Now Is the Hour (49 page)

Stars and garters, Rigby John! Granny said. You sure do make me laugh.

Granny's Minnetonka moccasins with the blue beaded bird were a soft scratch along the shiny wood floor. At the green porcelain Majestic, Granny leaned over, picked up a piece of wood in the pile by the stove, opened the iron door, and stuck the piece of wood into the stove. On top of the stove, she started moving things around.

The curtain on the window above the sink had a big brown scorch on it. I was thinking about that scorch. George had told me Granny always set the kerosene lamp in that window at night.

Every night, George said, rain or shine, you can bet your life on it. That light is on and in the window every night.

Why is that? I'd asked.

The ancestors, George said. Our ancestors live in a sacred tree. The Shoshone ones. Granny wants to honor them after the sun goes down.

Trouble is, George said, sometimes she gets the lamp too close to the curtains. One of these nights she's going to burn the damn house down.

A brown scorch on a white curtain. Funny what little things can mean if you look close at them.

Then it was Granny's refrigerator. The refrigerator door was open and inside the refrigerator it was empty and dark.

What's happened to your refrigerator, Granny? I said.

Granny slid a pan across the stove.

Broke, she said. Motor's dead.

Twenty years now, Granny said. That damn thing wasn't ever worth a goddamn, Granny said. Now it's broke for good.

Granny set the blue pewter cup of coffee down on the table, then another cup, a white cup with a broken handle, and a can of Sego Milk.

You going to get a new one? I said.

Plan to, she said, when the eagle shits.

Then: Milk's good for ya, Granny said. Put some in your tea. Build your bones.

Granny's coffee with the Sego Milk and one teaspoon of sugar was the best thing you could want to taste in the morning. I drank the coffee like I was eating candy. When I got done with the coffee, I went to the horseshit remedy. With Sego Milk and a teaspoon of sugar, the horseshit remedy was almost as good as the coffee.

Granny sat down across the table from me. I'd never seen Granny sit before. She was so slumped over, her head just barely cleared the table. With the empty refrigerator behind her and under the hanging-down light bulb, Granny looked old in a way I'd never seen her. She folded her brown-rope hands, her wood-stick fingers together.

She moved her lips over her gums a couple of times before she spoke.

Rigby John, Granny said. I'm sorry to tell you this. But George won't be hauling hay with you today.

A big gust of Idaho wind blowing around in my chest. So pissed. Then scared. Scared for myself somehow. Then I was scared for George.

Granny watched my face go through all this.

What's up? I said.

Granny's rope hands, her twig fingers, her brown arms branches of trees.

He'll get over it, Granny said. I'll doctor him up good. Then you can work his ass off for him. Give him something to do.

Part of me wanted to start slamming things around some more. Light the kerosene lamp and start the curtain on fire. Kick the refrigerator. Maybe go stomping out the door. Then there was the other part.

Is he all right? I said.

Granny put her brown-rope hands, her fingers crooked twigs, on
top of her red bandanna, then let her hands slide down her face. White spider webs flying out all around her face.

All there was in the world right then was Granny's red-rimmed eyes and my eyes.

He's a little under the weather, Granny said. Why don't ya come back tomorrow and see how he's doing?

That day and the next day, I hauled hay by myself. I hated George, but I hated Dad worse.

I stacked and loaded and drove, the whole shootin' match. By myself. Don't think I ever worked so hard. Didn't once let up. Never rested one minute. Rested when I was driving. Part of it was, it felt so good. It felt good to push myself, to do the work of two men. To push and push and push at something in the world, hay, bales of hay I could move, progress I could see, see I could make a differnce. Plus, if I worked hard I didn't think about Billie, or George. Plus, Dad didn't know. I loved it that I was hauling hay alone, and Dad didn't know.

I got away with it for a while. At least I thought I did. It was about four in the afternoon on the second day, Tuesday, I guess. I was about ten loads left from finishing Hess's forty, when I looked up just as Dad pulled the pickup alongside the truck.

The loud metal-to-metal pop of the driver's door.

Where's your helper? Dad said.

I was on the back of the truck. I picked up a bale of hay, walked with it, set the bale down on the rack floor, kicked the bale. There were two more bales to stack. I wasn't going to stop moving.

Breath. I took a deep breath.

He wasn't feeling well this afternoon, I said. He'll be back tomorrow morning.

Dad pushed his cowboy hat up. Roosky Gypsy eyes. He put his wrists on his hips and hiked his Levi's up with his wrists.

He knew I was lying. And I knew that he knew.

I wasn't going to budge.

I picked up another bale, carried it, put the bale on top of the other bale.

How long you say he's been sick for? Dad said.

Just this afternoon, I said.

I picked up the third bale.

Funny, Dad said. I ain't seen him come through the yard with you for two days now.

I carried the bale to the stack, lifted the bale up with my knee.

The tops of my lungs, the breath thing starts there.

That right? I said.

I punched the bale with my gloved hand, punching the fucker secure into place.

That's right, Dad said.

Hay dust in my throat. I coughed hay dust.

Well, I said. You must've missed him. Six loads yesterday. On our fourth load today. Right on schedule.

Then: Stomach cramps, I said. George took some Alka-Seltzer. Had to get out of the sun.

Don't you worry, I said. He'll be back tomorrow morning bright and early.

No more bales on the truck. I jumped down onto the ground, to the stack of hay, so I could throw up some more bales.

Just as I went for the bale of hay, Dad stepped across, stood himself between me and the hay.

He'd better be, Dad said. Or I'll kick both your asses.

The sun was behind me and was in Dad's eyes. He was squinting and looking up at me. Up. Maybe it was just how we were standing, but right then I was taller than him, and Dad was looking
up
at me.

Suit yourself, I said.

Dad laughed his chest up one short laugh.

Pretty tough, ain't ya? Dad said.

That place in my chest at the top, the Idaho wind kicking around. I just stood. Made myself taller, didn't say anything, looked into my father's squinting eyes. The feeling in my arms that means I am helpless. But I kept standing tall, didn't show it. Made my face look like it knew it was being looked at.

Idaho wind. Flies buzzing. Somewhere far away a train whistle. Dad and I stood like that, him and me, for some time.

Then Dad stepped away.

I closed my eyes. Took a big breath but a breath he couldn't see.

His boots walking through stubble. The loud metal-to-metal pop of the driver's door. Dad started up the pickup.

I started throwing hay bales onto the truck. I made like I wasn't watching him, but I was watching him.

Dad put his arm up on the back seat, turned to look behind, and he backed up some. Then he put on the brakes. Shut the pickup off. Dad just sat in the pickup looking at me.

Something was up.

I bucked a hay bale up onto the truck, then turned around for another bale.

Rigby John, Dad said.

Yah, I said.

I told you to keep your distance with these people, Dad said. Last year it was those Mexicans, and look what that got us. Burned our straw stack down. Now this year. I told you about George. I told you to keep your distance. I thought I could be proud of you, but here you are, doing a goddamn Indian's work for him and then lying to your father about it. It don't make no sense. What's so damn difficult about letting people be? You always got to go get all messed up in them. And they ain't worth it. All's they'll do is stab you in the back.

I picked up a hay bale, threw it on the truck.

Dad took his foot off the clutch, and the clutch made that clutch sound.

My nigger-loving son, Dad said. I swear I don't know where you come from.

I was bent over another bale, my gloves around the strings. I let go the strings and stood myself up back to my tallest.

Dad, I said, don't use that word. It's disrespectful.
Blacks
is what you're supposed to say.

My voice was high.

Did I ever tell you about the time, Dad said, that me and Jimmy Weis took that nigger out of the Golden Wheel Bar in Blackfoot?

Dad let out a big heehaw.

Jimmy put the gunnysack over his head from behind, Dad said, and I hogtied his feet. Boy, you should have heard that nigger yell. Jimmy and I threw him in the back of Jimmy's pickup, and we took him all the way up to Johnson Creek. We told that nigger we was going to lynch him, but we didn't. Just scared him, you know. Nigger shit his pants. Jimmy and I laughed and laughed at that nigger, walking around bumping into trees with that gunnysack tied around him with shit in his pants. Damn near laughed our asses off.

So many times, I wished I had a pitchfork in my hand that day. We'd see how scared somebody could get.

But there was no pitchfork.

And I wasn't ready yet.

Plus, there he was. He was my father.

So I just stood. You might say froze. Out in the Idaho sun, July, the heat bearing down, puddles where there weren't any, big old flies buzzing.

Froze.

Froze even more than the Sunset Motel.

And that's saying something.

An old ignorant redneck bragging about being a bully.

Honor thy father.

I mean, really.

Fuck.

The next morning, sitting in Granny's high-backed wood chair. I was staring at the scorched curtain, staring into Granny's dark, empty refrigerator, sipping on a cup of hot coffee with Sego Milk and a teaspoon of sugar, and a cup of horseshit remedy, when I heard George's footsteps come out of his room.

Part of me was going to get sick. Another part was leaning back to land a punch like I did under the weeping willow. Another part couldn't stop staring down at the wood of the table.

George stood at the table for a while. Out the corner of my eye, all I could see was his crotch. Finally, I turned my head, looked up at him.

I couldn't believe my eyes.

One side of George's face looked like a busted-up watermelon.

Big bruises and cuts on his hands.

You ought to see the other guy, George said.

Inside the truck, after George got in, slammed his door, and was sitting next to me, before I turned on the key and pushed my foot on the starter and started the truck, George and I sat there for a moment, the shadows and light swirling all around on us. I went to say something, something about his face, something about his yellow dress, just something. But I didn't know how to say what I had to say. Plus there was so
much
to say, and where in the hell did you start?

George reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out a cigarette, lit it. Two or three magnificent French inhales, then George handed the cigarette to me.

It's weird. It was just a cigarette. In a hay truck in the red rez under a bunch of half-dead Lombardy poplars, one man hands another man a cigarette, and the other man says no. A simple act. Not a big thing in the world with Vietnam and civil rights. But that morning, in my life, that particular cigarette meant all the differnce in the world.

My excuse was that my lungs were sore.

Some things, when you look back on what you did, you wish you'd never done them.

Puke Price, for instance. I mean Allen.

That morning with the cigarette was another one of those times.

The truck engine roared big all around us. I put the clutch in, put the gearshift into reverse.

George's cigarette in his bruised hand, his torn knuckles, George still held the cigarette out to me.

Moments of gesture.

I waved my hand between me and the cigarette.

I looked straight ahead, didn't look into George's eyes.

No way I can smoke that, I said.

We were back onto Quinn Road before George put the cigarette back to his lips. The truck engine seemed loud. I thought the muffler was going.

But the muffler wasn't going. The engine was loud because it had to cover up what had happened with Billie. I mean, what didn't happen.

It had to be loud to cover up George in his yellow dress, his red shoes.

It had to be loud so I couldn't think.

George didn't do anything. He didn't take a deep breath. He didn't say anything. There was no indication. George just kept smoking the cigarette like it was just another cigarette.

But that cigarette was differnt. That cigarette was more than it was.

I did not want to smoke, did not want to wait, to trust, did not want to pray with George Serano.

I was getting as far away from that guy as I could.

George got out, unhinged the gatepost to Hess's forty. He threw the gate into the weeds up against the fence. I heard him jump onto the back of the truck.

In the mornings, George always got back in the cab after opening the gate. We'd smoke the rest of the cigarette, talk some, and then start in to work.

That morning, when George jumped onto the hay rack instead of getting in the cab, it was sore in my chest, not cigarette-smoke sore, but sore in my heart where George used to be.

I pulled the truck alongside a stack of hay, shut the truck off.

My breath. Lots of deep breaths.

When I opened the door and stood outside in the field, George was on the back of the truck trying to get his gloves on over his beat-up hands.