Read Online Dewey Defeats Truman by Thomas Mallon - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Thomas Mallon
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slipping
now
, as he lumbered downstairs to the parlor and squeezed himself between his old chesterfield sofa and the table on which he had set down
Ivanhoe
for the night. He pulled back the drapes’ heavy green swag and glowered at Jackson’s ranch house across the street. “Son of a bitch!” he shouted, before promptly apologizing to the only other person in the room, an oil painting of the late Mrs. Sinclair. He squeezed back out around the table and sat down, closing his eyes and getting his breath, and making a promise to himself and the portrait. The clock on City Hall, audibleeven at this distance, chimed twelve—three minutes late by his own reckoning. He pulled himself up from the sofa and slowly climbed the stairs. It had been a long time since he had heard the chimes at midnight, heard them “in the Shakespearean sense,” as he was fond of saying about any number of phrases, and a long time since he had charged up any flight of stairs or foreign hill, but he moved with determination now, heading for the buckram box at the back of his dresser, ready to unlock the secret he had kept inside it for fifty-one years.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
, Anne said to herself, kicking off her slippers and turning down the bedspread.
The Time Being
was back in its drawer, but on her mind for one moment more. Could she work the reverend into it? The little she knew about him came from Margaret, who, rather than flirting with the two boys who’d signed up for the Guard, had gone right up to him in the coffee shop, bless her heart, and started asking questions. (
Bless her heart?
She was starting to sound as if she came from here.)
Had she talked too much about Peter? Been too obvious with her questions? What could she really have expected the girl to know? No, she was sure she had let Margaret talk enough herself, about Billy and how sweet, if exasperating, he really was, and her father, and how sweet, if exasperating,
he
really was.
She could hear from the clattering pipes down the hall that Mrs. Wagner was rinsing out her step-ins. On the other side of the wall, the closing of a door, its tongue going into the lock as quietly as the clicking of her brand-new ballpoint pen, told her Frank Sherwood was home. Had he been up on the roof with his own telescope, or with Tim Herrick atthe high school all this time? Poor Margaret: that story of how she’d really been searching for Billy up in that window. Did she think she could hide that look, the kind intelligible to everyone in the world? It was the look—
Anne’s eyelids sprang up, more open than they’d been all day. It was the same look, she now realized—how had she missed it—that Frank Sherwood had worn while gazing down at the golden head of Tim Herrick. She stared at the floral paper covering the wall between them. Oh, Frank, she thought.
Poor man
.
She reached up to turn off her lamp. The soft pop of its switch was just enough to mask the little noise traveling several blocks from the corner of Goodhue and Saginaw on the rain-soaked breeze. Tim Herrick, taking aim with his late father’s Colt .38, had just shot out the streetlight that, before sizzling to its death, stood between his eye and the planet Jupiter.
THREE
June 26–July 2
“C AREFUL , C OLONEL . Y OU ’ LL GET YOUR FEET MUDDY .”
Horace Sinclair looked left, down to the Shiawassee River. His eyes were in better shape than his seventy-two-year-old lungs, and they could see, even in the late Saturday-afternoon glare, that the figure getting out of the silver scull belonged to the young lawyer, Cox. He was hauling the absurd little thing onto the bank and approaching to make conversation.
“It’ll be paved soon. Easier for walking,” said Peter.
“I
like
the earth, Mr. Cox. That’s why I’ve got my feet on it.”
Peter smiled as he put on a sweatshirt over his singlet. Horace noted the unmarked smoothness of the arms going into it, and thought of his own, hung with fleshly crepe as
now
, as he lumbered downstairs to the parlor and squeezed himself between his old chesterfield sofa and the table on which he had set down
Ivanhoe
for the night. He pulled back the drapes’ heavy green swag and glowered at Jackson’s ranch house across the street. “Son of a bitch!” he shouted, before promptly apologizing to the only other person in the room, an oil painting of the late Mrs. Sinclair. He squeezed back out around the table and sat down, closing his eyes and getting his breath, and making a promise to himself and the portrait. The clock on City Hall, audibleeven at this distance, chimed twelve—three minutes late by his own reckoning. He pulled himself up from the sofa and slowly climbed the stairs. It had been a long time since he had heard the chimes at midnight, heard them “in the Shakespearean sense,” as he was fond of saying about any number of phrases, and a long time since he had charged up any flight of stairs or foreign hill, but he moved with determination now, heading for the buckram box at the back of his dresser, ready to unlock the secret he had kept inside it for fifty-one years.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch
, Anne said to herself, kicking off her slippers and turning down the bedspread.
The Time Being
was back in its drawer, but on her mind for one moment more. Could she work the reverend into it? The little she knew about him came from Margaret, who, rather than flirting with the two boys who’d signed up for the Guard, had gone right up to him in the coffee shop, bless her heart, and started asking questions. (
Bless her heart?
She was starting to sound as if she came from here.)
Had she talked too much about Peter? Been too obvious with her questions? What could she really have expected the girl to know? No, she was sure she had let Margaret talk enough herself, about Billy and how sweet, if exasperating, he really was, and her father, and how sweet, if exasperating,
he
really was.
She could hear from the clattering pipes down the hall that Mrs. Wagner was rinsing out her step-ins. On the other side of the wall, the closing of a door, its tongue going into the lock as quietly as the clicking of her brand-new ballpoint pen, told her Frank Sherwood was home. Had he been up on the roof with his own telescope, or with Tim Herrick atthe high school all this time? Poor Margaret: that story of how she’d really been searching for Billy up in that window. Did she think she could hide that look, the kind intelligible to everyone in the world? It was the look—
Anne’s eyelids sprang up, more open than they’d been all day. It was the same look, she now realized—how had she missed it—that Frank Sherwood had worn while gazing down at the golden head of Tim Herrick. She stared at the floral paper covering the wall between them. Oh, Frank, she thought.
Poor man
.
She reached up to turn off her lamp. The soft pop of its switch was just enough to mask the little noise traveling several blocks from the corner of Goodhue and Saginaw on the rain-soaked breeze. Tim Herrick, taking aim with his late father’s Colt .38, had just shot out the streetlight that, before sizzling to its death, stood between his eye and the planet Jupiter.
THREE
June 26–July 2
“C AREFUL , C OLONEL . Y OU ’ LL GET YOUR FEET MUDDY .”
Horace Sinclair looked left, down to the Shiawassee River. His eyes were in better shape than his seventy-two-year-old lungs, and they could see, even in the late Saturday-afternoon glare, that the figure getting out of the silver scull belonged to the young lawyer, Cox. He was hauling the absurd little thing onto the bank and approaching to make conversation.
“It’ll be paved soon. Easier for walking,” said Peter.
“I
like
the earth, Mr. Cox. That’s why I’ve got my feet on it.”
Peter smiled as he put on a sweatshirt over his singlet. Horace noted the unmarked smoothness of the arms going into it, and thought of his own, hung with fleshly crepe as
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