NEW BUTTERMAN
I got a card in the mail yesterday informing me that I was the winner of a new Butterman. It came in a crisp brown envelope, my name and address affixed neatly on a label across the middle. There was no return address.
“You have been selected to take advantage of this opportunity to claim a brand new, world famous Butterman.”
I was not familiar with the brand, nor was I aware of any product or organization that carried the Butterman name. Yet the invitation was quite comforting. I was very glad to have a chance at a new Butterman, whatever it was.
“Claim your free Butterman at the address below in two days,” the card said.
The text was calming, printed across the cream colored paper, heavy in stock. The invitation was welcoming in a way that was somehow identifiable, nostalgic.
I went on with the day, leaving the mail on the table. What was Butterman? I sat in my porch under a blanket, waiting for evening to arrive, carefully parting the newspaper. I perused it section by section without really reading it at all.
I spun the rubber butt of my cane flat against floor, released the pressure and watched it become a circle again. I surveyed the quiet of the neighborhood, studied my old car parked out in front of the house. I could see the melting snow bead off its rust-marred silver coat and drop into dark puddles hidden behind the curb. I thought of my new Butterman.
The address where I was to claim it was in a location of the city I did not know all that well, an antiquated industrial district known commonly as Dawkins.
I only went through Dawkins when I passed over it on the elevated cars of the train I took to the suburbs once a month to visit my son and his family. Dawkins had a significant historical prominence, exactly what I never learned—one of many histories that escaped me.
The mills and factories of Dawkins had been pivotal to our old city many years ago. But the medley of time had rendered them uninhabited—a fiendish boom of progress, earnest electricity and efficiency. Dawkins had died at the peak of its output, at the pinnacle of its range. Its aged brick edifices remained, and you could see them and the vast lots from the scratched windows of the elevated railway cars.
The old warehouses rose out of the shambles in an orange industrial light, with large tin spheres atop their roofs and cages around their windows. They were encircled by vast fenced yards with teetering piles of crushed automobiles and jagged oddments of metal, hulking on empty street corners splattered with garbage.
I took the train to see my family now because my old car was broken. My son told me a gasket had blown, and that the only thing the car was good for now was warding off intruders. It had become a stoic, busted guardian out in front of the house, an impassive collector of weather. But I often wished it could be repaired, and before long I began to wonder how nice it would be if my new Butterman was a car.
That night I was roused from sleep by a murmur of voices coming from outside of the house. I immediately recognized the low staccato that belonged to my son. I made my way steadily downstairs to the porch, the cold pressing on my legs like a sheath of metal.
It was him out there; his large truck was double parked across the street. But he was inside my old car with another man I didn’t know, the low glow of the interior light illuminating their faces.
The stranger was behind the wheel. I wondered if he was a mechanic. Odd, I thought, that the two should be meeting to inspect my broken down car at such an hour. The stranger turned the engine and it lurched before staggering to a drone that did not give way. This surprised me, given the faulty gasket.
My son dusted off the dashboard with a sleeve. I could see him pinch at his nose briefly in conversation, shrugging and holding his hands up admissibly before dropping them quickly to his lap. The stranger, adjusting the rearview and scratching behind an ear, nodded. Exhaust lumbered out of the back of the car, forming a thin cloud.
They talked for a while, and the cloud rose up against the house. I could smell it in the draft by the window, the odor of fuel, cold and thick. When they exited the car, my son waved, and they ambled away from the heap, returning to their separate vehicles and driving off. The street was dark and quiet again, the thin cloud lingering.
I returned to my bed carefully and wondered why my son hadn’t come inside. He did often speak of how busy he was, and perhaps he did not want to wake me. But I would have liked for him to come in and introduced his friend, maybe have a coffee.
Maybe my new Butterman was a friend, I thought, drifting back asleep. Maybe The Butterman’s were kind people who weren’t so busy, who would come inside when they were in the neighborhood and have a coffee, even if it was a little late, just to say hello. How nice.
I inspected the scene from the porch in the morning. I could see the front wheels of my car had moved, because they were no longer turned toward the house. I looked out at the car for a while, and it just didn’t look the same.
Later that afternoon I sat on the porch with my paper, and I noticed a man coming down the street, approaching the house. It was my son again, who had parked a few houses down. I smiled and hurried to get up so that I could open the porch door.
I reached the door as he arrived at the bottom of the driveway, and he was looking at the porch but he didn’t see me. He went right for the mailbox. I could hear it ping shut as I struggled with the door.
He walked away quickly, around to the back door, and by the time I reached the kitchen he was already inside, going through the mail.
“Well look who it is. Didn’t you see me? I was going to open the front door for you,” I said.
“That door takes forever to open. And I can’t stay,” he replied, not taking his eyes off the mail. “What’s going on,” he said in a flat tone.
“Oh, just going through the news and stuff. Thanks for getting the mail; you didn’t have to do that,” I said.
“Right.” He laughed awkwardly and continued to study the mail. “Where’s your check?” he asked.
“Oh, came yesterday. It’s on that stack on the table there.” My checks came twice a month. “Why not take your coat off? Coffee?” I asked, shuffling towards the machine on the counter.
“Oh, no thanks. I can’t stay long—I got all this shit to do.” He found the check and tossed the rest of the mail in the pale yellow trash bin.
“What’s going on?” he asked again. He looked at the inside of his jacket and stuffed the envelope in one of the large pockets.
“Was that the mechanic out there last night?” I asked, holding the empty coffee pot.
He looked at me for the first time, his eyebrows raised. “Last night?”
“Yeah, I saw you out there last night with that other guy, looking at the car. Gasket didn’t sound too bad, huh? Can you fix it with one of my checks?”
“You feeling ok?” he asked, chuckling. “I got stuck on the late train last night—been busting my ass at work. But we’ll get that car out of here. This week, actually,”
“Well,” I said, “I’d really like to get it fixed. That man, was he a mechanic?”
He half smiled, his mouth open, his head retreating to the back of his shoulders. It was a strange expression, admonishing yet irritated. “Look, I don’t like parking down the street anymore either. I’ll get it out of there,” he said. “I don’t think you saw anyone, but whoever it was, it wasn’t me. I was at the train station until like, eleven, almost twelve.”
I rubbed my eyes and filled the coffee pot with water.“Well if the car can’t be fixed, I’ll need a ride out to Dawkins tomorrow,” I said.
He had the loop of his keychain around his finger now, and he jingled it while flipping through a magazine that was on the table that had somehow been spared from the litter can.
“I need to pick up something,” I said, flipping the switch of the coffee machine. “It’s a new Butterman.”
“Dawkins, huh? Need some industrial storage?” He chuckled again let out a low whistle, quickly flipping through the pages. “Those plants don’t make anything anymore.”
I was even more frustrated now, at his nonchalance to my new Butterman. Even if I didn’t know what it was, I found his disrespect crude.
“Look, Butterman is—is the tenor of the times!” I said. “We really should have one for the holiday.”
“Butter what?”
“Butterman. Out of Dawkins. It’s real nice. And it’s free.”
“Look,” he said, “Dawkins is a barren dump. It’s nothing but industrial storage and chemicals and scrap yards and that type of shit. What is it you want again? What about it? Is it a cake?”
“No, no, I’ve a free Bu—”
“The only thing you can get out in Dawkins is lost or mugged—or worse. Those factories are all closed. It’s no place for someone your age. No place for someone my age, for that matter,” he explained, laughing. “You want a cake? I can run up to Beacon or Dean’s Bakery or something.”
“No, listen. It’s—it’s just that I—” but I couldn’t get the explanation out quick enough, and he seemed to realize it. He stuck the magazine under his arm and made for the door.
“I’ll be back tomorrow night for your car; get it out of here finally. I’ll swing by Dean’s on the way or something, or I don’t—”
I couldn’t hear the rest because the door slammed behind him. He was still talking though; I could see him from the kitchen window and I could hear the low tone of his voice as he walked down the driveway.
The coffee machine began to whimper and I took my discarded mail out of the trash, shuffling through it for my new Butterman. It was at the bottom of the stack, without its envelope and a little crinkled. It was soothing to read it again.
The next morning I was roused from sleep very early, but not by my radio alarm. The electricity had gone out sometime in the night. It was the sound of a high wind screaming across the roof that woke me. I could hear it hit the shingles of the house fast and race down the siding, shaking the old windows and piercing the frame.
It billowed down the chimney and hummed through the empty rooms. It racked the old front porch. The carpet outside my bedroom creaked, like the footsteps of someone outside my door.
I rose and slowly dressed, layering my clothing over my pajamas, and then made my way downstairs. The kitchen was in a gloss of blue light, the crinkled card over a thick shadow on the table. Flurries skipped by the windows, humming and rising in pitch. I put on an old winter coat and buttoned the card into a pocket.
I tried to get the porch door open. It was cold and bulky. The small panes were webbed with frost. I clasped the iron handle with both hands; it was so cold it burned. I wrapped my hands in my coat and tried to grip the handle again. The door would not budge.
I went outside through the kitchen and began making my way slowly down the driveway. I’d forgotten to change in to shoes, so I was still in my slippers. The traction abysmal, I skulked down the slope of the drive with two shaking hands at my side.
The wind roared again, sending a scatter of snow onto my face, and I fell. I slid down the driveway towards the road. It was a matter of inches, but it felt like a city block.
I laid there for a while, frigid. Snow was falling. I felt the outside of my pocket for my new Butterman and was relieved to feel it inside.
At that moment, trapped under a howling wind, I could see the paperboy approach my front steps. Maybe it was because I was covered with snowfall, or the loud winds distracted him, but whatever it was, he did not see me. He wore a red hunting hat and concentrated solely on the paper he placed in the box—ping—before descending the stairs and heading to the next house.
I tried to holler, but I had no air; the noise I made was pinched in my throat and was heard only by my ears.
I dragged my limbs under me and hoisted myself up. A sharp pain ran down my back. I touched a spot on my forehead that burned, and when I looked at my fingers they were covered in dark red. I continued my shuffle to the front curb.
The sky was vast, the dim light angular. A van drove past, muted by the high banks, a dust of snow trailing it like a spray of broken glass. When I reached my old car it was covered in an armor of ice. I ran my shaking hand over the smooth layer on the window.
I grabbed the door handle and pulled, but the door did not open. I grabbed my wrist and pulled again, and still it did not give way. I covered my hand with the long length of my jacket and pulled again, and this time the door released, the ice lock crackling away.
It felt good to be inside the car and out of the wind. It smelled like gasoline and dust. There was litter inside from the last time I drove it: some peppermint candy wrappers, a few old coupons. An old set of keys attached to a keychain of a high school football schedule now some years expired rested in the change holder. I brought the key to the ignition with a shaking hand.
The engine staggered and gave way. I tried turning the key with two hands and it chinked and groaned, but still would not start. The wind howled and pellets of icy snow scampered across the windshield like a handful of sand. I sank into the seat. I dabbed at the crusted gash on my head and fell out of consciousness.
I woke to the sound of shaking of chains and a large engine accelerating in a low gear. I sat inside the quiet, icy chamber of the car that was progressing on a tilt. I was moving through the neighborhood artlessly, dreamlike.
Through a small patch of window in the ice I could see where I was, moving slowly through the city in a great thick snowfall. I used the cuff of my jacket to swab at the frost on the window, pressing slowly on the brake and gas, softly gripping the cold steering wheel as I rambled past the shops and cafes.
I smiled at the few pedestrians on the sidewalks, bundled in large coats and wielding large brown bags or the hands of one another. I could not tell if they could see me.
A woman pulled a small child down the sidewalk in a sled. A trio of teenagers hopped in unison on a street corner, the steam from their voices catching the snowflakes in a web. A dog tied in front of a small shop nipped at his leash.
I began to move faster. The brake was not receptive, but my pace was serene and was I not alarmed. The scenery began to blur as my speed grew. I hoped that I was not speeding. I continued past low and blackened snowdrifts, past large silent parks and reflective road signs, the twinkling numbers and texts illegible behind spatters of thick white snow.
Before long I was outside the city, moving steadily on the highway. Vehicles in the opposing lane sulked by, emitting cones of light from their headlamps, flurries raining down on their darkened windows.
Then the horizon became a muted yellow and large buildings entered the frame. They were dark and no one was inside them. Snow clung to large spans of chain link fencing.
I came to a halt in a parking lot. I remember wondering why the car beside me had no wheels. Then I was off again. Off in the air rising high above the yard. Off and up, to escape the yellow streetlights, to find the welcoming white glow of the city beneath me.
Look above Dawkins from the windows of the train. You might see me, world famous and brand new.
