Northern Lights Read Free Page A

Perry.
    “Nothing, Herb. What about you?”
    They sat without talking. For hours at a time, people sat in Wolff’s drugstore without talking. Stirring coffee and looking at themselves in the long mirrors, listening to Wolff’s cash register, watching Mainstreet, asking folks who came in: “What’s new? What’s up?”
    Wolff rearranged a pair of salt and pepper shakers. “So. Not in church today.”
    “Not today, I guess.”
    “So what’s up then?”
    “Nothing. We’re here to meet the bus.”
    Wolff raised his eyebrows, waiting for more, then he sighed. “Relatives, I guess.”
    “That’s about it, Herb. When the devil do we get some rain?”
    “I reckon next week. That’s what everyone’s saying.” He paused a moment as if trying to frame a difficult question, then very slowly he said, “Relatives, I reckon.”
    “That’s right.”
    “That’s what I thought.” Again he raised his eyebrows. He was dressed in a starched lab coat. It didn’t seem to Perry that he’d changed at all since high school. Wolff was one of the Germans. There were Swedes and Finns and Germans, and Wolff was pure German — impeccable and stiffly manicured, greedy eyes, a bristling crewcut and a voice that rose like deep magic from his sunken little torso. Wolff was proud of the voice. Back in high school, when it finally changed, it saved him from an adolescence of constant scorn, pity, practical jokes and half-serious innuendo about his malehood. He now loaded the voicewith authority, successfully straining out most of the German accent, always speaking slowly and only after long and apparently tormenting thought. “A relative,” he said.
    “That’s about it. You got any more of this coffee, Herb?”
    “Right.” He sighed, giving up. Wolff refilled their cups and wrote out a new bill and they sat quietly and listened while the Coca-Cola clock ticked. “I reckon you know Jud Harmor’s got cancer,” he said.
    “I’ve heard that.”
    “It’s true.”
    “Did Jud tell you?”
    Wolff shook his head. “Nope, but I heard it. I hear it’s bad, too.”
    “He’s tough.”
    “He’s old.” Wolff was playing again with the salt and pepper shakers. “He ought to step down from being mayor if he’s got cancer like I hear he’s got. I don’t say he
has
to quit. I say he
should
quit. It’s for the better.”
    “I guess it is.”
    When the Coca-Cola clock showed two minutes after eleven, Wolff got behind the counter and began making coffee for the church crowd. He still had the disjointed swagger that Perry remembered from high school, a sailor’s roll that joined with his deep voice to defy everything else about him.
    “Anacin and aspirin and all that stuff,” Wolff was saying, talking to Grace like a teacher. “It’s made in these big vats, you know, and all it really amounts to is plain acid. And you know what acids are. Dangerous. You got to be careful.”
    “Why sell it?” asked Grace.
    “Oh. Well, it is a medicine. That’s all I’m saying, honey. Aspirin is medicine and people forget that. I’m just saying you got to be careful because it’s not sugar. Not candy. Aspirin is a verypotent medicine. Aspirin isn’t sugar. Sugar is organic, see? Sugar’s got carbons in it, but aspirin’s plain acid and acid is something you got to be careful of, see?”
    Grace nodded. Then Wolff nodded. He straightened his lab coat and checked his watch against the Coca-Cola clock. “So,” he said crisply, “bus gets in at eleven twenty. Who’s this relative anyhow?”
    Grace laughed. “It’s no big secret, Herb. It’s Harvey. We just thought it would be best not to …”
    “Harvey?”
    Grace smiled.
    “Harvey!” Wolff wailed. He held his hands to his mouth like a girl. His voice sailed up an octave. “Harvey? Well this is … Harvey!”
    “It’s no secret,” Grace said. “We thought he’d just want to get off the bus without any fuss.”
    “Geez,” Wolff moaned. “Well, this is something.