Lake scowled as a youth bejeweled in red buttons and waving a huge red flag ran into the street. In the wake of the flag, Lake could see the distant edges of the post office, suffused with the extraordinary morning light, which came down in sheets of gold.
The secondary tier of Reasons Why I Should Have Stayed at Home concerned, much to Lake’s irritation, the post office itself. He had no sympathy for its archaic architecture and only moderate respect for its function; the quality of a monopolistic private postal service being poor, most of his commissions arrived via courier. He also found distasteful the morbid nature of the building’s history, its stacks of “corpse cases” as he called the postal boxes. These boxes, piled atop each other down the length and breadth of the great hall, climbed all the way to the ceiling. Surely any of the children previously shelved there had, on their ascent to heaven, found themselves trapped by that ugly yellow ceiling and to this day were banging their tiny ectoplasmic heads against it.
But, as the post office rounded into view—looming and guttering like some monstrous, senile great aunt—none of these objections registered as strongly as the recent change of name to the “Voss Bender Memorial Post Office.” A shockingly rushed development, as the (great, despotic) composer and politician had died only three days before—rumors as to cause ranging from heart attack to poison—his body sequestered secretly, yet to be cremated and the ashes cast into the River Moth per Bender’s request. (Not to mention that a splinter faction of the Greens, in a flurry of pamphlets and broadsheets, had advertised the resurrection of their beloved Bender: he would reappear in the form of the first child born after midnight in one year’s time. Would the child be born with arias bursting forth from his mouth like nightingales, Lake wondered.)
The renaming alone made Lake’s teeth grind together. It seemed, to his absurdly envious eye—he knew how absurd he was, but could not control his feelings—that every third building of any importance had had the composer’s name rudely slapped over old assignations, with no sense of decorum or perspective. Was it not enough that while alive Bender had been a virtual tyrant of the arts, squashing all opera, all theater, that did not fit his outdated melodramatic sensibilities? Was it not enough that he had come to be the de facto ruler of a city that simultaneously abhorred and embraced the cult of personality? Did he now have to usurp the entire city—every last stone of it—forever and always as his mausoleum? Apparently so. Apparently everyone soon would be permanently lost, for every avenue, alley, boulevard, dead end, and cul-de-sac would be renamed “Bender.” “Bender” would be the name given to all newborns; or, for variety’s sake, “Voss.” And a whole generation of Benders or Vosses would trip and tangle their way through a city which from every street corner threw back their name at them like an impersonal insult.
Why—Lake warmed to his own vitriol—if another Manzikert flattened him as he crossed this very street, he would be lucky to have his own name adorn his own gravestone! No doubt, he mused sourly—but with satisfaction—as he tested the post office’s front steps with his cane, his final resting place would display the legend “Voss Bender Memorial Gravestone” with the words “(occupied by Martin Lake)” etched in tiny letters below.
Inside the post office, at the threshold of the great hall, Lake walked through the gloomy light cast by the far windows and presented himself to the attendant, a man with a face like a knife; Lake had never bothered to learn his name.
Lake held out his key. “Number 7768, please.”
The attendant, legs propped against his desk, looked up from the broadsheet he was reading, scowled, and said, “I’m busy.”
Lake, startled, paused for a moment. Then, showing his cane, he tossed his key onto the desk.
The attendant looked at it as if it were a dead cockroach. “That, sir, is your key, sir. Yes it is. Go to it, sir. And all good luck to you.” He ruffled the broadsheet as he held it up to block out Lake.
Lake stared at the fingers holding the broadsheet and wondered if there would be a place for the man’s sour features in his latest commission—if he could immortalize the unhelpfulness that was as blunt as the man’s knuckles. After the long, grueling walk through hostile territory, this was really too much.
Lake peered over the broadsheet, using his cane to pull it down a little. “You are the attendant, aren’t you? I haven’t been giving you my key all these months only to now discover that you are merely a conscientious volunteer?”
The man blinked and put down his broadsheet to reveal a crooked smile.
“I am the attendant. That is your key. You are crippled. Sir.”
“Then what is the problem?”
The man looked Lake up and down. “Your attire, sir. You are dressed somewhat … ambiguously.”
Lake wasn’t sure if the answer or the comfortable use of the word “ambiguously” surprised him more. Nonetheless, he examined his clothes. He had thrown on a blue vest over a white shirt, blue trousers with black shoes and socks.
The attendant wore clothes the color of overripe tomatoes.
Lake burst out laughing. The attendant smirked.
“True, true,” Lake managed. “I’ve not declared myself, have I? I must have a coming out party. What am I? Vegetable or mineral?”
In clipped tones, his eyes cold and empty, the attendant asked, “Red or Green: which is it, sir.”
Lake stopped laughing. The buffoon was serious. This same pleasant if distant man he had seen every week for over two years had succumbed to the dark allure of Voss Bender’s death. Lake stared at the attendant and saw a stranger.
Slowly, carefully, Lake said, “I am green on the outside, being as yet youthful in my chosen profession, and red on the inside, being, as is everyone, a mere mortal.” He produced both flags. “I have your flag—and the flag of the other side.” He dangled them in front of the attendant. “Did I dislike Voss Bender and abhor his stranglehold on the city? Yes. Did I wish him dead? No. Is this not enough? Why must I declare myself when all I wish is to toss these silly flags in the River Moth and stand aside while you and your cohorts barrel through bent on butchery? I am neutral, sir.” (Lake thought this a particularly fine speech.)
“Because, sir,” the attendant said, as he rose with a great show of exertion and snatched up Lake’s key, “Voss Bender is not dead.”
He gave Lake a stare that made the little hairs on the back of his neck rise, then walked over to the boxes while Lake smoldered like a badly lit candle. Was the whole city going to play such games? Next time he went to the grocery store would the old lady behind the counter demand he sing a Bender aria before she would sell him a loaf of bread?
The attendant climbed one of the many ladders that leaned against the stacks like odd wooden insects. Lake hoped his journey had not been in vain—let there at least be a missive from his mother which might stave off the specter of homesickness. His father was, no doubt, still encased in the tight-lipped silence that covered him like a cicada’s exoskeleton.
The attendant pulled Lake’s box out, retrieved something from it, and climbed back down with an envelope.
“Here,” the attendant said, glaring, and handed it to Lake, who took both it and his key with unintended gentleness, his anger losing out to bewilderment.