Giles Goat Boy (39 page)

“One of your friends had an accident,” Max observed.

Indeed, the sidecar was partly crushed, the windscreen broken, and the front tire burst, as if the vehicle had plunged into the ditch with some force. I suggested that the driver, nowhere in sight, must have been the sharp-faced officer sent to find Max, but then observed that the original position of the motorcycle in the ditch, as well as its tire-marks on the shoulder of the road, indicated that it had been traveling
towards
the Powerhouse at the time of the accident.

“So,” Max said without interest. “There’s lots of roads, and Stoker’s got more bullies than one.”

“What happened to the driver, do you think?”

Max shrugged. As he was so plainly indifferent, I ordered Croaker to wait while I searched and called through the underbrush on both sides of the road, in case someone lay injured. There was no reply.

“He must have gone for help,” I decided. “Or someone came after him already.”

Max turned his head contemptuously and would not even look at the damaged machine, which I however examined curiously.

“How far is it to Great Mall, Max?”

“Farther than yesterday,” he said dryly. Among the other misfortunes of encountering Stoker, it seemed, was that previously we’d been moving west, from the College Farms towards Great Mall, but the route from the Gorge
to the Powerhouse had fetched us many kilometers to the north, out of our way.

I decided then to attempt to use the motorcycle: if it proved possible to manage it, at a low speed, Croaker could either sit in the sidecar or trot alongside, with Max on his shoulders, and we might reach Great Mall before dark; otherwise we’d spend another night in the open or have to beg lodging. So at least I imagined, ignorant as I was of the campus and of such matters as the medium of exchange and Max’s wherewithal; I assumed that, once officially matriculated, one was housed and fed at the College’s expense—but I knew nothing of these matters, and Max, who ordinarily might have advised me, was grown so morose I had difficulty getting out of him that he knew nothing of motorcycle-operation himself or the legal aspects of borrowing the vehicle. This I could scarcely credit; privately I was becoming persuaded that besides his distress over G. Herrold and his objection to Stoker, what was really upsetting him was my independence of his authority, and Anastasia’s declaration that he was her natural father—which for all I knew might be true despite his denying it. In any case he was too lost in his broodings to care much what I did, and so I set about examining the machine’s controls and recalling what I could of Stoker’s operation of them.

After some experiment I managed, partly by accident, to get the ignition on, the throttle half-opened, the carburetor choked, and the clutch disengaged all at the same time, and was rewarded by a sputter from the engine when I kicked the starter. Presently I contrived a sustained idle, having by chance let off the choke, and was able to sit on the trembling three-wheeler and vary the engine speed most satisfyingly—without however moving from the spot. Next came a series of jerks and stalls as I fiddled with the shift-lever and learned its association with the clutch-pedal; finally, by a happy combination of chance and deduction, I released my grip on the hand-brake, shifted out of neutral into low gear (not suspecting there were other ratios still), and throttled the engine sufficiently in time to keep from stalling. The jerk nearly took me off the seat; luckily my hand slipped from the throttle before I could reduce speed and stop again out of terror; but I hung on and even mustered presence enough of mind to steer away from the ditch, onto the pavement. To negotiate a straight course was more difficult than I’d imagined, owing (as I was to learn presently) to the flat front tire and the pull of the sidecar, which had been wrenched out of line by the crash. But I was exhilarated—two monsters brought to heel in as many days!—and hobbled along delightedly in low gear, with the engine roaring. Croaker skipped alongside, grinning and
grunting, and bid fair to bounce my advisor from his shoulders; he seemed as pleased as I by my achievement, and I perfected his bliss by giving him my stick to chew, since Max showed no interest in using it to direct him. We did after all move a little faster in this clumsy wise than we had before, though perhaps not enough to redeem the time lost in my self-instruction. Happily there was no traffic to deal with. More happily yet, as it turned out, we came in a quarter-hour to a crossroads, where a young man with orange hair and a satchel was.

He wore a trim gray woolen suit and a cap of raccoon-fur and did push-ups in the road; his flowered necktie, loose at the throat, folded itself upon the asphalt when he sank and unfolded when he rose. Mid-dip he paused at the sound of us, face gleaming like his hair, then stood and waved his cap as we approached. An uncommonly tall chap: his trouser-cuffs hung shy of his great yellow shoes, his sleeves of his great red hands. Now we were nearer I saw he meant us to stop, and wondered whether, despite the freckled cheer of his countenance, he mightn’t be some sort of threat. It seemed odd, too, that he showed no alarm at sight of Croaker, whom however he regarded with a look of merry amazement. There was no time for Max to advise me, even had he wished to; in any case I’d have had trouble hearing him over the engine. It was a choice between stopping, running the man down, and turning to right or left: I chose to stop. Indeed, the choice was made for me by my ignorance and indecision: I braked without either declutching or closing the throttle, and the motor stalled.

“Mercy sakes a’mighty
Pete!
” The fellow drew out his exclamation in an accent not unlike G. Herrold’s, scratching his head the while. His grin quite laid my apprehension, as did the good-natured wonder in his eyes—in his eye, rather, for though the pair were of an equal blue and glint, it was only the right that moved from me to the flat-tired cycle to Max and Croaker, while the left (if anything more wide than its companion) stared always straight ahead.

I returned his smile, addressing it to the bridge of his nose. “How do you do. Is this your motorcycle?”

He grinned farther yet. “You mean she ain’t yourn? Might of guessed, way you handled ’er.”

As there was no criticism in his tone, just frank amusement, I described the circumstances of my discovery and appropriation of the cycle. I had no mind to
keep
it, I explained: inasmuch as Mr. Maurice Stoker was an acquaintance of mine and his wife by way of being a particular friend, I was certain they’d not object to my borrowing their machine to reach Great
Mall and—the pleasant notion occurred to me as I spoke—returning it to Mrs. Stoker at the Psych Clinic when I had done registering.

“I always did hear there was big goings-on at the Powerhouse this time of year,” the tall man said. “Don’t know Mr. Stoker my own self, but I bet half what they say about him isn’t so.” I recognized that he was being agreeable. He was, now I saw him close, less young than I’d supposed: more probably forty than twenty for all his boyishness of look and manner.

“Ha,” Max said, and showed no further interest. However, the stranger seemed not to notice his incordiality.

“Hey, that’s some darky you got there! You all been to a fancy dress party?”

As the term meant nothing to me, I identified Croaker, explained how he happened to be with us, and introduced Max and myself as well.

“My gracious sakes! Proud to meet you all!” Much impressed, he thrust out his hand first to Croaker. “Greene’s my name, Mr. Croaker.”

Croaker growled. “He doesn’t speak our language,” I said.

“Is that a fact! Won’t bite, will he?”

“You don’t try to lynch him he won’t,” Max said.

“Now hold
on
!” Greene’s protest was still good-natured, though I gathered he had grounds for feeling insulted. “Just because he’s a darky don’t mean I don’t admire his football-playing. I got nothing against darkies. I grew up with darkies.”

“Congratulations.”

Greene turned to me with a chuckle. “
He’s
a peppery one, ain’t he?” Then he reached his hand up to Max. “Peter Greene, sir, and proud to meet you. I read about you in the papers a long time ago.”

“You got nothing against Moishian Student-Unionists either?” Max asked sarcastically. But he didn’t refuse the handshake, and I saw a trace of a smile in his beard for the first time that day.

Peter Greene stoutly cocked his head. “I’m ready to riot against Nikolay College anytime the Chancellor says,” he declared with dignity. “But I got nothing against any man that’s got nothing against me. Darkies or Moishians, it don’t matter.”

“A liberal,” Max said.

“Call me what you want, I’m just Pete Greene.” He winked his right eye at me. “Nobody knows better’n me how the papers twist things ever whichaway. Don’t flunk me till you get to know me, and I’ll do you the same favor.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Greene,” I said when my turn came. And
indeed I found his manner on the whole winning, though somewhat disconcerting.

“Pete,”
he insisted. “Same here, Mr. George. I never did meet a Grand Tutor before.” I wondered that there was no trace in him of the skepticism I’d learned to expect upon identifying myself; only curiosity, which I was pleased enough to satisfy.

“How come you got to matriculate like everybody else?” he wanted to know. “Now you take me, that’s just a plain poor flunker like the next: all I can do is hope the good Founder may find it in His heart to pass me when the time comes. Which He sure ain’t passed me yet, evidently, much as I thought He had.”

I explained that while I was what I was in essence, as it were, I was not yet so in act, and would not be until I had passed my own Finals—just as a chancellor’s son, in the days of hereditary office, might become the lawful ruler of his college while still in his infancy, but would not exercise his powers in fact until he came of age.

“Well, I think it’s a wonderful line of work for a fellow to take up,” Peter Greene said stoutly, as if to encourage me. “You might not believe it to see me now, but when I was a boy I was president of the Junior Enochist League. Youngest president they ever had! More than once I’ve thought I should of took up Tutoring myself, instead of business engineering. But there wasn’t the profit in it then there is now.” He grinned and winked again, this time at Max. “Going to take you all a while to reach Commencement Gate on
that!
”

I agreed that considering my skill as a driver and the condition of the vehicle it might be as well to walk—especially if the roads were busier near Great Mall—and invited him to join us. He accepted at once, declaring he abhorred above all things solitude, having spent his childhood in the College Forests; but he saw no reason to abandon the motorcycle, which it seemed to him could easily be made serviceable. With my permission he opened a leathern pouch on the rear wheel—I’d scarcely noticed it—and fished out an assortment of tools from which he chose two or three box-end wrenches and one with adjustable jaws.

“If it’s a thing I do love,” he declared, “it’s fooling with
motors
.”

I dismounted and watched him go to work on the machine. Heedless of his clothing and at home with the tools, he first unbolted the sidecar from the motorcycle proper, declaring it bent out of line past salvaging, and then availed himself of its perfectly sound wheel and tire to replace the ruined one on the front of the cycle. From the sidecar also he fetched a black canister, which he uncapped, sniffed, and poured from into
a tank above the motor. The whole operation took no more than half an hour. Then he wiped his hands—blacker than Croaker’s now with engine-grease—on a clean linen handkerchief and powdered them with dust from the roadside. His suit and shirt-front were quite soiled.

“Now, by gosh!” He adjusted the throttle and other devices, kicked the starter, and produced at once a roar from the motor more hearty by far than any I’d managed. I insisted that he drive, since he was familiar with the controls and I had no notion how to balance upon two wheels. Further, I proposed that Max ride behind him on the saddle and I on Croaker’s shoulders, inasmuch as despite my greater weight I was a less fragile burden, who safely might be trotted instead of walked.

Max grunted and mounted the cycle. “You don’t mind chauffeuring a security risk?”

Greene shook his head agreeably. “Maybe you’re a risk, sir, and maybe you’re not.” He squinted his eye. “But you ain’t a traitor to your college like they said, I know that.”

“You know already? How do you know?”

“I can tell by looking,” Greene declared, and paraphrased a saying of Enos Enoch’s:
“ ‘Tain’t the cut o’ your coat, but the cut o’ your jib.’ ”

Max scoffed. “Some eyes you got.” But he seemed not displeased. Greene replied, turning to the controls, that he had in fact but one good eye, his right, having lost the other in an accident years before—but he supposed there were
some
things he could see clearly enough. He frowned at the rear-view mirror on the handlebar.

“Speaking of eyeballs, if you and George don’t mind I’ll just take this thing off before we start …” He unscrewed it, with my consent, and pitched it into the weeds. “I got a thing about mirrors since my accident. You know? No sirree,” he went on energetically, testing the throttle and not pausing for reply or acknowledgment: “I’d know by looking if a fellow was a traitor to his college.” He turned to Max with an innocent frown. “New Tammany
is
your college, ain’t it?”

My advisor laughed aloud, and Greene joined blushing in, as did I when I saw the little joke. We started off then much more smartly than before: our new companion, an expert driver as well as a vigorous talker, held the cycle balanced and perfectly matched to Croaker’s trot, with a minimum of engine noise, at the same time remarking endlessly upon himself and the campus scene.

“Fact is, it’s still a free college,” he declared, adding though that it wouldn’t be for long if Tower Hall kept meddling with the School of Business. “And what I say, a fellow’s got a right to whichever Answer
strikes him best, I don’t care if it’s the Junior Enochist Pledge or the Student-Unionist Manifesto.” He nodded his head in forceful jerks as he talked, and blinked several times at every period. My impression was that he spoke less from conviction than from an earnest wish to be agreeable, which was at least a refreshment after Max’s attitude. “He ought to teach what he wants in the classroom too,” he went on. “But he better not force anybody to agree, by golly Jim! And if he don’t love his alma mater he should transfer out, that’s what I say! Now you take me—” He took himself with his left hand, throttling with his right. “Nothing red about old Pete but his head—”