The Last Voyage of the Alice B Toklas

(1981) Photo by simonsimages

When, at fifteen, I began my first summer as the Rural Carrier Associate of Howland Island, Maine, a post officer from the regional office showed up unannounced and reminded me that I must adhere to the agency's mission statement by ensuring the "prompt, reliable, and efficient" delivery of the mail. In August I thought of his words as I held the official-looking letter that had arrived for the writer staying in my grandparents' guest cottage. Most people only received bills and handwritten notes from friends and relatives. Sometimes a postcard. My grandfather, who frequently asked me if I'd heard the writer say anything interesting, would love to see the contents of a typed envelope from the Jonathon Riley Agency, 333a Lafayette St., NY, NY.

As I put the letter aside instead of in the writer's mailbox, I thought of the postal motto, which I had memorized the previous summer: Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Halfway through sorting the rest of the mail, I picked up the writer's envelope again and ran my finger over the indentations left by the typewriter on the letters of the writer's name, Alexander Smith, and the name of the island. The bell on the door clanged, and hard-soled shoes tapped down the hall to my office/candy store.

"Hey," the writer said. "Anything for me?" Through the dark glass of his Ray-Ban Aviators, he looked at me sitting on my swivel chair behind my desk complete with various cubbyholes for international, certified, and return service forms, as well as a number of rubber stamps I longed to use in an official capacity. I still held his envelope clamped between my thumb and forefinger.

"Is that mine?" he asked, his eyebrow rising above the gold rim of his glasses.

I nodded, relieved, and handed the envelope to him. He turned and walked away without saying goodbye.

The writer's vanilla-colored envelope would have leaned at an angle in his brass box. The weaker envelopes, especially the blue par avion ones, began to sag from moisture after a few hours. Made of thicker paper, the writer's letter hadn't even bent in the mailbag on the boat ride from the mainland.

At 1 pm I rushed home to eat the lunch Grandma had left for me. She'd taken the skiff to shop on the mainland, so I had a one-day reprieve from afternoon chores. The writer had only left fifteen minutes ahead of me, but when I arrived at our house and looked out the kitchen window across the field that stretched to the beach and the guest cottage, I saw no sign of him.

Most summers our house filled with cousins, uncles and aunts, and my sister, but for the last two weeks of August this year, I was alone with my grandparents. My sister was staying with my father and his new girlfriend over on China Lake, and my cousins were busy with their parents. I called out for my grandfather. When he didn't answer, I knew he was probably down at the island landing.

I had just finished the first half of my sandwich when the door to the guest cottage flew open and smacked against the shingles. The writer lurched into the field, kicked a rotting log with the toe of his leather shoe, and yelped as he hopped on one foot. In his balled fist, he raised a crumpled letter the same color as the envelope that had come for him and threw it toward the mouth of the bay.

The August winds on our part of the coast followed predictable patterns. The letter rose briefly, pushed a few inches, no more, toward the water, then slowly reversed course and blew back over his head. As he whipped the door to the cottage closed behind him, I watched the letter roll over...