The End of Vandalism by Tom Drury Read Free Book Online Page B

blue flannel shirt. A note was taped on: “My name is ‘Quinn.’ Please look out for me.” The baby had dark eyes, much dark hair, and a loud, deep cry. Dan picked up the Hamm’s box and put it in the front seat of the cruiser. He fastened the seat belt and shoulder harness as well as he could around the box. The baby howled powerfully, but once the car was in motion he looked around, burped, and fell asleep.
    Dan headed for Mercy Hospital in Stone City, but three miles out of Margo he picked up a radio call from the deputy Ed Aiken. Some kids were on top of the water tower in Pinville, and Ed Aiken could not get them to come down.
    “Try the bullhorn,” said Dan.
    “Did that,” said Ed.
    “Say you’re calling their folks,” said Dan.
    “Did that.”
    “I guess you’ll have to go up after them.”
    “No, sir,” said Ed, who had found it almost impossible to climb since an incident in his teens when he had come very close to falling off the roof of a barn.
    “Jesus, Ed,” said Dan, “get over it.
    “I’m not going up that ladder,” said Ed.
    “O.K., but I have a baby with me,” said Dan. “I found a baby at the grocery store in Margo.”
    “Maybe it belongs to somebody,” said Ed.
    “Well, I suppose it does,” said Dan.
     
    The water tower was by the tracks in Pinville. It was the old silver kind with a red bonnet, a ladder, and an encircling walkway that provided a good platform to stand on while writing graffiti. A small crowd had gathered in the grass around the base. Someone had come by with a box of tomatoes, and many of the people were chewing on tomatoes and staring up at the water tower. Ed Aiken came over to the passenger side of the cruiser when Dan pulled up. Ed was a thin man, and the one thing you would say about him day to day was that he rarely seemed to get a decent shave. Right now, for instance, he had a little flag of toilet paper flying under his chin as he opened the cruiser door. The baby started to cry again.
    “Aw,” said Ed, “let me hold the little darling.”
    He lifted the baby from its box, the blue shirt trailing like a blanket. “Do you like your Uncle Ed?” he said. “Say, sure you do.”
    Dan took a turn at the bullhorn without any luck, and then he climbed the water tower. A cage made of hoops protected the ladder, but it seemed that if you slipped and fell the main function of the hoops would be to shear off your head on the way down, and Dan felt a vacuum in his lower parts as he climbed. He watched the people eating tomatoes, and when he could no longer make out the individual tomatoes, he stopped looking down. The culprits were three boys in sleeveless black T-shirts and jeans with the knees torn out. Their setup was professional, with hats, rags, a bucket of red paint, a tray, some turpentine, and a roller screwed onto a stick. In jagged, running letters they had written “Armageddon” and “Tina Rules.”
    “Who’s Tina?” said Dan.
    “Tina of Talking Heads,” said Errol Thomas.
    “What are you thinking of, coming up here in daylight on a Saturday afternoon?” said Dan. “Did you imagine for a second that you wouldn’t get caught?”
    “We want people to know,” said Albert Robeshaw.
    “We want people to wake up,” said Dane Marquardt. He cupped his hands and yelled “Wake up!” at the people on the ground. “Look at them, they’re so insignificant.”
    “We’re in a band,” said Errol Thomas.
    “I would’ve guessed that,” said Dan.
    The boys packed all their stuff into a gunnysack, and they and Dan headed down the ladder. On the ground, Ed Aiken was holding Quinn over his shoulder, patting him, pivoting slowly.
    “How is he?” said Dan.
    Ed raised his eyebrows and whispered, “Just dropping off.”
     
    It rained most of the time for the next two weeks. This was the long, gray rain known to every fall, when the people of Grouse County begin to wonder whether their lives will acquire any meaning in time for winter. Water