In room 17, Dave Brown cleans out his thermos.
In room 27, J. Sutter sleeps and dreams of a blizzard of receipts, a million fluttering tallies that he captures on his tongue.
Benny looks at his rack of room keys, remembers screwing the hooks into the plasterboard. Each hook is a room and all the people who will stay there for a time. Lives converge on those hooks.
This weekend is going to be good for the town: that phrase is the going rate. Before his retirement, Josies father had been a station man in Hinton for thirty years. They are railroad towns, Hinton and Talcott, and everybody who lives here has railroad in their bloodline. Not so Benny, whose family moved to Talcott when he was a teenager for reasons he still does not understand. He feels out of place when confronted with the railroad nostalgia of the two towns, that is to say nearly every waking moment. But as he waits for the next guest to arrive, he thinks perhaps he is learning to understand the mythology of his adopted home. He is learning what it is to wait for a train.
No one, it seems, wants to go to West Virginia. West Virginia contains many natural wonders. The New River Gorge is spectacular. A number of the bituminous coal concerns have informative tours and dioramas for the curious visitor. The historic stand at Harpers Ferry, to name another thing. And yet. Just last week at a bar on M Street in Washington, D.C., an inquisitive patron could have overheard this conversation between two postal employees:
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
Pittsburgh I wouldnt mind. Its a big city. I have a college roommate in Pittsburgh.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
I dont know why they picked John Henry in the first place.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
Pittsburgh I wouldnt mind. Its a big city. I have a college roommate in Pittsburgh.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
I dont know why they picked John Henry in the first place.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
You know. They got three white ones, you gotta mix it up these days. Nothing against John Henry. I just wish he was from somewhere else.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
Pecos Bill, Paul Bunyan whos the other guy?
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
Mighty Casey.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
(sipping lager)
Casey at the Bat. I dont even know who Pecos Bill is.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
(gritting his teeth)
Nobody knows who the fuck Pecos Bill is. He wrestled a rattlesnake.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
You got Babe the Blue Ox in the Paul Bunyan one?
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
Thats exactly what I said. Whats Paul Bunyan withouAt Babe the Blue Ox? But we just did an animal series a few months ago.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
(nodding ruefully)
To take care of the animal lovers. We dont want to alienate that segment of stamp consumers. Not in Marvin Runyons Post Office. Whose idea was this anyway for a Folk Hero series?
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
Who do you think?
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
Yeah.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
(shaking his head)
And he wants some target marketing people to go along. You know his big thing now. I dont know why it has to be me, but there you have it. I know the beds are going to kill me. I can feel that already. My back is fucking killing me already. Its enough to make me go
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
(looking over his shoulder)
Dont say it!
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
I wasnt going to say that. I was going to say, go nuts. I actually talked to the son of a bitch mayor of the town. We got a registered letter from the Chamber of Commerce. They sent a registered letter to the Post Office like its some kind of threat. The Post Office! They go, Pittsburgh may be Steeltown U.S.A., but John Henry is Talcotts native son. So he gave in, canceled all the Pittsburgh plans that had already been planned out. Christ, this city is a fucking sewer in the summertime.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
Itll be good for you to get out of the city. Get some good country air.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
Why does everyone keep saying that? Country air, country air, everywhere I go. Watch me get a call from some guy in Minnesota saying we got to do the same thing there for Paul Bunyan. An office of the United States Government cant show unfair treatment blah blah.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
I have some relations as they say, in West Virginia.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
(rubbing a cigarette burn on the bars surface)
Theyre trying to use the John Henry thing to make the town into a tourist trap. The stamp gave them the idea apparently. All sorts of big fun.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
Tractor pull. Hayride.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
They got Ben Vereen coming.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
(grinning)
Pulling out all the stops. Look at it this way you get to hang out with the stamp collectors.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
Thats a pleasure.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
You can look forward to that.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
They always got those moist lips.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
Theyre always licking their lips because they got all those stamps but they cant lick em.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
Turns my stomach.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
They always try to be your best friend.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #1:
Like Im going to give them free stamps.
POSTAL EMPLOYEE #2:
Like we got stamps in our pockets that were going to give them. Maybe the Weirdo is going.