On a snowy Saturday morning a week later, Millie watched as a Volvo which had seen better days parked in one of the six spaces in front of the diner. Her twelve customers watched too. They squirmed uncomfortably when they got a good look at him. In dress trousers and shirt, with a crooked tie and horn rims he looked like the Jehovah’s Witnesses who turned up occasionally in search of lost souls. Abenaki didn’t have a great deal of souls, period. The ones there were were generally sensible Scotch-Irish Protestants or French Canadian Catholics, and the Rosenbergs, who were Jewish and both Dartmouth professors. Talk of religion tended to make patrons at the Abenaki Diner stare into their coffee and shake open their newspapers. The diner remained an island of polite conversation, meaning your wife and kids, the weather and Those Red Sox.
As it turned out they needn’t have worried. Once he got close enough they could see that he wore a blue and red Callahan button. The door-to-door missionaries didn’t care much for Callahan. The young man who probably was not a Jehovah’s Witness but was definitely a Democrat was Patrick Hart, and it would have amused him if he’d known what he’d been mistaken for. Patrick had been born and bred in Berkeley, which said enough to most New Englanders, and was fresh from NYU with a degree in Political Science in his suitcase, and the suspicion that it was probably useless rattling around in his head. Hart liked to think he was somebody with convictions, and though, like most people, he could only name one or two things he was really sure of, one of them was always that you should never Waste Your Abilities.
It was something his grandfather had expounded upon every time they went to Ohio for Christmas. Jack and Suzanne Hart were Wasting Their Abilities raising their children out there among potheads and vegetarians. They ought to come back here, his grandfather said, to Cleveland, get "real jobs"- the Harts were both teachers- buy a proper house, start feeding their kids Wonder Bread, get Patrick signed up for the football team... the list went on. Jack and Suzanne had gone right on Wasting Their Abilities in California, but something about those words about wasting your abilities had lodged deep in Patrick's brain, never to be entirely forgotten.
So, he thought, slamming the door of the car harder than was necessary, instead of wasting my abilities in New York or California, I had to sign on with Callahan and get sent here. I'm not wasting my abilities, but I'm certainly not getting paid much for them either. It was horribly cold, worse than New York ever was. He wished he had a real coat. But mostly he thought about how badly he needed a cigarette. It had been two weeks and four days since he'd quit, but there were three dusty Camels in the glove box. Patrick shoved several pieces of Niccorette in his mouth instead, made a conscious effort to look purposeful, and strode towards the Abenaki Diner.
The twelve patrons of the Abenaki diner swiveled in their chairs and craned their necks over the booths to get a better look at Patrick. Patrick found sixteen pairs of eyes - the twelve customers, Millie, Janet, Beth the weekend waitress and Ryan- gazing at him in semi-polite curiosity, as though waiting for him to explain himself. He Janet finally took pity on the poor kid badly in need of a shave and a decent coat, and said, "Looking for someone, honey?" Patrick came from the America were waitresses don't call people "honey" anymore, and it took him several seconds to realize that she was talking to him.
"I'm looking for the Callahan headquarters, please," he said.
"That's it," Janet said, nodding towards the farthest booth.
By now, a fortyish man with a profusion of graying red hair and a look about the eyes which suggested that he hadn't slept properly in several days had spotted Patrick and had begun to walk towards him
"Lou Ahern, I’m managing this branch of the campaign. Welcome aboard,” he said, shaking Patrick's hand and dragging him toward the booth.
‘This is Anna Goss,” He pointed to a smartly dressed woman of about fifty. “She runs the New Hampshire campaign, and these three,” he gestured, “are our local volunteers. This is Hank Atkinson,” Hank wore a flannel hunting jacket and a knit cap pulled down over his ears, though it was easily eighty degrees in the diner, “Helen Duchamp,” somebody’s grandmother, with a cup of Lipton’s pressed between her beringed hands, “and Danny McAllister,” Danny was easily a head taller than anyone else in the diner, and wore a T-shirt emblazoned with “Motorcycle Weekend, 1992”, under a Day-glo orange vest.
“Pay attention,” Lou was saying, as Patrick absorbed all of this. “These people have been doing this since before you were born. Maybe before your parents were born. How old are you anyway, twelve?”
Patrick tried to give him a “don’t-mess-with-me, pal” look, but only succeeded in looking like he was trying to see something very far away.
Lou frowned at him bemusedly. “I think maybe you need some breakfast. I’ll be back.”
Millie and Janet watched from behind the counter, coffee pots resting on their aproned hips, thoroughly amused. Ryan sat nearby, zooming his Hotwheels across the countertop, leaving sticky tire tracks of syrup. He liked Saturdays. He and Janet were both early risers, unlike the rest of the family, and on Saturday mornings his grandmother would pick him up and he would go with her to open the diner. Ryan’s job was to fill the napkin dispensers and to flip the “Closed” sign over to the “Open” side. He always had the silver dollar pancakes, with which Janet always made him drink milk, but Millie sometimes gave him a root beer too. It was a nice feeling to sit in the diner drinking root beer at seven in the morning, washing down a platter of pancakes, and watching as the town woke up.
This Saturday was an especially fine one, because it was a Saturday in Primary season. There was a rally at the grange hall tonight, which usually meant free stuff. He still had two Frisbees, a coffee mug, a water bottle and an assortment of T-shirts and bumper stickers left from the last election. He had only been four years old, but remembered clearly a great deal of free lollipops and chocolate chip cookies. Ryan was an independent. He helped himself to all the paraphernalia he wanted, and in return stood beside the candidates, Democrat and Republican alike, and smiled for the cameras. He felt it was the least he could do.
Lou Ahern had Beth bring another round of coffee and a large stack of toast to the Callahan volunteers. He himself waved Janet over to the counter.
“How long to you give him?” he said, nodding towards the booth.
Janet regarded Patrick thoughtfully.
“Three weeks.”
“I give him two.”
“Twenty buck says he lasts three,” Janet said, competition edging into her voice.
“You’re on- Millie, d’you want in on this?”
Millie thought a minute, studied Patrick for a good thirty seconds and then took a twenty from the till and slapped it on the counter with reckless finality that was unlike her.
“And when do you give him ‘til?” Lou wanted to know, noting down the bets down on a napkin.
“March 11th.”
“That’s the primary. Millie, are you out of your mind? You can tell to look at him he won’t last that long.”
“Well, I say he will.” Millie said firmly.
“It’s your money. Young Mr. McAllister,” He turned to Ryan, “We’ll make you our bookie. We need you to hold the money for us, and this too,” he handed him the napkin. Janet found a coffee can, and the four of them shook hands solemnly. Ryan placed the sixty dollars and the napkin reverentially in the can and went off to hide it in the back of the diner.
Earlier on this same morning Ana Murillo woke to find the town of Durham, and her car, buried in eight inches of snow. She groaned miserably. If she had her way she would have slept in until eleven and dealt with the snow once the sun had had time to deal with the worst of it. There was no time for that this morning. She was supposed to be in Abenaki at nine-thirty, and the alarm clock said seven-ten. She tugged on jeans over her flannel pajama bottoms, and rag wool socks, a Wildcats sweatshirt, boots, a ski parka, hat and gloves. She clomped down the stairs, grabbed a shovel and set to work.
It was eight-fifteen before the driveway was cleared and her car dug out. One of Ana’s two roommates, Jessie, arrived back from cross country skiing, annoyingly perky and impossibly athletic as usual.
“I’ve got my cardio up for the day,” she chirped, “I did nine miles. The snow is fantastic.”
“Yeah, fantastic.” Ana muttered as Jessie, gratingly blonde and pink-cheeked, bounced off.
It was almost too cold for snow: channel nine declared highs of three degrees. Ana showered, dressed and swallowed a cup of coffee by way of breakfast. Her damp hair was frozen into crunchy strands by the time she reached the car, and she sat in the driveway for several minutes waiting for the engine to warm up. Ana suspected that this was the last winter the little Civic would survive. When at last she pulled out she fell into procession right behind the snowplow, plodding stoically along at five miles an hour.
She grasped the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white.
“Damn you!” Ana yelled at the snowplow, as it filled her fender with sand. She flipped on the radio and tried to do the Zen breathing exercises Jessie had made everyone do during finals last year. It wasn’t working.
2006-08-23
04:00:45
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