And so learning is difficult for you. Imagine not knowing the alphabet, not knowing there even is such a thing. Imagine recognizing the sound of numbers, but only as warnings that thrust from your mother’s mouth as she counts backwards. “You have five seconds to get to the root cellar, young man! Five…four… three…” You never hear the two, one; by then you are running, tumbling down the steps into the darkness, because if you get there before she finishes the countdown, you usually escape a beating and only have to tolerate the twin thunderclaps of the root cellar doors being shut, and the scrape of a tree branch as it’s pushed through the latch. Being alone in the dark is scary, but not as bad as being alone while the welts on your skin burn so badly, you can’t imagine why they don’t glow in the dark. Why they don’t throw up huge red beams of pain, bringing a firestorm to the underground damp of the root cellar.
School pulls you, lures you away with the promise of pleasure and brightness and sound from the awful familiarity of home. You try so hard. You watch the others, you listen to your teacher, and you begin to make headway. By the end of kindergarten, you not only know your letters, but you are reading. And it is something you love to do. The weekly class trip to the school library is a treasure and you always carry home your carefully chosen book gripped tightly in both your hands. But sometimes, you don’t get to read it. Sometimes, if you accidentally sound out a word that you don’t recognize and your voice shatters the silence into shreds of consonants and vowels, your mother tears the book away from you, tosses it across the room, and down to the root cellar you go. Sometimes for days.
You take to quickly reading your library book on the bus ride home. If you get to read it again, and again, it’s a gift and so, so delicious.
Imagine.
Imagine doing all your homework silently. Imagine doing everything silently. You have to be invisible. But you try, because it is the only way to be, and you want to please your beautiful mother, even as you fail, and fail, and fail again.
Leaving kindergarten behind, you also have to leave behind the toy clock, but you harvest relationships with two others. The alarm clock in the root cellar, which you can wind all by yourself now, and your mother’s anniversary clock, visited on secret forays to her room while your mother sleeps on in the sun. The alarm clock becomes your brother, your best friend, and the anniversary clock grows into a friendly older woman who could have been your mother. Who you wish was your mother. In your mind, the clocks’ pendulums ripen into hearts and their voices express the deepest desires in their souls. In your soul. The clocks speak for you and to you and with them there, you imagine that your life is crowded with company. With love and concern and want and need. A developing history of picnics and county fairs, good-natured arguments and late-night whispered conversations. Family. A family so different from just you and your mother.
Imagine.
James could. Clocks provided warmth and warmth was what James needed. Clocks never used their hands and voices to hurt, and their bodies, round and square and rectangular and solid, never coiled like a cat on the floor. James could give them all the solace and comfort he learned to crave. The comfort and warmth he saw all around him as the kids whispered secrets and laughed and pushed each other on swings at recess. As they held each other’s hands and danced in dizzy circles around each other and around Maypoles and Ring-Around-The-Rosie. As they dashed past him after school to waiting mothers’ arms and embraces. James watched closely then, tried to imagine what it would be like to have slender arms encircle him, rosy lips plant a kiss on his cheek. He dreamed of his mother’s hair falling around his face and shoulders like a bright blonde cloak.
Instead, he embraced the steady ticking of a clock. And the clocks embraced him. They were always there. They were always with him, even in the dark. Even when he hurt. Especially when he hurt.
Imagine.
After breakfast the next day, James checked his schedule to see who needed winding. There were quite a few and so he set about collecting the necessary keys from the old card catalog cabinet. The card catalog itself was a find, sold when What Cheer’s library went to a computer system instead of the old drawers full of cards. They sold off the cabinets, and the day of the sale, James made sure he was there early. Sure enough, they pulled one from way in the back; it was a beautiful thing, easily from the early nineteenth century. So he bought it and kept it in the control room, using it to store individual identification index cards and all the different keys for the clocks. Each clock was given a number when it moved into the museum. That number went on a card, along with where James bought the clock and when, and the clock’s location in the house. If there was a key, that was stored there too.
That day’s keys jangling from a ring attached to his belt loop, James traveled through all three floors of the house, stopping in several rooms. Nine o’clock came and went and he paid attention as the clocks chorused their glory. In the morning, the clocks’ chiming always reminded James of being in a church. There was a reverence as their voices raised in rooms filled with the early sun.
When the winding was finished, James looked out the front door. There were no cars parked on the street and nobody strolled on the sidewalk. He propped the door open, an invitation to tourists, but set the alarm so that anyone crossing over the threshold would be announced with the sound of a doorbell. Westminster chimes, of course. He could hear this down in his workshop and he wanted to get to work on the broken four-hundred day clock, the waltzer. All that was left was to set the new crystal and balance the movement, and then the clock would breathe again.
As James got to work, he remembered the estate sale where he bought the clock a few years ago. The man had it on a back shelf of the garage, almost hidden away, but James found it, as he found all abandoned clocks. It was lovely, just old enough to avoid the battery, and its version of “The Anniversary Waltz” was full-throated and pensive. James admired the way the four beveled crystals on the pendulum caught the sunlight.
There was no price tag, so he turned to the man. “How much for this clock?” he asked. He knew there was the possibility it wasn’t for sale, but in such instances, he always asked. Sometimes it only took that request to get someone to sell.
The man took the clock from James and held it for a moment. He opened his mouth and closed it and James stepped back, giving him room to make his decision. James never tricked anyone out of their clock; if the clock was loved, it was best left alone. But here, as it was shoved on a back shelf in a cold garage, James imagined that the clock didn’t feel loved and he wanted to make it warm. He knew that asking for its price would either earn him the clock or the clock an honored place back in its home. But then the man said, “Twentythree dollars.”
That was an odd price and amazingly low. James thought about offering more, just to be fair, but the man’s face, stiff with stoicism and yet with just a softening of sadness around the eyebrows and the mouth, made James reach quietly for his wallet. “I’m happy to pay it,” James said.
The man glanced at James, then looked away. “It’s silly, I suppose,” he said. “It’s how long we were married. Twenty-three years.”
James liked him for that, for translating those years into the clock’s worth, though James wondered why the years stopped, why the marriage was referred to in the past tense. Was the wife dead or just gone? It didn’t feel right to ask, so James quietly handed over the money and helped to pack the clock upright in a box. “It doesn’t need to stop running,” James said when the man reached out to stop the pendulum. “Let’s just pack paper around the dome and it should be fine. I don’t live far from here.”
James took over the clock’s packing, though the man kept his hands perched on the edge of the box. James felt the warmth of his touch, and maybe the missing wife’s too, dissipate from the clock’s brass base. He quickly said, “It’s a great day for an estate sale. Lovely weather,” to get the man’s mind off the memory being packed gently with paper.
The man nodded and turned away. “She left. Two days after our anniversary.”
James froze and despite his ministrations, the clock stopped running. The man’s shoulders were set, braced really, a straight line from the left to the right. But James saw a muscle quiver at the base of his neck. As the man trembled, James lifted the dome and pushed the crystal balls. The clock hesitated, but then swung back into motion. The man’s neck muscle smoothed and his shoulders relaxed and James resumed packing the box.
“I’m sorry,” James said. Those two words didn’t seem like much, but what else was there to say? James knew that cruelty couldn’t be soothed by words. Actions, whether leaving a husband or striking a child, left nothing but silence. James held the box against his chest.
“I bought her that clock for our tenth anniversary. I have the key taped to its base. Be sure to wind it on October first.”
He looked so forlorn that James held the box out. “Are you sure you want to sell it? It’s not big, it could fit anywhere…and it might help you. To remember.” James felt the clock inside hold its breath. “The good parts, anyway.”
“No,” the man said. “I can’t forget. Not the good or the bad. That’s the problem.” He crossed his arms. James hesitated a moment more, but the man closed his eyes. “Please take it,” he said.
And now this clock was broken and resting quietly on James’ workbench. James felt like he hadn’t taken care of it, not when someone was able to slip by and bring it harm. For a moment, James felt that seller, the deserted husband, standing behind him, watching him balance the crystal balls, trying to revive the clock, and he could see the accusation in his eyes. No clock deserved to fall, to go from secure to insecure, to hit the ground and feel the life knocked out of it. This clock still struggled to live, its three-balled limp quickly turned into a full and rolling sweep. James shoved the sad man out of his sight, out of his room, and watched the pendulum twirl, testing how long he would be able to detect the new crystal. It was a very close match, the same size, the same weight, but the clarity was just a little different. It wasn’t as old as the others and so the light that shot through was clear, not yellowed. After a couple dozen turns though, it became harder to pick out and James imagined the youth of that crystal ball spreading to the rest of the clock. It needed weight and balance…yet a shot of youth didn’t hurt either.
The pendulum paused longer than it should before it switched directions and so James opened the back, tightened and oiled the parts, set things to rights. He closed the door and nudged the pendulum again, then watched as the balls spun without a hitch, without a hesitation. That left only the matter of the glass dome replacement. This clock was a standard size and so that wasn’t a problem; James just fetched a spare from the skeleton closet and then covered the clock in safety and security. He felt the clock sigh then, echoing James’ own breath, felt the clock relax back into its life like a butterfly visiting its cocoon.
He carried it back to its customary place. Setting it firmly on the table, James made sure that all four legs were balanced, it was centered, not near any edges, and he promised it safety. He told it there was no need for fear and he asked for forgiveness. James failed once; it would never happen again. The clock’s breath quickly blended in with the others, its tick quiet and smooth. James wondered if it ever thought about the twenty-three year old marriage it represented. He wondered if it missed the man or his wife.
It wasn’t hard for James to imagine missing someone who hurt you so much. No matter what other people said. No matter if it didn’t make sense.
The top of the hour arrived and the clock, like the others, began to sing. James sat down and listened, hearing its voice above all the rest. The sound of its chime, a gentle ring, soft in timbre, deep in echo, offered James forgiveness. The volume grew, the voice deepened; this clock knew it alone had James’ attention. It sang for that wife, sad and cruel enough to leave, and it sang for that husband, wise enough to give her a beautiful clock for their anniversary, yet left ultimately alone. And it sang for the clock-keeper, in celebration of the sanctuary James provided.
It wasn’t alone. No one in that house was ever alone. James made sure of that.
When the clock’s song was over, when the choir fell silent again, James reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet. There was the father’s check for four hundred and fifty dollars. Yet the clock was fine. James fixed it without any outlay. The clock was worth a little bit less now, with the not-quite-matching pendulum ornament. James held a four-hundred dollar profit.
He looked at the address on the check. The family was from Georgia. James thought about tucking the check into an envelope, sending it with a note of apology to that peaches and sunshine state, thick with accents like molasses.
But then he thought of the look on that boy’s face. And the touch of the mother’s hand, her voice soft as she said her son’s name. That family already had so much. So much that James couldn’t begin to imagine. And yet he still wanted it so badly, this unimaginable thing, that touch, that voice, that look; his fingers clenched into a fist, crumpling the check.
Carefully, James smoothed it, then returned it to his wallet. That much money could go a long way in fixing the broken or saving the lost and abandoned. That much money could keep this house running. And James too.
At least that was something.
A trip to the bank was in order.
Living in What Cheer, Iowa, the only time a car was needed was to get out. James could walk the length of the town in just fifteen minutes or so. He laughed when they put in the drive-through at the bank and he made a habit of walking through it. No one cared. James pretty much did whatever he wanted, since he saved the sorry little town. Even though he never intended to.
So he set off for the bank. The check was warm in his pocket and he whistled, planning ahead for the weekend, a trip out of town to a flea market thirty miles away. He hoped for good weather, for sun breathing warmth down his neck as he wandered from booth to booth, hands in pockets, glancing around and under and over tables for clocks. Some sellers knew James from past experience and they would have clocks waiting for him, hidden away in their vans and trucks, so that he would have the first opportunity to buy. While James appreciated this, he really liked dealing with new sellers. The ones that didn’t know him, and didn’t know clocks, and so he could buy them for a few bucks and a song.
Heading down the street, James glanced at all the markers pointing out the town’s attractions. The signs were everywhere, at every corner, little white arrows pointing this way and that as if people passing through wouldn’t just naturally run across these places because there was nowhere else to go. The Home For Wayward Clocks, this way. The gift shop, that way. Lodging, a small Victorian house transformed into a bed and breakfast, just across the street from the museum. A restaurant. All tourist necessities were available in What Cheer now. The town finally looked like its name, inquisitive, eager to help, to serve and entertain. Eager to survive, really. A few years before, the town was covered in a shade of drab. Nothing here but corn and unemployment, cows and depression. And a man who lived alone in a house full of clocks.
Nobody liked James then. All they knew about him really was that he moved to What Cheer when he was a young man, lived in an apartment above the gas station, and worked for years as the night time janitor at the public schools. He didn’t like to spend much money; the cashiers hated to see him coming because they knew he would have a fistful of coupons that would all have to be tallied off the final bill. He bought clocks though and it became a common thing to see young James, middle-aged James, and now old James walking down the street, holding a clock or two. He saved enough money to buy the run-down Victorian, run down like the rest of the town, and then he fixed it up and filled it to the eaves with clocks.
Now, even with What Cheer thriving, the townsfolk still didn’t like him. He didn’t talk much and what little he said usually wasn’t very nice. But because he didn’t talk, they didn’t know his past, they didn’t know what he survived; they couldn’t imagine what made him into a grumpy and strange old man who collected clocks. But they did know that he managed to save their butts when the town was going through a bad economic depression.
At that time, What Cheer wasn’t the only thing shaded in drab and depressed. James was too. Being a janitor wasn’t much, but it felt like a lot when James was laid off. It was okay for a while, he looked for work, but then the food started running out. There was electricity to pay for. Telephone. The telephone was the first thing to go. He kept looking for jobs on an empty stomach and with nothing to put in the telephone box on the applications. But everyone else was looking too and those lucky enough to be working weren’t hiring.
One night, James sat in the middle of his living room, staring at his bank book. There wasn’t much left. The only thing he had worth selling was the clocks and as he looked around at them all, he knew he would die first. And his entire ticking family would die with him. He thought about taking a box of matches and setting himself on fire, letting the flame spread to the others, and in the end, the ashes would all be blended. No James, no clocks, no heart nor pendulums nor faces nor arms, just a single pile of gray, the house an extension of the clock burial ground in the back yard.
James decided the electricity could go. He wondered how long he could make the money last, buying only bread and peanut butter. Soon there would be no money for gas to drive to job interviews. The only places to look would be within walking distance, within What Cheer itself. Where there was nothing.
James slept that night in the living room, his hands clenched around his bank book.
The following day, he drove to the next town on his last quarter tank of gas to see if any jobs had opened up. On the freeway, he passed billboard after billboard, most blank, some sporting a bright red sign that said, “Your business advertised here! Thousands of viewers each day!” The roads were full of strangers passing through Iowa as fast as they could. There was just nothing to see except Iowans starving in the middle of all that corn.
Those red letters stayed in James’ eyes after he drove past, stayed there like stamps on his corneas. They flashed neon. Your business advertised here! He thought of his house, of all his clocks, the way people looked at him strangely when he passed them on the street.
Maybe there was something to see in Iowa.
So James came up with the idea for the Home for Wayward Clocks. He took what little money he had left and rented a billboard, and then he went to the hardware store and bought an OPEN sign. He propped his door and waited.
It was a horrible hard decision, to let strangers into his home, walking on his stairs and carpeting and hallways. Breathing his air. Tourists bent and peered and commented on all the members of James’ family. He felt like he no longer tended to the clocks; the clocks now tended to him as they drew in tourists and passers-by hungry for a break from the endlessness of Iowa. The strangers brought their wallets with them. And with their wallets came the renewed ringing of the telephone, the steady burning of electric lights and the humming of the refrigerator, keeping everything fresh and cold and good. James fixed the clocks, the clocks fed James, and his ingenuity and fortune spread to others.
The lady across the street created the bed and breakfast, the Time To Sleep Inn. The restaurant in town, a little lunch counter, became the Tick-Tock Quick-Stop Restaurant, open twenty-four hours a day. A clock tower was built, a wrought iron and brick modern affair with Westminster chimes that went off every fifteen minutes and could be heard throughout the town. It stood next to the official “Welcome to What Cheer, Iowa, Home of the Home for Wayward Clocks” sign. The clock tower was usually off by about twelve minutes, something which brought James no end of frustration. A gift clock shop opened up, It’s About Time, selling clocks as souvenirs since James refused. The only thing James sold at the Home, other than admission and repair services, was postcards. He had some especially made, featuring the Home For Wayward Clocks sign in front of the house and shots of the various rooms. The gift shop only kept modern clocks in stock, all batteries, all electric. The owners agreed not to offer any repair services, as that was James’ area. A lot of their clocks came back to him.
The mayor gave James the key to the city. But James hadn’t planned on saving What Cheer, he planned only on saving his clocks and himself.
Everyone knew that if James ever decided to move, if he packed up all the clocks and took the Home away, the town would lose its edge and sink back into that gray time when there were no tourists, there was no money. So wherever James went, there were smiles and handshakes and his back was slapped until it stung, and then the people turned and rolled their eyes behind his back. James was offered free meals at the restaurant, but he refused and they insisted and eventually settled for having Saturday night specials delivered to his door. Coupons were slid to him like contraband in the grocery store. Only the kids remained the same, generation after generation, laughing at James and making crude remarks whenever he passed. The kids didn’t care that he saved the town. They only wanted to get out.
On weekends, a steady stream of visitors waited in line to get in to the Home. Weekdays were quieter. The town bustled on weekends, breathed easier and rested during the week, a familiar pattern in tourist areas like Las Vegas and Niagara Falls and the Grand Canyon. And What Cheer, Iowa. James blocked certain rooms off, like his bedroom and bathroom, his workroom in the basement. But the rest of the house was wide open, the clocks ticking in wary welcome. They understood, they knew there was no other way except to let people in. With some of his profits, James bought the security system and built the control center so that he could see into all the rooms at once, making sure that no one got hurt, no one got taken. But the only way the security system worked was to make sure he was alert. All the time. James thought of the waltzer and he shuddered. He had to take better care.
Coming to the bank, James strolled up to the drive-through lane. Even though he knew it was coming, he still jumped when the voice squawked at him through the speaker. “Hello, James, what can I do for you today?”
“Just cashing a check, Sophie,” he said. He was relieved that it was his favorite teller. There were so many young ones, with flouncy blonde hair and long red nails, and James never knew what to say to them. Sophie was safe. Her brown hair was tucked behind her ears and she always smiled and just said what had to be said.
The money came back out through the tube and James counted it just to make sure, even though Sophie never made mistakes. “Thanks,” he said.
“Don’t spend it all in one place,” she said.
James would. There was a flea market. Clocks were waiting.
On the way back home, he stopped at the small graveyard behind the Catholic church. Many visitors who came to the Home also stopped there. There seemed to be a connection between a fascination with clocks and a fascination with death, and James just couldn’t understand it. He spent most of his life trying to avoid death, and here, people sought it out. Folks stood over the graves, pondering how each person died, what each person saw. Just the way they stood in front of the clocks in the museum, each with a placard like a headstone, and they marveled over the history those clocks must have ticked through. The dust of ancestors settled on the movements, the bones fallen to ash in the graves.
For a while, after the clock boom, James wondered if the church would hang out a shingle too, advertising the graves, charging admission. Time To Die Cemetery, the sign would say. A person standing in a ticket booth shaped like a crypt would collect five dollars a head. But thankfully, the church never put out a sign. The priest was willing to let tourists have picnics there, among the gravestones. They ate chicken from the Tick Tock Quick Stop, the smell of fried batter mixing with fresh dirt and old flowers wilted in pots.
On this day, the graveyard was empty and James nearly stepped in, making it as far as the grass on the other side of the gates. He thought about reading the names, the dates, doing the math in his head for fun so he could figure the age of the body under the stone. But he didn’t. The clocks beckoned. James just didn’t like people much, alive or dead.
But he did glance around quickly before turning away. Once, a woman brought him a clock that she said she found on her husband’s fresh-dug grave. It turned out to be a clock James fixed once before, for someone else. He couldn’t go by a graveyard now without taking a quick look. In case someone was there he knew. In case a stranger was there. The graveyard struck James as the worst place to abandon a clock, even worse than the side of the road or on a pile of garbage. This was the place of the dead where no one was ever heard from again.
It was a mantel clock that the woman found and brought James and so he thought about mantel clocks as he walked home. Those clocks were designed to truly sit on a mantel, right above a fireplace. The original clocks were extremely heavy, made from marble or brass, and once a mantel clock was hefted above a fireplace, it was intended to stay there. The clocks were thought of as permanent home furnishings, like a couch or armoire; their heaviness guaranteed them a lifetime on one mantel. But lifetimes change and so the clocks moved anyway and many sat in various rooms in the museum.
Over the years, mantel clocks became lighter, carved from wood, rich mahogany or classic oak. They began sitting on more than mantels. They squatted on shelves, on bedside tables and desks. James had two fireplaces and on those mantels were ten of the original brass and marble clocks; five on each. He dusted and cleaned them where they sat; only once a year did he pick them up and move them. Their heaviness always made him ache the next day, an ache of purpose and accomplishment and a job well done.
Returning home, James walked through the rooms and checked on the clocks, even though the winding was done for the day. James never knew when a problem might show up, when a clock would inexplicably fall ill, even if it was just ticking away a few hours, a few minutes, before. Mantel clocks were still on his mind and so he paid special attention to them. James imagined that sometimes a certain clock sent out distress signals when there was a problem somewhere, and those signals reached him, infiltrated his brain waves and started him thinking about that certain genre of clock. So he wondered now if there was a problem somewhere with a mantel clock that led him to think of them on a day when everyone was already tended. He started out in the living room, at the first mantel full of heavy originals. Stopping before each one, he listened for pauses, for catches in the breath and the rhythm.
He laid his hands on each of the clocks as he went by, patting their backs, stroking their hands. Some of the hands were old and ornate, requiring a delicate touch so they wouldn’t lose any more of their gold or their flexibility. Other hands, though younger, were stubborn and resistant, alerting James to the need for a drop of oil to encourage them on their journey around the face. When the clocks chimed, he stopped and stood in place, his eyes closed, his head tilted.
Whether the clocks sang a song or simply doled out the hours, their voices reached him and he opened his heart and listened. Like he used to listen to his mother, before her heart closed forever, closed like a fist against his face. James felt like a Christian receiving Jesus; it was his responsibility to listen to the clocks. They chose him to hear their souls.
James thought of that graveyard as he moved again through the rooms, pausing, listening, touching. The graveyard made him think of his own death and he worried about who would tend to the clocks when he was gone. The town council promised James the Home would be well taken care of; they’d find somebody, if only he left the Home to them, to their direction. It was good to know that the museum’s doors wouldn’t close when James’ eyes did for the final time, but there needed to be somebody special there. He or she needed to be more than a caretaker, a supervisor, someone who opened the door in the morning and locked it at night, from the outside.
James felt that the key to the town of What Cheer should have meant something. The promise that the Home for Wayward Clocks would remain open when he was gone should have made him feel safe, should have made him feel that the clocks were safe, in good hands. But the council just couldn’t imagine the need to have someone live there, in the museum, to be with the clocks through the day and into the night.
James knew the need. The clocks did too. He felt their gratitude as he tended to them. But it was more than tending. You just don’t leave your family alone and unprotected at night.
James found the graveyard clock in the exact center of the fireplace mantel on the second floor. He thought of it sitting on a grave late at night in the dark, the fresh dirt pulling at its legs. Did it worry about being buried? About being pulled under, trapped away from the light and the air? James imagined that it did, and he knew how it felt to be held in the cold underground. Did it think its voice would never be heard again, its heart stilled with the crumbling of the grave, a dead hand wrapped around the pendulum? Around the clock’s heart? James deliberately kept this clock in the center of the mantel, where it could feel the warmth from the noonday sun falling in the windows, where it could draw in the heat from a late-night fire, the flames flickering in playful shadows on the wall.
James wanted this for all his clocks. To feel warm and safe and secure. And to know that someone was always close by. To know that the closing of a door, the click of a lock, didn’t seal in loneliness forever.