Lucas sat at the breakfast table trying to make sense of the front page of the newspaper that hid his father behind Friday, July 10’s stories about 1959.
“Terrorists” in South Viet Nam bombed a movie theater like the Roxy and killed two American soldiers in the first lethal attack on US military advisors in that country that—like Lucas’s school report said—used to belong to France.
Cops in Montreal seized $8 million worth of heroin from Chicago mobsters.
Robert Kennedy planned to resign as chief counsel for the Senate Rackets Committee so he could work on his older brother’s campaign to be president.
Nobel Prize–winning diplomat Dr. Ralph Bunche was denied membership in a New York City tennis club because he was a “Negro.”
The club also refused to let in Jews.
How come no Jews or Negroes live here in Vernon? wondered Lucas.
“Don’t you have to go to work today?” said Dad from behind the newspaper.
“Neal’s taking his baby girl to the parade.” Lucas harumphed. “So I could—”
Standing at the kitchen sink, Mom said: “I told you, we’ll see.”
Truth was, Lucas didn’t know what he wanted Mom to see.
If Mom took him out to the Grady River’s Four Counties Fair and Rodeo that afternoon, the carnival rides only cost a nickel. There’d be hordes of kids running wild over the oil-packed earth of the midway.
If Mom took him out there after dinner, the rides would cost a dime, but JaneKayBonnie said all the cool guys walked the fairgrounds on the first night.
“I’m going to the parade this morning,” said Lucas. “Mom said Main Street’s too crowded, Laura’s working at the phone company, but you could come, Dad.”
“I’ve got to work,” said Dad from behind the newspaper.
“But you’re the boss.”
Dad laid the newspaper on the kitchen table. Blinked. “You’re damn right I am. And I take my son to the parade.”
First they drove across the tracks to Dad’s office for him “to do a few things,” which was fine by Lucas. The parade didn’t start for two hours and it had been forever since he’d last seen Her.
But what Lucas saw as their black station wagon drew near the company buildings was a new white convertible parked in front of the garage bays. Maroon and gold lettered banners on the convertible read:
MARSHALL TRUCKING & THE CIVIC LEAGUE
The second thing Lucas saw was a burly truck driver wrestling one end of a metal desk stuck in the doorway to the Office.
Dad gunned the station wagon to where the trucker struggled. Jumped out. Grabbed the desk just as that teamster lost his grip and fell on his butt.
“Got it!” said Dad to whoever gripped the desk inside the house. “In or out?”
“Out damn here,” muttered the trucker as he struggled to his feet.
“Turn it on its side!” ordered Dad to partners he couldn’t see.
Then that man of fifty who’d carved prairie sod with a horse-drawn plow…
That man who had as a boy ran the family homestead when the Spanish Flu epidemic laid his brothers and parents low…
That once-a-boy who’d survived that flu when a country doctor chopped holes in his rib cage and stuck in hoses so he could breathe…
That man who at thirty-four had made it through WWII Army basic training…
That man who now was a boss, a pencil pusher, a keyboard tapper, a desk jockey who wore a sports jacket and who was only Dad…
That man gripped the steel desk with no more visible strain than he used to turn the steering wheel of the company station wagon.
The steel desk stood on its edge in midair.
“Bring it out!” yelled Dad.
The desk emerged from the house in McNamer’s slipping grip.
The trucker rushed to help him. The two of them strained to handle one end of the desk while Dad carried the other end alone.
“God-damn, Don!” said McNamer as they set the desk on the sidewalk. “Wish you’d shown up sooner!”
A man’s voice said: “Seems like he got here just in time.”
Ben Owens stood in the doorway of the Office. He wore his wedding suit and call-it-a-smile. No sheen of sweat glistened on his golf-course-tanned forehead.
“Don’t know what we’d have done if you hadn’t shown up,” he said to Dad.
McNamer said: “We?”
“What’s all this?” said Dad.
“You’ll be glad to know I got us a hell of a deal,” said Ben as he strolled down the steps. “A frat buddy of mine works for a furniture outfit in Great Falls.”
Dad said: “If we need something, we buy from Mark’s Furniture downtown.”
Ben’s smile didn’t change. “Yeah, but this way, we saved a bunch of dollars.”
“And sent a bunch more out of our town.” Dad nodded to the desk. “I don’t remember knowing about this.”
“Didn’t I tell you?” said Ben. “The chief and I figure to get modern. When I found a deal on the new desk I needed, we up and seized the moment.”
McNamer leaned on his good leg. “Me and Jake got to seize something, too.”
“Thanks, guys,” said Dad. “If we need you again, I’ll ring over to the shop.”
The trucker followed the mechanic to the garage bays.
Dad told Ben: “Those guys aren’t a couple of yard mules.”
“They work for us,” said Ben.
“They work for the company. Like us.”
“How do you get them to do anything if you don’t tell ’em what to do?”
“Treat a man right and all you have to do is ask, not tell.”
“Whatever. We got the desk out, didn’t we?”
“Somebody did.”
Dad strolled over to the white convertible. “And what’s this?”
Ben said: “This is my new car. Seeing as how this is a company car—”
“Alec mentioned he was writing some vehicle for you two into the company books, but I figured it was some kind of family car.”
“And this deal makes it perfect! We’re clear on your station wagon ’cause it’s got MARSHALL TRUCKING painted on its doors and the guys haul parts in it, but for this beauty, we need to prove it’s really a ‘company car’ to the tax boys. So we use it for advertising and civic promotion. Drive it in the parade. Get pictures. So what can they say?”
“We better hope they say nothing.”
“Damn right they got nothing. Plus, we’re sponsoring the Civic League—”
“We are?”
“Didn’t I tell you? Alec thinks it’s a great idea, ’specially ’cause it ties in with the tax angle and gets Falk on board for that. He’s a lawyer, so there you go.”
“Where am I going?”
“Well… come ride in the parade! We figured on just me and Falk, but hell, you’re a part of Marshall Trucking Company. A big damn part.”
Dad stared at the white convertible. “Three of us bunched in there would look like monkeys.”
“Huh?”
“Plus, I don’t want to spoil that for you and Falk. Besides, I can’t make the parade. I’m a man with work to do. But you go on. Have a good time.”
Ben reached for the white convertible’s door.
“By the way,” said Dad, “the phone company will have you fixed up soon.”
“What?”
Dad smiled: “Didn’t I tell you? Alec and I been figuring on what you need to do besides getting a new company car in all the parades. Didn’t he tell you?”
“Ah, no, he—”
“Figures. He’s the owner but I’m the manager, so he likes me to run things. Along with your everyday paperwork, you get to be off-hours dispatcher. That’s why Alec brought you in, isn’t it? To help out? All you got to do is sit at home or your new desk from five in the evening until I take over come nine in the morning. Plus on weekends. Our secretary Adele and I have been splitting that, Alec, too. We’ll spell you when we can, but it’s your shift.
“The phone company will rig a dispatch line in your new house. You take customers’ orders. Check with the refinery out west. The pumping rigs up north. Dispatch trucks. Somebody’s always got to answer the phone. Now that’s you. You’re having a baby, so you won’t be going anywhere anyway, plus you get to learn the business sitting at home. That’ll make Fran happy. When she’s happy, Alec glows like this new car.”
Ben stood there with his hand on the convertible’s door.
“Have a good parade.” Dad steered Lucas past the deserted steel desk on the sidewalk to the Office. As soon as the Office screen door shut behind them, Dad raced down the hall to the room with his desk.
Lucas glanced back through the screen.
Ben stood beside the convertible. Frowning.
Lucas walked in on Dad talking on his desk’s black phone. “This is Don Ross. My Laura’s working a shift there now. I need to—Thanks a lot.”
Outside the Office, Ben slammed shut the convertible’s door.
“Laura?” said Dad into the phone. “Can you adjust paperwork there so a new phone order gets processed like it came in before today?… Just tell me…. You can! I’ll call you back with the what’s whats.”
Dad hung up and spun the dial on the phone to make another call:
“Hi, Alec, I wanted to let you know I’ve taken care of Ben as off-hours dispatcher…. You remember. We talked about how to let him learn the business like you and I did, from the ground up. How he fits perfectly, busy as we’re getting. How this way, your Fran will have him home more to help with the little one. When’s the baby due?”
Dad said good-bye. Held on to the black receiver. Saw his son.
“Lucas, I, ah…”
“I know.”
Lucas walked out of the Office.
Walked into the garage past mechanic McNamer like everything was OK.
She whispered from the softly lit wall: ‘Remember me?’
Lucas walked by himself through northside streets to the viaduct over the train tracks to squeeze into the wall of boisterous spectators lining Main Street. Walked until he found a place in the crowd standing in front of the Roxy.
A police car siren wailed way down at the far west end of Main Street.
Sheriff Wood led the parade in that rolling black cruiser with gold stars on its front doors and a cherry light spinning on its roof.
Five cowboys on saddled horses pranced behind the cruiser. The middle rider carried the American flag, its pole set in the stirrup while the banner fluttered proud and free above the brown horse’s neck.
Lucas snapped to attention, right hand over his heart. He kept his face from showing embarrassment for the adults around him who merely stood a little straighter, or worse, didn’t stop chattering as their flag passed by.
Then came three high school twirlers tossing batons up toward Christmas lights still strung across July’s Main Street. One twirler caught her baton.
Behind the twirlers marched the high school band torturing a brassy song.
There! Across the street:
Wayne lunged toward the motoring-past volunteer fire department truck.
Lucas knew all the men in blue shirts who rode the fire truck and threw handfuls of penny candy toward Wayne and the crowd.
They were Sam, who careened his car through town every time the fire whistle blew. Archie, who seldom bathed and had a tooth-free grin. Pete from the furniture store Ben Owens hadn’t gone to. They were everybody’s neighbors.
The parade rolled on.
Mayor Nelson waved from the backseat of an Army jeep leading a uniformed and shouldered-rifle marching squad of local National Guard guys.
Across the street from Lucas stood Neal Dylan. Baby Rachel straddled his shoulders. Cooed to her father and pointed toward what was coming.
Rolling between them and Lucas came a flatbed truck bearing bales of hay and a black Angus steer bred by the science of evolution. Green four-leaf clover signs emblazoned with “4-H” hung on the truck doors. The smiling driver was bald farmer Herbst, who’d rescued Lucas from Mrs. Sweeny on Easter.
Farmer Herbst saw Lucas. Grinned.
Neal Dylan looked away from the parade float for the Masonic Temple with its women’s auxiliary of the Order of the Eastern Star and its youth groups, Rainbow Girls and boys-only DeMolay—a national group whose ranks included the first president of the United States to come from Lucas’s generation. With his child riding his shoulders, Neal’s gaze searched the crowd on Main Street.
The float for Our Fair Queen rumbled past. A high school girl wore the sash, her prom dress, and someone else’s smile as her arm fluttered that special wave.
There! spotted Lucas. Across the street on that sidewalk.
Short black hair. Tan slacks. A soft dawn blouse. Fighter pilot’s sunglasses.
Don’t wave! Lucas ordered himself. Don’t jump up and down yelling: ‘Here! Miss Smith! It’s me, Lucas! I’m standing across the street way down over here!’
The truck carrying the high school basketball team rolled past her. Chris Harvie waved their Second Place, North Central “B” District trophy.
A circus truck painted with red and yellow swirls rolled past Lucas blaring calliope music. Its sign for the fair proclaimed:
“THE MOST ASTOUNDING RIDES IN THE KNOWN UNIVERSE—AND BEYOND!”
Kurt’s missing all this, thought Lucas. Every summer Kurt went away to Lutheran camp near Glacier Park. Didn’t have to get a summer job, but still: ‘The most astounding rides in the known universe—and beyond!’
Lucas scanned the crowd for Marin. He’s not supposed to leave for the ranch on his rez until after the fair. Where is he?
A tractor molded with white napkin–stuffed chicken wire float for the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks rolled by as the little girl on Neal Dylan’s shoulders bounced up and down, pointed to the coming float for the Moose Club.
Across Main Street, Lucas shook his head.
Masons, Elks, Moose, Lions. What do all these men’s clubs do?
Lucas saw Neal Dylan beckon Tap Room bar owners Barb and Gary Harmon to join him and Rachel.
The white convertible paraded down Main Street.
Ben Owens drove while lawyer Falk waved to the crowd.
Lucas felt cold inside.
Sunglassed Jordan Smith walked the sidewalk behind the spectators.
Neal motioned her to where he stood with his daughter and the Harmons.
A red combine for harvesting wheat rumbled between them and Lucas. Such a machine held spinning blades across its front and towered more than twice as tall as any family car with a glass-windowed high cab for its driver.
Jordan Smith smiled at Barb Harmon. Shook Gary’s hand.
A flatbed truck bearing a ten-foot-tall model of an oil-drilling derrick filled Lucas’s view as it drove past. The signs on its side cited sponsorship from the oil refinery west of town and proclaimed: “We Fuel America’s Future!”
Neal glanced across the street. Saw Lucas standing there. Pointed toward the end of the parade. Beckoned that when it had passed, Lucas should join him.
A kindergarten boy beside Lucas whined: “Is that all there is?”
“Hush!” said his mother. “Just wait.”
Lucas heard the blare of the high school band reach the east end of Main Street. Turn to go up the hill and toward his house, where Mom stood inside her front screen door. She’d watch the marchers and floats pass by to detour around the nursing home where Gramma and other survivors of her generation sat parked on the sidewalk in wheelchairs or gray metal folding chairs so they could see the parade they couldn’t go to come instead to them.
A truck chugging past Lucas carried a dozen women wearing the same blue dresses, odd smiles, and dots of gold pinned to their chests. Some of the women were as young as Lucas’s mother. Most seemed as old as Gramma.
“Let’s go!” whined the kindergarten boy. “Who are they?”
“The Gold Star Mothers,” whispered the woman who bore him. “Wave.”
“How come they don’t put you up in the parade? You’re the best mom! How come they don’t give you a blue dress and a gold star thingy and let you ride in—”
That mother jerked her son’s arm. “Don’t say that!”
The boy wrinkled his face to cry. The mother dropped to sit on her heels and comfort him. Her face burned with shame as the Gold Star winners rolled by.
“No! Don’t cry, honey! It’s OK! Mommy’s sorry! I didn’t mean to scare you. You’re all right. Here, you’re all right and safe here with Mommy.”
A trembling lip showed Mommy and Lucas that the boy wasn’t convinced.
“No, it’s OK. Really. See, those mommies, they aren’t like me. I won’t be—Those mothers, their sons went to wars. Fought and didn’t come back home.”
“Wh-why?”
“Because they died. And I won’t ever ride in that truck. OK?”
The boy nodded. If his mother said it was so…
“Look!” She smiled and pointed back to the parade. “Look at the horses!”
A posse of horsemen clattered past, iron horseshoes on a city street.
Four of the riders wore dusty leather chaps and drover’s shirts, scuffed cowboy boots and weather-beaten Stetsons.
Real cowboys, thought Lucas. Grampa Conner must have looked like that.
But most of the riders wore shined boots. Fancy snap-button shirts. Bolo ties and spotless ten-gallon hats. Shiny spurs that jingle-jangled.
Three women riders wore calico cowgirl dresses.
Five Blackfeet Indians off their nearby reservation rode using saddle blankets. They wore buckskin pants, beaded shirts. Two sported eagle feather headdresses. None of the Indians smiled as they rode proud: We’re Still Here.
“It’s over now,” the mother told her son. “The posse comes last because—”
A horse lifted his tail to drop a football of brown shit on Main Street.
The son and much of the crowd laughed.
The crowd became people going their separate ways.
Lucas hurried to where Neal Dylan held baby Rachel and stood with the Harmons in front of the radio repair—
There! Beyond the teacher and his baby. On the other side of the window, inside the radio repair shop.
Donna from his class. She stared out at the parade of regular walkers who she’d never be. Saw the first kid she knew in this new town where she’d thought things would be different. Saw him stare at her through his glasses that let him not need her anymore. Stare at her through the glass wall between her and him and the rest of the world. She limped away into the shadows of her father’s shop.
Baby Rachel spotted Lucas. Memories of when Daddy brought that big boy to the house to play with her when Mommy was gone or lying down made Rachel smile. She reached toward Lucas.
Lucas used all his strength to pull the not-yet-walking baby into his arms. She squealed and tried to pull his glasses off.
Neal said: “Glad we spotted you, Lucas. I need to know when you’re going out to the fair.”
Lucas shrugged. “Mom said we’ll see.”
Neal turned to the Harmons.
“You probably know that Hal’s ninety days ended two days ago,” he said. “We—Jordan and I—we’re still teaching him. He went from being locked up in the jail to hiding at home. His mom, Jordan and me, Sheriff Wood and Judge Guthrie, plus the doc are worried that if he doesn’t go out into the real world…”
“That poor kid,” said Barb. “He’s gotta take that first step.”
“We came up with a plan—
“—and maybe it’ll include you, too, Lucas. You’re on Team Hal.
“Tonight his mom, Jordan, me—we’re taking Hal out to the fair. Never let him be alone. Let him feel that—”
Gary said: “That he’s one of us and we give a shit about him.”
“Walk him ’round the midway,” said Barb. “Let folks see him. Let him see them. Let people come up and say hi, show him they don’t…”
“What can we do to help?” said Gary.
Neal said: “Get busy telling folks about the plan. How Doc, Judge Guthrie, and Sheriff Wood are all backing it. We got a few hours. Spread the word through town. People gotta know what they’re seeing to appreciate it right.”
“I’ll work the phone,” said Barb. “Gary’ll be on Main Street, stepping outside if he ain’t tending bar and telling folks there.”
“That’ll be great,” said Neal. “Thanks.”
Lucas strained to hold the squiggly infant girl in his arms.
Rachel grabbed toward Jordan and got swept up in that woman’s care.
“Lucas,” said Neal, “I’m going to call your folks and a couple of your aunts about the plan. If anybody can get the word out, it’s the Conner sisters.
“And if it’s OK with you, I’m gonna ask your folks to have you help us out with the fair tonight. You’re good with both Rachel and Hal. We’ll pick you up.”
He smiled. “Safety in numbers.”
Jordan Smith told Lucas: “You don’t have to do this.”
“Are you kidding? Sure!”
“Don’t worry,” said Neal. “All we’ll do is have a good time.”