Chapter 1
Ronald Reagan was nailed through the eyeballs, nailed through the kneecaps,
nailed through the foot bones, and nailed between his legs to the ceiling.
It wasn't the worst person to see floating above you as you lay in bed
ruminating over your day. Ruth's day had been strangely long, and full
of so many distractions that she'd all but forgotten how lousy she was
supposed to feel. Lewis's funeral now seemed months in the past, yet she
still had a bruise from where Mr. Crabb yanked her arm. "That's my
daddy's grave you standing on!" he'd said. The Crabbs blamed Ruth
for what happened, and they were right. If not for her, time would have
been switched up differently, and Lewis would not have crashed his bike.
Better had they never met. Ruth was beginning to love that quirky smile
on Ronald's face.
"Ruth!" came Noyo's voice.
It was time to go to the town board meeting.
"Silva!" went the voice.
Ruth stayed in bed, and listened to Silva's rattlesnake boots clomp
down the stairs. When Silva reached the bottom, Ruth rose and stepped through
the library on into the kitchen. She was greeted by Silva's owly face,
which seemed fresher now, relaxed and silly.
"OK!" Noyo shouted, and clapped his hands together. "Let's
go show the town board the pictures."
Outside the world looked frosty and brittle in the falling snow. Ruth
opened the gate and the van rolled through and she shut it and climbed
in, sat on Silva's lap in the passenger seat. Silva wrapped her arms around
Ruth and they looked out the window as Noyo drove along Fish House Road,
singing German war songs. Noyo sang beautifully. Ruth and Silva had their
own personal opera going on.
Soon they were driving alongside the Great Sacandaga Lake, a strong
wind whistling through the van's cracked window, a fine accompaniment to
the strange words issuing from the mouth of the Italian. The dark lake
stretched out in thousands of sharp wavelets jumping up into white nipples
spewing milky sprays.
"Get me off the beach," Silva said, cutting into Noyo's song.
"I'm sorry?"
"The draft."
"Is that a complaint?"
"Yes it's a fucking complaint."
"This is good," Noyo said. "You need to be angry when
we get to the town board meeting. You need to be angry about they want
to tear down a perfectly good eh'nudding wrong widdit house. Tell them
you have been so excited about when the house is fixed so that you can
live in it. Maybe you and Ruth can act like poor peasants that need a place
to live for them to feel sorry for you, yes? We need to work together.
You need to tell them it is your dream house."
"Houses are stupid," Silva said. "Do you think I care
about any house that was ever built?"
"Houses are not eh'stupid," Noyo said.
"That's for me to decide," Silva said. "What about that
draft, bitch?"
"I'm sorry," Noyo said. "This window does not eh'close
all the way. But look, we are here."
Noyo pulled the van into a gravel lot where trucks and cars were parked
in front of a red building that was trying to look like a barn. A large
plaque above the door read: GIVE HER A CARROT.
"Good God," Silva said.
Noyo parked. "Dick Ryder is the owner of Give Her A Carrot number
seven," he said. "Give Her A Carrot did not do very well in the
races this year from what I have learned."
"Give Her A Carrot had muscular dystrophy," Silva said.
They took the steps, went inside where the meeting was already in session.
About twenty heads turned to look at them. "Have a seat, Mr. Bojojovich,"
said the man with a waxed mustache. Noyo and Silva and Ruth sat down, the
other people in the room still shaking their heads over the rudeness.
The discussion at hand concerned the county landfill and whether or
not people should be allowed to carry things out of it when they went to
dump things in it. "There's a reason people throw away what they throw
away," said the man with the mustache. His smooth steady voice carried
with it a quality of uncompromising conviction. He sat behind a table at
the head of the room, his head the size and shape of a small watermelon.
Noyo leaned over and whispered in Ruth's ear, "That idiot is Dick
Ryder."
"It's been brought to my attention," Dick Ryder said, and
cleared his throat to lay emphasis on what he was to say next, "that
several unnamed Broadalbinites make regular trips to the landfill and sometimes
they don't bring anything to contribute to it, but as previously mentioned,
remove things, entire vanloads of items other citizens intended for permanent
disposal. There is nothing in the ordinal pertaining to this procedure,
and being it has been brought to my attention, certain complaints I should
say, about the discomfitures of having personal belongings carted off for
unknown purposes, I feel it my duty as chairman of the board to see the
matter resolved."
Noyo stood up.
"Mr. Bojojovich?" Dick Ryder said.
"I would like to know who made this complaint you are eh'talking
about."
"That's confidential, Mr. Bojojovich. I will say this, however.
I believe all persons present hold to the idea that what they throw away,
in a very poignant sense, is not to be disturbed, re-earthed, as you will.
Last week the mother of one of our oldest families told me she was on her
way to Gloversville to see her chiropractor when lo and behold, a van turned
out from an approaching street with her mother's chiffonnier strapped to
the top of it. She was appalled, and I should say, rightly so. Such items
are personal and--"
"There was eh'nudding wrong widdit!" Noyo cried out.
Laughter.
"Well, I guess now we all know who stole her mother's chiffonnier,"
Dick Ryder said.
The whole room rose up laughing.
"I did not eh'steal it," Noyo said. "Why would anybody
throw away her mother's belongings in the first place? You talk about appalled.
What do you think I was when I saw a nudding wrong widdit chest of drawers
in the garbage?"
"I bet he was happy," somebody said.
Again, the house rose up laughing.
Dick Ryder held up his hands, turning his head slightly to the side
for everybody to see his beautiful brown chops. It was a gesture that said
to all present that, Wait, let us wait, we must deal softly with this Italian,
speak to him as a child, let us do what we can to mollify him. Dick Ryder
put his hands down flat on the table and cleared his throat. "Whether
it was, as you say, nothing wrong with it, is beside the point. The issue
we are dealing with is that what our citizens throw away is not to be dragged
out of the landfill and revived for unknown purposes."
"What purposes?" Noyo said. "What else do you use a chest
of drawers for but to put things in?"
"Even pearls. If somebody throws away pearls," Dick Ryder
said, "they should be left where they lie."
"Ehhhh, I did not find any pearls," Noyo said.
"That's irrelevant!" Dick Ryder said, losing patience.
Noyo looked around at the people in their fold-out chairs.
Most of the people turned their heads away, but one person, a logger,
said, "If I caught somebody stealing my mother's chiffonnier, I think
I'd be looking for somebody."
"This is eh'crazy," Noyo said.
"You calling me crazy?" the logger said, getting out of his
seat. He wore a woodsmanly shirt, a barrel-chested tough guy, him.
"No, I did not. I said it is crazy. This is crazy. It is genocide.
You throw away good things and you want it so nobody else can have it.
What kind of eh'thinking is that?"
"If you don't like it, leave it," the tough guy said, his
fists balled.
"Fuck these dumbass people," Silva said. "Let's go."
Milton of Milton's Friendly Grocery Haven stood up and said, "I've
seen Mr. Bojojovich stealing bad cupcakes from my dumpster."
One fat woman said, "About a year ago I saw a man pedaling my daughter's
bicycle down Fish House Road. I knew where he came from. It was that hippie
farm they got."
"They pollute the creek," somebody else said.
"I have never shit in the creek!" Noyo shouted.
"Listen to him," the tough logger guy said. "He's trying
to defend it. I think the ordinance you're talking about is a fine one,
Dick. We should make an ordinance against ignorant people buying up property
here."
"Gene!" Dick Ryder shouted.
"Aww, Dick?"
"Not another word, Gene. We don't need any loose cannons here tonight.
Let's not forget what happened with Delbert. Mr. Bojojovich has been at
every one of our meetings. He deserves to be heard and his concerns acknowledged.
Everybody in favor of restricting removal of junk from the landfill, raise
their hands yay."
Most of the people in the room raised their hands. "OK," Dick
Ryder said, and slammed an antler on the table. "Ordinance number
two-seventy-two will be no junk shall be removed from the landfill without
the written approval of the party who did the initial throwing away of
whatever items that might be drawn into question."
"Eh'stupid!" Noyo said.
"I beg your pardon?" Dick Ryder said.
"Look," Noyo said. "I will not let you tear down my house
when so many other houses in Broadalbin are worse than mine. I have proof."
"Proof?"
"Pictures. I have pictures right here. Look at these houses, and
then look at mine. You cannot tear down my house until you tear down all
these others that are in eh'worse eh'shape than mine."
"Let's see the pictures," Dick Ryder said.
Noyo walked to the front of the room and set the Kodak-stack on the
table. Dick Ryder examined them, saying, "Yes, yes, yes, oh, that
one, yes, well, you've made your point. We'll give you seven days to get
it in shape. Then we'll inspect it. If it doesn't hold up under the code
we'll have the demolition crew out the following day. You must understand,
Mr. Bojojovich, that several important families have ancestors in that
graveyard and they don't like seeing such an obnoxious structure blocking
its view from the road."
"I understand," Noyo said. "I fix it up in seven days.
It will look eh'very good from the road."
Then in the van where Napoleon and Ugly were shivering, their doggy
skins racked against their doggy skeletons, Noyo started the engine and
drove through the snow-blowing air. "Idiots!" he shouted.