Free Serendipity Green by Rob Levandoski Page A

holding me personally responsible,” she says. She tells him of D. William Aitchbone’s threat to put the Reverend Raymond R. Biscobee on the library board.
    Howie Dornick feels a double turd now. “I didn’t even know Bill Aitchbone was president of the library board.”
    â€œHe’s president of everything.”
    â€œIncluding my ass.”
    â€œHe’s president of everybody’s ass.”
    Both having used the word ass , they go back to eating pie until their embarrassment passes.
    â€œHe’s intent on being the next mayor,” Katherine says when she has no more pie to eat. “That means Squaw Days has to be perfect.”
    â€œYou wouldn’t quit your job just because Ray Biscobee got on the board, would you?”
    â€œJiminy Cricket! No! And Bill Aitchbone knows I wouldn’t. He knows I’d stay at the library even if Ray Biscobee got every book taken off the shelves but the Bible. Just like he knows I’ll stay on the Squaw Days Committee no matter how much of a mockery they make of it.”
    â€œI’ve always thought Squaw Days was kind of fun,” Howie Dornick admits. “I know what you mean, though. Celebrating an Indian woman and her papoose getting clubbed to death by two white men is kind of weird. And there is lots of clean-up afterwards.”
    Neither have anymore pie to eat. But they do have stale instant coffee to sip. And so they sip. As unappetizing as they are too each other, they are nevertheless a lonely man and a lonely woman, of approximately the same age, sitting alone together, in March, the month when more than the ground thaws. “I didn’t come here to make you feel guilty, Howard. I just want you to understand how adamant Bill Aitchbone is about this. That’s all.”
    Howie Dornick, of course, is feeling guilty, though not about Katherine Hardihood’s predicament. He is feeling guilty about his half birth and about his attachment to his mother after all these years. He rubs his eyes until a universe of miniature stars explode on his eyelids. “I can’t afford to buy any paint. Not on what the village pays me. It’s all I can do to eat and pay my utilities.”
    Katherine has spent her life learning facts and gathering them into truths. So she knows that Howie Dornick’s refusal to paint his house has nothing to do with how little money the village pays him, just as she knows that D. William Aitchbone’s obsession with Howie’s unpainted house has nothing to do with Squaw Days being perfect, or even with his need to be mayor. This is all about Artie Brown’s wayward sperm. Just as Howie Dornick is the illegitimate son of Artie Brown and Patsy Dornick, D. William Aitchbone’s wife, Karen, is the legitimate daughter of Artie Brown and Melody Ring. Even though his wife’s birth has been sanctified by both God and the Wyssock County Recorder’s Office, the existence of Howie Dornick taints her. Taints their marriage. Taints him. The raw gray clapboards on this little two-story frame are not Howie Dornick’s shame. They are D. William Aitchbone’s shame and D. William Aitchbone’s illegitimacy. “If it’s just the money—”
    Howie begins waving his arms, as if a swarm of wasps just flew out of the cracks in the ceiling plaster. “I’m not taking any of your money, Katherine. You don’t make much more than I do.”
    Actually, Katherine Hardihood knows for a fact that she makes quite a bit more than he does. “I hate Bill Aitchbone as much as you, Howard. And I’d say stand up to him regardless of how much funny business he pulls, except—” She searches the bottom of her cup for a time-delaying swallow. There is only a single thick drop. She lifts the cup to her lips and waits for the drop to trickle onto her tongue. “—except that your house is an eyesore, Howard, and everyone in Tuttwyler, including me,