The Funeral Makers (10 page)

“Nobody's got that much attention since Grammie caught her tit in the wringer.”

—Winnie Craft, About Violet

La Forge, Sarah's Party, 1959

In all her years in Mattagash, Sarah Pinkham had never personally known a loose woman. There had been gossip. There had been brown-eyed children born to many blue-eyed couples over the years, and more than once a woman whose husband was out of town would send her children to their grandmother's for the night and close the Venetian blinds. But gossip and whispers were one thing. Doing exercises in skimpy leotards and hanging underthings out where the world could glimpse them was suggestive of something deeper.

Violet La Forge was the first loose woman Mattagash had ever encountered in the flesh. And the vigilance committee Sarah Pinkham had managed to organize over coffee and doughnuts meant business. That their husbands lingered too long in Albert's dooryard whenever Violet was outside exercising was evident even to the fishermen's wives in rooms 1 and 2. That the men from Mattagash told jokes back and forth about the dances Violet did in her scarves at the Watertown Hotel was evident to everyone but Violet. It was all too much to ask of any decent homemaking woman in Mattagash to have trash like that flaunted beneath their noses. And if flaunting it beneath their noses wasn't bad enough, Sarah Pinkham had it flaunted beneath her own bedroom window.

When Albert sweated and tossed in his sleep, Sarah lay awake and wondered if Violet was exercising in his dreams, the thin material stretched across her large breasts. And the indefinable fear that rose up inside her was borne on the knowledge that she could watch Albert closely all day but could not follow him inside his head at night.

At night Albert Pinkham went inside his mind and closed the door. There was no way for her to jiggle the lock and make him come back out. No key to have duplicated so that she might check for herself in the morning, sorting over disconnected images and parts of dreams that had piled up during the night. But if she could, and found Violet La Forge's smiling face there amid the pictures, she would tear it into a thousand shards. She would scatter it about in Albert's brain until it was lost.

It was only Albert's subconscious, his private place to go to in sleep and release the daily tension. But to Sarah it was a bachelor pad. One night she deliberately coughed loudly when a dream seemed to hold Albert longer than usual. He sat up saying, “What's that?” Hearing Sarah say, “It was the dog barking at a car,” he went back to sleep.

Sarah realized that her husband needed a good night's rest, and that she must stop kicking him in the shins when she had overused the coughing method. But even the fresh smell of the river drifting up to the windows at night now pained her, as though it were the perfumed breath of Violet La Forge, taunting her as it slipped into her husband's nostrils and bewitched him. Something had to be done before Albert Pinkham went the way of all flesh.

“Has she done anything outright?” Martha Fogarty asked, hoping that Sarah knew firsthand of several things.

“She exercises in them leotards in broad daylight. That's enough, don't you think?” Sarah asked Winnie Craft.

“Lord, you wouldn't catch me in them little tight things,” said Winnie. “I been too embarrassed to even wear a pair of pants since way back when Lennie was a baby.”

“That ain't the point. Even if you could, you wouldn't wear 'em. No decent woman, not even one that looks like her, would flaunt herself like that.”

When Sarah reminded them that decency was involved, they soon lost track of that glimmer of objectivity that hit Mattagash minds at intervals but invariably flickered out, leaving behind a trail of smoke that impaired the sight more than ever.

“The woman has got a flower's name,” said Sarah.

“She does wiggle more than her share,” said Winnie.

“Them things fit her like Scotch tape,” said Martha.

“And the men hang around here like old dogs frothing at the mouth whenever she's outside.” Sarah let this drop like a dainty bomb.

“Does Freddie?” asked Winnie.

“Does Bert?” asked Martha.

“Sometimes,” said Sarah.

The vigilante committee decided upon a letter, not wanting to address the modern dancer directly. They gathered after supper to compose it. Several other women, tired of children who looked too much like their husband's family, or wishing for a wet drop of excitement to fall into the dry days and nights, came along to hear the outcome. Sarah's parlor filled up quickly. Sandwiches had been made and salads had been brought. Coffee brewed. Among the gathered literati, Martha Fogarty was chosen to take charge of the composition, hers being the best handwriting.

“Do we start with ‘Dear Violet'?” asked Winnie.

“That sounds too friendly,” said one of the group.

“How about ‘To Miss La Forge'?” asked Martha.

“What is this blue stuff? It's good,” said Winnie, who was bulging like a barrel from years of overeating.

“It's called Hawaiian Delight,” said Flora Gardner. “I got it out of the
Bangor
Daily
News
. A woman from Portland sent it in. She got it from her sister in Boston. It was a chain letter recipe. If you broke the chain all your baking for one full year would turn out bad.”

“It's real good,” said another woman, and the whole room silently conceded that, at least at this gathering, Flora had taken the prize for a recipe that was most uncommon.

“It takes a whole can of Eagle Brand milk,” Flora offered, then said no more, merely adding to the mystery of the recipe.

“Why isn't Sicily here?” asked Winnie.

“I didn't think she'd want to leave Marge. And Pearl is back in town,” Sarah told her, concealing the real reason—that she suspected Edward Lawler had been a frequent guest of Violet's when the moon was full and most eyes were closed. All eyes except Sarah's, who watched the comings and goings of life at the motel the way a serious birdwatcher keeps up a vigil for rare and exciting birds. When this nasty little episode with Violet was over, she would let the cat out of the bag about Ed Lawler. She never liked Ed. He always thought his education placed him a head and shoulders above the other men in town. Her Albert might have only gone to the fifth grade, but he did own his own business. And Sarah really did like Sicily. She wasn't like the other McKinnons, who thought they could walk on water. Especially Pearl. She wouldn't enjoy telling on Ed for Sicily's sake. But it was a small town and she was obligated to tattle.

“Did you see Eva McPherson's mother's ring the kids all got together and bought her?” Winnie asked the group as a single entity.

“It's the prettiest thing,” she went on, not waiting to hear if anyone had. “The oldest and the youngest was both born in January. The second-oldest and the second-youngest was both born in August. Then Perry was born in June and Penny in October, so she's got a red stone on each end, two light greens next to each red one, then that little opal and that pearl right fair in the middle. It's the prettiest mother's ring I ever saw. Just like you went down to the jewelry store and asked the man to do it like that on purpose.”

“How about ‘To Miss La Forge'?” Martha, pen still poised over paper, patiently asked again.

“I doubt if she
is
a ‘Miss.' She's probably got a dozen husbands and kids somewhere,” said Sarah. “Just put ‘To Violet La Forge' and let it go at that.”

TO VIOLET LA FORGE:

IT HAS COME TO OUR ATTENTION THAT YOU EXERCISE IN PUBLIC A LOT WEARING VERY LITTLE. ALSO YOU ARE A DANCER AND STRIPPER OVER IN WATERTOWN. AS MOTHERS OF CHILDREN, WE THINK YOU SHOULD LEAVE TOWN AND GO SOMEWHERE ELSE TO LIVE, AS YOU ARE NOTHING BUT THE CENTER OF GOSSIP HERE AND DON'T FIT IN.

—CONCERNED CITIZENS

P.S. WE STILL HOPE GOD WILL FORGIVE YOU AND SAVE YOUR SOUL. PLEASE BE GONE BY THREE O'CLOCK TOMORROW.

Violet La Forge, not knowing she was the uninvited guest of honor at Mattagash's first autumn social event, donned her leotards and began a series of vigorous exercises on the pavement outside her room.

“Well, as I live and breathe, speak of the devil,” Sarah said, and guided the committee to the window. They took turns peering through Sarah's small binoculars at Violet, who always began her exercises with a few minutes of yoga. She was in the lotus position. Only twenty feet away and magnified in the binoculars, her breasts took on mythic proportions. Those committee members who were only along for curiosity and a cup of coffee soon became embroiled and the binoculars became as popular as one pair of opera glasses at the opening of
Madame
Butterfly
.

“She thinks she's the best thing since sliced bread,” said Martha, aiming the binoculars just as Violet thrust her legs into a bicycle exercise.

“Let her,” said Sarah. “When we're done with her, there'll be only bread crumbs left.”

“Once when we was little and the only bathroom at the school was still the old outhouse, I dropped my little butterfly barrette down one of the holes by accident. And I asked Chester Lee Gifford to get it out for me. He said, ‘I don't dig around in shit.' I said, ‘Well, you live in it, Chester, what's the difference?' And he grabbed me and dragged me inside the outhouse and stuffed my head down one of the holes and kept me there until I almost passed out. Mr. Fortin was on duty that day on the playground, and he saw the commotion around the outhouse and came and got me out of there. That's the kind of insane boy Chester Lee was.”

—Patsy Fennelson, Schoolmate to Chester Lee,

Later a Housewife, 1960

Chester Lee Gifford, named for his uncle Lee, lay sprawled on his bed in a stream of warm September sun that struggled through the unwashed windows of the Gifford house. He twirled one panel of the plastic curtains into a tight roll, imagining that the ugly parrots that covered it were having their necks wrung. He wore no shirt and dots of sweat formed among the curly hairs on his chest. Two days' growth of beard spread across his face and neck. He slipped his tongue across the buildup on his front teeth. His head felt like a run-over pumpkin, the combination of wine-liquor having taken its toll. It was on mornings like this that Chester Lee appreciated the no-work lifestyle set for him by his ancestors.

Snapping the curtain in midair, he let it fly in a swish that resembled the flapping of wings, and the tortured parrots were free to escape. Chester lit up a cigarette and threw the match onto the bare wooden boards of the floor. Downstairs, the kitchen had linoleum on the floor, an imitation of red brick that Bert Gifford had discovered in a logging camp owned by one of the large landowners and toted home to Ruth. It was a true Gifford reaction, their own “Finders Takers” philosophy. But the red linoleum was a source of pride to the entire Gifford family.

An outhouse sat out back, shrouded with houseflies and unpleasant odors. This structure was still functioning even among a few of the better citizenry of Mattagash, but those who had them were forced to have them, and each fall the money from the potato harvest was made in hopes of using it for the purchase of a commode. The bathtub would be added the following harvest, or whenever the money might be raised. In the meantime, the outside toilet was a source of embarrassment to the owner, with folks from Watertown driving by on Sundays with relatives from out of state who didn't believe that outhouses were still in existence, and laughing behind the locked doors of their cars as they drove through Mattagash counting the eyesores so that they might take the statistics back to Boston, where even Watertown was laughable.

Those few unfortunates who were still destined to relieve themselves in bathrooms not connected to their homes tried to beautify the situation. The women painted them bright colors and planted flowers about the door. They placed bricks in the earth path for a cobblestone effect, or painted two discarded car tires white and sank them in the ground where they became a gateway for the outhouse path. The seat, usually a two-holer, was scoured twice a week with a scrub brush and lye soap, and air fresheners bought from the Fuller Brush man hung promisingly from the inside ceiling. The men moved them often to newly dug holes, covering up the old ones so that the refuse would not pile high enough to be unbearable to sight and smell.

Only the Giffords took a natural pride in their outhouse, never lifting a finger to improve upon what they considered a functional machine. It remained unpainted, the rough boards turning gray in the weather, and the smell permeating the area enough that the two skinny dogs, Chainsaw and Dusty, chose to sleep on a neighbor's porch in order that their dreams be unbroken by such an assault on their noses. The man-hours and work involved in moving the building to a new site was not the problem for the Giffords that it was for others in Mattagash. When the pile of feces began to scale the top of one hole, all bodily activity was simply transferred to the remaining hole. Even when that one was no longer usable, the family was not panic-stricken. Small mounds appeared behind the outhouse and along its sides, while crumpled catalog pages of bicycles or of kitchenware were left outside to blow with the wind onto the main road until the town issued an ordinance that the family move the outhouse and clean up around it. But issuing an ordinance to a Gifford was like tacking a notice up on some tree in the woods asking the animals to stop defecating in the forest. The law simply didn't apply to them, and it went unheeded. The sheriff-delivered letter did have enough of an impact that Chester Lee would disappear into the bowels of the American Legion Hall and Bert would take to his bed complaining of his back, citing as proof the monthly ADC check from Augusta. There was nothing the town could do but undertake the unpleasant chore themselves, hiring a highly paid demolition crew, complete with gas masks and gloves, to go in and set things in order.

When the cold nights struck in December and January, it always pleased Bert Gifford immensely to hear that someone's inside bathroom had frozen pipes and was unusable.

“Good enough for 'em,” he would tell his family. “People got no business shittin' in their house.”

There were no doors in the Gifford house, no privacy to be found among so many occupants, half of whom were old enough to be arguing, the other half young enough to be squalling. Many times Chester Lee retreated to the Gifford outhouse even when his body had no need for it. He looked upon it as a kind of office, a haven where he could go and think out some of his most pressing problems while thumbing through the catalog pages of women in bras and cotton panties.

He slid his legs over the side of the bed and let his head adjust to the new vertical position. Downstairs, his mother Ruth was scrambling a package of powdered eggs that were part of the relief supplies the Giffords were entitled to: two packages per person in the family per month.

Because the Gifford daughters Debra, Rita, and Lorraine were still under Bert's roof with their four illegitimate children, the family consisted of ten people, the current boyfriends of the daughters not being eligible even though they were frequently there. This brought the relief count to twenty packages of scrambled eggs, three pounds of lard, five pounds of margarine, two boxes of cheese, one large bag of flour, ten cans of potted meat, five bags of rice, five bags of beans, two sacks of cornmeal, two sacks of sugar, and five sacks of powdered milk. This was enough to sustain the Gifford brood for a month. Ruth added extras with the ADC check and town support, but any cash in the house was rare and usually went to the purchase of beer and hard liquor. As most of the family had grown to detest the bland taste of the powdered eggs, the burden of eating them fell upon the four children and two dogs, which accounted for the rib work that showed through the animal's hides and the whiny dispositions of the children.

Ruth had biscuits made. Chester Lee grabbed a handful from the baking sheet, not stopping for margarine or any extras, and headed for the back door.

“Anyone in the toilet?” he asked. He kicked open the screen door, letting in some noisy flies that had had their way with the outhouse and were anxious for the biscuits. Chester Lee ate a biscuit as he staggered toward his office, still feeling the dizziness of drink. Behind him Ruth's shrill voice peaked as she shouted a warning to a child, then a brisk sound of hand against skin and a second of silence until a child's uncontrollable sobs dominated the other house noises. A radio was playing in one of the bedrooms upstairs, the one that Debbie slept in with her little boy. In the yard outside, Chester spotted Boyd Henderson's shiny new pickup parked brazenly close to the back step. The two dogs were engrossed in sniffing the urine they had newly deposited upon the tires. Boyd was Debbie's latest boyfriend and that explained the music coming from her bedroom.

Chester Lee felt that wild thump in his gut that arose whenever he saw a new automobile. Or even a slightly used one. He felt an intense jealousy of Boyd. It didn't matter that the bank was in the process of chasing Boyd down to reclaim it; it was in his possession now. And there was nothing that Chester Gifford wanted more than a car. A Plymouth with fins had been his dream, but even a pickup could make his heart race. Each time he sat inside an automobile and closed his eyes, he could smell the thick odor of vinyl and the intoxicating aroma of gasoline and grease. As he caressed the metal coolness of the keys, nothing, not even a beautiful woman in cotton panties, could equal the stirring sensations in his groin.

Chester ate one of the biscuits as he studied the shape of the pickup, the curve of the hood, the sleekness of the paint job. Then he went off to the outhouse. Inside he turned the piece of wood that had been nailed to the wall from twelve o'clock around to three o'clock so that half of it protruded a few inches onto the door. Since the door opened inward, the wood served as a convenient brace, affording privacy and costing only the price of a nail.

Chester Lee placed his biscuits on the floor, dropped his pants, and situated his buttocks over one hole until he was comfortable. Turning to the ladies' lingerie section of the catalog, he found the brunette who had captured his attention from the day the new catalog arrived, her rear snug in tight panties and just a shadow of breast above the bra's extra support cups.

But no amount of concentration could bring the usual wave of sexual excitement. No amount of self-stimulation could carry him off into the page where he could firmly glue his lips to one of the brunette's breasts. Reaching for a biscuit on the outhouse floor, Chester Lee admitted out loud what he knew silently. His words pushed around the mouthful of biscuit and he let one fist fall against the knotty boards to reinforce the urgency.

“I got to get me some wheels!”