The World as We Know It (22 page)

“As they teach, they learn,” Joshua said.

In school they studied practical subjects, many of which had never been addressed in schools of the past. There was history, math, science, and English, of course, but the application of those subjects to survival, farming, communications, mechanics, green building, and energy production was equally important. After all, application was the purpose of learning to begin with. Foreign language courses were expected of anyone who did not speak at least three fluently. Success in school was not determined by standardized tests. In fact, very little was standardized. Advancement was based on the teacher’s recommendation, which rendered the teacher invaluable. College-level education was no longer the only option beyond the new equivalent of high school. The preferred course for most careers was then apprenticeship—continued learning through application.

When class had concluded, Joshua and I began the long walk back to his house. It was not so strange that we were greeted on the street by nearly everyone we passed. That, I had grown to expect in my travels. What
was
strange, however, was that all of those people knew him by name—not just within his own neighborhood, but on
every road and every corner we traversed along the way. When I inquired as to his seeming celebrity status, he responded with a modest shrug.

The next day, I thought it prudent to make a contribution to that place as I had in others. Before the sun had fully risen, I embarked on the mountainous hike downtown to Pier 39, where sea lions basked in the morning sun among the fishermen loading gear onto boats. There I joined another crew just boarding their catamaran.

“We can use more hands today anyway,” they said, welcoming me aboard. “One of our guys just left town.”

We set off westward, tacking past the city under the Golden Gate and into the blue. It was a beautiful, cool morning with a breeze coming in from the ocean, just like the night I had arrived there. The Pacific view of the city bared a stunning fusion of human creation and that of God: feats of engineering and architecture—bridges and buildings—spread in three dimensions across a mountainous backdrop. From the shore was drawn a waving blue carpet that sparkled, fit for royalty and with an adventurous spirit. The designed elements complemented the natural, as they should. Too much faith in human creation leaves little for all that was there long before. I stood with the breathtaking view from a vessel powered entirely by the wind, traveling as people had traveled for thousands of years.

That feeling always brought me back to wonder about God. Sometimes, like the wind, his presence seemed
passive, even nonexistent. Others, it emerged as if out of nowhere, moving us with overwhelming power to great new places and leaving a wake of joy and inspiration.

Aboard the vessel, the crew’s lunatic revelry echoed that of the proverbial Pequod, with their timeless songs and vulgar jokes. They, too, had converged there from diverse strata and distant places. When I told the fishermen the name of the man who had taken me in, they were not surprised in the least. They as well all knew Joshua.

“Who is he?” I asked.

“The teacher,” one of them said.

“Yes, but why does everyone know him?”

“When it all came down, we didn’t know where to go. It was mass panic. Most people here didn’t know how to hunt or farm. There was no electricity, no communication, no running water. We were terrified. I don’t have to tell you what it was like. I’m sure you experienced the same things.

“Then Joshua came along. I’m not sure how it started, but people began to follow him, and as word of the teacher spread, everyone began looking to him for answers. During times of great struggle, people will look anywhere for a leader and follow the first person who steps up. It doesn’t always end well. Too often that person will take advantage of the very people who entrust their lives to him, but every once in a while, there’s someone like Joshua. Things grew calm again, eventually. As we adapted and learned to provide for ourselves, Joshua gradually slipped back into anonymity. Not entirely, of course. We all still know his face, but he’s just one of us.”

“What did he do before the collapse?” I asked.

“Joshua was homeless. He slept in parks and scavenged for food.” He smiled and said, “Wisdom is sometimes hidden in unexpected places.”

I couldn’t help but look at Joshua differently that night when I brought the day’s catch back to his home. We ate together, and he was strangely quiet throughout the meal. Uncharacteristically so, from what little I knew of him. He kept glancing at a sealed envelope sitting on a desk nearby in the room. I didn’t want to probe, though. If he was planning to request that I make a delivery, it was his own business, and I would let him ask at whatever time he saw fit. Already I had accepted the responsibility in places past, and in my satchel two other letters awaited delivery. What was a third? Still, I didn’t quite understand the apprehension about asking such a favor. He was, after all, providing me with a home and an education during my stay. It was only right that I repay him somehow.

Then I began to wonder why, when their network had already been so developed, he would charge me with the responsibility of a single delivery. Would it not be simpler to send his mail with one of the Bay’s own carriers, regardless of its destination? Certainly, if it were a local delivery, they would be more familiar with the route and established postal centers. If it was distant, my route was indirect to almost any location, and I only had one stop left on the coast before I would head home.

I grew increasingly curious through the meal, anxious, even, picking away at the delicious halibut that I had arduously taken from the ocean earlier in the day. Occasionally, Joshua would look across the room to the envelope and then look at me as if to speak. But without a word, he would turn back to his plate and continue eating.

It became apparent that whatever he was holding back seemed to him as much a burden spoken as it was kept within. If I were to have an answer to my own frenzied curiosities, I would have to inquire.

“I see you looking at that envelope, Joshua,” I said. “What’s in it?”

He looked up at me silently.

“If you need me to make a delivery, you can ask. It isn’t a problem. Lord knows I owe you for the hospitality.”

“You owe me nothing,” he said. “The sacrifices you’ve made are more than payment enough.”

“Either way, I can take it off your hands if you need.”

“It’s not outgoing.”

“No?”

“No. I received it some time ago.”

“May I ask why you haven’t opened it?”

“Because it isn’t addressed to me.”

“Who is it addressed to?”

He paused for a moment and took a breath.

“It’s addressed to you, Joe.”

13

THE CITY OF ANGELS

I
was back on my horse early the next day, having slept very little that night. I spent most of it up writing. And reading the letter over and over. That is, after I had finished harshly berating Joshua. When he handed me the envelope, I saw the origination mark from Eden Valley—my home. It had been delivered some weeks prior with specific instructions to hold until I arrived. Because the postal center at the Bay knew not whom to expect or when or from where, it was decided at the time that Joshua would be the ideal custodian of the mysterious piece of mail. After all, nearly everyone still in the city knew him, or at least knew how to find him. If anyone were to hear of the stranger on a mission, it would be him. It was only by coincidence, or perhaps fate, that he had happened upon me in the park that night.

Looking back, I can understand Joshua’s reservations and why he hadn’t given me the letter that very night and had decided instead to wait until I was preparing to get back on the road. He, of course, had no idea what was inside. It was an unknown and mysterious thing, and he dared not venture to guess what joyous or devastating news it might bring me in a time of such personal strife so far from home. It was obviously important, he knew, based on the distance it had traveled and the orders that had accompanied it. Would it bring news of death? Some catastrophe? Those were his fears, and though he was perhaps not as forthcoming as I might have wished he had been at the time, I’m glad now that he did wait. I would not have spent that valuable time in the Bay Area had I received the letter on the night of my arrival. I would have been off again immediately.

My reaction to Joshua waiting, though, was one of anger. In truth, I wasn’t sure exactly how to react when I saw my name in Maria’s handwriting on the front of the envelope, and for whatever reason, anger was the emotion that presented itself. I stood in Joshua’s dining room with the unopened letter in my hand, yelling terrible things at him. Perhaps that arose out of my own fears of the words that might have been enclosed. He sat quietly, enduring the abuse with no rebuttal to my volcano of tension poisoning the air as we breathed it.

I left the room to read in private, my hands shaking as I tore open the envelope, and I didn’t emerge until early the next morning before the night gave way to the day.
I was gone before Joshua had risen, leaving my outgoing mail on his dining table and not taking the opportunity to say good-bye. I wanted desperately to be home, but after reading the long-awaited words of the person I loved more than my own life, I understood more than ever the importance of the two envelopes in my satchel. Regardless of what might have been inside them, it was my responsibility to ensure that they were delivered. The city that had once been Los Angeles would be my next stop.

As October rolled into November, Nomad and I traveled southward on Highway 1, the blue Pacific following alongside over the immense cliffs. Breakers exploded in white clouds below as the wind picked up from the west. The road wound like one in a painting and traced the coast, the ocean to our right and the mountains to our left. We crossed old bridges built into the cliff faces and suspended over deadly chasms, which looked as though they might collapse at any moment. I read the letter so many times that I had it memorized, and then I kept reading just to see Maria’s handwriting on the page.

Dear Joe
,

I don’t even know how to begin this letter. It’s been so long since we’ve seen each other, and between the letters you send, each of which makes me break down into tears of joy, all I feel is fear. I know I shouldn’t tell you that, but you’re all I can think about. Every moment I have to endure without
you is agonizing. I miss you so much, and I love you more than words can say. It’s been hard, Joe, I won’t lie. I can’t even imagine what it’s like out there for you. When you get home, I want to hear the real story, not the sugarcoated one I get from your letters, but for now, that will do. You were always trying to protect me
.

Things are good here, though. You wouldn’t believe how big this place has gotten. We’ve taken a few trips back home, and things have calmed down there too. I’m still calling St. Louis home, out of habit, I guess, but for all intents and purposes, the farm is home now. I guess it’s time I got used to that. It doesn’t feel like home without you here, though
.

Everyone else seems to have settled into this new life all right. Mail comes in and goes out every day now, and I know we all have you to thank for it. They’re more organized now than they were at first. A person came in today with mail all the way from California. You should have seen how happy people were at the post office. I figured since the last letter I received from you came from Chicago a few weeks ago, I could send this one back to California to wait for you. I don’t know how they’ll find you, but I’m hopeful
.

Do you remember the day you proposed to me? I do. Like it was yesterday. It was the first anniversary of our first date. I was preparing a nice swordfish dinner for the two of us when the kitchen suddenly became very warm, and I swept into the dining room to find the table covered in candles like a shrine to a little red box in the middle. You had left it sitting there all day, insisting that I wait to open it until the exact time that our date had begun the year before and repeatedly asking me what I thought was in it. I was terrified to speculate. What if I was wrong? But I wasn’t wrong. You asked me to spend the rest of my life with you, and I didn’t have to think twice before saying yes. I loved you so much then, and I still do. That was the most wonderful day. Remember those days, Joe. That’s how we’ll get through this
.

How symbolic that first year seems now. One revolution around the sun. Each such revolution seems to bring a new chapter in our lives. It was just over a year we had spent here together before you left, and, I hope, it won’t be more than another since that we will have spent without each other
.

I’m sorry to be so brief when there’s so much to say, but I have to get this to the carrier before he leaves again tonight. I miss you so, so much, but I’m
so proud of you. We all are. You must know that and never forget it. We’ll be together sooner than you realize, and I can hardly wait for that day. I love you more than you’ll ever know. I’ll always wait for you
.

Love Forever,
Maria

It was as if she had forgotten the awful way I had treated her before I left, and reading her words and hearing her voice in my head stoked that fire of guilt within me. The nightmares became progressively worse, and the void inside me continued to grow. Somehow, though I would have given anything to hear from Maria, that letter made things even more difficult. I was overcome with so many emotions. The more I heard about how proud she was of me and what a wonderful thing it was that I was doing, the more ashamed I felt. I didn’t want to be away from her anymore. I wanted to be home, holding her. What could be worth the sorrow to such an ordinary person as I was? Who was I to have taken on this great responsibility? I was no wise man and no great hero. That was a realization I had come to months before. Rather, I was simply a person who had abandoned his family for his own pride, and my wife, in her pure, uncorrupted love, with all the time she had waited for me, was still as loyal as she had ever been. After having been away from her for so long, even the simplicity of those handwritten words on the
pages made all of the memories that had been fading into oblivion real again. My love for her was overwhelming. She was as much a part of me as my heart itself and equally vital to my survival, and it made me physically ill to be without her.