The old clock stopped. The mirror it had faced for most of its life reflected a blotchy 6:32. It stopped there like the final date on a gravestone. Its brass pendulum dangled dormant below the face.
It was new on their wedding day. The groom’s father had proudly called it a Regulator, an accurate wall clock in an oak cabinet that would ring out the hours 24 times a day; “There,” his father said starting the pendulum on its swing. “It will be a friend forever, beating its heart to mark where you’ve been, where you are and….”
“Where I’m going?”
“Hah. And where all of us are going. It will mark time as we all step ahead. Would that it beats long after I’m gone.”
It was a clock you’d find in a train station or classroom; accurate and utilitarian, efficient and practical, the way his father expected his son to lead his life.
The Regulator had to be key wound each morning. And he did just that; wound while his wife, and later the cook, made breakfast. Then children would do it, fighting for turns until the day arrive when they argued that it was someone else’s chore. He was happy to take back the job.
It had tick-tocked across from the mirror since the first Roosevelt had been in the White House. The Gustav Stickley mirror came from her widowed mother. She never knew her father. He died just before she was born from, so it was said, a mini ball that entered his spine at Gettysburg and never left. On that wedding day, her mother stood in front of the mirror and said, “It’s so you can look at yourselves as the years pass and remember all that it reflected.” She looked around to make sure no one was listening to her daughter whispered, “I believe that mirrors hold those images forever.”
The bride rolled her eyes; her mother was, after all, a spiritualist forever holding séances, playing with a Ouija board to her daughter’s eternal amusement. Years later, when Ike was in charge, that same daughter sat in her deep comfy chair lullabied by the soft ticking and her memories. She smiled into the mirror believing in that moment that her mother has been right all along. She never woke up.
Her children teased each other over elements of the will, minor things they could laugh about, but agreed that the clock and the mirror should stay together facing each other as they always had. The daughter got them because she still had young children who would sit in front of the clock waiting for it to chime and play Snow White to the mirror on the wall. She would tell them the mirror held the images of people who believed and if they were patient, they would see themselves growing up, as she could see herself and her mother and her grandmother.
“It’s like beating the speed of light and looking back!” exclaimed her oldest daughter.
“Or maybe the mirror holds memories in its heart,” said the mother. “And how on earth do you know about the speed of light?”
|
“Star Trek!”
Five-year old James climbed the chair to put his ear on the mirror. “I can hear, too. And I hear the clock when it was little!”
The was a practical element to her getting the clock. Her husband was a mechanical engineer who liked to tinker and could, if need arose, be able to fix it. Other than polishing the wood and oiling the mechanism, he never had to do anything beyond the daily wind. That came to an end when the children would play Inka-dink-a-bottle-of-ink to determine who would wind it. Then they, too, moved out to college, careers, life, and another will
James was given the task of emptying out the house. His brother didn’t care. “Give that stuff to Goodwill,” he’d written in an email to the estate attorney. That generated a phone call. “But what about getting ahead of the speed of light! Remember that?” James asked. The older brother said he didn’t know what he was talking about.
The sister asked for some photo albums and that “Dear Navaho rug Gramps got when he worked on the reservation.” James reminded her that it had been appraised on the Antique Road Show for $28,000 and she retorted that they always exaggerated the values for ‘hype.’ After a few back and forths and one angry hang up she agreed to reduce her share of the inheritance by $10,000 to cover the rug. He could have everything else in the house.
“You pay for the hauling. It’s only fair.”
As it turned out, Goodwill happily sent a truck for the contents and he took the tax break; it was only fair. The drivers admired the furniture commenting that they knew how to make things back in the 60s, but didn’t see much demand for shaggy carpets or the avocado-colored refrigerator, but “who knew” and took it all away. All, that is, except for an old clock and a cracked cherry frame that held a blotchy mirror. The driver told James, now in his 60s, that the mirror could be replaced at Home Depot. “The frame might be worth something,” he added.
They were the last things to leave the empty home.
James placed them facing one another in his home office and wound the clock for the first time since his mother had died months before. He tapped the pendulum with his fingertip to get it beating, adjusting the hands to 4:17. He had to smile at the Roman numeral IIII. His grandfather once explained that this is what was done for symmetry; an I in the first four numbers, V in the next ones and an X in the final four.
That evening the clock rang out five, six, seven – James lifted his head at the familiar sound – then turned his full attention to an episode of ‘Mystery’ on PBS. It was only when the show ended that James realized he hadn’t heard the chimes. A flick on the pendulum resulted in a lifeless swing then a flaccid dangle. He tried winding it. The clock offered a few hopeful tick tocks, the pendulum moved in a feeble arch, the chimes rang the eight bells they’d lost two hours earlier. And as if exhausted by such effort, the clock came to a rest.
His father would know what to do but Dad was gone these 30 years and James watched YouTube before changing a light bulb. He searched for antique clock repairs and found dozens of videos led by strange men with odd tools or odd men with strange tools hovering over the autopsied remains of a once upon a time.
The opening instructions were strikingly similar; open the clockface to reveal the works. But when it came to the levers – half a dozen whose names didn’t match to their purpose – to say nothing of an escapement, gear train and more wheels than a car lot – James got lost. He rehung the clock, its hands set at 8:01 24 hours a day.
And so it stayed. Sometimes, James would wake imagining he heard the chimes. What woke him wasn’t the rings, but the loneliness of their absence.
He wasn’t the only one to feel that way. A visiting granddaughter reminded him, “Gramps,” she called out, “The clock needs you. Can I wind it please?”
“Oh that thing stopped. Busted.”
“Forever?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. It’s an old thing like your Grampa.” That didn’t get the laugh he’d hoped for.
“It can’t die, Gramps. I love that clock.” Tears followed, which could only be staunched by a soft ice cream cone dipped in chocolate. Twice.
Futile calls got underway after that. Antique clocks were no longer in vogue – “People want new things” said one website that specialized in reproduction furniture – and the clock repair trade had gone with it. The few repair shops with websites listed more often than not showed that the URL was available. Others teased with phone numbers no longer in service. And when a connection was made a voice, it was usually gruff, at the other end would say, “Not that old.” James did find a place that called itself ‘The Clockery.’ The Clockery was now fixing phones; he got his cracked screen replaced for a reasonable price.
“Phonery didn’t sound very good so I kept the name. My dad does, or did, the clock thing,” said the owner. “Labor of love. Not a labor of a living if you catch my drift.”
“Do you think he’d do a special job for me? I’d pay for it.”
“If you ask, he’d say yes a thousand times.”
“That’s great!”
“Hold your horses. He’d say yes a thousand times because he’d forget he’d just said yes. He’s in a memory facility somewhere. I can’t remember where exactly.”
“You don’t know?”
“I’m joking. I know where he’s at and I’m sorry to tell you he couldn’t fix a light bulb anymore.”
Hopes dimmed. He searched antique shops for a clock that worked and found them. It wasn’t the cost; the lack of demand that squelched the repairmen’s lot also dampened the price of clocks in perfect repair. But they were new to him and that made all the difference. He came close to one, an Ansonia, from a town in Connecticut that had rusted out years before. It ticked nicely. The gong was crisp. But it hadn’t ticked for his family; it was a foster clock.
Family couldn’t help him. Nor friends. Nor could a query on Craigslist. That latter generated curious responses however including one teasing a better time than any clock’s hands could provide. He was impressed the creativity even if they didn’t promise to ring his specific chimes. It was back to YouTubes and a regret his mechanical insights stopped at righty-tighty.
“Jim, me. You’ll never guess what I found.”
It was a call from a friend who had come across a shop somewhere in Vermont that claimed it could fix old clocks. The name of the shop was, with evident Yankee frugality, The Clock Man. James asked about a website. His friend cautioned that he’d be lucky if they had a phone. “It’s not exactly a state-of-the-art facility. Maybe it was in, oh, 1898. But I’ll tell you Jim they got all these clocks than rang out exactly at ten. That’s a good sign.”
James googled the shop; he found an address, a name, and a URL for a Yankee Magazine piece on back roads of New England from 1983. A photo of the shop looked like a set for a Norman Rockwell painting.
James called. And called. And called again. There was no answering machine and he very much doubted it was a cell phone that would record a caller. Luck struck one morning.
“Hello? Is this The Clock Man?”
“No. This is The Clock Man’s helper. What’s up?”
James was impressed. Clock Man had enough business to sustain a helper, an apprentice; that was encouraging news. They must be busy and if busy it meant they must be good. And if they were good he was that much closer to getting a fix. Patience would pay off.
The mood didn’t last. Before he had a chance to explain how they could help he heard what sounded like a truck downshifting, its gears wheezing in a way that said the driver had shifted too early. James was put on hold and he overheard and exchange that clarified his role as a home-health aide.
There was more painful coughing in the background, a faucet was turned on, and what sounded like a chair falling over.
“Aw look what you did now.” It was the voice of the aide. He could have been speaking to a puppy who just peed on the carpet if the response had been less of a bark saying, “I needed a drink and wasn’t about to wait for you dilly dallying with your girlfriend.”
The aide said it wasn’t a girlfriend, he had no girlfriends because none could tolerate him living with “a grumpy stubborn old mule who acted like a bull in a china shop.” The voice in the background came back with a critique; “Squeeze in another cliché will ya? Anywho, if it’s not your girlfriend I bet it’s your boyfriend.” Coughing mixed with laughter ensued.
“He wants Clock Man. You probably owe him money, too.”
James got a few words in, but after the words ‘Regulator’ he was interrupted, heard a gulp of some liquid, and a brusque admonition that he couldn’t tell a thing without looking at the clock ‘in the flesh.’ James thought he had to provide more information, or anyway get some, so asked if Clock Man had worked on….before he could finish Clock Man said he’d worked some.
|“Not a lot, mind you, a few dozen. I hate those Regulators.”
That comment worried James; how could a clock man hate a clock?
“Mr. James was it? I hate them because they made them so a clock repair shop like mine, which was my father’s by the way, after the war, the Great War that is, to put us out of business. You follow?”
James explained it was just James, no need for Mister, and that he only sort of followed.
“Best damn clocks to tick themselves into oblivion. If they hadn’t gone under in the Depression, we might have gone under. German springs, you see. Tariffs did ‘em in. US of A springs didn’t hold up and don’t ask about the junk from Japan. Then it was electric clocks. I hated those. Real crap too but kept the business up. Do you know the Kit-Cat Klock.”
James confessed he didn’t.
“Sure you do. Cat’s eyes move one way, tail goes the other, belly is the clockface. Sold thousands. Had a running ad in Yankee Magazine 30 years it was. I think that’s why they did the piece on me. Pulled it next year.”
James let Clock Man go on though he didn’t think he could have stopped him except by hanging up the phone and he still had the issue of his broken clock. Clock Man went of a while, about being retired but not really, worrying who’d take over when his ‘spring got sprung.’ He sounded teary about the fine clocks no one bothered to pick them up and how he thought that was cruel.
“I see it in their faces, you know. I mean real clocks, not those electric gee gahs and I don’t touch one’s that glow. You don’t have one that glows, do you?”
James reminded him that his was a Regulator but Clock Man stopped him. “Oh yeah, I hate those, but if anyone alive can fix it, it’s probably me. Bring it in tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow? Bring it in? I could FedEx it if that is any easier.”
The phone went silent for the only silent minute on the call.
“You care about this clock? You told me it’s been in your family over 100 years. Would you be okay if FedEx broke it? Lost it? I don’t have a lot of time on my hands, don’t have a lot of time period. I fix clocks that people care about. You care? You bring it up. Wrapped in a thick blanket.”
James replied ‘of course’, embarrassed that he’d be so cavalier as to post it, in the mail, as if it was some Amazon thing made in China. “And I’ll put it in bubble wrap for protection, you’re right.”
A burst came through the phone. “No bubblewrap! A blanket, wool if you have. You want to keep it warm. Keeps the oil from gunking up – worst thing you can do to a Regulator. And keeps the veneer from cracking. You know it’s got a veneer. Walnut. They really knew how to make those Regulators, why I could…”
Clock Man went on again. James listened at first, then offered a series of a “a huh”s and just managed to finish the New York Times crossword for that Thursday when Clock Man asked, “You still there?”
James coughed out a thanks for the fascinating history, intrigued by the man’s knowledge, trying to recall some details from Clock Man’s oration to prove he’d listened the whole time finishing off with, “and no bubblewrap.”
That Vermont is a rural state will come as no surprise. But just how rural the part of Vermont where Clock Man took root surprised James. He drove on a dirt road that edged beside a meandering river. Ice was forming along its edges. He passed sorry looking dairy farms with sagging barns and broken silos supplemented with rusting ‘Genuine Vermont Maple Syrup’ signs. The handful of Holsteins still in some of the fields made him wonder if there’d be more once they’d uttered their final moo.
He almost missed a faded wooden sign in desperate need of paint that stood in front of home equally demanding a painter. And carpenter. And roofer. The sign read ‘Clock Man’ and a ‘Clocks’ below that.
James jiggled the bells that hung from the door that marked the workshop. A gruff voice said ‘It’s open.’ He opened the door but wasn’t sure he could make it any farther; confronting him was a wall of clocks, all registering an exact 8:52, with boxes and tables covered with more boxes and the internal organs of innumerable clocks. A voice at the far end of the room commanded, “Go left.” James was just able to squeeze through a narrow gap into a canyon of clocks that ended at a counter. An elfin old man in overalls sat behind it. He squinted behind thick glasses, his head tilted to one side, assessing James on his approach.
“Buying or selling?” asked the old man.
“Repairs actually, I called.”
“Good, because I’m not buying and if you said you were buying I’d drop dead of another heart attack. A repair maybe I can do. Where’s the patient?”
James retrieved the blanket-wrapped clock and again had to edge sideways down the aisle towards Clock Man. He moved at a cautious pace taking in the mixed aroma of sawdust, shellac, oil and age. The clocks looked on him; their old faces stoic and proud.
Had it been any other time, seconds even, things would have been different. But it was 9:00 on the button. Precisely as put his arms forward to lay his clock on the counter the chimes of 33 clocks rang at once. A startled Phillip jumped back, the clock leaped forward, and the two feet separating them from the counter was enough to allow the clock fall mightily to the floor.
Clock Man leaned over the counter watching Phillip collect the remains of an 1897 Regulator Clock. “You’ll want to watch that glass,” he said, handing over a brush and a dustbin. He went on with a set of aggressive – no argument – instructions; bring the works up here, mind that spring, don’t bend the hands. Each order was connected with a “dammit.” James did as he was told. He felt like he was a five-year old who’d let the puppy wander out the front door. When he’d put the debris in front of Clock Man he had to wipe tears with his sleeve.
James looked at the pile of broken wood, shattered glass, and unknowable components of steel and brass. The only thing more or less intact was the face. He thought about a burial. He thought maybe he’d collect it all and just keep it in box; pieces of a past.
Clock Man rummaged through, dividing the remains into random piles. Ahems and ahahs accompanied the effort.
“No problem.”
“What?”
“Well, not a major problem.”
He looked past James and let out a cheery “Hello.” James turned to follow his gaze; there was no one there. Perhaps Clock Man’s springs has sprung after all. Clock Man maneuvered himself around the counter, holding its edge for support, his eyes intent down a narrower aisle than the one James had taken. It was a slow amble marked by the ticking of the surrounding clocks. James started to count with the ticks but lost track after 20.
Clock Man stopped halfway down the aisle, looking up. “Hey, give me a hand here.” James joined him to stare at his clock; had he not just shattered it he would have sworn it was his. But he could see subtle differences. The veneer wasn’t quite so crinkled. The luster was brighter. And it was working. The ticking, the tocking, the movement of the pendulum were sharper; not quite what he was used to. Clock Man reached up and moved the hour hand ahead. The chimes were sharp and loud. James had expected softer bongs. James felt the pang he had when his mother had passed away at 106.
“Can you take that down for me?”
“Thanks, but you know it’s just not my clock. It’s a beauty. But, I don’t know, it sounds…odd.”
“Good ears, huh? They come in handy. Now, if you don’t mind.” Clock Man swept his hand in front of the clock.
Clock Man led the way down the aisle with James holding the clock in tow. At the counter he moved the remnants of the other clock aside to make room. He opened up the window that protected the face, and opened the face to reveal the mystery behind. Clock Man looked between the clock and pieces that laid on either side of him, back and forth. He took his time. If he heard the array of clocks sound yet another hour, he paid no attention. Nor did James who wondered what he was up to.
“Yep. I can do it. Gimme, say, three weeks. Maybe less.”
James apologized for not believing what he was hearing.
“It’s smashed to smithereens. How?”
He didn’t explain so much as instructed. He reminded James of an earlier talk about the Regulators being well made, exceptionally so. The works, as he put it, are what’s important. The works were what kept the time, sure chimed when they were meant to. And the works could be put back together. The face, too.
“But it won’t be the same.”
Clock Man smiled; “The heart of it, the brains, the voice, they’ll be the same. The face, the face you’ve been watching, that’ll be the same. The box? The box is just the wardrobe. You change your clothes?”
James nodded.
“Ever buy two of the same shirt because you like ‘em?”
James nodded again.
“Same clock, different shirt, simple as that. It’s heart, really all that matters, will be yours.”
James’s nodding this time was slower.
There was a dusting of snow when James returned. When he entered the shop, the only ticking came from a clock hanging behind the counter. “Turned the others off for you,” said Clock Man. “How’s it sound?” James smiled into the familiar face before him. He didn’t even try to hide the tears when the clock struck nine.
He paid cash, Clock Man had insisted. He paid for the restoration and for the other clock that was, as Clock Man put it, the donor. James asked about its innards. Clock Man smiled. “Gotta guy who has a Regulator some jackass made electric. Time to give it back a heart.”