left.

Joe Crane tamped a load of Planter’s into his corncob. Clyde Corliss hawked back and spat a mass of phlegm and chewing tobacco into the dented pale beside the stove. Vinnie Upshaw produced his old Top cigarette roller from inside his vest, spilled a line of tobacco into it, and inserted a cigarette paper with arthritis-swelled fingers.

They watched the stranger lift the carton into the trunk. All of them knew that the carton must have weighed thirty pounds with the dry goods, and they had all seen him tuck it under his arm like a feather pillow going out. He went around to the driver’s side, got in, and drove off up Jointner Avenue. The car went up the hill, turned left onto the Brooks Road, disappeared, and reappeared from behind the screen of trees a few moments later, now toy-sized with distance. It turned into the Marsten driveway and was lost from sight.

‘Peculiar fella,’ Vinnie said. He stuck his cigarette in his mouth, plucked a few bits of tobacco from the end of it, and took a kitchen match from his vest pocket.

‘Must be one of the ones got that store,’ Joe Crane said.

‘Marsten House, too,’ Vinnie agreed.

Clyde Corliss broke wind.

Pat Middler picked at a callus on his left palm with great interest.

Five minutes passed.

‘Do you suppose they’ll make a go of it?’ Clyde asked no one in particular.

‘Might,’ Vinnie said. ‘They might show up right pert in the summertime. Hard to tell the way things are these days.’

A general murmur, sigh almost, of agreement.

‘Strong fella,’ Joe said.

‘Ayuh,’ Vinnie said. ‘That was a thirty-nine Packard, and not a spot of rust on her.’

"Twas a forty,’ Clyde said.

‘The forty didn’t have runnin’ boards,’ Vinnie said. "Twas a thirty-nine.’

‘You’re wrong on that one,’ Clyde said.

Five minutes passed. They saw Milt was examining the twenty Straker had paid with.

‘That funny money, Milt?’ Pat asked. ‘That fella give you some funny money?’

‘No; but look.’ Milt passed it across the counter and they all stared at it. It was much bigger than an ordinary bill.

Pat held it up to the light, examined it, then turned it over. ‘That’s a series E twenty, ain’t it, Milt?’

‘Yep,’ Milt said. ‘They stopped makin’ those forty-five or fifty years back. My guess is that’d be worth some money down to Arcade Coin in Portland.’

Pat handed the bill around and each examined it, holding it up close or far off depending on the flaws in their eyesight. Joe Crane handed it back, and Milt put it under the cash drawer with the personal checks and the coupons.

‘Sure is a funny fella,’ Clyde mused.

‘Ayuh,’ Vinnie said, and paused. ‘That was a thirty-nine, though. My half brother Vic had one. Was the first car he ever owned. Bought it used, he did, in 1944. Left the oil out of her one mornin’ and burned the goddamn pistons right out of her.’

‘I believe it was a forty,’ Clyde said,’ because I remember a fella that used to cane chairs down by Alfred, come right to your house he would, and-’

And so the argument was begun, progressing more in the silences than in the speeches, like a chess game p aye by mail. And the day seemed to stand still and stretch into eternity for them, and Vinnie Upshaw began to make another cigarette with sweet, arthritic slowness.