He did not answer him in February. He did not answer him in July. He does not answer him now. >> [music] >> Pierce caps his fountain pen. He tips his hat to Elizabeth. He walks out and drives north out of town toward Lexington. Robert looks down at the receipt on his counter. His hands stay where they are. Elizabeth comes around the counter.
She does not say anything. She puts her hand on the back of his and holds it there. Davey stays at the workbench. He does not turn around. He can hear his grandfather breathing the way he does when he is working on something fragile. In the doorway, a tall man in a tan Stetson is holding the brass handle of the door open.
He had come in 2 minutes before the agent finished reading. He had stood there and listened. He is carrying a small leather-wrapped object in his right hand. He lets the door close behind him and walks up to the counter. Robert finally looks up. The man takes off his [music] hat. I can come back. No, Robert says. I’m open.
The man lays the leather object on the counter. He unwraps it, a pocket watch, open-faced, Hamilton. The case tarnished. The hands stopped at 3:22. An engraving inside the case in flowing script, CM, 1932. It was my father’s, the man says. Hasn’t run since the war. 42. Robert picks it up with both hands. He turns it over.
He holds it under the magnifier light beside the workbench. He listens to it. He sets it down on a felt cloth on the counter. Crown wheels worn, he says. Mainsprings gone. Hairspring is bent. Can it be fixed? It can. How long? 40 minutes. The man nods. He sets his hat on the counter beside the watch. I’ll wait.
Where are you watching from? Drop your state in the comments. I want to see how far this story reaches. Robert works the watch on the bench in the back room with the door open between them. The man stands at the front and looks at the clocks on the walls. There are 47 of them. Wall clocks, mantel clocks, pocket watches in the glass case, ships clocks, a Seth Thomas regulator that hung in the Berea railway depot from 1908 to 1948.
Everyone is running. Everyone is telling the right time. Elizabeth brings the man a cup of coffee. She does not recognize him. Berea is a college town and a lot of strangers come through and he is wearing work clothes and a quiet hat. She apologizes that the cream pitcher is almost empty.
Black is fine, ma’am, he says. Thank you. He drinks the coffee standing up. He looks at the dollar above the cash register. First one you ever earned? My husband’s grandfather. June, 1917. He nods. In the back room, Robert tightens the last screw. He holds the watch to his ear. He smiles the smallest smile he has smiled in a week.
He comes out front and lays it on the counter and starts the second hand moving. There, he says. The man picks the watch up. He looks at the engraving one more time. He folds it shut. He puts it in his vest pocket. What do I owe you? Main spring is a dollar 60. Cleaning $2. Hairspring straightened two and a half. Call it six even.
The man lays a $10 bill on the counter. Keep it. Mister, that’s too much. [music] Keep it. The man looks once at the foreclosure receipt on the corner of the counter. He looks once at Elizabeth. He looks once toward the back room where Davey is now standing in the doorway watching him. He puts his hat back on.
Thank you, Mr. Patton. Yes, sir. He walks out. The bell rings. Elizabeth picks up the $10 bill. “That’s the most polite man I’ve ever seen in this shop,” she says. Have you ever had someone come in on the worst morning of your week and treat you like you mattered? It changes something, doesn’t it? The man drives north out of Berea that afternoon. 68 miles.
He stops at a small bank in Lexington he has used twice before on travel through Kentucky. He goes in alone. He talks for 20 minutes with the senior officer in a private office at the back. He signs a cashier’s check against [music] his own account. He counts $6,800 in cash into a leather satchel from the bank vault.
He shakes the officer’s hand. He drives back south. He sleeps in his car at a turnout south of Richmond. At 9:00 the next morning he is standing at the front door of [music] Patton Clock and Watch Repair when Robert turns the key. Robert blinks at him. “You forgot something, sir?” “No.” The man walks past him into the shop.
He sets the leather satchel on the glass counter. He sets a sealed white envelope on top of it. “How many watches in this shop, Mr. Patton?” Robert looks at him. He looks at the satchel. [music] He looks back at him. “47, near enough. Counting the ones in the case and the ones on the wall. I’ll buy all of them.” “Sir?” “All 47. Today. Cash.” He opens the satchel.
He takes out the cash in banded stacks. He lays them in a row across the glass counter. $6,800 in 50s and 20s. Robert Patton does not move. “Sir,” he says finally, “that’s more than they’re worth.” “It’s what they’re worth to me.” Elizabeth has come down the side stairs from the upstairs apartment. She is in her work apron.
She stops in the middle of the floor. The man does not look at her. He looks at Robert. The envelope is for the bank. Cashier’s check inside for $9,200 made out to First Citizens Bank of Berea, account Patton. Clears the mortgage and the back interest. You’ll own the building outright by Friday. Lawyer’s name is in the envelope.
He is expecting your call. Robert puts a hand on the counter to steady himself. Sir, why? The man takes the pocket watch out of his vest. He sets it on the counter beside the cash. He opens the case. The engraving catches the morning light. Ammon Stove in [music] its 9 1932. My father gave me that on my 25th birthday, he says.
He died 5 years later. The watch stopped the day they buried him and I never could find a man to make it run again. You ran it in 40 minutes. That’s a watch repair, mister, not this. The man taps the watch with one finger. He looks once at the brass plate above the workbench in the back room. I owe you for the boy who used to sit on the bench in there.
I read his name on the plate yesterday. In memory of David Patton, US Marine Corps, 1923 to 1951. I knew a man in the Marines who died on that same ridge. He counts one, two, three. One thing before I go. Engrave every one of those 47 every case. What word, sir? H O M. He sets the cash flat under his hand. He puts his hat on.
