"
I've yet to push him at all."
"
The man is out of balance," Townes said.
"
Because he carries a shooter? I can accommodate
him if that's what he wants. I can take this matter any direction
he'd like to go."
It was quiet a moment, and then Seagraves said, "No,
you can't."
He saw that he'd insulted
the younger man, it couldn't be helped. He said, "Paris Trout
knows directions you never imagined were there."
* * *
THE CELEBRATION BEGAN OFFICIALLY at nine o'clock the
following Saturday morning.
The Georgia Pacific left the Cotton Point depot at
its regular hour, headed north for Atlanta, pulling a specially
decorated railroad car loaded with one hundred members of the town's
proudest families. The Cotton Point One Hundred.
Many of the lawyers had firecrackers.
Mayor Bob Horn carried a whip and had dressed himself
in a costume recalling Alex McHandy, the slave trader who had founded
the town, and looked, to Seagraves at least, like a New Orleans pimp.
Every man on the car wore whiskers of some kind, most of them having
started their beards weeks before the celebration began, in order to
set a good example.
Very few of the men came without hard liquor,
although it was their wives, for the most part, who carried it in
their picnic baskets. The plan was to hold the party on the lawn of
the State Capitol, under a town banner: COTTON POINT — GEORGIA'S
ANTEBELLUM TOWN.
The car was busy in a quiet way, there were as many
people in the aisle as were in the seats, and the smell of coffee and
cigarettes hung in the air.
Carl Bonner was sitting next to a window, leaning
from time to time across his wife to speak to someone in the aisle.
Leslie would pull back, giving him room. She had not wanted to come
on the train. He put his hand on her leg once, squeezing a moment,
getting no response
at all.
Forty minutes out of Cotton Point, a few miles from
Montclair on a long bend of track, the train passed through a tunnel.
The car went black, and before it was returned to the sunshine, the
engineer braked hard and half the people in the aisle were suddenly
on the floor.
There was screaming — the brakes and the ladies —
and laughing. A woman smelling of lilacs fell across Bonner's head
from behind, hugging him for a moment before pushing herself off.
Leslie stared straight ahead.
The car left the tunnel, still braking.
Bonner leaned across his wife again and saw Harry
Seagraves sitting in the aisle, holding a cigar between his teeth,
smiling at the confusion. A woman leaned over Seagraves, kissing him
squarely in the middle of the head. He offered her his cigar, which
she took.
It was nine forty-two in the morning, Carl Bonner
checked his watch. The train bucked to a stop, blowing steam.
Minutes passed, and then a conductor came through the
car from behind, stepping around passengers who were still helping
each other up and swatting the dirt off their bottoms and sleeves.
"Ain't nothing to alarm yourself, folks," he said. "Just
some hillbilly decided to park himself in front of a train."
A few minutes later Bonner saw him, walking back
along the tracks. Somewhere toward the front a woman shouted, "God
as my witness, it's Paris Trout!" And one whole side of the car
got up and moved to the other side to see him.
Trout stopped at mid-car and stood still, in a gray,
wrinkled suit, arms crossed, staring up at the windows. Someone
opened a window and said, "You gone come along with us, Paris?"
Trout stayed where he was. A conductor appeared from
behind, shouting at him. "You get that piece of rusted shit out
of the way, mister, or we'll sure as hell do it for you."
Trout paid no attention at all and a moment later the
train shuddered and began to move. A cheer went up from the Cotton
Point One Hundred, to be moving again.
Bonner watched Trout slowly disappear to the back. A
moment later he saw Trout's Henry J — the driver's door was wide
open, and the whole side was dented where the train had pushed it out
of the way — and then it was gone from sight too. On some signal,
drinking began in the aisle, and the hushed, busy feeling was gone.
Bonner stood up and squeezed past Leslie into the
aisle, leaving her there in the seat. The aisle filled with the
celebration. The woman who had kissed Harry Seagraves's head kissed
his nose and then his cheeks. Before long, other ladies were kissing
him, and perfect red imprints of lips lay like blisters over as much
of Harry Seagraves's face as wasn't covered by whiskers.
Leslie watched her husband. He accepted a paper cup
of liquor, he accepted kisses from Cotton Point ladies who could not
reach Seagraves, he put his hands on everyone he saw.
She slid to the seat next to the window and closed
her eyes.
The party moved up and down the aisle. Someone threw
a roll of toilet paper the length of the car. Someone else had a
banjo. Men and women were crawling over seats, wearing each other's
hats. A roll of toilet paper landed in the seat behind Leslie Bonner.
Her husband came out of a tangle of people a moment later and sat
down heavily in the next seat.
"
You want some coffee?" he said.
She shook her head. She would have liked some of the
liquor, but Carl did not allow her to drink now outside the house. He
was afraid of the things she would do.
"
I can get you a coffee," he said. "Find
you a Coke-Cola."
"
No," she said.
He said, "If you change your mind . . ."
He stood up and headed back into the aisle. Someone
at the front of the car was blowing a bugle; the noise confused her.
She covered herself with a Georgia Pacific Railroad blanket that she
found in the compartment overhead and put her fingers in her ears.
The sound of the party faded, and she heard the noises of the train
coming up out of the floor.
Time passed, she could not say how much. She felt
someone in the next seat. She moved half her face over the blanket
and found herself blinking into the eyes of Harry Seagraves.
Seagraves sipped at his drink but did not speak. There were lipstick
smudges on his silk collar and his neck, his hair was mussed and his
tie had been turned backwards and hung down his back.
She realized her fingers were still in her ears and
took them out.
"
Mr. Seagraves," she said.
Seagraves squinted, studying her. It seemed sexual,
but it was not impolite. She came farther up in her seat. She
straightened her blouse and touched her hair. It was less
uncomfortable than she would have thought, to have him stare at her.
The car shook and leaned, it felt like the party
itself was tipping it one way and then another. "Mr. Trout's
appearance seemed to have made an impression," she said.
"
It often does," he said. Then: "It
isn't often that easy to put him behind you."
He finished what was in the cup and refilled it from
his flask. Without a word, he handed the cup to Leslie Bonner, and
she took it.
The liquor ran a spasm through her, top to bottom.
She held on to the cup, looking over it at Harry Seagraves's hair.
And then she put it against her lips again. "My husband does not
approve of my imbibing in public," she said.
He took the cup from her hand and hid it between her
leg and the seat cushion under the blanket. His movements were clumsy
in a thick-fingered way. "There," he said.
She smiled at him, affected by his kindness. She felt
like kissing him too. "He believes I change personalities,"
she said. Harry Seagraves took the flask from his pocket, touched it
to his lower lip, then seemed to change his mind. "Your husband
is very young," he said.
She waited, but that was all. She found the cup under
the blanket and sipped from it again. The liquor was strong, and she
felt warm from her throat to her stomach. While the cup was still in
her hand, he refilled it. She looked quickly at the crowd in the
aisle but did not see her husband.
The bugle was blowing again, and someone threw
another roll of toilet paper. The noise was not as confusing now,
with half a cup of Harry Seagraves's liquor in her stomach. "Do
you believe it's possible to change personalities, Mr. Seagraves?"
she said.
He thought for a moment. "You can change moods,"
he said, "but you knock on the door, it's never somebody
brand-new that answers . . . not in my experience."
He thought of Paris Trout. "I think there's some
people that keep themselves private to cover up who they are,
however."
"Thatis it exactly," she said, the liquor
oiling all the gates. "There are some who seem to have a talent
to hold back what they are, like it isn't good enough."
She took the cup out from under the blanket and drank
half of what was inside. "Or," she said, "they try to
hide their wife. They get ashamed of the people they love."
He saw that the conversation had turned and that they
were talking about Carl Bonner. "It's a hard thing to build a
law practice," he said. "Your husband wants things done
before they are ready." He paused then and seemed to forget his
thread. Then he said, "You can't be the youngest Eagle Scout in
the history of Georgia all your life."
"
He hates how that follows him around," she
said.
"
Then he oughtn't to aspire to it."
She stared at the cup in her hands, and he began to
regret his words. "I didn't mean that as harsh as it sounded,"
he said. "Your husband is a fine young attorney, knows as much
about the law as anybody. And in time he'll mellow. Everybody's got
to give a little here and there, or they burn up."
"
It's partly this business with Paris Trout,"
she said, and it startled him to hear the name out loud — he had
just thought of the man again himself "He's frustrated that Mr.
Trout won't give his wife a divorce."
"
I can appreciate that," Seagraves said.
"Mr. Trout is a frustrating man to deal with."
"
You referred him."
He looked past her, out the window. A road ran
parallel to the tracks, an old woman and her mule and wagon were the
only things that moved. He picked up the blanket where it was bunched
next to his leg and draped it over his own lap.
"
It didn't seem like a three-year job," he
said. "Mrs. Trout is a friend of mine, and I knew your husband
would pay attention to her case. . . . I never knew it would turn
into a test of endurance."
Up in front they had begun singing. "Happy
Birthday to Cotton Point." A glass broke, people laughed. The
mayor cracked his whip. Leslie Bonner finished what was in her cup.
"If I could do it over," Seagraves said,
"I'd send Mrs. Trout to Walter Huff. He isn't as sharp as Carl,
and he won't work as long into the night, but he's got more common
sense. He don't push when something won't move."
He refilled her cup, shaking the last few drops out
of the flask. "I hope I haven't left you empty," she said.
He nodded his head in the direction of the party in
the aisle.
"
Somewhere in that crowd of patriots," he
said, "my wife is holding on to a thirty-pound picnic basket
like it was her firstborn."
"
Your wife is so beautiful," she said.
"
Miss Ether County, 1934. They crowned her in
the middle of the Great Depression." He looked at Leslie
closely. "As far as I know," he said, "it didn't help
at all."
She looked up in time to see her husband making his
way back. His beard was red and uneven, and his eyes were glazed. She
put the cup back under the blanket.
Carl Bonner stood in the aisle, swaying, looking down
at her. "I see you found company," he said.
Harry Seagraves began to smile, but Leslie Bonner's
expression stopped him. She stared up at her husband without
answering.
"
What are you doing back here?" Bonner said
to his wife.
"
I'm afraid she was minding het own business
until I sat down," Seagraves said. "She never encouraged me
a bit."
A smile passed over Bonner's face, but he never took
his eyes off his wife."
"
What are you doing?" he said again. A
slight trembling shook him, and his cheeks paled.
"Are you feeling poorly?" Seagraves said,
but Bonner did not answer.
"
I asked you a question," he said to her.
"I want an answer."
Seagraves saw the girl was stupefied. "I asked
her to toast with me," he said, keeping his voice reasonable.
"It's not every day a town celebrates its hundred and fiftieth
anniversary, and I asked her to join the celebration."
Bonner looked away from his wife for half a second,
checking the blanket. She moved, perhaps two inches, but his stare
returned and pinned her to the spot. "Here I am in the same
car." he said.
"Wait a minute here," Seagraves said.
Carl Bonner checked his watch. "Thirty-five
minutes I been up in the front end of the railroad car," he
said. "That's how long I turned my back."