A Rhinestone Button

by Gail Anderson-Dargatz

  “No.”

  “Burned down the halfway house and part of the cabin.”

  “Really? That’s crappy. Anybody hurt? Lose any livestock?”

  “No.”

  “How’d it start?”

  “They don’t know,” said Crystal. “Thing is, Job’s got no place to stay.”

  “Oh?”

  “Liv tells me you’ve got a spare bedroom. I understand she’s stayed with you from time to time.”

  “When she had to get away from Darren. I’m really not set up for guests.”

  “Don’t you think you could put Job up for a couple of nights? Until he gets things straightened out for himself?”

  “That’s okay” said Job. “Really.”

  “You afraid of what people would think?” said Ed. “You staying with me?”

  Job said nothing. But yes, he was.

  “There’d be a hell of a lot more talk if you parked your truck at my place,” said Crystal. “But if you want to do that, it’s fine by me.”

  “No, really, I’ll be okay.” Job waved a hand to show it was all right but saw that his hand was shaking and grabbed hold of his coffee cup, as though it would anchor him to the table.

  “You’re looking pretty shaken up,” said Crystal. “Might do you some good to get away. Get Jacob to look after the farm for a few days.”

  Job bit an indentation into his lip to stop the tears, self-pity drifting into his gullet like indigestion. Where else could he go? “Yeah, maybe,” he said.

  Ed was holding an armful of shirts and pants when he opened the door for Job. He bent down to retrieve scattered socks as Job came in. “I wasn’t expecting anyone,” he said. A tabby wound itself around Job’s legs as Ed disappeared into the bathroom with the clothes. Ed came out a moment later cupping his hands. “I don’t have much to offer you. Coffee?”

  “No. I’m fine.” Job stared down at a cat toy near the door. A string hanging from a hook on a stick. At the end of the string, a bell encased in clear plastic.

  “I haven’t had a chance to do any shopping this week,” said Ed. “I’ve got nothing in the fridge for supper. We could go out and get a bite to eat.”

  “Yeah, okay.”

  “You got a place in mind?”

  “We could go to the Strathcona.” Thinking there might have been something special in the beer in the pub to bring on the colours he hadn’t been able to find since.

  Ed looked surprised. “The pub? Sure. They don’t have much of a menu.”

  “They have those two-wiener hot dogs.”

  “Hot dogs it is then.”

  They took seats at the back of the dark pub. Job ordered a draft to drink with his hot dog, then ordered another, then another when not even a hint of colour appeared. “You always drink like that?” asked Ed.

  “No.”

  “You got to take it easy. You don’t drink much, it’ll hit you fast.”

  “I’m okay.” He finished off his glass and listened to his father’s watch, but he saw no metallic dot there.

  “Watch stop?” said Ed.

  “No.” Neither the hum of voices in the pub nor the noise that tumbled in from outside when anyone opened the door produced flitting colours or shapes in his hand. Nothing at all. He waved a waitress over, ordered another draft for himself and asked Ed if he wanted another too. Ed shook his head. “So Liv stays at your place sometimes?” Job asked.

  “Only occasionally,” said Ed. “When things get really bad at home.”

  “She ever talk about me?”

  “Yeah, from time to time.”

  “You think she’s going to stick it out with Darren?”

  “You better ask her that yourself,” said Ed. He sipped his beer. “You see anything of Will?”

  “No.”

  “I phoned him,” said Ed. “But he wouldn’t answer my calls. A couple of times I went over to the farm, but Barbara wouldn’t let me in the house. I hung out at the café for a while, in case he turned up. Talked to Ruth a few times. She said Barbara and Jacob had Will on a pretty tight leash. Doing like that nutcase preacher said, telling Will what to watch on TV, what to read, where to go, watching him night and day. Crazy.” Ed pulled out a pack of gum and folded a stick before putting it in his mouth. “Jacob talk at all about him?”

  “I don’t talk to Jacob much.”

  “He’s right on the farm with you.”

  “We kind of avoid each other.”

  “Where do you eat meals?”

  “I heat a kettle on the wood stove. Eat a lot of sandwiches.”

  “Doesn’t sound like much of a life. I don’t know why you put up with that situation.”

  “My dad pretty much trained me to put up with anything,” he said, and was surprised at himself. He listened to himself talk to hear what he’d say, as if he were listening to someone else. “All my dad ever cared about was what other people were going to think, what people at church were going to think. Now I don’t know how to do anything. I’ve spent all this time feeling guilty about things I’ve got no reason to feel guilty about. For God’s sake, everyone masturbates.”

  Ed, caught off guard, scratched his chin.

  Job waved a hand. “I’m sorry. It’s just like what Liv said to me. You get angry at these people for doing these things to you. But really I’m pissed with myself, for believing it all.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s that whole Santa Claus thing, isn’t it?” said Ed. “You find out Santa was your dad with a fake beard on. You get mad at Dad for lying to you, but then you get over it, and you grow up. Then you bullshit your kids into believing in Santa Claus.”

  “I never believed in Santa Claus,” said Job.

  “Never?”

  “Dad wouldn’t let us believe. He said if we could stop believing in Santa Claus, we could stop believing in God. He didn’t want to set a precedent.”

  Ed laughed, making Job, for the moment, feel capable of easy banter. “I think the thing that pisses me off most is that I spent all that time scared shitless,” said Job. “When I could have been living.”

  “Yeah, I know what you mean. I was just like that, scared shitless. Scared of my dad, mostly. What he’d think. We were so close. Then, in my early twenties, I couldn’t stand it any more and decided not to hide it. I told my folks I was gay. Mom went to the therapist with me. Now when I talk to her about it she says, ‘I don’t care,’ so I know she still does. But when I told my granddad he said, ‘I can still give you a hug like I always did, can’t I?’ And that was it. With him, nothing’s changed. With Mom, it’s a federal case.”

  “How about your dad?”

  “My dad? He won’t talk to me. I phone ahead and visit Mom when Dad’s down at the Legion.”

  “You said you went hunting with him.”

  “That was then. I spent all those years trying to prove myself to that old fart. To get his approval. Finally I just gave up trying.”

  The waitress brought Job’s beer. He sipped from it and licked foam off his lips. “I could never do anything right for my father either,” he said. “One time I nearly drowned in grain trying to get his approval.”

  When he was eleven he had clammered onto the mound of barley rising in the old wooden granary as his father manned the auger that shot the grain through a hole in the granary roof. His feet sank six inches into barley. His back itched and his chest ached from grain dust, but Job shovelled away the cone of barley, which had dropped from the auger, to all four corners of the granary until he was crouching beneath the roof. He could have escaped through the door at the apex of the granary roof, but he didn’t, trying to prove his worth to his father, trying to please him, trying to make him see he was a good worker. That he was farmer material, the highest praise his father would allow.

  “I was struggling to keep the pile of grain away from the auger’s spout so grain wouldn’t jam it,” he said. “And I found myself trapped in the back of the granary, with my shoulders against the roof. I couldn’t reach the door.
Dad couldn’t hear me shouting because of the noise of the auger.”

  “So, you got out, obviously,” said Ed.

  “Dad cut the motor finally and dragged me out of there. He slapped my back as I spit black and called Mom out to bring me water, and I didn’t have to do chores that night because Mom wouldn’t let me. But he never apologized or said anything about it. He just read his newspaper in the living room after supper as I coughed and hacked in the kitchen. Things were different after that, though. He started talking like I’d be the one to take over the farm, and not Jacob.”

  The waitress came by to take away the glasses and plates and left the tray with the bill. Job, feeling generous, slapped his credit card onto the tray. As they waited for the waitress to return, Ed said, “Something I was wondering. Will ever tell you I made that crop circle?”

  “You made it?”

  “Sure. I mean, it was Will and me. My idea. I thought I’d give you that sign you were looking for. To go out with Debbie Biggs. Took us less than an hour. We made it just like that professor guy said, the one in the interview with you. I thought you’d stumble on it when you were checking the cows. I never thought Carlson would spot it, or phone the television station.”

  “Will never said anything. He let everybody think I was nuts.”

  “Hey, you were the one who went on TV holding a dead duck and said all that stuff about demons.” He slapped Job’s arm and laughed. “Come on,” he said. “It’s funny.”

  Job nodded grudgingly.

  “Listen, Job. I didn’t mean to make you feel unwelcome this morning. You want to stay a couple of days, or even a week if you need to, you’re welcome.”

  The waitress came back with Job’s card and receipt. As Job stood to leave, a whirl of vertigo came over him. He sat. “I think I drank too much.”

  “I’ll give you a hand out.”

  On the way out of the restaurant, Ed held him up from behind, holding both his hands as if they were dancing the schottische. “Why’d you park so far away?” said Job. “Everyone’s staring.”

  “Nobody’s staring.”

  But people on the street were staring. A man in a plaid shirt and John Deere cap did a double take as he approached. “Want to take a picture?” said Ed. The man shook his head and walked on.

  “How much farther?”

  “Not far.”

  “Don’t hold on so tight.”

  “All right. All right.”

  A pickup slowed and drove alongside them. Four farm boys still in their teens, two in the cab and two riding in the back, leaning on a bale of hay. One of the boys in the back banged a yellow plastic shepherd’s crook against the truck box. “Hey, look at this, guys,” he said. “Lover boys dancing on the street.”

  “Ignore them,” said Ed. “Don’t make eye contact.”

  “Whoo-hoo, pretty boy!” The driver blasted the horn. “Hey, I’m talking to you!”

  The kid in the back reached out with the shepherd’s crook, hooked Job behind the knees and brought him stumbling to the sidewalk. Ed grabbed hold of the crook and yanked it out of the kid’s hand. “You looking for a piece of this?” he yelled. He smacked the side of the truck with it, leaving a dent.

  “Jesus,” said the driver. “This guy’s nuts.”

  “You don’t know the half of it!” Ed took a stride towards the truck. The driver put his foot to the gas and sped away. He yelled, “Faggots!”

  “Shit,” said Ed. He threw the yellow crook after the truck and it landed in the middle of the road. The car behind honked. Ed leaned down and took Job’s arm to help him up.

  But Job pushed him off, pulled himself erect. “Leave me alone!” he said.

  Ed took his arm and tried to lead him to his truck. “Come on.”

  “Get away from me!”

  “This is ridiculous. Blame those assholes, not me.”

  Job leaned against a power pole, waiting for the dizziness to pass, and watched a man in a wheelchair whiz by, pulled by two huskies. “I’m going to be sick,” he said.

  “Well, puke here then, not in my truck.”

  “I want to use a washroom.”

  “Why didn’t you use it when we were in the pub?”

  “I didn’t think I was going to be sick then.”

  Ed put his shoulder under Job’s arm, staggered with him into a nearby café and past the tables to the men’s washroom, a single toilet in a room with a mirror and sink. Ed waited outside.

  Job spit into the toilet, but now that he was here, he couldn’t vomit. He rinsed his mouth out with a handful of water and washed his face. Then stared at his own reflection, thinking of the boys with the shepherd’s crook, the rage in their faces. What Crystal had said about Darren getting beaten up by his father, how it made him act the way he did. How Jason was acting out now. On it went from one generation to the next. If Job had had a son at the age Jacob had, he likely would have used the strap, or even beaten a boy in rage, just as Abe had beaten him. He thought of how he’d acted with Ben the day before, as he broke up the ice in the water tank. The things he’d said and the rage that had burst out of him wasn’t really him. It was Abe. And not Abe. It was Abe’s father, and who knew who else’s before him, on down the line. But how could he escape it? Job, overcome by another wave of nausea, sat on the covered toilet and stared at the sign above the doorknob that read This door-knob is a bit sticky. It will open with fiddling.

  Nineteen

  When Job pulled the truck into the form and got out, Jerry’s dog leapt up and left muddy paw prints down the thigh of his jeans. He kicked the dog away and stood a moment, looking over the yard. There were no vehicles there; no one was home. He’d make himself coffee to warm up with, and nuke a beef sandwich in the microwave, and maybe spend a half-hour in the house alone. But he was surprised by a compulsion to knock. He felt like a trespasser, stepping inside. It smelled of Old Spice, the scent of his dad on Sundays. A fry pan sat on the stove, still coated with white grease from bacon cooked that morning. A cup and greasy plate sat on the table and a fork lay on the floor. As if his father had just dressed and gone to church, and left his breakfast dishes for Job to clean up. Job ripped off a sheet of paper towel and wiped the fry pan clean, then set it back on the stove. He washed the few dishes in the sink, running a thumb over them to make them squeak, hoping for a sheen of pastels. None appeared. He wiped the table free of crumbs and swept the floor. Then stopped himself and sat at the kitchen table. This had never been his house; it had never stopped being his father’s house. The place seemed shrunken in, stifling. A playhouse for children. He couldn’t imagine having lived here with his parents and Jacob. Where was the room?

  Job put the broom back in the hall cupboard and took out the vacuum cleaner to suck up the crumbs from beneath the table, then left it running in the middle of the kitchen. He leaned back into one of his mother’s metal-legged chairs with his hands in his lap, fingers locked, and listened. But felt no glass egg in his hands.

  The dog barked and scratched at the front door, and Job felt a blast of cold air at his neck. Lilith was at the door with her back to him, a finger pointing at the dog. “Sit!” she ordered. “Stay!” The dog sat and stayed. When Lilith turned, she looked from the vacuum to Job. “What are you doing?” she said. She closed the door as Job yanked the plug from the vacuum and tugged the cord to let it snake back into the housing. Lilith covered her mouth with her hand when he looked up.

  “Just a little tidy-up,” he said. He walked the vacuum into the hall closet.

  “I would have done it. I keep a good house.”

  “I never said you didn’t.”

  Lilith, still in her coat, picked up a washcloth and turned her back to Job to scrub the kitchen counter, though it was wiped clean. Job scratched his scalp and felt the confusion of dealing with this woman: a pressure at the back of his skull, two hands pressing a melon.

  “Well, don’t just sit there!” she said finally, with her hand over her mouth. “You’re as bad as t
hat Wade friend of yours, just sitting, staring, like you know better. Like you’re one up on everyone else in the room. So superior.”

  A surprise, to be thought of this way. He liked it. Wade must like it as well. What was Wade without his silence? If he spoke he was only a poorly dressed parts salesman.

  Job stood and put a hand on Lilith’s shoulder, and she started to cry. Job remembered this. Will’s hand on his shoulder, the smallest kindness bringing on tears. “What’s the matter, Lilith?” he said.

  She ran an index finger under her nose and wiped the finger on her coat. “Somebody at Bountiful Harvest found out Ben started the fire. Pastor Divine came down yesterday to say they were cutting support for the project. Volunteers didn’t want to give their time if Ben was just going to burn everything down. He said if Jacob couldn’t control his own son, then he couldn’t possibly have the leadership qualities it would take to run the halfway house. Jack fired him. What are we going to do?”

  Job watched a drowsy fly land in the condensation that fogged the kitchen window. As it struggled to escape the dampness, it ended up with both wings stuck to the water, sliding down the glass.

  “I was always afraid Ben was going to do something like that while Jacob had a church. He nearly burned our house down once, and set the yard on fire. Jacob had to tell the board he’d had an accident with the barbecue. Then I go and duct-tape that awful kid’s head to his desk.” She tapped her chest. “I’m the reason we had to leave.”

  Lilith cried, blew her nose, cried some more. “I think sometimes I did it to get Jacob’s attention. Isn’t that childish? I was just so tired I couldn’t think straight. Any time I tried to talk about how much I hated never having time to ourselves or a day off, he just said the same thing, over and over. ‘We’ve all got to make sacrifices for God’s work.’ And he was right. We do. I was wrong to complain. It’s just I feel like I can’t ever do enough. God is never going to be happy, is he?”