The Curious Case of F. Knight of Dead Peter Row as reported to one Lanny Muss, a dear old correspondent to the Miss regarding the nature of birthdays. As always in third person, somewhere between omniscient and limited, as was the style of her letters to dear old Lan:
Alas, a few minutes to herself, a grown-up MIss relates to you Mr. Muss, the story. One delinquent cat has taken her motherly perch on the shelf above and between the framed Valentine from 1927 and a photo of her eldest wearing a most daunting party dress, her mouth puckered up to blow perfect round bubbles into the air of that room on a birthday in an old miner's shack in the canyon belonging to the Miss's brother.
It occurred to her that Mr. L. Muss had been one of those old coots on the iron bench as she came to understand over time and after much communication that he was an experienced time traveler, so succinctly did he gather the truth of the details and portents once he had been reminded. If it wasn't for Lan's singular focus on Mr. F. Knight, the Fuller Brush salesman, seated dead center, five men to his right and four to his left, she wouldn't have grown so uneasy about Mr. Muss' fantastic ability to describe the situation seen in that odd old picture the Miss had presented to him the day before in her letter. Context can amount to long parables indeed. Clearly though, Mr. Muss required her to fill in the gaps for him out of curiosity and over the intervening years, she'd grown used to these odd bits and pieces showing up from time to time between the two of them. Mr. Muss and the Miss observed the etiquette handed down through centuries of correspondents but it was the case that occasionally one or the other had to add an additional piece to the ever growing puzzle of their connection, the one they agreed existed although neither knew why.
The Miss continued writing:
Mr. F. Knight was no stranger to her childhood, as he arrived punctually on the first Tuesday of every month to solicit her mother just after pay-day. He'd display his marvelous assortment of Fuller brushes...cleaning tools, grooming wares and fancy racks on which to hang coat brushes and shoehorns. Her mother had chosen a brush rack that held each instrument with horse head handles made of the best black polymer manufactured to date in 1969. No, F. Knight was not a stranger, he was a familiar.
Mr. F. Knight was an odd fellow who wore a golf cap, often mistaken for a beret when he turned it to one side or the other. His hair was thin and smooth and always clean. On his face was a perpetual knowing smile and he spoke with an intense familiarity that frightened the poor Miss and sent her out through the back door every first Tuesday to wait out his visit, to the landing with wisteria on the right, irises to the left and three drooping clotheslines above. She'd sit with her elbows propped on her pestle-shaped freckled knees for what seemed like an eternity until she heard the front gate close behind the salesman as he left. Often, she suspected he knew where she hid and was filled with terror lest he make a quick dash around through the neighbor's yard, up the wood planks that separated the two miner's shacks by no more than two feet and grasp her by the elbow and lead her off to wherever it was that he might. Yes! His face was the face of the Pied Piper and certainly, his smile derived itself from consuming the flesh of fragrant young girls and boys.
Years and years later, the Miss was wandering around the park after dark where the old men gathered in the mornings, as she was used to doing past evening-time so that she could question the trees and listen to the sounds of barking dogs after the people of the town had grown tired of picking up their mail and gossiping and shopping and trailing along slowly in a procession of cars up and down the one winding road through the old town....it was then that she could hear the details of the conversation, the conversations that few can hear.
The Miss continued:
It must have been April or August, one of those two most likely times of the year when extra-ordinary things occur and all at once she found herself face to face with Mr. F. Knight. The Miss had seen him about town now and then, smiling at her from small and great distances as he had reliquished his salesmen's tactics long ago. He had retired from the door-to-door business and kept to himself collecting monumental stacks of the dailies in his dingy little place up Subway. His only outings were to the iron benches at the park a half block away where he waited day after day, hoping to catch sight of something that interested him. Certainly he visited a barber shop too as all the men on the row did now and then. Kept himself clean and shaved.
All the years had not aged him in the least and his eyes still shone with that quality which she interpreted differently now that she was all grown up and had been tutored by the barks and breezes.
"When is your birthday?" he spoke without making any use of the perfunctory salutations which a stranger needs to make use of out of common courtesy. He knew, she knew...this was the moment of the delivery that had been prefaced for quite a long time, as described in her letter to Mr. Lanny Muss.
He stood over her, a streetlight created a halo round his head and darkened his face and without notice he gently lowered himself onto the wide shallow stairs in the center of the park and sat exactly two stairs up from the nearly mature Miss. Mr. F. Knight pursed his lips, rolled his eyes down and to the left, and raised one finger to his chin. "A nine. You are a nine. This means something very good indeed!" His face suddenly emanated a most brilliant light as he stated this curious fact and the Miss felt somewhat relieved that his satisfaction was so easy to administer. All it took was the giving of a birth date and the concealment of her fear of dark intentions, unworldly things proved to be nothing but girlish imagination.
"I'm an Adventist you know.." he went on without her asking, "..and a numerologist. Your number is quite high." He said a few things about God and dissappeared as quickly as he had shown up, leaving the Miss alone. The Miss never saw him again, his death was unnoticed save by a few and she was not privy to further news of him either good or bad.
Perhaps one day the Miss will relate the story of the Adventists who reached the 9th level in August 2001. Someone told her it might be important for you to know Mr. Muss.
Signed (just): Miss.
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