Chapter 19.
In the Opera House, Josh and Shannon dressed and lingered with each other. They declared their love aloud to the silent dusty room of empty and broken chairs. A promise of someday – someday soon, they would be together in the same house - someday promised in its various guises. One of these days, they would each tell their spouses.
So the fantasy continued until Josh separated from Shannon and emerged from the building. Upon entering his car, reality returned to Josh in the form of child seats, pacifiers, wet wipes, a trio of dolls on the floormats. Likewise, in Shannon's car she sat amid farm dirt and dust, a bill of sale from the feedstore, her grocery list, and the emblem of Saint Christopher that Jack attached to the sun visor, over her head for protection. But she lacked car seats and children's items. Three miscarriages, a sign to her, that the marriage to Jack lacked something, and was not meant to be.
After Shannon drove away, Josh let his car idle for several minutes, buffering his emergence from the grove of trees before entering the observable Immaculate traffic. The sound of a tractor belched on the road. A relief came over him as his maddening need for Shannon exited him like a possession, only to be replaced with a satisfaction and a dusting of guilt. The fuel light came on in the dashboard. This offered a welcome distraction.
He drove to the gas station at the city limits of Immaculate, waving to a familiar face that departed the pump ahead of him. While filling the tank he washed the windows with the squeegee, scrubbing hard to remove bugs that fouled the glass, scrubbing all remnants of smattered wing and thorax. A smell of gasoline mixed with the scent of perfume, flitting under his nose, a notification of infidelity, a side-effect. He, too, needed scrubbing. The pump rolled cost and gallons slowly – he'd chosen the wrong pump again, the slow one. On the road ahead stood political signs, wavering in the breeze, block letters – Bush on one side, surrounded by signage of other area Republicans. Clinton on the other side of the road, amid a hoard of local Democrats. Neighbors laying bare their inner moods on the direction of the republic, using their visible place on the road to influence the district. To Josh, all this was a bi-annual entertainment, despite all claims, despite all speeches claiming otherwise. A populist charade, with each party claiming chunks of the Bill of Rights as its own, splitting the nucleus that made the atom whole.
Maybe he could end the affair now with Shannon, having his fill, perhaps today would be the last time.
A political shift from left to right in the town had begun, with the old Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor party slipping a notch in better economic times. Josh dwelled upon the election as much as other men, with an almost religious devotion, despite viewing the debates as little more than a game show, the candidates costumed, briefed on their lines, the actor with the best character winning the scene.
The smell of perfume reached his nose again, and the routine sense of guilt, of doing wrong, anchored his levity back to earth.
In the 80's, he noted how effective the class rhetoric of left-wing politicians worked when interest rates soared and commodity prices drooped. With rates settled to manageable levels, he now perceived a cultural populism winning among the right-wing. The memory of harder times faded quickly, and those who lost land had moved on, their stories were no longer fresh. In any case, he always voted for the party that currently sat on the sideline, despising politicians in general for their overall uselessness. With his single vote, he aimed to keep politicians from becoming career politicians, to see them all topple after one term.
What might Kathy say, if he brought up leaving?
To see no party in power for long, keep the radicals on both sides of the Congressional aisle kenneled, politics a mere interruption, a sideshow provided by and sponsored by greater powers at work behind the scenes. Immaculate State Bank, but a node on the frontier, far from the commanding heights of the economy, receiving the messages from Wall Street and Madison Avenue, transmitting none in return.
No need to tell Kathy, let sleeping dogs lie.
While Josh pontificated and pumped fuel, a car had entered the station lot and parked on the other side of the pump nearest to Josh. A voice called his name and Josh turned, surprised to see Judd Blanks, hands in the pocket of his hooded sweatshirt, still dirty from work on the Marak farm.
"Got a minute, Josh?" asked Judd, politely, scratching his cheek with two knuckles.
"You again." The gas handle snapped as his tank bubbled to the top. "I can't seem to outrun you."
"Only because I've been lookin' for you." Judd said. Josh noticed the wiry neck, and the Adam's apple that looked like a peach pit. Judd added, "I'd really like to think we could sit down and figure something out, for me to get settled into a place."
"Fine, I'll humor you. Which property are you looking at?"
"The Boskie farm."
"Are you kidding?" Josh flipped the fuel lever and put the nozzle away. "I have sat across from a lot of fellows with the same request, for less money, guys with more sense than you, and denied them because they don't have a down payment or a co-signer, or a chance at making payments even on a contract-for-deed, which, by the way, the Boskies are not interested in. It's not favoritism, it's business, Judd – either you have the means to make payments or you don't. It's about debt. And you're a risk. I'd like to help you but there's a difference between goodwill and good business."
"But I can make the payments each year, I know that," said Judd, "enough to pay each month."
"That's what everyone thinks when they sit down in the chair. Optimism is cheap. What they don't think about is that the price of milk may drop in a year, new markets may open or close overseas for soybeans and corn. And of all the men who have sat in my office, few have had track records of defaulting like you, Judd. That's the sum of it – it has nothing to do with me not liking you. Hell, I wrote the loan for Harrick, and he sets the standard for being a prick. Don't think for a second I wouldn't like to write lines of credit for every boy that comes in with plows in his eyes and knows nothing else but farming…"
"I just need a chance."
"…ones who have been saving their money rather than spending it so they can buy thirty head of dairy cows and start there, not at the top, not spinning gold from the get-go. Take Collins, that kid – he's pasturing beef on rented land for now. One step at a time. Between you and me, Judd, you're not the only one wanting to buy that farm," said Josh, adjusting his collar and speaking lower.
Judd pulled his hand from the pocket, holding the sleeve of pictures. "But I got my foot in the door further than they do."
"Beg to differ…"
"Here's a little something to help you think on changing your mind." Judd's produced the pictures from his sweatshirt pocket.
"What is that?"
"Just take a look." The flap of the photo sleeve blew in the wind. Josh grabbed it and opened the pouch, pulling out the pictures, not having to thumb past the first photo to feel the cloud of the blackmail gathering over his head.
Judd said, "A skirt-chaser never can quit. Just like a drinking man forgives himself by Wednesday so he can hit the bar again on Friday. I know how it feels. I get it, Josh, women's just your thing."
"Is that so?" Josh stopped thumbing through the photos. "Does that mean you have the moral high ground on me?"
"This afternoon, I believe I might."
"You don't. Around here, inventory is kept on everybody's name, no matter how much dust it collects. And yours is mud. It's an embarrassment, if you could pull your head out of the sand and take an honest look at the faces around you."
"Doesn't change the pictures and the fact that you're cheating."
"The only difference between Shannon and your smut collection at home is that I can have the real thing – the rest of you can only drive to The Wreck for live women. And that goes for all the others who kneel in the pews and hang centerfolds in their parlors. You, an
d all the rest, have done in your mind a hundred times what I have done one time outside of my marriage. Once."
Judd did not budge. "Yeah. But centerfolds ain't Jack Hoffman's wife. And if I gauge the photos right, I don't think today's fling with Shannon was the first meeting. Might even say you two seem quite familiar."
"Don't preach to me from the gutter, Judd."
"Maybe true," said Judd, enjoying himself. "But that's the funny thing about temptation, ain't it, Josh? Those that can have something they want, that they shouldn't want, they're supposed to stop. Trick is knowing when. But you haven't had enough sugar, have you?"
"You of all people…you know as well as I do, there's a time when you can't say when. I've seen you in the alley behind the Legion with that girl…what's her name? The girl, Maggie. I imagine your girlfriend doesn't know about that little outing you had."
"Bless Jana's heart," Judd said, laughing, "but you can't hold my feet to fire with that. I'm willing to part with her. And I'd deny it anyway. And she'd believe me. On the other hand, I don't think you are ready for that with Kathy. Not with your pretty little life. I wouldn't want to go head to head with that woman. I've seen her bulldog men in the bank. You must be frayed to the seams. Then there's the divorce and the money. The whole of your world – I don't think you want to be set back to half. It's not your way. Not clean enough for your pink hands."
Looking down at the pictures, Josh could not help but notice his hands and become irritated. "What would you know about anything that goes on in my house?"
"Because you have a lot more to lose than I do, Josh. Don't need to be a fly on the wall to see that."
Josh dug in his pocket and pulled out the loose change. "Here, Judd. Tell you what, I'll make you a loan." Nickels and dimes landed near Judd's feet, jingling on the asphalt. "See that pay phone over there by the station? Call Wells Fargo. Call Tonnamowoc National. Call any bank but the one in this town. And just try me on blackmail. The Chief of Police golfs with me. Guess whose side he'll take?" Josh started toward the store to pay, turning his back on Judd.
"I'd like my photos back. I got the negatives elsewhere, case you think that's the only copy."
Josh stuffed them in the sleeve and threw them at Judd. "Just try me, Judd."
"I'll give you a few hours, as a courtesy, so you can consider your kids, your house." As Josh moved away, Judd spoke louder so that others at the pumps could hear. "But by dark I'll be aiming to find Kathy if I don't receive an update." Tucking the pictures under his arm he watched Josh walk into the store, loathing the banker's designer jeans and name-brand shoes. Judd lingered to watch Josh pay for his fuel, standing firm with a stare, a poker face, waiting until Josh exited the store, entered his car, and drove off in a lurch.