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“No.”
But that wasn’t the right question. It left a loophole.
“Will I be killed?”
The big stopwatch reached zero and went off with a BRRRANG sound. The Answer Man silenced it.
“You asked that question just before the alarm, so I’ll answer. No, Just Phil, you will not be killed.”
Phil sat back in his chair and let out a breath. “I don’t know how you did that, sir, but it was very intense. I have to believe it was a shuck and jive, you must have known I was coming, got some background, but you certainly earned your twenty-five smacks.”
The Answer Man only smiled.
“But I didn’t know exactly where I was going or what road I was going to take… so how could you?”
No reply. Of course not. His five minutes were up.
“You know what? I feel… weird. Swimmy.”
The world seemed to be going away. The Answer Man was still sitting at his table, but he appeared to be withdrawing. As if on rails. Grayness began to encroach on Phil’s field of vision. He raised his hands to his eyes to clear them, and gray became black.
When Phil came to, he was behind the wheel of his Chevrolet, parked on the shoulder of Route 111. His watch said it was 1:20. I passed out. First time in my life, but don’t they say there’s a first time for everything?
Passed out, yes. Pulled over first, thank God, and turned off the engine. Probably from hunger. He’d had six bottles of beer on Friday night, and he supposed there were calories and at least some nourishment in beer, but he hadn’t had much to eat yesterday or today, so it made a degree of sense. But when you passed out—as opposed to being asleep—did you have dreams? Because he’d had a doozy. He could remember every detail: the scalloped red umbrella, the big stopwatch (or maybe you called that sort of thing a stopclock), the Answer Man’s salt-and-pepper hair. He could remember every question and every answer.
It was no dream.
“Yes,” he said aloud. “Yes it was. Had to be. He knew Mother’s maiden name and where Father was born in the dream because I knew those things.”
He got out of his car and walked slowly to where the Answer Man had been. The table was gone, the chairs were gone, but he could see marks in the soft earth where they had been. The grayness started to come back and he slapped himself hard, first on one cheek and then on the other. Then he kicked at the dirt until the marks were gone.
“This never happened,” he told the empty road and the blazing trees. He said it again: “This never happened.”
He got back behind the wheel, started his engine, and pulled onto the highway. He decided he wouldn’t tell Sally Ann about passing out; it would worry her, and she would probably insist that he see a doctor. It was just hunger, that was all. Hunger and the most vivid dream he’d ever had. Two hamburgs, a Coca-Cola, and a piece of apple pie would put him right, and he was pretty sure there was a greasy spoon in Ossipee, not five miles down the road.
One good thing had come from his odd roadside fugue. No, actually two things. He would tell her he meant to hang out his shingle in the little town of Curry. Would she still give him her hand in marriage?
Parents be damned.
Phil Parker and Sally Ann Allburton were married in Boston’s Old South Church on April 29th, 1938. Ted Allburton walked his daughter down the aisle. This walk, which he had at first refused to make, was a result of his wife’s diplomacy and his daughter’s gentle supplications. Once he was able to think about Sal’s impending nuptials calmly, Mr. Allburton realized there was another reason to make that short walk: business. John Parker was a senior partner in the firm. Ted heartily disapproved of Phil’s decision to throw away a bright future in a hick farming community, but there was the firm to think of. In the years ahead there must be no friction between the partners. So he did his duty, but he did it with a set, unsmiling face. As he watched the ceremony, two old sayings came to Ted Allburton’s mind.
Youth must be served was one.
Marry in haste, repent at leisure was the other.
There was no honeymoon. Phil’s parents had reluctantly opened his trust fund, thirty thousand dollars, and he was anxious not to waste it. A week after the ceremony, he opened the little office next to the Sunoco station. The sign on the door—painted by his new bride—read PHILIP Y. PARKER, ATTORNEY AT LAW. On his desk was a telephone and an appointment book full of blank pages. They did not stay blank for long. On the very afternoon he opened for business, a farmer named Regis Toomey walked in. He was wearing bib overalls and a straw hat. He was everything Phil’s father had predicted. Toomey offered to take off his muddy boots and Phil told him not to bother.
“I’m thinking you came by that mud honorably. Sit down and tell me why you’re here.”
Toomey sat. He took off his straw hat and placed it on his lap. “How much do you charge?” It came out Yankee: Chaaage.
“Fifty per cent of what I get for you. If I get nothing, twenty-five dollars.” He hadn’t forgotten the Answer Man’s little sign, and he, Phil, hoped to have answers for all sorts of people. Starting with this man.
“Sounds fair,” said Toomey. “Here’s what. The bank wants to foreclose me and auction off the farm.” Faaam. “But I’ve got a paper…” He brought it out of the front pocket of his biballs and passed it across the desk. “… says I’ve got ninety days’ grace. Bank fella says that’s null and void if I didn’t make the last payment.”
“Did you?”
“All but ten dollars. The wife went groceryin’, don’tcha see, and that left me short.”
