looking down on the town, he knew this was a new place for him and a new human awaited his ministrations.
The dog started down the hill, taking in the lay of the land and ready for any opportunity that presented itself.
The garbage trucks were starting on their first runs, and early risers all over began tuning kitchen radios to the morning weather report and going out on front porches to hang up flags in support of the campaign to keep Valentine’s distinction as the Flag Town of America.
Fayrene Gardner, who had come into the Main Street Café a half an hour early because she had been unable to sleep due to the excitement of expecting a visit from her first ex-husband, came out the café door and set the United States flag in its holder.
A few yards down the sidewalk, at the doors of The Valentine Voice, Charlotte Nation was doing likewise. Charlotte, who was a little dismayed to see Fayrene had beat her to it, thought it important for the Voice to get their flag out first, as they were a leader in the community.
Setting the pole in the slot with some haste, she hurried back inside to get a cup of coffee for Leo, Sr. before he got off on his deliveries. Since their circulation manager quit three weeks earlier, Leo had been handling the job. Charlotte was thrilled, as now Leo was there early each morning, like herself. He got all the other deliverers off, and then was the last to leave on a route of his own.
“Thanks, Charlotte,” Leo said, taking the cup she handed him and sipping. “Well, I gotta get goin’ now.”
“Yes…you do.” She followed him to the doorway and stood there as he slipped into the delivery van and drove off down the alley, watching with the eyes of a woman in love with a man she could never have.
Up on Church Street, Winston Valentine was glad to be able to manage the job of getting out the front door of his house with the aid of a cane, while carrying two folded flags under his arm. One of his lady boarders, a piece of toast jammed in her mouth, came after him.
He told her with poorly tempered impatience, “I’m all right, Mildred…you cain’t help me and eat toast at the same time!”
She had already dropped jelly on her ample bosom; Winston didn’t want her to get jelly all over his flags. He felt guilty for having the thought that she could in that minute drop dead and he would gladly step over her. He was relieved when she got more concerned about her toast and jelly than about helping him.
He got himself down the front steps and over to the flag pole in the front yard, where he raised the Confederate flag, followed by the Stars and Bars. He could still raise his flags, and once more all by himself, thank God, and he wasn’t yet pissing in his pants, so the day looked good.
Across the street, his neighbor Everett Northrupt, younger by better than ten years, was raising his flags, too, only the Stars and Bars of the U.S. of A. was on top and a lot bigger. Everett was from up North.
Both men stood at attention as music, a mingling of “Dixie” and “The Star Spangled Banner,” blared out from speakers from each man’s home. Winston, not wanting Everett to have anything on him, stood as straight as he could and saluted the flags and the day.
Then, as most days, he saw Parker Lindsey jogging down the street. Parker, a single fellow who no doubt had plenty of pent-up energy, would jog from his veterinary clinic at the edge of town, cut through the school yard and behind houses along a path that came out east of the Blaine’s house, then go down Church Street to Porter and make several jogs to get to the highway and back east to his own place. It was a distance of five miles. Winston played a game of judging the younger man’s state of sexual energy by how hard he was running when he went past.
“G’mornin’, Doc,” Winston called to him, remembering what it was like to be a virile man in his prime. He admired Parker Lindsey, who was going at a pretty good clip this morning.
“’Mornin’.” Puffing, Parker raised a hand in a wave and kept on going.
From the opposite direction came Leo, Jr., pedaling past with his teenage legs on his Mountain Flier. “’lo, Mr. Winston!” he said and sent a rolled newspaper flying into the yard and landing two feet away.
“Bingo!” Winston called back with a wave.
He bent carefully to get the paper, considering it exercise. When he came up, he saw a woman in bright pink on a purple bicycle pumping along toward town. It was his niece, Leanne, who sometimes jogged and sometimes rode a bicycle. A professional barrel racer, Leanne worked to keep her legs strong.
“’lo, Uncle Winston!”
Winston waved back, while averting his gaze from the sight of her. Leanne wore the skimpy attire so popular with women these days, and being her uncle, Winston did not consider it polite to stare. Leanne was a fine specimen of a woman. It was a little too bad she liked to display that around a lot. Winston felt women today had forgotten mystique. He liked to watch women on exercise shows on television, though.
Walking stiffly, but grateful to be walking, he went around the side of the house, where he clipped blossoms from his dead wife’s rosebushes. I’m keepin’ on, Coweta. He would miss his wife until his dying day.
Further up Church Street, Vella Blaine, wearing a lilac flowered apron and a big straw hat over her greying hair, was out in her backyard, snipping fresh blooms from her own rosebushes. She held each to her nose to inhale the delicious, soothing scent. Her very favorite were the yellow Graham-Thomas blossoms. She was so proud of her roses this spring.
Hearing a car, she looked up to see her husband behind the wheel of his big black 80s Lincoln as it chugged away, carrying him onward to his twelve-hour day at his drugstore.
Perry had not bothered to tell her goodbye. Again.
Gripping the stems of the cut roses so tightly that the thorns pricked her hands, Vella walked purposefully up the back steps and went inside to prepare a fresh pot of coffee for herself and Winston, who had, with the arrival of balmy spring, begun once more to join her for an early-morning chat. She got out the blue pottery mug Winston seemed to favor. In the mirror hung on the inside of the cabinet door, she paused to put on lipstick.
Down on Porter Street, the sun had risen high enough to shine its first golden rays on the roof of a small house dating from the forties that Realtors called a bungalow. In bed in the back bedroom, Marilee James, who was definitely not a morning person, was awakened by her eight-year-old son.
“Maa-ma…”
Marilee managed to crack an eyelid.
“Maa-ma…” He peered into her face, his blue eyes large behind his thick glasses.
Marilee tried to focus enough to see the clock. Willie Lee simply had no sense of time at all. He woke up when he woke, and slept when he slept, never minding the rest of the world…or his mother, who had not had a decent night’s sleep since Miss Porter had suddenly and fantastically thrown the newspaper management into her hands and run off with a husband.
Was that red numeral a five or a six? She was going to have to get a bigger clock. The thought caused her to close her eyes.
“Ma-ma, can I have a dog?” Willie Lee spoke in a whisper and slowly, carefully pronouncing each word, as was his habit.
“Not
