picked up for him every afternoon from the Saline post office and arranged on café sticks in the library. Since school had ended, I’d started full-time at Aberdeen West, and my last job every Friday afternoon was to bring all the old papers over to the Saline Public Library. But every day now, after I was done with my shift, I would sit down on the side porch and read one or two of them myself. They were still last week’s editions, most of them, because they had to be mailed to us; but I found that I consumed them eagerly. I liked it, somehow. This was a surprise to me, that I took this kind of pleasure from knowing about the world. Around my parents I felt I had secrets.
By then I’d also taken to watching for the arrival of Glenn Burrant himself, who’d been visiting the house almost every day since the news about the Senator. Anytime there was an important meeting now, or a position statement coming out, or an appearance by Henry Bonwiller, the yellow Corvair would sprint down the entrance drive, squeaking and bouncing on the gravel. Perhaps because of the proximity of the
Courier-Express
, Glenn obviously had a privileged relationship with Aberdeen West, and he was allowed to wait outside while the meetings took place. I’d made a point of letting him know that I’d read his article, and though he changed the subject I could tell that he was pleased. He would wave at me as I went about my work. While Liam Metarey and the campaign staff deliberated inside, Glenn would rest on the iron bench in the shade of the bur oak, one leg up beside him on the seat like a packed duffel; and when the meetings broke, he was first to get the scoop. I liked the way he stood when he was summoned—as though he were these men’s unlikely equal—pulling a reporter’s notebook from his back pocket and a pen from behind his ear as he labored up the three steps to the porch, pausing at the front door to stomp out his cigarette and then to comb his hair in the glass. Much of what impressed me was his brusque manner and how big he was—when he zipped his nylon Windbreaker it bulged like a sausage casing; but it was also because he greeted me with a conspiratorial intimacy whenever he gave me the beat-up old Corvair to bring down to the garage. No other adult took me in like that.
I’d been given the job of parking cars now, too. And among the cars that were appearing at the estate, the Corvair couldn’t possibly have been more of an aberration. It sprang up like a jack-in-the-box whenever Glenn stepped out of it, and the driver’s seat was squashed so flat I felt like I was sitting on the floor when I drove it. But even among all the Cadillacs and Lincolns and Mercedes-Benzes, Liam Metarey gave it a high priority. There was an order I had to follow when I brought all the cars out after a meeting broke up, and he asked me to always keep it among the first few that I delivered, its windshield washed and a new booklet of state toll coupons clipped behind its visor.
Glenn would accept my shutting of his creaky door with an elaborate flourish of his mitt-sized hand—the hand that wrote for the
Courier-Express
!—then crank down the window on the passenger side—his own was stuck shut—and streak up the curved driveway, the chassis listing to the left. At the bend under the sycamores, the listing would level off momentarily, and a split second later his cigarette would fly out the far window onto the gravel. I would walk up to collect it.
I mention Glenn not only because he was the one who first started me reading the newspaper, but also because he was as astute as anyone who ever knew the Bonwiller campaign, from inside or out. Yet I still don’t know how he figures in what happened. Was he in the end a friend to the Senator and to the Metareys? I don’t even know
that
. Or was he in fact a friend more to the truth—a moral man who, like many such men and women, gave little such impression? If I look too closely at all of it,
By then I’d also taken to watching for the arrival of Glenn Burrant himself, who’d been visiting the house almost every day since the news about the Senator. Anytime there was an important meeting now, or a position statement coming out, or an appearance by Henry Bonwiller, the yellow Corvair would sprint down the entrance drive, squeaking and bouncing on the gravel. Perhaps because of the proximity of the
Courier-Express
, Glenn obviously had a privileged relationship with Aberdeen West, and he was allowed to wait outside while the meetings took place. I’d made a point of letting him know that I’d read his article, and though he changed the subject I could tell that he was pleased. He would wave at me as I went about my work. While Liam Metarey and the campaign staff deliberated inside, Glenn would rest on the iron bench in the shade of the bur oak, one leg up beside him on the seat like a packed duffel; and when the meetings broke, he was first to get the scoop. I liked the way he stood when he was summoned—as though he were these men’s unlikely equal—pulling a reporter’s notebook from his back pocket and a pen from behind his ear as he labored up the three steps to the porch, pausing at the front door to stomp out his cigarette and then to comb his hair in the glass. Much of what impressed me was his brusque manner and how big he was—when he zipped his nylon Windbreaker it bulged like a sausage casing; but it was also because he greeted me with a conspiratorial intimacy whenever he gave me the beat-up old Corvair to bring down to the garage. No other adult took me in like that.
I’d been given the job of parking cars now, too. And among the cars that were appearing at the estate, the Corvair couldn’t possibly have been more of an aberration. It sprang up like a jack-in-the-box whenever Glenn stepped out of it, and the driver’s seat was squashed so flat I felt like I was sitting on the floor when I drove it. But even among all the Cadillacs and Lincolns and Mercedes-Benzes, Liam Metarey gave it a high priority. There was an order I had to follow when I brought all the cars out after a meeting broke up, and he asked me to always keep it among the first few that I delivered, its windshield washed and a new booklet of state toll coupons clipped behind its visor.
Glenn would accept my shutting of his creaky door with an elaborate flourish of his mitt-sized hand—the hand that wrote for the
Courier-Express
!—then crank down the window on the passenger side—his own was stuck shut—and streak up the curved driveway, the chassis listing to the left. At the bend under the sycamores, the listing would level off momentarily, and a split second later his cigarette would fly out the far window onto the gravel. I would walk up to collect it.
I mention Glenn not only because he was the one who first started me reading the newspaper, but also because he was as astute as anyone who ever knew the Bonwiller campaign, from inside or out. Yet I still don’t know how he figures in what happened. Was he in the end a friend to the Senator and to the Metareys? I don’t even know
that
. Or was he in fact a friend more to the truth—a moral man who, like many such men and women, gave little such impression? If I look too closely at all of it,
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