Harvestman Lodge (11 page)

In a wild burst of inspiration fueled by a night of drinking with a group of old college pals who were equally frustrated with their careers, Ledford and friends had come up with the idea for a regional magazine devoted to cultural life and history. The wealthy family of one of the drinking buddies could foot the startup. Ledford had known nothing about creating a magazine or building a business from scratch, and his partners were equally clueless, so it surprised no one but the most starry-eyed of the group when the magazine reached the brink of failure after only a year of publication. Ledford managed to cut his losses and bail out before it all went over the edge. He landed in a public relations position at Bowington College, an old, small private liberal arts college located at the eastern edge of Tylerville. Eli noticed that Ledford rolled his eyes when he said the college’s name.

Nancy immediately apologized for her husband’s sarcasm. “Micah can be a cynic sometimes, especially about Bowington. His experience there started out okay and gradually went bad.”

“I got fired,” Ledford said. “Sort of. Actually, before it could go that far I did the old jump-before-you’re-pushed routine. I had no other realistic choice.”

“What happened?” Eli asked. “Or am I being nosy?”

“Not at all. I’m the one who brought it up. Here’s the story: I was hired to direct the PR department, which was part of the Institutional Advancement branch of the college – the fundraising branch, at that time the least successful part of the college. Bowington had one budget crisis after another. The trustees of the place got antsy, and then the micromanagement started. You know how that kind of thing can go. Long story short, the college started running through fund-raising vice presidents like a wino through a six-pack. Hire ’em, fire ’em, holler next! You’d have just learned how to please one VP, then he or she was gone and you had a new one to get used to. It wound up that one of them – my last one – decided I wasn’t doing to suit. I was called in and told that unidentified ‘others’ at the college weren’t happy with me and wanted me gone. Well, by then I wanted me gone, too. I’ve never been one to believe we were put in this world to dread going to your workplace every day. So Nancy and I had a long weekend talk, and I turned in my notice that Monday. It wasn’t good timing for it, and I’d not had any plan to leave, despite being unhappy there, because a man needs work, you know. But a man also has only one life, and I wasn’t happy living any more of mine where they didn’t seem to want me, and where I didn’t want to be, either. So bye-bye Suckington College, and good riddance.”

“It was the right choice,” Nancy said. “Really the only choice, considering. And it happened that I came into an inheritance at that same time. Not wealth, but enough to let us build this house. We already owned the land, thanks to Micah’s grandmother leaving it to him.”

“Sometimes things just work out right,” Eli said.

Ledford nodded. “Sometimes. I’m thinking now of going back to school and getting an MBA. Then I might try to follow in my grandmother’s footsteps and open a store or two around here, the first one right down the hill where Granny Essie had hers. I’ll become the convenience market king of Kincheloe County. Not the world’s grandest ambition, I guess, but it appeals to me, the idea of having a place like that. And if you do it right, you can make good money, even in tight times. Everybody needs gasoline and beer and overpriced potato chips, after all.”

“I’ll buy all my gasoline from you. And beer. I’ll get my potato chips at a discount store.”

“We’ll negotiate on the chips. Eli, I’m thinking maybe this newspaper job of yours also will also be one of those things that just ‘works out right’,” Ledford said. “Now, tell us all about how you see this bicentennial magazine project going.”

Chapter Five

AFTER TWO WEEKS ON THE JOB, Eli had gained a clearer perspective on his boss.

He’d expected to encounter a steady barrage of the cheery enthusiasm David Brecht had displayed during the interview process. Instead he found a David Brecht who was distracted by several recent local government issues that had been generating contentious meetings of the town’s aldermen, including two that seemed obvious violations of the state open meetings law and were inclining Brecht and the state press association toward litigation. The governmental insult to the citizen’s right to open government roused Brecht’s ire and claimed almost his full attention for many days, leaving Eli and his magazine project simmering at low temperature on the proverbial back burner. Eli attempted three times to set aside an hour with Brecht to allow for some serious planning of magazine content and story assignments for the writing staff, who would have to do the work on top of maintaining their regular newspaper beats. Brecht agreed to and scheduled all three meetings, then bumped each one off because of competing unplanned happenings.

Eli was discouraged, then began making a preliminary prospective assignment list on his own. Some things obviously would have to be included in a magazine devoted to community heritage: the historical and political origins of the county and town, the life and significance of the men for whom the county and town were named, the history behind the names of local communities and towns, noted people from Kincheloe County, the development of education, key industries and businesses, church life … Eli jotted down every obvious idea he could, then began to grow unhappy with what he had. The very obviousness of the ideas on his list made it dull and predictable.

Surely there would be a way to liven up the planned publication, give it some distinction and vitality.

Eli was new to this community, though, except for those childhood visits years before. He would need knowledgeable help to stir up some magazine content really worth reading for both those new to the area and those for whom it was a lifelong home.

ANOTHER MONDAY MORNING. ELI walked groggily into the newsroom for the mandatory first-of-the-week staff meeting, fast-food coffee in hand. It was the one morning of the week he was required to come by the newspaper building rather than straight to his office at the world’s ugliest office complex. He entered through the rear door off the staff parking lot. Inside, he heard an unfamiliar booming male voice bellow out, inexplicably and at top volume, “Toucheeeeeee!”

Startled, Eli accidentally sloshed coffee onto his shirt. He muttered an impolite word, softly, then felt glad he’d worn his brown shirt that morning. Once dried, the coffee stain would be invisible.

“Welcome home, Jake!” another unfamiliar voice said, and Eli spotted a lean, curly-haired, bright-eyed man in maybe his upper thirties who was approaching, with hand extended, the desk of the man who had just bellowed. The latter, judging from the desk he was at, was Jake Lundy, freshly returned from his long Alaska vacation. Lundy was the only staff member at the
Clarion
, apart from Mr. Carl the publisher and his wife, ‘Miz Deb’, whom Eli had not yet had a chance to meet.

Lundy pumped the hand of the curly-haired man. “How are you, parson?” he asked in a voice that reminded Eli of Bufe’s.

“Fine, Jake. Blessed and thankful to be so. And you?”

“Oh, I’m able to sit up and take a little nourishment,” said the florid-faced Lundy, who stood well over six feet and was the image of robust health.

“How was Alaska?” the visitor asked.

Lundy launched into a quick and vigorous summary of his just-completed trip. His visitor was a good listener and nodded frequently as Lundy told his hurried story, the gist of which was that the vacation was fun, but not restful, and Alaska beautiful, but no place Lundy would want to live for long, especially come winter.

Eli had no newsroom desk of his own at which to settle, and so meandered around the general vicinity of Lundy’s desk, eavesdropping and hoping for the chance to introduce himself.

Lundy’s visitor noticed Eli before Lundy did, and flashed a quick, friendly smile. When Lundy reached the seeming end of his Alaska narrative, the visitor put his hand out toward Eli and said, “Don’t believe we’ve met, sir. My name is Kyle Feely. I’m one of the Presbyterian clergymen hereabouts. That’s right … an admitted ne’er-do-well. Perkins Creek Presbyterian Church is where I do my pulpit hollering … Perkins Creek being a rural suburb of the great metropolis of Tylerville.”

“Eli Scudder. I’m new to the paper. Hired to work with a publication the paper’s doing for the bicentennial celebration. Pleased to meet you, Reverend.”

“Same here. Welcome to Tylerville! And please, just call me Kyle.”

“Don’t you do it, young man,” Lundy cut in. “This here ain’t no Kyle Feely, no sir … this is Touchy. The Right Rowdy Reverend Touchy Feely, that’s what I call him. And don’t buy that garbage about hollering from his pulpit, neither. That there hippie dippy do-gooder is a lot more likely to sing
Kumbayah
and fling flower petals at you while Michael rows your boat ashore than he is to holler. My name’s Jake Lundy, which explains why the nameplate on my desk reads Jake Lundy. I write feature columns in this here house of ill repute. Started out in the early ‘60s running a Linotype machine. Bet you don’t even know what one of them is, do you, son?”

“I do, actually,” Eli replied. “They showed us a film in our History of Newspaper Technology class at UT. Amazing machines, used all the way back into the 1800s.”

Lundy shook his head woefully. “Didja hear that, Touchy? They showed a film. A
film!
Shit! These new kids today, they come into the newspaper business not having no notion of what working at a newspaper really is. Far as I’m concerned, Touchy, you ain’t a true newspaperman unless you’ve got a few hot lead burn scars from the Linotype to show for it. World’s falling apart, Touchy. Right under my feet. Oh … and sorry I said shit. I forget you’re a preacher sometimes.”

The young minister shrugged. “Shit, Jake. Don’t worry about it. Sometimes I forget, too. And preacher though I may be, at least I’m no brain-dead, hidebound fundamentalist Baptist like you are.” Feely winked at Eli. “He calls me Touchy Feely. I call him Fundy Lundy.”

Eli grinned. “I’m a Methodist myself, and admittedly a nominal one. Church attender every couple of months … and that’s if I’m trying hard. Tell you what, Kyle, I’ll try to make a visit to your church once I get settled in here.”

“You’ll be welcome.”

Eli turned to the other. “Hey, Jake, change of subject: I met your uncle Bufe the first day I was in town.”

“Uncle Bufe? Now,
there’s
a man worth knowing,” Jake said. “Touchy here will lead you astray in a hundred different ways, but you listen to Bufe and me and Ruby up at the front desk, and you might just survive around here. Maybe.”

“What about David? He’s one of the few local folks I can say I actually feel like I know so far.”

“Davy Carl? Lordy, boy! You start listening to Davy Carl and you’ll go Curtis-crazy before you know it! I might be stepping over into Touchy’s territory here, but I’m here to tell you, Eli: the good Lord created two universes. The real one, and the one Davy Carl lives in. Try to stay in the real one as much as Davy Carl will let you.”

“That’s a point on which Jake and I can, to a degree, agree upon,” Feely said, volume low. “David can be … esoteric. Hears a different drummer, you know. But a good man. Good Presbyterian.”

“Which? David, or the drummer?”

Feely gave the feeble joke an equally feeble chuckle. “David, I mean. Good Presbyterian man.”

“Hear that, Eli?” Lundy said. “‘Good Presbyterian.’ Contradiction in terms! That’s like saying ‘honest lawyer.’”

Feely looked pointedly at Lundy: “Or intelligent Baptist.”

Lundy glared back in feigned anger.

“Well,” said Eli, ready to redirect the subject. “I don’t know much about good Presbyterians or intelligent Baptists, but I do know I’ve been frustrated in trying to get David to sit down with me to map out specifics about the magazine he wants me to work on. But one other thing I don’t know is what it means to be ‘Curtis-crazy.’ I’ve never heard that expression before.”

“It’s purely local,” Lundy said. “I’ll explain it to you later.”

“It’s a phrase that’s a bit unkind to a rather unfortunate fellow in our town,” Feely added.

Lundy rolled his eyes. “See there? That’s why I call him ‘Touchy,’” he said to Eli. “I got a lot of things to explain to you, son. I’ll fill you in all about Curtis, and Davy Carl, and Touchy here, and every other escapee from the laughing factory roaming this county. We’ll have good opportunity for it: Davy Carl has done left me a note saying that he’s got it in mind for me to haul you around with me for a few days, sort of breaking you in to Kincheloe County.”

“That sounds good to me.”

“We’ll make a right smart party of it, son. I know the finest scenery and the prettiest girls and the ugliest men in this county. And which of the old country stores make the best baloney sandwiches. I’ll introduce you to all of them.”

Eli grinned. “Can we start with the girls and the baloney sandwiches?”

Lundy’s phone rang. “Tylerville Daily Clarabelle! You got Lundy!”

A brief, joke-and-pun-filled phone conversation with an obvious friend or acquaintance ensued, but Lundy ended it quickly, using the impending staff meeting as his excuse.

“Charlie Hardy,” he said as he hung up the phone. “You know him, Touchy? Good man, but you let him get to talking and your day is shot for anything else. Charlie’s tongue wags like the tail of that old dog my grandpaw had when I was a boy. It would sit by his screen door and that old tail would thump the door until Grandpaw couldn’t bear it anymore. His oldest boy, my uncle Bob, chopped that dog’s tail off as a birthday gift for Grandpaw. He got a scolding for being mean, but I know Grandpaw appreciated the silence.”