J e r r y s p I n e L l I

Years.” 
She does not seem impressed. She picks up 
her sandwich and takes a bite and chews for a 
long time. Her eyes drift away, toward the living 
room, the Beyond. “What is he waiting for?” she 
says. 
“His brother.” 
“Oh.” She says this matter-of-factly, nodding, 
as if that explains everything. 
There’s a clatter at the front of the house. He 
realizes it is the mail slot opening, letters being 
pushed through. His father is delivering. She 
doesn’t seem to hear it. 
“What’s his name?” she says. 
“Who?” 
“The brother.” 
The question surprises him. He has never won-
dered about the brother’s name, or the Waiting 
Man’s for that matter. “I don’t know,” he says. 
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She starts in on the second half of her sand-
wich—he has long since finished his. He feels her 
staring at him as she chews. He is uneasy. When 
he looks at her for more than a second at a time, 
he discovers her skin is almost transparent, like 
thin ice over a December puddle. He feels he is 
looking into her. A thought pops into his head: 
The moment she stops chewing she is going to 
ask him his name. 
He does not want her to ask. He does not 
want her to call out “Oh, Donald!” or “Oh, 
Zinkoff!” He wants to be “Oh, mailman!” 
He must say something, quickly, create a 
diverting action. 
“I can spell tintinnabulation,” he blurts. And 
he spells it for her. He has been waiting for years 
at school for someone to ask him. “T-I-N-T-I-
N-N-A-B-U-L-A-T-I-O-N.” 
Her mouth drops open, her eyes bulge. She is 
astonished. She is amazed. 
“And I got an A once. In Geography. It was 
the only A in the whole class.” 
This time she seems not so much amazed as 
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pleased. She nods and smiles. She is not surprised. 
She knew he could do it. “Congratulations,” she 
says. 
The echo comes in his parents’ words: One 
thousand congratulations to you! And suddenly he 
remembers the day in the hospital when Polly 
was born, making a deal with his mother for two 
stars whenever he really needed them. Could he 
ever need them more than today? 
“Do you have stars?” he says. 
She looks at him funny. “Stars?” 
“Those little paper stars? Silver? That you 
stick on—” he is about to say “your shirt”— 
“paper and stuff?” 
She nods. She gets up and goes to a drawer in 
the cupboard. “Stars . . . stars . . .” she mutters as 
she roots through the drawer. 
She hauls the walker off to the dining room. 
He regrets he asked. 
“Stars . . . stars . . .” 
She returns beaming. She’s holding up some-
thing, but it’s not a star. It’s a turkey sticker, the 
size of a postage stamp, the kind Miss Meeks put 
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on a paper of his once or twice. She hands it to 
him. “How about a turkey?” 
A turkey is perfect. He sticks it on his shirt. 
He can’t tell her how happy that turkey makes 
him feel, so happy now his eyes are watery too, 
and his breath flutters in his chest and something 
hard and thorny goes out of him and he tells her 
everything. He tells her about Field Day and why 
he isn’t at school. He tells her about his two 
favorite teachers of all time, Miss Meeks and the 
Learning Train and Mr. Yalowitz who said, “And 
the Z shall be first!” He tells her about his giraffe 
hat and Jabip and Jaboop (she laughs out loud at 
that) and the giant cookie for Andrew Orwell and 
Hector Binns and his earwax candle. He tells her 
about Field Day again and what the clocks said 
and what Gary Hobin said and he tells her about 
the goal he scored for the Titans and what hap-
pened when he closed the door behind him in the 
cellar with the Furnace Monster which, heaven 
help him, he still half believes in. 
On and on he talks, scooping the fruit out of 
his life and dropping it into her lap. He gives her 
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his lucky pink bubblegum stone. She rubs it 
against her dress and gives it back. Through his 
tears she is blurry, ghostlike. Her white hair sits 
upon her head like a puff of cotton. 
The kid he has always known himself to be 
seems to be napping nearby. When he wakes up 
he is on the sidewalk. The lady is calling “Bye, 
mailman!” from the step and the sun is bright 
beyond the rowhouse roofs. School is over: Knap-
sacked kids are racing home. The air feels cool 
and new, the air feels good upon his face.