11/22/63

Dead, that’s what he is. And that’s all he is. So let it go. You’ve got a lot to do.

When we passed the Lisbon Drive-In, I yanked the stop-cord. The driver pulled over at the next white-painted telephone pole.

“Have a nice day,” I told him as he pulled the lever that flopped the doors open.

“Ain’t nothin nice about this run except a cold beer at quittin time,” he said, and lit a cigarette.

A few seconds later I was standing on the gravel shoulder of the highway with my briefcase dangling from my left hand, watching the bus lumber off toward Lewiston, trailing a cloud of exhaust. On the back was an ad-card showing a housewife who held a gleaming pot in one hand and an S.O.S. Magic Scouring Pad in the other. Her huge blue eyes and toothy red-lipsticked grin suggested a woman who might be only minutes away from a catastrophic mental breakdown.

The sky was cloudless. Crickets sang in the high grass. Somewhere a cow lowed. With the diesel stink of the bus whisked away by a light breeze, the air smelled sweet and fresh and new. I started trudging the quarter mile or so to the Tamarack Motor Court. Just a short walk, but before I got to my destination, two people pulled over and asked me if I wanted a ride. I thanked them and said I was fine. And I was. By the time I reached the Tamarack I was whistling.

September of ’58, United States of America.

Yellow Card Man or no Yellow Card Man, it was good to be back.

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I spent the rest of that day in my room, going over Al’s Oswald notes for the umpteenth time, this time paying special attention to the two pages at the end marked CONCLUSIONS ON HOW TO PROCEDE. Trying to watch the TV, which essentially got just one channel, was an exercise in absurdity, so when dusk came I ambled down to the drive-in and paid a special walk-in price of thirty cents. There were folding chairs set up in front of the snackbar. I bought a bag of popcorn plus a tasty cinnamon-flavored soft drink called Pepsol, and watched The Long, Hot Summer with several other walk-ins, mostly elderly people who knew each other and chatted companionably. The air had turned chilly by the time Vertigo started, and I had no jacket. I walked back to the motor court and slept soundly.

The next morning I took the bus back to Lisbon Falls (no cabs; I considered myself on a budget, at least for the time being), and made the Jolly White Elephant my first stop. It was early, and still cool, so the beatnik was inside, sitting on a ratty couch and reading Argosy.

“Hi, neighbor,” he said.

“Hi yourself. I guess you sell suitcases?”

“Oh, I got a few in stock. No more’n two-three hundred. Walk all the way to the back—”

“And look on the right,” I said.

“That’s right. Have you been here before?”

“We’ve all been here before,” I said. “This thing is bigger than pro football.”

He laughed. “Groovy, Jackson. Go pick yourself a winner.”

I picked the same leather valise. Then I went across the street and bought the Sunliner again. This time I bargained harder and got it for three hundred. When the dickering was done, Bill Titus sent me over to his daughter.

“You don’t sound like you’re from around here,” she said.

“Wisconsin originally, but I’ve been in Maine for quite awhile. Business.”

“Guess you weren’t around The Falls yesterday, huh?” When I said I hadn’t been, she popped her gum and said: “You missed some excitement. They found an old boozer dead outside the drying shed over at the mill.” She lowered her voice. “Suicide. Cut his own throat with a piece of glass. Can you imagine?”

“That’s awful,” I said, tucking the Sunliner’s bill of sale into my wallet. I bounced the car keys on my palm. “Local guy?”

“Nope, and no ID. He probably came down from The County in a boxcar, that’s what my dad says. For the apple picking over in Castle Rock, maybe. Mr. Cady — he’s the clerk at the greenfront — told my dad the guy came in yesterday morning and tried to buy a pint, but he was drunk and smelly, so Mr. Cady kicked him out. Then he must have went over to the millyard to drink up whatever he had left, and when it was gone, he broke the bottle and cut his throat with one of the pieces.” She repeated: “Can you imagine?”

I skipped the haircut, and I skipped the bank, too, but I once more bought clothes at Mason’s Menswear.

“You must like that shade of blue,” the clerk commented, and held up the shirt on top of my pile. “Same color as the one you’re wearing.”

In fact it was the shirt I was wearing, but I didn’t say so. It would only have confused us both.

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