The Hunt (aka 27)

  "Nobody jumped outa any windas here," Ben Scoby, president of the bank, once bragged.

  "That's because the tallest building in town's only two stories high," his daughter Louise pointed out.

  , "Well, now, we got the water tower," Ben countered. "If you were real determined you could go up there and take a leap."

  Hoboes still came to back doors looking for odd jobs to earn a sandwich or a piece of pie. But, as in most small towns in America, they were treated decently, and occasionally they even found work in the fields or at the railroad yards on the outskirts of town. The chief of police drew the line at Hoovervilles, however, and when makeshift camps began to develop he was quick to urge the peripatetic unfortunates to move on. Violence was virtually unheard of here, except for an occasional fistfight over some buxom cheerleader at a ball game, and the chief of police, Tyler Oglesby, who was also mayor, often lay in bed at night, listening to the mournful sigh of the ten o'clock freight rattling through on its way to Lafayette, secretly thanking his lucky stars that in twelve years he had never drawn his gun from its holster except to clean it.

  All that was soon to change.

  When Fred Dempsey moved to town from the bank in Chicago, Louise Scoby was a tall, slender, raw-boned woman, her straw-colored hair usually tied in two pigtails that framed stern, heavy features. Her splendid figure had been disguised under loose-fitting cotton frocks since she was a teenager and she wore little makeup to soften her windblown, sun-ridged features. She had the look of early pioneer stock, a hardy woman, stern-faced and formal, whose attitude some folks considered haughty.

  Then Fred had come to the bank and soon afterward there had begun a subtle change in Louise. Little things through the months. She began to wear lip gloss. Then a slight dusting of face powder. She began plucking her eyebrows. She had her hair cut shorter, then shorter still, and then curled under. On occasions, such as the Saturday night dance at the YMCA, she appeared in silk dresses and sweaters that implied there was more to Louise Scoby than had once met the eye. But the biggest change had little to do with lip gloss and silk and hairstyling. Her features seemed softer and she smiled a lot. Fred Dempsey had kindled a glow in Louise Scoby and it became obvious to the folks of Drew City that she had finally found a man who measured up to her haughty standards.

  Dempsey was a tall, muscular, quiet man, his balding black hair graying at the sides and widow-peaked over steel-gray eyes encircled by thin, wire-framed glasses. His thick black mustache also showed the gray of his years and while he never discussed his age, it was known around town that he was forty, almost the perfect age for Weezie Scoby, who would soon turn twenty-five. Dempsey was a pleasant man, well educated and well informed. He had moved up rapidly at the bank, from assistant teller to teller to loan manager. He made it his business to know the people of Drew City and to be a friendly banker, not the intimidating ogre that most people conjured in their minds when they had to take a loan to buy a new plow or get one of the new plug-in refrigerators or buy an automobile. Dempsey was sympathetic. When he did turn someone down, he did so with compassion and a suggestion that they should try again in a few months.

  He also spent a lot of time with little Roger Scoby and even that boy had emerged from his shell. He was no longer the sensitive, sequestered little kid who barely mumbled "hello" and looked at his feet when he spoke. Roger had turned into a typical seven-year-old and at least part of the credit had to go to Dempsey, for while Ben Scoby was a pleasant man, honest as a ten-cent piece, the kind of man for whom the description "salt of the earth" was invented, he had never spent proper time with his son. He adored both his children and although it had taken him almost a year to recover from his wife's death, recover he had, only to settle into a dull, complacent routine at the bank. He was secretly pleased when Louise and Fred started dating. Ben Scoby knew in his heart that it had been unfair to burden his teenage daughter with the responsibilities normally reserved for motherhood. She had grown older than her time under that yoke, and Fred Dempsey seemed to have rekindled her youthful spirit. And so it seemed to Ben Scoby and to the wash-line gossips of Drew City that this was truly a match made in heaven.

  Louise reserved Saturdays for Roger, for shopping, getting her hair done. And for Fred Dempsey.

  Although the Scobys lived less than a mile from town, Roger was permitted to go into the village only on Saturdays and on special occasions, his father reasoning that once a week was enough temptation for a seven-year-old. So it was always a special experience for him. There was a sense of security for the small boy, knowing week by week that everything was still there, still in the same place and unchanged. Well, almost. Occasionally a new store would open or change hands, like the new Woolworth's Five and Ten. The manager, whose name was Jerry, had come from back East in the fall to get the store started and had once given Roger a kite that came all the way from Japan and then flirted with Louise. Roger was old enough to tell that. She was polite but she let it be known that Fred Dempsey was her man. Roger kept the kite anyway and once at the park Jerry had helped him get it aloft. He liked the young manager, but not the way he liked Fred. Next to Paul Silverblatt and Tommy Newton, Fred was his best friend. Besides, Fred and Louise were going steady and he worked in the bank for Roger's dad so it was all perfect. Roger had his loyalties in order, kite or no kite.

  Every Saturday, Louise and Roger would walk into town together. He would tuck his hand in hers and he always managed to get on the right side of the street and steer Louise past the filling station and garage, its floor slick with oil and grease. The station scared him, though he wasn't exactly sure why. It wasn't the stacks of tires or the rows of motor oil on sagging shelves, or the pungent odor of gasoline heavy in the air. It was the oil pit. To Roger, there was something dangerous and foreboding and mysterious about the gravelike hole in the floor. And he secretly admired Frankie Bulfer, whose father owned the station, because he was only seventeen and he went down in the dread hole with his little light and worked on automobiles. Roger would stand at the garage door and watch, his eyes saucerlike, and listen to the clicking of ratchet wrenches and the hissing of the air hose as Frankie performed his operations on the bowels of the boxy automobiles that straddled the pit over his head.

  There followed the Dairy Foods, which was fairly new and was the high school hangout and the only place in town where you could get Coca-Cola at the fountain. Then came Otis Carnaby's grocery store, Mr. Hobart's meat market, the Christian Science reading room, which Fred had explained was kind of like a small library. Then there was Barney Moran's Lunchroom with its oilcloth counters and cracked linoleum seats and the welcome odor of strong coffee and pancakes and burned toast and the sounds of bacon and sausage sizzling on its blackened grill. And finally his father's bank, the Drew City Farmer's Trust and Guarantee Bank, which was on the corner.

  Across the street in the middle of the block was Roger's favorite place of all, the Tivoli Movie Palace, framed on one side by The Book Shoppe, run by the spinster lady, Miss Amy Winthrop, and on the other by Lucas Bailey's General Store, a place of velveteens and sateens and buttons on little cards and galoshes and dress patterns and bib overalls and cellophane shirt collars. There was a smattering of toys—red wagons, jigsaw puzzles, stamps for collectors, wooden whistles—in the store but its real allure to Roger was the glass case near the cash register filled with penny candy. Roger usually spent a nickel, half of his weekly allowance, at Mr. Bailey's, poring over the trays of jujubes, caramel swirls, jawbreakers, all-day suckers, twists of red and black licorice, chocolate kisses and Necco wafers, painfully making his choices. He saved the other nickel for the matinee at the Tivoli.

  The most taboo alcove on the main street was Joshua Halem's poolroom, adjacent to the general store. It was forbidden to boys until they were fourteen for it was here the men gathered to tell the latest bawdy stories and occasionally resort to less than studious language. Roger and other young boys would gather around the front window thick with year
s of grease and dust, peering past the NRA and WPA signs with the Blue Eagle and the slogan, "We do our part," at the forbidden green felt tables lit by Tiffany-shaded lamps. Old Halem, who had lost a leg in the war and had a genuine, honest-to-God pegleg, was always perched high on his long-legged stool near the front, his wooden spike sticking straight out, overseeing every table, and when he frowned at the youngsters scanning the pool parlor and gave them his evil eye, they would scatter.

  Then came Isaac Cohen's furniture store, a dark and cramped place with rows of chairs, beds, mattresses, rockers, cribs and sofas, all jammed together, and beside it, Nick Constantine's barber shop smelling of talcum powder and shoe polish where Roger had received his first haircut and where he went once a month to keep it trim. Above it on the second floor was the town's beauty parlor run by Mildred, Nick's wife, and on the corner across the street from the bank, The Zachariah House, a rundown hotel where traveling men and drummers could spend the night on sagging springs for two dollars. The only legitimate bar in town was in the rear of the lobby, a place forbidden to children and women.

  One of Roger's favorite places was Jesse Hobart's butcher shop, for it was there he had seen his first real-life "miracle." Mr. Hobart had brought the chicken from the back where the pullets were in cages and held it up, all flapping wings and clucking, for Louise to inspect. "Nice fat one," Hobart had told Louise. "Should dress out at about five pounds."

  "That'll be perfect," she had answered and turned her head as he whirled the chicken around at arm's length until it was totally dizzy, then laid it on the wooden block and whap! chopped off its head with his big, shiny cleaver. Usually, the dark deed done, Hobart would stick the chicken, neck down, in a bucket until it stopped twitching, but on this day it had jumped—jumped!—out of his hand. The headless pullet had run frantically around the store, blood spurting from its neck, bouncing off the counters and slipping in the sawdust until it fell, twitching, on the floor and Hobart had retrieved it. Louise had become faint and stepped outside, later confessing she had a difficult time cooking it. Roger had been five at the time. It was one of his most amazing memories.

  Roger had described the headless chicken incident in detail many times to Poppy Scoby and later to Fred. Bending his head down to his chest and folding his arms up under his armpits, he ran around the kitchen bumping into things as the chicken had done. He flailed his arms over his head and made disgusting squishing sounds as he described the blood spurting from the running chicken's neck, and then he collapsed on the kitchen floor and imitated the pullet's last violent twitching moments as he concluded his description of the bizarre incident. Poppy had explained that it was a reflex action and that the chicken was really dead all the time, which only made the phenomenon more intriguing to Roger.

  On this particular Saturday when they got to the market, and after two years of thinking about it, Roger mustered the courage to request a repeat performance. He cried out, "Put him on the floor and let him run around," as Hobart began whirling the chicken around. Louise turned immediately to him, shocked.

  "Rogie, how dare you even suggest such a thing! Don't you dare, Mr. Hobart. Roger, go outside and wait."

  "Aw, Weezie . . ."

  "Out, young man."

  Fred was sitting on the bench in front of the hardware store, as he always was on Saturday morning, chatting with Mayor Oglesby. Roger ran down the wavy, heat-buckled length of sidewalk to him.

  "Weezie wouldn't let Mr. Hobart do the dead chicken trick," he complained as Louise brought up the rear.

  "Aw," Fred sympathized, "what a spoilsport."

  "Don't you start," she scolded.

  "Tell you what, I suggest we go to the Dairy Foods and have a soda while Weezie's getting her hair done. Then when she's done we'll go to Barney's and have a hot dog and drop you by for the matinee at the Tivoli."

  "Yeah!" Roger yelled, jumping up and down even though they had roughly followed the same schedule every Saturday for the past six months. He looked up the street at the marquee of the Tivoli. Johnny Weismuller in Tarzan the Ape Man and Chapter four of Hurricane Express, plus "selected short subjects" —which meant a cartoon, too.

  "Oh boy," he whispered, "Tarzan!"

  Louise rolled her eyes.

  "It's a jungle story," Fred said reassuringly. "A lot of wild animals."

  "I know the movie, Fred," Louise said with mock anger. "All right. I'll finish the shopping and pick up the chicken after the show."

  "Hooray," Roger said, then reaching up, he whispered to Fred, "Can we go by Mr. Bailey's, too?" And Fred winked and nodded.

  Saturday afternoons were special times for Fred and Louise. They deposited Roger at the matinee, finding out exactly when he would be out, then walked to her house, got her Buick and drove the three blocks to the small frame house he had rented. The house was one of the few that had a garage. It was attached to the house, enabling them to enter and leave without being seen by the neighbors. Since Fred frequently borrowed Louise's Buick and washed it in his driveway, nobody paid much attention to him when he drove home in it. Louise sat on the floor in the front seat, often getting the giggles because of the charade they played to outwit the local gossips.

  The Saturday "parties" had been his idea. Roger usually met Paul and Tommy at the theater so he was happy, and that gave them two hours together. When they got to the house, their lovemaking was frenetic and hungry. This Saturday was no different. As she crouched on the floor of the car she reached up, sliding her hand under his thigh and stroking the inside of it.

  "What happened to that shy young lady I met nine months ago?" he wanted to know.

  "She discovered what the word love really means," she said, rubbing her head against his leg.

  "And what's that?"

  "It means having fun. It means feeling sooo good."

  Dempsey had avoided the relationship with Louise Scoby for several months but eventually he was drawn into it. Roger had adopted him quickly as a father figure and as their friendship grew, so did Dempsey's relationship with his sister. There was a danger that, in this small town, marriage would be inevitable, but Dempsey finally dismissed that notion. The idea of marriage did not appeal to him but he would worry about that when he had to. In the meantime, she had proven to be a furious and passionate lover.

  Once inside the house, a demon seemed to be released in her. She had suppressed her desires for years, acting as mother and sister to Roger and daughter and mistress of the house to her father. None of the men in the town appealed to her, she had known most of them since childhood. Then Fred Dempsey had sneaked into her life. It was natural for Ben to invite his new employee home to dinner. Roger wasn't the only one who had taken to him immediately. She had secretly been attracted to him the first time he came over. But he was shy, a very private man who took the bus to Chicago to visit his ailing mother once a month and rarely talked about himself. Even his opinions seemed guarded and noncommittal. But when he talked about art and books or the theater or music, she was drawn immediately to him, sensing the same repressed passion within him that she had endured since puberty.

  The first time they had made love was in the backseat of the Buick out beyond the railroad switching station. They had avoided it for weeks, their petting getting more impassioned every time they were alone together as they explored and touched and were lost in the ecstasy of discovery. Finally she had suggested they get in the back. The moment he closed the door she had unbuttoned her blouse, baring her ample bosom to his hungry kisses. Then he had touched her and he had taken off her panties and guided her hand to him. It had all been done in such a rush that she still only remembered parts of her first seduction. She remembered only that he was considerate and gentle, that she had enjoyed every moment of it and had almost fainted when she had her first orgasm.

  The moment they entered the house she threw off her blouse.

  "Let's take a shower together, I've been thinking about it all week," she said, taking his hand and leading him
up the stairs to the bathroom. But when they got there and he started to undress her, stroking her flat stomach and teasing her breasts, she frantically took down his pants and once having freed him, pulled her to him.

  "Do it now, right here," she breathed and he lifted her and sat her on the edge of the sink and stroked her until she began to moan and stiffen and when she cried out, he entered her.

  Dempsey lay on his back with his eyes closed, relaxing. They were both naked. Louise sat cross-legged on the bed at Dempsey's feet, rolling a cigarette. Dempsey liked to roll his own, preferring the sweet taste of Prince Albert tobacco to harsh cigarette tobaccos, and Louise had become a superb cigarette maker. She held two of them up, one in each hand.

  "Beautiful," he said. "You're becoming an expert in all my vices."

  She lit them, keeping one and putting the other between his lips. He took a deep drag and let the smoke ease out slowly toward the ceiling.

  Not a bad way to spend Saturday afternoon, he thought.

  "How much time do we have?" he asked.

  She looked past him to the Westclox alarm clock on the night table.

  "Forty minutes," she said.

  "Time for another quickie."

  She straddled his legs and leaned over him, brushing her nipples lightly against his.

  "I don't like quickies," she whispered, "they always leave me wanting more. Why don't we go to the dance at the Y after dinner tonight—and leave early. You can think about it while we're eating."

  "I spent fifteen minutes longer at the hairdresser than usual this morning because everyone wants to hear about Anthony Adverse," Louise said as they finished dinner. She had been first on the list when the best-seller arrived at the public library. "And all they want to hear about are the . . ." She looked over at Roger. ". . . bawdy parts."