by John Sanford
“No,” the woman said. “Not yet.”
“Not even a word?”
“Nothing, not even ‘mama.’”
“Danny,” Varner said, “you’re a very nice boy, but you ought to say something for your old bum of an uncle.”
The child looked up at him, and at once his mouth formed and gave voice to three syllables. “Tan-for-an,” he said.
Sex
“Let me pour you some more coffee, Miss Morey” the woman said.
“I’ve had two cups,” Miss Morey said.
“My husband claims you don’t really get the taste till you’ve had three.”
“Make my third a small one.”
“I’ll warm it first,” the woman said, and taking up the pot, she went into the kitchen.
Miss Morey looked down at Danny, who was standing nearby and staring at her. She smiled, and rising from the table, she went to the map to ponder the meaning of its crayon overlay. The boy followed her, still staring, and once more she smiled before idling away across the room, her skirt making a sound like scattered leaves. The boy listened, wondering if the magic cloth were trying to speak to him, and then, seeing arms extended, he entered them, and Miss Morey breathed his fruit-odor and kissed his fruit-face, and hugging him, she swung into the cycle of a waltz: her skirt whispered again, no longer like leaves, but like voices now, and the boy heard and dimly understood them all. [Miss Morey wore sandalwood, and her jabot and collar, dried in the sun, had some remnant of the sun starched and ironed into the fabric, but there was no word known for the aroma that covered her piled hair like a veil, nor for the self-scented garment of her body: she was a schoolteacher, and she owned, as no one else could ever own, the schoolteacher’s incomparable fragrance.] The boy kissed her.
Polly Johnson returned from the kitchen with the coffee-pot, and as she poured, she said, “Some day you’ll teach him, Miss Morey—some day soon.”
Heroes
Footfalls on the stairs brought the boy back from sleep, and he heard the latch uncatch, and then for a moment, although his mother was in the other room, he heard nothing. The quiet was broken by the single word “Dan!” escaping rather than spoken, and now, through the partly-open bedroom door, the boy saw the hack-driver, his shirt sown with blood and his nose hidden under a blood-logged bandage.
[Like a soldier, you thought, like a soldier in the stories Mom read you out of A Boy’s History of America.]
“Ask anybody if I wasn’t minding my own business,” the hack-driver said. “Along about quitting-time this afternoon, I pulled up at the Astor House, thinking maybe I’d take one more call and go home. I seen a guy watching me, and pretty soon he come over to the cab and said, ‘If you can spare a minute, friend, I’d like to talk at you.’ I gave him the up-and-down, and he looked okay, so I said, ‘Pick a subject.’”
[The one you liked best was about Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne. They called him that because he was always polite to people, even if they were old. A Revolution came along, and the King of English made him put on a red coat and go far across the sea to assinate Americans.]
“He said, ‘What do you say we talk about the Union?’ and I said, ‘Mister, it’s one hell of a country,’ and he said, ‘I mean the Union of Drivers and Drovers.’ I said, ‘Oh, that kind of a Union,’ and he said, ‘Yes, friend, that kind, and being an independent, you’ll join up if you’re half as smart as you give out.’”
[When he got to America, he saw it was in the wilderness, filled with quick sand and different animals, and his soldiers tried to tell him, “Be careful, Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne, it is dangerous to assinate Americans in the woods” but he only stood up proudly and said, “I found my way in here, and I will found my way out.” Then he drank a bottle of atoxicating liquor, and he was in a stupor.]
“I said, ‘What’s smart about coughing up dues?’ and he said, ‘You’ll make more money in the long run.’ I laughed, saying, ‘If you know anything about hacking, mister, there’s more money in the short run.’ He didn’t laugh. He only said, ‘Ain’t it kind of late in the day for cheap wit?’ I said, ‘You sound cranky, mister, so lean off of that door and drag your drawers away from here.’ He said, ‘Supposing I drag ’em to a nice quiet empty lot.’ Well, now, you know me, Polly.”
“Yes, I know you,” the woman said.
[It was exciting when the Great British soldiers marched away in the wilderness. They all had fine red coats, and they played horns and music, and they roared laughter about what they would do to the Americans, who only had rags. But before long, Burgoyne was in a surroundment of trees and ambushes, and the war started. A lot of people got shot, and guns went off, and they made a deafening sound so that nobody could hear, and when a British got killed, he groaned out loud. It was a terrible fight, and Burgoyne had to drink another bottle of atoxicating liquor?]
“We went a ways down Vesey Street, looking for a place to square off, and all of a sudden this gazabo busted out laughing fit to split. It wasn’t a yellow kind of a laugh: he could make a fist, all right. It was more like he was just enjoying himself, and finally he said, ‘Make all the bum jokes you want, friend, only listen to me with your good ear.’ I said, ‘Mister, I happen to have two,’ and he said, ‘They must be plugged, then,’ and I said, ‘Say something with your face, and I’ll hear you perfectly.’”
[The Americans said, “You are still in a surroundment, Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne, and you must throw up a sponge” Burgoyne roared proudly, “That is an insultment. I will never throw up a sponge to a lot of rabble-taggie rebels” They said “Well, you will have to, because you are in a surroundment of American milisher,” and he roared proudly, “I do not care if it rains milisher!”]
“He said, ‘Did you ever wonder how the rich stay rich?’ and I said, ‘No, only how they ever got rich in the first place,’ and he said, ‘They hang together, that’s how, and if us poor slobs did the same, we wouldn’t stay poor.’ I said, ‘You ain’t trying to tell me Andy Carnegie belongs to a Union, are you?’”
[The war started all over again. The Great British shot guns till all the Americans put on bandages, and then our tillery shot grapes, and everybody was dead. “Will the surroundment stand?” That was a question.]
“He said, ‘What else? You don’t think he keeps his spondulix account of he has a big muscle, do you? The Police Force is his Union, and the Army, and the public-school system, and the churches, and the Press.’ I said, ‘That’s a faceful, mister.’ He said, ‘Chew on it,’ and I said, ‘I’m chewing, but it won’t go down,’ and he said, ‘What you need, friend, is a new set of plates.’”
[The Americans had sharp shooters, and the sharpest shooter of all was Daniel Morgan. People said, “Morgan can throw an apple in the air and peel it before it will come down.” He saw a Great British soldier in the the battle, and he said, “That brave man is General Frazer. I honor and amire him, but he must die. I will stand behind this ambush and do my duty” A minute later, Frazer was mordally wounded.]
“I said, ‘It really comes to this, don’t it? You’re against guys like Carnegie because they’re rich.’ He looked at me for a couple of seconds without saying anything, and I thought I had him, but in the end he shook his head and said, ‘I’m not against the rich. I’m just in favor of the poor.’”
[The war got terrible, and everybody put on bandages. The Great British cried, “Hurrah, we are winning!” and the Americans cried, “No. Hurrah, we are winning!” Some of the Redcoats were sleeping in a farm, and they were crying because they were thirsty, so a lady went out with a barrel to fill it with water. The Americans amired her and did not shoot. That showed they were patriotic]
“I said, ‘That’s a sweet saying, friend. Let me know when you guys have your next meeting.’”
[The war went on and on, but there was still a surroundment in Saratoga, and Burgoyne said sadly, “Well, I guess I will have to throw up a sponge. These d—n Americans are too smart for a gentleman.” Then he drank a bottl
e of atoxicating liquor, and he was in a stupor, and the Americans marched in, playing Yankee Doodle.]
“Then we stuck out our hands and shook,” the hack-driver said, “and that’s about all.”
“The bandage,” the woman said.
“The bandage? Oh, I got that at a drug-store.”
“You just walked in and asked for a bandage.”
“That’s right, and they gave it to me, and I paid for it.”
“What was the matter? Was your nose cold?”
“Who said anything about my nose being cold?”
“You must’ve had a reason for covering it up.”
“God damn it!” the hack-driver said. “It was bleeding!”
“You must be joking. You’re a great joker.”
“Well, if you really want to know the rest, me and this Union guy started back towards my cab, and I said, ‘Say, ain’t we forgetting something?’ and he said, ‘Not as I know of.…”’
The woman sliced in. “And then you said, ‘Why, sure we are. We came down here to find out who was the better man,’ and he said, ‘By God, so we did,’ so the two of you jackasses went up an alley and beat the life out of each other.”
“That’s about the size of it,” the hack-driver said. “But I notice you’re not asking who won.”
The woman smiled. “All right,” she said, “who won?”
[When soldiers get bloody, they put on bandages, so if a man has a bandage, he’s a soldier even if he’s your own father, and if he’s your own father, then he’s the best soldier in the whole world: he wins all the fights]
The hack-driver glanced at the bedroom door, but the boy did not see this, nor did he hear his father’s whispered answer: he was
Hearing and Vision
Seated on a chair that raised him chin-high to the table, the boy gazed at the world through vapor ascending from a bowl of mush.
“It’s good for you, Danny,” the woman said. The boy prodded the gray gum with the convex of his spoon. “It’ll make you big, like your Uncle Web.” The boy’s hand paused. “Will you eat if I read you the letter again?” the woman said, and when the boy nodded, she said, “Say it.”
“I will eat all the oatmeal,” the boy said.
The woman opened a typewritten sheet.“‘My dear little nephew Daniel….’”
“The whole letter,” the boy said.
“‘Cochabamba, Bolivia. January 24,1914. My dear little nephew Daniel….’”
“The next word is ‘soon,’” the boy said.
“If you know it all by heart, what’s the good of reading it to you?”
“I like to hear it.”
Soon you will be five years old, and I am writing from far-off South America to wish you a happy birthday, also to send you a present, which I enclose in a separate package. It may get there late, but I hope you like it all the same. It’s an old Spanish peso (silver) from the reign of King Ferdinand VII. You can use it as a pocket-piece. I made a wish on it, and—who can tell?—it may bring you good luck.
When I see you again, I’ll fill you full of stories about Bolivia. In this letter, I can only say it’s a strange place, very different from anything you ever heard of. But I happen to like places that are strange, and best of all I like strange people. Maybe when you grow up, you’ll be like me, traveling around the world and making places on a map come to life.
There are Indians here in Bolivia, and many of them work for the same company that I do. One of them has a little boy I call Danny, although that is not his name. He’d be just like you if he didn’t have darker skin and black hair. His father is a great hunter, and all the Indians love him because he kills bad animals. On my last vacation, we went on a hunting-trip together, far away from here in the jungle, and he killed a big crocodile with his rifle. When we came home and showed the skin to the other Indians, there was a great celebration, and everyone sang songs and danced all night.
Well, little boy, that’s about all for your birthday letter, except that I want you to be good all the time and think of me once in a while.
There was no mush left in the bowl, but the boy, his vision blurred by a stare, still spooned at it and fed himself its fading taste.
The woman said, “Did you like the letter, Danny?” but the boy said nothing. “Do you ever think of your Uncle Web?”
A word came to the boy’s mind, and his mind spoke it [Tanforan], and then the word went from his mind to his mouth, and his mouth spoke it. “Tanforan,” he said. “Where’s Tanforan?”
Manual Ability
The hack-driver let a newspaper wilt down to his lap, and slowly lifting his head, he appeared to be contemplating a brown water-stain on the parlor wall. In fact, however, the mottled plaster, like all else in the funnel of his sight, went unseen. The woman watched him for a moment, waiting.
“Polly,” he said, “what hand does the kid favor—right or left?”
“What makes you ask?” the woman said.
He shrugged. “It just occurred to me.”
“You ought to pay a little more attention, and then you’d know.”
“Oh, Danny!” the hack-driver said, and his son appeared in the bedroom doorway. “Danny-boy, see that little ole baseball in your toy-box? Well, I want you to pitch it to me. A spitter, like Matty throws.” The boy picked up the ball with his right hand, transferred it to his left, made a hocus-pocus over it, and threw it. “A daisy, son. Thanks.” The boy returned to the bedroom.
“Aren’t you going to correct him?” the woman said.
“Who mentioned anything about correcting?”
“Why all the fuss, then?”
“I told you. I was just curious.”
“You’re an odd one, Dan,” the woman said. “You were hoping he was left-handed.”
“Making everybody right-handed is a dumb rule,” the hack-driver said. “What’s odd about wanting my kid to thumb his nose at the world if he feels like?”
“He can thumb his nose till it blisters,” the woman said. “The odd thing is that you think he can only do it with his left hand.”
Clubs, Organizations
Do you know what this building is?” the woman said.
“No,” the boy said.
“It’s a library.”
“What’s a liberry?”
“A place where they store books so that people like you can borrow them—and that’s the wonderful thing about a book. You can borrow it and return it and still have it: you always keep what you learn.”
“What kind of books do they have in this liberry?”
“All kinds. Every kind you can think of.”
“Books with pictures?”
“Hundreds of them—and books with words too.”
“I don’t like that kind. I’ll never like books with words.”
“Why not, son?”
“I don’t want to tell.”
“I wish you would, though.”
The boy looked down at the sidewalk, and finding a flattened cud of gum, he scraped at it with the edge of a shoe. He spoke softly, saying, “I can’t read.”
The woman laughed. “Well, there’ll always be books with pictures,” she said. “Would you like to go in and borrow some?”
The boy said, “Yes.”
And then, taking him by the hand, the woman walked him through a door that was not an entrance, but an exit—a door that led from a very small room out into the world.
[Pictures of ships: the Santa Maria, the Mayflower, the Constitution, the Savannah, the Merrimac, and the Oregon; ships curled like old shoes, ships all sail and heeling like crescent moons; ships in coats of mail, hedgehogs with guns for hair; clippers, sidewinders, submarines, and a box of cheese on a raft; yachts, mail-packets, junks, four-masted barkentines, and tugs; colliers, lightships, square-riggers, and the sunken Maine; the General Slocum, burned to a hull in Hell Gate, the Titanic, forever on her maiden voyage, and the one with the mountain name, the Kearsarge.
[Pictures of trains.’ th
e John Stevens, a barrel on a flatcar; the Tom Thumb losing a match-race with a gray horse; the De Witt Clinton running thirty miles an hour for the Mohawk & Hudson; the Governor Paine, burning wood cut in 1849, covering a mile of Vermont Central iron in forty-three seconds; the Empire State Express, a high-riding 4-4-0, hitting 112.5 between Rochester and Buffalo in ’93; the yard-goat and the mogul-mallet, the caboose and the double-header; the snowsheds, and the track-pans, and the long long glides of spiked-down right-of-way, and, above all, the names—the Bangor & Aroostook, the Florida East Coast, the Central of Georgia, the Great Northern, the Burlington, the Rock Island, the Nickel Plate, the Monon, the Wabash, and the Big Four.
[Pictures of Indians: red men by Remington, red men in black Stetsons, red men on red pennies, red men painted like pinto horses, redmen running from village to village, crying, “Come, come to see the people from Heaven!” (“The Indians came back at nightfall, and at sight of what had befallen us, and our state of suffering and melancholy destitution, sat down among us, and from the sorrow and pity they felt, they all began to lament so earnestly that they might have been heard at a distance, and continued so doing more than half an hour. It was strange to see these men, wild and untaught, howling like brutes over our misfortunes. De Vaca asked the Indians to take his men into their houses, and the Indians signified that it would give them delight”); red men fighting a four-century, rear-guard action, starving on the plains where Cody for a day’s sport bagged three thousand buffalo, and dying finally wherever the white man came to live, but leaving behind them an imperishable legacy of names, Minneconjou and Susquehanna, Cherokee and Nez Perce, Winnebago and Sac (“Christians get drunk! Christians beat men! Christians tell lies! Me no Christian!”), Ojibway and Cheyenne, Ponca and Lakota, Chickasaw and Arapahoe, Yankton and Brule (“Do you want schools on the Wallowa Reservation?” “No, we do not want schools on the Wallowa Reservation.” “Why do you not want schools?” “They will teach us to have churches”)—and the Nadouessioux, the Sioux for short, or, better, The Enemies.
