by Tim O'Brien
“Miserable parade. No class at all.”
“You’re supposed to march out to the cemetery.”
“Miserable parade.”
Addie took Harvey’s hand, and, linked together, they went to the car. The rain came. Harvey opened the gin while Perry drove out towards the cemetery.
“Fine miserable parade,” Harvey said. “You ought to have had more sense, letting me march in the miserable parade. I swear. Addie, give me that bottle. I swear, I swear they have better parades on the losing side of wars. We all ought to move to Italy. What do you think? Seriously. Italy. I hadn’t thought of it before. We could live cheap, really. They’ve got all kinds of inflation over there and we could probably be kings and queens and all that rot, what do you think?”
Perry steered the car up Mainstreet. The rain was white. Orange and blue crepe paper lay plastered in wet gobs on the street.
“Yes. Italy. I think that’s it. Addie, give me that frigging bottle, will you? Italy! I can see it. We’ve got to get out of here.”
“You hate tomatoes.”
“What? I love tomatoes. I love sausage and tomatoes and noodles. I love women with big tits. No offense, Addie. Really. Ha! Touché! I love pizza and Van Gogh and women with big tits!”
“Van Gogh?”
“Sure. And I love losing wars and I love lasagna. I love big boobs and Fascists and inflation, I love it all. Addie, give me that bottle or I’m going to …”
“Let’s go home,” Grace said.
“No! The cemetery. We must honor the dead. Onward. First the cemetery. Then Italy. Addie!”
“Hip-hip!” Addie crowed.
“Look at that bloody rain. Does it rain in Italy like this? Who cares?”
“Harvey.”
“Yes, that’s it. Italy. No question about it. I’ll get the passports tomorrow. How much does a villa cost? No problem, I’ll find that out, too. Italy, it is. Will you just look at that bloody rain? Some miserable parade. I still haven’t gotten a decent parade out of all this. Some miserable town, not giving me a decent warm sunny parade. Italy! I think that’s the final answer. Yes. Addie? I don’t know about Addie, though. Grace will fit in just fine in Italy, but Addie, I don’t know. Poor Addie. I don’t think the Fascists allow in half-breeds, do they? I don’t know. I’ll find that out tomorrow.”
The car filled with wet air. Perry turned the wheel and they went up the dirt road towards the cemetery. They passed two orange school buses filled with kids in wet band uniforms. Cars and pickups were parked along the muddy road.
“Got to hurry,” Harvey said. “Can’t miss the ceremony to honor all the dead.”
“Calm down.”
Harvey opened his window and rain poured in. “Miserable parade,” he moaned. “Some miserable way to honor the dead and wounded.”
“You were magnificent, Harvey.”
“I did my best. But a miserable parade except for me.”
“Jud was good, too.”
“Me and Jud. We’ll maybe have to take Jud to our new villa in Italy. But he pays his own bloody way.”
“Hush up.”
“Some totally rotten way to honor the dead. Where are my medals, for God’s sake?”
Perry turned into the cemetery. He parked and they trooped out into the rain and thunder. Grace was shivering and Perry took her arm. Harvey quieted down.
The band played the national anthem. Then Hal Bennett the dentist climbed on a raised platform in the center of the burial ground and gave a speech of some sort, and the veterans stood in groups according to their war. Later, Reverend Stenberg offered a prayer and everything was wet and peaceful, then Jud Harmor got up and gave a short speech, then the band played “Yankee Doodle” and it was over.
“Some miserable way to honor the dead,” Harvey said.
“Let’s go now.”
Harvey coughed. “First I must honor all the fucking dead. Look at all those dead people, will you just look? Take me all day.”
The band was playing taps.
“Let’s go,” Perry said. “We’ll build a nice fire and have supper.”
“No, I’m gonna go around here and honor all these dead and deceased.”
Perry tagged after him. He was cold. Grace and Addie went to wait in the car.
The graves were arranged in long rows. The dead people were buried head to head, then an aisle, then another long row of dead people buried head to head. Randomly, Harvey stopped at some of the graves. He knelt down to read the epitaphs and names and dates. At last they stopped at their father’s grave.
“I guess …”
“Let’s go, Harv.”
Harvey removed his army cap. Perry stood blankly and waited.
“The old man’s pretty dead by now,” Harvey said.
“Grace will put some flowers here tomorrow.”
Harvey’s face was red. “I don’t know. He was a bastard, wasn’t he?”
“It’s raining, Harv. Come on.”
They dropped Addie at her boarding house and went home. Grace drew a bath for Harvey. Later the three of them had sandwiches and cocoa. It was still raining.
“Well,” Harvey glowed, “I want to thank you for a fine day.”
“Lovely.”
“We have to have more miserable parades. Afterward everybody gets so cheery. Now. Who’s coming into town with me?”
“We all have to go to bed,” Grace said.
“Too cheap. Much too cheap and easy. No, we all must honor with the rest of the partying mourners.”
“If you had any sense …”
Harvey wrapped an arm around her. “You’re a wonderful mother, Grace. And we love you. I love you. But you know how honoring the dead goes. Many sacrifices.”
Harvey borrowed a raincoat and went into the storm. The headlights of the car fanned briefly across the kitchen window.
In the morning, it was still drizzling. Perry drove Grace to the cemetery and walked among the headstones while she planted flowers at his father’s grave. She was absorbed in her work. Placid and quiet, she was digging out weeds along his father’s headstone. She was on her knees in the rain, her face set in its sane and perfect way, her hands deep in the mud. She’d dug three holes for the plants, and when the weeds were gone, she set the plants in and covered the roots and packed the mud down. “There,” she said. “That should do it.” She stood beside him. The plants had dark red flowers growing. “That should do it,” she said.
It was Friday evening. The stores were open till nine. Though it was not quite dusk, some of the shops had already turned on their evening lights. Perry watched through his office window: greetings, buying and selling, handshakes and nods, jerky movements. He watched a giant shadow grow in from the western forest, gradually engulf the town and move off to the east. The office was dark. It smelled of manure dropped from farmers’ boots, stale corn and pine. The day’s stacks of paper work were lined up on his desk. One pile was for burning, the other for boxing and shipment. Without reason, he swept the floor. Then he sat in the dark and waited for Harvey. The office already seemed deserted and worthless. A picture of the President looked down on him from a plastered wall. He waited until nearly six, and when Harvey didn’t come he locked the office and stepped outside, glancing by reflex through the familiar window, then walked up to Wolff’s drugstore. He brought Grace a birthday card and candy. It was too early to go home.
He waited until six thirty. When he went back onto the street, it was again drizzling. He tucked the card and candy under his coat and trotted to the car. He drove past Addie’s boarding house, but her windows were dark.
When he got home, Grace was waiting alone in the kitchen.
“Addie called,” she said quietly. She’d been crying. She smiled anyway. “She says she has a headache.”
“What about my lovely brother?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “You were supposed to bring him.”
Perry gave her a kiss, the card, the candy. “I waited for him �
� No matter. Happy birthday.”
Grace smiled weakly. The table was set for four people. A big birthday cake stood as a centerpiece.
“Here, take it easy. Harvey’ll be along. Maybe they’ll both come. Or we’ll just celebrate together. How would you like that?”
“Addie won’t. She says she has a headache. I get aches, too.”
“Don’t worry about her. You know how she can be if she wants.”
“Well … She’s my friend,” she whispered. “I guess she’s my best friend and now she can’t come because she gets a headache.”
“Maybe they’ll come later on.” Perry kissed her and went into the bedroom and pulled out the sweater he’d hidden under the bed. It was still in its J. C. Penney sack. He looked at it and realized how utterly unimaginative and fitting it was. He wrapped it up in Christmas paper and glued on a bow and brought it out to her.
She seemed happy. She kissed him and she was smiling. They had their supper, then Perry carried the cake into the living room, where he built a fire and cut the cake and served her while singing “Happy Birthday.” And she seemed happy. She opened up the gift, showing great surprise, and she immediately tried on the sweater. “I love it, I love it.” she said, pulling it over her shoulders and breasts, “I do love it.” She made the J. C. Penney sweater look much better. “I love it,” she cooed, turning for him before the fire, and he knew she would soon be bringing it into the store to exchange for something not quite so tight, and he knew she would not mention it and he knew he would never notice. “It’s marvelous, it is, it is,” she whispered.
Later he had a warm shower. He found Grace in bed, wrapped in her flannel nightgown. The lights were out.
“Feel good?” she said. She warmed against him.
“Pretty good. Those glasses gave me a headache this afternoon.”
“Better now?”
“Headache’s gone.”
“Maybe Addie caught your headache.”
“Maybe so. I’m sorry it was such a rotten birthday.”
“Oh, no. It was beautiful. It was better just to be alone. Wasn’t it? Don’t you think so? I was … I was disappointed at first but now I’m glad they didn’t come. We never get to be alone and I thought it was beautiful just to have you and me and nobody else mucking it up.”
The rain had stopped. Water still dripped from the eaves.
“You warm enough?” she whispered.
“Fine.”
“Really,” she sighed. “Really, I’m happy that they didn’t come. Maybe I’m too shy. I don’t know. I just can’t keep up with all their teasing and games and everything. But … I’ll be glad when Harvey gets a job and goes to work somewhere. He’s talking about it again, you know. He hasn’t said anything but I’m sure, I’m sure from the way he talks about a job, that he’s thinking about asking Addie to get married again. He’s acting the same way. You think so? Anyway, I’ll be glad when he gets a job and goes off to work. Or when we do, whichever it is. At first … at first I was feeling bad because you lost your job. Not bad, really. I didn’t mean it that way. I mean, it wasn’t as if you were fired or anything, was it? But I felt kind of down in the dumps. I didn’t try to show it, I just kind of felt that way because I knew you were feeling down, too. But now I don’t. Now I don’t feel that way. I wouldn’t mind moving to another place, would you? Really. Would you?”
“I suppose not. There isn’t much else to do.”
“Oh, it’ll be better maybe. In the long run. I can find a teaching job anywhere we go, so you don’t have to worry about it, about finding a job right away. I know you’re a little worried, even if you don’t talk about it. I …”
“I’m not worried,” he said.
“All right. If you say so, then you’re not worried.”
“I’m not. I just want to take my time and find something decent. I was thinking for a while about maybe going back to school.”
She sat up. “Really? Oh! I think that would be wonderful. I do. I love the idea. Really?”
“Maybe. It’s an idea.”
“We could go down to Iowa,” she said.
“That’s part of it.”
“Oh. Oh, I like that idea.”
“We’ll see what happens.”
He heard her turning and thinking. He wished he hadn’t mentioned it. Water was still running off the roof and dripping from the eaves. The bed was very warm. After a time, she curled close to him. “Hmmmm,” she sighed. “Are you warm enough? I’m happy. This is a beautiful birthday. Everything’s getting better, isn’t it? I knew everything would get better.” She was touching him. “Do you want me to rub you?”
“No, not tonight.”
He held her and listened to water drip from the roof. When she was asleep, he turned to his stomach and faced the wall.
He awoke once, feeling restless. He was hungry. He was always getting hungry now, ever since getting out of the woods. He tried to sleep but the hunger kept growing, and at last he got up and went to the kitchen. He ate birthday cake and drank milk. Then he went up the stairs to look in on Harvey. The bed was empty and the window was open and a puddle of water had formed on the floor. He wiped it up with a sheet and went back to bed. Grace was mumbling from her dreams and he listened. She never said much. He curled around her and slept late into Saturday. It was peaceful. The house was quiet and there was spring sun. He slept through the weekend, and on Monday, hopelessly sluggish, he drove into town to continue changing his life.
Harvey had disappeared. He tried calling Addie’s boarding house, but there was no answer. Grace was sure they’d got married.
The spring sun continued into the second week of June. The fat was coming back and he had no power to defend himself, and his waist and hips quivered with the old gelatinous slime. He was either hungry or sleepy, and there was no other sensation. He began going again to Pliney’s Pond, sitting on the rocks and staring with sleepy eyes into the thick water, never going in, now and then dipping into the pond and letting the green water trickle through his fingers. The water was always warm.
Once he shed his clothes: a bright Thursday morning.
He stood naked over the pond, put his foot in, let it sink into the mud.
But he stopped.
He dressed quickly and hurried back to the house to get ready for work.
That afternoon Bishop Markham stopped in to say old Jud Harmor was dead.
“Cancer,” Bishop said, sitting on the edge of Perry’s desk.
“Lord.”
“Old Jud.”
“Well,” said Bishop, “it has to happen. You’re right, he was awful old. It was all over him, I’m told. Started in his throat, and I’ll bet that will teach him to smoke. Well. I just wanted to fill you in. I got things to do. With Jud gone, I guess I’m temporary mayor. Seeing as how … town council and so on. It’s no fun getting it this way, I’ll tell you. You want anything done, let me know.”
“Right, Bishop.”
“Okay. Have a good day now.”
“Congratulations.”
“Thanks,” Bishop grinned.
“You’re a hell of a man, Bishop.”
It was the way he’d felt when … a lot of times. He sat at his desk. He realized he was grinning and tried to stop. He finally got up and locked the office and went to have his tooth repaired. Hal Bennett leaned over him, working like a garage mechanic. Poor old Jud, Perry was thinking, but not in words, gripping the chair. Bennett drilled the cavity and smeared the hole with medication and thumped a filling home. Poor old Jud, Perry was thinking. His mouth was braced in a grin. The light was brilliant overhead, the silver instruments gleamed in Bennett’s hand. “Jud’s dead,” said the dentist as he hit the filling. “Just like—that,” and he hammered Perry’s tooth. “Brush your gums,” he said. “You got to take better care of them teeth, you’re gonna lose them otherwise.” He handed Perry a new toothbrush. Outside, Perry threw the brush away in disgust. Poor old Jud, he was thinking, but not in words.
Grace finally shook him. “Jud Harmor’s dead,” she said.
“I know it.”
“You ought to get up.”
“All right. I’m hungry.”
“Well, you should be, you should be. Sleeping Beauty. Go get a shower. And you should have told me about poor Jud.”
“I forgot. I’m sorry. What time is it?”
“Supper time, that’s what. Go get a hot shower. Sleeping Beauty in person.”
Perry sat on the rocks at Pliney’s Pond. Thick steam rose from the waters. Bacterial wastes, decaying plant life, dead and living animals. Microorganisms that flourished and multiplied. Floating algae, tiny capsules of cellulose, lower-level plant life, ripe and rich and hot. Frogs and newts and creatures with beady eyes dangling from optic nerves. Continuity. Spores in the air. Chemical life, chemical transformations, growth and decay. Bacteria feeding, insects feeding, frogs feeding. The processes of protoplasm. Respiration, oxygenation, reproduction, metabolism, conversion and reconversion, excretion and growth and decay. Such a fountain, he thought. And poor old Jud. And poor old Harvey and poor old Addie, and poor old Grace. And: “Poooooor me,” he sighed. Simple multiplication and division, asexual continuity, spores in the air, dispassionate life: “Poor me.”
He drove into town. He stopped first at the office. Working steadily until noon, he finished cleaning out the files. He took two maps from the wall and rolled them up and stuffed them into a box for shipment. Then he emptied out his drawers, saving some personal papers and a box of staples. The rest he threw away, one by one turning the drawers upside down over the waste basket.
When the noon whistle blew, he walked to the church. The bells were chiming. He couldn’t remember the last time he had gone inside. The pulpit was in the familiar place. The apse was high cold stone. He walked up the center aisle and looked down on old Jud. Behind him, the custodian was sweeping. Jud looked all right.
Perry stood awhile then went out into the sun.