Read Online Land's End: A Walk in Provincetown by Michael Cunningham - Free Book Online Page B

of us installed on John’s front porch, under the enormous, tattered American flag he hangs every July over his front door, with only forty-five stars on it. It is one of our traditions. We have a grill and a good supply of hot dogs—anyone who wants one is welcome to a hot dog and a glass of whatever we’re serving, if you eat such things and care to linger awhile. We play instruments, very badly, and only until the irritable man three doors down calls the police and makes us stop, though if you arrive before the police do, we’d love for you to take a turn on the drum, saxophone, tambourine, or kazoo. It doesn’t matter if you can’t play. None of us can.
    In one of the upstairs windows, the one that looks right up Commercial Street, John has placed a chalky old marble bust of Shakespeare, looking out. You can see it especially well late at night, when everyone has finally gone to bed and Shakespeare shines palely in the dark window, like a little moon.

Downtown
    I F YOU START on the West End and walk east on Commercial Street, you’ll find that shops and galleries begin to appear among the houses. By the time you reach the intersection of Commercial and Winslow streets, you are in the full-blown commercial district. If you are there during the tourist season, you will find yourself among thicker and thicker crowds until, by the time you reach Town Hall, it will be impossible to walk in any reasonably efficient straight line for more than three or four paces.
    For decades there has been an ongoing battle waged by some citizens to have Commercial Street closed to vehicular traffic, but as far as I can see, that will never happen. Commercial is a one-way street—traffic moves from east to west—that has not been widened since it was laid out 150 years ago, well before the birth of the Jeep Cherokee. There is a sidewalk on only one side, and it barely accommodates two average-sized adults walking side by side. Commercial Street faces a considerable challenge as a main thoroughfare for multitudes of strolling pedestrians, families with strollers, bicyclists, delivery trucks, and needlessly large American cars.
    The crowds on Commercial Street are extremely difficult to negotiate if you’re trying to arrive at any sort of actual destination with anything resembling alacrity. The people walking along the street are, naturally, almost all browsers and sightseers. They make frequent unscheduled stops. They don’t understand that Commercial Street is, in fact, a street (who can blame them?), and so they wander from side to side—riding through on a bicycle (the preferred and most practical mode of transportation in Provincetown) is like flying a spaceship through a field of sluggish but erratically moving asteroids.
    Although the town welcomes these people, needs them for its very livelihood, residents tend to become irritable about the crowds, especially as summer wears on, when the street on which they conduct their necessary business is all but impassable, and the purchase of any rudimentary grocery item may involve waiting in line for half an hour or longer. A visitor strolling on Commercial Street on a summer day should not feel unduly offended if a citizen scowls or mutters as he or she attempts to negotiate the street in order to buy a newspaper or a carton of milk or go to the post office. It isn’t personal; not exactly personal. As a tourist, you are part of the stormy weather that blows through every year, and residents feel as free as anyone anywhere to complain about the weather, knowing, as everyone does everywhere, that their feelings won’t make one bit of difference to the elements at large.
    A B LESSING FROM THE P OST O FFICE
    The Provincetown post office is in the western half of town. For many years one of the women who worked there (I’m sorry to say she has retired) wrote poetry and loved anyone else who wrote poetry, whether they were any good at it or not. If you were sending your poems out in