He finds his fishing gear. The eyes on the poles are green with corrosion, one of the reels stiff with age. The tackle box is practically empty some twisted line and a few gnarled hooks, an old hunting knife wrapped in foil. He unwraps the knife and runs his thumb along its rusty blade. The blade pricks his finger and a dollop of blood bubbles up. He licks it away, salty and earthy on his tongue. He says, "I hate fishing." It echoes in the shed and startles him, as if someone may have heard. He lays the poles and the tackle box behind the stacks of lumber where no one can see them, then goes outside to the yard. The horse is grazing in the pasture just down the fence line. Millhouse stops at the fence, calls, "Hey, Knuckles," but she doesn't look up.
Millhouse snacking on peanut butter and crackers over the sink, squinting to read the thermometer outside the kitchen window 96. He makes his afternoon pot of coffee and sits for a while at the table. Millhouse on the phone to Helen.
"You're going to have to call Gloria back," he says. "Tell them I'm not feeling well or something."
"But Charlie, he'll be so disappointed."
"I tell you I don't want to. I don't know how to fish, it's been years. And what if he were to drown or something?"
"Drown?" Her voice is high, stretched with sarcasm. "Charlie, you're being silly. You used to fish all the time."
"I don't want to argue, Helen. And this is long distance."
"Charlie" she begins, but he hangs up. He stares at the phone and then picks up the receiver. He puts it down again when he hears a car pass on the road, and goes out to pick up the newspaper. Back inside he pops the rubber band, pops it, pops it until it breaks, then he sits at the table, scanning the front page. He reads a story about delays in a street-paving project in Houston, and in the story is the name of a city spokesman he's never heard or seen before. That was Hardy's job: City Spokesman. Where is he? What's happened? Already it's changed. He moves on to other news, sees hundreds of words, some large, some small, but doesn't read them. The words are about Houston and the world and have nothing to say to him now.
He rolls up the paper as if the rubber band were still around it and then he throws it with all his might across the room. Pages come loose and fly everywhere, but the core of the newspaper smacks a lamp and sends it crashing to the floor. He looks at the mess and mutters, "This is how I knew it would be."
IV
Millhouse, still in his robe, watching a game show on TV. He hears a horn blowing outside. It's Grady in his truck.
"Man, aren't you up yet?" Grady calls through his window.
"I'm not feeling too well."
"No time for that. Come on. I need some help."
"I can't today."
"It's just some logs."
"Can't today."
"See you in a few minutes."
Grady's truck rolls backwards down the driveway.
He yells, "I can't," but knows Grady can't hear him. "You old loon." Millhouse in the bedroom, putting on jeans, cursing Grady, putting on a shirt and his boots, his cap. He leaves.
Grady, with a foot on a log, is waiting for Millhouse as he walks slowly across Grady's pasture toward the felled tree.
"This'll get us through the winter," Grady says, nodding to the litter of timber before him, and Millhouse grunts a reply. Together they lift logs into the bed of Grady's truck.
"Where you been the past few days?" says Grady, wiping sweat from his big-nosed face with a bandana.
"Busy."
"Fixing the fence?"
"Nope."
They heave logs until they've made a load. Then they get inside. Grady directs the truck toward the woodpile. They bounce over the rough spots in the pasture and Grady complains about the pinched disc in his back. They drop off the logs and return for another load. Millhouse can feel Grady eyeing him.
He says, "Something on your mind?"
"Yeah, as a matter of fact," says Grady. "As a matter of fact I do have something to say. I think you're sitting on your can over there, kind of just waiting for something to happen, and I think that's stupid. There's work to do."
Millhouse feels a terrific lurch in his chest. He turns on Grady. He says, "Stop the truck."
Grady looks incredulous under his heavy gray eyebrows.
"I said, stop the truck."
Millhouse gets out and strides across the pasture toward his own pickup. Grady yells, "See you later, eh Charlie? Eh?" Then louder: "Eh?" Millhouse doesn't look back.
At home he lays down on the bed to think. He remembers the HELP WANTED sign at the Western Auto in Huntsville, wonders what sort of job it would be. But his mind turns quickly. He imagines the pistol in the bottom drawer of the dresser. It's wrapped in a towel under his sweaters. There's a box of bullets in the drawer too. Now he sees himself in the shed, sitting on a stack of lumber, holding the barrel of the pistol to his temple as he has seen them do in the movies. Or, no, the mouth; he'd do it through the mouth. His face is serious-looking and deathly white.
The phone rings and Millhouse gets up to answer it.
Gloria says, "Hi, Daddy."
"Hello, Sugar," he says, wishing he'd stayed in bed, knowing he'll have to lie. They chat for a few minutes and Millhouse tells her that he's feeling better, but still not well enough to look after Josh for two weeks. And suddenly Gloria is crying.
"Oh, Daddy, we're in trouble."
She says Roger has been talking about moving out. He's not sure he loves her. She was hoping they could have a couple of weeks to themselves. Would he please take Josh?
He thinks he should console her, but this has happened before and he doesn't want to know any more about it. He should say simply, no, I can't this time. Instead, he says, "All right, all right, bring him up. But there won't be any fishing."
Her voice is weak but tinged with hope. "Thank you, Daddy."
Millhouse at the pier. He sits down, takes off shoes and socks, lets his feet dangle in the water. The ducks that make the cove their home squawk about the intrusion, but glide by in twos and threes, watching him, he thinks, in case he has brought food. He hears someone drive up behind him on the narrow road through the woods. It's Grady, with an ice chest.
"Thought you might be here," Grady says and sits on the ice chest at the edge of the pier. "I've got some beer, you want one? Nothing like a cool one after a hard day's work."
Millhouse seldom drinks, but this time he accepts. He sits silently as they sip their first beers and Grady comments on the drought sixty-five days without a drop and how he's going to lose the rest of his grass unless they get some rain. Millhouse doesn't say what he wants to say about grasses, but soon, his tongue loosened by liquor, he ventures a few words and they start to talk. They talk as novices about the qualities of different brands of beer and of drinking bouts they had as young men, laughing occasionally, lapsing into silence. They talk about hunting trips they may or may not take. They drink and talk about nothing in particular until the sun is low across the lake and there are eleven empty cans floating in the chilly water at the bottom of the ice chest. "You want the last one?" Grady says.
"Naw, you go ahead," says Millhouse. He stands up, woozy, and holds onto the top of a pile for support. Everything appears blurry. When he gets his balance he notices that the water is calm, a cool brown, somehow inviting in the heat. He can see the reflection of the trees around the lake, the glare of the sun.
Grady says, "Hey, old man, you okay?"
Millhouse doesn't answer, but he takes off his glasses and sets them on top of the pile. Then he leaps off the pier, pulling his knees up, and smacks the water hard with his butt. Under the surface he feels an instant of panic; it has been a long time since he was in water above his knees. After a moment, though, he relaxes, opening his eyes, holding his breath, and spreads his legs and arms. It comes back to him; he swims easily and, he thinks, gracefully. And he has been wrong about the underwater life of the lake, the cove. There are plants dancing on the cold bottom and rocks and a tennis shoe and a slimy-looking len
gth of ski rope. Everything is peaceful but has an eerie, unreal quality in the cloudy water, which isn't as deep as he has imagined.
"A cannonball," Grady cries when Millhouse comes up.
He sees that Grady has an approving look on his face, as if he wishes he had been the one to do it. Then Grady jumps in too, boots and all, holding the beer can above his head. They stand there, the water line at their chests, silver hair matted to their heads, passing the can back and forth, grinning at each other as if to say, What the hell are we doing?
V
Millhouse wakes in the night with a cramp in his thigh. And he wakes in the morning feeling groggy, lumpy. A hangover. Helen brings him coffee in bed and puts two aspirin on the night stand. She is dressed for work and in a hurry. From the foot of the bed she smiles at him as she would smile at a child who has done something cute. "Are you in pain?" she asks.
"Extreme," he says, but she doesn't understand.
Heavy-headed, he slips back to sleep without taking the pills and wakes up at one, his leg still stiff from the cramp. He watches television, queasy in his stomach, until late-afternoon when he gets hungry. At the sink in the kitchen he eats ham and cheese on leftover toast. The faucet is dripping; Helen has asked him to fix it. He turns the handle hard until it stops. Through the window he sees Knuckles dragging herself across the drought-yellowed pasture toward the fence. It's feeding time. Sweat stings his eyes as he goes to the shed, digs up a bucket of oats, walks to the fence and pours it over into the trough. He tosses the bucket into the shed and starts toward the house, but then, at the woodpile, he notices something moving among the logs. It's a snake, a big copperhead, now sunning itself on a stump.
Millhouse hurries into the house and down the hall to the bedroom. He takes the pistol and the box of bullets out of the drawer. He loads the gun quickly, not wanting the snake to get away, to hide somewhere so that Josh may stumble upon him. But outside he finds that the snake hasn't moved. Millhouse, who has fired the pistol only a few times, aims it at the snake's head, an easy target, though his hand shakes a little.
He pulls the trigger and the gun's explosion echoes through the surrounding woods. But he missed"I missed!"and still the snake simply lies there, at peace in the spring sun, completely unaware that it is about to be cast into everlasting darkness, that it will breed no more offspring, that it will stalk no more prey, that it will never again wake from the sweet silence of hibernation. How lucky, thinks Millhouse, and he lowers the gun, looks at it. The pistol's sharp edges become hazy. He blinks, trying to focus, and a close thunder pounds through his head.
He drags himself to the shed and sits down heavily on the stacks of lumber. The pistol and his arms hang limp between his legs. It's cool in the shed and this reminds him of the pump house on Grady's place where they found old man Jenson. Neighbors said that he died of a heart attack while repairing the pump, but Millhouse has often wondered. There is a nasty stain on the wall in there and he thinks it is blood. He now feels his own blood pulsing through his temples, drumming his brain, prickling his hair. He looks at the gun and then points the barrel at the sideburn on the right side of his head, just to see how it feels, to learn if it feels the way he has imagined. But he was wrong: the barrel seems to press against his brain it is actually touching him and the blood pulses.
This is not how he saw it: opening wide, he slips the barrel between his lips. He can taste oil and the metal is warm on his tongue; the sight pricks the roof of his mouth. He imagines what he would look like to someone watching him just now: stupid, silly. What if it were Josh? Hey, Papaw, what are you doing?
Uncomfortable, he shifts his body, and then something happens. The plank on which he is sitting slips from under him, slides to the next lower stack and sends him bouncing painfully to the ground. He lets out a gasp when the gun sight rakes across the tender skin in his mouth and he tastes blood mingling with the oil. "Stupid, stupid," he mutters and lifts the pistol as if to throw it. He sits still, his pant legs in the dust, his back against the lumber.
From here he can see FRAGILE stenciled on the box containing the dishwasher and the labels on the paint cans. On each of the labels is a man's face and each identical face has a challenging smile, the same smile that enlivens Grady's eyes when he acts like he knows everything. He can see Grady looking down at him, shaking his head the way his neighbors shook their heads over the death of old Jenson. One thing about Jenson: he had no self-respect. He would go for weeks in the same overalls and shirt; his place always looked abandoned. His wife, left destitute with a dilapidated house and barn, fields overrun by clover, had to sell the farm that Grady, he got it for a prayer, fixed it up, working eight hours a day, wearing his jeans and boots as if they were a uniform, as if he were a baker or a postman or a ranch hand: "This is what I do now," he said once. "It's my job."and Mrs. Jenson had to move to the nursing home in Huntsville.
She, too, is of the dead now, at peace beside her husband, one of those for whom death was a reward. Something moves deep in his intestines and he tries to swallow. He imagines Helen, humiliated, standing on the crumbling porch, barking like an auctioneer to a crowd of strangers whose legs are hidden in the waist-high grass. They'd steal her blind, he thinks, and images come to him of all the things he needs to do.
He's been wanting to dig a pond for the livestock down where the pasture becomes a bog when it rains. Grady would help; they'd rent a backhoe. They'd work only in the cool of the mornings, digging and smoothing out the dirt, banking it up to hold the water. And after lunch they would go to the cove and sit on the pier, sip beers and talk about hunting trips in the fall. And maybe they'll do it too. Run up to Trinity for some ducks, or over to Uvalde for some doves. The truck's in good shape. And there'll be Christmas, the whole family out from the city, and a fire in the fireplace and holly wreaths on the doors and the sounds of children in the house. And in the spring he'll plant hay with Grady who says they can go in together, sell the excess and make some cash. And he'll plant peach trees in the yard. Yes, he'll have an orchard and put in azaleas for Helen.
Helen. Next summer, July 2 to be exact, she'll retire. That's all she talks about. Everything will be fine when I'm home for good. She doesn't know any better. And she wants a vacation. All those years they worked downtown, making a good living together, raising two good children, they never took a vacation outside of Texas. She wants Colorado. Sure, he'd like to see the Rockies. He's read about it. Great Gorge and Cripple Creek and Garden of the Gods. Maybe they'll go up to Yellowstone too, see Old Faithful and the grizzly bears. He ought to see Yellowstone before he knocks on the Pearly Gates.
Millhouse hears something and looks up. Helen is standing in the doorway, her hair frazzled from a day's work, her purse hanging from her hand. She says something about a snake in the woodpile, but cuts it off. She says, "Charlie," as if it's two words. "What are you doing?"
He pulls himself to his knees, the gun still in his hand, and moves awkwardly toward her. "Helen," he says. His voice is high and rough, almost a whimper. He wraps his arms around her thighs, rolls his head back to look up at her face. He wants to explain but when he opens his mouth all that comes out is "Helen." And then: "Let's take a ride, you and me. Come on, let's go to the lake."
She touches his head. She kneels. They face each other, miniatures of themselves on the dusty floor of the shed, she with her purse, he with his pistol. Helen glances at the gun, says, "Oh, Charlie," and he hugs her tightly, achingly to his body.
VI
On Saturday Millhouse gets up early. By the time Helen wakes he has planned his repairs for the faucet and has started on the lawn, knowing the growl of the mower would bring her out. He catches a butterfly and gives it to her. She frees it and then smiles shyly, still frightened, he thinks, of what might be on his mind and in his heart. So he winks at her boldly.
All morning, while Helen washes clothes and cooks a roast, Millhouse watches the sky as dark promising clouds move in from the west, obliterating t
he sun. Sprinkles come and go, hissing as they strike the hot engine and, after he puts away the mower, pattering among the leaves of the trees. But it never really rains maybe tonight, or tomorrow and when Gloria and Roger and Josh arrive, Millhouse is waiting for them on the porch. The car stops, a door opens and here comes Josh, his blond hair flying, running toward Millhouse. He throws himself into his grandfather's arms, screaming, "Papaw, Papaw," and his little hand smacks Millhouse on the jaw, reviving for just a moment the pain of the wound in the old man's mouth.
Millhouse at the pier, sitting beside Josh, who flicks the pole to make the orange cork bob on the brown water.
FURNITURE
What I know I can tell in one word furniture. That's my line; I sell furniture on commission at a small retail outlet in an old clapboard neighborhood of Houston. Our customers are poor, most of them, blue-collar types who've more than likely averaged a job a year and been repossessed once or twice. Some are convicts we require cash of them but most, I'd have to say, are what my grandmother called the salt of the earth, people trying to get by on the little bit that God Almighty and the economics of this Great Land of Ours have seen fit to give them.
I've known all kinds. They come in looking for security, I call it, the security that the buying of furniture can provide. Feathering the nest, my wife Sherry likes to say. They're settling in, fixing a home. And when we can make a deal, sign the papers, they go out happy, laughing, talking like you're their best friend or their big brother. It's a good feeling to send people on their way after giving them what they want.
It's not always that way, though, and I know it far too well. Thirty-one years I've beat the linoleum at Green's Discount, worn out so many pairs of black wing tips that I long ago lost count, and I've seen sorrow, smelled the hurt, heard the pain in voices. It still amazes me what people show of themselves to a perfect stranger. I guess the nesting instinct is strong in people, and the wanting. Wanting, I've observed, and loss, too, these are what lead to sorrow and the hurt of living. When I think of this well, it's a clear memory that comes to me: of the short skinny man with a violent temper and of his tall fat wife whose eyes teared up so easily.
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