He reached for his drink and offered a humorless shrug when I tried to catch his eye.
'Sorry,' he said. 'I hope you don't mind coming here. It's cheaper than the Brasserie and we won't see anybody.'
He was not in a mood to talk – ebullient sometimes, he could also be as mute and sulky as a child – and he drank steadily, with both his elbows on the bar and his hair falling down in his face.
When his sandwich came he picked it apart, ate the bacon and left the rest, while I drank my drink and watched the Lakers. It was weird to be there, in that clammy dark bar in Vermont, and watching them play. Back in California, at my old college, they'd had a pub called Falstaff's with a wide-screen television; I'd had a dopey friend named Carl who used to drag me there to drink dollar beer and watch basketball. He was probably there now. on a redwood bar stool, watching this exact game.
I was thinking these depressing thoughts and others like them, and Charles was on his fourth or fifth whiskey when somebody started switching the television with a remote control: 'Jeopardy,'
'Wheel of Fortune,'
'Mac Neil,'Lehrer,' at last a local talk show.
It was called 'Tonight in Vermont.' The set was styled after a New England farmhouse, with mock Shaker furniture and antique farm equipment, pitchforks and so forth, hanging from the clapboard backdrop. Liz Ocavello was the host. In imitation of Oprah and Phil, she had a question-and-answer period at the end of each show, generally not too lively since her guests tended to be pretty tame – the State Commissioner for Veterans' Affairs, Shriners announcing a blood drive ('What's that address again, Joe?').
Her guest that evening, though it was several moments before I realized it, was William Hundy. He had on a suit – not the blue leisure suit but an old one the likes of which a rural preacher might wear – and he was talking authoritatively, for some reason I did not immediately understand, about Arabs and OPEC. That OPEC,' he said, 'is the reason we don't have Texaco filling stations anymore. I remember when I was a boy it was Texaco stations all over the place but these Arabs, it was some kind of, what you call, leverage buyout '
'Look,' I said to Charles, but by the time I'd got him to glance up from his stupor they'd switched back to Jeopardy.'
'What?' he said.
'Nothing.'
'Jeopardy,'
'Wheel of Fortune,' back to 'Mac Neil,'Lehrer' for kind of a long time until someone yelled, 'Turn that shit off, Dotty.'
'Well, what you want to watch, then?'
' 'Wheel of Fortune,'' shouted a hoarse chorus.
But 'Wheel of Fortune' was going off the air (Vanna blowing a glittery kiss) and the next thing I knew we were back in the simulated farmhouse with William Hundy. He was talking now about his appearance the previous morning on the 'Today' show.
'Look,' said someone, 'there's that guy runs Redeemed Repair.'
'He don't run it.'
'Who does, then?'
'Him and Bud Alcorn both do.'
'Aw, shut up, Bobby.'
'Naw,' said Mr Hundy, 'didn't see Willard Scott. Reckon I wouldn't have known what to say if I had. It's a big operation they got there, course it don't look so big on the TV.'
I kicked Charles's foot.
'Yeah,' he said, without interest, and brought his glass up with an unsteady hand.
1 was surprised to see how outspoken Mr Hundy had become in just four days. I was even more surprised to see how warmly the studio audience responded to him – asking concerned questions on topics ranging from the criminal justice system to the role of the small businessman in the community, roaring with laughter at his feeble jokes. It seemed to me that such popularity could only be incidental to what he had seen, or claimed to see.
His stunned and stuttering air was gone. Now, with his hands folded over his stomach, answering questions with the pacific smile of a pontiff granting dispensations, he was so perfectly at his ease that there was something palpably dishonest about it. I wondered why no one else, apparently, could see it.
A small, dark man in shirtsleeves, who had been waving his hand in the air for some time, was finally called upon by Liz and stood up. 'My name is Adnan Nassar and I am Palestinian American,' he said in a rush. 'I came to this country from Syria nine years ago and have since then earned American citizenship and am assistant manager of the Pizza Pad on Highway 6.'
Mr Hundy put his head to the side. 'Well, Adnan,' he said cordially, 'I expect that story would be pretty unusual in your own country. But here, that's the way the system works. For everybody. And that's regardless of your race or the color of your skin.' Applause.
Liz, microphone in hand, made her way down the aisle and pointed at a lady with a bouffant hairdo, but the Palestinian angrily waved his arms and the camera shifted back to him.
That is not the point,' he said. 'I am an Arab and I resent the racial slurs you make against my people.'
Liz walked back to the Palestinian and put her hand on his arm, Oprah-style, to comfort him. William Hundy, sitting in his mock-Shaker chair on the podium, shifted slightly as he leaned forward. 'You like it here?' he said shortly.
'Yes.'
'You want to go back?'
'Now,' Liz said loudly. 'Nobody is trying to say that '
'Because the boats,' said Mr Hundy, even louder, 'run both ways.'
Dotty, the barmaid, laughed admiringly and took a drag off her cigarette. 'That's telling him,' she said.
'Where your family comes from?' said the Arab sarcastically.
'You American Indian or what?'
Mr Hundy did not appear to have heard this. 'I'll pay for you to go back,' he said. 'How much is a one-way ticket to Baghdad going for these days? If you want me to, I'll '
'I think,' Liz said hastily, 'that you've misunderstood what this gentleman is trying to say. He's just trying to make the point that -' She put her arm around the Palestinian's shoulders and he threw it off in a rage.
'All night long you say offensive things about Arabs,' he screamed. 'You don't know what Arab is.' He beat on his chest with his fist. 'I know it, in my heart.'
'You and your buddy Saddam Hussein.'
'How dare you say we are all greedy, driving big cars? This is very offensive to me. I am Arabic and I conserve the natural resource '
'By setting fire to all them oil wells, eh?'
'-by driving a Toyota Corolla.'
'I wasn't talking about you in particular,' said Hundy. 'I was talking about them OPEC creepos and them sick people kidnapped that boy. You think they're driving around in Toyota Corollas? You think we condone terrorism here? Is that what they do in your country?'
'You lie,' shouted the Arab.
For a moment, in confusion, the camera went to Liz Ocavello; she was staring, without seeing, right out of the screen and I knew she was thinking exactly what I was thinking, oh, boy, oh, boy, here it comes…
'It ain't a lie,' said Hundy hotly. 'I know. I been in the service station business for thirty years. You think I don't remember, when Carter was President, you had us over such a barrel, back in nineteen and seventy-five? And now all you people coming over here, acting like you own the place, with all your chick peas and your filthy little pocket breads?'
Liz was looking to the side, trying to mouth instructions.
The Arab screamed out a frightful obscenity.
'Hold it! Stop!' shouted Liz Ocavello in despair.
Mr Hundy leapt to his feet, eyes blazing, pointing a trembling forefinger into the audience. 'Sand niggers!' he shouted bitterly. 'Sand niggers.' Sand '
The camera jerked away and panned wildly to the side of the set, a tangle of black cables, hooded lights. It
