Monday

Hoot Daviess moved his notebook computer to the desk by the window so he could observe the town square while he worked on that week’s editorial for the Penny Saver. Naturally it would be about the Arts Festival. He should have done it Sunday night, right after the opening ceremonies. Instead he had just a couple of hours to get it done.

Easter was just a couple of weeks off. Hoot thought the theme of resurrection and renewal would be appropriate. He looked out the window at the crowded square, the shops busy with bargain hunters. At the other end of the square, in the small park next to the bank, two young men were playing basketball. It was a nice day for March, 45-50 and sunny, and the town seemed vibrant and prosperous with all the activity. Hoot began to type: “This will be the 25th Annual Chenango Arts Festival. The Festival has changed the town’s fortunes. 24 years earlier the first festival was held in an impoverished town. Half the shops in the village were vacant, unemployment was 15%, some farms had been abandoned. Susquehanna was in a decline like so many other rural towns, with little hope of change. Susquehanna, our dear hometown, was in the process of becoming like Afton….”

Hoot sat back and frowned at the screen. The Penny Saver had some 100 subscribers in Afton whom he didn’t wish to lose. There had always been a rivalry between the two towns, through times of prosperity and difficulty. Susquehanna had been bouncing back the past few years while Afton continued to suffer hard times and a population decline. Hoot erased “ like Afton” and replaced it with “another victim.” He didn’t like that either, got out the thesaurus and went through the alternatives it listed for “victim.” He looked out the window again, at the basketball game. It looked like Ray Tate and his cousin were playing a spirited game on one-on-one, pretty physical. There was his word – competitive! Until the festival had come along “Susquehanna, our dear hometown, had been losing its competitiveness.”

That got Hoot on a roll. He banged out the rest of the editorial in half an hour, even managed to get in a dig at Afton in the process. Afton was Susquehanna High School’s traditional rival. Hoot himself had suited up three times for the Thanksgiving football game, had made a couple of tackles in the Big One, the ’65 game when Susquehanna scored twice in the last 3 minutes to preserve an undefeated season, which no team since had accomplished. Hoot reread the editorial, hoping to find a way to blend in a mention of the fighting spirit of Susquehanna High School. He tried adding a paragraph at the end: “We should all be grateful to David Prendergast and the work he has done to build the Festival to what it’s become – a world class event which draws an international audience to our beloved town. The Festival has fueled a dramatic turnaround of the town’s fortunes. You, my friends and neighbors, my fellow Susquehannans, have always had spirit, the competitive spirit, the same spirit that high school boys bring to the football field and basketball court.” He glanced out at the court to see if Ray and Skid were still playing. “Let us show our guests the good side of Susquehanna, in that same competitive spirit. Let us show our appreciation and our hospitality. True, these people are different from us, and we should be tolerant of them. They come from other countries, other lifestyles. Let us open our arms and hearts to them.”

Hoot clicked on the save button and leaned back in his chair. “Nailed it!” he said aloud. He read through the editorial and saved it again, just in case. It was the best thing he had ever written. In content it made about the same points as all the previous editorials he wrote at festival time – things had been bad for Susquehanna but now they were better; the attendees were mainly gay weirdos from hostile foreign countries; indulge them because they spend a lot of money.

Speaking of money the week of the festival the diner was packed pretty much from 6am to the extended (from 2pm) closing time of 7pm. Hoot stood up and stretched, checked his watch to see if it was time to get back downstairs to the diner for the lunch rush. There were always enough people who had never eaten at Hoot’s Diner. Some even liked it, or at least came back. It was barely 11am and already there were a few parties out on the sidewalk, waiting for a table. The diner did more business in that one week than it had done since Thanksgiving.

He gave the editorial one final read and decided the edition was ready to go. He stepped out on the little balcony and enjoyed the cool air. There had to be a couple of hundred people milling around the town square, most of them underdressed. In the sun it seemed much warmer than 45 degrees. A few people were throwing a frisbee over by the basketball court. Skid nearly got hit by an errant toss. “Interference!” he cried, demanding to have the ball back after a missed shot.

Ray shrugged and flipped the ball to him. They weren’t keeping score so what did it matter? Skid was 2 years older and more of an athlete than Ray. The gap had been wider when they were growing up. Skid had always been the team captain, or the first one chosen. Ray was often the last to be picked for basketball or football, or odd man out. Skid had put on a beer belly and didn’t have much stamina. Ray was as uncoordinated as ever, and smoked too much, but hard work (when he could get it) had made him strong and fit.

Two men asked if Ray and Skid wanted to play two-on-two, a game of 15, winners out. Ray was willing but Skid said he was spent. They let the men have the ball, pointed out Skid’s pickup truck, told them to just leave the ball in the truck when they were done.

“I didn’t want to play with those fags.” Skid whispered as they crossed the square.

Ray looked over his shoulder at the two men. “How do you know they’re fags? They look like normal guys to me.”

“They’re all fags. Well, a lot of them are. Artists. You can’t tell by what they look like.”

“What do you mean you can’t tell by what they look like? How do you know, then?”

“You can just tell.” Skid said. Ray let it go at that, figuring Skid was just woofing. What did if matter if those two guys were gay. Sure, some, maybe a lot of the people who came to the festival looked or acted different. That was part of the deal, wasn’t it? For a week the town was completely different, busy and bustling, way more interesting than the deserted boondocks it was for the other 51 weeks, college or no college.

Ray’s parents had pretty much the same attitude as Skid. For that matter so did a lot of the townspeople. They’re hypocrites, thought Ray, happy to have the money come to town but not the people who spent it. That had changed some in the past ten years as the festival became more and more popular, and the townies and delegates more and more familiar with each other. Quite a few homeowners rented spare rooms for the week. Some even rented their houses. The severe shortage of hotel rooms in the area drove the prices to the same price point as upscale New York City hotels in high season.

Skid and Ray sat on the bench by where the old Greyhound office had been. A beautiful woman came out of the CVS across the street and smiled at them for some reason. She was wearing a dark blue dufflecoat, jeans, cowboy boots and a furry hat like Russians sometimes wear. She had a big white button on her coat which read “Fuck Art.” Ray smiled back and waved, but got no response, the woman melting into the flow of people moving in both directions on Main Street.

“Yep” Ray philosophized out loud, “this town really sucks.”

Skid didn’t get the connection, though of course he agreed. He leaned over the back of the bench and spit loudly through clenched teeth, spraying a bit on the Hoot’s Diner sign behind them.

“Ewww. Gross” exclaimed a girl from the backseat of a passing car.

Skid gave her the finger. “I’m going home for lunch. What are you doing?”

“Work, I guess, Got a repair job over that professor’s house.”

“Professor? You mean that girl I saw you with? Is she a professor?”
“Yeah, and she’s not a girl, she’s over 40.”

“No way!”

“Yeah, she’s 43.”

“Fooled me. I though she was 30.”

“Hey, it takes time to be a professor.”

“You seem to know a lot about her. You got something going?” Skid knew that he didn’t.

Ray rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I got something going, work.” Ray and Skid bumped fists and jerked their hands upwards, their ritual farewell of some years’ standing.

“Later”

“Bye”

Ray got his tools out of Skid’s truck and walked with the crowd, slowly making his way down the quarter mile of shops on Main Street. He was happy to be alone for the moment, anonymous amongst so many strangers. Maybe they took him for an artist, too. He studied the way the people looked and were dressed, especially the females. He wondered where everyone came from, what their lives were like, how his life would be if he lived where they lived, did what they did.

He turned off of Main onto River Street just before the bridge to campus and walked on the path alongside the Susquehanna. There were still plenty of chunks of ice floating in the muddy stream. He passed a lone mallard foraging in the shallows. Spring felt good, even though it wasn’t quite Spring, even though there’d as likely as not be another blizzard in March or April.

A half mile from Main Street he could still sense the crowded streets, hear the people talking. He passed Sycamore, the last of the village streets, and walked on eastward on River Street, now just plain Route 7. Pygmy’s house was about 100 yards past Sycamore, the old Grayson’s Mill place. The ruins of the millrace were still evident from the street as one approached from the town. The house was over 100 years old, a rambling white Queen Anne Victorian with a wraparound porch and a large widow’s walk on top.

The building was very solid but sorely in need of updating and cosmetic work. The windows were all old-fashioned single pane, the electric only 60 amps, the plumbing a mixed bag of lead, clay, and galvanized with just some copper. That was his job today, fix the hash that someone had made of the copper pipes in the basement, a plumber (supposedly) from Oneonta whom Pygmy had paid $400 for the worst plumbing job Ray had ever seen, converting the pantry to a laundry room and hooking up the washer and dryer.

There was a note taped to the front door: “Had to go to campus. Door’s unlocked. Call my cell if you need me. 607 765 0756.” He let himself in and immediately set to work in the basement. The beams were eye level so he had to move around stooped over, head cocked to one side to keep it from bumping against the pipes and beams. The light was poor, too. Not much in the way of windows and only one of the light sockets had a working bulb, 40 watts at that. Good thing he packed a good flashlight.

He moved from fitting to fitting, shaving off the old solder, getting the pipe good and clean before soldering it properly. The guy who did the job for Pygmy had really slopped on a lot of solder. No wonder it cracked and leaked. How long had Pygmy been living with the problem?

Ray took his sweet time yet still finished faster than he expected. He hit his head only once, a good one that left a painful bump, He packed up and walked back upstairs, calling out “hello” a couple of times in case Pygmy had returned home while he was at work. He was pretty sure she hadn’t since he would have heard the door, or her footsteps above.

Pygmy rushed home to fetch some papers she had forgotten. She had also forgotten all about Ray and the plumbing job, was leaning on the door, fiddling with the key ring’s eight identical looking Yale keys to get the one which unlocked the door, forgetting too that she had left the door unlocked. Ray didn’t realize she was there. Otherwise he would have opened the door more carefully. Pygmy certainly didn’t expect the door to open, stumbled helplessly forward into Ray and his toolbox.

“God! Don’t DO that!” she gasped, catching her balance. She straightened up, left hand clasped to her chest. She was not in a good mood, needed a little down time after a day of tension and frustration trying to do the festival’s tasks and keep everybody happy. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

Ray was frozen, feeling like he should be apologizing. “Sorry” he said. It sounded like a kitten’s mewing to him.

“No, no, My bad” said Pygmy. “I see you’ve been busy.” She squeezed past him, took off her coat and hung it up, walked on into the kitchen.

“All done.” He said, following her.

Pygmy smiled. “Cool. $35.00, right. Are you sure that’s enough.” She took out her wallet and handed Ray the money.

Ray nodded. “A deal’s a deal.” Jeez. Hadn’t taken even an hour. If only all jobs were like that.

Pygmy pulled a bottle of scotch and two tumblers from a cupboard, showed the works to Ray as a way of offering. Ray nodded. Pygmy poured a couple of fingers for each of them, handed one of the glasses to Ray. “Can you come back after the festival? There’s some more work I’d like you to do.”

“Sure, love to” said Ray. “How’s the festival going?”

Pygmy made an equivocating, comme çi comme ça expression, punctuated it with a sigh. “Same as always. Exhiliarating. Exhausting.” She leaned back against the counter and stretched. “Good. All Good.” She smiled. She bit her lip, suddenly realizing that she left her notebook in one of the conference rooms.

“Are you sure? Are you okay?” Ray asked.

“Yeah, more or less. Why? Do I look not okay?”

“Well, you’ve been stirring your drink with your finger.”

Pygmy looked down at her finger like it was a pet doing a trick. “Oh that. Nervous habit.” She extracted her finger and sprinkled a dash of salt on it, then popped it in her mouth. She ran upstairs and a moment later back down with a sheaf of papers which she crammed into her bag. “Gotta run” she exclaimed, “just close the door behind you. Stop by after the festival.”

She grabbed her coat and slipped into it, struggling to find the left sleeve until Ray held it for her. She squeezed past him and out the door, her hand accidently brushing his chest. Ray watched her run up the front walk, the spot her hand had touched buzzing. He picked up his tools and walked out too. He’d have to find a ride home now. He walked back to Main Street, hoping that Skid was around. The spot on his chest was still buzzing.

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