Salem's Lot

5

He found when he got back to Eva’s that he could neither write nor sleep. He was too excited to do either. So he warmed up the Citroën, and after a moment of indecision, he drove out toward Dell’s place.

It was crowded, and the place was smoky and loud. The band, a country-and-western group on trial called the Rangers, was playing a version of ‘You’ve Never Been This Far Before,’ which made up in volume for whatever it lost in quality. Perhaps forty couples were gyrating on the floor, most of them wearing blue jeans. Ben, a little amused, thought of Edward Albee’s line about monkey nipples.

The stools in front of the bar were held down by construction and mill workers, each drinking identical glasses of beer and all wearing nearly identical crepe-soled work boots, laced with rawhide.

Two or three barmaids with bouffant hairdos and their names written in gold thread on their white blouses (Jackie, Toni, Shirley) circulated to the tables and booths. Behind the bar, Dell was drawing beers, and at the far end, a hawk-like man with his hair greased back was making mixed drinks. His face remained utterly blank as he measured liquor into shot glasses, dumped it into his silver shaker, and added whatever went with it.

Ben started toward the bar, skirting the dance floor, and someone called out, ‘Ben! Say, fella! How are you, buddy?’ Ben looked around and saw Weasel Craig sitting at a table close to the bar, a half-empty beer in front of him.

‘Hello, Weasel,’ Ben said, sitting down. He was relieved to see a familiar face, and he liked Weasel.

‘Decided to get some night life, did you, buddy?’ Weasel smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. Ben thought that his check must have come in; his breath alone could have made Milwaukee famous.

‘Yeah,’ Ben said. He got out a dollar and laid it on the table, which was covered with the circular ghosts of the many beer glasses that had stood there. ‘How you doing?’

‘Just fine. What do you think of that new band? Great, ain’t they?’

They’re okay,’ Ben said. ‘Finish that thing up before it goes flat. I’m buying.’

‘I been waitin’ to hear somebody say that all night. Jackie!’ he bawled. ‘Bring my buddy here a pitcher! Budweiser!’

Jackie brought the pitcher on a tray littered with beer-soaked change and lifted it onto the table, her right arm bulging like a prize fighter’s. She looked at the dollar as if it were a new species of cockroach. ‘That’s a buck fawty,’ she said.

Ben put another bill down. She picked them both up, fished sixty cents out of the assorted puddles on her tray, banged them down on the table, and said, ‘Weasel Craig, when you yell like that you sound like a rooster gettin’ its neck wrung.’

‘You’re beautiful, darlin’,’ Weasel said. ‘This is Ben Mears. He writes books.’

‘Meetcha,’ Jackie said, and disappeared into the dimness.

Ben poured himself a glass of beer and Weasel followed suit, filling his glass professionally to the top. The foam threatened to overspill and then backed down. ‘Here’s to you, buddy.’

Ben lifted his glass and drank.

‘So how’s that writin’ goin’?’

‘Pretty good, Weasel.’

‘I seen you goin’ round with that little Norton girl. She’s a real peach, she is. You couldn’t do no better there.’

‘Yes, she’s-’

‘Matt!’ Weasel bawled, almost startling Ben into dropping his glass. By God, he thought, he does sound like a rooster saying good-by to this world.

‘Matt Burke!’ Weasel waved wildly, and a man with white hair raised his hand in greeting and started to cut through the crowd. ‘Here’s a fella you ought to meet,’ Weasel told Ben. ‘Matt Burke’s one smart son of a whore.’ The man coming toward them looked about sixty. He was tall, wearing a clean flannel shirt open at the throat, and his hair, which was as white as Weasel’s, was cut in a flattop.

‘Hello, Weasel,’ he said.

‘How are you, buddy?’ Weasel said. ‘Want you to meet a fella stayin’ over to Eva’s. Ben Mears. Writes books, he does. He’s a lovely fella.’ He looked at Ben. ‘Me’n Matt grew up together, only he got an education and I got the shaft.’ Weasel cackled.

Ben stood up and shook Matt Burke’s bunched hand gingerly. ‘How are you?’

‘Fine, thanks. I’ve read one of your books, Mr Mears. Air Dance.’

‘Make it Ben, please. I hope you liked it.’

‘I liked it much better than the critics, apparently,’ Matt said, sitting down. ‘I think it will gain ground as time goes by. How are you, Weasel?’

‘Perky,’ Weasel said. ‘Just as perky as ever I could be. Jackie!’ he bawled. ‘Bring Matt a glass!’

‘Just wait a minute, y’old fart!’ Jackie yelled back, drawing laughter from the nearby tables.

‘She’s a lovely girl,’ Weasel said. ‘Maureen Talbot’s girl.’

‘Yes,’ Matt said. ‘I had Jackie in school. Class of ‘71. Her mother was ‘5 l.’

‘Matt teaches high school English,’ Weasel told Ben. ‘You and him should have a lot to talk about.’

‘I remember a girl named Maureen Talbot,’ Ben said. ‘She came and got my aunt’s wash and brought it back all folded in a wicker basket. The basket only had one handle.’

‘Are you from town, Ben?’ Matt asked.

‘I spent some time here as a boy. With my Aunt Cynthia.’

‘Cindy Stowens?’

‘Yes.’

Jackie came with a clean glass, and Matt tipped beer into it. ‘It really is a small world, then. Your aunt was in a senior class I taught my first year in ‘salem’s Lot. Is she well?’

‘She died in 1972.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘She went very easily,’ Ben said, and refilled his glass. The band had finished its set, and the members were trouping toward the bar. The level of conversation went down a notch.

‘Have you come back to Jerusalem’s Lot to write a book about us?’ Matt asked.

A warning bell went off in Ben’s mind.

‘In a way, I suppose,’ he said.

‘This town could do much worse for a biographer. Air Dance was a fine book. I think there might be another fine book in this town. I once thought I might write it.’

‘Why didn’t you?’

Matt smiled-an easy smile with no trace of bitterness, cynicism, or malice. ‘I lacked one vital ingredient. Talent.’

‘Don’t you believe it,’ Weasel said, refilling his glass from the dregs of the pitcher. ‘Ole Matt’s got a world of talent. Schoolteachin’ is a wonnerful job. Nobody appreciates schoolteachers, but they’re… ’ He swayed a little in his chair, searching for completion. He was becoming very drunk. ‘Salt of the earth,’ he finished, took a mouthful of beer, grimaced, and stood up. ‘Pardon me while I take a leak.’

He wandered off, bumping into people and hailing them by name. They passed him on with impatience or good cheer, and watching his progress to the men’s room was like watching a pinball racket and bounce its way down toward the flipper buttons.

‘There goes the wreck of a fine man,’ Matt said, and held up one finger. A waitress appeared almost immediately and addressed him as Mr Burke. She seemed a trifle scandalized that her old English Classics teacher should be here, boozing it up with the likes of Weasel Craig. When she turned away to bring them another pitcher, Ben thought Matt looked a trifle bemused.

‘I like Weasel,’ Ben said. ‘I get a feeling there was a lot there once. What happened to him?’

‘Oh, there’s no story there,’ Matt said. ‘The bottle got him. It got him a little more each year and now it’s got all of him. He won a Silver Star at Anzio in World War II. A cynic might believe his life would have had more meaning if he had died there.’

‘I’m not a cynic,’ Ben said. ‘I like him still. But I think I better give him a ride home tonight.’

‘That would be good of you. I come out here now and then to listen to the music. I like loud music. More than ever, since my hearing began to fail. I understand that you’re interested in the Marsten House. Is your book about it?’

Ben jumped. ‘Who told you that?’

Matt smiled. ‘How does that old Marvin Gaye song put it? I heard it through the grapevine. Luscious, vivid idiom, although the image is a bit obscure if you consider it. One conjures up a picture of a man standing with his ear cocked attentively toward a Concord or Tokay… I’m rambling. I ramble a great deal these days but rarely try to keep it in hand anymore. I heard from what the gentlemen of the press would call an informed source-Loretta Starcher, actually. She’s the librarian at our local citadel of literature. You’ve been in several times to look at the Cumberland Ledger articles pertaining to the ancient scandal, and she also got you two true-crime books that had articles on it. By the way, the Lubert one is good-he came to the Lot and researched it himself in 1946-but the Snow chapter is speculative trash.’

‘I know,’ Ben said automatically.

The waitress set down a fresh pitcher of beer and Ben suddenly had an uncomfortable image: Here is a fish swimming around comfortably and (he thinks) unobtrusively, flicking here and there amongst the kelp and the plankton. Draw away for the long view and there’s the kicker: It’s a goldfish bowl.

Matt paid the waitress and said, ‘Nasty thing that happened up there. It’s stayed in the town’s consciousness, too. Of course, tales of nastiness and murder are always handed down with slavering delight from generation to generation, while students groan and complain when they’re faced with a George Washington Carver or a Jonas Salk. But it’s more than that, I think. Perhaps it’s due to a geographical freak.’

‘Yes,’ Ben said, drawn in spite of himself. The teacher had just stated an idea that had been lurking below the level of his consciousness from the day he had arrived back in town, possibly even before that. ‘It stands on that hill overlooking the village like-oh, like some kind of dark idol.’ He chuckled to make the remark seem trivial-it seemed to him that he had said something so deeply felt in an unguarded way that he must have opened a window on his soul to this stranger. Matt Burke’s sudden close scrutiny of him did not make him feel any better.

‘That is talent,’ he said.

‘Pardon me?’

‘You have said it precisely. The Marsten House has looked down on us all for almost fifty years, at all our little peccadilloes and sins and lies. Like an idol.’

‘Maybe it’s seen the good, too,’ Ben said.

‘There’s little good in sedentary small towns. Mostly indifference spiced with an occasional vapid evil-or worse, a conscious one. I believe Thomas Wolfe wrote about seven pounds of literature about that.’

‘I thought you weren’t a cynic.’

‘You said that, not I.’ Matt smiled and sipped at his beer. The band was moving away from the bar, resplendent in their red shirts and glittering vests and neckerchiefs. The lead singer took his guitar and began to chord it.

‘At any rate, you never answered my question. Is your new book about the Marsten House?’

‘I suppose it is, in a way.’

‘I’m pumping you. Sorry.’

‘It’s all right,’ Ben said, thinking of Susan and feeling uncomfortable. ‘I wonder what’s keeping Weasel? He’s been gone a hell of a long time.’

‘Could I presume on short acquaintanceship and ask a rather large favor? If you refuse, I’ll more than understand.’

‘Sure, ask,’ Ben said.

‘I have a creative writing class,’ Matt said. ‘They are intelligent children, eleventh- and twelfth-graders, most of them, and I would like to present someone who makes his living with words to them. Someone who-how shall I say?-has taken the word and made it flesh.’

‘I’d be more than happy to,’ Ben said, feeling absurdly flattered. ‘How long are your periods?’

‘Fifty minutes.’

‘Well, I don’t suppose I can bore them too badly in that length of time.’

‘Oh? I do it quite well, I think,’ Matt said. ‘Although I’m sure you wouldn’t bore them at all. This next week?’

‘Sure. Name a day and a time.’

‘Tuesday? Period four? That goes from eleven o’clock until ten of twelve. No one will boo you, but I suspect you will hear a great many stomachs rumble.’

‘I’ll bring some cotton for my ears.’

Matt laughed. ‘I’m very pleased. I will meet you at the office, if that’s agreeable.’

‘Fine. Do you-’

‘Mr Burke?’ It was Jackie, she of the heavy biceps.

‘Weasel’s passed out in the men’s room. Do you suppose-’

‘Oh? Goodness, yes. Ben, would you-’

‘Sure.’

They got up and crossed the room. The band had begun to play again, something about how the kids in Muskogee still respected the college dean.

The bathroom smelled of sour urine and chlorine. Weasel was propped against the wall between two urinals, and a fellow in an army uniform was pissing approximately two inches from his right ear.

His mouth was open and Ben thought how terribly old he looked, old and ravaged by cold, impersonal forces with no gentle touch in them. The reality of his own dissolution, advancing day by day, came home to him, not for the first time, but with shocking unexpectedness. The pity that welled up in his throat like clear, black waters was as much for himself as for Weasel.

‘Here,’ Matt said, ‘can you get an arm under him when this gentleman finishes relieving himself’?’

‘Yes,’ Ben said. He looked at the man in the army uniform, who was shaking off in leisurely fashion. ‘Hurry it up, can you, buddy?’

‘Why? He ain’t in no rush.’

Nevertheless, he zipped up and stepped away from the urinal so they could get in.

Ben got an arm around Weasel’s back, hooked a hand in his armpit, and lifted. For a moment his buttocks pressed against the tiled wall and he could feel the vibrations from the band. Weasel came up with the limp mail sack weight of utter unconsciousness. Matt slid his head under Weasel’s other arm, hooked his own arm around Weasel’s waist, and they carried him out the door.

‘There goes Weasel,’ someone said, and there was laughter.

‘Dell ought to cut him off,’ Matt said, sounding out of breath. ‘He knows how this always turns out.’

They went through the door into the foyer, and then out onto the wooden steps leading down to the parking lot.

‘Easy" Ben grunted. ‘Don’t drop him.’

They went down the stairs, Weasel’s limp feet cropping on the risers like blocks of wood.

‘The Citroën… over in the last row.’

They carried him over. The coolness in the air was sharper now, and tomorrow the leaves would be blooded. Weasel had begun to grunt deep in his throat and his head jerked weakly on the stalk of his neck.

‘Can you put him to bed when you get back to Eva’s?’ Matt asked.

‘Yes, I think so.’

‘Good. Look, you can just see the roof tree of the Marsten House over the trees.’

Ben looked. Matt was right; the top angle just peeked above the dark horizon of pines, blotting out the stars at the rim of the visible world with the regular shape of human construction.

Ben opened the passenger door and said, ‘Here. Let me have him.’

He took Weasel’s full weight and slipped him neatly into the passenger seat and closed the door. Weasel’s head lolled against the window, giving it a flattened, grotesque look.

‘Tuesday at eleven?’

‘I’ll be there.’

‘Thanks. And thanks for helping Weasel, too.’ He held out his hand and Ben shook it.

He got in, started the Citroën, and headed back toward town. Once the roadhouse neon had disappeared behind the trees, the road was deserted and black, and Ben thought, These roads are haunted now.

Weasel gave a snort and a groan beside him and Ben jumped. The Citroën swerved minutely on the road.

Now, why did I think that?

No answer.

He opened the wing window so that it scooped cold air directly onto Weasel on the ride home, and by the time he drove into Eva Miller’s dooryard, Weasel had attained a soupy semi-consciousness.

Ben led him, half stumbling, up the back porch steps and into the kitchen, which was dimly lit by the stove’s fluorescent. Weasel moaned, then muttered deep in his throat, ‘She’s a lovely girl, Jack, -and married women, they know… know… ’

A shadow detached itself from the hall and it was Eva, huge in an old quilted house coat, her hair done up in rollers and covered with a filmy net scarf. Her face was pale and ghostly with night cream.

‘Ed,’ she said. ‘Oh, Ed… you do go on, don’t you?’

His eyes opened a little at the sound of her voice, and a smile touched his features. ‘On and on and on,’ he croaked. ‘Wouldn’t you know it more than the rest?’

‘Can you get him up to his room?’ she asked Ben.

‘Yes, no sweat.’

He tightened his grip on Weasel and somehow jot him up the stairs and down to his room. The door was unlocked and he carried him inside. The minute he laid him on the bed, signs of consciousness ceased and he fell into a deep sleep.

Ben paused a moment to look around. The room was clean, almost sterile, things put away with barrackslike neatness. As he began to work on Weasel’s shoes, Eva Miller said from behind him, ‘Never mind that, Mr Mears. Go on up, if you like.’

‘But he ought to be-’

‘I’ll undress him.’ Her face was grave and full of dignified, measured sadness. ‘Undress him and give him an alcohol rub to help with his hangover in the morning. I’ve done it before. Many times.’

‘All right,’ Ben said, and went upstairs without looking back. He undressed slowly, thought about taking a shower, and decided not to. He got into bed and lay looking at the ceiling and did not sleep for a long time.