Player Piano (21 page)

More remarkable than the way the house had relieved its stresses was the way it conformed to Paul’s particular, not to say peculiar, needs. Here was a place where he could work with his hands, getting life from nature without being disturbed by any human beings other than his wife. Not only that, but Anita, with her love for things colonial, would be enchanted, stunned, even, by this completely authentic microcosm of the past.

“Ah,” said Doctor Pond, “Mr. Haycox at last. When you yell for him, he never yells back. Just starts coming, taking his own sweet time.”

Paul watched Mr. Haycox’s heavy-footed progress across the hard-packed earth of the barnyard. The caretaker was an old man, with close-cropped white hair, coarse, tanned skin, and, like Rudy Hertz, with remarkably big hands. Unlike Rudy, Mr. Haycox wasn’t desiccated. His flesh was firm, hard, and well colored. The chief toll he seemed to have paid time was in teeth, of which he had few. He might have been part of a pageant recalling farm life as it had once been. He wore old-fashioned blue denim overalls, a wide-brimmed straw hat, and heavy, crusty work shoes.

As though to point up the anachronism of Mr. Haycox and the Gottwald place for Paul, one of Doctor Ormand van Curler’s men, riding on a tractor, appeared on the other side
of the windbreak, snappy in spotless white coveralls, a red baseball cap, cool sandals which almost never touched the ground, and white gloves which, like Paul’s hands, rarely touched anything but steering wheels, levers, and switches.

“What do
you
want?” said Mr. Haycox. “What’s the matter now?” His voice was strong. He had none of the sheepishness or obsequiousness Paul had seen so frequently in Reeks and Wrecks. Mr. Haycox bore himself as though he owned the place, wanted the talk to be as brief and pithy as possible, and doubted that whatever was wanted of him could possibly be more important than what he had been doing.

“Doctor Proteus—this is Mr. Haycox.”

“How are you?” said Paul.

“ ’Do,” said Mr. Haycox. “What kind of doctor?”

“Doctor of Science,” said Paul.

Mr. Haycox seemed annoyed and disappointed. “Don’t call that kind a doctor at all. Three kinds of doctors: dentists, vets, and physicians. You one of those?”

“No. Sorry.”

“Then you ain’t a doctor.”

“He
is
a doctor,” said Doctor Pond earnestly. “He knows how to keep machines healthy.” He was trying to build up the importance of graduate degrees in the mind of this clod.

“Mechanic,” said Mr. Haycox.

“Well,” said Doctor Pond, “you can go to college and learn to be a specialist in all sorts of things besides making people or animals well. I mean, after all. The modern world would grind to a halt if there weren’t men with enough advanced training to keep the complicated parts of civilization working smoothly.”

“Um,” said Mr. Haycox apathetically. “What do you keep working so smoothly?”

Doctor Pond smiled modestly. “I spent seven years in the Cornell Graduate School of Realty to qualify for a Doctor of Realty degree and get this job.”

“Call yourself a doctor, too, do you?” said Mr. Haycox.

“I think I can say without fear of contradiction that I earned that degree,” said Doctor Pond coolly. “My thesis was the third longest in any field in the country that year—eight hundred and ninety-six pages, double-spaced, with narrow margins.”

“Real-estate salesman,” said Mr. Haycox. He looked back and forth between Paul and Doctor Pond, waiting for them to say something worth his attention. When they’d failed to rally after twenty seconds, he turned to go. “I’m doctor of cowshit, pigshit, and chickenshit,” he said. “When you doctors figure out what you want, you’ll find me out in the barn shoveling
my
thesis.”

“Mr. Haycox!” said Doctor Pond, furious. “You’ll stay here until we’re through with you!”

“Thought you was.” He stopped, and stood perfectly motionless.

“Doctor Proteus is buying the farm.”

“My
farm?” Mr. Haycox turned slowly to face them, and real concern was in his eyes.

“The farm you’ve been taking care of,” said Doctor Pond.

“My farm.”

“The Gottwald estate’s farm,” said Doctor Pond.

“That a man?”

“You know it isn’t.”

“Well, I’m a man. As far as men go, this here is my farm more’n it’s anybody else’s. I’m the only man who ever cared about it, ever did anything about it.” He turned earnestly to Paul. “You know the will says you got to keep it just like it is?”

“I plan to.”

“And keep me on,” said Mr. Haycox.

“Well, I don’t know for sure,” said Paul. This was a complication he hadn’t foreseen. He planned to do the work himself. That was the point of the undertaking.

“That
isn’t
in the will,” said Doctor Pond, pleased to have found something that shocked respect into Mr. Haycox.

“All the same, you got to keep me on,” said Mr. Haycox. “This is what I do.” He gestured at the yard and buildings, all neat. “This is what I’ve done.”

“Gottwald bought this place from Mr. Haycox’s father,” Doctor Pond explained. “There was some sort of informal agreement, I think, that Mr. Haycox could have the job of caretaker for his lifetime.”

“Informal, hell!” said Mr. Haycox. “He
promised
, Gottwald did. This here’s been our family’s for more’n a hundred years—lots more. And I’m the last of the line, and Gottwald promised, by God, he promised it’d be the same as mine till it came time for me to go.”

“Well, the time has come,” said Doctor Pond.

“Dead—Gottwald meant when I was dead. I got twice as many years behind me as you do, sonny boy, and twice as many ahead of me.” He moved closer to Doctor Pond, and squinted at him. “I’ve moved so many big piles of shit in my life, figure I could throw a little dab like you clean over the barn.”

Doctor Pond’s eyes widened, and he backed away. “We’ll see about that,” he said faintly.

“Look,” said Paul hastily, “I’m sure we can work this out. Soon as I close the deal, Mr. Haycox, you’ll be working for me.”

“Things going to be
just
like they were?”

“My wife and I’ll be coming out from time to time.” Now didn’t seem to be the time to tell him or anyone that he and Anita would be permanent residents.

Haycox didn’t care for this much. “When?”

“We’ll give you plenty of notice.”

He nodded grimly. Then, unexpectedly and charmingly, Mr. Haycox smiled. “Wonder if I went and offended that there Doctor of Realty?” Pond had fled. “Well, I’ll be
getting back to work. Long as this here is going to be your farm, you might’s well fix the pump. Needs a new packing.”

“Afraid I don’t know how,” said Paul.

“Maybe,” said Mr. Haycox walking away, “maybe if you’d of gone to college another ten or twenty years, somebody would of gotten around to showing you how,
Doctor.
”

A
NITA SEEMINGLY MISTOOK
Paul’s quite excitement for daydreams of happy hours to come at the Meadows, which were less than two weeks away.

She didn’t know that he was learning to be a farmer and laying the groundwork for teaching her to be a farmer’s wife.

It was a hot Saturday, and on the pretext of buying himself a fielder’s mitt, Paul went to his farm—to his and Mr. Haycox’s farm. There Mr. Haycox condescendingly and impatiently imparted half-truths about running the place, and gave Paul a vague confidence that he could get the hang of it after a while.

That evening at suppertime, Paul, satisfyingly pooped after having trailed Mr. Haycox for hours, asked his wife if she knew what day the coming Wednesday was.

She looked up from a list of things she was to pack for her trip to the Mainland and, more important, for Paul’s trip to the Meadows. “Can’t imagine. Have you got nice-looking tennis shoes for the trip?”

“They’ll do. For your information, next Wednesday is—”

“Shepherd is taking twelve pairs of socks—all green. He’s a captain, too, you know.”

“I know.”

“What do you make of that? It’s kind of a surprise: the first time you get to be captain, he does, too.”

“Maybe he sent a coupon to the Rosicrucians. How on earth do you know how many pairs of socks he’s taking?”

“Well, he hasn’t got a wife to help him plan, so he came over this afternoon to get my help. So I made a list of things he ought to take. Men are so helpless.”

“They muddle through. Did he have anything interesting to say?”

She laid down the list and looked at him reproachfully. “Only about the police report about your pistol, and another one about the underworld people you were with that awful night in Homestead.” She wadded her napkin and threw it down petulantly. “Paul—why don’t you tell me these things? Why do I always have to find out from someone else?”

“Underworld!” snorted Paul. “Oh, for heaven’s sake.”

“Shepherd says Lasher and Finnerty are being watched as potential saboteurs.”

“Everybody’s being watched! Why do you listen to that old woman of a man!”

“Why don’t
you
tell me what’s going on?”

“Because those things were trivial. Because I was afraid you wouldn’t see them that way and get all upset—the way you’re getting upset. It’s all fixed. Kroner fixed it.”

“Shepherd said you could get ten years for the pistol business alone.”

“Next time he’s over, ask him if he has any idea how much time I’d get if I mashed up his long nose for him.”

Paul’s muscles were tight from the unaccustomed rigors of the afternoon, and animal smells had communicated to him a feel of primitive strength. The notion of pushing Shepherd’s
face in—a bizarre sport in a lifetime of pacifistic notions—came as an unexpected complement to the day. “Well, to hell with the captain of the Green Team, I say. Again I’ll ask, what day is the coming Wednesday?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.”

“Our engagement anniversary.”

It was an anniversary with disquieting connotations for both of them—an anniversary that neither had ever mentioned in their years of marriage. It was the date on which Anita had announced to Paul that she was with child, his child, and on which he had responded by offering her his name, etc. Now, with the event softened by years of more or less adequate marriage, Paul thought that they might sentimentally make it something that it was not. The anniversary, more to the point, fell at an ideal time for the beginning of his re-education program for Anita.

“And I have a special evening planned,” he said; “not like any evening we’ve ever had together, darling.”

“Funny, I’d forgotten the date completely. Really? Next Wednesday?” She gave him an odd, rebuking smile, as though the story of their engagement had got twisted in her mind—as though she thought
he
had brought about the event by a now insignificant deception. “Well, that’s sweet,” she said. “Kind of cute of you to remember. But, with the Meadows so close—” She was of such a methodical nature that when something of importance was in the offing, other aspects of life could have no importance at all. To her it seemed almost indecent to give attention to anything but the crucial matter of the Meadows.

“To hell with the Meadows.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“I mean we’re still going out next Wednesday.”

“Well, I hope you know what you’re doing. You’re the captain.”

“I’m the captain.”

E
DGAR
R. B. H
AGSTROHM
, thirty-seven, R&R—131313, Undercoater First Class, 22nd Surface Preserving Battalion, 58th Maintenance Regiment, 110th Building and Grounds Division, Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps, had been named after his father’s favorite author, the creator of Tarzan—Tarzan, who, far away from the soot and biting winter of the Hagstrohms’ home town, Chicago, made friends with lions and elephants and apes, and swung through trees on vines, and was built like a brick outhouse with square wheels and Venetian blinds, and took what he wanted of civilization’s beautiful women in tree houses, and left the rest of civilization alone. E. R. B. Hagstrohm liked Tarzan as much as his father had, and hated being a little man and being in Chicago ten times as much.