The Land Of Laughs

"Hi!"

I waved my book at her and felt embarrassed about my shorts and T-shirt. I don't know why, because I've succeeded so well at repressing my childhood self-consciousness that I'm usually indifferent to what people think of the way I dress.

She stood against the door and talked with one hand cupped to the side of her mouth.

"I came over to see if you two survived last night. I'm so sorry that I had to leave like that."

Petals pushed her nose up against a window and started barking in our direction. Nails perked up his ears but didn't look overly thrilled by the sound. He stayed where he was.

"Oh, that was okay. It was a fine night, A

"Well, then, I don't feel so guilty. You are telling the truth, aren't you?"

Petals disappeared from the window, and then A

"Petals is cuckoo for Nails. Mrs. Fletcher and I take them over to the high-school football field once or twice a week and let them run all of that energy out of their systems."

She stood at the bottom of the porch steps and beamed up at me. She was wearing a scarlet T-shirt that said CODASCO across its front. The shirt accused her of having much bigger breasts than I had originally thought. A pair of faded blue Levi's that were tight in a nice, sexy way, and ratty blue te

I was about to say something about how good she looked when she pointed at me. "What does your T-shirt say?"

I looked down at it and unconsciously put my hand over the huge white letters. "Uh, 'Virginia Is for Lovers.' I, um, a friend gave it to me."

She stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. "So you are a lover, huh?" She said it with a naughty-nasty smile that made me feel two feet high.

"Yes. Very famous too. I'm written up in Ripley's Believe It or Not."

"I don't." Her smile got bigger.

"Don't what?" Mine got smaller.

"Believe it."

Appropriately, Nails chose that moment to start humping Petals, and I was embarrassed but glad for the distraction. I pulled him off. He growled. I think both of them growled.

"Where is Saxony?"

"She and Mrs. Fletcher went shopping."

"That's too bad. I was going to ask if you two would like to come swimming. It's going to be a hot day."

"I'm not really in the mood for it, to tell you the truth. Did you hear about what happened here this morning?" I pointed the book out toward the road.

"The Hayden boy? I know. That was terrible. Did you see it?"

"Yes, the whole thing." I put the book down on the railing and crossed my arms over my chest. The dogs had collapsed a foot away from each other and were panting like little steam engines.

"Then why don't you come out for a ride with me? I'm sure that it will take your mind off things. We'll take the dogs with us."

The two of them jumped right up, as if they understood.

"Okay, sure, that would probably be very nice. Thanks, A

I went back into the house, got my wallet and keys, and wrote Saxony a note. I didn't know how she'd take my not being there when she came back, so instead of rubbing salt into the wound by saying that I was with A

Weren't we here to write a book on Marshall France, and so wasn't all contact with his daughter helpful? Bullshit – I felt guilty writing the note because I was excited about whatever was going to happen with A

The car was full of things. Empty cardboard boxes, a yellow garden hose, an old soccer ball, a case of Alpo dog food. The dogs got in back, and A

"I think that the population of Galen has increased by ten people in the last few years." She took a piece of bubble gum out of her pocket and offered it to me. I said no, and she started peeling it for herself. "Farming is about the only thing that people can do around here, but like so many places, the kids don't want to farm anymore. As soon as they get old enough, they go to St. Louis and the bright lights."

"But you've stayed?"

"Yes. I don't have to work because the house was paid for a long time ago. The royalties from my father's books are more than I need to pay for everything else."

"Do you still play the piano?"

She blew a bubble and it popped almost as soon as it came out of her mouth. "Did David Louis tell you that? Yes, I play once in a while. I had a passion for it at one time, but as I've gotten older…" She shrugged and blew another bubble.

She chewed the gum like a kid – mouth open, popping and cracking it until I thought that I would go crazy. Women look terrible chewing gum. Any woman, I don't care who she is. Luckily, she took it and threw it out the window.

"I don't like gum when the taste's gone. Did David tell you about the other man who came here and wanted to do a biography of my father?"

"Yes, the man from Princeton?"

"Yes, what an ass. I invited him to di

"What does that mean?"

"Heuristic? You're the English teacher, you should know."

"Oh, yeah? I don't even know what a gerund is."

"Isn't that terrible? What's our educational system coming to?"

I rolled down my window and watched a bunch of healthy-looking cows whisk flies away with their big ropy tails. Far off behind them, a tractor worked its way across a flat brown field, and an airplane moved at a pinpoint crawl.

"We'll be there in a few minutes."

"Where? Am I allowed to ask where we're going?"

"No, you'll see. It's a big surprise."

We drove on for three or four more miles, and then, without putting on the blinker, she took a sharp left off onto a narrow dirt road and into a forest so thick that I couldn't see more than fifteen feet into the trees on either side. The car became cooler, and a rich, full smell of wood and shade took over. The road got bumpy, and I could hear rocks banging up into the wheel wells.

"I never thought of Missouri as being very foresty."

Sunlight sneaked in and out of the trees. A deer appeared and disappeared through the trees, and I looked over at A

"Don't worry, we're almost there."

When she stopped, I looked around but saw nothing.

"Let me guess: your father planted all the trees in this forest, right?"

"No." She switched off the motor and dropped the keys on the floor.

"Uh… he used to go walking here?"

"Now you're getting closer."

"He wrote all of his books on that stump?"

"No."

"I give up."

"You didn't try hard enough! Okay. I thought that you would like to see where the Queen of Oil lived."

"Where she lived? What do you mean?"

"Aren't people always asking writers where their characters come from? Father got his Queen from someone who lived in these woods. Come on, I'll show you."

Getting out of the car, I started phrasing the whole passage in my mind for the biography. "The road that led to the Queen of Oil's house snaked its way through a forest which appeared out of nowhere. France had discovered the main character for The Land of Laughs in the heart of a woods that should never have been there in the first place."