Part 6 (1/2)

'Well, I was thinking, if we're going to get married it would be more convenient if we lived in the same state.'

Grace, Billie, Rajan, Milton and John Junior caught the 8.05 out of Sacramento bound for New York. The porter secured them two first-cla.s.s compartments for the humans and a boxcar for Rajan. John Junior stopped Milton for a second in the corridor as they boarded.

'So, what deal did you do with Forepaugh?' he asked.

'No problem. I cut him in on the action. There's plenty for everybody and it's so neat.' Milton became sweaty with financial excitement as he removed his notebook from his vest pocket.

'I got it all figured out, John. We buy whole distilleries.'

'What distilleries? They closed them all.'

'They didn't knock 'em down. They just closed 'em. Distilleries, corner saloons. They're closed but someone still owns them and they still have a stock of whiskey. Look, here's an example. .

'Forget it, Milton. We are not bootlegging. I want everything above board.'

Milton mopped his brow in aggravation. 'Listen, John, in the last normal year before that splendid law called Prohibition was pa.s.sed, our fellow citizens consumed two billion gallons of hard liquor. And what are they doing now? Drinking coffee? No, they are waiting for us to come good. They are waiting for us to come through with-'

'No liquor.'

'Did I say liquor?' Milton smiled at his own skill. 'John, would you deny a sick man his medicine? Or a religious man his sacramental wine?'

'Of course not. So we sell a little medicine, a little church wine.' Milton scanned his notebook for the figures. 'Sacramental wine is very big. Every practicing Jewish family is allowed one gallon per adult per year. The amount of wine a synagogue can get depends on the number of wors.h.i.+ppers. Now, I can get you a six-hundred-member synagogue working out of a delicatessen on Upper East Side, five hundred and forty out of a Chinese laundry. All kosher. The a.s.sembly of Hebrew Orthodox Rabbis in America. Nice people. Run by an Irishman called Sullivan.'

John sighed. 'I said above board.'

'Really? Above board? The bearded lady? Snow White's actual dwarves? George Was.h.i.+ngton's nurse? And you're telling me above board?'

'That's different. Isn't there something else?'

Milton flipped through his papers. 'I was thinking we could move the factories. You remember boots? You used to make boots?'

'The point, Milton?'

'I just did it as an exercise, but if we close down all the Sa.s.saspaneck factories and move everything south, say Georgia, I figure we can clean up. No unions, cheaper labour. They say the white trash'll do what you tell 'em. We can do a stretch-out. Increase the work but not the money. At the moment we're paying eighteen dollars ninety-one a week per head for forty pair boots. I figure we can go to twenty-three dollars but one hundred pair. Of course, it'll kill the town.

'Whatever you think, but no bootlegging. 'John moved to knock on the door to Billie's compartment and paused. 'So what happened with Forepaugh's wife?'

'Give me a break. She was begging for it. Forepaugh never touches her.'

'But she was a good-looking woman.

Milton put away his notebook bible. 'Yes, but he hurt his back. Some big fire in Monterey. He had to carry the four-hundred-pound fat lady from the freak show out of the blaze.'

John was impressed. 'Boy, he must like the fat lady.'

Are you kidding? Do you have any idea of her return at the side-shows? Mind you, some of those side-show dames can be something. I once slept with Barnum's wild lady.'

'Borneo?'

'Nah, Rhode Island.'

'Come on, Milton, I want you to meet the woman I am going to marry. Oh, and Milton?'

'Yeah?'

'b.u.t.ton your pants.

On arrival, Billie decreed that Burroughs House was plain and that John's sister Phoebe was delightful. Phoebe took to Grace instantly and was soon being wheeled about and cared for by her new friend. On the lawns of Burroughs House, as the sun was setting, John gave Billie her engagement ring.

'Why are you doing this, John?' she asked. 'You hardly know me.'

'I know everything I need to. You are beautiful. You are fearless and clever. I'm rich. I can look after you and together we will raise the most beautiful family.'

It was as good a deal as Billie was ever going to get. So she agreed. They formed a gene pool. In the distant woods a moose sounded his forlorn foghorn. Billie laughed.

'I had always imagined music for this moment, not that terrible noise.'

John smiled. 'Grace would tell you that that is not terrible. It only sounds dreadful to us because we can't hear it with the ears of a moose in love.' That night John began drawing up the plans for the greatest house of love ever built, and Billie lay on Grace's bed and wept and wept.

Torchinsky sighed again and closed the magazine. He looked at the front cover and smoothed the edges with his hand.

'So beautiful. I never laid out anything more beautiful.' It was bizarre. I had come about a dead dog and here I was talking old romance with a humpbacked undertaker married to a woman with a moustache.

'She brought some cla.s.s to John Junior's shows. Before that he had done nothing but the elephants with a few side-shows. Terrible stuff Although, I remember I liked the tap-dancing goat.'

My head was spinning. Tap-dancing goats? The builders had gone back to banging and I decided I ought to get on with business.

'I was wondering about this dog.'

'The dog!' boomed Mr Torchinsky, slapping the table loudly with his hand. 'Of course, the dog. Still dead, still got to deal with it. A big dog or a little dog?' He put the magazine back in the bag and opened the drawer to put it away.

'Well, sort of medium. It wasn't mine. It was Mrs Schlick's.'

'Rocco? Judith's Rocco died?' Completely unexpectedly, tears welled up in his eyes. 'She'll be so sad.'

'Yes. That's why I thought maybe if you had a spare box. A small one, not small like Mrs Torchinsky has in the front, but a medium-small one. A dog-size one. I don't have much money but...'

'Of course, a box. No charge. No charge. Poor Rocco. I'll drop something off to Judith.' Mr Torchinsky ushered me out, looking at the floor as he walked. As we got to the door he patted me on the back. 'Come back any time, though G.o.d willing next time it will be better news.'

Mrs Torchinsky was just returning with a box of cookies as I left. She smiled at me and her moustache did that spreading thing again. As I collected my bike I could just hear her yelling, 'No charge? No charge? What are we, a charity?'

Having sorted the coffin I thought maybe I should get a card for Judith. Something with flowers and sympathy on. The only place for that was up the other end of town at the Pop Inn, next to Abe's Ice Cream Parlour (Specialty - the Kitchen Sink - 56 Flavours of Ice Cream Served in a Single Container). It was the middle of the day and Sa.s.saspaneck wasn't exactly buzzing but as I rode up Main Street I realized I was looking at the place differently. This was a much more exciting town than Father realized. It wasn't about smallpox and Indians. It was about tiger tamers and polar bears walking up to the A&P. It was about beautiful women whom men married off magazine covers and rich men who collected strange creatures and built crazy houses.

The Pop Inn was the coolest place in town. They sold everything a kid could want - Peter, Paul and Mary records, bra.s.s peace symbols on leather thongs, posters of Pica.s.so doves, op-art posters and c.o.ke bottles melted into unusual shapes. I liked the Susan Politz Shultz posters best. Especially the ones with pictures of Jonathan Livingston Seagull on them which told you that Friends.h.i.+p is For Ever. It was kind of a racy place to go to because it was run by Hubert Thomas and he was the only black man in town. Hubert was the first black person I had ever known to say h.e.l.lo to. He was married to Ingrid, who was a white girl from Iceland. They didn't have any kids but Father was keen to explain what would happen when they did.

Father was always happy to explain everyone's behaviour in terms of genetics. I think he was comfortable with that, as it just involved diagrams and showing how Mother's family input had marred his family's. .h.i.therto perfect genetic history. Hubert's potential offspring were the perfect ill.u.s.tration for Father's genetic lectures. The first time we met Hubert and Ingrid, Father took me straight home and did pages of long arrows joining up little black and white bubbles. 'And if you look at this chart, it will show you the percentage chance for what colour the children will be in the Thomas household.'