by Jane Smiley
I take the remaining shell out of my shirt pocket. “One shot,” I say.
“Wow!” he says, and we have a romantic night that night, all enamored of one another, of our house, our coming feast, of the beneficent turkey spirit that seems to have come for a visit.
The day after Thanksgiving, we walk into town for supper at the Claytons’ house. It is a yearly ritual—we walk to town, eat early, and all go to a movie in State College. This year we consider seeing Platoon. It is my decision, since I am the only veteran, but confronting my war experiences is not something I want to do on my one night out for the year, and we go to Radio Days instead. Dr. Harris is standing in line ahead of us. I can’t tell if she is alone or with the group just in front of her. She is wearing a thick, stylish camel’s hair coat, a fur hat, and leather gloves. I wave, and, after a moment, she waves. I wonder if our behavior would be different if we were going to be friends.
Then, on the last day of November, just after lunch, I hear a car turn into our road and stop. The slam of the door rings out in the clear, cold air. I am in my woodshop, weaving chair seats. I continue to weave for a bit, then look up to see Liz standing on the front porch, wiping her hands. She is alert, still. After a long moment, I realize that I, too, have been sitting without moving, without looking around to see who is coming, only gripping the chair and the cane, tightly.
It is Dr. Harris. Liz strides out to meet her, and as I come up to them, she is saying, “The post office told me how to get here. I would have called ahead—”
“It’s fine,” says Liz. “Really. Won’t you come in?”
“No.” She starts fumbling with a bag she is carrying, and I feel myself staring at her hands. She says, “The school called me at the university and I thought I’d better—” Smiles flit uncomfortably across her face. She brings forth a lavender child’s coat, new and pretty. Someone has taken a scissors and cut it up the back in jagged strokes almost to the collar. “Apparently he took the scissors out of the teacher’s desk during recess—”
“Tommy did? Tommy cut this coat during recess?” Liz’s voice is shaking.
“No. Yes. I mean, no, she was wearing it during recess, but that’s when he took the scissors. He cut it in the cloakroom during personal reading time.”
“Are you sure? Is the teacher sure it was Tommy? I got the impression that she was sort of predisposed against—”
“Some other children were watching him. He asked them to watch him.”
What I am aware of is the color of her face, how its strangeness makes what she is saying totally incomprehensible to me. Recess, cloakroom, personal reading time. These seem like foreign words, communicating nothing, and yet the sight of it unfolds within me as she speaks—Tommy with “the look,” excited at the attention of the others, struggling to force the unwieldy shears through the thick cloth, giving off that sense of awkward muscular tension Liz and I are both familiar with. I know what she says is true, but she has become so important and strange telling me about it, then standing here, gazing at me, that I have no response.
Liz says, “Please come in and have some tea or something.” Not an offer, but a plea. Lydia Harris acquiesces.
She doesn’t fit into our house. There is a finish to her clothing, her shoes, her skin that looks in danger of being snagged on the rough surfaces that we live with—brick, cane, wood—and she hesitates before laying her camel’s hair coat over the arm of my Windsor chair. No one says anything until Liz puts her hand on the kettle, and then, given courage, I suppose, by familiarity, she says, “Robert tells me you’re a doctor at the university.”
“I teach in the math department. This is my first year.”
“Where were you before?”
“Boston. Before that, Berkeley. My husband teaches at Harvard. I was filling in at Boston, uh, University, and then I got this job, which is a real job, so I took it. I was raised in the country, so it was tempting to try that again.”
“That’s interesting.”
She looks around, somewhat furtively, her glance lingering over the twelve-drawer chest on chest and the two corner cupboards. If we were going to be friends, I would ask her what she teaches and she would ask where we got such elegant pieces of furniture. Instead, I say, “Obviously, we’re appalled that Tommy has done this. I mean—”
Liz interrupts, “It’s not just that he’s destroyed something—”
“It’s more that he must have hurt your daughter. It’s so aggressive—”
Liz interrupts again. “It’s so jagged. I hate that part of it.” She smiles sadly. “It was a pretty coat, too. I love that color.”
“It was new. I mean, maybe that’s the key. The things he damages are Annie’s new things. I asked her if he was mean to her, or if the other kids were, and she said not. Even so, I’m not sure she’s been entirely accepted by the other children. Sometimes it takes a while with children of color, especially in a rural setting, and I told her about that, and to expect that. We’ve talked lots of times about what goes on at school, and how she might look at it. I don’t know. I was raised in Tennessee. Part of me says that if it isn’t terrifying, then it’s okay.”
Liz says, “Isn’t this terrifying?”
Lydia Harris gives a knowing smile. “Terrifying is when the parents are the source of the trouble, not the kids.” She looks me in the eye. “I admit I was suspicious at first. I always am. But right now it doesn’t seem like you all condone Tom’s behavior, so I’m sure he’ll get over it. I do have faith that if we keep in touch, we can contain this.”
At last I can speak. “We’d better. I will, too.”
She looks in her cup, takes another sip, then stands to go. She looks once again around the room, and I know she is thinking about money. She says, “I can afford to replace the coat.”
“I can’t afford to let you.”
“It was sixty-five dollars.”
“When I work for people in town, I charge seven-fifty an hour. Find me ten hours of work around your house. It’s an old house, and I can do anything. I built this furniture. I built this house. You won’t be making do.”
She runs her hand over the scrolling of the chest on chest.
“Black walnut. Used to stand over by the barn.”
“He can make anything,” says Liz.
“I’ll think about it,” says Dr. Harris. “All the stories say you have to think carefully if you are going to make a wish.” She doesn’t smile, does gather her belongings, refuses to have me walk her to her car. After she leaves, Liz and I sit dumbfounded at the table.
When I was about nine, my father gave me the free run of the town we lived in. As long as I was home for dinner, I could ride my bike anywhere I wanted to. I was still sort of out of control, and I think he pictured me spreading my energy over a wider area, and therefore getting into less trouble. I had two friends, and we used to bike out to the development at the edge of town and play in the new houses. There were other kids, boys and girls, we played with in the development, and one day, when we were exploring the neighborhood, we found an old Dodge pickup parked on a sloping driveway above a cornfield. One of the other kids got in and let out the parking brake, and the rest of us rolled it back into the cornfield. We all took turns sitting behind the wheel, beeping the horn, and shifting the gears; then we started throwing clods of dirt at the windows and mirrors. We broke them all, then threw more clods of dirt through the holes. At dinnertime we went home. We didn’t talk about it, and I’m pretty sure I didn’t think about it again for a month, maybe. But later in the spring, late enough so that all the windows and doors in the house were open, I remember that I was watching TV after school and a shadow fell through the screen door across the living-room carpet, and I knew without looking up that I was in trouble about that truck.
My mother answered the door, and I looked up. It was a policeman. The truck, we were told, had been worth four hundred dollars. My share was a hundred. I worked almost the whole of the next year, at a dollar
an hour, to repay my father for what he paid the owner of the truck. I was also spanked, lectured, and sent to my room. But the real moment of punishment, of dread to the point of physical pain, was my first glimpse of that policeman through the screen door.
At last I say to Liz, “We should have had her leave the coat. Then we could have just set it on the table to speak for itself.”
“I don’t think he did it. I can’t imagine it.”
“I can. He did.”
“You can imagine your own son plotting to take the scissors out of the teacher’s desk, then recruiting other kids to watch, then destroying something like that?”
“I can imagine any boy doing it. I can imagine myself doing it.”
“I’m sure he didn’t do it.”
“Liz—”
“Something else happened.”
“Are you saying they’re all lying?”
“If I have to.”
“Lizzie—”
“Why do you trust strangers before your own son?”
I get up to go to her, but she turns abruptly toward the sink. “Just don’t yell at him first. Just let’s ask him first.”
“You’re not being—”
“And don’t lie in wait for him. Let him come in and eat his snack first.”
“Elizabeth—”
She spins toward me. “You know what? When I saw that coat, I wanted to have it! I wanted to be seven years old again, and to be wearing that darling coat to school every day. I just yearned for it. That’s a color that never turns up at the Goodwill.”
I go out into my shop and sit down on one of my chairs. A while later Tom trudges past, and when he casts a glance toward the barn, I press myself away from the window, so he won’t see me. I am eagle-eyed for signs of frivolity, but there are none. The future is no mystery to him. Still, he doesn’t pause or slow down, and in spite of myself I rather love the bravery in his straight, deliberate course. He climbs the porch steps and knocks at the kitchen door. Liz’s arm appears; he disappears. As per her instructions, I weave an entire chair seat before leaving the barn. There is plenty of time for me to contemplate how fatherhood has made an actor of me, and a good one. As with any role, it has given me new feelings to feel as well as to express, and when I am preparing for one of fatherhood’s dramatic moments, as I am now, I always have a sliding sensation. The lines I think of rev me up, and the impending assumption of righteousness seems both alluring and scary. By the time I have tied off the rushes and latched the barn door, it is nearly dark.
At first it looks like they are simply sitting quietly at the table, but then I realize that they are praying. In the Bright Light church, various postures are required for various attitudes of prayer, which has always made me suspect that the prophet tarried for a time among the religions of the East. The sitting attitude is a contemplative one—the supplicant asks to be shown the inner workings of his or her soul. It has the advantage of being unobtrusive anywhere, and therefore appropriate anytime the believer has an idle moment. If the believer is then moved to adopt an “attack” posture (my term), the sitting posture gives him time to prepare for it. Oh, yes. They are praying. Every event around the house has taken on so many new layers it is only possible to begin with a question.
“Son, did you know whose coat you were cutting?”
“Yes, Daddy.”
“Did you set out to cut it a long time ago, or only just today?”
“I don’t know. I thought about it more today.”
“Did you ask the other kids to watch you, or did they just watch you?”
“I asked a couple.”
“Why did you want them to watch you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Why did you cut the coat?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you enjoy doing it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you like Annabel?”
“She’s okay.”
“Then why hurt her this way? Does she provoke you?”
“What?
“Does she say mean things to you or about you?”
“I don’t know.”
As we are having this discussion, Liz lights the kerosene lamps and sets the casserole of beans and rice in the range. Its fragrance, compounded of coriander seed and dill seed, floats around us. His answers are hypnotic: cause and effect seem to part from one another, promising that to seek any further into the sources of these events will yield nothing. The key now is to simply act, to act simply—to forbid, to punish, to exact payment, to make sure he is listening, that he understands. My grandfather, who had five sons and many dogs, always swore he treated boys and Saint Bernards the same way. He convinced them when they were small that he was bigger and knew more than they did. Even when they outweighed him and had more schooling, they were so in the habit of obedience that he didn’t have any trouble. My father and his brothers all had jobs and families whom they supported. This was the fundamental test of my grandfather’s method. Were they happy? Did they drink, harbor extreme political views, display longstanding anger, treat their wives well, live up to their potential, contract cancer or heart disease? My grandfather was untouched by these issues—they were quirks of fate or nature, fixed elements of identity, more than anything ways to differentiate among the members of a group. He did not think of problems as effects he might have caused, more as afflictions. After raising many dogs and rearing many sons, he took on an air of solid completeness, squared off, gracious. He said, “Your sons weren’t made to like you. That’s what grandchildren are for.”
So, for today, let me take refuge in his clarity. Let me, for the moment, not see with the eyes that the last half of the twentieth century has given me, eyes that pick out the tiny, glinting threads of cause and effect running everywhere, eyes that automatically superimpose the past boy upon the present man, the future man upon the present boy. I am cool and resolved. I spell out moral values, expectations, and consequences. I punish and promise more punishment. I make sure he understands. I assert authority. I bring things to that impossible point, an end.
4. January
I spend two days at Lydia Harris’s house, stripping and refinishing woodwork in the dining room. There are only two coats of paint. The work is easy and the results surprising—the wood is local butternut, pale and smooth, almost white; it doesn’t quite go with the oak flooring, which is probably why it was painted, and yet it is unusual and pleasing. Lydia stands in the middle of the room, trying to decide from color cards what shade to finish it in, and says, “I feel like I just splurged on a wonderful new pair of shoes, and now I have to buy a whole new wardrobe to go with it.” The husband, whose name is Nathan, has gone back to Harvard. I say, “Maybe your husband will have some suggestions.”
Lydia laughs, “Oh, Nathan! He doesn’t care. He says paint everything white enamel and hose it down. He did the wiring, though, before we moved in. He’s very mechanical, for a mathematician.”
Tom and Annabel are back in school. I clear my throat and wait, trying to find a comfortable way to stand: the floor is not level, I can sense it if I’m not distracted by work, and it makes me edgy. There are other things about the house that make me uneasy. The air moves a lot, so that I can feel it rolling around my neck and shoulders. On the second floor, paint is peeling off the chimney wall, showing that water vapor and maybe fumes are leaking through the chimney tiles. The mullioned windows have no storms, and are frosted on the inside. There is plenty of work here, but I don’t want to do it. I plan to mention these things sometime, after I have lost my identity as a handy sort of person.
“Let’s do this,” she says. “Let’s paint the wall below the molding a silvery green, which will bleach out both the floor and the rest of the woodwork. Then, above the moldings, I’ll paper with something rosy, which will draw the eye upward. So go ahead, leave it pale. It’s just too unusual to cover up. The table doesn’t matter. I’ll get a new table.”
I begin brushi
ng on tung oil, and after a while she joins me. Like Liz, she is the sort of woman who works steadily without saying much, and she is orderly and neat. I forget she is here until she says, “I’ve thought a lot about those beautiful pieces you have at your place. The dark walnut chest is one of the loveliest things I’ve ever seen. What did you stain it with?”
“I soaked crushed walnut husks in alcohol.”
“Would you sell it?”
“It belongs to my wife.”
Silence; then, “I envy you your talents.”
“I envy you your colors.”
“Pardon me?”