“A Tale of Two Cities!” I said.
“A Tale!” cried Mr. Wyneski, outraged, “of Two—”
“Hush,” said Grandma.
For down the stairs and now at the door of the dining room there was the man with the long hair and the fine goatee and mustaches, nodding, smiling, peering in at us doubtful and saying, “Friends . . .?”
“Mr. Dickens,” I said, trying to save the day. “I want you to meet Mr. Wyneski, the greatest barber in the world—”
The two men looked at each other for a long moment.
“Mr. Dickens,” said Grandpa. “Will you lend us your talent, sir, for grace?”
“An honor, sir.”
We bowed our heads. Mr. Wyneski did not.
Mr. Dickens looked at him gently.
Muttering, the barber glanced at the floor.
Mr. Dickens prayed:
“O Lord of the bounteous table, O Lord who furnishes forth an infinite harvest for your most respectful servants gathered here in loving humiliation, O Lord who garnishes our feast with the bright radish and the resplendent chicken, who sets before us the wine of the summer season, lemonade, and maketh us humble before simple potato pleasures, the lowborn onion and, in the finale, so my nostrils tell me, the bread of vast experiments and fine success, the highborn strawberry shortcake, most beautifully smothered and amiably drowned in fruit from your own warm garden patch, for these, and this good company, much thanks. Amen.”
“Amen,” said everyone but Mr. Wyneski.
We waited.
“Amen, I guess,” he said.
O what a summer that was!
None like it before in Green Town history.
I never got up so early so happy ever in my life! Out of bed at five minutes to, in Paris by one minute after . . . six in the morning the English Channel boat from Calais, the White Cliffs, sky a blizzard of seagulls, Dover, then the London Coach and London Bridge by noon! Lunch and lemonade out under the trees with Mr. Dickens, Dog licking our cheeks to cool us, then back to Paris and tea at four and . . .
“Bring up the cannon, Pip!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Mob the Bastille!”
“Yes, sir!”
And the guns were fired and the mobs ran and there I was, Mr. C. Dickens A-1 First Class Green Town, Illinois, secretary, my eyes bugging, my ears popping, my chest busting with joy, for I dreamed of being a writer some day, too, and here I was unraveling a tale with the very finest best.
“Madame Defarge, oh how she sat and knitted, knitted, sat—”
I looked up to find Grandma knitting in the window.
“Sidney Carton, what and who was he? A man of sensibility, a reading man of gentle thought and capable action . . .”
Grandpa strolled by mowing the grass.
Drums sounded beyond the hills with guns; a summer storm cracked and dropped unseen walls . . .
Mr. Wyneski?
Somehow I neglected his shop, somehow I forgot the mysterious barber pole that came up from nothing and spiraled away to nothing, and the fabulous hair that grew on his white tile floor . . .
So Mr. Wyneski then had to come home every night to find that writer with all the long hair in need of cutting, standing there at the same table thanking the Lord for this, that, and t’other, and Mr. Wyneski not thankful. For there I sat staring at Mr. Dickens like he was God until one night:
“Shall we say grace?” said Grandma.
“Mr. Wyneski is out brooding in the yard,” said Grandpa.
“Brooding?” I glanced guiltily from the window.
Grandpa tilted his chair back so he could see.
“Brooding’s the word. Saw him kick the rose bush, kick the green ferns by the porch, decide against kicking the apple tree. God made it too firm. There, he just jumped on a dandelion. Oh, oh. Here he comes, Moses crossing a Black Sea of bile.”
The door slammed. Mr. Wyneski stood at the head of the table.
“I’ll say grace tonight!”
He glared at Mr. Dickens.
“Why, I mean,” said Grandma. “Yes. Please.”
Mr. Wyneski shut his eyes tight and began his prayer of destruction:
“O Lord, who delivered me a fine June and a less fine July, help me to get through August somehow.
“O Lord, deliver me from mobs and riots in the streets of London and Paris which drum through my room night and morn, chief members of said riot being one boy who walks in his sleep, a man with a strange name and a Dog who barks after the ragtag and bobtail.
“Give me strength to resist the cries of Fraud, Thief, Fool, and Bunk Artists which rise in my mouth.
“Help me not to run shouting all the way to the Police Chief to yell that in all probability the man who shares our simple bread has a true name of Red Joe Pyke from Wilkesboro, wanted for counterfeiting life, or Bull Hammer from Hornbill, Arkansas, much desired for mean spitefulness and penny-pilfering in Oskaloosa.
“Lord, deliver the innocent boys of this world from the fell clutch of those who would tomfool their credibility.
“And Lord, help me to say, quietly, and with all deference to the lady present, that if one Charles Dickens is not on the noon train tomorrow bound for Potters Grave, Lands End, or Kankakee, I shall like Delilah, with malice, shear the black lamb and fry his mutton-chop whiskers for twilight dinners and late midnight snacks.
“I ask, Lord, not mercy for the mean, but simple justice for the malignant.
“All those agreed, say ‘Amen.’”
He sat down and stabbed a potato.
There was a long moment with everyone frozen.
And then Mr. Dickens, eyes shut said, moaning:
“Ohhhhhhhhhh . . .!”
It was a moan, a cry, a despair so long and deep it sounded like the train way off in the country the day this man had arrived.
“Mr. Dickens,” I said.
But I was too late.
He was on his feet, blind, wheeling, touching the furniture, holding to the wall, clutching at the doorframe, blundering into the hall, groping up the stairs.
“Ohhhhh . . .”
It was the long cry of a man gone over a cliff into Eternity.
It seemed we sat waiting to hear him hit bottom.
Far off in the hills in the upper part of the house, his door banged shut.
My soul turned over and died.
“Charlie,” I said. “Oh, Charlie.”
Late that night, Dog howled.
And the reason he howled was that sound, that similar, muffled cry from up in the tower cupola room.
“Holy Cow,” I said. “Call the plumber. Everything’s down the drain.”
Mr. Wyneski strode by on the sidewalk, walking nowhere, off and gone.
“That’s his fourth time around the block.” Grandpa struck a match and lit his pipe.
“Mr. Wyneski!” I called.
No answer. The footsteps went away.
“Boy oh boy, I feel like I lost a war,” I said.
“No, Ralph, beg pardon, Pip,” said Grandpa, sitting down on the step with me. “You just changed generals in midstream is all. And now one of the generals is so unhappy he’s turned mean.”
“Mr. Wyneski? I—I almost hate him!”
Grandpa puffed gently on his pipe. “I don’t think he even knows why he is so unhappy and mean. He has had a tooth pulled during the night by a mysterious dentist and now his tongue is aching around the empty place where the tooth was.”
“We’re not in church, Grandpa.”
“Cut the Parables, huh? In simple words, Ralph, you used to sweep the hair off that man’s shop floor. And he’s a man with no wife, no family, just a job. A man with no family needs someone somewhere in the world, whether he knows it or not.”
“I,” I said. “I’ll wash the barbershop windows tomorrow. I-I’ll oil the red-and-white striped pole so it spins like crazy.”
“I know you will, son.”
A train went by in the night.
Dog howled.
Mr. Dickens answered in a strange cry from his room.
I went to bed and heard the town clock strike one and then two and at last three.
Then it was I heard the soft crying. I went out in the hall to listen by our boarder’s door.
“Mr. Dickens?”
The soft sound stopped.
The door was unlocked. I dared open it.
“Mr. Dickens?”
And there he lay in the moonlight, tears streaming from his eyes, eyes wide open staring at the ceiling, motionless.
“Mr. Dickens?”
“Nobody by that name here,” said he. His head moved side to side. “Nobody by that name in this room in this bed in this world.”
“You,” I said. “You’re Charlie Dickens.”
“You ought to know better,” was the mourned reply. “Long after midnight, moving on toward morning.”
“All I know is,” I said, “I seen you writing every day. I heard you talking every night.”
“Right, right.”
“And you finish one book and start another, and write a fine calligraphy sort of hand.”
“I do that.” A nod. “Oh yes, by the demon possessions, I do.”
“So!” I circled the bed. “What call you got to feel sorry for yourself, a world-famous author?”
“You know and I know, I’m Mr. Nobody from Nowhere, on my way to Eternity with a dead flashlight and no candles.”
“Hells bells,” I said. I started for the door. I was mad because he wasn’t holding up his end. He was ruining a grand summer. “Good night!” I rattled the doorknob.
“Wait!”
It was such a terrible soft cry of need and almost pain, I dropped my hand, but I didn’t turn.
“Pip,” said the old man in the bed.
“Yeah?” I said, grouching.
“Let’s both be quiet. Sit down.”
I slowly sat on the spindly wooden chair by the night table.
“Talk to me, Pip.”
“Holy Cow, at three—”
“—in the morning, yes. Oh, it’s a fierce
