“It wouldn’t be long enough,” I said, although at that point I didn’t give Shit One about The Murder Place.
“Sadie Dunhill says she doesn’t believe you care a fig for that novel.”
It was an insight she hadn’t shared with me. It shook me, but I tried not to show it. “El, Sadie doesn’t know everything.”
“The play, then. At least do the play. As long as it doesn’t involve nudity, I’ll back anything you choose. Given the current composition of the schoolboard, and the fact that I myself only have a two-year contract as principal, that’s a mighty big promise. You can dedicate it to Vince Knowles, if you like.”
“Vince has already had a football season dedicated to his memory, Ellie. I think that’s enough.”
She went away, beaten.
The second request came from Mike Coslaw, who would be graduating in June and told me he intended to declare a theater major at college. “But I’d really like to do one more play here. With you, Mr. Amberson. Because you showed me the way.”
Unlike Ellie Dockerty, he accepted the excuse about my bogus novel without question, which made me feel bad. Terrible, really. For a man who didn’t like to lie-who had seen his marriage collapse because of all the ones he’d heard from his I-can-stop-whenever-I-want wife-I was certainly telling a passel of them, as we said in my Jodie days.
I walked Mike out to the student parking lot where his prize possession was parked (an old Buick sedan with fenderskirts), and asked him how his arm felt now that the cast was off. He said it was fine, and he was sure he’d be set for football practice this coming summer. “Although,” he said, “if I got cut, it wouldn’t break my heart. Then maybe I could do some community theater as well as school stuff. I want to learn everything-set design, lighting, even costumes.” He laughed. “People’ll start callin me queer.”
“Concentrate on football, making grades, and not getting too homesick the first semester,” I said. “Please. Don’t screw around.”
He did a zombie Frankenstein voice. “Yes… master…”
“How’s Bobbi Jill?”
“Better,” he said. “There she is.”
Bobbi Jill was waiting by Mike’s Buick. She waved at him, then saw me and immediately turned away, as if interested in the empty football field and the rangeland beyond. It was a gesture everyone in school had gotten used to. The scar from the accident had healed to a fat red string. She tried to cover it with cosmetics, which only made it more noticeable.
Mike said, “I tell her to quit with the powder already, it makes her look like an advertisement for Soames’s Mortuary, but she won’t listen. I also tell her I’m not going with her out of pity, or so she won’t swallow any more pills. She says she believes me, and maybe she does. On sunny days.”
I watched him hurry to Bobbi Jill, grab her by the waist, and swing her around. I sighed, feeling a little stupid and a lot stubborn. Part of me wanted to do the damn play. Even if it was good for nothing else, it would fill the time while I was waiting for my own show to start. But I didn’t want to get hooked into the life of Jodie in more ways than I already was. Like any possible long-term future with Sadie, my relationship with the town needed to be on hold.
If everything went just right, it was possible I could wind up with the girl, the gold watch, and everything. But I couldn’t count on that no matter how carefully I planned. Even if I succeeded I might have to run, and if I didn’t get away, there was a good chance that my good deed on behalf of the world would be rewarded by life in prison. Or the electric chair in Huntsville.
It was Deke Simmons who finally trapped me into saying yes. He did it by telling me I’d be nuts to even consider it. I should have recognized that Oh, Br’er Fox, please don’t th’ow me in that briar patch shtick, but he was very sly about it. Very subtle. A regular Br’er Rabbit, you might say.
We were in my living room drinking coffee on a Saturday afternoon while some old movie played on my snow-fuzzy TV-cowboys in Fort Hollywood standing off two thousand or so attacking Indians. Outside, more rain was falling. There must have been at least a few sunny days during the winter of ’62, but I can’t recall any. All I can remember are cold fingers of drizzle always finding their way to the barbered nape of my neck in spite of the turned-up collar of the sheepskin jacket I’d bought to replace the ranch coat.
“You don’t want to worry about that damn play just because Ellen Dockerty’s got her underwear all in a bunch about it,” Deke said. “Finish your book, get a bestseller, and never look back. Live the good life in New York. Have a drink with Norman Mailer and Irwin Shaw at the White Horse Tavern.”
“Uh-huh,” I said. John Wayne was blowing a bugle. “I don’t think Norman Mailer has to worry too much about me. Irwin Shaw, either.”
