The Librarianist

AT ELEVEN AND A HALF YEARS OF AGE BOB COMET RAN AWAY FROM home. The actual decampment was not purely accidental; he had been playing at running away for months. But it’s unlikely he would have actually gone through with it had it not been for the incident with Mr. Baker-Bailey, which had repulsed him in his soul and furnished him with a specific something rather than a general anything to run away from.

His desire to leave was brought on by all the traditional things. In answer to the narratives of the adventure novels he’d been reading he had fabricated a narrative of his own, which was that he was unhappy, and that his mother didn’t love him, and that he hadn’t a friend in the world. This was what he told himself, and it was true, but only partly true. His mother did love him; it was just that she didn’t understand him. He could have had friends if he wished it but he knew a separation from his peers that made comradeship feel impossible. That he was unhappy, however, was a fact. The story of his wanting to run away was built in homage to what he then considered his tragical fate.

Bob never missed a day of school, and he did the work required of him, but he had no belief that the work was important. Occasionally it was that funny or interesting things happened at school, as children are often both funny and interesting, but just as often, or more often, Bob thought, they were neither. Throughout the week, he thought of and looked forward to the weekend: Saturdays he rose early, made himself breakfast, took up his running-away knapsack (clean socks and underwear, pajamas, a novel, a toothbrush, a comb, and the entirety of his savings, twenty-one dollars), walked down the hill, and crossed the Broadway bridge for Union Station. GO BY TRAIN the neon sign said, and Bob thought that sounded like an intelligent idea. He liked to sit on the long wooden benches in the main hall, to watch the bustle of it, the travelers’ stories playing out all around him, the soldiers’ comings and goings, their weepy familial separations, the romantic reunions. He liked the way the trains eased into the station, hissing and stuttering like someone easing into a hot bath. He liked the flipping and clacking of the letters on the arrivals and departures board. There was no one city he wished to run away to, not Bakersfield, California, or Greenville, Mississippi; Abilene, Texas; or Gallup, New Mexico; but he liked the names of the places and it was exciting to think of the destinations as real, that the people climbing onto the trains soon would be breathing the air there.

After some weekends spent lurking in the main hall, Bob became emboldened and began inspecting the interior of the trains as they sat in the station. It was good to be one among the many in motion, to step down the aisle, squeezing past men and women while they stowed their luggage in the overhead racks or settled into their seats. “Excuse me,” he liked to say. “Excuse me, please.” When he got to the caboose, or whenever he heard the call of all aboard from the platform, he would exit the train and return to the long wooden benches, or wander back across the bridge, and home, only to wake up the next morning and relive the experience all over again.

One Friday afternoon in May, Bob returned home from school to find his mother pacing about the living room, smoking and drinking a cocktail, and her face was heavily made up, her hair in curlers, and a crisply new dress was laid out over the long shoulder of the sofa. She explained to Bob that she was hosting what she named a social function that same evening, and that Bob would be sleeping over at a coworker’s house across town. “She’s got a boy about your age. Rory’s his name, and he sounds like a great kid and I’m sure you’ll get along great and have a very good time.” Bob had never slept over before, and felt strongly he did not want to do this, and so began to plead and bargain with his mother: he’d stay hidden in his room that night; he wouldn’t make a sound, and no one taking part in the social function would know he was there at all. But his mother refused, the finality in her voice total. She ordered him to pack a bag and Bob fetched his running-away knapsack from his room, then went out and sat in the car to wait. When his mother came out of the house, her curlers were wrapped up in a sheer pink scarf and she was talking to herself and wagging the car keys from her red-nailed pointer finger. On the drive across town she tried to cheer Bob by reminiscing of the sleepovers of her youth: the games she and her girlfriends played, the fits-of-insanity giggles, the way they would attempt to stay awake all through the night, and the way they always failed. “Maybe you and Rory’ll go the distance, though, huh? Maybe you two’ll make it clear to sunrise.” His mother was rushed, distracted, looking at her watch every few minutes, chain-smoking and ashing nervously out the window. Bob sat in silence, the prisoner on his way to the gallows. “Don’t make me feel bad about this,” his mother said.

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

“Not on purpose I’m not.”

Her voice was tight with annoyance: “I want you. To have fun. For once in your life. Do you understand me?” Soon she pulled up at the curb out front of a small house with an overgrown lawn and a pile of warped scrap lumber in the driveway. “I don’t have time to come in,” she said, “but they’re expecting you, so just go on up and knock, okay?” Bob took his knapsack and walked toward the house. His mother honked as she pulled away, which summoned her coworker, who opened her door and stood staring after the car as it drove quickly away. “Wow,” she said. “I guess your ma’s in a hurry, huh?”

“I guess.”

“And you must be Bob?”

“Yes.”

“Nice to meet you, Bob. I’m Rory’s mom and hey, look at this, here comes Rory.” Rory moved to stand beside his mother. He was two or three years older than Bob, his face meaty, disinterested. He held a basketball under his arm, and when his mother said, “Say hello to Bob, Rory,” Rory did not say it.

“Hello,” Bob said.

“Maybe Bob would like to play basketball with you?” Rory’s mother suggested.

Rory asked Bob, “You want to?”

“Yes,” Bob lied. He left his knapsack on the porch and followed Rory around to the side of the house, to stand beneath the netless hoop attached to the face of the garage. The boys weren’t speaking very much, but both were trying to make a go of the forced interaction; unfortunately, Bob had almost no athletic experience or ability, and couldn’t get the ball to go through the hoop even once. Bob thought his own performance comical, Rory less so — he began groaning at Bob’s ineptitude, shaking his head and muttering little outraged complaints to himself. Soon he announced he’d had enough, and he took the ball and walked into the house without inviting Bob to come with him. Bob wasn’t sure what to do, now. He loitered by the garage awhile, then made an inspection of the pile of wood in the driveway, then sat on the lawn and watched the cars go by. The sun was setting and the soil was damp and soaked through the backside of Bob’s pants. He heard the front door open; Rory’s mother said, “Bob? What are you doing?” “Sitting,” Bob answered, not turning around. “Why don’t you come in and eat some dinner?” Rory’s mother asked. “I’ve got you and Rory set up in the den. Rory’s listening to Fibber McGee and Molly.” Bob stood and followed Rory’s mother. Rory was sitting on a green couch in the wood-paneled den eating from a plate on his lap, and a plate had been set out on a tray for Bob. Rory’s mother asked Bob what he wanted to drink. “Milk, please,” Bob said, and Rory’s mother touched his head and said she’d be right back. Bob sat and examined his plate and began eating the mashed potatoes. Fibber McGee and Molly went to commercial, a boisterous encouragement to purchase war bonds; Rory turned to look at Bob and told him, “My dad’s too old to fight in the war.” He said this as if it were something that had been bothering him, something he needed to get off his chest.

“Okay,” Bob said.

“He’d have gone if he was younger. He wanted to go.”

Bob ate a forkful of potatoes.

Rory said, “I guess your dad went over there, huh?”

“No. I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“What do you mean you don’t know? Did he or didn’t he?”

“I don’t know,” said Bob.

Rory’s mother had reappeared, glass of milk in her hand. She set this down on Bob’s tray and said, in a calm voice, “Rory, would you come away with me for a minute, please?”

“We’re listening to the radio, Ma.”

“Just a minute, Rory.”

Rory went away with his mother and came back alone. Now he was behaving differently toward Bob; not friendlier, but curiouser, stealing sneaking glances at him whenever he looked away. Bob understood that Rory’s mother had explained about Bob’s not having a father. It wasn’t Rory’s knowing that bothered Bob, it was Rory’s gruesome awe, and that he didn’t have the tact to know he should hide his awe away. Rory knew, at least, that he shouldn’t verbalize the thoughts occurring in his mind; from this point on he said hardly a word to Bob.

After Fibber McGee and Molly they listened to Bob Hope’s strained entertainment of the troops, and then to the news: German forces in Denmark have surrendered to the Allies. Rory’s mother came in holding Bob’s knapsack and said chirpily, “Time for you boys to get ready for bed, all right?” As Bob passed her by she again set her hand on his head and he inwardly winced at the contact, which he now knew was inspired by pity. The boys made for Rory’s room, taking turns in the bathroom, brushing their teeth and putting on their pajamas. Bob lay in a sleeping bag on the floor in the dark; he wasn’t tired, and in a little while, when he heard Rory’s even breathing, he pulled his street clothes on over his pajamas, took up his knapsack, and left the room. He came down the stairs, stepping quietly along the hall toward the front door; in passing the kitchen he turned to find Rory’s father bent at the waist, squinting into the fridge. He wore a white undershirt tucked into a pair of high-worn pajama bottoms, and he was lumpy and pale. When he noticed Bob, he stood up straight and said, “You must be the sleeping-over kid I’ve been hearing about.” Bob said that he was and Rory’s father asked, “Well, what are you up to?”

“I’m going to go home now.”

The man looked at his watch and back at Bob.

Bob said, “It’s okay. I’m okay. Goodbye. Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” said Rory’s father, returning to bow and squint before the refrigerator. “I didn’t do anything.”

It was a miles-long walk through a balmy, windless night, and Bob was relieved to be free of the feelings the sleepover had provoked in him. He walked slowly through various suburban and urban areas. He’d never been out so late before and found the nighttime not at all frightening, but easy and safe in its emptiness. He was neither lost nor not-lost; he understood the general direction home and he used the bridges as guides. Crossing the river at Morrison, he made his way up the long hill and toward the mint-colored house.

It was after midnight when Bob entered his neighborhood. His house was the only one on the block with the lights on, and there was a black Packard in the driveway, gleaming and new beneath the reach of the streetlamp. Bob could hear the stereo playing; he crept up the front lawn to the kitchen window, standing on his toes to look in. Down the hall from the kitchen he could see a piece of the living room, and in the living room was the broad back of a man, coat off, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up, and Bob’s mother’s disembodied hands hung over the man’s shoulders, her red nails clinging to him as they slowly danced. When the music ceased, their bodies compressed in a clench of passion, and Bob turned and walked away from his home and to the park down the street. The park was empty and Bob sat, then lay down on a bench, to look at the sky, because he didn’t know what else to do. What he felt was something deeper and richer than nausea: nausea of the heart. But the clouds were a mysterious show of patient, moonlit shapes and moods; they lulled and distracted Bob, they tricked him into falling asleep. When he woke up it was after seven o’clock, and he stood and stretched and walked back to the house. There was a puddle of oil on the driveway but the Packard was gone. Bob let himself in and found his mother standing in the kitchen and staring at the sink, overfilled with dirty dishes and greasy pots. The house smelt of burned oil and cigarette butts and Bob’s mother was ill-looking and she was clutching her kimono shut at her neck. When she heard his approach she turned, like a mannequin on a dais, to look at him. Her eyes betrayed nothing; in a croaking voice, she said, “Here’s Mr. Popularity.” She didn’t think it odd he was back so early, or that he’d seen himself home. She explained she wasn’t well and that she needed rest and silence and she went away and up the stairs in search of those things. Bob sat awhile in the kitchen nook, looking out the window he’d been looking into the night before. He decided he would run away, and truly, that same day, that same moment, and he left the house and walked back down the hill and across the river to Union Station, his pajamas peeking out past the folded cuffs of his blue jeans.

BOB WAS SURPRISED AT HOW EASY RUNNING AWAY WAS. HE SAT IN a moderately populated third-class compartment, and fifteen minutes later the train came unstuck from its track and they were off. Five minutes after the train left the station and already Bob didn’t recognize the landscape: drab, flat, rocky fields with power lines overhead and forested hills rising up in the distance. The train was traveling toward those hills, traveling west to Astoria, where the Columbia River meets the Pacific Ocean. When Bob saw a conductor taking tickets at the bottom of the car he stood and walked in the opposite direction, up through the second-class cars, the dining and observation cars, and into the first-class car. He came to a compartment with a RESERVED sign hanging on the doorknob; but he could see through a slit in the curtain the compartment was empty, and so he entered, closed the curtain, sat, and waited. When he heard the conductor pass, calling out for “Tickets, tickets, please,” then he relaxed a little, glad to be alone in his ritzy, superior quarters. He studied the passing landscape, which grew ever prettier: soft-rolling green hills, whitewashed churches set away in meadows, dairy farms, silos, and sentry box bus shelters standing at the intersections of country roads. When the train pulled into the station at the town of Vernonia, Bob peered down see what he could see of the platform. As it happened there was a story taking place, and just beneath his window.

At the center of the story were two middle-aged women in tweed coats and skirts, and both wore hats with long, bowed feathers sprouting from their hatbands. Large of breast but modest of chin, the women had something paired with the city-living pigeon. They were accompanied by two diminutive and bright-eyed dogs, both black with white socks and who looked to be siblings. Each was nestled in the nook of the arm of its respective master and their entire beings were devoted to watching the movements of and sounds made by the women. The women were speaking with a porter apiece, making gestures with their free hands, naming their instruction or desire, and there was nothing faltering or coy in their body language.

The issue at hand and the focal point of this meeting was the women’s baggage, which was imposing in scope and confusing to consider. The pieces were uniformly fashioned from of a heavy, dark blue canvas, but there was not a single piece of the lot which was not unique in its dimensions. One was as long and narrow as a stretcher; another tall and upright, like a postal box. Some were collapsible, while others were solidly constructed, canvas wrapped over board with leather corners fixed by brass rivets. The collective contents obviously spoke to some specific function, but what this was Bob couldn’t guess.

The porters were older men whose attitudes spoke of the hard truth of any working life. They were listening; they were not smiling. At one point a bag sitting uppermost on the island of luggage leaned, then dropped to the bottom of the pile; when it hit the platform it exploded and now there were wigs, of all things, strewn across the pavement. They were powdered wigs of the Victorian age, tall and white with long, trailing curls, and the women were agitated by this occurrence of spillage. They set the dogs on the ground and hurried to retrieve the wigs, to investigate their every curl and part for smudges, damages. The dogs followed behind, stepping from one paw to the other, the pavement being too cold to suit them.

When the women were satisfied the wigs had not been significantly damaged, they repacked them into the bag and took the dogs back up in their arms, returning to their original positions beside the porters, who had elected to take no action in the wig business, preferring only to observe. The women resumed with their pointings and speakings, the thorough description of their expectations per their luggage. By now the porters looked to be situated at an emotional outpost beyond amusement or disappointment, a sort of desert state, where one might do little else other than count the minutes as they rolled by. The women tipped the porters before stepping down the platform and out of sight; once they were gone the porters each produced a silver whistle, turned back to back, and together blew a sharp, shrill note into the air. Soon two junior porters, only just older than Bob by their looks, hurried up to meet their betters, who pointed to the tower of luggage, then the train, then walked away, in the direction of the canteen attached to the train station. The young porters looked at each other, and the luggage, and back at each other, and began the workaday labor of shifting the bags onto the train.

THE WOMEN AND THEIR DOGS ENTERED THE CABIN AND BOB PUSHED himself into a corner in hopes of achieving a smallness. They did not notice him at once, busy as they were making themselves comfortable, pulling off their leather gloves, loosing their neckerchiefs, removing their hats. Their faces were without any makeup or powder; they were well made, they were vigorous, and they cut a legitimate swath.

As they attended to their settling in, then did the dogs begin an investigation of Bob, approaching him where he sat, the both of them together, shoulder to shoulder as if in harness, to sniff and retreat, to look up and into Bob’s eyes and make their critical deductions. They sensed his passivity or goodness, and, concluding he could never be an enemy, they lay themselves down beside him, each upon the other, to take their rest. The woman nearer to Bob saw by the attentions of the dogs that he was there among them. She gave a hard squint and said, “June.”

“Yes, Ida, what is it?” asked the second woman.

“What is it, yes, that’s what I’d like to know.” The woman named Ida was pointing at Bob with one hand and patting her pockets with the other.

The second woman, June, looked to Bob and said, “Oh my goodness, it’s a boy.”

Ida had located her eyeglasses and donned these. Her squint melted away and she confirmed, “It is a boy. I’d thought for a moment it was a cushion, or a scrap of fabric.” She turned to June and asked, “Well, what is it doing here?”

“Much the same as the rest of us I should think, dear Ida.”

“But why here, when we have reserved, at some unreasonable cost and at a point in our lives where luxury is out of the question, this compartment for our own exclusive use?”

“Why must you ask me questions I cannot know the answer to?”

“It’s that I want to know things,” said Ida.

“We all want to, and we are every one of us disappointed, and we shall die not knowing.” June sighed. “I do wish it had announced itself. I feel rather nude, frankly. I hope we haven’t named any old scandals, or created any new ones.”

Ida looked up, through time, rearward. “No,” she said.

“Well, then, let us accept that we shan’t be alone, as was our hope. In brighter news, however, it does appear the boy is a mute, perhaps deaf into the bargain, and so we can easily pretend to be alone if not actually live out the reality of aloneness.”

With this, the women resumed situating themselves, and time passed in silence. The train now was traveling at a downward angle through a dense wood. Bob took out a book from his knapsack and began to read. In a little while he saw by the side of his eye that June was tapping Ida on the arm and pointing a chin at him. Quietly, but not so quietly that Bob wasn’t meant to hear, she said, “It’s at its studies.”

“What?”

“It reads, Ida.” June said to Bob, “Boy,” and Bob looked up from the book. She made a beckoning gesture, and he passed the book across to her. She inspected the spine and flipped through some of its pages. She told Ida, “It’s one of these stories where a lone man suffers considerably in an unforgiving wilderness, and if a vicious wolf or two has to perish in the meantime, so much the better.” June handed the book back to Bob, who received it but did not resume his reading, being hopeful June would speak with him further, and then she did this. “I’m waiting,” she said in a confiding voice, “for some guardian of yours to arrive, but it seems that shall not happen.”

“No, ma’am.”

“But surely you’re not traveling alone?”

“Yes.”

“How old are you?”

“Eleven and a half.”

“Where is your family?”

“There’s my mother.”

“Where is she?”

“Working.”

“And what does she do?”

“She’s a secretary, in Portland.”

“And here you are, not at all in Portland, and without her.”

“Yes.”

June sat thinking. She asked, “Are you running away from home, boy?”

“Yes.”

A smile broke out on June’s face. It was a surprising thing, this smile; for her face, in expressing a natural joy, became dented and smashed, and her teeth were stained and crooked. It looked, really, that she was in pain; but no, she was elated by the news, and she said, “Oh, I had thought you might be. Ida, didn’t you think he might be? Running away from home?”

“I didn’t think he was,” Ida said. “But then, I didn’t think he wasn’t, either.”

“Well, I find it very romantic,” said June. The smile had passed but her face still wore the folds the smile had occasioned. “And to where will you run?” she asked Bob, and he shrugged, having no destination in mind.

“Perhaps he’ll simply run until his legs give out,” Ida answered. “Motion being the thing. If I were you, boy, I’d run away to Florida. It’s a nice climate for living out of doors.”

“We mustn’t assume so much,” said June. “He may well luck into a more comfortable situation. Perhaps he moves toward some peaceful pastime, a loving benefactor eager to set him up in healthful endeavor. Perhaps he moves toward a position in the clergy.”

“He could become a bell ringer.”

“He might very well achieve prosperousness as a bell ringer, that’s true. Do you know,” June said, “I always wanted to run away when I was a girl, but I never had the pluck. Didn’t you ever want to, Ida? To run away? To teach the world its bitter lesson?”

Ida said, “What I wanted was to jump in the river with a pocket full of stones.”

“Oh, yes, that,” said June, as if recalling a first love. She told Bob, “I notice that you are alone in your adventure. But why? I should think you’d have wanted some of your school chums to come along with you, no?”

Bob didn’t answer, but looked away and at the ceiling, as if something interesting was happening or might soon happen there.

“Yes, I understand,” said June.

Ida said, “I used to wonder what it would feel like to smash one of those great plate glass windows with gold leaf lettering bowed across the face of it. A butcher’s, bookkeeper’s, a pool hall — I didn’t care what, the smashing was the thing.”

“And with what would you smash it?” asked June.

“A brick, naturally.” Ida displayed her hand in the holding-a-brick shape. “It would arc through the air, landing at the center of the broad pane of glass, which would drop into itself, and the shimmering noise would satisfy my deepest, most destructive urge, and forever, I should think.”

June, speaking from the side of her mouth, told Bob, “Ida had no friends in school, either.”

Ida said, “June, however, always had a good many friends and companions. But they were every one a betrayer in the end, isn’t that right?”

“Truth, yes. And then, after the final savage treason, I thought, I won’t be falling for that wicked business again. And I vowed that I should walk alone.”

“But then, do you see, and she met a certain someone,” Ida said.

“Yes, yes, and now look at me. Up to my neck, boy. Dragged into a life of uncertainty and vagabondery and I don’t know what all else.” June wagged a finger at her friend as she told Bob, “One must be careful about whom she meets. But then, how careful can one be? Each time we leave our home we’re witness to fate’s temptation. People fall into unexpected communion every day of the week, whether or not they want to. Like an illness delivered on the wind.” June paused. Soberly, she said, “It can be upsetting to one’s plans, I’ll say that much.”

Ida sat breathing awhile. “I’m sorry, which plans were upset?”

“You aren’t familiar with them,” June answered, and she winked at Bob.

“Obviously and I’m not,” said Ida. “Will you name them now?”

“Oh, Ida,” said June tiredly.

“Name the plans which I’ve upset. I should like to know. And perhaps I could make some reparation to you for all the damage I’ve done your life.”

June told Bob, “I think we’ve gone down the wrong path.”

“Oh, is that what you think?” said Ida. “Is that what you think has happened?” Her cheek was flushed and her breathing had become a little ragged.

June apologized in the sincereish tone of the repeat offender, and Bob had the impression it was not uncommon for Ida to feel insulted or slighted by June; also that June was less sympathetic to Ida’s feelings than she once perhaps had been. But Ida was now succumbing to a proper funk, and June, hoping to avoid any emotional calamities, invented an idea in response to this hope, and she touched Bob’s hand to alert him of its arrival: “I believe we should ask the boys, then, what they think the solution might be.” She turned to the dogs, still curled up on the bench to the side of Bob. “Boys,” she said, and the dogs both opened their eyes. “I come to you for counsel; may I borrow a portion of your time?” The dogs raised up their heads. “Dear Ida and I have come once again to an impasse. We are the both of us very tired, and there is the unreliability of our comforts both current and to come; weariness has taken hold and I do feel it has made the both of us into — peeves. What, do you think, is the best way forward and out of this? What might we do to turn Ida’s mood around, and before it’s too late and we lose a day to it?” As she spoke, June pulled a small hand instrument from the pocket of her coat. It had a chunky wooden base with metal tines attached; she held it steady upon her knee and began to play a plunking, buzzing little waltz. Once June’s song achieved recognizability, the dogs stood up, first on all fours, then rising to their hind legs. Resting their forelegs on one another’s shoulders, they began the approximation of a dance in the ballroom fashion. June played with facility, her fingers nimbly picking out the melody while she hummed a countertune; Ida was ameliorated by the performance, and watched the dogs with a forgiving, or anyway a forgetting, face. For Bob’s part, he could think of no words to say in reply to the occurrence of the waltzing dogs. The train plunged deeper into the still and ancient forest. Bob could not yet see the ocean but there was the sense of an ocean pending.

THE TRAIN TERMINATED IN ASTORIA AND THE WOMEN STOOD TO COLLECT their effects. In watching their departure, Bob discovered a desire in himself, which was to follow them and make an investigation of their movements and behaviors, and he decided he would do this but without alerting them to the fact, if the fact could be avoided. He stood and took up his knapsack, altering his facial expression and physical carriage to represent one not-following. As the women turned to go, June looked back at him with what he took for a question of concern on her face, but there was no question, or else she chose not to give voice to it. “Well, good luck young man” was what she said, and Bob bowed his head, and they all left the compartment, traveling in single file down the narrow passageway and toward the exit, the dogs both looking at Bob from over the shoulders of their masters.

The five of them descended onto the busy platform and Bob hid himself in the crowd, loitering at a distance while the women oversaw the transfer of their baggage from the train to the hold of a Trailways bus idling in the roundabout out front of the depot. After the women boarded the bus, and while the driver was distracted by the closing up and securing of the luggage compartment, Bob snuck onboard and made to find his seat. There were none available except at the rear of the bus, which was where the women and dogs were situated. It was Ida who noticed Bob’s approach, June being distracted by the view out the window. “It’s back,” she said.

“What’s back?”

“Your train project. The foundling.”

June turned to look at Bob, and there again was the face-breaking smile. “Bold life-liver,” she said.

“Hi,” Bob told her.

“Never mind the chitchat,” said Ida. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Bob didn’t answer; Ida asked, “Perhaps you’re thinking to go wherever we go.”

Bob said, “Well.”

“Well, nothing.” Ida turned to June. “I’m going to alert the driver to the particulars of this child’s situation and have him call ahead for a policeman to meet us in Mansfield.”

June said, “Ida, you thorough maniac. The boy can go wherever he wishes to go. He isn’t bothering anyone, my goodness.”

“He’s bothering me.”

“You bother yourself. That’s your Lifetime Problem. Just leave this to me, thank you.” June pointed at the seat to the side of theirs and told Bob, “Become comfortable, please.”

Bob did as June instructed while Ida sat quietly fuming and complaining. This went on for some length of time, so that June finally reached up and covered Ida’s mouth, at which point Ida’s eyes became wide with high emotion; but, when June removed her hand, Ida no longer spoke. She curled up against the window and shut her eyes. The bus was rattling and hissing and now was away.

They were traveling in a southerly direction on a strip of winding two-lane highway with the ocean on their right and the sun angling toward the horizon. June crossed the aisle and shooed Bob over that she might sit beside him. She pulled a Baby Ruth from her coat pocket, opening its wrapper with care so to produce as little noise as was possible. Holding out the exposed candy bar, she made a questioning face at Bob; he broke off a piece and slowly ate it while June consumed the remainder, nodding that she agreed with the taste of it. After, she dropped the wrapper on the floor of the bus and swept it beneath her seat with the toe of her leather boot.

“Well, now,” she said, “what’s your name?”

“Bob.”

“And your surname?”

“Comet.”

She watched Bob as one not understanding a joke. “Spell it,” she said, and Bob did, and she glanced at Ida, but Ida was sleeping, as were the dogs. Speaking at half-volume, June said to Bob, “Tell the truth, Bob. You are following us, aren’t you?”

Bob shrugged.

“But why are you?”

Bob shrugged again.

“Well,” she said, “I truly don’t mind it. Actually I find it somewhat flattering. But I hope you’re not under the impression we’ll look after you?”

Bob shrugged a third time, and here June set her hand upon his shoulder. “Bob, the shrug is a useful tool, and seductive in its way; but it is only one arrow in the quiver and we mustn’t overuse it lest we give the false impression of vacancy of the mind, do you see my point?”

Ida mumbled something unintelligible from her slumber. June said, “I do hope you’ll forgive my friend. It’s nothing personal, just that she suffers from an incurable affliction, and its name is grumpiness. She finds strength in hostility, and joy in strength. But at any rate, and as I was saying, it would be foolish to assume we might be in a position to help you. If you want to know God’s truth, Ida and I can just barely keep ourselves clothed and sheltered.” June’s face went blank with waiting. “Perhaps you’d like to ask me some questions,” she ventured.

“What questions?”

“Oh, you know. Who we are, where we’re going, why we’re going there, why we have twenty-three unique pieces of luggage, why my pockets are filled with musical instruments, how it is that our dogs can waltz.”

“Yes,” said Bob, because he did want to know these things.

“Well,” she said, “I’ll tell you, since you feel so strong-burning a curiosity.” Her voice dropped further, and she gave a look around, as if to be certain none of their neighbors were listening in. “Ida and I are thespians, Bob.”

Bob wasn’t certain just what the word meant, but the way June had said it alluded to something shameful, so that he blushed to hear it. “Yes,” she said, pointing at the red of Bob’s cheek. “It shocks, I know. But let’s not pretty it up: we’re a pair of desperate thespians seeking out any small venue where we might engage the cursed inclination without causing overmuch unpleasantness. Certainly we hope to avoid imprisonment. Sometimes it has happened we are given monetary reward for services rendered; but it’s a hard life, and that’s mildly put. Both our families have disowned us, naturally. And it has been a long while since we were barred from polite society. But it’s not as if we had a choice in the matter; one is born a thespian or one isn’t, and one cannot deny the needs of her own mind, her flesh, after all, can one?” She looked away, over the top of Bob’s head. “I won’t take offense if you wish to change your seat, Bob. I’d hate to bring shame upon the house of Comet.” But Bob did not leave, and June squeezed his arm and told him, “I knew you’d stay. You wear your heart in your face, your eyes.”

“You’re actors,” Bob said.

June said, “We are dramatic stage performers. We are also playwrights and producers and directors and designers and stagehands and prop masters and dog trainers and dogs. We are not all these things at the same time owing to ambition, but because we are alone in our work. Yes, my little running-away friend, that is truly and finally what we are.” Bob asked if they were traveling to perform somewhere, and June brightened. She reached across the aisle and poked a finger in Ida’s stomach. Ida’s right eye opened very slightly. “Bob Comet interrogates,” June told her.

“Who’s Bob Comet?”

“The foundling, Ida. His name is Bob Comet, and it’s all I can do to keep up with his queries.”

“Leave me my rest,” Ida said, then shut up her eye again.

June turned back to Bob. “My not-pleasant companion and I are traveling to a town called Mansfield to premiere our latest work, which consists of a series of somewhat-connected vignettes. Do you know what a vignette is?”

“No.”

“It’s a story that’s too small to be called a story, so you call it a vignette. By pretending you’ve made it small on purpose, you avoid the shame that accompanies culpability. Do you know what culpability is?”

“No.”

“It’s the bill coming due. This work is not our strongest. It is not bad work, but it doesn’t have the power of our past labors. That power, which was once effortless, and which we wielded as if it were the most natural thing in the world, is now dimming, and there isn’t any vitamin or medicine I can find to remedy the lack. The watch winds down, Bob Comet, the pebbles of sand slip through the trim waist of the hourglass, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.” She snapped her fingers. “There is a hotel in Mansfield that, in the years before the war, showcased a number of our efforts, and we enjoyed some unlikely-yet-not-insignificant regional success. This was during the timber boom of the late 1930s, when the barons and their foremen and their mistresses wished for some semblance of culture of a Friday or Saturday night. I felt at the time they didn’t understand what we were showing them, but we have always created a certain spectacle, and with musical accompaniment, which is enough for some. Anyway, they were a game audience. They knew when to clap, and they spent money on wine, which pleased the hotelier. But then the barons and foremen and mistresses moved on, and the hotelier’s invitations dried up. Now, years later, and he contacts us from out of the blue, making claims of a revitalization. That’s fine, and I can’t say I wasn’t happy to hear from the man, but I do believe we’re headed for Flopsville. You know Flopsville?”

“I think so.”

“Yes, well, we’re almost there.” The sun had fallen farther and the bus was making wide, swooping curves in mimicry of the shape of the coastline. “You’re too young to know the melancholy of returning to a place where once you had thrived. I can say it is not as bad as it sounds. But then, Bob, I’m making a distinction between melancholy and sorrow. Do you understand the difference?”

“No.”

“Melancholy is the wistful identification of time as thief, and it is rooted in memories of past love and success. Sorrow is a more hopeless proposition. Sorrow is the understanding you shall not get that which you crave and, perhaps, deserve, and it is rooted in, or encouraged by, excuse me, the death impulse.”

Ida shivered and stirred. “How could anyone ever sleep with all this chatter buzzing in her ears?” she asked.

“It lives and breathes,” June told Bob. “It walks among us.”

Ida suddenly was awake and upright in her seat. She looked all around her, as if she had forgotten where she’d been sleeping. She said, “Where is my Baby Ruth? I want it.” And June, wincing, took a breath and told her friend, “As I was just explaining to young Bob, here: we are prepared for melancholy, but we must also and at the same time steel ourselves against the likelihood of sorrow.”

THE BUS PULLED OFF THE HIGHWAY AND ONTO A PATCH OF DIRT SEPARATING the pavement from the ocean. The driver cut the engine and Bob could hear the wind coming off the water, buffeting the bus’s exterior; he could hear the even sound of the receding waves raking pebbles down the shore. June was looking to her left, away from the sea. “There it is,” she said.

The Hotel Elba was built up in the Victorian style, rounded shingles, a covered wooden walk along its facade, a conical tower rising from its southernmost aspect. The tower held itself at a slant, its weathervane bowing in what looked a gesture of deference or bashful welcome; actually the tower, along with the rest of the hotel, was sinking into the ground. Bob thought the hotel was handsome but hungry-looking. It must have been very grand once.

“Mansfield,” the driver called out.

From the vantage point of the bus Bob could take in the town in its entirety, two roads sitting in the shape of a T, the highway, and a road running east and into a darkening forest. The sun had not set but the storefronts along the highway were closed for the day, or forever. Up the road, Bob saw a movie theater and a diner, both apparently open for business, but not a soul about to take part in either experience. June stared at this somber portrait, saying nothing. A light came on above the bus driver’s head and he made a notation on a clipboard hanging off his dash.

“Mansfield,” he said again.

He opened the swinging doors and a stiff wind poured in, traveling the length of the bus, disturbing each passenger in his or her turn and annoying the dogs, who growled at the unseen force. Ida’s and June’s hat feathers were bobbing as they stood to gather their things.

The driver exited and stepped to the rear of the bus, opening the hold to attend to the baggage. There came a thump from outside and Ida, craning her neck to look out the window, said, “He’ll break the guillotine, the fool!” Taken by a panic, Ida and June hurried down the aisle, with the dogs at their heels, and Bob following after the dogs. There had been no discussion about his presence among them but he thought to keep on until he was told in clear language to stay away. He slunk from the bus and stood at a distance, watching the driver unload the baggage while the women pointed out this and that bag’s fragility while also explaining the man’s many mistakes to him. The baggage was stacked in a tall pile and Bob took refuge behind it.

The driver lingered, dabbing at his face with a hanky and looking up at the women expectantly. Perhaps he thought them wealthy eccentrics, and that they might bestow some outsize gratuity upon him. But time passed in silence and the women did not offer the driver any cash bonus or even a kind word, and so he tucked the hanky away and returned to the bus, flopping into his seat in a gesture of petulant defeat. In a moment he sat up straighter, as if inspired; turning the key in the ignition, he started revving the engine and dropping it in and out of first gear while standing on the brake, actions that prompted a backfire, a voluminous black cloud of burned soot that surrounded both women, who coughed and sputtered and waved their hands to chase the smoke away. The bus driver tooted his horn and eased the bus back onto the highway; June, cleaning the grime from her face with her handkerchief, said, “Credit where it’s due, Ida. The man knows his instrument.” Ida stood motionless, seething in place, and she couldn’t speak, or didn’t. Meanwhile, a joyful-looking man with one arm stepped out of the Hotel Elba and crossed the highway to stand before June and Ida. “Good evening, good women!” he said.

“Mr. More,” said June, inspecting her handkerchief. “What is your news?”

“Just that I was minding my business at the front desk when I happened to look up in time to see the pair of you engulfed in a plume of exhaust. Can you imagine my surprise?”

“I can imagine it,” said June. “I should think it was probably quite a lot like our own surprise, only not nearly so unpleasant.”

“Indeed,” said Mr. More. He pointed his chin at the place where the bus had been. “It looked as though he meant for it to happen, was that your impression as well?”

“That’s right.”

“And what transpired, to bring the driver to such a vengeful place? I do hope that your talent for friendshipmaking has not left you?”

“Not totally, no. It has become, I will admit, less reliable. Or perhaps it is that there are fewer we wish to be friends with in the first place. Your own talent for observational clevernesses is still evident.”

“Yes, I’ve hung on to it. I keep thinking it might become suddenly useful someday. It is a weapon against the rest, is it not?” He brandished an invisible sword and made his face warlike, slashing on the air. Now the sword vanished, and his face resumed its kinder attitude, and he asked, “What would you say to a nice bowl of soup?”

“Perhaps not on the highway,” June said.

Mr. More turned to face Ida. “Hello, Ida.” When Ida did not reply, Mr. More observed, “Ida isn’t speaking at all, is she?”

June said, “She has had a long day.”

“We all have had one.”

“Ours was uncommonly long, Mr. More.”

Mr. More said, “Take comfort, strong Ida, the day is near to passed.” But Ida was voiceless still. “Do you think she’ll resume speaking in time for rehearsals?” Mr. More asked.

“She will speak sooner than that or I miss my guess.” June began cleaning Ida’s face with her handkerchief.

“I can’t recall what Ida’s feelings about soup are?”

“Our feelings about soup are that we enjoy it, Mr. More, but not to the degree that we wish to discuss it quite so much. And, that you have brought up the soup twice before we have even entered the hotel does not fill me with optimism at the prospects for our success here.”

“Why ever not?”

“Because I know you, Mr. More. If you are so aggressively pushing an appetizer, then there is likely not so very much behind the appetizer.” She pointed at the hotel. “Why is there no playbill in the front window announcing the coming performances?”

Mr. More began shuffling his feet, and a look of alarm came over his face. “Well, now, I have something to say about that actually, June.”

“Will you admit to us that you have not had the playbills printed?”

“I repeat: I have something to say. Why not let me say it?”

Ida made a clearing-the-throat noise and spit onto the highway. This was a gesture made to command the attention of the group, and the gesture was a success. Said Ida: “You obviously have not had the playbills printed, Mr. More. As such, there must be very little public interest in the performances scheduled to commence four nights hence. In this way you have broken our contract, of which I have a copy on my person. Shall I show it to you? Shall I bring your attention to the clause regarding a kill fee? Perhaps you’re telling us our run will be canceled. Well, what a disappointment that would be to us. We four living beings, we four creatures, who have been toiling in our rented rooms for several months now, months that we’ve been tinkering, preparing, inventing, destroying, and building up again, in spite of illness and irregular heating and an unspeakable communal toilet situation, and with no per diem offered by you, our own private savings hurrying away, Mr. More. The show must go on, they say, and a fine saying it is — a fine theoretical sentiment. And we are troupers is that not so, June?”

“We are troupers.”

“Let us recall our grisly beginnings, when we trod the boards by the seat of our patchwork bloomers, when we ran and jumped and sang for small denomination coins pitched through the air and which did at times bounce off our faces, because that was where the audiences wished for their pennies to connect, Mr. More, pennies which we did then chase after, midsong, lest they roll off the stage and back into the hands of the animals, the imbecile men in the pit before us, braying at us, their mouths foul holes funneling rot-scent into the air which we were made to breathe, these same men offering up abusive encouragements at our persons. Am I inventing, June?”

“Not a word of it.”

“Do I invent?”

“You speak only truths.”

“We were young girls, Mr. More. We were not yet women, even, and this debasement was our way into the world of the arts, and it was years of it, years before we demanded the opportunity for betterment, demanded it of the world and of our audiences and of ourselves, and we broke off and settled into our true work, our lasting work, the self-authored work that has brought us our modest but deserved renown and that continues on in spite of man’s war and man’s anguish and man’s societal and cultural coarsening, the cinematic influence, dear God I beg you not to get me started. And here, now, we have done our work and we arrive after a long journey with a new show, cut from new cloth, with new costumes and sets designed and fabricated by ourselves, and I speak for all four of us and with the muses in choral agreement when I say that this is a worthy work. And now what, Mr. More? What do you offer us for our labors? Do you offer us soup? Is that what I’m hearing?”

Throughout Ida’s soliloquy, Mr. More had stood in a wincing half-crouch; but now, and with Ida silent, he elongated and breathed, attractive in his way, with his empty sleeve folded crisply, pegged in place with a gleaming silver bib pin. “Hello, Ida,” he said. “I do offer you soup, yes, and the offer for soup stands. I made the soup myself in anticipation of your arrival, thinking it might hearten you. It goes without saying, though I am saying it, that making soup with one arm is not easy. I tell you this not to complain but to unveil the full picture. Beyond the soup, about which I agree too much has been said, I can also offer you room and board for the duration of your stay. If you wish not to perform, you may consider it a complimentary seaside vacation. If you do wish to perform, and my sincere hope is that you do wish it, and that you will, you can have any and all monies the performances generate, and I myself shall not take one solitary penny. I can’t guarantee these monies will be robust, and in truth there may be none. This town has been dying for some years now, and recently succumbed to death. Yes, the town is dead. As I say these words I believe I see a question forming in your eyes, and it is: If the town has died, then why has he invited us to come here at all?” The women both were nodding, and Ida was nodding emphatically. “I will explain,” Mr. More continued. “My invitation to you came on the heels of a town council meeting wherein it was announced the timber companies were returning. The companies themselves were in attendance and made a good showing; they had maps which they pointed to with retracting pointer-outers and they were passing out embossed business cards and pencils with little tassels sprouting off the ends, so that I believed their fictions. Here is an error of judgment I admit to; I was told a whopper which I took for truth. Well, I wanted it to be true; there’s a powerful pull in that. I still think it was true at the time, actually — I believe the companies themselves believed they were coming back to us. But something has happened, or has not happened, and while the timber companies continue to ply their trade both upcoast and down, Mansfield is missed and missed again. Their secretaries have ceased engaging with me telephonically and through the mails, and I don’t understand the why of it and I likely never shall.”

A girl of sixteen exited the hotel pushing a rusted old hand truck. Her face was pale, her hair greasy, and she looked unhappy, perhaps angry, as she awkwardly navigated the hand truck down the blue-painted stairs. There was much clattering and crashing and wheel screeching, which alerted Mr. More of her approach; he brightened when he saw her, pointed as she wheeled past him. “My grand-niece, Alice. She was not with us when last we met. Alice also is excited about the show. Alice, aren’t you excited about the show?”

“Oh, I’m excited,” said Alice, in a bland tone that embodied the opposite of excitement. She arrived at the edge of the hill of baggage and began loading up the cart. Soon she would discover Bob’s obscured person, and the waiting for this created an agony in him. Electing to hurry the discovery along, he stood, and Alice shrieked, and the rest all turned to see him. Mr. More said, “Would you look at that, a hidden-away boy, whatever in the world.”

“It’s Bob!” said June.

“You know him?”

“Yes, he’s Bob. Hello, Bob. I was thinking of you during Ida’s — rant.”

Bob waved hello to June.

“I was thinking,” said June to Mr. More, “‘Oh no, where’s Bob?’”

“And now you’ve found him, and isn’t that nice?” Mr. More replied. “But, what is he doing all bent down like that?”

“He’s a desperate figure on the run, Mr. More, and so we can only guess at his motives.”

“He looks like a normal boy to me,” said Mr. More. “Hello, hello.”

“Hello,” Bob said.

“Do you like soup, Bob?”

“What kind of soup?” Bob asked, and Mr. More and June and even Ida, though not Alice, all laughed at his innocent query, and Bob didn’t understand why but was happy to have connected them with a pleasing amusement.

MR. MORE WANTED TO SHOW EVERYONE THE FRESHLY LAID, SPECIALLY ordered white pea gravel surrounding the hotel, and so the group moved in a lazy cloud formation to circle the property. Mr. More spoke as they walked. “I had the perimeter graveled around the time I sent you my optimistic missive encouraging your return. Now I lament the cost, but I do like the crunching sound it makes underfoot. Does it not create the impression of approaching drama? Is it not somewhat like a moat?” Picking up his thread from before, he turned to June and said, “Regarding the playbills. Let me get it over with and say it: yes, there are none. But I was the passive victim in that caper, and here is what happened: the printer hanged himself the day after I put in my order. What do you think of that? Thomas Conroy was his name; and I’d known him since 1905. We were in the one-room grade school together, in Astoria. Once we were caned for making cow sounds in Mass, and here he goes and does something like this. He tacked a note to the front door of his shop, which I read with my own eyes. It was a very sober and, I felt, fair summation of the why of it all.”

“He named his reasons for hanging himself?” said Ida.

“He did.”

“And what were they?”

“Tiredness.”

“Just that?”

“Pronounced tiredness, let’s say.”

“He should have taken a little vacation,” June said.

“Yes, and I do wish he would have, if only that he’d have completed my order. He was a talented printer, and there are none in the area to replace him.” Mr. More paused. “Do you know, now that I think of it, he was not a joyful child, either.”

“A woe-is-me type?” Ida said.

“I don’t know that he cultivated it, exactly. But the bitter crop came in all the same, and this year’s was apparently overwhelming in its fullness.”

“Was he distraught when you placed the order?”

“He was his usual not-so-glad self. But distraught? No, not particularly. He asked for five dollars down payment, which he’d not done before, and which I did give him, in cash, and who can say why he required this, but now I can’t help but wonder: Did he know what he would do some eighteen hours later? And if so, why did he take my order at all, to say nothing of my money, which I can only barely spare and shall never get back? In his letter’s postscript he stated a wish that the note would be printed verbatim in our local paper, and I myself brought this to the attention of the paper’s editor, but he wouldn’t allow it, suffering as he does from a grievous Catholicism.”

Having lapped the hotel’s exterior, and with the nighttime coming down and chill onshore winds growing stronger all the while, June proposed the time had come that they should remove themselves from the elements. Mr. More agreed; climbing spryly up the blue steps, he turned to face the group, taking advantage of his temporary elevation to give a little speech before granting them admission: “Friends,” he said, “I see you’re disappointed by the state of things, and I understand the disappointment, accustomed as I am with that mode of being; but in the meantime I am revitalized by your presence, and will do all I can to ensure your successes. I’ve wrapped the stage in three-quarter-inch red oak and rewired the footlights with a dimmer feature and the curtain has been cleaned and mended and dyed. Beyond this, I am simply beside myself with happiness at the thought of learning more about this new work. I put myself at your disposal, then, utterly and thoroughly; and while my abilities are finite, please know that my devotion to your practice is boundless.” June was pleased by this, but she was not quite ready to bury the whole hatchet, and so she repressed her pleasure as much as she was able. The truth was that she liked Mr. More to a degree that was uncommon in her life and experience. “Thank you, that’s fine,” she told him. “We can speak of the show after this much-heralded soup. Will you be asking for a role in the production right away, or later on?”

“Oh, right away,” said Mr. More assuredly, propping open the front door of the hotel with his foot and waving in his guests one by one. When Bob passed, Mr. More explained, “I always make an attempt to take part in their performances, and they always turn me down. It’s one of our small traditions. But in my two-armed youth, I was not unfamiliar with the life of the stage.”

He followed behind Bob, and now the group was standing together in a conservatory which preceded the lobby proper, and which was filled with the largest and wildest jungle plants imaginable. The temperature and humidity were adjusted to meet the needs and preferences of the plants, and so they were thriving in the environment, more than thriving. Actually, they had engulfed the enclosed space; certain of the plants were monsters over seven feet tall, with creeping vines crawling clear across the ceiling. Bob was impressed by the atmosphere; Ida and June, less so. They stood close by one another, quietly taking in the visual while Mr. More studied their physical behaviors in hopes of decoding their opinions.

“What has happened to the conservatory?” Ida finally asked.

“It’s all down to Mr. Whitsell.”

“And who is Mr. Whitsell?”

“He is Mr. Whitsell. Our lone long-term resident. He was an insurance man in North Dakota all his working life, from the age of eighteen and through to retirement at sixty-five, at which point he came west by bus, making his tour of the Pacific Ocean. But bus travel did not agree with him, and one morning he showed up with a look in his eye that read to me as an SOS. I took pity on the road-worn soul and gave him one of our finer suites at a fair rate. That was some years ago, and here he remains. My understanding is that he did not dislike the insurance game, and I do believe he had the knack, but there was always at the rear of his mind the belief that he had a second calling that he’d not addressed, namely hothouse botany. He spoke of it in the spring of last year and I, having an affection for the man, endeavored to enable him by furnishing him a space with which to achieve his ambition. The conservatory has always represented a lag or lack, for me. It’s its own separate locale, but what is it for?”

June said, “I quite disagree, Mr. More. I found the space perfectly charming.” She told Bob, “It used to be that this room was lined with deck chairs. And at dusk, Ida and the boys and I would lay our weary bodies out and witness the death of the day.”

“We sometimes did encourage the death of it,” Ida admitted.

“The sunsets were very striking, and were a balm against the collection of insults one gathers across the length of an afternoon,” June said. “Now you can hardly make out even a sliver of a horizon.” Mr. More was unhappy at the critical nature of the discussion and had begun opening and closing his mouth in the style of a fish freed from water. June set a hand upon his shoulder. “Soothe yourself. I’m not unimpressed by the room’s transformation; but it is a radical departure, and it is ungodly hot in here, don’t you think?”

Mr. More wouldn’t say whether or not he agreed with this; he would only allow that the time had come to exit the conservatory, and he led the group through to the hotel lobby by way of a rattling steam-wet six-pane French door. Bob did not follow along but lingered, as something in the far corner of the conservatory had caught his eye and he felt compelled to remain.

It appeared that a man was hiding himself away amid the greenery — hiding but looking back at Bob. Yes, a man surely was there and surely was hiding, and Bob said, “Hello?” and the man stepped out and presented himself: a small figure, a senior gentleman with white, neatly combed hair, and in an outfit of pressed pants, starched shirt rolled up at the sleeve, a knitted tie of a bright green coloring, and an immaculate white bib. He held in one hand a dainty tin watering can and in the other a gleaming silver spade, and altogether he was the cleanest gardener one could ever hope to see. Bob deduced that this was Mr. Whitsell, and, thinking the man may’ve been offended by Ida’s and June’s careless descriptions of the room, said, “I like the plants.” The man held the flat of the spade against his heart and bowed before returning to hide himself away amid the prehistoric leaves. Not knowing what else he might say or do in response to this person’s behavior, Bob left the conservatory and shut the door behind him.

The lobby was outfitted in dark-stained wood and was dimly lit by shaded lamps. There was no sign of Mr. More or Ida or June or the dogs but behind the front desk was a half-size door, which was ajar, and beyond which Bob believed he could hear voices. He ducked underneath the counter and stepped closer; when he heard June’s voice he felt emboldened, and he passed through the little door, following a worn carpeted runner down a thin hallway and toward the growing noise of the ongoing discussion. He stepped into Mr. More’s dining room to find the man and June and Ida seated at a table with bowls of steaming soup set out before them. Ida was eating determinedly while June was listening or pretending to listen to a story Mr. More was sharing or performing for her. When she saw Bob she brightened and pointed at the empty seat beside hers, then at the bowl of soup that had been set out for him. Bob could smell that it was a beef stew, and he was very hungry, and he moved to sit and eat and listen to these talking, talking people.

THE SOUP WAS CONSUMED AND THERE CAME THE TIME OF CONTEMPLATIVE quiet that often occurs at the end of a satisfying meal, and which Mr. More eventually interrupted by asking June, of Bob, “Well, now, what of the fugitive?”

“What of him?” said June.

“What shall we do with him? I suppose you think we should harbor him.”

“My suggestion would be that we do harbor him, yes.”

“You’re vouching for him.”

“I vouch.”

“And what of the sheriff? I should think he’d take an interest.”

“The sheriff can go be ten-gallons sick in his ten-gallon hat.”

“Easy to say without the sheriff here.”

“I’ll say it at high noon on the steps of town hall.”

“Easy to say when there is no town hall.”

“Well,” said June. “You asked what I thought and now you know. I believe Bob is a fine young fellow and I vote we take him on.”

Mr. More thought awhile, then said, “I am on the verge of agreeing to harbor him, but I’ve one condition, which is this: if the boy is caught, and my harboring comes back to haunt me in the form of the sheriff darkening my door, I must be able to say to him I was under the impression he was seventeen years old, and had no knowledge of his being to the side of the law.”

June said, “You may say whatever you wish, Mr. More.”

“Yes, but you and Ida must both back me up as witnesses to my being misled.”

“Fair and fair enough,” said June. “Does that suit you, Bob?”

“Yes,” said Bob.

“Tell Mr. More you’re seventeen, please.”

Bob told Mr. More, “I’m seventeen.”

“See there?” June said to Mr. More. “Now you won’t even have to lie.”

Mr. More said, “And Ida? You are on board with all this?”

Ida did not say yes, but neither did she say no, which for her was much the same as a yes. Mr. More asked June, “Who will pay the cost of the fugitive’s room?”

June asked Bob, “Do you have any money, Bob?”

“Yes.”

“It’s four dollars a night,” Mr. More said warningly.

Bob pulled his roll from deep in his sock and counted out four limp ones. He made to pass them to Mr. More, who asked Bob to leave the money on the table. “Give the bills some time to catch their breath,” Mr. More explained to June. He stood and left the room and returned with two keys. “Bob, you will be on the second floor, across the hall from Mr. Whitsell, who I suspect will be ecstatic for the company and who will likely introduce himself just as soon as he might. My good and durable women, you will be in the tower, in keeping with bygone preference.”

“Yes, thank you Mr. More.” June took the key in her hand, turning it over and scrutinizing it with a wondering look. “May I ask a question about the tower? Or, may I make an observation about it?”

“Yes, what?”

“It’s true that in the past we spent our pleasurable times there. But, and in the years we’ve been away, well — the tower looks as though it might collapse at any moment, Mr. More. And while I know that death comes for all, and that it is the fact of this great equalizer that gives our days such a tragic poetry, I don’t know that I’m ready to pass over just yet, to say nothing of my not wanting to perish in a state of terror.”

Mr. More sat listening with a sympathetic look on his face, but he said nothing to bring comfort to June.

“Will the tower hold us, Mr. More,” she said.

“I believe so, yes.”

“Do you believe it strongly?”

“I would be quite surprised if the tower should collapse this week.”

“Oh, would you be.”

“I would.”

“To be clear, though, you admit that it will at some point collapse.”

“Oh yes, it surely must, as must the entire building. But even still, and with this in mind, I do feel that the tower is best suited to your needs as it is the largest and most elegantly appointed room we have. You are welcome to any space in the hotel not already occupied, but I suspect you could investigate every corner of the property and that you would come to the same conclusion.”

“You think we should push on and cross our fingers, then.”

“I don’t believe you need cross them, June, but if it brings you solace then please do do it, and just as tightly as you wish.”

The group broke up and made their way to their respective quarters. Bob climbed the steps to the second floor; as he passed down the length of the hallway the tilt in the building became pronounced, so that he felt his speed increasing with each step. His room was the last on the right, unremarkable, unwarm, dark, a little dingy, even; but Bob was very much impressed by it, for it was a room and it was his, at least temporarily. He stood awhile in honor of his having a location of his own before making an investigation of the area, opening and closing each drawer and dresser, searching for something but finding nothing, not even a Bible. Next and he lay his remaining dollar bills in a marching line across the bedspread, counting out seventeen singles, which meant he had three to four days before any true crisis came into focus. Altogether he was feeling very much a distinguished young man of the world when the girl named Alice knocked once and walked into the room. She halted, backlit by the light from the hallway. Squinting, she said, “What are you doing in the dark, Mr. Sneaky? You’re not going to jump out and terrify me again, I hope.” She clicked on the light and crossed over to stand with Bob. Glancing at the money, she folded up her arms and said, “Christ, it’s freezing in here. Why don’t you turn the heat on?” She knelt to turn on the radiator, then moved to sit on the bed, dollar bills sticking up at kinked angles from under her backside. She commenced rolling a cigarette and said, “So, let me get this straight. You’re standing around in the dark and cold, counting out your five dollars?”

“It’s seventeen dollars,” said Bob.

“Ho ho,” Alice said. She lit her bumpy cigarette and waved the smoke away. Bob saw that she’d put on lipstick, and that her greasy hair was pulled back by a bejeweled barrette. As if in response to Bob’s noticing this, she said, “I don’t have a lot of time to talk to you because me and Tommy are going to the movies.”

“Who’s Tommy?” Bob asked.

“Tommy’s the guy who says we can go steady if I sit up in the balcony with him. I think it’s probably a trick, but I also think I might do it anyway. Sound like a plan?”

“Okay,” Bob said.

Alice took a drag from her cigarette, head tilted to catch the stark light of the naked bulb on the ceiling. She looked Bob up and down and said, “My uncle told me I should be nice to you?”

Bob said, “Okay.”

Alice shook her head. “I’m asking, why’d he say that? Is there something wrong with you?”

“I don’t know,” Bob said.

“You don’t know if there’s something wrong with you?”

“There’s nothing.”

“Well, I’ll tell you what, Mr. Sneaky. I’ll be nice to you if you want me to be nice to you. But you have to say it so I know, okay?”

“Okay,” said Bob.

“Say it.”

“Be nice to me.”

Alice stood and kissed Bob softly on the cheek, then left the room. Bob stood touching the place where she’d kissed him, then checked his reflection in the mirror, gratified and impressed to find a faint smudge of lipstick on his face.

Bob stacked up his money and hid it away in his shoe. He still wore his pajamas under his street clothes; he took his street clothes off, turned out the light, and climbed into bed. There was a portable radio on the bedside table and he listened to the war news for some minutes; when this grew tiresome he shut the radio off and tried to sleep, but the moon was near to full, its light bright as a streetlamp in the window, and Bob got out of bed to lower the shade. Looking out, he could see Alice standing in front of the movie theater across the road from the hotel. She was alone, and looked small under the glow of the marquee. She peered down the road, once, and again. She turned and bought herself a ticket to the movie and went in by herself.

IN THE MORNING BOB WAS AWAKENED BY A KNOCK ON HIS DOOR, AND there again was Alice. She was not the playful youngster of the night previous but the sullen hotel laborer who had found him hiding behind the mountain of baggage. “You want breakfast? It’s fifty cents if you do.” She held out her hand beneath her chin, as if to catch her own spit. “It’s porridge and coffee. We’re out of cream.”

Bob disliked porridge, and had no use for coffee. “Can I have eggs?”

“No, because there are none. If you want eggs, you should go to the diner. That’s where your interesting friends went.”

“When?”

“Just now.”

Bob said he would go to the diner and Alice went away. He quickly dressed and left his room. Mr. Whitsell was sitting in the chair at the end of the hall, hands on his knees, his shoes set to the side of his stockinged feet. He was distracted by the light coming in the window but came alive when he saw Bob. “Good morning! You’re going forth? To what end?” Bob said he was going to the diner and Mr. Whitsell asked, “Are you not a fan of porridge? Well, between us second-floorers, I don’t like it much myself. The food here is fair but for the lack of variety. Actually, I’ve never once visited the diner, in all my time at the hotel. Do you know why? I’ll tell you why: because I’m afraid. Afraid of people! Can you top it?” He rolled his eyes at himself, then pulled a ten-cent coin from his vest pocket and said, “Will you be a chum and get me today’s newspaper and a five-cent cigar? They’ll both be available at the diner.” Bob agreed that he would do this and received the coin, turning and dashing down the hall and to the stairs, past the front desk, through the conservatory and into the brightness of the morning, still and cloudless. He was startled by the sight of the ocean, which in daylight took up the bulk of the vista and which seemed friendly and lazy and endless. He stared awhile, then came away from the sea and walked along the road and to the diner. June and Ida were sitting in a window booth, each with a dog on her lap, and June waved Bob over that he should join them. “I was wondering whether we should rouse you or not,” she said. “Ida thought not. Did you sleep well? Is your room satisfactory? Mr. More is not the most efficient hotelier in the land, but he has a high-quality spirit, and that’s worth something, after all.”

Ida said, “Tell him about your dream, June.”

“Should I?” asked June. “No, I shouldn’t.”

Ida told Bob, “She dreamed you were set upon by tramps.”

June scowled at Ida. “You know, Bob,” she said, “I support your project in every way. But I’m uneasy at the thought of one so young as yourself being alone in the world. Because the world sometimes is a complicated place.”

Ida said, “You always hear about tramps buggering children.”

“Ida, Ida,” said June.

“What? You do hear about it. Forewarned is forearmed.”

June patted Bob’s arm. “You’ll not be buggered, Bob.”

“But if you are,” said Ida, “don’t say we didn’t warn you.”

“Anyway, it was an unsettling dream, and I couldn’t sleep for quite a long while after, and now Ida is cross with me because I kept her up speaking of you.”

“On and on and on,” said Ida.

“We were wondering if there mightn’t be some place for you among us. You know. A job, Bob.”

“It would be temporary,” Ida added.

“But it is a quite important position, in its way,” said June.

“But there is no pay,” said Ida.

“But there must be some pay.”

“I had thought his pay would be room and board.”

“How will the boy buy his cat’s-eyes and aggies and what have you? Here is what I propose: we vouchsafe his shelter and nourishment and offer the young go-getter a full dollar at the start of every day.”

“That’s just fine, June, but who will pay us to pay him?”

“One hundred pennies, Ida. I do believe we can manage. Well, Bob, what do you make of it?”

“Yes,” said Bob.

“Yes you will work with us?”

“Yes.”

“And Ida?”

“What?”

“Are you comfortable with the arrangements and do you agree with my heart’s instinct that Bob is not some passing idler but one among us?”

Ida gave Bob a long and unwavering look. “Actually, I do agree,” she said. “You are hired if you wish it, young man, and may God have mercy on your soul.”

At this, June and Bob shook hands, and Ida began rapping an empty coffee cup on the table to commemorate or celebrate Bob’s inclusion. The waitress, a young woman with a sanguine face, came by and said, “Yes?”

“Yes what, dear?” said June.

“Weren’t you banging for me?”

“Not for you, no. Just banging.”

“Oh,” said the waitress.

“Emphasizing a point in time,” Ida said.

“I guess that’s all right, then,” said the waitress, and she went away.

Ida said to Bob, “This scenario brings another question to mind, and it is: Can you play a snare drum?”

“No.”

“Have you had any experience with any musical instrument?”

Bob shook his head.

June said, “Perhaps the question should not be, can you do this or that, but rather, would you be amenable to taking instruction that you might become competent in this or that.”

Ida asked, “Would you be amenable to taking instruction that you might become competent at putting lipstick on a dog, when the dog doesn’t want to wear lipstick?”

“Yes,” Bob said.

Ida began rapping her cup on the table again. This time it was intended to bring the waitress tableside, but the waitress, having so recently been taught the rapping was not for her, was slow to come. With the rapping ongoing, though, eventually she arrived, and Ida explained that, yes, the noise now was meant as a summons.

“This banging on the table is a new one for me,” the waitress said.

June said, “Communicative percussion predates the written word by thousands of years.”

“Well, there you go.” The waitress held her pencil to her pad and became poised to take the order. June was squinting at a menu; she asked, “What is frizzled beef?”

“It’s hard to describe,” said the waitress.

“Mightn’t you try?” wondered June.

The waitress said, “Okay, well, it’s beef, you know. The meat of a cow.”

June joined her hands together to form a temple.

“And it’s boiled,” the waitress continued, “then it’s shredded, then it’s fried in oil, then it’s salted, and then they put something that’s like ketchup on it, then set it under a lamp to warm it up and sort of soften it. And there you are.”

“It’s frizzled.”

“Right,” said the waitress. “Is that what you’d like to have?”

“It’s not, no.” Addressing the table, June said, “The word frizzled, to my mind, evokes the visual of a dish of meat with hair still attached.”

The waitress said, “There’s no hair on our meats.”

“There’s a confidence-inspiring phrase,” said Ida. “You should put it on a matchbook.”

June still was squinting at the menu. “I shall have — the Lumberjacker.”

“The Lumberjacker or the Little Lumberjacker?” asked the waitress.

“The Lumberjacker.”

Bob likewise ordered the Lumberjacker. Ida quietly asked for cottage cheese and a cup of coffee; June raised her hand and said, “No, Ida. That is not your order. You will order more. Yes, you must.” She turned to Bob: “She cheats herself at breakfast and thinks she’s getting one over on someone, God in heaven, for all I know. But then at about eleven o’clock she becomes monstrous because she’s so miserable at the emptiness of her stomach.” She collected the menus into a stack and handed them up to the waitress. “My friend will also have a Lumberjacker, thank you.”

“The Little Lumberjacker,” said Ida, and the waitress went away. In a short while they were served, and they all ate well, and happily. June asked Bob if he didn’t want a nap after all the syrup, and Bob said he didn’t.

“You wish to begin your labors now, then?”

“Yes.”

“All right, here’s my thought. Ida and myself will retire to the hotel to plot out our day of rehearsals. Certain of the scenes do not feature the boys as players, and we have learned that the boys can disrupt when they are idle, especially when we’re setting up a stage. And so, while we are setting up, you will show the boys the town, all right? Yes?”

The bill came and June lay down money for the group, then passed Bob a dollar. When the waitress returned to make change, Bob set his dime on the tabletop and asked for a newspaper and a cigar, and the waitress looked to June, who looked to Ida, who, looking at Bob, said, “Cat’s-eyes and aggies, indeed.”

Later, out front of the diner, June and Ida and Bob stood by with the dogs, now leashed. June told Bob that their names were Buddy and Pal and said, “I hope you understand Ida’s and my need of these animals. They are not pets. They are the entirety of our lives, beyond our relationships to one another and ourselves and our work.”

“Well, it’s all one thing,” Ida explained. “But the thing cannot be without their input.”

“Yes,” June agreed. She asked Bob, “Will you be careful and good?” And Bob said that he would be, and June told Ida, “Bob understands.”

Bob took the leashes into his grip and the women walked toward the ocean, the hotel. Once they rounded the corner, the dogs looked up at Bob. They were not distressed; perhaps they were curious about what should come next. Bob giddy-upped the leashes and he and the dogs crossed the road to stand before the dead printer’s storefront. The suicide note still was taped up, an eerie document that Bob did read fully through. It struck him as levelheaded when he considered its proximity to the author’s act of self-murder by hanging. Friends of my community, it began. There followed a sort of curriculum vitae: where he was born, schooled, which church he attended, and how he came to work in his field. He wrote, I found many answers and comforts in my profession, but not every answer and not every comfort. In particular I could never find the answer to the question of why; and if a man cannot answer this question, there shall be no lasting comfort available to him.

Next to the printer’s was the movie theater, dark now, the ticket booth standing empty beside the entrance. After this came the post office. It was a very small post office with a single employee sitting behind the counter wearing the somber look of a man wondering where the magic had gone. A customer was leaving just as Bob passed so that they collided with one another, and the man set his hand on Bob’s shoulder and told him, “Watch yourself, son.” This person’s stature was such that he blocked out the sun; Bob, peering upward, saw he wore a gun belt and badge and realized that this was the sheriff. Bob lowered his face to obscure his guilt-ridden runaway’s eyes, pulling the dogs along and ducking into the corner market, which sat beside the post office. Bob was afraid the sheriff would somehow intuit his status as lawbreaker, follow him into the market, and apprehend him; but the black-and-white patrol car rolled slowly past and pulled onto the highway, heading south. Bob relaxed, then, and began a perusal of the contents of the market. It was the sort of place that endeavored to answer every possible need for the local citizens: fresh venison, jumper cables, fabric by the yard, and bait worms all were available for purchase. The aisles were cramped, the merchandise stacked in listing bales.

Behind the counter sat a brooding young man of twenty years. His hair was slicked back and he wore a white T-shirt with the sleeves rolled near to the shoulder that he might display the sculpted musculature of his arms. He was reading a magazine laid flat on the counter, his eyes scanning left to right. One of the dogs growled at him and the young man looked up. “Get those mutts out of here.” He pointed to the door and resumed his magazine reading.

Bob left and sat down on the bench out front of the market, to bask in the sun’s warmth and to listen to the ocean and feel the wind coming in off the surface of the water. The dogs became infected by Bob’s restful demeanor and curled up on the pavement. Bob was looking up at the southern face of the hotel across the road and noticed Alice pacing slowly in his room. She moved in and out of view, talking to herself and trailing smoke from her cigarette and making little gestures of explaining with her hands. She didn’t look unhappy; but what was she doing? Bob stood and crossed the road with the dogs. He picked up a piece of the white pea gravel and tossed it against the window. Alice opened the window and leaned out on her elbows. She took a drag off her cigarette and said, “Well?”

“What are you doing in my room?”

“My job.”

“But you’re just walking around in there.”

She flicked her cigarette away; it soared over Bob’s head and landed in the road behind him. “Look, Mr. Sneaky,” she said. “You can’t just jump into scrubbing a floor. You’ve got to sort of ease into it, okay?”

The window beside Bob’s opened up and there was Mr. Whitsell. He was squinting hard in the sunlight and waving or wagging his pale hand. “Have you forgotten me, young man?” he asked. “Have you forgotten my needs?” Bob said he hadn’t, and patted his coat pocket to show he had the newspaper and cigar on his person. Mr. Whitsell asked, “Do you have a thought for when you’ll deliver these things? The news will not be fresh by the time it arrives, is my fear.” He leaned out the window to look at Alice, who was leaning out the window to look at him. “I like a womb-warm, just-born newspaper,” he said, then turned back to Bob. “Shall we rendezvous in the conservatory?”

“Okay,” Bob said.

“Now?”

“Yes.”

When Bob didn’t move, Mr. Whitsell paused. “Now now?”

“Yes.”

Mr. Whitsell ducked his head back into his room and shut the window and drew the curtains. Bob returned his attentions to Alice, who was standing straighter than she’d been, and she wore a stricken expression, her gaze aimed above and behind the place where Bob stood. Bob turned and saw the young man in the T-shirt leaning coolly against the brick exterior of the market, smoking and looking up at her. They both were breathing through their mouths and staring at each other with what appeared to be hostility, but which Bob later understood was likely more on the order of simple lust. Whatever was happening between these two, Bob knew there was no place for him in the equation, and he led the dogs away, following the gravel moat around and to the front of the hotel and climbing the five blue steps. Mr. Whitsell was waiting for him in the conservatory, eyes shining, panting from his second-floor descent. He took the paper and cigar up in his arms and stepped to the rear of the room, vanishing wholly into the overgrown foliage. Bob soon heard a rhythmic creaking over the floorboards and thought it must have been that Mr. Whitsell had a rocking chair hidden away back there.

THE REHEARSALS TOOK PLACE IN THE AUDITORIUM, SO-CALLED, which was actually just the dining hall with the tables removed and the chairs set up in rows before a stage built up against the farthermost wall. Bob quietly ushered the dogs into the room and took a seat in the back row, that he might spy on June and Ida and learn something about their coming performances.

The stage was lit by footlights, a warm, yellow-gold glow against the painted backdrop, a realistic rendering of a public square in the eighteenth century. A full-size guillotine was set up center stage, and Ida fixed in its stockade, her face and hair made up to resemble a filthy and dejected man, a prisoner on the verge of execution. June was the executioner in pointed black leather hood, leather vest, and elbow-length leather gloves. Bob paid close attention to their words and behaviors; eventually he realized they were not rehearsing anything, but had interrupted their rehearsal to have a disagreement. Ida, the angrier, said, “How can I be meant to represent a criminal’s emotional reality if I don’t even know what crime I have committed?”

“I say again that you’re thinking too much about it,” June said, reaching under her leather hood to scratch her chin. “It doesn’t matter what the crime was. Actually, Ida, and in a way, that’s the point. I don’t think of your character as a hardened criminal, but rather, one due to have his head lopped off in reply to an infraction.”

“But what was the infraction?”

“It is irrelevant.”

“It isn’t.”

“It is in that an infraction must never result in the lopping off of one’s head, for it is merely an infraction. The function of the scene is the description of a man’s costly error in a savage era.”

“It is just as savage now.”

“Yes, but in a newer way.”

“It is no less savage, June.”

“Fine, yes, I didn’t say I disagreed with you. But that’s to the side of the point, just as the man’s crime is.”

Ida said, “You don’t know the crime in the first place, do you?”

“As a matter of fact I don’t. I have not authored the crime because it is superfluous.”

“May I author a crime?”

“You may not.”

“Perhaps I’ll author one in my mind and keep it hidden from you.”

“Ida, it is far too late in the day for you to succumb to your lunatic nature.”

Ida wagged her finger in a style that said she would not be deterred from her principal point: “By inhibiting this process you are intentionally demeaning the quality of our work.”

“All right!” said June, and she punched the air with her black gloves. “I’ll name the crime. But you must promise me now that you won’t succumb. You are already dipping a toe in, you know that you are, and I demand that you promise me you’ll not fully indulge.”

Ida said chastely, “I do promise it.”

“Because I can see the lunatic rising up in you and I must insist that you halt her from taking shape.”

“Yes, yes,” said Ida. “What is my crime?”

“Let me think.” June paced in her creaking leather garb. “You are many seasons in arrears with your land tax.”

Ida made the face of thinking. “No, not that.”

June said, “You slapped an officer of the court in a tavern.”

“Well,” Ida said. “Was I drunken?”

“Quite drunken, yes.”

“But,” said Ida, “I’m not a common drunk.”

“No, you had some bad news, someone has died, and so you went to the tavern to drink away your sorrow.”

“My own son had died.”

“Died by drowning,” said June.

“He drowned in the quay and he was my one and only boy.”

At this last word, Buddy commenced making a needful growling noise, and then Pal also did, and June and Ida ceased their discussion to look out into the darkness. June held her gloved hand over her eyes. “Is that Bob out there, and does he have the babies?”

“Yes,” Bob called.

“How did it go, Bob? Are our comrades alive, and unafraid, and did they behave, and did everyone enjoy everyone’s company?”

“Yes,” Bob called.

The dogs both were whining and pulling against their leashes, and June said, “You may set them loose, Bob.” Bob did as instructed, and the dogs were off. Pal had the lead; he beelined for the stage, taking its lip in one leap, then soaring up and through the air and into June’s arms, while Buddy bounded up the steps to the side of the stage, hurrying to Ida and licking her all about the face. Ida, powerless to stop this, flapped her manacled hands and cried out bloody murder that her makeup should be ruined.

THE GUILLOTINE WAS WHEELED INTO THE WINGS, AND JUNE AND THE dogs went away to the tower to rehearse in private while Bob and Ida sat in chairs facing one another on the stage, and Ida made to teach Bob how to play a snare drum. She got an almost frighteningly serious look in her eye when she performed the drum roll, what she called a press roll. The drum rested on her lap, the sticks held at odd angles in her hands as she drew them across the drum and toward herself, over and again, evenly, machinelike. Ida had mastered this percussive effect so that it did not sound like many individual raps upon the drum but rather a whole and complete sound: dense, sustained, fraught. She was staring hard at Bob as she made her demonstration, and she continued drumming as she spoke: “The drumsticks are loose are in my hands. I am not banging; I’m not tapping. I am exerting an even pressure as I drag the hopping sticks over the skin of the drum. Press, roll, press, roll.” The sticks were blurred smudges in the air. “What is this sound?” she asked, while still making it. “What does the sound say?”

Bob said, “Pay attention.”

“What else?”

“Something is coming.”

She abruptly ceased drumming. Ida looked pleased, or less displeased than her usual. “In any language, Bob, in any town on earth, that’s what a press roll says, yes. It’s an important signal and a critical aspect of the last scene of our coming performance. I’d like for you to take the drum to your room and practice what I’ve shown you. We have a phonograph recording of a press roll that we could use in a pinch but we always prefer the true human activity. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m telling you that if you can arrive at a place of proficiency with this particular flourish, then we should welcome you to join us.”

She passed the drum and sticks to Bob and he set them on his lap, wondering at their shape, materials, weight. June returned with the dogs, and she wore the face of defeat as she told Ida, “It was a fine idea and I hope you know I appreciate it but I just don’t believe it’s possible to teach a dog to goose-step, and I’m sorry.”

Bob was relieved of his duties for the afternoon, and he took the drum to his room and sat with it on his bed. Recalling what Ida had said about holding the sticks loosely, he understood that what he was after was a bouncing effect; it was gravity at work, the player collaborating with natural law. He soon could summon a consistent roll with his right hand, but not his left. An hour passed like nothing when there came a knock on the door and there was Mr. Whitsell, who began with a casual appraisal of the afternoon weather but soon admitted that Bob’s drumming was making him nervous. “And a little angry,” he said. “The sound is making me nervous and angry both, and I’m happy you’re bettering yourself, but please take pity on an old man with a frail and fussy disposition, won’t you?” Bob carried the drum and sticks down the stairs and across the highway to the seashore; and here he sat and practiced. It was good to practice beside the even roar of the ocean because he could hear his drumming but the noise didn’t travel and so could not disturb anyone. Periodically he would cease drumming and there was a tingling in his hands and up his arms, but when he returned to it then the tingling went away, or was hidden somewhere, subsumed by his activity, just as the sound of the drum was subsumed by the sea.

BOB AND IDA AND JUNE AND THE DOGS WENT TO THE DINER FOR DINNER but the diner was closed. There was a note taped to the front door: The diner’s shut b/c the cook’s run off. We don’t know where. Do you? Management. As there was nowhere else to go, the group returned to the hotel; when Mr. More saw them shuffling in, and when he learned of their not being fed, he became gladly agitated and proposed an impromptu dinner party in his and Alice’s quarters. Ida protested that she would prefer to eat in her room but Mr. More, not understanding, or pretending not to understand, said he wouldn’t hear of it, and he rang the bell to rouse Alice with instructions to prepare the wine and then to seek out Mr. Whitsell and encourage him to join the festivities. “Friendly but firm,” he called to her as she trudged up the stairs.

Now Mr. More moved the group like a drover into the dining room, encouraging Ida and June to drink from the breathing bottles of red wine before he retired to the kitchen, where he clanged pots and ran water and hummed and praised and admonished himself. Alice returned without Mr. Whitsell and began the work of setting the table. Bob looked up at her as she lay out his napkin and cutlery; she knocked him with her hip and tugged at his ear, familiarities which did not escape Ida and June, who both began whistling casual melodic scales at the newness of the information that he and Alice had established some style of bond. Mr. More called out from the kitchen: “What did Mr. Whitsell say, Alice?”

“He said to say he wasn’t sure. He said to say he wants to think it over.”

Having apparently done this, Mr. Whitsell did shortly arrive in a cloud of perfume and with a look of delight stamped upon his small, soft, rounded face. He lapped the table, greeting each diner in turn with a bow and a shoulder touch. As he took his seat he said, “Well, I didn’t see this coming!”

“We hope we haven’t disturbed you?” asked June.

“Disturbed me? My good woman, you could have knocked me out with a feather! There I was, making my nightly bedways trek, when young Alice came rapping. Talk about a bolt from the blue! An invitation to dine? If you insist, then I must accept!” He unfolded his napkin and set it across his lap. “But, what shall we speak of? I never know just where to begin in a conversation — or where to end, for that matter.”

“Let us speak of small and easy things,” June proposed.

“Or not at all,” said Ida.

“Like monks, eh?” said Mr. Whitsell. “Well, it’s your party, and so I will follow your lead.”

Mr. More soon brought in a steaming bowl of spaghetti and a loaf of bread under his arm. There was no butter to be had, and the bread was days old, but the meal served its purpose, and was devoured. Bob was digesting when he noticed a framed poster on the wall above the table featuring a full-body photograph of Mr. More, and in the place where his arm should have been there was an arm-shaped text that read: LES IS MORE! Across the bottom of the poster, in a soberer font, were the words: GIVE ME A HAND THIS ELECTION DAY! ELECT LESLIE MORE TO THE OFFICE OF CITY COUNCILMAN! Mr. More, having noticed Bob’s interest, was turned about in his chair, pointing at the poster with his fork. “Yes, Bob, I did once dabble in local politics. I don’t regret the time and money spent, but it was a lesson learned for me, and a bitter one. You talk of corruption? I thought I knew my neighbors. Not by a long shot I didn’t.”

Alice, in her monotone, said, “He got nine votes.”

“That’s what they would have us believe,” said Mr. More.

“Nine votes,” said Alice.

“It was folly, top to bottom, side to side, and clean through to its center. You should have seen the man I lost to, my goodness. He was unburdened by human dignity or even an animal dignity; he was without shame, scruples, and social grace, and he won by a landslide.”

June was grinning into the palm of her hand; and neither did Ida look uninterested. “How do you account for the loss, Mr. More?” she asked.

“Welcome to my dark night of the soul, Ida. It’s a question I can’t ask myself straight out; I need to approach it indirectly, and stepping lightly. It may be that the very notion of public office was a fool’s errand but I always felt, I don’t know, that I was meant for something larger than hotelier.”

“What’s wrong with being a hotelier?” asked Mr. Whitsell.

“Nothing in and of itself. But am I not capable of something more demanding and challenging?”

“It’s not an uncommon story,” June told him. “Just about anyone you pass on the sidewalk is wondering why they’ve not fulfilled their potential.”

“But I’m not talking about garden-variety disappointment, June.”

“I think perhaps you are.”

Mr. Whitsell told Mr. More, “I voted for you.”

Mr. More set his fork down. “I wondered if you had,” he said. “I hoped you had. But tell the truth, now, did you vote for me because you felt duty bound, or because of your admiration for my platform?”

“I did feel duty bound.”

This was not the answer Mr. More had hoped for, judging by his expression. “Perhaps,” he said, “perhaps it was that you felt duty bound while also admiring my platform.”

“I haven’t half an idea what your platform was,” Mr. Whitsell said.

“Did you not read the literature I left in your room?”

“Shame on me, but no, I didn’t. I’m sure it was a thrilling document. I’d have voted for you twice if I could have.”

“Then he’d have had ten votes,” said Alice.

Ida had been watching Mr. Whitsell for a time, and now she addressed him: “Mr. Whitsell, can I ask you a question?”

“Oh, yes, please, fire away,” he said, and he then propped himself up in his seat, preparing to be asked he knew not what.

“I’m just curious as to why you’ve been living here at the hotel for such a length of time?”

“I don’t know, really. Why shouldn’t I be?”

“Have you no other plans?”

“No.”

“Possibly you had plans when you came here, but then mislaid them?”

He thought about this. “I don’t believe I did, no,” he said.

“So you just were passing by and washed up here?”

“Well, I’m not enamored of your wordage, but yes, I’ll play along and tell the truth, because really, that’s exactly what happened. In passing, I paused, and then could not move on, and so was washed up like detritus, and on the seashore to boot. It was a funny thing. I had made my retirement and enacted my plan, which was to leave North Dakota and travel by bus all through the Americas. I experienced a high optimism at the commencement of my voyage, but by the time I arrived in Oregon I had been on the road some five weeks and had long since come to grips with the truth of the matter, which was that I disliked most every single feature of my life aboard that slum on wheels. No matter what the advertisements had promised me, I was not ‘accumulating life experience,’ nor was I ‘seeing the country.’ I was trapped in a state of thorough mediocrity, and escape was the only option. But where? I had no friend or relation outside of the Dakotas, and was not at all eager to return home. Days went by and I sat looking out the dirty window, a prisoner studying his cell for some weakness he might exploit to make good his getaway. It was an August afternoon when the bus stopped here, and I got out to stretch my burning back. When I looked up, there was Mr. More, standing on the porch of this hotel, and he waved at me, and I waved back. ‘Are there any rooms available?’ I asked, and his reply: ‘Nothing but rooms, yes and you bet.’ I asked the cost and he said it was so close to free that I wouldn’t believe it. Now he crossed the highway and we made our introductions. He asked after my mood and I explained in shorthand my dissatisfactions and he asked if he might fetch my satchel from the hold of the bus and I allowed it, and then he did it, and that was how it all was started. It’s been, what, three years now? Four? And still no plans to leave except by pine box. I find the hotel perfectly charming. There is a feeling of waiting that at times can be oppressive, but likely that’s not inherent to the location but rather is a part of the particular era of my life. The end era, you know.” As if speaking to himself, he said, “No, I don’t want to leave the hotel, and I hope I shall never have to.”

He finished the last of his wine and stood, speaking of a tiredness brought on by the unanticipated but very much appreciated dining diversion. He thanked the assembled for their friendly company and excused himself. After he left, Alice asked if she might also be excused as she had, she explained, plans to see a movie with a friend. Mr. More said that it was important for a young lady to keep her appointments but wondered if she had been getting quite enough rest these last days. Alice countered that young people did not need hardly any rest at all to carry on, and she quoted a doctor she’d heard on the radio who made the claim that sleep deprivation, in moderation, was actually regenerative. Mr. More said he wasn’t buying what Alice was selling but that he admired her spryness of mind, and Alice said thank you, and departed. Ida asked Mr. More about the possibility for coffee, as she and June planned to rehearse into the night, and Mr. More raised a finger and went away to the kitchen, soon returning with the coffee and cups on a tray. He poured out one cup, and then another, while June and Ida watched him, liking him.

Ida said, “How did you lose your arm, Mr. More?”

“I lost it in the First World War, Ida,” he answered, passing her her coffee. “You knew that, didn’t you?”

“I must have, and yet I’m surprised to think of it. What a thing that must be, to lose an arm.”

“Very much a thing, yes,” said Mr. More.

June said, “May I ask if it was your good arm?”

“Anyway it was not a bad one. I think the truth is that once an arm is taken from you, you can’t help but recall it as the arm to end all arms.”

Ida said, “Where do you think they put it?”

“I don’t know. Some pit somewhere. But it’s not like I wanted it back later. What am I going to do with it? Swaddle it? Wear it like a stole?” He made the face of amused suspicion. “I do hope that our conversation isn’t moving in the pacifistic direction?”

Ida drew back in her seat. “Me, pacifistic? Honestly, Mr. More, how could you say such a thing? Why, when I think of the violence that exists inside my own heart.”

Mr. More shook his head, and he said, “I fear you’re being clever with me, dear Ida.”

“Cleverness I’ll admit to,” she said.

June asked, “What do you think of this current concern, Mr. More?”

“Which concern do you mean?”

“World War the Second.”

Mr. More said, “I think standing under the chill shadow of any nation’s flag is a dicey proposition, is what I think.” He began stacking dirty plates. “Now, why don’t you both take your coffees and get to your rehearsals.”

“May we help you with the dishes?” Ida asked.

“You may not.”

“Are you sure?” said June. “We really don’t mind.”

“No, no. You’ve got your work to do, and to tell the truth I’ve entered into a period of my life where I actually enjoy doing the dishes, and by myself. Which is odd when I consider to what degree I always loathed the practice before; but recently it feels like time well spent. What does it mean?” Bob was nearly asleep in his chair; Mr. More gently crushed his foot under the table and said, “Someday, Bob, when you’re an aged specimen like me, and you find yourself suddenly enamored of folding the laundry or edging your lawn, remember your long-gone friend Leslie More telling you to accept whatever happiness passes your way, and in whatever form.”

“Okay,” said Bob.

“Because it’s a fool who argues with happiness, while the wiser man accepts it as it comes, if it comes at all.”

“Okay.”

THE NEXT DAY BOB RETURNED TO THE BEACH TO PRACTICE HIS PRESS rolls. The first performance was scheduled to take place thirty-six hours hence; with this in mind, Bob endeavored to arrive at a place where he could achieve the percussive effect without thinking of it. An hour and a half passed, and he paused, looking out to sea and having looking-out-to-sea thoughts. He imagined he heard his name on the wind and turned to find Ida leaning out the window of the tilted tower; her face was green as spinach puree, and she was waving at him that he should come up. Bob held the drum above his head, and she nodded that he should bring it with him.

He crossed the road and climbed the stairs to the tower. Ida answered the door and Bob now saw that she was wearing a full and realistic witch costume, with pointy hat and flowing rags, a prosthetic nose and chin, and her teeth were blackened and she said, “Good morning, Bob. Come inside, please.” Bob entered to find a room exploded with clothing and costumes and props and banners. The dogs nosed through the wreckage; they too were dressed as witches. June was sitting on an unmade bed, telephone in hand, and she was dressed as half-a-witch: she wore the same green makeup but no nose or chin, a hat but no flowing rags. “How’s life on old planet Earth, Bob?” she asked, but before Bob could answer, she was speaking into the telephone: “Operator? Yes, good morning. May I ask you, what’s the name of the newspaper in this area?” She waited. “There’s two,” she told Ida, who wasn’t listening, busy as she was making evil faces in a mirror on the wall. June asked the operator, “Which of the two is the smarter outfit? Oh, you know, larger, better, stronger. Which is more widely read, I guess is the question. All right, that’s fine. Will you please connect me with their front office? Bless you.” While she waited, she watched Ida, lost in her engagement with her reflection. “Ida has bewitched herself,” she told Bob, before resuming the telephone conversation: “Yes, hello, I should like to speak with whichever reporter is responsible for the coverage of arts in your area. Oh, the moving arts. The talking arts. Singing arts, sort of, sometimes. We also possess dogs who can do any number of clever things. That’s right, we throw it all into a pot and hope for the best.” June was watching Bob standing there with the drum in his hands; covering the phone, she whispered, “Ida, release yourself.” Ida looked away from the mirror and asked, “What?” June pointed at Bob, then uncovered the phone and said, “Either man sounds fine to me. May I ask you a favor, though, woman to woman? Will you put me in touch with the lesser bastard?” June held the phone out; the woman on the line was laughing hard enough that it was audible across the room. Ida led Bob into the bathroom and shut the door behind them.

“You’ve been practicing?”

“Yes.”

“Will you show me?”

She lowered the toilet seat and gestured that Bob should sit, and so he did, resting the drum on his lap and readying his sticks. When Ida bowed, Bob leaned over and commenced with his audition. Having spent so many minutes and hours recently banging on the drum, in returning to the act, it felt familiar in some elusive way, as though he were re-creating something that had already occurred. This time-confusion marred Bob’s coordination, and the press roll began falling to pieces. “Stop,” said Ida. Bob stopped and watched her. “Start again.” He started again. He was focusing with all his might; Ida held up her hand and Bob ceased playing. She told him, “I’m aware of your struggle.” “Thank you,” said Bob, and Ida shook her head. “I’m not complimenting you. What I want is to think only of the sound produced by the drum, but not of the emotional truth of the drummer. Do you understand? Your problems are not my problems. Keep them to yourself, hidden away. Take a breath and try again.” Bob tried again and was playing well, but peripherally he could see that Ida was distracted; her head was bent toward the closed door and after a time she held up a hand and said, again, “Stop.” Bob stopped. “Did you call out to me?” she asked, through the door.

June answered, “Yes, several times I did.”

“All right, and what is it?”

“I just was pointing out how timely your drum practice was.”

Ida looked to Bob with a weary face. She said, “Did we ruin your powwow, or what’s the problem?”

“I don’t believe you helped, I’ll say that much.” June paused. “Do you wish to know how my media-seeking campaign has gone?”

“All right.”

“It went well, in spite of Bob’s drumming. Not that it was Bob’s fault. Bob? It’s not your fault. It’s Ida’s fault.”

“Okay,” called Bob.

A silence, then June said, “I believe I’ll print off those handbills now.”

“Yes, well, thank you for your numerous updates.” Ida shook her head and refocused her attentions on the audition. “What I’m after,” she told Bob, “is ten seconds of clean playing in a middle register. Take two breaths, deep ones, and try again.” Bob breathed and breathed and gave Ida twenty seconds of straight, solid playing. She raised her hand, and Bob stopped. “That’s very good,” she said. “Do you think you could do it with an audience present? You will be offstage, in the wings, but an audience is very there, you know, and so can cause inhibition. I suspect our numbers will not be high, but often the small audience is the more pronounced, the more there. This tension is the very thing lacking in cinema, you see, and this is the reason I detest the medium with such exuberance, with such, such—”

From the next room there came two unique sounds, one after the other: the first was a clanking and grinding, metal working against metal; next was the noise of the dogs, whom Bob had not heard bark before but who were now both barking loudly and dedicatedly, this in reply to the clanking and grinding. Ida and Bob exited the bathroom to find June working a hand crank on a small printing machine set up atop a dresser, and blue handbills seesawed through the air while the dogs jumped and barked and behaved generally in high emotion while the pages drifted down upon them and their pointy black witch hats. Over the noises of the printing machine’s grindings and the barking of the dogs, June called out to Bob, “It’s the one thing that makes them passionate beyond reason.” He picked up a handbill from the floor:

LIMITED ENGAGEMENT!

The TRIUMPHANT RETURN of BELOVED VETERANS of the STAGE

JUNE & IDA and their TRAINED CANINES, PAL & BUDDY

shall ENTERTAIN w/ UNCANNY VERVE and UNLIKELY ACCURACY A DISSECTION of our COMPLICATED POSITION

JUNE & IDA TRANSLATE this PRECARIOUS MOMENT w/ LEVITY, BREVITY, GRAVITY, and ETCETERA!

Ida took the handbill from Bob and read it. “It has a sly something,” she admitted, and June continued working the hand crank and the handbills continued their snowing down and the dogs continued to leap about and shout, and a large faux cauldron was leaking the faux smoke of dry ice which moved in a lateral stream across the room and toward the open window. Along the coastal road, Bob noticed, there was a convoy of National Guard vehicles moving south.

BOB WAS GIVEN HIS DAILY DOLLAR AND THE HANDBILLS; HE WAS instructed to move about the town and pass these to whomever he might and to generally, so much as he was able within what Ida called the limitations of his secluded personality, induce the public to attend the coming performance. He was asked to bring the dogs, and to undress and tidy them before leaving; he proposed that their outfits could not but pique the public’s interest, which Ida and June did recognize as true and wise, and so Buddy and Pal remained in costume for the length of their outing. When Bob stepped onto the porch of the hotel he saw a second convoy passing on the highway, and in the same southerly direction as the first; each of the covered trucks was tightly packed with glum-faced National Guardsmen, rifles sticking up between their legs. A group of fifty citizens was gathered along the side of the highway, watching and waving at the caravan.

The sheriff stood beside his patrol car, which was parked out front of the market across the road from the hotel. After the caravan passed, the sheriff blew his horn and spoke into a PA mic run through a speaker atop his vehicle: “I’d like a word, please,” he said, and the men and women walked all together to stand before him. Bob shuffled himself into the crowd, following along with the rest. There was a lot of chatter coming up, and the sheriff took off his hat and waved it above his head. When the crowd quieted, the sheriff put his hat back on and spoke into the microphone.

“Ladies and gentlemen, good day, hello. As you’ve probably figured out for yourselves, we’ve got a situation on the stovetop in Bay City, and you’re going to want to avoid that location for however long it takes for things to cool off down there. I don’t know how long that’ll be, but tonight’s looking iffy, and you’d do well to sit tight and await, as they say, further instruction. I don’t believe there’s very many among us interested in taking part in any disturbances; what I’m thinking of, what I’m hoping to avoid — what I’m asking of you, neighbors, is that you curtail any impulse to rubberneck or lookie-loo. You think you could do that for me?”

A voice called out: “But what’s it all about, Sheriff?”

The sheriff said, “Few different things that’ve been going on for some time. There’s two different lumber camps set up in the hills above Bay City, couple hundred men to a camp, and they’re pretty much on top of one another out there, and with no law around to keep them on the right side of mischief. Bay City has very little to offer on the order of nightlife, nowhere for the boys to blow off steam, and they’ve been getting a little weird out there. Started out they were playing practical jokes, right? One camp against another, but nothing too terrible. Then, over the months, the jokes’ve become less funny, and as you may’ve heard there was an incident yesterday in one of the camps involving some heavy machinery that did look more than a little like sabotage, and which did result in one fatality, and another man got his back broken. Both of these fellows have or had wives and children, and the entire affair is sitting poorly with certain of the lumbermen. Also it happens that there’s an ongoing scuffle about lumber contracts and title disputes, namely, who gets to chop down all those giant firs behind the Gustafson property. This is more to do with the higher-ups than the men on the ground but the negotiations have been pretty mean I’m told, and that type of venom has a way of trickling down, right? Right. Tonight’s the night I figure it’s all going to come to a head one way or the other. Any rate. The intelligence we’ve got says they’re planning a showdown in the center of town.”

Another voice: “Man on the radio said it was going to be a riot, Sheriff.”

The sheriff said, “Yeah, I heard that too. And I wouldn’t be surprised if it comes true. I also wouldn’t be surprised if it didn’t. They got eight or nine truckloads of soldiers polishing up their rifles in Bay City as we speak. If those lumber boys want trouble, it will be made available to them.”

“What do you think, Sheriff?”

“What do I think what, Ted?”

“What way you think it’ll go?”

“I really don’t know, buddy, on account of my crystal ball’s on the fritz. My hope is that these lumber boys’ll lose interest in killing each other when they see all the soldiers aiming guns at them. But they’ve been mutating in those camps for long enough I figure anything can happen. Maybe they’ll decide to go all in. Time to time, a man likes to set things on fire. Or that’s been my experience.”

“You’re heading to Bay City tonight, Sheriff?”

“Yes, Charlie, I’ll be going over just now.”

“You need any deputies?”

“All the wives are suddenly shaking their heads,” said the sheriff, to modest applause and laughter. “Wise women. No, thank you but I won’t be needing your help tonight. How about you mind your place and I’ll take care of the rest, all right? Just, let me do the job you pay me to do. There ought to be some good coverage on the radio, and if they riot like they mean it you’ll likely be able to see some sign of it from your windows.” The crowd raised up a friendly note of approval for the sheriff and he waved a hand before jumping back on the microphone: “Oh, one more thing: stop calling my house! You’re driving Mrs. the Sheriff to drink.”

The sheriff was getting into his car to leave but was waylaid by a number of men who wished to further discuss the Bay City situation. All the rest in the crowd stood about dissecting their theories and concerns with one another; Bob took advantage of the throng to pass out his handbills. Pal and Buddy caused a small stir, and Bob couldn’t give the handbills away fast enough. After, with the crowd trickling away, he and the dogs looped the little town. He saw that the diner was open for business, the waitress chatting away with a line of men at the bar. When Bob returned to the hotel he found June and Ida in the auditorium, setting up for another rehearsal. Ida was onstage with the cauldron; June was standing at the middle aisle amid the bank of seats. They both were back in their traditional daytime outfits. “Left,” June said; and Ida moved the cauldron to her left. “My left,” said June, and Ida sighed and corrected the position of the cauldron. “More,” said June, and Ida moved the cauldron farther to June’s left. “That’s good. Mark it.” Now Ida knelt down to outline the cauldron in chalk while June turned to face Bob as he made his approach. “Here comes our man on the street. Hey, where are the handbills?”

“I gave them away.”

“Not all of them?” she asked, and Bob explained about the crowd, and what the sheriff had said about Bay City. Mr. More came in with his carafe of coffee and triangulated sandwiches on a tray. “Chow bell, chow bell,” he said.

“Did you know about this violence downcoast?” asked June.

“Yes.”

“Well, what do you think of it?”

“I think that it’s a good thing I don’t live downcoast.”

“My God, what next?” June said.

Ida stepped up to meet the group. “What’s the matter?”

“They’re set to riot in the neighboring town,” Mr. More explained.

“Just now?”

“Tonight.”

Ida took up a sandwich. “Look on the bright side,” she said. “If they riot tonight then they’ll be freed up tomorrow, and likely quite placid to boot, having already satisfied their lust for carnage.”

June touched Bob at the elbow. “We’ve been met with violence on numerous occasions. In a mining camp in Ohio they threw stones at us. Ida still believes they were trying to kill us.”

“They were trying to kill us,” said Ida, biting into the sandwich and chewing slowly, suspiciously.

“Because they hadn’t liked the play?” Mr. More ventured.

“That was our impression,” said June.

Mr. More moved to set the tray on the edge of the stage. “I’ll just leave this here for you to work through at your leisure.” After he exited the auditorium, Ida tossed her sandwich over her shoulder and into the darkness. “Meat paste,” she told June.

“He shouldn’t have.”

“Really, he shouldn’t.”

“The diner’s open again,” Bob said, and June and Ida looked to one another. “But it’s too soon to break,” June said.

“But I’m hungry,” said Ida.

“But it’s too soon.”

“But: I’m hungry.”

“Well, I am too, if you want to know the truth. What about you, Bob? Where do you sit on the hunger scale?”

“Hungry,” Bob answered.

“That tears it,” said June. “Get your coat, Ida, and mine, and let us dine.”

Soon they entered the diner, greeting their waitress friend.

“Oh, hello,” she said.

June said, “I understand you’ve found the missing cook?”

“Anyway, he’s back.”

“And where was he?”

“Honestly, I’m so mad I don’t think I can talk about it. Better you go ask him yourself.” She pointed at the square cutaway cubbyhole where the cook received his orders and set down his plates of food and dinged his silver bell. June approached and called out, “Excuse me?” and the cook’s face appeared. He looked puffy and red-eyed but not unhappy; June asked, “Where were you, sir, that everyone was so up in arms?”

“Well, I went off and served myself a couple of beverages, didn’t I?”

“You had a high time?”

“Yes, quite high.”

“And how did you feel after?”

“Oh, disgusted,” he said. “But I had fun too, which counts for something, after all.”

“Are you glad to be back?”

The cook made the half-and-half gesture.

“Are you very tired?”

“Lady, I’m as tired as a dead dog.” He looked at Pal, resting in June’s arms. “No offense, partner. Hey, look at your little hat.”

June said, “Perhaps once you begin your daily frizzling, then you’ll find some obscure reserve of energy.”

The cook shook his head. “No, no one wanted to associate with that particular dish, so we had to retire it.” He leaned out the cubbyhole and pointed at an artwork pinned to the wall. It was a pen-and-ink rendering of a graveyard, and on every tombstone was the name of a dish that had been stricken from the menu:

Here Lies Meat Medley

In Loving Remembrance ~ Omelette du Veal

Rest in Peace Chix Stix

Beloved Frizzled Beef

At the bottom of the paper in a tidy script were the words:

Gone but not forgotten.

The cook still was leaning out of the cubbyhole, peering up at the artwork, and he wore the nameless smile of a daydreamer. “I thought it was not a bad method, myself,” he said.

“Frizzling?” said June. “In what way?”

“In the way that it tasted. But also, you know, the making of it. All told I’d have to say it was my favorite dish on the menu to prepare.”

Ida asked, “What’s your least favorite dish to prepare?”

The cook paused. “Probably I shouldn’t discuss it with a custy, I don’t think.”

“What’s a custy?”

“You’re a custy.”

“Why shouldn’t you discuss it with me?”

“Well, think it through. If you learn what I don’t like making, and you want it, then we’re in somewhat of a pickle because either you don’t get what you want, because you don’t order it out of a personal niceness; or, you go ahead and order it anyway, which tells me that you don’t rate me as a human being to the point of considering my feelings.”

June said, “You’re quite an emotional cook, aren’t you?”

He spoke in a tone of somber earnestness: “Working in a restaurant, the cook is very vulnerable.” In a louder voice, he addressed the clientele: “You think I don’t hear what you all say about my food? I hear every word!” He dinged his silver bell fiercely with a spatula, his eyes gleaming with devilment. There were only a few scattered customers present, however, and none of them were paying the cook any mind.

The waitress returned, passing an order up to the cook and encouraging June and company to sit, and the group walked all together toward what they thought of as their booth. Later, as they were finishing up their meal, an army jeep pulled up outside the diner and a military policeman entered. The waitress was nowhere in sight; the MP called out, “How much coffee you got in this place?”

“A whole goddamned urnful,” answered the cook from the kitchen.

“I’ll take it all, and the urn as well.”

The cook’s face appeared in the cubby. “Urn’s not for sale.”

“Uncle Sam needs that coffee,” said the MP, and he held up a fold of bills.

“Uncle Sam is welcome to every drop of coffee I’ve got. But he’s going to have to get his own urn, because I need mine, and all the time, too.”

The soldier hemmed and hawed but eventually went away with a thermosful of coffee. It was his own thermos, and he was disappointed that his gesture had not been actualized. Ida thought perhaps the man had played out a scenario in his mind of arriving in Bay City ahead of the riot with the urnful of fortifying and piping hot coffee for his comrades, and that they would give three cheers in appreciation of his ingenuity. The cook called over from his cubby, “Ever notice what a uniform does to a young man’s self-worth?”

“Yes, we have,” said June and Ida simultaneously.

After dinner, the two women and Bob and the dogs returned to the hotel, where they found Mr. More and Mr. Whitsell at the front desk, leaning in to listen to the radio coverage from Bay City. The riot had not yet commenced officially but was slowly coming into its own as dusk evolved to nighttime. An almost bored-sounding newscaster depicted the setting: “There are no sides, that I can see. All the lumbermen look strikingly like one another, no visible sign of which camp, which concern each man represents. They are walking about in clusters, up and down the main drag of Bay City, and engaging in skirmishes and brawls here and there; but these have been quickly put down by the National Guardsmen, working together with area law enforcement who are on the scene to lend a hand.” Mr. More pointed at the radio and whispered, “That’s our sheriff!”

Mr. Whitsell was shaking his head, and he wore a look of concern so pronounced that Mr. More had to ask him what was the matter. He answered, “I should feel quite a lot safer if the sheriff were here to protect us against encroachment. Why must he range so far from home? Doesn’t Bay City have its own sheriff to tend its own flock?”

“They do, of course,” said Mr. More. “Probably it’s that the sheriff felt drawn in by the professional imperative. He’d no sooner miss a chance to help a neighbor than rob a bank.”

“And while he’s off playing the helpful hero, where are we? Vulnerable to whichever vicious element who happens past. Why, a bandit could come in here and slay the lot of us in our beds and get away clean, with no figure of authority to hinder his spree.”

“Mightn’t you take solace in the unlikeliness of that event?” Mr. More asked.

“I might not!” answered Mr. Whitsell, and with a surprising bitterness.

Alice emerged from the small door behind the front desk, pulling on her cardigan and smoothing down her hair. Mr. More asked that she heat up some milk for Mr. Whitsell, but she said no, she was sorry but she couldn’t, she was already late.

“You are not going to that movie again?” he said.

“I am.”

“But how many times can you see the same story unfold?”

“However many times it takes.” She ducked under the front desk and threaded her way through the group, poking Bob in the stomach as she passed.

Mr. More went to heat up some milk for Mr. Whitsell, who stood forlornly to the side of the others. Ida and June and the dogs returned to the auditorium to resume their rehearsals. Bob went away to his room and changed into his pajamas and sat on the edge of his bed, listening to the coverage of the Bay City situation, which in darkness had devolved to riot proper: “The five-and-dime’s on fire,” said the newscaster. “No one’s paying it any mind, it’s just — on fire. Across the street, meanwhile, a group of men is working to overturn a jeep. Their faces are very red, and there’s much shouting going on among them, determined to get the job done. Now another group is attempting to set the post office alight. Why? And where is the fire department? Okay, hold on, the first group has got the jeep over on its side, and they’re pleased with themselves. Yes, congratulations all around, men, my goodness, what a sight.” There came a wail of sirens, men shouting in the background. “The National Guard are assembling in a line at the end of Bay Road. It is inevitable that the lumbermen and Guardsman will meet in the street.” The newsman began shouting question to the Guardsmen as they passed him by but was ignored or rebuffed. Bob heard someone say, “The town’s burning down and this jerk wants my impression of the scene.” The newsman took this in stride. “Emotions are running high tonight,” he explained.

The coverage droned on. Bob stepped away from his bed and to the window. Alice was standing out front of the movie theater, wrapped up in her own arms and peering down the road. Above the theater marquee and to the south Bob could just make out the tiny, flickering fires of Bay City. He was looking at an epicenter of violence from his safe distance while hearing the sound from within the violence through the radio. Alice looked miserable, huddled into herself; Bob was opening the window to invite her to listen to the riot in his room when she stood up straight and waved, and now here was the young man from the market, Tommy. As he approached, Alice spun around and rushed to the ticket booth to purchase their tickets. Walking into the theater, Tommy draped a lazy arm over Alice’s shoulder, while she clung to his midsection. Bob couldn’t see if they climbed the stairs to the balcony or not, but they certainly had the look of the balcony bound.

This sorry little narrative infected Bob, so that a blue mood came over him. For the first time since his departure he found himself thinking of his home in Portland, in particular the cosmos of his bedroom. He turned off the radio and shut off the lights and lay down in bed. It was a long time before he fell asleep and when he woke up it was seven o’clock in the morning and the window still was half open and the curtain was puffing its belly out at him and a great noise of commotion was coming up from the street.

A GREAT NOISE OF COMMOTION WAS COMING UP FROM THE STREET. Voices calling, shouting, automobile horns honking, endlessly; Bob assumed the riot had arrived and lay in bed asking himself how to prepare for and react to such a thing. Then he began to wonder why the voices didn’t sound angrier. He stood away from the bed and moved to the window; he caught the puffed-out curtain in his hands and drew it to the side.

The streets were filled with people. Cars were stopped on the highway, the roadside overrun; there was no center or border to the activity, and there was nothing like a violence taking place. It was as if an anthill had had its top kicked off and now there was motion all across the area, a giddy chaos, with every individual following his or her own line, place to place, picking out a friend and moving through the scrabble to meet up with them, to grasp, to rave. Bob dressed and hurried down the stairs and through the hotel to stand at the top of the blue-painted steps and consider the spectacle. Mr. More exited the hotel. “That’s it, then, eh?” he asked Bob, before walking down and into the crowd. Bob watched him greeting this and that person, shaking hands and agreeing as the mass ate him up. Now Bob walked down the blue steps; instantly he was tossed about and pushed this and that way and it would have been frightening but for how everyone was behaving. People patted his head and shook him by the shoulders; a red-faced woman with gray teeth and tears running down her cheeks seized him and kissed his forehead. A young man was strutting about and blowing a trumpet in the air; he leveled the horn at Bob’s face and blew a comical, trembling note, and Bob could smell his sour, stranger’s breath. It was as if everyone knew everyone else but they hadn’t seen one another in a long while and were made ecstatic by the grand reunion. Bob passed a group of men standing in a circle around a pickup truck. They were listening to the news report coming from the truck’s radio; a man with a British accent was shout-reading a bulletin. Bob understood by what this man was saying that the war had ended. The men surrounding the truck threw their hands up and cheered.

Bob wanted to be with Ida and June, and began jumping up to try to catch sight of them. A passing soldier asked him, “You looking for your people?” and lifted him up to scan the crowd. Bob looked and looked but he couldn’t see his friends. After a while the soldier lost interest and set Bob back on the ground and walked off. Now the crowd shifted and spit Bob out to its edges.

The sheriff’s patrol car was parked against the south side of the hotel and the sheriff was sitting on the back bumper, massaging his temple, and his flesh had a waxy cast, and he was squinting against the sunlight. When he saw Bob, he pointed. “Hey, kid, come over here a minute, will you?” As Bob stepped closer, the sheriff told him, “You want to know what happened? I figured something out about you.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, unfolded it, and showed it to Bob. It was a missing persons report; Bob stood looking at a blurred photostat of his school yearbook picture. The sheriff said, “This came through yesterday morning. I thought I remembered your face from seeing you the other day outside the P.O. I should have tracked you down sooner but it’s been a time here, and I’ve been distracted.” The sheriff removed a bottle of aspirin from his shirt pocket and tossed a handful of tablets into his mouth, chewing them up, his face made bitter by the taste. Pinching the bridge of his nose, he peered out at the crowd and said, “It’d have to happen today.” He looked back at Bob. “So, what are we going to do about you?” Bob shrugged and the sheriff said, “Maybe I ought to check in. Hang on a minute, kid, will you?” He leaned into his car and took up his two-way radio. “Come in HQ. HQ, do you read.”

“HQ here. How’s your head, Sheriff?”

“Well, how do you think it is?”

“Shame they couldn’t wait a day to call the war off.”

“It surely is. What about all the lumberjack crazies? How’s their outlook this morning?”

“About the same as yours, I’d say. They’re a lot quieter than last night, I’ve noticed. But say, we’re getting a lot of calls about the crowds downtown?”

“That’s where I’m at now, HQ.”

“Any problems?”

“No, there’s folks on the loose, but it’s a cheery occasion and no troubles that I can see.”

“That’s nice.”

“I guess we were due some good news. Which reminds me. The reason I’m calling is. I found the kid from Portland. Comet.”

“You did? Where is he?”

“I got him here with me now.”

“He all right?”

“He looks all right. You all right, kid?” Bob nodded and the sheriff said, “He’s all right.”

“What kind of name is Comet?”

“I don’t know. Kid, what kind of name’s your name?”

Bob shrugged.

“Kid doesn’t know what. He’s the incurious type. Anyway, you’re going to want to call Portland PD, tell them the blessed news.”

“I will do, Sheriff. When should I say they can expect him home?”

“Well, I’d like you to frame that as their problem to solve, HQ. Maybe they’ll send his folks to fetch him, or maybe Portland PD can spare a man. But, shoot, wait a minute.”

“What’s the matter?”

“Where’re we going to keep him until then?”

“Put him in the tank.”

“Squeezed in with the crazies?”

“Not so crazy anymore, like I was saying.”

“Still, I don’t like it.” The sheriff was looking at Bob. He said, “I guess I’ll just run the kid back myself, HQ.”

“You’re going to drive to Portland?”

“Well, why not. I’m overdue a visit to my mother-in-law, anyway. There’s two good deeds with the one stone. Can’t hurt my luck and maybe it’ll bolster my self-esteem.”

“When should I say you’re coming up?”

“Soon enough. Just, let’s wait until after these aspirin cast their spell. You’ll want to get our brash young deputy out of bed, give him a shake and send him over here to keep watch in my stead. If he complains, remind him it was his idea to stop for a nightcap.”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“Tell him it was my idea to remind him it was his idea.”

“Yes, Sheriff.”

“It might get noisy tonight but I’ll be back by then.”

“All right. What else?”

“Nothing I can think of. I’ll see you, HQ.”

“Good morning, Sheriff.”

The sheriff hung up his radio and asked Bob, “You got a bag somewhere, kid? Long stick with a hanky on the end of it?” Bob pointed at the hotel and the sheriff said, “Okay, you go on, then. I’ll wait here for you. Only don’t dillydally, all right?” Bob said all right and stepped away. “Hey, though,” said the sheriff, and Bob turned back. “I just want to say that if you run away again then you’ll make me look bad and everyone’ll make fun of me and I’ll be sore and I don’t want to feel that way about you because you seem like a nice kid.” Bob said he wouldn’t run, and he was telling the truth, and so the sheriff believed him. He told Bob, “You’re not in any real trouble, by the way. I mean, I’m not sure what your reception at home’ll be like but from the legal standpoint you’re not in trouble hardly at all. You’re in a very mild and manageable amount of trouble, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Okay, go get your things. I’ll be here.”

Bob walked back in the direction of the hotel. The trumpeter had found a fiddler and guitar player and they were trying to come together to make some moment-appropriate war-is-over music, but they couldn’t agree on a song, or there wasn’t one that they all three knew how to play. The lobby was empty; Bob rang the bell but no one answered. He went to his room and packed up his pajamas and toothbrush. The snare drum and sticks sat on the floor; Bob took these up, along with his knapsack, and left his room. He knocked on Mr. Whitsell’s door but no one answered. The door was unlocked and he opened it but the room was empty. Next he climbed the stairs to the tower and knocked on Ida and June’s door. Buddy and Pal whined but no one answered; Bob tried the doorknob but it was locked. He left the drum in the hall and made for the lobby. Again he rang the bell and again there was no response. The auditorium was empty. The conservatory was empty.

Bob stood once more at the top of the blue stairs out front of the hotel. The crowd was growing, and he could see cars parked along the highway for half a mile, with men and women hurrying up and toward the excitement. On the sidewalk across the road, on the far side of the melee and all the way up against the long row of plate glass storefronts, Bob saw Alice and Tommy running off together, running away from the crowd and toward a privacy, and their hands were clasped, and Alice looked so happy, her greasy hair flapping behind her as she and Tommy vanished around a corner. The trio of musicians had landed on an up-tempo number Bob was not familiar with. They played badly but sincerely. Bob could see the sheriff’s patrol car still parked in the distance. The sheriff was lying down along the full length of his front seat, the door open, his boots hanging stilly in the air above the white pea gravel.

Bob walked along the side of the hotel and to the patrol car. He let himself in by the backseat; the sheriff sat up and said, “No, kid, come on up here.” Bob got out and walked around to the front while the sheriff sat collecting or steeling himself. He turned the car on and gave it a little gas. “Okay, now pay attention,” he told Bob, and pointed at a row of switches on the dashboard. “See this one here?” He flipped a switch and the patrol car’s siren rang out, loudly enough that it made Bob jump in his seat. The sheriff flipped the switch back and the siren ceased. “When I give the high sign,” he said, leveling a finger at Bob, “I want you to hit that same switch just like I did, on and off, but quick. Got it?” Bob nodded. The sheriff paused, then pointed at Bob and Bob flipped the switch on and off. “Okay, good — perfect.” The sheriff hit another switch to turn on the PA system, and now he addressed the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen? Ladies and gentleman.” The crowd quieted, heads turned to look at the patrol car. “You’re all under arrest,” said the sheriff, and the crowd booed. “Okay, you’re not. But do me a favor and let us through. Me and my deputy need to turn this rig around and get to the highway.” He pointed that Bob should hit the switch and Bob did and the patrol car began its slow crossing through the crowd.

The sheriff was sweating, though it wasn’t hot. He looked over at Bob, then nudged him. “Roll down that window, kid, will you?” he said, and Bob rolled down his window and the sheriff breathed the ocean air in and out through his nose. “That’s all right. Thank you.” He looked at Bob again. “Well,” he said, “how many days did you make it? How long since you been gone?”

“Four days.”

The sheriff ticktocked his head back and forth. “That’s not so long, I guess. But the truth is that most kids don’t get through the night, so actually you made a pretty good showing. Also, I’d say you made a very good showing in terms of distance traveled. How’d you get all the way out here, anyway? Did you hitch? Hitchhike?” The sheriff held up a thumb.

“A train and a bus,” said Bob.

The sheriff whistled. “Nothing to be ashamed of, there. Very good showing.” There was the sound of the patrol car’s tires rolling over the gravel. The sheriff said, “Speaking generally, and as far as I’m concerned, it’s the kid who doesn’t run away that you’ve got to worry about. I did it when I was your age.” He pointed at Bob and Bob hit the switch. The crowd was pressing in, and some were slow to move out of the way of the patrol car and so were nudged by the car’s bumper. A man and woman were dancing in tight little circles on the sheriff’s side; as the patrol car passed them by the man leaned toward the open window and asked, “How would you rate that riot, Sheriff?”

“Pretty shabby, buddy. No passion of intelligence in those boys. Just drunks on a mean streak, really. They did some fair bit of damage, I’ll give them that, but altogether I can say they made a poor overall impression.” The dancing man waved and wheeled away with his partner. “One fellow,” the sheriff told Bob, “I got him in my car to run him in and he told me he’d give me a hundred dollars to drop him back at the camp. Said he had the cash on him and that I was welcome to it and he wouldn’t ever tell a soul anything about it. I said, ‘What about all your pals?’ And he said, ‘Well, what about them?’ And I said, ‘You’re not going to leave them to hold the bag while you skip off to bed, are you?’ And this bird said to me, looking out the window he said, ‘Everyone goes his own way in this world, no matter what they tell you.’ I thought about that a minute, then told him, ‘Mister, you know what your problem is? It’s that you’ve got yourself a morbid point of view.’” The sheriff shook his head and spit out the window and pointed at Bob and Bob hit the switch. A group of noisy soldiers began slapping on the hood of the patrol car and the sheriff told them over the PA, “Do not slap the sheriff’s automobile.” Then he said to Bob, “You don’t talk much, kid, do you?”

Bob shook his head that he didn’t.

The sheriff said, “Well, you want to know how many days I ran away for? However many days it’s been from then to now, that’s how many days. Because I never did go home. What do you think of that?”

Bob shrugged. He was enjoying the sheriff.

“You think they still set a place for me at the dinner table?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe not,” said the sheriff. “But, what about you? Think your folks’ll be glad to see you, or mad, or what?”

“Glad, I guess.”

“Not mad?”

“Maybe a little mad.”

The sheriff glanced at Bob. “Reason I’m asking is. If there’s something really wrong going on there, you don’t have to go home. Do you understand what I’m saying to you?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m saying you can talk to me.”

“There’s nothing wrong.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

The sheriff said, “Okay. That’s okay. That’s good. But you let me know if you think of something that’s the matter, all right?”

They were almost to the highway and Bob was looking out at the crowd when he saw June and Ida standing off and to the right of the patrol car. He saw them only briefly, but with such close-paid attention that the visual became like a photograph in his memory: they stood facing each other, and Ida’s expression was pained, her cheek red and damp from crying, while June was staring at her with a loving look, petting her hair and dabbing her face with a handkerchief and saying kind little things to her. Bob felt himself leaning toward them in his mind, but now the patrol car was pulling onto the highway, past the crowd, and accelerating upcoast. Bob spun around and to his knees to watch out the rear window as the crowd and town became smaller and smaller. The last thing he could see of Mansfield was the weathervane rising crookedly from the tilted tower; after that was gone from view he turned to sit, facing forward now.

Something of the moment had upset his heart. He wished he could have said goodbye to June and Ida, but the idea of an official parting also made him feel shy, and that it might have overwhelmed him. But still and there was this feeling, and Bob didn’t know where to put it. He sat staring at the side of the highway, the pavement gone blurry as it slipped past. The sun was high and bright, angling down and through the front windshield and the sheriff, squinting, was making grabby gestures and pointing to the glove box. “Sunglasses, kid, sunglasses, sunglasses.”