Chapter 42

Cal stood in the open doorway of the Community Room, watching a light rain fall on the gravel lane. It was eight-thirty at night and dark already. The dampness put an added chill in the air. Cal and Roxie were indoors, but the chill had invaded the unheated room, as well. Cal poured himself another cup of apple cider.

He almost picked up a donut to go with it but forced himself to pass at the last moment. Roxie sat on a chair next to the long table, beside handfuls of Tucker Buttons piled on sheets of Tucker Stickers that were free for the taking.

Cal ambled over to where Roxie was sitting.

“You would think with only a week to go before the election that people would want to meet the candidates and discuss the issues.”

Roxie shrugged, but didn’t say anything.

The Campaign had rented the Community Room for the evening from Appleton Orchards Trailer Park. It was the largest of the three trailer parks at the edge of town. He looked up and down the darkened lane. The rain was falling a little bit harder than it had before.

“I don’t understand it,” he said as he stood in front of her chair.

“We had a few people come in,” Roxie mumbled.

“Yes, we did,” Cal replied. “How many were there?”

“I kept track.”

She glanced down on a piece of paper in front of her.

“Well, how many?” Cal demanded.

“Not quite a dozen,” Roxie answered.

Cal felt his heart beat a count faster.

“A dozen,” he mused. “I didn’t think there were that many.”

Roxie took a deep breath.

“I said ‘not quite a dozen’, Cal.”

“Well, how many, exactly?” he asked.

“Six.”

Cal felt his heartbeat slow down again.

“Four of those were teenagers out to scarf up free cider and donuts,’ Cal lamented. “Another one was the caretaker from the trailer park office.”

“I think the other lady was interested in free cider and donuts, too,” Roxie said, “but she let you have your say to be polite.”

“She took a Tucker Button,” Cal countered, although he knew his argument was weak.

Cal thought that Roxie was about to say something, but a large woman walked into the Community Room and Roxie held back.

“About ready to wrap things up?” the large woman asked.

She was the same person who had opened up the Community Room at six that evening. Cal wondered for a moment if she counted as number seven.

“Yes,” Roxie answered for Cal, “I think it’s about time to head for home.”

She began to gather up the unopened gallon jugs of cider and several unopened boxes of donuts.

“You got a lot of cider and donuts left there,” the large woman said.

Cal nodded.

“I hope they don’t go to waste,” she went on.

Cal started looking for the cardboard box that he’d used to bring in the goodies.

“Where do you think all the people were?” Cal asked.

The woman scratched her head.

“That’s a good question,” she answered.

Cal thought she would have more to say, but she fell silent.

“Maybe it was the weather, or maybe we should have advertised it better,” Cal said.

“No, it wasn’t either of those things,” Roxie said.

She approached the rotund woman who was watching them pack up.

“You know, we’ll never drink all this cider or eat all these donuts,” she said to her.

Roxie handed her an unopened gallon of cider and a box of a dozen donuts.

“Why don’t you take these off our hands? You can save us the trouble of carrying them out to the car.”

“You see, it’s like this,” the woman said, “everyone came to the Candidate’s Night last Friday. They’ve already done it and—to be honest—cider and donuts wasn’t going to draw them out again.”

“Last Friday?” Cal asked.

“That’s right. It was the other candidate—the girl candidate,” the woman said. “She brought a bunch of college students who had a rock and roll band. The place was packed. She was even dancing with some of the high school kids.”

“Well, that explains things!’ Roxie exclaimed.

Roxie turned to the woman.

“Are you sure you wouldn’t like to have this box of donuts, too? They’re jelly-filled.”

The woman snatched the box from Roxie’s hand.

“How do you think they got the idea to have a Candidate’s Night?” Roxie asked.

The large woman took a step closer to Roxie. She swung her head backwards toward the door.

“I’m not supposed to say anything,” she said in a lowered voice.

“Who would I tell?” Roxie assured her.

The woman took a deep breath and hesitated. Roxie put her hand on one of the donut boxes the woman had stacked in her arms.

“A guy came here one day. He said Jack Ross sent him. He slipped my husband twenty bucks to keep an eye on you two and let him know what you were up to. When you reserved the Community Room for tonight, he gave the guy a call. Then they reserved it for last Friday so they could get in ahead of you.”

“Dammit, I should have known,” Cal growled. “It was that goddam Ross!”

The large woman snapped her head in Cal’s direction.

“It was Jack Ross. We thought it was okay,” she pleaded.

“And it was,” Roxie was quick to add. “Look, take these Tucker Buttons and pass them out. That will help even things out.”

Roxie poured the two dozen or so buttons into a bag that she had used to bring them in and tried to hand it to the woman.

“Just set it on the table,” the woman said. “With all this stuff to take home I’ll have to make two trips.”

Cal had the remaining cider and donuts, along with a plastic table cloth he and Roxie had brought, packed into a cardboard box and they were ready to go.

“Don’t let your donuts get wet,” he called to Roxie’s informant over his shoulder.

In another minute he and Roxie were in the Mustang turning onto the State Road.

“Jelly is my favorite,’ he complained to Roxie, “did you have to give her that one?”

“It was worth it, don’t you think?” Roxie asked.

“Of course,” Cal laughed. “I was just kidding.”

“You sounded pretty angry when she told you what Ross had done to you,’ Roxie said.

“Wouldn’t you be?” Cal asked back.

“I am angry, Cal,” Roxie said, “but you’ve got to understand—these people think that you have a lot of power and when you get mad it scares them. She and her husband are just surviving and made a quick twenty, that’s all.”

“Roxie, you just pulled my bacon out of the fire again. That whole thing would have blown up if you hadn’t been there and I would be just guessing right now.”

“I am your Manager of Moral Support,” she giggled. “Don’t forget that.”

Cal sighed and shook his head.

“It’s a real shame,” Cal said. “With the increase in voter registration in these trailer parks I was hoping we could have a big night tonight. It might have sewn things up. Probably if the rain...”

“The turnout would have been poor, even without the rock band the other night and the weather didn’t make a difference,” Roxie said. “No one’s interested in going out on a Tuesday night to stand in line for a cup of apple cider and listen to a speech.”

“I wasn’t going to make a speech,” Cal protested, “just shake hands and explain my positions...”

“A customized, personal speech for every person,” Roxie laughed.

When she was right, Cal had to admit she was right.

“I admit that you did try to tell me all of that when we first set this up,” Cal said.

He heard Roxie laughing from her passenger’s seat in the Mustang.

“I wasn’t going to bring it up, but...”

“Well, it looks like we’ve lost them,” Cal said. “We’ve got one week to get them back.”

“Cal, you worry too much,’ Roxie assured him. “Just because they show up to listen to a band doesn’t mean they’ve turned against you. They’ll come through for you on Election Day—you’ll see.”

Cal had lost track of time. It wasn’t a very long drive to Roxie’s house. He realized he was turning into her driveway.

“I hope you’re right, Roxie, but...”

He felt Roxie’s finger settle across his lips. He stopped talking.

“Why don’t you come in for a while,” she said. “You sound like you could use some TLC.”

Cal was sitting on the edge of his bed and had just hung up the phone. It was three nights after the episode of ‘Cider and Donuts Night’ at Appleton Orchards Trailer Park made him believe that the craziness of the campaign had peaked. But this phone call promised a new bout of insanity that would soar far higher than anything that had happened since the campaign had begun.

In the darkness, he set the handset on the lit phone base. Beside him the blankets stirred. He looked at the lighted digits on the clock-radio: half-past midnight.

“Who in hell was that?” Roxie mumbled.

“It was the Appleton Police Chief,” Cal answered. “He said that Patty Warren is threatening to jump off the Powell Memorial Bridge. He’s saying that she’ll only talk to me. They want me to go down there right away.”

Roxie sat up.

“Oh, for crissake, Cal. Are you going?”

“I guess that I have to. What choice have I got?”

He got up from the bed and pulled his clothes on.

“Do you want me to go with you?” Roxie asked.

“No,” Cal answered, “if she sees you it might just be the last straw to send her over the edge.”

Roxie collapsed back down on the bed.

“I don’t believe it,” Roxie muttered. “I knew that broad had a screw loose from the day I saw her.”

“I’ll fill you in when I get back,” Cal said as he tied his shoes. “Or maybe I’ll call you if they make me stick around to give a statement.”

He was dressed and started walking toward the stairs.

“It’s cold out there,” Roxie called after him, “make sure you wear something warm.”

In a few minutes Cal was driving along Main St. toward the Powell Bridge. The bridge, about three hundred feet long, was on the edge of town that spanned a gorge. It was named after a local soldier who was killed in The Great War in 1918, with a bronze plaque to prove it. Beyond it, Route 38 began its winding journey through the hills that led to the Susquehanna Valley.

“Is my life ever going to return to normal?”

It was a good question that he asked himself, with no answer anywhere in sight. In the two days since the fiasco at the Community Center Roxie and Cal worked in a near frenzy to repair the damage inflicted on his campaign.

No one could know for sure, but it looked like he’d stuck his finger in the dike just in time—and everyone was still smiling.

“At least, ‘smiling’ is what everyone sees. When this is over I’m taking Roxie on a vacation. We deserve it!”

He moved his car through the empty streets. He turned on the windshield defroster. The Time and Temperature sign on the bank said that it was thirty-seven degrees, but the sky was clear and there was little, if even a trace, of a breeze. Ahead, he saw red and blue emergency lights at the bridge.

Cal parked his car and approached the police line.

“Let him through—let him through,” he heard a voice yelling over the unintelligible radio calls coming from the police cars and fire trucks and ambulance blocking the entrance to the bridge.

It was Ben Palmer, the Appleton Police Chief. Cal knew him a little bit. Ben had once been a State Trooper and retired five years before to take the job he held. He approached Cal and reached out his hand to him.

“Thanks for coming, Cal,” he said. “She won’t talk to anyone but you.”

“Well, here I am, Ben, but I really don’t know what to say to her.”

“Just let her do the talking,” Ben said, “at least, at first and then take it from there.”

They were walking toward the entrance to the bridge that was about a hundred yards away from the police barricade. They hurried past a bevy of reporters and a remote van for the TV station.

“I told them they could cross the police line if they stayed right there in that spot,” Ben told Cal as they passed by them.

As they got closer Cal could see Patty standing at about the midway point of the span. There was a platform there where workers could access the superstructure or climb below to the supporting members to make inspections or repairs. Patty was standing on it.