His hair there had gone white – making her think of that fictional detective in the 87th Precinct stories -Cotton Hawes, his name was. To Sarah’s eyes there seemed to have been
no degeneration in him, except for the inevitable weight loss. He was simply a young man she barely knew, fast asleep.
She bent over him and kissed his mouth softly, as if the old fairy tale could be reversed and her kiss could wake him. But Johnny only slept.
She left, went back to her apartment in Veazie, lay down on her bed and cried as the wind walked the dark world outside, throwing its catch of yellow and red leaves before it. On Monday she told Walt that if he really did want to buy her a diamond – a small one, mind
– she would be happy and proud to wear it.
That was Sarah Bracknell’s 1971.
In early 1972, Edmund Muskie burst into tears during an impassioned speech outside the offices of the man Sonny Elliman had referred to as ‘that bald-headed creep’. George McGovern upset the primary’, and Loeb announced gleefully in his paper that the people of New Hampshire didn’t like crybabies. In July, McGovern was nominated. In that same month Sarah Bracknell became Sarah Hazlett. She and Walt were married in the First Methodist Churth of Bangor.
Less than two miles away, Johnny Smith slept on. And the thought of him came to Sarah, suddenly and horribly, as Walt kissed her in front of the dearly beloved there assembled for the nuptials – Johnny, she thought, and saw him as she had when the lights went on, half Jekyll and half snarling Hyde. She stiffened in Walt’s arms for a moment, and then it was gone. Memory, vision, whatever it had been, it was gone.
After long thought and discussion with Walt, she had invited Johnny’s folks to the wedding. Herb had come alone. At the reception, she asked him if Vera was all right.
He glanced around, saw they were alone for the moment, and rapidly downed the remainder of his Scotch and soda. He had aged five years in the last eighteen months, she thought. His hair was thinning. The lines on his face were deeper. He was wearing glasses in the careful and self-conscious way of people who have just started wearing them, and behind the mild corrective lenses his eyes were wary and hurt.
“No. she really isn’t, Sarah. The truth is, she’s up in Vermont. On a farm. Waiting for the end of the world.’
What?’
Herb told her that six months ago Vera had begun to correspond with a group of about ten people who called themselves The American Society of the Last Times. They were led by Mr. and Mrs. Harry L. Stonkers from Racine, Wisconsin. Mr. and Mrs. Stonkers claimed to have been picked up by a flying saucer while they were on a camping trip.
They had been taken away to heaven, which was not out in the constellation Orion but on an earth-type planet that circled Arcturus. There they had communed with the society of
angels and had seen Paradise. The Stonkerses had been informed that the Last Times were at hand. They were given the power of telepathy and had been sent back to Earth to gather a few fruitful together – for the first shuttle to heaven, as it were. And so the ten of them had gotten together, bought a farm north of St. Johnsbury, and had been settled in there for about seven weeks, waiting for the saucer to come and pick them up.
‘It sounds…’ Sarah began, and then closed her mouth. ‘I know how it sounds,’ Herb said.
‘It sounds crazy. The place cost them nine thousand dollars. It’s nothing but a crashed-in farmhouse with two acres of scrubland. Vera’s share was seven hundred dollars – all she could put up. There was no way I could stop her … short of committal.’ He paused, then smiled. ‘But this is nothing to talk about at your wedding party, Sarah. You and your fellow are going to have all the best. I know you will.’
Sarah smiled back as best she could. ‘Thank you, Herb. Will you… I mean, do you think she’ll…