Ghost Town (8 page)

"So," I said to Chief Leopard Frog, still staring at the picture of Maureen as he continued to carve bee tree burls, "what are you planning to call your book of poems?"

"Burl Hives,"
he replied.

"What?" I said. "That won't work. It sounds like some old country singer."

"It's my book," Chief Leopard Frog replied. "I can call it whatever I want."

"Yeah," I said, "but think about the marketing problem. Who's going to want to put out good money for a book of poems that sounds like it's about the guy who was Frosty the Snowman?"

"I did not ask you to write my book," Chief Leopard Frog said flatly. "Nor am I asking you to title my book. Only to send it to the man who will publish it. That is your role. Now excuse me while I carve."

What a nitwit,
I thought.
That's the worst title imaginable.

My feelings of guilt lessened somewhat.

I sneaked another peek at my most recent photo of Maureen Balderson before putting it away in the cigar box.

Too bad they moved away,
I thought.
If it weren't for his Neanderthal killer instincts, her brother and I might have been friends.

I sent a letter to Milton Swartzman, a brief situation report.

Dear Mr. Swartzman,
I wrote.

We're about two-thirds of the way through the assignment. Making good progress, I think. There's just one hitch. My partner is expecting to get his poems published in a book. Somehow he got it into his head that you're the one who's going to publish it. Any ideas?

Sincerely,

Spencer Adams Honesty

P.S. That ghost camera is worth more than five hundred dollars. Take my word for it.

I SPENT THE WEEKEND
cutting back the pumpkin patch. It had grown so big that it was in danger of engulfing our home. Just up the road at Ma Puttering's place that very thing had already happened. Her house had vanished. There was nothing left but a house-shaped jungle of pumpkin vines.

"Where am I supposed to put all this stuff?" I asked my mother while chopping leaves as big as elephants' ears.

"Just pile it up by the road, and after it dries out, we'll burn it," she said.

"That'll be something to see," I commented.

Country people enjoy burning things. The entertainment value of the act far outweighs the damage to the atmosphere.

As Chief Leopard Frog was nearing the completion of his assignment, I turned my thoughts to practical matters:

How would I package and send the talismans? How would I deal with the "poetry issue"? How would I deposit the money, since no doubt it would come in the form of a check and there were no banks left in Paisley?

Plan ahead
—that's my motto.

No, wait: that isn't true.
What's the rush?
is my motto.

Well, maybe they could both be my motto:
Plan ahead, but what's the rush?

Seems okay.

Uncle Milton wrote back using regular mail. The stamp had a picture of the queen of England on it when she was much younger than she is today.

Dear Kid,
he wrote.

At your suggestion, I have repriced the ghost camera at nine hundred ninety-nine dollars and ninety-five cents. Ill still give you ten percent off if you want it. The poetry book is a problem. I could print it for you when I print my catalog and it would be every bit as beautiful, but it would cost you. My guess is about three hundred dollars, but Id have to check with my printing manager, and at the moment he's fishing. In the meantime, send me all the bad luck talismans you've got. An undeserving world awaits its comeuppance.

Your obedient servant,

Milton Swartzman

President and Publisher,
Uncle Milton's Thousand Things You Thought You'd Never Find

P.S. The sample photo is excellent. Keep up the good work!

P. IPS. If you come across any unusual vegetables, such as pumpkins or gourds shaped like famous people, please let me know. I'm always on the lookout for a rare celebrity squash.

Dang!
I thought to myself.
Just yesterday I threw away a baby gourd that resembled the former secretary of state Condoleezza Rice.

I need to pay more attention.

That's what my motto should be:
Pay attention.

Also,
What's the rush?
And
Plan ahead,
and
Take it easy.

All of those.

I need a motto notebook,
I thought.

It's lucky my mother was trained in post office procedures, because I would not have known how to ship a boxful of objects resembling five dozen withered apples all the way to the middle of the Caribbean Sea. I did know one thing, however. If they represented as much bad luck as Milton Swartzman believed they did, they'd better be packed carefully.

First, I wrapped each talisman in a page ripped from a catalog. Then I placed each one into a shipping box, gently, as if it were a mockingbird's egg, after which I filled the box with torn notebook paper. Then I placed the shipping box into an even larger shipping box, cushioned it all around with more paper, and sealed the whole thing airtight with nylon-reinforced packing tape.

You could drop this parcel from the moon and it would survive the fall, I figured. Besides, its contents were harder than walnuts.

The fastest way to get it there would have cost a fortune, so we settled on the patient way, estimated to take three weeks or more. In the meantime, there was nothing to do but...

See? That's the problem with living in Paisley.

There's nothing to do.

The mind is its own place, and itself
Can make a heav'n of hell, a hell of heav'n.
—Milton (the Italian poet of long ago, no relation to Milton Swartzman)

"Any word yet?" Chief Leopard Frog asked the next day.

"Certainly not," I replied "I doubt if the box has even left Kansas."

"Well, let me know the second you hear anything," Chief Leopard Frog requested.

"Yes, of course," I replied.

"I suppose I seem a little anxious," Chief Leopard Frog said.

"More than usual," I admitted.

"It's not the amulets I'm concerned about. They're easy to duplicate. It's the poems. They were my only copies," he explained.

"Which copies?" I asked.

"The ones I gave you," he replied.

"You gave me copies of your poems?" I said.

"You know I did," Chief Leopard Frog insisted. "I handed you a sheaf of papers while you were packing the box. Remember? You said, 'Thanks,' and I said, 'Don't mention it.' Remember?"

"Oh," I said, suddenly realizing what I had inadvertently done but not wishing to reveal my blunder to Chief Leopard Frog.
"Those
poems. Sure, I put them in the box with the talismans. Don't worry about a thing. They're winging their way to the Caribbean as we speak."

"Let me know when you hear something," he repeated.

"You bet," I told him. "You can count on me."

Not.

I ALREADY FELT GUILTY
about lying to my imaginary friend about the chances of his poems ever getting published. Now, when I thought about it, I had no reason left to live. I was a total washout. A liar, a loser, and a clumsy, absent-minded, self-absorbed oaf. I'd really blown it this time. I'd ripped all of Chief Leopard Frog's carefully crafted poems into packing material.

Yi, yi, yi, yi, yi!
I thought.
Bring on the spiders! Bring on the bees! Let me take my own portrait with a ghost camera!

I deserved to be the last kid in Paisley, Kansas.

Who could possibly want me for a friend?

After a sleepless night in my nest, I got up the next morning and sent a letter to Milton Swartzman.

Dear Mr. Swartzman:

Sixty "lucky" authentic Indian-carved bee tree burls are en route to you by Sushi Shipping Services. I expect you will receive them within your lifetime.

You will note that each is carefully packed in layers of paper to protect it from damage from rough seas and careless dockworkers. As it turns out, wadded up within this protective paper are the very poems that my friend wants published in a volume to be titled
Burl Hives: Poems by Chief Leopard Frog, Sac and Fox Tribe, Paisley, Kansas.

Please don't ask me how the mix-up happened, as I feel bad enough as it is. Also don't give me any advice about the title because the author is adamant about his goofball choice.

You will recall that you said it would cost about three hundred dollars to print my friend's book. How many copies? And how will you handle distribution and national television appearances? Do you know Oprah? My mother watches her show all the time.

I am prepared to give up my three-hundred-dollar compensation for the talismans if we can work out a book deal Please note, however, that I still need the money. As you suggested, I'm keeping an eye out for a famous-looking pumpkin. So far, I've got one that seems to be shaping up to look like the Wal-Mart smiley face. What would that be worth to you?

Sincerely,

Spencer Adams Honesty

Paisley, Kansas

A fortnight passed.

By now, September had just about sung its song.

Uncle Milton replied.

Dear Kid:

If all I do is exchange letters with you, how do you expect me to get any work done? No sign of your talismans yet, but I know the shipping line and they're as reliable as they come in this part of the world. I could do the book for the price we've agreed and print five hundred copies, which is all that the poetry world can possibly swallow, even if we were talking about the poet laureate of the Cayman Islands. I will send a dozen of them out for review to the leading journals and newspapers, hold back fifty copies for my catalog—it's definitely something you thought you'd never find—and send the remainder to you and your friend to peddle from the trunk of your car, which is basically the way poetry is meant to be distributed.

If you ask me, which you didn't, you are wasting your money. I do hope that you're doing this for the right reasons.

YOUR OBEDIENT SERVANT,

MILTON SWARTZMAN

President and Publisher,
Uncle Milton's Thousand Things You Thought You'd Never Find

PS. Don't try to con a con man, kid. Every pumpkin looks like the Wal-Mart smiley face.

P.P.S. On the other hand, if you've got one that looks like Sam Walton, or even his wife, Helen, I could give you fifty bucks. His dog Ole Roy is worth seventy-five.

"Anything yet?" Chief Leopard Frog inquired, sticking his head into my room.

"They're on the case," I assured him. "They're going to publish it, but it'll take a while."

"Keep me informed," he insisted.

"Oh, I will," I said. "This means as much to me as it does to you."

"Really?" he said. "How kind."

I was down to my last roll of film. After my morning shower, I took a walk with my camera up toward Shiba Inu Ranch, where once a Japanese American family raised prizewinning wide-eyed dogs.

The roof to the house had caved in. The kennels had been removed and sold for scrap. Vegetation and fat grasshoppers ruled the roost, so to speak.

I got a shot of one grasshopper head-on, staring into the lens. I took one regular shot of the house, thinking that's the way to get the ghost picture, and then I photographed a tiny white flower. A bindweed, I think it's called.

From Shiba Inu Ranch I walked up to the Foo Farm, once a thriving goat-raising enterprise, and according to local legend, run by a Wiccan, a member of a devil-worship cult. I found some bones there that were interesting to photograph—they looked like goat bones to me—plus I took pictures of the house and silo, which seemed to be in pretty good shape, all things considered.

On the way home, I took a few more shots at the Baldersons'. White mums were blooming by the porch, and the dust-covered window to Maureen's room looked interesting. I also found a keyless key chain in the dirt. It was gold-colored and bore the initial
M.

Before pocketing the treasure, I photographed it.

Then, for some reason, my eyes filled with tears.

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.