In An Arid Land (20 page)

Millhouse feels a terrific lurch in his chest. He turns on Grady. He says, "Stop the truck."

Grady looks incredulous under his heavy gray eyebrows.

"I said, stop the truck."

Millhouse gets out and strides across the pasture toward his own pickup. Grady yells, "See you later, eh Charlie? Eh?" Then louder: "Eh?" Millhouse doesn't look back.

At home he lays down on the bed to think. He remembers the HELP WANTED sign at the Western Auto in Huntsville, wonders what sort of job it would be. But his mind turns quickly. He imagines the pistol in the bottom drawer of the dresser. It's wrapped in a towel under his sweaters. There's a box of bullets in the drawer too. Now he sees himself in the shed, sitting on a stack of lumber, holding the barrel of the pistol to his temple as he has seen them do in the movies. Or, no, the mouth; he'd do it through the mouth. His face is serious-looking and deathly white.

The phone rings and Millhouse gets up to answer it.

Gloria says, "Hi, Daddy."

"Hello, Sugar," he says, wishing he'd stayed in bed, knowing he'll have to lie. They chat for a few minutes and Millhouse tells her that he's feeling better, but still not well enough to look after Josh for two weeks. And suddenly Gloria is crying.

"Oh, Daddy, we're in trouble."

She says Roger has been talking about moving out. He's not sure he loves her. She was hoping they could have a couple of weeks to themselves. Would he please take Josh?

He thinks he should console her, but this has happened before and he doesn't want to know any more about it. He should say simply, no, I can't this time. Instead, he says, "All right, all right, bring him up. But there won't be any fishing."

Her voice is weak but tinged with hope. "Thank you, Daddy."

Millhouse at the pier. He sits down, takes off shoes and socks, lets his feet dangle in the water. The ducks that make the cove their home squawk about the intrusion, but glide by in twos and threes, watching him, he thinks, in case he has brought food. He hears someone drive up behind him on the narrow road through the woods. It's Grady, with an ice chest.

"Thought you might be here," Grady says and sits on the ice chest at the edge of the pier. "I've got some beer, you want one? Nothing like a cool one after a hard day's work."

Millhouse seldom drinks, but this time he accepts. He sits silently as they sip their first beers and Grady comments on the drought sixty-five days without a drop and how he's going to lose the rest of his grass unless they get some rain. Millhouse doesn't say what he wants to say about grasses, but soon, his tongue loosened by liquor, he ventures a few words and they start to talk. They talk as novices about the qualities of different brands of beer and of drinking bouts they had as young men, laughing occasionally, lapsing into silence. They talk about hunting trips they may or may not take. They drink and talk about nothing in particular until the sun is low across the lake and there are eleven empty cans floating in the chilly water at the bottom of the ice chest. "You want the last one?" Grady says.

"Naw, you go ahead," says Millhouse. He stands up, woozy, and holds onto the top of a pile for support. Everything appears blurry. When he gets his balance he notices that the water is calm, a cool brown, somehow inviting in the heat. He can see the reflection of the trees around the lake, the glare of the sun.

Grady says, "Hey, old man, you okay?"

Millhouse doesn't answer, but he takes off his glasses and sets them on top of the pile. Then he leaps off the pier, pulling his knees up, and smacks the water hard with his butt. Under the surface he feels an instant of panic; it has been a long time since he was in water above his knees. After a moment, though, he relaxes, opening his eyes, holding his breath, and spreads his legs and arms. It comes back to him; he swims easily and, he thinks, gracefully. And he has been wrong about the underwater life of the lake, the cove. There are plants dancing on the cold bottom and rocks and a tennis shoe and a slimy-looking length of ski rope. Everything is peaceful but has an eerie, unreal quality in the cloudy water, which isn't as deep as he has imagined.

"A cannonball," Grady cries when Millhouse comes up.

He sees that Grady has an approving look on his face, as if he wishes he had been the one to do it. Then Grady jumps in too, boots and all, holding the beer can above his head. They stand there, the water line at their chests, silver hair matted to their heads, passing the can back and forth, grinning at each other as if to say, What the hell are we doing?

V

Millhouse wakes in the night with a cramp in his thigh. And he wakes in the morning feeling groggy, lumpy. A hangover. Helen brings him coffee in bed and puts two aspirin on the night stand. She is dressed for work and in a hurry. From the foot of the bed she smiles at him as she would smile at a child who has done something cute. "Are you in pain?" she asks.

"Extreme," he says, but she doesn't understand.

Heavy-headed, he slips back to sleep without taking the pills and wakes up at one, his leg still stiff from the cramp. He watches television, queasy in his stomach, until late-afternoon when he gets hungry. At the sink in the kitchen he eats ham and cheese on leftover toast. The faucet is dripping; Helen has asked him to fix it. He turns the handle hard until it stops. Through the window he sees Knuckles dragging herself across the drought-yellowed pasture toward the fence. It's feeding time. Sweat stings his eyes as he goes to the shed, digs up a bucket of oats, walks to the fence and pours it over into the trough. He tosses the bucket into the shed and starts toward the house, but then, at the woodpile, he notices something moving among the logs. It's a snake, a big copperhead, now sunning itself on a stump.

Millhouse hurries into the house and down the hall to the bedroom. He takes the pistol and the box of bullets out of the drawer. He loads the gun quickly, not wanting the snake to get away, to hide somewhere so that Josh may stumble upon him. But outside he finds that the snake hasn't moved. Millhouse, who has fired the pistol only a few times, aims it at the snake's head, an easy target, though his hand shakes a little.

He pulls the trigger and the gun's explosion echoes through the surrounding woods. But he missed"I missed!"and still the snake simply lies there, at peace in the spring sun, completely unaware that it is about to be cast into everlasting darkness, that it will breed no more offspring, that it will stalk no more prey, that it will never again wake from the sweet silence of hibernation. How lucky, thinks Millhouse, and he lowers the gun, looks at it. The pistol's sharp edges become hazy. He blinks, trying to focus, and a close thunder pounds through his head.

He drags himself to the shed and sits down heavily on the stacks of lumber. The pistol and his arms hang limp between his legs. It's cool in the shed and this reminds him of the pump house on Grady's place where they found old man Jenson. Neighbors said that he died of a heart attack while repairing the pump, but Millhouse has often wondered. There is a nasty stain on the wall in there and he thinks it is blood. He now feels his own blood pulsing through his temples, drumming his brain, prickling his hair. He looks at the gun and then points the barrel at the sideburn on the right side of his head, just to see how it feels, to learn if it feels the way he has imagined. But he was wrong: the barrel seems to press against his brain it is actually touching him and the blood pulses.

This is not how he saw it: opening wide, he slips the barrel between his lips. He can taste oil and the metal is warm on his tongue; the sight pricks the roof of his mouth. He imagines what he would look like to someone watching him just now: stupid, silly. What if it were Josh?
Hey, Papaw, what are you doing?

Uncomfortable, he shifts his body, and then something happens. The plank on which he is sitting slips from under him, slides to the next lower stack and sends him bouncing painfully to the ground. He lets out a gasp when the gun sight rakes across the tender skin in his mouth and he tastes blood mingling with the oil. "Stupid, stupid," he mutters and lifts the pistol as if to throw it. He sits still, his pant legs in the dust, his back against the lumber.

From here he can see FRAGILE stenciled on the box containing the dishwasher and the labels on the paint cans. On each of the labels is a man's face and each identical face has a challenging smile, the same smile that enlivens Grady's eyes when he acts like he knows everything. He can see Grady looking down at him, shaking his head the way his neighbors shook their heads over the death of old Jenson. One thing about Jenson: he had no self-respect. He would go for weeks in the same overalls and shirt; his place always looked abandoned. His wife, left destitute with a dilapidated house and barn, fields overrun by clover, had to sell the farm that Grady, he got it for a prayer, fixed it up, working eight hours a day, wearing his jeans and boots as if they were a uniform, as if he were a baker or a postman or a ranch hand: "This is what I do now," he said once. "It's my job."and Mrs. Jenson had to move to the nursing home in Huntsville.

She, too, is of the dead now, at peace beside her husband, one of those for whom death was a reward. Something moves deep in his intestines and he tries to swallow. He imagines Helen, humiliated, standing on the crumbling porch, barking like an auctioneer to a crowd of strangers whose legs are hidden in the waist-high grass. They'd steal her blind, he thinks, and images come to him of all the things he needs to do.

He's been wanting to dig a pond for the livestock down where the pasture becomes a bog when it rains. Grady would help; they'd rent a backhoe. They'd work only in the cool of the mornings, digging and smoothing out the dirt, banking it up to hold the water. And after lunch they would go to the cove and sit on the pier, sip beers and talk about hunting trips in the fall. And maybe they'll do it too. Run up to Trinity for some ducks, or over to Uvalde for some doves. The truck's in good shape. And there'll be Christmas, the whole family out from the city, and a fire in the fireplace and holly wreaths on the doors and the sounds of children in the house. And in the spring he'll plant hay with Grady who says they can go in together, sell the excess and make some cash. And he'll plant peach trees in the yard. Yes, he'll have an orchard and put in azaleas for Helen.

Helen. Next summer, July 2 to be exact, she'll retire. That's all she talks about.
Everything will be fine when I'm home for good.
She doesn't know any better. And she wants a vacation. All those years they worked downtown, making a good living together, raising two good children, they never took a vacation outside of Texas. She wants Colorado. Sure, he'd like to see the Rockies. He's read about it. Great Gorge and Cripple Creek and Garden of the Gods. Maybe they'll go up to Yellowstone too, see Old Faithful and the grizzly bears. He ought to see Yellowstone before he knocks on the Pearly Gates.

Millhouse hears something and looks up. Helen is standing in the doorway, her hair frazzled from a day's work, her purse hanging from her hand. She says something about a snake in the woodpile, but cuts it off. She says, "Charlie," as if it's two words. "What are you doing?"

He pulls himself to his knees, the gun still in his hand, and moves awkwardly toward her. "Helen," he says. His voice is high and rough, almost a whimper. He wraps his arms around her thighs, rolls his head back to look up at her face. He wants to explain but when he opens his mouth all that comes out is "Helen." And then: "Let's take a ride, you and me. Come on, let's go to the lake."

She touches his head. She kneels. They face each other, miniatures of themselves on the dusty floor of the shed, she with her purse, he with his pistol. Helen glances at the gun, says, "Oh, Charlie," and he hugs her tightly, achingly to his body.

VI

On Saturday Millhouse gets up early. By the time Helen wakes he has planned his repairs for the faucet and has started on the lawn, knowing the growl of the mower would bring her out. He catches a butterfly and gives it to her. She frees it and then smiles shyly, still frightened, he thinks, of what might be on his mind and in his heart. So he winks at her boldly.