Peyton Place Read online

  ♦ 6 ♦

  On Friday nights the men of Chestnut Street met together at Seth Buswell's house to play poker. Usually, all the men came, but on this particular Friday evening there were only four of them sitting around Seth's kitchen table: Charles Partridge, Leslie Harrington, Matthew Swain and Seth.

  “Small gang tonight,” commented Harrington, who was thinking that a small group precluded a large pot.

  “Yep,” said Seth. “Dexter's got his in-laws visitin’ and Jared had to go over to White River. Leighton called me up and said that he had business down to Manchester.”

  “Alley cat business, I'll bet,” said Dr. Swain. “How old Philbrook has managed to avoid the clap this long, I'm sure I don't know.”

  Partridge laughed. “Probably looks after himself like you taught him, Doc,” he said.

  “Well, let's play,” said Harrington impatiently, riffling the cards with his white hands.

  “Can't wait to take our money, eh, Leslie?” asked Seth who disliked Harrington intensely.

  “That's right,” agreed Harrington, who knew very well how Seth felt and smiled, now, into the face of his enemy.

  It excited Leslie Harrington to know that people who hated him nevertheless felt impelled to tolerate him. To Harrington, this was the proof of his success and it renewed in him, every time it happened, a rich sense of the power he wielded. It was no secret in Peyton Place that there was not a single issue that could come to a town vote with any assurance of success unless Harrington was first in favor of it. He was not in the least ashamed of the fact that on various occasions he called his millworkers together and said, “Well, fellers, I'd feel pretty damned good if we didn't vote to put up a new grade school this year. I'd feel so goddamned good that I'd feel inclined to give everybody in this shop a five per cent bonus the week after next.” Seth Buswell, in whose veins flowed the blood of a crusader, was as helpless before Harrington as was a farmer who had fallen behind in his mortgage payments.

  “Cut for the deal,” said Partridge, and the poker game began.

  The men played quietly for an hour, Seth rising from his chair only when there was a need to refill glasses. The newspaper editor played badly, for instead of keeping his mind on the cards, he had been busily thinking up, and discarding, ways to broach a sensitive subject to his guests. At last he decided that tact and diplomacy would be futile in this case, and when the next hand had been won, he spoke.

  “I've been thinkin’ lately,” he said, “about all the tar paper shacks that this town has got spread around. Seems to me like we ought to think about gettin’ zonin’ laws into effect.”

  For a moment no one spoke. Then Partridge, to whom this was an old topic of conversation, took a sip of his drink and sighed audibly.

  “Again, Seth?” asked the lawyer.

  “Yes, again,” said Seth. “I've been tryin’ to talk some sense into you guys for years, and now I'm tellin’ you that it's time to get somethin’ done. I'm goin’ to start runnin’ a series of articles, with pictures, in the paper next week.”

  “Now, now, Seth,” said Harrington soothingly, “I wouldn't be too hasty about this. After all, the folks who own those shacks you're talking about pay taxes the same as the rest of us. This town can't afford to lose any taxpayers.”

  “For Christ's sake, Leslie,” said Dr. Swain. “You must be going soft in the head in your old age to run off at the mouth like that. Sure the shackowners pay taxes, and their property is evaluated so low that what they pay the town is peanuts. Yet they live in their shacks and produce kids by the dozen. We're the ones who are paying to educate their kids, to keep the roads paved and to buy a new piece of fire-fighting equipment once in a while. The taxes a shackowner pays in ten years wouldn't pay to send his kids to school for one year.

  “You know damned well that Doc's right, Leslie,” said Seth.

  “Without the shacks,” said Harrington, “the land that they stand on now would be idle. How many tax dollars would you collect then? Not only that, but you can't raise taxes on the shacks unless you raise everybody's taxes. Rezone the shack areas, and you've got to rezone the whole damned town and everybody'll be madder than hell. No, fellers, I don't like paying to educate a woodchopper's kids any better than you do, but I still say, leave the shacks alone.”

  “For Christ's sake!” shouted Dr. Swain, forgetting himself and losing his temper in a way that he and Seth had agreed privately beforehand not to do. “It's not only a matter of taxes and the fact that those places are eyesores. They're cesspools, as filthy as sewers and as unhealthy as an African swamp. I was out to another shack just last week. No toilet, no septic tank, no running water, eight people in one room and no refrigeration. It's a wonder that any of those kids ever live long enough to go to school.”

  “So that's the boil on your ass, is it?” laughed Harrington. “You're damned right it's not the taxes that are bothering you and Seth. It's the idea that some squalid little urchin might catch cold running to the outhouse in his bare feet.”

  “You're a fool, Leslie,” said Dr. Swain. “I'm not thinking of colds.

  I'm thinking of typhoid and polio. Let one of those get a toehold around the shacks and it wouldn't be long before the whole town was in danger.”

  “What are you talking about?” asked Harrington. “We've never had anything like that around here before. You're an old woman, Doc, and so is Seth.”

  Seth's face colored angrily, but before he could say anything, Partridge intervened quickly and quietly.

  “How in hell did you plan to get the owners out of their shacks if they refused to abide by these zoning laws of yours, Seth?” asked the lawyer.

  “I don't think that many of them would choose to leave,” said Seth. “Most of them can well afford to make improvements on their property. They could use some of the money they drink up to install toilets and tanks and water.”

  “What are you trying to do, Seth?” asked Harrington, laughing. “Make Peyton Place into a police state?”

  “I agree with Doc,” said Seth. “You are a fool, Leslie.”

  Harrington's face darkened. “Maybe so,” he said, “but I say that when you start telling a man he's got to do this, that or the other thing, you're coming pretty damned close to infringing on a citizen's rights.”

  “Oh, God,” moaned Seth.

  “Go ahead and accuse me of being a fool if you want,” said Harrington righteously, “but you'll never get me to vote for passing a law that dictates what kind of home a man must have.”

  Seth and Dr. Swain regarded Harrington with utter disbelief when he spoke this sanctimonious sentence, but before they could speak, Partridge, who was a born pacifist, picked up the deck of cards and began to shuffle them.

  “We came here to play poker,” he said. “Let's play.”

  The subject of the tar paper shacks of Peyton Place was not mentioned again, and at eleven-thirty when one of the men suggested playing a last hand, Dr. Swain picked up the cards to deal.

  “I'll open,” said Harrington, holding his cards close to his chest and peering at them frowningly.

  “I'll raise,” said Seth, who held his cards one on top of the other in one hand.

  Partridge and Dr. Swain dropped out and Harrington raised Seth.

  “Again,” said the newspaper editor pushing more money into the center of the table.

  “All right,” said Harrington irritably. “And raise again.”

  Dr. Swain noticed with distaste that Harrington had begun to sweat.

  Greedy bastard, thought the doctor. With his dough, he's worried over a measly hand of five-and-ten poker.

  “Again,” said Seth coldly.

  “Goddamn you,” said Harrington. “O.K. There you are. Call.”

  “All pink,” said Seth softly, fanning out his diamond flush on the table.

  Harrington, who had held a king high straight, purpled.

  “Goddamn it,” he said. “The one hand I hold all night and it's no good. You win, B
uswell.”

  “Yes,” said Seth and looked at the millowner, “I generally do, in the end.”

  Harrington looked Seth straight in the eyes. “If there's one thing I hate more than a poor loser,” he said, “it's a poor winner.”

  “Hold up a mirror and you're bound to see your own reflection, as I always say.” Seth grinned at Harrington. “What do you always say, Leslie?”

  Charles Partridge stood up and stretched. “Well, boys, morning comes early. Guess I'll be on my way.”

  Harrington ignored the lawyer. “It's the man who holds the best cards who wins, Seth. That's what I always say. Wait a minute, Charlie. I'll walk home with you.”

  When Partridge and Harrington had left, Dr. Swain put a sympathetic hand on Seth's arm.

  “Too bad, feller,” he said. “But I think you'd better wait a while and talk to Jared and Leighton before you start anything about those shacks in your paper.”

  “Wait for what?” demanded Seth angrily. “I've been waiting for years. What'll we wait for this time, Doc? Typhoid? Polio? Pay your money and take your choice.”

  “I know. I know,” said Dr. Swain. “All the same, you'd best wait a while. You've got to educate people to new ways of thinking, and that's a long, slow process sometimes. If you go off half cocked, they'll turn on you the same as Leslie did tonight and tell you how those shacks have been around town for years, and we've never had an epidemic of any kind yet.”

  “Hell, Doc, I don't know. Maybe a good epidemic would solve everything. Perhaps the town would be better off without the characters who live in those places.”

  “There is nothing dearer than life, Seth,” said Dr Swain gruffly. “Even the lives being lived in our shacks.”

  “Please,” said Seth, his good humor restored. “You could at least refer to them as ‘camps’ or ‘summer dwellings’!”

  “The suburbs!” exclaimed Dr. Swain. “That's it, by God! Question: “Where do you live, Mr. Shackowner?’ Answer: ‘I live in the suburbs and commute to Peyton Place.’”

  Both men laughed. “Have another drink before you go,” said Seth.

  “Yes, sir, Suburbia,” said Dr. Swain. “We could even name these estates. How about Pine Crest, or Sunny Hill, or Bide-A-Wee?”

  “You left out Maple Knoll and Elm Ridge,” said Seth.

  It wasn't funny, though, reflected Dr. Swain half an hour later after he had left Seth and was taking his usual nightly walk before going home.

  He walked south, after leaving Chestnut Street, and was no more than half a mile out of town when he passed the first shack. A light shone dimly through one small window, and a curl of smoke rose thinly from the tin chimney. Dr. Swain stopped in the middle of the dirt road and looked at the tiny, black tar-papered building which housed Lucas Cross, his wife Nellie and their three children. Dr. Swain had been inside the shack once, and knew that the interior consisted of one room where the family ate, slept and lived.

  Must be colder than hell in the winter, thought the doctor, and felt that he had said the kindest thing possible about the home of the Cross family.

  As he was turning to walk back to town, a sudden shrill scream echoed in the night.

  “Christ!” said Dr. Swain aloud, and began to run toward the shack, picturing all kinds of accidents and cursing himself for not carrying his doctor's bag at all times. He was at the door when he heard Lucas Cross's voice.

  “Goddamn sonofabitch,” yelled Lucas drunkenly. “Where'd you put it?”

  There was a loud crash, as if someone had fallen, or been pushed, over a chair.

  “I told you and told you,” came Nellie's whine. “There ain't no more. You drunk it all up.”

  “Goddamn lyin’ bitch,” shouted Lucas. “You hid it. Tell me where it is or I'll beat your goddamn lousy hide right off you.”

  Nellie screamed again, sharp and shrill, and Dr. Swain turned away from the shack door feeling slightly nauseated.

  I suppose, he thought, that the unwritten law about a man minding his own business is a good one. But sometimes I just don't believe it.

  He walked toward the road, but before he had gone more than a few steps, he tripped and almost fell over a small figure crouched on the ground.

  “For Christ's sake,” he said softly, reaching down and gripping a girl's arm. “What are you doing out here in the dark?”

  The girl broke away from him. “What are you doing here yourself, Doc?” she asked sullenly. “Nobody sent for you.”

  In the meager light that came through the shack windows, the doctor could barely discern the girl's features.

  “Oh,” he said. “It's Selena. I've seen you around town with the little MacKenzie girl, haven't I?”

  “Yes,” said Selena. “Allison is my best friend. Listen, Doc. Don't ever say anything to Allison about this ringdangdo here tonight, will you? She wouldn't understand about such things.”

  “No,” said Dr. Swain, “I won't say a word to anyone. You're the oldest of the children here, aren't you?”

  “No. My brother Paul is older than me. He's the oldest.”

  “Where is Paul now?” demanded the doctor. “Why isn't he putting a stop to the goings on inside?”

  “He's gone to see his girl in town,” said Selena. “And what are you talking about anyway? There's nobody can stop Pa when he gets drunk and starts fighting.”

  She stopped talking and whistled softly, and a little boy came running from behind a tree.

  “I always come outside when Pa starts,” said Selena. “I keep Joey out here, too, so Pa won't get after him.”

  Joey was small and thin, and not more than seven years old. He stood behind his sister and peered timidly at the doctor from around her skirt. A fierce anger filled the old man.

  “I'll put a stop to this,” he said, and started once more toward the door of the shack.

  Immediately, Selena ran in front of him and put her hands against his chest.

  “You want to get killed?” she whispered frantically. “Nobody sent for you, Doc. You better get back to Chestnut Street.”

  A continuous wailing came from the shack now, but the screaming had stopped and Lucas’ voice was still.

  “It's all over with anyhow,” said Selena. “If you went in now, it would just get Pa all worked up again. You better go, Doc.”

  For a moment the doctor hesitated, then tipped his hat to the girl.

  “All right, Selena,” he said. “I'll go. Good night.”

  “Good night, Doc.”

  He was back on the road when the girl ran and caught up to him. She put her hand on his sleeve.

  “Doc,” she said, “me and Joey want to thank you anyway. It was nice of you to stop by.”

  Like a lady bidding her guests farewell after the tea party, thought the doctor. It was nice of you to stop by.

  “That's all right, Selena,” said Dr. Swain. “Any time you'd like to have me come, just let me know.”

  He noticed that although Joey was directly behind Selena, the little boy never spoke a word.

  ♦ 7 ♦

  Lucas Cross had lived in Peyton Place all his life, as had his father and grandfather before him. Lucas did not know where his ancestors had come from originally, and this fact did not bother him at all, for he never thought of it. If he had been asked, he would have been dumfounded by the stupidity of such a question and, shrugging, would have replied, “We always lived right around here.”

  Lucas was a woodsman of a now-and-then variety common to northern New England. Professional lumbermen regarded the forests with respect, knowing that the generations before them had abused the woods, felling them flat without a thought toward conservation and replanting, and approached them now with patience and precision. Men like Lucas looked on them as a precarious kind of security, a sort of padding to fall back on when one was given a shove by life. When all else failed and cash money was needed in a hurry, the task of “workin’ the woods” was always available. The lumbermen had nothing but contempt for men
like Lucas, and assigned to him the secondary jobs of the lumbering trade: the stacking of logs on trucks, the fastening of chains and the unloading at the sawmills. In northern New England, Lucas was referred to as a woodsman, but had he lived in another section of America, he might have been called an Okie, or a hillbilly, or poor white trash. He was one of a vast brotherhood who worked at no particular trade, propagated many children with a slatternly wife, and installed his oversized family in a variety of tumble-down, lean-to, makeshift dwellings.

  In an era of free education, the woodsman of northern New England had little or no schooling, and in many cases his employer was forced to pay him in cash, for the employee could not sign his own name to a check. What the woodsman knew, he knew by instinct, from listening to conversation or, rarely, from observation, and much of the time he was drunk on cheap wine or rotgut whisky. He lived in rickety wooden buildings which were covered on the outside with tar paper instead of clapboards, and his house was without water or sewerage. He drank, beat his wife and abused his children, and he had one virtue which he believed outweighed all his faults. He paid his bills. To be in debt was the one—and only—cardinal sin to men like Lucas Cross, and it was behind this fact that the small-town northern New Englander, of more settled ways and habits, hid when confronted with the reality of the shack dwellers in his vicinity.

  “They're all right,” the New Englander was apt to say, especially to a tourist from the city. “They pay their bills and taxes and they mind their own business. They don't do any harm.”

  This attitude was visible, too, in well-meaning social workers who turned away from the misery of the woodsman's family. If a child died of cold or malnutrition, it was considered unfortunate, but certainly nothing to stir up a hornet's nest about. The state was content to let things lie, for it never had been called upon to extend aid of a material nature to the residents of the shacks which sat, like running sores, on the body of northern New England.