Dispensations

by Randolph Thomas

  After much maneuvering, the men brought the vat to rest on the stone furnace. It was a cold afternoon, and we stood around in our coats and gloves while my father dragged over the hose. When the vat was full of water, my uncle lit the fire in the furnace beneath it and instructed my father that he would have to make sure the fire stayed lit during the night because the water would have to be boiling when they killed the hogs.

  “This hog killing is dangerous,” my uncle said, turning to Eugene and me. “When I grew up, we had a hog killing once, and a boy wasn’t minding like he was supposed to. He was a spoiled kid that had to have things his own way. After they told him not to, he climbed a tree to see in the vat and fell in the hot water. He screamed and cried like nothing I ever heard.”

  I’d always respected my uncle because he’d been in the army, in the Vietnam War, a fact that fascinated and frustrated me because my parents had ordered me never to ask him about it.

  “Then he was really spoiled,” my uncle said. “His insides were cooked. When he ate supper, his stomach couldn’t take it. He was no older than you boys, but he died suffering a man’s pain.”

  I glanced at my father for a sign as to whether this terrible story was true. My father only squinted at the ground, making a sad, sour face like he could see the little boy my uncle was talking about, like he could taste some of the nausea and the burning pain.

  The next morning, my mother woke me before dawn with a look of resignation on her face. I was used to the fact that my parents were moody, that they argued in their room, and that afterwards they went away into their own worlds. I’d learned it was best to leave them to their own thoughts, as I liked to be left to my own.

  After breakfast, my father took the .22 out of the closet and got the bullets from his dresser drawer. My father liked owning and caring for guns. Every few weeks he shot at a target in the back yard and was a pretty good shot. I had been allowed to handle a couple of his guns, but only under his supervision. He was sitting at the table loading the .22 when my uncle and Eugene came in. He invited my uncle to sit and have a cup of coffee to get warm before we started, but my uncle said it would be a mistake to waste even a minute. My mother finished clearing the table and began taking large pots down from the shelves. I put on my coat, and Eugene and I went out after our fathers.

  Outside we could see our breath. White wisps rose from the vat of boiling water as my father and uncle loaded wood in the stone furnace. The sun was coming up, burning off the frost, and the early light and the heat of the furnace kept me from feeling too cold.

  “You boys can watch,” my uncle said, “but stay back. We don’t want anything slowing us down once we start.”

  The men walked quickly to the pen. Both of them wore hats and coats, and the sheath of a big knife hung below my uncle’s coat, tied to his leg. Eugene and I lagged behind them like staggered shadows. When they came to the pen, my uncle called us to come up. The men handed us their gloves and rubbed their hands together and blew on them.

  “Which one are you going to shoot first?” I said, but my father didn’t answer. He stared into the pen, rifle in hand, thinking seriously, so I didn’t ask him again.

  “Try to get him between the eyes,” my uncle said. “You think you can? I can get him if you can’t.”

  “I can get him,” my father said.

  My uncle took out the knife and wiped it against his shirt. It was a Bowie knife, broad and sharp. My father opened the gate and stepped into the pen, across the frozen ground. The hogs had been nosing at the trough, expecting breakfast, when we walked up. My uncle was right behind my father, and the hogs seemed to sense the men were up to no good. They squealed, and there was panic in their eyes. My father stepped right up in front of the bigger of the two. He was standing maybe five feet from the hog when he fired. With the snap of the rifle, the hog snorted and shook his head like he was trying to loosen a bee that was stinging him. The skin between his eyes had split open, and blood ran thick out of the hole. As he staggered backwards and tumbled down, the other hog squealed and ran around the pen.

  “Keep her back,” my uncle shouted. “Don’t let her get by you.” My father waved his arms to keep the other hog away while my uncle climbed on top of the dying hog and jammed his knife into its throat. Blood gushed around the hilt, all over the dirt floor of the pen. It got on my uncle’s shirt and hands, and some flecks on his face. My father turned to watch my uncle, and the other hog broke past him, knocking him against the wall of the pen and down into the mud. The hog squealed and ran around the pen, but my uncle, who was laughing, held the dying hog until it quit moving.

  By that time my father had gotten up, still clinging to the rifle, and called me over. I was so wrapped up in what I was seeing, he had to say my name twice to get my attention. I walked to the pen, still staring at the dead hog under my uncle.

  My father handed the .22 across the fence.

  “Take it,” he said.

  I stood still, stunned.

  “Take it ’til I need it again.”

  I took the rifle and held it in my hands.

  “Don’t play with it,” my uncle said. “It’s not a toy.”

  “Put it back on the porch,” my father said.

  I backed away from the pen and carried the .22 to where I’d been standing before, near the porch and Eugene, who stood watching me. I tapped the warm barrel a few times, and then carried the rifle to the corner of the porch and leaned it there.

  Meanwhile my uncle and my father had lifted the dead hog by its forelegs and were dragging it between them to the vat. There they struggled with it, almost dropping it. My uncle got mad and pulled the hog away from my father, trying to hoist it by himself for a moment before dropping it. He stood breathing heavily a moment and slapped his pants. The two of them lifted it again and pushed it into the vat head first, stepping back quickly to avoid the hot water when it splashed. While the hog was in the vat, my father and uncle took turns smoking cigarettes and poking and turning the hog with a broom handle. This went on a long time, and Eugene and I stood in the cold and watched. When they took the hog out of the vat, they tied its legs to a pole, scraped off its hair, and emptied its insides into pans. My uncle called Eugene and me over and gave us the hog’s slippery bladder to play with, and we rolled it back and forth and kicked it. A little after eleven o’clock, the men took a break and walked into the woods beyond the pen. When they returned, their eyes were red and my father’s nose and face were rosy. My uncle took an axe and cut the carcass in half and hacked off the legs. He hacked half of the carcass into smaller pieces, and after watching, my father did the same to the other half. They looked hot and out of breath when they were finished, sniffling and wiping their bloodstained sleeves on their foreheads. My uncle gathered some of the meat into a large bucket and carried it to the kitchen.

  I was getting thirsty and when I headed for the house, Eugene followed me. The doorknob was greasy and the kitchen smelled like hogs. My mother wore a bloody apron. While she took a break from rendering the hog, my uncle stood with his hat pushed back on his head, gesturing with his hands and telling a story about something that had happened when they were children.

  “What do you want, little man?” my mother said to me.

  “He wants to be a big man like me,” my uncle said and laughed. This was the longest I’d ever been around my uncle in one stretch, and I was starting to get tired of his laugh. I was tired of the way he talked to my father, to everyone.

  My mother met my uncle’s remarks with the same look of silent resignation she’d had since she’d awakened me.

  I asked for something to drink, and she took glasses down from the cabinet and gave us milk. When we went back outside, my father was standing by the pen with the rifle in his arms. My uncle smacked my father’s shoulder with the flat of his hand and took out his knife.

  By midafternoon, my father and my uncle were getting ready to take the shoulders and the middling meat to a smokehouse that belo
nged to a neighbor. The sky was motionless and gray, promising only more cold winter days. Inside the pen, blood was frozen in streaks and dark puddles. The rifle was leaning by the gate. I picked it up, believing my father’s handing it to me earlier had given me the right, or the obligation, to see that it was carried inside.

  The adults were talking in the kitchen, and again my uncle was telling a story and laughing. I could see them through the kitchen doorway. My mother still wore her bloody apron, and my uncle, in his bloody shirt and pants, gestured with his hands. My father, his clothes muddy from when the hog had knocked him down, stood by the counter with his arms folded in front of him.

  My chest was feeling warm, and for a moment I felt short of breath. Eugene was curled up on the couch, asleep, so I sat in the chair where my father smoked cigarettes after supper. After a minute or so, I lifted the rifle and pointed it at the big living room window. I aimed at a bird feeder that hung from a tree in our front yard. I pretended to fire, making sounds like gunshots. I was getting used to holding the rifle, and it felt light to me, like one of my toy guns.

  While I held the rifle, the men came out of the kitchen and started toward the door. Before he saw the rifle in my hands, my uncle had walked between me and my target.

  I continued making the firing sound anyway. If anything, I indulged myself in it. I kept the rifle pointed at him. I followed him with it. My finger brushed the trigger.

  My uncle stopped walking. His face flushed as he glared at me.

  “Lower that gun before you shoot somebody.”

  My father stopped walking, too. At first glance, I thought he was angrier than my uncle. He pointed his finger at me and said, “You know better than to point a gun at someone. You know better than to touch a gun without permission.”

  I lowered the rifle.

  “What’s gotten into you?” my father said.

  I sat there with the rifle across my legs. My hands were sweating.

  My father grinned at my uncle, trying to make a joke out of what I’d done. He said he was sorry about it, he thought he’d taught me better.

  “He needs to learn what you can and can’t do with a gun,” my uncle said. “If he was my son, he’d of learned it by now.”

  At this, Eugene sat up where he’d been lying, and stared wide-eyed at me, his mouth hanging open. By now my mother had come into the room and stood with her arms crossed.

  “It’s not loaded,” I said. It was the only thing in my head.

  “What did you say?” my uncle said. His face was very red now.

  “That doesn’t matter,” my father said. “Everybody thinks the gun is unloaded when it’s too late.”

  “He needs to wake up.” My uncle shook his head. “I’ve watched him. A boy his age shouldn’t always get his way. You spoiled him already.” He clenched his fist at my father, and said, “You ought to teach him. Somebody should.”

  “He’s not yours,” my mother said. “You leave him to us.”

  “You’d let him get away with murder.”

  My father stepped between my uncle and me. For just short of a minute, my uncle stood glaring down at him, nodding his head like he was the one being stung. Then he let out a breath, and some of his anger seemed to leave him.

  “It’s not loaded,” I said again, and the adults looked at me. I pointed the rifle at the ceiling and pulled the trigger.

  The kick, even though it was only a .22, twisted my wrist. I let go of the rifle and it clattered off the edge of the chair and landed on the floor. Before it hit I was scrambling around in the chair, pulling my legs up under me. The small slug made a hole in the ceiling.

  My father lifted me by the arm, right off the chair, and struck me hard several times with the flat of his hand. It was the first time he’d spanked me in a while, and I let out a short gasp each time he hit me. I looked to my mother, but she stood where she was, an expression of approval, of necessity, on her face. My uncle had gone outside, to cut a switch, I guessed.

  After he spanked me, my father shook me by the arms and ordered me to my room. I was starting to feel sore in a number of places, but my wrist hurt the most from the kick of the rifle. I rubbed it as I walked back to my room and I lay down on my bed. I waited, feeling like the air had been knocked out of me, too surprised by the way the day had turned out to even cry.

  I could hear the front door close and my father and my uncle talking, my father’s drawn out apologetic sentences and my uncle’s blunt ones.

  “I can’t seem to get through to you,” my uncle said. There was more talk that I couldn’t hear clearly. The front door closed again and the house was quiet. A moment or so later my father came into my room.

  “Your Uncle John told you not to play around today.” My father looked like he was still in shock, still trying to figure out how it had happened. He glanced around the room at the toys on the shelves and things on my small desk like he was hoping to find something there to place some of the blame on. “You could have shot your own uncle and killed him. Where would we be then? Where would Eugene be?”

  “I wouldn’t have shot him,” I said, trying to convince myself.

  “Think about it this way. How would you feel if Eugene had pointed a gun at me? How would you feel if Eugene had shot me?”

  I didn’t answer. I was beginning to see I might have shot my uncle. I was in the wrong, inarguably. I remembered the way the hogs had looked when they’d died, with the blood pumping out of holes in their foreheads, and the frozen blood on the ground in the pen after they were gone. Thinking about my own father and about Eugene shooting him, I began to whimper.

  “I’ll be glad when this day is over,” my father said. “We’re going to eat when we get back. It would be better if you stayed in your room.”

  My father went out. I felt sick to my stomach anyway, and I was afraid of my uncle now. I was glad I wouldn’t have to see him again.

  When the men returned, I could hear my uncle speak to Eugene in his bare, instructive way, hear my mother and father speak briefly and awkwardly. I stayed in my room until our guests were gone. Only then did my mother come to my door with a plate.

  My uncle and I have never been close. Over the years I saw him regularly enough at holiday gatherings and funerals. I even went hunting with him once, along with my father and Eugene, on my grandparents’ land in Giles County. It was another day in the fall, not long after my grandfather had died. All day we walked through the woods, saying little. My uncle shared a few stories about my grandfather, mostly directed at Eugene, and my father threw in the occasional observation or joke, seldom getting much response. I kept quiet, only offering my opinion when I felt it was a sure bet.

  Although a gun owner and a man who spent hours cleaning his guns, my father had never found much time for hunting. That day we’d started late because my father had spent a long time getting our things organized and into the car. In the woods, a young deer little bigger than a fawn startled us, leaping from the bushes and bounding down a path. I fired as soon as I saw the tail, not sizing my target. Afterwards we walked along a little farther, and my uncle said it had been good I’d missed that one because it would make a better kill the next year or so. Eugene nodded. In the car on the way home, I complained about my lousy, hasty shooting. My father said, “At least you didn’t point a rifle at him this time.” He laughed, “You really pissed him off that day. It was all I could do to keep him from tearing into you.”

  At the mention of the earlier incident, my face flushed. I’d always understood why my uncle had been angry, that he had every right to be. I could have easily shot him to death.

  By this time I was a teenager. A few years before, my father had left his job at the missile propellant plant. My grandmother, whom my mother distrusted, had encouraged him to go back to school to attempt a master’s degree in business. My father attended his classes, spent long evenings arranging and rearranging his books and papers at the kitchen table, but was unable to complete his coursework. Be
fore the end of his second term, he had withdrawn and gone to work as a salesman for a paper company. He spent his days visiting clients, and it was often past dark when his car pulled up the driveway. On the nights my father came home earlier, my parents almost always fought. Once, when I was thirteen, they were fighting in the living room. I tried to get between them, and in her rage my mother scratched my face.

  On the nights my father was late, I ate supper with my mother, and she complained how little good my father was around the house. She claimed she didn’t even need him.

  “Things would be all right,” she said, “if he’d just do his share.”

  In fact, she said if he could only do half as well as she did, we’d be all right. As far as I could tell, this was probably true. When I’d started school, my mother had gone to work as a receptionist at a car dealership. She eventually took over some of the bookkeeping for the company, discovering she had a knack for accounting, my father’s first career. Over the years she’d been frugal, spending little money on clothes, calling anything entertaining a luxury, and she’d taken over most of the household bills.

  One night when I was a junior in high school, my friends and I met up after school and ate supper together at a hamburger place. We were headed to a movie at the Pulaski Theater. My friends and I liked to buy beer before movies, to drink while we drove around town looking at girls, complaining and bragging. Then we’d smuggle the beers into the theater with us. That night after the movie let out, when my friends dropped me off at the foot of my driveway, I still had a beer inside my coat to drink before I went to bed.

  It was after dark, probably getting close to eleven o’clock. As I started up the driveway, my mother came out of the house and stood in the yard. She was wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. She’d been crying, but sometime earlier because now her face was stiff. I was wondering what trouble I could possibly be in now.

  When I’d come within a few yards of her, she said, “I guess you were in on it.”