One More for the Road (25 page)

“But if we harvest—”

“People will not believe the bomb was ever there, yes? Well, I stomped every inch of that field and I still live. We harvest. Tomorrow.”

 

The father did not sleep well that night. Several times he awoke to scowl at his sleeping wife. He scowled into the next room at sleeping Tony. “That boy knows something,” he muttered. “Dancing up and down. Fool!”

In bed he lay listening to the rich wheat blowing and the stars turning in the sky. What a life he'd had. If he ran to the village shouting, “My wife just had a daughter!” someone would say, “So? My wife has delivered a son.” If he arrived panting to announce, “My wife has birthed a son,” someone would snort: “Hell, Roberto's wife just had two sons!” If he said, “My wife is sick,” someone would counter, “My wife is dead!” Nothing balanced. His wheat never had the decency to rot or his barn to collapse, while all around neighbors' silos burned and grandfathers were ruined by lightning. Thus were his friends lavishly provided conversations for a lifetime with much left over. He couldn't very well say, could he, “Remember the summer my barn didn't burn?” No!

Nor were his crops huge enough to be the objects of jealousy. They were casual, on the norm. “Neither bigger nor smaller than anyone else's. What kind of crop is that?”

But now, here he was, very happy indeed, and tomorrow another day which could be as pleasant as wine and conversation or as full of doom as the gleam of a scythe or the color of his wife's stare.

Well, well, we shall see, he thought, and shut the trap on his thoughts and snuffed out the small candle in his head.

 

At six o'clock in the morning, the explosion came.

His wife sat up and said, “It wasn't very loud.”

“It almost destroyed the house!” he cried.

Smoke rose in the sky. Other men were running from great distances as he leaped out his door.

“It was here!”

“No, over there!”

“No, that way!”

They ran into and around and across the wheat.

“It's outside the fence,” called Peter.

“No, idiot, inside, inside.”

The children hurried up in their nightgowns.

“There,” said Tony, pointing beyond the fence, “like Peter said!”

Fifty yards beyond and outside the wheat field, down by a little stream, stood a fresh, smoking crater.

Father stared bleakly for a long time.

“It's not very big,” Tony observed.

“It's big,” said Father.

“It's no bigger than my head,” said Tony.

The neighbors ran up, shouting. Father stood with staring eyes which saw nothing. “It was bigger than a stove,” he said to himself. “Anyway,” he added, “this bomb was certainly not my bomb at all.”

“What?!” everyone cried.

“No,” said the father seriously. “My bomb landed in my field. Like a locomotive from the sky. You could see the flames, the iron wheels, the steaming whistle, and almost, the engineer waving, that's how big it was.”

“But, but, that would make two shells!”

“One, two, dammit!” said Father. “They both landed at once! But mine was a monster. Not like that midget there. Besides, it's outside my property.”

“Just fifty feet,” said Tony.

“A million miles!”

“But it's not logical both fell at once. No other bombs have come within miles in all our lives.”

“Nevertheless, the enemy is still hidden in my field of beautiful wheat.”

“Papa,” whispered Tony, pointing.

Everyone turned.

And there, walking quietly through the field of golden wheat, a gleaming scythe cradled in her arms, nodding to all the neighbors, was Mother. She stopped before her husband and very slowly, quietly, handed him the scythe.

 

Many years later, when he was drinking wine at the village inn, the father would hold up his glass and, after many sighs and exhalations, glance at some stranger from the corner of his eyes and at last speak. “Have you ever heard of the great bomb that fell in my wheat field and still lies ticking there today?” A grievous sigh. “See these gray hairs? They come from living cheek by jowl with the fiend, the devil grinning under my crops all these terrible years. See how drawn and lined is my face from never knowing when, plowing or asleep, I'll be blown to oblivion.”

“Well,” all the strangers would say, “why don't you just pack up and move?”

“Do I look like a coward?” the father would cry. “No, dear God, we'll stay on, plowing, sowing, reaping, living on borrowed time. And one morning you will see my name listed as a casualty of the war long finished, but which threatens and darkens my precious wheat. Yes, thanks, I will have a bit more of that wine …”

And with the burning of many calendars, and the children grown and gone, the father still could not tolerate Tony of the delicate face and the tiny white hands. Many times in the following years, Tony would write from London or Paris or Budapest, his face smiling his Madonna smile out of the delicate penmanship. Always, at the very end of his note, his parting salutation was one gentle word: “Boom.”

F
ORE
!

 

T
he sun was going down and in a few swift minutes it dipped below the horizon and the shadows came out from under all the trees, and one by one the golf-range practicers scabbarded their clubs, packed their golf balls, shucked their dark glasses, and headed for the parking lot. When the sun was completely gone the cars had gone with it; the lot was empty, the driving range abandoned, or almost abandoned.

Glenn Foray was checking some figures on his computer in the small office behind the tee-off point when he heard it. Once, twice, three times.

Whack, whack, whack.

Good solid blows of a club against three balls.

That was not ordinary.

Glenn Foray glanced up.

To the far left of the range, situated on the tee with an old-fashioned niblick driver in hand and his tartan cap pulled low on his brow, stood a now-familiar figure, a man who had been in and out of the range for some years but now was bending to tee three more balls as if it must be done quickly. Then he straightened up, adjusted his club, and whack, whack, whack again.

Glenn Foray regarded the missing sun, the empty car lot with but two cars, his own and this lone golfer's. He rose from his desk and went to stand in the doorway, watching.

The routine was repeated. One, two, three. Whack, whack, whack. The golfer was starting a third attack when Glenn Foray arrived to his right. The man seemed not to notice and drove the golf balls, one after another, far out on the green fairway.

Foray watched them sail, then said,

“Evening, Mr. Gingrich. Nice go.”

“Was it? Did it?” Gingrich said, having ignored where the balls landed. “Well, yes. Sure. Evening. Quitting time?”

Foray waited as Gingrich placed three more. There was something in the man's face and the way his arm stretched and his knuckles clutched the missiles that stopped his agreement.

“Quitting time?” he said. “Not yet.”

Gingrich stared at the golf balls on the new tees. “Glad to hear that. Just a few more?”

“Hell,” said Foray quietly. “Take your time. I got some figures to add. Be here at least another half hour.”

“Good news.” Gingrich had a nice backswing and follow-through. One, two, three. “I know it's not your job. But could I have, oh, say, two or three more buckets?”

“No sweat.” Foray turned, went, and brought back three more fully loaded golf ball carriers. “Here you go.”

“Thanks,” said Gingrich, still not looking up, shoving more tees in the turf. His cheeks were flushed, his eyes hot with a kind of sporting frenzy as if he were playing against himself and not happy. His fingers, thrust down, seemed flushed with color, too. “Very kind of you,” he almost shouted.

Foray waited for three more solid cracks and three high-flying white balls before he backed off.

From the office doorway he watched Gingrich attack with an even more concerted energy, blow after blow, almost as if he were striking—what?—a bad day at the office? A fellow golfer? A dishonest friend? Foray snorted at his own one, two, three hard-driven thoughts.

At his computer he tried to recall what he had been summing up, but still the solid blows came as the twilight set in and the night lamps switched on, flooding the empty fairway with light. It was late on a Sunday, the one night when the range closed early, and still the man with the angry eyes and the crimson face slammed the balls high and before they fell thrust more tees in place to empty the buckets.

By the time they were empty, Foray had carried two more full loads out, quietly, and set them down. Gingrich, seeing this as an act of friendship, nodded his thanks and continued his robot performance. One, two, three, one, two, three, one—Foray did not move for a long while. At last he said, “Everything okay, Mr. Gingrich?”

Gingrich hit another three and then at last looked up. “What could not be okay?” he said.

And there were tears in his eyes.

Foray swallowed and could find no words until at last he said, looking at the crimsoned cheeks of the man and the fiery eyes, “As long as it's all okay, then. Okay.”

Gingrich nodded abruptly and lowered his head. A few clear drops of water fell from his eyes.

Foray said, “I just figured. It'll take me another forty minutes, an hour, to finish up. You can close the joint with me.”

“Fine. Damned fine,” Gingrich said.

And clipped three clumps of grass and turf.

Foray felt the blows as if the club hit his midriff, they were that intense. The effect was like a film speeded up. No sooner were the balls up than they were gone. The air seemed full of white birds sailing in the night trees.

Foray kept rising to go to the doorway and stare out, taking the impacts, stunned with the progress of this lonely game.

“None of my business,” he murmured, but still turned to his computer. He called up the index of frequent players: Galen, Gallager, Garnes … Here it was. Whack, whack, whack, in the twilight.

“Gingrich. William. 2344 Patricia Avenue, L.A. 90064. Mr. and Mrs. (Eleanor). Golf practice lessons early on. Repeat a few months ago. Steady customer.” All the notes he had typed himself.

He looked out at the range and watched the man in his almost lunatic frenzy and wondered, Do I bring more buckets, yes, no? He brought more buckets. This time, Gingrich did not even glance up or nod.

Foray, like a man walking underwater, for reasons he did not quite understand, moved out toward his open-top roadster, listened to the constant knock, saw more white objects fly in a sky where the moon was slowly rising, and drove away.

What do I say? he thought. Mrs. Gingrich, come get your husband?

When he had parked in front of 2344 Patricia Avenue he looked in at the large Georgian house where some, not all, of the lights were lit. He saw shadows moving to one side in the windows. He heard distant music and dim sounds of laughter.

To hell with this, he thought. What's wrong with you? Fool!

He stepped on the gas and started to glide away but in his head he heard the chopping sounds, one, two, three, and stopped and coasted the car back near the curb. He waited a long while, chewing his lower lip, cursing, and at last got out, stood swaying, and moved up the walk. He stood before the front door for another long minute listening to the soft voices inside and the music playing low, and at last touched the doorbell with almost as much force as the lone player thrusting in the tees. Silence. He rang again. More silence. One, two, three. Three thrusts. Three bell sounds, each louder.

He stopped and waited.

At long last the door opened and a woman's face appeared.