Stephen Dixon - Letters to Kevin

I sat on one. It didn’t move. I rested my head on it and kicked it. Nothing. The other log didn’t even jump up to protect the log I kicked. Maybe oak logs don’t need a second log to speak with. So I carried one away and said when I got it alone: “Listen, I’m sorry for kicking you before. But could you please tell me how to get out of here?” but it didn’t move. Maybe oak logs only speak in threes or fives or nines, instead of twos or ones. And whatever length, girth and bark conditions they are don’t matter. So I rolled over eight more oak logs of various sizes and tried speaking with them in every possible combination and number. I even stood two logs up while seven were resting. And then put one log on top of three logs while four others were standing and one was resting. Then I gathered all the oak logs in the area and piled them on top of one another in layers and threatened to set fire to the forty of them if they didn’t speak. That still didn’t work. One thing I learned in my study of logs is a piece of information most everyone already knows: oak logs don’t speak. Though I can say I’m probably the one person who’s done thorough research on the subject. I even said in front of them “Well, I guess oak logs don’t speak,” and hid behind a bush and watched them for the rest of the day. I thought maybe they had had a big party or war of their own and were exhausted and sleeping it off and for that reason couldn’t speak. But none of them bounced or rolled even once. Maybe all logs but white birch speak without the logs actually moving. Silently and invisibly, like electric waves from each of them meeting and forming into couples or just bouncing, bunking, falling and rolling around together in the air. But rather than try and tune into this silent way of speaking, and maybe starving by then, or gathering even more logs of every size and type in this forest and arranging them in thousands of different combinations till the right one worked for them to speak, I started following the river the white birch logs had gone in. I did stop to write this letter. I wanted to get down on paper my discoveries about white birch logs and the results of my experiments with other logs, before I forgot it all.

Yours sincerely,

Rudy

Dear Kevin: I followed the river for three days and nights. Then I saw a plane overhead, heard a steam whistle from a ship, tripped over a railroad track and walked along the rails till I reached a city in Utah. I was now only a few hundred miles from the California border and didn’t see why I should have any trouble getting to you soon. I mailed my last letter and got on a train for San Francisco. The conductor came over and said “Ticket, please.” “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t have time to buy one at the ticket window.” “You can buy one from me,” and he punched out a ticket. “I also didn’t have time to withdraw money from the bank to buy a ticket.” “What did you have time for except to try and sneak a free train ride?” “Do you mean in former times, in between times or for the time being?” I said. “This won’t be the first time in a long time that I haven’t time to spend listening to your timeworn time-killing excuses about time till this train leaves on time. So can you spare ten seconds of your time to march double time out of this car?” “Can you give me time to think about that?” “Your time’s up for all time here, chum. So off you go or in no time I’ll have the time of my life seeing that you’re doing time,” and he edged me up the aisle and out of the train after it had begun moving.

“My typewriter,” I yelled, running alongside the train. He tossed it out the window. I luckily caught the typewriter by its case handle before it smashed on the ground. “Bad timing on my part,” the conductor yelled back. In the city’s business district I went to one of those U-Drive-It places where you can drive someone’s car while the car owner takes the more relaxed trip out by train, ship or plane. The U-Drive-It manager said “Sure, we got a car that needs driving to Palo Alto. But you got to give us a fifty-dollar deposit, which you get back from the car owner when you deliver the car to her safe and sound. “I haven’t fifty dollars.” “Borrow it from a loan company.” The loan company manager said “You got something to give us to hold that’s worth fifty dollars till you pay back the loan?” “Nothing but this typewriter which I wouldn’t part with and isn’t worth five bucks.” “Then borrow the fifty from a bank. Buy a car with that money, give us the car as security, and we’ll give you a fifty-dollar loan.” I went to the bank. The bank manager said “We’ll be happy to loan you fifty dollars. But you’ll have to give us two credit references from either a bank or loan company that you’ve paid back two loans of at least fifty dollars each in the past three years.” “First loan me fifty dollars. With that money I can buy a car to give to the loan company as security for its fifty-dollar loan. I’ll use that loan as the fifty-dollar deposit for the U-Drive-It office, which I’ll get back from the car’s owner in Palo Alto when I deliver the car to her. Then I’ll buy a car with the fifty-dollar deposit she returns to me, drive back to this city, sell the car for fifty dollars, pay back the loan company its fifty-dollar loan and get back the car I gave them as security, and sell that car for fifty dollars and pay this bank back its fifty-dollar loan. Then I’ll have the two credit references I need to show you I’ve paid back two fifty-dollar loans: the loan from the loan company and the one from this bank.” “When you have those two credit references,” she said, “come see us anytime and we’ll give you a fifty-dollar loan.” “I may have to. Because after I drive back here and sell those two cars and pay back both loans, I’ll probably still want to return to Palo Alto in another U-Drive-It car. And for security to take out a loan from the loan company to get the fifty-dollar deposit for the U-Drive-It car, I’ll have to borrow fifty dollars from this bank to buy a car.” I left the bank, still looking for a way to get to Palo Alto. “Vote for Senator Bray,” a lady on the street was shouting into a microphone. “A vote for Bray will give the people a say.” And there rumbling down Main Street was a truck with a long wagon attached to it, filled with waving and cheering people and posters, streamers and flags. Some of the people screamed “Climb on the bandwagon” and “Bray’s the man, so get on while you can.” I asked the lady what this all meant. She said “Senator Bray is running to be his party’s candidate for president. Though no one thought he had a chance to win, he now seems the man all the other candidates must beat.” “Is the bandwagon going to California?” “Right to it, straight through it, smack down the middle of it, then all around it a few times before it starts back across the country to the East Coast.” “Then he’s the candidate for me.” I climbed on the bandwagon, was given a mimeograph machine to run, a cold fried chicken wing to eat, a pennant to wave and a leaflet which said for everyone to chant in unison “A vote for Bray is a voice for a new day.” And I began to copy, chew, wave and chant at the same time.

The bandwagon went from city to city and always more and more people climbed on. Like everyone else aboard, I didn’t see how the wagon could stop moving till Bray had become his party’s candidate for president. After four days of traveling through Utah and Nevada and almost reaching the California border, a newspaper was passed around whose headlines read “Bray Loses Two State Primaries. No Longer Considered Serious Candidate,” and right then and there the bandwagon got a flat. Everyone jumped off. A few walked away, but most sat on the other side of the road eating the last box lunches the wagon had. I was the only one who figured that if the flat was fixed, the bandwagon could start moving again. So I asked Senator Bray for a jack and lifted the back of the wagon to put on a spare tire. “At least there’s still two of us who believe I can be the winning candidate,” he said. “I don’t know much about politics, sir. But if your wagon’s going to California, I want to be on it.” “Makes no difference how strong or what your political beliefs are, just so long as you’re for me. Now let’s get this buggy rolling again.” He sat in the driver’s seat. I got on the wagon part and he yelled for me to turn the tape recorder on. It blasted out the message “To end all wars and double your pay, you gotta climb back on and this time stick with Bray.” But we were out of gas. “Loan me a dollar for gas, son,” he said. “My campaign fund’s done run dry.” I turned out my empty pockets and pointed to the rope and pins I now used to hold up my pants. “Hock your typewriter,” he said. “We can get twenty gallons for it, which will take us right to that town you want to reach.” I wrestled my typewriter away from him and crossed the road. “Maybe one of these cars whipping by me can spare some gas,” he said. “I’m sure I can make it to California and back East again if all the drivers who are for me pitch in with a single gallon apiece.” Just then we heard loud honking and band music and garbled pep talk from what seemed like a huge circus van tearing down the hill toward us from California. “It’s Governor Flay’s bandwagon,” someone said. “The candidate who beat Bray in those two state primaries and whom everyone now thinks is the man of the day who’s going all the way.” Flay’s wagon was much bigger and newer than Bray’s and had hundreds of applauding people on board and many more banners, microphones and a live band. It stopped in front of us. All the people around me who had been on Bray’s wagon climbed on Flay’s. Governor Flay reached over the wagon to Senator Bray and me and said “Give me your hands while you can, boys. We’re going clear through to New York and then to the White House in D.C.” “Wrong direction for me,” I said, “but thanks.” Senator Bray climbed on, raised Flay’s hand above their heads