Kings Of The Earth Part 9

IT TAKES A CERTAIN KIND of individual to put on pounds in the U.S. Army. Most men lose some, or at least they look it. The ones who've been overseas anyhow, which Creed sure had. People don't think much about Korea anymore but he went through something over there, I guarantee it. I don't know what it was but he did. There's no getting clear of a situation like that otherwise. of individual to put on pounds in the U.S. Army. Most men lose some, or at least they look it. The ones who've been overseas anyhow, which Creed sure had. People don't think much about Korea anymore but he went through something over there, I guarantee it. I don't know what it was but he did. There's no getting clear of a situation like that otherwise.

Men in the service overseas get broader in the shoulders maybe but aside from that they slim down. I know I did. Some fellows will say their years in the army were their best years, but mine weren't. Not by any means. Still I was probably at my best when I came out. Physically, I mean. Margaret would tell you. Creed came back all filled out and grown up. I swear he looked like a different species from his brothers, but it didn't last. Farmwork will do that to you. It'll build you up for a while and then it'll wear you back down. Back down even farther than you started if you let it. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, and working a farm will do the same thing.

He seemed to keep his distance a little when he got back. He hiked home from the train station just the same way I did. n.o.body'd said he was coming. This was on a Sunday morning and Margaret and I were on our way home from church in that blue Nash. We drove right on past him. I eased over toward the other lane to give that soldier walking some room and we went right on. I didn't recognize him from the back and I sure didn't recognize him in the mirror. I didn't even think. It was Margaret who said Creed Creed. My goodness, she said, there goes Creed Proctor walking and we went right on past him. Home from Korea and we went right on past. We had to turn around and go back.

Compared to him, his brother Vernon looked old. He came limping across the barnyard when we pulled up and you'd have thought he was old enough to be Creed's own father, dragging his leg behind him from that accident with the spike-tooth harrow and dragging Audie behind him too like he was on a short rope. He never lost that limp until the day he died. But here he came plugging across the yard like Creed was the prodigal son and he was the father. I don't know what kind of animal they'd have killed for his welcome home dinner if they'd seen him coming. They didn't have the turkeys then. Probably a chicken. Those Rhode Island Reds they kept used to be a good eating chicken. Anyway Creed got out of the car and his brothers clapped their arms around him. I'd never seen them do that before and I never saw it again. When I was in Washington with Margaret on that bus tour we took they showed us the Iwo Jima monument and it never had the same effect on me as the sight of those three in the barnyard. I know Iwo Jima was my war, but that statue didn't do a thing for me. Picture those three Proctor boys, two sets of coveralls caked with cow manure and one set of U.S. Army khakis pressed sharp. There's your war memorial.

Ruth.

WITH D DONNA FINISHING high school and her brother home from the war, it is a time of awakening and transformation. She will be the first of them to graduate and the first to go on. She has set her sights on the two-year college in Morrisville and she gets in without half-trying. She could have gone anywhere. She could have become anything. Between the height of her ability and the depth of her need she is without practical limitation, but Morrisville is the school closest to home. She rents a plain room in the attic of a house in the town, moves her things out, and never entirely returns. high school and her brother home from the war, it is a time of awakening and transformation. She will be the first of them to graduate and the first to go on. She has set her sights on the two-year college in Morrisville and she gets in without half-trying. She could have gone anywhere. She could have become anything. Between the height of her ability and the depth of her need she is without practical limitation, but Morrisville is the school closest to home. She rents a plain room in the attic of a house in the town, moves her things out, and never entirely returns.

Creed behaves as if farming is light work after the rigors of army life. The truth is that while he was gone his brothers have learned to make do without him, so upon his return he is a spare hand. He moves from task to task as if he has been granted vast supervisory powers, suggesting needless improvements to practices unchanged since his father's time. He studies Vernon as he tosses hay bales down from the loft and critiques his form, saying that he had better start lifting with his legs if he doesn't want back trouble one of these days. He improves the ramp to the chicken coop with new cleats that it does not need. He shows Audie how to hot-wire the tractor with a jackknife, and then he laughs to see him dance away with one scorched hand jammed between his knees. He says he learned all about that from working in the motor pool. All but the dancing part anyway. Ha ha ha.

Evenings he sits by blue television light and studies the plans he got from the Tennessean. When he knows them by heart and can envision in his mind every element of their fitting together he takes his money and asks Preston for a ride to town. He says he needs some things at the hardware store.

What kinds of things, Preston wants to know. He says that the overlap of inventory between the hardware store and the lumberyard generally surprises most people, including himself. Creed ticks off the list on his fingers. A tub with a lid. Copper tubing and pipe. Fittings and elbows and reducing couplers. He gets no further than that before Preston interrupts, saying that if he wants a drink of whiskey it would be easier to purchase it by the bottle.

Creed says he doesn't know what he's talking about.

"Don't insult my intelligence," Preston says. "Not if you want my help with your science project."

Creed clears his throat and reaches into the pocket of his khaki trousers. The crease in them is long gone and they're stiff with the same excrement that stains every inch of his brothers' coveralls. They don't look any great distance from the burn barrel themselves, even though Ruth is still doing her best to keep up with the laundry. So much for the transformations of Korea. He unfolds the paper like a treasure map and hands it over.

Preston pulls off the road and studies it. He takes a pencil from the glove box and makes some notes. His mind begins working with questions that he knows Creed could never answer, but he figures that they can at least make a start and work out the details later on. Get a little help from men who know the specifics.

When they reach the lumberyard he insists on using a proper boiler instead of the jerry-rigged cut-and-welded monstrosity that the Tennessean's diagram calls for, and he advances it to Creed out of inventory. The truth is that he writes it up on the bill of sale as miscellaneous hardware, n/c miscellaneous hardware, n/c, figuring he'll take it out in bad whiskey or at least entertainment.

Preston.

IF HE'D PUT that thing together the way his army buddy told him, Creed would've beat Vernon to the graveyard by thirty years at least. I don't know which one of them was crazier, him or his army buddy, but I never met the army buddy so I'm at a disadvantage. They say whiskey makes a man do funny things but I guess the want of it can make him do funny things too. that thing together the way his army buddy told him, Creed would've beat Vernon to the graveyard by thirty years at least. I don't know which one of them was crazier, him or his army buddy, but I never met the army buddy so I'm at a disadvantage. They say whiskey makes a man do funny things but I guess the want of it can make him do funny things too.

I knew some people in the plumbing and heating business, and my father had a pretty good relationship with old Roy Dobson, who invented that milking machine. Between us we doped out what that Tennessee boy either didn't know or didn't see fit to write down. Some of these men I knew from church. They were all churchgoers, good G.o.d-fearing Christians every single one, but the idea of a whiskey still had a taste of sin about it that was one hundred percent irresistible. I guess naughty naughty is the word you'd use. We were all over that job like a troop of Boy Scouts on a girlie magazine. Creed never knew what hit him. is the word you'd use. We were all over that job like a troop of Boy Scouts on a girlie magazine. Creed never knew what hit him.

Years from now, when these buildings have all fallen down and the school bus has rusted away, one thing will be standing on this property and it's that whiskey still. Solid copper and high-grade stainless steel. Some of it built on site and some of it a.s.sembled down at Dobson's welding shop by the old master himself. NASA couldn't have done it any better. People to come will find it up on that hillside like a moon lander or something and they'll scratch their heads trying to figure out what it is. I don't guess they'll ever figure it out. It'll be our little mystery. A message from the past. This is how we did things This is how we did things.

1990.

Audie.

I DIDN'T KNOW DIDN'T KNOW what we had to eat in the house but I never stopped working so I never found out. b.u.t.ter on bread I guess but I don't know. I meant to stop but I got busy and then it was milking time again so the day was already gone. I was hungry but the cows wouldn't wait. One thing Vernon taught me is the cows come first. They know what time it is when you don't, but they're not too good at waiting. When they're ready you'd better be ready too. It took me a long time all by myself. The man came from the co-op and he had to wait or come back so he came back and I still wasn't done so he had to wait since he had no place else to go. It was the end of the day and Creed still wasn't back. what we had to eat in the house but I never stopped working so I never found out. b.u.t.ter on bread I guess but I don't know. I meant to stop but I got busy and then it was milking time again so the day was already gone. I was hungry but the cows wouldn't wait. One thing Vernon taught me is the cows come first. They know what time it is when you don't, but they're not too good at waiting. When they're ready you'd better be ready too. It took me a long time all by myself. The man came from the co-op and he had to wait or come back so he came back and I still wasn't done so he had to wait since he had no place else to go. It was the end of the day and Creed still wasn't back.

Margaret.

PRESTON HAD IT in his head that Creed and Audie might be up by their whiskey still having a drink. I suppose it made sense, with Vernon just dead. You could see how they might want one. I didn't know that they kept their whiskey up there where they made it, but I suppose they might have, hidden in the woods. Or maybe they just made it fresh and drank it right away. I wouldn't know. They weren't hillbillies staggering around with clay jugs, I can tell you that. That would have been their father. in his head that Creed and Audie might be up by their whiskey still having a drink. I suppose it made sense, with Vernon just dead. You could see how they might want one. I didn't know that they kept their whiskey up there where they made it, but I suppose they might have, hidden in the woods. Or maybe they just made it fresh and drank it right away. I wouldn't know. They weren't hillbillies staggering around with clay jugs, I can tell you that. That would have been their father.

So Preston went up with his flashlight. I had just settled down to watch television when the phone rang. The phone hangs on the wall in the kitchen, so I stood there listening and looking out the window at the same time. It was a state trooper calling. I didn't get his name, it went by so fast. He said Creed was still at the barracks in Ca.s.sius-he didn't say they were questioning him, but I knew that's what he meant-and they were wondering if we'd seen Audie. He must have been young, because he p.r.o.nounced it like the car instead of like Audie Murphy.

Who remembers Audie Murphy these days? Old folks, that's who.

I said no, we'd been out all day-I still can't remember where, isn't that just the strangest thing?-and when we'd come back we hadn't seen any lights on but Preston was heading over right now to check. The trooper asked if I would be so kind as to call back when we knew something and I said yes I would, but that's not the way it turned out.

No sooner had I hung up than I saw Preston's flashlight coming back down the hill. The beam of it was bouncing up and down with that abrupt walk he has. n.o.body else could have been carrying it, not to my mind. We've been married for fifty-one years. There's nothing he could do that I wouldn't recognize, and vice versa. He didn't come straight down the hill toward home but across toward the farmhouse. Across the ridgeline and down through the pasture. Every now and then he'd walk through a little patch of moonlight and I could see that he was all by himself, even though I'd guessed that already. If he'd been with Audie he'd have been going more slowly, both because he wouldn't be hurrying to track him down anymore and because Audie doesn't go anywhere very fast. You know these things after fifty-one years, even without the moonlight to help.

Ruth.

HE COMES PAST the graveyard where she lies alongside Lester and he walks across the ridge to follow the slope of the pasture down. Aware of the dew settling in the gra.s.s and the dampness on his pant legs. Threading among the cows, entirely careless of where he steps but glad that he changed into his work boots out of the dress shoes he's had on all day. Thinking how quickly things can go to ruin from one innocent mistake. the graveyard where she lies alongside Lester and he walks across the ridge to follow the slope of the pasture down. Aware of the dew settling in the gra.s.s and the dampness on his pant legs. Threading among the cows, entirely careless of where he steps but glad that he changed into his work boots out of the dress shoes he's had on all day. Thinking how quickly things can go to ruin from one innocent mistake.

He smells the night everywhere and the cows on either side of him and the silage from down in the barn as its scent rises on a light southerly breeze. He hears the creaking of iron spindles and wooden dowels against iron fittings and wooden frames in the yard around front. He pictures Audie on the porch listening or down among them listening. The work Audie loves best, come to life. The clouds clear and he switches off the flashlight and keeps going. The creaking grows louder the nearer he gets. A half a hundred voices raised in the night and crying out. The earth turns and the sun shines somewhere and the temperatures shift and the wind comes up and these things-these creatures, for what else are they but created-these creatures cry out in their half a hundred voices. He pounds his damp boots on the dirt of the yard and sc.r.a.pes a clod from one heel and enters the barn and finds the light switch. Just a couple of chickens and a duck and some cats. The cats look startled by the sudden illumination but the others are as insensible as bugs. He switches off the light and goes around front.

He sees the crown of Audie's white head as he rounds the corner. He is on the porch, upright in the overstuffed chair that Vernon always claimed for his own. He sits like a man entranced, not plucking tatters from the chair and rolling them into pellets the way his brother did but absolutely still and moveless in the dark. Faint blooms of light creep over his face as cars pa.s.s on the main road below, but he is blind to them. Preston jingles the change in his pocket by way of announcing himself and Audie twitches. Preston speaks his name out loud and Audie recoils. Preston steps onto the porch and Audie drops from whatever trance he had lulled himself into and turns his head in his direction and begins to shake with such unearthly intensity that the little wooden feet of the overstuffed chair chatter on the board floor as if the chair means to bear itself and its poor palsied burden off to some more hospitable place.

"Where'd your brother get to."

Audie makes no answer.

"That's all right," he says. "You take it easy and I'll go find him myself." Beginning to reach for the screen door, unsure of what to expect, thinking that Creed could not still be with the trooper after all this time. Wondering where he is.

Audie struggles to indicate that his brother is not in the house.

"I didn't think so," Preston says. "I guess that trooper didn't bring him back yet, did he."

Audie says no. The word as it emerges draws itself out into a howl less suited to a man than to a wolf. Forlorn and yearning and isolate. It quavers at the end when his breath fails and it rattles like some last exhalation and then he gasps himself back to life. Reduced to tears, collapsing on the big overstuffed chair into a position perhaps even less than fetal. In the yard the whirligigs sc.r.a.pe against themselves.

Preston comes to his side and kneels down. His knees hurt. He wants to go see about Creed but he can't. He places a hand on Audie's shivering side and at the touch of it Audie withdraws as if he's been branded.

That rooster. Vernon give it to me. We was boys.

Creed.

FOR ALL I I WORRIED WORRIED about him my brother'd already ate his supper. Margaret fed him a pork chop I think and some sauerkraut and some mashed potatoes. I brung the microwave pizza Del Graham bought at the gas station but he didn't want any part of it. He said he was too full already thanks to Margaret. He set there at her kitchen table patting his belly and saying it. He said why didn't Margaret keep the microwave pizza. She had it coming. about him my brother'd already ate his supper. Margaret fed him a pork chop I think and some sauerkraut and some mashed potatoes. I brung the microwave pizza Del Graham bought at the gas station but he didn't want any part of it. He said he was too full already thanks to Margaret. He set there at her kitchen table patting his belly and saying it. He said why didn't Margaret keep the microwave pizza. She had it coming.

Preston said he wanted to see Del Graham so he went out but I don't think he got to him in time. Del Graham was pretty satisfied with his paperwork I guess and he pulled out quick. He had a lot on his mind. Not just Vernon I don't think. When I was getting out of the car with the microwave pizza he asked me about a marijuana cigarette they found and I didn't let on Tom had any connection to it. I told him Vernon used that stuff for the cancer and it just grew. It just grew around. Things grow on a farm whether a city boy knows it or not and that marijuana just grew like the rest. Del Graham laughed and he said he thought I was right about that. He was a city boy so what did he know. I didn't say a word about Tom so he never found out.

1947.

Preston.

EVERYBODY IN THE FAMILY just doted on that little girl right from the start. She was the last to come and she was the first one that wasn't a boy. Her mother was always a mystery to me, but judging by the way she favored Donna I always thought maybe when she married Lester she married down. I don't know why I say that because I don't know a single fact about her life before. It was just a feeling I had. Like she hoped her daughter could be what she was supposed to be herself. You expect that with boys usually but not with girls. I don't know why that would be. Maybe things are changing. Anyhow there's no question those boys rose up above their no-account father and Donna surpa.s.sed her mother with nursing school and all that, so I guess everybody got their wish. just doted on that little girl right from the start. She was the last to come and she was the first one that wasn't a boy. Her mother was always a mystery to me, but judging by the way she favored Donna I always thought maybe when she married Lester she married down. I don't know why I say that because I don't know a single fact about her life before. It was just a feeling I had. Like she hoped her daughter could be what she was supposed to be herself. You expect that with boys usually but not with girls. I don't know why that would be. Maybe things are changing. Anyhow there's no question those boys rose up above their no-account father and Donna surpa.s.sed her mother with nursing school and all that, so I guess everybody got their wish.

Donna and Audie had similarities even though you might not think it. Each one of them was the younger of a pair: Vernon and Audie, Creed and Donna. They were what, ten years apart? That's a big gap. Until Creed came along Audie'd been the youngest for a good long while and I think he got used to it. It suited him. Folks either expect the world from the youngest child or else they baby him along. Sometimes a little of both. So they had that in common. Anyhow Donna was just a little thing in elementary school around the time I'm talking about. Her mother dressed her like a doll, at least as far as she was able. Being the one girl, she didn't get hand-me-downs, or at least not directly. The ones she got probably came from the Salvation Army or the church. She certainly didn't get them the way Creed did, him being third in line. I guess if she'd been a tomboy she'd have fit right in and been able to carry on the family tradition, but she wasn't a tomboy so she didn't have to. I don't guess her mother would have let her be one. So she wore a dress to school every day. Not that I guess she smelled any better than the rest of them.

One day Vernon came along and asked me if I'd run him down to see that fellow Driscoll over by the creek. That's Ca.s.sius Creek, not Fish Creek. Fish Creek runs into the lake. Ca.s.sius Creek runs I don't know where, it just runs. Driscoll has a sawmill down by the creek. Back when he was younger he did a little bit of every kind of woodworking there might be any call for. Not just sawmill work. He'd take down a tree if you needed one taken down or he'd haul it away if it came down all by itself. Then he'd cut it up and dry it out in a couple of barns he had and sell it back to you or somebody else. He had a couple of big planers and some joinery equipment and he did some carpentry and even a little bit of cabinetmaking. In those days Driscoll used to be a kind of a one-man band when it came to wood.

He'd come the summer before and taken down a cherry tree from up along the top of the pasture that'd been hit by lightning, and now he'd called back and said he had some wood from it for Audie. For his whirligigs. I don't know how they had the details of that transaction worked out. The cherry tree was worth something to him and hauling it away was worth something to the boys and the lumber he got out of it was definitely worth something to pretty much anybody. Those little bitty pieces Audie put into his whirligigs weren't worth anything. They were just sc.r.a.p.

When Vernon came near he had Audie with him but he didn't mention anything about Audie going. Just him. I said why didn't Driscoll just drop off that little bit of wood when he was out driving around, but he gave me a look and leaned in toward me so Audie couldn't hear and said there was more to it than that. I asked him what and he laughed and said it was a secret, and I said not from me it isn't. Not if I was doing the driving. He said a secret was a secret and then he just shut up, grinning. I said all right I'd take him if he was going to be that way.

I tell you what, it turned out to be a fool's errand.

The first thing was, Driscoll didn't have enough sc.r.a.p lumber to fill up a milk crate. It wasn't worth the gas to drive over, and this was when gas was twenty-five cents. The second thing was, it turned out we didn't go for the lumber anyhow. That was a ruse on Vernon's part. The real reason was Driscoll had an old wood lathe he was getting rid of, and Vernon wanted it for Audie.

I said to Vernon now how in the world am I supposed to get that home in my car. He said he thought we'd have better luck with the car than with the tractor, and I had to admit he had a point. Driscoll threw a switch and shut down the saw he was running and came hustling over under a full head of steam and said what was wrong with him. Couldn't he wait a week, for Christ's sake. He said he'd told him on the telephone that he'd bring that lathe out to the farm next week. No charge. Just to get rid of it. Provided he could wait that long.

Well, didn't Vernon look sheepish. Disappointed and sheepish both. I told him it was all right. His brother had waited this long and he could wait another week. I said remember he didn't even know he was waiting for anything in the first place. Vernon asked was I sure we couldn't take it to pieces and get it in the car some way and I said I wasn't about to take it to pieces and Driscoll said he didn't have any time to fool with it now. He'd bring it out in a week.

Donna.

WHEN IT ARRIVED on Driscoll's truck, it looked bigger. Driscoll had a crane mounted on the back for wrangling tree trunks and sawn wood and with the help of it he'd gotten the lathe on board all by himself. He backed the truck all the way up from the main road and got out and stood all alone in the dirt swatting at flies with a straw hat, looking like he'd made a terrible mistake. Like unless someone appeared directly to give him a hand he might just tip the whole thing into the barnyard like the trash it was and leave it there to rust. The Proctor boys were slow in materializing, but one by one they detected his presence and emerged from their various secret occupations. Young Creed lowering himself from the hayloft. Vernon stepping from behind the house, b.u.t.toning up the fly of his coveralls and squirting a jet of tobacco juice at the dog. Audie piloting the tractor down from a high cornfield, mounted on it like some pale rider. They converged, already a gathering of spirits, wordless. on Driscoll's truck, it looked bigger. Driscoll had a crane mounted on the back for wrangling tree trunks and sawn wood and with the help of it he'd gotten the lathe on board all by himself. He backed the truck all the way up from the main road and got out and stood all alone in the dirt swatting at flies with a straw hat, looking like he'd made a terrible mistake. Like unless someone appeared directly to give him a hand he might just tip the whole thing into the barnyard like the trash it was and leave it there to rust. The Proctor boys were slow in materializing, but one by one they detected his presence and emerged from their various secret occupations. Young Creed lowering himself from the hayloft. Vernon stepping from behind the house, b.u.t.toning up the fly of his coveralls and squirting a jet of tobacco juice at the dog. Audie piloting the tractor down from a high cornfield, mounted on it like some pale rider. They converged, already a gathering of spirits, wordless.

"I ain't got all day," said Driscoll.

Ruth and Donna poked their heads around the corner of the porch and came down into the dooryard as yet only lightly populated by Audie's makings. A live rooster pecking, and another rooster of wind-driven wood making as if to peck. A man sawing timber. Something with wings.

Vernon got Audie's attention and climbed up on the truck bed and put his arm around the lathe as proudly as if he had fathered it himself. He said it would belong to Audie from now on but Audie had trouble getting the drift. Vernon looked disappointed but he kept on. He paced off the dimensions of the lathe and went into the barn and paced them off again and came back out and said he'd miscalculated. It wouldn't fit where he'd thought. Driscoll's shoulders fell and he uttered a curse, not the day's last. He said he reckoned he could take it to the dump then just as easily as not. Vernon's shoulders fell but he uttered no curse to match Driscoll's, his mother and his innocent little sister being present after all.

Creed suggested the hayloft. Driscoll tilted his head back to study the old barn and concluded that he didn't believe it would support a good snowfall much less woodworking equipment. Creed said he might be surprised. Driscoll shook his head and swatted flies and whistled through his teeth. Creed said if Driscoll hadn't lifted a hay bale lately he would be surprised for certain, for they were far heavier than a man might think and the loft held mountains of them just fine. Driscoll put on his hat and said all right, maybe it wasn't such a stupid idea after all, and he went in to size up the timbers and came out not entirely satisfied but not about to hold back progress either. It was their barn.

Vernon.

DRISCOLL THOUGHT IT WOULDN'T WORK but he was wrong. We used the block and tackle. We hoisted it right up and in through the door just as easy as pie. I sent Audie up to clear a place for it first while Driscoll backed the truck around and we untied the straps he had on it to hold it down. He had it tied down good so it didn't fall off. I went up and showed Audie how big a s.p.a.ce to clear and he cleared it. We hung the block and tackle from the beam and lifted it up. When we got it in I said Driscoll ought to show us how to work it and he said plug it in first he didn't have all day. We didn't have juice up there it turned out but that was all right because it didn't take a regular plug anyhow. Driscoll said we had to have a two-twenty line if we wanted to run it or else we could just keep it for a decoration. He laughed about that. How we'd have it for a decoration in the hayloft. He climbed down laughing and he was laughing when he drove off. Preston put in the juice for it later. He was always handy. He was always a good friend. Then he showed me how to run it and I showed Audie. but he was wrong. We used the block and tackle. We hoisted it right up and in through the door just as easy as pie. I sent Audie up to clear a place for it first while Driscoll backed the truck around and we untied the straps he had on it to hold it down. He had it tied down good so it didn't fall off. I went up and showed Audie how big a s.p.a.ce to clear and he cleared it. We hung the block and tackle from the beam and lifted it up. When we got it in I said Driscoll ought to show us how to work it and he said plug it in first he didn't have all day. We didn't have juice up there it turned out but that was all right because it didn't take a regular plug anyhow. Driscoll said we had to have a two-twenty line if we wanted to run it or else we could just keep it for a decoration. He laughed about that. How we'd have it for a decoration in the hayloft. He climbed down laughing and he was laughing when he drove off. Preston put in the juice for it later. He was always handy. He was always a good friend. Then he showed me how to run it and I showed Audie.

1986.

Tom.

Sh.e.l.lY MADE IT out of high school and her parents threw her a graduation party, but since they didn't know about Tom he never got invited. Not that they would have had him anyhow. He wouldn't exactly have fit in with the family and friends who were spread out under the big elm trees in the backyard, although it turned out there was an unsanctioned secondary party under way in the paneled bas.e.m.e.nt rec room that would have been just his kind of thing. Nick was in charge of it. It had been his idea, and he'd brought along the refreshments in the saddlebag of his Indian: two pints of Southern Comfort and a Baggie of Panama Red and a sack of Fritos. He'd gotten the dope from an old hippie over in Whitesboro and it had cost him a fortune. But this was a special day, after all. No use settling for his usual, sc.r.a.ps and sc.r.a.pings of the stuff he distributed for Henri. So while the burgers sizzled on the grill outdoors, Nick and Sh.e.l.ly and a couple of cousins from down near Ithaca took turns standing by the open bas.e.m.e.nt window, inhaling fiercely and blowing jets of smoke out into the side yard. Between that and shots of Southern Comfort, the graduation party was going along just fine. out of high school and her parents threw her a graduation party, but since they didn't know about Tom he never got invited. Not that they would have had him anyhow. He wouldn't exactly have fit in with the family and friends who were spread out under the big elm trees in the backyard, although it turned out there was an unsanctioned secondary party under way in the paneled bas.e.m.e.nt rec room that would have been just his kind of thing. Nick was in charge of it. It had been his idea, and he'd brought along the refreshments in the saddlebag of his Indian: two pints of Southern Comfort and a Baggie of Panama Red and a sack of Fritos. He'd gotten the dope from an old hippie over in Whitesboro and it had cost him a fortune. But this was a special day, after all. No use settling for his usual, sc.r.a.ps and sc.r.a.pings of the stuff he distributed for Henri. So while the burgers sizzled on the grill outdoors, Nick and Sh.e.l.ly and a couple of cousins from down near Ithaca took turns standing by the open bas.e.m.e.nt window, inhaling fiercely and blowing jets of smoke out into the side yard. Between that and shots of Southern Comfort, the graduation party was going along just fine.

Tom was home, dreading Monday and thinking about his future. The winter past had been a period of drudgery and dread and unreasonable dreams-doing some interior maintenance work for Fazio in a couple of apartment buildings he managed for some other Italian guy, watching the calendar creep toward springtime and a resumption of the construction work in Utica, contemplating a future when he could throw it all over for steadier and more profitable work in the recreational-pharmaceuticals line-but now that the seasons had turned and he'd settled back into his summer routine he was wondering if anything would ever change. The weather had been damp so far but sunny enough and the gra.s.s he'd planted over at his uncles' place was coming up strong but not strong enough to stake a person's future on. He'd planted a little more this year but it didn't seem like he'd ever grow enough to make a difference unless he went full-time into farming like the prior generation had. And he sure as s.h.i.t had no interest in that.

Audie.

UP I I CLIMBED CLIMBED and the higher I went the darker it got. I came to the trapdoor and pushed it open and it hit something. The light turned gray and swimming. With the trapdoor up I saw better. I saw the light and the dust swimming in the light. I stuck my head out and sneezed from the dust and I banged my head on the trapdoor. It wouldn't lie down flat because something was in the way of it. I wanted it to lie down flat. How I go to the hayloft is I climb up and open the trapdoor and I keep going the rest of the way on the ladder that goes on up against the wall and I come out to the side and close the trapdoor all the way shut again so I don't fall down it and break my neck like Vernon says. Then I get what I came up for. I always do it the same because I'll need to if my eyes keep up the way they're going. I wouldn't fall in if I didn't shut it because I know right where it is and I can see the dark of it and the shape of it but I like knowing. I'm used to it. I might not even notice when my eyes get worse if I keep doing everything the same way. The lathe is up here still but I don't use it too much. I was up to fetch wood. The trapdoor was b.u.mping on something that belonged to Tom. He keeps things up there and sometimes he leaves a mess. This was a couple of plastic buckets and a bag of fertilizer tipped over. I didn't clean it up but I moved it. and the higher I went the darker it got. I came to the trapdoor and pushed it open and it hit something. The light turned gray and swimming. With the trapdoor up I saw better. I saw the light and the dust swimming in the light. I stuck my head out and sneezed from the dust and I banged my head on the trapdoor. It wouldn't lie down flat because something was in the way of it. I wanted it to lie down flat. How I go to the hayloft is I climb up and open the trapdoor and I keep going the rest of the way on the ladder that goes on up against the wall and I come out to the side and close the trapdoor all the way shut again so I don't fall down it and break my neck like Vernon says. Then I get what I came up for. I always do it the same because I'll need to if my eyes keep up the way they're going. I wouldn't fall in if I didn't shut it because I know right where it is and I can see the dark of it and the shape of it but I like knowing. I'm used to it. I might not even notice when my eyes get worse if I keep doing everything the same way. The lathe is up here still but I don't use it too much. I was up to fetch wood. The trapdoor was b.u.mping on something that belonged to Tom. He keeps things up there and sometimes he leaves a mess. This was a couple of plastic buckets and a bag of fertilizer tipped over. I didn't clean it up but I moved it.

Donna.

SHE MADE AN APPOINTMENT for Vernon with a doctor she knew. He said that he would see her brother as a professional courtesy, but she would be on her own for whatever tests he might need. Medicaid would cover some of it and she knew a social worker who could arrange for whatever help might be available from the county. There was always a way. If her mother taught her anything growing up, it was that there is always a way. How else could she have raised four children on nothing? for Vernon with a doctor she knew. He said that he would see her brother as a professional courtesy, but she would be on her own for whatever tests he might need. Medicaid would cover some of it and she knew a social worker who could arrange for whatever help might be available from the county. There was always a way. If her mother taught her anything growing up, it was that there is always a way. How else could she have raised four children on nothing?

The doctor's name was Franklin. He was a general pract.i.tioner of the old school, drawing near to retirement. A widower. He could recall the days when doctors spent half of their hours traveling from sickbed to sickbed with nothing to rely on but the contents of their black bags. He believed still that a man with a sharp eye and a good ear could accomplish certain commonplace miracles with a stethoscope and a tongue depressor, a scalpel and set of good forceps, a curved needle and sufficient thread. He kept up with the latest information but he was cautious about putting too much stock in it. His bag still sat on the top shelf in the front hall closet, pebbled and snapdragon-mouthed, full of old secrets.

His office was in a square, hip-roofed, three-story house opposite the former Ca.s.sius hospital, which was now a nursing home populated mainly by the indigent. Both properties were once the best in town, but with the pa.s.sage of the years they had slipped downhill together. Thus had Franklin's patients aged with him and returned in this new guise. He joked that one day he would walk across the street to make his rounds and they would keep him. He believed that it would not be such a terrible fate, for at least he would be among friends.

The day was young and the office was empty. Donna delivered her brother to the nurse guarding Franklin's door from behind a ma.s.sive desk of black walnut. Mrs. Waverly was her name and she had been with Franklin since the days when her position required that she wear a curved white cap starched as stiff as whalebone. She ushered Vernon into an examining room and weighed him on a scale minus his shoes. She took his temperature and his blood pressure. Vernon remarked that so far he hadn't received any treatment that his sister could not have given him at home if they'd had a scale and whatnot, and she laughed politely and told him to be patient. She made some final notes and pulled a paper gown from a cabinet and asked him to wait until she shut the door and then remove his coveralls and put on the gown. She said it tied in the back.

The stink of Vernon Proctor in the closed room, undamped by the thin barrier of his clothing, was the smell of some ailing beast gone to ground in a long-used den. Franklin knew to expect such a smell from the residue of it that lingered in the hallway and from a quick pantomime on Mrs. Waverly's part, but he was struck by the sour animal pungency of it all the same. Some things are worse than we can imagine in advance. A lump or a cough can only hint at the multifarious complexity of the cancer etched upon an X-ray, and that image in turn can only suggest that ramifying reality of the disease at work in a living matrix of ruined tissue. Some things are worse than we can imagine and fifty-odd years in practice had taught him this again and again. So although nothing had quite prepared him for the precise stink of Vernon Proctor naked in a closed room, he persevered.

He sat on a stool with Vernon before him on the examining table. He asked how long it had been since Vernon last saw a doctor and Vernon recalled the incident with the spike-tooth harrow which had not required a doctor visit and the subsequent blood poisoning which had.

"So you're an old-timer like me," said Franklin, clapping a hand on the examining table alongside Vernon's draped leg. "n.o.body calls it blood poisoning blood poisoning anymore." anymore."

"Is that so."

"These days they call it fifty different things, depending. All fifty of which they treat like blood poisoning."

Vernon laughed and Franklin observed his teeth, warily, his mind clicking.

Franklin smiled and nodded and moved smoothly to the business at hand. "Your sister tells me you haven't been feeling your best."

"That's right."

"She's a fine person, your sister."

"I guess it runs in the family," said Vernon. He was having a pleasant enough time of it now, in spite of sitting naked on a table with nothing between him and the world but a sheet of pale blue paper. To tell the truth he had feared doctors all along or at least mistrusted them, given his mother's fate. But this wasn't so bad.

"Runs in the family," said Franklin. "I guess maybe it does." Then he c.o.c.ked his head and something shifted behind his eyes that changed everything. "Donna tells me you have some specific complaints, but I'd really like to hear about them from you."

Vernon swallowed. "I guess the main one's cancer," he said.

"Cancer," said Franklin. He paused, waited, thought. "I knew your mother," he said.