Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction

  “Want to go shooting tomorrow?” said Rudy.

  “Shoot what?” said Karl.

  “Crows. Clay pigeons,” said Rudy. “Maybe a woodchuck.”

  “Don’t mind,” said Karl. He nodded briefly to Merle and Franklin. “Glad to.”

  “We could take some steaks and have supper out there,” said Merle. “You make the steak sauce, Rudy?”

  “Don’t mind,” said Rudy. He was famous for his steak sauce, and had taught the secret to his son. “Be glad to.”

  “Got a bottle of twenty-year-old bourbon I’ve been saving for something special,” said Merle. “I guess tomorrow’ll be special enough.” He lit a cigar, and Franklin saw that his father’s hand was shaking. “We’ll have a ball,” he said.

  Clumsily Merle punched Franklin in the kidneys, man to man, trying to make him bubble. He regretted it at once. He laughed out loud to show it didn’t matter, laughed through cigar smoke that stung his eyes. The laugh drove smoke into the walls of his lungs. Pleasure fled. On and on the laugh went.

  “Look at him, Rudy!” said Merle, lashing the merriment onward. “Foot taller’n his old man, and president of what at Cornell?”

  “Interfraternity Council,” murmured Franklin, embarrassed. He and Karl avoided looking at each other. Their fathers had taken them hunting together maybe a hundred times. But the boys had hardly spoken to each other, had exchanged little more than humorless nods and head shakes for hits and misses.

  “And how many fraternities at Cornell?” said Merle.

  “Sixty-two,” said Franklin, more softly than before.

  “And how many men in a fraternity?” said Merle.

  “Forty, maybe,” said Franklin. He picked up a sharp, bright spiral shaving of steel from the floor. “There’s a pretty thing,” he said. He knew his father’s reaction was coming now. He could hear the first warning tremors in his voice.

  “Say sixty fraternities,” said Merle. “Say forty men in each … Makes twenty-four hundred boys my boy’s over, Rudy! When I was his age, I didn’t have but six men under me.”

  “They aren’t under me, Father,” said Franklin. “I just run the meetings of the Council and—”

  The explosion came. “You run the show!” roared Merle. “You can be as damn polite about it as you want to, but you still run the show!”

  Nobody said anything.

  Merle tried to smile, but the smile curdled, as though he were going to burst into tears. He took the strap of Rudy’s overalls between his thumb and forefinger and rubbed the faded denim. He looked up into Rudy’s sky-blue eyes.

  “Boy wants to be an actor, Rudy,” he said. And then he roared again. “That’s what he said!” He turned away and ran back to his office.

  In the moment before Franklin could make himself move, Rudy spoke to him as if nothing were wrong.

  “You got enough shells?” said Rudy.

  “What?” said Franklin.

  “You got enough shells? You want us to pick up some?” said Rudy.

  “No,” said Franklin. “We’ve got plenty of shells. Half a case, last time I checked.”

  Rudy nodded. He examined the work in Karl’s lathe and tapped his own temple. The tapping was a signal Franklin had seen many times on hunts. It meant that Karl was doing fine.

  Rudy touched Karl’s elbow lightly. It was the signal for Karl to get back to work. Rudy and Karl each held up a crooked finger and saluted with it. Franklin knew what that meant, too. It meant, “Good-bye, I love you.”

  Franklin put one foot in front of the other and went looking for his own father.

  Merle was sitting at his desk, his head down, when Franklin came in. He held a steel plate about six inches square in his left hand. In the middle of the plate was a hole two inches square. In his right hand he held a steel cube that fitted the hole exactly.

  On the desktop were two black bags of jeweler’s velvet, one for the plate and one for the cube. About every ten seconds Merle put the cube through the hole.

  Franklin sat down gingerly on a hard chair by the wall. The office hadn’t changed much in the years he’d known it. It was one more factory room, with naked pipes overhead—the cold ones sweaty, the hot ones dry. Wires snaked from steel box to steel box. The green walls and cream trim were as rough as elephant hide in some places, with alternating coats of paint and grime, paint and grime.

  There had never been time to scrape away the layers, and barely enough time, overnight, to slap on new paint. And there had never been time to finish the rough shelves that lined the room.

  Franklin still saw the place through child’s eyes. To him it had been a playroom. He remembered his father’s rummaging through the shelves for toys to amuse his boy. The toys were still there: cutaway pumps, salesmen’s samples, magnets, a pair of cracked safety glasses that had once saved Rudy Linberg’s blue eyes.

  And the playthings Franklin remembered best—remembered best because his father would show them to him, but never let him touch—were what Merle was playing with now.

  Merle slipped the cube through the square hole once more. “Know what these are?” he said.

  “Yes, sir,” said Franklin. “They’re what Rudy Linberg had to make when he was an apprentice in Sweden.”

  The cube could be slipped through the hole in twenty-four different ways, without letting the tiniest ray of light pass through with it.

  “Unbelievable skill,” said Franklin respectfully. “There aren’t craftsmen like that coming along anymore.” He didn’t really feel much respect. He was simply saying what he knew his father wanted to hear. The cube and the hole struck him as criminal wastes of time and great bores. “Unbelievable,” he said again.

  “It’s unbelievable, when you realize that Rudy didn’t make them,” said Merle, “when you realize what generation the man who made them belongs to.”

  “Oh?” said Franklin. “Who did make them?”

  “Rudy’s boy,” said Merle. “A member of your generation.” He ground out his cigar. “He gave them to me on my last birthday. They were on my desk, boy, waiting for me when I came in—right beside the ones Rudy gave me so many years ago.”

  Franklin had sent a telegram on that birthday. Presumably, the telegram had been waiting on the desk, too. The telegram had said, “Happy Birthday, Father.”

  “I could have cried, boy, when I saw those two plates and those two cubes side by side,” said Merle. “Can you understand that?” he asked. “Can you understand why I’d feel like crying?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Franklin.

  Merle’s eyes widened. “And then I guess I did cry—one tear, maybe two,” he said. “Because—you know what I found out, boy?”

  “No, sir,” said Franklin.

  “The cube of Karl’s fitted through the hole of Rudy’s!” said Merle. “They were interchangeable!”

  “Gosh!” said Franklin. “I’ll be darned. Really?”

  And now he felt like crying, because he didn’t care, couldn’t care—and would have given his right arm to care. The factory whanged and banged and screeched in monstrous irrelevance—Franklin’s, all Franklin’s, if he just said the word.

  “What’ll you do with it—buy a theater in New York?” Merle said abruptly.

  “Do with what, sir?” said Franklin.

  “The money I’ll get for the factory when I sell it—the money I’ll leave to you when I’m dead,” said Merle. He hit the word “dead” hard. “What’s Waggoner Pump going to be converted into? Waggoner Theaters? Waggoner School of Acting? The Waggoner Home for Broken-Down Actors?”

  “I—I hadn’t thought about it,” said Franklin. The idea of converting Waggoner Pump into something equally complicated hadn’t occurred to him, and appalled him now. He was being asked to match his father’s passion for the factory with an equal passion for something else. And Franklin had no such passion—for the theater or anything else.

  He had nothing but the bittersweet, almost formless longings of youth. Saying he wanted to
be an actor gave the longings a semblance of more fun than they really had. Saying it was poetry more than anything else.

  “I can’t help being a little interested,” said Merle. “Do you mind?”

  “No, sir,” said Franklin.

  “When Waggoner Pump becomes just one more division of General Forge and Foundry, and they send out a batch of bright young men to take over and straighten the place out, I’ll want something else to think about—whatever it is you’re going to do.”

  Franklin itched all over. “Yes, sir,” he said. He looked at his watch and stood. “If we’re going shooting tomorrow, I guess I’d better go see Aunt Margaret this afternoon.” Margaret was Merle’s sister.

  “You do that,” said Merle. “And I’ll call up General Forge and Foundry, and tell them we accept their offer.” He ran his finger down his calendar pad until he found a name and telephone number. “If we want to sell, I’m to call somebody named Guy Ferguson at something called extension five-oh-nine at something called the General Forge and Foundry Company at someplace called Ilium, New York.” He licked his lips. “I’ll tell him he and his friends can have Waggoner Pump.”

  “Don’t sell on my account,” said Franklin.

  “On whose account would I keep it?” said Merle.

  “Do you have to sell it today?” Franklin sounded horrified.

  “Strike while the iron’s hot, I always say,” said Merle. “Today’s the day you decided to be an actor, and as luck would have it, we have an excellent offer for what I did with my life.”

  “Couldn’t we wait?”

  “For what?” said Merle. He was having a good time now.

  “Father!” cried Franklin. “For the love of heaven, Father, please!” He hung his head and shook it. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he said. “I don’t know for sure what I want to do yet. I’m just playing with ideas, trying to find myself. Please, Father, don’t sell what you’ve done with your life, don’t just throw it away because I’m not sure I want to do that with my life, too! Please!” Franklin looked up. “I’m not Karl Linberg,” he said. “I can’t help it. I’m sorry, but I’m not Karl Linberg.”

  Shame clouded his father’s face, then passed. “I—I wasn’t making any odious comparisons there,” said Merle. He’d said exactly the same thing many times before. Franklin had forced him to it, just as he had forced him now, by apologizing for not being Karl Linberg.

  “I wouldn’t want you to be like Karl,” said Merle. “I’m glad you’re the way you are. I’m glad you’ve got big dreams of your own.” He smiled. “Give ’em hell, boy—and be yourself! That’s all I’ve ever told you to do with your life, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Franklin. His last shred of faith in any dreams of his own had been twitched away. He could never dream two million dollars’ worth, could never dream anything worth the death of his father’s dreams. Actor, newspaperman, social worker, sea captain—Franklin was in no condition to give anyone hell.

  “I’d better get out to Aunt Margaret’s,” he said.

  “You do that. And I’ll hold off telling Ferguson or whatever-his-name-is anything until Monday.” Merle seemed at peace.

  On his way through the factory parking lot to his car, Franklin passed Rudy and Karl’s new station wagon. His father had raved about it, and now Franklin took a good look at it—just as he took good looks at all the things his father loved.

  The station wagon was German, bright blue, with white-sidewall tires, its engine in the rear. It looked like a little bus—no hood in front, a high, flat roof, sliding doors, and rows of square windows on the sides.

  The interior was a masterpiece of Rudy and Karl’s orderliness and cabinet work, of lockers and niches and racks. There was a place for everything, and everything was in its place—guns, fishing tackle, cooking utensils, stove, ice chest, blankets, sleeping bags, lanterns, first-aid kit. There were even two niches, side by side, in which were strapped the cases of Karl’s clarinet and Rudy’s flute.

  Looking inside admiringly, Franklin had a curious association of thoughts. His thoughts of the station wagon were mixed with thoughts of a great ship that had been dug up in Egypt after thousands of years. The ship had been fitted out with every necessity for a trip to Paradise—every necessity save the means of getting there.

  “Mistuh Waggonuh, suh!” said a voice, and an engine raced.

  Franklin turned to see that the parking lot guard had seen him coming, had now brought him his car. Franklin had been spared the necessity of walking the last fifty feet to it.

  The guard got out and saluted smartly. “This thing really go a hundred and twenty-five, like it says on the speedometer?” he said.

  “Never tried,” said Franklin, getting in. The car was a sports car, windy and skittish, with room for two. He had bought it secondhand, against his father’s wish. His father had never ridden in it. It was fitted out for its trip to Paradise with three lipstick-stained tissues, a beer can opener, a full ashtray, and a road map of Illinois.

  Franklin was embarrassed to see that the guard was cleaning the windshield with his handkerchief. “That’s all right, that’s all right,” he said. “Forget it.” He thought he remembered the guard’s name, but he wasn’t sure. He took a chance on it. “Thanks for everything, Harry,” he said.

  “George, suh!” said the guard. “George Miramar Jackson, suh!”

  “Of course,” said Franklin. “Sorry, George. Forgot.”

  George Miramar Jackson smiled brilliantly. “No offense, Mistuh Waggonuh, suh! Just remember next time—George Miramar Jackson, suh!” In George’s eyes there blazed the dream of a future time, when Franklin would be boss, when a big new job would open up indoors. In that dream, Franklin would say to his secretary, “Miss So-and-So? Send for—” And out would roll the magical, magnificent, unforgettable name.

  Franklin drove out of the parking lot without dreams to match even George Miramar Jackson’s.

  At supper, feeling no pain after two stiff cocktails and a whirlwind of mothering at Aunt Margaret’s, Franklin told his father that he wanted to take over the factory in due time. He would become the Waggoner in Waggoner Pump when his father was ready to bow out.

  Painlessly, Franklin moved his father as profoundly as Karl Linberg had with a steel plate, a steel cube, and heaven knows how many years of patient scree-scraw with a file.

  “You’re the only one—do you know that?” choked Merle. “The only one—I swear!”

  “The only one what, sir?” said Franklin.

  “The only son who’s sticking with what his father or his grandfather or sometimes even his great-grandfather built.” Merle shook his head mournfully. “No Hudson in Hudson Saw,” he said. “I don’t think you can even cut cheese with a Hudson saw these days. No Flemming in Flemming Tool and Die. No Warner in Warner Street. No Hawks, no Hinkley, no Bowman in Hawks, Hinkley, and Bowman.”

  Merle waved his hand westward. “You wonder who all the people are with the big new houses on the west side? Who can have a house like that, and we never meet them, never even meet anybody who knows them? They’re the ones who are taking over instead of the sons. The town’s for sale, and they buy. It’s their town now—people named Ferguson from places called Ilium.

  “What is it about the sons?” said Merle. “They’re your friends, boy. You grew up with them. You know them better than their fathers do. What is it? All the wars? Drinking?”

  “I don’t know, Father,” said Franklin, taking the easiest way out. He folded his napkin with a neat finality. He stood. “There’s a dance out at the club tonight,” he said. “I thought I’d go.”

  “You do that,” said Merle.

  But Franklin didn’t. He got as far as the country club’s parking lot, then didn’t go in.

  Suddenly he didn’t want to see his friends—the killers of their fathers’ dreams. Their young faces were the faces of old men hanging upside down, their expressions grotesque and unintelligible. Hanging upside down, they s
wung from bar to ballroom to crap game, and back to bar. No one pitied them in that great human belfry, because they were going to be rich, if they weren’t already. They didn’t have to dream, or even lift a finger.

  Franklin went to a movie alone. The movie failed to suggest a way in which he might improve his life. It suggested that he be kind and loving and humble, and Franklin was nothing if he wasn’t kind and loving and humble.

  The colors of the farm the next day were the colors of straw and frost. The land was Merle’s, and it was flat as a billiard table. The jackets and caps of Merle and Franklin, of Rudy and Karl, made a tiny cluster of bright colors in a field.

  Franklin knelt in the stubble, cocking the trap that would send a clay pigeon skimming over the field. “Ready,” he said.

  Merle threw his gun to his shoulder, squinted down the barrel, grimaced, and lowered the gun once more. “Pull!” he said.

  Franklin jerked the lanyard of the trap. Out flew the clay pigeon.

  Merle fired one barrel and then, with the pigeon out of range, clowningly fired the other. He’d missed. He’d been missing all afternoon. He didn’t seem to mind much. He was, after all, still the boss.

  “Behind it,” said Merle. “I’m trying too hard. I’m not leading.” He broke down his gun and the empty shells popped out. “Next?” he said. “Karl?”

  Franklin loaded another clay pigeon into the trap. It was a very dead pigeon. So would the next one be. Karl hadn’t missed all afternoon, and after Karl came Rudy, who hadn’t missed, either.

  Surprisingly, neither had Franklin. Not giving a damn, he had come to be at one with the universe. With brainless harmony like that, he’d found that he couldn’t miss.

  If Merle’s shots hadn’t been going wild, the only words spoken might have been a steady rhythm of “Ready … Pull … Ready … Pull.” Nothing had been said about the murder of Franklin’s small dream—the dream of being an actor. Merle had made no triumphant announcement about the boy’s definitely taking over the factory someday.