THE MAN WHO TRAVELED IN ELEPHANTS
THE MAN WHO TRAVELED IN ELEPHANTS
Rain streamed across the bus’s window. John Watts peered out at wooded hills, content despite the weather. As long as he was rolling, moving, traveling, the ache of loneliness was somewhat quenched. He could close his eyes and imagine that Martha was seated beside him.
They had always traveled together; they had honeymooned covering his sales territory. In time they had covered the entire country-Route 66, with the Indians’ booths by the highway, Route 1, up through the District, the Pennsylvania Turnpike, zipping in and out through the mountain tunnels, himself hunched over the wheel and Martha beside him, handling the maps and figuring the mileage to their next stop.
He recalled one of Martha’s friends saying, “But, dear, don’t you get tired of it?”
He could hear Martha’s bubbly laugh, “With forty-eight wide and wonderful states to see, grow tired? Besides, there is always something new-fairs and expositions and things.”
“But when you’ve seen one fair you’ve seen them all.”
“You think there is no difference between the Santa Barbara Fiesta and the Fort Worth Fat Stock Show? Anyhow,” Martha had gone on, “Johnny and I are country cousins; we like to stare at the tall buildings and get freckles on the roofs of our mouths.”
“Do be sensible, Martha.” The woman had turned to him. “John, isn’t it time that you two were settling down and making something out of your lives?”
Such people tired him. “It’s for the ‘possums,” he had told her solemnly. “They like to travel.”
“The opossums? What in the world is he talking about, Martha?”
Martha had shot him a private glance, then dead-panned, “Oh, I’m sorry! You see, Johnny raises baby ‘possums in his umbilicus.”
“I’m equipped for it,” he had confirmed, patting his round stomach.
That had settled her hash! He had never been able to stand people who gave advice “for your own good.”
Martha had read somewhere that a litter of newborn opossums would no more than fill a teaspoon and that as many as six in a litter were often orphans through lack of facilities in mother ‘possum’s pouch to take care of them all.
They had immediately formed the Society for the Rescue and Sustenance of the Other Six ‘Possums, and Johnny himself had been unanimously selected-by Martha-as the site of Father Johnny’s ‘Possum Town.
They had had other imaginary pets, too. Martha and he had hoped for children; when none came, their family had filled out with invisible little animals: Mr. Jenkins, the little gray burro who advised them about motels, Chipmink the chattering chipmunk, who lived in the glove compartment, Mus Followalongus the traveling mouse, who never said anything but who would bite unexpectedly, especially around Martha’s knees.
They were all gone now; they had gradually faded away for lack of Martha’s gay, infectious spirit to keep them in health. Even Bindlestiff, who was not invisible, was no longer with him. Bindlestiff was a dog they had picked up beside the road, far out in the desert, given water and succor and received in return his large uncritical heart. Bindlestiff had traveled with them thereafter, until he, too, had been called away, shortly after Martha.
John Watts wondered about Bindlestiff. Did he roam free in the Dog Star, in a land lush with rabbits and uncovered garbage pails? More likely he was with Martha, sitting on her feet and getting in the way. Johnny hoped so.
He sighed and turned his attention to the passengers. A thin, very elderly woman leaned across the aisle and said, “Going to the fair, young man?”
He started. It was twenty years since anyone had called him “young man.” “Unh? Yes, certainly.” They were all going to the Fair: the bus was a special.
“You like going to fairs?”
“Very much.” He knew that her inane remarks were formal gambits to start a conversation. He did not resent it; lonely old women have need of talk with strangers-and so did he. Besides, he liked perky old women. They seemed the very spirit of America to him, putting him in mind of church sociables and farm kitchens-and covered wagons.