Sometimes a Great Notion

  Through the heavy glass door of the hospital I pushed, to a welcoming of warm air and the same old Amazon in white reading the same movie magazine. "You must live here," I remarked, trying to be friendly. "Days, nights, and Thanksgivings."

  "Mr. Stamper?" she asked with a good deal of suspicion. She then leaned nervously toward me. "You . . . are you feeling woozy, Mr. Stamper?"

  "It's woozy weather," I reminded her with some hesitation.

  "I mean feelin' bad?" She rose from her magazine, eyeing me warily. "I mean I know you been under an enormous strain . . ."

  "Your sympathy is very much appreciated," I told her, becoming more puzzled, "but I don't think I'm going to faint again, if that's what you're concerned about."

  "Faint? Yes . . . maybe you can sit down while . . . I'll just whisk off an' fetch the doctor. You wait here, now, hear me . . . ?"

  Before I could reply she had whisked off in a cloud of starch dust that hung in her wake like exhaust. I stared after her, perplexed by her sprinting departure. Certainly a change from our last encounter. What scared her? I wondered for a few moments, then concluded it was my new look. "The new presence of black disdain in my features . . . that's what." I curled my lip coldly. "Threw a bit of fright into the poor drudge is what, to come face to chilling face with the Total Absence of Fear . . ."

  Then I bent to place a quarter in the cigarette machine and, in the mirror, caught sight of the visage that had sent her scurrying--a chiller all right: not quite so much a look of black disdain, I conceded, studying an unkempt, unshaven wastepaper basket of a face that peered back at me with red-rimmed and terror-filled eyes, as a look of bleak destruction. But a chiller, nevertheless.

  I was a sight. Along with no bath there had been no mirror in my hotel room and I had not been witness to the decay. It had come with the insidious stealth of mildew; just as the wallpaper had become tracked overnight with the little delicate footprints of gray blight, my face had been marked by the passage of neglect. No wonder the Mad Scandinavian had chosen to cower behind his bolted door! After three days of cigarettes, private eyes, and mildew, mine was not exactly the face at which anyone--regardless of humor or nationality--would rush forth armed only with a fish.

  The nurse returned with the bulky doctor in tow. Even this archfiend's filthy-and fat-minded good fellowship was intimidated by my appearance: he was unable to think of a single insinuation, he was so overcome.

  "Good lord, boy, you look just awful!"

  "Thank you. I cultivated the look especially for the visit. I didn't want my poor father to think I was ridiculing his present condition by showing up looking all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed."

  "I don't believe you have to worry about what old Henry's thinking these days," the doctor said.

  "Pretty bad?"

  He nodded. "Far too bad to give a hang if anybody's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed or not. You should have come earlier; as it is now, you might be disappointed in his reaction to your--what'd you call it?--'cultivated look'?"

  "Perhaps," I said, noticing that the good doctor was getting his old snide equilibrium back. "Shall we see?"

  "Take it easy; you don't look capable of walking that far."

  After a pulse check convinced him I was in no immediate danger, he allowed me to have a look at the shredded remnants of my illustrious sire. Not a very pleasant experience . . . The room smelled of urine; the air was warm and hothouse moist; the bed had side-guards. The old man's hardened grin had cracked in his baking nightmares, and a thin thread of red ran from his lips down his whiskered chin to his neck, like a lorgnette string attached to a wire-rimmed plaster smile. I stood looking down at him for as long as I was able--I've no idea if it was seconds or minutes--while the old fellow clacked and clattered against sleep with a bony tongue. One time he went so far as to open a matted eye to look at me and command, "Wag it an' shake it. Suck yer gut in an' git goddammit to affairs!" But ere I could comment, the eye closed, the tongue stopped, and the conversation was terminated.

  I followed the doctor's broad backside down the corridor away from the old man's room, wishing that, just once, just this one time, my father had been more explicit about these affairs that I had been so long trying to git goddammit to . . .

  On the pillowcase before her, Jenny sees a nebulous mouth forming; she has a quick sip from her glass, wipes her lips on the rough forearm of her sweater, scoops up the shells, and casts again, very hungry and very tired, but sensing the approach of something too big and too wonderful to risk missing in sleep . . . Teddy unlocks the door of the Snag and steps into air set like gelatin with stale smoke and flat beer and wild-cherry toilet disinfectant; it is early, much earlier than he usually opens, and his eyes are puffier than usual from his interrupted sleep, but, like Jenny, he anticipates the approach of something too big to sleep through.

  Unlike Jenny, however, Teddy doesn't feel that he has had any part in bringing it about; he is only an observer, a spectator--content to just open up the arena and let other forces and bigger men cast the shells . . .

  Jonathan Bailey Draeger wakes in his motel in Eugene, checks his watch, and reaches to the desk beside the bed for his notepad. He finds the appointment and reads it again to be sure: well . . . he isn't due at Evenwrite's to eat for three hours; one hour to get dressed, one to drive over . . . and one to put off the ordeal at the Evenwrite household . . .

  Actually, he isn't feeling that much distaste for the prospect. Be a nice concluding episode. He lies back against the pillow, holding the notepad in one hand, and, smiling to himself, at the picture Evenwrite's name summons up, writes: "Status does not automatically generate aspirations to rise, just as food does not necessarily stimulate hunger . . . but a man seeing another in a position superior to his, eating food higher off the hog, so to speak . . . will go through heaven and hell to sup at the same table with the superior even if he has to provide the hog." And adds: "Or the turkey."

  And Floyd Evenwrite, stepping from the tub, calls to his wife to ask how long it will be before their guest arrives. "Three hours," she calls back from the kitchen. "Time enough for you to get you some rest before he gets here . . . out all night, for goodness' sakes, what kind of 'business' could be so important to keep you out all night?"

  He doesn't answer. He pulls on his trousers and shirt and carries his shoes into the living room. "Three hours," he says aloud, sitting down to wait. "Three by god hours. Time enough for Hank to stand up an' shake hisself . . ."

  (Viv came back in with soup and sandwiches and we set up the TV trays to eat off of while we watched the bands and the twirlers parade around; we spoke about every five minutes, and then it was something like "She's good, that one in spangles . . ." "Yeah, she is, isn't she? Real good."

  I was just beginning to appreciate what a thorough job the kid had done . . .)

  In the doctor's office once again I took his offered cigarette, and this time sat down. I felt myself no longer vulnerable to the scurrilous comments and cattities.

  "I warned you"--he grinned--"that you might be a little disappointed."

  "Disappointed? With his little phrases of advice and endearment? Doctor, I'm overjoyed. I can recall periods when that statement would have seemed like an hour's chat."

  "That's funny. You two never talked much? Old Henry always made out he was a great one for talking. Maybe, would you say, you just didn't care to hear what the old boy was talking about?"

  "Whatever do you mean, Doctor? My daddy and I might never have said much, but we kept no secrets from each other."

  He gave me his most knowing of smiles. "Not even you from him? The tiniest secret?"

  "Nope."

  He leaned back, creaking and wheezing in the swivel chair, and fixed his eyes on the past in rotund reverie. "Seems, though, that people were always keeping one thing or another from Henry Stamper," he recalled. "I'm sure you don't remember, Leland, but some years ago there was a story circulating around town"--he shot a quick look at me to make sur
e I did remember--"about Hank and his relationship with a--"

  "Doctor, we aren't a nosy family," I instructed him. "Our relationships are not always posted on the family bulletin board . . ."

  "Still--oh yes, I didn't mean to imply . . . But still, the point I was making is that the whole town was aware of this story--true or not--while old Henry seemed completely ignorant."

  I felt myself becoming more and more irritated by the man, less, I think, by his insinuations than I was by his attack on my helpless father. "I'm sure you don't remember, Doctor," I said coldly, "that while old Henry quite often seemed completely ignorant, he nevertheless succeeded in besting all the rest of the sharpies in this town in some business deal, time after time after time."

  "Oh, you misunderstand . . . I'm not disparaging your father's judgment . . ."

  "I know you aren't, Doctor."

  "I was merely--" He halted, flustered, finding me a little harder to intimidate than last time. He filled his cheeks to start again, but there was a knock on the door. The nurse opened it to advise him that Boney Stokes was here again.

  "Tell him to stop in a moment, Miss Mahone. Fine old fellow, Leland; he's been here, faithful as a clock, ever since--Say . . . ! Boney, come on in a minute . . . you know young Leland Stamper?"

  I started to stand to give the old skeleton my chair, but he put a hand on my shoulder and shook his head soulfully. "Don't get up, son. I'm going right on down to see your poor father. Terrible thing," he said in a voice dripping grief. "Terrible terrible terrible thing."

  The hand held me in the chair as though I were a wedding guest; I muttered a hello, while fighting back the urge to cry out, "Unhand me, graybeard loon!" Stokes and the doctor spoke a moment about old Henry's deteriorating condition, and I tried once more to stand. "Wait, son." The hand tightened. "Mightn't you tell me how things are at the house, so I could pass it on, say just perchance Henry should come to for a bit? How is Viv? And Hank? My, you've no idea how heartsore I was hearing how the poor boy had lost his closest companion. 'A good friend gone,' my daddy used to say, 'is a shadow across the sun.' How's he taking it all?"

  I told them I hadn't seen my brother since the day of the accident; they were both openly shocked and disappointed. "But you'll be seeing him today, won't you? Thanksgiving Day?"

  I told them I saw no reason to trouble the poor boy, and that I was planning to leave on the bus to Eugene this afternoon.

  "Going back East? So soon? My, my . . ."

  I told the old man I was packed and ready. "My, my is right," the doctor echoed, and went on to ask, "And what do you imagine you'll do, Leland . . . now?"

  I thought at once of the letters I had sent to Peters, because the skillful emphasis placed on the "Now" at the end of his question made me momentarily think--as I'm sure he hoped it would--that this gossip glutton knew more than he was saying; perhaps he had somehow captured the letters and was onto the whole plot from beginning to end! "What I mean"--the good doctor probed onward, sensing that he was near a nerve--"do you plan to return to college? Or teach, maybe? Or is there a woman . . . ?"

  "I haven't exactly made plans," I answered lamely. They leaned down on me; I stalled for time with an old psychiatrist's trick. "Why do you ask, Doctor?"

  "Why? Well, I'm interested, as I told you before . . . in all of my people. Back East to teaching, huh? I suppose is what it will be? English? Drama?"

  "No, I'm not finished with--"

  "Ah, then back to school?"

  I shrugged, feeling more and more like a sophomore in the dean's office with his counselor. "Perhaps back to school. As I say, I haven't made any plans. The work here looks like it's finished . . ."

  "Yes, looks like. So you say perhaps back to school?" They continued to pin me against the chair, one with his eyes, one with a hand like a pitchfork. "Why do you hesitate?"

  "I don't know what I'll do for the money . . . it's too late to apply for a grant--"

  "Say!" the doctor interrupted, snapping his fingers. "You know, don't you, that that old man in there is just as dead as if he was in the ground?"

  "Amen, Lord." Boney nodded.

  "You realize that, don't you?"

  Taken aback by his gratuitously frank statement, I waited for him to continue, feeling less like a sophomore than like a suspect. When were they going to bring in the spotlights?

  "Maybe your father won't be declared legally dead for a week, or two weeks, who can say? Maybe a month, because he's stubborn enough. But stubborn or not, Leland, Henry Stamper's a dead man, you can bet money on it."

  "Wait a minute. Are you accusing me of something?"

  "Accusing you?" He fairly beamed at the idea. "Of what?"

  "Of having something to do with that accident up--"

  "Good gosh, no." He laughed. "You hear that, Boney?" They both laughed. "Accusing you, that's something . . ." I tried a laugh myself, but it came out sounding like Boney's cough. "All I was saying, son"--he gave Boney a broad wink--"is that, if you're interested, you come in for about five thousand dollars when he is finally declared dead. Five grand."

  "That's true, very true," Boney intoned. "I had not thought about that, but it's true."

  "Why is it true? Is there a will?"

  "No," Boney said. "A life-insurance policy."

  "I happen to know about it, Leland, because I help Boney here--and myself, o' course; the doctor must have his 'cut,' as they say--by directing potential clients to his agency--"

  "Daddy started it," Boney informed me proudly. "Nineteen-and-ten. Coastal Life and Accident."

  "And some ten years ago Henry Stamper came in here for a physical, not particularly thinking about insurance, and I directed him--"

  I held up my hand, feeling a little dizzy. "Wait just a moment. Are you asking me to believe that Henry Stamper has been making payments on a policy naming as beneficiary a person he hasn't seen in twelve years?"

  "It's all very true, son . . ."

  "And didn't look at a half-dozen times in the twelve years prior to that? A person to whom his last words were 'suck in yer gut'? Doctor, there is a limit to human credulity . . ."

  "Say now, there's your reason," Boney exclaimed, shaking my shoulder slightly, "for going back to the house. You must get that policy, you see. To return to school."

  His enthusiasm brought on a slow, dawning suspicion; "Just why"--I looked up the length of that stick arm--"is it I need a reason to go back to that house?"

  "And when you see Hank"--the doctor overrode my question--"tell him we are all . . . thinking of him."

  I turned from the stick figure to the lard man. "Why are you all thinking of him?"

  "Lord, aren't we all old friends of the family, all of us? Say, I tell you what: My grandkid drove me here. He's sitting this very minute out in the sitting room. While I'm visiting Henry, the grandkid can drive you out in his automobile." They worked like a team. I was no longer a sophomore, or a wedding guest, but a suspect in the hands of two Kafkaesque interrogators skilled at keeping their victim from getting any idea what he was about. "How 'bout it?" Boney asked.

  The doctor rose, blowing and wheezing, from his chair to answer for me. "Can't beat that kind of service, can you?" He circled the desk at me; I felt trapped by the pressure of his juggernaut advance.

  "Wait a minute, now; what is it with you people?" I demanded, fighting my way to my feet. "What skin is it off your nose whether I see my brother again or not? What is it you are pushing?"

  They were both genuinely innocent and astounded by my question. "As a doctor, I merely--"

  "Say, I tell you what." Boney's hand snagged me once more. "When you see Hank you reckon you could tell him--and the wife--that our grocery truck's gonna be coming out that way again. Tell him we will be more than happy to start up delivery again now that the truck's making that loop. Tell him to signal what he needs on the flagpole just like always. Would you do that for me?"

  I finally gave up seeking a reason for their grasping pressure; I jus
t wanted out from under it. I would leave pressure to Hank; he was more accustomed to it. I told Stokes I would give Hank the message, then tried to move toward the door; his old white thorns of fingers hung on and the two of them followed me into the waiting room, reluctant to let me get away now that they had set me moving.

  "Maybe," the doctor said, "say, Boney, maybe Hank'd like a turkey for the day. I'd bet money that with the excitement these last few days they didn't think to buy a turkey." He fished under his smock for his wallet. "Here, I'll just pay for a bird for Hank, how's that?"

  "That's a very Christian gesture," Boney agreed solemnly. "Don't you thing it is, son? Thanksgiving dinner without a old roasted gobbler just ain't Thanksgiving dinner, is it?"

  I told them I shared their feelings about Thanksgiving exactly and again tried to make a break for the glass door, but again that spiny hand detained me and, moreover, I saw that the pimply Adonis who had stolen the Hershey bar from the cafe blocked my way.

  "This is the grandkid," Boney informed me. "Larkin. Larkin, this is Leland Stamper. You're going to give him a ride out to the Stamper house while I have my visit out with old Henry."

  The grandkid scowled, snuffed, shrugged, and began zipping up his Jimmy Dean jacket, giving no indication that he remembered our previous meeting.

  "Yes, now that I think about it"--the doctor still toyed with his wallet--"I bet money there's a lot of people in town would chip in to buy old Hank a Thanksgiving dinner . . ."

  "We'll get a basket!" Boney exclaimed. I started to say that I doubted that Hank was in such dire straits just yet, when I realized that they weren't offering him the charity because he needed it--"Cranberry preserves, too, son, yams, mincemeat . . . whatever else he needs, you have him just phone me, won't you? We'll take care of it."--but because they needed to offer it.

  "Larkin, you just drop Mr. Stamper off and hurry right back for me. We got things need attending to . . ."

  But needed it for what? was the hanger. What and why? This overblown offering wasn't like Les Gibbons' need to drag the champ down off the throne. Because the champ was already down. So now why all this need to bug him with their benevolence? And not just these two clowns, but seemingly much of the rest of the town felt the same need. "What is it," I asked the grandkid as I followed him across the parking lot through the blowing rain, "that they want from my brother, do you know? bestowing all this bounty on him. What do they need?"