World and Town (41 page)

That’s why their family ate. As much as they wanted, every day.

Ginny was the first kind of hungry Everett ever knew.

He was proud of her from the first. Proud that folks knew her family. Knew their farm. That eighty acres they had—fields, mostly. It was good land. Level enough for around here. But now even with that good land they couldn’t make a living off just farming it, see. Too cold up here. Season’s too short. And the taxes just keep going up and up. Price of grain, price of equipment, everything. Up and up. That’s why you see more and more of the great old farms with little developments at their edge, chewing up their fenders. They’re getting nibbled up, see. Nibbled up. First the barn roofs get rusty. Then there’s a spell of bad weather. Then comes some other country messing up the market. Mexico. Argentina. Places you never thought of. But next thing you know folks’re forced to sell off land to pay their taxes, see. It’s happened to most everybody, just about. Excepting Ginny’s family. Ginny’s family was the exception that never did have to do that. ’Cause Rex always found another way now. Or a lot of ways—he had a lot of ways. Kept some sugar bush so he could sugar in the springtime, for instance. He’d sell off his softwood for pulp, too, when the opportunity came up. Sell off his spruce and fir. And he did some real estate in addition. Had him a little business. Rex Realty. For a long time, just about all the farmers used him. Time to see the king, they’d say when they were in trouble. Time to see His Highness.

He was something in his time, Old Rex. He was something.

Everyone said it.

The real estate was a natural for him, seeing as he knew everyone and they knew him. No one ever had to tell him there was land coming up. He knew it like he knew the cows. Who was going to be selling. How many acres. He could see it before they saw it themselves. What they were going to have to get for it. ’Course, things changed once he got sick. But before he got sick he knew, and because he knew, he never did have to sell off land himself. Lost his pigs, once. Bank came and took ’em away. But he never had to sell off land. Other folks ran day and night and still could not hold on to their land. And, Rex, now, Rex ran day and night, too. Even with some good moves he ran. Day and night. But his moves were good. Effective. They were effective.

And back when they were in high school, Ginny was queen of all that, see. She dressed like everyone. Ate like everyone. You couldn’t have called her uppity. But you could feel it, that she was what you call a have. Everett’s pa said yes to everything. Other folks said no. Ginny said yes or no, depending. She could help with the car wash or she could not. She could help with homecoming or she could not. A compact girl, she was, back then, solid but light, with bean-green eyes and dirty-blond hair. Folks said she looked like her mother. A Frenchie. Died when Ginny was eight of something, Everett never did know what. All he knew was that Ginny smiled or not depending on whether she felt a smile coming on, and when it first began to seem that he was the boy who made those smiles come on, well, now, he was happy as Christmas Day.

Their very first date they danced all night with each other and no one else down at the Grange Hall. Right with Judy Perry and Randy Little and Sue Ann Horn all looking, they danced. Belle Tollman. ’Course, back then the Grange had no electric. All they had was them gas lamps with them net hearts. You ever see how they breathe? How they pulse, like they’re on fire and not on fire? Well, him and Ginny were like that. Burning and burning and yet not burning up, somehow, just like he was himself and not himself. Everything was strange. He danced just fine even though nobody would have called him a dancer before that, and his palms did not sweat even though they always did. Guess she was such a light-footed thing, she just pulled him along somehow. And when they left the Grange Hall, they just started out strolling, hand in hand—hand in hand, just like that. As if that was their habit. As if they didn’t have to decide it. Though, well, her hand was so soft and dry, he could not pretend that that was ordinary. Because in fact, he thought it wondrous. A wondrous hand. Warm. He would not have believed you could feel a person’s heart in their hand, but it turned out, you could. Made him want to live forever, now. He wanted to live forever, holding her hand.

They walked down through downtown and then up toward the farms. Not heading anywhere. Just walking. But knowing it was pitch black, too. Knowing it. ’Course those country roads were good necking—you didn’t exactly have to go find yourselves a spot. For miles it was just the stars and the tall moving trees and the two of you, finding your way, you hoped, down your own road. Doing stuff you’d heard plenty about, but not enough, it turned out, when the time came. Well, he was nervous about that part. He was nervous. But before he stopped, and turned, before he pulled her arm along his side and her hand to his back, he told her he was hers and always would be, and was not nervous about saying it at all. He was just stating the obvious. That she was his world. That he’d lay down his life for her. He didn’t know where he got such ideas. But if she was surprised to hear it, she didn’t let on, now. In fact, she didn’t say anything right back at all. She just kissed him as if she couldn’t help it. Not as if it was something she could do or not do, depending. She kissed him as if it was something she was born to do, and then she said it. That it was something she was born to do. That she had no doubt. It was good, it was right. She knew. Then they kissed again, and it was the easiest thing, see. Nobody tells you how the dark helps, or how bodies seek each other. What seekers they are. Her mouth was warm, what with the night cold all around them. And her body was warm, too, so warm he got tight in the groin right off. It was like they were being joined by a third party right off. Eager to get in on things. And what a time he was having trying not to breathe so loud. What a time. He was greatly hoping she would not notice, and she didn’t seem to, but after a while, she did pull lightly away. A piece of tact that just made him love her even more. That made him dead grateful, in fact, as they started a bit haltingly home. ’Cause his condition would only have gotten worse. Mortifying—it would’ve gotten mortifying. As it was, every tree seemed to be mocking him as they walked, poking straight up like it did. The trees were mocking him. Still him and Ginny made it, holding hands, all the way to her pa’s farm. Then he kissed her good night and waited at the bottom of the hill to see she got in safe. ’Course, he was hoping she’d turn and blow a kiss. He was hoping. She did not. But she did stand a bit in the door glass once she was in. Pulled back the curtain, knowing he’d be looking, now, and waved. Her shape outlined clear by the light, and he could have sworn she was pressing her body into the glass, too, like in a movie. Remembering.

Pressing.

Those were happy times, all right. They were happy times.

They got hitched when they got out of high school. Then he got drafted, right off the bat, and all of a sudden it was, Good-bye, young wife. All of a sudden it was, Hope I don’t come back in a body bag.

Ginny cried till she couldn’t see.

’Course, those were hard months in ’Nam, watching people get blown up. Sickening, now, the whole thing was sickening. He’d never smelled blood before, death. He’d never seen any of it. Wounds. Guts. Things hanging. And everything happening sudden—you never knew what was coming. Startling. It was startling. Hot. He could see why his pa never did talk about such things. His first assignment was to help flush out the Cu Chi tunnels outside Saigon. ’Cause the gooks had them these tunnels outside Saigon, these miles and miles of tunnels. Lived down there like worms, then popped up out of nowhere—gave ’em an advantage, see. A big advantage. They were tricky to catch. He had him a good dog to help sniff ’em out, though. Virgil. A German shepherd, smarter than most people. A sweet dog. Smart. But one patrol Virgil stepped on a mine and blew up right as Everett hit a booby trap himself. Took a wall of nails in his chest and had to be shipped home on a stretcher, now, see. Took ’em a year to get his insides put back. A year and ten kinds of docs.

And well, now, those were bad times, all right. Dispiriting times. The kind of times that made you think about human nature, and animals. Beasts. Evil. Things you were better off not thinking about, to be frank. Ginny nursed him like a baby, though. And come one day, he was free to start life all over again in a city a little south. Ginny had read about it in a magazine, see. Described it just about every day while he was lying there in the hospital. What a cute place it was. Big enough to have a movie house, but small enough to be livable, she said. She liked that word, “livable.” Neither one of them wanted to live the way her brothers did, with no trees. But a movie house—well, that did sound pretty good. Cafés. Less snow. They found themselves an apartment to rent. Bought themselves a couch with their wedding money, but made good use of cardboard boxes for most things until such time as he could replace them. And that was a busy time, all right, fashioning tables and chairs. A four-poster bed. Ginny liked all kinds of turnings and carvings, and those things took time. Equipment. They took equipment. That was a hurdle right there. But Everett got himself a job at an outfit called J. H. Moses, and at J. H. Moses he got to be pals with a guy with a shop, see. Norbert. Thanks to Norbert, Everett was able to turn and plane and hammer while Ginny pinned and sewed and stuffed. And what do you know, in a couple of years they had them as pretty a place as you could wish for. Queen Anne chairs with needlepoint seats. A mahogany table with ball-and-claw feet. That four-poster bed Ginny hung with real lace. They even talked now and then about a rolltop desk. A rolltop desk’s quite an enterprise, now, but they did talk about it. Cubbies. How it’d have all these cubbies.

And those were happy times, all right. Healing times. Look forward, Ginny’d say. You got to look forward. And, Try not to dream. That was a good one. Try not to dream.

He was all right, now. He was. He was all right. Prickly. He was prickly. He wasn’t so great at relaxing, neither. But what the heck. He was all right.

He was all right.

In his first job, besides the carpentry he’d done wiring. Some tiling, too. Plumbing. He’d even rocked a bit, painted. He was a good painter. A jack-of-all-trades, like his pa. Willing. His new job was just carpentry. And that was all right, too, see. That was all right. He didn’t much like the sites they got put on, though. In his old job they’d done in-law apartments and shed dormers. Kitchens. Family stuff. But, now, J. H. Moses was different. J. H. Moses was more oriented toward the boss’s house. Three-car garages. Jacuzzis. One lady had her a toilet that would spray your bottom when you were done with your business—had it shipped all the way from Japan. Guess they were pretty popular over there. In all his years, he’d never seen anything like it, and most of the guys felt similar. They had to try it out, they said. They did. But when he said that back where he came from, rich people had three-story barns, they hooted, too. Called him Farmer Everett. Even Norbert called him Farmer Everett. Asked if all that furniture he was making was what rich people liked back home. ’Cause it was very traditional, he said. Old-fashioned. He said his own wife liked contemporary.

Contemporary. All that equipment, and his wife liked contemporary.

Ginny got herself hired as a teacher’s assistant, and when that went great, signed up for a college degree. ’Course, the degree took years and years. Books. It took books. Cost them half a barn, too. But come one day she marched right up on a stage in her cap and her gown, and didn’t they all bust with pride then to have a college grad in the family. She got herself a job right off, now, too. Second grade. And what do you know, the kids loved her. The parents loved her. The other teachers loved her. They did.

But the principal had it out for her, see. A mean old bat she was, a shrunken-up skunk a pig wouldn’t poke. She didn’t like Ginny’s lesson plans. She didn’t like Ginny’s bulletin boards. She didn’t like Ginny’s bicycle safety unit. ’Course, old Gertie was fired at the end of the year, but not before she fired Ginny first. Left a record so full of black marks, Ginny cried for months. Cried and cried. Everett tried to help keep her chin up, now. Pointed out there were other jobs in the world. Other schools. Helped her get herself out to those interviews at other schools with her chin up.

Nobody ever did hire her, though, see. So she went and tried to get pregnant instead. How’d you like a little baby, she’d say. How’d you like a baby Everett. She was ogling babies in the grocery store. Looking at all the cute baby things. But after all those years of being careful, they couldn’t be careless enough, now, somehow. It was strange. She prayed on it. Went to church and asked for God’s help. And a couple of times there she was late with her monthly, see. She was. But she was never late more than a couple of weeks, now. The thing just kept coming back. Coming back and coming back.

And those were discouraging times, see, no question. They were just discouraging.

Especially as back home in Riverlake, her pa was doing even worse than she was—had been for a while. ’Course, Old Rex never would have suggested it. He never would have. But the farm was too much for any man to keep running on his own, and the fact was, he was getting older. Or maybe his angina started up earlier than they knew. It was hard to say. But one way or another, he was losing heart, now. He was losing heart. Every time Ginny talked to him, it was something else broke. The tractor was broke. The deep freeze was broke. The mower. ’Course, that mower was no good from the start. It was just the sort of thing you pick up at auction and curse every day afterward. A foretaste of damnation if ever there was one. A preview of hell.

The whole place was going to hell.

By the time they got up for a visit, a fox had gotten in the chicken coop. In all the years the farm had been a farm, a fox had never gotten in the chicken coop. But that day they walked into a half-empty coop. And that was a sorry sight, all right. Even the racket was only half the racket. Something you might not think was sad, but come to hear it, it was. Especially as it meant Rex had left the coop door open. There was no other explanation, unless some fox had learned to work a coop latch. Rex must have left the coop door open. But, now, nobody said any such thing, see. Nope. Nobody said any such thing. Instead they stood there as if they were on a school field trip and had to pick out the roosters from the hens. Him and Ginny all zipped up against the cold, and with their hats on tight against the sleet. Only Rex had his torn-up barn jacket all open, what the heck, his shirt showing a good-size wet stripe down the middle, on account of he was a good-size man. The kind of man who looked cooped up in a coop. He always wore a hat, but for some reason he wasn’t wearing a hat that day. Had to give his hair a flick as he came in, so as to keep it from dripping down his neck. But didn’t it look right dapper, now, like he’d just come out of the shower. That salt and pepper all glistening, and his face not pale, as they’d been expecting, but pink. Pink and grizzled. Rex had these roam-y eyes, now, sand-colored. He never missed anything, and that day he glanced around like he always did. Inspecting. But afterward there was this little linger in his look, now, just this little linger—as if he was coming back to something instead of moving on. Guess it was the look of doubt. Then he turned away, a man who had never turned away from anything, and by that they knew he was shook up.