CHAPTER 1: THE BEGINNING
Photos by Bo Willse Sr.
Above him was his favorite. She was pale, ceramic, from England. Her hair was a mottled brown and soft. He’d pet it from time to time, then look around after to see if anyone had seen, as if he had committed some sort of crime. He never named his dolls, or toys for that matter, but they were special to him all the same and he knew them intimately, like acquaintances whose name you’ve forgotten, but you’ve seen over and over and know them as friends. He knew them all, his toys. And likewise, he was the Toymaker and no one really knew his name either.
At the moment, she was looking at him through her fixed, glassy eyes, forlornly.
“I know,” he said to her in acknowledgment.
“They did it again,” she said back.
“I know,” he said to her, again.
Her tone had grown sharp as of late, and his in return. The bell at the front door of Manor Mill had not rung in some time, and when it did, it was the postman or maybe someone who thought he might need some supplies for his toys, which no one ever bought any more. They were too expensive. Too fragile. “They’re just so beautiful,” one lady said. “But my kids. They don’t know how to take care of anything.” No one wanted his toys. And he had nothing to say to them.
Photos by Bo Willse Sr.
His apron was on and he thought he’d finish sewing the dress for an older doll, one he had made long ago and which now had been returned by a neighbor’s child who had now grown up. The neighbor was “getting rid of things” and she “couldn’t bear to throw it away” and so “thought maybe some young girl would love it as much as I did.” He remembered the hours he spent toiling over the leather shoes he had made for this doll, and when he took it from the woman noticed they had been replaced by plastic high heels which no doll would ever wear. She eyed him cautiously. “I know. I loved those shoes. I don’t know where they went off to,” she said sheepishly.
“Well, aren’t you going to do something?” Her right leg had long, silken socks and was stuck out of her dress, her knee bent in a way that wouldn’t allow her to sit straight up without support from the back, a problem he had addressed later on in his dollmaking.
“Do something. Like what?”
“You can’t just let them walk all over you.”
He remembered when he had first received her bisque porcelain arms and legs from Germany, carefully stitching her together with a head that he had been holding onto for some time. She was beautiful. He had thought about boxing her up so she’d stop pestering him, but she was too beautiful, and one of the earlier dolls he had made. Years ago, a doll like her wouldn’t have even made it to the shelf before getting snatched up. People would come all the way from Baltimore City and York. He was a miller. But he had become the Toymaker in Monkton, and for a while he was selling more dolls than grain. The success had taken him by surprise.
“You make it sound like I can do something.”
Chapter 2: Unravelling
This was not the first time she had argued with him. She had never left Manor Mill. She didn’t know about manufacturing plants and distribution, about little companies in New Jersey that were becoming big national companies with trucks and people to pack things. She didn’t even know what New Jersey was.
“And what a stupid name,” she persisted. “‘Toys R Us’. It doesn’t even make sense.”
He nodded and walked over to the front of the Mill staring out the window at Monkton Road. If he had been smart he would have maintained the property better, but it was 1952 and people were buying bags of flour directly from grocery stores for cheaper. The mill wheel barely turned. He had lost. He was lost. Graul’s just celebrated its 30-year anniversary. And the owner had even stopped by to apologize for buying wholesale from some big plant and then selling it for less than he ever could. It wasn’t their fault. He was out.
He can’t remember exactly when, but he remembers exactly where, he saw a big plastic house on the side of the road. The bright, off-putting teals and baby blues practically jumped off the pavement against the mossy greens and backdrop of a wooded field. He stopped and picked it up. The plastic building was bulky but light, and it folded in half so you could get a cutaway of a three story condominium of sorts. There were no steps between floors, and he glanced around to see if there was any furniture. It was an abandoned home, stuck on the side of the road. He lifted it into the passenger seat and as he was about to pull out noticed a few heads in a small ravine. They were plastic faces with no bodies, plucked like raspberries that would never rot. He would later recognize these as Barbies, but for now they were shrunken, perfectly formed faces that mocked him.
As time passed, fewer and fewer people came to visit the Toymaker. Occasionally a wealthy woman would walk in, with every intention of buying a beautiful porcelain doll, only to be discouraged, if not frightened, by the derelict space, far beyond just dusty and unkempt, but woefully messy, difficult to navigate with boxes and piles of packages here and there. What’s more, unlike years past, they’d leave the store feeling saddened as if they had overheard some bad news that occurred in a remote place, not delighted as they once had been by the Toymaker, who for some time managed to keep the grin that had marked his wrinkled face, eyes that nearly shut when he smiled, and a full, hearty laugh. As the Toymaker became more recluse, many in Monkton would remember how he’d make a little theater with his dolls for the kids, have them say silly knock-knock jokes to each other before handing them over. The dolls were as much his children as toys he made. His art would come alive at those moments.
For some time, the Toymaker’s optimism persisted, outpacing his sense of a mill that had now fallen into a near disarray. He didn’t see the mess, or the overgrown weeds out front, or the dolls as they accumulated. His conviction that the plastic and manufactured toys that now lined the walls of box stores wouldn’t last; no one wanted the same thing their friends had, right? Every child was unique, and the toys they cherish should be no different. He had even begun painting his dolls on canvas so that he might use them in stores for people to see them without visiting, pique their interest. This was good business, he thought.
“They’re not coming back,” she told him, high on a shelf, as if reading his mind. “Just forget it. They hate us. They hate you. It’s over.”
“Please. I’ve got enough on my mind.”
“Well, sorry to hear that, but so do I. Don’t you think I get tired of just sitting here, dusty flour all over me from your stupid ripped bags, which by the way are getting bugs in them, and some of them are crawling on me! Just sitting here. Why don’t you do something?!”
“And what, exactly, do you want me to DO?” He had a tack hammer in hand and pointed it at her, emphasizing his exasperation.
And it was at this point that he heard a woman clear her throat, nervously. He spun around and noticed the door wide open and a well-healed lady standing there. “The door,” she said, pointing to it as if it were far away. “Was open. I’m sorry if I interrupted you,” she said awkwardly, ”I’m paying a visit from the bank.” She was glancing around, inspecting, and the Toymaker became wary as his initial embarrassment wore off.
“Yes. Sure. Are you looking for something for your daughter?” He was looking around, buying time to recover his composure, all the while trying to discern how much the woman had overheard him yelling at the doll.
For the woman’s part, she was eager to leave. The store was piled with dolls of all sorts, heaps in the corners and by the front desk, strewn about, disorganized. The place smelled musty, and she could hear water dripping below her in the basement. She never liked the basement. “No,” she said, handing him an official looking notice. “Just to give you this.” She paused. “Your payments are well past due as you know, and we’re referring this to collections. We thought you should know. I’m new here, and as I understand you’ve been a big part of this community.”
He took the note and thanked her in a whisper, and after some silence, she said her goodbye and left.
Chapter 3: Caught
“I told you,” the doll said, above. “I knew this would happen. And here we are.”
Anger filled him suddenly, a rage that grew from his chest. The hammer was heavy in his hand, which he swung it toward the doll, her eyelashes long and perfectly curved. “Oh did you now!? Oh did you?! And so what are you going to do? How are you helping me?” He remembered making her hair out of strands from the local alpaca, placed them one by one. And she was just yelling at him.
“That’s not my job,” she said, nonplussed by his wild swinging. He couldn’t reach her without a ladder. He outstretched his arm even still, swinging defiantly and just missing her foot. The hammer was too heavy to swing more than once and he was already out of breath.
At that point the bright green plastic from the building he had picked up on the side of the road caught his eye. He strode over to it, breathing heavily, staring at the perfect geometric shapes that formed a fake condominium. He kicked it and it tumbled over unceremoniously. Pathetic, he thought. And in that very moment, all the speed of his success as a toymaker, the rise and then the slow, heavy fall from grace tightened around him. And as he stared at it, breathing, he saw everything he hated in that plastic, everything that ruined his once meaningful life, the Toymaker that was on everyone’s list to visit to see his dolls, his handiwork. They were wrong about the plastic! They were wrong about him!
And with that, he drew his hammer high and swung, and swung, and swung against the plastic walls. Some of his own dolls were in the way, and as the hammer hit them, the porcelain smashed into pieces. But he didn’t care. He swung again. And again and the pieces grew smaller. As his arm grew tired and his breath quickened, and as bigger pieces became smaller ones, he missed and hit his own dolls, the floor, the counter. At last, he was sitting on the floor, the hammer gripped tightly in his hand by his side, plastic and porcelain all about him. He was sweating, breathing hard, his forehead glistening, the hammer tight in his clutch.
“Don’t you feel better?” she asked, in a low whisper.
“Yes,” he said. “Much.”
And then he laughed. And a moment of clarity struck him. He knew what to do. He turned to his doll high and stared at her. Then he stood on a chair, grabbed her, and went down to the basement.
As days and weeks passed, as the bank creditors came and went, taping notices on the front door of Manor Mill, peering into the dark space and noticing just the outlines of heads, bags and boxes, the neighbors – particularly those who cared – also tried to visit. No one dared go into the basement though – there was no reason to: it was cold, and damp, and barely lit. No one would want to spend more than a minute down there. And so they thought the Toymaker had run away, had disappeared. Most all of them had a doll of some sort of the Toymaker’s, some handed down for generations. And even those brave enough to walk around the building toward the water wheel, which had not turned over for years now, even after rapping on windows, or knocking on the door of the Miller’s House, where it was always dark, there was nothing but silence.
Speculation grew, and more years passed. The bank locked the door and debated in long tedious meetings what to do about it, inconclusively. Occasionally someone would mention a sighting when it was dark. A figure darting out and darting in. A candle in the attic, or in the barn. A doll lit from behind in the third floor window. A few kids swore they saw him emerge from the tailrace steps, which is now covered with boards, as if from a grave. Others said they noticed the dolls had moved. Everyone was certain they saw something, but no one knew for sure. As far as anyone has ever known, the Toymaker never left Manor Mill. The descent into the basement had been his last.
Artwork by Hannah Krohn