know?
R: Because of your driver’s exam.
C: You got it. Flunking that permit test was one colossal bummer. But at the end, I said what the hell. And I got the picture. Wow! I got it. That picture’s going to make me rich, I guess. Just like the flag-raising on Iwo Jima.
R: I hope you don’t get the idea that the entire thing was staged for your benefit, young man.
C: Oh, no! Not at all! I only meant ... well ... I don’t know what I meant. But it happened right in front of me, and ... I don’t know. Jeez, I was just glad I had my Nikon, that’s all.
R: You just snapped the photo when Stillson picked up the child?
C: Matt Robeson, yessir.
R: And this is a blowup of that photo?
C: That’s my picture, yes.
R: And after you took it, what happened?
C: Two of those goons ran after me. They were yelling “Give us the camera, kid! Drop it.” Shi—uh, stuff like that.
R: And you ran.
C: Did I run? Holy God, I guess I ran. They chased me almost all the way to the town garage. One of them almost had me, but he slipped on the ice and fell down.
Cohen: Young man, I’d like to suggest that you won the most important footrace of your life when you outran those two thugs.
C: Thank you, Sir. What Stillson did that day ... maybe you had to be there, but ... holding a little kid in front of you, that’s pretty low. I bet the people in New Hampshire wouldn’t vote for that guy for dog-catcher. Not for ...
R: Thank you, Mr. Clawson. The witness is excused.
9
October again.
Sarah had avoided this trip for a very long time, but now the time had come and it could be put off no longer. She felt that. She had left both children with Mrs. Ablanap—they had house-help now, and two cars instead of the little red Pinto; Walt’s income was scraping near thirty thousand dollars a year—and had come by herself to Pownal through the burning blaze of late autumn.
Now she pulled over on the shoulder of a pretty little country road, got out, and crossed to the small cemetery on the other side. A small, tarnished plaque on one of the stone posts announced that this was THE BIRCHES. It was enclosed by a rambling rock wall, and the grounds were neatly kept. A few faded flags remained from Memorial Day five months ago. Soon they would be buried under snow.
She walked slowly, not hurrying, the breeze catching the hem of her dark green skirt and fluttering it. Here were generations of BOWDENS; here was a whole family of MARSTENS; here, grouped around a large marble memorial were PILLSBURYS going back to 1750.
And near the rear wall, she found a relatively new stone, which read simply JOHN SMITH. Sarah knelt beside it, hesitated, touched it. She let her fingertips skate thoughtfully over its polished surface.
10
January 23, 1979
Dear Sarah,
I’ve just written my father a very important letter, and it took me nearly an hour and a half to work my way through it. I just don’t have the energy to repeat the effort, so I am going to suggest that you call him as soon as you receive this. Go do it now, Sarah, before you read the rest of this....
So now, in all probability, you know. I just wanted to tell you that I’ve been thinking a lot about our date at the Esty Fair just recently. If I had to guess the two things that you remember most about it, I’d guess the run of luck I had on the Wheel of Fortune (remember the kid who kept saying “I love to see this guy take a beatin”?), and the mask I wore to fool you. That was supposed to be a big joke, but you got mad and our date damn near went right down the drain. Maybe if it had, I wouldn’t be here now and that taxi driver would still be alive. On the other hand, maybe nothing at all of importance changes in the future, and I would have been handed the same bullet to eat a week or a month or a year later.
Well, we had our chance and it came up on one of the house numbers—double zero, I guess. But I wanted you to know that I think of you, Sarah. For me there really hasn’t been anyone else, and that night was the best night for us ...
11
“Hello, Johnny,” she murmured and the wind walked softly through the trees that burned and blazed; a red leaf flipped its way across the bright blue sky and landed, unnoticed in her hair. “I’m here. I finally came.”
Speaking out loud should have also seemed wrong; speaking to the dead in a graveyard was the act of a crazy person, she would have said once. But now emotion surprised her, emotion of such force and intensity that it caused her throat to ache and her hands to suddenly clap shut. It was all right to speak to him, maybe; after all, it had been nine years, and this was the end of it. After this there would be Walt and the children and lots of smiles from one of the chairs behind her husband’s speaking podium; the endless smiles from the background and an occasional feature article in the Sunday supplements, if Walt’s political career skyrocketed as he so calmly expected it to do. The future was a little more gray in her hair each year, never going braless because of the sag, becoming more careful about makeup; the future was exercise classes at the YWCA in Bangor and shopping and taking Denny to the first grade and Janis to nursery school; the future was New Year’s Eve parties and funny hats as her life rolled into the science-fictiony decade of the 1980s and also into a queer and almost unsuspected state—middle age.
She saw no county fairs in her future.
The first slow, scalding tears began to come. “Oh, Johnny,” she said. “Everything was supposed to be different, wasn’t it? It wasn’t supposed to end like this.”
She lowered her head, her throat working painfully—and to no effect. The sobs came anyway, and the bright sunlight broke into prisms of light. The wind, which had seemed so warm and Indian summery, now seemed as chill as February on her wet cheeks.
“Not fair!” she cried into the silence of BOWDENS and MARSTENS and PILLSBURYS, that dead congregation of listeners who testified to nothing more or less than life is quick and dead is dead. “Oh God, not fair!”
And that was when the hand touched her neck.
12
... and that night was the best night for us, although there are still times when it’s hard for me to believe there ever was such a year as 1970 and upheaval on the campuses and Nixon was president, no pocket calculators, no home video tape recorders, no Bruce Springsteen or punk-rock bands either. And at other times it seems like that time is only a handsbreadth away, that I can almost touch it, that if I could put my arms around you or touch your cheek or the back of your neck, I could carry you away with me into a different future with no pain or darkness or bitter choices.
Well, we all do what we can, and it has to be good enough ... and if it isn’t good enough, it has to do. I only hope that you will think of me as well as you can, dear Sarah. All my best,
and all my love,
Johnny
13
She drew her breath in raggedly, her back straightening, her eyes going wide and round. “Johnny ... ?”
It was gone.
Whatever it had been, it was gone. She stood and turned around and of course there was nothing there. But she could see him standing there, his hands jammed deep into his pockets, that easy, crooked grin on his pleasant-rather-than-handsome face, leaning lanky and at ease against a monument or one of the stone gateposts or maybe just a tree gone red with fall’s dying fire. No big deal, Sarah—you still sniffin that wicked cocaine?
Nothing there but Johnny; somewhere near, maybe everywhere.
We all do what we can, and it has to be good enough ... and if it isn’t good enough, it has to do. Nothing is ever lost, Sarah. Nothing that can’t be found.
“Same old Johnny,” she whispered, and walked out of the cemetery and crossed the road. She paused for a moment, looking back. The warm October wind gusted strongly and great shades of light and shadow seemed to pass across the world. The trees rustled secretly.
Sarah got in her car and drove away.