by Kyp Harness
“Mm-hm, yes. Very nice,” notes Sam noncommittally.
“And I go in and they know me and I go in and they let me play!” Henry murmurs excitedly, leaning over and gazing down fondly at the pictures in Sam’s hand.
“Mm-hm,” says Sam, handing the pictures back to him, looking off through the window, his face expressionless.
“You’re off on your way to the church right now, aren’t you?” he asks.
“Oh… oh yes!” Henry exclaims, looking about suddenly and shoving his pictures back into his Bible, opening the door of the car.
“I’ll help you with your cases,” Sam offers, getting out and retrieving Henry’s suitcases from the back seat.
“Oh yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Henry says, picking up the cases.
“No problem at all,” Sam says, smiling.
“An’… an’ if you’d like, sir, I… I’d like to pray for you, sir,” Henry whispers suddenly, his face taking on a serious cast. “You seem like a very fine man, too, so if you’d like, I’d like to witness to you, and offer up a prayer.”
“Hm,” says Sam. “Well…”
But all of a sudden Henry’s hand leaps forth and quickly clasps Sam’s hand. Henry’s hand is thin and bony, cold with a thin film of tepid moisture, like ripe cheese, the fingers twining around Sam’s hand solicitously then freezing into a possessive hold as his head bows and his eyes close, the eyeballs squirming beneath the trembling eyelids. He sighs heavily then takes in a brisk, sweeping breath of air.
Sam gazes down at Henry’s fervent head with strained patience, staring down through his heavy-lidded eyes with a stern alertness, his mouth small and unsmiling.
“Lord… Lord… please bless this fine man,” whispers Henry in a strange attenuated, beseeching voice, his head now upraised and slowly dancing from side to side like a blind man’s. “An’… an’… let his heart be opened to your ways and become cleansed and washed and purified in the blood of the lamb, an’…” His grip relaxes then tightens on Sam’s hand. “An’ be cleansed in the blood of the lamb—an’ be saved from the hellfire of weeping and gnashing… in… the…”
And all around the two men standing by the car, trucks rumble down the main street of Wigford, people pass by on their way to the Variety, a yellow school bus drives through, the windows crowded with clusters of children.
“In the name of the Holy Spirit… and the gnashing and the weeping… an’… this fine, fine man, Lord,” Henry mumbles, searching for the familiar words. “An’, an’… the blood of the lamb. Amen.” His eyes open wide and resume blinking, his shoulders flinch as his soul comes jerking back into his body. “Th-thank you, sir,” he stutters to the stranger.
“No problem,” replies Sam.
“An’… an’ may you have a fine trip, and a nice day…” says Henry, smiling, pressing his hand.
“Fine, fine, no problem,” says Sam, extricating his hand briskly and moving to the door of his car.
“An’ thank you for the ride, sir!” Henry calls as Sam gets into his car and starts the engine.
Sam smiles back over his shoulder at Henry. “That’s fine, no problem. Bye now,” he says as he slams the car door and begins to pull away.
Happy Henry stands beaming proudly at the car for a moment as it whooshes from the curb and goes off down Main Street up over the hump of the railroad tracks and sails away. Then he hurriedly collects his cases and limps on to the church.
Sam in his car drives steadily, his placid face trained upon the road. After a moment he reaches down to turn on the radio, paying no particular attention to the music, just hearing the sound. It washes over his consciousness much like the landscape streaming and draining away at the periphery of his vision. His soft eyes blink peacefully behind his spectacles.
Come All Ye Young Lovers (I)
Buzz and Mona drive through the countryside dusk to the home of George and Martha, George being the brother of Mona. Mona sits behind the wheel as Buzz dislikes driving as a matter of principle: that is, he dislikes driving generally and it’s mutually understood between his wife and himself that on any journey they take together, she shall undertake the navigation of the transporting vehicle, particularly on a journey such as this one, towards a function held at the home of one of Mona’s family (the occasion being George and Martha’s twenty-fifth wedding anniversary), at which Buzz’s appearance is always made under a certain amount of duress, a duress given voice to through frequent, heavy sighs and the rebellious token of a bottle of beer taken into the car to be consumed along the way.
The two kids in the back seat are by turns silent and noisome, from time to time erupting in small tussles to which Buzz responds as they reach the threshold of calamity with, “All right, all right now,” the peremptory tone of his voice like the bark of a tired watchdog barking more out of habit and duty than anything else, alerting them of the barrier they’ve transgressed and effectively snuffing their disquiet until the next time, a few minutes later.
The boys sit squirming on the vinyl seat covers, their feet dangling a bit above the car floor as one of them asks Buzz to sing the song about Santa Claus. The other says no, he wants to hear the song about the country boy. The first kid says he asked first, and as they start arguing again, their voices pitched progressively higher, the low rumbling voice of Buzz begins taking flight from the front seat, quietening them as his croon comes up in its glancing devil-may-care manner. His eyes before him on the road, his head cocks to the side as he gestures with an open palm, singing:
Just because you think you’re so smart
and breaking everybody’s heart
and spending all my money, honey
and laughing at me like I was old Santa Claus.
Well, someday you’ll look and see
I’m no longer there. Well darlin’,
just because, just because…
And the kids listen, sometimes in small voices trying to sing along when they know some of the words. Mona drives quietly, but no sooner does Buzz’s voice dive down into its final shakily held note than the next kid advances his plea for the country boy. The other still sees Santa Claus with his long white flowing beard and his red cap and his bright red rosy cheeks, sees his father somehow as Santa Claus, and hears the sound of someone laughing at him.
“Oh not that song,” Mona demurs, shaking her head.
“Your mother doesn’t want to hear that song,” says Buzz, gazing around over the seat to the boys.
“Just once,” says the kid. “You sang the other one,” he implores.
Buzz turns to Mona, extending his hands, placing the proposition before her. She says, “Oh, all right,” shaking her head. “Stupid song,” she remarks as Buzz’s voice comes out now stridently marching, the boy’s voices joining in behind as they know the words to this one:
Two Irishmen, two Irishmen, were diggin’ in a ditch.
One called the other one a dirty son-of-a…
Peter Murphy, Peter Murphy, a little dog had he.
He sent it to the neighbour to keep her company…
Buzz’s head nods sharply in time with the rocking melody, the kids seeing the neighbour in the front room with the little dog, a framed painting on the wall and Mona now smiling as her high, quavering voice joins in with the song:
She fed it, she fed it, she fed the little runt.
It jumped up her petticoat and bit her on the count…
…ry boy, country boy, sitting on a rock.
The voices poise archly in the interval between the neighbour and the country boy, and in the kids’ minds gaining anticipation as they approach their favourite part of the song:
Along came a bumblebee and stung him on the COCK…
…tails, ginger ale, five cents a glass
If ya don’t like it, shove it up your ASS…
…k me no more questions�
�
The sheer daring of that part of the song causes them to surge with delight within, Buzz intoning the words defiantly as if nothing in the world could be more flagrant and derisive, then rising to the crescendo:
I’ll tell you no more lies.
If you ever get hit with a barrel of SHIT…
Mona sings along with a kind of shrugging, bubbling camaraderie, as in “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here.”
“Be sure to close your eyes!” the kids giggle with wide-eyed delight at the fiendish audacity of the final shameless “shit.”
“Learned that one in the Navy,” says Buzz, swigging from his beer and gazing out the window, smacking his lips contemplatively.
“Mom’s turn to sing now,” one of the boys pipes up.
Mona shakes her head. “No, it’s not,” she murmurs, driving.
“Ah, come on, Ma,” says Buzz, his left arm stretching out along the top of the seat behind her. “Sing us a song,” he croons.
“Yeah, Mom,” the other kid insists.
“You guys always make fun of me,” she pouts, half-serious, intent on the road.
“We won’t make fun of ya,” they say, and after a moment her voice timidly steps out on thin legs and tentatively tries the air…
On top of Old Smokey,
all covered with snow…
…careening off to the side with a lame wing, struggling to right itself in mid-air.
I lost my poor sweetheart
for courting too slow…
The last note falling lopsidedly away—Buzz winces comically…
For courting’s a pleasure
and parting is grief,
but a false-hearted lover
is worse than a thief
Her voice unravels in the general area of the melody, swinging discordantly, dizzying itself and coasting to an uneasy stop.
“Well,” Buzz sighs after a moment, “least you can’t say you’re any different than the rest of your family—they’re all tone deaf as shit too.” He smiles over at Mona, his hand on the back of her seat, reaching to touch her back.
They pull into the driveway of George and Martha’s, the dogs running up from the farmyard to bark them onto the property. “See ol’ George finally got that shed fixed up,” Buzz remarks, eyeing the freshly painted tractor shed by the side of the barn.
They pull up on the lawn by the front porch where several other cars have gathered. The dogs jump up yipping and yapping at them as they climb out of the car. Buzz yells, “Shaddap!” at them good-naturedly as Mona retrieves a cellophane-covered bowl of potato salad from the back seat and the kids tumble out. A plump ten-year-old girl comes tottering inquisitively from around behind the house.
“Hey Janey, how y’doin’?” Buzz greets her expansively. She looks up at him with wide white eyes. She’s wearing cut-off blue jean shorts and carrying a long thin birch branch in her hand.
“What’s the stick for?” one of the kids asks. Janey turns and looks wonderingly at the branch in her hand as if seeing it for the first time.
“She’s playin’ with it,” Buzz explains, his eyes on the girl. “Could be a rifle, couldn’t it—or anything, make a good putter, even eh?” he chuckles as Janey smiles and lazily swipes at the grass with the branch. The kids walk over to her and stand silently looking at the branch.
“Be a good bat, too,” one of them says, as Buzz and Mona step onto the front porch, Mona ahead with the potato salad and Buzz following in through the screen door. The three children are left standing in the yard as the summer sun sets over the cornfield.
“Come in! Come in!” says George as they step into his front hall.
“Feel any different?” Mona says and smiles.
“Hell, no,” George scoffs. “Bein’ married twenty-five years is almost exactly like bein’ married twenty-four, far as I can see.” He kisses his sister on the cheek as Buzz observes, “Shit, George, you shouldn’t be answerin’ the door on your anniversary. What the hell, can’t ya get anyone else out here to do that for ya?”
“Nope, Buzz, they all got their asses welded to their chairs in there,” George remarks with brusque whimsy, his tiny eyes twinkling behind his spectacles, a middle-aged, prosperous farmer gentleman with thickening midriff and greying curly hair framing his pudgy face. The two men step into the kitchen as Mona sets the potato salad on a table laden with covered dishes and joins the other women sitting in the living room.
“I see they still haven’t done nothin’ about grading that road out there—Jesus, George, that’s gotta be one of the worst roads in Shankton County!” exclaims Buzz, shaking his head. “Man! Just bump bump bump all the way in! I was sayin’ on the way up here, when in hell’re they gonna FIX this thing?”
George chuckles good-naturedly. “Well…” he begins.
“Who’s in charge of that, anyhow?” Buzz asks. “That the town that owns that, or the county?”
“Well, Buzz,” George explains, his voice drawling slowly as he gestures with his hands by the kitchen door, “apparently she’s right on the line between Shankton County and Ursula, so what you have is the guy from Shankton County sayin’ it’s not their responsibility and the other guy from Ursula sayin’ it ain’t theirs, and ever’ time election time comes up, why of course they both make sounds about it, and then of course after the election, nothin’ gets done about it and another year goes by, and of course by then it’s that much the worse.”
“Jesus! No kiddin’!” asserts Buzz, shaking his head and wincing with distaste. “It’s the worst goddamned road in Shankton County! You’d think they’d do something like in Point Linkton where with Mohawk Road they say, ‘Well look, this sonofabitch runs right down the city line here, what we do is you pay half,’ they say to the county, ‘then we’ll pay half.’ And they get the damned thing paved and no one’s gotta worry about it. I mean, that’s the worst damn road in Shankton County!” Buzz says, jerking his thumb in the direction of the road.
“Mm-hm,” George observes soberly. “What’re you havin’, Buzz?” he asks, moving to the fridge.
“Oh, just the usual,” Buzz says nonchalantly, sitting down at the table. “Right, Elmer?” he asks the large jovial gentleman who’s been sitting at the table, snickering with amusement at the byplay between George and Buzz.
“Right, Buzz, that’s right,” Elmer nods and chuckles, looking down with half-closed eyes at the bottle of beer he holds before him on the table.
“I mean, I nearly dislocate my backbone every time I ride that bastard in here,” Buzz remarks, taking out his cigarette pack and lighting one as George sets a beer before him.
“How’s it hangin’ anyway, Elmer?” Buzz asks, blowing out a swift stream of smoke with which the flame of his match is extinguished.
“Oh, perty good, perty good, Buzz,” Elmer replies, nodding his large head slowly, bringing his beer up for a quick pull, setting it on the table again, then wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Perty good, Buzz,” he repeats quietly, looking down at the table with heavy-lidded eyes.
“How you doin’, Russ?” Buzz asks another gentleman in a kitchen chair across the table from him.
“Doin’ all right, Buzz, can’t complain,” replies Russ, a portly balding fellow leaning back, great, wiry, grey eyebrows over his merry, squinting eyes.
“That’s right, ’cause no one listens anyway, right, Russ?” Buzz observes, winking at him conspiratorially.
“He he! You got that right, Buzz!” laughs Russ, nodding his head slowly and leaning further back in his chair, bringing his fingers up to tap the table. “That’s fer sure!”
George stands leaning against the stove, his arms folded over his chest. “Don’t know if you ever met ol’ Uncle Zeb, Buzz, Martha’s great-uncle on her father’s side,” he announces, gesturing with his beer bottle towards an elderly gentleman sitting on
a chair in the corner behind Buzz.
“Nope I haven’t,” replies Buzz, turning with surprise. “Didn’t even see him there,” he chuckles, and all the men turn to see the old fellow sitting with his head bowed in the corner, his pale wrinkled fingers clutching a cane slanted across his knees.
“Hey! Zeb!” George calls to him.
“Sleepin’ is he?” Buzz notes.
“Zeb!” George shouts. “Christ, he came down from Peaverton last Thursday, Buzz,” he observes in a low murmur. “Can’t do much else BUT sleep, far as I can see. Hey, ZEB!”
The old man’s head slowly rises and he blinks confusedly. He works his jaw back and forth for a moment and he purses his lips. “Yep! Yep!” he croaks weakly. “We’ll get ’er down there in a minute Chester!” he says then closes his eyes and his head slowly sinks back into its former position.
“Musta been out chasin’ the women last night,” Buzz remarks with a smile, and old Elmer beside him erupts in a low, deep-throated laugh, closing his eyes and throwing his head back. “Eh, Elmer?” Buzz grins, showing his white teeth.
“Musta’ been, Buzz,” Elmer agrees, nodding his head.
“Be doin’ pretty good if he was,” George observes soberly. “Old fella’s eighty-six years old this July.”
“Eighty-six. No shit, eh?” Buzz remarks, glancing appraisingly at the slumbering figure. “He’s doin’ all right, ain’t he?”
“Well, I hope if I get to be that age and I’m like that,” a slow grating voice pronounces from across the table, “somebody’ll take me outside and SHOOT me!” It’s ol’ Harrison from down the road, a thin ruddy-faced farmer with dark, hard eyes, his knotty features clenched into a permanent sneer.
“Hey Bob, how’re ya doin’, anyway?” Buzz asks, pulling at his beer.
“I’m doin’ all right, Buzz,” ol’ Harrison rasps in his low gravelly voice. “But if I’m ever like that over there,” he says jerking his thumb in the direction of the sleeping figure in the corner, “I want ya to take me outside and SHOOT me!”