The Triumph of Evil (6 page)
And, a few moments later. “I don’t know. I like Drury. I see him on television and I like him.”
“But you wonder if the country would be any worse off than it already is without him.”
“Right.” Eyes wide, empty. “And I can’t see how it would.”
“It really helped to talk to you, Miles. You’re the only older person I know that I can rap with. And I can get a better set on things from talking with you. The other kids. We always say the same things to each other.”
“It does me good to talk to you.”
“How could it?”
“In precisely the same way. And because I would find your company enjoyable in and of itself if we talked of nothing more profound than baby birds.”
“Baby birds can be profound.”
“I know.”
“There was a book in our high school library called A
Mouse Is Miracle Enough.
I never read it, but I flashed on the title.” In German she repeated the title. And in English again, “I like just talking with you, too. In any language, and about anything.”
“Forget about the lessons,” he said. “I’ve felt uncomfortable taking money from you for weeks now. And my schedule is going to be chaotic for the next few months. Come over whenever you feel like it. If I’m home, we’ll talk. In German, in English.”
She looked intently at him. He wondered if he had said more than he should have. The next instant her face melted into a rich warm liquid smile.
“You were my teacher,” she said, “and now you are my friend.”
“Miles? I was just thinking. You really got into what happened in Washington in a heavy way. I was surprised.”
“Oh?”
“I always had this impression of you that you really weren’t a political person.”
“I’m not. I was politically concerned in Europe for many years. When I was able to settle comfortably in America, I thought one could remain uninvolved.”
“But today—”
“Perhaps it was that a victim was a boy from the college here. Yerkes. When I saw that in the paper—”
“I can imagine.”
“I felt an involvement for the first time. Or perhaps I should say a concern.”
“Right,” she said. “That’s it. When it reaches out and touches someone close to you, that’s what brings it all home, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
Dorn flew to Boston and rode buses North. On the Caldwell campus in Maine, a student told him that the newspaper office was in the Student Union, and another student told him where the Union was. In the office of the Caldwell
Clarion
there were two girls at large black typewriters and a long-haired boy reading
Cat’s Cradle.
One of the girls asked Dorn if she could help him.
“I called before,” he said. “Somebody said if I came down, I could pick up copies of the last half-dozen issues or so. See, I have this pizza stand on the highway and I was thinking about maybe running an ad.”
“Our advertising manager isn’t here now—”
“Well, I would just want to look at the papers and then I would get in touch later.”
“I can certainly help you there,” she said. There were rows of newspapers stacked on a long table. She walked the length of the table, taking a paper from each stack. She said, “Will this be enough? And I’m giving you a rate card, too. The rates are printed in each issue, but the information on the card is more complete, the cost of running cuts and everything.”
“This’ll do it, then.”
“And if you’ll give me your name, I’ll have Dick get in touch with you as soon as he comes around.”
“Oh, never mind about that. It’s easier for me if I get in touch, with my hours and all.”
“I’m sure an ad in the
Clarion
would be profitable for you.”
“Yeah, well, that’s what I was thinking. Pull in business and all.”
“I would certainly think so. What was the name of your pizza place? I don’t think I got it.”
“You know the one. Right out on the highway.”
“Oh,” she said. “That one. Uh-huh.”
From the hallway he heard the boy say, “Now why in the hell would you do an immoral thing like hustle that poor guy for an ad? I don’t get it.”
“He wanted to advertise.”
“‘I’m sure an ad would be profitable for you.’ What utter bullshit! ‘Let’s go out for a slice of pizza, I saw this outasight ad in the
Clarion.
’ Jesus Christ.”
“Somebody has to pay for the fucking paper.”
“Yeah.
What
pizza place on the highway?”
“You know the one. Come on, Paul. Who
cares
what pizza place on the highway? Who cares what highway?”
From an issue of the Caldwell
Clarion:
“Administration sources disclosed today that Caldwell commencement exercises would be moved up to the second weekend in May to facilitate the appearance of Sen. J. Lowell Drury of New Hampshire. Arrangements have already been made for Senator Drury to deliver the commencement address. Much in demand on the graduation circuit, the New Hampshire liberal …”
From another issue of the Caldwell
Clarion:
“Burton Weldon, former chairman of the now disbanded Caldwell chapter of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) yesterday attacked the selection of Sen. J. Lowell Drury as commencement speaker. ‘Drury has no relevance whatsoever to the current situation. He wants us to love him because he’s a liberal,’ Weldon told the
Clarion.
‘I see no reason why anyone whose head is together would waste time sitting through his speech. All he’ll do is put a sugar coating on the same old Establishment pill. It’s a special kind of pill. You take it when you’re feeling good, and it makes you sick.’ Pressed for his ideal choice for commencement speaker, Weldon said, ‘There’s nobody. Everybody worth hearing is in jail.’ Asked about rumored plans to disrupt the exercises, Weldon sharply shot down the rumor. ‘The world is past that stage,’ he avowed. ‘What good are signs and slogans when the Establishment is using guns?’”
From a third issue of the Caldwell
Clarion:
“Campus radical Burton Weldon refused to confirm or deny imputations that his comments criticizing Sen. J. Lowell Drury constituted the implicit endorsement of violence. ‘I stand by my words,’ the former chairman of the now disbanded Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) announced. ‘People can read into them whatever they want. After all, they’re just words. They aren’t bullets.’ Speaking in sharp rebuttal, Harry Isenberg of the Caldwell Liberal Alliance for Peace (CLAFP) termed his phrases ‘irresponsible, inflammatory, and …’”
Dorn leaned over the counter, weighing the new reel in his hand. “Can you believe it?” he said, “I drove all the way to Vermont. I was actually at the stream before I discovered that my reel was rusted solid. Now I can’t believe I put it away wet, but I guess I did.”
“Sometimes they’ll loosen up for you,” the man behind the counter said. “More trouble than it’s worth, most likely. And they’ll never be the same as they were. How are you for bait? Hooks?”
“Strictly a fly-fisherman, and I’m in good shape on everything else. On everything, now that I’ve got the reel. Say, I was noticing those guns when I came in. What do you have to go through to purchase a rifle in Vermont?”
“Have to be a resident.”
“I thought as much. And then you probably have to have a firearms card with your fingerprints on it.”
“Nope, just a resident driver’s license. Where you from?”
“Pennsylvania.”
“And you’ve got a lot of red tape down there, do you?”
“They’ve made it just about impossible to buy a gun.”
“Ayeh. I’d say that’s what they have in mind, wouldn’t you say?” he leaned his weight on the counter. “It’s different up here. I’ll tell you. You people have a situation with the colored. There are all those colored, so naturally a white man wants to arm himself. Way the government must see it, the more people with guns the more shooting is going to happen.” He winked, a gesture that astonished Dorn. “Put it this way, at least they can’t sell them to the colored either. Be thankful for small things, eh?”
The boy made himself comfortable on the car seat and asked if it was okay to smoke. Dorn told him to go ahead. The boy lit a cigarette and rolled down the window to flip the match out, then rolled the window up again.
“Nice car,” he said.
“It belongs to a friend. I borrowed it.”
“That’s the kind of friend to have.”
The boy was about 20, 5’9”, 140 pounds. Burton Weldon, former chairman of the now-disbanded Caldwell chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, was 21, 5’ 10”, 150 pounds. This boy was clean-shaven and had short hair. Weldon’s hair was long and he wore a Zapata moustache.
“You live here in Vermont?”
“Yes, sir. In Hazelton.”
“Can you drive? That’s the main reason I stopped, to be frank. My head is splitting and I don’t want to take chances with a friend’s automobile. You can drive?”
“Since I was fifteen.”
“You have a license? You have it with you, I mean.”
“Always carry it.”
“You wouldn’t mind driving?”
“A car like this? You kidding?”
Dorn pulled to a stop. He turned to face the boy. “Tell me,” he said. “What do you think of J. Lowell Drury?”
“Who’s he?”
“You don’t recognize the name?”
“I don’t think so. Is that your name or something?”
“Interesting you never heard of him,” Dorn said. “You helped to murder him.”
“Huh?”
“Your role was a small one. A spear carrier. You stole this automobile. Then you lost control of it and crashed it into one of those trees, I think. You weren’t wearing your seat belt.”
“Mister, I don’t think—”
“You died in the accident,” Dorn said, reaching, hands quick and accomplished. He cupped the back of the short-haired head with his right hand, caught up the shirt front with his left. He snapped the boy’s neck forward. There was no struggling. There was no time.
The boy’s license was in his wallet. The boy had automatically tapped a pocket when Dorn asked him about the license. That was the pocket he looked in, and the wallet was there. He took the license, replaced the wallet. The boy’s name was—had been? no, was—Clyde Farrar, Jr.
He propped Clyde Farrar, Jr., behind the wheel, left his seat belt unfastened. Dorn sat on the passenger side. He started the engine and steered with one hand. His own scat belt was fastened, and he was braced when the car hit the tree.
Before he entered a second sporting goods store, this one considerably closer to the Maine border, he used a pencil to change Farrar’s date of birth from 1950 to 1920. His signature on the bill of sale for the deer rifle would have fooled anyone but a handwriting expert, The clerk didn’t look at it twice, or at the altered date of birth, for that matter.
He changed it back after he left the store.
A long distance telephone conversation:
“Hello. You received the funds?”
“Yes. Something else occurs to me.”
“Oh?”
“It would be best if there were no academic difficulty in my home district.”
“We never considered it. That’s an undeveloped district, after all.”
“Like so many, it has some surface tension. Admittedly of low density. I wouldn’t want the waters troubled. It would spoil my own swimming.”
A chuckle. “As it happens, you have exclusive representation in your district. Now that you mention it, it might be worthwhile to assign someone in a conciliatory capacity.”
“Try it again.”
“You’re swimming alone, but if the water’s troubled we can send you some oil.”
“Understood, but no. It’s my backwater.”
“Delicious. Anything else?”
“No.”
Another long distance telephone conversation:
“Hello? Hey, turn that down, huh? Hello?”
“Is that you, Roger?”
“Yeah. Who’s this?”
“Burt.”
“I can’t hear you, man.”
“Burt Weldon.”
“Man, this is a shit connection. You got to talk louder, you sound like you’re coining through a roomful of Dacron or something. Is it Burt?”
“Right on, baby. Burt Weldon.”
“Like I can just barely make you out. What’s happening?”
“Everything’s happening, man. Everything.”
“You cool, man? You sound kind of weird.”
“I’m beautiful. I want you to recognize it when it happens.”
“Huh?”
“I want you to know where it came from.”
“You sure you’re all right? It’s Burt Weldon, baby, I don’t know what he wants. He sounds really weird, totally fucked up. He never used to use anything. Hey, Burt? What kind of trip arc you on?”
“The ultimate trip.”
“Whatever’s cool.”
“The ultimate cool. A trip down Drury Lane. That’s all I can say.”
“Whatever it is I couldn’t hear it.”
“I said a trip down Dreary Lane. We all know the Muffin Man.”
“Huh?”
Dorn set up the portable typewriter in his motel room. On a sheet of plain typing paper he typed:
To the good people, who are dead or in jail:
No one will understand this. Maybe that proves it was the right thing to do. The things the world understands always turn out wrong.
Does the end justify the means? I no longer comprehend the question. Once I knew the question but did not know the answer. Now I know the answer but have lost my grasp of the question.
We tried words. Words are out-of-date. Dreary Drury gives us words, and we throw back bullets.
It seems to me
An hour later he went to the off-campus apartment house where Burton Weldon lived. He traded the typewriter for Weldon’s, which was open on the desk. He put a box of shells for the deer rifle on the closet shelf and covered it with a dirty shirt. He crumpled the unfinished letter and dropped it in a corner of the room where several crumpled sheets of paper already nestled.
He left with Weldon’s typewriter in hand.
The night before commencement exercises he had a dream in Serbo-Croat.
For some time now English had been his language of thought as well as his language of speech. Certain idioms might occur, in thought as in speech, in any of several languages; there were certain concepts that did not translate. But it was English that he both thought and spoke.
Dreams might come in any language. Lately they had been most often in English, but as recently as a year ago they had been primarily in German. He also dreamed occasionally in Serbo- Croat, and now and again in French.
