The Toynbee Convector

“The name carved on the stone is WHITE,” observed Leota coldly.

“Certainly. That’s the man’s name for whom the stone was carved.”

“And is he dead?” asked Leota, waiting.

The landlord nodded.

“There, you see!” cried Leota. Walter groaned a groan that meant he was not stirring another inch looking for a room. “It smells like a cemetery in here,” said Leota, watching Walter’s eyes get hot and flinty. The landlord explained:

“Mr. Whetmore, the former tenant of this room, was an apprentice marble-cutter, this was his first job, he used to tap on it with a chisel every night from seven until ten.”

“Well—” Leota glanced swiftly around to find Mr. Whetmore. “Where is he? Did he die, too?” She enjoyed this game.

“No, he discouraged himself and quit cutting this stone to work in an envelope factory.”

“Why?”

“He made a mistake.” The landlord tapped the marble lettering, “WHITE is the name here. Spelled wrong. Should be WHYTE, with a Y instead of an I. Poor Mr. Whetmore. Inferiority complex. Gave up at the least little mistake and scuttled off.”

“I’ll be damned,” said Walter, shuffling into the room and unpacking the rusty brown suitcases, his back to Leota. The landlord liked to tell the rest of the story:

“Yes, Mr. Whetmore gave up easily. To show you how touchy he was, he’d percolate coffee mornings, and if he spilled a teaspoonful it was a catastrophe—he’d throw it all away and not drink coffee for days! Think of that! He got very sad when he made errors. If he put his left shoe on first, instead of his right, he’d quit trying and walk bare footed for ten or twelve hours, on cold mornings, even. Or if someone spelled his name wrong on his letters, he’d replace them in the mailbox marked NO SUCH PERSON LIVING HERE. Oh, he was a great one, was Mr. Whetmore!”

“That don’t paddle us no further up-crick,” pursued Leota grimly. “Walter, what’re you commencing?”

“Hanging your silk dress in this closet; the red one.”

“Stop hanging, we’re not staying.”

The landlord blew out his breath, not understanding how a woman could grow so dumb. “I’ll explain once more. Mr. Whetmore did his homework here; he hired a truck that carried this tombstone here one day while I was out shopping for a turkey at the grocery, and when I waited back—tap-tap-tap—I heard it all the way downstairs— Mr. Whetmore had started chipping the marble. And he was so proud I didn’t dare complain. But he was so awful proud he made a spelling mistake and now he ran off without a word, his rent is paid all the way till Tuesday, but he didn’t want a refund, and now I’ve got some truckers with a hoist who’ll come up first thing in the morning. You won’t mind sleeping here one night with it, now will you? Of course not.”

The husband nodded. “You understand, Leota? Ain’t no dead man under that rug.” He sounded so superior, she wanted to kick him.

She didn’t believe him, and she stiffened. She poked a finger at the landlord. “You want your money. And you, Walter, you want a bed to drop your bones on. Both of you are lying from the word go!”

The Oklahoma man paid the landlord his money tiredly, with Leota tonguing him. The landlord ignored her as if she were invisible, said good night and she cried “Liar!” after him as he shut the door and left them alone. Her husband undressed and got in bed and said, “Don’t stand there staring at the tombstone, turn out the light. We been traveling four days and I’m bushed.”

Her tight crisscrossed arms began to quiver over her thin breasts. “None of the three of us,” she said, nodding at the stone, “will get any sleep.”

Twenty minutes later, disturbed by the various sounds and movements, the Oklahoma man unveiled his vulture’s face from the bedsheets, blinking stupidly. “Leota, you still up? I said, a long time ago, for you to switch off the light and come to sleep! What are you doing there?”

It was quite evident what she was about. Crawling on rough hands and knees, she placed a jar of fresh-cut red, white, and pink geraniums beside the headstone, and another tin can of new-cut roses at the foot of the imagined grave. A pair of shears lay on the floor, dewy with having snipped flowers in the night outside a moment before.

Now she briskly whisked the colorful linoleum and the worn rug with a midget whisk broom, praying so her husband couldn’t hear the words, but just the murmur. When she rose up, she stepped across the grave carefully so as not to defile the buried one, and in crossing the room she skirted far around the spot, saying, “There, that’s done,” as she darkened the room and laid herself out on the whining springs that sang in turn with her husband who now asked, “What in the Lord’s name!” and she replied, looking at the dark around her, “No man’s going to rest easy with strangers sleeping right atop him. I made amends with him, flowered his bed so he won’t stand around rubbing his bones together late tonight.”

Her husband looked at the place she occupied in the dark, and couldn’t think of anything good enough to say, so he just swore, groaned, and sank down into sleeping.

Not half an hour later, she grabbed his elbow and turned him so she could whisper swiftly, fearfully, into one of his ears, like a person calling into a cave: “Walter!” she cried. “Wake up, wake up!

” She intended doing this all night, if need be, to spoil his superior kind of slumber.

He struggled with her. “What’s wrong?”

“Mr. White!l Mr. White! He’s starting to haunt us!”

“Oh, go to sleep!”

“I’m not fibbing! Listen to him!”