The Last Place on Earth | Page 2

the new column, Sam."
Collins shook his head. "I don't believe in signing things. They can't
take what's mine."
"But Sam, dear, they will. They'll come in and push your house down
with those big tractors of theirs. They'll bury it in concrete and set off
those guided missiles of theirs right over it."
"They can't make me get out," Sam said.
* * * * *
Ed Michaels scooped up a pound, one ounce of nails and spilled them
onto his scale. He pinched off the excess, then dropped it back in and
fed the nails into a brown paper bag. He crumpled the top and set it on
the counter. "That's twenty-nine plus one, Sam. Thirty cents."
Collins laid out a quarter and a nickel and picked up the bag.
"Appreciate you doing this after store hours, Ed."
Michaels chuckled. "I wasn't exactly getting ready for the opera, Sam."
Collins turned around and saw Sarah Comstock still waiting, the
petition in her hand.
"Now what's a pretty girl like you doing, wasting her time in politics?"
Collins heard himself ask.
Mrs. Comstock twittered. "I'm old enough to be your mother, Sam
Collins."
"I like mature women."
Collins watched his hand in fascination as it reached out to touch one
of Sarah Comstock's plump cheeks, then dropped to her shoulder and
ripped away the strap-sleeve of her summer print dress.

A plump, rosy shoulder was revealed, splattered with freckles.
Sarah Comstock put her hands over her ears as if to keep from hearing
her own shrill scream. It reached out into pure soprano range.
Sarah Comstock backed away, into the shadows, and Sam Collins
followed her, trying to explain, to apologize.
"Sam! Sam!"
The voice cut through to him and he looked up.
Ed Michaels had a double-barreled shotgun aimed at him. Mrs.
Michaels' face was looking over his shoulder in the door to the back,
her face a sick white.
"You get out of here, Sam," Michaels said. "You get out and don't you
come back. Ever."
Collins' hands moved emptily in air. He was always better with his
hands than words, but this time even they seemed inexpressive.
He crumpled the sack of nails in both fists, and turned and left the
hardware store.

II
His house was still there, sitting at the end of Elm Street, at the end of
town, on the edge of the prairie. It was a very old house. It was
decorated with gingerboard, a rusted-out tin rooster-comb running the
peak of the roof and stained glass window transoms; and the top of the
house was joined to the ground floor by lapped fishscales, as though it
was a mermaid instead of a house. The house was a golden house. It
had been painted brown against the dust, but the keening wind, the
relentless sun, the savage rape of the thunderstorms, they had all
bleached the brown paint into a shining pure gold.

Sam stepped inside and leaned back against the front door, the door of
full-length glass with a border of glass emeralds and rubies. He leaned
back and breathed deep.
The house didn't smell old. It smelled new. It smelled like sawdust and
fresh-hewn lumber as bright and blond as a high school senior's
crewcut.
He walked across the flowered carpet. The carpet didn't mind footsteps
or bright sun. It never became worn or faded. It grew brighter with the
years, the roses turning redder, the sunflowers becoming yellower.
The parlor looked the same as it always did, clean and waiting to be
used. The cane-backed sofa and chairs eagerly waiting to be sat upon,
the bead-shaded kerosene lamps ready to burst into light.
Sam went into his workshop. This had once been the ground level
master bedroom, but he had had to make the change. The work table
held its share of radios, toasters, TV sets, an electric train, a
spring-wind Victrola. Sam threw the nails onto the table and crossed
the room, running his fingers along the silent keyboard of the player
piano. He looked out the window. The bulldozers had made the ground
rectangular, level and brown, turning it into a gigantic half-cent stamp.
He remembered the mail and raised the window and reached down into
the mailbox. It was on this side of the house, because only this side was
technically within city limits.
As he came up with the letters, Sam Collins saw a man sighting along a
plumbline towards his house. He shut the window.
Some of the letters didn't have any postage stamps, just a line of small
print about a $300 fine. Government letters. He went over and forced
them into the tightly packed coal stove. All the trash would be burned
out in the cold weather.
Collins sat down and looked through