Some foreboding intuition had told him, sitting at the counter of the diner serving him breakfast every morning, that today’s the day. Nobody sat within five feet of him. His favorite waitress—prone to honeying him—was unusually curt, non-talkative.

So when the windbreaker-clad Feds poured out of their dark, unmarked vans—drawing down on him, waving pieces of paper, barking out orders to scurrying underlings—he could do nothing but smile. As they clambered about his business like a bunch of yokel tourists, words failed him—as one schmirking mirror-shade noted: What’s the matta, hot-shot, cat got your tongue? (They’d practically drooled over his showcase inventory of reconditioned classic Mustangs, Camaro’s, Firebird's--divvying up the spoils like loot right on the spot, becoming testy when he didn’t assume the used-car salesman persona so each could decide on one’s new undercover wheels).

* * *

 

Pulling onto the steaming, soft blacktop, I turned towards the three-block "River Row" area serving as Spring Valley’s downtown.

Ten minutes to one, plenty of time to make my appointment with the old man’s lawyer.

Once inside the village limits River Street became a broad landscape of shade trees, large two-story houses and spacious lawns. The century before steam paddlers had traveled the river upstate bringing New Yorker’s to summer homes (the route, by train to Philadelphia, then inland to river landings, considered scenic and highly sought).

Though looming large still, most of the homes needed repair—or at the least new paint. Called "economically depressed" to be kind, the area really had nothing going for it. Mostly rural, gently rolling hills, small towns. The one-family farms had been endangered ever since I could remember, it was doubtful that any new "cash crops" had been discovered by the next generation...

I’d come here in the Fifties with my family from Boston. International Business Machines had built a NASA "think tank" (which had hired my father) and a related circuit board production facility. Two thousand and five hundred people, of mostly urban background, plunked down in a similarly numbered small town of mostly farmers. Sometimes the two had coexisted, sometimes not.

At the central parking lot across from River Row, I pulled in and took a ticket from the young attendant. "Goin’ to be doin’ business at tha bank?" the crew-cut boy asked, in that lazy drawl of the area—before adding further, "If you are ya get free parkin’ ya know."

I shook my head No and took the ticket…

 

*     *     *

he silence of the years, now, was broken by the sharp click at the end of my tape. Bringing my head forward I shook off the summer heat drowsiness, replaced sunglasses on his face, and fired up the Camaro’s short-block, high-performance V-8. This one was my pride and joy. The car had taken in the entire 3,000-mile cross-country journey from Los Angeles without a single grumble. I’d rebuilt the engine, transmission and suspension early last year, before the "Big Troubles" hit. The body had been left undone with gunmetal gray primer. A superstitious hunch that paid off when the others and his warehouse were seized; I’d managed to argue against the car’s impoundment by claiming it as my "personal vehicle."

 

I

My school, where I’d gone since the age of four, having been dropped like a time traveler when my family moved from the urban Midwest, was 100% "Wonder" white bread. Standard issue—along with "salad dressing," not mayonnaise—in the bag lunches my elementary classmates had dutifully toted in our "economically depressed" region. Though we had a federally-subsidized "school lunch" program, where you could purchase a "meal ticket" for an entire week for a buck and a quarter (which I thought was pretty neat, especially the way the ticket got hole-punched), the pragmatic mothers in these generational farming families thought it a waste of hard-earned money and packed their own.

Apparently I didn’t understand much else about my transplanted home, as early on my classmates took to razzing me hard. Thinking I was some kind of city sissy, on the playground they’d get me to play "King of the Hill." Basically an anything goes type of pile-on, by the third grade I was so good at it that not only would they refuse to play with me but too complained, behind my back, to our teacher and got me hauled into the principal’s office…

By my senior year some even took to calling me Spearchucker, as I’d grown my chestnut, wavy hair long—refusing to cut it as well—and started wearing wire-frame glasses, ala John Lennon, listening to the "Beatles" and "Motown." Got me benched as starting forward for our basketball team--always a powerhouse...

n those days I was known as Buck. An old high school nickname from my having been a star hoop player. Though I took it to mean as noble as a twelve-point stag, given the tight-mouthed way it was usually said by the locals—for whom fall deer-hunting assumed the status of religion—maybe not...

 

*****

For his fiftieth birthday party Walt’s friend Jim had ensured that none would fail to be impressed. A fellow professor at Cornell had offered use of his huge Victorian Gothic; as Buck walked through the door he was caught up in the swirl of people weaving from room to room. A band was playing "Louisiana Swing," something along with bar-b-que that was becoming inordinately popular.

Before he could make his way to the edge of the dance floor Pauline had appeared, grabbed his hand and led him into the middle. Buck noticed the sharp eyes of Walt upon him as he chit-chatted with Jim and others from their "Men’s Group"(who discretely avoided looking at him and Pauline).

"I don’t think this is a good idea, Pauline," Buck said.

She cocked her head back and looked at him with a mischievous twinkle. "Nonsense--besides, his new girlfriend is floating around here someplace. "

By the end of the next song she’d edged him to the far side of the floor. A large wooden-railed circular stairway lay to his left.

"Come on," she said, "I’ve got something I want to show you."

At the top of the stairs she paused, then led him down the hallway to the right. At the sight of a bedroom behind a half-open door he was about to protest before she shoved him into a bathroom off the hallway on the left. She closed the door and locked it.

Buck had no idea why he felt so annoyingly fatigued. He’d been looking forward to this party--Jim was a decent enough fellow and his circle refreshingly diverse. Something about Pauline’s over-chirpiness or whatever you’d call her latest bout of super-efficiency. Every so often the flickers of fear beneath the loud, confident tone.

She’d jumped up onto the edge of the sink and lifted her skirt with a flourish of flirtation. "Well?," she said, batting her eyes in parody.

Outside someone knocked on the door. "Go away," she said, "We’re [busy] beziet!"

This ritual had taken place for their past several meetings. Hardly a word before some hunger within her had practically torn off his clothes. He supposed he should be complimented; instead he felt some groundless frustration like looking down the body curves of that Thunderbird in his barn and having the chattering of his mind block seeing the lines. Not being able to trust his instincts, having to measure in comparison for the first time in years...Worse, people were supposed to be different than cars...

"What is with you lately?," he said, unable to check the anger rising in his voice.

"Nothing," she said, mock-pouting. "You don’t want to play?"

"I don’t want to be paraded about like a poodle.."

"I don’t see any doggie collar," she said, suddenly matter-of-fact. "Nor am I holding a leash. Oh!" she clapped her hands, widened her eyes, "is that a routine you do with your other girlfriends."

His cheeks fiercely crimsoned. "You’re the only woman I choose to see; if you don’t trust me..." He breathed out in exasperation, then moved between her legs. Roughly gripping the band of her panties he broke and ripped them, yanking them free. Unbuckling his pants he moved to take her.

As he pushed his way inside her, he asked, "Is this what you want?"

At her moans he drew his head back and looked closely at her. He knew he was in one of those moods when his eyes were piercingly alive.

With a slump she broke off and leaned her head into his shoulder. Her sobs came soft and fast. "It’s just," she began, between breaths, "it’s just so hard for me lately. Why do you have to be so difficult?"

"I don’t mean to be," he said, his fingers lightly caressing the line of her jaw, "I suppose that I’ve not cared about anyone for so long that maybe I’ve forgotten how."

Sub Plot: [re: "The Atheist, the Crooks and the Pot of Gold"

S.F. Chron 6/3/2000:A7]

character: "Lord Byron," a shuffling slob of a Fed with an intense dislike of Buck; decides to go after him by encouraging a rip-off of an Ithaca personality known as the Old Crone—whose claim to fame is a federal lawsuit in the Sixties against the Cayuga County School Board challenging (and winning) the use of prayer in the schools. She’s part of the "Wild Plums Natural Foods Collective," run by Buck’s "Choice Dance Club" friend Kaitlin (hearty, healthy Celtic ancestry woman) and, too, she’s the Head Priestess for the "Wicca Coven" of his off and on-again girlfriend, "Candy" (former hooker who had a bit of cocaine difficulty, now a seriously aspiring writer of "fantasy").

"Byron took one long last slurp of his mocha latte—cursing himself for spilling chocolate-laced foam onto his already stained jacket (dark plaid, a bit worn, a bargain he’d found at "Goodwill")—then unlocked the door to his "Record Bonanza" shop. Once inside he brushed the spill away as best he could. As far as he could tell, no one had noticed his faux pas.

He was a bit late, as was his wont, but not worried—his counter help were always even more flaky about schedules than he. Though his neighboring merchants treated him as the town joke, his business was finally beginning to prosper—he credited the matter to his keen insight into the student mind (whether Cornell or Ithaca College no matter).

At 41 years of age, he’d found himself going through a bit of painful assessment of his life so far. He knew his weaknesses: too much fondness for food, always adding to his already ungainly bulk.; sloppiness of dress and demeanor, perhaps contributed to by his appetite for good pot. To cover his receding hairline he allowed his rather plain, sandy-brown hair to grow long across his forehead, and he’d been told he had an annoying habit of jerking his head to toss it out of his eyes—another sore point, as they reminded him of a lizard’s (beady, a bit cruel) when he looked into the mirror. For a while he’d dutifully performed the exercises on a self-improvement tape series about "Improve Your Charisma!" in an attempt to make his eyes, as advertised, glow like plated Mars! He’d even traded in his thick-lensed wireframes for contact lenses, but, months later, with no sign of improvement in his watery eyes, had resigned himself to hiding them behind the glasses again…"

Lord Byron is an old hand at being an FBI agent provacateur; a veteran of the "Students for a Democratic Society" days at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor—where, as a small town hick he’d gotten a financial aid package to attend, kind of the fulfillment of a dream of his from a young boy. Unfortunately, he’d let the ambiance overwhelm him and had developed a severe case of agrophobia, cutting classes in favor of smoking doobies in the closet of his dorm room and watching old movies on television.

Then he got busted. He’d taken a chance on a new connection—after his main man took a sudden leave of absence—and the fast talking little nerd fed him like fish bait to a real shark of a "suit" in the FBI. Mr. Jones, a slow talking "good ole boy" outta Alabama that had ole Byron pegged from A to Z. Had the reports on his grades declining (in this, just the second semester!) so that, according to the suit, the campus Administration Office was most likely going to put him on academic probation and require summer school make-up as provisionary to his readmission the next fall.

So instead of being busted and washed out of U of M, Byron found himself working as one of Mr. Jones’ undercovers. Amazingly enough, part of the deal was pretty much all the pot he wanted to smoke—as long as he kept his shit together enough to pass on the information requested. No more having to be paranoid about being busted!

Under Mr. Jones’ tutelage Byron once again succeeded. He’d done well for himself in his rural Michigan High School and considered himself no dummy, just overcome with some vague paralyzing feeling from time to time—anxiety attacks, shortness of breath, a feeling of impending doom…

His junior year, with student unrest suddenly a big deal, Mr. Jones had had Byron go political—as he’d excelled in his Poly Sci classes, Byron became the logical choice to infiltrate the "Students for a Democratic Society." And, in making himself a repository of information, he found that his kind of foppishness—the bane of his High School years—no longer hindered him. Some of his fellow politico’s now found him somewhat hip and cool!

* * *

So, Lord Byron becomes the machinator behind a bizarre plot: his new boss of a suit is a "born again" Christian brought in specifically to "take down" the Old Crone—as rumours abound that she’s become independently wealthy from a mysterious donor network and, while no proof exists that she’s obtained the money illegally, the thought of a bunch of atheists prospering has bothered a bunch of decent hard-working Fed’s…

Byron is a master manipulator of "outcasts"; he’s got young "Grateful Dead" female groupies held hostage "under his thumb," instead of busting them for dope possession he uses them to reward some of his minions—whom he’s carefully cultivated from throughout upstate New York, having selected each for a "one dirty trick" specialty. He’s even gotten some volunteers from these lost young women to do "Ecstasy" and make porno movies with some guy that somebody in high places needs to have a little dirt on to keep in line..

And he’s in tight with the snitches in Attica prison gangs—including the "Tomahawks," a group of reservation Native Americans from western New York with a rep for being especially nasty….

The plot he lays is thus: the report on the Old Crone has it that she doesn’t trust banks and keeps a stash somewhere of almost a million dollars in gold and silver coins. The location will be "leaked" to him at the right moment; he sends a few of his best toughs to heist it; they sit on it for a while then, when the crime remains "unsolved" all move on to fresh pastures with the loot and discreetly convert it—after surrendering half of it to the Bureau future "contingency fee payouts."

Yet they’re double-crossed, as when the three toughs break and enter and escape with a hefty trunk of the coins—placing it into what they’ve been told is a "safe" self-storage in nearby Binghamton, somebody leaks this info to a rival gang of agent toughies and they use three local women as "dupes" given a "master key" to pull an inside rip-off. They go on a spending spree, of course, including male "Chippendales" strippers in Manhattan and gambling in Atlantic City until caught…

"Cathy knocked away the kitten brushing up against her cheek. Already the sun beat hotly through the curtain over the screened window next to her foam platform bed. She was alone in bed. Jackie must have made it in to her day shift at Techtronics.

The thought was good news; last night they’d closed down "Wes’s Bar & Grill," their "A-League" sponsor, with the rest of their softball team. They’d knocked "B. J.’s Rainbow Room" out of first place, 6 to 5, and Wes was pouring the drafts...

But at work, Jackie’s foreman—a nasty-ass old redneck who made crude jokes about lesbian creeping-crud— had warned her that one more missed shift this month and that would be it for her.

Cathy had been out of work for six months now, and, well, they couldn’t afford any fuck-ups.

She sat bolt upright in bed. It was only 10:35. Plenty of time to meet their friend Stephanie at noon. Today, according to Stephanie, was gonna be big money day. She hadn’t been able to give her all the details, but this one was the big score the three of them had been joking about now for months on end.

She kicked some clothes out of her way—catching her toe on that damn loop of the carpet that was frayed—and made her way into the trailer’s living room. After putting on a "Queen" cassette and cranking it up she set about making a mess of home fries and eggs.

Outside, in the back yard, that damn washing machine confronted her in all its rusted-out ugliness. The ’62 Cadillac, too—turquoise-blue faded to kind of a dirty egg-white from years and years of this jerkwater’s hot summer sun. At least it didn’t have that acrid ammonia smell of chicken like the farms down the road.

At one time it was Jackie’s parents’ car—in decent shape, too, even though they bought it used. Then her old man (like Jackie in this company town, a Techtronics employee) ran the engine into the ground. Parked it in the backyard with endless promises to overhaul next weekend, honey, I promise...

Cathy threw the mixed together contents of the big frying pan onto a plate and sat down to chow. She was trying to remember the words to some Creedence Clearwater Revival song, something about someday never comes...

Yeah, that was it. Like so many of the dirtbag men in this little burgh Jackie’s old man went bad. Started spending all his weekend time with some drinking buddies that crewed for a stock car racing team out at "Shangri-La Speedway." Impressed some high school barfly down at the "John Barleycorn" with what a so-called hot-shot he was and bingo, before you could say Jack Frost they were long gone with the little tramp’s mother’s new Oldsmobile sedan. Florida was the rumoured destination—the poor mother, a regular every Sunday at the big Methodist church down by the river, was too caught in the dark and heart-broken and just let the whole thing go...Damn men are all alike anyway...

Phone was ringing. Cathy picked it up, "Yeah, you got the right number, whadda ya want?"

"Hey it’s me."

"Stephanie, was just thinkin’ ‘bout ya girl. How’s everything look?"

"Shhh. Remember, we’re sworn to secrecy in this one. I ain’t joking or playing. We’re gonna hit the lottery and high-tail it out of here, okay?"

"Whoa, not so fast girlfriend. Gotta fill me in on those details. I ain’t exactl;y told Jackie everything yet."

"Well okay but just get going to meet me—the "McDonald’s" out at Oakdale Mall."

"All the way out there? Lot’s of places closer. ‘Sides, I just ate."

"Just do what I say, we got somewhere else to go after we meet up. Make sure you bring some of your heat, too. Bye."

As she hung up the phone Cathy couldn’t help but feel puzzled. Everybody knew she prided herself on her gun collection—it’d been her old man’s that she ripped off from him when they had that spat about why he wasn’t gonna buy her a new car for her High School graduation—and she was even joining up with the Navy! (he’d done so for the Korean War).

After she’d turned up here, with Jackie, after getting drummed out of the Great Lakes electronics school (she’d had this nasty Southern black Ensign Instructor was one of them reverse racists, didn’t like how her and Jackie had become friends neither and took to riding her hard) she’d kept them hid for while—couldn’t be too safe, the Western Pennsylvania little shithole she was from wasn’t that far away, really, and her old man had remained hot as a hornet’s nest about the theft. Not believing her protests of innocence...

But then one afternoon—they’d been sitting around in the backyard, drinking beers one Saturday (her and the softball team from Wes’s, after a Friday night loss) and she’d run back into the trailer and dug out her storage bag from the bedroom closet. Licketdee split everybody had a gun—a Browning 9mm, Smith & Wesson 357 Long-barrel Magnum, even a Colt 45 to go with the rifles, coupla 223 assault rifles, a real nice Mossberg 12-guage full-choke skeet shooting shotgun, and, pride of pride, one of them Jewish automatics, an Uzi. They’d set up empties down on the neighbor’s fence poles and started plugging away.

Cathy’d become almost an instant celebrity...

Now she tried not to think too hard about why Stephanie wanted the guns but instead went into her lock and load mode. She picked the Uzi (already illegal, not registered) and the Browning 9mm (easiest to handle)...

Ten minutes later, having tossed on some clothes, locked up the trailer, and walked out to her Ford 250 ¾ ton truck. Indispensable to living the way she wanted—though 7,000-plus pounds, this four-wheel drive sucker (complete with the requisite gun-rack in the rear window) never got stuck in the ditches wintertime. She stashed the Uzi under her side and the Browning under the passenger’s for Steph, fired up the engine and let her warm up.

One nice thing about living out in the sticks like they did was no neighbors to get too nosy. Place had been Jackie’s parents, originally—nice little two bedroom farmhouse. But after her Dad had left, her Mom got real troubled—wouldn’t talk, just sat at the kitchen table looking out the window a lot. Had spooked Jackie to the point of her joining the Navy after High School, too. Then while they were into their third month of electronics training at Great Lakes—dead cold beginnings of winter—Jackie’s Mom died in her home’s catching fire. Some speculated it was a suicide, but fact of it was one of them damn unreliable kerosene heaters flared up in the middle of the night. Plenty of people had taken to using them when heating oil prices started going through the roof ‘cause of them damn Arabs...

Cathy came to a full stop down at the bottom of the hill and turned on to the two lane highway heading east towards the Oakdale Mall. She’d come in the back way, stay off the four-lane Interstate, just to be on the safe side...

[plot synopsis]:

Downtown Spring’s Valley has been the center of controversy in that an "Historical District" classification may not happen due to a new Sheriff’s Dept. broadcasting tower erected right on top of the 100-year-plus old station and jail.

A deputy in the farther reaches of the county had been fired upon with a shotgun by an irate man chasing him off his property and had not been able to reach the station through the cruiser’s new transceiver; thus, the Dept., claiming the matter was an emergency, had the Village Clerk rubberstamp approval and had the hundred-foot tower up in an afternoon. The matter has upset many of the small merchants in the four-square block area--especially those along the oldest buildings on River Row. Many of them are artists and craftspeople from Ithaca and elsewhere who’ve been counting upon the reclassification and federal money to make building improvements and build a pedestrian mall. Envisioning the changes as a hub for improved tourism, the architect commissioned by the civic group had detailed a farmer’s market, sidewalk cafes and open-air crafts fairs--all stubbornly resisted by the born and raised locals, who resent these "newcomers" as outsiders.]

scene fragment:

"Hello, Papa!" the bartender called to the burly man in the long leather trenchcoat.

Jerry Shaunisey gently let the screen door close behind him. His head dipped in modesty; Ernest Hemingway was kind of a hobby with him, and, having cultivated the white beard and sporting-man image, he never objected to being confused with the late great Old Man Himself.

Jerry ordered up a "Jack Daniels" double and swung onto a barstool. Picking up his drink he nodded to the other customers, sipped his whiskey. "Ernie’s" was the type of place that reminded him of old Boston, before he’d gotten disgusted and left. Big green shamrock on the sign outside--both sides of the name.

Coming here for "Happy Hour" after he closed up his "River Row Bookstore" he often thought about his former colleagues back at that overcrowded public High School where he’d taught American History. Or his wife, from whom he’d divorced when he retired--if she could see him now, working on the pit crew for Ernie and the bar’s stock car racing team.

[synopsis: Jerry is in the midst of "male menopause." Though he’s a gung-ho book trader--particularly interested in expanding his first editions of Hemingway and related writers, his bookstore is more of a vanity outfit than anything else. He’d gone to Cornell, years ago, and through correspondence with an old college chum, had decided to move to Ithaca after making his Big Change. The River Row shop had been a whim he’d done after a drive around the area.

Jerry, prone to barroom tales, is going to hire a couple of down-on-their-heels locals to blow up the Sheriff’s tower ("Our Day Will Come" rhetoric). The two bungle the job and only get one of the four legs to shatter.

BIG DANTE__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________