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ow he ever decided to get a haircut. Did he just look in a mirror and form an opinion? Did he spend time thinking about it, weighing it, holding imaginary conversations with himself? I wished he would ask me. Thinking about him, I longed to be there when he fumbled in his sock drawer, figuring out what to wear. I was dying to be asked whether, yes, it’s time to climb the stairs to the itchy room above the dry-goods store and sit in that chair that swivels and bucks and let Mike Havranek clip just a bit off the top and the sides. I wanted to get personal.
He arrived that afternoon in a bit of a rush, and the first thing he told me was that he had an errand to run. He had to visit a man on Jefferson Street—Ewell Johnston, a Katydid councilman, who’d worked for years at the KTD. Mr. Johnston was now retired, but Reverend Vaughn wanted to talk to him about what the town could do. Would I like to come along?
We walked out Oak and headed for the area everyone calls New Town. The name is left over from years ago, when the KTD built its own subdivision. The houses that the factory put up are smaller and a bit flimsier perhaps than others in Katydid, but in general you’d hardly notice that New Town was something different, except that the streets form an insistent, regular grid, First Street to Fifth Street, Washington to Monroe.
Reverend Vaughn walked briskly in his disjointed way. He had on a short-sleeved dress shirt, and his tie flapped as he moved. “I can’t believe this is happening,” he said after we’d gone a few blocks.
I thought he was talking about my case. “Oh,” I said cautiously.
“Nobody seems to care.” He sounded bitter.
“I know.”
“Either they’re all stupid, or they just can’t face it.”
I nodded.
“Hundreds of people are going to be out of work.”
“Oh,” I blurted out, “you’re talking about the KTD.”
“Well, yes.” He looked at me quizzically. “What did you think?”
I considered trying to fake it but gave up the idea almost immediately. “Me,” I said sheepishly.
“You? Well, of course, you.” He laughed. “I suppose the same stuff all goes for you. Only I think we’re going to solve your problems, and the KTD is still going to close.”
“I hope not.” I felt a twinge of guilt for wishing earlier that the factory would shut down immediately.
“By the way,” he asked, “how are you and Mrs. Vernon getting along?”
“Oh, fine,” I said. “She’s different from what I’m used to, but she’s been very nice.”
He shook his head. “I happened to talk to her minister the other day. Reverend Wallenback. What a sour character he is.”
“Really? I’ve never met him. She thinks he’s wonderful. She even suggested that I talk to him.”
“Are you going to?”
“I don’t really want to.”
“He’s pasty,” Reverend Vaughn said. “Do you know what I mean? He has a very pale, pasty complexion, and he talks with a heavy drawl, as if the words are stuck in his mouth and he has to pull each one out.”
I laughed. “I had an image of someone different.”
“Whatever you do, don’t tell Mrs. Vernon I was complaining about him. She’s suspicious of me already. Probably because I’m a Congregationalist. Too soft on Satan, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, she’s crazy about you,” I said. “She thinks you’re wonderful.” In fact, though, I’d noticed that her enthusiasm for him had dropped a few degrees since his first visit. Once or twice, I’d caught her staring at him with a look that was almost hard.
“I’m not so sure,” he said.
At the corner of Fifth and Monroe, we passed the New Town Variety Store. Three children were in front, standing on the scruffy lawn, picking sugar drops off a long, white sheet of paper. They looked up and stared hard at the tall, storky man who was passing down the sidewalk.
“Ichabod Crane,” whispered a pudgy boy in baggy shorts. I glared at him, and he returned to the candy.
“Why were you talking to Mrs. Vernon’s minister?” I asked.
“I had an idea, something I’d been working on,” Reverend Vaughn said. “I tried to get in touch with all the clergy in town. I wanted to see if we could organize something on the KTD, some kind of protest or, at least, something that showed we were concerned.”
