A Short History of a Small Place (21 page)

He had considered Adultery, but Daddy said Casper was not one of your more alluring plumbers and so had settled instead on what he called Shortness, which according to Daddy was mostly sharp-tongued ill-mannered rudeness with wings and had its appeal for Casper since he could be short all day without ever having to hunt up a consenting adult to be short with him. And Daddy said by Tuesday morning Casper already had two full days of discourteous behaviour under his belt and had managed to work himself up for the third day by kicking Mrs. Greenly’s schnauzer on his way to the Throckmortons, so Daddy said Casper was truly ripe and surly when he arrived at Pinky’s front door and began to beat on it with the handle of his mallet. It being midmorning, Pinky of course had long since gone off to his seat at the stamp window and the bald Jeeter was well underway with her housework which she usually performed skin-headed leaving a wig on Pinky’s hatrack by the door so she might have it handy in case of a caller, but Daddy said Casper gave the front door such a thrashing with his mallet handle that Mrs. Throckmorton thought maybe the house was on fire, or all her relatives had fallen over dead, so she tore through the parlor and into the front hallway and Daddy said she had already swung the front door partway open when she recollected her hairlessness and plucked the chestnut wig off the hatrack and slapped it onto her head as best she could. And according to Daddy, Casper had crossed the threshold and gotten himself into the house before Mrs. Throckmorton had the chance to be thoroughly disappointed, and he had started on up the staircase, Daddy said, when he turned his head ever so slightly and told her, “I come to fix your toilet.” Then he stomped on up three more steps before he stopped cold, Daddy said, and brought himself full around to face Mrs. Throckmorton who he treated to nearly an entire minute of genuine chicken-necked gawking, Daddy called it, before he reeled in his jaw enough to say, “Your hair’s crooked.” And Daddy said Mrs. Throckmorton got this kind of sour stomach grin on her face and her right hand sort of drifted up into the vicinity of her hairpiece and felt all around it until she got hold of the bun over her left ear and gave the whole business a quarter turn towards the backside, which pretty much set things to rights, Daddy said, or at least satisfied Mr. Epps who stomped on up the rest of the staircase and into the bathroom.

Pinky came on home once the bald Jeeter had wailed at him over the telephone and told him how the plumber had blown into the house like Attila himself, but before Pinky could get so far as the stairwell Casper had already drawn the water off the toilet, unbolted the thing from the floor, and extracted the toothpowder tin from the neck of it; however, along about when he was resetting it over the drainhole he saw the opportunity for some active sinning and began pouring all of his resources into coveting Pinky’s brass lavatory taps which proved to be such a taxing endeavor that he lost his hold on the commode and it fell over directly atop the wooden toilet seat snapping it cleanly in two. So by the time Pinky arrived in the upstairs Casper was already holding the piece of broken toilet seat under his nose and eyeing it like maybe it had come off some antique upright creature and he couldn’t figure from just exactly what part. And Daddy said even before Pinky could haul himself into the bathroom proper and park his bulk up against the vanity or the towel rack, which Daddy said Pinky was inclined to do since he did not possess the usual lean and wiry Throckmorton frame but had constructed for himself a modified and overblown variation of it that called for buttresses and cross braces whenever they were available, and Daddy said even before Pinky could take some relief against the edge of the door on his way to the vanity or the towel rack, Casper shook the detached piece of toilet seat at him and made a noise in his throat that started out very much like articulate English but went axle deep and became snared in something Casper had to dredge up and evacuate into the toilet bowl, which was very handy though still waterless, before he could tell Pinky just what it was he wanted to tell him, which he did not get around to until he’d wiped his mouth three or four times with the back of his hand and which, even then, didn’t turn out to be anything but, “You know what?” followed by a most impressive tattoo, Daddy called it, that Casper played on the commode porcelain with the broken piece of toilet seat.

And Daddy said Pinky situated himself against the overhang of the vanity counter and crossed his arms in front of him. “What?” he said.

“Your wife’s bald,” Casper told him, “and I broke your toilet seat.” And Daddy said Casper handed the piece of wooden ring to Pinky so maybe he could see for himself it was far enough away from the hinged section on the commode not to be a part of it any longer.

And Pinky examined what piece of the seat Casper had handed to him before setting it on the counter beside him and crossing his arms again. “I know,” he said. “How’d it happen?”

And Daddy said Casper didn’t answer directly but repositioned the toilet over the drainhole and tightened it down with a wrench. Then he hooked the waterline back into the underside of the tank and began to collect his tools together but still didn’t offer Pinky any sort of response until Pinky asked him again, “How’d it happen?” and Casper brought himself to his feet, snatched up his toolbox, and said, “I ain’t got no call to know how it happened. Maybe she was born that way.” And Daddy said Pinky sort of lifted his face and blew a breath towards the overhead light.

They reached an agreement about the toilet seat, Daddy said, so Pinky didn’t commence proceedings against Casper right off, probably did not know he was going to commence proceedings against him since he had never commenced proceedings against anyone before and so as of yet had no way of knowing jurisprudence would lay claim to him and be his calling just as recklessness and bravado had laid claim to his daddy. Casper agreed to order the toilet seat from an outfit in Atlanta and replace it for nothing if Pinky would sand it and stain and varnish it on his own, but Daddy said Pinky found this sort of arrangement entirely unacceptable at first since he’d had no hand in the destruction of the toilet seat and saw no reason for him to have a hand in the replacement of it, so by way of compromise Casper told Pinky he could take his toilet seat and go straight to the devil with it, which set Pinky to reconsidering the initial offer since as of yet he did not possess the proper spine for hard bargaining but was only capable of all variety of indignant noises with which he entertained Casper for a day or two before deciding that the first arrangement was not so entirely unacceptable after all. So they reached an agreement about the toilet seat, Daddy said, and Casper told Pinky he’d go ahead and order it, but Daddy said riotous and sinful living was certainly no sidelight and consequently didn’t leave Casper much time to conduct himself like a regular businessman, so the outfit in Atlanta did not hear from Casper Epps right off and understandably, Daddy said, did not up and dispatch any sort of toilet covering towards Neely on its own, which meant that Pinky, even after he waited what he considered to be a reasonable amount of time, could never discover a commode ring addressed to Casper Epps from Atlanta in the back of any mailtruck or in the bottom of any mailsack or in any dark and neglected corner of the post office itself.

So the toilet seat never got so far as Neely, never got so far as out of Atlanta, and probably would have never arrived at all if Pinky hadn’t happened to run up on Casper at Mr. Bill Castleberry’s Leaf Market Dinette and Cafeteria adjacent to the warehouse and just around the corner from the square. Casper was attempting to hone up his gluttony on the fillet of sole which was always the chef’s choice on Tuesdays unless the truck got waylaid in Greensboro which would leave the chef to choose between the chopped hamburger steak and grilled weiner with navy beans, but the fillet of sole had turned out to be a little fishier than Casper generally preferred and so caused him to attempt to gorge himself on a helping of boiled potatoes, a sprig of parsley, two lemon slices, and a dribble of cole slaw, which Daddy said was the sort of meal a good Roman might sneer at and inhale but which Casper was forced to consider a gluttonous repast, Daddy called it, since he couldn’t get the fillet of sole beyond his nose and Mr. Castleberry had run out of lemon pie. So Casper was gnawing on the parsley stem and trying to look bloated when Pinky sat down beside him at the counter and began to tell him how shameful it was that a big toilet seat conglomerate like that outfit in Atlanta couldn’t get their orders out in any reasonable amount of time. He said people like him and Casper shouldn’t have to hold up their dealings just because some fiddleheaded shipping clerk in Georgia was as slow as Christmas and he asked Casper if he knew what it was like to have to bolt into the downstairs everytime nature beckoned in the night, and when Casper didn’t even venture an honest guess, Pinky said to him, “It’s no treat, I’ll tell you, it’s no treat at all,” and then he went on as to how he might just write a letter to Atlanta, as to how he might just make enough trouble to get that toilet seat for nothing. And Daddy said Casper put both elbows on the lunch counter and extracted the remains of parsley stem from his mouth. Then he turned around just enough to see Pinky with his near eye and said, “What toilet seat?”

Of course Pinky blew up, Daddy said, but he blew up in stages and the first one was the quietest of the bunch. Daddy said Pinky just leaned himself towards Casper and put his face up next to Casper’s face and sort of whispered in the general direction of Casper’s ear, “What toilet seat? What toilet
seat?”
Then he moved on to stage two, Daddy said, which was very much like stage one only louder and led directly into stage three, which was also like stages one and two except for the pounding on the countertop that Pinky used to punctuate himself everytime he said “toilet” and every time he said “seat.” Daddy said the explosion, such as it was, built towards and culminated in stage four, which saw Pinky rise up from his stool and stalk all the way out onto the sidewalk and then back inside again to the lunch counter, which he beat on four times hard with both fists and screamed at Casper, “WHAT TOILET SEAT!” and Daddy said everybody in Mr. Castleberry’s dinette who had not left off eating previously left off eating now and the cook himself looked out from the kitchen through the slot in the wall and overtop two orders of tuna salad.

Daddy said Mr. Castleberry’s Dinette and Cafeteria was in what folks call the grip of dead silence, except, that is, for the sound of Pinky’s fingertips against the formica countertop, which he was playing like a snare drum and continued to play entirely throughout what Daddy said folks call the anxious moments, and Daddy said the quieter and stiller things got, the louder Pinky drummed his fingers so as to provide a way for any excess of passion and sheer hot-headedness to seep off from him and thereby prevent the risk of instantaneous human combustion which Daddy said Pinky had heard of and wished to avoid.

Daddy said the whole scene could have been played out in a very grand and dramatic fashion if only Casper had taken notice of the grip of dead silence and the anxious moments and had consequently allowed himself to get caught up in the feeling of the thing, but Daddy said Casper was not one of your regular dramatis personae and so just slouched against the countertop on his elbows and gnashed at the parsley stem. And Daddy said even after Casper had gotten his fill of parsley and had flicked the mangled stem onto his plate he didn’t seize upon the opportunity before him to launch some sort of poetical barb in Pinky’s direction but simply settled for, “Funny thing about that toilet seat—slipped my mind completely.” And Daddy said all the patrons along with Mr. Castleberry and the dishwashers and the cook and Mr. Castleberry’s girl, June, all of them together took a breath and held it and watched Pinky to see how he would blow up this time, and as for himself Pinky leaned in towards Casper and put his face up next to Casper’s face and sort of whispered in the general direction of Casper’s ear, “Slipped your mind? Slipped your mind?” and then he repeated himself three or four times, pounding on the counter every time he said “slipped” and every time he said “mind,” and of course, Daddy said, folks were already watching the door before Pinky ever made a move to stalk out it onto the sidewalk, and they were already watching the counter before he ever arrived back at it and hammered away on the formica with his fists while screaming at Casper, “SLIPPED YOUR MIND!” So Daddy said Pinky was not much of an innovator in his own right and him and Casper together would probably have made a dreary mess out of the whole production if Casper had not taken a few moments to ponder his predicament and decided he’d be proud he’d been slothful and so kill two birds at once. Consequently, Daddy said, the harder Pinky pounded on the countertop and the louder he hollered at Casper, the taller Casper got on the barstool and the more he drew back at the shoulders until, Daddy said, he began to look more like a rooster than a plumber, and as the patrons reported it later, it seemed that Mr. Epps was on the verge of having the sugar dispenser forcibly introduced into one of his upraised noseholes when he made his exit, and Daddy said everybody who saw it or even heard about it agreed it was a very fine exit, the sort of exit that should not be tampered with and could not be improved upon in this life or any other, and Daddy said it very possibly saved Casper from all grades of violence and certainly pardoned him for having previously squandered the grip of dead silence and a full sixty seconds worth of anxious moments.

He didn’t stand up exactly, Daddy said, he just sort of rose from the barstool like a wisp of smoke and then lingered very casually at the counter digging through his trouser pockets with Pinky in his face raining abuse all over him, Daddy said, and generally threatening to do all sorts of damage to Casper’s person if he didn’t soon enough find himself perched atop his upstairs toilet with a varnished wooden ring between his posterior and the porcelain. Daddy said Pinky beat his fist on the countertop and then shook it under Casper’s nose and then beat it on the countertop again while Casper, for his part, continued to poke around in his pockets from which he extracted an ink pen, two folded pieces of paper, one set of keys on a steel ring, a buckeye, a three-bladed knife, and several pennies before he finally dredged up the nickel he’d been after and slipped it under the edge of his plate for Mr. Castleberry’s girl, June. And even then he didn’t light out for the sidewalk like everybody thought he would but just emptied his hands back into his pockets and left them there and stood quietly by while Pinky delivered himself of his latest dose of outrage and indignation. And Daddy said once Pinky had run down and momentarily fallen silent, Casper freed one of his hands and scratched the top of his head with it before seizing upon the opportunity to speak himself. “Mr. Throckmorton,” he said, “don’t get the fish.” Then he was out the door and gone, and Daddy said it was the grip of dead silence all over again until Pinky had regrouped and recovered enough to clear out himself in what Daddy said folks call a huff.