Chapter Ten: How Glenn Made It Work

This morning, as he did every Tuesday morning at half-past nine, Glenn locked the door to The Plain Dealer on Talcott Avenue, shambled down Talcott to East First Street, and taking a right, he shambled down East First to Union and took a left, and shambled down Union until he reached the Frisco depot where he shambled to the telegraph window. No one was behind the counter, and Glenn began tapping a little bell on the counter. A door opened at the back of the office, and a young man in a Western Union uniform walked in fumbling with his trouser buttons. He was muttering to himself but also to whoever happened to be ringing the bell, "Hold your horses, hold your horses. Nary creature on earth is exempt from nature's call." But when the clerk saw Glenn, he leaned forward to the little round grill in the plate glass and said, "Oh. G'morning, Mr. Glenn. Didn't know it was you. My apologies."

Glenn snorted and said the same thing he said every Tuesday, "I'm expecting a telegram. Has anything come for me?"

"Let me check." The boy knew that Glenn had in fact received a wire transfer and a message, but he enjoyed making Glenn wait because waiting irritated Glenn, and anything that irritated Glenn made the clerk happy. In the beginning, the tirades consequent to Glenn's mounting anger had been almost terrifying, but over time his outbursts became amusing, and when you are a young man twenty-three years of age and working for the Western Union, any amusement is welcome.

The telegrapher's office was partitioned off by yet another window through which Glenn could observe the conversation between the clerk and the operator but couldn't hear them. They appeared to be in earnest conversation, but in truth the clerk was saying, "I say, Mr. Herren, the Monsieur Toad would like to know if anything has come for him."

Seriously and with grim expression, "And why would you denigrate the noble toad by comparing it to yon blackguard?"

"You are so right. I will apologize to the toads of the world tonight."

"While in the meantime, they must endure this humiliation? Not satisfactory, not satisfactory at all, Mr. Jenkins!"

A pause.

"Shouldn't you act like you're looking for his telegram?"

"Oh, yeah." The telegraph operator began moving papers around. "How far along is he?"

"He's starting to bounce on his toes."

"What about the nose?"

"It's getting redder."

The operator glanced up at Glenn and waved, and Glenn scowled. The operator shuffled more papers and said, "You definitely need to apologize to the toads of this world."

"Wait . . . he's reaching for the bell. We're . . . almost . . . there! Go!"

With that, the operator shrugged his shoulders in mock confusion, and the clerk clapped his hands to his ears in mock exasperation, and Glenn exploded in very real fury: "Ding-ding-ding-ding- ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!"

The operator leapt to his feet and turned around to dig through a stack of papers on top of a filing cabinet.

"Ding-ding-ding-ding- ding-ding-ding-ding-ding-ding!" and a furious pounding on the window over the counter and Glenn's face transmogrifying into a meat mask wherein the bottom lip smushes the top lip upward to force the nose more broadly across the cheeks and then pressing his contorted lips to the little round grill and yelling, "You'd better find my telegram, you idiots, or I'll have your jobs, do you hear me? Your jobs! Goddammit, I'll not be made a fool of!"

With wide eyes and feigned terror, the clerk and the operator turn to look at Glenn, and the clerk says, "Oh, my God, we've done it! Do not laugh! Don't or he'll kill us!"

The operator said, "You can be thankful there's a half inch of glass between you and him, or he'd come across the counter and take you by the throat. It's time to bring this to an end."

With that, the operator waves a piece of paper in mock joy and says, "Go, go!"

The clerk seizes the paper, rushes through the door. and dashes to the counter. In an apparent effort to catch his breath, he gasps, "Here it is, Mr. Glenn!"

"You incompetent, idiot bastards! It's about goddamn time! You are the most incompetent fools I've ever had the displeasure of dealing with!" Now punctuating his fury by pounding the counter, "How can it be that I come in here every Tuesday and every Tuesday you can't find a simple telegram! This time I'm reporting you! That's right! I'll have your job and his, too!" Glenn pointed through the window at the operator who smiled and waved again.

"Now there's no need for that, Mr. Glenn! All's well that ends well, as the bard said. Besides, this should make you happy: You have a transfer for eighty dollars and a message to boot . . . sir!"

"Give me the money, and don't call me, 'sir'! How many times do I have to tell you that? Idiots! Idiots everywhere! And it's not your place to surmise what will make me happy. That's not your station."

"Yes, sir! Oops, sorry." The clerk counted out eighty dollars and pushed it under the glass whereupon Glenn counted it again.

"'You got something right anyhow." With the money in his hands, Glenn's wrath began subsiding, and besides, the tantrum had unstrung his withers and left him exhausted. He harrumphed and stuffed the money in his jacket pocket. "Now give me the message."

"Yes, sir."

"Goddammit, boy, do not 'sir' me!"

"Oops, sorry."

Glenn read over the telegram from Mack. $80 trans. Portsmouth Mason. The Masons! Buncha superstitious moronic idiots. No wonder they loved his story. Catlettsburg, Ken. tonight. Catlettsburg, Kentucky? Where in the hell is that? Pikeville Ken. Saturday. Pike County Times, ed. Bill Jeffries. Tuesday. Good God, I better telegraph Jeffries today if he's gonna run a piece on Tuesday. Bapt, ? How the hell am I supposed to find out who the Baptist preacher in Pikeville, Kentucky is? Thursday 7 p.m. A hell of a lot of good it does me to know the time and place if I don't know who the preacher is. Idiot!

A clicking and buzzing started up in the telegraph office, and a voice called out through the open door, "Something's coming in for Mr. Glenn!"

The clerk said, "Wait! Something's coming in for you, Mr. Glenn."

"Good God, do I seem like I'm deaf?"

"Of course not. I'll be right back." This time the clerk returned promptly to the counter, and he slid the telegram through the arched hole in the glass. "Here ya go, Mr. Glenn. Short and sweet."

The message was a name: "Rev. Lionel Smith."

Glenn thought, I guess Mack's not completely worthless.

"Let's see, that'll be another 10¢ added to your previous bill of 90¢ for one dollar right on the big ol' nose!" Glenn fished out two silver dollars from his pocket and slid one of them under the glass.

And then followed the final indignity for Glenn—he knew it was coming, and he hated that it was coming, but coming it most certainly was, namely, the price he had to pay to conceal his suspicious endeavors. He clenched his teeth and spat out the words, "And here's a tip. For you and the boy in the back." He held the silver dollar upright on the counter with his left forefinger and flicked the coin so that it spun over the counter, through the glass arch, and toward the clerk who caught it with artful alacrity.

"Thanks, Mr. Glenn! We always appreciate your whimsical ways of conducting business! And a good day to you—sir!" The clerk tipped his cap and grinned his most ironic smile.

The boys had won again.

For in spite of everything and to his utter dismay, Glenn needed them, not only to decode and deliver the telegrams from Mack, but to keep their mouths shut. In the 19th century, telegrams were not considered private communications, and Western Union employees were bound by law to report any crimes they suspected. While some of the telegrams were coded, others were necessarily explicit for reasons soon to be disclosed. To complicate matters, or so Glenn surmised, the frequent money transfers would almost certainly arouse the suspicions of anyone who might replace the boys. They had him where the hair grows short, as the expression goes. The sniveling officiousness of the young men and their antics behind the window and the expense of the bribes annoyed the hell out of Glenn, but what could he do?

Those dopey bastards could blow the lid off the whole charade, and I can't let that happen—if I can help it.

Glenn snorted at the clerk's buoyant farewell and shambled from the depot, and though he had everything he needed to continue the ruse—names, dates, location, and discretion—he nevertheless grumbled at the incompetence of telegraph operators and clerks and indeed at the entire network of wires and telegraph machines contrived by Western Union. He was also grumbling about Mack, though he did so out of envy and not because Mack warranted it, at least not so far as he knew. For all Glenn could tell, Mack was fulfilling his end of the bargain: traveling from town to town, meeting important people, giving lectures, selling booklets, collecting money, and staying in touch so Glenn could "prepare the way of the Knight," as Mack liked to put it.

I swear to God, Mack had better be writing all this down. The real money's going to come from the book. All this traveling costs as much as it makes, and he's still got to pay the fare for the voyage.

Not that he cares. I'll bet he's back in his room fadoodling some little gal and eating pastries and talking about how great he is and how romantic his quest is and a bunch of other horseshit.

No wonder the Masons like him so much. They are full of horseshit. Meantime, I have to piddle around with idiots and keep the books and write the goddamn articles for him.

Still muttering, Glenn walked up Union to his customary breakfast establishment, the Mountain Grove Café. The waitress looked out the window and saw Glenn shambling her way. She hollered to the kitchen, "Hey, Carl! Hog Snout's a-comin'!" By the time the door jingled open, the waitress was bearing a plate of warm biscuits with pats of butter and a little pitcher of sorghum and a mug of black coffee. By the time he slid in the booth, the food was on the table. Glenn snorted at the waitress, and she said, "Good morning, Mr. Glenn," and left.

From his jacket pocket Glenn removed a dirty map falling apart at the creases. Rivers, railroads, and state lines enabled him to fit the fuzzy rectangles together, and Glenn reconstructed the map beside his plate. He had to chew with his mouth open because he couldn't breathe through his metastasizing nose, and biscuit crumbs fell onto the table and map and into his lap. One time and one time only—it was back in mid-August when the map was new and in one piece—the waitress asked him, "Are you goin' on a trip somewheres, Mr. Glenn?".

He growled, "None of your goddamn business." The girl was indignant and waited on him in silent fury, but Glenn left her a good tip–a two-bit piece, which was also the price of the biscuits–so forever after, she endured with feigned indifference his ill-tempered snorts and the crumbs falling from his mouth and his odor.

Glenn touched the spot on the map that signified Catlettsburg, ran his finger down the Big Sandy, and tapped the town of Pikeville. Then his finger drifted south and east in a somewhat desultory path to Charleston. He tapped Charleston. Then he began drawing circles with his finger around and around the Atlantic.

It'll be a miracle if he pulls this off.

Glenn slurped the last of the coffee, wiped his mouth with his napkin, put the pieces of map back in his jacket pocket, and snapped two quarters on the table.

One for the biscuits, one for the bitch.

When the door jingled shut behind him, and the waitress saw Glenn shambling down the sidewalk, she hollered out, "Go to hell, Mr. Glenn! Have a miserable day, you big-nosed, ass-face son of a bitch." No one heard her swearing except Carl the cook, but the oaths always had a cathartic effect for the girl and helped her preserve her dignity and equanimity. She also liked it when Carl laughed at her imprecations.

"I hate that guy!"

"Who doesn't?"

Glenn's next stop was the Wright County Bank, also on the square, where he deposited sixty of the dollars; twenty he held back to compensate himself for his "Herculean efforts." He had once heard a political candidate use that expression at a rally, and when he figured out that "Herculean" referred to "Hercules," Glenn employed it frequently to describe his own exertions. In his most private thoughts—the thoughts of which he was least conscious—he actually believed himself to be a Hercules, a dragon killer and purger of Augean stable, a hero who would someday possess the golden apples and be borne aloft to the stars. Little wonder Glenn looked down on Mountain Grove and its insignificant citizenry: It was altogether too small for a man of his scope and ambition. Little wonder, too, that he envied Mack and followed his wanderings with a squinting eye, though he depended on Mack for the deposits, which is the most evil of double-binds: to resent the hand that feeds you.

Glenn did not know it, but he nurtured a dragon within his guts that uncoiled at the slightest provocation to devour his innards and leave him an empty husk.

The bank clerk bade Glenn farewell as he departed through the jingling door. Then the clerk crossed himself and thought, That is one miserable man.

Having completed his Herculean tasks for the morning, Glenn returned to his office and began laying out the next edition of the paper. He poured a drink from a bottle he kept in the filing cabinet. He ate a sandwich and a piece of cheese. At one o'clock, Glenn was snoozing in his office, slumped back in his chair with his feet on his desk and his mouth open. A knock on the door roused him, and he lifted his frowsy head and blinked his eyes. He looked like an old and impotent lion waking up to survey an unfamiliar savannah. Another knock, and a voice called through the door.

"Telegraph for you, Mr. Glenn!"

Glenn shuffled to the door and opened it. It was the same clerk he had talked to that morning. "Give it to me."

He did.

The telegram read: In Catlettsburg. Louisa tomorrow. Write Pikeville. Send story.

Glenn read the telegraph and then he said, "Wait till I come back."

"Yes—"

Glenn shut the door and returned to his desk. He took a sheet of paper from the center drawer, dipped his pen in the inkpot, and began to write:

Rev. Lionel Smith
Pikeville Baptist Church
Pikeville, Kentucky
Dear Pastor Smith,
Mr. T. Allen McQuary, the famed Purple Knight of the Ozarks, is scheduled to arrive in your town on Friday, November 11, on his way around the world "for an Arkansaw Girl and Five Thousand Dollars!" As has been oft noted in the press… Etc. etc.
He is a member of the YPSCE, the YMCA, and the IOOF. Also, please be apprised that Mr. McQuary will be attending your church on the 13th of November and would like to meet you after the service.
Sincerely yours,
M.S. Glenn, Esq.
Editor and owner, "The Plain Dealer"
Mountain Grove, Missouri

Glenn's only option was to write out the letters and have them telegraphed verbatim, which would be expensive, to be sure, and risky because names, dates, and intentions were all readily apparent to the clerk and operator. But what else could he do? Past failures in communication had been costly. One pastor had been informed that a purple nugget was coming to his church, and a Methodist bishop in Effingham had received a telegram promising him $5000 if he married a girl from Arkansas. That resulted in several enthusiastic telegrams from the bishop and one from the bishop's wife's lawyer. After that, Glenn wrote out the telegrams.

So, Glenn blew on the wet ink, set the letter aside, and took out another sheet of paper:

Mr. William Jeffries, Editor
Pike County Times
Pikeville, Kentucky
Dear Mr. Jeffries,
After many adventures, T. Allen McQuary, the famed Purple Knight of the Ozarks, is scheduled to arrive this weekend in Pikeville!
Etc., etc.
I would very much appreciate your warm reception of "our wandering gallant."
Thank you,
M.S. Glenn, Esq.
Editor and owner, "The Plain Dealer"
Mountain Grove, Missouri

Glenn once again blew his biscuit-whiskey breath over the wet ink, gently shook both pages, and shambled to the door. The clerk was sitting on the doorstep and watching a girl walking down the street. Glenn said, "I want you to telegraph these letters exactly as written. No omissions and no revisions. Word for word. Understand?"

"We'll send every word."

"Well, I hope so. And don't leave out the exclamation points. How much?"

The clerk counted the words and squinched his eyes. Then he said, "For both letters together, it'll be seven dollars and eighty-seven cents." (Take that, you stingy bastard.)

Glenn muttered under his breath, took out his wallet, and removed a ten dollar bill. "Here," he said. "You and the other boy split the change. But no talking to anyone, do you hear me? I'm not tipping you for your good looks, you know." (Bootlickers.)

"Yes, sir!" (Ha!)

Glenn went back to his desk and slumped in his chair. He tapped the blotter with the end of his pen and thought, A deception is like a fat woman in a girdle: what you tuck in one place pops out somewhere else. But we're neck deep in it now.

Then the old obsession wheeled about and he thought, By God, McQuary better be writing the damned book! That's where the real money is!

He picked up a stack of newspapers and began flipping through them. One paper, the Courier-Journal, was from Louisville, Kentucky. The lead headline read "Hatfield-McCoy Feud Rises Again." The subtitle read, "Two children dead, Cap Hatfield in hiding."

Now that's a helluva story. I'll telegraph Mack tomorrow. That'll give him enough time.

Glenn closed his eyes, and soon he was snoring again. He would sleep until evening fell and the office grew cold, whereupon he would shamble to his home, eat supper, drink whiskey, and go to bed. His wife would stay up to wash the dishes and stare through the window at the dark trees.