"I don't know I feel you're an operator."
"I beg your pardon."
"That there's been a whole string of girls up here, or something like that."
"What are you saying, Miss Martin. You've seen the entrance. Overgrown. Besides I think that's a little uncalled for."
"Don't send me back with this chauffeur."
Miss Martin sitting. A frozen silence. Her eye lids go up. And I think I just catch her teeth pressing secretly into the lower lip. But by God I am dying to protect her. Save her from harm and loneliness. From fear of the future. That she should ever want or need. Or go without shoes. Butter or wholesome bread. Lies often have beauty.
"Miss Martin give me your hand."
Smith patting the sad metacarpals. Giving them back, gathered as they are in their white softness of flesh, a tender blue vein to keep them all alive. Smile. Help her out of the car. Herbert popping back from the woods to carry items to the cabin. Can't beat Herbert.
Under the low leaves. Smith struggling with the stiff lock on the door. Finally putting shoulder to it and smashing it open. Herbert and Miss Martin amazed at this casual display of forcefulness from the slender Smith.
All shifted. All unpacked. Herbert saluting. One smile followed with a little bow. Car roaring, then purring quietly. Disappearing out under the awning of new maple leaves, crackling tiny dead branches on the road. Sun high up. Dancing on top of the green.
In the log cabin. On the brown mat on the entrance floor. Next to the little pantry full of dishes, and tin cans of food. Lay a white envelope. Smith putting his armful of files on the stove. Miss Martin pushing past, stepping over it. Smith picking it up with the tweezering fingers. Ripping it open. One look. Ah Jesus, it was a sad day some fuckpig picked up a twig and made a sign in the sand.
We reiterate that
a sufficiency
is enough under
this heading.
George Smith
The Cabin (Log)
The Open Woods.
Dear Sir,
We know you are dying to know how we know you are here.
Yours truly,
J. J.J. (Rural)
P.S. Just wait till the full history is told.
"Mr. Smith, you mustn't get upset."
"Miss Martin. Ah Jesus."
"Come sit on the chair."
"Get your pencil poised, Miss Martin. Got to rattle something back. Attach it to a tortoise and send it on its way. Ready."
"Yes Mr. Smith."
"Dear Sir and rural Junior. Your fly is open. Yours sincerely, George Smith. Urban. P.S. Is your real name Wang."
Miss Martin pressing her pencil on the white porcelain kitchen stove. Writing with her upsidedown left hand. Looks up. A smile at the deflated Smith legs akimbo on the kitchen chair. Head lolling on chest.
"Mr. Smith."
"I'm all right, Miss Martin. Just assuming this attitude for a few moments. I'll rear up once again I assure you. For a minute it's just nice to sit here, slain in battle, as the heart beats its last, pluck one final arrow out of whatever they keep them in, and twang, let it loose to find its way to the heart of the enemy."
"You speak so beautifully at times, Mr. Smith."
Smith smiles. And stood up. Says this way Miss Martin. This way. Come, let me show you. And by the elbow, steering this left hander into the drawing room. The boulder fireplace. A big round stove. Screens on the windows. Beams across the ceiling. The monstrous radio. A bathroom, small but working. Twist the faucet and rusty water pours forth. Black telephone in the corner. Which bounces when it rings. And I know from experience you can pick it up and talk to the most strange people all dotted on the map in the miles and miles of these woods.
"And, Miss Martin, last but, ahem, not least. Your bedroom."
"O Mr. Smith it's lovely."
Smith providing one surprise after another. And the maple table for the repast. A bookcase. As Smith opens up the binding and displays the long line of distilled spirits. And wines. Not to mention some unheard of aperitifs.
"A drink, Miss Martin."
"I don't know."
"Have one."
"I really shouldn't."
"Bust out."
"Gee."
"Full bodied sherry. A round madeira. Iced muscatel."
Smith at the bottles. The long necks, the litde, the fat. Green, brown, two red and twenty deep dark green. All gently cared for through the cold winter, sealed off safely in their temperate darkness.
"I'd like a whisky and soda, Mr. Smith."
"Fine and we'll make a little fire."
"I had no idea, Mr. Smith. What a place. That where you sleep there."
"And the embers at night, Miss Martin. Glow. The firelight licks across the ceiling. Like being ushered somewhere precious to sleep."
"I like the way you speak now, Mr. Smith. Gee, it's nice."
Smith ladling out the whisky. Into glasses filled with ice. Armloads of logs fetched. Miss Martin opening the can of pressed ham. Corn. Peas. Pans bouncing on the red hot rings of the electric stove. Sun lowering in the sky. Shifting in under the newly born leaves. Miss Martin pausing at the front open screen door. Saw a deer. She sneezed. And it ran.
Little flowered mats on the table. Steel eating instruments. A vase on the window sill full of wax spring flowers. Which poor Smith would never dare pick from the snake lurking shadows. But Miss Martin went out with nary a thought for the rural dangers. There were daisies. Pick them and wet the bed at night. The afternoon is dying. Sun nearly set. Leaves flutter. Smell of corn. Woodchucks out there. And hear a black snake moving over the leaves.
Smith doing his little bit. Polishing the glass. Rinsing the dusty plates. Miss Martin opens and closes her mouth as she cooks. Raising her eyebrows. Seams of her stockings dividing each leg neatly in half. Somehow in the skidding about in deals, one never lets the mind rest enough to catch sight of the neat shape of Miss Martin's calf. Out here in the country peace. My God it looks good.
"Miss Martin this is a nice little morsel you have dished up."
Smith across the maple from Miss Martin. Thank God he made that tree. Her hands so delicate. A marvel. She twists a spoon so certainly. Puts out the peas steaming on this ornate clay plate. Only need now fresh butter, fresh lemon. Goodness me, there is beastly craving again. Never satisfied. Always want more.
"Miss Martin you have excelled yourself. You really have."
"I like cooking. Salt, Mr. Smith."
"Ah, please. I have always fancied peas. Defenceless little green spheres somehow they don't stand a chance between the choppers. So sad."
"You seem a different person in the country, Mr. Smith."
"Shall we have music Miss Martin. Tune in to some wavelength."
"That would be nice."
"Do you fancy light, jazz or the serious kind."
"I like serious, Mr. Smith."
"Splendid. Fits the sadness of the peas."
"I never knew you felt that way about peas Mr. Smith. I'd bring some to Dynamo House, could cook them on the burner,"
Violins came out of the big radio. With some other instruments. A flute. A horn. Smith sat. Looking across the table. Smiled. Behind Miss Martin the screen front door. Two steps down to the ground, and the gathering green darkness down the steep hill to the bubbling, roaring of Worrisome River.
"Mr. Smith. I'd like to ask you something."
"Yes."
"You won't mind."
"Not at all."
"What do you want to be. I mean not that you're not something, you know what I mean. Sounds as if I don't think you're important but I do. But is there something you would like to be."
"A great criminal."
"Ha ha, Mr. Smith. Really what would you like to be."
"That's it Miss Martin."
"But you're crooked already."
Smith's steely asian eyes. Muscles dropping on his face. General rigidity. Bleak silence.
"I don't mean that. Now I've ruined everything. I put words into my mouth I don't mean. You're not crooked. No. Mr. Smith I swear you're not crooked."