People didn’t say anything because they didn’t want to burst his bubble. They just looked at each other, and in that look was the confirmation that Earl had finally lost his mind, that the touch of a ghost was too much for any mortal to bear, that Earl was showing the symptoms of his exposure to the Beyond, and that it was probably for the best, since the shock of another lost dream would be too much for him to bear, anyway. Even Mely was afraid of what was going to happen in the fall when the cruise ships didn’t show up and Earl stood waiting on the dock with his big hand outstretched and his jaw muscles giving way under the weight of an unreturned smile.
Earl didn’t see how people looked at him with pity. He saw only what was going to happen when his story had made its way into the proper channels and business returned better than ever. He spent much of his days in the restaurant, keeping it clean and fixing it up, and when he couldn’t think of anything to fix, he’d row himself across the lake and spend a little time on the beach, not the least bit bothered by the sun as he walked in the sand and relived his now-famous encounter with the ghost.
It was on one of these afternoon walks, in late September, that he spotted a ship coming from the north. He watched it grow on the horizon, slowly moving just inside the Gulf Stream until it stopped at the inlet, just a few miles up the coast.
He paddled his skiff back to town and ran the length of it, screaming, “I tole ya! I tole ya! The Yankees’ve come again! I seen ’em, and they’ve come again!”
Everyone was shocked, and they made quick preparations, though they all figured it was poor Earl’s mind gone astray for good, that this was just the beginning of a lot of false alarms stemming from Earl’s hallucinations. Still, most of them set up their craft stands and pulled out all the leftover knickknacks, because with something like this it was better to be safe than sorry. Earl even got Mely to fire up something in the kitchen, though she did it with tears in her eyes, thinking she was only doing it to soothe Earl’s deeply troubled mind.
But sure enough, when the Southwind tender pulled up to the dock, the whole town sent up a cheer, and Earl’s hand was shaken heartily and his smile was returned eagerly by two well-dressed men who turned out to be the Rathmartin boys, come personally to offer their apologies to the entire town, and to present Earl with a generous new contract.
The Rathmartins stayed to dinner, and when they’d eaten all the gator they could handle and bought all the crafts they could carry, they posed for pictures taken by a Times photographer they’d brought along just for that purpose. Poof! Like magic, there was Earl signing the contract. There was Earl shaking the hand of Stanislaw, then shaking the hand of Merwyn. There was Earl hugging his wife, and Earl standing outside his restaurant, torches burning and eyes aglow, a smile as big as Florida, and the whole town looking on with a mixture of awe and pride, like they’d just discovered him in their midst as a man whose dreams were as good as a promise.
Chapter 23
THREE YEARS LATER, Earl’s restaurant had lived up to all his expectations. Not only did he have regular business from Southwind Cruise Lines—now twice a week—but also from four other cruise lines as well. Figulus became a standard port of call for southbound passenger ships. Everyone was getting richer and richer. Earl had to expand the restaurant more than once, extending it further and further into the Florida wilderness, so that it came to resemble a long, low barn, with a seating capacity of one hundred fifteen rich Yankees. The walls were decorated with sailing pictures and with the arts and crafts of the locals, all with small price tags attached. The path from the dock to the restaurant had been widened, and all the arts-and-crafts booths had been joined together under a single roof, so that even when it was raining the cruise ship passengers could fondle and inspect the local products at their leisure. But the most important artifact in town was something Earl had ordered from New York, built to his detailed specifications: an exact replica of the loafers that had made him famous, on display just inside the entrance to his restaurant.
After the publication of John Thomas’s book, Earl had won instant fame, particularly among the wealthy and highbrow circles of New York and the greater Northeast. For many, Earl and his restaurant became attraction enough to make a trip to Florida worthwhile. They came to taste the specialty of the house—fried gatortail (now cooked in small chunks to hide its reptilian features), and to hear Earl tell stories—particularly the one of his famous meeting with the ghost. But perhaps most of all they came to see, to touch, and to look at their reflections in the perfect leather reconstruction of the shoes that had ascended to the Hereafter on the feet of the Barefoot Mailman.
It was this replica that so startled a young Brooklynite one December evening, when, helped by his wife, he hobbled into Earl’s restaurant at the end of a line of Southwind cruise guests.
JOSEF STEINMETZ HAD been happily reunited with his wife when he’d left Florida four years before. He’d spent several weeks in the hospital undergoing treatment for exposure, and another few months recovering at home with his Lena and his Aunt Lois by his side. His feet were scarred and oversensitive from the experience and would be always. His doctor gave him therapeutic boots to wear, but they were of little comfort, so he still required help walking on uneven or soft surfaces and took a cane wherever he went.
Worse yet were his mental scars. He refused to discuss, even with Lena (especially with Lena!), any of the terrible events that had taken place just before his departure from Florida. He resigned himself to living with his private shame, and that meant living a lie. Lena never suspected his infidelity, but the hypocrisy took its toll on Josef—on his self-esteem and his health.
Though he could not heal his mental scars, he quickly became obsessed with finding comfort for his sad feet, and spent long hours studying the latest developments in shoemaking techniques and applying them with little success in the room he’d converted into a workshop. These efforts had led to something practical for him. The family print shop having been sold, he’d opened a cobbler’s shop on one of the famed Brooklyn avenues with the small sum of money left to him by his Uncle Mordy. This shop came to have a solid reputation and was moderately successful in a short time. He made enough money to sustain himself, his wife, and his aunt, but not enough to enjoy the simple luxuries they’d all been accustomed to while Mordy was alive. And none of his shoemaking innovations had yet provided him with any luxury for his feet.
On weekends, he occasionally read books for pleasure, but they were mainly books on shoemaking. He remained enclosed in this small world and never once came across a reference to the story he’d given birth to in the mind of the New York Times reporter.
He tried his best to forget his experiences in Florida, but he didn’t always have the strength of will to do so, and when he fell into despair and self-pity, he permitted himself this one indulgence: he would ask his dear Aunt Lois to describe for him down to the minutest detail everything she knew about the loafers his Uncle Mordy had sent him from his death bed. “Dear Lois,” he’d say, “tell me again about the shoes,” and she did so gladly and often, because she knew that the story would soothe Josef’s emotional scars, and because she never passed up an opportunity to speak about Mordy’s great kindness and generosity.
So, because Josef had an exact image of those loafers etched onto his brain, he was in for a wrenchingly unpleasant surprise when he found the replicas—of the same brand and matching in every detail the shoes his uncle had addressed to him years earlier—just inside the door of Postmaster General’s.
He had returned to Florida on the advice of his new doctor, the latest in a long series of doctors he’d employed for his foot ailments. All of them had been useless, but this one took a holistic approach, claiming that there was no physical reason for his persistent foot pain, that the symptoms pointed toward something psychosomatic. When Josef—out of desperation—finally told him the origins of his foot problems, the doctor recommended that he return to the scene of his mental anguish and s
lay those demons that seemed to haunt his poor feet. So, with the help of Aunt Lois’s small savings, Josef boarded a Southwind liner with his wife and made the journey south, with nervous trepidation and a sweat that never left his brow. His feet quaked in their therapeutic boots, and Lena tried to comfort him as he lay feverish in his cabin.
Nevertheless, when the ship reached the inlet, he gathered his resolve and boarded the tender, knowing he had to do it—for himself and, more importantly, for the memory of his dear uncle. He couldn’t live the rest of his life in fear and shame and the constant pain that had taken root in his weak mind. If he could face up to his failures maybe one day he could tell Lena the truth.
Everything seemed to be going fine until he stepped through that door and saw the shoes, glued to a sort of lectern with an engraved caption:
THE SHOES THAT SAVED
THE BAREFOOT
MAILMAN
FROM ETERNAL PURGATORY
(If you don’t know the story, ask me,
Earl Shank,
the man who gave them to the ghost.)
Josef’s feet failed him completely, then, and his wife tried to catch him, but she succeeded only in cushioning his fall. When Earl rushed over to see what was the matter, he found himself looking into the glazed, swollen, and prematurely aged eyes of his long-lost mail carrier.
Right away, Earl sensed the danger this man posed to his livelihood. lf any of these tourists knew Josef Steinmetz’s sad story, if any of the townsfolk recognized him, Postmaster General’s might be lost for good, and Earl Shank’s reputation would float down river and sink once and for all. This was an event that could tastefully be omitted from his memoirs; it was a memory that would martyr itself for the sake of the legend. But later, whenever he thought about it, he’d think what a shame it was that the world would never know how quickly and skillfully he’d acted when the pressure was on.
He pulled the dazed and nearly limp immigrant to his feet and practically carried him out the door into the semi-darkness. He held him up by the shoulders.
“Mr. Steinmetz!” he said. “Yessir, it sure is a surprise to see you.”
“Postmaster,” said Josef, still stammering and gasping for breath. “Forgive me. Returning here is evidently too much for my faculties. I am seeing things—images of shoes and strange words—I’m afraid I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
“Well, you sure did pull somethin over on all a’us. We thought you was dead and gone—eaten by gators, maybe, or shriveled up by the sun, an look at ya—here ya are!”
“I know I have no right to come here as a guest. I broke the solemn trust that you placed in me and failed this town as I have failed myself and my family.” Josef tried to catch his breath. “I regret I don’t have the resources for monetary compensation, but if it is required, I am prepared now to serve out whatever jail term you feel is appropriate.”
The postmaster let go of Josef’s shoulders now. “Ya oughtn’t t’be so hard on yerself, Mr. Steinmetz. What ya done is yer own business. Listen, I don’t know what ya done out there with the mail, but I don’t reckon I care now. Everthing’s worked out here jes fine, and as fer you, ya done more t’help than ya’ll ever know.”
Josef began to recover himself and bowed just slightly. “I thank you for your kind words,” he said.
“They ain’t jes words. Look,” said Earl, taking Josef’s arm and pulling him a little farther away from the restaurant. “Maybe ya don’t know it, but I’m gonna do ya a favor and tell ya somethin because ya don’t deserve to spend the rest of yer life thinkin ya been beat. I don’t know the perticulers, but somehow ya done a good thing for me and this town. Maybe ya didn’t mean to, but ya helped make this place into a reg’lar paradise for all of us, and we owe ya a deep debt of gratitude, though most of us don’t even know that much. It’s a funny thing that a feller can create such an impression merely by showin his face once or twice, and a funnier thing still that he kin become more famous after he’s gone than he could ever hope to be while he’s still around. I reckon people like to make somethin out of nothin more’n they like to make somethin out of somethin else. But my point is, Mr. Steinmetz, I got a personal debt to you, and I aim to pay it—on one condition, though—ya don’t never tell yer story to nobody—I mean, don’t talk about yer missin shoes or yer days workin for the U.S. Postal Service. That could ruin me, never mind how. An it wouldn’t help you any, neither, cause what I’m proposin right now is to give ya a fair ten percent of my profits here. Ten percent, and ya ain’t got to do nothin for it—jes set back in yer home up north, keep quiet about it, and collect a monthly check from me. Consider it a small token of my gratitude for what kin never be repaid. How bout it, Mr. Steinmetz?”
“Postmaster, I’m baffled by your talk. If you ask me not to talk about my shoes or my experiences here, you have no need—these memories weigh on my chest daily. They are too painful to speak of. And if ever I think about them too long, my feet begin to throb and remind me of the completeness of my failure. I failed through my own foolishness and am owed no pity or profits.”
“Then think of it as a business deal, Mr. Steinmetz. You don’t know it, but you helped make this restaurant a success—and of course I had a part in it too, with my publicity skills, ya understand. So I’m makin you ten percent owner, and ya don’t even have to help run the place. In fact, it’d be better if ya didn’t show up at all. Jes stay at home and take care a them beautiful golden feet a yers.”
Earl held out his hand. Josef was about to refuse it, then he remembered his wife. With the extra money, he could take her to the theater and to dinner, and he could buy her the fancy dresses and parasols she deserved, to promenade up and down the grand Brooklyn boulevards. He could give Lena the life she’d expected when he’d first proposed to her, and he could give his Aunt Lois some semblance of the quality of life she’d had with Mordy. He could not accept the money for himself because he was an unworthy and unfaithful failure, but he would accept it for them, and for the child Lena now held within her, and for the children and the grandchildren to come. Of course, in accepting the postmaster’s offer, he’d never be able to tell Lena the truth about what happened on his mail route, but under the circumstances, he decided he could live with that, as he had for the past three years. The selfish lie would become a selfless one, or would at least have a selfless component.
“Postmaster, though I am unworthy, I will accept your offer if it pleases you.”
They shook on it, and as they did, Josef noticed over the postmaster’s shoulder the shape of the renovated restaurant, and how strangely similar it was to the long, low winery back in Melk that his dear Uncle Mordy had so skillfully rendered into a towering convent on a cliff, with the Donau running below it. He realized how deeply that image was etched into him, and how closely connected to his uncle, so that it almost seemed like Mordy himself on the cliff, in all his majesty and kindness, looking down on him and smiling on those lives that still flowed beneath him and loved him. In that moment, Josef forgot completely about the loafers he’d once desired so badly, and his heart filled with the simple knowledge of being loved.
Earl was greatly relieved at these events and sighed through his toothy grin. He invited Josef to dine, but made him promise to turn away should any of the townsfolk wander in. It would be too risky if one of them should recognize him.
They re-entered the restaurant, and Josef walked right past the displayed loafers without even a glance at them. Things had settled into the usual routine. Mely had helped up Mrs. Steinmetz and showed her to her table, where they’d had a short talk to catch up on things. Mely was glad to see them, though she wasn’t all that surprised. She’d never fully believed Earl’s ghost stories. She’d just let him indulge himself.
All went well with dinner until Earl began to clear the plates, and then a man walked in, screaming, “I’ll murder every damn Yankee in here!!”
Everything silenced, and Earl dropped a stack of dishes. There was the old r
ebel mail carrier, now with a long beard, but still in the same old tattered clothes, and still with the same fermented smell about him.
The guests—all but the Steinmetzes, that is, who thought they were reliving a horrible nightmare—quickly figured this man to be a part of the entertainment. They watched him with smiles on their faces—now they were going to be shown what the real South was like, the South they’d only read about in books, full of foul-smelling, Yankee-hating rebels and dainty Southern belles; they fully expected a dame in a hoop skirt to come through the door next, and for a chivalrous plantation owner to rescue her from this dirty man’s clutches.
Instead, though, the old mail carrier marched through the tables, knocking off plates and pushing over empty chairs until he came to the Steinmetz table. He put his knuckles down on it and leered at Josef with narrow eyes.
“l know you,” he said. “I blackened yer eyes once and I’ll do it again, by God. I been up and down this coast and I know yer whole story. Ya may’ve fooled the Injuns—their tribe’s split up and they’ve all took hotel jobs down in Biscayne, believin they’re white now. And ya may’ve fooled them beach scavengers—enough to send one a their men to his drownin death. And ya may’ve fooled that fool Yankee reporter and give him a story to write. But ya ain’t fooled me! Yer a fraud, mister, and I aim to expose ya once and fer all!”
At that, he turned around to address the restaurant crowd and expose the big fraud that had been pulled on all of them. But as he did so, he came face to face with the thick, fleshy knuckles of Earl Shank.
When the reb fell to the floor, hitting his head on the Steinmetz’s table, the whole restaurant rose to its feet and gave Earl a standing ovation.
“Marvelous show!”
“So realistic!”
“I heard a noise—it sounded like he really hit him!”
The Legend of the Barefoot Mailman Page 20
