I didn’t want to chance soiling his seat, so I didn’t stand on it but rode beside him watching the tops of trees and blinking traffic lights. I thought of a short story called “Godman’s Master” by Margaret Laurence. It was about a dwarf who had been made to live inside a box all his life while his master pretended that inside the box was an oracle. The dwarf would make pronouncements through a hole, and sometimes he would cough, this tiny cough that sounded like a butterfly had cleared its throat. After a man rescued him from the box, he insisted to the dwarf that there was much more to freedom than just not living in a box.
The dwarf had answered, “You would not think so if you’d ever lived in a box.”
“Mr. Gruberg,” I said, “you and I don’t swim in the same sea.”
“I don’t know about that,” he said. “Last summer I met a lot of little people. The town was filled with them because of her, you know, she’s getting to the marrying age I heard was the reason. So I observed little people pretty well. They’d come down to see the shows.”
He smiled down at me. “I kept a pile of telephone books to boost them up high enough to see the screen.”
I thanked him for the ride to the Inn, and walked through a lobby swarming with people, although it was two in the morning. They were some of “the Faithful” Little Lion had described to me, looking for rooms, which were scarce that weekend in La Belle, looking for a glimpse of Little Lion, crowded into the coffee shop for late-night snacks after coming off the road.
Crowds always made me nervous. My toes got stepped on and I got jostled about in them, so I hurried through the lobby to the elevator.
Just as I was standing on tiptoe to fit my key into the lock, I heard my telephone ringing. It rang insistently while I worked the key, pushed open the door with my shoulders, and tried to locate the phone in the dark. It kept ringing while I dragged the desk chair across under the light switch, and just as I got up on the seat, the telephone stopped ringing.
It could have been Mr. Palmer, Digger, Little Lion, but I sat on the bed with my feet hanging down the side, wondering if Little Little had tried to call me.
When I finally crawled under the covers and fell asleep, I dreamed her father chased me down a winding corridor, caught me, slapped me into a box, and began pounding nails into its side.
He called at me through a hole, “Good-bye, butterfly.”
“Sydney,” Mr. Palmer said, “the banquet begins at four. You’ll enter the ballroom at around five-fifteen with the birthday cake. The band will play your theme song right after they play ‘Happy birthday.’ Sydney?”
“Yes,” I said, swallowing a mouthful of toast. “I’m listening.”
“I’ll drive you there, and right after your performance we’ll head for Wilton. Mr. Hiroyuki was crazy about you, Sydney. We had an early breakfast and he brought along a model of the Roach Ranch…. Do you want to go hear Little Lion with me?”
“I have something I have to do first with Digger Starr,” I said. I looked at my watch. It was eight o’clock. “I have to hurry, Mr. Palmer. I’ll go to church with Digger.”
“I thought up a name for you, Sydney, to use in our first commercial. How does Roy Roachers sound? You’ll be in chaps and a sky piece.”
“What’s a sky piece?”
“A cowboy hat, Sydney! They call them sky pieces in Texas. You’ll have a new line. We’re throwing out ‘You’ll be the death of me.’ Instead, you’ll swagger out in your chaps and sky piece, ready to draw your pistol, and you’ll say: ‘Name your poison!’ Then ‘Roach Ranch’ will flash across the screen and you’ll keel over. Like it?”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“It’s dynamite, Sydney!”
“I’m in a hurry, Mr. Palmer.”
“Sydney,” he said, “don’t be late. Have your shell down in the lobby so we can leave there at four-forty-five sharp. This is an important event where Hiroyuki’s concerned, and remember to keep it secret. It’s a surprise!”
“Oh, it’ll be a surprise,” I said.
“Maybe I’ll see you in church, Sydney.”
“Maybe. But we’ll probably be a little late.”
“Not probably,” Digger complained when I told him the same thing down in the lobby. “We will be. Laura Gwen’s already in line outside the church along with a couple dozen dwarfs. I hope this doesn’t take too long, Sydney.”
“I tried to get them to deliver it,” I said as we walked toward Wicker Wonderland. “I talked to them on the phone but they don’t have anyone to take it out to Lake Road.”
The La Belles were probably already at church. I counted on that.
“You know what the cab fare’s going to be? They’ll soak you, Sydney.”
“Cost is no object,” I said, sounding like Mr. Palmer.
“We better make it to that church before Laura Gwen walks,” Digger said.
“She won’t walk,” I said. “Where would she go?”
“That’s what Little Lion calls coming to Jesus,” Digger said. “He calls it walking. He yells out for people to walk with him.”
Then Digger said, “What’s this all about, Roach?”
“It’s about a birthday present.”
“Well, me and Laura Gwen are always at your service. You keep that in mind, old buddy.” He grinned down at me and messed my newly combed hair with his large hand.
“Another thing,” he said as we arrived at Wicker Wonderland. “That time I stuck you up on the shelf in Sip-A-Soda? I came right back to get you down, you know.”
“Okay,” I said. I smoothed my hair back with my hand and waited for him to open the door.
“You was already down when I came back,” he said.
“After three hours I was.”
He bent over to hear me better, as he opened the door. “What’d you say?”
“I said I don’t hold grudges, Digger.”
If I did, I didn’t
