The Americans Are Coming (27 page)

“I’ll get your change,” said Shirley and practically ran into
the post office. She opened her cash box and fumbled through the few bills and coins. She dropped a quarter, made a dive for it, stumbled and nearly fell. She glanced over her shoulder to make sure that Nutbeam hadn’t followed her into the office. She managed to count out four dollars and ninety-five cents, took a deep breath and went back to the open door.

“Your change,” she said, but there was nobody there. Nutbeam had vanished.

*

Dryfly removed Lillian’s letter from its hiding place under the mattress, unfolded it and commenced to read. He read from beginning to end, then went to the word “love” and eyed it thoughtfully.

He heard a knock on the door.

“Who could that be?” he asked himself. “Nobody knocks around here.”

Dryfly was lying on the bed. He heard Shirley responding to the knock, so did not bother to rise.

Dryfly sniffed the letter. When it first arrived he could detect the slight scent of perfume, or perhaps fly repellent. The letter was now ragged and crumpled and the scent of whatever it was was long gone. Dryfly closed his eyes, visualized Lillian’s lips, and kissed the letter.

“If you could only read my thoughts,” he thought. “I love you, Lillian. I must write to you. But . . . what will I say?”

Dryfly rose, found a scribbler and pencil, then returned to his bed. Lying down, which did nothing to improve his calligraphy, he began to write:

Dear Lillian,
How are you? I am fine. Hope you are the same.

Dryfly wanted to spill his heart. He wanted to say: I miss you and I love you, but instead he wrote, “It was good to hear from you.” He wanted to say: I’m crazy about you and I need you, but instead he wrote “It’s been a good fall. The sun is
shining here today. How’s your father?” Dryfly wanted to spill his heart, but instead he wrote about Shadrack, his mother, Palidin and Nutbeam. He wrote about the river, the hunting season, the autumn colours and the fact that new boards were needed on the footbridge.

He finished the letter off by saying, “Hope to see you next summer. Love, Dryfly.”

“It’s a good letter,” he thought, “I’ve managed to squeeze in the word ‘love.’”

He folded and fit the letter into an envelope, addressed it and went to the kitchen to give it to Shirley to mail. He didn’t have a nickel for a stamp, but he knew that Shirley would send it off for him.

“Who was that at the door, Mom?” he asked.

“You’d never believe it!”

“Who?”

“That Nutbeam fella’.”

“Nutbeam? Here?”

“Yeah. Wanted to mail a letter. Give me five dollars and left without his change.”

“Did he say anything?”

“No. I came in here to get his change and when I went back to the door, he was gone.”

“Odd.”

“Yeah. It was.”

“Would you stamp this letter for me, Mom?”

Shirley took the letter and read the name and address.

“You think about her a lot, don’t you, Dry?”

“Some.”

“She’s a fine lady. Pretty, too,” said Shirley, then thought, “she’ll never get caught with the likes of one o’ us.”

Shirley stamped the envelope.

“What do ya make o’ Nutbeam?” she asked.

“Don’t know. Wanted to mail a letter, I guess.”

“The letter was to somebody in Maine. He’s got floppy ears, Dry. You’d have laughed to see him.”

“Did you laugh?”

“No, I was too scared to laugh.”

“That’s good.”

“Have you ever seen him, Dry?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen him. He’s all right. He won’t hurt ya. He’s a nice lad, really.”

“I wonder why he didn’t wait for the change?”

*

The Italians make a cigar that is too strong to inhale. They’re about three inches long and tapered. They’re hard on the outside. They’re good for smoking while you fish. They don’t absorb moisture from your hands and when it’s raining, they’ll stay lit longer. They also smell like the dickens and keep away pesty insects like mosquitoes and blackflies. Parodys, they’re called. Shadrack found a box of Parodys on the mantle.

He lit one up and flew into a fit of coughing. “Not bad!” he thought.

Shad puffed on the smelly cigar and nipped straight from the bottle, the Glen Livet. Shad was not a thief at heart. He would never steal anything he thought anyone would care about. He figured the American owners of the Cabbage Island Salmon Club were rich and would never miss the scotch or the cigars and therefore, it was perfectly all right to take it. “They prob’ly don’t even know they left it here,” he thought.

Shad had sat to think, but something was toying with his concentration. He found himself much too happy to give much thought to being depressed. How could one think seriously about running away or committing suicide while grinning from ear to ear? Instead of thinking about his problems, he carried his scotch to the big window that faced the river, had another nip and bit on the cigar.

“My name’s Shaddy Nashville,” he said. “I’m a zecative in the nylon industry. I’m from Bangah Maine.”

Shadrack started to sing, “I once had a sweetheart, but now I got none! She’s gone and left me for somebody neeeeeeeew! La, la, la, la, la, la, la to the red, white and blue! Whoop!”

“Ladies and gentlemen! Star of stage and screen! The great Shadrack Nash!”

Another little nip.

“Hey, boy! Fetch ma wada’s and auvis! I’m goin’ to the riva!” Shad’s fabrication of the American accent was better than he knew. Shad didn’t care if his accent was correct or not. Shad didn’t give a fiddler’s wink about anything.

“Are you mine, rich or poor? Tell me darlin’ are ya sure? La, la, la, la, la . . . whoopo! WEEE HAW AND HER NAME WAS MAUD!”

In his mind, Shad was not standing alone in an empty cottage. In his mind, he was facing an audience of thousands of people. He was a powerful performer, with an audience so captivated he could do whatever he wanted and they’d be pleased.

“Ladies and gen’lmen, I don’t give a damn about anything,” he shouted. “The whole world can go piss up a stump, for all I care! WHOOP! When I was but a little boy before I went to school, I had a fleet of forty sail, I called the ships o’ Yule! Ya’ll like that, ladies and gen’lemen? Ya’ll like me little poem? Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Then something made a noise in the kitchen. It sounded to Shad like something falling from a shelf. It startled Shad into silence. He stopped to listen.

“Hello?” he called.

Suddenly, although he was glowing from the scotch and a little breathless from his performance, the cabin seemed cold and clammy – too quiet. He had the sensation that someone was looking over his shoulder. The cigar was getting to him, so that when he stopped to listen, all he could hear was his own wheezing lungs.

“Is there someone in the kitchen?” he yelled. “Cause if there is, ya’d better show yerself, ’cause Shadrack Nash ain’t scared o’ nothin’.”

Still holding the Glen Livet, Shad made his way down the hall. The kitchen was across the hall from the bathroom. The bathroom door was shut. Shad debated whether the door had been open or shut when he’d passed it during his earlier exploration of the cabin.

“Had to be closed,” he thought. “Nobody here but me.”

He stepped into the kitchen.

Nothing unusual. He couldn’t see anything out of place. Nothing visible had fallen.

“Must’ve been a rat,” he thought. “A mouse, or a rat in the cupboard.”

“Here’s to ya, rat!” He toasted and drank from the bottle. The scotch gave him courage. He stepped back into the hall. He opened the bathroom door.

Empty.

He flicked the Parody butt into the toilet. There was no water in the toilet, but he missed anyway and the Parody stood on its end, straight up, on the edge of the porcelain rim.

“Ha! I’d never do that again in a million years,” he thought. “Ha! That’s even more than you could lie about!”

Shad shrugged, snapped his fingers rhythmically and danced his way back to the livingroom, singing, “Oh, doe, doe, doe, dee, dee; dee yodle dodle day hee hoo; comoss evaw, my name is yodlein’ Euclid, dee yodle dodle day hee hoo!” This time he sang louder, with more gusto, as if he were playing to a noisy, difficult audience. He especially chose the song “Yodeling Euclid” as an attention getter.

And when he stepped back into the livingroom, there, staring at him, sad, and undignified, was his audience – the salmon, the moosehead, the deerhead.

Where at first they had looked majestic and beautiful, they now looked grotesque and . . . undignified. They stared at him with unblinking eyes, watching his every move, hating him for what he was; hating him for being human. On the deerhead, you could actually see the seam where the throat had been cut.

“Dryfly,” whispered Shad. “I wish Dryfly was here.” He might as well have said, “No man is an island.”

He was being scrutinized by the mounted animals; he was alone; the cabin was cold and damp; he heard another noise in the kitchen! This time it sounded like something scratching, like a puppy at the door.

Shad knew there were no puppies in Brennen Siding.

He contemplated investigating, decided against it. “I just checked it,” he thought.

Shad hurriedly filled his pockets with Parodys, the mounted animals watching him all the while . . . and perhaps other eyes as well, he wasn’t sure. He just had the feeling that he might get caught. He felt he had to work quickly.

He took some Parodys, the money and last, but not least, a bottle of Canadian Club whiskey.

He headed for Shirley Ramsey’s.

*

Nutbeam entered his camp and shut the door. Lately, he had been lighting the lamp more often, but today he did not. The darkness and gloom of the camp fit his mood. He lay down on the cot.

“I made a fool of myself,” he thought. “She must be laughing her head off.”

He closed his eyes and envisioned Shirley standing in the doorway, small, somewhat afraid.

“I’ve ruined it all,” he thought. “I should’ve known that nothin’ good would ever happen to me!”

The cot was comfortable and Nutbeam was feeling very tired.

“Why did I run?” he asked himself. “Why was I so afraid of her? Did she see how scared I was? Did I really make a fool of myself? But she didn’t laugh, she didn’t laugh.”

“I’m alone,” he whispered to the camp. “I’m all alone.” Nutbeam slept and dreamed of running on a footbridge that ran into infinity. He ran and ran and ran.

Knock, knock, knock.

“Huh?”

“Nutbeam, old boy!”

“Huh?”

“Hey, Nutbeam, chummy pard!”

Still half asleep, Nutbeam unlatched the door and let Shadrack and Dryfly in.

Shadrack was carrying a bottle of whiskey, the contents of which had been half consumed. Both Shadrack and Dryfly reeked of the rye. Dryfly was carrying his guitar.

“What’re ya doin’ in the dark, Nutbeam?”

“I was sleepin’,” said Nutbeam, yawning so that his big, wide-open mouth was like a black hole amid the gloom.

Nutbeam lit the lamp.

“Have a drink, Nutbeam, old dog! Clean ’er up! There’s lot’s more where that come from!”

“Where’d ya git it?” asked Nutbeam. Nutbeam knew by the size of the bottle and the quality of the rye that they hadn’t bought it at the bootlegger’s.

“Don’t you worry ’bout where we got it, old pal! Here, chummy pard, have a cigar!”

Nutbeam had only slept for two hours and hadn’t eaten since morning. The rye shot through his system so that he could feel the effects of the first small drink. It was good. He took another drink, and then a bigger one, and one more. The party began.

When the rye was empty, Shad reached outside the door and pulled in a second bottle, broke the seal and passed it around.

The three were sitting at the table, and as all drunken conversations do, this one too got dangerously personal.

“Ya know, Nutbeam, you’re the best lad in the world!” said Shad. “Nobody ever used me any better than you!”

“It’s good havin’ you boys around,” said Nutbeam. “I’ve been alone for too long.”

“You know what I did today, boys? . . . I wrote to Lillian Wallace! I love ’er, you know that?”

“I’ve been thinkin’ over what you’ve been sayin’, Nutbeam,” said Shad, “and you’re right. I should go back to school. I’m no jeezly good in the woods.”

At this point of the party, all three were more or less talking at the same time.

“Do you know what it’s like being locked up in a place like this?” said Nutbeam. “What’ll happen when a man gets old? No family. No woman. Alone.”

“I’m the lonesomest man in the world!” said Dryfly as if stating something so profound that he had to yell it out. “Do you have any, do you have any idea what it’s like to not be able to see or touch the woman you love?”

“I know what it’s like,” said Nutbeam. “You’re damned right I know what it’s like.”

“I’m gonna go back to school and rub all them women in Blackville, become rich and famous and own the Cabbage Island Salmon Club. Lay right back and drink and smoke cigars, do a little fishin’.”

“I’m in love with her, I tell ya.”

“I’m in love with the most beautiful woman in the whole world!” shouted Nutbeam, as if he were arguing a point.

“If she’s nearby, you got ’er made,” said Dryfly. “She’s near all right.”

“Mine’s way the hell down in the States.”

“Then go to her, for Jesus sake.”

“Can’t.”

“Go! Go! Tell ’er you love ’er! I would,” said Nutbeam. “I’d have to go to Blackville school,” said Shad. “Kin you just see me in that big school?”

“Does she know you’re in love, in love with her?” asked Dry.

“No! No! No, she don’t know.”

“You know what’s wrong with you, Nutbeam? You got a feriority comprex.”

“I’m goin’ home and tellin’ Mom I’m goin’ back to school,” said Shad. “I’m tellin’ her right now.”

“No! Wait! You can’t go now. You’re drunk, ya jeezer.”

“I went to see her, Dry. Went to see her and failed,” said Nutbeam, practically in tears.

“I heard Joe Louis on the radio, Nut. He said the first rule in boxin’ is to never give up. You’re just down, Nutbeam. Don’t let Mom bother ya. You ain’t beaten yet.”

“How’d you know I was talkin’ ’bout yer mother?”