Trucks stared out the window. The whole time he’d expected to see movement. An arc of flying birds. But it was still out there. Cold and still and heavy white.
“I get you,” Gerald said. “Where you’re coming from. I’ve not been to your places, but your cloth isn’t cut so far from mine. Don’t fool yourself about that. And you talk a lot about your daughter. It’s clear how much you care for her. How much you’ve sacrificed. I can see that. Any idiot could see that in your eyes.”
Trucks shook off the blanket, stood, and walked to the windows. His back to Gerald.
“Not trying to offend,” Gerald said.
“It’s all right,” Trucks said.
“I wanted to ask about the mother. You don’t say any—”
“The ride here. You’d said something about splitting wood. You got wood to split?”
“Well, sure. I’ve got wood to split, but you should really rest. You two were so zonked out on that highway. Cold as clams. I think you should get that blanket back on and sleep.”
“I’d like to do some of that work. I owe you. Let me work it off.”
“Well.”
“I know my body. It’ll hold. Where do you keep your axes?”
“In the shed near the horse barn, but—”
“What kind of axes do you keep?”
“Splitting mauls, felling axes, Hudson Bays.”
“You got a go-devil?”
“Last time I checked.”
“Good.”
“You sure?”
“I’ll sweat it out. It’ll be okay.”
Gerald swished his coffee. “Okay’s pretty damn relative,” he said.
SHADOWBOXING THROUGH THE RADIANT WHITE
Trucks took measure on the next log. Axe out. Arms steady. Feeling the grip of the handle. Then he lifted the axe overhead. Brought it down in a swift movement.
Thunk.
Split another clean piece off. Then he sliced the halves into quarters.
He’d been at it over an hour and went through nearly all the unsplit wood. Not because he had the energy—he was exhausted—but because he had so much intensity to release.
Trucks set another log on the chopping block. His muscles were sore. He felt the ache of that old left hand he’d thrown so many times. The sting of it felt good in a way. He was so used to clenching his hands inside his boxing gloves that grasping the handle felt like a piece of home he’d left behind.
He set the axe on the log. Took measure. Focused. Raised.
Thunk. Thunk. Thunk.
Trucks was sweaty from all the work. Winter or not, he took off his workman’s coat and tossed it on the woodpile. It was covered by a dark tarp to keep off the snow except where Trucks had peeled it back to stack the cut wood. He leaned the go-devil against the chopping block and picked the split pieces from the ground, then added them to the woodpile.
Trucks grabbed his collar and shook out his shirt. Then he walked away from the pile, out into the open snow. A soft orange glow came from behind the gray clouds. The arches of the hills reached up to the big sky.
The movement called to him. He ached without it.
Trucks threw a jab with his left, bobbed under a phantom right cross, and followed with a hook.
Pah-pah.
He circled. Stepped with grace on his toes. His footwork and movement feeling foreign in the heavy winter boots and unfamiliar snow.
Another incoming straight. Trucks slipped, weaved under. Slid out of range.
Trucks stepped in. Threw a combination—jab-cross-hook.
Pah-pah-pah.
He watched his breath float between punches, then slipped out again.
Found his distance.
Threw the jumping lead hook.
Pah.
And back out again. Trucks circled. Feinted in. Popped out.
Pah. Pah-pah-pah.
Trucks rolled his shoulder. Dodged a cross. Bobbed. Weaved. Bobbed. Circled out.
He thought about his girl sweating under that thick quilt.
His boots went whoosh-whoosh in the snow.
Countered with an uppercut. Followed with a double jab.
Pah. Pah-pah.
Kept that motherfucker off.
Another barrage incoming. Trucks used his footwork. Head movement. Reminded himself that he didn’t fear tired.
His girl was sleeping. She didn’t feel well. But she’d be well again soon. They’d be back.
He threw that classic one-two. Jab to right cross.
Pah-pah.
Got his distance. Breath coming out like hot smoke. Measured. Feet churning. He was making pictures in the snow.
Rolled the shoulder. Head under. Parried. Parried. Wove. Spun out.
Jab. Jab. Straight. Jab. Flurry.
Pah-pah. Pah. Pah. Pah-pah-pah-pah.
And now he was losing breath. Was it the altitude? All that chopping? It was hard to keep his hands up. His chin tucked. He knew he was fading.
Pah-pah.
He had to keep going.
Slipped. Rolled. Got out.
Pah. Pah-pah. Pah.
He was alive, hearing his breath like that. The blood in his throat. The shake of his shoulders. His fists balled and striking. The grit of his nails digging into his palms.
Circled. Circled. Pushed away. Kept out of the clinch.
Pah. Pah.
Sidestepped.
Pah.
He was cramping up. His head hot. The sweat rolling off him in the bitter morning. His body going on instinct, his mind working only in images.
He’d go inside and see her soon. But now. Now was his.
A few more punches.
Pah-pah. Pah.
Parried. Parried. Lean-in uppercut.
Pah.
A few more movements.
Pah-pah.
Trucks walked the phantom down with a darting reach.
Pah-pah-pah.
Lighting him up. Furious punches. A blur of fists and spit. To the head. The body. Head. Body. Left. Right. Bam. Bam. Bam.
The people in the bingo hall would cheer with such a wall-thumping echo. He could hear it in a haze. They’d call out. They’d say his name. His girl would be there. She’d be big-eyed smiling and clapping. He could really see her there with the heavy ring lights above. All the radiant white. And he could see this and that and that and that. But all he could hear now was the whir of the blazing wind. The whoosh of his boots. The hisses of gray breath as his punches rolled out.
Pah-pah. Pah-pah-pah-pah.
She’d see him bleeding in that ring years down the road. His hand raised. Understand what he’d given his life to. Know that he mattered out in that gritty world in some way. That he’d made something for them and done good by her. And maybe it would happen then. On that day when she saw him bleeding in the ring a winner. When she looked up at his busted face through the coiled ropes. Thinking father. Thinking proud. Maybe it didn’t have to be something he imagined. Maybe it could really happen like that.
THE WAITING
Trucks wore some of Gerald’s clothes as he sat in a chair beside the guest bed, watching over Claudia. He didn’t feel like himself in the corduroy pants and black-and-red-checkered flannel. But Gerald had offered to throw their clothes in the wash, and Trucks couldn’t say no. They hadn’t cleaned or changed their clothes in days.
Gerald appeared in the doorway.
Trucks looked up.
“I think she’ll be out for a while,” Gerald said. “Why don’t you come have some supper?”
“How long, do you think? How long will she be like this?”
“Through the night, I’d guess.”
Trucks looked back to Claudia.
“I’ve seen worse,” Gerald said. “So much worse. Trust that your little one’s going to be glowing again soon.”
Gerald’s words didn’t soothe Trucks. He looked over his girl, pulled tight into the covers. Her head was off to one side. Her cheeks pale.
Trucks waited for Geral
d to leave the room.
Then he put his forehead on the bed and cried into the sheets.
DINNER WITHOUT HER
Trucks hadn’t eaten meat in a while. With trying to pay off all his debts to get Claudia back, he couldn’t afford it. He’d subsisted off sweet potatoes and black beans for so long. Now he had a tender cut of elk in front of him, and it didn’t feel satisfying.
“How many pieces you gonna cut that into before you take a bite?” Gerald asked.
“Not trying to be rude,” Trucks said. “I just can’t get this off my mind.”
“We need to get you thinking about something else. You want some more tea?”
Gerald stood and took the pitcher of tea from the counter. He brought it over and refilled Trucks’s glass.
“At least you’re keeping hydrated,” Gerald said.
Trucks spun the glass a few times. Looked at the faded flower patterns. He felt the etchings with his fingertips. Traced them. “These are nice,” he said. “The glasses.”
“They were handed down in my wife’s family. They’re a lot older than you’d think. I used to just let them sit up in the cupboards, fearing one of the grandkids would drop them when visiting. But I figured, why the hell have them if you’re not gonna use them, right? Besides, Maddie always loved using the glasses and the matching plates. It reminded her of her parents, her grandparents. All those old people she was used to. Now it brings me memories of her. The more I can touch things she touched…shit, I don’t know.”
“It’s a nice thing,” Trucks said.
Gerald cut a piece of elk and ate it. He chewed and looked out the window. He was wearing flannel too.
“Can I ask where she is?” Trucks said.
“My wife?”
“Yeah.”
“Out in the flower fields over the ridge. You can see them just beyond where you were splitting that wood today. Though no flowers are growing now, obviously. Come spring they’re impossible to miss.”
“Must be something,” Trucks said.
“Hey, thanks again for your labor. I do appreciate it. You handled that axe with class.” Gerald took another bite. He kept his elbow on the table, the fork lifted.
“Buried?” Trucks asked.
“What’s that?”
“She’s buried out there?”
“Sprinkled, more like it. She wanted to be cremated and have the ashes taken where it suited me best. So I put her out with all the beautiful flowers, where she belongs. The whole of her scattered among colorful petals and white roots. There’s something nice about that. Honorable.” Gerald looked out the window again. “God dammit, I loved her so much.”
Trucks looked over Gerald’s face. His lip quivering. A sadness in his eyes, like the memory was heavy on him. Trucks picked up his glass and took a drink. He thought about his girl in bed, how just before dinner he’d held her wrist and felt the blinking pulse, just to be sure.
“Can I ask how you lost her?” Trucks said.
Gerald laughed. “What a funny way to put it.”
“I didn’t mean anything by it.”
Gerald set his fork down. Put his hands behind his head, his fingers interlocked. He leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes.
“Asphyxiation,” Gerald said.
“Oh,” Trucks said.
“She had this rare disorder called Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome. Not many people have it. It came and went, but when it came, it came hard. She’d throw up for hours, and her throat would get raw and red. The docs had no idea what triggered it, and when it came on, all you could do was hope it’d subside. About three years ago, I was out working the fields and came in for lunch. It was odd she hadn’t called for me, and I couldn’t find her on the porch or in the living room. I went into the bedroom and saw her on the floor. She’d been taking a nap in our bed, I guess, and had an episode. She threw up in her sleep and choked on the vomit. I think she probably tried to fight it and ended up on the floor. She was just lying there turning stiff, all blue and gone. An awful fucking sight. Just pure awful.”
Neither of them spoke for a while. Trucks looked down at his plate. Gerald opened his eyes and sat up straight. Took a sip of tea. Then he folded his hands on the table.
“I’m really sorry,” Trucks finally said.
“I appreciate it,” Gerald said. He looked ahead at nothing.
“That’s real devastation,” Trucks said.
“We all have our versions of it,” Gerald said.
“That’s right,” Trucks said.
Gerald looked at Trucks.
“I can tell you’ve known a good deal of loss,” Gerald said.
“I don’t wanna get into it.”
Trucks opened and closed his bad hand.
“Nobody’s saying you have to.”
“You asked about her mama this morning, and maybe I could tell you about that. I’ve probably needed to tell someone.”
“Sure, if it feels right. I wasn’t trying to pry earlier.”
Trucks looked up at the ceiling. Thick wooden beam supports crossed overhead. Raffers.
“She worked the corners around the bingo hall where the boxing matches were. Lots of local guys in the crowd all jacked up on adrenaline and blood and the rush of violence. There’s nothing they wanted more after watching a few slugfests than to break someone’s jaw or go and get off. It was easy for Elle to pick out any guy she wanted and screw him in the alley for a quick twenty. In the winter she’d come inside during the fights to get out of the cold and see if she could hook a guy. One night she caught one of my fights. Said she was so hung up on watching me in the ring that for several rounds she didn’t even think about the dicks she should have been pulling. She just watched me move and work my punches. I guess she liked my vibe in the ring. That’s how she put it. But I didn’t meet her that night. It was a few months later after a big fight I had with Sammy Brunson out of Waukesha. The ref called the fight after only two rounds because of a deep cut I’d opened over Sammy’s right eye. Think I caught him flush with a cross, then clipped him with the butt of my glove on a hook. I think he got cut open by the shit tape job on the glove more than anything. Poor kid. But anyway, it wasn’t much of a fight, so some of the boys tossed a robe on me, and we went down the block to this dive called the Silver Saint. We took stools at the bar, and I popped open the robe. I still had on my trunks and knuckle tape, but nobody gave a shit. You still with me?”
“Following,” Gerald said.
“So the boys ordered pitchers of Milwaukee’s Best and some shots of well gin.”
Gerald looked disgusted.
“What?” Trucks said.
“Might as well drink paint thinner.”
“It was all we could afford, and a drink was a drink back then.”
“I sure get that,” Gerald said, a look on his face as if he’d known that life.
“So it was just me and the boys drinking and having a good time. Celebrating my big stoppage. After a while, the boys were pretty cockeyed and popping coins into the juke box, trying to get some of the girls to dance. But I was never a dancer. They tried to drag me out there in my sweaty trunks, pulled me by the arms, but I stayed on my stool and kept filling up my glass from the pitchers. So I’m sitting at the end of the bar watching the guys, and out of nowhere this girl appears beside me. Midtwenties, big green eyes, and all this long, dark, curly hair. She had on a tight red leather jacket and a black miniskirt. I asked how she was, and she played with the collar of my robe. Said she caught the fight and wanted to congratulate me. I thought it was a setup by the boys or something, but I looked around, and they were all busy trying to talk up girls around the bar. I moved some coats off the stool next to me, and she sat down and crossed her legs and took a drink outta my beer. Didn’t even ask. There was always fire like that in her. And how she looked up at me with the beer in her hand and her eyes all big, this electric wave coming from her and into me. It makes my stomach turn just thinking about it, just telling you the story.�
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“Even now?” Gerald said.
“People don’t have many life-changing moments, do they?”
“I suppose not.”
“I know I haven’t,” Trucks said. He picked up his fork and ate the last few pieces of meat. The elk was cold and soft. He chewed and pictured Elle looking at him with those green eyes. How she’d tilt her head and run her fingers through her curls. He’d seen Claudia do it too. Like one of those things that just passes through blood.
“Well, go on, if you like. I didn’t mean to stop you,” Gerald said.
“It’s just something I haven’t thought about in a long time.”
Trucks set his fork down and ran his fingers over his knuckles.
“We can save the rest for another time, then, if you don’t feel up to it now,” Gerald said. “Maybe it’s not the right time to talk about it just yet.”
Gerald stood and gathered his plate and glass. He took them over to the sink and set them on the counter. He put a stopper in the drain and turned on the faucet until the sink was half full. Then he set the dishes in the still water.
DISTANT PLACES
It was late in the night. Trucks sat on the floor against the wall. He listened to his girl sleep. He counted punches in his mind, thought about combinations and striking distance. The things he could control.
He tried to distract himself. Rubbed the carpet. Felt the rough glide of it. Pinched little strands between his thumb and middle finger. Every time Claudia twitched or moved or her breathing pattern changed, Trucks would stand and go to her. Hover over the bed like a helpless ghost. He’d touch her chest. Feel the soft beat. Kiss his thumb and run it over her eyebrow. Tell her how sorry he was. Just how fucking sorry. Then he’d sit against the wall again. Exhale. Stare at his knees.
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