The Perfect Gift

Subscriber-only episode

A visit from a traveling salesman makes for an idyllic Christmas, 1957.

Thank you for listening! If you have any feedback or inquiries regarding the show, please feel free to drop me a line at darkerpasturespodcast@gmail.com.

You can also support the show at patreon.com/DarkerPastures or at darkerpastures.buzzsprout.com, and receive special bonus content!

Transcript

[Darker Pastures Theme - Intro]

NARRATOR

Christmas is a time for loved ones. Hold them close, and never let them go.

[Darker Pastures Theme - Intro - Continues]

NARRATOR

Yuletide Special: The Perfect Gift.

(Nostalgic music)

NARRATOR

Mr. Rooke emerges from the blue ’46 Chrysler Town and Country, slightly aged but well maintained, and into the brisk December air. He cuts a fine figure in his freshly pressed grey suit as he strides to the voluminous trunk and extracts a large valise, coated in chocolate-brown leather, then toward the white farmhouse. A thin crust of frost and snow crackles under his crisp tread, and he pipes a cheery little melody into the chill as he raps sharply, but not too insistently, upon the door.

The presumable mistress of the house answers after only a momentary wait, her bouffant and pencil skirt in perfect order. Rooke’s squarish face, so conventionally handsome as to seem almost artificial, splits into a white and toothy smile. He has found that the indications of Protestant slavishness to the appearance of order, and of respectability, bodes well for his sales. And attendant with this is often a certain callous aloofness in the husbands, which renders their wives more amenable to his subtle charms.

He greets her and introduces himself with courteous cordiality, and she rewards him with a prim smile, giving her own name as Mrs. Gurdie. He notes, again with approval, that she emphasizes Mrs., which he takes as another favorable sign. After he has given the reason for his call, there is the usual moment of uncertainty, which to a lesser salesman might prove a source of anxiety, but which Mr. Rooke finds marvelously titillating.

Then Mrs. Gurdie invites him into the house, so warm and fragrant with cooking and with pine, and every bit as tidy within as without. After she takes his long coat and fedora, they sit in the living room, he on the sofa and she in one of the two armchairs. She offers him coffee, which he politely declines. Then he eases into his sales pitch routine, the one which he calls his Soft Step. He has a repertoire of dozens, each tailored to a specific type of prospective client based on his quick summations of their character and situation. After about a minute, he reaches his hook, telling her that his wares are special, and can not only improve her life, but help her discover her best self, maybe even a wholly new self. Mrs. Gurdie demurs, saying that she doesn’t need much for herself, but that she hasn’t had a chance to do her Christmas shopping yet and is growing anxious about the holiday’s rapid approach.

Mr. Rooke smiles and says that he is sure he has the perfect gift for every loved one, somewhere among his wares – all they have to do is find it. Her eyes shine with interest, and he pivots to his Honeypot routine with the seamlessness that only comes from many, many years of practical experience.

Just as they are beginning to make real progress, there is the rumble of a pickup engine outside, the crunch of tires in the snowy farmyard. Rooke notes the slight stiffening of the farmwife’s spine, and offers her not only a knowing and reassuring smile, but even dares a quick conspiratorial wink as he tells her that discretion is half of a salesman’s job, and that there is no danger of her husband’s holiday surprise being spoiled. Her appreciative smile shows a little more warmth than those prior.

Outside, Mr. Gurdie pauses in loading the pickup bed with hay bales to note the unfamiliar car parked in the drive, but soon shrugs and returns to his work, assuming it must be one of his many in-laws stopping by for a visit, and wanting no part in that.

The change in pitch, and then the slow fading of the pickup engine informs Mr. Rooke and Mrs. Gurdie when the husband has departed again, and the salesman notes her visible relaxing as the pickup pulls out of the farmyard and down the country road. He waits an appropriate interval, then eases back into his routine, growing ever more certain of success. Some in his line of work grow bored, should success ever become too familiar, but for Rooke, every sale is a bone-deep pleasure. It always has been so for him, and he is confident that will never change.

Obligingly, he snaps open his valise, and draws forth the first samples. By Mrs. Gurdie’s queries, and by the subtle shifts in her facial features, he can tell that she is not only enticed by his wares, but delighted by them. That is good – sometimes the initial sight can break the spell his words have woven. It is always easier, though, with farmwives, whose existences are laborious and lonely, and who have so little chance for novelty or true stimulation, even should they make the occasional trip into town. Certainly, they seldom have the chance to buy anything quite so special as what he provides – even in a large city, such opportunities would be rare.

This is why, Mr. Rooke reflects with an inward grin, the traveling salesman remains so vital, even in this new interstate age. The demands of the free market must, after all, be met – even in the distant and sparsely peopled corners of this sprawling country.

Some of the knowledge he needs, she provides voluntarily, and some of it he must gently coax out of her. He does not mind – such is the subtle, mental dance of the wandering merchant, the ritual as sacred and nuanced as any temple veneration. Perhaps even more so, Mr. Rooke considers.

She tells him how much three-year-old David loves dogs, and he says that he knows just the thing for such a healthy young man. What he draws from the valise and unwraps for her is nearly eighty years old, and there is a kind of beauty, he thinks, in how it has traveled so many roads, through so many seasons, just to find the right home. Mrs. Gurdie seems to feel it too, and says that it truly is perfect for her youngest as she turns it over, slowly, in her hands, the hint of a grin playing at the corners of her mouth.

Then she tells him of her Matthew, aged seven, and her oldest, nine-year-old Sadie. With each new item he passes into her hands, the hungry light in her eyes grows, and the hunger somewhere deeper inside Rooke responds in kind. The last, and trickiest, is the husband, but he relishes the challenge.

When, an hour later, she fetches his coat and hat and walks him to the door, both are sated – at least for the present. She presses the money into his hands and, with a soft and almost fawning whisper, she tells him that he has made her Christmas.

With a tip of his hat, he smiles and says that she has made his, and that he is always glad to be of service.

Whistling the tune of “Good King Wenceslaus”, he returns to his car, and Mrs. Gurdie turns away from the door, eager to wrap the marvelous gifts now that she is alone. Yes, she thinks, this will be the finest Christmas ever. And like Mr. Rooke said, a good Christmas can bind a family together forever.

(Sound of whistling)

[Long pause]

NARRATOR

Christmas dawns, sharp gold and soft icy blue, and before the sun has fully crested the southeastern horizon, the Gurdie children are already gathered around the Christmas tree, staring at the wrapped packages that mysteriously appeared there overnight and waiting impatiently for their parents to rise.

Mrs. Gurdie is the first of the adults to descend, in her white morning gown and her hair already teased into its usual arrangement. Her husband follows about five minutes later, his eyes bleary and thinning hair in wild disarray, his bathrobe dragging on the stairs behind him. He does his best to suppress his groggy surliness, and his best is to say as little as possible aside from the obligatory Merry Christmas.

Only after he has gotten his coffee and settled himself in his favorite armchair does the opening of gifts commence. Mrs. Gurdie, hands squirming with barely concealed excitement and perhaps a touch of anxiety, passes out the first of the packages.

Little David tears at the bow and paper impatiently, then coos with delight as he pulls out the lupine mask. He hugs it and lovingly murmurs big dowwy, while his parents beam fondly.

Next, Matthew unwraps his own mask, which Mr. Rooke explained had been so carefully extracted from the remains of an infamous local outlaw very shortly after he was originally buried in 1887. Of course, with his precocious and voracious reading on all matters of the Old West, Matthew recognizes the face immediately, and a rapturous grin spreads wide over his features.

Sadie actually screams with joy when she draws out her pony mask, and she is only just willing to wait until the last gifts are revealed before she puts it on.

Mr. Gurdie seems a trifle apprehensive opening his present, glancing dubiously at his wife as he does so. At first, he does not seem to understand what rests within the opened box, and she has to explain that this face once belonged to a war hero who died in France. Mr. Gurdie’s eyes brim briefly now with tears, but whether it is from the shame he has carried since the recent war in Europe, during which he was pronounced unfit for service, or from her understanding and sympathy for that shame, she cannot be sure.

Either way, he takes her hand, and murmurs a tender thank you.

Sadie then asks her mother if she has a mask too, and Mrs. Gurdie smiles when she replies that she got herself something a little different. Rising, she moves toward the French dresser and opens the top drawer, removes the long and gracefully curved flaying knife that Mr. Rooke so lovingly displayed and demonstrated for her. She clutches it to her chest for a moment, grateful for what the salesman offered: not only his wares, but his insight, and his knowledge.

He had shown her how they could all be together, for every Christmas to come.

Now, Mrs. Gurdie says, turning. The children and Mr. Gurdie don their new faces, and with it comes the change. Sadie paws at the floor and whinnies, Matthew rages about the vengeance he will wreak upon the men who hanged and shot him, while little David crawls up the stairs, howling wildly. Mr. Gurdie screams about his bowels and begs for his mother, deliriously demands that someone named Lockwood bring him the gun that he dropped in the mortar blast.

Raising the knife delicately, even reverently, Mrs. Gurdie’s face shines as she tells them all how much she loves them, how much she adores the faces that she will ensure are never changed by time or decay, and which someday will become gifts of their own to delight others. And then, she tells them, they will all be together again, for as long as there are people to wear them.

Many miles away, on a cold and dusty road, a blue Town and Country purrs happily. Its driver wears an almost feline smile of contentment, and joins happily in the chorus that rises the dark and generous space of his trunk.

[Darker Pastures Theme - Outro]

NARRATOR

Happy holidays!

[Darker Pastures Theme - Outro - Continues]