I’ll head home, he said.
Don’t walk away from me, said Miss Eva.
Don’t you dare walk away from your teacher, boy, said Mother.
Disregard us at your peril, said Miss Eva.
I’m making you dumb bunnies with my mind, he said.
Miss Eva and Mother strolled away down a non-shit path that opened up before them, a strip of green grass extending off into infinity, searching for some quiet place where they could sit and disparage him further.
The path was fake too, also made by his mind.
Fuck it.
Fuck this noise.
He knew he was overmedicated even as he stood on the little front porch of the school and observed once again the familiar midafternoon pattern the elm branches made on the dusty burlap mat on which they were required to wipe their feet, once, twice, thrice, once-twice-thrice is nice.
Jesus, getting into the weeds here.
Little help please, Lord.
—
He walked slowly home, observing many things along the way: tire ruts from a specific long-ago rainy afternoon on which Father got the Chevy stuck; a football lost in 1948; the familiar cluster of ancient plow parts near the Robisons’ faded red barn. His childhood home was ugly but lovely to him. A warped plank set itself apart from its fellows just there, under the mail slot. The front door made the same old squeak. He moved through the house, noting many long-forgotten things: a chip in the molding they’d always thought resembled Clark Gable in profile; the trouty smell of the under-stairs nook where his fishing gear was kept. Above Mother’s dresser: a taped-up inspirational quote from a ladies’ magazine, yellowing with age. On the dresser itself: two wristwatches rubber-banded together, a mirrored tray holding a modest array of cosmetics, an owl feather, a ring made of bits of string (a gift from the spirited, unmanageable Willamina). Did the room smell of his mother? It did, it did.
For all the difficulties of his childhood, he cherished the old place still.
One of Mother’s slips hung from a doorknob. Mother herself was nowhere to be found. Only the little kitten, Belvedere, long dead, was here, alive again, batting around a paper wad. From this window a fellow could see, down the block, the elegant Minton place. As a teen one night he’d lingered under a lamppost, watching the Mintons move around inside. Mrs.Minton had paused in front of a window, holding up a vase. In her genteel way. For Mr. Minton to admire. Well, that struck a chord. No genteel proffering of vases was happening back at his house. No sir. There it was time for the slaughter. Two goats and a pig, eachof which he knew by name. He was damn well meant to help. With the slaughter. Of Emile (goat) and Sally-Bob (pig). While Clarabell (goat) looked on. That night, from her pen, Clarabell sent out a series of mourning bleats. He’d badly wanted to go to her.
Sit, Father had growled. Sit, you.
Oh, those days, those brutal days.
(Dear man.
My charge wanted me toknowhim. To understand who he was, what he’d done.)
Then (a ray of hope) his first-ever time on the course out at Cheyenne C.C.: the lush deep grass, the expensive leather bags, the clubs themselves (gleaming, weaponlike), the way the men (local Wyoming clodhopper big shots he’d long since outclassed) would step grandly out of fine golf carts (like spaceships in their newness) and survey things casually, then issue some offhanded order to a kid (him, a caddy trainee, in that pair of khakis Mother’d managed to scrounge up from somewhere and a button-down of Father’s she’d heroically altered) and then, end of the round, the guy would slip you a quarter, maybe a half-dollar.
How old are you, son? Twelve? Really? You look younger. You did fine with that bag, though. You surely did. It’s about as big as you are, slick. You two were wrassling, weren’t you? Sometimes it was winning and sometimes you were.
It felt like a secret society a kid might someday join. He (even he) might someday become a man who tipped big and padded off across that lush fairway like a king, talking about the best steak joints in Los Angeles/Reno/Canada, about some fellow some other fellows had beaten the living shit out of, after which there was going to be no more trouble on that front, believe youme. Leaning into one another to whisper brutal, necessary secrets, cigarettes held out behind them, out of the circle, and then, once the secret had been shared, the men would step abruptly back, breaking the huddle, and take deep, punctuating drags, as if to cleanse by smoke the sin of the secret, and one of them might cast a glance over at him, the lowly caddy, as if to say: If you heard that, son, I trust you’ll keep your royal trap shut.
And he would.
He always would. That’s what powerful men did. Stayed quiet. Held secrets. Ran things from inside a tight protective circle, making perilous decisions only they were savvy enough to make, leaving normal morality to the mere earthlings, who lived and ate and died dully down below, never knowing the extent to which they were being shielded by a beneficent distant pulling of strings.
Going home, after a day like that? Heartbreaking. Everything back at home was so mean, so old-fashioned, so frugal. He was using too much dish soap? Having had his morning of fun, he could come down to earth and put every last cent of his tip money there in the Common Jar and get cracking on some badly neglected chores, mister, and darn well stop playing the dandy?
No.
No, no.
It was all too small.
(Did I see? Did that make sense?
