103 Eclipse
NOTE: If you haven’t been following this from the beginning, and if you want to know the full sequence of events, start with the introduction. Click on Archives on the right.
It is a stretch, but Daisy finds me on my way out of the Safeway. She is talking to someone behind the office window. I did not notice her as I passed close by, to avoid a shopping cart loaded with two children and a huge watermelon. Without looking up, she puts out an arm strewn with bracelets, and pulls on my shirt-sleeve. I wait for her between the video rental machine and a kiosk for renting carpet-cleaning equipment. Looking over at the newspapers displayed on their wire racks, headlines say that Armond Macadamia has called the president a Nazi and the President has called Armond Macadamia a Terrorist and Xi Jinping has called them both dangers to world peace and stability. The kids in the shopping cart are now calling for their mother’s attention near the sandwich counter.
Daisy steps away from the office.
“I have lost my password for the ATM.”
“Ouch! Were they any help?”
“Not really, I was hoping someone might have found my yellow sticky.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, it was in my hat band with the password written on it.”
She puts her bowler back on, having taken it off to talk to the office person.
“You didn’t write what it was for as well did you?”
“Well, sort of…”
“Sort of what?”
“It had ‘Amy’ on it.”
“The woman’s name, you mean?”
“Right, I call the ATM Amy…It’s a long story…”
“It’s not a dead give-away, at least.”
“It is probably swept up by now.”
“Yes, if you lost it here.”
“I may have lost it at the Guild’s Board meeting last night.”
“You would have noticed. You always have something in your hat band.”
“Things got pretty heated, and I dropped it on the way out.”
“How horrible!”
“I couldn’t wait to get out of there.”
“I noticed you had nothing in the band last month when we were in the Pie Shop with Lou.”
We are walking out of the building. Daisy is draped in a loose pink silky garment with countless folds cascading down her torso. A breeze fills it out for a moment as we go through the exit.
“I know … a shopping list … Threw it away when I had bought everything.”
Steve Strether and Diddlie are in animated conversation outside in the heat of the parking lot. I can hear Diddlie from a distance.
“It’s a palace Coup!”
We get close enough to join them. Steve is patiently stroking his beard and letting Diddlie talk on and on, so fast she is breathlessly dropping syllables on top of each other.
“How c’d-they-d’this? How c’d-they-take-our-Guil-dover?”
“They were the ones elected back in the spring, you know, at our neighborhood meeting.”
“By whom Steve? I didn’t vote for any of them.”
“I voted by proxy.”
“Who did you give it to Fred?”
“You, Diddlie.”
“You did not. I didn’t have it.”
“Well, I put it in your mail box a few days before the election because
I couldn’t make it to the neighborhood meeting.”
“My mailbox?”
“Right, in the evening after the mail was delivered, otherwise the mailman will throw it out.”
“Oh great, the evening we had five inches of rain in about five minutes and my box and carport got washed out!”
“Yes, it did rain that night.”
“So Fred, we have you to thank for this mess!”
“Diddlie, my one lost vote did not determine the elections.”
“Every vote counts Fred.”
“How is Mr. Liddel? I mean his hutch is in the carport.”
“I had him in the living room. He’s scared of lightning so we had the curtains drawn.”
Steve pushes his goldrimmed glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and starts easing toward the shade of the Safeway entrance.
“I still don’t think the election was sufficiently publicized.”
Diddlie hugs her soft pink leather purse, fingering the gold clasp.
“Oh, they kept it in the dark, for sure Steve!”
“Did they have a quorum?”
“A quorum was announced, Fred.”
“Well, right! We should have demanded to see the figures Daisy!”
“We didn’t get very far with our questions about turnout.”
Steve is now a step away from us, be beckoning towards the shade.
“This is what we get for lack of interest.”
We all move under the entrance and stand away from the swinging doors.
“Right again, there was only one person running for each office.”
“A lot of new people have moved in too.”
“I know Steve, the ones in those obscene new McMansions don’t have time for us, and we are their neighbors!”
“Diddlie, who is on the board now anyway?”
Diddlie opens the clasp on top of her purse and works her fingers among its contents, pulling up bits of paper and pushing them back down again. Her voice softens and she seems to be talking into its light brown jaws.
“Ah … I know Rank Majors left because he can’t stand Dick East or Joel McAllister.”
She pulls out a sheet of paper folded in half, and shakes it open to read in a single gesture.
“Here you are, got this as an email attachment; Albrecht Intaglio, President, Boyd Nightingale, Vice Pres. Dick East, Treasurer, and Westwood, ‘Westie’ North is Secretary”
“What about Joel McAllistair?”
“Ah Steve … Oh, he is representative for West Wicket Street.”
“And the other streets?”
“Daisy, there’s no one listed.”
“Where are the women?”
Diddlie waves the sheet of paper in the air.
“No one came forward! Can you believe it Daisy?”
She waves the paper so hard it tears. Steve puts his hand on Diddlie’s arm to calm her.
“No wait a minute … Marshall Rundstedt … he’s a representative too.”
Diddlie scans the paper again.
“He’s not on here!’
“Well, I remember he was there as a Rep.”
“I know Daisy, see! That jerk, Dick East can’t keep track.”
“This needs to be fixed!”
“It sure does Steve.”
“Those are not official minutes though, Diddlie.”
“That’s right, they’ll have to be approved at the next meeting.”
“Wait a minute Steve, Marshall doesn’t live in Fauxmont. He lives outside our system. They are on city water, not ours.”
“I know Fred, but he owns a couple of rental properties.”
“Oh, does he?”
“He bought one about 2014 on Wicket and another on Bails Lane, just last year.”
“How do you know all this Diddlie?”
“Because Fred, I keep track of that stuff for News Letter distribution.”
“Oh I forgot about that.”
“Don’t you read it?”
“I don’t get it. Haven’t seen one for a year or more.”
“Fred, maybe you are down for online distribution.”
“I can check when I get home Daisy, and I’ll get back to you Fred.”
“You know who else is missing from that list?”
“Ah … no, who?
“That militia guy, kind of a shadowy figure, ah … what’s his name?”
“Oh right, Kemp Rombout.”
“That’s it Daisy, I think he was sergeant of the Night Watch over on the Van Rijn Estate, now he’s in the Fauxmont Militia.”
“Well, he doesn’t live here Steve!”
“He’s around though, I remember that SOB for kicking me out of the area when there was talk of a severed limb down in the gully.”
“Sorry Fred, he’s renting one of Marshall’s places.”
“Yeah, he came with his AR15 automatic rifle.”
“Daisy, you are well up on your weaponry!”
“I know Fred, I asked him what it was.”
“Why did he bring that to the Guild meeting?”
“Same reason Joel McAllistair brought his old 38 revolver and Albrecht had his automatic.”
“What do you mean Steve? There is no reason!”
Daisy puts an arm around Diddlie’s shoulders.
“They are afraid, Diddlie!”
“Afraid? Afraid, here in Fauxmont? Afraid of what?”
Daisy drops her arm, and grabs Diddlie’s hands in hers.
“Afraid of themselves of course. Bel, explained it to me years ago, they are scared shitless!”
“Well, they better shoot each other then!”
“No-no-no. It’s their sacred delusions.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Darkness.”
“What?”
“Their own inner darkness.”
“Daisy, I know you are an artist and all that, but sometimes you get so deep, I think you have drowned!”
Diddlie breaks loose of Daisy’s hands.
“Well anyway, I think we need to be nice to them.”
“Okay Daisy, I know you and Boyd had a thing…”
“We did.”
“So don’t you see? You can’t baby them out of it!”
“That is not what I am saying. I mean we must treat fearful people carefully.”
“Well I treat them for what they are. Stupid immature men, like little boys playing with danger.”
“Diddlie, we need to talk some other time.”
“So, what do you want to tell me?”
“I’ll tell you this. Joel showed me the empty chambers in his revolver!”
Diddlie looks at the ground with a sigh.
“Daisy, I never realized you had such an interest.”
“Fred, she is just trying to keep the peace with… with … those JERKS!”
Steve steps forward to get my attention.
“Fred, they are protecting the meeting.”
“Steve, we don’t need their protection thank you!”
Diddlie shoulders her purse, steps towards Steve, and grabs his wrist and shakes it, while looking up into his face.
“Steve, will you stop making excuses?”
“I wasn’t entirely serious Did.”
She releases his wrist.
“Well okay, but this is serious business.”
Daisy is twirling a length from the curtain of her black hair.
“I can’t imagine Hank Dumpty, who has been on for 20 years, living with that.”
“No Daisy, I remember when he left, after bel Vionet lost the last election to Albrecht.”
“Yup, and Lou wanted to take a break too, as he has been serving on and off in various capacities for about as long.”
“How long have you served Fred?”
“The only thing I have done is serve on a nominating committee.”
Diddlie has folded her paper up and put it back in her purse.
“Fred, that was years ago!”
Daisy is pointing over to the Lighthouse Gas Station.
“Look! Is that Jake’s Hummer?”
They are lifting the old wooden oil derrick onto a flatbed truck with a telescoping yellow crane.
“See the plate number, 2 SnaZ. It is parked by that stack of old tires.”
“Yes but, I don’t see him anywhere.”
“Steve, I’ve got things to do!”
Diddlie walks away and goes quickly into the Safeway.
“I have to go too.”
Daisy walks over towards the gas station. The sun has gone behind a small cloud. There are a few drops of rain in the air as Steve and I head across the parking lot for home.
“Seems darker than it should be from a cloud that size.”
“Must be the eclipse, Fred.”
Steve is tapping his phone.
“Right on time, it is 2:42PM!”
