by Ron Carlson
“It’s trouble, Mom. I’m glad to see you, but it’s trouble. I mismeasured it in New York, thinking my money would outlast me, but I couldn’t sit there anymore. At the end I wasn’t even with friends of friends. They had no way of handling, of dealing with—”
“We want you here,” she said. “The garden’s coming in.”
“Thank you,” he told her. “But I need you to see it all.” Now he lifted both hands and pressed his fingers against his eyelids. “It’s going to be a mess. I’m going to die out here. My insurance is gone. You’re getting a tough deal. There’s some Medicaid, but I’m going to leave you flat, holding the bag. You’re going to have to call the mortuary, bury me.”
His mother sat still. She took his hand. “Do you understand this?” he went on. “Do you see that is what is going to happen? If I had a choice, I’d help you somehow, but I’m all out. There’ll be a little money next spring from my books, but still.”
“I’m happy you’re home,” she said. “I can do what I need to do.” They sat. He noticed the sunlight from the window had moved down, onto the floor.
“Are you going to have a ton of zucchini?”
“We already do. You want to see it?”
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ll get dressed in a while. I’d like to see the garden. Tomatoes?”
“Any minute,” she answered.
“I wouldn’t mind a tomato sandwich. I want to count a tomato sandwich in my future.”
She stood and straightened the covers. “You heard me, right, Jimmy? I can do what I need to do. I’m your mother.”
“Thank you,” he said. “I heard it all.”
• • •
On Tuesday every week, after football practice and dinner, Larry Ralston would meet Wade Nunley at the park, and they would run for an hour through the town. Saturday they’d hang out, sore from the game, and Sunday throw the ball a bit, and then Monday was school and practice, Tuesday the same, but their theory was that a long run Tuesday night made them strong. They’d be tired Wednesday but back by Thursday, and then there was nothing but to polish their helmets and put on their clean jerseys for the game on Friday or Saturday. No one asked them to do it, and no one else did it. What it was was, they were brimming, and they had plenty, and so they ran. Once they had done it for three weeks, they could not not run. They were full of life, and the nights were stunning in Oakpine in September. Larry could feel the torque of the earth pulling away from the sun, the air trying to chill, and they ran through it, crossing downtown with long steps, floating, alive. From there they ran out past the high school and up toward Oakpine Mountain, a route that if you described it to people would make them wonder at such length, the miles, loping like animals through the dark along the undermountain road. For Wade it was work, the last third, but his father was the coach, and Wade was a good soldier.
• • •
In the last mile or so, dropping back toward town, Larry grinned with happiness. His body disappeared and became the fresh night, the exhilarating air, the vanished limits of any world. His strides were longer than he was tall, and they were smooth, and soon he was lost to Wade, and happily lost to Wade. Alone, flying toward the park in the disembodied night, his high tenor breath sounded like laughter. He forced himself to wait there, in the park, for Wade, who would come jogging up a moment later. They’d slap five and head off in different directions for their homes, and Larry had trouble not running again. The world was pulling at him in a way he loved, but he did not understand. It took all his muscles not to run. He walked through the quiet streets. “You little town,” he said aloud. “Turn off the TV, you town, and go to bed. I’ve run around you now, so sleep. And Wendy, tell Wade to go home. I’ll see you in school.” He opened and closed his hands. He lifted his chin and closed his eyes. He walked.
THREE
Houses
Mason Kirby was back in Oakpine to sell his parents’ house. He said this to himself. He wasn’t really on a mission, but it helped to say that as he drank coffee in the lobby of the little hotel. He’d been to his hometown five or six times in thirty years, and he wondered if this would be the last trip.
He went out into the surprising air, and it all fit again, the size of the sky, the emptiness north and south, and now the railroad and the river and across Main and Bank streets and the towering clusters of trees pulled him to Poplar Grove, and then slowed to a crawl, he turned onto Berry Street, his windows down and the morning as sweet as anything he’d known as a boy, the smell of the dew and the leaves whispering and holding the fresh light. He hadn’t thought about this part, being alone on his old street. He hadn’t planned it. Somehow he had hoped to finish his part with the property in one weekend, but as soon as he drove onto Berry Street, he felt the weight of the ages, and then he saw his house, and of course it was more real than any of the plans he had for Denver.
Standing on the cement porch, he could see there was more work than he could do in a week, and for some reason for which he had no explanation, he wanted the work. The place had claimed him, the shushing trees and their clashing shadows had claimed him, his old porch, the house. Hell, the drive up. He closed his eyes and stood still. The smell of the dew lifting from the old brick. He felt the wiring in his neck; he was tired, and he knew if he sat on the stoop, he’d be there all day. He hadn’t stopped in thirty years, and he thought that and then dismissed it. “Thirty years,” he said. And he knew it was true: he hadn’t stopped.
He cuffed the keys from his jacket pocket and tried the door. The entire lock cylinder turned with the key, and he couldn’t get it back out. Through the two large front windows, which were plated with grease and dust, he could see that the house was scattered with stuff, boxes, furniture, debris. His renters, the Gunnars, hadn’t called him. When he didn’t get July’s rent, he tried to reach them. Their phone was disconnected in August. Mason had called an old classmate, Shirley Stiver, who handled real estate, and had her go by the place. Even after her report that the house was abandoned, it had taken him until now, mid-September, to drive back up from Denver. The Gunnars were history. Mason Kirby looked at his watch. Shirley would be over in an hour.
This was the house he grew up in, and though it looked like a ruined artifact, he knew it hadn’t changed. The sunlight on the red bricks and the smell of the trees and the gardens in the early fall altered his breathing as he kicked through the high grass into the backyard. There was a metal clip and a cord on the clothesline as well as a worn oval in the shaggy lawn; the Gunnars must have had a dog. He was history too. The back porch door was open two inches, and he remembered: it was never fully closed. The door was always a bad fit, but now it wouldn’t open either. He bumped it with his hip. It had swollen and chafed against the planking of the floor. He grabbed the handle and remembered the noise. It made a sweet little ring for some reason, something loose for decades. He nudged the door again with his hip, and the old sheet of plate glass popped, and a crack ran diagonal across the pane.
He was able to pry open the two old hinged garage doors, and daylight was visible between many of the planks. The dark space was mounded with dank trash dating back, he supposed, through the Gunnars and their six years in the house, through old Mr. Jared, who died there after nine or ten years as tenant, all the way back to his parents, who had raised Mason and his sister in the place. They’d been gone for almost twenty years now. It had not been in his plans to visit the cemetery, but as he looked around at the stained boxes sitting in the gloom, he knew his plans had changed.
The voices of children drew him back out into the open air, and he saw the kids shuffling along, a loose gaggle coming down the street for school. Six or seven ten-year-olds with their little backpacks. Three boys marched in a line, their arms out on the shoulders of the boy ahead of them, trying not to stumble, a boy machine. Two girls stopped and got on their hands and knees by one of the large poplars on Berry Street, examining somet
hing in the raised gray bark. They looked like children at the foot of an elephant. A little boy came along behind them all, shuffling thoughtfully. He’d lift his palms away from his ears and stop walking. Then he’d cover his ears and walk a few steps. Mason stood in his old weedy driveway, the two-track of cement utterly overgrown, and watched the boy traverse the whole street. The smell in the shade of the house was familiar, weeds and oil. He scanned the open backyards down the block, and he realized that this—in all the world—was the place he knew best. He was a little dizzy. Down by the Brands he could see old man Brand’s boat under a bright new tarp beside the garage. Mason stood still and made sure. My god, the old boat. It was shocking to see it really, and he remembered Matt Brand drunk at the reservoir the day after graduation. And Matt Brand’s body found that night. Mason put his hands over his ears, and listening to that high distant roar, his body working, he made the decision to stay and clean this place and fix it up. He felt light being out of Denver, and he wanted this dirty work. He couldn’t make anything that mattered in his life happen, but he could make this happen.
Ten minutes later Shirley Stiver pulled up in her white Town Car. She was still vaguely blond after all these years and polished with a fine coat of realtor’s makeup. “Looks like you’ve got a day of it,” Mason said to his old friend. “Nice suit.” He stood out of the passenger seat of his Mercedes, where he’d been on the phone with his office.
Shirley smiled and kissed his cheek. “Same old, but we’ve got some big new places up on the mountain.”
“You know this country’s about done when they start building trophy homes in Oakpine.”
“You be nice, Mason Kirby. Oakpine’s a good place. You’d be smart to take a look around. The big city has got a genuine hold on you.”
“Oh Christ,” he said, taking her arm and walking over to the sidewalk in front of his house. “I didn’t mean anything. It’s everywhere you go. I’m glad to be here. Did you know the Gunnars?”
“I had heard they were gone, probably back to her folks in South Dakota. He worked at the high school, maintenance, painting, something.”
“That’s what I got here: some maintenance, painting, plenty of something.”
“I figured it was a mess. Did they owe you much?”
“No, not really. Three months. Four.”
“Do you want me to hire it done and call you?” she said. “It looks like there’s some roofing. We can get it patched up and on the market.” She moved to the side and was looking it all over. “We’ve had a week of rain.”
“When I called, I thought I was going to flip you the keys and blow town, but now I don’t know. There’s some volunteer zucchini out back, and a lot of this work looks like I ought to do it.”
“You got a month?” She’d come over, and they were standing by his car. Both turned to view the house. “Two months?”
“It’s wide open. I’ve got as much time as I want. But I’m thinking that I need this job.”
“And how is Elizabeth?”
“Elizabeth is better than she’s been for a while. She’s getting on with her new life.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It was inevitable. She did the right thing. How would you like being married to an asshole?”
“Mason, I can answer that question with real authority. I’m still sorry.”
“It’s okay. You’re looking at the king of the type A’s. I’ve always only done one thing: drive hard for the hoop. And the lesson is that I never really understood the game. Listen to me. Listen to me talk to Shirley Stiver, the tallest blonde in Catchett County. Anyway, dear, I’m going back to Denver today and come back in a week or sooner. Can you call and get the power back on here? The water’s still connected. Who do you guys hire for help?”
“Call Craig. Craig Ralston, down at the hardware. He likes a project, and his boy is a good worker too. If there’s nothing structural, they’ll be good.”
“You remember that?” Mason asked his old friend, pointing down three houses to the red boat.
“What is it?
“It’s that boat Matt was driving after graduation.”
“That was too bad. That whole deal.”
“Were you out at the reservoir?”
“Oh yeah. I think Jimmy’s back.”
“Jimmy Brand?”
“I heard he’s back home. He’s sick.”
Mason Kirby walked in a little circle shaking his head, and then he escorted Shirley over and held her car door. “This place wants to get to me, Shirley. How can it smell the same?”
“I know,” she said. “It’s your hometown. It’s how a hometown works. It doesn’t always sell a house, but you can’t ignore it.”
“Thanks for coming out,” he told her. “I’ll get it fixed up, and then you sell it to some homesick soul.”
• • •
The next afternoon Jimmy Brand sat in a lawn chair in the backyard. He’d had some toast and tea, and his headache was almost nil, the buzzing gone. It was just noon on a warm day in late September, and though the sun was already well south, he could feel it on the back of his head like some small pleasure. His mother was working before him in the garden, showing it off: “We’ve already had two crops of carrots, and this one could come out any time.” She parsed the lacy tops with her fingers and pulled one of the bright orange carrots from the ground.
“I’ll eat that right now,” he said. He started to push himself up, but she came over, stopping to wash it in the trickle that ran from the garden hose. She’d been watering her tomatoes. There were thick green clusters on the eight tall plants, hanging heavily, a few already red.
“How do you feel?”
“I’m eating the best carrot in the world in Oakpine, Wyoming,” he said. “Who would have thought?”
She stood beside him, her hand on his chair.
“You’ll have plenty of tomatoes, Ma.”
“Plenty of everything. Every year it all gets a little bigger. It’s something about me. We need less and less, and I’m planting bushels.” She had rows of peas and green peppers looking polished, three rows of corn, and then the wild section of squash and pumpkin, the vines in cascades, spilling out in every direction across the lawn.
Jimmy could smell the earth here, the high musk coming off all the plants. With the bees working through the garden, it felt as if you could see things growing. The carrot had been sweet. He stood, happy to be out of the rigid chair, and felt how dangerously tall he was for a moment, and then he walked carefully to the pooling squash vines. He bent with no dizziness and lifted the broad leaves so he could see the squash and melons in the lambent green shade. He walked around the perimeter and then into a short passage. “This one will be mine, right here.” He knelt and tapped a zucchini for his mother to see. It was as big as a football. “It is going to be vast. This squash will outweigh me.”
“They grow fast,” she said. “I can hardly keep up. We’ll come out next week and take a load down to the church.”
He lifted his hands to his face and smelled them, the green world. “I know this is tough on you. And on Dad. If I can get my strength up, or if there’s someplace else you can think of, I could—”
“No, you can’t. We’re doing this. I’m your mother, and you’re home. Your father and I have our differences on this, and that also is simply the way it will be. Really, Jimmy, hear me. I’m glad you’ve come. We won’t talk about the other. You’re here. That’s it.”
With Jimmy home, Mr. Brand went out as much as he could. He went to the Elks twice a week for cards and coffee and an occasional Canadian whiskey, and he still had cronies at the district maintenance warehouse, and he could spend the day there fooling with somebody’s truck and talking to the boys. He’d been chief there when he retired and had run a good shop.
Yesterday, the first day that Jimmy ha
d felt good since his return, he sat with his mother in his guesthouse suite, as he called the garage with a smile. She had brought him a bowl of pears. All the caretaking had allowed them not to talk, and now things were sorting themselves out. Jimmy fumbled through his last bag and withdrew a copy of his new book and handed it to her. His mother took it in her hands and looked at the cover. The title Blue Elements was in dark blue lettering over a watercolor of a rainy city street. On the back she saw his photograph, his hair gone, his eyes bright, younger than the face.
“I sent you the others. You got the others, right?”
“I did. I have them, Jimmy.”
“I wrote six books, Mom. And I wrote for the paper. It’s how I made my living, mostly. This is the last, another novel.”
“You’re a good writer,” she said.
He waited to respond because she’d startled him with this, and he wanted the words to last, to remember them. Your mother tells you that you’re a good writer.
“This is the last,” he said. “It’s about Daniel before he was sick. It’s about New York.”
“You’ve got Oakpine in some of the books,” she said.
“I do. It’s my take on all of it, Mom. I know that wasn’t any fun for you.”
“Some was hard to read. It’s all behind us now.” She took the empty bowl, the spoon.
“Did Dad see the books?” Jimmy lay back on the bed.
“He didn’t.”
“Does he know that I was a writer?”
“I’m sure he does. He does. He’s confused, Jimmy. But I know he’s glad you’re here. He can’t say it.”
“Has he ever said my name?”
“He has, at times. He has said it in his sleep.”
Later that day Jimmy heard something that woke him, his father’s raised voice in the house, and Jimmy stood by his door in time to see his father in the overalls he’d worn forever come onto the back porch and throw the blue book into the yard.
• • •