Searching for Caleb

"It was the first time you ever said to keep on with something I was already doing."

She stopped swinging her foot.

"But I was tempted to disobey you anyway," he told her. "I admit. I went to see my friend, the one in merchandising. He has these clients, you understand, department stores and such, they come to him for ideas on ... but anyway. I said I might join up with him. 'Oh, fine,' he tells me. But then he starts suggesting I wear a different style of clothes. Well, that I can follow. I am practical, I know how the world works. But he doesn't see, he's still trying to convince me. 'Face it, Alonzo,' he says, 'we all have to give in in little ways. Look at me. I'm a tall man,' he says.

And he is, a fine tall man. 'Well,' he says, 'when important clients come, know what I do? I try to stay seated as much as possible, and if I stand I kind of squinch down. I don't stoop,' he says, 'that's too obvious. Just bend at the knees a little. Understand, it's not something I think of so consciously. But you can see a client, important fellow like that, he wouldn't feel right if I was to tower over him. You got to keep a watch for such things, Alonzo.'"

He shook his head, and pulled his great silver belt buckle around to where it wouldn't cut into his stomach so.

"Justine," he said, "do you know that I have never before done what you told me to do?"

"I'm not surprised," she said.

"I mean it. You're always right, but only because I go against instructions and things turn out badly just the way you said they would.

Now I discover things turn out badly anyhow. Is that your secret? I've found it, ha? You give people advice they'll be sure not to follow.

Right?"

She laughed. "No, Alonzo," she said. "And I'm glad you didn't sell the carnival. Whatever's gone wrong."

"My mechanic's been arrested."

"Lem?"

"He robbed a bank in nineteen sixty-nine. They say."

"Oh, I see."

"Now, here's what I want to know. Is he coming back, or not? I mean if he's coming soon I'll hold the machines together somehow and wait it out, but if he's guilty, on the other hand-"

"Well, I don't think I'm supposed to say if someone's guilty or not."

"Look here! What do I care about guilt? All they lost was two hundred dollars, let him keep it. Besides a little matter of a shooting. I want to know about my business. I want to know if I should just give up, because to tell the truth this fellow Lem was a man I relied on. He saw to everything. Now, merchandising is out but there is always something else, and the jodhpur lady still wants my carnival. Shall I sell, after all? Is the man gone forever?"

Justine frowned at a card.

"You see what I've fallen to," Alonzo said. "I used to ask about beautiful women. Now it's financial matters."

"Well, Lem is not coming back," said Justine.

"I knew it."

"But you shouldn't sell the carnival."

"How can you keep saying such a stupid thing?"

"Don't argue with me, argue with the cards. Have you ever seen anything like it? I've turned up every jack in the deck, you'll have all the mechanics you want."

"Oh, of course," Alonzo said. "One after the other. The first one drinks, the second leaves with my ponies-"

"And look at the women! Look, Alonzo, you're not paying attention. See?

Here you are, the king of hearts. And here's the queen of hearts, the queen of clubs, the queen of diamonds . . ."

Alonzo sat forward, peering at the cards, resting his hand upon his knees.

"Here is the good luck card, the card of friendship, the celebration card

. . ."

"All right, all right!" Alonzo said.

She sat back and smiled at him.

"Oh, Justine," he told her sadly, "sometimes I think I would like to go live in a cabin in the woods, all alone. I'd take a lifetime supply of slivovitz, my accordion, plenty of food, perhaps some books. Do you know I've never read an entire book? Just the good parts. I think about hibernating like a bear, just eating and drinking and sleeping. No tax, insurance, electric bills, alimony, repairs or repainting or Rustoleum, no women to mess up my life, no one shooting bank guards, no children. Then here you come galloping along in your terrible hat and your two sharp hipbones like pebbles in your pockets and you tell me all these things I may expect, a life full of surprises. How can I refuse? I feel curious all over again, I like to know what will happen next."

And he shook his head, stroking downward on his mustache, but he did not look so tired as when he had arrived. All his tiredness seemed to have passed to Justine, who sat slumped in her chair with her hands limp on the cards.

Duncan and Justine were on the front steps, watching the fireflies spark all around them. "Today I sold an antique garden engine," Duncan said.

"What's a garden engine?"