Into the Twilight, Endlessly Grousing (11 page)

I don't know if all that's true, about the painted-on shoes. It's just what Ronnie told me one day years later, when we were comparing our childhood hardships. Still, I can't imagine Ronnie would lie about something like that.

After my father died, it sometimes seemed as if we ate nothing but gruel. My mother was a great believer in “Let's pretend.” She had a theory that ugly reality could be improved upon by a mere act of imagination.

“Tonight, let's pretend the gruel is roast beef!” she'd exclaim cheerfully. “Oh, this is excellent ‘roast beef,' children. Now, don't just sit there staring at your ‘roast beef.' Eat your ‘roast beef.' Didn't you hear me? I said,
eat your roast beef!
”

“How come we always have to have ‘roast beef?” I'd complain. “Why can't we ever have ‘hot dogs'?”

“Oh, we can, we can. Tomorrow night we'll have ‘hot dogs,' just for you, Patrick. And ‘chocolate sundaes' for dessert! Yum! Doesn't that sound good?”

One evening while my sister, Troll, and I waited for Mom to bring a steaming bowl of gruel out from the kitchen, I called out hopefully, “What's for supper, Mom?”

“Venison steaks and pancakes!” she called back cheerfully. “Doesn't that sound good? Yum!”

Troll shot me a look that said, “Give me a break!”

Then Mom bustled out of the kitchen, carrying in one hand a big platter of pancakes and in the other a platter of venison steaks!

“It
is
venison steaks!” Troll yelped. “Where did you get those, Mom?”

“Someone left them on the back porch last night. They were all wrapped up in a newspaper.”

“I wonder why he sneaked them onto the porch in the middle of night,” I said. “Why didn't he just give them to us?”

“Well, it's not exactly deer season, you know,” Mom replied. “Some kind soul is just trying to help us out in hard times.”

“I don't think he's so kind if he poaches deer,” Troll said.

“There's still leftover ‘roast beef,'” Mom said.

“Pass the venison, please.”

Every so often, our secret benefactor would strike again. Always the venison was left wrapped up in newspaper on our back porch in the dark of night. Neighbors reported receiving the same nocturnal gifts. The mystery of the secret benefactor's identity was almost as delicious as the venison he distributed. Still, there was the knowledge that we had a poacher among us, and poachers were held in contempt by our law-abiding, game-warden-fearing neighbors. So it was generally thought best to allow the mystery to remain a mystery.

Although no one wanted actually to say it, there was some suspicion that the poacher might be the odorous old woodsman Rancid Crabtree. It was well known that Rancid lived pretty much off the land, his aversion to work possibly even surpassing his aversion to water. Still, it was hard to imagine Rancid stooping so low as to poach deer.

One night Ronnie Figg and I decided to sleep out in the woods behind his house. I wasn't too keen on sleeping out, but Ronnie was depressed because his dog, Sparky, had been missing for several days. I thought sleeping out with him might cheer Ronnie up. It was one of my first sleep-outs away from home, however, and I was a little worried that it might be too scary, overload my circuitry and short it out, with the result that I would flee camp in the middle of the night. News of a guy's fleeing camp in the middle of the night usually spread like wildfire around the neighborhood,
where it would be remembered for the next forty years and worked into conversations at every opportunity:

“Boy, the nights are starting to get warm, aren't they, Mr. Jones?”

“Yes, indeed they are, Patrick. Very much like that night forty years ago when you fled home from that sleep-out. Ha!”

It was the kind of embarrassment one did not want attached to one's reputation for the rest of one's life.

Fortunately, the sleep-out with Ronnie was great fun, and I wasn't the least bit nervous, even though Ronnie and I were exchanging some really hideous ghost stories. Much to my relief, I learned that I was a lot braver than I thought. Quite possibly I possessed nerves of steel, as I had long suspected.

Then it got dark.

The ghost stories tapered off rather abruptly after the onset of darkness. As I say, Ronnie never seemed particularly religious, but the dark shadows converging on our little camp seemed first to touch and then ignite a deep devotion in him. He casually mentioned to no one in particular that he had grown quite fond of attending church, and only wished services were held more often, maybe three or four times a week. I myself had always been religious, and now became fervently so, but I thought it might be well to mention aloud that I only passed through the ladies' underwear section in the Sears & Roebuck catalogue on my way to the sporting goods, just in case there might be some misunderstanding about impure thoughts and all that.

“Me too,” said Ronnie. “Man, I flip right through the ladies' underwear section fast as I can.”

It's quite possible that if we had remained in our little camp much longer, both Ronnie and I might easily have qualified for sainthood by no later than midnight. I could tell, however, that the darkness had started to stretch Ronnie's
faith pretty thin. He was winding up his internal spring and settling his feet into the starting blocks. Then, without so much as a good-bye, he released the spring and shot himself toward home, leaving our blankets snapping up in the air like window shades.

Never had I seen such a disgusting display of sheer cowardice in one of my friends. Well, that was just something Ronnie would have to live with for the next forty years. Now, of course, there was no point in my remaining in camp alone, and so I reluctantly got up and calmly headed off toward home, my steady, woodsmanlike pace interrupted only by an occasional ricochet off the odd tree.

As I came in for a landing at home base, I miscalculated my elevation, overshot the back porch—and collided head-on with a large, humpbacked figure rounding the corner of the house. The creature made a hideous sound and leaped in the air, even as it flailed madly at me with both arms.

“Git back! Git back!” it cried hoarsely. “Wha …? Is thet you, Patrick? Gol-dang, you skeered the livin' daylights outta me! What you doin' out this time of night?”

I was still inhaling, not a good idea when in that close a proximity to none other than—Rancid Crabtree!

“Rancid! For gosh sakes, what are you doing here?”

“Not a dang thang! Ah was jist passin' through,” he said hoarsely. He reached down and picked up the gunny-sack he'd been carrying over his shoulder.

“Oh, it's you, isn't it?”

“Ah look like somebody else to you?”

“I mean, you're the one who's been leaving the venison on our back porch, aren't you?”

“So what if Ah is?”

“Well, it's fine. It's great. I guess you shoot a deer every so often and then share it with us. That's nice.”

“Ah don't shoot no deer. Thet'd be poachin'. What kind of no-good, miserable skonk you thank Ah am?”

“But the meat …”

“Oh, thet. Ah jist picks thet up along the highway, any poor critter what's too slow or too stupid to git out of the way of a car.”

“You mean it's … it's
roadkill?
”

“Shore. But it be all good meat. Ah don't take nothin' thet's too ripe or all squished up.”

“Dogs? Cats? Porcupines?”

“Whatever. Sometimes even a deer. Ah ain't heard no complaints about it. Now, you keep your yap shut about seein' me tonight. This is a secret jist 'tween you and me, hear?”

“Sure.”

“Good. Now, here's your Venison,'” he said hoarsely. “Put it over thar on the porch. And you dang well better act surprised when your ma finds it.”

“Okay. By the way, how come your voice is so hoarse, Rancid?”

“'Cause you made me swaller maw chaw of tobacky, thet's why!”

The very next evening Mom burst out of the kitchen with a big platter of pancakes and another of steak.

“Oh boy, venison again!” cried Troll.

“Yes, indeed,” Mom said. “Our secret benefactor struck again last night. Here, Patrick, take some venison and pass it to your sister.”

“No thanks,” I said, passing the platter on. “By golly, if I don't have the strangest hankering for leftover ‘roast beef tonight. Sounds really good to me for some reason.”

It wasn't that I didn't think Rancid's, uh, ‘venison' might not be good. I just wanted to wait awhile and see if Ronnie's dog, Sparky, turned up okay.

You see this fine old split-bamboo fly rod? Pretty nice, huh? I got it from Henry P. Grogan. Henry P. was the proprietor of Grogan's War Surplus back when I was a kid growing up in the little town of Blight, Idaho. Gosh, even now I can see Grogan's in all its splendor and glory, just as if it were yesterday instead of half a century ago. The storefront itself was elegantly decorated with ammo boxes, jerry cans, camouflage netting, a limp yellow life raft, and various other residue of recent history. It was nice.

On the lot next to the store, Grogan had carefully arranged the rusting wreckage of a dozen or so military vehicles in such a way as to conceal what had once been an unsightly patch of wildflowers. Most interesting of the vehicles was a Sherman tank. My friend Crazy Eddie Muldoon and I would have loved to get our hands on that
tank, but Grogan refused to let us have it. He said it would be irresponsible of him to let two ten-year-old boys drive off though town in a Sherman tank, unless, of course, they somehow happened to come up with the cash to buy it. Grogan had a strict rule about selling dangerous war surplus to kids. You had to be a certain height—tall enough to reach up and put the cash on the counter—before he'd let you leave with the goods.

I was Grogan's best customer—he always said so, anyway—and over the years he and I worked out this special arrangement. He for his part would try to sell me every rotten, rusty, worthless piece of junk he had in the store. I would buy it. We both thought the arrangement quite equitable, he possibly somewhat more than I. Long before I reached my teens, my bedroom began to look like a miniature version of Grogan's War Surplus. Except for my mother's objections, I probably could have invaded a small country all by myself.

One day I was poking around Grogan's with the vague intention of buying another Eisenhower jacket, the military garment most favored by General Eisenhower during the war. So many boys at school wore them, recess looked like a convention of miniature Eisenhowers. While I was sorting through a pile of jackets in search of one that approached my size, Grogan yelled at me.

“Gol-dang it, Patrick, don't be scattering them jackets all over the floor! I try to keep this place neat. Now pick 'em up and throw 'em back up on the heap like you found them.”

I glanced over at Grogan to determine his degree of irritation. Sometimes he got so upset he'd toss me out of the store, unless I was quick enough to wave cash at him. The sight of cash always seemed to have a calming effect on Grogan. On this occasion, however, he seemed well short
of the boiling point. His beady eyes were blinking normally and hadn't disappeared into hard little slits in his grizzled face. Also, he was still puffing on his stub of cigar, a good indicator of his mood. While I was doing these calculations on his temper, I suddenly noticed something for the first time. On the wall behind the counter was an old but beautiful split-bamboo fly rod.

“Wow!” I exclaimed. “How much you want for that fly rod, Mr. Grogan?”

He turned and looked at the rod. “Ain't for sale.”

“But you always say everything you got is for sale, including your wife, children, and pets.”

“Well, I made a mistake. The rod ain't for sale. My policy still holds for the wife and children, though. Right now I'll let my son Junior go at half price. And I'll even throw in the pets to boot.”

“Nope. What I want is that rod.”

“You can't have it. But how about a nice flamethrower? Every fourth-grader needs a flamethrower. Great for starting campfires. Don't have to bother with kindlin' or nothin'. Drop a few chunks of wood on the ground, and, whoosh, you gotcherself one heck of a campfire.”

The years passed. I grew up and went off to college. Whenever I was in town, though, I'd stop by Grogan's for a little shopping and to hone my bartering skills on its owner. No longer a kid wet behind the ears, I was now more than a match for Henry P. He and I would have a good laugh over all the useless junk he had foisted off on me over the years. Then he would try to sell me some rusty old war relic he had reserved just for me, but I would only chuckle, shake my head, and start to walk away. Then I'd stop. “Oh,” I'd say. “I'd still buy that fly rod, though.”

“Ain't for sale,” he'd growl. “Junior, however …”

And that's how it went. Eventually, almost without
knowing it, I acquired a job, wife, kids, house, mortgage, “the full catastrophe,” as Zorba the Greek used to say. Grogan in the meantime prospered. The old frame building of Grogan's War Surplus was replaced with a concreteblock edifice topped by a huge neon sign proclaiming the establishment as
GROGAN'S EMPORIUM
. Clerks now roamed the well-lit aisles, and clothing was arranged neatly in racks instead of in heaps on the floor, and there was not so much as a helmet liner or bayonet in sight. Personally, I found the new Grogan's—“The finest retail store in all of Blight!”—to be boring and even kind of sad. All the old character of the original Grogan's had vanished, as had Grogan himself. He now whiled away the later years of his life on golf courses and cruise ships and in fancy restaurants and resorts. As I say, it was sad.

On the rare occasions that I ran into Grogan on the street, his face would instantly light up and he would try to sell me something. “Have I ever got a bargain for you, Patrick! Look at this watch. Cost me a thousand dollars in Hong Kong. Fifty bucks and it's yours.”