Boy, Snow, Bird(55)

I thought I’d finish writing to you today, but I’ve got to go to work again. I can’t be late. More tomorrow.



We live in a little suburb called Twelve Bridges. Everything’s a little broken-down, especially the bridges. People don’t make too much money around here, but what comes with that is a different definition of what it means to be well-off. You’re chairman of the board if you need twelve dollars a week and you make twelve dollars a week. If you’ve also got someone within ten minutes’ walk who can make you laugh and someone else within a five-minute walk who can help you mourn, you’re a millionaire. If on top of all that you’ve got a buddy or three who’ll feed you delicious things and paint you pictures and dance with you, and another friend who’ll watch your kids so you can go out dancing . . . that’s the billionaire lifestyle. We’re friendly toward strangers because of a general belief (I don’t know where it comes from) that we’re born strangers and that the memory of how that feels never really leaves us. If I’m ever in any other part of the world and I pass a house that has white fairy lights strung across its porch, I’ll think it’s likely that I’d get along with the people who live there. If it’s summer and the strangers out on the porch offer me a drink of water, an apple, the time of day, anything, then I’ll have to stop and find out if they’ve ever heard of a place called Twelve Bridges.

Bird, Bird. What a long letter this has been. But that’s what you get for wanting to be written to as if you were grown up. But also . . . I have plenty of people around me to talk to, and no one to be honest with. Write back just as soon as you can, will you, please?


Snow





Dear Snow,

First of all I don’t think you should continue to feel bad about making Aunt Clara cry that time. You learned something from it and it sounds like she’s completely forgiven you. Also . . . you know when something is so incredibly depressing that it’s actually kind of funny? I laughed when I read what you said to her.

So you were left alone with Uncle John while Aunt Clara was working her porcupine hours? That’s a Flax Hill kind of question, I’m afraid. If that had happened around here, people would talk. And having all your classes at home . . . I wish I was allowed to do that. I’ve been thinking a lot about those other Whitmans you wrote me about. There’s that blood tie, and it’s troublesome, and we don’t know what we would have done if we’d been in their place. They’re family and I still love them . . . can’t think of any other way to turn a chain into flowers . . . but I maybe wouldn’t ask Addie, Cass, or Vince Whitman for advice about anything.

There was more about them and Clara and Effie in that letter than there was about you. I’d like to know one thing about you—you choose which thing it is.

I wish I could tell you stuff about the Novaks, but they’re a mystery. What I do know is that they most probably came to Ellis Island from Hungary, which is another world (along with Russia, as you said).

I’m glad you know Brer Anansi stories. I know some too. There are quite a few spiders in my room, possibly most of the spiders in the house. Here’s something that happened a few months ago: I got curious about what the spiders in my room thought of Brer Anansi, or whether they’d even heard of him. I just wanted to know if he was a real spider to them. So one night when the house was as dark and as silent as could be, I sat up in my bed and whispered: Who speaks for the spiders?

And the president of the spiders came forward: I do.

(She didn’t speak aloud, she sort of mimed. That’s the only way I can explain it.)

I asked her if she’d heard of Anansi the Spider and she got cagey. She said: Have you yourself heard of Anansi the Spider?

I answered: Sure, sure. I can tell you a story about him if you want.

She said: Please do.

Halfway through the story about Anansi and the magic cooking pot, I got this feeling that the spiders didn’t like what I was saying. Their expressions aren’t easy to read, but they just didn’t seem very happy with me. I said: Hey, should I stop?

No, said the president of the spiders. Don’t stop now, we’re all very interested.

But have you heard this story?

Yes we have. Anansi is very dear to us.

I finished telling that story and the president of the spiders asked me how many more Anansi stories I knew. I said I knew at least fifteen, and she got openly upset.

Do a lot of people know these stories?

Uh . . . yeah. Sorry.

How? How did this happen? The president of the spiders started gliding around the walls of my room, glaring suspiciously at the poor spiders she found in the corners of each web.

This is deep treachery, she said. Since when do spiders tell tales? Since when do we talk to outsiders?

Only one spider answered her—he was gray and hairy and an elder, I think—he said: Don’t even worry about it, Chief! Let them think they know, but they don’t know! They don’t know!

Be that as it may, the president of the spiders said, someone must pay for this.

Her citizens began to beg. They swore on the lives of their mothers and grandmothers and children that the Anansi leak was nothing to do with them. I could see I’d stirred up some real trouble, and it was up to me to distract the president of the spiders while I still could.

Wait, WAIT, I said. I have another story—there are no spiders in it, but if you like it, can we forget the other one I told?