Ricky nodded and stood. That was just how Edward looked. "We can't let anyone come up here. I'll go down and phone for an ambulance."
6
And that was the ending of Jaffrey's party: Ricky Hawthorne telephoned for an ambulance, switched off the record player and said that Edward Wanderley had "had an accident" and was beyond help, and sent thirty people home. He permitted no one to go upstairs. He looked for Ann-Veronica Moore, but she had already left.
Half an hour later, Edward's body was on its way to hospital or morgue. Ricky drove Stella home. "You didn't see her leave?" he asked.
"One minute she was dancing with Ned Rowles, the next minute she was out the door. I thought she was going to the bathroom. Ricky, how horrible."
"Yes. It was horrible."
"Poor Edward. I don't think I really believe it."
"I don't think I do either." Tears filled his eyes, and for some seconds he drove blindly, seeing only a streaky blur. To try to take the image of Edward's face from his mind, he asked, "What did she say to you that surprised you so much?"
"What? When? I barely spoke to her."
"In the middle of the party. I saw her talking to you, and I thought she said something that startled you."
"Oh." Stella's voice rose. "She asked me if I was married. I said, 'I'm Mrs. Hawthorne.' And then she said, 'Oh, yes, I've just seen your husband. He looks like he'd be a good enemy.' "
"You couldn't have heard her correctly."
"I did."
"It doesn't make sense."
"That's what she said."
And a week later, after Ricky had telephoned the theater where the girl was working, trying to return her coat, he heard that she had returned to New York the day after the party, abruptly quit the play and left town. Nobody knew where she was. She had vanished for good-she was too young, too new, and she left behind not even enough reputation for a legend. That night, at what looked like being the final meeting of the Chowder Society, he had, inspired, turned to a morose John Jaffrey and asked, "What's the worst thing you've ever done?" And John saved them all by answering, "I won't tell you that, but I'll tell you the worst thing that ever happened to me," and told them a ghost story.
Part Two: Dr Rabbitfoot's Revenge
Follow a shadow, it still flies you;
Seem to fly it, it will pursue.
-Ben Jonson
I - Just Another Field, but What
They Planted There
From the journals of Don Wanderley
1
The old idea of Dr. Rabbitfoot… the idea for another book, the story of the destruction of a small town by Dr. Rabbitfoot, an itinerant showman who pitches camp on its outskirts, sells elixirs and potions and nostrums (a black man?), and who has a little sideshow-jazz music, dancing girls, trombones, etc. Fans and bubbles. If I ever saw a perfect setting for this story, Milburn is it.
First about the town, then about the good doctor. My uncle's town, Milburn, is one of those places that seems to create its own limbo and then to nest down in it. Neither proper city nor proper country-too small for one, too cramped for the other, and too self-conscious about its status. (The local paper is called The Urbanite. Milburn even seems proud of its minuscule slum, the few streets called the Hollow, seems to point at it and say: See, we've got places where you want to be careful after dark, the age hasn't left us high and dry and innocent. This is almost comedy. If trouble ever comes to Milburn, it won't start in the Hollow.) Three-fourths of the men work somewhere else, in Binghamton mainly-the town depends on the freeway for its life. A feeling of being oddly settled, unmoving, heavy, and at the same time nervous. (I bet they gossip about one another endlessly.) Nervous because they'd feel that they were forever missing something-that the age after all has left them high and dry. Probably I feel this because of the contrast between here and California-this is a worry they don't have, there. It does seem a particularly Northeast kind of anxiety, peculiar to these little towns. Good places for Dr. Rabbitfoot.
(Speaking of anxiety, those three old men I met today-my uncle's friends-have it bad. Obviously has to do with whatever made them write to me, not knowing that I was getting so sick of California I'd have gone anywhere I thought I might be able to work.)
Physically, of course, it's pretty-all these places are. Even the Hollow has a kind of sepia thirties prettiness. There's the regulation town square, the regulation trees-maples, tamarack pines, oaks, the woods full of mossy deadfalls-a sense that the woods around the town are stronger, deeper than the little grid of streets people put in their midst. And when I came in I saw the big houses, some of them big enough to be called mansions.
But still… it is wonderful, a heaven-sent setting for the Dr. Rabbitfoot novel.
He's black, definitely. He dresses gaudily, with old-fashioned pizzazz: spats, big rings, a cane, a flashy waistcoat. He's chirpy, showbizzy, a marathon talker, slightly ominous-he's the bogeyman. He'll own you if you don't watch out. He'll get you seven ways to Sunday. He's got a killer smile.
You only see him at night, when you pass a piece of land normally deserted and there he is, standing on a platform outside his tent, twirling a cane while the jazz band plays. Lively music surrounds him, it whistles through his tight black hair, a saxophone curls his lips. He's looking straight at you. He invites you in to have a look at his show, to buy a bottle of his elixir for a dollar. He says he is the celebrated Dr. Rabbitfoot, and he's got just what your soul needs.
And what if what your soul needs is a bomb? A knife? A slow death?
Dr. Rabbitfoot gives you a big wink. You're on, man. Just pull a dollar out of your jeans.
Now to state what is obvious: Behind this figure I've been carting around in my head for years is Alma Mobley. It also suited her to give you what you wanted.
All the time, the capering smile, the floating hands, the eyes of bleached and dazzling white… his sinister gaiety. An' what about that little Alma Mobley, boy? Suppose you see her when you close your eyes, then what? Is she there, hee hee? Has you ever touched a ghost? Has you ever put your hand on a ghosts white skin? And yo' brutha's peaceful eyes-was they watchin' you?
2
I went to the office of the lawyer who wrote to me, Sears James, as soon as I got into town-a severe white building on Wheat Row, just alongside the town square. The day, gray in the morning, was cold and bright, and before I saw his receptionist I thought, maybe this is the start of a new cycle for you, but the receptionist told him that both Mr. James and Mr. Hawthorne were at a funeral. That new secretary they hired went too, but it looked a little pushy to her, because she didn't know Dr. Jaffrey at all, did she? Oh, they should be at the cemetery by now. And are you the Mr. Wanderley they've been expecting? I don't suppose you knew Dr.
Jaffrey, either? Oh, he was a dear, dear man, he must have been doctoring here in Milburn for forty years, he was the kindest man you ever saw, not sugary-sweet, you know, but when he put his hands on you, you just felt the kindness flowing out, she rattled on, looking me over, inspecting me, trying to figure out just what the devil her boss wanted me for, and then this old woman sitting at her switchboard locked him with an angry smile and slapped the trump card on the table, she said of course you don't know, but he killed himself five days ago. He jumped off the bridge-can you imagine that? It was just tragic. Mr. James and Ricky Hawthorne were so upset. They still haven't gotten over it. Now that Anna girl is making them do twice as much work, and we've got that crazy Elmer Scales calling up every day, yelling at them about those four sheep of his… what would make a nice man like Dr. Jaffrey do a thing like that, do you imagine?