At the Twilight's Last Gleaming (24 page)

“My, my!” he cried, clapping big hands at the end of long arms together. “Looks like we’ve got some treats set out. I’m parched! I sure would like some of that punch over there, if it’s not too much trouble!”

He winked at someone nearby the table.

“You folks mind if I take off my coat and stay awhile?”

Laughter greeted his words. He chuckled as well and took off his coat. It was a nice coat too, a camel hair thing with broad black lapels. Below it was a suit, and not just any suit. It was a large blue suit, expensive and shiny, and it was cut way too big, so the big shoulders looked even bigger and the pants hung down, way down over his shiny shoes.

Shoes? I thought.

I wasn’t so sure they were shoes.

Maybe, I thought, they were boots!

No, surely not!

But before I had a chance to look closer they group closed in and I couldn’t see them. President Johnson, still grinning, started shaking hands. Pretty soon someone brought him a great big crystal cup of punch. He grabbed it up like he was at the end of a desert trek. He held it up and toasted us.

“Well, I suspect I’d like something a big stronger, but this looks mighty good. Here’s to Crossland High School! Here’s to the Cavaliers!”

He downed the red punch.

“He’s done his homework!” said Harold. “He knows our name.”

President Johnson surrendered the glass. He shook a few more hands and then his oversized head swiveled to take in the assembly.

“Now I heard tell,” he said loudly, “That my old friend Senator Clarke of the great state of Alabama is in the building somewhere. And that his son Emory attends this here school. I should think that Emory’s in this very room, if I’m not far mistaken!”

I looked over to Emory. He looked chagrined.

I tugged at him.

“Go ahead, Emory,” I urged. “You are here, aren’t you?”

Reluctantly, Emory stood. “I’m over here, Mr. President.”

Somehow, the beacon of light that was President Johnson’s grin grew even brighter.

“Well, well, well! I think there’s time before this heavy speech gets dumped by this bombardier from Texas. Folk, if you’ll excuse me, I ain’t seen this boy in a peck o’ years!”

The big man ambled forward, the crowd parting as he loped along.

He was striding toward us, the whole time that smile not dimming a bit.

I thought for sure my heart would leap up to my throat and I’d choke — but, quite simply, that just didn’t happen. Far from being frightened, I felt excited but calm. This fellow just seemed like some long lost uncle I hadn’t seen, who was here for a coming home party — and when he’d entered the room, the party had begun.

As Lyndon Johnson swept over toward us, Emory got up and extended his hand. When Johnson got to us at first he just ignored the hand and wrapped his huge arms around Emory, squeezing him in a happy bear hug.

“Mah goodness, Emory,” said Johnson. “You’ve grown up like a damn weed!”

“Hello, Landy,” said Emory.

Johnson let go of the hug, and then gripped and pumped Emory’s hand.

He grinned over at us. “Landy! I aint’ heard that name for quite a few years. But that’s what I always told this young man to call me.”

“It’s good to see you, sir. I’m so proud you’re here,” said Emory.

“I’m so proud
you’re
here! A public school! And I’m proud of your pah for sendin’ you here. Where is the old moon pie, anyway.”

“I think he’s over with the Principal,” said Emory.

I realized then that Lyndon Johnson still seemed every inch a President even as he was the life of the party.

President Johnson, hero of civil rights and villain of Vietnam was — fun!

“Ah, he’ll get his butt over here in a minute. I see him enough. But haven’t seen you since I became President. I must say, you’ve gotten out of your Gloomy Gus ways!”

“For you, Landy,” said Emory.

“It’s awful good to see you,” said Johnson. “You ought to come to dinner sometime with me and Lady Bird. You outta be thinkin’ about some summer job. I’m surprised you ain’t been pagin’ at the Senate. Maybe we can find you somethin’ round the White House.” The big head turned our way. “Say, these handsome students here — your friends?”

“Yes, sir,” said Emory.

Emory quickly introduced us all, and President Johnson smiled and focused on us.

The next thing I knew he was shaking my hand.

President Lyndon Johnson’s hand was a huge mottled steam shovel of a hand. It simply engulfed mine, swallowing it up in its warm grip.

“Howdy do, Rebecca. It’s a pleasure to meet you. And I hope it’s a Democrat’s hand here that’s gonna be pulling voting levers soon!”

Up close, I was overwhelmed with the out-sizedness of Lyndon Baines Johnson. His ears were big, his nose was big, his chin was big — and his emotions were big. His face — so stoic and dull and expressionless with its wire framed glasses during speeches — was big and simply roiling with emotions. And right now, focused on me, the expression of the moment was hope — simple hope that I was a Democrat.

“Oh, yes sir!” I said enthusiastically.

And the funny thing was that even if I was a staunch Republican I would have said that. President Johnson was simply that persuasive.

“Good, good. We’re in a bit of a pickle, and we need all the beautiful women we can get! Now you’ll excuse me, but I have to go over and see to less pleasant —”

But even as he let go of my hand to turn and head back to other business, I saw that that business had come to him.

Standing there behind him was none other than the Principal — Doctor Croydon Canthorpe himself!

“Good day, Mister President. I’m Doctor Croydon Canthorpe, Principal of Crossland Senior High School. It is my great honor to welcome you here on this most auspicious day.”

Canthorpe was smiling and holding out his right hand. In his left hand, I could see that, yes, he was holding a book. Some kind of leather bound book with gilt edges. An autograph book?

President Johnson swiveled around to face the new arrival. The smile on his face slipped away.

“Well it’s a pleasure to be here. I’ve been working mighty hard for this kind of leap forward in education. All kinds of education. And —” The look on the President’s face changed. Now he looked — puzzled.

“Do I know you?” He said. “Haven’t I met you before?”

A faint smile ticced up the side of Canthorpe’s face. “We’ve never met formally, Mr. President.” Canthorpe said. “I wonder, as long as I have your attention, if you might sign this memory book for me. I realize it’s a bit corny, but I’ve worked long and hard for this moment, and I want to have a memento whereby I can remember it — forever.”

Canthorpe brought out the volume.

He opened it up.

And that was when everything changed — forever.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

Y
OU KNOW THE part in the film of
Wizard of Oz
? The movie with Judy Garland and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow?” I’m talking about the part where the film — all black and white and stark in the Kansas gothic part turns into outrageously gorgeous Technicolor?

Well, when that book opened, it was just about the opposite.

The book had round edges. The binding was some kind of black leather, thick and crinkled and worn. Inside, as it opened, I could see it was filled with detailed illuminations — the gorgeous weird stuff the monks in monasteries would put into manuscripts in the middle ages.

I had just time to think — that’s the weirdest autograph book I’ve ever seen.

And then it happened.

The book started vibrating.

From all parts of it, a kind of pixilating, scintillating, shifting and twisting light began to emanate. It floated outward like an explosion of multi-colored dust — slow at first and then speeding up. It billowed out and out and out —

Engulfing everything.

Engulfing Canthorpe.

Engulfing Johnson.

Engulfing the room.

Engulfing us all.

I didn’t even have time to react, nor did anyone else. The sparkling moved out like the mushroom cloud of a atom bomb, covering us all.

I blinked.

I blinked again.

And after I blinked the third time — an uncontrollable blinking I might add — the room had completely changed. Instead of flourescent light and color, everything was kind of winter light and sepia tones. What light there was seemed leeched of healthy qualities. I seemed to have been transferred to some kind of etching, with just traces here and there of colored chalk marks.

All of the humans who occupied the room were still there.

But they were all frozen.

They were all silent, as though covered in some frozen lunar permafrost.

All frozen, with some exceptions, I would soon find out.

The first exception, it would seem, was Principal Canthorpe.

Canthorpe was mobile.

He held the book up and turned around, as though to make sure that every bit of its influence upon the environs had dispersed. All the while, if anything, the gleam in his eye grew brighter and that grin got bigger, showing bright white teeth.

And for the first time I realized what had always bothered me about those teeth. They were always big teeth, and now they seemed even bigger.

Now they seemed like fangs.

But that image of the smiling Canthorpe was eclipsed by the remarkable scene all around him.

The entire crowd of people inside the teacher’s lounge of the vocation wing who had come to celebrate the dedication of the Crossland Senior High Vocational Wing by President Lyndon Baines Johnson — including Lyndon Baines Johnson himself — stood now, unmoving. Frozen. Like dummies in some showroom or department store window.

Frozen in that weird autumnal sepia light.

“Excellent, excellent!” said Canthorpe. “So happy to see you again, Mr. President. So very happy indeed!”

And his voice sounded like a growl.

He snapped his fingers.

“Hendricks!” he called.

As though hiding somewhere in a custodial closet nearby and behind me, the night janitor of Crossland loped out. Somehow, those long arms seemed longer, somehow the back seemed more bent than ever. And somehow the face and the hands seemed more hairy than ever.

“Yes, sir!” said the janitor.

“You’ve got the device?”

“Yes sir.”

“Of course you’ve got the device. We’ve practised this a hundred times,” said Canthorpe. “So now — use it!”

Tucked into the janitor’s arms was another book, this one just as black and just as gilt edged and just as illuminated — but much larger. The janitor winged it open, and after I saw the intense black of old Latin scribblings, a rectangular shape of black light shot up.

It looked like a door.

Darkness coagulated inside this new apparition. Glimmers like murky jewels danced. An oily smoke oozed from the opening. It smelled of charcoal and sulfur and cold damp alleys at the heart of wintry cities. I saw what looked like a corridor snaking off into the heart of nothingness.

I could not move.

I was stuck there.

I could only watch as the strange lights in this new ghost door shone like ice in tar-pits. I could only watch as Hendricks the janitor bustled around, waiting for the next order from Principal Canthorpe. I could only watch, not comprehending what I was seeing. A dream. It had to be a dream.

“Take him,” said Principal Canthorpe.

The hairy custodian growled in response. He bounded around behind the still figure of President Johnson and gripped him by the back of his arms. Canthrope took a step forward and got a grip as well. The duo first pulled and then pushed Johnson into and then through the door into the dark dimension.

“Good. There’s limited time now. Let’s get this done,” said Canthorpe. “Go on.”

The custodian stepped through the door.

Canthorpe followed.

Silence fell upon the frozen room in their wake.

“Oh my god!”

The words broke the silence.

I was astonished to realize that they were my words.

I
T’S NOT EVERY day you meet the President of the United States.

And its not every day that you watch him being kidnapped and thrust through a door into what seemed like some different dimension. Even today, many years later and many marvelous and awful sights, I’d have to say those moments are still high on my Truly Awesome List.