Much like Mr. Spock playing a difficult tridimensional chess match against an intellectually lively opponent, Ponty was feeling assaulted on many levels, and consequently he was having a hard time keeping track of the many stresses he was supposed to be under at any given time. He could have reverted to a general sense of impending doom, but Ponty was into the details.
At present he was worried because he had not been on a date in more than thirty-five years, and that last one had ended with tensely and grudgingly accepted apologies from Ponty. They were necessitated by an incident, mid-date, when a lackluster investigation into just who had jostled their dining table, causing bisque to slosh freely into his companion’s lap, had centered, unfairly, on Ponty and not on the large and clumsy-thighed passerby who had actually done the jostling and caused the offending bisque to leap from its bowl. The whole incident was especially upsetting because Ponty had laid out considerable sums—which were scarce at the time—for the dinner and was unable to enjoy his pricey lobster thermidor with the unpleasantness hanging in the air.
Because it had been more than a third of a century since he’d asked a woman out, he’d made some mistakes with Sandi. Asking her casually if she’d “like to go bowling sometime” would have been a more effective lead-in if there were a bowling alley within a hundred miles of Holey, but there was not. This caused Sandi to interpret his question as a bad joke and to look at him with slight hostility. This in turn caused Ponty to sweat and fidget before recovering enough to ask her if she’d like to have dinner. She correctly interpreted this advance, graciously agreed, and Ponty had then retreated to begin recuperating from the stress of it all.
It was now time for their date, and Ponty felt like a foot soldier ordered to take a heavily fortified pillbox. It was a quiet and cool evening, a quarter moon visible in the still-bright sky as he piloted the Tempo to an avenue just off of Main Street, pulled into her driveway, and approached the house, compulsively attempting to smooth his hair down on the way to the door, to little effect. His hair had always had its own plan, an indecipherable internal logic as to how it wanted to situate itself on his head that no amount of tonics, combs, or smoothings could alter. Looking down at his left hand, he noticed that his knuckles were white, meaning that he had the flowers he’d purchased in an unnecessary death grip, so he relaxed it. He entered through a screen porch that had apparently settled more aggressively than the house, causing it to tilt alarmingly. He felt like he was climbing uphill to get to her front door. Ponty’s fist paused a few inches from the door and then knocked cautiously. After half a minute with no discernible result, he debated whether to knock again, deciding that it would be better to wait so as not to appear too forward. He stood perfectly still, listening intently, for a full two minutes before knocking again, taking care to make it sharper in volume but still friendly in its effect. This second series of knocks fell short of its aim as well. He tried a third time, wincing from his discomfort with having to make such a potentially offensive racket. Four minutes passed, and still the door remained thoroughly unanswered.
After some torturous introspection, he decided to test the door and, finding it unlocked, pushed it open no more than a demure two inches. “Hello?” he yelled. “Sandi?” He steeled his resolve and took, to his mind, the extreme liberty of opening the door enough to push his head through. He tried to keep his tone light. “Hell-ooo?” he said, with mirth in his voice. “It’s Ponty,” he announced, but nothing changed. Pushing his shoulders through, he tried again. “I’m here!” For the first time in his life he used two words he had never used in combination: “Yoohoo,” he said, and followed that up with “Woo-hoo.” He glanced about Sandi’s living room and felt the shock a man often feels when seeing so many knickknacks, tchotchkes, craft items, homey plaques, and decoupage all in one concentrated area. Everywhere he looked, notions and bric-a-brac assaulted his eyes. There were baubles, bibelots, and novelty items on every imaginable surface, many of them cat-based, though not exclusively. Before he could check himself, he had entered the room, a dazed look on his face such as the one Carter must have had when entering Tutankhamen’s tomb.
Ponty saw Longaberger baskets and Snow Baby collections elbow to elbow with Hummel figurines and porcelain cats in various adorable poses. There were needlepoint wall hangings, doilies, and plants, potpourri in baskets and bowls, candles of various hues and shapes, all fragrant. He was having a difficult time comprehending all the trumpery. It made his eyes hurt.
Setting the flowers on the couch, he moved farther in, drawn there by an item on a half wall between the living room and dining room. It was perched next to a crocheted beanbag calico cat and a plaque reading IF YOU DON’T FEEL CLOSE TO GOD, GUESS WHO MOVED? It appeared to be a loaf of bread tied in red ribbons like a present, and when he picked it up, he concluded that it was indeed a loaf of bread that had been mummified in some manner unknown to him. He was turning it over in his hands, musing on what might drive a human being to preserve and decorate a loaf of bread, when he heard a sharp cry.
“Ponty!” said Sandi.
“Yes!” said Ponty, for there was no use denying it.
She was standing in a doorway toward the back of the house wearing overalls, a flannel shirt, and leather and canvas work gloves.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Oh, sorry, just examining the bread,” he answered weakly. He held the calcified loaf out to her without realizing what he was doing. She approached him and gave the loaf an irritated, dismissive look. He withdrew it nervously, set it back down, and smoothed his hair.
“What are you doing in my house?” she asked.
“Yes. Well. I knocked. Quite a lot, really, and you didn’t answer. So I thought you might be in the shower.”
“So you came in?”
“No. Not to see you in the shower. I just—I’m sorry.”
“And you have a mustache.”
“Yes. I have to from now on. I’m Earl Topperson, remember?” She nodded in understanding, while leaving open the possibility that she still thought him insane. “Sandi, I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” she said, though it clearly wasn’t all right. She seemed to have more questions and perhaps a bit of resentment.
For the first time Ponty noticed her appearance, which suggested that yard work had just been, or was about to be, done.
“Ready?” he asked. “Or am I early? I mean, you look fine to me. I don’t mean—”
“Ready? Ready for what?”
“Our d—” he said, and stopped himself. “Our thing. Our, you know, the dinner thing.”
She relaxed. “Ponty. Honey”—she was using it sarcastically—“we said Saturday, remember?”
“Oh, yes. And if I’m not mistaken, today is in fact Saturday.” He was beginning to perspire.
Sandi laughed a large laugh. Ponty looked at his watch for the date, even though it had no date feature, something he should have known instinctively as he’d worn it nearly every day for eighteen years.
“Ponty, today’s Friday!” she laughed.
“No. No. I—” He looked at his watch again. “Is it?”
“Oh, it is, yes.”
“No.”
“Yes. It is.” She was giggling.
“You’re putting me on?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
Ponty was still skeptical, so Sandi led him into her kitchen (it was decorated in a slightly more muted manner than the living and dining rooms, though it was still pretty adorable) and showed him a calendar, coaching him through the days of the week. Finally he could no longer deny the truth.
“I’ve come on the wrong day!” he said, looking as though he’d been recently hit with a carnival hammer.
“It’s all right. It’s a relief to know why you were in my house. I was thinking of macing you.”
Ponty was focusing on his own misery and didn’t hear her. “How could I do that?” he wondered, in awe at his own ineptitude.
“Happens to the best of us,” she said. “You want to stay for some coffee?”
“No. No thanks. I’d better go,” he said, his voice sounding dazed and hollow.
“Oh, come on. Stay. You can help me stack wood.”
“I’d—I’d probably cause the pile to cave in and take our lives. The wrong day!” he said with amazement.
“Come on,” she said, and, taking his hand, led him past the tidy little kitchen and out through the mudroom into her expansive backyard, which was several acres of mowed grass abutting the deep pinewood beyond. To their left stood her one-car garage, a fairly decrepit old thing that listed dangerously, even more than her porch. On the right was an open woodshed, nothing much more than some green-treated poles sunk into the ground, steadied with some tongue and groove siding, and topped off with corrugated tin. Parked near it was an ancient gray Ford 8N tractor dragging a plywood trailer filled with a load of split elm.
“Make yourself useful,” she said, dragging a log from the trailer and tossing it to him. He caught it and those that followed and gamely began stacking them into the shed, even though it was not easy on his tender hands.
“I’m glad you messed up, Ponty. Stacking wood always makes me feel a little lonely,” she said.
This embarrassed him, so he responded with a trite saw. “Well, many hands make light work,” he said.
“I guess—hut, hut,” she said to warn him of an incoming log.
“Oof, I got it.”
“So I hear you been turkey hunting with Ralph?” she asked, offering Ponty a chance to brag.
“Oh, yeah. We got one nice tom, though we still haven’t filled the other tag,” he said, like a wizened old hunter who’d seen it all.
“Did you dress it, or did Ralph?”
“Oooh. Ralph did. I don’t think I could handle that. Yuck. No, he’s got it in his chest freezer now.”
“Well, maybe we can all enjoy that turkey together sometime.”
“Yeah, that’d be nice.”
Sandi paused her labor and leaned against the trailer. “Oh, boy. This is gonna be a cool night, but it sure is nice now,” she said, looking up at the sky. The sun was fading, the swallows were diving about the tops of the garage, and over the trees came the lonely call of the loon.
“That’s all the way from the lake,” said Sandi, smiling wistfully.
“It’s nice,” said Ponty, rubbing his hands together to warm them. “You never hear that in the city. Course, you probably get pretty lonely for bus fumes from time to time,” he joked tentatively.
Sandi laughed. “Oh, there are plenty of fumes around these parts, if you look hard enough.” She grabbed a log, and they resumed their work. Sandi began laughing to herself again and did not notice that Ponty had interrupted the rhythm of their work to do some fussy straightening of the logs he’d stacked. Sandi turned to throw a log and, noticing he wasn’t ready, awkwardly stopped her momentum, losing her grip on the log and dropping it squarely on her toe.
“Ow, ow, ow!” she said, falling to the ground.
“Oh, oh! I’m sorry,” said Ponty, realizing he was at least partly responsible. He bent to minister to her but hadn’t any idea what propriety allowed him to do, so he simply hovered over her nervously.
“Ow, ow, ow!” she went on, though she seemed to be laughing through the obvious pain. “That was so clumsy of me.”
“It’s me. There are always accidents and injuries when I’m around,” he said miserably.
“No, that’s me! Ow, ow, take off my shoe, will you?” she said, gripping her left leg, and it was now obvious that she was at least half laughing.
Ponty was taken aback by her request. He had never in his life unshod a woman and had no idea how to go about it. He fiddled lightly with the shoelace, accomplishing little.
“Come on, just pull off the shoe, will you?” She laughed.
“Yes, yes. Of course,” he said, giving her light blue Etonic tennis shoe a chaste and gentle pull.
“Come on. Get it off, will you?”
He then took the liberty that she had offered and gave her shoe a good pull. It came off, and he set it aside, though there was still a short, terry-cloth sock to deal with, and Ponty hoped that the task wouldn’t fall to him.
“Take off the sock. Is it broken?” she said.
“Hang on,” he said, and his shaking hands orbited her foot unsurely.
“Ponty, it’s not a tracheotomy. Would you just check to see if it’s broken?”
“Yes, yes. I’m on it,” he said, and with a quick, bold yank, he removed her sock. He was somewhat shocked to discover that her toenails were painted an unsubtle red.
“Ow, easy!” She laughed again, still clutching her leg. “Well?”
“How would I know if it was broken?” he asked.
“I think it would be written on there—just look at it, will you?”
“Which one is it?”
“It’s the second one, I think,” she said, and wiggled her toes. “Ow, yes.”
“Second from which end?” asked Ponty.
This made Sandi giggle. “From the big toe in, of course.”
“Right.” Ponty gingerly touched her toe with his forefinger. “Does that hurt?”
“Did you do anything?”
“Yes. Here,” he said, very gently pinching the end of it between thumb and forefinger and simultaneously blushing.
“Oh, I feel that.”
“Sorry. Sorry,” he said, withdrawing his hand.
“No, no. It’s already feeling better. I don’t think it’s broken,” she said, and sat up with effort. “Just caught it right on the end. It hurt.”
“Yes, I see that,” he said.
“Shut up, you,” she said, and began pulling on her sock. “Let’s go have some coffee. Hand me my shoe.”
She limped into the house on a blushing Ponty’s shoulder, and they talked in Sandi’s kitchen for several hours over her terribly prepared, cheap coffee.
RALPH’S ’81 MALIBU was smoking impressively as it pulled up to Cabin 4 at the Bugling Moose. He’d been meaning to get new rings and perhaps replace the head gasket on the Malibu’s somewhat quirky 305, five-liter engine, but then he didn’t. He had grown used to the smoke and the noise, but he didn’t like to go on long trips because either one or the other, or a combination of the two, gave him a dull but substantial headache and, strangely, made him very hungry. He killed the engine, but it pinged and groaned under its own power for a good while, shaking the frame of the car, making it roll like a sailboat on its tremendously mushy, worn-out suspension, until finally it died and the rolling settled to a level safe enough for him to disembark.
He approached the cabin and was about to knock when the door opened and Jack appeared, an owly look on his face. Ralph also noticed that his hair was slightly moist-looking and stacked higher on his head than was normal. It contributed further to an overall owl-like appearance.
“Hey,” said Ralph. “How’d you know I was here?”
“Your car announced you.”
“Your hair looks funny,” Ralph said without malice.
“I accidentally used a very powerful humectant.”
“You kind of look like an owl.”
Jack stared at him. “Are we ready to go?” he asked.
“Sure.”
Ralph opened the rear door for Jack, made a gesture for him to enter that Jack guessed was supposed to be eloquent. They drove the few hundred yards to King Leo’s cabin, and Ralph killed the engine, but its ensuing groans and explosions were so intense that the men stayed in the car to avoid injury until, after one final backfire, it quieted.
Before they had even made it to the door, it was flung open by an ebullient King Leo.
“You have got to be Ralph!” King Leo pronounced.
“Yup,” Ralph agreed.
King Leo fairly ran past Jack, bounded at Ralph, and grasped his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Ralph. I’m King Leo, but you can call me the Secretary of the Pleasury, the Master of the Mattress, the Bedouin of the Boudoir, the Smooth Brown Czar of the Rocking Car, or President Erect of the Republic of Love! Woooo!”
“Yup. Heard a lot about you. Your car is ready.”
“Yes! This is excellent! Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack. How are you, my friend?”
“Good. How are you, King Leo?”
“I am dead solid fine. May I say, your hair is disturbing me in some way I can’t put my finger on.”
“I borrowed some of Wigs’s hair junk. Things went wrong. Mistakes were made.”
King Leo sniffed at Jack’s head. “Is that rapeseed and honey volume-building humectant?”
“Yes, so I found out.”
“Jack, Jack, Jack. That’s just not the right product for your thick hair. It’s much too heavy. I wish you’d come to me.”
“I didn’t mean to use it. I grabbed the wrong stuff.”
“Well, ask me next time before you rub anything into your hair. Promise me? I’ll give you my personal cell number.”
“I’ll do that.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
King Leo took a long look at Ralph’s car. “Mr. Ralph, my friend, is that an ’81 Malibu?”
“Yup.”
“With the 267 engine?”
“The 305.”
“Mm. Kind of rare, isn’t it, Mr. Ralph?”
“I guess most of them had the V-6s, but this is just the stock 305. But I’m thinking of putting in a 350, ’cause this thing’s almost shot.”
“They had a lot of transmission problems, didn’t they?”
“I guess. When I bought it from Dan, he said he’d put in a T-400 tranny, but—”
“King Leo, how do you know this?” Jack interrupted.
“Well, now, King Leo is a vast and complicated temple of knowledge, and if he reveals his secrets, his powers are diminished,” King Leo said quite seriously.
“Did you work at a garage?” asked Jack.
“Is it possible that before time began, King Leo had a two-summer stint at Bosco’s Specialty Automotive Repair? I cannot say,” he said cryptically. “I simply cannot say.”
“Can we get going?” said Jack.
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, I suppose we should. I’m very excited.”
“Is the rest of the band coming?” Jack asked.
“They’re very tired. They asked me to convey their regrets and to let everyone know that they’ll be napping.”
Ralph again opened the rear door and made his clumsily grand gesture inviting them into the interior of his Malibu.
“I’ll sit in front,” Jack offered.
“No. Please. You are my guest,” said Ralph, redoing the gawky gesture, and Jack then discovered how low his threshold of tolerance for that move really was. He felt strongly that if Ralph never did it again, it would be too soon for his taste.
“Thank you” was all he said, and he climbed in next to King Leo.
“Ralph, this is a fine car,” said King Leo once Ralph had settled his thick body in behind the wheel.
“Thank you, King Leo.”
“Ralph, it smells like gas back here. Gas and sausage. Mostly I’m worried about the gas smell. Think everything is all right?” Jack asked.
“Ummm, yeah. Yeah, I’m sure it’s fine.”
“I don’t want to step on these magazines. Can I move ’em?” Jack asked.
“Which ones are they?” said Ralph, seeming puzzled.
Jack pulled several off the floor. “Um, Field and Stream, Popular Mechanics, and Sports Afield from August of ’97.”
“Oh, that’s okay. You can step on ’em.”
Jack set them back on the floor and settled into the seat, only to have the process interrupted by a hard object that was jabbing him in the small of the back. He reached behind him and yanked out an eight-inch piece of angled high-impact plastic.
“Do you need this?” he asked, holding the piece up for Ralph’s inspection in the rearview mirror.
“Hm. That’s the handle for this cooler I had one time, I think,” he said, somehow imagining that this would be of interest to Jack. “Um, I’ll take it,” he said reaching back. He put it next to him in the front seat and then cranked over the Malibu’s aging engine. It did not cooperate immediately but rather made a sound similar to that of Watson’s original steam engine, before he had made refinements. Ralph tried again, and this time it sounded much like a printing press being fed into a wood chipper.
“Ralph,” said King Leo, “as a favor to me, press the accelerator halfway down and try again.”
“Okay, King Leo,” Ralph agreed, and he did as King Leo said. The engine turned over, made a sound like a front-end loader being demolished by a larger front-end loader, then caught and started. “That’s the ticket,” Ralph said happily over the noise of the engine.
They drove toward town, King Leo alternately chatting with Ralph (at high volume) about cars or lecturing Jack about hair products. As they turned onto Main Street, the small crowd that had gathered in downtown Sjogren Park cheered, but none of the trio could hear it over the din of the Impala’s 305. Ralph again attempted to kill the engine, but it had other ideas. Sandi approached the car, prepared to officially greet Holey’s famous guest, but it was still smoking and moving pretty wildly on its springs, and she didn’t dare get too close and risk smoke inhalation and a head injury. Finally it settled down, and Ralph lumbered out and opened the door for King Leo (Jack waited for a moment, then got out on his own). The town cheered. The high school band, which consisted of a sousaphone player, a flautist, and a drummer, played “Tijuana Taxi” (it was the only pop song they knew). King Leo emerged from the Impala.
“My, my, my, my, my,” he said, waving at the people. “Hello, Holey. Are you ready for a revival?” he shouted.
“Yeah,” said some of the crowd.
“Sure,” said a few others.
Sandi led him up to the small riser that was to act as their dais, motioned for him to sit in the place of honor, and approached the microphone.
“Welcome—” she began, and the sound system squealed out a hellacious feedback noise. The boy wearing the sousaphone shrugged it off, trotted over to the PA’s amp, and made some adjustments while Sandi smiled pleasantly at him.
“Thank you, Erik. Welcome, all of you, and thank you for helping me to welcome King Leo. We’re all big fans of your music and your dancing, and I know we all saw Nasty Fantastic and your wonderful performance in that more than once.”
The population of Holey cheered loudly and then broke into spontaneous clapping to show their love of Nasty Fantastic. King Leo beamed. “Oh, stop it, now. Stop it. Come on, now,” he demurred. But the clapping would not stop, so King Leo rose, went to the edge of the dais, and took a bow. When the applause subsided, he sat back down and Sandi continued.
“As mayor of Holey, I would like to present you, King Leo, with the key to our city.”
As the applause broke out afresh, she pulled from behind the podium a three-foot-long plywood key, spray-painted gold. King Leo stood to accept it, but before he could actually grasp the key, Sandi pulled it back a bit and spoke to him sotto voce.
“You know what? Ralph just made it this morning, and the paint’s still a little tacky. Might get on your hands. Why don’t you let me hang on to it till tomorrow?”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, of course.”
“Sorry.”
“Not at all, Your Honor.”
“You’re kind.”
“My pleasure.”
She faced the crowd again. “And now perhaps Mr. Leo would like to say a few words?”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, thank you, Mayor Sandi. I’m very, very, very honored. You have a northern paradise here, and I thank you for making me feel welcome. This place you live in is special. I feel the spirit of Edward Lynch and . . . and that other guy as I walk the streets of Holey, and I know that you all have a funk in your soul. Thank you,” he concluded, gesturing to the key that Sandi was holding.
There was more applause, some spontaneous hooting, and one loud “Woooo.”
Sandi then presented him with various small gift certificates and coupons: a free shampoo and haircut from Shear Amazement salon, a thirty-five-dollar gift certificate from Bill’s Red Owl grocery store in nearby Darby, and 20 percent off his next prescription from the Jurkovich Family Pharmacy. King Leo thanked the town of Holey profusely, probably saying the actual words “thank you” more than 180 times during the presentations.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you all, thank you,” he concluded, and was about to leave the dais when Sandi called him back.
“We have one more special gift for you. Earl, would you kindly bring that out?”
Ponty appeared from the side of the dais carrying something large, brown, and substantial and stood near King Leo, who offered him a goofy smile. Ponty in turn offered him a grudging nod.
“We would like to present you with a very special piece of Holey history. Please accept this giant rat pelt on behalf of all the people of our town.”
The good people of Holey responded with as much raucous applause as can be mustered up by a crowd of fewer than forty. King Leo was absolutely thrilled with the preserved ratskin.
“I—I can’t believe it. Is this . . . ?” he stammered.
“Yes. That’s the one and only rat that attacked and stalked Ed Lynch in that mine so many years ago.”
“This is it? This is the one he killed by the saloon?”
“Yes. There has been, and hopefully will be, only one giant rat in Holey—knock wood!”
“And you’re giving it to me?”
“We know you will treat it with the respect it deserves.”
“Oh, I will, I will, I will. This is—I’m speechless.”
The crowd again let loose with unrestrained enthusiasm for the funk star and his new animal hide.
“This is clearly a sign from His Funkiness,” King Leo said rapturously, looking up to the sky.
The crowd agreed and showed it by applauding wildly. The only people in Holey who were unenthusiastic were the four strangers in the stiff Pamida flannel shirts standing toward the back wearing odd and similar looks.