RETURNING FROM my latest photographic expedition, I found Chief Leopard Frog on the porch, whittling as always.
"Any news?" he asked.
"Not today," I replied. "Ask me again tomorrow."
Perhaps it is true that no matter where you live you spend much of your day doing things to avoid feeling lonely. Waiting for the mail, or waiting for a sandwich, is not exactly what you'd call a full, rich life. I was restless. I was bored. I was lonely.
I found myself thinking more and more about Maureen Balderson.
It occurred to me that I should write her a letter. Fortunately her forwarding address was filed in my mother's office, along with the forwarding addresses of everybody else who'd lived in Paisley and knew where they were headed.
Less than half, by the way.
Dear Maureen: I wrote, then scratched out the word Dear, then wadded up the paper and started over.
Maureen:
Do you miss Paisley? It's still a nice place even though everybody's gone. I ve been taking pictures of it before it is reduced to rubble,vegetation, and predatory insects, the portraits of some of which I enclose with this letter. I have had a couple of unfortunate run-ins with bees, broke my collarbone, and sustained a few other injuries climbing Heath's, and have recently begun working in the publishing business.
Hope you're fine.
Please write back when you have time.
SINCERELY,
Spencer Adams Honesty
P.S. Tell your brother hi for me.
P.P.S. Your mailbox still stands. I enclose a photo.
After that, I got lonelier and lonelier. Sometimes I just sat outside for hours on the swing suspended from the walnut tree, doing nothing but watching chipmunks and birds. Interestingly, this passivity paid off, for it wasn't long before they let me take their pictures without scurrying away.
One day, a red fox family wandered through the yard, a mother and four kits. They looked at me as if I were a rock or a tree and kept going.
Chief Leopard Frog asked about the mail every single day.
He had become a real pain in the butt.
"These things take time," I reminded him.
"It's my first book," he reminded me. "Understandably, I'm anxious."
I got a postcard from Maureen. It showed a picture of a herd of buffalo. On the back of it she wrote:
Dear Twerp: Thanks for the swell bug pix. Dang, they're ugly! Kansas City is a big place. It has more than two hundred McDonald's restaurants. Can you imagine? As long as you 're taking pictures, will you break in to my house and take some pictures of my room? I miss it. I even miss you from time to time, but not that much. Sincerely, your pal, MO.
P.S. My brother is a nuisance. I'm not telling him anything.
I can't tell you how much this postcard cheered me.
I felt as if I'd won a prize or something. I felt excited, liberated, connected to a real world, in touch with a person who knew me and understood me, an individual whom, as fate would have it, I found attractive. I carried that buffalo photo with me for days until it became sweat stained and the message on the back turned blurry.
Reluctantly, lest it disintegrate entirely, I put it into the cigar box with my other prized possessions, including Maureen's key chain.
Here's a special message for everybody who's thinking about killing himself: What's the rush? Not only will things change, but they often change suddenly. This is true even when you live in an unlucky town.
The next morning when I went out to the pumpkin patch I found waiting for me a fully formed pumpkin that was a dead ringer for Oprah Winfrey.
I called my mother immediately
"Look at this," I commanded excitedly. "Who does it look like?"
"My God," she said. "It's Oprah."
Immediately, we packed it up and shipped it to Milton Swartzman the fast way.
I enclosed a note
There's lots more where this came from, I claimed optimistically. Please pay shipping and the fifty bucks you promised and I'll keep 'em coming.
The following week the FedEx man (whose name turned out to be Dwight Earl) stopped at the house with a letter and inquired about the possibility of a meal.
My mother turned off the television, ran into the bathroom to brush her hair, then raced downstairs to the kitchen to begin melting Crisco.
Heck, it wasn't just my luck that was changing. It was everybody's—even Dwight Earl's.