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She smiled. “I learned your father was quite the hot-rodder before he married your mother—sorry for your loss, by the way.”
“Thanks.” Although in that summer of 2021, my mother had been gone five years.
“Your dad rolled some old farmer’s Dodge and lost his license for a year, did you know that?”
I hadn’t, and told her so.
“I found out Dave LaVerdiere liked the bars in Lewiston, and had a crush on a local singer who called herself Little Jonna Jaye. I found out he bolted the Republican Party after the Watergate thing, but your father never did.”
“No, Pop will vote Republican until the day he dies. But…” I leaned forward. “Still off the record?”
“Totally!” Smiling, but her eyes were bright with curiosity.
I lowered my voice to a near whisper. “He didn’t vote for Trump the second time. Couldn’t bring himself to vote for Biden, but he had a bellyful of the Donald. I expect you to take that to your grave.”
“I swear. I found out that Dave won the annual town fair pie-eating contest from 1960 to 1966, when he retired from competition. I learned that your father sat on the ducking stool at Old Home Days until 1972. There are amusing pictures of him in one of those old-fashioned bathing suits and a derby hat… waterproof, I assume.”
“I was totally embarrassed,” I said. “Such a ribbing I took at school.”
“I learned that when Dave went west, he packed everything he felt he needed into the saddlebags of his Harley-Davidson motorcycle and just took off. Your father and mother sold everything else he owned at a yard sale and sent him the money. Your dad also sold his house for him.”
“At a pretty nice profit,” I said. “Which was good. By then Uncle Butch was painting full-time, and he used that money until he started selling his work.”
“And by then your father was writing full-time.”
“Yes, and still ran the dump. Did until he sold it back to the town in the early nineties. That’s when it became a landfill.”
“He also bought Peewee’s Car Mart and sold that. Gave the proceeds to the town.”
“Seriously? He never told me.” Although I was sure my mom knew.
“He did, and why not? He didn’t need the money, did he? By then writing was his job and all the town stuff was just a hobby.”
“Good works,” I said, “are never a hobby.”
“Your father taught you that?”
“My mother.”
“What did she think of the sudden change in your fortunes? Not to mention your Uncle Butch’s change in his?”
I considered her question while Suzie brought our muffins and coffee. Then I said, “I don’t really want to go there, Ms. Crawford.”
“Call me Ruth.”
“Ruth, then… but I still don’t want to go there.”
She buttered her muffin. She was looking at me with a kind of sharp-eyed bewilderment—I don’t know what else to call it—that made me uncomfortable.
“With what I’ve got I can write a good piece and sell it to Yankee magazine,” she said. “Ten thousand words, full of local color and amusing anecdotes. All the Maine shit people like, lots of ayuh and I sh’d smile and kiss a pig. I’ve got pictures of Dave LaVerdiere’s dump murals. I’ve got pictures of your father—the famous author—wearing a 1920s-style bathing suit while townies try to dump him into a tank of water.”
“Two bucks for three throws at the big Ducking Lever. All profits to various town charities. They cheered every time he went kersplash.”
“I have photos of them serving chicken dinners to tourists and summer people, the two of them wearing aprons and joke toques that said YOU MAY KISS THE COOK.”
“Plenty of women did.”
“I’ve got fishing stories, hunting stories, good deeds done—like getting in the hay for the man who had the heart attack. I’ve got the story of Laird joyriding and losing his license. I’ve got all of that, and I’ve got nothing. Which is to say nothing of real substance. People love to tell stories about them—I knew Laird Carmody when, I knew Butchie LaVerdiere when, but none of them explain what they became. Do you see what I’m getting at?”
