B000FCJYE6 EBOK (3 page)

You say of such men, without further comment: He drank.

Such men gathered at Frank’s around three in the afternoon to play pool with cracked cues and watch the game. They wore plaid flannel shirts, and caps with logos of feed stores perched on top of their heads. Their wives worked. It may have been strange for a woman to work in the suburbs back then, but not in a town that was in a depression and had been as long as anybody could remember.

In Motley, everything was
a long time ago.
That’s what people said: They told a story, then let it trail off into the twilight and wet heat of August, fanning themselves with paper cocktail napkins. But that was all a long time ago, they said, and watched the fireflies beating their bodies against the damp blue dark. They never finished the story. The story disappeared, wavering up in front of them like heat, just slightly contorting their faces as they wiped the sides of their hands against their foreheads and shook off the sweat. Their mouths clamped up like small trapdoors.

It was a long time ago. The trains and the red iron ore. The town was gone before my time. We lived in its skeleton like a pack of hermit crabs. A solitary train went past every night. Its whistle blew once while we lay there in our separate beds, waiting for the sound. When I was older, we lit bonfires and drank down by the tracks, digging small holes with sharp stones and passing the bottle around. The iron mines were stripped, rusted husks of equipment left to rot in the ditches’ faint red dirt.

Everything the town knew was a long time ago. All that was left were the stories. The seasons. The dull, familiar rage of men without work for their heavy hands.

The men did not complain because to complain implied a hope that things could change.

The women complained about the men, and dragged them to bed when they passed out on the couch, and took their shoes off. Hesitating, kissing their cheeks. People love in strange ways.

My father tapped me lightly on the head with his newspaper, getting up from his chair. “Want to go fishing?”

We sat on the side of the bridge with our fishing hats on. I caught a perch, and we put it in the cooler with the ham sandwiches and beer. Cattails crowded the banks of the river, humming with bugs. The air had that late-summer feeling of everyone having left.

“Is Esau going to be all right?” I asked.

My father sat quietly, looking out at the water.

“Not for a while,” he said.

I considered this. “Is he going to die?”

“We’re all going to die someday.”

“Soon, I mean.”

“No.”

I looked at my father.

In the memory of my imagination, he looks tired, the brim of his hat and his crooked nose and bushy eyebrows jutting out in relief against the sharp blue of the water. His back was hunched.

He took a swig of beer and turned his smile on me. “No one’s going to die, Katie.”

I never forgave him for the lie. I ought to forgive him, I suppose. You should let the dead lie.

The man did what he could.

There was a little thump on my window on the first day of school. I went over and moved the curtain. Davey was standing in the flower bed.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“It’s not time to go yet,” I said, pulling the screen out and reaching down. He grabbed my hand and I hoisted him in. He straightened his sweater and smoothed his hair.

“What’s your mom making for breakfast?” he asked.

“Biscuits. Nice haircut.”

“Thanks.”

“You still got the tag on your shirt.”

He felt the back of his neck. “Well, pull it off already,” he said. I did.

Davey and I had been best friends for my whole life. His birthday was in September and mine was in June, so he was almost a whole year older than me, and bigger. He could rest his chin on the top of my head. But we were both starting first grade that day. We didn’t really want to go to school, but we couldn’t figure a way out of it so we were going.

“Morning, Davey,” my father said. He was reading the paper in his chair.

“Morning, Mr. Schiller.” Davey liked my dad.

“You’re looking sharp this morning.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“That’s a good-looking pair of pants.”

Davey hiked them up by the belt loops. “They’re new,” he said.

My mother came into the room, carrying a plate of biscuits. “Didn’t like what your mother was making for breakfast, hmm?” she asked Davey as he sat down at the table.

“Oatmeal,” he said.

“I see. Did you throw your lunch away?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He looked apologetic.

“Uh-huh.” She bent over him, pouring his juice, and ruffled his hair on her way back to the kitchen. He smoothed it down with both hands. He didn’t like to be messy.

“Hi, squirt,” Esau said, sitting down.

“Davey, do you want ham or bologna?” my mother called.

“Ham,” he called back, eating his biscuits. He liked it at our house.

Esau walked us as far as the middle school, then we continued along Main Street alone. “You scared?” Davey asked me. We were kicking a pinecone back and forth ahead of us. “Nah,” I said.

“Mrs. Johnson’s nice, my mom said.”

“Yeah. Erick Janiskowski’s in our class.” I made a face.

He shrugged. The pinecone went into the street and he retrieved it. “I won’t let him bug you. My mom’s sad,” he said.

“How come?”

“’Cause. My dad. I dunno. Hey, look,” he said, pointing up. There was a nest in the eaves of a house. “They had a fight,” he said, putting his hands in his pockets.

“Maybe it was just a discussion,” I offered.

He shook his head. “Even my mom called it a fight. I asked her.”

“Did she say it was a big fight? Or just a little fight?”

“She said it was little, but it was big. Now they’re not talking.”

“How long have they not been talking?”

He shrugged. “Couple days. My dad’s in the basement all the time. I think he’s making something.”

Their house was spooky. It was always quiet, except when baby Sarah cried. It was like nobody lived there, or only ghosts. Every now and then Davey’s dad would come up from the basement and look at us as if he didn’t know how we got there. We’d look at him. “Hi, Dad,” Davey would say. And his dad would nod at us and go back down the narrow, creaky stairs.

“I saw my mom cry,” he said sullenly.

I stopped walking. “Your mom cried?”

“Sort of. She didn’t make any noise or nothing. She was just sitting with the baby in her rocking chair and sort of crying. Come on, we’re gonna be late.”

We started walking again. I couldn’t picture his mom crying. She always knew what to do. She was pretty.

We got to the school. “Ready?” Davey asked. He grabbed my hand and shoved through the door.

After school let out, Davey came over. We were playing explorers in the yard when my mom came out on the back porch. “Davey, honey, do you want to stay for supper? I already called your mother. She said it was okay.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

She laughed and went back in the house. Then she stuck her head back out. “You guys want to walk down and get your dad? He’s at Frank’s.”

We decided we did and headed off down the road. We liked Frank’s. Everybody was nice to us there. We went there sometimes to get my dad, and Frank gave us a Coke. Sometimes fries, if we were lucky.

“Well, look what the cat drug in,” Frank said when we came in the door. We blinked in the hazy dark, getting our bearings. The pool tables were busy, and men stood leaning on their sticks, squinting at the green felt. They tapped their hats at us and slugged their beer.

My dad was sitting at the bar with a couple of other guys. He turned his head and grinned. He said, “Well, Frank, you know what that is.”

“What’s that?” Frank popped the tops off our Cokes and put straws in them.

“That there is a couple of first-graders.”

“Naw,” Frank said, slapping the counter.

“Yes, sir, it certainly is.”

“Well, tarnation.”

Davey gave me a push up onto a stool and sat down next to me. “Hi, Frank,” he said.

“How’s by you, little man?”

“Oh, not bad, I guess.” He put his face close to a giant jar of pickled pigs’ feet and studied it.

My dad kissed my head and slapped Davey on the back. “Well, I tell you. This is an occasion. This calls for a treat. What’ll you have?”

“We want fries,” I said. “Please.”

“Fries it is,” Frank said. He called back to the kitchen, then leaned his hands on the bar. “So tell us. How’s it, being first-graders?”

Davey and I looked at each other. “S’all right,” Davey said.

They laughed. “So you think you’ll go back, then?” Frank asked.

“We got crayons,” I said, pulling them out of my bag. “Mrs. Johnson brought crayons for everybody.”

“Damnation!” my father said. “Will you have a look at that, Frank.” He whistled through his teeth.

“Kate did better than anybody on letters,” Davey bragged. “She won the big box of crayons.”

I hit him in the arm and drank my Coke, elated. My dad picked me up and put me on his lap. Davey scooted one stool closer.

“Well, you know why?” my dad said. “’Cause you two are about as smart as they come. You two and your brother, I tell ya. Make the rest of us look like we ain’t got the brains God gave a goose, is what it is,” he said, winking at Frank and raising his empty glass.

We wiggled happily and ate our greasy fries. Frank poured my dad another drink. “Last one,” he said.

“Aw, hell,” my dad said, joking. “Why you want to make a fella beg?”

Frank turned his back and started polishing the long row of sparkly bottles. My dad picked up his drink. “You want the olive?” he asked me, and I stuck my fingers in and ate it. “How’s your dad, then?” he asked Davey. “Ain’t seen him around in how long.”

Davey ate the ends off his fry and handed the rest to me. He only liked the crispy parts. He shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Whaddaya mean, you don’t know? You saw him just this morning.”

Davey slid off the stool and walked to the bathroom. I twisted around on my dad’s lap. “He doesn’t want to talk about it,” I said.

“Hup. Why’s that?” My dad licked his thumb and rubbed something off my cheek.

“’Cause they got in a fight. His mom and dad.”

“That so?”

I nodded. “His dad’s mean.”

“Hey, now, Katie,” he said, frowning. “Don’t be talking about folks.”

“Well, he
is,”
I said, and moved to my own stool again.

“Naw, he ain’t mean.” My dad stared into his glass and turned it in circles. “Man’s got all kinds of reasons. You don’t know.”

“I do know.” I sulked.

My dad shook his head and smiled at Frank, who was popping open two more Cokes. “Thanks,” he said. “Ain’t that so, Frank?”

Frank leaned his hip against the bar and smiled at me. “Carrottop, tell us what’s so.” He glanced at my dad, sighed, reached back on the bar, and poured him another drink. “Drink it slow, ’cause that’s all you’re getting,” he said, and my dad raised his glass at him. I think Frank was my dad’s best friend. I turned to look at the bathroom door, wondering what the heck was taking Davey so long anyway.

“Kate here and I were just discussing that it’s best not to talk about folks.”

Frank nodded wisely. “That’s so.”

“A’cause you can’t say, really, what’s what. You just don’t know. They got all kinds of reasons, and you just don’t know.”

My dad was getting boring, so I slid off the stool and banged on the bathroom door. “Davey!” I yelled.

“What?” he yelled back, so I knew he was okay.

“You fall in?” That was one of my favorite jokes. I cracked up.

“No, dangit!” he yelled. He sounded mad. I stopped laughing.

“Well, come out already, then.” I picked at a crack in the wood door, and then it swung open and Davey walked right past me. I scrambled after him. He got on the stool next to my dad.

“My dad’s a
big jerk,
” he said loudly. “That’s how he is.” He grabbed his Coke, took a deep breath, and blew bubbles furiously through the straw.

We all stared at him. My dad picked him up and put him on his lap. Davey leaned back into his chest, holding his Coke with both hands. His nose was running and he wiped it with his sleeve. He glanced at me and then away. His eyes got super blue when he cried. They were cornflower. I had a cornflower crayon. I didn’t like it when Davey cried. I shredded a little napkin.

“Say, now,” my dad said, smoothing Davey’s hair for him. “Had a long day, I think.”

Frank stood there with his arms crossed, looking sadly at Davey. “Well, little man,” he said. “You know what this calls for?”

Davey shook his head. There was so much snot on his face I finally wiped it off with my own sleeve.

“Cheeseburgers,” Frank said seriously. “That’s what. Wouldn’t you say?” he asked my dad.

“Damn straight,” my dad said. He set his chin on Davey’s head and rocked him a little. “Damn straight.”

I hopped down and went to call my mom to say we’d be late.

In September, Esau went Away. I know it was September because on the first day of school, he was there, and then he was not. He came home, but Away hung over the house like the threat of war: We waited. The waiting gave us something to do. There was some quiet agreement among us that we would not proceed without Esau, and this agreement killed my father.

I am getting ahead of myself.

Every time Esau went Away, it was only for a Little While, until he was Feeling Better.

“How long is a little while?”

“A few weeks.”

“And then he can walk us to school.”

“Of course he can.”

“Does he go to school at Away?”

“No. He’s not feeling well enough.”

“How is he feeling?”

My mother was standing at the window with her hands on her hips. My father and I were playing gin rummy.

“He’s delusional.”

“Arnold,” said my mother, her voice heavy with sarcasm. “That’s very helpful.”