Night My Friend by Edward D. Hoch Page B

of them here I guess I have quite a lot to say about the town.”
    “Are you in charge of the picnic?”
    “I’m in charge of the awards.”
    “Can we get free Coke and hot dogs?”
    He chuckled at that. “We’ll see, boy. We’ll see.”
    Grandfather didn’t drive, and as a result we were picked up for the picnic by Miss Pinkney and Miss Hazel, two old schoolteachers who drove a white Cord with a certain misplaced pride. Since they were already in front, the two of us piled in back, a bit crowded but happy. On the way to the picnic grounds we passed others going on foot, and grandfather waved like a prince might wave.
    “What a day for a picnic!” Miss Hazel exclaimed. “Remember how it rained last year?”
    The sun was indeed bright and the weather warm, but with the contrariness of the very young I remember wishing that I’d been at the rainy picnic instead. I’d never been at a rainy picnic for the very simple reason that my parents always called them off if it rained.
    “It’s a good day,” my grandfather said. “It’ll bring out the voters. They should hold elections in the summer time, and we’d win by a landslide every time.”
    The Fourth of July was not yet two weeks past, and as we neared the old picnic grounds we could hear the belated occasional crackling of left-over fireworks being set off by the other kids. I was more than ever anxious to join them, though I did wonder vaguely what kind of kids would ever have firecrackers unexploded and left over after the big day.
    We travelled down a long and dusty road to the picnic property, running winding down a hillside to a sort of cove by the water where brown sandy bluffs rose on three sides. There was room here for some five hundred people, which is the number that might be attracted by the perfect weather, and already a few cars were parked in the makeshift parking area, disgorging there the loads of children and adults. Miss Pinkney and Miss Hazel parked next to the big touring car that belonged to Doctor Stout, and my grandfather immediately cornered the doctor on some political subject. They stood talking for some minutes about—as I remember—the forthcoming primary election, and all the while I shifted from one foot to the other watching the other kids at play down by the water, watching the waves of the lake whitened by a brisk warming breeze that fanned through the trees and tall uncut grass of the bluffs.
    Finally, with a nod of permission from my grandfather, I took off on the run, searching out a few of the boys I’d come to know best in these weeks of my visit. I found them finally, playing in a sort of cave on the hillside. Looking back now I realize it was probably no more than a lovers’ trysting place but at the time it held for us all the excitement and mystery of a smuggler’s den. I played there with the others for nearly an hour, until I heard my grandfather calling me from down near the speakers’ platform.
    Already as I ran back down the hill I saw that the campaign posters and patriotic bunting were in place. The picnic crowd was gradually drifting down to the platform, clutching hot dogs and bottles of soda pop and foaming mugs of beer. Over near the cars I could see the men tapping another keg of beer, and I watched as a sudden miscalculation on the part of the men sent the liquid shooting up into a fizzing fountain. “It’s raining beer,” shouted one of the men, standing beneath the descending stream with his mouth open. “This must be heaven!”
    Frank Coons, the town’s handyman and occasional black sheep, had cornered my grandfather and was asking him something. “Come on, how about some of your gin cough medicine? I been waitin’ all afternoon for it!”
    But my grandfather was having none of it. “None today, Frank.”
    “Why not? Just a drop.”
    “Have some beer instead. It’s just as good.” He moved off, away from Frank, and I followed him. There were hands to be shaken, words to be spoken, and