Maud's House (23 page)

What do I think? I think somebody else did it.

My fingerprints are on it but something there isn’t mine, something there is beyond me.

I fought with that painting, waged war with it, struggled with it, pampered it, played with it, cared for it, cursed it, damned it, demanded things of it, pleaded with it, harangued it, ignored it, cried over it, warned it, screamed at it, listened to it, talked to it, supported it, protected it, defended it, watched over it, scowled at it, stuck my tongue out at it, snarled at it, threw paint at it, threw brushes at it, threw chairs at it, kicked it—and vowed to send it to the world’s worst museum somewhere in the middle of the steamy jungle where the humidity would peel the paint right off the canvas.

If that’s not love, what is?

When I was ten and the house attracted people like red sugar water does hummingbirds, I asked a sculptor passing through on his way to Montreal, “Have you ever tried to quit?”

He laughed, “I’d starve.”

I frowned, and he pointed to his big, tangly beard.

He sculpted figures from rocks found in creeks and streams. The Rock Man waded in, barefoot, trousers rolled up to the calves, to collect the rocks. He said Vermont had cold creeks. He carved the rocks by chipping away at them with a dentist’s drill. The drill worked like a tiny jackhammer.

The Rock Man said when he sculpted, rock dust flew up in his face, on his lips and beard. He liked to taste that salty stone spray, to lick his lips the way sailors do. Some stones, he said, were sweeter than others. The Rock Man carried around his own personal salt supply in his beard. If he were ever on a bus in the desert and it broke down and all the passengers had to walk to Vegas, he would make it, just by sucking on his facial hair.

When it was time for him to leave, to continue north, he thanked me for sharing my house with him and gave me a rock. It was a statue of a woman, and she was so at one with the stone that the Rock Man hardly had needed to carve her. Nature had designed with wind and water a gown in the stone, a perfect forehead, long thick hair. He simply added a nose here and a hand there.

“It is against the laws of nature,” the Rock Man said, “to starve the soul.”

Sounds profound. But then, those were the words of a guy who acquired his daily salt requirement from his beard.

At the podium, Odie blathered on about art and culture and mankind and civilization. Everyone wished Frank would use his gavel, on Odie. Finally, Odie made his point, which wasn’t much, and whisked off the sheet.

Silence. Not a baby cried. Not a chair creaked. Not a pin dropped (not even from Louise in the third row hemming her daughter’s Easter dress).

Round Corners was caught unawares.

I held my breath. Wasn’t someone going to say something? Whatever happened to everyone’s a critic? There’s never a critic around when you need one, I thought.

The painting, at first glance, appeared to be an overgrown greeting card. It began in the forefront with a herd of black and white cows, then swept up the hill to a tiny town, obviously Round Corners from the steeple on Our Lady of Perpetual Savings to the windows of Snowden’s Store. Across the sky, the Vermont sky with stars hung low enough to touch, streaked a comet.

The people of Round Corners were disappointed. They had expected at least a few humans in the picture. Each secretly had hoped they would be chosen to be in the definitive statement of Round Corners. Slowly, my neighbors rose from their chairs, and as if the painting was reeling them in, they approached the front of the gym.

They crowded around it.

They began to whisper, talk, laugh. As their excitement grew, so did their voices.

“Look at the cows.”

“Look at the spots on the cows.”

“They ’re full of little pictures. Little pictures inside the big picture.”

“There’s Wynn setting someone’s hair.”

“Where?”

“There. The second cow from the left.”

“I can’t see. Do I have blonde hair?”

“And there’s Frank waiting on a child at the candy counter.”

“That looks like my Tommy.”

“No, it doesn’t, that’s my little Alphonse. See the hole in his shoe.”

“My Tommy has holes in his shoes, too.”

“And there’s a softball game.”

“I bet I’m the one at bat. Am I the one at bat?”

“No, Sheriff.”

“That’s Round Corners Restaurant…”

“Hey, Bartholomew, it’s a wonder you didn’t break the canvas.”

“I thought the saying was ‘break the camera’, Amos.”

“And there’s a picture of the church… ”

“You look positively zealous, Samuel dear.”

“Do you think so?”

“Why there must be dozens of little pictures hidden in that herd of cows.”

“Isn’t that cute!”

George couldn’t have said it better. I rose slowly from my folding chair, flipped up the hood of my raincoat, and went looking for T-Bone.

One of T-Bone’s cows died the day of Town Meeting.

The veterinarian diagnosed it as milk fever, caused by shortages of or an imbalance of calcium or phosphorus. Cows that are going to calve or that have calved particularly are susceptible to the disease. A developing calf, like a human baby, places a heavy demand on the nutrients eaten by the mother. It is important that the farmer check the pregnant cow’s ration for minerals and vitamins. One of the first symptoms of milk fever is paralysis of the rear legs. The cow goes down and cannot get up again. In other words, the cow can’t dance anymore.

“Milk fever,” the vet said, after examining the cow. “No doubt about it.”

I found T-Bone after the vet had gone, cradling the head of the dead cow. “No doubt about it,” he said. “The cow died from lack of a radio.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” I said.

“Cows need music, too.”

“This is a farm, not Radio City Music Hall. Animals are born here and they die here all the time. This is a life cycle factory.”

“It’s my fault,” he said. “Where was I when she needed me? Why didn’t I notice before it got this far?” I patted T-Bone’s arm, worried. He usually took such events—the life-and-death continuum of the farm—with equanimity. He worried about everything and anything, but the way he did his job. That was one area T-Bone was always sure of. Until now.

He stood abruptly. “I’ve got to bury her.”

“Now? In the rain?”

“You wait here,” he told the dead cow.

If he had been thinking straight, T-Bone simply would have taken the cow to a plant that disposes of large animals. He would have realized that was the most economical, the most efficient, the most sensible plan. He would have known better than to try to bury a half-ton cow on his frozen farm. Instead, the unthinking T-Bone chose for the grave a spot on top of the hill behind the barn. “Whenever possible, humans are buried on high ground,” T-Bone said half limping, half pacing back and forth, stopping every third lap to again survey the cemetery plot on the hill.

“Please let me fix you a warm cup of hot chocolate,” I said.

“High places are closer to God,” T-Bone said. “Not to mention, how difficult it is to rest in peace in a swamp.”

“A Rolling Rock,” I said. “Let me get a couple of beers and we’ll sit down and talk about the situation.”

“I read in the newspaper they’re gonna bury people in space. Shoot their ashes into the galaxy. From dust to cosmic dust.” T-Bone didn’t approve of dumping stuff in space. He had difficulty acknowledging that what goes up does not always come down and worried some day people would be dropping like flies from the sky.

“No, the hill will be just fine,” he said, then turned and marched out into the rain.

I ran after him. “Wait. Please T-Bone. This is crazy.”

“No,” T-Bone gave me a salute. “This is mud season.” Then grabbing a shovel leaning against the barn, he strode up the hill.

T-Bone attacked the frozen ground with the shovel, the rain running down his neck, his booted feet sliding in the thin layer of mud the rain had defrosted. He worked until he was sweating under his wet clothes, with little result. I stood beside him, the rain running down my nose.

“What I need,” he shouted, “is a back hoe or a tractor. It
is
a big cow.”

He ran slipping and sliding down the hill, hopped aboard the tractor, and revved it to life. He gunned the tractor up the hill. The tractor’s big tires gripped the incline and pulled; they spun and slipped. T-Bone gritted his teeth, squinted his eyes against the downpour, and shifted into low gear, climbing gear, goat gear. It did not occur to him he had nothing attached to the tractor with which to dig a hole, neither a small or large hole. And he would need a monstrous hole.

He hurdled the tractor at the hill again. It lunged. The wheels grabbed for ground but grasped air. There was no ground—the entire hill was collapsing under nature’s watery knife. I screamed, “Jump.” T-Bone felt the tractor begin to tip. He leaped. One after another, they tumbled down the hill, like children in a nursery rhyme. T-Bone came to a stop, sprawled face in the mud, the jackhammer rain beating his back.

I scrambled down the hill, sliding to his side as if it were home plate. “T-Bone,” I yelled over the deluge. “Are you hurt?” I tugged at his arm, trying to help him to his feet. He jerked away. I sighed.

We struggled to our feet. “Mind if I use your van?” he asked, heading around the barn.

“No!”

“You’re right. It barely runs on flat terrain.”

“Please give this up,” I begged. “I’ll bury the cow.”

T-Bone stopped and turned to me. “You will?”

I nodded.

“Promise?”

“Sure. Why don’t you go in the house and rest for awhile? I bet you’re tired.”

T-Bone rubbed his eye with a muddy hand. “A nap would be nice.”

Slowly, I took his arm and guided him toward the house. “You’ll feel like a different man after a nap.”

T-Bone leaned against me. “You know, Maud, I worry about you.”

“I know.”

“I’ve always tried to take care of you.”

“And you’ve done a good job, too.”

“I have?”

I settled T-Bone on the sofa in the office with an afghan on his legs and Cat on his chest. He was already asleep by the time I called the vet and made arrangements for someone to pick up the cow tomorrow. I glanced at my watch. Four o’clock. My shift at the Round Corners Restaurant had started at three.

Every year Town Meeting adjourned to the Round Corners Restaurant. People, with the taste of power in their mouths, couldn’t just go home to grilled cheese and chips. Governing, tossing power around like a beach ball, built up an appetite. They were loud and laughing as they placed their orders. Freda Lee says this is what happens when you give people the chance to talk: You can’t shut them up. If nothing else, Town Meeting was therapeutic. People let off steam, complained, griped, told off City Hall, and were happy for the next twelve months.

The rain chased away the skiers, which meant the locals had the restaurant to themselves; and they took up every table and booth. Freda and I kept the coffee flowing. The customers ordered sandwiches mostly: Odie, Amos, and Bartholomew, cheeseburger deluxes; Ella Snowden, Reverend Swan and Mrs. Swan, BLT on toast; Frank Snowden and Harvey Winchester, turkey club. Wynn Winchester said she’d have a salad, thank you, that’s all.

The kid in the kitchen complained.

“What are you grinning about?” I said to Freda.

She blushed.

Lewis Lee had dropped in earlier, out of the blue, just back from hauling a load of logs, and said he would pick her up after work.

“I’ve got my car,” Freda said.

“I don’t want you driving that little thing on these roads,” Lewis Lee said. “I’ll wait for you out back, like I used to do.”

Freda nodded shyly.

Freda began working at Round Corners Restaurant twenty-five years ago when she was a junior in high school. She was in love with Lewis Lee even back then. She worked two nights during the week and Friday night on the weekend. She missed most football games. She always told Lewis to go to the post-game party without her. Lewis always waited.

On the nights she knew Lewis was waiting for her behind the restaurant in his old blue Ford, she flew through closing: vacuuming, sweeping, filling the sugar containers. She did everything the older waitresses told her to do in half the time. Then, when they were satisfied and said, go on, take off, she dashed into the restroom, brushed her teeth, wiggled out of the polyester uniform and into blue jeans, combed her hair, and sprayed her arms and neck with perfume, praying it covered the smell of grease, sweat, and hamburger.

Lewis’s friends couldn’t understand why he put up with all the logistical problems of dating a working girl like Freda. Don’t you ever get tired of it? they asked. Tired of waiting out behind the Round Corners Restaurant? Tired of arriving late at all the parties? Lewis Lee, the latest issue of a long line of stoic New Englanders, merely shrugged. He couldn’t explain it. He just knew he’d rather be waiting for Freda than partying with any other girl.

Freda patted her hair. Lewis had liked the new hairstyle, once it grew out a little. He said she looked real dangerous: “Reminds me of one of those women on afternoon television.”

Freda smiled at the memory.

“I wonder if I’ve still got that bottle of perfume in my purse.”

Ding, ding, ding.

“Some day,” Freda said, straightening her apron, “I’m going to ram that bell…”

The cook was saved a clapper in the Adam’s apple by the jangle of another bell, the one over the door to the Round Corners Restaurant.

“You’ve got to stop him!” cried the bell ringer. “Someone’s got to stop him!”

The woman, dripping in the doorway of the Round Corners Restaurant, wore no coat. She was soaked and hysterical. I hardly recognized the woman shivering and screaming as the president of the parents’ association. Last time I saw her she was the picture of control, coolly arranging doughnuts and Danish on a big tray in the school gymnasium.

“Stop who?” said Odie, jumping to his feet. A picture of readiness. Exhibiting the quick reflexes of a lawman or a pitcher of the Round Corners Royals.