| "The Reality of Myth" |
| by Talia Grey |
A wave of murmurs swept throughout the room, slowly swirling into a cloud of anger. Frank looked at his community, knowing they needed time to share their frustrations or he would never get their attention again. He didn’t even have to look at Old John to suggest such an opinion; Old John knew the way this town worked better than he knew how to fix a broken watch, though he would have preferred to work on “Ol’ Mel the Mechaniz’ Shovel” from the mining days.
Frank was also sure that it would be hard to read the next few lines, particularly since the Mason girl hadn’t left with the other children. If she wasn’t the sheriff’s daughter, he would have reminded the Masons that children meant anyone who couldn’t enlist or share a pint with the boys at the bar. Or in her case, marry.
Frank felt a bony finger poke him on the back and realized that the town was again transfixed on the event at hand. He straightened himself and said, “Folks, they’re makin’ us an offer of a job related to our land because of the environmen’. They know that we’ve been a strong community for several years, and they don’t want to force us out. They say that our mining town ain’t meetin’ the standards that are for healthy livin’, so they’re offerin’ us an opportunity to fix the town to the standards and givin’ us…” Frank sighed heavily, his eyes fixed on the Mason girl who was busy fixing her ponytail.
“Well?” called the lady near the back. “Confound it, Frank, just say it!”
“They’ve givin’ us a list of T.V. people who would like to turn our town into some sort of filmin’ project.”
The Mason girl let out a large shriek before her mother clamped a hand over her glossy mouth. The girl ripped her mother’s hand off of her lips and shouted, “You mean we’re all gonna be on T.V.? With who? This is so exciting!”
The rest of the crowd sank back into hushed whispers. Frank looked at Old John, who coughed loudly. Everyone stopped their conversations and looked back at the podium.
“Frank, what does this mean?” wheezed Old John.
“Seems to me that they have people that hafta come in and fix the mines and some of those television execs want to film us living here like we are. They say that it’s a ‘reality genre,’ that we don’t have to change what we do, or our business in general, but they want to explore what it’s like livin’ in a ‘small town going through an environmental crisis.’ Problem is that there’s a slew of environment-type networks and even more regular networks that want our story.”
“Why us?” asked one of the coffee clatch cronies.
“Ten bucks and a cup of Frieda’s coffee says that they want to make us look like fools for fun. I’ve seen those shows! Horrible people are on those shows that break the common and holy laws like heathens!” shouted a voice in the crowd.
“I think it has more to do with our location,” piped Becky, the town schoolteacher. Frank nodded to the brunette with straight hair and a straighter nose. Her family was the last new group of people to permanently settle in the town. She only had three generations’ worth of a history, but she was highly regarded for her fight to keep small town values in her curriculum. “Old John, Frank, you can’t forget that we are living next to Area 51,” she said. “I’m sure that their interest is not just in our environment, but also our so-called neighbors. I mean, why now come to our town to investigate a mine that’s been played out for so many years? And why would the government bother to get us involved with a reality series?”
“Yeah, an’ how much do they think we’re worth!” shouted one of the Andrew brothers. “They probably think that we’re stupid enough to sell ourselves cheap!”
“Well…,” Frank hesitated as he finished eyeing the rest of the letter, “they say they’re really concerned about our well bein’, so the government’s offer is to clean up the environment for free. But the money’s from the television people. We’ll get one million dollars, upfront, for our silence and participation. Then we’ll get another million to keep our town up to date with the latest environment laws. Then they have some sort of addendum about a possible contest takin’ place that would let one of us earn $100,000 and a possibility of goin’ to Los Angeles to talk about the experience.”
The immediate silence that followed was something that Frank had never experienced before in his life. He closed the documents, but the pages sounded like a thunderclap rising through the vaulted ceiling of the town hall. It wasn’t until the Mason girl let out a contented squeak that anyone spoke again.
“I expect that they want us to show them where the aliens landed,” Old John coughed. A couple people snickered.
“Two million dollars would help us a lot,” said an Andrew brother. “We could keep up to those standards if we have to, and there’s no one who can win a contest like my brother Sam. He’s always winning raffle prizes. We’ve basically won the lottery!”
“Those people must have been investigating our town,” Becky called. “They must have found some potential in us to be asking us so many questions for so long. But do they say what kind of contest it is?”
“Nope, just an addendum, ma’am,” answered Frank, squeezing the papers tight.
“It’s Los Angeles!” a small voice chirped.
“Angela, stop it!” the sheriff’s wife exclaimed.
“Mom, you don’t understand! We have the chance to show the world that we’re not hicks, that we’re smart and Kyle’s right! We have won a lottery to be able to get the old mine fixed and some money to make life easier.”
Ideas ran amuck in the crowd, each suggestion growing louder than the last:
“We could use some income to help patch up the farmer’s gates.”
“What about a faster bus?”
“A new paint job on town hall!”
“A new roof for the church!”
“All right, all right,” Old John called, rapping his hand on the wooden podium. He looked at Frank, then at the crowd. Several faces were full of fear, but more of them were glowing with hope and excitement. The last thing the town needed was to be torn apart over an offer, and Frank watched eagerly to see what Old John had to say.
“We’ve lived here for a long time, folks, and I expect to be living here for a longer time still. I would say that we should put it to a vote, and that way we can solve this once and for all. I expect that the government won’t give us a choice about cleanin’ the land, but we can still make good money on that job. We don’t have to be on T.V. for it to happen. But we live in America for a reason, so tomorrow there will be a private vote and we shall see what happens to our town.”
*
It was four in the afternoon by the time the cameras finally moved off the roads and allowed the townspeople to use their cars and walkways. Most had no idea what a “wide shot” was, and most didn’t care. They were more concerned about the terms that the environmentalists lashed out from their Californian tongues, stating that a pH was too low, or something about the contents of the soil. Frank had been surprised over the turn of events, but he was one of the few to stay at his normal job full-time. The postmaster was a little disappointed that he couldn’t help, but the network people assured him that his role was “absolutely necessary in the procurement of mail for updates on budgets and messages from the city.” Frank thought it was strange how they swore to him that he was a vital town establishment that needed to stay put, and yet they were talking to their bosses all the time on their cell phones. Most of the townspeople didn’t need cell phones as they could just cross the street to visit their neighbors.
The Mason girl, on the other hand, was desperate to get one after speaking with one of the network folk called a producer. Frank was concerned that the sheriff and his wife didn’t seem to mind their daughter talking to these strangers and dressing in her “Hollywood” outfits. The producer usually just smiled and told her to just “act normal” and filmed her buying produce at the grocery store for what they called “stock footage.” He knew that the television people were trying to get the girl out of their way as they filmed, but he thought that it would have been better if they didn’t appease her by taping so much footage.
Frank scratched the stubble on his face and continued filing mail into its appropriate boxes, now that he had to do the work of several of his former employees who were drafted into the environment clean-up group. He glanced out the window and watched as Smith and his brother poured sand into large glass cups near the outskirts of the mine. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but the government’s environmental worker seemed to be explaining to them what to do. As they bent over to examine something, the camera leaned over. Frank thought that it would be annoying to have someone constantly eavesdropping, but that was probably why he wasn’t picked for the show. After all, he had told one of the mysterious couples who had temporarily moved into town that he hated people listening in on conversations when the subject randomly came up. Frank already knew that the government worker who was out there was the black-haired man who had moved into High Street. However, he was much more cleaned up and wore glasses.
“It’s a charade, Frank.”
Frank turned around and saw Sam Andrew wiping off the sweat that had collected on his brow. Sam held out his hand to receive his evening mail.
“You don’t have to work, Sam, I’ve seen how much they’ve made you do.”
“Enough to make me feel like a fool for not choosin’ a job with a higher salary,” Sam spat. “Frank, just give me my old job so something can feel normal.”
Frank handed over a large stack of mail and the two men filed bulky and crisp envelopes in silence.
“They’re tellin’ us things, Frank.”
“What’s that?”
“They’re tellin’ rumors about the townspeople. A’ first I thought it was jus’ curiosity, or jus’ to make sure tha’ everyone’s names were on their film, but i’s gettin’ worse.”
“What do you mean?”
“They call the Mason girl the ‘wiltin’ flower.’ Says on film that she’s dyin’ here and needs a more supportin’ education in the Wes’. Frank, how is tha’? We are the Wes’ – we’re in Nevada!”
Frank tapped a cream envelope thoughtfully on a mail slot next to the houses on Orange Street. “I’m sure Becky’s mad.”
“She won’t le’ them film there. Smart one, she is, for keepin’ a distance. She’s able to exercise some sort of safety righ’ an’ the kids won’t be filmed there. But they’re sayin’ things like she can’t teach. They’re askin’ people how our kids can go to college. An’ they’re filmin’ Old John and talkin’ about his age. I’s like they wan’ him to die or somethin’!”
“Sam, what are you doin’ out there? With the environment?”
Sam shook his head angrily, shoving a handful of coupons and flyers into a slot and slamming down the rest of his envelopes. “Frank, I don’t know wha’ they’re lookin’ for us to do! We dig things, measure things, an’ I ain’t got a clue abou’ wha’ they want! They’re usin’ university-type language to make us say ‘Wha’s tha’?’ over an’ over! They think tha’ we’re stupid jus’ because we don’t travel much!”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Frank said. Tossing another handful of envelopes into their rightful slots, he leaned against the wall. Sam wiped off some more sweat from his forehead and swore as he realized that his fingers were leaving wet fingerprints over names and addresses. “Sam, go home. Don’t let them get to you. Think of the money that this town is earnin’.”
Sam didn’t say another word and started filing again. Once his stack was done, he nodded and left the building. Frank finished the rest of the job and prepared for a long evening of handing out mail. He grabbed the blue sack that was reserved for the television people as he remembered the fuss they had made when they received their mail last. With a loud grunt, he hauled it over his back and made his way to where the camera was capturing the setting sun. A crowd of people hunched over binders and laptops in a mixture of shouts and laughs.
*
Old John had been wrong. It took the camera crew about two months before they started asking about aliens, UFOs and other paranormal stereotypes of the place dubbed Area 51. Frank just shook his head when the camera peeked into his office and asked the question. They were especially mad when he told them to read the Bible to get to the truth.
“Honestly, I don’t know what they expect us to say,” Becky sighed when Frank dropped off her mail. “I mean, they yell at me for ‘hiding’ our children’s education just because I won’t let them in my school! Then they expect me to comment on the existence of things that those people should already know don’t exist!”
“Yup.”
“Have they talked to you, Frank?”
“No, ma’am. I think they don’t consider me pretty enough for their show.”
“It makes me so mad! Well, thank you for the mail, Frank, and I hope that the next few months fly by.”
Frank watched as Becky made her way back to her house, then he started onto the next. He kept moving from house to house, dropping off mail and listening to complaints about the show if people emerged from their houses. It was strange for him to think that he, not Mrs. Frieda, was the holder of the town’s secrets. They all knew that he was one of the few people who didn’t talk to the cameras, but why not confide in the grocer? There was talk that some people were selling stories to the television people – the Miller boy was grounded for a week when he pretended to see a UFO during an interview – but Frank was more concerned about the gossip. He heard stories about the Andrew brothers fighting over the attention of their father, but Sam never said a word about this at the post office. They said that Becky was having an affair with the sheriff, but both parties denied it and nearly screamed at the producers until they swore that they would take if out of the film. There were rumblings about Old John leaving a will to a certain person in the town that no one even heard of, or that he was about ready to die. Frank scoffed at this notion as Old John had already donated nearly all his earnings to the church. Yet, the crew went on to talk about the church embezzling money, and that the children of the town were being suffocated with “outdated values” and other lingo that Frank chose to ignore. The town was growing more tense by the second, and he knew that if someone asked Clara one more time about an alien sighting that she would throw a flying saucer at him. She had been in the sourest of moods since the cameras decided that she was senile enough to recall an alien abduction. And she was starting to throw old china at anyone who tried to mock her quilting or lifestyle.
Frank finished placing mail in the boxes of Lemon Lane and made his way to the last row of houses. He noticed that he was getting the mail out later in the evening than usual, and he swore to be more on time tomorrow. Just as he rounded the corner, a large light beamed from the sky. Frank stopped and saw that there was a slew of cameras, lights and umbrellas being set up in the middle of town, with the sheriff pointing to certain spots on the ground. It was all that the sheriff could do to keep these people off the roads during the day, but at night there was no arguing with the Hollywood men. Frank tried not to watch, but it was hard not to be distracted by all of the lights and commotion. He noticed that a lot of people on this side of the street had pulled down their shades and posted “Private Property” on pieces of cardboard and planks of wood.
“It’s being cut, sir, I’m sorry,” said one of the producers. It was easy for Frank to hear what was going on as he was getting closer to the blaze of lights the more he worked his way down the street.
“But that was the whole point of this thing!” the sheriff shouted back, his face crimson.
“Well, your town has finished its rehabilitation process. You should be happy that it’s cleaned up and that you’re living in a more eco-friendly environment! You’re getting your million dollars to keep it clean, and we can move on.”
“You’re tellin’ me that you fixed up the mine and its surroundings in only three months?! How dumb do you think we are?”
“Sir, please, that’s not the point of our stay. If the environmentalist says that he’s done with the town, that’s not our jurisdiction. We’ve been contracted to do a show, so we’re doing a show. And now that the government is done, we can do our contest.”
“What does that have to do with our town?!”
“Well, it makes the viewers more interested in what you have to offer. Now that we’ve filmed the heartbreak of your condition, the clean-up and revitalization, we have to integrate something that will also keep viewers hooked.”
“The townspeople won’t stand for this!”
“The contract was signed by your town leaders, so if they have a problem then they can always get out by paying a fee for breaking your promise; and here I thought your promises were supposed to be better than a blood signature. We already have volunteers who will be involved, and it won’t be too much longer. Look, we let up on the whole alien thing, but we still need an Area 51 segment. Who films here without doing that?”
“You can! What’s the fee?”
“It will be at least half of your earnings.”
“But we’ve already started fixing the church!”
“Then I guess we’ll have to play the game. Now if you’ll excuse us, we have to get the lighting right so we can get some more shots of the town at night. Really, sir, the more time you waste here the more money and time we’ll spend here.”
Frank scurried past the cameras and the lights as best as he could and made his way back to his office. Since he wasn’t supposed to be on the film, he figured that he could at least drop off his mail carrier. Four faded flyers clung to the post office door, and Frank didn’t know why whoever made the flyers didn’t use the cork bulletin board next to it. As he approached he saw large words carved into the paper in red and black.
LEAVE OUR TOWN!
Frank dropped his carrier and ran up to the flyers so that he could be sure that he was seeing them correctly:
LEAVE OUR TOWN!
STOP SELLING OUR SECRETS TO THE MOTHERSHIP!
LIAR!!! TRAITOR!!!
“What’s this?” Frank asked the posters. His vision blurred and white light poured onto the posters and his body. He heard a person mutter something as he tore off the signs, one by one. He could feel something watching him as he plucked the nails off the door and pushed them into the cork board. He didn’t give the watcher the opportunity to see his cheeks as they burned, but instead walked backwards to where he dropped the carrier, picked it up, and then disappeared into the office.
Frank pulled at the posters to straighten out the creases once he was at his desk. He studied the handwriting carefully. He was the postmaster, and he had handled everyone’s mail throughout his 30-plus-year career.
Six bells rang from the church when Frank discovered that the L’s had a rather delicate loop in them. The Mason girl. She rarely wrote letters to anyone in town, but she was the only one that he knew who would take the time to loop her letters, even if she was mad.
“That’s why they’re not filmin’ me, they’re makin’ me to be an alien,” Frank mused. He pushed the posters back and wondered how he should break the bad news to the cameras. In all his years of defending the small town in front of out of town package delivery boys and visitors, he never thought that he would be the target of such a prank. He tapped his fingers on the desk before reaching for his phone. He saw light pouring into the main lobby of the building from underneath his closed office door, but the shades were drawn on his windows. He gently caressed the posters again and then dialed a number that he had been forced to memorize a long time ago.
“56300,” he sighed into the phone.
“Why are you calling?” whispered the telephone.
“Knock it off Clemens, this ain’t a national security problem.” Frank swiveled in his chair, relishing the way it swung without squeaking.
“Yes, sir.”
“Look, I don’t know what you boys are doing in those mines, or what you’re doin’ to my townspeople, but we’ve had enough of it.”
“Sir, it really is an environmental disaster. You know that we can’t fit the new, er, purification plants in without assessing the land first.”
“This T.V. thing was a little overkill. People are tired of it, Clemens, and I’d like for you to have them wrap up the shoot.”
“Sir, your townspeople signed the contract. We didn’t know that you’d actually let them take it.”
“I believe in democracy, my friend, and they believed that exposure would be good. They got their money to fix their church, and I feel like I’m on the bad end of an old joke.”
“You said to keep everyone’s attention off of the mines, sir.”
“Yes, I guess I did. Well, if I hafta be the bad guy, I guess I could skulk around in my office a bit more. How is the project goin’?”
Silence.
“Clemens?”
“Sir, that’s classified.”
“Well, then I hope that the reason’s good, because I don’t want to cover another project that ended up givin’ the world singin’ cards.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Clemens, you really lost your sense of humor.”
“Was a requirement to join this division, sir. Can I go now?”
“Yeah. Take care Clemens.”
Frank hung up the phone and noticed that the light had dimmed beneath the doorway. Perhaps they were waiting for him to step outside and confront an angry mob, or maybe just the Mason girl with her made up story in desperation for fame. Or maybe they wanted some suspicious shots for their precious stock footage. Frank zipped up his coat and looked at the window. In the old days, he would have slipped out the window and surprised the snoopy investigative reporter that sometimes slipped into town. But windows were a thing of past escape routes, and too ridiculous for a man his age. Generations of families had gone to work at Area 51 and returned to shake their heads at rumors and whispers, and now he was the only one left of the town who had a background that these camera people would sell their souls to expose.
“Frank, can I talk to you?” called a sweet young voice from the other side of the door.
Leaning back, Frank wondered how much longer the town could take this invasion.
“Frank? Please? I know that there are a lot of people who are saying mean…uh…mean things? Yeah, mean things. I’m not one of them!”
“That’s not how you address your elders,” Frank called, rolling up the posters. He slid them into his desk and crossed his arms.
“What are you talking about? Everyone knows you’re Frank the Mailman!”
Silence. Frank heard some hushed whispers from behind the door.
“The post office is closed, Angela Mason, so unless you want to be written up by your father for trespassing, I suggest you leave and get home. You know Mrs. Mason worries.”
“Forget it,” he heard her scowl, and with a few thumps the light disappeared and it was quiet.
“Frank?” This voice he did not recognize.
“Yeah?”
“Frank, this is A.K. Myles, the director for this shoot? We need you for some shots for the contest we’re doing.”
“Okay, Mr. Myles, you can come back tomorrow and we’ll discuss it.”
“Frank, if you don’t come out and help us finish this scene we won’t be able to finish the seventh episode. No seventh episode means no eighth and so on and that means no more money. You’ve got so much potential here, and your townspeople are starting to adjust! The studio loves the clips we’ve shown, and the pilot has been a hit with our test market. We could even do a second season!”
Silence.
“All we need is your help to do this one small project, and we’ll leave you and your town alone. And you’ll be helping the town out. Think of your hometown, Frank.”
It wasn’t the first time Frank had heard those words, but Frank stayed in his seat. They didn’t have the control they believed. The townspeople were not happy, and they wouldn’t turn on him for backing away from a camera that had ignored him for several months.
*
In the months that followed, the townspeople checked the television for their show. At first, there were commercials with the Mason girl and the Andrew brothers as they worked to “help save a devastated town with a mysterious past.” More time passed until, finally, pilot night came one Friday evening. The townspeople were not impressed, and several expressed outrage at the subsequent meeting. Some wanted to know why they didn’t talk the whole time, others why they were saying things out of context, and still others were upset not to be in it at all. Frank never watched the show, but he was told by Sam that he wasn’t in it much, and that it made him out to be a lackey for the real star of the show – the environmentalist.
“Frank, they never even say that he was an environmentalis’ like he told us. He was really from the governmen’, and that I was someone who was tryin’ to uncover some sort of cover-up in the town! You know tha’ if we ha’ secrets I ain’t tellin’ anyone! They fixed our water all right, bu’ they fix us up too.”
“Sam, sometimes people just want to believe that there’s more to us out here. They don’t get why we like this life, or why we’re so close to Area 51.” Frank thumbed through a book of stamps to hand to Mrs. Frieda, who was eager to mail out her annual Town Tea Night invitations.
“I wouldn’t worry about that show,” Mrs. Frieda said suspiciously.
“Why’s that?” Frank asked.
“I heard that they’ve cancelled it. Low ratings, I think they said. I got a call today apologizin’ for not featuring me in any of the episodes that they aired. I told that director’s assistant that we didn’t care for them anyway. Thank you for the stamps.”
“Do we have to give back the money?” asked Sam.
“I wouldn’t worry,” answered Frank, “those people can’t back out of the contract like that, and I think that they’re doin’ us a favor.”
“Angela won’t think so. You should hear her go on about bein’ a star!”
Frank shrugged, grabbed a cardboard box, and made his way back to his office. He shut the door behind him and sat at his desk. His hands gracefully constructed the box from its flat self and pulled out the posters from his desk, stuffing them into the brown container until he was able to seal it off and tape it up. He wrote a quick note on an index card and slipped it into the plastic sheath that protected cards for gift packages. When he finished addressing the box, he walked back out to the main desk and handed it to Sam.
“Sam, I’d like you to finish up here since I’ve done your work for a while.”
“Anytime – I owe you, Frank.” Sam looked at the box in Frank’s arms, then at Frank when he saw the address.
“Send this away with the pickup boys when they get here. Our friends over in Hollywood forgot it an’ I want to save them the trouble of comin’ all the way out here to get it.” Frank grinned.
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