Part 20 (1/2)
on Sunday afternoon you could still fire a shotgun down Pomeroy Street without hitting a living soul.
Once it had made her want to scream with frustration; now the permanence of the past was comforting.
She had learned that the future, far from being inevitable, sometimes drains away like water vanis.h.i.+ng into sand.
So she was the Branch Postmistress in the hide store now, selling stamps and weighing envelopes for the year-round population, who were mostly pensioned retirees living in the trailer park on the edges of the dunes. All day 171 she sat behind the humidor cabinet and watched the bright glare of the sea outside, or watched the fog advance or recede between the old pool hall and the secondhand store.
On this particular afternoon her view was occluded for a moment by an old man limping in. The limp identified him for her, because otherwise he looked like most of her customers: past seventy, in a stained nylon windbreaker, wearing a baseball cap pinned with military insignia. He had neither the pink plastic hearing aid nor the reading gla.s.ses in black plastic frames that went with the geriatric uniform, however.
”How are you today, Mr. Lynch?” she inquired.
”So-so. Something gave me the runs last night like you wouldn't believe.” He smacked an envelope down on the counter and stared at her earnestly.
”Really.”
”I think I inhaled some of that bug spray, that's what I think did it,” he affirmed.
”Working in your garden?” This one was proud of his garden, she remembered. He had an acre behind his trailer, enclosed by snow fence to keep the dunes from encroaching. He leaned forward now and his voice dropped to a loud whisper.
”Have you ever heard,” he wanted to know, ”of a bug or a virus or anything that makes the bottom of corn stalks go soft?” Wow, his breath was like a crypt. She tried not to draw back involuntarily as she frowned and shook her head.
”Gosh, no. You mean like, rotten or something?”
”Not rotten, no, they're still green and all right-but they're all bent over! Like the stalk went soft and they melted, then got hard again. d.a.m.nedest thing I ever saw. You ever heard of that?”
She had, in fact. Her gaze darted momentarily to the rack of magazines with t.i.tles like Paranormal Horizon, Journal of the Unproven and Alien Truth!!!'But she blinked and replied ”No, I can't imagine what would do that.”
”I just thought, you being j.a.panese and all, you might know. Your father might garden or something.”
Mr. Hatta didn't garden; he sat on the couch in his black bathrobe doing crossword puzzles. So did Mrs.
Hatta, in her pink bathrobe. As far as Marybeth could tell, they had done nothing else since she'd been home. Marybeth smiled apologetically and shook her head.
”Nope. No idea.”
”Well, I'll tell you who will know.” He reached for his wallet. ”U.S. Government will, that's who. You know those commercials they put on about writing to Pueblo, Colorado for free Government information on everything? No? They're on at five a.m. I get up at four-thirty most mornings, earlier when I got the runs like I did, and you can learn a lot from those. I mail this, they'll send me a free booklet on garden pests special for our area-this part of the coast right here. Now, isn't that a deal?”
”Sounds great.” She weighed the envelope in her hand. ”One stamp ought to do it, Mr. Lynch.”
”Okey-doke.” He counted out change. ”You should write to them, you know. Pueblo, Colorado.
People don't know about all the free stuff they're missing out on.”
”I'll have to remember to do that.” She smiled, peeling off a stamp and fixing it to the envelope.
”There's the Post Office Box number right there.” He reached out to tap the address insistently. ”You want to copy it down before I mail it?”
”Okay, sure.” She took a pen and copied out the address on the back of a sc.r.a.p of paper. When she had finished, he took the envelope and dropped it through the OVERSEAS-OUT OF STATE slot m the wall.
”She's on her way now, all right,” he stated cheerily. ”Now, you can sell me a bottle of Milk of Magnesia. The cherry kind.”
A week later the fan was still going around and Marybeth was arranging the various needlecraft monthly magazines in their places when Mr. Lynch came through the door.
He looked troubled.
”Good morning, Mr. Lynch.” She looked up from a cover featuring a particularly hideous hooked rug. ”What can I do for you today?”
”Well, I sort of thought-” He waved a booklet at her helplessly. It was printed on newsrag, like a tax form guide. ”You remember I sent off to Pueblo, Colorado, for free information on garden pests?
Well, they sent it, all right, but I think they must be Army guys wrote it-the language is awful technical.
And I remembered your father said you went to College, so I wondered if you couldn't tell me-”
”You want me to look at it for you?” Marybeth returned to her seat behind the humidor and held out her hand for the booklet. She skimmed through it, reading about Artichoke Plume Moths, Meadow Spittlebugs, Corn Earworms and a host of others.
Mr. Lynch s.h.i.+fted uneasily from foot to foot.
”And the problem's getting worse,” he told her.
”The diarrhea?” She looked up in mild alarm.
”No, the... the whatever it is. I can't find anything like what's happening to my corn in that book. It's just laying right over.”
”Maybe it's jack rabbits.” She went on reading.
”No it ain't, because there's no holes under the fence and no tracks. At first I thought it was those G.o.d-d.a.m.ned kids, because I caught somebody looking in my window, but then the glowing started.”
”Glowing?” She looked up again.
”I don't know, maybe it's phosphorus or something. Maybe it's something to do with the wilt or whatever's bending the stalks. I look out my window last night and a whole row's s.h.i.+ning like it was broad daylight. That ain't normal, is it?”
”It doesn't sound normal.” She wondered how to phrase her next question. ”Um-you haven't heard any funny noises, have you? High-pitched whistling or anything?”
”Well, I'll tell you , I couldn't hear it if there was because there's so G.o.d- d.a.m.ned much interference on my radio lately I think they must be running some big machinery over at that Mr Force base. It's driving me nuts.”
”Okay.” She bit her lower lip. ”Maybe that's what's doing it, you know; something electromagnetic? I don't think it's a garden pest in this booklet, Mr. Lynch.”
”No? Didn't seem like it to me, but the way it was written I couldn't tell anything. Well, you know what? I'm going to write back to Pueblo, Colorado and tell 'em about this. Maybe it's something to do with rocket testing.” He dug in his pocket for his wallet. ”So I need you to sell me some stamps and a writing tablet. Another box of envelopes, too.”
When he had limped out the door with the paper sack that held his purchases, she went straight to the nearest copy of Paranormal Horizons and retired behind the humidor case with it for an hour of uninterrupted reading.
That night she waited until the TV trays had been cleared away and a commercial had interrupted Jeopardy to ask: ”Daddy, when Grandpa had the truck farm out behind the dunes before the war... did he ever mention anything funny happening to the corn?”
”Didn't grow- corn.” Her father did not look away from the screen. ”We grew- peas, artichokes, lettuce and cauliflower. No corn.”
”Well... did he ever talk about anything he couldn't explain? Any kind of really strange pests in his fields?”