Sometimes a Great Notion (24 page)

(I come out and watch. The old man stops at the hall door in front of the stairs. “I wish I could just hear better.” He leans to look in. “Boy?” he says. “You here in the dark?” I come past him to find the light switch and flick it on for him. Lee, he’s standing there in the old man’s path with his hand at his mouth, looking like he don’t know whether to charge or retreat.

“Leland! Boy!” the old man hollers and goes clumping toward him. “You sonofabitch you! What the hell you say? Put ’er there. God amighty, Hank, willya just look at the size of him. He’s shot up like a bean pole; get a little meat on those bones and we’ll work hell out of him. Put ’er there, Leland.”

The kid’s having a tough time answering, what with the old man roaring down on him, and he gets even more flustered when Henry sticks out his left hand to shake and Lee switches and starts to stick out
his
left hand to shake but by then the old man’s decided to go to feeling Lee’s arm and shoulders like he was thinking of buying him for the locker. And Lee don’t know what hand to try next. I have to laugh watching them, in spite of myself.

“But, say, he’s just skin and bones, Hank, skin and bones. We’ll have to get some
meat
on him before he’ll be worth a shit. Leland, goddam you, how’ve you been?”)

Is this him?
The hand on Lee’s arm was hard as wood. “Oh, I’ve been getting by.” Lee shrugged uncomfortably and dropped his face to avoid looking at his father’s frightening countenance. The hand continued on down the length of the arm as the old man talked, until it twined around his fingers with the slow, inexorable constriction of tree roots, sending little sparks of pain jumping toward his shoulder. Lee looked up to protest and realized that the old man was still loudly addressing him in that irrepressible and overpowering voice. Lee managed to convert his grimace to an uncomfortable smile; it wasn’t as if his father intended him any pain with the prolonged grip. Probably just tradition to crush the metacarpal. Every fraternity has a special grip, why not the Muscle Monkeys of Wakonda? They probably also had strenuous initiations and free-for-all socials. Why not a special Muscle Monkey grip?
And am I his?

He was engaged in pondering these questions when he realized that Henry had stopped talking and they were all waiting for him to speak.

“Yes, I’ve been surviving. . . .”
What did I use to call him?
Looking into those green eyes that showed white all the way around the pupils:
Papa . . . ?
At the incredible landscape of face gullied by the Oregon winters and burned by coastal winds. “Not making a lot of headway”—while his hand was being jerked up and down like a whistle rope—“but I’ve been getting by.”
Or had it been Daddy?

And felt again that first billowing of wings against his cheek, the objects in the room fluttering about like pictures on a blown lace curtain . . .

“Good!” The old man was greatly relieved by the news. “Gettin’ by is just about all a man can hope for these days the way these Soslists are bleedin’ you. Here. Sit you down. Hank tells me you been on the road a pretty good piece?”

“Enough to last me a while.”
Papa . . . ? Daddy . . . ?
This was his
father
, an incredulous voice kept trying to convince him. “Enough,” he added, “to make me think I’ll
stand
a while if you don’t mind.”

The old man laughed. “I don’t wonder. Hard on the old him-rongs, huh?” He winked obscenely at Lee, still clutching the hapless hand. Joe moved into view, followed by his wife and children. “Ah. Here we go. Joe Ben—you remember Joe Ben, don’t you, Leland? Your Uncle Ben’s boy? Let’s see, though . . . was he cut up like this before you and your—”

“Oh yeah!” Joe came rushing forward to rescue Lee’s hand. “Sure! Lee was still around after I got my face lifted. I think he was even—no, wait a minute, I didn’t get married to Jan till ’fifty-one and you was gone in what was it? ’Forty-nine? ’Fifty?”

“Something like that. I’ve kind of lost count.”

“Then you was gone before I got married. You ain’t met my woman! Jan, come here. This is Lee. A little sunburned, but him all the same. This is Jan. Ain’t she a honey, Leland?”

Joe hopped aside and Jan came bashfully out of the shadowed hallway, drying her hands on her apron. She stood stolidly beside her bandy-legged husband as he introduced her and the children. “Pleased t’meetcha,” she mumbled when he had finished, then faded backward into the hall again, like a nocturnal creature back into the night.

“She’s a little edgy around strangers,” Joe Ben explained proudly, as if listing the qualities of a prize bird dog. “But these here outfits ain’t, are you?” He dug the twins in the ribs, making them jump and squirm. “Hey, Hankus, where’s your woman, long as we’re showing our stock off to Leland?”

“Damned if I know.” Hank looked about him. “Viv-
yun!
I haven’t seen her since outside. Maybe she seen ol’ Lee here coming an’ run for safety.”

“She’s up getting out of her Levis,” Jan volunteered, then added quickly, “an’ inta a dress, inta a dress. Me an’ her are going in to hear this fella at the church talk.”

“Viv’s trying to be what they called a ‘Informed Female,’ bub,” Hank apologized. “Ever’ so often a woman gets an itch to be in on the
social whirl
, you know. Gives ’em something to do.”

“Well sir by god if we ain’t gonna sit down”—the old man pivoted on the rubber tip mounted at the bottom of his cast—“then let’s get back at the grub. Let’s start puttin’ some meat on this boy.” He rocked away toward the kitchen.

“You want something to eat right now, bub?”

“What? I hadn’t thought about it.”

“Come on!” Henry called from the kitchen. “Bring that boy in here to the table.” Lee stared numbly in the direction of the voice. “You sprouts keep out from underfoot.
Joe
, get your brood out from underfoot afore they get ground to dust!” The children scattered, laughing. Lee stood, blinking at the bald kitchen light through the hallway:

“Hank, I think what I might like to do—”

He heard the boom of the cast returning.

“Leland! You like pork chops, don’t you? Jan, could you get the boy a plate?”

“I might like to—” Who is this brittle old creation of limestone and wood, played by Lon Chaney? Is this my father?

“Here. Put your jacket right over here. You dang
kids!
”

“Better watch out, bub. Don’t ever get between him an’ the dinner table.”

“Hank”—WATCH OUT—“I think I’ll—”

“Sit here, boy.” Henry pulled him into the brightly lit kitchen by the wrist. “I got you some java, that’ll perk you up.” Tree roots. “Here you go, two or three of these chops an’ this here sweet potato . . .”

“Maybe you’d like some peas?” Jan asked.

“Thanks, Jan, I—”

“You bet!” Henry thundered around the chair toward the stove. “You ain’t got nothin’ agin black-eye peas, do you, son?”

“No, but, what I might do . . .”

“And how ’bout some of this pear preserves.”

“Might be a bit too . . . a bit of time. I mean, I’m out on my feet from the trip. Maybe I could take a little nap before—”

“Why hell!” Henry came thundering back. He shimmered before Lee in the kitchen heat. “The boy’s probably dead on his feet! What’s the matter’th us. Sure. Take a plate up to your room.” At the cupboard he pulled handfuls of cookies from a jar shaped like Santa Claus and began piling them on Lee’s plate. “Here we go, here we go now.”

“Mommy, can we have some cookies?”

“Just as soon.”

“Say! I know!” Joe Ben sprang suddenly up from his chair
the kitchen is very crowded
and started to say something
why is everybody standing up?
but choked on the biscuit he had in his mouth. He began clearing his throat in rapid little explosions, thrusting his neck forward like a rooster attempting to clear his throat to crow: “I-ee, i-ee.”

“Mom-
mee!
”

“Not
now
, sweetie.”

“You sure, bub? You couldn’t eat a bit first?” Hank was pounding the wheezing and gray-faced Joe Ben unconcernedly on the back. “Be chilly upstairs, for eatin’ . . .”

“I’m too tired to swallow, Hank.”

Joe Ben dislodged his piece of biscuit and croaked in a mangled voice, “His bags. Where’s his bags? I was gonna go get his bags.”

“Way ahead of you,” Hank said, starting for the back door.

“Here’s some fruit.”

Jan brought two wizened apples from the refrigerator.

“Wait, Hank—”

“Lordymercy, Jan. Can’t you see the boy’s dead standing up. He wants a place to get a little rest, not no two of those little pissant winesaps. I swear, Leland, I can’t see how people stand them sour outfits anyhow. But I tell you”—the refrigerator swung open again—“we got any of them pears left I picked the other day?”

“What is it, bub?”

“I don’t have any bags, remember? not in the boat, anyway.”

“
That’s
right. I remember puzzling about that on the way across.”

“The bus driver couldn’t see his way—”

Henry’s head came back out of the refrigerator. “Yeah! Try one of these for size!” The pear made a place for itself with the cookies. “Good after a long trip; a trip always gets me bound up, an’ there ain’t nothing like a pear.”
Everybody WATCH OUT is standing up!

“Say!” Joe Ben snapped his fingers. “Does he have a
bed
someplace?”

“Hey, now.” Old Henry swung the refrigerator door shut. “That’s right.” He lumbered half into the hallway, craning his neck as though there might have been a desk clerk. “That
is
right. He’ll have to have a
room
, you know?”

“I got him one all picked out, Papa.”

“Mommee,
now!
”

“I’ll tote his bags!” Joe Ben bounded ahead of them.

“He said they was at the bus depot.”

“Don’t forget your plate, Lee!”

“You reckon that’ll be enough grub, boy? Give him a glass of milk, Jan.”

“No. Really. Please.”
Please!

“Come on, bub.”
Hank
. . .

“And if they’s anything else you give us a holler!”

“I’ll—”

“Never mind, bub . . .”

“I’ll—”

“Never mind. Just come on upstairs.”

Lee wasn’t aware of Hank’s hand guiding him through the hall; the touch blended into the rest of the quake. . . .
Am I this? Are these mine? These people? These insane people?

(“We’ll talk later, boy,” the old man calls. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk later.” The boy starts to answer but I tell him, “Let’s just get on upstairs, bub; he’ll chew your leg off .” And I steer him out of the hall to the stairs not a second too soon. He goes up the steps ahead of me, walking like he’s stunned or something. When we get to the top I don’t have to direct him which way to go. He stops at the door to his old room and waits till I open it, then goes in. You’d of thought he’d wired for reservations, he was so sure.

“You coulda been wrong, you know.” I grin at him. “I might not of meant this particular room.”

He takes a look at the room all set up with fresh linen and clean towels and the bed ready and everything, then says back to me, “You could’ve been wrong too, Hank,” he says, quiet, looking at the way I fixed up his old room. “I
might not
have come.” But he don’t grin; it ain’t a funny thing to him.

“Well, it’s like Joe Ben always tells his kids, bub: better to be ready and wrong than a pound of cure.”

“That’s a thought to sleep on,” he says. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Morning? You planning to sleep your life away? It ain’t but five-thirty or six.”

“I mean later. I’ll see you later.”

“Okay, bub. Good night.”

“Good night,” he says and steps back into the room and shuts the door and I can almost hear the poor bastard sigh.)

Lee stood for a second in the medicinal silence of the room, then walked quickly to the bed and placed the plate and the glass of milk on the bedside table. He sat down on the bed, gripping his knees. Through a haze of fatigue he was dimly aware of the footsteps booming off down the hall. They were the footsteps of some enormous mythical character on his way to make a meal of unwary shepherds. “Fee Fi Fo Fum,” Lee whispered, then kicked off his shoes and swung his legs onto the bed. He crossed his arms behind his head and stared up at a pattern of knotholes that became gradually familiar. “It is kind of a psychological fairy tale. With a new twist. We find the hero in the ogres’ den, but
why
is he there? What is his motive? Has he come, sword of truth clasped bravely in his hand, sworn to slay these giants which have so long pillaged the countryside? Or has he brought his body to sacrifice to these demons? A nice addition to the traditional Jack up the Beanstalk; the element of mystery; who gets it—Jack? Or the Giant?”
these people . . . this scene . . . how will I cut it? Oh god, how?

As he drifted into numb sleep he thought he heard someone singing in the room next to his, an answer that he couldn’t quite interpret . . . sweet . . . high . . . the succulent warbling of a rare fairyland bird:

 

In sleep his face relaxed, the features softening. And the singing ran like cool water across his parched brain.

The echoes of her singing spread, circling. The kingfishers quarrel outside on the phone line. In town, at the Snag, the citizens are wondering again what has become of Floyd Evenwrite. In her shack at the mudflats Indian Jenny is writing a letter to the publishers of
Classic Comics
, wondering if they put out an illustrated edition of the
Tibetan Book of the Dead
. In the mountains up the South Fork the old wino boltcutter walks to the edge of the cliff and shouts across, just to hear the sound of a human voice come back. Boney Stokes rises from the supper table and decides to mosey down and count the canned goods. Hank walks to the stairwell after leaving Lee in his room, and turns at the sound of Viv’s singing and comes back to rap lightly on her door.