Moon Over Manifest

The night air was hot and humid as it hung in my room. The sheets clung to the sweat on my legs, so I threw them off in a crumpled mess at the foot of the bed. Even Ned’s letter curled with the damp as I read it for the umpteenth time. I turned off my lamp and moved aside the limp curtains, thinking of Ned and looking for the big orange harvest moon he’d written of. There was only a sliver of moon to be found.

The mementos had added up on the windowsill. I’d studied them so often they had become private treasures to me. Reminders of the stories they’d come from. The cork, the Wiggle King fishing lure, the Liberty Head silver dollar, even little Eva Cybulskis’s tiny wooden nesting doll.

I took the only remaining item from the Lucky Bill cigar box. The skeleton key. Miss Sadie had revealed nothing about it. What lock did it fit into? I wondered. Or better yet, what skeletons was it hiding?

I felt myself drifting off into sleep, the key conjuring up images of things hidden in my mind. Music flowed in and out of those images. Harmonica music.

I sat up as the music seemed to call me, to invite me. I slipped my shoes on and padded outside in my pajamas, following the sweet, soulful sound. It was dark and tree branches and bramble reached for me. The music grew louder, and as I rounded the bend near the train tracks, I felt the warmth radiating from the bonfire, saw the glow on the rough and ragged faces. I knew exactly where I was. People living on the road call it The Jungle.

Gideon says wandering souls tend to walk the same roads. For a lot of folks all over the country, those roads pass through places like this. Places where people who have no home, no money, no hope gather together of an evening to share a fire and maybe some beans and coffee. Where somebody leaves a mirror and a razor behind in a tree so the next fella can catch a quick shave. Where, for a time, they might not feel quite so alone.

Shady sat among them, playing the harmonica, letting the notes drift around these men like a bedtime song. When he stopped, he said, “Anyone for another cup of coffee? There’s plenty here, gentlemen.” They held out their cups and Shady filled them.

I watched from the bushes for a time, knowing I’d been wrong about Shady and his drinking. He would come back to the house in the morning with bloodshot eyes from the sleepless night and the smoky fire. His whiskers wouldn’t be shaved because ten other men had used his razor. He’d take a lie down for a while, then go back to gathering some extra odds and ends that someone might need along his way.

For some reason, I wasn’t able to look away. Was this what those men considered home? Eventually, I made my way back to Shady’s place and once more looked out at the sliver of moon, thinking again about Ned’s letter. His cold nights in the trenches, wet and lonely. His talk of home. I thought of Gideon and wondered where he was tonight. Was he hunkered down with a few men by a fire? Was he eating a warm meal of beans and coffee? Was he thinking of me?

Don’t I wish, buddy. Don’t I wish.

Remember When

AUGUST 12, 1936

The response to the Remember When contest was better than we’d expected. Folks from all around town turned in their remembrances written out on notepaper, receipts, napkins, even toilet paper. It seemed everyone had a funny anecdote to share or a touching memory of a loved one.

Hattie Mae said that since the contest was our idea, we could help judge the entries. So Lettie, Ruthanne, and I huddled together in the mail room of the Manifest Herald

, poring over letter after letter, often so caught up in the stories that we’d forget to study the handwriting and have to look over a stack again.

Hattie Mae printed as many as she could in the paper before the winner would be announced.

Remember When…

 … you could watch Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, or Charlie Chaplin in a moving picture show at the Empire Nickelodeon for a nickel.… Mama Santoni played the organ, and during The Eyes of the Mummy, she got me so anxious with her scary music, I spilled my lemon fizz and everyone thought I wet my pants.

Rosa (Santoni) McIntyre

 … Mr. Devlin was the first person in town to buy a Model T Ford, and a week later, Mrs. Devlin, on her way home from the Women’s Temperance League tea, drove that tin lizzie into Bonner Lake. That must have been some tea!

Andre Matenopoulos

 … we kids used to march around town, singing, “Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys are marching. I spy Kaiser at the door. We’ll get a lemon pie, and we’ll squish it in his eye. And there won’t be any Kaiser anymore.”

Stucky Cybulskis