Matt smiled. 'How does that old Marvin Gaye song put it? I heard it through the grapevine. Luscious, vivid idiom, although the image is a bit obscure if you consider it. One conjures up a picture of a man standing with his ear cocked attentively toward a Concord or Tokay. . . . I'm rambling. I ramble a great deal these days but rarely try to keep it in hand anymore. I heard from what the gentlemen of the press would call an informed source - Loretta Starcher, actually. She's the librarian at our local citadel of literature. You've been in several times to look at the Cumberland Ledger articles pertaining to the ancient scandal, and she also got you two true-crime books that had articles on it. By the way, the Lubert one is good - he came to the Lot and researched it himself in 1946 - but the Snow chapter is speculative trash.'
'I know,' Ben said automatically.
The waitress set down a fresh pitcher of beer and Ben suddenly had an uncomfortable image: Here is a fish swimming around comfortably and (he thinks) unobtrus?ively, flicking here and there amongst the kelp and the plankton. Draw away for the long view and there's the kicker: It's a goldfish bowl.
Matt paid the waitress and said, 'Nasty thing that hap?pened up there. It's stayed in the town's consciousness, too. Of course, tales of nastiness and murder are always handed down with slavering delight from generation to generation, while students groan and complain when they're faced with a George Washington Carver or a Jonas Salk. But it's more than that, I think. Perhaps it's due to a geographical freak.'
'Yes,' Ben said, drawn in spite of himself. The teacher had just stated an idea that had been lurking below the level of his consciousness from the day he had arrived back in town, possibly even before that. 'It stands on that hill overlooking the village like - oh, like some kind of dark idol.' He chuckled to make the remark seem trivial - it seemed to him that he had said something so deeply felt in an unguarded way that he must have opened a window on his soul to this stranger. Matt Burke's sudden close scrutiny of him did not make him feel any better.
'That is talent,' he said.
'Pardon me?'
'You have said it precisely. The Marsten House has looked down on us all for almost fifty years, at all our little peccadilloes and sins and lies. Like an idol.'
'Maybe it's seen the good, too,' Ben said.
'There's little good in sedentary small towns. Mostly indifference spiced with an occasional vapid evil - or worse, a conscious one. I believe Thomas Wolfe wrote about seven pounds of literature about that.'
'I thought you weren't a cynic.'
'You said that, not I.' Matt smiled and sipped at his beer. The band was moving away from the bar, resplendent in their red shirts and glittering vests and neckerchiefs. The lead singer took his guitar and began to chord it.
'At any rate, you never answered my question. Is your new book about the Marsten House?'
'I suppose it is, in a way.'
'I'm pumping you. Sorry.'
'It's all right,' Ben said, thinking of Susan and feeling uncomfortable. 'I wonder what's keeping Weasel? He's been gone a hell of a long time.'
'Could I presume on short acquaintanceship and ask a rather large favor? If you refuse, I'll more than understand.'
'Sure, ask,' Ben said.
'I have a creative writing class,' Matt said. 'They are intelligent children, eleventh- and twelfth-graders, most of them, and I would like to present someone who makes his living with words to them. Someone who - how shall I say? - has taken the word and made it flesh.'
'I'd be more than happy to,' Ben said, feeling absurdly flattered. 'How long are your periods?'
'Fifty minutes.'
'Well, I don't suppose I can bore them too badly in that length of time.'
'Oh? I do it quite well, I think,' Matt said. 'Although I'm sure you wouldn't bore them at all. This next week?'
'Sure. Name a day and a time.'
'Tuesday? Period four? That goes from eleven o'clock until ten of twelve. No one will boo you, but I suspect you will hear a great many stomachs rumble.'
'I'll bring some cotton for my ears.'
Matt laughed. 'I'm very pleased. I will meet you at the office, if that's agreeable.'
'Fine. Do you - '
'Mr Burke?' It was Jackie, she of the heavy biceps.
'Weasel's passed out in the men's room. Do you suppose - '
'Oh? Goodness, yes. Ben, would you - '
'Sure.'
They got up and crossed the room. The band had begun to play again, something about how the kids in Muskogee still respected the college dean.
The bathroom smelled of sour urine and chlorine. Weasel was propped against the wall between two urinals, and a fellow in an army uniform was pissing approximately two inches from his right ear.
His mouth was open and Ben thought how terribly old he looked, old and ravaged by cold, impersonal forces with no gentle touch in them. The reality of his own dissolution, advancing day by day, came home to him, not for the first time, but with shocking unexpectedness. The pity that welled up in his throat like clear, black waters was as much for himself as for Weasel.
'Here,' Matt said, 'can you get an arm under him when this gentleman finishes relieving himself'?'
'Yes,' Ben said. He looked at the man in the army uniform, who was shaking off in leisurely fashion. 'Hurry it up, can you, buddy?'
'Why? He ain't in no rush.'
Nevertheless, he zipped up and stepped away from the urinal so they could get in.
Ben got an arm around Weasel's back, hooked a hand in his armpit, and lifted. For a moment his bu**ocks pressed against the tiled wall and he could feel the vibrations from the band. Weasel came up with the limp mail sack weight of utter unconsciousness. Matt slid his head under Weasel's other arm, hooked his own arm around Weasel's waist, and they carried him out the door.
'There goes Weasel,' someone said, and there was laughter.
'Dell ought to cut him off,' Matt said, sounding out of breath. 'He knows how this always turns out.'
They went through the door into the foyer, and then out onto the wooden steps leading down to the parking lot.
'Easy" Ben grunted. 'Don't drop him.'
They went down the stairs, Weasel's limp feet cropping on the risers like blocks of wood.
'The Citro?n . . . over in the last row.'
They carried him over. The coolness in the air was sharper now, and tomorrow the leaves would be blooded. Weasel had begun to grunt deep in his throat and his head jerked weakly on the stalk of his neck.
'Can you put him to bed when you get back to Eva's?' Matt asked.
'Yes, I think so.'
'Good. Look, you can just see the roof tree of the Marsten House over the trees.'
Ben looked. Matt was right; the top angle just peeked above the dark horizon of pines, blotting out the stars at the rim of the visible world with the regular shape of human construction.
Ben opened the passenger door and said, 'Here. Let me have him.'
He took Weasel's full weight and slipped him neatly into the passenger seat and closed the door. Weasel's head lolled against the window, giving it a flattened, grotesque look.
'Tuesday at eleven?'
'I'll be there.'
'Thanks. And thanks for helping Weasel, too.' He held out his hand and Ben shook it.
He got in, started the Citro?n, and headed back toward town. Once the roadhouse neon had disappeared behind the trees, the road was deserted and black, and Ben thought, These roads are haunted now.
Weasel gave a snort and a groan beside him and Ben? jumped. The Citro?n swerved minutely on the road.
Now, why did I think that?