For the three of you and cat who follow this blog regularly, I have decided to bring back another story about "The Bread Man". I'll link to the first one at the end of this one, for those of you who have never met him before. My grandmother convinced me that this guy really lived, so I am going to take her word for it.
It was a cold day in April, windy from a rain that had fallen an hour ago. The Bread Man had closed the bakery early. Nobody shopped when it was raining. The mothers of the town bought their food supplies with an eye toward plenty and it would take a disaster (as it later did) to drive the families of the town to starvation. Certainly, they would not starve in one day. So there was never any need to shop in the rain.
Sophie had left school early, escaping through the window before geometry. She hated her teacher and her father had arranged for a math tutor at home, so she didn't worry about missing class. She bent down to clean off her scuff knees and also to pull out her journal. To the aggravation of nearly everyone, Sophie had a habit of stopping mid-walk to stare and then write slowly in her journal. Either that, or to take out a book of English poetry. She had just finished the poem, "Leaves of Grass" and she loved to copy down lines from the poem, especially the lists of kinds of people who existed in Walt Whitman's "America". Butchers, shopkeepers, boys who bagged groceries. In the tiny town she lived in, one thing was usually done by one person. Bread was baked by The Bread Man. There was no Bread Boy learning at his knee. It wasn't the proper time for it.
The air was beginning to dry as the light of the day settled down toward a bright grey. Sophie was turning the corner at which she knew he would be sitting. Always at this time of the day, if it rained, The Bread Man would be sitting on the corner eating a loaf of bread and a salami. One in each hand. He never made a sandwhich, except in his mouth, which he said was, "the best kind". Sophie sat next to him and took out her Walt Whitman, her high cotton socks catching a bit on the cleanly paved street. The Bread Man looked at her and said, "Are there any bakers in that poem, Sophie?" Sophie thought a minute and said, "If there aren't any, it sure feels like there are. He's got practically the whole country in it. He loves absolutely everybody." The Bread Man thought a bit and said, "That's why you like the poem?" Sophie's hair lifted a bit in the wind and she bolted forward, "No. Absolutely not. The truth is, I like the fact that he says that America is singing. I think that everybody sings in his own way and I've never met anyone who thought the same way. Even you sing." The Bread Man's eyes opened wide, "You've heard me?" "No, no, no," said Sophie. "It's in the way you move and walk around. It's very much like Lord Byron or Tennyson." "Byron?" said The Bread Man. "Byron wasn't such a nice man. He tried to make a show of himself, but he wasn't so nice. He talked too much about things. I make beautiful things." Sophie's eyes watered, "I didn't mean anything insulting by it. You just carry yourself like you are a big Romantic person. Like the singers at the opera when the story is about love or danger. It's very pleasant to watch you. You have a rhythm like the Polish folk songs do." At that, The Bread Man smiled. "People think I don't know anything. That's why I only talk to you. In fact, I always have a song in my head when I work. But, it is nothing big and phoney like those big poems of Byron. I do like the Polish folk songs. The woman who gave me my job used to sing them every day. Do you remember her?" Sophine looked down because she did not. "You were a baby when she left here. She left here for America, you know. Like you, she had a marvelous singing voice. Every time she sang, I felt like I turned into a big pearl." Sophie started to laugh. "It's true. I felt big and shiny and smooth. And like I would float into a cloud." Sophie's face filled with sun and softness. "You make me feel that way when you sing, too. And someday you'll go off to Hollywood and be a big star."
They sat together for a while, Sophie reading and The Bread Man finishing his food. Then, taking a deep breath, Sophie turned to The Bread Man and looked as straight into his eyes as she had ever looked at anyone. "Will you come with me when I go? You can protect me and you can make my meals. You would make me laugh, most of all." The Bread Man was very moved and his face turned the pink of a new rose and he wiped all of the crumbs off his hands and face. "Everyone in this town will go with you, and I will be first in line, Sophie. We will be in your heart. But, a person like me cannot go with you. My job is here. I am the only Bread Man here. In a big city, there are a million bread men, each singing louder than the next one. You cannot sit on an empty street and talk to a friend, either."
Before she could stop herself, her lungs heaved with tears and her body shook hard. "Then I don't want to go," she insisted again, and again. She knew that her parents had invested time, energy money and their hearts on the idea that she would leave her town. One sister and one brother had done so and they wrote about amazing things. Her brother Al fixed watches for a famous jeweler in New York City and studied law. Her sister Deborah planted trees and built houses in the middle of the desert in Palestine. But, Sophie loved her street and she loved things just as they were. Except when she started to sing. When she sang she saw nothing but the clouds and the trees and crowds and crowds of people as if she had turned into her Parakeet, Chipper, who loved to stand and sing at the top of her balcony.
They sat together that afternoon in silence. Just as he left, The Bread Man pulled a roll from his pocket and handed it to her. "You're not going so fast, little girl and you need to eat regardless." She took the roll and before she could ask he said "Yes, yes, I put raisins and honey in it and no, I won't tell your mother." She smiled as he walked away. Then, like him, she took a big bite out of the roll and concentrated closely on the sweetness and the falling of the night.
For the first Bread Man story go to
http://saddleshoe.blogspot.com/2006/10/bread-man.html
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