Sometimes a Great Notion (107 page)

Lee didn’t say anything to that; he was looking pretty solemn up at that window. But some way I felt like kidding a bit.

“The only thing I ask, is you take care of her. She’s mighty finicky sometimes.”

“What?” he said; it tickled me to fruster him that way; it always had. “What are you—”

“The jeep. I’m asking, will you take care of her?”

He looked at the dock. “Best that I can . . .”

“She may need gas.” I took out my wallet. “I can give you some cash—?”

“No. I’ll be all right. With my wages and policy.”

“You’re sure? You’ll say so if you need some more money? You’ll get word back?”

“I promise.”

“Andy, man, what do you say me and you ride over t’ the house and get me some of Lee’s blood outa my hair and talk about grinning black cats and the like, hey? . . . over a bottle of Johnny Walker, what say? Okeedoke, then, bub; so long and maybe we’ll see you around sometime.”

And we left him there, starting the jeep, and walked back down to the boat. I was feeling all right, maybe not in God’s pocket because it ain’t so easy a thing losing a wife, but more all right about myself than I had in a good spell . . .)

In the attic, Viv reaches out to pull the window closed. In just the short time it has been open the rain has swollen the edges enough to make shutting it difficult. By the time she has it wedged shut again the jeep has pulled away down the road and Hank and Andy are returning in the boat. Hank seems cheerful when she greets him downstairs; she doesn’t mention the fight; she can’t tell if he knows she was watching or not. He is talking to Andy at a great rate about a fire at the mill.

“Was it bad?” she asks Andy.

Hank grins at her and answers for Andy. “Just enough, chicken, just bad enough. Tell you what I’m thinking about doing; I’m thinking—since I already missed my game, nothing else to do, can’t dance, too wet to plow—that me, and Andy here might take us a little tugboat ride.”

“Hank!” She really doesn’t need to ask. “Are you going to try to drive the booms down river to Wakonda Pacific?” She knew the moment she saw him. “Oh, Hank, by yourself?”

“Pee on that Oh-Hank-by-yourself business. Don’t you think Andy’s gonna be in there helpin’?”

“But it’ll take one of you to pilot. Hon, you can’t control all those logs by yourself.”

She watches Hank waggle a loosened tooth with his forefinger, speaking around it. “A man’s always surprised just how much he can do by himself. Anyhow, what I want you to do . . . is Lee took the jeep in, see, so you ride in with Andy and bring it back out. Go look Lee up at the hotel and—”

“Lee?” She tries to catch his eye, but he’s busy fingering his tooth.

“That’s right—and tell him I sent you to—”

“But
Lee?
”

“You want to go or not? Huh? Okay, then. Andy, while you’re gone I’ll gather up a good supply of chains and peavey poles and get me some eggs . . . and I’ll put us up a big Thermos of coffee, too, because I expect we’ll need something hot—can you get a boat offn Mama Olson? She’s liable not to care about getting out on Thanksgiving to rent one, especially when she hears what it’s about . . .”

“Yeah, I’ll get a boat . . .”

“Good man. Can you pilot one?”

“I’ll get it up here. I’ll have it up here the way the tide’s comin’ in now in about an hour.”

“Good man. Now . . .” Hank slaps his belly; Viv starts at the flat, sudden sound. “We better get to moving around, I reckon.”

“Hank.” She reaches to touch his arm. “I’ll stay and cook you up some breakfast if you—”

“No, you go on. I can burn me some eggs. Here—” He takes out his wallet and removes all the bills; he divides them between Andy and Viv. “This is for Mama Olson, and this . . . is in case the jeep needs money. So let’s get in gear—Listen:
what’s that now?
”

The four measured notes of a musical auto horn reach them faintly. Andy goes to the window. “It’s that delivery truck from Stokes’ General,” he says. “Lee said they was coming past, remember? You want me to go up the flagpole and signal or something?”

“I’d like to signal him with a good salt load, the old spook. No, wait, Andy; wait . . . a . . . minute. I think I’ll—Listen, you two head on out; I’ll handle the signals.” He grins, striding into the kitchen. “Where’s that arm of the old man’s, chicken?”

“In the deep freeze where you put it. Why?”

“I may fry it up to go with my breakfast. Now you two get gone and leave me to business. I got things to do, eggs to hatch, wood to chop, and ground to scratch. I’ll see you in about an hour, Andy. Good-by, Viv, chicken. I’ll see you when I see you. Now
move
, for Pete’s sake! I got to run everything in this boogerin’ two-bit show?”

In her shack on the mudflats Indian Jenny casts her shells more and more slowly; any time now, baby, any time. In his bed Big Newton belches tremendously, and sleeps. Evenwrite waits by his phone, hoping Draeger had been as right about this one prediction as all the others. In the foyer Viv is once more climbing into the big rain poncho when Hank comes down from upstairs with Lee’s leather-elbowed jacket. “Looks like the kid forgot his coat. You better take it to him: he ain’t gonna look very spiffy runnin’ around New York City in that old mackinaw of Joby’s. And bundle up good, it’s commencing to blow to beat the band out there.”

After pulling galoshes on over her tennis shoes she rolls the jacket into a small bundle and tucks it up inside her rain poncho. She stands then with her hand on the knob, feeling the door tremble with the force of the whipping rain. Andy is waiting silently beside her in his great brown coat. She stands, holding the door for a moment, waiting for Hank to say something else. “Hank—?” she starts. “Get gone, slowpoke,” she hears him call from the kitchen, amused-sounding, over the hiss of frying sausages. She pushes the door and goes on out; she had wanted to talk with him but the tone of bitter amusement, though slight, is still clear enough to render looking at him unnecessary. Even without turning, she can see the look perfectly.

Across the river the mountains and naked rock of the railway embankment loom in blurred relief, appearing almost flat, two-dimensional like a photograph, and scratched slantwise by the rain as if the photo had been scoured diagonally with a stiff wire brush. The effect seems extremely strange to her, though she can’t at first decide why. Then she realizes it is because the scratches run from the upper right-hand corner of the picture down to the lower left, instead of from left to right as the rains usually fall. The wind is blowing from the east. The East Wind. The slides far up river, the constant grumble of the skies, and the vicious rains have wakened the old East Wind from his hermit’s lair high up in the pass.

Viv lifts the hood of her poncho against this ranting wind and hurries behind Andy down to the boat. Before she gets in the boat she tries to zip the front of her garment up to her throat to keep her hair dry, but the zipper snarls in her long tresses. She snatches at the snagged hair for a second with chilled fingers, then gives up and climbs into the boat, leaving the front of her blouse bared to the wind and her hair getting wet again in the rain . . . He’s seen me before, she thinks wryly, with my hair a little straggly . . .

In the Snag, Lee has already purchased his bus ticket. He is sipping a beer and checking through the policies in the shoebox while he waits for the bus. There are a lot of extra policies; he’ll have to leave all those that do not concern him with Teddy. He finds the one naming him as beneficiary and shoves it inside the photo album and feels there the picture he appropriated up in that attic. Forgot all about it. And the little scuffle couldn’t have helped it much . . .

The album, though it had been in the boat during the fracas, had still been splattered with mud and blood, but the photo was still in as good condition as ever, which wasn’t saying a whole lot; the only thing the scuffling had done was succeed where I had failed in separating the photograph from the papers. I started to drop these papers in the shoebox with all the other stuff I was planning to leave with Teddy, when the handwriting on one of the envelopes caught my eye.
For an instant he is lost from time, the past and present crisscrossing through his mind like bright swords dueling in the dawn fog.
They were letters from my mother, dating from our first years in New York up to
the time of her death. The letters tremble, rustling; the picture in his other hand slides away unnoticed to the floor.
In the dim barroom light it was almost impossible for me to make out much more than the barest of details.
He sinks over the first letter, forming the words “Dearest Hank:” with his lips as he brings the faint rustle of scented print close to his eyes . . . Damn him, he has no right, no he has no right.
I was able to make out however various requests for money, anecdotes, sentimentalities . . . but even more infuriating than these things was the discovery of that
that perfume?
little booklet of my high school poems
White Lilac?
that I remember she claimed she had
no right
lost in an Automat on Forty-second Street years before. The poems I had written and hand-printed meticulously
the scent falls, white lilac
for her birthday, now, here
from the trembling page, her perfume
it turns up, a few thousand miles
like crumbling petals
from dear old Forty-second
shaken from a faded lilac . . .
and in the mail of my brother!
He has no right she has no right with my poems!

As I scanned the letters I went quietly mad. Because
he has no right
it became increasingly apparent that she had
never been mine
my dearest Hank I have no way of telling you
in all those years together she had still been his
how much I missed your hands your lips and
they had no right it can’t be
can we ever see each other again
but each word, each scent
without my
bringing back so cruel
Sweetheart the snow here turns black and
actual movement of her hand
the people here are even colder and blacker but
as it lifted her hair to touch the bottle of perfume
I do so wish that we might have
beneath her pearled earlobe
of course Lee does much better in school
scented dark pendulum of her hair
still, we may not have to wait as long as
he has no right to my twelve years
darling until
he had his twelve years he has no right to mine
we can find that place alone in the sky
please to write more
until, by the time the door opened,
with all my love, Myra
and Viv was there, crying, nondescript in her big poncho
PS Lee needs tuition and the doctor writes that the payments on the policies have lapsed again; could you?
By the time the poor girl arrived
the insurance too?
I was almost beside myself with rage.
They had no right to do this!

And by the time Viv had stopped crying long enough to tell me he was taking the run down the river, “Just he and Andy. And he’ll
drown
out there . . . and I hope he does!” I was already feeling that the years had used me badly. When she finished choking out her news I felt as though I were being raped by time itself.
Again! Just like he did before when he let her go!
I tried to explain, but I fear it was largely gibberish.
Again he will let her go and steal her forever from me!
I could only try to tell her, “When we fought, Viv, he asked if I’d had enough. But hadn’t I taken his best punch? Hadn’t I! Hadn’t I!” I demanded shouting at her, lashing out in a fury of denial and affirmation, but she didn’t understand. “Viv, don’t you see, if I let him do this I’ll just lose all over again. I
didn’t
have enough. I can
never
have had enough as long as he makes me say that! I can never have
you
as long as I let him make the heroic runs down the river. Don’t you—? Oh, Viv . . .” I gripped her hand; I could see she had no idea what I was talking about; I could see I would never be able to explain it. “But listen . . . for a while there, do you see? out on the bank? I was fighting for my life. I know it. Not running for my life as I’ve always done before. But fighting for it. Not merely to keep it, or to have it, but
for
it . . . fighting to get it, to
win
it?” I slapped the table. She was saying something but I didn’t hear. “No! by god I don’t care what he thinks
I haven’t
had enough. And the pompous prick, he doesn’t have any goddamned right—Where is he, anyway, still at the house? Well, where’s Andy with the boat? I’m not going to let him, not again. Not this time! Here, take all this stuff. I’ve got to catch a boat.”

She was saying something but I didn’t hear, I ran, leaving her behind, toward my brother . . . leaving her and blindly hoping she might see that I was making it possible to perhaps someday have her. Her or someone. Later. For the dance between my brother and me was not finished. It was just intermission, just a bloody break with both partners supine and saturated . . . but not finished. Maybe never. Each of us had sensed that, on the bank, that when the partner is equal there exits no end, no winning, no losing, and no stopping . . . There is only the intermission while the orchestra takes five for smokes. Were I to have pounded Hank unconscious—I use the subjunctive because I had lost too much blood and smoked too many cigarettes for the possibility to be other than hypothetical—I still would have proved nothing but his unconsciousness. Not his defeat. I know it now, and I think I even knew it then. Just as he must have known when I struck back that my defeat was now beyond the reach of his weapons. The peavey pole I had worried about could only snatch out my innards; the cork boots could only tear my neurons to bits with my Golden Delicious; even by threat, even if he had held his twelve-bladed whittler knife at my throat while forcing me to sign a paper swearing everlasting allegiance to John Birch, the Ku Klux Klan, and the Daughters of the American Revolution combined, he would have defeated me no more than I would have defeated him by following him right into the sanctuary of the polling booth and forcing him at gunpoint to vote the straight Socialist ticket.