All Hat (3 page)

“You're telling me you got ten grand?”

“If I did, it'd go for taxes. But I found a realtor who'll put up the ten against that little piece of land down front there.” He pointed toward the northeast corner of the farm. “See where the creek angles across there. Well, that's considered a natural severance. There's about an acre there.”

“An acre building lot is worth a hell of a lot more than ten grand,” Ray said.

“True, but it takes about three months to get it severed. The sale is next week. I'll take the bird in the hand. Just think, Ray, I could be running a real nice three-year-old come spring. I could run him against the big boys.”

Ray smiled. “You're still a dreamer, Pete.”

“Anybody who ain't,” Pete said, pulling at the hackamore strap, “ain't worth knowing.”

“How far back are you on the taxes?”

“Don't you worry 'bout it, Ray. There's plenty out there worse off than me.”

Ray went to speak but thought better of it. Pete gave him a short look and then walked off toward the house.

“Maybe I'll nail that eavetrough back on the barn,” Ray called out to him.

“Go see your sister,” Pete said, still walking away. “You've put it off long enough.”

*   *   *

He steered Pete's Ford pickup south, toward his old hometown. It took him a while to get used to the truck's handling. There was something wrong with the steering—a bad tie-rod, maybe, or the bushings gone in the control arm—and the vehicle had a habit of a jerking to the left every now and then. It took Ray a number of miles to develop the proper touch on the steering to counteract the motion. He doubted Pete was even aware of the problem; after spending so many years atop fidgety horses, he'd probably expect a pickup truck to buck a little.

The town hadn't changed, but when had it ever? He drove by the pickle factory on the way in and the pallet factory on the way out and not a whole lot in between. On Main Street he'd watched for familiar faces but saw no one he knew—at least no one he recognized. He couldn't be sure that the people he saw weren't acquaintances of old. Time and his own indifferent memory could have rendered them strangers.

It took him the better part of two hours to reach Mary's house on the north shore of Lake Erie. The place was tucked away on a rocky cove halfway between Port Dover and Long Point. (“About as close to nowhere as you can be, and still get regular mail,” Mary liked to say.)

He hit the lakeshore road south of town and followed it west. The lake was high, pushed up against the shore by a considerable wind from the west. There were whitecaps skipping the surface like sailing ships at sea.

He found himself driving slower as he approached the house. He was not looking forward to arriving.

The yard was neatly trimmed, and the house had been painted since he'd last been there. There was a white Chrysler in the driveway, in front of the open garage. He parked alongside and sat there for a while. Before he got out, he looked at himself in the mirror.

He went in without knocking. Mary was in the kitchen, rolling pastry dough on the counter, a cigarette hanging from her lip, the long ash of which seemed in imminent danger of becoming part of the dough. She looked at him and smiled, and the act of smiling caused the ash to drop.

“How are you, Mary?”

“Well, I wouldn't say I'm winning, but I'm holding my own,” his aunt said. She looked him over, taking inventory as he had himself minutes before. “It's good to see you, boy.”

Elizabeth was sitting on a rock outcropping over the short bluff that overlooked the bay. Her hair was loose, whipping in the breeze, cutting across her eyes, catching in her mouth. When she saw him walking across the lawn, she smiled slowly and then looked away, back over the water.

“Hey, Sis.”

She made no reply, just maintained the smile. He sat down beside her; when she didn't look at him he followed her gaze out over the lake.

“How're you doing?” he asked.

She reached for his hand, never turning her head. Her fingers in his palm were soft. After a moment he took his free hand and moved the hair away from her face. Finally, she looked at him.

“You know the
Bonneville
is out there,” she said, and she pointed directly. “In eighty-five feet of water. She went down in a storm in 1847. Ninety people on board, all lost. Europeans mostly—Germans, Poles, headed for the West. Homesteaders.”

Ray took a cigarette from his pocket, lit it one-handed, keeping her fingers in his palm. She smelled of mint, of evergreen.

“I think about them,” she was saying. “It must be so peaceful there on the ship, their belongings all around them. Their families. Must be comforting, permanent. Safe.” Her voice dropped. “They're talking of salvaging the ship, you know. For the coins, the artifacts. Canada and the States are arguing over ownership. I hope they argue forever. They should leave those people alone.”

“Those people were fish food a long time ago, Sis.”

Later, in the kitchen, Ray had a cup of coffee and a slice of pie, which did not, he noted, taste of cigarette ash. Mary sat across from him, flour in her hair, on her glasses.

“Jesus, Mary,” Ray said. “What do you do out here all day long?”

“What does anybody do?” she replied. “I cook, I clean. I watch bad soap operas and smoke too much. Tuesdays, I play bingo. Fridays, I buy groceries and go to the legion for a beer or two. Once in a blue moon I go to the Savoy on a Saturday night and listen to the country-and-western band.”

“You'll be taking up square dancing next.”

“My point is, what I do is not any more or less significant than what anybody else does.”

Ray turned toward the lake. “And Elizabeth?”

“She sits out there nearly every day. I kept waiting for her to get stronger, I kept looking for signs that she was getting better. She's not getting better, Ray. She hasn't been off the property for months.”

“What's the doctor say?”

“Which one? They came and went, and they all said the same thing. There's no response, and without response, there's no treatment. They were rather … impatient with her.”

Ray finished the pie, pushed back from the table, coffee cup in hand. She watched him quietly.

“Well, I guess I can understand that,” he said. “I guess it's natural to just shut down. Maybe I'd be the same way.”

“Bullshit.” Mary got up, took the plate from the table, and put it in the sink. “Come with me.”

They went into the sunroom. Elizabeth's paints were there. There was a watercolor on the easel, a blue-green portrait of the lake, the sky above cloudless, a washed-out blue. There were other paintings scattered about the room, leaning against the walls, sprawled on the floor, propped in corners. All were of the same scene; only the temperament of lake and sky distinguished one painting from another.

Ray walked around the room, examining each painting. Mary stood by the bay window, looking out to where Elizabeth sat on the bluff.

“She's your sister, Ray, and I know you love her. We know where you've spent the past two years.” She turned to him. “But do yourself a favor; don't try to understand why she is the way she is. Don't burden yourself with that on top of everything else.”

*   *   *

An hour later Ray was drinking rye at the bar of the old Queens Hotel in town and talking to Bonnie, who was tending bar and had been tending bar when Ray used to drink there as a teenager. Her hair was blonder now and still in a rigid bouffant, as if she'd found a look she liked in 1969 and never strayed from it.

“Where the hell you been, Ray?”

“Here and there. You know.”

“I thought I heard you were in jail.”

“You know, I seem to recall something like that in my recent past.”

“What was you in for?”

Ray emptied his glass, gestured for another as he considered the question. “I guess the judge was of the opinion that I didn't play well with others.”

He was half in the bag when Steve Allman walked in, wearing work boots and coveralls and a Boot Hill Saloon cap. He ordered a draft and looked down the bar.

“Ray,” he said. “When'd you get out?”

“Don't ask,” Bonnie said. “He's pretty vague on the whole thing.”

Steve brought his beer over, ordered another rye for Ray, who was to the point where he didn't need another rye.

“Good to see you,” Steve said.

“Thanks for the drink. How you been?”

“Can't complain,” Steve said in a voice that said he could. Ray decided to deflect the opportunity. He'd known Steve and his family for years, had worked one summer for Steve's father, combining oats and wheat, baling the straw afterward. Their farm was just a concession over from Pete Culpepper's, and Pete and Steve's father were old euchre buddies.

“How's your old man?”

“Well, he just retired.”

“Really?” Ray paused to take a drink. “So you're running the farm?”

“Nope, he sold the farm. Never said a damn word to me. Came home one night and announced he sold it off. Machinery, livestock, everything.”

“Doesn't sound like Ken.”

“He sold it to Sonny Stanton.”

Ray had the glass to his lips; he hesitated and then took a sip.

“Truth is, I been hoping you'd show up,” Steve said then. “And not just me. Sonny's up to something.”

Ray put the whiskey on the bar. “Yeah, well, Sonny's always up to something. If it wasn't for fucking up, he wouldn't know what to do with himself.”

“He's set on buying up that whole concession; he's got better than half of it already.”

“What's he want with it?”

“He's talking about building a huge co-op. Telling everybody how they're not getting fair price for their grain. Figures on growing seed corn, soybeans—says he's gonna put in dryers and enough storage to hold everybody's yield until the price is right.”

Ray looked across the bar, to where Bonnie stood under her platinum helmet of hair. “Since when does Sonny give a damn about the farmers, or anything else?”

“He's lying, sure as God made little green apples,” Steve said. “I figure he wants to develop it, build cheap houses.”

“He'd have zoning problems,” Ray said.

“You and I would have zoning problems,” Steve said. “Not Sonny; he's got too much money behind him.” He drank off his beer and then signaled to Bonnie. “Anyway, we've been hoping you'd show. Sonny's playing some game; ask him a question six times, and he'll give you six different answers. But he ain't gonna pull that shit with you.”

Ray looked unhappily at the drink on the bar. “I got no intention of tangling with Sonny Stanton again. Your dad wouldn't have sold if he didn't want to. I'm out on parole. All I want to do is find a job and lead a half-ass normal life. I have no intention of going within a mile of Sonny and that bunch.”

Steve looked at Ray, and then he shrugged in resignation. “I guess it don't matter anyway. The money's gonna win in the end. I just hate to see all that good land get bulldozed.”

“Me too,” Ray said. “But you're right about the money.”

Steve drank the beer and then wiped off his mustache. “You say you're looking for work?”

“Yep.”

“I got into the roofing business after the old man sold out. I need a man. You look like you're in shape.”

Ray left the Queens with a jag on and a new job. Driving home, he was neither happy nor not. Elizabeth was, in truth, no worse than he'd expected. She'd always maintained a detached relationship with life, as if it were something she just dabbled in.

Maybe that was true of everybody, though. Maybe they were all dabblers. The scholars and the poets and the judges and the jailers, the whiskey drinkers and the teetotalers, the rich and the poor. Hell, even the roofers. Well, he'd find out about that last part soon enough. Hauling shingles was a young man's game, but he'd no one but himself to blame. His career goals had pretty much been mothballed these past couple of years.

As far as the business with Sonny went, he'd just have to put it out of his mind.

*   *   *

The plan to put the business with Sonny out of his mind worked fine for about thirty minutes. Driving past the Parr farm, he saw a BMW roadster pulling out of the driveway, the man himself behind the wheel. Ray made a U-turn and went back as the roadster disappeared to the north. He hesitated and then drove up to the house.

Etta was in the backyard, taking wash from the clothesline. She turned at the sound of his step—he was still capable of surprising her. She was wearing jeans and a man's cotton shirt, faded pale blue. Her blond hair was short, but not too short. She wore no makeup, never had that he could recall, and there were faint lines around her eyes. She looked terrific.

The blue eyes didn't give him much as she went back to her work, filling the hamper and then lugging it to the back step. Setting it down, she turned to him.

“You want coffee? I can smell that whiskey from here.”

“Sure.” But when he stepped toward the house, she indicated the picnic table.

“We'll sit out here. Dad's inside.”

“Fine.”

“You know what I'm talking about.”

She took the laundry in. Ray sat on top of the table, looked around. The field behind the barn was planted in corn, turning yellow at the tips. The barn itself had seen better days, better years. The cedar shakes were blown in patches from the roof; here and there a portion of tin had been nailed inexpertly over a hole. The Ford 9N was stranded in the orchard, one rear tire flat, the tractor in a forlorn list as a result.

Etta brought coffee, handed him a cup, then moved to sit on a lawn chair, keeping her distance in every way.

“How are you, Ray Dokes?”