When the renovations were complete and the town waited for the first ship to arrive, people got to thinking about how they might get a piece of this action. It wasn’t fair for Earl to get all the money; those rich old Yankees had more than enough for everyone. So it wasn’t long before Figulus became the arts-and-crafts capital of Florida. The men sat around on their front porches all day, whittling out Indians and seagulls from blocks of pinewood, or designing little craft stands to be set up somewhere along the route those rich Yankees would walk between the new dock and the renovated restaurant, now called “Postmaster General’s Tropical Outpost, Fine Dining, Earl and Mely Shank, Props.” The women of the town crocheted little wallhangings with biblical quotes on them and sewed together shirts with leaping fish on them, and baby clothes with happy alligators. Suddenly, the town had a singleness of purpose, a community feeling that warmed Earl’s heart. It was an unexpected side effect of the fulfillment of Earl’s dream. In Earl’s mind, even before the first boatload of Yankees docked in front of the post office, the little town of Figulus had become a sort of Paradise on Earth.
THE WEALTHY YANKEES came as Earl had promised, and the town settled into a weekly routine. Two days before the boat arrived, the sewing and whittling would heat up rapidly, and the town would transform itself into a tropical Santa’s workshop for Yankee tourists. On Tuesday morning, people busied themselves with fixing up their little craft stands and arranging their merchandise to show off their finest, most expensive work. Earl would dress himself up and wedge himself as far as he could into his lucky loafers while Mely started the cooking. About 4:30, two small ferries would pull up to the dock, and Mayor Earl himself would greet the guests one by one, then take them en masse to his restaurant, pausing in front of the craft stands that faced the lake. On average, there were about twenty-five tourists, sometimes as many as thirty. Mely had the meals all prepared, and the guests were served shortly after they were seated. There was no menu; the dining was family-style, and the guests loved every minute of the experience. Then, maybe an hour later, they were brought back by the craft stands, where they lingered for another fifteen minutes, oohing and aahing and buying the carvings and wallhangings at inflated prices. Finally, they were whisked up the lake and out the inlet in their ferries.
The whole event took maybe two hours, but enough money was spent in that time to throw the town into wild celebration for the next two days, particularly if someone got hold of some whiskey. People in Figulus had finally been pulled out of their drowsy homes. They learned to dance and sing and tell an occasional joke. If it weren’t that their entire lives were centered around wringing money from wealthy tourists, one might even imagine them to be a town of regular folk. They were all getting rich, especially because they didn’t have much to spend their money on. They made trips up to Fort Pierce and down to Biscayne sometimes and picked up some new clothes or a new boat, but mostly they just collected money and took much joy in passing it around at the dinner table, touching it and holding it and counting it and talking about all the things they could buy with it.
For the tourists, the town of Figulus and Postmaster General’s was a unique and exotic experience. Even the members of Rathmartin’s Explorer’s Club were impressed. The restaurant felt to them like a dose of Southern hospitality in the midst of a forbidding tropical wilderness. Though the wine wasn’t as good as the wine in the Biscayne resorts, the postmaster fawned on his guests in a manner they were unaccustomed to in haughtier environs. Earl was the ingratiating native who symbolized for his guests the quaint and carefree Florida lifestyle, particularly, they said, in the way he wore his fine leather shoes like a pair of slippers, untucked in the back and flapping against his bare heels. The restaurant experience was so unique that they just had to buy something to commemorate it, or no one back in New York, or in Connecticut or Massachusetts could possibly believe them.
The sun shined on the little town, and times were good. Indeed, Earl Shank himself could ask for little more. Though he didn’t need the money, he kept his job as postmaster for the sole reason that it highlighted the magnitude of his success. He’d used to sit at his counter and daydream about all his schemes to achieve the fortune he deserved, or else moan and sigh about his continual failure to see them through; now it pleased him no end to sit at that same counter, sorting mail and reminding himself that his plans had been a success, that he was a success. It wasn’t gloating, but rather a warm, almost religious feeling of bliss. Beatitude. Perhaps his only regret was that it was all happening so fast. He wished he could slow things down and enjoy each blissful moment as something unto itself.
Then one Friday, while basking in the grace of just such a blissful moment, Earl was rudely awakened. Silas Lautermilch, the current mail carrier, arrived to drop off some letters that had come through Biscayne and to take the few that were destined for the outside world. The retired seaman always stayed over to chat Earl’s ear off with gossip from other parts of the coast.
On this occasion, he told Earl that he ought to feel lucky he had him as his carrier. Not because he was the best carrier in the business—he wouldn’t be so vain as to say any such thing. But other postmasters up and down the coast were having all kinds of problems keeping carriers on the job these days, what with all the ghost stories floating about.
“What ghost stories?” asked Earl.
“Don’t tell me you ain’t heard. Ever since that last carrier disappeared, people been tellin stories, sayin they seen ’im walkin the beach at night—seen ’is ghost I ought ta say. They say he looks like ’e’s already been ta hell and back—’e’s got two black eyes, and a purple nose, and walks sorta hunched over like this—like ’e’s got chains around ’is neck. Oh, and I almost forgot, he ain’t got no shoes on. I guess ’e’s one a them barefoot mailmen people are always talking about, though I hain’t never seen a carrier in ’is right mind ’ould walk a route without no shoes. Hell, I don’t even do much walkin, but I wouldn’t sit out there in the sun all day without nothin to cover m’foots, not even in a boat. No sir, I can’t say I b’lieve in no barefoot mailmen. In all confidentchality, I think folks’re gettin ’em mixed up with a tribe of Injuns. But ghosts, now them’s a different story. A fella cain’t deny they’s ghosts, especially a fella like me who’s seen ’em, though I hain’t never seen a land ghost, jest a sea ghost—late at night when yer on a watch, and somthin draws yer eyes up to the crow’s nest, somthin that glows, with eyes big as night, or else right at dusk, when the sun sinks into the ocean, you get that green flash, and they say that’s all the sea ghosts wakin up, that when the sun hits ’em jest right, they all wake up at once and rise from the ocean ta do their hauntin duties for the night.”
Right away, Earl thought, I know why his ghost walks the beach. I know who he’s lookin for. A shudder ran up his spine. Why had this man and his ghost stories come to disperse the blessed mist of his success? He’d have to shake this off.
“I reckon I don’t take no stock in ghost stories,” said Earl.
“Suit yerself, but lots of folks say they seen ’im. An they say he ain’t barefoot by choice. No sir, someone stole ’is shoes, and that’s who he’s lookin for, they say. He walks up and down the coast ever night, lookin for the fella that stole ’is shoes. That postmaster down in Biscayne specalates that he requires them shoes to make the ard’ous climb to heaven. I ain’t so sure. Maybe so. What you think a dead man wants with a pair a shoes?”
Some frightening visions crept into Earl’s thoughts, almost against his will. “I tole ya I don’t take no stock in ghost stories,” he said. “I don’ keer what a dead man wants. He’s dead and he ain’t gonna get ’em.”
“Suit yerself,” shrugged the carrier, picking up his mail sack. “But if I was you, I’d carry an extra pair of shoes with me if I happened to take a evenin stroll on the beach. You cain’t be too sure, that’s what I always says. Course, you wouldn’t want to take them fancy loafers you got.”
When the carri
er left, Earl tried to convince himself the story was bunk. I don’t take no stock in ghost stories, he thought, but it didn’t seem to help, and his stomach knotted and his teeth bit into his thumb when he recalled the carrier’s words: “What you think a dead man wants with a pair a shoes?” The old salt had spun off that tale like it was another big fish story. But then, the carrier had nothing to fear; he wasn’t wearing a dead man’s shoes.
Chapter 20
ALL THE WARMTH and satisfaction that Earl had enjoyed the last few months crumbled away as his superstitions got the better of him. That night, when he tried to sleep, his heart tightened and his eyes bulged at every croak, chirp, rustle, and thump that leapt out of the darkness at him.
“Did you hear that?”
“I heard you, making a racket there.”
“I thought I heard footsteps, Mely.”
“Then why don’t you get up and check. But be quiet about it.”
“No, no,” he said. “It must have been nothing. Sorry to wake you, hon.”
He cast a glance at the loafers, just beneath the window in the pool of moonlight that gave them an eerie glow. When he gained just a little courage, he stretched a foot out of bed and kicked them into the darkness.
“Quiet, Earl,” said Mely.
In the morning he couldn’t bring himself to wear the loafers. Since he’d considered his old shoes an embarrassment to even have in the same house with the loafers, and so had thrown them away, he didn’t have any shoes to wear. Sure, he had plenty of money for new shoes, but he didn’t have the time now to travel to a store in Biscayne or Fort Pierce, and he didn’t have the courage to provide an explanation to someone who might make the purchase for him. So he hid the shoes under the bed and went barefoot.
He told Mely that he just wanted to let the shoes air for a while. She looked at him funny, but didn’t say anything. When he went to the post office and folks came in and asked what had happened to those famous shoes of his, he replied that Mely was polishing them for him. But when the questions persisted for a few days, he allowed that he’d had to send the shoes to New York to be polished professionally, since no one in Florida was qualified to handle leather of such high quality.
Still, hiding the shoes did nothing to diminish his fright. At the first hint of dusk, his body tensed and his brow sweated, while his mind became a turmoil of imagined evil.
Worst of all were the nights when the Yankee tourists came. Earl became a nuisance to his guests, spilling wine and dropping plates as he imagined an apparition floating by the window or footsteps padding the roof. People began to talk. The guests mumbled among themselves about the ineptness of the service and the unsanitary conditions of the restaurant. Quaintness is one thing, they said, but a waiter with bare feet is stretching the limit. And what filthy, ill-formed feet besides. And now that they thought about it, the food wasn’t as good as they’d been led to believe.
It wasn’t long before this sort of talk made its way back to New York and was passed around in the highest social circles. Southwind Cruise Lines suffered a steep falling off of business on their Florida and Caribbean routes. The Yankee guests in Figulus slowed to a trickle and the whole town suffered.
At first, Earl thought he could attribute it to the end of the season. It was spring, now, and the weather was beginning to heat up. There was no snow for the Yankees to escape, and there was no reason for them to put up with the insects and the Florida sun that seemed to grow bigger and hotter by the day. Soon, though, Earl would know that it wasn’t just the season.
When the first quarter reports came in and were analyzed thoroughly, the Rathmartin boys were forced to make some hard decisions. As usual, their father, Elias, was off on one of his adventure-tale fantasies, so they made their decisions without his advice or knowledge. It was the first really big decision they’d made without their father around, and they were proud of themselves for making it—proud to consult their lawyers and their board of vice presidents, proud to have their secretaries draft up the letter addressed to Earl Shank from the Directors of the Southwind Company.
Dear Mr. Shank,
This is to inform you in writing, as per article three, paragraph one of our contract, that the Southwind Cruise Lines hereby renders null and void said contract, with the stated reason of a downturn in business resulting from the word-of-mouth of recent cruise guests dissatisfied with their experience in your restaurant. Statistical evidence will be provided if you so request it.
Cordially,
Stanislaw and Merwyn Rathmartin, Directors
The Southwind Cruise Lines and Shipping and Trading Company
Earl read this letter five or six times, then wandered out of his post office in a daze. It’s them damned, cursed shoes, he thought. But he knew that it wasn’t just the shoes, either.
He wandered into his house and past Mely.
“What’s wrong, Earl?” she asked, looking up from a new recipe she was experimenting with.
Earl didn’t answer her. He shuffled into the bedroom and dug around under the bed until he found the cursed shoes. He held them with his pinkies, afraid something evil might rub off. Then he walked past Mely again and out the door.
She called after him, trying to rib him and lighten his mood, “Earl, you get your shoes back from New York?”
No answer.
He went down to the dock and borrowed Josh McCready’s skiff, setting the shoes as far away from him in the boat as possible, careful not to disturb them or shake them up too much for fear of angering whatever evil powers they held. Still, he knew it wasn’t just the shoes; he had to blame himself.
He rowed steadily, huffing and puffing, his belly getting in the way of the oars. In a little while he was across the lake, and when he beached the boat and took out the shoes, he found that he’d washed up in front of what must have been Josef Steinmetz’s home. There was the little shack with the covered porch and the rocking chairs for him and his wife. Just to the north, he spotted the burned-out orchard, some life finally beginning to take root around the black, skeletal remains of the citrus trees. He went up and sat for a while on one of those rocking chairs on the porch. He had the emptiest feeling, as if all his success of the past few months had been only a lot of hot air in his balloon, and now he’d found the leak, the widening hole.
He felt closer to that immigrant than ever, even if the man was dead, and even if his ghost was seeking Earl out to frighten him to death. He deserved it. Just like Earl, Josef Steinmetz was a man who’d seen his misty dreams blown off by an evil wind. He was a man who’d had his hopes slapped away by the cool hand of fate. But Earl knew there was one key difference: with Earl, it wasn’t just the shoes and it wasn’t just fate; it was his own foolishness. He’d let the whole town down, he’d let Mely down, and he’d let himself down. Again. He could handle the jabs of the townsfolk—they’d made fun of him before, and it almost seemed just that they’d do it again. And he knew that Mely would forgive him—she hadn’t been completely convinced of their success yet, anyway. But for himself this seemed the final defeat, one he could not forget. He’d finally got what he’d always wanted, and then by his own foolishness and superstition, he’d let it slip away. There was no use blaming it on the shoes, though he didn’t doubt there was something unearthly about them—his fate had been tied too closely to them for it to be pure chance.
But whether by the magic of the shoes or not, he’d finally been given the starring role in the performance of his own happy fortune—not a role many men receive, or if they do, not one they recognize they’re playing. And he’d blown it—he’d blown the lines, he’d used all the wrong gestures, and he’d dragged the show down after a promising opening. Now he’d never act in this town again. No one would let him; he was no longer convincing as anything but a fool. He no longer had the confidence to try any of the challenging and entertaining roles he’d played before. There was nothing else for him to do now, nothing else to look forward to, but to wade his way out into t
he ocean and muster the last of his abilities together to play the Final Role—the role with no audience, the role for which there’d be no applause and no reviews, nothing but the satisfaction of one role well played—for there was only one way to play it—and then that final fall of the curtain.
He’d be missed, but only until next Tuesday, when the Yankee cruise ship would not anchor off the inlet, and the Yankee tenders would not dock in front of the post office, and the Yankee millionaires would not spend any money on the quaint little souvenir trinkets. Then they’d know. Mely would cry, but she was strong, and she’d get over him just like she got over ol’ Jake, though he hoped it would take longer than the five weeks she took to get over him. Then his absence would be covered up and smoothed over until people forgot him altogether, except for once or twice when they were sitting alone on their porches, staring at the sunset, and just for a second they’d remember the few months of good times that Mayor Earl brought to Figulus, and they’d say to themselves, Those were the days, but they’d never say anything out loud, because it wouldn’t be appropriate to talk about it. And that was okay with Earl, because that was all he could hope for now—that someone would remember him fondly, if only for a moment, and think about what he’d tried to do.
The Legend of the Barefoot Mailman Page 18
