Blood Moon
That spring, Harvey took a fancy to gin. In the evenings, sitting by the fire or on the porch, they drank gin fizzes or gin and tonic. All through April, they drank gin. Harvey bought a crate of limes and filled a cabinet with expensive gin, and Addie would mix the drinks in half-gallon jugs and they would all sit and drink and plan for summer.
Harvey wanted to leave Minnesota. And he wanted everyone to leave with him. For a while he talked about Boston, then he talked about Key West, then about Seattle but eventually he settled on Nassau and stuck with it, reasoning and cajoling and orating with his special flair and whimsy. The more gin he drank, the more persuasive and beguiling he became. He talked in broad colorful images. Illusive pictures: blue water, warm skies, fans spinning slowly on lofty hotel ceilings. Deep-sea fishing, golf and tennis, fine tans and good health and shining teeth and lovely women and adventure.
He did not talk about the long days of being lost. The same way he never talked about the war, or how he lost his eye, or other bad things. He would not talk about it. “Yes, we’ll go to Nassau,” he would say instead. “Where it’s warm. By God, we’ll have us a lovely time, won’t we? Buy a sailboat and sail the islands, see the sights, sleep at night on the beaches. Doesn’t it sound great?”
“What about typhoons?”
“By Gawd!” he would grin. “I hope so! We’ll hold tight under the weather. Just think about it, will you? Buy us a house with an open courtyard and colored bricks and palm trees, and we’ll chip in for an air conditioner, and we’ll drink rum out of big kegs, through straws and we’ll swim, and we’ll go to native dances, and we’ll fish the sea dry. We’ll do it, we will.”
“At least,” said Addie, “you can’t very well get yourself lost on an island.”
Harvey would shrug. “No imagination.”
“How about a holiday out to California?” said Grace.
“Too easy.”
“Such a scout,” cooed Addie.
“I thought I was a pirate?”
“No,” she grinned. “Now you’re a great frontier scout.” She laughed. “Like Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, you know. Never get lost, always on track, a real woodsman. A scout.”
“What about California?” Grace said. “Whatever you can do in Nassau you can do there, and it’s closer and not so expensive and we can come back.”
“Exactly!” Harvey crowed. “Come back, come back. The idea is to go and not come back. Just go.”
“To Nassau!” cried Addie, hoisting high her glass. “Friends forever.”
“You might stop teasing. I’m serious about it.”
“Actually,” Addie said, “I understand that Nassau is positively crawling with creeps now. You know? Real creeps. Crooks and gamblers and politicians and students and people who never bathe.”
“We’ll drive them out.”
“Hooray,” Addie said. “Hooray!” she shouted. “Hooray for Nassau and Harvey and a bloodbath!”
Like history, he thought. He thought.
Or histories. Mawkishly the same, as repetitive as a church rhyme.
A job, though. A preacher, perhaps. Like the old man. Return to Damascus Lutheran, filled with new religion, sparkling ice insight seen on the road to Damascus Lutheran, delayed and detoured by years of mawkish melancholy. Wear the old man’s vestments. Put on the garb in the attic, and be a man. And preach neither salvation nor love, preach only endurance to be ended by the end.
He was getting fat again.
A kind of mushy, nervous atrophy that settled in like a disease, and he could see it in round numbers on the bathroom scale. Sleeping, eating, television and Harvey’s expensive gin.
He was defenseless.
He had until the end of June to phase out his county operations, but the deadline only added to the sleepy edginess. So he took his time. Cleaned out the files, working slowly and systematically, preparing stacks of paper work which he tied into neat bundles to be either burned or stored in boxes for shipment to Duluth. Without planning or forethought, he was going through a motion that would sooner or later make its own decision. On one productive Thursday afternoon he stacked four years’ worth of futile farm loan applications, carried them to the incinerator and burned them up without regret. It even made sense.
A job, he thought. Preacher, guide, confidant, teller of winter tales, saved from the deep forest.
Near the middle of May, he bought new glasses. For more than three months he had gone squinting under the illusion that he no longer needed them, and while there were no ill effects, Grace kept pestering until one sunny day he mistook the ditch for his own driveway. Next day he got the glasses. They were fancy wire-rims. “You look older,” Grace said. “Like a professor.”
“A preacher?”
“No,” she said. “Like a teacher. They make you look wise.”
“I am wise,” he said.
“Tell me something wise, then. Explain everything to me.”
“You want a child,” he said wisely.
“Yes?”
“You want love and a warm home and a child. You want serenity. You want a loving husband,” he said.
“Yes!”
“Patience, then,” he said wisely.
And she had patience. It was as though nothing had changed or ever would change, and partly she was right. In the winter, in the blizzard, there had been no sudden revelation, and things were the same, no epiphany or sudden shining of light to awaken and comfort and make happy, and things were the same, the old man was still down there alive in his grave, frozen and not dead, and in the house the cold was always there, except for patience and Grace and the pond, which were the same, everything the same. Harvey was quiet. Like twin oxen struggling in different directions against the same old yoke, they could not talk, for there was only the long history: the town, the place, the forest and religion, partly a combination of human beings and events, partly a genetic fix, an alchemy of circumstance.
The days of waiting were quiet. Grace attended him with love, and they drank gin on the porch and listened to Harvey’s dreams and Addie’s teasing, and they were a comfortable waiting band, knowing it would change, but knowing they would not see the change, but rather the effects.
The new glasses sometimes gave him headaches, even dizzy spells. At night the glasses would seem to emit their own special rays, millions of dots of hard white light, and he would be suddenly back in the forest, looking into the cold sky and seeing the universe with such horrible and chaotic brilliance that he got sick. On Memorial Day, there was a parade. Harvey decided to participate.
“You’re being a dumb scout,” Addie teased, but it did no good. Grace ironed his army greens and they drove together into town. Harvey held a fifth of gin in his lap. “What this town needs for its parade is a genuine war hero,” he kept saying. Perry parked in front of the bank and Harvey dashed up the street to where the parade was forming. The sky was dark and it was going to rain. Perry and Grace and Addie had coffee in the Confectionery. They sat in a booth and watched the clouds mass. Perry ordered cream pie.
“Positively fat”; Addie said. “I won’t go to the badlands with any fat man, I’ll tell you that right now.”
“All the better, then.”
“Such a day. It’s depressing. Look, there’s Jud. Look at him.”
Jud Harmor was standing all alone in the middle of the street. His straw hat was in place and his hands were on his hips. Alternately, he was scanning the gray sky and the parade route.
“Poor Jud.”
“Jud’s all right. Poor Harvey, you mean. Where does he get these obstinate ideas about parades?”
“He’s a character, all right. He does look dashing in his uniform, though,” Grace said.
“Positively silly.”
“I must stop teasing.” She frowned at Perry. “But really! That pie. You’re becoming a can of Crisco, really.”
They drank coffee until noon. Then they heard the drums booming and they went out to the street.
Clouds were rolling and massing and the air was cold. Grace sent Perry to the car for a jacket. It was a dreary, nothing kind of day. Perry wished he were sleeping.
The parade started at the northern end of Mainstreet and went south, ending at the cemetery for the commemorative services. Half the town lined the street to watch the other half march. Addie stood with her arms folded, smiling. She wore a skirt and a T-shirt. A few drops of rain fell as the drums took up the cadence, and Perry stood between Grace and Addie. Addie grabbed his hand like a child. “Here, look. Here they come,” she said.
The high-school band led the parade. Perry recognized some of the kids. Grace recognized all of them, and she waved and called out their names. Even with the clouds and chill, most of the town was there. There was respect and polite applause and civic pride.
The Lake County VFW commander rode by in a new Chevy. He waved and Grace waved back.
Then a troop of World War II veterans. Lars Nielson and many others. They wore their old uniforms, olive drab and khaki and navy white and flier brown and blue. Many of the coats were open at the belly. Two of them held rifles over their shoulders. A third carried the flag.
Then the junior high band.
Then the American Legion float.
Then the DFL and Republican county chairmen, riding in separate cars, both waving.
Then the Korean War veterans, then the Girl Scouts.
Then Harvey. Marching alone in his uniform, following the troop of green Girl Scouts.
The Girl Scouts carried a large banner and sang campfire songs. Harvey was behind them chanting “A-left. A-left. A-left, right, left.” He marched erect, the only veteran of Vietnam. He did not seem much different from all the others, except that he fit his uniform and he was alone.
Addie shouted and gave him wild applause. Harvey went by without looking. “Such a scout,” she cried. “Now that. That is what I call a frontier scout.”
Jud Harmor finished the parade. He, too, marched alone. He carried a sword in his right hand. On his chest dangled a single faded battle ribbon. He wore instead of his straw hat a World War I doughboy’s helmet.
“Good Lord,” Perry said.
“We haven’t heard the last of him,” Addie said.
Grace took Perry’s hand. He was holding the hands of two women.
“Let’s get a drink somewhere,” he said. “Where’s Harvey?” Then he saw him coming back up the street.
“Miserable parade. No class at all.”
“You’re supposed to march out to the cemetery.”
“Miserable parade.”
Addie took Harvey’s hand, and, linked together, they went to the car. The rain came. Harvey opened the gin while Perry drove out towards the cemetery.
“Fine miserable parade,” Harvey said. “You ought to have had more sense, letting me march in the miserable parade. I swear. Addie, give me that bottle. I swear, I swear they have better parades on the losing side of wars. We all ought to move to Italy. What do you think? Seriously. Italy. I hadn’t thought of it before. We could live cheap, really. They’ve got all kinds of inflation over there and we could probably be kings and queens and all that rot, what do you think?”
Perry steered the car up Mainstreet. The rain was white. Orange and blue crepe paper lay plastered in wet gobs on the street.
“Yes. Italy. I think that’s it. Addie, give me that frigging bottle, will you? Italy! I can see it. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“You hate tomatoes.”
“What? I love tomatoes. I love sausage and tomatoes and noodles. I love women with big tits. No offense, Addie. Really. Ha! Touché! I love pizza and Van Gogh and women with big tits!”
“Van Gogh?”
“Sure. And I love losing wars and I love lasagna. I love big boobs and Fascists and inflation, I love it all. Addie, give me that bottle or I’m going to …”
“Let’s go home,” Grace said.
“No! The cemetery. We must honor the dead. Onward. First the cemetery. Then Italy. Addie!”
“Hip-hip!” Addie crowed.
“Look at that bloody rain. Does it rain in Italy like this? Who cares?”
“Harvey.”
“Yes, that’s it. Italy. No question about it. I’ll get the passports tomorrow. How much does a villa cost? No problem, I’ll find that out, too. Italy, it is. Will you just look at that bloody rain? Some miserable parade. I still haven’t gotten a decent parade out of all this. Some miserable town, not giving me a decent warm sunny parade. Italy! I think that’s the final answer. Yes. Addie? I don’t know about Addie, though. Grace will fit in just fine in Italy, but Addie, I don’t know. Poor Addie. I don’t think the Fascists allow in half-breeds, do they? I don’t know. I’ll find that out tomorrow.”
The car filled with wet air. Perry turned the wheel and they went up the dirt road towards the cemetery. They passed two orange school buses filled with kids in wet band uniforms. Cars and pickups were parked along the muddy road.
“Got to hurry,” Harvey said. “Can’t miss the ceremony to honor all the dead.”
“Calm down.”
Harvey opened his window and rain poured in. “Miserable parade,” he moaned. “Some miserable way to honor the dead and wounded.”
“You were magnificent, Harvey.”
“I did my best. But a miserable parade except for me.”
“Jud was good, too.”
“Me and Jud. We’ll maybe have to take Jud to our new villa in Italy. But he pays his own bloody way.”
“Hush up.”
“Some totally rotten way to honor the dead. Where are my medals, for God’s sake?”
Perry turned into the cemetery. He parked and they trooped out into the rain and thunder. Grace was shivering and Perry took her arm. Harvey quieted down.
The band played the national anthem. Then Hal Bennett the dentist climbed on a raised platform in the center of the burial ground and gave a speech of some sort, and the veterans stood in groups according to their war. Later, Reverend Stenberg offered a prayer and everything was wet and peaceful, then Jud Harmor got up and gave a short speech, then the band played “Yankee Doodle” and it was over.
“Some miserable way to honor the dead,” Harvey said.
“Let’s go now.”
Harvey coughed. “First I must honor all the fucking dead. Look at all those dead people, will you just look? Take me all day.”
“Let’s go,” Perry said. “We’ll build a nice fire and have supper.”
“No, I’m gonna go around here and honor all these dead and deceased.”
Perry tagged after him. He was cold. Grace and Addie went to wait in the car.
The graves were arranged in long rows. The dead people were buried head to head, then an aisle, then another long row of dead people buried head to head. Randomly, Harvey stopped at some of the graves. He knelt down to read the epitaphs and names and dates. At last they stopped at their father’s grave.
“I guess …”
“Let’s go, Harv.”
Harvey removed his army cap. Perry stood blankly and waited.
“The old man’s pretty dead by now,” Harvey said.
“Grace will put some flowers here tomorrow.”
Harvey’s face was red. “I don’t know. He was a bastard, wasn’t he?”
“It’s raining, Harv. Come on.”
They dropped Addie at her boarding house and went home. Grace drew a bath for Harvey. Later the three of them had sandwiches and cocoa. It was still raining.
“Well,” Harvey glowed, “I want to thank you for a fine day.”
“Lovely.”
“We have to have more miserable parades. Afterward everybody gets so cheery. Now. Who’s coming into town with me?”
“We all have to go to bed,” Grace said.
“Too cheap. Much too cheap and easy. No, we all must honor with the rest of the partying mourners.”
“If you had any sense …”
Harvey wrapped an arm around her. “You’re a wonderful mother, Grace. And we love you. I love you. But you know how honoring the dead goes. Many sacrifices.”
Harvey borrowed a raincoat and went into the storm. The headlights of the car fanned briefly across the kitchen window.
In the morning, it was still drizzling. Perry drove Grace to the cemetery and walked among the headstones while she planted flowers at his father’s grave. She was absorbed in her work. Placid and quiet, she was digging out weeds along his father’s headstone. She was on her knees in the rain, her face set in its sane and perfect way, her hands deep in the mud. She’d dug three holes for the plants, and when the weeds were gone, she set the plants in and covered the roots and packed the mud down. “There,” she said. “That should do it.” She stood beside him. The plants had dark red flowers growing. “That should do it,” she said.
It was Friday evening. The stores were open till nine. Though it was not quite dusk, some of the shops had already turned on their evening lights. Perry watched through his office window: greetings, buying and selling, handshakes and nods, jerky movements. He watched a giant shadow grow in from the western forest, gradually engulf the town and move off to the east. The office was dark. It smelled of manure dropped from farmers’ boots, stale corn and pine. The day’s stacks of paper work were lined up on his desk. One pile was for burning, the other for boxing and shipment. Without reason, he swept the floor. Then he sat in the dark and waited for Harvey. The office already seemed deserted and worthless. A picture of the President looked down on him from a plastered wall. He waited until nearly six, and when Harvey didn’t come he locked the office and stepped outside, glancing by reflex through the familiar window, then walked up to Wolff’s drugstore. He brought Grace a birthday card and candy. It was too early to go home.
He waited until six thirty. When he went back onto the street, it was again drizzling. He tucked the card and candy under his coat and trotted to the car. He drove past Addie’s boarding house, but her windows were dark.
When he got home, Grace was waiting alone in the kitchen.
“Addie called,” she said quietly. She’d been crying. She smiled anyway. “She says she has a headache.”
“What about my lovely brother?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You were supposed to bring him.”
Perry gave her a kiss, the card, the candy. “I waited for him … No matter. Happy birthday.”
Grace smiled weakly. The table was set for four people. A big birthday cake stood as a centerpiece.
“Here, take it easy. Harvey’ll be along. Maybe they’ll both come. Or we’ll just celebrate together. How would you like that?”
“Addie won’t. She says she has a headache. I get aches, too.”
“Don’t worry about her. You know how she can be if she wants.”
“Well … She’s my friend,” she whispered. “I guess she’s my best friend and now she can’t come because she gets a headache.”
“Maybe they’ll come later on.” Perry kissed her and went into the bedroom and pulled out the sweater he’d hidden under the bed. It was still in its J. C. Penney sack. He looked at it and realized how utterly unimaginative and fitting it was. He wrapped it up in Christmas paper and glued on a bow and brought it out to her.
She seemed happy. She kissed him and she was smiling. They had their supper, then Perry carried the cake into the living room, where he built a fire and cut the cake and served her while singing “Happy Birthday.” And she seemed happy. She opened up the gift, showing great surprise, and she immediately tried on the sweater. “I love it, I love it.” she said, pulling it over her shoulders and breasts, “I do love it.” She made the J. C. Penney sweater look much better. “I love it,” she cooed, turning for him before the fire, and he knew she would soon be bringing it into the store to exchange for something not quite so tight, and he knew she would not mention it and he knew he would never notice. “It’s marvelous, it is, it is,” she whispered.
Later he had a warm shower. He found Grace in bed, wrapped in her flannel nightgown. The lights were out.
“Feel good?” she said. She warmed against him.
“Pretty good. Those glasses gave me a headache this afternoon.”
“Better now?”
“Headache’s gone.”
“Maybe Addie caught your headache.”
“Maybe so. I’m sorry it was such a rotten birthday.”
“Oh, no. It was beautiful. It was better just to be alone. Wasn’t it? Don’t you think so? I was … I was disappointed at first but now I’m glad they didn’t come. We never get to be alone and I thought it was beautiful just to have you and me and nobody else mucking it up.”
The rain had stopped. Water still dripped from the eaves.
“You warm enough?” she whispered.
“Fine.”
“Really,” she sighed. “Really, I’m happy that they didn’t come. Maybe I’m too shy. I don’t know. I just can’t keep up with all their teasing and games and everything. But … I’ll be glad when Harvey gets a job and goes to work somewhere. He’s talking about it again, you know. He hasn’t said anything but I’m sure, I’m sure from the way he talks about a job, that he’s thinking about asking Addie to get married again. He’s acting the same way. You think so? Anyway, I’ll be glad when he gets a job and goes off to work. Or when we do, whichever it is. At first … at first I was feeling bad because you lost your job. Not bad, really. I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, it wasn’t as if you were fired or anything, was it? But I felt kind of down in the dumps. I didn’t try to show it, I just kind of felt that way because I knew you were feeling down, too. But now I don’t. Now I don’t feel that way. I wouldn’t mind moving to another place, would you? Really. Would you?”
“I suppose not. There isn’t much else to do.”
“Oh, it’ll be better maybe. In the long run. I can find a teaching job anywhere we go, so you don’t have to worry about it, about finding a job right away. I know you’re a little worried, even if you don’t talk about it. I …”
“I’m not worried,” he said.
“All right. If you say so, then you’re not worried.”
“I’m not. I just want to take my time and find something decent. I was thinking for a while about maybe going back to school.”
She sat up. “Really? Oh! I think that would be wonderful. I do. I love the idea. Really?”
“Maybe. It’s an idea.”
“We could go down to Iowa,” she said.
“That’s part of it.”
“Oh. Oh, I like that idea.”
“We’ll see what happens.”
He heard her turning and thinking. He wished he hadn’t mentioned it. Water was still running off the roof and dripping from the eaves. The bed was very warm. After a time, she curled close to him. “Hmmmm,” she sighed. “Are you warm enough? I’m happy. This is a beautiful birthday. Everything’s getting better, isn’t it? I knew everything would get better.” She was touching him. “Do you want me to rub you?”
“No, not tonight.”
He held her and listened to water drip from the roof. When she was asleep, he turned to his stomach and faced the wall.
He awoke once, feeling restless. He was hungry. He was always getting hungry now, ever since getting out of the woods. He tried to sleep but the hunger kept growing, and at last he got up and went to the kitchen. He ate birthday cake and drank milk. Then he went up the stairs to look in on Harvey. The bed was empty and the window was open and a puddle of water had formed on the floor. He wiped it up with a sheet and went back to bed. Grace was mumbling from her dreams and he listened. She never said much. He curled around her and slept late into Saturday. It was peaceful. The house was quiet and there was spring sun. He slept through the weekend, and on Monday, hopelessly sluggish, he drove into town to continue changing his life.
Harvey had disappeared. He tried calling Addie’s boarding house, but there was no answer. Grace was sure they’d got married.
The spring sun continued into the second week of June. The fat was coming back and he had no power to defend himself, and his waist and hips quivered with the old gelatinous slime. He was either hungry or sleepy, and there was no other sensation. He began going again to Pliney’s Pond, sitting on the rocks and staring with sleepy eyes into the thick water, never going in, now and then dipping into the pond and letting the green water trickle through his fingers. The water was always warm.
Once he shed his clothes: a bright Thursday morning.
He stood naked over the pond, put his foot in, let it sink into the mud.
But he stopped.
He dressed quickly and hurried back to the house to get ready for work.
That afternoon Bishop Markham stopped in to say old Jud Harmor was dead.
“Cancer,” Bishop said, sitting on the edge of Perry’s desk.
“Lord.”
“Old Jud.”
“Well,” said Bishop, “it has to happen. You’re right, he was awful old. It was all over him, I’m told. Started in his throat, and I’ll bet that will teach him to smoke. Well. I just wanted to fill you in. I got things to do. With Jud gone, I guess I’m temporary mayor. Seeing as how … town council and so on. It’s no fun getting it this way, I’ll tell you. You want anything done, let me know.”
“Right, Bishop.”
“Okay. Have a good day now.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Bishop grinned.
“You’re a hell of a man, Bishop.”
It was the way he’d felt when … a lot of times. He sat at his desk. He realized he was grinning and tried to stop. He finally got up and locked the office and went to have his tooth repaired. Hal Bennett leaned over him, working like a garage mechanic. Poor old Jud, Perry was thinking, but not in words, gripping the chair. Bennett drilled the cavity and smeared the hole with medication and thumped a filling home. Poor old Jud, Perry was thinking. His mouth was braced in a grin. The light was brilliant overhead, the silver instruments gleamed in Bennett’s hand. “Jud’s dead,” said the dentist as he hit the filling. “Just like—that,” and he hammered Perry’s tooth. “Brush your gums,” he said. “You got to take better care of them teeth, you’re gonna lose them otherwise.” He handed Perry a new toothbrush. Outside, Perry threw the brush away in disgust. Poor old Jud, he was thinking, but not in words.
His mouth hurt all night. He woke up with a savage headache. It started in his jaw and rolled in tremors along his skull. In the morning he had orange juice and aspirin, looked at the sun, then returned to bed.
Grace finally shook him. “Jud Harmor’s dead,” she said.
“I know it.”
“You ought to get up.”
“All right. I’m hungry.”
“Well, you should be, you should be. Sleeping Beauty. Go get a shower. And you should have told me about poor Jud.”
“I forgot. I’m sorry. What time is it?”
“Supper time, that’s what. Go get a hot shower. Sleeping Beauty in person.”
Perry sat on the rocks at Pliney’s Pond. Thick steam rose from the waters. Bacterial wastes, decaying plant life, dead and living animals. Microorganisms that flourished and multiplied. Floating algae, tiny capsules of cellulose, lower-level plant life, ripe and rich and hot. Frogs and newts and creatures with beady eyes dangling from optic nerves. Continuity. Spores in the air. Chemical life, chemical transformations, growth and decay. Bacteria feeding, insects feeding, frogs feeding. The processes of protoplasm. Respiration, oxygenation, reproduction, metabolism, conversion and reconversion, excretion and growth and decay. Such a fountain, he thought. And poor old Jud. And poor old Harvey and poor old Addie, and poor old Grace. And: “Poooooor me,” he sighed. Simple multiplication and division, asexual continuity, spores in the air, dispassionate life: “Poor me.”
He drove into town. He stopped first at the office. Working steadily until noon, he finished cleaning out the files. He took two maps from the wall and rolled them up and stuffed them into a box for shipment. Then he emptied out his drawers, saving some personal papers and a box of staples. The rest he threw away, one by one turning the drawers upside down over the waste basket.
When the noon whistle blew, he walked to the church. The bells were chiming. He couldn’t remember the last time he had gone inside. The pulpit was in the familiar place. The apse was high cold stone. He walked up the center aisle and looked down on old Jud. Behind him, the custodian was sweeping. Jud looked all right.
Perry stood awhile then went out into the sun.
He had lunch in the drugstore, then went back to finish his work. Billowing from nowhere, dust filled the air in the old office and he began sweeping the place down, taking great care to sweep in the corners and under the desk.
Then he took out the razor blade.
It was cool and slim.
He went to the window. Outside, the streets were dizzy white. To his left he could see as far as the railroad tracks. To his right, the drugstore and a corner of the bank.
He held up the blade and began scratching his name from the glass. It took him most of the afternoon: first erasing his name, then the title, then everything.
He swept the paint chips out into the street. He washed the glass clean and pulled the blinds.
He was sleeping when Harvey came in. His feet had fallen from the desk.
He heard the door open, and the light fanned through his dream, and he heard the boots, the rush of hot air.
“Addie’s gone,” Harvey whispered. “She’s flown off.”
“Sit down.”
“Addie’s gone.”
Harvey sat in a hard-backed chair. His bad eye was red. The blinds were drawn and the office was dark. It still smelled of dust. Harvey sat still a long while. Then he put his elbows on his knees, leaned forward, cupped his face in his hands. Outside a tractor went by.
“Addie’s gone.”
“We were worried about you, Harv.”
“She’s flown off. She’s gone to Minneapolis. I asked her to get married again and then she went to Minneapolis. She’s just gone.”
“It’s a bad show.”
“She was making the plans for two weeks. I found out she got bus tickets two whole weeks ago. She didn’t say anything to anybody.”
“Where were you?”
“So I found out. So I got on the next bus and went down to find her … makes me sick.”
“You look rough, Harv. How about us going home now?”
“I tell you it makes me sick! She’s got this apartment down there. The city, I can’t believe it. I had to sleep on the floor. Can you believe that? Makes me sick.”
“Let’s go home.”
“Let’s get a drink someplace.”
“You want to?”
“I swear to God, it all makes me sick. Almost killed me. You couldn’t believe it. How nice she was. Lets me stay there and listens and smiles and says I can come and visit whenever I want, and says no, she can’t marry me, and I say why the hell not, and she just smiles and says no, and it goes on and on I don’t know how long, forever I guess. The goddamn city. It’s not even the city. A goddamn suburb. Can you believe that? Richfield, a goddamn suburb. That’s where Addie’s living if you can believe that. Took me a whole day to find her. Scalped. I feel rotten, Paul. You ever feel this rotten?”
“I guess not.”
“I feel rotten.”
“You look it. You need sleep and supper.”
“Goddamn city. Goddamn bus. So I knock on her door, and she comes to the door and, you can’t believe it, she knows it’s me, I don’t know how, and she’s smiling in that same bloody way, and she’s even got a roommate. It’s all been planned for … And I was talking about Nassau and Italy, and she’s cheering me on, and all the while … I feel rotten.”
“I know it.”
“It’s all falling apart.”
“I know it.”
“I could feel it coming. It’s all falling apart, you know that?
“She says I can visit whenever I want.”
“That’s a good sign.”
Grace drove into town for Jud Harmor’s funeral. Perry slept late, had a long breakfast alone, then went outside to rake dead grass. It was not such a bad day. He carted the grass into the woods using Harvey’s wheelbarrow. It was the first day of summer. He worked steadily until noon, then Harvey came out and they worked together. Perry told him about Jud Harmor and Harvey nodded and kept working.
After a time, Harvey dropped his rake and walked without a word into the bomb shelter. Perry carted grass into the woods, dumped it, then went to the shelter. Harvey was sitting in the old rocker. The place smelled wet. “Have a seat,” Harvey said. He motioned to a bank of cardboard boxes.
“How you feeling?”
“Rotten. Addie’s a witch.”
“That’s no way.”
“I know. I’ve been thinking.” Harvey made a vague twisting motion with his head, encompassing everything. “I think we ought to sell the place.”
“Maybe so.”
“Do you think so?”
“Maybe,” Perry said carefully. “It’s something to think about.”
“We should. I’m decided on it. I decided last night. I’m ready to go, I’ve had enough of the place, the whole thing. We can sell it and move away, maybe to Florida or something. What do you think?”
“You were talking yesterday about …”
“Forget that. This is today. Today I’ve decided we should sell the whole joint and all of us go to Florida. I don’t care where.” Harvey had a hammer. Still rocking, he hammered lightly at the concrete wall, shooting sparks and tiny cement flakes. “What do you think?”
“I think it’s something to think about, Harv.”
“Not for long. I’m tired of thinking. Everything’s falling apart. Let’s just do it.”
Indifferently, as if he were waving a fan, Harvey hammered at the concrete wall, striking it each time he rocked forward. “Do you remember when I built this shelter?”
“Well, now I want to sell it. Everything.”
“That’s one way,” Perry said.
“You bet it is. What are you going to do? Your job, I mean.”
“I don’t know.”
“There you are then. You see? We sell the place, then you have to do something.”
“You have a way of tackling things, don’t you?”
“You bet I do.” His hammering chimed in the autumn-like dark, a gentle persistent chiming, and a pile of loose concrete formed on the floor.
“All right then,” Perry said, getting up. “Let’s both of us think about it. I’m not saying yes or no.”
“That’s your style, isn’t it?”
“Right,” Perry said. “Going to help me rake?”
“In a few minutes. You go ahead.”
That evening Perry talked it over with Grace. She pretended to toss the idea around, weighing it with a frown as she dried her hair, asking drawn-out questions. But she wanted to sell. He waited until she went to bed. Then he went upstairs. Harvey was lying on his bed, awake and dressed.
“Okay,” Perry said. “We’ll sell.”
“You sure?”
“Tomorrow. I’ll talk to Bishop Markham in the morning.”
“What does lovely Grace say?”
“She’s for it.”
“What will you do afterward?”
“I don’t know.”
“I guess there’s not another way,” Harvey said.
It was mosquito season. They were everywhere. Swarming in the kitchen at night. Around the yard light. Downtown. At the ball park. Electrocuting themselves in static buzzes against the special pest-rid machine installed at the Dairy Queen. Masses of mosquitoes. Blood-crazy and rattling against the bedroom screens as he tried to sleep and breeding in the heat of Pliney’s Pond. Perry smelled the pond. He dreamed of it, dreamed that he was at last going in, lolling in the algal ripeness, joining the heated thick waters in a final search for the start of things, dreaming as the mosquitoes called for his blood against the screen windows, the aroma of Pliney’s Pond drifting into the bedroom and bludgeoning him into long, dreaming, sweating sleeps.
There was nothing to do.
He wanted to talk to Jud Harmor, but Jud Harmor was dead.
“Selling!” Bishop said with delight. “Well, I guess I can sell the old place for you as well as anybody. I guess I can! You came to the right man, Paul.”
“I know it.”
“That’s what I’m here for.”
“Selling out.”
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way,” Bishop said cheerfully. “Nobody’s going to blame you.”
“That’s what you’re here for.”
“Right. Broker for the emigrants.”
“I know it.”
“I’ll get you a good price, don’t worry about that. We’ll do it right.”
“I’ll bet you will.”
There was nothing to do.
On the first day of July, he cashed his final Treasury pay check. As a ritual, he went to the office and swept it down, locked the door and posted the key to St. Paul. Then he ambled down to the barber shop. It was air-conditioned. The clippers hummed sweetly, the scissors clicked along his neck cool and precise. After the haircut, he asked the barber to shave him. It was an afterthought. He took a last look at the beard, remembering with dispassion the forest and the snow and the days of being lost, then he closed his eyes and smelled the lime-scented shaving cream and heard the razor scratch along his neck, his chin, his cheeks, clean and fast. The barber’s name was Andrew but everyone called him Silent Andy. He talced Perry’s face, swept the linen away, whisked the stray hairs and returned his instruments to an ultraviolet sterilizer.
Swiveling him to face the mirror, the barber surveyed his work like a farmer admiring fresh-plowed land.
“Looking forward to this a long time,” the barber said.
“Good job.”
“You want a shampoo? Might as well do her right.”
“Sure. Why not?”
Sitting back, Perry opened a newspaper and found Bishop Markham’s ad for the house. “Vintage dwelling,” the copy read, “ten rooms, fireplace, twenty choice acres, pond and bomb shelter. A real buy. Peace and quiet.” The photographer had captured the house at its best angle, looking in from Route 18, and the place seemed much bigger and older and more tenacious than reality.
The barber massaged his hair, then pulled his head back over the sink for rinsing, then briskly toweled him dry.
“So I see you’re selling,” the barber said.
“Maybe.”
“Maybe? What’s the ad for then?”
“Yes,” Perry said. “We’re selling.”
“Too slow for you around here?”
“Too fast,” Perry said.
“It’s a shame.”
“I know,” Perry said. “It’s a real shame.”
The days were all slow. Perry tried not to think about it. In mid-July Harvey left for a visit to Minneapolis and when he returned he was in a bad mood. He did not talk about Addie, and Perry did not ask. There was nothing unspoken. The trip simply hadn’t happened.
Sleepwalking season. Impartial events dragged him from hour to hour, and there was nothing to do but wait.
To differentiate the days he sometimes took short walks in the forest, trying to see it objectively now that he was leaving. But he stayed away from the pond. Sometimes Grace would come along. They would hold hands and stay on the well-worn paths.
Once they found a rotting tree stump. It was coated with ivory fungus that overlapped in lobes like leather armor, and inside the stump were the hallways of a dark forest castle, maggots and other insects that scurried through the decaying wreckage. He reached into the interior of the stump to touch the stuff. It was warm and lush.
Once they found a fallen tree. They scraped away matted leaves and saw spider webs with beads of captured dew.
They saw oak leaves with both sharp and rounded lobes, each representing a different species.
With the mechanisms of departure in motion, he began feeling older. There was nothing so terrible about the place.
With a fingernail, Grace broke open a sassafras leaf and held it to him to smell. “Root beer?” she said. “No,” he said, “lime. More like lime.” And she frowned and held it to her nose and smiled and shrugged.
She showed him the underbelly of the forest, the quiet and safe spots. Much of the forest, she noted, was neither pine nor birch, but rather soft tangles of weed and fern and moss and simple things. She showed him a delicate fern which she called maidenhair, plucking it from the soil.
Perry followed her through the waiting days.
He helped her with the gardening and shopping. Near the end of the month they drove down to Two Harbors for the county fair, and he followed her through the pavilions of women’s work, quilts and mason jars filled with preserves and stewed tomatoes, needlepoint and aprons and apple pies. She went into a tent to have her fortune read and Perry waited outside.
“What did they say?”
“That’s for me to know.”
“Tell me.”
“Well,” she smiled, “they say I have a deep lifeline.”
“I thought it was supposed to be long.”
“For me it was deep,” she smiled.
He did not worry about finding new work. Content to potter about the house, he avoided Harvey and waited for word about the house, sleeping late and performing minor chores with the old detached and sleepy languor. There were frequent rains. The grass grew fast and the woods filled with steam, and there was no threat of fire.
He did not see much of Harvey. Sometimes it would go for days at a time, long days with Grace, quiet suppers, television and Scrabble, a movie. One morning he found his brother sleeping in the bomb shelter, wrapped in one of the wool blankets stored there. He touched him and Harvey sat up blinking.
“What time is it?”
“Daytime,” Perry said gently. “You were here all night. You’ll get sick keeping this up.”
“Couldn’t sleep inside.”
“Grace has breakfast ready. Come on.”
“We’re really leaving, aren’t we?”
“That’s what you wanted. I suppose …”
“All night I kept thinking … the blasted house.” Harvey lay back and stared with an empty eye. “I guess I was dreaming. You know? It was strange but I kept thinking that the house was getting blown to pieces. Falling apart like a bomb hit it, except it was the wind and not a bomb. You know?”
“I know. It’s tough.”
“I guess it’s best, though.”
“Sure.”
“But it’s tough. I kept thinking the house was blowing apart. Pow, down she went. This incredible wind and everything was falling apart.”
“I know, Harv.”
“So I came out here. Lord. I’ll be glad when it’s sold.”
“What you need is some breakfast.”
Harvey sighed. “You ever get the feeling you’re doing the same things over and over again? It’s like … I don’t know. The old man, all the outdoor crap. It’s really a lot of crap, isn’t it? But it’s not the old man anymore, it’s me. Now it’s in me and I can’t get it out. Doing crazy things. Over and over. Maybe selling the house will end it. I don’t know. Do you think so?”
“I think so, Harv.”
“You don’t mind, do you?”
“No. I don’t mind.”
Harvey nodded. “That crazy dream about the house falling in. It was awful. Addie, the house. It’s too much. I guess getting lost out in the woods taught you a lesson.”
“I don’t know what,” Perry said.
“Leaving. Don’t you see? You don’t mind leaving now.”
“Maybe that’s it.”
“I have a tough hide. I haven’t learned any lessons.”
“You’re a good man, Harv.”
“It’s just hard to get it out of my system. All the crap. It really is a lot of crap, isn’t it? I ought to get a job and make some money. That’s what I should do.”
“Maybe so, Harv. What you need now is breakfast.”
“Or go to Mexico.”
“Come on, Harv.”
In the afternoon Bishop Markham brought out a young couple to see the house. Harvey watched them come up the lane. He hurried up to his room, and Perry and Grace were left to show them around.
“A grand house!” Bishop was saying. “It has all sorts of architecture and doesn’t show it. Looks thrown together, but in fact it’s a beauty. A real buy, I’d say.” He talked like his newspaper ads. He wore a bow tie and corduroy jacket.
The couple seemed nice and friendly and very rich. The fellow said his name was Maglione. He worked as a bonds broker in St. Paul but he was giving it up to paint pictures. Clean-cut and talkative and straight, he seemed to Perry more of a bonds broker than a painter. His wife was extraordinarily pretty, and Perry guessed she’d once worked as a stewardess or model or something similar to capitalize on her looks. With her chin forward and high, she also had a bit of the aristocrat in her, nodding at things that won her approval. She was nice, too.
Bishop guided them through the house as if he owned it.
In the back yard, he pointed out towards the woods. “Now, if you want to paint pictures, I guess you won’t find a much better place to do it. Real scenery. Genuine stuff, I might add. Just like the house.”
“Dick paints mostly abstracts,” the woman said.
Maglione blushed a little. “That abstract business is hard to swallow, I know. It doesn’t mean I don’t make use of nature. Actually, the idea is to expand on what you see in nature. Extend reality, if you see what I mean.”
“Well,” Bishop grinned, bringing him back to the house, “you aren’t about to find a better place to extend reality than right here. Right, Paul?”
“Right,” Perry said.
“Lovely,” Maglione said.
Grace nodded and kept smiling.
Maglione’s wife walked to the bomb shelter. Somewhat gingerly, she put a hand on the concrete as though testing whether it were real.
“It’s a bomb shelter,” Perry said.
“Yes?”
“In case of nuclear war.”
“Yes, I see.”
“Let’s not dwell on it,” Bishop said cheerfully.
“It’ll keep the fallout off of you,” Perry said solemnly. “My brother built it himself. He’ll vouch for the construction. Meets all the government standards.”
“Yes?” The woman stared at it.
“Never been used,” Perry said.
“I should hope not.”
“And it could come in handy. Forest fires and so on.”
“God.” The woman looked at him suspiciously. She said the word again as if she learned it in school. “God,” she said again.
“Harvey—my brother—Harvey can tell you all about it if you’d like.”
“I don’t think so,” Maglione smiled. He hooked his wife by the arm. “Not that I don’t like it. I can see it’s a solid bomb shelter, no question about it.”
“You can paint it.”
“Now there’s not a bad idea,” the man said enthusiastically.
“I mean, you can paint a mural on it or something. Like in the caves. Make an interesting relic after the …”
“Paul! Stop that.” Grace took his arm.
Bishop guided the couple inside. They tested the water and walls and floors. Upstairs, they tried Harvey’s door but it was locked. Bishop talked nonstop. He seemed to know the house better than Perry, as though he’d been waiting years for the chance to sell it off.
“Anyhow,” Bishop said as they went outside, “you won’t find a much better place for painting abstracts.”
They stood in a broken line in the back yard. Maglione and his wife looked around randomly as if trying to sight the future.
“I can see it’s beautiful,” Maglione said. He had a bright, disarming way of smiling. His wife continued to eye the bomb shelter.
Finally they walked to their car. Everyone shook hands and Maglione said he’d be in touch within a few days. Bishop honked twice as they left.
“There,” Grace said.
“What do you think?”
“You were ghastly about the bomb shelter.” She laughed and took his arm. “I think they loved it. It was obvious.”
Perry shrugged. “That woman’s a real tiger.”
“You were awful!”
Harvey was waiting in the kitchen. He looked shaken.
“They fell in love with it,” Grace said. “And they were nice people. We’ve got ourselves a sale.”
“Is that right?”
“Probably,” Perry said.
“Charming.”
“You should have said hello to them.”
“Who were they? Never seen them.”
“From St. Paul. Name’s Maglione and he’s a broker and she’s some sort of beauty queen. Actually, they were all right. He wants to paint abstract pictures.”
“Italians,” Harvey muttered. “I can’t believe it. Here we were all going to Italy and instead the miserable Italians are invading us. I don’t like it. They didn’t look right.”
“They were very nice,” Grace said firmly.
“Creeps. I was watching from the window. The guy looked like a creep to me.”
Perry was disgusted. “If you don’t want to sell, just say the word. You keep it. It’s yours.”
“I was only saying they didn’t look right.”
“Just let me know.”
Harvey went back to his room, and that night Perry heard him pacing. The wind was from the south and he smelled the pond. It was hard to give a damn about anything except selling and leaving and finding a new place and forgetting the rest. He listened to the pacing and the mosquitoes.
“Poor Harvey,” whispered Grace.
“Tough on him.”
“Don’t you have pity?”
“Sure. I have pity for myself, too.”
“Well.” She was quiet and the pacing continued. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“Forget it. I’ll be glad when it’s sold. I was just being cranky. I’m glad we’re selling. We’ll find a good place somewhere else.”
Grace rolled close. “You know,” she said, “you do spend a lot of time feeling sorry for yourself. You and Harvey both.”
“A family trait.”
“Paul?”
“What?”
“Paul, what do you think?”
“No, I mean what do you think about selling? Are you …? You never tell me anything of what you’re thinking.”
“I never know what I’m thinking.” He was thinking of his father.
She sighed. “I can’t read minds, you know. If you don’t think you want to sell, if you changed your mind, well then just tell me. I won’t mind, really. Really. I can’t read minds.”
“We’ll sell,” he said softly. “I never said we wouldn’t.”
“I just want you to be happy,” she finally said. “I thought you’d maybe changed your mind and didn’t want to tell me. I can’t read minds. I like it better when we talk about things. Don’t you? I do. I do. So if you changed your mind … I’m not going to care. I just want you to be happy. I worry over you.”
“All right,” he said.
“You know?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want a nice rub?”
“No. I want to sleep.”
He faced the wall, lying on his side, and trying to be still. The mosquitoes were buzzing against the screens. He wasn’t sure of anything: Harvey’s restless pacing, Grace lying awake and listening and too afraid to talk, the smell of Pliney’s Pond drifting with the breeze from the woods. Once, forever, he thought he’d hated the house. Penance for not loving enough, the old man or the woods. A circumstance. He was hot. The sheets seemed to tie him down.
Wide awake and restless, he swung out of bed, his fists clenching and closing like a pulse. He sat still a moment. He listened to the July heat, mosquitoes screeching at the screen windows, inchworms in the back pines, the old house, the forest, a close-seeming flock of loons. What he did not hear, he imagined.
“Paul?”
“Go to sleep.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I’m going for a walk.”
“Did I make you angry? I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“Paul …”
“Stop that infernal whispering.”
“Paul.”
“I’m sorry.” He got dressed. “I’m in a rotten mood. Mosquitoes, the heat, everything. I’m sorry. I’m taking a walk.”
He’d forgotten his glasses. He blundered down the path, groping with his hands, thinking: she will be crying now, worrying, wishing he were happy, happy. Couldn’t be helped. Selling the damned and cursed house, selling out of the great histories. He smelled the pond before him. Involuntarily, with the laxity of forgetfulness, his bowels moistened. Sweet anticipation. Selling out of the house and woods, it was time.
He blundered off the path and felt the underbush climb around him. He turned back, found the path by memory, and hurried towards the thick smell of the pond.
He was grinning and his bowels were wet and loose.
Blind anyway, his eyes were squeezed shut and he followed the path down and down. His belly was warm.
The night was warm.
A mosquito was trapped in his ear, dancing madly. He dug it out and another entered, buzzing in its frantic death dance, dancing madly, his father ringing in the death bucket, the hollow tinkle in Harvey’s voice, the bells of Damascus Lutheran, the stone cold apse.
He did not notice the northern lights. He did not look up. He did not see the rocketing, wavering, plummeting red in the sky. The mosquito rattled in his ear and he plunged towards Pliney’s Pond. He was blind and cold in the steaming woods. “Here we are,” he said, coming to the pond. He could smell it and hear it, the soft muds and insects. It was sullen and hot, and he listened, his fists clenching and closing, and he was thinking suicide. He did not see the northern lights, but he heard the mosquito shrieking in his ear. “So, at last, here we are,” he said.
He shed his clothes and at last went in.
At last.
He glided inch by inch into Pliney’s Pond.
It seemed almost a ritual, but he knew it was neither a ritual nor an armistice, for his universe was fear and memories, and as he waded inch by inch into the hot algaed waters he said, “Here we are, at last.”
The water drew around his belly and bowels, and he was wet and warm, releasing as he waded deeper, the whole architecture of his northern world flowing sweetly to ruin in the hot waters.
He glided through the thick water, aiming for the center of Pliney’s Pond, letting his arms go out, his palms touching the surface of the waters and slowly rising in float. The mosquito still rattled in his ear and he went deeper. Expecting to sink, he was instead buoyed high. He was careful to hold his shoulders and neck and head above water. His eyes were now open. His stomach and intestines had lost all feeling, and he thought with a smile of a pricked sac of black bile that now flowed like kitchen syrup into warm Pliney’s Pond. He bounced lightly on his toes, wading deeper towards the center. It was curious thick water with the odor of purity. Dead insects floated around him. Live insects swarmed around his head.
At the center of Pliney’s Pond, he closed his eyes. Then he lay back, drowning the mosquito in his ear.
Eyes closed, ears closed, there were no sounds and no lights. He lay still in a bath of secondine, blood and motherwarmth.
There was no wind. The waters were stagnant. There was nothing to carry him in one direction or another, and he floated dead still as a waiting embryo. In an infant’s unborn dream, the future was neither certain nor even coming, not even the future, and the past was swimming like so many chemicals around him, his own black bile running like diarrhea into the pool of elements.
He opened his eyes, rolled over, face down, submerged, put his feet into the mud bottom and submerged like a turtle, opened his eyes again, relaxed, calm, warm, suspended, at home. Things moved around him. He pushed towards the bottom and took a handful of slime and squeezed it between his fingers. Then his breath left him.
Coming out, emerging, he saw the great lights.
He waded to the rocks and sat still. He smelled the pond in his lungs. The old man’s crazy illusions seemed dull and threadbare, as though their vitality and old importance had somehow flowed with the black bile into Pliney’s Pond. Everything was quiet. There were mosquitoes but they were not hungry, and everything was very quiet and peaceful and things were not really so bad or so urgent as the old man had preached. And there was still Grace. He had no more memories. Not so bad, he thought. Not so bad, at all. Buck up, boy. Buck up, he either said or thought, because it’s good to sell and there are better and more comfortable illusions to live under. The old man was crazy. That was the terrible hell of it. And there was still Grace. Warm deepdown Grace, the ripe deep pond. He would tell her that he loved her and mean it, mean it at precisely the moment he said it, rather than not saying it or saying it and not meaning it, meaning it later when he did not say it. Someday he would say it and mean it at precisely the same time. Not so bad, he thought. He smelled the pond inside him. Not so bad, at all. At last he dressed and moved without hurry along the path to the house.
He made hot chocolate and sat at the kitchen table to drink it. Grace came out in her robe.
“I was worried,” she said.
“I’m better now.” He looked straight at her and smiled, almost meaning it. “I’m sorry. I was feeling rotten but I’m better now. Hot chocolate?”
“You stink,” she smiled.
“I know it. I went for a swim in the pond.”
“What?”
“I did.”
“You hate that pond!”
“No more. It wasn’t so bad. Not bad, at all.” Again he smiled and almost meant it. “I need a shower now.”
“No,” she said. “No, that can wait till morning. Come along with me.”
So he followed her down the hallway. Already, sensing it in the bare hollow hallway, he was thinking of the house as sold. Foreign and too cold. Not so bad, he thought.
“There,” she said, “aren’t you lucky to have me?”
“Yes.”
She pulled down the sheets. For a while he just held her, then before knowing it and without forethought, he was ready to make real love. He smiled at an image of the old man, banishing it, and it was like the warm pond. “You want a son or daughter?” he said.
“A son, of course.” It was as though she were thinking of the same possibility at the same time, but the way she said “of course” had great surprise.
“A son?”
“Of course,” she said.
“All right then.”
“What?”
“Son,” he said. “The son frame of mind.” Clumsy but not embarrassed, he helped her with the robe.
“Phew!” she laughed. “What a stinker.”
“It’s just the pond.”
“Phew.”
“Should I shower?”
“Oh, no. It’s lovely.”
Soft as the pond, he thought. Except for certain things, such as resilience. So, “Don’t stop,” she said in a loud voice that was not a whisper, but still like the pond which was always so rich-smelling and mud-deep and unconscious, scaring him away and still attracting as if to a natural element, attracting until in calm desperation, with nothing to lose, he relented and went in. She examined him like a toy. “Don’t stop,” she said, and I won’t, he thought, I won’t. Two sides, he also thought. Selling and staying, and it was as much negative as positive, selling, selling and denying the crazy stuff of the old man and the histories … “I won’t,” he whispered to her because she was pleading so loudly … A son, he thought. He thought son, son, son, son. He would be kind to his son. Have him read all the classic books and the Atlantic Monthly, and give him just enough of everything and not too much of anything. Huge breasts, he thought. Flattened now on her chest, spilling over her ribs where he could not see in the dark. There was a lull of waiting and rebuilding and floating in restless waters. He smelled the pond with them. “Paul?” she said loudly. Chlorophyllrich and algathick and deep to the very bottom of things. Such breasts, he thought. She began to move again, restlessly. She threw her legs behind him and seemed to suck him in. “Ow,” she said loudly but not complaining, and “All right?” he whispered and “Perfect,” she said loudly, “don’t stop.” I won’t, he thought, thinking she’s pregnant already, because he’d been coiled like a snake for years and the tension had gone slack and when he was ready to spring the spring wasn’t there, but it could be recoiled, slowly, slowly he thought. Unimaginative, he also thought. Clumsy, out of practice, docile for too long. Unimaginative.
He smelled the rich pond. She held his head. “There,” she said in a loud voice. “Now come here,” and again there was a long time of rebuilding and recoiling, and he did not think of anything. “Ah, shame,” she said. “There, do you like that there?”
He could not say anything and barely heard. The weight seemed to press on his ears.
“Are my breasts too big for you?” she laughed.
“No,” he said.
“Are you sure?” And she started to say something else, a kind of fresh tease in her voice, but she was cut off and said something else very loudly, and again he was not thinking, and as though sinking she moved away from him and down but he caught up and held her by her breasts until she shook, then he held her while they were quiet, then she held him.
“What a stinker,” she finally laughed.
“I can shower.”
“No. I think it’s lovely, I do. We can sleep like this always.”
“Shall I get you some hot chocolate?” he said.
“Yes. Then we can have more energy. Do you think we made a son?”
“Three of them, I’ll bet.”
“I have the same feeling.”
“But I don’t care about the son right now.”
“Good.”
“Are you thinking of anything? I can’t think of a thing to think about.”
“Shhhhh.”
“I feel good.”
“Shhhhh. Where’s my hot chocolate?”
“Are you glad we’re selling?” he asked.
“Yes, but where’s my hot chocolate? Yes, I’m glad. I’m happy now.”
In the morning, Bishop Markham called to say the house was sold. He was cheerful and congratulatory. “You know what really sold ’em? The darned bomb shelter! Can you believe that? It’s true, I swear. The darned bomb shelter. Can you … Maglione says he’s gonna make it into a studio. Can’t get more abstract than a bomb shelter, right? Hee, hee. Anyhow, I guess it’s a load off your shoulders.”
“A real load. Thanks, Bishop. When do they want …?”
“Easy, easy. Plenty of time for all that. Mortgages and deeds and banks. You know how that is. Never easy selling a house. But that’s what you got me for, right, so just take her easy and let me handle it. You’re a lucky man, buddy.”
Bishop talked in a faraway voice about the finances and paper work, then Perry thanked him and hung up. Grace was out working in the garden. Pregnant already, he thought. Not so bad, after all.
He watched her through the gauze curtains.
It was cool and she was wearing a sweater, the one he gave her for her birthday, and she looked terrific, he thought, and he was grateful and felt very lucky. She was on her knees, her hands deep in dirt as she planted flowers for the spring, when they would no longer be there, her hands deep in the garden dirt. She saw him watching and waved and he waved back, then went upstairs.
Harvey was in bed, watching television with a towel wrapped around his waist and his hair slicked down. He was smoking.
“Guess that was our good and loyal friend Bishop on the phone,” he said without looking up. It was Saturday morning and the cartoons were on.
“He sold it. The Maglione people fell in love with your bomb shelter.”
“Charming people.”
“They’re all right, Harv.”
“When do we get booted out? Imagine they’re already coming with truckloads of easels and paints to boot us out.”
“No.”
“Italians.”
“No. Bishop says there’s a lot of papers to sign. Lots of time, he said.”
Wistfully, Harvey blew smoke towards the ceiling. “We don’t have to sign, do we?” He looked at Perry with a sober eye. “There’s no crummy law that says we have to sign the papers.”
“No. I guess there’s not a law.”
“I built that bomb shelter with my own hands. Solid as rock. It’ll take anything. Hate like the devil to leave it, you know. Bad news getting caught in a nuclear war without your trusty bomb shelter.”
“Sounds terrible to me.”
“Terrible? My God, think of your testicles.”
“Rotten thought.”
“Think of Grace.”
“I am.”
“What if we don’t sell?” Harvey said. “We don’t have to sell just because some miserable Italians want to take over.”
“No,” Perry said. “No, we’re selling.”
“You’ve decided, huh?”
“Yes.”
“Taking charge,” Harvey laughed. “Taking the old bull by the horns.”
“It’s best, Harv.”
“Falling apart,” Harvey said, still laughing. “It’s all falling apart, isn’t it? The whole thing blowing up into pieces.”
“Yeah. Want to take a walk?”
Harvey shook his head. He lit a fresh cigarette and leaned back in bed. “I’ll just watch the cartoons. Nothing like some good cartoons to cheer things up as the world comes to an end.”
“It’s not that bad.”
“You don’t understand, do you? Even now you don’t understand.”
“I guess I don’t,” Perry said.
That evening Harvey was talkative and falsely cheerful.
He drank gin and tonic, then after supper switched to beer. “What we should do is go into town for a last party,” he said with bravado, his voice nasal and phoney and too high-pitched and certain. “That’s what we should do. Celebrate my brother’s great and lovely cop-out and sellout.”
“It’s all for the best, Harv.”
“Then let’s celebrate! Right? Celebrate the end. Go out with cheer and good humor, right? Not with a bang but a beer.”
“We’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Harvey said loudly. “What tomorrow? What bloody tomorrow is this? You don’t understand, do you?”
“I don’t want to argue.”
“Argue? Argue! You’ve taken the old bull by the horns and who’s to argue? Celebrate. We have to celebrate my brother’s decision.”
“Cut it out, Harv.”
“After a beer to celebrate. Then I’ll cut it out. Be my old easygoing self again.”
“Nope.”
“Just one? Just a lousy beer to celebrate? I promise to behave.”
“All right,” Perry said. “Just one.”
He showered and put on clean clothes and they drove into town. Franz’s tavern was closed and the streets were nearly empty.
“Park the car and let’s take a walk,” Harvey said. “I didn’t want a lousy beer anyway.”
Perry stopped in front of the library. They walked up past the old sawmill, around the hub and up Mainstreet towards the church. June bugs swirled around the electric lights. They passed Damascus Lutheran and the farm implement store where, during the daylight hours, old men sat to talk and spit and watch.
Perry wondered if he should be nostalgic about anything and decided not, decided that maybe he would be nostalgic another time.
Harvey was very quiet.
They turned up Acorn Street.
Lights burned behind curtains and the sounds of radios and televisions flowed out like running water. There was no traffic. An elderly couple came towards them, holding each other by the arms and talking softly, and there were crickets in the grass.
“I don’t want to sell,” Harvey finally said.
“I know.”
Harvey was quiet. He kicked a stone in front of him, caught up to it and kicked it again. “We could stay, couldn’t we? Old times again. We could do a lot of things.”
“You never loved the old man, did you?”
“Yes,” Perry said. “I loved him.”
“Shit.”
“I don’t want to argue.”
“Who’s arguing?” Harvey said, kicking the stone again. “You never loved him. You think he didn’t know it? Shit. You could’ve done something to show you loved him if you say you loved him. He wasn’t so bad.”
“I know, Harv.”
“The hell you do. I’m not selling.”
“Yes. You are. You’re selling and we’re getting out of here.”
They were in front of the church again.
Harvey stopped and took Perry’s collar, fingering it as though deciding something.
“You’re a coward,” he said.
“Maybe so, Harv.”
“Not maybe. The old man was right.”
“The old man was crazy.”
“What?”
Perry was shaking. “Nothing. I’m sorry.”
“How can I hit a coward?”
“Harvey.”
“Tell me you’re just a coward.”
“No.”
Harvey tugged his collar, almost gently, but hard enough to mean something. “We’re not selling, are we?”
“Yes. We’re selling.”
“Not me.”
“Then you’ll have to buy my half. I’m finished with it.”
“Shit,” Harvey laughed. “A coward from the start. The old man was right. Wasn’t he?”
“Harvey, I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Harvey laughed. He started to cough. “Ha. You just don’t tell me you loved him. You hear? Selling! I wish he could hear it, I do. I wish he could just be here and listen to you lamming like a bloody little girl. He was right all along.”
“Harvey, it’s …”
“Don’t call me Harvey or I’ll belt you. You hear?”
“All right.” Harvey’s voice had that nasal tinkle that came when he got excited, as if he were talking through his nose and not his mouth. The bad eye was going crazy.
“We’re not selling,” he said. “You hear that?”
“No. We’re selling, Harv.”
“You don’t understand a bloody thing about it, do you?”
“Enough to know we’re selling.”
“Selling?” Harvey said bitterly. “You don’t understand a thing, do you? Nothing. You haven’t learned a thing.”
“Let go of my collar.”
“Sure. Sure, there’s your collar. All yours.”
“Harvey.”
“Shut up. Just shut up.”
Harvey kicked his stone, starting walking again, fast, and they crossed over on to Apple Street. The movies were letting out and a gang of eager kids hurried past them, talking and laughing and running towards some secret adventure. It was warm and quiet. They walked to the end of the street, then turned and walked back again.
“Where will you go?” Harvey said.
“Duluth maybe. I haven’t decided. Grace likes the idea of Iowa.”
“Lord.”
“I know.”
“Look. I’m sorry.”
“I know, Harv.”
“I can be a first-class bum, can’t I? I’m sorry. Honest. It’s just the whole bloody mess … everything. Everything falling apart like it is. But I can say some rotten things and I’m sorry.”
“Forget it.”
Harvey stopped again. He put out his hand and Perry thought what the hell and shook it. Things would never be right again, anyway. Harvey smiled shallowly. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It just scares me a little. The same with Addie. I can say some miserable things.”
“It’s tough. Forget it.”
“You’re a good brother. You are, I mean it.” He kicked once again at the stone. “It was the same bloody scene with Addie. Everything’s blowing to bits and I just say some rotten miserable things. You really going to Iowa?”
“Grace seems to like the idea. We’ll see what happens.”
“Well,” Harvey grinned, “there’s always Mexico City, isn’t there? How does Mexico City sound?”
“Sure.”
“It’s always a possibility. Mexico City or Juneau or something. I could get a job and maybe send for Addie. What do you think? You and Grace could come to visit and it would be old times again.”
Perry decided to stay quiet. Too bad, he thought, but nothing could be done.
“Mexico City. We could all go for a trip into the mountains. The four of us all together again. Sun and jungle. Mountains. We could hire us some donkeys and slaves.” Harvey was talking and walking fast, kicking his stone. “I’ve actually never had my own slave. Wow, we could search for ancient civilizations that got destroyed by earthquakes. Or gold. Gold! We could search for bloody gold, how’s that? Addie could fill our teeth with it. What do you think? Miserable, isn’t it? I feel miserable. Really, I’m sorry. I am. Wish I had a beer, that’s what … That Addie. She said she didn’t want to go to Mexico City with me. Can you believe that nonsense? Said she didn’t want to go. I guess old Addie’s lost the spirit. Too bad for her. I feel miserable, Paul. Some hero.”
Perry couldn’t think of anything to say. They crossed the tennis courts and came back on to Mainstreet. Everything was quiet. He wanted to get home.
Harvey kicked his stone up the street. “You know what we should do?”
“What?”
“We should go fishing tomorrow. You and me. How would that be?”
“Maybe.”
Harvey laughed. “You are a good brother. Wish I had a brother like you. A good secure and down-to-earth brother. That’s what I need. I wonder how you get to be secure and down-to-earth … That Addie. It’s a crime, isn’t it? I suppose I shouldn’t have been such a pirate. Right? Except I’m not really a pirate. Did I ever tell you that?”
They walked past the drugstore and Perry’s office. There was no traffic. Harvey kept kicking at his stone, his bad eye shining, and they walked down the center of Mainstreet. “That’s it,” he said. “We’ll go fishing tomorrow. Fish the crummy lake dry. How does that sound? Just you and me … And maybe later we can take a trip up north in canoes or something. God, we could do us some fishing then, I’ll guarantee it! Wilderness. The old man says you can catch fish with your bloody hands there’s so many of them. And water so clean you can drink it straight from the lake. How does it sound? It’s what we need … We could … we could fish our way into Canada, eat what we catch. Lakes and portages the whole way … Not a man in sight. Nobody. Real wilderness, no more of this crap. Just go and go and go. The devil can care, how’s that? The devil can care. Addie can try to find me. We’ll just go and go. Take canoes and tents and sleeping bags … I can just see it, getting out of all this crap and … and the devil can care. How’s that? How does that sound? Doesn’t that sound fine? Doesn’t it?” Harvey walked faster, kicking his stone down the center of Mainstreet. He shivered as if closing the circuit on a great electrical current. “What do you think? We’ll go way the hell up there, into the woods, fish with our bloody hands!”
They came out at the sawmill. The streets were empty. They turned up towards the library and Harvey hurried ahead, kicking at the stone. The town smelled clean. Someone had forgotten to pull down the flag in front of the library, and it was wrapped around its pole, flapping softly. Too bad, Perry thought. He caught up with his brother and put an arm around him.
“What do you think?” Harvey said. “We’ll have us a fine time, won’t we? Then later we’ll go to Mexico City. We’ll have a terrific time. You’ll see. Yes. Yes, we’ll go into the mountains and have us a great time! Really. And who needs Addie? Who needs a squaw, anyway? We don’t need any of that. No women, just us. It’ll be a great time, you’ll see. You’ll see.”
An engine started somewhere behind them and a dog barked at the sound. Softly and endlessly, the flag flapped at its steel pole. Harvey’s stone rattled away down Mainstreet.
“How does it sound? Doesn’t it sound great? Addie … Who needs her? Always running around barefoot. Who needs that? We’ll have us a great time. The Big A, right?”
Perry shut his eyes.
“Doesn’t it sound great?” Harvey kept saying. “Doesn’t it?”