Jonathan Lethem: Lucky Alan: And Other Stories

Losing patience, we sidled to the main counter. “What time on the average day does the boxholder typically, you know, pick up?”

“Box mail goes up at ten thirty.”

“Right, sure, but mostly when do citizens appear and begin to gather it up, take it to their private homes?”

“Whenever they care to.”

“Sure, right, this is America, isn’t it?”

“Sure is.”

“Thank you.”

We resumed charades with the chained pen. Two, three, five, eight, eighteen Hastings-on-Hudsonians lumbered in to check their boxes, sort circulars into recycling bins, greet the postmistress, and trade coins for stamps, each of comically tiny denominations. Everyone in this hamlet, it seemed, had just found a sixteen- or twenty-three-cent stamp in a dusty drawer, and had chosen today to supplement it up to viability using car-seat nickels and pennies.

Yet somehow between transactions the postmistress had snuck away for a tattling phone call, or so we surmised from the blinking patrol car that now swept up in front of the P.O. Into the lobby strode a cowboyesque figure, a man, late-fiftyish, wearing a badge in the manner of a star, lean and, when he spoke, laconic. Clea read my mind, saying, “You the sheriff in these parts?”

“Chief of police.”

“Not the sheriff of Hastings-on-Hudson?”

“No, ma’am, there isn’t one. Can I ask what you’re doing here?”

“Waiting.”

“Have you folks got postal business today?”

“No,” I said. “But we’ve got business with someone who might have postal business, if that’s okay.”

“I suppose it might be, sir, but I’m forced to wonder who we’re talking about.”

“The King of Sentences.”

“I see. You wouldn’t happen to be the authors of a certain unsigned and borderline-ominous postcard?”

“Might happen to be, though there was hardly ominous intent.”

“I see. And now you’re waiting, I’m guessing, for the addressee.”

“In the manner of free Americans in a federally controlled public space, yes. We checked with the postmistress.”

“I see. You mind if I wait a bit myself?”

“By definition we can’t.”

Soon enough he appeared. The King of Sentences, unmistakably, though withered like a shrunken-apple fetish of the noble cipher in the photograph. He wore a gray sweatshirt and caramel corduroys with the knees and thighs bald, like a worn radial tire. Absurd black Nikes over gray dress socks. Hair white and scant. Eyes tiny and darting. They darted to the not-sheriff, who nodded minimally. The King nodded back with equal economy.

We collapsed, as planned, to our knees, conveying the beautiful anguish of our subjection to the sole King of Sentences — bowed heads, fingers wriggling as if combing the air for particles of his greatness. A chapter of I Heard the Laughter of the Sidemen from Behind Their Instruments , secreted in the waistband of my underwear, buckled as I knelt there. The King stood inert, if anything sagged slightly. The chief turned and shook his head, a little appalled.

“You okay?” he asked the King.

“Sure. Let me talk to them a minute.”

“Anything you say.” The law went outside, to stand and take a cigarette beside his cruiser. He watched us through the window. We nodded and waved as we scrambled back to our feet.

“Who sent you?” the King said.

“You, you, you,” Clea said. “It was you.”

“We weren’t so much sent as drawn,” I said. “You gave us the gift of your work, and now we’re here, a gift in return.”

“Take us,” Clea said.

“No, thank you,” the King said. His eyes shifted nervously from Clea, settling on me.

“We anointed you the King of Sentences,” I told him. “We’re the ones who did that. Nobody else.” I didn’t want to bully him with news of how scarcely his name circulated, how stale and marked-down the assembly of his hardcovers on used-bookstore shelves.

“I didn’t tell you to come.”

“No, but you are responsible for our presence.”

“Let me be clear. I have nothing for you.”

“Take us home.”

“Not on your life.”

“We came all this way.”

He shrugged. “When’s the next train back?”

The sentences that emerged from his mouth were flayed, generic, like lines from black-and-white movies. I tried not to be disappointed in this stylistic turn. He had something to teach us, always.

“We don’t care. We don’t have tickets. We came for you.”

“I don’t fraternize. This kind of intrusion is the last thing I need.”

“Lunch,” I begged. “Just lunch.”

“I eat only what my housekeeper prepares. A disproportion of sodium could murder me at this point.”

Clea hugged herself with pleasure. I heard her murmur the line, cherishing it privately, “… disproportion … sodium … murder me.” The King craned on his Nike toes, checking that the cop was still outside.

“Forget lunch. An hour of your time.”

“We’re to hover in the post-office lobby for an hour? Doing what, exactly?”

“No, let’s go somewhere,” Clea said. “A hotel room, if you won’t have us in your house.”

“Or the bar,” I said, offering a check on Clea’s presumption. “The bar in the lobby of a hotel, a public setting. For a cocktail.”

The King laughed for the first time, a cackle edged, like a burned cookie, with bitterness. “What largesse. You’d take me to one of our town’s fine hotels. They’re as superb as the restaurants. Motel 6 or Econo Lodge, I believe those are your options.”

“Anywhere,” Clea panted.

The King’s weary gaze again shunted: Clea, myself, the disinterested postmistress, the chief outside, who now ground a butt into the curb with his heel and turned his head to follow the progress of some retreating buttocks. The King’s voice edged down an octave. “Econo Lodge,” he said. “On Lower Brunyon. I’ll find you there in fifteen minutes.”

“We don’t have a vehicle.”

“Too bad.”

“Can we ride with you?”

“No way, José.”

“How do we get there?”

“Figure it out.” The King of Sentences departed the P.O. and skulked around the corner and out of view, presumably to his car. I couldn’t have entirely imagined the extra little kick in his step as he went. The King had been energized, if only slightly, by meeting his subjects. It was a start, I thought.

On the sidewalk we teetered with excitement, blinking in the glare that now filtered through the gnarled clouds. The chief looked us up and down again. We offered charming smiles.

“Can I give you folks a lift back to the station?”

“No, thanks, we’re looking for Lower Brunyon. Care to point us in the right direction?”

“Why Lower Brunyon?”

“The Econo Lodge, if you must know. Is it walking distance?”

“Longish, I’d say. Why not let me escort you?”

“Sure.”

We sat behind a cage. The backseat smelled of smoke, perfume, and vomit, raising interesting questions about the definition of police work in Hastings-on-Hudson. The chief took corners smoothly, in the prowling, snaky manner of a driver unconcerned about regulating his speed.

“You two in the regular habit of doing junk like this?”

“What do you mean by ‘junk’?”

“Putting yourselves in the hands of a customer like your friend in there?”

“I’d be junk in his hands any day,” Clea said defiantly.

“Well, he’s old and likely pretty harmless by now,” the chief said. “I saw him the other day in the pharmacy, getting himself one of those inflatable doughnuts for sitting on when you’ve got anal discomfort. I’d say from what I’ve heard those sort of troubles are his just deserts. We’re not dummies around here, you know. When he moved up here from the city, a certain number of stories trailed after him. He’s been a bad boy.”