I tried to help. “A student.”
“No,” he said, wagging an index finger back and forth as if no student had ever looked that bad. He gave up on the put-down and continued the lecture.
“You are unique — how many people own a newspaper? You are educated, which is rare around here. And from up North! You are young, but you shouldn’t look so, so, immature. We must work on your image.”
We went to work, not that I had a choice. He advertised heavily in the Times, so I certainly couldn’t tell him to take a hike. Plus, he made sense. The student days were gone, the revolution was over. I had escaped Vietnam and the sixties and college, and, though I wasn’t ready to settle down to a wife and parenthood, I was beginning to feel my age.
“You must wear suits,” he decided as he went through racks of clothes. Mitlo had been known to walk up to the president of a bank and, in a crowd, comment on a faulty shirt and suit combo, or a drab tie. He and Harry Rex didn’t get along at all.
I was not about to start wearing gray suits and wing tips. He pulled out a light blue seersucker suit, found a white shirt, then went straight for the tie rack where he picked out the perfect red-and-gold-striped bow tie. “Let’s try this,” he announced when his selections were finished. “Over there,” he said, pointing to a dressing room. Thankfully, the store was empty. I had no choice.
I gave up on the bow tie. Mitlo reached up and in a skillful flourish had it fixed in a second. “Much better,” he said, examining the finished product. I looked at myself in the mirror for a long time. I wasn’t sure, but then I was intrigued by the transformation. It gave me character and individuality.
Whether I wanted it or not, the outfit was about to become mine. I had to wear it at least once.
To top it off, he found a white Panama hat that fit nicely on my shaggy head. As he adusted it here and there, he tugged at a patch of hair over my ear and said, “Too much hair. You are a professional. Cut it.”
He altered the slacks and jacket and pressed the shirt, and the following day I arrived to collect my new outfit. I planned to simply pick it up, take it home, then wait and wait until there was a slow day around town and wear it. I intended to walk straight to Mitlo’s so he could see me in his creation.
He, of course, had other plans. He insisted I try it on, and when I did he then insisted that I walk around the entire square to collect my compliments.
“I’m really in a hurry,” I said. Chancery court was in session and downtown was busy.
“I insist,” he said dramatically, wagging the finger as if he would not negotiate for a second.
He adjusted the hat, and the final prop was a long black cigar which he cut, stuffed in my mouth, and lit with a match. “A powerful image,” he said proudly. “The town’s only publisher. Now off.”
No one recognized me for the first half block. Two farmers in front of the feed store gave me a look, but then I didn’t like the way they were dressed either. I felt like Harry Rex with the cigar. Mine was lit, though, and very strong. I sprinted by his office. Mrs. Gladys Wilkins ran her husband’s insurance agency. She was about forty, very pretty and always well dressed. When she saw me she stopped dead in her tracks, then said, “Why, Willie Traynor. Don’t you look distinguished.”
“Thank you.”
“Sorta reminds me of Mark Twain.”
I walked on, feeling better. Two secretaries did double-takes. “Love that bow tie,” one of them called to me. Mrs. Clare Ruth Seagraves stopped me and talked on and on about something I’d written months earlier and had forgotten. As she talked she examined my suit and bow tie and hat and didn’t even mind the cigar. “You look quite handsome, Mr. Traynor,” she said finally, and seemed embarrassed by her candor. I walked slower and slower around the square and decided that Mitlo was right. I was a professional, a publisher, an important person in Clanton even if I didn’t feel too important, and a new image was in order.
We’d have to find some weaker cigars, though. By the time I completed my tour of the square, I was dizzy and had to sit down.
Mr. Mitlo ordered another blue seersucker and two light gray ones. He decided my wardrobe would not be dark like lawyers’ and bankers’, but light and cool and a bit unconventional. He dedicated himself to finding me some unique bow ties and proper fabrics for the fall and winter.
Within a month Clanton was accustomed to having a new character around the square. I was getting noticed, especially by the opposite sex. Harry Rex laughed at me, but then his own outfits were comical.
The ladies loved it.
Chapter 22
In late September there were two notable deaths in one week. The first was Mr. Wilson Caudle. He died at home, alone, in the bedroom where he’d secluded himself since the day he walked out of the Times. It was odd that I had not spoken to him once in the six months I’d owned the paper, but I’d been too busy to fret over it. I certainly didn’t want any advice from Spot. And, sadly, I knew of no one who’d either seen him or talked to him in the past six months.
He died on a Thursday and was buried on a Saturday. On Friday I hustled over to Mr. Mitlo’s and we had a wardrobe session regarding the proper funeral attire for someone of my stature. He insisted on a black suit, and he had just the perfect bow tie. It was narrow with black and maroon stripes, very dignified, very respectful, and when it was tied and I was properly turned out, I had to admit that the image was impressive. He pulled out a black felt fedora from his personal collection and proudly loaned it to me for the funeral. He said often that it was a shame American men didn’t wear hats anymore.
The final touch was a shiny black wooden cane. When he produced it I just stared. “I don’t need a cane,” I said. It seemed quite foolish.
“It’s a walking stick,” he said, thrusting it at me.
“What’s the difference?”
He then launched into a baffling history of the crucial role walking sticks had played in the evolution of modern European male fashion. He felt passionately about it, and the more worked up he got, the thicker his accent became, and the less I understood. To shut him up I took the stick.
The following day, when I walked into the Methodist church for Spot’s funeral, the ladies stared at me. Some of the men did too, most of them wondering what the hell I was doing with a black hat and a cane. In a whisper just loud enough for me to hear, Stan Atcavage, my banker, said behind me, “I guess he’s gonna sing and dance for us.”
“Been hangin’ around Mitlo’s again,” someone whispered back.
I accidentally whacked the cane on the pew in front of me, and the noise jolted the mourners. I wasn’t sure what one did with a cane while one was seated for a funeral. I squeezed it between my legs and placed the hat in my lap. Portraying the right image took work. I looked around and saw Mitlo. He was beaming at me.
The choir began “Amazing Grace,” and we fell into a somber mood. Reverend Clinkscale then recited Mr. Caudle’s basics — born in 1896, the only child of our beloved Miss Emma Caudle, a widower with no children of his own, a veteran of the First War, and for over fifty years the editor of our county weekly. There he brought to an art form the obituaries, which would forever be Spot’s claim to fame.
The reverend rambled on a bit, then a soloist broke the monotony. It was my fourth funeral since landing in Clanton. Except for my mother’s, I had never attended one before. They were social events in the small town, and often I heard such gems as, “Wasn’t that a lovely service,” and “Take care, I’ll see you at the funeral,” and, my favorite, “She would have loved it.”