The Stand

“I know you were. I saw a couple of bikes gone. What made an even bigger impression was that Harold had siphoned some gas from the underground tank. You must have helped him, Fran. I damn near lost my fingers.”

“No, I didn’t have to. Harold hunted around until he found something he called a plug-vent—”

Larry groaned and slapped his forehead. “Plug-vent! Jesus! I never even looked for where they were venting the tank! You mean he just hunted around… pulled a plug… and put his hose in?”

“Well… yes.”

“Oh, Harold,” Larry said in a tone of admiration that she had never heard before, at least not in connection with Harold Lauder’s name. “Well, that’s one of his tricks I missed. Anyway, we got to Stovington. And Nadine was so upset she fainted.”

“I cried,” Fran said. “I bawled until it seemed I’d never stop. I just had my mind made up that when we got there, someone would welcome us in and say, ‘Hi! Step inside, delousing on the right, cafeteria’s on your left.’” She shook her head. “That seems so silly now.”

“I was not dismayed. Dauntless Harold had been there before me, left his sign, and gone on. I felt like a tenderfoot Easterner following that Indian from The Pathfinder.”

His view of Harold both fascinated and amazed her. Hadn’t Stu really been leading the party by the time they left Vermont and struck out for Nebraska? She couldn’t honestly remember. By then they had all been preoccupied with the dreams. Larry was reminding her of things she had forgotten… or worse, taken for granted. Harold risking his life to put that sign on the barn—it had seemed like a foolish risk to her, but it had done some good after all. And getting gas from that underground tank… it had apparently been a major operation for Larry, but Harold had seemed to take it purely as a matter of course. It made her feel small and made her feel guilty. They all more or less assumed that Harold was nothing but a grinning supernumerary. But Harold had turned quite a few tricks in the last six weeks. Had she been so much in love with Stu that it took this total stranger to point out some home truths about Harold? What made the feeling even more uncomfortable was the fact that, once he had gotten his feet under him, Harold had been completely adult about herself and Stuart.

Larry said, “So here’s another neat sign, complete with route numbers, at Stovington, right? And fluttering in the grass next to it, another Payday candy wrapper. I felt like instead of following broken sticks and bent grasses, I was following Harold’s trail of chocolate Paydays. Well, we didn’t follow your route the whole way. We bent north near Gary, Indiana, because there was one hell of a fire, still burning in places. It looked like every damn oiltank in the city went up. Anyhow, we picked up the Judge on the detour, stopped by Hemingford Home—we knew she was gone by then, the dreams you know, but we all wanted to see that place just the same. The corn… the tire-swing… you know what I mean?”

“Yes,” Frannie said quietly. “Yes, I do.”

“And all the time I’m going crazy, thinking that something is going to happen, we’re going to get attacked by a motorcycle gang or something, run out of water, I don’t know.

“There used to be a book my mom had, she got it from her grandmother or something. In His Steps, that was the name of it. And there were all these little stories about guys with horrible problems. Ethical problems, most of them. And the guy who wrote the book said that to solve the problems, all you had to do was ask, ‘What would Jesus do?’ It always cleared the trouble right up. You know what I think? It’s a Zen question, not really a question at all but a way to clear your mind, like saying Om and looking at the tip of your nose.”

Fran smiled. She knew what her mother would have said about something like that.

“So when I really started to get wound up, Lucy—that’s my girl, did I tell you?—Lucy would say, ‘Hurry up, Larry, ask the question.’”

“What would Jesus do?” Fran said, amused.

“No, what would Harold do?” Larry answered seriously. Fran was nearly dumbfounded. She could not help wishing to be around when Larry actually met Harold. Whatever in the world would his reaction be?

“We camped in this farmyard one night and we really were almost out of water. The place had a well, but no way of drawing it up, naturally, because the power was off and the pump wouldn’t work. And Joe—Leo, I’m sorry, his real name is Leo—Leo kept walking by and saying, ‘Firsty, Larry, pwetty firsty now.’ And he was driving me bugshit. I could feel myself tightening up, and the next time he came by I probably would have hit him. Nice guy, huh? Getting ready to hit a disturbed child. But a person can’t change all at once. I’ve had plenty of time to work that out for myself.”

“You brought them all across from Maine intact,” Frannie said. “One of ours died. His appendix burst. Stu tried to operate on him, but it was no good. All in all, Larry, I’d say you did pretty well.”

“Harold and I did pretty well,” he corrected. “Anyway, Lucy said, ‘Quick, Larry, ask the question.’ So I did. There was a windmill on the place that ran water up to the barn. It was turning pretty good, but there wasn’t any water coming out of the barn faucets either. So I opened the big case at the foot of the windmill, where all the machinery was, and I saw that the main driveshaft had popped out of its hole. I got it back in and bingo! All the water you could want. Cold and tasty. Thanks to Harold.”

“Thanks to you. Harold wasn’t really there, Larry.”

“Well, he was in my head. And now I’m here and I brought him the wine and the candy bars.” He looked at her sideways. “You know, I kind of thought he might be your man.”

She shook her head and looked down at her clasped fingers. “No. He… not Harold.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time, but she felt him looking at her. At last he said, “Okay, how have I got it wrong? About Harold?”

She stood up. “I ought to go in now. It’s been nice to meet you, Larry. Come by tomorrow and meet Stu. Bring your Lucy, if she’s not busy.”

“What is it about him?” he insisted, standing with her.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said thickly. Suddenly the tears were very close. “You make me feel as if… as if I’ve treated Harold very shabbily and I don’t know… why or how I did it… can I be blamed for not loving him the way I do Stu? Is that supposed to be my fault?”

“No, of course not.” Larry looked taken aback. “Listen, I’m sorry. I barged in on you. I’ll go.”

“He’s changed!” Frannie burst out. “I don’t know how or why, and sometimes I think it might be for the better… but I don’t… don’t really know. And sometimes I’m afraid.”

“Afraid of Harold?”

She didn’t answer; only looked down at her feet. She thought she had already said too much.

“You were going to tell me how I could get there?” he asked gently.

“It’s easy. Just go straight out Arapahoe until you come to the little park… the Eben G. Fine Park, I think it is. The park’s on the right. Harold’s little house is on the left, just across from it.”

“All right, thanks. Meeting you was a pleasure, Fran, busted vase and all.”

She smiled, but it was perfunctory. All of the dizzy good humor had gone out of the evening.

Larry raised the bottle of wine and offered his slanted little smile. “And if you see him before I do… keep a secret, huh?”

“Sure.”

“Night, Frannie.”

He walked back the way he had come. She watched him out of sight, then went upstairs and slipped into bed next to Stu, who was still out like a light.

Harold, she thought, pulling the covers up to her chin. How was she supposed to tell this Larry, who seemed so nice in his strangely lost way (but weren’t they all lost now?), that Harold Lauder was fat and juvenile and lost himself? Was she supposed to tell him that one day not so long ago she had happened upon wise Harold, resourceful Harold, what-would-Jesus-do Harold, mowing the back lawn in his bathing suit and weeping? Was she supposed to tell him that the sometimes sulky, often frightened Harold that had come to Boulder from Ogunquit had turned into a stout politician, a backslapper, a hail-fellow-well-met type of guy who nonetheless looked at you with the flat and unsmiling eyes of a gila monster?

She thought her wait for sleep might be very long tonight. Harold had fallen hopelessly in love with her and she had fallen hopelessly in love with Stu Redman, and it certainly was a tough old world. And now every time I