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Stone Lake: part 27

June 17, 2016 at 9:49PM

A Star Tribune serialized novel by Richard Horberg

Chapter 9 continues

The story so far: The students' satirical paper makes waves.

Allen shook his head convincingly. "Nothing. Nothing at all. That is, very little. I really like the town. I really like the school." He was about to say that he really liked the superintendent too, but thought better of it. "I really like the way the school is run," he said.

"So why not have your students say something nice about it?"

"Oh, you know students. They'd groan at such an assignment. They'd write boring papers. Anybody who said anything nice, they'd make fun of him."

Magnuson stroked his chin. "You said that there's very little wrong with the town and school. Tell me one thing."

Allen hesitated. "The students think there should be more dances. I do too. It's a good way for them to mix — and learn to socialize."

Glancing at it once more, the superintendent put his copy of "Cell-Mates" back in his desk drawer. "Maybe you're right," he said. "I'll bring it up before the school board next time we meet. See what they say."

Allen stood up.

"I'm glad we had this little talk," Magnuson said. "Truthfully, I wasn't sure whether I should call you in or not. But you've filled in some blanks for me. As you know, I hired you to put some life into the English classes. I think you're doing it."

Allen left the office feeling good. One thing he liked about the superintendent was his honesty. And perhaps the school board wasn't so bad either.

In the hall he was pleased to see several students busy reading "Cell-Mates," all of them smiling.

***

One cold Saturday night, when Allen was heading home from his walk, snow falling everywhere, he saw a car coming up the street erratically. As he watched, the car approached the curb, stopped, jerked forward a little bit, then parked crookedly, its front wheels in a snowbank. A moment later the door opened and a woman staggered out. She nearly slipped on the street. Then she went around the front of the car — and abruptly fell face down in the snow.

Allen hurried forward. He bent over the woman, surprised to discover that it was Pauline Lund, the girl's phy ed teacher. Struggling to get up, she reeked of alcohol. He took her arm, reaching over to get a shoe that had fallen in the snow.

"I'm Allen Post, Pauline. Your fellow teacher. I'll help you."

She gazed at him drunkenly. "Oh, Allen. Thank you. I'm all right." She slurred her words. "I'm so glad it's you. Just help me to the door, would you. Please."

He half supported her, half dragged her to the front porch of a small house. At the door she pleaded with him not to tell anybody that he'd found her this way. "I need this job," she said. "Please." Her legs went out from under her again and he had to pull her up. "Please don't say anything."

"Not a word," he said. "I promise." He looked down the street and saw that all of the houses were dark. Ten o'clock Saturday night — and the town was dead.

Pauline managed to open the door. "Thank you," she said. "You know I love my job, don't you, Allen? You know I love my kids, don't you? I really do."

At that moment a light in the hall came on and a young girl, perhaps 15, wearing a bathrobe, appeared. Allen was surprised. Clearly, she was Pauline's daughter. "There's a lot of snow outside," he said to the girl, embarrassed for her. "I just helped your mother up the steps."

The girl took her arm and gave him a hopeless look.

Allen headed home. He had no idea that Pauline Lund had a daughter. Then he reminded himself that there were probably lots of other things about the town he didn't know.

***

One day at the post office Allen received a package from his father. Wrapped in butcher's paper, boldly addressed, it contained several of his father's pen-and-ink cartoons. With it was a note, asking Allen to do the lettering and add a little wash to the drawings. Most of his life his father had done black and white, but he'd begun to think that a little gray wash helped the cartoons. Unfamiliar with the medium, he asked Allen, who had learned the technique at an art class, to do it for him. It was hardly a difficult task. Since his father had added at the end of the note that Allen might want to show the cartoons to some of his friends and fellow teachers, he knew that what his father really wanted was a little recognition, a little audience.

All of the cartoons featured a figure called The Champ, an aging athlete with an enormous chest, narrow hips and skinny legs, sometimes dressed as a football player, sometimes as a boxer. Allen found the cartoons (as he found all of his father's cartoons) not very funny but well drawn.

Allen dutifully lettered in the captions and applied the wash, mixing India ink with water. But who could he show the cartoons to? Nobody in the town, he thought, would have the slightest interest. If the town had its own newspaper, he could have showed them to the editor. But the only newspaper, called "The Nine Towns," was printed in Mellon, 50 miles away.

Then he thought of Don Worthington, the football and basketball coach. Why not show them to him? So he took the cartoons to school and during his free hour went down to the gym, to Worthington's office. Boys were shooting baskets, the sound of balls hitting the floor and backboards constant. A janitor was mopping up in one corner. Apologetically, he tapped on Worthington's open door, where the coach sat at his desk reading what looked like a detective novel. A shelf behind him contained several trophies — basketball, golf, bowling — and on the wall was a picture of Bronko Nagurski. Around Don's neck hung a whistle. As soon as he saw Allen, he tossed the book aside and, with a great smile, invited him to sit down.

To Allen's surprise, Don found the cartoons very funny, laughing out loud as he went from one to another. Whether the laughter was polite or genuine, Allen didn't know. He suspected the former.

"Your dad's got a lot of talent," he said. "He publish any of these?"

"He's trying. He published a little when he was young."

"What's he do now?"

Allen confessed that his father was a butcher — the same confession he'd often had to make a schoolchild, always embarrassed.

Tomorrow: Chapter 9 continues.