by Tim O'Brien
Silver Bay wore silver.
Grace passed along a Thermos of coffee, but Harvey kept his eye on the field, a grand marshal inspecting the troops, and the Sawmill Landing team booted the ball high and Silver Bay erupted, the snow drifted across the field with the sounds of sharp contact, silver and red and black and battle cries.
It was a bad first quarter, fumbles and intercepted passes, and neither team came close to a score. Harvey watched intently. Addie kept chattering but he paid no attention. In the second quarter, the snow began whipping the field, piled into drifts, and both teams abandoned their passing games and stuck to the ground. It was a battle of endurance. A big Silver Bay fullback plowed relentlessly into the left side of the Sawmill Landing line, battering and hitting for five yards a crack. The snow got fierce. Grace was shivering. The Silver Bay fullback continued slashing into the line. Leaning forward with each play, Harvey pressed back, never taking his eye from the game, and Perry watched the crowd and snow and cheerleaders and Addie.
With a minute left in the half, the Silver Bay fullback broke through and ran head down into the Sawmill Landing end zone. Harvey shook his head.
“Ha!” cried Addie. “Now there’s a disaster. You would have stopped that brute,” she said.
Harvey shrugged. “I like his style.”
“But wouldn’t you have stopped him?”
“Maybe,” he nodded. “I guess I would have tried.”
The half ended with another Sawmill Landing fumble. Familial blood was high and the crowd hooted.
A gun was shot off.
“Parade time!” Addie said.
Harvey climbed out of the bleachers and walked to the south end of the field.
After a time, the band marched on to the field with drums rolling and bugles and trombones. Addie leaned on the iron railing. She was grinning. Grace shivered in her blanket. The band fanned into a formation resembling an arrowhead. Seven baton twirlers then walked bare-legged into the snowstorm, flashing their silver instruments, all seven of them blonde and smiling, and the snow kept falling.
The band played marching songs and a microphone was carried to the center of the field.
Grace shivered and snuggled close to Perry. Addie leaned over the railing for a better view. “I hope he remembers to walk with a limp. I told him he had to pretend a limp, it would make him look so gallant.”
Partly masked by the snow, Harvey’s float emerged from under the goalposts. He sat on a crepe paper throne. The band broke into “Stars and Stripes Forever.” Decorated to look like an American flag, the float flowed soundlessly through the snow, through the end zone and on to the field, into the white lights. The crowd applauded. It was very cold and the snow was blowing and it was hard for Perry to see.
“I can’t see his face,” Addie moaned. “He has his own parade and, will you believe it, I can’t even see his face.”
The float rolled to midfield. There it stopped, the wind lashing at the crepe paper and colored streamers. For a time Harvey simply sat there as though abandoned, but then four men walked through the snow to the microphone, all in parkas with hoods drawn up. Harvey sat still, looking vaguely towards the bleachers.
One of the hooded men stepped to the microphone, Jud Harmor’s old singsong voice. His formal political voice. The loudspeakers crackled and the storm picked up. Harvey sat very still on his float. “… honor and service … a hero in a war without … Sawmill Landing, where he … whose father for fifty-seven years served the town and the church, a man … a hero, badly wounded, yet coming …” The images were whipped like fluid in the snow, the words jumbled past with present, and old Jud mixed Perry with Harvey with their father, but Harvey sat still as Jud talked against the storm. The microphone gleamed in the floodlights. When Jud finished, Harvey climbed down from the float, back straight, and walked like a king to the microphone. The four hooded men shook his hand. Jud held up Harvey’s arm. The wind lashed again, for a moment obscuring both of them in a blur of snow, and Perry strained to see.
“It’s marvelous!” Addie said. “Don’t you think so? Just look at him.”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t he some hero?”
“He is,” Perry said.
“I think it’s silly,” she said. “What do you think?”
“I guess it is.”
“Aren’t you jealous?”
“Maybe so. He did all right.”
The loudspeakers crackled and Harvey was talking.
“What’s he saying?”
“The wind, I can’t hear.”
“The pirate!”
Three cheerleaders ran to the field. One of them gave him a large glittering key and each of them kissed him.
“The cad! A typical pirate, rape and plunder.”
Then the band played again. The air was frosted and the horns and drums played a martial tune.
“Just look at him,” said Addie. “He’s loving it, every silly second.”
In slow motion, a grim forest mirage, Harvey marched to his float, mounted it, stood at the crepe throne with an arm hoisted high, spine straight, the band playing, the snow drifting across the field, the crowd’s frosted breath, the coming winter. “Just look at him,” said Addie.
The float maneuvered through a slow turn and circled the field. It departed through the north goalposts. Harvey waved.
“Touchdown!” Addie said.
Perry’s glasses were steamed. A cold embarrassed blur. Instantly, the two teams dashed on to the playing field and the cheerleaders leapt towards the field lights and Harvey’s float was fogged in the driving snow.
Grace was shivering. “I think we should go home,” she murmured.
“What’s the matter?”
“Can’t we just go home?”
Perry looked at her. Her eyes were white.
“Are you sick?”
“No. It was awful. Let’s just go home.”
Perry wrapped her in the blanket. The wind picked up and the game resumed. Silver Bay took the kickoff and the big fullback charged into the belly of the Sawmill Landing line. There was no stopping him. He wrapped his arms around the ball, tucked his head in, and bulled ahead.
The odds twinkled by the billions in the winter sky.
Short days, and it was time for a change.
Harvey was sick. Grace called the doctor in, a young fellow with freckles and blue eyes, and he went to Harvey’s room and spent a long time and came down smiling. “Mild,” he said dreamily.
“Mild?” Grace said.
“Yes, mild.”
“Mild what?”
“Oh,” he said, closing his bag, putting on a nylon parka. “Mild whooping cough. Mild bronchitis. But it’s mild enough, it doesn’t matter. Bed and orange juice will do it. Natural stuff.”
“Jesus,” Perry said when he’d left.
“He seemed nice.”
“Mild, my butt.”
Harvey lapsed into a child’s ways. Coughing himself to sleep, casting willowing searches for sympathy, moping about. Grace mothered him, but the sickness dragged on through two snowfalls and the rasping cough seemed to entrench in his lungs. He got sallow and thin. The doctor laughed it off. Harvey insisted he was seriously ill.
“Pneumonia for sure,” he muttered. “I know pneumonia. The old man had it and now I have it. You remember? Remember when Dad caught it and almost died, it was the same as this. The old man told me it runs in the family and here’s the proof, right here in my lungs.”
“Whooping cough,” Perry said.
“Know it all, don’t you?” Harvey sneered.
It went on. Confined to the house, Harvey stalked the rooms like a wolf. He would stand at the windows without speaking and his bad eye would shine and he would peer out towards the woods. He refused to shave or bathe. He came to meals in his robe, sometimes refused to eat. When he spoke it was without inflection, tight little syllables. Some days he did not talk at all, choosing to spend his time alone in the upstairs bedroom. He insi
sted on keeping his room hot, and with the windows closed the sickroom assumed an odor of decay. The room began to stink and the odour spread like an infection. He would not let Grace change his bedclothes. The stink spilled into the hallways, seeping downstairs to infect the whole house like oil into timber. A cycle, Perry thought cynically, the same diseased smell in the air. He remembered it from the old man’s last sickness. Infecting the spirit, a confrontation with the biology of doom. He had no compassion.
During Harvey’s sickness, spurred by it, Perry continued his exercises. He was catching up. He liked creeping secretly into the bathroom, shutting the door, stripping down to weigh himself. He felt strong. He could do the push-ups without thinking. His weight was down to 142.
One evening he pulled out his skis and rubbed wax into them.
“You’re all right?” Grace asked.
“I’m fine.”
“I’m worried,” she said. “You’re always going to the bathroom.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“You should eat better, then. I hope you haven’t caught Harvey’s disease or something. Really, you should eat better.”
In the morning he skied the eight miles into town. It was a dull day and the pines were stiff along the road. Pushing with short jerky strides, he tried to keep the pace even, remembering vaguely how it was done, push and glide. It was exhausting work. Halfway into town he wished he hadn’t tried it, but he kept going and eventually caught the right rhythm. The trick was in the glide, letting the skis flow with the land and not fighting them.
He was tired, but when the road descended past the junkyard and he was able simply to ride the skis, it felt good, and he pushed hard and came fast down Mainstreet. Two boys were shoveling snow and they stopped to watch him. He felt proud. He stacked the skis outside his office door, made coffee and spent a dreamy day, feet up, reading and pottering about, and in the late afternoon Grace picked him up to go home.
While Harvey sulked and recuperated, Perry got into the routine: ski the eight miles into town, exercise, remember the feel of the skis, preparing. He slept better. The night thoughts, if they were still there, were lost in thick good sleep. The northern way, it felt good. He stuck to his rigors: chopped wood, walked about the woods, practised skiing. The snows fell in layers, climbing the trunks of the birch and pine. The town was stockaded for winter. Red flags dangled from auto antennae, the basketball season, ice hockey, TV football, hot turkey, small-town pastimes, shovels and monochrome nights, the Big Dipper blazing in fireplaces.
In the bathroom mirror he looked strong. He liked weighing himself, seeing the needle stop short and shudder and rest just at 142. He was in training, working himself up.
He was learning.
“Brute,” he smiled into the mirror.
Downstairs, Harvey was in his robe. He sat on the sofa, feet up. He cradled a beer on his belly. The television was on, Monday night football. Grace was ironing clothes with her back to the television.
“Hello, you bull,” Perry said. He was in good humor. He sat in a rocking chair. “You’re looking better, Harv.”
Harvey gave a surly dispassionate shrug. His beard was growing out. He coughed and spat into a Kleenex.
“Good game?”
“Ten-ten,” Harvey said.
“Sounds good. How you feeling?”
“Dog dung.”
“That’s nice.”
At half time, Addie came. She brought a box of doughnuts. Grace made hot chocolate and they sat at the kitchen table.
“These are some rotten doughnuts,” said Harvey.
“Cheerful, isn’t he?” Addie was in good humor, too. She was wearing a large hat, a broad-brimmed felt hat that turned up at the back. She kept the hat on while she ate her doughnuts.
“I think we should all go into town tonight,” she said.
“We can go to Franz’s and dance. How would you all like that?” Nobody spoke. “It’s settled then,” said Addie. “We have to get Harvey into clean clothes and get that beard off and so on. Who’s going to help me?”
The parking lot at Franz’s was nearly empty. Inside, Harvey’s young waitress took their orders, steering clear of them otherwise. The jukebox was silent. Nobody felt like dancing anyway. Perry felt they had all been together too long.
It was dead winter. Two men in overalls came in. They sat at the bar. The younger of them turned to stare at Addie. In her felt hat and dark skin she looked good. Perry stared at her, too. Under the table, Grace had his hand. The booths were hardwood. The tabletops were formica.
The conversation was clipped, eliding, drifting along the surface like snow, filling in the same old holes and crevices.
They finished their beers and Harvey had an extra, then they paid and left. Addie’s Olds was cold. The starter turned and squeaked. Grace huddled against Perry in the back seat.
“Where to now?” Addie said. “Look at the lovebirds back there.”
“Home,” said Grace.
“What’s home? There’s nothing home. Let’s go to the junkyard and shine our headlights. Maybe we’ll catch a bear.”
“That’s dangerous. Let’s go home.”
“Oh, it’s not dangerous. Let’s just see if we can catch a bear.”
Addie drove up Mainstreet, honking at friends. She was well known. She drove fast past the pasteboard buildings, knowing the streets and turns, across the railroad tracks and up Route 18, swinging right on to the snowed-over gravel road to the junkyard. It was a popular pastime, stopping just short of the heaps of trash, then holding quiet awhile, then blazing headlights into the piled-up garbage. Perry closed his eyes. They had all been together too long. An old scene, nothing better to do. Shine headlights into the trash? Catch a rat in forage? Watch his eyes sparkle at the inexplicable new sun? Catch a bear? Catch a starving moose in small-town garbage?
The car’s heater was weak, blowing out musty, oil-smelling air, and Grace huddled against him. At the end of the road Addie stopped the car, turned off the engine, and they sat in silence. Everything was black. The junkyard was a great sprawling silhouette. The smell was frozen. Addie laughed. “We have to wait now. Everybody be quiet.” Perry always had the feeling she was talking directly at him.
Harvey lit a cigarette, cupping the red glow in his palm.
They sat quietly. A small-town junkyard. Perry grinned. It seemed fitting. Waiting in Addie’s Olds, shivering, waiting for that moment when she would hit the headlights and the junkyard and forest would blaze in fierce light. It was one of those things he would remember. He already remembered it.
They waited in perfect silence. Shining, it was called. It had a name. There was shining and ambushing, other games, too. Most of the games were played from cars. Little kids played forest games dangerously, on foot, stalking wild Indians. They’d done that, too. The insight lit up, Harvey on ambush. It was all more complicated than simple-minded adventure, that was sure. The red glow of Harvey’s cigarette seemed to shake. Lying in wait, prey or hunter, the great beam of light erupting, star flash, the great beast caught in the sudden blaze, the great terror.
“I’m freezing,” whispered Grace.
Perry put an arm around her, and they sat and waited. Harvey coughed and snuffed out his cigarette. Addie was perfectly still. There were noises in the junkyard. Perry couldn’t be sure. Animals possibly. Or just winter sounds, ice forming on rusted typewriters, cracks in the frost.
They lay in ambush at the junkyard.
“How long do we wait?” Grace said.
“Shhhh,” said Addie.
“Why don’t we just go home?”
“Excitement,” Addie hissed. “Now be quiet. Everybody be quiet. You have to play the game or it never works.”
“I wish we had a beer,” Harvey said. “A beer would make it better.”
“Hush up. Everybody play the game.”
“Can’t we turn on the heater?”
“Shhhh.”
“A beer would be enough for me,” Har
vey said.
Again they sat in silence. Perry watched Addie’s breath steam against the windshield. It was very dark. He imagined the old days. Swedes dumping their rusted broken plows, then the Finns and Germans, layers of accumulated junk piled in a vertical graveyard like the strata of some ancient civilization, the town’s history now being rummaged by night creatures sniffing at ghosts. It was an ambush, all right. Lanterns and midnight voices. He grinned at the thought. They’d all been together too long. Waiting in a small-town junkyard. He remembered carting truck loads of his father’s trash to the junkyard after the October funeral. Open graves.
“I’m freezing,” Grace whispered.
Harvey coughed and lit a fresh cigarette. Somewhere he’d learned the trick of cupping the glow in his palm. The old soldier, Perry thought with a grin.
“All right,” Addie said.
“Now?”
“Everyone ready?”
Perry sat up for a good look. The junkyard was dark. He smelled Addie’s hair.
“Is everyone ready?”
“I’m cold,” Grace said.
“Shhhh! Here we go.”
Addie reached for the dash and pulled the knob. In an instant, like a match igniting, the junkyard exploded under the headlights.
“Hooray!” Addie shouted.
Harvey coughed violently.
“No bears!” cried Addie. “What a bore.”
A washing machine gleamed under the lights. Lumps of frozen snow, two automobiles rusting on their sides. The junkyard was shadowed and still. The headlights flowed through the trash like a white river.
“There,” Grace said. “Now we can go home.”
“See the rat?”
“Where?”
Perry saw only the eyes.
“There!” Addie said. “We got him!”
The eyes glittered under the white lights. Paralyzed and still, the rat crouched with its snout high.
“Success!” Addie said. “Isn’t he ugly? Much, much better than a bear.”
“Let’s go home.”
“A miserable rat. We should kill it.”
“Addie!”
“A miserable rat,” Addie said.
“This is awful. I want to go home.”