The Man Whose Teeth Were All Exactly Alike Read online

  But as he drove he became more and more disturbed. That’s a dreadful thing to happen to a man, he thought. Losing his license and having to be ferried around by his wife, like a cripple. I didn’t know the buggers did that; I thought they only fined drunk drivers.

  That’s a hardship case, he thought. A man who commutes. They must be a bunch of sadists up there in Sacramento. What’s the matter with them? Practically Nazis, he thought. The guy’s living depends on it. His home. His family.

  It’s really lousy, he thought. A dirty lousy stunt, with no concern for a human being and his needs. So the guy steps out of line once—so what? Is it so terrible? Did he hurt anybody? Hell, he thought. All the guy did was get his ass-end down in a ditch; he got his paint job scratched up, and he made a damn fool of himself. Maybe I ought to phone or write somebody in Sacramento, he thought. See what I can do. Put on a little pressure; get a fire lit.

  But what do I owe Walt Dombrosio? he asked himself. A guy who wouldn’t think twice before spitting in my eye. Did he buy that house of his through me? No, he went to that old worn out rustic Thomas. He started right out by costing me money; by now he must have cost me close to three thousand dollars directly, and no telling how much indirectly by turning people against me. People in the city who might want to move out here—after all, he’s in the city all day. And now that handicraft wife of his is in the city all day, too, with nothing to do. They can spread all kinds of bad advertising for Runcible Realty.

  It doesn’t pay to have people down on you, he thought. And yet, that’s the price for speaking out. By being blunt, being honest, I run up against the crumbs of the world. The bleeding hearts like Walt Dombrosio who have the starry-eyed idealism to invite a colored boy to their house but don’t have to foot the bill.

  When he got home, and had parked the car, he hurried up the stairs and into the living room. He found Janet in the bedroom watching TV with Jerome.

  “Come here a minute,” he said to her, leading her from the bedroom. “Did you know Walt Dombrosio lost his license because of that drunk driving charge?”

  His wife hesitated. She had been sober now for several days; she had once again decided to go on the wagon. Her face, pinched and colorless, began to wrinkle with unease. “Well, yes,” she said at last. “I heard that some time ago.”

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” he demanded.

  “You—said you didn’t want to hear town gossip.” She faced him with defiance. “And I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Why should it worry me?” he said. “I’m not worried about Walt Dombrosio. So they haven’t spoken to us for two months; what do we lose? Are we any worse off? I wouldn’t be speaking to them anyhow—I had my say on the phone that night.”

  Janet said, “When you made that call did you know that they took people’s licenses away for drunk driving? There’s been a lot about it on the radio. Some judges claim it isn’t legal.” She followed him as he went to a closet with his coat. “It’s part of a state-wide safety program. The Governor is behind it.”

  “I wonder if I ought to call Dombrosio,” Runcible said.

  “Why?” she said, at once alert.

  “Tell him I’m sorry.”

  With great firmness, as if she had thought it all out long ago, Janet said, “Then he would know it was you.”

  “No,” Runcible said. “I’d just say I heard, and how sorry I was. It is a lousy deal, a man who commutes. Being driven everywhere by his wife. And that gal’s a harpy. A real pusher. I wouldn’t want to be in a position to have her put me down.”

  “Don’t call him,” Janet said. “Please don’t. I have never told anyone that it was you who called the police that night.”

  “Are you sure?” He himself could not believe; he did not trust her. Perhaps she imagined that she had not told anyone. Possibly she did not intend—had not intended—to tell anybody. But when she had been drinking her tongue wagged, and he knew that sometimes in the afternoon she had a few drinks with the other wives in the area, at their homes, at his home, or down at one of the two Carquinez bars.

  “If he knew it was you,” Janet said, “he probably would have let you know by now.”

  But he was not listening to her. Restless and ill-at-ease, he wandered about the house. “What are they saying?” he said. “What’s the general opinion about Dombrosio?”

  “You mean,” Janet said, “do they think he was treated fairly?”

  “I mean, are they sympathetic towards him? My god, he might have run down one of our children—they have no children of their own, the Dombrosios. What do they care? That’s another thing about them; they have no children so they have no interest in the school problems, the bonds and the tax rates. A lot of people around here are indignant about those foreign cars anyhow. He takes it into San Francisco for service; he doesn’t go to the local garage because it’s a foreign car. And he probably doesn’t buy his gas here either. Do they shop at the Carquinez Grocery, or do they shop in the city?”

  By now he had gone so far away from Janet that he could not hear her answer.

  At the living room window he looked down at the lights of Donkey Hall, the parked cars. The activity. Their idea of civic improvement, he thought. Judging kids’ costumes on Halloween to keep them out of mischief. What would I do? he asked himself. All his proposals were known; in the old days, when he had first moved to Carquinez, he had published them in the News and he had paid to have them circulated in the form of petitions. Two or three new classrooms to the grammar school—the classes were growing larger each year. Even a new building with an auditorium and a hot lunch program. A nursery school. More street lights. The town library open more than four hours a week, and more magazines then the National Geographic. A better road into town; that would have to be taken up with both the county and the state. A higher tax rate would have to come about, to support all this, and he wanted that, too. And the bank would have to lend more.

  But the main thing: better water and cheaper power. Unless some kind of small industry moved in, there would never be enough capital to support the area, to supply the money to make the improvements. The ranchers would never fork anything over; they had made their money by being stingy, by hiring their sons and daughters to do all the work. Only a mill at Olema, the RCA station out on the Point, the small retail stores…and of course men employed by the county to work on the roads during winter, to clip the trees and haul off broken limbs. Some day it would have to come. All the improvements he wanted would eventually take place. But he wanted them in his lifetime.

  And, he thought, if we don’t do it ourselves, it’ll be done by outsiders. Money from outside, subdividers who we don’t know. This won’t be a dairy farm area forever.

  Below him, in the darkness, the lights of Donkey Hall winked. I hope you can raise the five dollars for prize money, he thought. It will really put a strain on you, you anti-Semitic jackass town planners with your appropriate name. And then, on to the annual weenie roast. If I did join, he thought, I could run the mustard concession or have the dart-throwing booth. We might make twenty dollars to put up for the livestock judging.

  Raising his right hand, he made an obscene gesture through the living room window, at Donkey Hall below. Anyone in Carquinez who happened to glance up at that moment would have seen him; with the drapes back he was fully outlined by the living room light. But he did not care. I should print it on my office stationery, he thought. Runcible Realty, and then the finger. To all a good night.

  In one of the third floor rooms at Donkey Hall, heated by a portable electric heater, four of the Advisors of the CDBDBC sat at a table, deep in work. Downstairs, in the main hall, the members of the club watched slides on VD prevention that one of the members, a retired Army major, had procured from the Armed Forces.

  The four Advisors comprised Jack E. Vepp, the President of the club, Earl Timmons, the Vice-President and a truck driver, Walt Dombrosio, Club Manager and commercial designer, and Michael Whart
on, Club Treasurer and fourth grade teacher at the grammar school. In the past several years it had been Walt Dombrosio who had been the most help at Halloween; he had supplied materials for costumes, helped the kids, showed the judges what to look for in the way of original ideas. This year, however, he did not want to participate.

  “Let them make their own costumes,” he said. “They ought to know how by now.”

  Wharton said, “If left alone, most of them will simply wear the plastic costumes sold by dime stores. It’ll be a choice among prepared costumes, and the parents who spend the most money will secure the prize for their child.”

  “Some of the ranchers’ wives are going to sew,” Vepp said. “So there’s going to be some original costumes.”

  “Why don’t you want to participate this year?” Wharton asked Dombrosio.

  “It’s hard for me to get around,” he said. “You know I lost my driver’s license.”

  They all nodded at that. “That’s really bad,” Timmons said. “Yes,” Vepp said. “That’s one hell of a break. That Motor Vehicles outfit has no legal right to do that.” Wharton added, “You’re still appealing that, aren’t you, Walt?”

  “I’m appealing,” he said shortly.

  “Somebody maybe could drive you,” Vepp said.

  “How about your wife?” Timmons said.

  “She’s probably sick of driving him,” Vepp said. “I see her driving him all over the place.”

  “She’s not sick of it,” Dombrosio said. “But—” He shrugged. “I’m not free like I was. To come and go.”

  “Well,” Vepp said, “we really count on you.”

  “Remember that April Fool gag we did,” Timmons said. “That was really something—remember, you dreamed that up.”

  Dombrosio remembered.

  “You made up all those cow suits,” Vepp said. “And you used that new plastic—what’s it called?”

  “Polyethylene,” Dombrosio said. “It’s actually a hardened wax. An enormously-long carbon molecule.”

  “I’ll never forget that,” Vepp said. “That was the funniest gag I ever saw or even heard of. We really had them fooled; we fooled everybody in town.”

  “That was quite successful,” Wharton said.

  In their cow suits, which Dombrosio had created in the workshop at Lausch Company, six Advisors of the club had joined a herd of cows at the Fairchild ranch. They had allowed themselves to be herded into the milking barn, and then, when the milkers came to hook them up, they had begun to argue and insult the milkers. It was all a good gag, a lot of harmless fun, and they had gone into town, and even out onto the highway to stop cars. The suits had absolute fidelity of detail. It was Dombrosio’s work at its best. One of the suits still existed down in the basement of Donkey Hall, part of the permanent historic display.

  “Say, Walter,” Vepp said. “There’s an idea that came to me; it has nothing to do with the club, but it’s along your line. You know the way quail come along in a bunch, about twenty or thirty of them all together? You know, even if you shoot a blast of buckshot in the middle of them, all you get is maybe four or five, and the rest get away.”

  “The quail are really fat this time of year,” Timmons said.

  “So anyhow,” Vepp said. “what I got to thinking was, isn’t there some sort of electric trap you could rig up for me? A bunch of wires that after the whole flock gets on, they get electrocuted but not burned up so their flesh is ruined. Some resistance wire, maybe. A guy like you, with your ability, could do that.”

  The grammar school teacher said, “It’s too bad to put Walter to work like that. Doesn’t he have enough troubles? Anyhow it’s illegal to trap quail that way.”

  “No it’s not,” Vepp said. “What do you mean, ‘work like that’? Walt don’t have nothing against some nice fat quail for breakfast.” He laughed, showing his gold-crowned teeth.

  “I’m in enough legal trouble already,” Dombrosio said. “All I need is to pay some huge fine for illegal trapping. I don’t even think this is quail season.”

  Vepp said, “You can always shoot quail on your own property, any time of the year. You can say it was to protect your crop; they eat grain and stuff. Vegetables from your garden. Like crows or jays.”

  “I could rig it up,” Dombrosio said. “But I don’t think I want to. I’m not much interested.”

  The four of them were silent, for a time.

  “It’s hard to think of something to do,” Vepp said finally.

  “We could go bird-watching,” Timmons said. “Along with the fourth grade.” He nodded towards the grammar school teacher.

  “Pick up rocks, too,” Vepp said. “Maybe find some rare fossils. Or some of those arrowheads, those Indian things.” He grinned, but Wharton said nothing. The grammar school teacher stared off into space as if he did not hear him. “How’s your arrowhead collection?” Vepp said to him, still persisting.

  “Fine,” Wharton said.

  “And your rock collection?”

  Wharton nodded distantly.

  Vepp said, “What about your milk bottle top collection?”

  “I think he gave that up,” Timmons said.

  “That’s the best,” Vepp protested. “Those milk bottle tops. Real California history in them. I mean, look at those old dairies around here.”

  “Old Indian dairies,” Timmons said. He giggled. “Old Indian twin dairies.” He made a motion, indicated female breasts. “How about a collection of them? Stuffed and mounted under glass. That ought to go over big for the fourth graders.” Both he and Vepp laughed, and Walt Dombrosio could not help smiling, too.

  “Listen,” Dombrosio said. “Hey listen, Wharton. You know those granite awls you have, those Indian awls? They’re tools, right? You know what they look to me to be?” Already, Vepp and Timmons saw the gag and were laughing. “Say, I’ll bet those are stone tools all right.”

  “Petrified tools,” Timmons choked. “Indian petrified tools. What a terrific collection. They’re about ten inches long—those must have been real masculine Indians. How could they have died out, since they had such big tools?”

  Wharton said nothing. After a while Timmons and Vepp became tired of baiting him. Nothing had come from the meeting of Advisors; they had not been able to persuade Dombrosio to participate this year, and so there was no point in going on.

  “I’m going downstairs and look at the VD films,” Timmons said, rising. “Want to come along, Jack?”

  Both he and Vepp departed, leaving Dombrosio and the fourth grade teacher.

  Presently Wharton said, “It’s too bad.”

  “What is?” Dombrosio said, now feeling a little guilty at having kidded the man. With Vepp and Timmons gone, he did not feel quite so jolly about it.

  “You have a good deal of creative ability. It seems to me it could go into more important things than building traps so that Jack Vepp can slaughter quail.”

  “Well, you’re a nature-lover,” Dombrosio said. “You’re an observer, a scientist. You have to see his point of view. There’s nothing wrong with hunting; you eat lamb and beef, don’t you? And it doesn’t bother you.”

  Wharton said, “I don’t mean that.”

  From the start, Wharton had made no bones about it; he had joined the CDBDBC to assist in the civic programs that the club did on occasion promote, but he did not approve of the high jinks so dear to the others. His dislike of Vepp was common knowledge. But if there were no public-spirited people in the club, he had pointed out, people like Vepp would turn the organization into nothing more than a—what was it Dombrosio had heard the grammar school teacher say, once? Into an excuse for renting dirty movies. Owning a hall to show dirty films. For stag parties; that was it. Men’s smoker. Wharton could not stay out of the club because he feared it more without his presence than with. He could not rest comfortably in his house up on State Farm Road, in his den with his specimens of newts and snakes.

  “How much do you make as a teacher?” Dombrosio asked him,
all at once.

  “Five thousand two hundred a year,” Wharton said.

  “Take home?”

  “No,” Wharton said. “That’s before deductions.”

  “How do you manage to live on that?”

  Wharton said, “Sometimes I consider weaving my own baskets out of reeds and making pots and pans out of clay, and chewing acorns. Like the Indians used to.”

  “They hunted and fished, too.”

  “I have no objection to that,” Wharton said. “If it’s for food, it’s a good and perfectly natural thing. I don’t like Vepp because he relishes it.”

  “In other words, it’s bad if you enjoy it,” Dombrosio said. “But it’s fine if you do it cold-bloodedly.”

  Suddenly turning towards him, Wharton said, “You know what I wish you’d do? I wish you’d get hold of some high frequency generators for the school. And maybe an FM tuner. I think I asked you about building us an oscillator, last year or so. What ever became of that?”

  Guiltily, Dombrosio said, “I got started on it. It’s in my workshop at home. Half-finished.”

  “I’ll tell you something else I wish you’d do.”

  “You know I’m always willing to help the school.”

  Wharton studied him soberly, said, “I’d like you to come and show the fourth grade how to use certain materials.”

  “You mean, work directly with the children? Like a teacher?” He did not feel favorably inclined; he felt nervous, self-conscious. “What materials?”

  “Some of those new plastics. The boys buy those model boat and airplane kits, but they’re nothing but prefabricated sections; all they have to do is glue them together. In the old days a kit consisted of balsa wood, tissue paper—we had to do all the work of cutting and shaping the parts. We actually made the models out of the wood. Now the model is made for them, but not assembled.”

  “True,” Dombrosio said. “But consider this; look at the wealth of detail they can get into the new plastics. Tiny detail, like the engine cylinders and exhausts.”