Chapter Thirty-Six: The End of an Era

Though Mack bore considerable resentment toward his parents for their intransigence and lack of understanding, he also recognized their potential utility, even if it should prove to be nothing more than a piddling inheritance someday. M.S. Glenn, on the other hand, was disposable, for Mack had squeezed all he wanted out of him. Glenn had prepared the way for Mack by arranging and promoting his lectures, writing articles, placing ads, purchasing tickets, banking money, and a host of other tasks that made Mack’s journey not only possible but occasionally pleasant. In short, Glenn had been a reliable partner, and for that Mack was, well, “grateful” is too strong a word. Let’s just say Mack was “aware.” We’ll leave it at that.

There was only one real problem, of course, and that was the book.

Ah, yes. The Book.

For Glenn had not performed his impresarial services out of selfless love for Mack (though Glenn sometimes regarded the boy with envious admiration). No, Glenn saw the Quest as an incubator for a golden egg that was even now rocking in its nest and straining to hatch, and he saw himself as the watchful hen. All the hoopla—the articles, ads, and parades—was directed toward this single end—a Book that would surpass in popularity the works of Twain and Verne and Nellie Bly. Never had the success of any book been so thoroughly prepared. Glenn would sometimes lie awake at night, staring into the darkness and thinking to himself, Without me, none of this would have come to pass. I am a good and faithful steward, and great will be my reward. I wonder how much he’s already written? All Mack has to do is sequester himself away for a few hours every day—morning or evening, he can take his pick—and string some words together. It should be fun for him, reliving his adventures and making stuff up.

Glenn, of course, would print and bind the book right there in the offices of the Plain Dealer, and he would hire a girl to take orders and wrap the books and address the packages. The girl—pretty, no doubt, with a wanton eye—would write on a vellum card, “Hope you enjoy the book! With warmest regards, Emily,” and slide the card in the book for a bookmark.

Of course, Mack knew that Glenn expected a book from him. Their partnership had been built on the promise of a book; indeed, Mack had sworn an oath on the unwritten book before he and Glenn shook hands on the gravel bank of Whetstone Creek. Since that time, however, Mack reasoned he had never signed an actual contract regarding the book; he had never promised in writing to write a book. In their communications over the last year and a half, he had consistently side-stepped the subject, evaded Glenn’s questions, and ignored Glenn’s reminders. Mack assuaged his conscience by telling himself that his book of souvenirs would satisfy Glenn. He assuaged his anxiety by telling himself that he couldn’t be sued over a handshake. The possibility Glenn might kill him was a concern. Mack didn’t think he would, but he couldn’t be sure. Glenn had a temper as anyone familiar with his nose could tell you.

Three o’clock on November 12, 1898, and Mack riding his fifth and final Roz down old Springfield Road into Mountain Grove, Missouri. The sky was clear and the temperature chilly. Mack wore his traveling clothes: faded dungarees, flannel shirt, and duck cloth jacket; around his throat he had loosely wound a purple scarf, the only relic and sign of his adventures. No one in the streets recognized him and no one applauded. Such was the conclusion of his quest. He reined Roz leftward to amble down Broad Street and then rightward onto Talcott and continued his slow progress until he reached the office of the Plain Dealer. He sat in the saddle for a moment before dismounting. Even with the door closed, Mack could hear the steady ki-diddle—ka-daddle—ka-thump, shp.

God, I hate that sound!

Mack ran his fingers back through his hair, hitched his britches, and stepped inside. Glenn was so absorbed in his work that he didn’t notice the opening of the door, and the press was so noisy that he didn’t hear Mack enter. Mack waited until Glenn stopped cranking the wheel and the rolling ceased, and said in his ironic, matter-of-fact voice, “Well, I’m back!”

Glenn wheeled about with a face full of astonishment. His nose was more squat and florid than ever, but at this moment, a rare moment indeed, it radiated joy. Of course, as is true with all illusions, the engorgement of one feature seems to diminish the others, so that Glenn’s expansive nose made his eyes seem smaller and more recessive, which in turn rendered his overall countenance more porcine than Mack remembered. Mack thought, God, he really is ugly.

Still, Glenn was effusive. “Mack! M’boy! M’own prodigal partner! When’d you ride in? You should’ve called ahead!” Glenn embraced Mack with a hearty back clap and then held him at arm’s length to survey the effects of his long travels.

Mack said, “I just rode into Mountain Grove this afternoon and five days early, too! Looks like the girl will be mine after all! How’ve you been, you old rascal?”

“Reasonably well for a man so profoundly misunderstood and persistently underestimated. Let me look at you!”

As Glenn looked him up and down, Mack smelled again Glenn’s mingled odors of powders, excretions, and oils, and he held his breath to quell his rising gorge. Mack managed a smile and asked, “Well?”

Glenn replied, “A couple of pounds thinner but no worse for wear. You don’t look like you sailed around the world! How’s your constitution holding up?”

“Fine, I reckon. I rode down from Lebanon.”

“Lebanon? What’s in Lebanon?”

“As it turns out, my family. They moved there from Neosho while I was gone.”

“Ha-ha! Of course, they did! Are you hungry? You must be hungry.”

“Not too much. I had a sandwich in Agnes, so I’m alright for now.”

“Well, you’ll dine with me and the missus this evening. You can stay with us, too, if you’ve a mind to! Come on, let’s sit for a spell. I’ve been on my feet for most of an hour now.” Glenn pulled a couple cane woven chairs closer to the press and gestured toward one of them as an invitation. Mack sat with his hands on his knees, and Glenn did the same: They looked like mirrored antipathies in terms of youth, features, and disposition.

Glenn clapped Mack on the shoulder again and said, “So, you’re back! It’s been a crazy year and a half, huh? Hey, hey, let me show you something.” Glenn stood and went over to the printer’s cabinet where he pulled out the top drawer. Pinching the corners of the top sheet, Glenn took out the advertisement he had designed long ago and dangled it before Mack like a toreador baiting a bull.

“What do you think? Pretty good, eh?”

“You don’t waste any time, do you?”

“I’ll waste time when I’m dead. Here, hold it … not like that … by the corners. There you go,” and Glenn pointed to the bottom of the advertisement. “See there? ‘Ten-thousand copies sold,’ and the book’s not even written! But you know what they say, ‘A smart supplier creates his own demand.’ That’s the first principle of business.”

“That’s pretty impressive, all right. Have you run this ad anywhere?”

“No, hell, no! We have to allow a reasonable amount of time for you to write the damn thing. We’ll throw in a few illustrations and spring for some decent paper, and bingo! We’ll have a bestselling book on our hands.

“Here, let me show you something else.” Glenn took the ad and laid it gently on top of the cabinet and removed a full page article from the same drawer. It was the story of Mack’s homecoming replete with signatures and postal seals and several illustrations: there was Mack on horseback, wearing his mask and costume and attended by two greyhounds, and another cartoon of Mack shoveling coal and yet another of his wedding to the Arkansas gal. In words of purpliest prose, Glenn described every detail of Mack’s triumphant return; he had even included a skeptical reporter in the article for verisimilitude. Mack tried to read the article while Glenn prattled, “Yeah, I thought an article like this would give you a head start on the book. All you really have to do is create an outline and put in a few details and make up some crazy shit. Of course, we’ll have to change your homecoming from Neosho to Lebanon, but that’s no problem.”

Mack looked up from the article. “How in the world did you get postal seals from Borneo?”

“I didn’t. I just made a copy of our local seal and replaced the dates and locations with the countries you said you went to. Nobody’ll know the difference, even if they had some way to check. And they won’t. Who do you know getting mail from Borneo? No one, that’s who.”

“M.S., I have to tell you, I’m impressed. I always knew you were a clever scoundrel, but you’ve outdone yourself this time.”

“You have no idea the impression you’ve been making! I took the letters you sent me, spiced ‘em up with a little pepper, sent ‘em back out as press releases, and people have lapped ‘em up like piggies slurping slop! You never know what details those idiots will focus on, you know what I mean? In an article you wrote from Yokohama, I referred to the Japs with their ‘little hands,’ and every paper between San Francisco and Charleston mentioned those ‘little hands.’”

“Little hands, huh?”

“Yep. Hey, and let me show you something else.”

Glenn went to a shelf and took down a box full of envelopes. “You know what these are? Inquiries! Every one of these letters wants to know more about you: where you been, what you done, and most of all, when you’re going to write a book? We are hot stuff, Mack, very hot stuff! And listen to this: At least two-thirds of the letters had pre-payments for the book! Oh, we’re going to be in the money, all right!” Glenn sat down, clapped his hands to his knees, and then stood again. “Hey, let’s you’n’me finish printing tomorrow’s Dealer, and then we’ll talk the missus into a bite of supper. Whaddya say?”

“Sounds great, M.S.,” but Mack glanced at the ink-stained and oily press with disdain.

I’ve traveled clear around the world, and here I am, about to turn the wheel of a Prouty again.
Around and around, and here I am.

Nevertheless, Mack took the familiar stance at the wheel while Glenn positioned the stack of newsprint, and if anyone had happened to pass the door of The Plain Dealer, they would have heard ka-diddle–ka-daddle–ka-thump, shp, over and over and over.

Supper had ended, and Mrs. Glenn was in the kitchen washing the dishes. M.S. and Mack were sitting before the fireplace, watching the flames leap and crackle, smoking nickel cigars, and digesting pot roast. Mack spewed a cloud of smoke and called through the open door, “Wonderful dinner, Mizz Glenn, best I’ve had in the whole cotton-pickin world!” He couldn’t see Mrs. Glenn from where he sat in the parlor, but had he been able, her expression would have troubled him, for her lips were grim with anger. She was scrubbing the pots and pans with the kind of vigor and malevolence required to scrape a boiled hog. Earlier in the day, a postal agent had come by the house asking for her husband’s whereabouts. She had told him she didn’t know where he his whereabouts, the same thing she had said to so many agents in the past—Wells Fargo agents, municipal agents, law enforcement agents, insurance agents, agents of the court, on and on in a parade of agents—and to all of them she had said the same thing, “I don’t know. I don’t know where he is or what he’s doing or what his plans are.”

Or even who he is, she said to herself. Why did I ever marry that snout-nosed son of a bitch?

She scored the pots with the clump of steel wool.

And now he’s got that cocky little bastard in there cooking up some other crazy plan. If that man spent as much time doing honest work as he wastes on his schemes, I could hire a girl to do the cleaning.

She dried the pots with a dish towel and hung them over the stove.

For his part, Mack imagined she had received his compliment with pleasure so that she was even now smiling and humming over the sink. Mack thought, I’ve always had a way with the womenfolk, young and old. They just can’t help themselves.

Glenn took a long draw on his cigar and said, “Well, Mack, let’s talk about our book. What have you written so far? I’m supposing you had plenty of time on the boat to get started?”

Mack said, “Uh, yeah. I’ll show you what I’ve done so far,” and he rose to go out to the barn where the souvenir book was stowed in the right saddlebag. He called from the door, “Be right back.”

Glenn hollered, “I can’t wait to see what you’ve written.”

And this is what Mack thought on his way to the barn:

Well, things have finally come to a pass, and it’s time to shit or get out of the privy.
Should I try to string him along? Or pull the trigger and get it over with?
Then came the inevitable slippage into a split, whereby a man speaks to himself as if he were two:
Maybe you could write the book.
I don’t want to write the book!
If you tell him that, he’s going to explode like the Maine.
True.
Just make sure you don’t take it personally.
Take what personally?
The explosion,
How else should I take it?
Good question. Adopt the attitude that he exists for your entertainment, and he’s about to give you one hell of a show.
I like that idea! So, instead of delaying the explosion, you’re saying I should ignite it and stand back?
Exactly. What have you got to lose?
Nothing really. He’s disposable, right?
Exactly.
I never really liked him anyhow.
Exactly.
Ugly pig.

Mack returned bearing the scrapbook and anticipating the confrontation. He said, “Here you go,” and handed the book to Glenn.

Glenn opened the scrapbook and began turning the pages. Pasted in random sequence were various souvenirs of Mack’s travels: photographs, ticket stubs, a feather, occasional drawings, a postage stamp, a cartoon. Of course, what Glenn didn’t see and what he most wanted to see were words. The photos had no captions; the illustrations had no dialogue; and the feather fell from a never-to-be-identified bird. The scrapbook was an assemblage of nameless people from nameless villages on the anonymous shores of Terra Incognita. They could have been anyone. Glenn turned page after wordless page, and his nose began pulsing like a lighthouse beam in anticipation of an oncoming storm. But he steadied himself and said, “These mementos are nice and will be helpful in jogging your memory, but the deal we made that night on Whetstone Creek—”

And with that recollection, the moment for Mack’s confession had come—not the Big Confession in which he admitted to the world that he had lied about the Quest (that would come, too)—but the confession that would bury Glenn in an avalanche of disappointment, a failure Glenn feared but reassured himself would never happen.

Most of us invest in similar schemes, don’t we? We take our big chance to win the grand prize, the roll of the dice that pay offs the mortgage and makes all our dreams come true: We pick up the dice, shake them, blow on them, and send them skittering down the green runway. We didn’t put all our money on a single square, but we put enough to win big. We made calculations—“I can afford to lose such and such with no real injury”—but we still hold our breaths and watch the dice as they ricochet off the sides of the table and come up …

Hold it! That’s where you and I are at this precise minute.

We live in the ongoing indecision of rolling dice. And we spend our lives holding our breath and reassuring ourselves that throwing the dice was a really good idea when the dice themselves are signifiers of a greater reality.

Mack, however, was looking at Glenn with double-dotted snake’s eyes when he interrupted Glenn and said, “Michael, I’ve decided: I’m not going to write that book.”

For the second time that day, Glenn’s face was full of astonishment but this time without the previous joy. His voice was measured but menacing. “I’m sorry. What did you say?”

“Well, I’ve been meaning to talk to you about it; I really have. The truth is, I didn’t have much time for writing while I was traveling, and at night, I was dead tired. I thought about starting on the book from time to time, but … what can I say? I just didn’t. And then I realized something on the road from Joplin to Neosho. I’m never going to write the book. It’s just not in me.”

“What?”

“I’m never going to write the book. I’m not going to sit down for four hours a day or however long it takes and write a book. It’s really that simple.” Mack studied Glenn through indifferent eyes.

Glenn responded reasonably, “But that’s where the money is! You can’t say the deal’s off because that was the deal. I help you, you help me. I arrange the travels, you write the book! Because I can’t write the goddam book, now can I? I didn’t circle the globe and have the adventures. You did that and I did my part for you. Now it’s your turn. That was the deal! That is the deal!”

“I don’t know how else to say it. The deal’s off, and the journey’s over.”

With a snake hissing in his voice, Glenn said, “You little son of a bitch! I’ll say when the deal’s off, not you!” Glenn threw his cigar into the fire, stood up, tossed the book of souvenirs on his chair, and began pacing around the room. The combustion was igniting. “You goddamned backstabbing, no-good liar! Do you know how hard I had to work to get Trotter to take you aboard the Indrani! He didn’t want you! He hates Yankees. But I vouched for you. I said you were different. And I paid twice as much for your ticket, too! Then I got you in all the papers with the story about the cat o’nine tails and the Dutch sailor and the rest of the rubbish, so people would be interested in you. I didn’t care if people knew about me or not. I made it all up for you. Hell, I made you up! You were nothing before you met me! So, you’d better by God start writing! Do you hear me? I paid a lot of money for you to ride on that goddamned boat! We—had—a—deal!” And he pounded his fist into his palm with each enunciation.

Mack tilted his head back and blew out a stream of smoke. “Stop trying to sound so virtuous. The money you paid Trotter was my money, too, made from my talks, my travels, my imagination. You say I was nothing before I met you. Very well. Without me, Glenn, you’re nothing now. Just a small town, small-minded, petty crook stealing from old ladies and hicks.” Then in a vicious whisper, “I don’t owe you one red cent.”

Glenn blotched crimson from his collar to his thinning hair; he was momentarily mute with rage and then the flood: “How dare you, how dare you talk to me like that in my own home? How dare you, after all I’ve done for you! Small-minded! You would never have done anything without me! You’d still be in Neosho pulling your own dick and reading dime novels and pining away like a fourteen year old girl. You—you—” Glenn looked wildly about the parlor and clutched at the mantle. “I can’t believe what I’m saying. Mack, this is me!” Glenn patted his own chest. “Me! Michael Glenn, your partner. Right? This is me you’re talking to!”

“Oh, Michael, can’t you see? The partnership is over. I’ve made up my mind. I don’t like writing. I like talking. I like talking to girls and persuading them to pull down their knickers, and I like tricking their fathers into thinking that I’m a fine young man. That’s fun. But writing, well, I just don’t like it. If you’ll remember, that’s why I left the paper. Because I was sick to death of writing. But it doesn’t matter anyhow. The deal’s off.”

With his indifferent eyes and ironic smile, Mack watched Glenn blow apart at last. Mack hoped his nose would explode, too, and leave behind a gelatinous mess of cartilage and capillaries, so he said, “Why don’t you write the book? You don’t mind sitting on your ass all day.”

“You arrogant, backstabbing, aw-shucking son of a bitch, you said, ‘Yessir, Mr. Glenn, I’ll write the book, and we’ll make some money.’ And I trusted you! And now you’re sitting in my living room after traveling the world on my nickel and eating food cooked by my wife, and you’re telling me you have not nor will you ever write the book we agreed upon. Eighteen months of my life is wasted! Goddammit, you’re going to write that book!”

“I don’t think I will.”

“Am I not being clear enough for you?”

“The truth is, Michael, I hear you loud and clear. Now, you listen to me: I’ve leaving.” Mack rose from his chair and picked up the book of souvenirs.

Glenn broke in, “You’d better by God hope I don’t write a book ‘cause I’ll tell everybody what a fraud you are and an ingrate and a backstabbing, lying, arrogant son of a bitch—”

The more Glenn sputtered, the more his face incarnated rage: the pores gaped and the capillaries writhed like tiny scarlet snakes; his mouth stretched to reveal tan teeth that looked like ape fangs; his complexion blotched purple and livid. But Mack felt nothing: His insolence had detached him from Glenn so that he could study the face as coolly as if it had been a clay mask in a museum, and suddenly, the absurdity of the ugly man in his fury and the stupidity of their partnership became so apparent, so inescapable, that Mack laughed, not a titter or a giggle but an uproarious outburst, a guffaw. The more Mack laughed, the more Glenn raged, and so they spun away from each other, flinging apart, centrifugally and parabolically, whirling into specters of ultraviolet and infrared: calm prepossession and blazing fury; congealing ice and combustible fire; coolest purple and scarlet hate.

Still smiling, Mack puffed on his cigar and said, “Oh, calm down, M.S., you can’t afford to expose me, and you know it. So let me tell you what you’re going to do: You’re going to send that story you wrote about my homecoming to the Kansas City Star. Those boys like me up there; I’m sure they’ll run it. Then when the time is right, you’ll run the advertisement, too. Because you don’t really care if you have a book or not, do you? You just want the money. You already lied in the ad about selling 10,000 copies. Why should there be any copies at all? Collect your money, and if anybody complains, send them a note telling them it’s sold out. And keep the money; I don’t care. I got what I wanted. But what you won’t do is expose me, because if you do, I’ll expose you. And there goes the Plain Dealer and all your other schemes. The truth is, you have more to lose than I do. I’m a kid, and people are quick to forgive youthful folly.”

Glenn glared in fury at the younger man for a moment longer and suddenly deflated. He finally realized he had lost, that he might make a couple hundred bucks from the sale of non-existent books, but the charade was over. He asked one more time, “Why won’t you write the book?”

“Because I don’t want to. That’s all there is to it.”

“Oh.”

Glenn shrugged and turned to walk up the stairs. Mack heard a bedroom door close, and then he went out to the barn. His gear was still tied behind the saddle, so he stuffed the book of souvenirs in the saddlebag and eased the bit into Roz’s mouth. Even in the late November afternoon, enough light filtered into the barn that he didn’t need a lantern. He led Rozinante from the barn and before he hoisted himself into the saddle, Mack happened to glance at the kitchen window. There stood Mrs. Glenn watching him. In the failing light, he could see that she was grinning.