“This is a real thrill for me,” he said to the three of us. “Our country needs more people like you.”
I glared over at Cushing. Yeah, he was just what the country needed more of, all right.
And then I saw Debbie, half hidden behind this huge vase of yellow and blue and amber summer flowers. She brought them right up to the podium, setting them down on the railing of the bandstand.
Then she looked over at me and gave a little nod and then leaned up and set the white envelope down on the podium itself.
And then she was gone, half running, back down the steps and into the crowd.
I was starting to sit down again — you had to stand up to meet a governor, I guess — and that’s when I saw him watching me... Cushing.
His eyes strayed over to the podium and then back to me.
He’d obviously seen me watching Debbie and had gotten curious... and now he wanted to know about the envelope.
Just then the band, which had given us all a blessed break, sailed into the “Chattanooga Choo-Choo” and then there was just the confusion that results from nobody being able to hear anything. The band guys were puffing their cheeks out and bugging their eyes and spitting all over the place and making everybody on the bandstand silently plead for mercy.
Barney still wouldn’t look at me but I saw him frown as soon as the music exploded. He hated Dixieland even more than I did.
Then the mayor stepped over to the center of the bandstand.
And then I saw Cushing get up and kind of edge over to the podium and I knew right away what he was going to do.
He was going to snatch the letter I’d written the governor and make sure that the governor never got to see it.
I got up, too. I had to stop him.
Cushing did it the right way. He didn’t make any bold play for the podium, he just eased his way over by shaking a few hands, patting a few backs, grinning a few grins. Even before becoming a “hero,” he’d been a popular guy with many of the townspeople. War heroes never went out of fashion.
I got as close to him as I could without stepping on the backs of his shoes.
I knew now that I was going to have to take the envelope myself. I’d just hold on to it till I had the chance to slip it back up there.
Cushing was now maybe a foot from the podium. He was trying to inch his hand behind the broad back of the mayor, who was waving his hands at the band to wrap things up — inch it behind the mayor’s back and pick off the white envelope Debbie had just set on the podium.
That was when I moved, moved so fast that I bumped into Cushing.
He looked down at me and scowled. He knew what I was trying to do. The same thing he was trying to do.
His eyes raised and settled on the envelope.
The bandstand was crowded. It was hard to move past all the bodies.
But he took a final step forward, put his hand out, his fingers started to close on the edge of the envelope.
I lunged — and snapped the letter from his fingers. I’d moved quickly enough that he hadn’t been able to stop me.
But just as I turned to go back to my seat, he reached down and locked his hand around my wrist.
The odd thing was, the stage was so packed with people standing around gabbing that nobody could see how he was twisting my wrist. We stood in the middle of maybe twenty people. It was like smothering to death inside this tiny hot sweaty box.
Nobody had ever twisted my wrist like that.
“You little bastard,” he whispered in my ear. I could hear him even above the band. “Give that to me.”
His face was pure rage — but controlled rage — he couldn’t afford to lose his poise in front of everybody.
He twisted my wrist harder.
And then the band stopped abruptly.
And the sweaty, important dignitaries made for their seats again.
And there we were, suddenly exposed so everybody could see us.
And Cushing let go immediately. What choice did he have? Here was this supposed hero and he was twisting the hell out of some poor kid’s arm.
He let go.
And then I let go, too, my entire hand and wrist so numb from pain that I didn’t feel the letter flutter from my grasp.
There it was on the floor—
And I was bending to pick it up—
And Cushing was bending to pick it up—
But before either of us got to it, the mayor stooped — no small feat, given his gut — and retrieved it from the floor.
He held it up and read aloud, “To the Governor.”
Cushing glared at me and I glared right back.
“Your Honor,” the mayor said, “somebody wrote you a letter.”
And the mayor of this fair city personally hand-delivered my letter to the governor for me.
“What’s this?” the governor said.
But the mayor was already stepping to the podium and giving a little 1-2-3 test to the public address system.
Cushing stared at the letter in the governor’s hand. For a second, I had the sense that he was going to jump the governor and rip the letter from him. Cushing looked highly pissed and at least a little bit crazy.
With the mayor already going into his introduction of the governor — “One of the favorite sons in this land of plenty of ours” — all Cushing and I could do was go back to our seats.
Which we did.
When I looked at the governor again, he was opening the envelope.
He took out the letter—
Unfolded it—
Scanned it quickly—
And just then the mayor said, “Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you our own beloved governor!”
The band played. And grown-ups applauded. And teenagers tried to make it look as if they were applauding. And babies cried because all the hoopla was scaring the hell out of them. And a cop turned on a siren. And several of the town dogs standing on the edge of the square started barking.
And the governor just kept reading and rereading the letter.
Just the way I’d wanted him to.
Everything died down, finally.
The governor stepped up to the podium, adjusted the microphone to his own height, the entire PA system ringing with the adjustment, and then he leaned forward and held the letter up for all the crowd to see and then he said—
“Over the years, I’ve noted that no matter what the occasion or what the event, there’s always somebody who tries to spoil it. Out of envy or spite or plain mendacity, they want to ruin a splendid event that everybody else is enjoying. A few minutes ago somebody handed me this letter — and I’ll tell you, I’ve never read such a pack of lies in my life. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to take care of this matter right now.”
And right then and right there, our own beloved governor of our own beloved state ripped the shit out of the letter I’d sent him.
White pieces of paper fluttered to the ground and our own beloved governor said, “Now I want to thank you for inviting me here and letting me have the honor of handing out these awards to these fine citizens of yours.”
To be honest, I didn’t pay a lot of attention to the rest of the ceremony. I only knew that the few times I looked at Cushing, he was smirking.
And when the governor went to shake my hand, Cushing, who was right behind me, kicked me so hard in the ankle I could barely stand up.
iv
Autumn came and with it all the pleasures of that season — the smoky air, the Indian summer sunlight, the ring of the school bell in the crisp morning, the snap and crackle and glow of the bonfire on the prairie night at the Homecoming ceremony behind the stadium, and all the quick excited laughter of the little kids scurrying along the street on Halloween night, tripping on their too-long costumes and hoping that Mrs. Grundy was still giving out shiny new quarters, and shoving Tootsie Rolls and Clark bars and sticky sweet popcorn balls into their mouths — my favorite season.