Peyton Place (44 page)

“Oh, look!” cried Kathy. “See how beautifully all the wheels go around together!”

“Oh, look, Lewis! Look, Allison!” said Kathy, and leaned forward for a closer look and fell down into the machinery.

The other young people began to move hastily out of the room, for they had been well taught the danger which could result from being called upon as witnesses. Lewis and Allison began to laugh in the way that people laugh at a drunk who steps happily in front of a moving truck, or at an old man who slips on the ice. Lewis squatted down on his heels and tried to reach Kathy's hand, but Kathy's hand was on the end of an arm no longer attached to her body. Allison laughed and laughed as she made her way out of the fun house. She shrieked with laughter when the wind machine blew her skirts up over her head, and she was still laughing when Tom came running to her. She clenched the front of his shirt and laughed until she cried.

“Kathy fell into the hole in the floor!” she screamed, laughing so hard that she could not get her breath. “Kathy fell and her arm came off, just like a toy doll.”

The wind was blowing much harder now. It blew the smoke in gusts and filled Tom's eyes with sand. The skirts of the women who hurried past him, eager to get home before the rain started, ballooned grotesquely in the wind, so that they all looked fat and misshapen.

“Seth!” cried Tom into the wind, and when the newspaper editor did not hear him but continued to move away, Tom cursed the luck which had separated him from Constance in the crowd. He left Allison propped against the side of the fun house, for she was laughing so hard she could scarcely stand, while he went to tell the boy from White River who wanted to be a mechanic to shut off the machinery.

“But I don't know how,” protested the boy, and Tom left him standing openmouthed, thinking that here was a big, black drunk, while he ran against the crowd to find Witcher.

Up in the hills, the fire fighters recoiled with forearms against foreheads as the first drops of rain fell. Steam rose around them as they turned and made their way toward Peyton Place.

“It's rainin’,” they told one another unnecessarily.

The nearest that Kenny Stearns could ever come to describing Indian summer in northern New England was to say that it was “a pretty time.” It was also, for Kenny, a busy one. There was always a multitude of last-minute chores to be done before winter set in; lawns to be mowed for the last time, mowers to be oiled and stored, leaves to be burned and hedges in need of one last clipping. But to Kenny Stearns, Indian summer offered a bonus other than her beauty and the time of the last warm spell. During this short time of sun and color before winter, Kenny was always aglow with the satisfaction of a season's work well done. As he walked down Elm Street on a Friday afternoon late in October, 1943, Kenny glanced at all the lawns and shrubs which lined the main thoroughfare and for which he had cared during the previous spring and summer. He seemed to notice every blade of grass and every twig and branch, and he spoke to all of them as he might have done to pretty, well-groomed children.

“Hello there, Congregational lawn. You look mighty fine today,” said Kenny, smiling fondly.

“Afternoon, little green hedge. Need a haircut, dontcha? I'll see what I can do for you tomorrow mornin’.”

The old men who roosted on benches in front of the courthouse, taking advantage of the last warm sunshine of the year, opened drowsy eyes to watch Kenny.

“There goes Kenny Stearns,” said one old man, and took a gold watch from his pocket. “Headin’ for the schools. Must be gettin’ on for three o'clock.”

“Lookit ’im, noddin’ and grinnin’ and talkin’ to that hedge. He ain't right in the head. Never was.”

“I wouldn't say that,” said Clayton Frazier, who was much older and feebler now, but who still loved to argue. “Kenny was always all right ’til his accident. He's still all right. Mebbe drinks a little more, but he ain't the only one that drinks in this town.”

“Accident, my arse! That wa'nt no accident when Kenny got his foot cut up. It was the time him and all them fellers went down in his cellar and stayed all winter, and had that brawl and cut each other up with knives. That's how Kenny got that bad foot.”

“Twa'nt all winter,” declared Clayton, imperturbably. “’Twa'nt more'n five, six weeks that them fellers stayed down there in Kenny's cellar. Anyway, there wa'nt no drunken brawl. Kenny fell down the stairs while he was holdin’ his ax and cut himself. That was what happened.”

“That's
his
story. I heard different. Don't make no difference what happened anyway. It didn't cure Kenny from drinkin’. I don't guess he's drawed a sober breath in over ten years. No wonder his wife does like she does.”

“Ginny was never no good,” said Clayton, and tipped his old felt hat down over his eyes. “Never. That's what set Kenny to drinkin’ in the first place.”

“Mebbe so. But you can't blame her none for not changin’ her ways if he won't change his.”

“Ginny'd have some changin’ to do, I reckon,” said Clayton Frazier wanting and getting, as he usually did, the last word. “She was born doin’ what she does. Kenny, at least, was born sober.”

None of the men could think of a suitable rejoinder for this remark, so they turned silently and watched Kenny Stearns turn into Maple Street and walk out of sight. It did not occur to any of them that they had been watching Kenny Stearns turn into Maple Street and walk out of sight every day for years.

“Hello, double-headed Quimbys,” said Kenny to a row of purple asters. “No, that ain't right. Hold on a minute.”

Kenny stood for a long moment in front of a large white house on Maple Street which he had helped to paint the previous spring. He scratched at the back of his lined, continually sunburned neck. The window shades in the white house were pulled neatly and evenly to a point halfway between the top and the bottom, and it was this that reminded Kenny. He turned toward the border of asters and bowed formally.

“’Scuse me,” he said. “Hello, double-headed Carters. I beg your pardon.” He stood still for a moment and looked down at the flowers, a thoughtful frown on his face. “Don't know but as I'd
rather
be called Quimby, even by mistake,” he said at last.

Happy at having made what he considered a gross insult to Roberta and Harmon Carter, Kenny proceeded on his way toward the Peyton Place schools. At the hedge which separated the grade school from the first house on Maple Street, Kenny paused and looked up toward the belfry. There she was! Gleamin’ and winkin’ at him to beat the band in the October sunlight.

“Hello, beautiful!” called Kenny, addressing his school bell. “I'll be right with you!”

The polished bell gleamed and winked encouragingly as Kenny headed toward the front doors of the grade school. He walked with an eagerness now which he never had when approaching anything other than his bell.

And didn't that bell know it? thought Kenny. She certainly did. Look at the way she'd turned almost coal black from a lack of loving care ’way back when he'd had his accident. But how she had shone when he returned!

“Thought I was dead that time, didn'tcha, beautiful?” called Kenny.

There was lots of folks who'd given him up for dead that time, thought Kenny. Even old Doc Swain. Oh, they all denied it afterward, but Kenny could remember the way they'd talked. He could remember like it was yesterday, the way The Doc'd leaned over him.

“He's a dead one if I ever saw one,” The Doc had said, and Kenny had answered, “Like hell I am!” but no one seemed to be listening to him.

They had rolled him onto a sort of bed, carried by a coupla big guys, and lugged him off to the hospital, Kenny remembered. All them nurses thought he was dead, too, but when Kenny hollered different, they didn't listen to him any more than The Doc had. Ginny had thought he was dead, or dying anyway.

“Is he dead, Doc?” Kenny could hear her asking it plain as day.

“No, you bitch!” he had shouted, but she hadn't heard him.

He had told her about it afterward. “Thought I was dead, didn'tcha? Well, I ain't and wa'nt. It takes more than a little ax cut on the foot to kill me!”

“By Jesus, it does!” roared Kenny, addressing his school bell in loud, carrying tones. “Takes more'n a goddamn little cut to kill this feller!”

Kenny's voice carried easily through the open windows of the classroom where Miss Elsie Thornton presided over the eighth grade. Before the echo of Kenny's voice had died, Miss Thornton had rapped sharply on the edge of her desk in an attempt to forestall the disorder which Kenny's remarks always caused.

He is drunk again, thought Miss Thornton wearily. Something will have to be done about Kenny. I should bring it up before the school board. One of these days, he'll fall out of the belfry, or go head first down a flight of stairs, and that will be the end of Kenny. A sorry end for a wasted life.

Later, Miss Thornton was to remember her thought of this particular Friday afternoon, but at the moment she wasted no more time on it. She rapped again on the edge of her desk, and asked her stock question about people who wished to spend the thirty minutes after dismissal with her. Finally, the room quieted, but as each day passed, it was becoming increasingly difficult for Miss Thornton to retain her iron hand over her students. Most of the time, she could blame this state of affairs on the people whom the bright young teachers out of college told her to blame; namely, the parents of the children whom she taught. Misbehavior in class, these bright young teachers told her, was a direct reflection on a child's home environment. In the last four or five years, Miss Thornton had learned to use a word which had never been particularly popular when she had been at Smith College. The word was “complex.” Every child had at least one, said the bright young teachers, and it was whichever complex a particular child had which caused him to misbehave in class. Much of the time, Miss Thornton could go along with all these new theories, but sometimes, especially when she was very tired as she always was on Friday afternoons, she remembered the days when complex or no complex, she had been able to force a child to behave while in the confines of her classroom. On afternoons like these, Miss Thornton realized that she was getting old and that she was very, very tired indeed.

“You may read for the rest of the period, Joey,” she said, after a glance at her watch had shown her that it was ten minutes before three.

Joey Cross stood up and began to read aloud from
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.
He read well, enunciating his words clearly, but with that singular lack of expression so often found in boys of grade school age who are called upon to read to a class of their contemporaries. Miss Thornton half closed her eyes, and the only part of her mind which was alert to Joey's voice was the part which tells an experienced teacher when a word has been brutally mispronounced.

Now there, thought Miss Thornton, is a child who should have every complex in the book. A drunken beast for a father, who had run off and abandoned him, a suicide for a mother, and never a morsel of decent food or an adequate amount of shelter or clothing until after he was nine years old. Yet, he seems to be the victim of fewer complexes after making the adjustment to a decent standard of living than most children are who are born knowing nothing different from what Joey has known for only four years. He is the smartest child in the room, and he misbehaves less than most, and fights and swears no more than the others outside. Complexes? Humph. I'm getting old, that's all. I just wish that they were all as smart and as easy to handle as Joey Cross.

Joey did not know it, nor did any of his classmates, but he was Miss Thornton's pet. It was Joey's image which crossed her mind whenever she grew discouraged and dreamed of retirement.
If I can teach one thing to one child.
Whenever she thought her most secret, hopeful thought, it was always Joey whom she saw. It was true that Miss Thornton had a different pet every year. It had not been Joey last year, nor would it be Joey a year hence, but for the short time that he was in the eighth grade, it was on him that Miss Thornton fastened her current hopes of fulfillment.

It had been a bad time for Selena and Joey Cross, back in ’39. After Nellie had killed herself, the Cross children had found themselves alone in the world, with Selena barely turned sixteen, and Joey a thin, undernourished boy of nine. No soo’ er was Nellie decently buried than someone—and there were plenty of people in Peyton Place who said that it was Roberta and Harmon Carter-had notified the state welfare department about Selena and Joey. In due time, a social worker had appeared at the door of the Cross shack. Selena and Joey had been out in the sheep pen at the time, and since long black cars with the state seal emblazoned on the front doors, and trim suited, short-haired women who carried brief cases were a rarity indeed in Peyton Place, Selena had become suspicious at once. As soon as the social worker had stepped through the unlocked front door of the shack, Selena had grabbed Joey by the hand and fled to Constance MacKenzie. Constance, in deadly fear lest she be discovered, had hidden the Cross children in the cellar of her house while she contacted Seth Buswell and Charles Partridge. It had been Seth who had finally located the eldest of Lucas Cross's children, Selena's stepbrother Paul.

Paul Cross had arrived in town driving his own car and accompanied by his wife, whom he had met and married in the northern part of the state. Her name was Gladys, and Gladys had made all the difference in the world. There were plenty of people in Peyton Place ready and eager to criticize Paul's wife, for Gladys was a busty blonde with hair so obviously dyed that even small children noticed and commented upon it. There were some who said that Gladys had been one of the loose women who hung around up at Woodsville, ready to accommodate lumberjacks with money to spend, but all Miss Thornton knew of her was what Joey had told her, and what she had learned from Seth Buswell and Matthew Swain.

Gladys, according to Matt Swain, had entered the Cross shack, taken one look at her surroundings and said: “Christ, what a shit house this is!”

The very next day, the word went around town that Paul Cross was home to stay. He obtained a good job in one of the sawmills almost at once, and within two weeks there was running water at the Cross shack. Within a year, it was no longer a shack but a house, complete with plumbing and a bedroom for everyone. The only remnant of the Cross property as it had been was the old sheep pen which Lucas had built and which now housed the sheep which Joey raised. It was Joey's greatest source of pride that one of his ewes had taken three blue ribbons at three county fairs all within one year.

“Paul's crazy to let his wife put all that money into a place that ain't even his,” said a few people in the town. “That house and land still belongs to Lucas Cross.”

“Lucas must be dead,” said the majority of Peyton Place. “If he weren't, he'd have been back before now.”

Paul Cross, whom no one had ever suspected of having such a noble emotion as family love, had confounded the town by returning home to provide for his half brother and stepsister. In December, 1941, on the day after Pearl Harbor, he confounded everyone still further by quitting his job and enlisting in the Army.

“Now, we'll see,” said Peyton Place, with both eyes fixed on Gladys. “It won't be long before she runs off and leaves the Cross kids to shift for themselves.”

But Gladys, newly tight lipped, but as busty and brassy blond as ever, remained in Peyton Place until after Selena was graduated from high school. Two weeks afterward, when Selena went to work at the Thrifty Corner Apparel Shoppe as the store's manager, Gladys left town and went to Texas to join Paul.

Complexes? Humph, thought Miss Thornton as she looked at Joey who would run home after school to feed his sheep and to start supper for his sister. Show me a boy who is as loyal and devoted to his own mother as my Joey is to his sister.

Above her head, the first joyous note of Kenny's bell sounded, and the classroom began to buzz.

“Quiet!” ordered Miss Thornton. “You may stop reading, Joey. All of you will remain quiet until I dismiss you.”

There was a sullen murmuring from the back of the room which she ignored.