“Tips are free, root beers are sold American. Enjoy your time in Maine, Mr. Amberson. And Frankie? You drink that milkshake and get on back to school.”
“You bet, Pop.” This time it was Junior who tipped a wink in my direction.
“Frank?” one of the ladies called in a yoo-hoo voice. “Are these oranges fresh?”
“As fresh as your smile, Leola,” he replied, and the ladies tee-hee’d. I’m not trying to be cute here; they actually tee-hee’d.
I passed them, murmuring “Ladies” as I went by. The bell jingled and I went out into the world that had existed before my birth. But this time instead of crossing the street to the courtyard where the rabbit-hole was, I walked deeper into that world. Across the street, the wino in the long black coat was gesticulating at the tunic-wearing clerk. The card he was waving might be orange instead of yellow, but otherwise he was back on script.
I took that as a good sign.
Titus Chevron was beyond the Red amp; White Supermarket, where Al had bought the same supplies for his diner over and over again. According to the sign in the window, lobster was going for sixty-nine cents a pound. Across from the market, standing on a patch of ground that was vacant in 2011, was a big maroon barn with the doors standing open and all sorts of used furniture on display-cribs, cane rockers, and overstuffed easy chairs of the “Dad’s relaxin’” type seemed in particularly abundant supply. The sign over the door read THE JOLLY WHITE ELEPHANT. An additional sign, this one an A-frame propped to catch the eye of folks on the road to Lewiston, made the audacious claim that IF WE DON’T HAVE IT, YOU DON’T NEED IT. A fellow I took to be the proprietor was sitting in one of the rocking chairs, smoking a pipe and looking across at me. He wore a strap-style tee-shirt and baggy brown slacks. He also wore a goatee, which I thought equally audacious for this particular island in the time-stream. His hair, although combed back and held in place with some sort of grease, curled down to the nape of his neck and made me think of some old rock-and-roll video I’d seen: Jerry Lee Lewis jumping on his piano as he sang “Great Balls of Fire.” The proprietor of the Jolly White Elephant probably had a reputation as the town beatnik.
I tipped a finger to him. He gave me the faintest of nods and went on puffing his pipe.
At the Chevron (where regular was selling for 19.9 cents a gallon and “super” was a penny more), a man in blue coveralls and a strenuous crewcut was working on a truck-the Anicettis’, I presumed-that was up on the lift.
“Mr. Titus?”
He glanced over his shoulder. “Ayuh?”
“Mr. Anicetti said I could use your restroom?”
“Key’s inside the front door.” Doe-ah.
“Thank you.”
The key was attached to a wooden paddle with MEN printed on it. The other key had GIRLS printed on the paddle. My ex-wife would have shit a brick at that, I thought, and not without glee.
The restroom was clean but smoky-smelling. There was an urn-style ashtray beside the commode. From the number of butts studding it, I would guess a good many visitors to this tidy little room enjoyed puffing as they pooped.
When I came out, I saw two dozen or so used cars in a small lot next to the station. A line of colored pennants fluttered above them in a light breeze. Cars that would have sold for thousands
– as classics, no less-in 2011 were priced at seventy-five and a hundred dollars. A Caddy that looked in nearly mint condition was going for eight hundred. The sign
over the little sales booth (inside, a gum-chewing, ponytailed cutie was absorbed in Photoplay) read: ALL THESE CARS RUN GOOD AND COME WITH THE BILL TITUS GUARENTEE WE SERVICE WHAT WE SELL!
I hung the key up, thanked Titus (who grunted without turning from the truck on the lift), and started back toward Main Street, thinking it would be a good idea to get my hair cut before visiting the bank. That made me remember the goatee-wearing beatnik, and on impulse I crossed the street to the used furniture emporium.
“Morning,” I said.
“Well, it’s actually afternoon, but whatever makes you happy.” He puffed his pipe, and that light late-summer breeze brought me a whiff of Cherry Blend. Also a memory of my grandfather, who used to smoke it when I was a kid. He sometimes blew it in my ear to quell the earache, a treatment that was probably not AMA-approved.
“Do you sell suitcases?”
“Oh, I got a few in my kick. No more’n two hundred, I’d say. Walk all the way to the back and look on your right.”
“If I buy one, could I leave it here for a couple of hours, while I do some shopping?”
“I’m open until five,” he said, and turned his face up into the sun. “After that you’re on your own.”
I traded two of Al’s vintage dollars for a leather valise, left it behind the beatnik’s counter, then walked up to Main Street with my briefcase banging my leg. I glanced into the greenfront and saw the clerk sitting beside the cash register and reading a newspaper. There was no sign of my pal in the black overcoat.
