Night of the Ice Storm

by Stout, David;

  “That’s not your car, is it?” his father asked.

  “No. Borrowed it from a guy I work with.”

  “Sounds like it needs a tune-up.”

  “I’ll tell him.”

  Grant’s mother walked in (a little unsteadily, he thought) with a platter that held a steaming ham. “Now everybody just sit,” she said. “Everything’s under control.”

  She really wants it to be, Grant thought.

  “I can use a beer,” his father said.

  “Coming up,” Grant said, gently halting his mother and steering her toward her chair. “I’ll get it,” he said quietly.

  Grant got a can of beer for his father and one for himself and sat down. He wished he was hungrier, because his mother had gone to some trouble. Ham with raisin sauce was one of his father’s favorite dinners.

  “So,” his father said, “you think that school of yours is gonna have a decent team this fall?”

  “They should. Got the whole offensive line back. As for the defense—”

  “Plenty of speed, too, right? Those colored sprinters are all back, too, right?”

  “Most of them, yeah. We should be all right.”

  “Better than all right, seems to me.”

  “Maybe. Yeah. Better than all right.” Sometimes Grant could feel, or at least pretend, enthusiasm when he and his father talked about Notre Dame football. Not this time.

  “They won all their games last year, didn’t they?” his mother said.

  “No,” Grant said. “They lost to—”

  “Don’t you remember?” his father said. “They lost their opener at Purdue on a shit call by the referee. Then Miami beat ’em. We watched on TV, for crying out loud.”

  “I just forgot,” his mother said.

  “It’s okay, Mom,” Grant said. “The people in China didn’t even know about it.”

  His mother tried to smile gamely but couldn’t quite make it.

  Grant studied his father. His hairline had never receded, and his hair had gone from black to steely gray. His face was tanned, unlined, and the glasses only made him look more formidable and intelligent. Grant could see why his mother had been attracted to him, and why other women were.

  “So,” his father said, “you’re planning on going to a game in November.”

  His mother’s foot nudged Grant’s leg under the table in an unmistakable signal.

  “I was, I was thinking …”

  “The Penn State game, your mother tells me.”

  Grant felt adrift. “Well, I mean, I haven’t exactly got it all planned.”

  “You need to plan three, four months ahead if you expect to get a motel room.”

  “I know. I’ve been to games at Notre Dame.” That puny retort went right past his father.

  “There’s lots more alumni now than there were a few years ago, don’t forget. How were you going to go?”

  Grant’s head was spinning. He had not even made up his mind to go to a football game; he had only mentioned to his mother a few weeks back that he might like to do it soon. Now his father was reviewing, dissecting, and dismissing plans Grant hadn’t even made. Of course: his mother had taken part of their conversation and gone way beyond it, used it to shore up her shaky dream vision of a family.

  “Hey,” his father said, “are you in there somewhere? I said, how were you going to go?”

  “Oh, well. If I went, I guess I’d fly.”

  “You take care of the motel reservations,” his father decreed. “Start in South Bend, work out from there, get a decent place as close as you can to the campus. You can take the train up to Albany. We’ll meet you there and drive. Figure on making it to Ohio that Thursday, rest of the way Friday.”

  Grant would need another beer, soon.

  “Any problems?” his father demanded.

  “Well, I’ll most likely just be able to order two tickets.”

  His mother laughed, much too merrily. “Oh, I don’t care about the game. I’ll walk around the campus while you two are in the stadium.”

  “All set, then,” his father said.

  And then Grant’s father reached over and playfully punched him on the shoulder with such affection that Grant felt turned inside out with guilt.

  “How much time off can you get?” his father said.

  “A few days, I guess. Enough to go there and back.”

  “Take an extra couple of days off and we can make the start of deer season.”

  “Deer season?” His father had taken him hunting when Grant was a boy, too young to carry a gun himself. Grant had loved the boom of his father’s gun, had dreamed about growing up and having his own gun. Then one day his father shot a rabbit, and the animal flopped pitifully, showering its blood onto the snow before dying. Grant had waited until he was alone in bed that night before crying.

  “I can get an extra gun, no problem,” his father said. “We could hunt—”

  “I’m just not interested,” Grant said.

  “You didn’t let me finish.”

  “Fred,” his mother said, “maybe Grant just doesn’t want—”

  “He won’t know if he likes deer hunting if he never tries it, is what I’m saying.” Now his father sounded both domineering and wounded—a combination that had over the years made him almost invincible.

  “Fred, maybe it would be cramming too much into a few days to try to go hunting. Maybe, maybe …”

  His mother’s voice seemed to slip on the sherry; she was straining to hold things together.

  Grant had an inspiration: “I would probably have trouble getting more time off. I don’t think I told you, but I’m going to a reunion in Bessemer.”

  “What kind of reunion?” his father said.

  “The Gazette’s celebrating its ninetieth birthday. They called a bunch of people who used to work there and invited them back.”

  “That should be very nice,” his mother said. Yes, the sherry had her in its sweet embrace.

  “All right, then,” his father announced. “We’ll just make it a football weekend. But I still don’t understand why you don’t try deer hunting.”

  Grant shrugged, poked ham onto his fork, and worked on his beer while his father talked on.

  After dinner, Grant’s father went into his study to look at real estate papers. His mother suggested that Grant go sit on the porch. He took a fresh beer and did just that, leaving his mother alone in the kitchen with the dishes and her wine.

  He sat in the dark, listening to the soft noises from the trees and the lake. “God,” he said to the dark, “can’t I even talk to my parents without getting trapped?” No, God. Don’t answer.

  He heard his mother moving about the kitchen, hoped desperately that she was not drinking more than she had been, hoped that his father’s temper was no worse.

  We relate to one another like magnets, he thought: always clinging or driving each other away. Never in between.

  Deer hunting. Of course. His father wanted to take him deer hunting because they wouldn’t have to talk. His father used a pickup truck for hunting trips, and the truck had a tape deck. Classical music (heavy on brass and drums) during the drive, then hunt. Once in the woods, they would be many yards apart and couldn’t talk even if they wanted to. Beautiful: he has my company, getting God knows what out of it, and doesn’t have to talk. If he’s lucky, he gets to kill.

  Going to Notre Dame was a little different. When his father went there with him (it had been a few years since the last time), he was able to make grand pronouncements, about football, about politics, about higher education, the fifty-five-mile-an-hour speed limit.

  Ah, Grant thought, you’re not so different from him. Here you sit on the porch; you wouldn’t dream of going into his den to talk, would you? No.

  At least at Notre Dame, Grant could feel a sense of forgiveness, from the grass and leaves, from the cold stones of the Grotto. If he could get away from his parents for a few minutes, Grant would go to the Grotto.

  Th
e Holy Mother would get an earful.

  Grant opened his eyes to the darkness. Something had awakened him.

  Of course. He heard the sounds from his parents’ bedroom.

  First he heard his father’s voice: “… sick and tired … fill yourself with wine every goddamn night …”

  Then a pillow being pounded, and his mother’s voice: “… best I can. You’ve never even tried to help …”

  “… anyone help you if you drink a jug of sherry …”

  “… wasn’t until you broke your vows that I started …”

  “… keep my vows when my wife pukes up her wine every other night …”

  “… dirty liar …”

  Ah, she’s crying now, Grant thought.

  “… sick and tired of cleaning up after you …”

  “… dirty liar … dirty liar …”

  Grant listened intently, as he had done as a child. Some of his earliest memories had been of the night sounds. At first, he had pressed his hands to his ears as hard as he could, had shut his eyes as hard as he could—as if shutting his eyes could protect him from the sounds!

  Year by year, Grant’s reaction to the sounds had changed: he had listened, with horror but intently. Gradually, the horror had blended with fascination. That had continued into adolescence, when his hormones combined with the noises and left him feeling—what?

  He dare not think too deeply on that. But he knew he liked it better when the sounds of his father slapping his mother were followed by those that meant her fingernails were raking his face.

  This night, in the cottage by the lake, Grant listened as intently as he could. It had been a long time since he had spent a night with his parents. Would there be slapping and scratching tonight? No, the sounds were dying down now.

  Grant slept.

  Grant spent part of the next day watching a baseball game and trying not to notice the pouches under his mother’s eyes. His father worked in his office part of the day (Grant could hear him on the phone) and emerged every so often to grab some leftover ham.

  Late in the afternoon, his father suggested a walk—just the two of them, his mother was napping—and Grant had no reason to say no.

  “You’re heading back to New York tomorrow?” his father said.

  “That’s my plan.” He already knows that, Grant thought. They were walking the perimeter of Red Fox Lake; the path beneath their feet was soft with brown pine needles.

  “Glad you could come.”

  Grant said nothing.

  “Things all right with you?” his father said.

  “Yeah, mostly.”

  Grant studied the lake, tried to concentrate on the sights of fish ripples and loons and reflections. But he saw his father’s profile (good, strong face, made even more handsome by the gray) and saw in his eyes that there was something he was waiting to say.

  “Uh, last night. I don’t know if you happened to hear …”

  “I heard.”

  “Your mother hasn’t been herself.”

  Yes, she has, Grant thought.

  “She’s worried,” his father went on. “I, uh, I’ve had some tests. Had some bleeding, you know? Could be just hemorrhoids. Still …”

  Grant was startled; this was new. “When will you find out something?”

  “Soon, maybe. First batch of tests didn’t turn up anything. So they did some more. Actually, it wasn’t just the bleeding. I haven’t felt so great, you know?”

  Grant said nothing.

  “Anyhow,” his father went on, “that’s why the Notre Dame trip is important to me. In addition to the fact that I like to go to the place, in the back of my mind there’s … you know.”

  Grant was embarrassed and guilty. He wanted nothing close to intimacy with his father.

  “You’re right,” his father said, “right to go to Bessemer. It’s a good idea, touching base with old friends, old times.”

  Out on the lake, a fish jumped and a loon bobbed.

  “Anyhow, I didn’t mean last night to discourage you from going to Bessemer.”

  “You didn’t. I’ve been planning to go.”

  “What made you decide?”

  Grant shrugged. He would wait out the silence no matter how long it took.

  “So what’s on your agenda for tonight?” his father said finally.

  “I don’t know. Thought I’d drive over near Horning. Find a quiet tavern.”

  “Watch out. Lots of cops out, looking for people to pull over. These country cops, looking for young guys …”

  “I’m not so young anymore.”

  “That’s right, you’re not.” A chuckle. “I forget that sometimes, because if you’re not that young, it means …”

  “I’ll watch out.”

  “You, uh, seeing anyone at the moment?”

  “Now and then.”

  “Mmmm. I used to play the field myself.” His father chuckled.

  You still did after you got married, Grant thought. And then he wondered how he would feel if his father died soon. Would he be relieved? What would happen to his mother?

  “Oh, one thing,” his father said. He had stopped to look across the lake and was making a big project out of lighting his pipe. “It’s good that you studied history in college. Looking back, I might have pressured you too much to study business. A man sticks to what he knows. I know business, so I figured you should study it, too. Anyhow, you studied what you wanted, so I guess things turned out okay.”

  “I guess.” Grant knew his father wanted him to say more.

  They turned and started back to the cottage.

  “Never mind the deer hunting, that’s okay,” his father said, his voice again distant and commanding. “If you do get more time, you might want to come up early. In case it snows or something.”

  Grant said nothing. The moment had passed, and he was both sad and relieved. And he was glad his father did not suggest going over to Horning with him. He had to go alone.

  Eighteen

  Marlee thought that all funeral homes smelled the same. The suffocating fragrance of flowers engulfed her the moment she stepped inside and unbuttoned her raincoat.

  “Hello, how are you today,” the man from the funeral home said.

  “Just fine, thanks.”

  “Here. Allow me.”

  The man was tall and gray and had a lot of practice being somber. He spoke in hushed tones and positioned himself gracefully behind Marlee to help with her coat.

  “We’re sure getting our share of rain, aren’t we?” the man said.

  “And then some. I’m—”

  “You’re Marlee West,” the funeral director said. “I recognize you from your picture. My wife is a faithful reader.”

  Marlee was about to say she was flattered, but he gave her no time. “Your friend is in the end room,” the man said consolingly.

  “Thanks. I’ll visit the ladies’ room first.” She didn’t need him to tell her where it was; she had paid her respects to other dead people here.

  Marlee felt relieved to be in the bathroom: for once, the smells of soap and antiseptic were better than the scent of flowers.

  She ran cold water, wetted a paper towel, dabbed at her cheeks. After drying her face, she combed her rain-moist hair and applied lipstick around the rough spot on her lip.

  Ready, she thought.

  Coming up the stairs, she saw a couple of Gazette people walking toward the end room. She was just as glad they hadn’t seen her.

  The news of the death had shaken her. It was not that she had had any deep fondness for him, but that he had suddenly … ceased to exist. He had been a vital presence, and now he wasn’t.

  Died, Marlee thought. He died.

  She wondered what had gone through his mind just before he … died.

  Marlee still had not decided whether to attend the funeral. Maybe she would. The Gazette was a family, after all. Sort of.

  She thought of these things as she walked down the thickly carpeted main hall, p
ast other rooms with bodies in coffins, rooms that smelled of old women’s rouge and old men’s stale clothes and … flowers.

  And then she was at the door to the end room. For goodness’ sake, she thought as she read the sign over the door. I never knew that was his first name.

  EDMUND SPERL, the sign read.

  Marlee entered and at the far end of the room saw the waxlike body of Ed Sperl, plumped snugly in a casket lined with pale blue. He wore a dark blue suit. She glanced only a moment at his face, enough to see that his cheeks and nose had been touched up, so that the effects of the drinking were not as obvious.

  People stood in knots, shifting their feet awkwardly. There was Will Shafer, and there Lyle Glanford, Jr. Lyle had doubtless been assigned the funeral duty by his father. Small knots of people stood a few feet away from the body, and seemingly as far away from each other as they could get. Separate sets of relatives from his two failed marriages. With one group stood a boy in his early teens; he wore gray trousers that were too short and a blue blazer that fit badly around the neck. He looked more sulky than sad.

  Ed’s son, Marlee thought. She wondered what the boy had been told, and she pitied him.

  Marlee couldn’t deal with the body scene quite yet, so she turned her back to the coffin and slowly added her name to the book of mourners.

  She avoided looking directly at the body, sidling up instead to Will and Lyle.

  “Hi,” she whispered to both.

  “Marlee,” Will said quietly.

  “Hi, Marlee.”

  Marlee thought Will Shafer looked as ill at ease as she had ever seen him. Did he feel like a hypocrite? Marlee wondered. It was generally known that Will couldn’t stand Ed, personally or professionally. He just has to be here, Marlee thought. He’s the editor.

  Lyle, too, looked uncomfortable. Resentment at being assigned funeral duty.

  Now for the hard part, Marlee thought. She steeled herself and tried to fix a smile without catching her lip.

  “I’m Marlee West,” she said to a plump woman flanked by two thick-set men. Her brothers, Marlee saw.

  “I’m Olga,” the woman said. She had been crying.

  Marlee held on to her smile and let the words of the woman and her brothers fly past her ears like birds, never lighting. Because of the way Ed Sperl had died, the words embodied more than the usual funeral-home banalities and pleasantries.