Now Is the Hour

by Tom Spanbauer

  What wallet? George said. What the fuck you talking about? George said. What shirt?

  George was just like Sis. How convenient. All of a sudden wasn’t going to remember.

  In Saint Anthony’s Hospital, I yelled.

  I wasn’t yelling. I was screaming.

  Your crazy drunk DTs, I screamed. And your bologna breath.

  Just then, the way George’s eyes were looking at me, I was the one who was nuts, not him. George pushed his shoulders up, pulled his neck and head back.

  Bologna breath? George said. I do not have bologna breath.

  I was still screaming.

  Don’t play dumb, I screamed. You were out of your mind. The thunder and lightning. Don’t say you can’t remember, I screamed. You were trying to kill me. I’d be dead right now if the nurses and the doctor hadn’t given you a shot. Plumb nuts, crazy bastard! You were screaming and yelling, The wind is Thunderbird breathing, you said. Thunderbird can take any form, you said. Human, plant, animal. Thunderbird has no shape, you said, but he has four legs or two legs or a fin with hooves, and the hooves have claws.

  George let go of my hands, pushed himself up away from me quick, up on his arms.

  I was still screaming.

  Thunderbird’s wings cover the world, you said. His wings are clouds, the beating of his wings brings the thunder. Thunder is the sound from deep inside his throat, you said. Although he has no head, there’s teeth in his beak, and the teeth are wolves’ teeth. He has one eye, you said.

  George was back up to standing. Crouching standing, backing away slow. The blood from his nose, down onto his chin. George wiped his face, and his hand came back blood. In his eyes the old storm of ’66.

  Screaming, I was still screaming.

  Lightning comes from that eye, you said. He sees everything, you said. He flies through the sky, you said. Searching to cleanse the world of filth.

  Filth was the word, the one single word, the smoldering word, for all the days and nights of hate I’d felt and never spoke.

  George’s boot caught on the big weeping willow root. He fell back on his ass.

  I didn’t miss a beat. I was a long leap up through the air landing right on top of him.

  My legs straddled George’s chest. My hands were slapping, slapping him across the face. Blood flying with every slap.

  I was still screaming.

  Then in the morning, I screamed, you were gone from the hospital and so was my wallet, my new madras shirt, and.

  And and and and and, I screamed.

  And.

  And my pair of dirty undershorts!

  The world quiet all around. The wind in the willow tree, Thunderbird breathing. Thunderbird, the water in the ditch. My back was flat on the grass. My chest so fast going up and down, up and down. Out of my eyes, beyond the weeping willow, all I could see was blue, one little bright cloud.

  The sound coming out of George was a horrible human sound. The earth opening up. The heavens descending.

  It was a sound I understood.

  Inside first down deep, something inside that has to come up and out, and when it does, it is such a weird sound.

  George was on his knees, holding his sides. His hands pounded the grass, his feet kicking. His whole body thrashed around, rolling across the ground. A high wail, snorts, sounds like only animals make.

  I’d never seen anyone laugh so hard.

  Laughter so hard it was all I could do not to laugh too.

  It wasn’t long at all, and no matter how hard I tried, there I was making sounds just like George. Inside me, the force up and out of me, I started twisting around, the earth opening up, the heavens descending, trying to make room for what was coming through me, the weird sounds coming out of me.

  Weird thing, laughter.

  I loved God so much right then.

  That night while my parents watched TV, I called Billie. Billie and I hardly ever talked on the phone, so I didn’t know what I was going to say. I just wanted to hear her voice. Mrs. Cody answered and told me Billie’d gone out for Cokes with her girlfriends. Right off, Mrs. Cody lit a cigarette and started in talking, talking about one thing, then another, then about our marijuana night. Just when she got to the wedding dress, Dad came in the kitchen, turned on the light. The drut look. Sister Mary Cowface. He pointed to his watch. I told Mrs. Cody I had to hang up.

  I snuck one of Dad’s Viceroys and walked out the kitchen door. It was a big, hot Idaho night, crickets and frogs chirping and croaking. The sprinkler going razzle razzle on the front lawn. The only other sound was my boots on the rough gravel. Tramp came running up and poked his head in my crotch. He was so happy I came out he stood up on his hind legs and put his front legs on my arms. The two of us did a little jig, his pink bologna tongue hanging out. An endless source of amusement, that dog.

  Into the night, past the machine shop and the granaries, out past the spud cellar. Darker and darker, like in the olden days, just Tramp and me and the yellow moon. Stars, hard bits of diamond light. A safe place. I was looking for just the right one.

  The grain elevator poked up into the moonlight. When I stepped up onto the first flange, the moon shined on the slick bottom all the way to the top. Tramp made a low noise in his throat and lay down. A stairway to the stars, I kept walking up and up, the rattle of my boots on the flanges. Just past halfway, when the grain elevator began to tip, then farther out, when I hit perfect balance, I sat down careful and lit the cigarette.

  That afternoon under the weeping willow, after the strange sound had come up and out of me and George, after laughing so hard like that, there was something else that happened with George. And since it happened, I didn’t know what to do with myself.

  The laughter had gone on so long and hard, it had to change. It was quiet under the weeping willow. Just the wind. I sat like an altar boy, an arm’s length away from George, keeping my distance. I was worried any minute Dad would come driving up, yelling and waving his hands. Even worse I had my shirt off, and Dad didn’t like me to take my shirt off. Especially since George’s shirt was off too.

  My right hand was on the green grass, a fist into the earth. For a moment, I closed my eyes. And in that moment George reached his big hand out and laid his hand on mine. I quick went to move my hand, but that’s exactly what Dad would do. And because I’d laughed with the man and met his granny, I broke the rule. I did not keep my distance and I did not move my hand. Above us, the blue sky real blue, the long green wafts of willows, Thunderbird breathing.

  What happened next, in my whole lifetime, there was nothing to prepare me for what happened next. It was a sound, a strange sound coming up and out of George, but this time the sound was not laughter.

  Snot coming out his nose, big sobs like burps, George wept deep and hard and as long as he had laughed. The same way Dad cried at Russell’s funeral. The way I’d cried when I found Russell’s grave. But more. I’d never known someone to weep like that. His head bent all the way over his crossed legs, his face right up against the ground, his back muscles jerking, his big hand smashed on mine, George wept so hard, he was screaming at the ground.

  The grain elevator bobbed up and down. I smashed the cigarette out on the bottom of my boot, stood up, and walked off the deep end of the descending staircase. When I stepped off, the grain elevator snapped right back up. A crash and bang that made Tramp jump.

  In the safest place, in the hayloft of the barn, at the back end, the moon shining in silver onto the gold straw, I pulled the straw up all around me and Tramp. The barn was full of its spirits.

  And something more. Something large and dark out in the night I didn’t know. Thunderbird.

  In my bedroom, both windows were open and not a sign of breeze. The sheets were hot and stuck to my legs. A train whistle off faraway.

  I put my hand that George had touched, the back of it, against my nose and mouth. Smelled my hand, rubbed my knuckles across my lips. I wondered about George. Why was he crying? Did he know why he
was crying, or was he like me, at Russell’s grave, and he was surprised too: How he could carry pain around like that and not even know.

  That first morning after the day under the weeping willow, George wasn’t at the mailbox, so I walked up Granny’s lane again. With each step of my boots on the powdery dirt, the closer and closer I got to George Serano, the faster my heart beat. I told myself to breathe and smell the roses. It was the same lane I’d walked the day before, but today I hardly recognized the place. The barbwire fence still sagged between the posts, the patch of tansy, the chamomile, the low-growing Russian olives, purple blossoms of alfalfa. Asparagus gone to seed. Bull thistle.

  Into the shade of the Lombardys, magic light and dark on everything. Hallucinations on the ground, on George’s ’49 Ford, on the skin of my arms and all over on my body. Was like water walking into water, my body. The green screen door. Bonanza barking before I knocked.

  As soon as Granny opened the door, there was the red bandanna tied around her head, the strands of hair like cobwebs around her face, her bushy eyebrows. Around her eyes, thousands of tiny wrinkles.

  Her red-rimmed, deep brown eyes looked me up and down.

  It was all in her eyes.

  Her brown-rope hand reached out, grabbed my arm, let go, then grabbed my other arm.

  Anything broke? she said.

  Her fingers on my arms, slick as leather.

  Broke. There I am in an old log cabin on the rez, deep inside the magic shadows of big old Lombardys, looking down at a four-foot Indian woman who was so old her face looked like lava rock. The only thing near me that had anything to do with the twentieth century, the single bare light bulb hanging down above the table. I am waiting for her grandson, a man who I’d twice had to defend my life against. A man who had stolen my wallet, my madras shirt, my dirty underwear, a man who had shoved my head down into the water and mud. A man who I had already laughed and cried with more than any other human being in my life so far, a man who when he came walking into the room might just make me fall over in some kind of conniption fit, and this old woman, Grandma Queep, her eyes as deep a wound as any broken heart, is beating her gums, asking me, Is anything broke?

  Broke. Everything was broke. I was at that very moment breaking.

  I’m fine, I said.

  The two deep wrinkles in Granny’s forehead that dipped down between her eyes got deeper.

  Didn’t expect you back, Granny said.

  Bonanza raised his head up and let out a loud bark. On the shiny wood floor, Bonanza’s old white paws were standing between Granny’s Minnetonka moccasins and my old haying boots.

  My arms were folded across my chest. I unfolded them. My mouth tried to say some kind of shit, gave up. I folded my arms over my chest again.

  That was quite a snafu you had with my grandson, Granny said. He’s got a black eye, and his face looks like he tangled with a porcupine.

  Granny’s dark, dark eyes, nothing in between.

  You two got it in for each other, don’t you?

  That’s when Bonanza poked his nose up into my crotch. Not just a nudge. More like a punch. I quick put my hand down there in front of me, stepped away.

  My rubber lips. I swear, if I could breathe and move my lips the way I wanted, I’d be a fine human being.

  Not anymore, I said. George and I are cool now, I said. No more hassles.

  Granny walked over to the stove, started moving things around on the stove. Bonanza, his toenails little clicks on the shiny floor, made it to his Pendleton pillow and then fell over.

  Surprised your daddy didn’t can George’s ass, Granny said. You want some coffee?

  Then: George! she yelled. It’s the Klusener boy. You’re late for work! It’s a new day, son! Brand-new!

  A thud from the other room.

  Another Wild Turkey? I said.

  Grandma Queep turned. Her red-rimmed eyes, always her eyes, like they were full of tears.

  No, Granny said. He’s sober. Can’t tell you why, though.

  I didn’t tell my father, I said. What happened yesterday was between George and me.

  Granny took two quick steps across the shiny floor. Bonanza was up in no time, barking loud.

  Granny stuck her face right up close to mine. She was moving her lips over where her teeth used to be. Her eyebrows, like one eyebrow all the way across her eyes.

  Direct contact.

  What did you say your name was? Granny said.

  I haven’t said yet, I said.

  Well, say it then, she said.

  Rigby John, I said, Rigby John Klusener.

  In her deep brown eyes, ribs of gold.

  Right, Granny said, I know the Klusener part. What I was looking for was the Rigby John.

  Granny’s eyes went off a little bit and looked at something else. Something inside.

  Son! she said. You take milk with your coffee, don’t you? Milk’s good for your bones. My grandson will be right with you.

  Then me and my big mouth. All of a sudden, words came out of me out in the world I wanted to swallow back up.

  Is he alone?

  For a moment there, I thought maybe I’d spoken soft enough so Granny couldn’t hear.

  But no such luck.

  George! Granny yelled. Are you alone in there?!

  Oh my God, my breath.

  How many cowboys you got in there with you?!

  Granny’s thick, dark lips lifted up till her gums showed, big smile, pink gums all the way around.

  Noises out of George’s room. Drawers opened, closet doors banging.

  No, Granny! George yelled out. It’s just me and the tumbling tumbleweeds!

  The rest of that day and the next day and the next, neither George nor I knew what to do with ourselves. Our eyes didn’t know where to look. Our lips didn’t know what to say. Neither one of us knew what the fuck. George’s one eye was dark blue with a little green right under the eye, and his cheek was scratched and scratches on his forehead too.

  Things are so much easier when you hate somebody.

  At the ends of the field, I took the baler a lot slower when I turned around. I shut off the power takeoff, lifted the baler teeth, cut the gas, made the turn long and slow and always looked back at George to see if he was OK before I started in on a new windrow.

  We stopped for breaks. A couple of times in the morning, and three or four times in the afternoon. But we didn’t go back under the weeping willow. We stayed out in the field in the sun. Just long enough for George to drink some water and have a smoke.

  We’d made such good time baling so far, my dad wasn’t coming around.

  It was tough during the breaks. The tractor was off and there was just the wind in our ears where there used to be a lot of noise. George sat on the slip on a bale of hay. I stayed on the tractor. The smell of his cigarette driving me nuts. It wasn’t like we were ignoring each other like before. We were both real polite, saying things like: Did you get enough to drink? and, It sure is hot out here today, and, That last bunch of hay was full of quack grass.

  On the fifth day, we finished up Hess’s forty, and with Hess’s forty finished so was the whole hay crop.

  As fate would have it, the last bit of hay to go through the baler was at the top end of the field, just across the fence from the green pasture grass, the ditch, and the weeping willow.

  When the last bale of hay came out of the baler, George lifted the hay bale above his head, pumped the bale up and down, then tossed the bale onto the pile of hay on the slip. I kept driving long enough for George to put the iron bar in the ground and unload the stack of hay. I shut the baler off, then the tractor.

  I jumped up, stood both my haying boots on top of the yellow tractor seat, stuck both my arms into the air, and yelled as loud as I could yell: Far out! The fucking hay is done!

  The sky wasn’t blue it was so bright, and between my arms and my hands outstretched, one piece of cloud, a little brighter than the rest of the bright sky, moved east between my han
ds.

  Then that quick, I felt stupid for standing up and yelling. The bones of my body were hung altogether wrong. There I was, a dumb kid, a showoff, making a spectacle of myself.

  Plus I’d said that word.

  My arms stayed stuck up in the air for a while. I was afraid to look down, afraid to look at George. What I expected to see was my father’s Roosky eyes. Eyes that hated me and were ashamed.

  Then what do you know. I hear a long, loud yell. More like a whoop than a yell. A sound like you hear the Indians make on television, and I look over at George, and just as I look, his arms go up in the air, then down onto the ground, and George is three perfect cartwheels around and around and around to the fence, and the last one he lands on his ass.

  The fucking hay is fucking done! he yelled, then whooped a loud Indian whoop.

  George with his ass in the hay stubble, his hat gone crooked, in that moment, a pain next to my heart, something like an arrow going through me.

  I loved God so much right then.

  Loved George.

  Then George was over the fence, and I was off the tractor and over the fence, and George’s hat was off, and his shirt, and his T-shirt was off, and he was lying his long body out along the grass, his head stuck in the ditch. The smell of mud and ditch water, moss, and the sun on George’s skin. I came up on him from behind, put the flat of my hand against the back of his head, pushed his head down into the water.

  Then it was water splashing all over, and George was up and on his feet, and he started in after me, and I ran to the weeping willow, and George was chasing me around and around the weeping willow tree, and I was laughing so hard I kept stumbling, but he couldn’t catch me because I could run so fast.

  When he did catch me, just like that, I was up in the air, on his shoulder again. I was kicking and yelling, but it was fun this time, and when I hit the solid, solid ground, it was not so solid.

  George’s body was smack on top of me. The hair of his chest and belly up against my T-shirt. My legs spread, my arms and hands pinned down above my head. Same place, same two people, same position, differnt day, differnt feeling altogether. Water from George’s hair dripping in my face. George’s breath, tobacco and toothpaste. From his body, his armpits, the smell on the back of my throat, flint and buckskin.