Letters to Kevin

The bandwagon went from city to city and always more and more people climbed on. Like everyone else aboard, I didn’t see how the wagon could stop moving till Bray had become his party’s candidate for president. After four days of traveling through Utah and Nevada and almost reaching the California border, a newspaper was passed around whose headlines read “Bray Loses Two State Primaries. No Longer Considered Serious Candidate,” and right then and there the bandwagon got a flat. Everyone jumped off. A few walked away, but most sat on the other side of the road eating the last box lunches the wagon had. I was the only one who figured that if the flat was fixed, the bandwagon could start moving again. So I asked Senator Bray for a jack and lifted the back of the wagon to put on a spare tire. “At least there’s still two of us who believe I can be the winning candidate,” he said. “I don’t know much about politics, sir. But if your wagon’s going to California, I want to be on it.” “Makes no difference how strong or what your political beliefs are, just so long as you’re for me. Now let’s get this buggy rolling again.” He sat in the driver’s seat. I got on the wagon part and he yelled for me to turn the tape recorder on. It blasted out the message “To end all wars and double your pay, you gotta climb back on and this time stick with Bray.” But we were out of gas. “Loan me a dollar for gas, son,” he said. “My campaign fund’s done run dry.” I turned out my empty pockets and pointed to the rope and pins I now used to hold up my pants. “Hock your typewriter,” he said. “We can get twenty gallons for it, which will take us right to that town you want to reach.” I wrestled my typewriter away from him and crossed the road. “Maybe one of these cars whipping by me can spare some gas,” he said. “I’m sure I can make it to California and back East again if all the drivers who are for me pitch in with a single gallon apiece.” Just then we heard loud honking and band music and garbled pep talk from what seemed like a huge circus van tearing down the hill toward us from California. “It’s Governor Flay’s bandwagon,” someone said. “The candidate who beat Bray in those two state primaries and whom everyone now thinks is the man of the day who’s going all the way.” Flay’s wagon was much bigger and newer than Bray’s and had hundreds of applauding people on board and many more banners, microphones and a live band. It stopped in front of us. All the people around me who had been on Bray’s wagon climbed on Flay’s. Governor Flay reached over the wagon to Senator Bray and me and said “Give me your hands while you can, boys. We’re going clear through to New York and then to the White House in D.C.” “Wrong direction for me,” I said, “but thanks.” Senator Bray climbed on, raised Flay’s hand above their heads

and said “Bray’s choice for today is the great Governor Flay.” And with the band blaring and people hurraying, the wagon roared off for New York. I was too near Palo Alto to turn around now. I stuck a few discarded chicken necks in my pockets and put my thumb out for a ride. The first thing on wheels to come along was a state trooper on a motorcycle. He said “Hitchhiking’s illegal in this state,” and wrote out a ticket. I said “I wasn’t hitchhiking. Just walking along the road to California and sticking my thumb out to see if the wind was blowing hard enough to carry me part of the way.” “Now walking and feeling which way the wind’s blowing is legal in this state. But any questionable-looking person passing through has got to prove he’s not a vagrant. And in this state, a vagrant’s a vagabond with no money in his pockets.” “I don’t carry my money in my pockets. I keep it in my shoes, as I’ve fewer holes there than in my pockets.” I took off my shoes to show him the change I’d picked up from the campaign contributions that had fallen under the floorboards in Bray’s wagon and which I found when Bray left and the wagon collapsed and the floorboards fell off. But he was already writing out a second ticket for my not having any money in my pockets. “Get three tickets in any one day in this state and we bring you up before the judge.” “Don’t worry, officer. Getting as close to my destination as I am, I’m not about to do anything unlawful from now on and get thrown in jail.” “Then you can pay for these tickets?” I gave him all the money that was in my shoes. “Seems enough. But I’ll have to write out another ticket for your now not having any money on you, which makes you a vagrant.”

He wrote it out, counted the tickets, said “Why it seems to add up to exactly enough to take you to the judge,” and put me on the back of his motorcycle and rode to the trooper station. All the cells there were full. The trooper captain said “Let’s just throw the bum out of the state and be done with him.” Three troopers picked me up, shoved me into a car and drove to the state line and threw me into Arizona. Right over the state line was an Arizona trooper who said “Jumping the border’s illegal in this state. I’ll have to bring you in.” “I didn’t jump. I was thrown.” “That’s okay then. But anyone entering Arizona has to have some visible means of support.” “I have it,” as I spotted a quarter on the ground. I grabbed it and put it in my pocket, in case Arizona also had a law which said that vagabonds must have money in their pockets. But the quarter dropped through the hole in my pocket and rolled away, just as I was about to ask the trooper for a needle and thread to sew up that hole. “There it is,” I said, pointing to where I heard the quarter rolling. “I can hear it but I can’t see it,” the trooper said. “So I’ll have to arrest you for having no visible means of support.” “How can Ibe arrested for having something I don’t have?” but he drove me to the courthouse. The judge I was brought before said “Let’s save the taxpayers the cost of a jail term for this tramp and throw him out of the state. Four troopers picked me up, carried me to the state line and threw me back into Nevada. Some Nevada troopers were waiting for me there and threw me back into Arizona. “If Nevada won’t have him,” the Arizona troopers said, “we’ll throw the stiff into the next state from ours on the other side.

They drove me in a paddy wagon to the state line touching New Mexico and threw me over the border. “You’re much better off here,” a New Mexico trooper said, helping me up. “Drifters are allowed to roam throughout the state free and clear. But I’ll have to book you for entering New Mexico without first registering as a convicted criminal with a record in two states, Arizona and Nevada.” The local magistrate in town said “I’ve conned enough shifty deals for one day. I mean, I’ve dealt with enough shiftless cons for today. Throw the hobo out of the state on his ear.” The troopers were much rougher with me this time because of my growing criminal record, and tossed me over the state line into Texas on my ear. A Texas state trooper was about to arrest me for having no visible means of support, no money in my pockets or shoes, and for trying to enter Texas without first registering as an ex-convict with convictions in three states, when I heard Governor Flay’s bandwagon rumbling through the desert. This time when the governor reached over the side and said “Climb aboard, neighbor, there’s room for one more,” I got on. Because what was the sense in being tossed from state to state on my ears? Till I was tossed all the way across America this way and ended up with two frazzled ears, no earlobes, a mangled typewriter, several filthy chicken necks in my pockets and a criminal record so long that I might not be thrown over the New York State border when I got there, but into a prison cell for thirty years. So I stayed with Flay. Worked his mimeograph machines. Handed out his leaflets and shopping bags. Chanted his slogans and listened to his paid political advertisements and waved his flags. By the time the bandwagon reached New York City, Flay had collected enough delegate votes to be chosen his party’s candidate for president, and most polls were calling him a shoo-in for the job. He asked me to run his mimeograph machines all the way to the White House. But I got off in Brooklyn, walked across the bridge to Manhattan, and found a clean quiet doorway in my old neighborhood to sleep the night. Before I fell asleep I began writing this letter. I’ll drop it in a mailbox when I’m done. If you do get the letter, you’ll know how close I got to Palo Alto this time. And that I now have enough mimeograph-machine experience to join up with another candidate’s bandwagon going to California in four years, if I can’t get out there before then on my own.

Best,

Rudy

Dear Kevin: I had the most unbelievable dream last night as Islept in that doorway. In the dream I woke up in my old apartment, washed and dressed, had breakfast and packed a small suitcase and locked the front door. I took a subway to Times Square and the subway shuttle to 42nd Street and the East Side. I walked the few blocks to the airline bus terminal, took the bus to Kennedy Airport and bought a ticket on the next plane flying to San Francisco. I had lunch on the plane, napped, and woke as we were landing. I took the airport limousine to Palo Alto. In Palo Alto I cabbed to your house. I rang your bell. You opened the door. “Surprise,” I said. “Rudy,” you said. We kissed and hugged. I gave you a present. You took me to the kitchen where your mother was having tea. “Who was at the door?” she said. “Surprise,” both you and I said. We all kissed and hugged, I gave her a present. “You shouldn’t have,” she said. “But you’re glad he did,” you said. Your mother and you led me to the backyard where your dog Saybean was. Saybean put out his paw. “Shake,” you said to Saybean and me. I shook his paw. We all laughed, grabbed hands and danced in a circle around Saybean, who barked happily and danced inside our circle by holding his tail between his teeth. The dream ended. A really unbelievable dream, I thought. Maybe sleeping in doorways is good for that.

In real life I woke up when someone poked my cheek with a wine bottle. It was an old man. Clothes as ragged as mine, face as much in need of a shave. He offered me a drink.

“No thanks,” I said, brushing off my clothes. “Got to keep a clear head and steady pace if I’m to get to California in the next four years.”

“California? Why I got just what you want.”

“Sure you do. Everybody does,” and I walked away.

He clutched my elbow and wrote the address of a man in New York who he said has a trapdoor in his basement. “Now this door doesn’t just go down to his workshop. But to a hand-built two-man submarine that travels under the Atlantic Ocean and St. Lawrence Seaway and Great Lakes to Chicago, where it then goes by uncharted underwater waterway to the San Francisco Bay.”

“No more schemes,” I said. “Because none of them work. Only way to get to Palo Alto is to go like I did in last night’s dream. I buy a ticket, fly to San Francisco, take the airport limousine to Palo Alto and cab to this boy’s home.” “If you got all the money for that, do it.” “I haven’t. But starting right now I’m going to find me some better rags, get a crummy job, rent a cheap flat, buy better secondhand clothes, get a better-paying job and save up enough money in a few years to buy a plane ticket to San Francisco and pay for the limousine and cab to Kevin’s house.” “And where will you sleep nights till you get the security deposit and first month’s rent for your cheap flat?” “On that subway grating. In this doorway. But some place equally warm and clean.” “And your shaves and baths?” he said. “Your wrinkled clothes? You’ll wake up looking and smelling like a grizzly bear. And maybe get arrested for impersonating a derelict. You think then you could find a job? No chance. Take the submarine.” “I’ll get a hotel room and keep my clothes and me clean that way.” “Get a hotel room and your whole salary will be spent for food and rent. Come on. What’s to lose? And I know a way to get you the ride free.” “Sure.” I said. “A free submarine ride straight under the states to San Francisco.” “Not so straight. A little curve here. A big dip there. More like a winding hilly road in the water, as it follows Interstate 80 once it leaves from Chicago. But always under the earth, when there are no rivers and lakes to go in, and it never comes up till the end. It’ll get you there in ten to fifteen days maximum, depending on the currents and weather conditions below. Now what do you say?”

“Pardon me,” I said, trying to step around him. “As I really got to start checking the trash cans for clothes.” “Took the same ride myself several times,” he said. “And always free because I always answered the same three questions this kind of eccentric submarine captain makes you answer to get his rides for nothing. So there’s a hundred percent chance you’ll get the ride free, if I tell you the answers and some other passenger doesn’t get to him first.” I walked away. He caught up with me and put his arm around my shoulder. “First question the captain will ask you,” he said, “is ‘How many fingers do we have altogether?’ Now you look like a pretty clever guy. So naturally you’ll give his hand the once over and see nine. And then count your own fingers and find ten. And nine and ten makes for nineteen. So you’ll say to him: ‘We got nineteen fingers altogether.’” “Wow, that was a mind-grinding question.” “But you’d be wrong, smart guy. Because the answer to ‘How many fingers do we got altogether?’ is ‘Ten.’ Because Dewey is the name of his son. And Dewey’s only gotten fingers, understand?” “You bet,” I said, digging out yesterday’s newspaper from a trash can. I dumped the coffee grounds wrapped inside and opened the paper to the Help Wanted section. Unless, in the next few hours, I could gain five years’ experience in inventory and production control or master the alphanumeric punch and verify system of a 360 DOS/OS computer, there were no jobs for me. “Now the second question he’ll ask for his free submarine ride,” the man said, “is ‘What’s the color of green peas?’” “Cooked, parboiled or raw?” “Wrong. Though most people, you’d be surprised to know, would have said ‘Green.’ As green peas are green just as yellow canaries are yellow, right? But they’d also be wrong with their answer ‘Green.’ Because Green Peas is the name of Dewey’s yellow canary. So you’ve got to give ‘Yellow’ as your answer to the second question, got it?” “Exactly. When the captain asks ‘How many fingers do we got altogether?’ I say ‘Yellow.’ And when he says ‘What’s the color of green peas?’ I say ‘Nineteen fingers.’” “Okay, big shot. But another joke like that and I don’t tell you the third question and answer.” “Now there’s a big loss.” I turned to the newspaper’s Rooms for Rent section to see if there might be a hotel that would give me a few months’ credit for my room, meals, laundry and shoe repairs while I looked for a job. “The third and final question the captain will ask is ‘Who’s considered the father of our country?’ It would of course be too easy to say ‘George Washington’ to that one, right?” “I suppose so,” I said. “You suppose so? After those last two questions, you’d have to assume that this one was tricky too. So I’d think you’d be smart enough to say to the captain ‘Well. Since do we turned out to be your son Dewey. And green peas turned out to be Dewey’s yellow canary. Then our country in that last question is probably the name of a pet monkey or dog or some animal like that.’” “You might have a point.” “I might? How dumb can you be? I’m trying to tell you the answer can’t be just ‘George Washington.’ The captain’s not giving these free trips to the first person who asks for it, you know. Because his are the rarest of rides. A trip any traveler in the know would swindle a fortune to take. So thinking ‘our country’ is the name of a dog or something, you’d probably come up with a popular name for one, like Rover or Spot. And you might think long and hard on these two and settle on Spot. Because maybe Spot rhymes with rot, which boats are prone to. So you’d say to the captain ‘Spot’s considered the father of Our Country,’ right?” “Right.” “Well, you’d be wrong again, because ‘Our Country’ is the name of Dewey’s cat and Green Peas’s worst enemy. And the father of Our Country just happens to be a scruffy tom named George Washington. So if you had been smart enough to say ‘George Washington’ to begin with, you would have had the right answer and your free ride sewed up.” “I got it now,” I said. “‘Ten’, ‘Yellow’ and ‘George Washington.’ All I have to do is give them in that order and I win one free underwater ride to the part of Palo Alto that’s on the San Francisco Bay.” “I said nothing about the extra miles to Palo Alto. That you’d have to work out with the captain. But very comfortable quarters he has also. Gourmet meals. Movie theater. Game and exercise room. Library. All sorts of incredible sea creatures to see from your bedroom’s bubbletop observation glass and through your bathtub. Only chores are to wash your dishes and make your bed. But that’s all. A very safe trip. He practically invented the term ‘under-America American submarine ride.’ Now what do you say? I’d take the trip myself, but I don’t know a soul in California anymore. And I’ll walk you to the captain’s house.” “Truth is,” I said, “your story about the captain is the biggest chunk of bunk and baloney I’ve run across in a dog’s age. What do you take me for, a dumb ox?” I pushed him aside and headed for a hotel along the docks which a newspaper ad said would give me free bed and board if I cleaned all the rooms and halls. The man hobbled after me, grabbed my newspaper and slapped me on the head with it. “Dumb ox,” he screamed. “Dunce. First-class junkhead and second-class jerk. You can tell me the captain and his sub aren’t real when in the past month you’ve spoken to pixies and logs and ridden a three-legged horse named Mo?” “Just Plain Mo. And it’s a proven fact that there has never been documented proof that pixies existed in any civilization or historical age.” “I know. You saying I said they ever did? But I’m living proof, just as you’re soon to be, that the captain and his sub are as real as you and me.” He took my hand, and old and weak as he looked, dragged me against my will to a house at the end of this street by the river’s edge. The house, made of steel, was shaped and painted like the raised part of a submarine periscope. “And how’d you know about me and the logs and stuff?” I said. He lifted a porthole in the door and said into it “Yo ho, blow the tank.” Then he saluted me, said “Have a spiffy crossing, matey, and give your best to the adorable Aunt Belle Mae de Momma Devine,” and sprinted around the corner. “I said how’d you know about the logs, you lying phony? You big fake. Because there isn’t any captain. And the only subsyou’ve ever seen were those replacement teachers you used to taunt to tears in grade school because you were too chicken to razz your regular ones.” The door he left me before opened. “Aye?” a man said. He had on a navy captain’s suit and cap and held a cage with a yellow canary inside, which was being pawed and hissed at by the cat perched on his shoulder. “Down, Our Country,” he said. “You a submarine captain?” I said. “At your service, sir.” “And you give free rides to San Francisco under America if the correct answers to your questions are given by a person who only then might decide to become your passenger?”

“Come to the point.” “Fire away then, captain. I’m ready.” “First question,” he said, “is what floor does my Aunt Belle Mae de Momma Devine live on in her high-rise tenement house in Tashkent, Uzbekistan?” “I was wondering what that guy who brought me here said about giving my best to her.” “Correct. Second question is how many pages are there still left in the world of all the books ever printed before and after the Mazarin Bible of 1456, though not including the Mazarin Bible or any book printed anywhere today?” “You joking?” I said. “Nobody could answer that.” “Right. Third question is what was the exact hour and date of the last time I had my galley painted, how many coats were put on, and what color did I originally choose?” “Hold it a second. I was told you’d ask three different questions than these.” “You’re right. Ready for the fourth question?” “I thought there’d only be three.” “Right again. You’re doing fine. What do you think the fifth question will be?” “How the heck should I know?” “Splendid. You answered my five questions precisely right. Now when do you want to leave?” “Is that your sixth question?” “That’s right. Can’t fool you. You answered it correctly too. Would you like to be underway tonight?” “Is that your seventh question?” “That your seventh answer?” “And was that your eighth question?” “That your eighth answer to it?” “It was.”

“And that was my ninth question. Shall we go?” “Let me think a moment what my answer should be.” “Don’t bother, you’ve just given it. Now are we off or not?” “I’m stumped on that last one.” “No need to be, as I only give ten questions.” “Then let’s get started right away,” I said. “Wonderful. Can you hold my cage?” “I’m sorry, but I’m allergic to birds.” “Good thing also. As I actually do give eleven questions and you just answered the eleventh perfectly.” He set the cage down on the doormat and went into the house. “You leaving the canary outside?” I said. “I can’t take it with us. She has very bad sea legs and her ears don’t pop when we submerge. But she’ll be okay. My wife Wilma will be home shortly, and the bird’s legally hers.” “I thought it was your son Dewey’s.” “We don’t have a son Dewey, do you?” He led me to the basement, lifted a rug up and opened a trapdoor beneath. We climbed down a ladder and through the conning tower of his waiting submarine. He sealed the hatch and told me to sit tight and comfort Our Country till we were safely out to sea and could surface. Then he spun a number of hand wheels and worked several panelboards of switches, buttons and circuit breakers, while he shouted at Our Country and me “Rig for diving… Ventilate inboard… Flood main ballast… Pound in after trim and secure the main induction,” and we were underway.

There isn’t much to say about the voyage. It took thirteen days. The food was always cooked in its can by the captain and served cold. Once we left the Atlantic for the St. Lawrence Seaway, we were underground or underwater all the time. There were no books. Islept a lot, looked after the cat, and watched videos of the same three war movies over and over again, on a tiny TV screen. I eventually knew the dialogue so well that for something else to do, I ran the films silent and spoke all the parts. And then only played the films’ soundtracks and acted out all the roles, including the radiotelegraph sets. Throughout the trip there was nothing to see in the periscope but the same pink eye of a very large fish looking back. And nothing to see through the bubbletop glass from my bedroom and bathtub but the body of that one-eyed fish who was either swimming along with us or got caught on something the whole way.

Starting from Chicago, a New York newspaper was dropped down a snorkel every morning in time for our breakfast. It was my job to fetch the paper from the intake tube and cut out for the captain all the articles about shipping and the sea. I once asked who was delivering the newspaper. He said “Who do you think? Newsboys who pitch it with perfect aim at our snorkel as they ride by above on their bikes.” I said “You’re of course not saying it’s newsboys who are delivering it, right?” “No,” he said. “Instead it’s a porpoise with an octopus on her back, which she has dunking the newspaper down to us after they finish reading it, Ach, how little you landlubbers know about snorkeling and seamanship.” One day I asked him how he had come upon this extraordinary route to the Pacific. He said “I was in Lake Michigan near Chicago one night and got lost underwater when I fell asleep at the controls. When I finally could surface again without smashing the conning tower on the land overhead, I found myself in the San Francisco Bay. ‘So, Captain,’ I told myself then. ‘You’ve discovered a transcontinental route more important than anything Balboa or Lewis and Clark found, except you don’t know how you got here.’ To find that same route again I first had to go down the California coastline and through the Panama Canal and back up to the St. Lawrence Seaway and into Lake Michigan. There, at the same site where I fell asleep at the controls months before, Iblindfolded myself and submerged. I hoped I would get lost underwater again and end up in the San Francisco Bay. But it wasn’t that easy. Trial and error, that’s what serious exploration is. Plenty of dead ends, broken conning towers and underground rivers that sometimes led me back to where I was weeks before. Till one day I was in the Bay and could actually chart how I got there and how I could return to Lake Michigan through the same route.” “Why haven’t you told the Navy of this? I’m sure they’d love to know of a shorter submarine route to the Pacific and Atlantic than under the North Pole.” “If I told them, my route would be too crowded for me to go to San Francisco whenever I liked. Because it’s very narrow in places. Over some stretches, there’s room for only one small sub at a time.” Anyway, we got to California without trouble. We surfaced in the inlet off the San Francisco Bay where the Palo Alto Yacht Club connects up with the Palo Alto dump. The captain opened the hatch, said “Permission to leave is granted, Mr. Foy,” and asked if he should wait for me for the return trip home. “I think I’ll be staying a while, but many thanks.” “I hate going back alone. Maybe I’ll place an ad in the newspaper here for a return passenger. Though I don’t see how anyone will ever be as clever again to answer those impossibly tough questions I insist on asking for the ride.” “Get someone to give out the questions beforehand,” I said. “Like that man tried to do with me.” “Why not the man himself?” He took off the captain’s cap and put it in his pocket, took out of his other jacket pocket a folded-up fedora and put it on his head. Then he turned his jacket inside out, where it became a shabby windbreaker with a wine bottle sticking out of a side pocket, put the windbreaker on and pulled off a thin rubber mask I didn’t know he’d been wearing all this time, and threw the mask into the water.

And there, standing on the conning tower and waving at me, was the same man who gave me the three wrong answers to the captain’s eleven questions thirty-one days ago. “It’s been you all along,” I said. “Well, what I’d still like to know, sir, is how you knew about me and those pixies and logs and such?” He put the fedora back in his pocket, reversed the jacket and put the captain’s cap on his head, pulled off the man’s full-faced mask and threw it in the water, and underneath was the captain’s face again. “Captain,” I said. “First of all I want to thank you for a most enjoyable voyage. Secondly—” The captain switched hats, reversed the jacket, pulled off the captain’s mask and took a swig from the wine bottle and became the man again. “Oh there you are,” I said. “Well, I’d still like to know who tipped you off about those logs and pixies and me.” He switched hats and jackets and pulled off the mask of the man and threw it in the water and became the captain again. “Secondly, Captain,” I said, “is a complaint, though a minor one, about why you couldn’t provide better grub for supper but carrots and canned buttered rolls. Now for the meals on your return trip, might I suggest—” But he kept switching hats and jackets and pulling off the masks one after the other and throwing them in the water. Soon he was switching outfits so fast that at times he was the man wearing the captain’s hat and trying to put his arm in both sleeves of his jacket and other times he was the captain, guzzling from the wine bottle, with the man’s mask on his head and jacket and hats sticking out of his pants pockets. He only had two hats, but the masks he pulled off seemed to be endless. Maybe he started out wearing more than a hundred masks. And under the last one, which could be of either the captain or man, was the real face of the captain or man or of someone else. Or maybe there wasn’t a face under the last mask, but just one of those two hats on top of the high turtleneck collar covering his neck. And the real face was where his neck seemed to be. And the real neck was where his chest seemed to be and his chest was where his stomach seemed to be, and so on. Till his thighs were where his shins seemed to be and his shins were in his shoes where his feet would normally be. But then where would his feet be if his shins were inside his shoes? “Goodbye, Captain,” I said, when he seemed to settle on the real face of the captain and the captain’s clothes. “Goodbye, my boy. And keep in touch.” He pulled the mask off, switched hats and reversed jackets, but seemed too exhausted to stick his arms in the sleeves or straighten the fedora from its sideways position on his head. “Then goodbye, sir,” I said. “It’s been nice knowing you both.” “Same here,” the man said, “And best of luck to you.” He reversed the jacket, but only held it on his arm. Leaned forward to let the fedora fall off his head, slowly peeled off the mask to become the captain again, and smashed the bottle against the side of the conning tower and climbed down the ladder. From inside the tower he yelled “Stations for diving… Flood main vents… Shift the control and steady so and land ho and ahead,” and closed the hatch and the sub soon submerged. I walked to your house a couple miles away. Nobody seemed to be around. I rang the bell, knocked on the door, called out your name and your mom’s, but still no one answered. I at least thought your dog Saybean would bark or run up to me and knock me over, though maybe you’d taken him for a stroll.

I looked through all the windows. The furniture was gone. Not even a curtain rod remained. I checked the mailbox to see if you might have left a note for me where you had gone. The box was stacked with mail. Included were all the letters I had written to you since I first tried to call and then got locked inside a telephone booth in New York a long time ago. I went next door. Your neighbor there, Mrs. Spinks, said you and your mom moved two months ago and left no forwarding address. “Surely someone’s got to know where they went,” I said. “I’ve come a long ways. Gone through a swarm of troubles to get here. It’s just not like Kev to slip off for even a few weeks’ vacation without first writing to let me in on his plans.” “Something very odd did happen,” she said. “Mr. Spinks and I haven’t told the story to anyone for a while now, as everyone we told it to thought we’d gone out of our minds. You see, Mr. Foy, Kevin and his mother didn’t move out of their house as plain ordinary folks would. You know: renting or selling their house and then filling a moving van with their belongings and getting in their car the last day and waving goodbye to their neighbors as they drove away. Oh no. Nothing was ever done about selling or renting the house, and you can see how the weeds have taken over and given our street a bad name. And as for their leaving. Well, they had to send all their belongings off by spaceship a week before they and their dog Saybean took off for space themselves.” “That’s ridiculous,” I said. “You see? Nobody believes us. But do you want to hear what happened to them or not?” and I told her I did. “Kevin used to drop by here quite often. We loved seeing him, as he was always so cheerful and bright. But one day, when I’m making him an ice-cream cone out of the freezer, he says to me that his best friend at school is a glouter flace gerson. ‘A what?’ I said, and he says ‘A glouter flace gerson. That’s an outer space person in the Giffiggof language they speak in their country on the planet my friend comes from.’ “Then he says that his friend and his family have been living in California for five years. Working as industrial spies here for their country, which is why they look, speak and dress like us earth people when they’re on the outside. But when they’re inside their homes, they act and look much differently than us. And also speak this different language, where all the words start off with G’s and F’s. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I’ve been in their house and gotten so close to them that they now think of me as their brother and son.’ “I asked where he’d heard such a story. He said ‘It isn’t a story.’ And that very evening he was going to introduce his glouter flace griend and his griend’s farents to his fom. “As you can imagine, I quickly forgot about it. To me, it was only another wild concoction that Kevin’s been entertaining us with for years and which we loved him for. But the next week, when I’m making him an ice-cream float on our soda fountain downstairs, he says how his mother has fotten griendly with these flace geeple. How she’s even glinking of their both glying off with these geeple in a flace glip to their country on that other flanet, when the flace gamily’s spy tour of guty on gearth is gup. “I said ‘Kevin, you ought to be writing science fiction for children with your imagination. Or telling these tales to an olderperson writer, so she can type them up and try and get them published for you. Not that I don’t love listening to you, dear. It’s only that you can’t expect me to believe every single word.’ “He shrugged his shoulders and said ‘If we do go, Mrs. Spinks, I’ll be sure to drop over to say goodbye to you and Mr. Spinks, as you’ve both been real kind to me.’ I told him what a mature thing that was for a young boy to be saying, and he just sucked up his soda and left with his dog.

“I still didn’t think anything of his stories till a few nights later when I was awakened by a crackling and humming noise outside. I looked out our bedroom window and saw a contraption such as I’ve never seen before. It was as long and had the looks and lines of a new silver stretch limousine. Except it had glass tubes and exhaust pipes sticking out on both sides of its bottom, and rotary blades on top, and it was settling down in their backyard.

“Then these creatures about the size of Kevin came out of it. They were dressed in dark overcoats that dragged on the ground and were buttoned up to their necks, and on their heads were what looked like baseball caps on backwards. Four of them went into Kevin’s house through the rear entrance and were soon carrying out boxes and lamps and dishes and things to their flying limousine. By the time I woke up Mr. Spinks and found his glasses so he could see straight, the spaceship had floated above our house without the blades spinning or making noise. Then it slipped off into the night, the blades now humming and tubes glittering and pipes flashing fire fast as can be.

“Mr. Spinks wouldn’t believe what I told him I saw — the first time in our thirty-year marriage he’s done that. He did suggest I not listen to Kevin’s tall stories anymore, as they were taking over my dreams and causing me to wake him from a deep sleep.

“But the next night it was Mr. Spinks who was awakened by these crackling and humming sounds. We both hunted for his glasses and saw a much larger spaceship land. And there again were these tiny people, now carting the heavier furniture out of Kevin’s house into the ship. This time Kevin and his mother came outside to wave goodbye to the creatures waving at them from the pilot seat. And then, quietly as before, the spaceship floated up and, like a light, flew off.

“The next day Mr. Spinks and I hinted to Mrs. Wafer what we’d seen the previous night. She laughed and said ‘I can’t understand how two supposedly sane adults can believe in flouter glace flips or flacer glout fligs or whatever you called them landing in my backyard.’ “‘Glouter flace glips,’ I told her. ‘And what about your furniture, Theresa? From what I can make out through your window, all you have left is a table and two chairs and a double sleeping bag.’ “‘I’ve joined a new back-to-earth movement,’ she said, ‘and can’t stand my old stuff. From now on Kevin and I are going to rough it and eat out of coconut shells and live off the floor. As for the strange noises you heard last night, a friend drove by in a dilapidated truck to take away everything I own.’ And then, already red in the face from embarrassment from lying, I’m sure, she excused herself to go in her house. “Two nights later, the smaller flace glip landed and this time Mr. Spinks called the police. By the time they came, these creatures had taken the table and two chairs and the glip was gone. We told the police what we saw and one of them asked what we’d been drinking. ‘Now you hold your tongue, young man,’ Mr. Spinks told him. ‘Mrs. Spinks and I are born teetotalers and wouldn’t think of keeping a can of beer or even an aspirin in the house for fear of what it could do.’ “The policeman apologized, though still looked suspiciously at us. After we told a few other people, we vowed to each other never to mention the flace glips or the Wafers’ plans to anyone. People might think we’d gone to liquor and drugs and we could lose our jobs. “A few days later, Kevin stopped by and said he and his mom and dog were leaving with the flace geeple that night. I asked him how long they were going for and he said ‘Faybe a gort time and faybe a gong time and faybe gorever.’ That it all depended on whether his mother found the climate and chances for selling her artwork there as good as his friend’s parents said they would be. And also whether the people there were as nice as his friend and friend’s parents. “Then he said ‘As you gobably know fly gow, Frs. Grinks, fall our furniture’s been faken gafay fly the glouter flace moving gompany. And goonight a flecial flouter flace gus is coming to flick us gup and flick the flace gamily gup goo.’ As you can see, Mr. Foy, since the first time Kevin mentioned these geeple, he spoke more and more like them. Till the last time he spoke like them so well that I could barely make out a word he said. “Well, I cried for that boy, I can tell you. Leaving maybe for good to a land and a new planet he didn’t know anything about. And leaving this great world, no less. Where at least the geeple are people and not like who knows what those Giffiggog persons are like in their own streets and homes. “And then I also began thinking it was maybe an outer-space plot to take them away. Where Kevin and Theresa had been hypnotized or fed something hypnotizing by his little flace griend or griend’s farents to make them go. I simply didn’t know. “No matter how it came about, we didn’t want to call the police again and this time really be thought of as crackpots. ‘Sure,’ the police would say. ‘Flace geeple, moving gompany fan,’ as they dragged us to the loony bin for life. We also didn’t want to buttin. That’s what it came down to in the end. People should do what they want with their lives, is the Spinks family motto — as long as they don’t hurt anyone else. After all, Mrs. Wafer was still in charge of her son. “So that night we waited at our bedroom window for the last flace glip to arrive. It came late and landed so quietly that we could hardly hear it when its spinning blades practically scratched our noses. And I don’t see why Kevin called it a gus. It looked no different than that big moving gompany fan that took their furniture away.

“Its floor door opened just like all the other glips and rested on the ground to make a ramp to the inside. But this time a convertible, washed like new and driven by Theresa Wafer laughing like the gayest of cavaliers, drove out of her carport and up the ramp into the gus. Inside her car were Kevin and Saybean. And another boy and his dog and what I suppose were the boy’s farents with their oversized coats buttoned to the necks and these turnedaround baseball caps.

“‘Goodbye, Kevin dear,’ Iyelled from our window, even when I swore to Mr. Spinks I wouldn’t. He threw his hand over my mouth and tried pulling me back inside, but I got loose and yelled goodbye again. Mr. Spinks was afraid the flace geeple would storm into our home and do us harm, but they never left the gus. And Kevin did walk down the door ramp and wave goodbye to us, and then get down on one knee and wave his dog’s paw too.

“Then they got in the glip and the ramp closed. And with a bunch of long sleeves waving goodbye to us from the pilot’s window and the glip’s bottom popping and flashing and the blades humming on top, the gus took off.

“I cried all that morning, Mr. Foy. Couldn’t sleep. Soaked my tears through two pillows to the sheet. Not only because of what Kevin might be heading for, but because I’d miss him so much. Poor Mr. Spinks didn’t know what to do with my hysterics, and only then wished that we for once had an aspirin in the house.

“Next day we looked inside their house. It was empty of everything, of course. Then your mail started coming for Kevin. Thinking it might have news about him, we read each letter and sealed it up and put it back in the letterbox. “We couldn’t write you in New York about what happened to him. Since by the time we thought of it, we read where you were no longer there and could hardly be reached on the road. We also thought you might get very upset and do who knows what to yourself, or think we were crazy and have us locked up for opening Kevin’s mail. “And your letters only started collecting in the box because we told the postman the Wafers were on a vacation and would pick up their mail themselves. You see, we wanted to continue getting your mail and some others, which might give us information about where the Wafers went and how they were. We couldn’t tell the postman the truth. As they have big mouths when they want to, so ours might go around telling people we were crazy too.” “And you’re not?” I said. “Your story about Kevin is the craziest I’ve run into yet. What I think you should do is tell me where the Wafers really went or what you did with them and then see a doctor.” “I do,” she said. “Many times a day. My husband, who has the right to be called doctor because of his three PhDs.” She yelled into the house “Dr. Spinks? Sweetheart? There’s that Mr. Foy of the letters downstairs whom I think you should speak to very much.” Her husband — Dr. Lawrence J. Spinks, PhDs, the card he gave me read — told the same story his wife did. After telling it, he said “Incredible as this story must sound to you, I’d stake my reputation and our good name on it if I didn’t think I’d lose them if I did.” I next checked with all your neighbors. Nobody has seen you or your mom for two months. They also didn’t see either of you leave the area or any of your furniture being taken away.

I then went to your school. Your teacher said that the very day you stopped coming to class, your best friend in class and his dog and parents suddenly disappeared from the community too. She did hear that your two families had become very friendly. What she thinks is that you all left to start a new commune in the foothills, and she’s holding both your report cards till your families return to your old homes and school for the fall term.

As for me, I’m staying in your house. It’s not being used by anyone and I’m tired of being on the go. I sleep on the floor. The Spinks have loaned me bedding and a few kitchen supplies. They like the idea of my living here, as I promised to keep the house and yard in good shape, which they think will keep the value of their own home high.

For money, I’m mowing people’s lawns and running errands for the drugstore. I don’t need much, as I eat little and the Spinks are generous with their water and there’s plenty of loose wood in the neighborhood to get my heat and to cook in the fireplace. The Spinks say your house is paid up, including all taxes, till the end of the year. If anyone does complain of my living here, they’ll vouch that your mother hired me to look after the place till you both return. I’m going to finish this letter now and add it to the rest. Then I’m taking them all to the post office, which I hope will soon get a message from you or your mother as to what you want done with your mail. My feeling is that you’ll give a note to one of the next glouter flace industrial spies who come here, requesting the post office give this spy all your mail. The spy will then put the mail in a pouch on the next flace glip leaving California for your new country on that flanet, though how gong it fill take to geach you is something I’d fate to guess. You’ll at least get all my fetters that way. If your new gountry is the fype that isn’t too garsh on its geeple and fets them write fetters and mail them when they glease, then you can write and fell me gow you both are and give firections and instructions gow I might get to that flanet myself. For there’s gothing much feeping me here. And I’d be willing to fry it out where you are, as gong as they give me the frivilege of flying gack to my old flanet if I don’t like it out there. If your flace griends or geeple fell you they don’t want me to gome to your flanet, then maybe if it’s not foo much grouble for you, you can take a flight or glight or whatever the word for it is, gack to gearth on the next flace glip your new gountry sends here. But fry and write me gefore you forget your old ganguage entirely, which means as soon as you can, because as you can see I’m not faving much guck frying to write yours. Also, by the time this year is up, this city will want me to fay the gaxes and payments on the gouse for you. When Igan’t, they’ll gick me out. So, goping to gear from you in the not foogistant future, I send my love or gove or fove to you both and your dog Saybean.