John Adams - Wastelands 2

“And that inspiring speech you gave us earlier, that one of Abraham Lincoln’s… well, you know, we tried to start a school here, in the beginning. But it just didn’t work out. We needed every hand, even the kids’. Now though, well, that speech got me to thinking. We’ve got some old books put away. Maybe now’s the time to give it a try again.”

Gordon nodded politely. He had seen this syndrome before—the best of the dozen or so types of reception he had experienced over the years, but also among the saddest. It always made him feel like a charlatan when his shows brought out grand, submerged hopes in a few of the decent, older people who remembered better days… hopes that, to his knowledge, had always fallen through before a few weeks or months had passed.

It was as if the seeds of civilization needed more than goodwill and the dreams of aging high school graduates to water them. Gordon often wondered if the right symbol might do the trick—the right idea . But he knew his little dramas, however well received, weren’t the key. They might trigger a beginning, once in a great while, but local enthusiasm always failed soon after. He was no traveling messiah. The legends he offered weren’t the kind of sustenance needed in order to overcome the inertia of a dark age.

The world turns, and soon the last of the old generation will be gone. Scattered tribes will rule the continent. Perhaps in a thousand years the adventure will begin again. Meanwhile…

Gordon was spared hearing more of Mrs. Thompson’s sadly unlikely plans. The crowd squeezed out a small, silver-haired, black woman, wiry and leather skinned, who seized Gordon’s arm in a friendly, viselike grip.

“Now, Adele,” she said to the clan matriarch, “Mister Krantz hasn’t had a bite since noontime. I think, if we want him able to perform tomorrow night, we’d better feed him. Right?” She squeezed his right arm and obviously thought him undernourished—an impression he was loathe to alter, with the aroma of food wafting his way.

Mrs. Thompson gave the other woman a look of patient indulgence. “Of course, Patricia,” she said. “I’ll speak with you more about this later, Mr. Krantz, after Mrs. Howlett has fattened you up a bit.” Her smile and her glittering eyes held a touch of intelligent irony, and Gordon found himself re-evaluating Adele Thompson. She certainly was nobody’s fool.

Mrs. Howlett propelled him through the crowd. Gordon smiled and nodded as hands came out to touch his sleeve. Wide eyes followed his every movement.

Hunger must make me a better actor. I’ve never had an audience react quite like this before. I wish I knew exactly what it was I did that made them feel this way.

One of those watching him from behind the long buffet table was a young woman barely taller than Mrs. Howlett, with deep, almond eyes and hair blacker than Gordon remembered ever seeing before. Twice, she turned to gently slap the hand of a child who tried to help himself before the honored guest. Each time the girl quickly looked back at Gordon and smiled.

Beside her, a tall, burly young man stroked his reddish beard and gave Gordon a strange look—as if his eyes were filled with some desperate resignation. Gordon had only a moment to assimilate the two as Mrs. Howlett pulled him over in front of the pretty brunette.

“Abby,” she said, “let’s have a little bit of everything on a plate for Mr. Krantz. Then he can make up his mind what he wants seconds of. I baked the blueberry pie, Mr. Krantz.”

Dizzily, Gordon made a note to have two helpings of the blueberry. It was hard to concentrate on diplomacy, though. He hadn’t seen or smelled anything like this in years. The odors distracted him from the disconcerting looks and touching hands.

There was a large, spit-turned, stuffed turkey. A huge, steaming bowl of boiled potatoes, dollied up with beer-soaked jerky, carrots, and onions, was the second course. Down the table Gordon saw apple cobbler and an opened barrel of dried apple flakes. I must cozen a supply of those, before I leave.

Skipping further inventory, he eagerly held out his plate. Abby kept watching him as she took it.

The big, frowning redhead suddenly muttered something indecipherable and reached out to grab Gordon’s right hand in both of his own. Gordon flinched, but the taciturn fellow would not let go until he answered the grip and shook hands firmly.

The man muttered something too low to follow, nodded, and let go. He bent to kiss the brunette quickly and then stalked off, eyes downcast.

Gordon blinked. Did I just miss something? It felt as if some sort of event had just occurred, and had gone completely over his head.

“That was Michael, Abby’s husband,” Mrs. Howlett said. “He’s got to go and relieve Edward at the trap string. But he wanted to stay to see your show, first. When he was little he so used to love to watch TV shows…”

Steam from the plate rose to his face, making Gordon quite dizzy with hunger. Abby blushed and smiled when he thanked her. Mrs. Howlett pulled him over to take a seat on a pile of old tires. “You’ll get to talk to Abby, later,” the black woman went on. “Now, you eat. Enjoy yourself.”

Gordon did not need to be encouraged. He dug in while people looked on curiously and Mrs. Howlett rattled on.

“Good, isn’t it? You just sit and eat and pay us no mind. “And when you’re all full and you’re ready to talk again, I think we’d all like to hear, one more time, how you got to be a mailman.”

Gordon looked up at the eager faces above him. He hurriedly took a swig of beer to chase down the too-hot potatoes.

“I’m just a traveler,” he said around a half-full mouth while lifting a turkey drumstick. “It’s not much of a story how I got the bag and clothes.”

He didn’t care whether they stared, or touched, or talked at him, so long as they let him eat!

Mrs. Howlett watched him for a few moments. Then, unable to hold back, she started in again. “You know, when I was a little girl we used to give milk and cookies to the mailman. And my father always left a little glass of whiskey on the fence for him the day before New Year’s. Dad used to tell us that poem, you know, ‘Through sleet, through mud, through war, through blight, through bandits and through darkest night…’”

Gordon choked on a sudden, wayward swallow. He coughed and looked up to see if she was in earnest. A glimmer in his forebrain wanted to dance over the old woman’s accidentally magnificent remembrance. It was rich.

The glimmer faded quickly, though, as he bit into the delicious roast fowl. He hadn’t the will to try to figure out what the old woman was driving at.

“ Our mailman used to sing to us!”

The speaker, incongruously, was a dark-haired giant with a silver-streaked beard. His eyes seemed to mist as he remembered. “We could hear him coming, on Saturdays when we were home from school, sometimes when he was over a block away.

“He was black, a lot blacker than Mrs. Howlett, or Jim Horton over there. Man, did he have a nice voice! Guess that’s how he got the job. He brought me all those mail order coins I used to collect. Ringed the doorbell so he could hand ’em to me, personal, with his own hand.”

His voice was hushed with telescoped awe.

“Our mailman just whistled when I was little,” said a middle-aged woman with a deeply lined face. She sounded a little disappointed.

“But he was real nice. Later, when I was grown up, I came home from work one day and found out the mailman had saved the life of one of my neighbors. Heard him choking and gave him mouth-to-mouth until th’ ambulance came.”

A collective sigh rose from the circle of listeners, as if they were hearing the heroic adventures of a single ancient hero. The children listened in wide-eyed silence as the tales grew more and more embroidered. At least the small part of him still paying attention figured they had to be. Some were simply too far-fetched to be believed.