John Henry Days (31 page)

ONE EYE

Looking through this stuff…

J.

(as Linnaeus might)
Barnacles, Pilot Fish, Leeches …

ONE EYE

Try this …

J.

(what is there about looking outward through a window that engenders in susceptible natures the contemplation of inward mysteries)

Layabouts … You know I felt so good this morning when I woke up this morning. It was revelation. Almost. Just woke up—

ONE EYE

(with help from the trade winds, discovering the route to the Indies)

This is it! We’re all here, look at it. All of us—Hey, me and Dave have the same middle name—

J.

(a skeptic)

Let me see.

ONE EYE

(for the benefit of the audience)

Watch the window, man. Says it was last updated yesterday. Man, they got everybody in here. I didn’t know Abe was one of us, I mean yeah he’s always around but I thought he was just tagging along. He’s totally undercover. This is crazy. What kind of diabolical…

J.

(alas)

Shit! It’s them!

ONE EYE

(allaying)

What are they doing? Are they coming up here or are they checking Lucien in?

J.

(unallayed)

They’re … Man, they’re splitting up. Lawrence is coming up here. Can’t get out now, you damn idiot.

ONE EYE

(forgoing an exclamation of Eureka)

We’ll hide.

J.

Lock the door!

ONE EYE

(with an ontological aside)

Was the door locked when we came in?

J.

I don’t know. You’re the one that opened it.

ONE EYE

(and yet a return to the womb impossible at this juncture)

Put everything back the way it was.

J.

(with a keen eye for symmetry)

I think that was little more to the left.

ONE EYE

You do it then, I wasn’t even the one that touched it.

J.

Go out the bathroom window.

ONE EYE

(on the nature of a paint-gummed window crank)

It’s one of those things that only open like two inches.

J.

’sus Christ. I’m not gonna hide in there, you crazy?

ONE EYE

(stepping into the tub)

Pull the curtain back, pull it back.

J.

Shh! Move over, I can’t— What if—

ONE EYE

Probably takes like five showers a day …

J.

Shut up, he’s at the door.

(sotto voce, to himself, glum tones)

And I felt so good when I got up this morning.

E
xcerpts from
Hamms Stamp Gossip,
“The Year in Review.”

Lick ’em if you got ’em, folks! It’s that time of year again when Good Old Hamm the Stamp Man looks back on the last twelve months, takes out the tongs and says, was 1996 Fine or Very Fine? Well, the experts all agree—1996 was darn Near Mint! I don’t know about you, my philatelic friends, but I’m still trying to catch my breath over the totally fab new record set when the Sweden Three Skilling color error went up for auction. Can anyone say 2.2 million dollars? That’s the kind of moolah that says, this ain’t no self-adhesive duck stamp you’re talking about here. It was the proverbial “shot heard around the world” of stamp collecting! Certainly the high mark (or should I say watermark?) in a year when many rare stamps traded hands at record prices. Hey, anyone out there have 2.2 million they can lend me? I’m good for it!

Frolicking Philately! Did the USPS go crazy this year or what? What’s Marvin Runyon smoking over there—old cut squares? Just kidding, Marv! But he sure has kept us all busy—this year the post office issued 89 commemorative stamps, 22 definitives, 13 special stamps and 1 Priority Mail issue. How’s a guy supposed to keep up with that? The most popular issue turned out to be (drum roll, please!) the James Dean commemorative. This will be no surprise to the lovely ladies of stampdom, who have been cooing over this particular issue since the day it was first announced (you know who you are!). Just another example of the genius behind the Postal Service’s new “open” selection process. Guess James Dean is a “Rebel with a Cause”—to celebrate!

And what about Stampgate? The world of collectors is still reeling over the so-called “Nixon Error,” in which 160 stamps of the
Richard
Nixon issue were discovered with the red intaglio printing of the former President’s name upside down. Oops! When the stamps in question were later revealed to be just printer’s waste, Tricky Dick had to admit, “I am not a genuine error.” I’m still a McGovern man myself.

But it wasn’t all fun and games. There has been some speculation that the sad events of July 14 in the town of Hinton, West Virginia, at the unveiling of the John Henry stamp, may affect the price of the issue. Everyone knows a stamp with “a story” tends to bring out the worst traits in the philatelic community, but you’ve heard me go on about “the ghouls” before, so I’ll spare the sermon. In the end, only time will tell if the morbid history of General Issue 3083-3086 inflates the value of the John Henry stamp by itself, or the entire Folk Heroes set.

A
dventure as she steps on the bridge. Sneaking out of the potluck dinner of the left bank, those tenacious houses a spyglass away from the main settlement, the grub and gasoline and trinket salesmen who drum their fingers waiting for tourists, that varied fare. Across the riveted threshold of the bridge is the banquet of civilization, she can see it, the town of Hinton, laid out before her. The bridge is a couple a hundred yards of concrete fast over impelled water. She looks over the guardrail and below. Looks around for witnesses, spits, sees her water dwindle and disappear before it joins that other water. She is stationary over things running away.

Quaint is always the word. Up a ways she sees the American spiral of a barbershop pole. The first building to greet her as she crosses the street is the First Baptist Church and she sees the sign: Temple Street. None of the buildings are over five or six stories—why push your luck when you’ve already chosen godforsaken land. There are a few level blocks of stores and other establishments before the town eases up the mountain and becomes residences until incline disallows. She doesn’t see any cigarette butts on the sidewalk or gutters, notes this, fingers her pack. The streets are busy. The few traffic lights earn their keep, herd. Toddlers extend chubby fingers to parental assurance and at intersections the young are kept from cars. Dawdlers point into shops and all shops are open and she can sense that this activity is unusual. The town bristles with the promise of John Henry Days.

She looks at her map as others do, just another tourist, unfolding and squinting, fixing what she sees in the sunlight into what the Chamber of Commerce says. It turns out she is right in front of where she has been told to go.

The sign says closed but the doors of the bank swing wide on stiff hinges. Where’s the bulletproof glass? It looks like an outlaw’s easy score, a still life of trust. Only wooden slats keep the patrons from the tellers, wide enough to stick a hand through. She can’t help it. Pamela is no thief but the vigilance and paranoia bred into her from generations of city dwelling often produce
this inverse appreciation of opportunities; years of keeping her purse close by, her bags locked between her feet on the subway, have opened her eyes to the unattended.

“You must be Miss Street,” a voice declares. Padding up the marble comes a thin old white lady in a John Henry T-shirt and khaki shorts, sunglasses dangling on her bosom. “I’m Janet,” she says, extending a browned arm. “Jack will be out in a jiff. We’re just going crazy around here today.”

Janet leads her to one of the desks at the back of the bank, and Pamela sits in the customer’s seat like she has to beg them not to foreclose. Janet departs behind teller windows and says hurriedly, in tailgating syllables, “We’re just going crazy around here today, I’m like a chicken with its head cut off.”

Pamela doesn’t see an ashtray.

She wonders if she is early. She checks her watch against the slim black hands of the clock on the wall, finds they are in concordance. If you can’t trust the clock of a bank.

The plaque says President. The door opens inward, releasing the dull letters to the sunlight inside the office until they blaze and burn off. “I’ll be down there soon,” goes the mayor’s voice as he comes into view, in light blue pants and short-sleeved oxford shirt, striped blue tie, holding the door open for his visitor, a chubby man dressed in a pinching railroad engineer’s overalls, “just some things to take care of.” Cliff smiles at Pamela and says, “You’re here.”

The man in the overalls, obviously not a real engineer even in Pamela’s citified eyes, lifts his cap to her as he passes, summoning a fan of brown hair from the back of his scalp.

Cliff makes a quick call after he directs Pamela to a brown leather chair, “just a sec.” Lyndon B. Johnson’s hangdog visage pulls her eyes to a wall of pictures in Cliff’s office. Next to Lyndon is a photograph containing evanescent grays that fade into white mist as they near the frame. The caption tells her it is the C&O passenger station, Hinton, ca. 1900; six men in dark coats loiter and pose beneath the canopy of the plank building. Cliff says, “Tell them we’re not going to pay for it if it doesn’t get here by three.” Pamela’s eyes drop to a picture of an old locomotive, a C&O track gang, the C&O cafeteria. “What do you mean only two gross?” Mayor Cliff and his wife probably, his son probably, on a white porch, Cliff holding up a certificate she can’t read. His son in a football uniform, arm flexed Charles Atlas style. Mayor Cliff and his wife, and his son in a wheelchair, the porch now equipped with a ramp. “Thanks for coming down,” Cliff says to Pamela.

“This is a nice town. It’s nice to get out of the city.”

“I was up in New York City just recently. Heckuva time, me and the wife. Greatest city in the world. But there’s no way I could live there, if you pardon me.”

Pamela nods.

“Well then, I take it you had a nice time at dinner last night? Sorry I didn’t get to say hi in person, but I was just on the run the entire time. Would’ve liked to have held it here of course, but we just don’t have the uh appropriate venue at the moment. Arlene took care of you all right?”

“About my father’s collection—”

“I’m sure you’ll see this afternoon what a great addition it will make to our community. There’s the monument, of course, overlooking the tunnel for about twenty-five years, they put it up for the centennial, the Ruritan have had a little stand up there, but for what we’re thinking about the museum, your father’s collection would be a real plus. I read that inventory you faxed Arlene, it’s pretty impressive, what he acquired over the years. Had his own museum up there in New York?”

“He ran it out of his apartment. Had a little sign up and people were supposed to just walk in off the street.”

The phone rings. Cliff looks at it, looks at Pamela, lets it ring, drips hands onto his thighs. “Sure. We’d give it a great home down here. I could show you the plans we had drawn up, but we sent them back to—this architect we hired hadn’t seen our proposed site, got the shape of the lot all wrong, but he’s working on it. Maybe I’ll have a copy sent over to the motel anyway so you can see. It’s the old A.M.E. church, it burned down a couple years ago and the plot has just been sitting there. It’s town land now and it’s not too far from here. Talcott’s just too small, unincorporated, that’s why we’re stepping in here, Hinton is.” The ring is the ring of eighties office phones, and sounds ancient to Pamela, almost prehistoric. The row of buttons along the bottom of the phone are translucent squares and fill and blink with yellow light when a call comes in. The ringing stops. “No way they have the resources over there,” Cliff continues, “and we have Route 20 right there and the traffic from the national park. Figure it’s just like turning on a light bulb. Flick that switch and we’ll have all sorts of visitors coming through here. Arlene talked to you about the money?”

“I think the money is great. It’s very generous.”

“But you, what’s the saying, you can’t put a price on memories, right?”

Janet pops her head in. “Sorry, Jack, that was Bob, he says he’ll see you there.”

Cliff frowns at the interruption. “Of course I’ll see him there, if I wanted to take the call I would have picked up …” He smiles quickly at Pamela and remembers something from his to-do list, asks, “Hey, Janet, is this okay?” He glances down at his clothes, pulling at seams.

“It’s fine, look great,” Janet says, ducking out.

Cliff nods to himself. The motion passed, the ratification of his ensemble spurs his heart. He says, “Sorry. So … It’ll all have a nice home here, you can be sure of that. We have a lot of stuff already, this is after all the true home of John Henry and we have a lot of stuff passed down through the generations. We’re all railroad people here and the father passes it to the son. It belongs here. You should have seen what we said to the Post Office when they wanted to bring out the stamp in Pittsburgh. We wrote them, boy, this is John Henry’s home. And when we heard about your father’s collection and how we were thinking of making this an annual thing every July, we looked at that inventory you sent and we just knew. It was like a light bulb going on in our heads. Light bulbs. Haven’t had any other offers on it, have you?”

“You’re the first to take an interest in it, that’s why I came down here. I’m just paying the storage space on it now, to tell you the truth.”

“So you closed up the museum when your father passed on?”

“Couldn’t, just don’t have the time to run it.”

“I understand perfectly, you’re a young lady, have your life to live in New York. Pardon me—hotline, got to take this … Hello, honey. No just put whatever doesn’t fit in the fridge and we can take it out later … did you call Arm and see if he needed a ride over?”