The Sunlight Dialogues (77 page)

The boy was saying, “He never comes out any more. They even have to cart his whiskey in to him. Old woman lives with him, some say it’s his sister. They use to cut wood and sell it, but his tractor gave out and besides he got too old to haul it, and also he drank, so therefore he left it go and now the buzzsaw just sits there growing vines and moss and the tractor just sits there behind the house growing vines and moss too, and they don’t do anything, as far as I know, just wait for people to come in with the whiskey. Sometimes Mr. Bailey comes in and asks Sun-on-the-Water to have a meeting at the Longhouse, but Sun-on-the-Water says no, they don’t need no meeting, and they let it go, or else Nicodemus has a meeting. Nicodemus isn’t even an Indian, or anyway not a Seneca, that’s what my father says. But he runs things, since nobody else will. He sold off half the land to the telephone company for nothing but free telephones for whoever wanted one. A lot of people were mad about it, but nobody used the land anyhow and they let it go. Nicodemus said we should all be proud, and some of the people took his side—I don’t exactly understand the whole thing—but anyway, after that Nicodemus said he was the Chief and some of the people said ok. Mr. Bailey said Sun-on-the-Water was Chief, and so did Mrs. Steeprock, but Sun-on-the-Water wouldn’t come out of the woods, so therefore that’s how it was.”

“Maybe we picked the wrong Chief,” Freeman said. He looked back along the trail and scratched his beard, but he was still hurrying, each step a little kick, exactly as he’d been walking when Hodge first saw him.

“That’s the place,” the Indian boy said. “He’s prob’ly asleep.”

Hodge nodded.

“The Senecas use to be a independent nation,” the boy said. “In the War of 1812 the Seneca army declared against England and they saved the Port of Buffalo, people say. They say the United States Army promised to meet them there and help fight the British, but then the United States Army got thinking and they decided to wait and see how the Indians made out, so they waited and the Indians fought the British theirselves, and after they’d won the victory the Americans came and gave them congratulations.”

There was no sign that anyone lived in the cabin. The Indian boy and Freeman stood looking from the rim of trees, and when Hodge came up to them he, too, stopped to look. There was a rain-whitened chair in front of the black opening. On the eaves of the house there were wasps’ nests.

“I know Nick and Verne,” the boy said. He smiled, eyes glinting. “They’re friends of mine.”

“Have you seen them?” Hodge said. “I’m not the police, you know.”

But the boy was looking at the cabin. “I guess they’ve left,” he said. He took it lightly.

“Aw come on,” Freeman said. “The Chief of a noble old tribe wouldn’t just up and leave.” He started for the cabin. “They’ll be inside,” he said. The Indian boy smiled.

Hodge followed, slowly and heavily, and the Indian boy walked beside him.

“This your first visit to our people?” the boy said.

Hodge grunted.

“There are many interesting stories about Sun-on-the-Water,” the boy said. He squinted, perhaps seeing if Hodge was listening. “I know all the stories, but usually when I tell them there’s a small charge.”

Hodge nodded.

“The story of Sun-on-the-Water and the bear, for example, is short and amusing, so therefore I only charge a dollar. On the other hand—” They were within ten feet of the open door now. Freeman had stopped, a little ahead of them, and stood looking in with his hands in his pockets and his head tipped, dubious, as if afraid there might be snakes. There was a faint stink, of, perhaps, rotten food.

“Anybody there?” Hodge called.

“I don’t
hear
anybody,” Freeman said.

Hodge came up even with him. “We may as well go back,” he said. “Wild goose chase. If Nick came out to the Reservation, Sun-on-the-Water wouldn’t know.”

“Sure quiet,” the Indian boy said. “Maybe he’s in there waiting for us.”

“You want to go first?” Freeman said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Hodge said. “You go ahead, if you want.”

The walls of the house were rotted and pieces of light came in through the roof. He wondered if perhaps there was no such man as Sun-on-the-Water.

Freeman said, “Maybe Jack here should go in first. He brought us.”

“I don’t care,” the boy said.

“Well, somebody better go in first, if we’re going.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hodge said. “You can see there’s nobody here.”

“Right. We might as well go back,” the boy said.

“We can’t do that,” Freeman said. “Maybe they’re sick or something.”

“Maybe he’s lying in there drunk,” the boy said.

Freeman looked at Hodge. In the clearing’s yellow light the black hat and glasses made Freeman seem obscurely dangerous now, anyway alien, more in league with the woods—or with Mars, it might be—than with them. He said, “You going in?”

Hodge rubbed his chin.

“Well shit,” Freeman said. He splashed his hands out with disgust and jerked forward. Hodge followed.

At first, they couldn’t see a thing inside. When their eyes adjusted to the dark they could make out a white-with-age table and chair, a wash basin, a great many empty whiskey bottles. In the corner there was a bed with a mass if rotten covers on it. Freeman moved toward it, the Indian boy a little behind him, then stopped abruptly. Now Hodge too could see it. There was a man on it, and he’d been dead for a long, long time, long enough that he didn’t smell. Dogs had gotten to him. There were only bones and some black stuff.

Freeman took off his hat. “Wrong Chief,” he said.

The Indian boy was smiling.

“You did this on purpose,” Hodge whispered.

“But I didn’t charge you,” the Indian boy said. His teeth were white and as large as the teeth of a horse.

2

“Truth is stranger than fiction,” said Freeman. “Nevertheless, this is all pretty God damn strange.”

“What?” Hodge said.

He repeated it, but Hodge did not listen the second time either. He drove with his head tipped down, jaw forward, brooding. He, of all people, trapped in an allegory!

“Thing is,” Freeman said, “you got all up-tight, you know? They kid around with you, so ok, so that’s their thing. Go along with it, that’s the way you gotta do. But no, you get all up-tight and you wanna go
bam bam pow! Zuk!”
He made motions like a fighter. “Choo,” he said. He shook his head. “I guess that’s where it is.”

Hodge drove.

“Man I was there, you know what I mean?” Freeman said. “I was this student, see—” He made the motions of a student, reading and writing. “Yes ma’am, no ma’am, ah ha! now I grasp it! Zing. Gonna cut through the waves man, arch the treeompf. Zap. ‘Wanted: smart young man.’ Ok.” His hands were a smart young man cutting through the crowd. “So I worked, see, and when I was finished with the books I was a house-painter and a carpenter and a butcher. And after that I would walk where the rich people’s houses were.” He showed how it was to be a young man walking, looking with vast admiration at swimming pools and shrubbery and gables. “Hoo!” He shook his head. “But pretty soon fella comes out of the sky and he taps me on the shoulder and says, ‘Hey baby, excuse me for being so personal, but that ain’t where it’s at.’”

“The sky,” Hodge said, merely registering it, like a man showing he’s listening. He drove.

“Something like that. Top of a building, maybe. You know how it is. So anyway, I put it all away for a while—you know, put it in a neat little pile for later—” (his hands quickly fashioned a neat little pile) “—and put the pile in a box and kissed my mother on the cheek—” (he kissed the fond air) “—and started down the valley of the numerous shadows of death, to speak pentameter. Not up-tight. You know what I mean?”

“Not up-tight,” Hodge mused. “In other words, you decided to reject—”

“No no! Not reject! That’s the other guy.” He pointed behind them, and Hodge looked back, then scowled. “I’m for
all
of it, understand? I kiss the sunset wherever it’s pretty, even setting over swimming pools and the topless towers of Indianapolis,
Mmmmooch!
I pat the world.
’Good
dog,
good
cow,
good
bush,
good
trombone.’ See what I mean? I mean I’m the encourager. Keep the gears oiled, you understand? ‘Atta gear! Good baby! Spin, spin, spin.’
MMMMMMMM.”

“Hmm,” said Hodge. “It’s all right if you don’t have a family.”

“Right!” Freeman said. “So I meet the right lady and zoom: Tie—vest—” He showed how it would be when he put them on. “Get out the paintbrush and the butcher-knife and the schoolteacher books and
wheel
down the valley of the shadow of work!” He showed how he would go.

Hodge, after he’d thought about it, sighed.

They’d reached Batavia now. Hodge said suddenly, “I never asked you where you wanted to go. I guess my mind—” He let it trail off. “Do you want to get out somewhere?”

“Me?” Freeman said.

“Well, that is,” Hodge said, “if you had any plans—”

“Oh no, I’m not in any hurry. I’ll stick around and help you.”

“Well, actually,” Hodge said.

“Don’t think twice.” He grandly waved away all petty considerations. “I’ll just straighten things out for you, good as I can, and then
psst!
like air from a tire.”

“Hah,” Hodge said.

Freeman came alert. He hurriedly put on the hat and glasses and bent his nose close to the windshield and sniffed. Then he turned to Hodge and smiled, pointing slyly. Hodge saw it too now, Clumly and another policeman coming out of a store, Clumly writing on a pad, looking grim and as crafty as the devil. “That’s him?” Freeman said.

Hodge nodded.

“Hole up,” Freeman said, “I’ll see what’s on.”

Hodge had hardly slowed down before Freeman was out, sneaking along the line of parked cars, darting, clownish, from bumper to bumper, impossible not to notice, until he was opposite the store from which Clumly and the other policeman had just emerged. They went into the next store, The Palace of Sweets. Freeman darted in behind them, and a moment later darted out again and came ostentatiously sneaking, smiling joyfully, back to Hodge. “They’re investigating,” he whispered. (There was no reason he should whisper.)

“What?” Hodge said. It was queerly pleasurable, this stalking, and this lunatic was, for mysterious reasons, good company, at least for the moment.

“Investigating,” he said again. “They’re showing pictures of the Sunlight Man and asking the storekeepers if they know him.”

“Are they?”

He nodded, then seemed unsure, then, decisively, nodded again.

“How the devil you find out?”

Freeman looked sly. “My smiling eyes and ears,” he said. He studied Hodge thoughtfully. “Pull your shoulders back,” he said. “Pull your stomach in.”

“Do what?” Hodge said.

“That’s better. Good.”

It took Chief Clumly and the other man nearly all morning to go the length of Main Street, showing the picture and asking their questions. Hodge parked and waited while they made each block, then drove on and parked in the next block, if he could find a space, or in the block beyond if he couldn’t. From time to time Freeman jumped out and ran to listen to make sure they were doing it the same way, then came back and reported. Otherwise they sat and talked.

Freeman said, “Well yeah, ok. I guess it is a little funny, when you stop to think about it—spying on the cops, things like that. But you know how it is. Lots of things are funny. Like being a dentist. Why would anybody be a dentist?”

“Nevertheless,” Hodge said, “dentists are useful. If there were no dentists—”

“Right!” said Freeman. “That makes sense! Right!”

Hodge studied him.

“Also beauticians are useful.”

Hodge nodded.

“And morticians. And opticians.”

Hodge considered.

“And statisticians. Dieticians. And patticians.”

“
Pa
tricians?” Hodge said.

“You a Communist?”

Hodge was still dubious, however. He glanced at his watch.

“In any case,” Freeman said, “not everything is useful. Some things are, admittedly. Such as pigs’ snouts and scuttles of coal and scaples and strings and salad forks. And some things are useful for their relaxative value, such as roller-coasters and Rolaids and rib-ticklers—”

“And target pistols,” Hodge said tentatively.

Freeman shook his head. “It has to start with
r
,
”
he said.

Hodge considered.

Freeman said, “Other things are aesthetically useful, appealing to the beauty-loving faculties of man, such as pictures and prints and poetry and pot-boilers and policeman-watching and playing the harmonicum.”

“Policeman-watching?”

“The aesthetic response is in large part a response to order as moral affirmation,” Freeman said.

“Hmm,” Hodge said. After he’d thought about it he said, again, “Hmm.”

By lunchtime Clumly and the other policeman had made it to the Miss Batavia Diner, at the east end of town. They went in to eat, and Freeman slipped in behind them and listened to their talk. When he came back he said, “That Clumly’s insane, you know that?” Then, after a moment: “Ah well. Why not? eh?” He smiled.

Clumly went to Clive Paxton’s funeral that afternoon. Will Hodge mingled with the cemetery crowd, talking quietly, extending his sympathies, visiting, while Freeman hid behind a tree and kept a close watch—from under the wide black brim of his hat—on Clumly. Ben and Vanessa were there, of course.

“Will!” Ben said. He put his hand on his arm. “Good to see you, boy.”

Vanessa was weeping. “Beautiful funeral,” she said.

Will Hodge, bending forward, hung onto his suspenders and nodded.

She was holding to her husband’s upper arm with both hands, leaning her heavy face against his elbow. Her eyes widened and she said, “What an awful thing, last night! We’ve been trying to get you on the phone all morning, but you weren’t at your office. No surprise! Poor woman! Cold blood! When I think, we had him right under our roof—”

“Now Vanessa,” Ben said.

“Oh I know,” she said, “innocent until proven glit—” She gave a little kick. “Ploop!” she said.