by Paul Griner
Woman’s got a brain. Now. Let’s drink.
Can’t, buddy, I said. My vision is still messed up from my black eye.
What’s that got to do with drinking?
I won’t be sure which glass to pick up.
Aim for the middle one.
Unseasonably warm as I drove—low forties—and a huge orange full moon that rose over the stubbled fields an hour into my trip, which made me obscenely happy; every car I passed might hold a friend. I rolled down my windows and waved to them! A few waved back, but not enough, and the mood passed.
I drove faster, and by the time I reached southeast Vermont, the bright moon was smaller and whiter and high overhead, casting long black shadows over the pavement. So bright I could drive without my headlights, so I did, startling a half dozen deer who turned and leapt over the stone walls among the returning maples.
Ten minutes later, at the top of the far hill, a car headed my way. We drove down our hills into the valley, toward each other. About halfway across the valley he blinked his lights, to signal that mine were off. I ignored him and sped up and closed my eyes and pressed down on the accelerator and shot ahead. The wind was louder now, I heard it roaring through the open windows, though it might have been me, yelling into the void.
He began sounding his horn. Eyes closed, I held the wheel steady, thinking that if I drifted onto the shoulder I’d hear my tires crunching over the roadside gravel, even over his horn, and if I drifted the other way, I’d know it at the last.
The Song of the Three
APRIL 2, 2016
Before Dr. Pradhep pulled the tube, May and I bent over Liam, holding his soft, nonresponsive hands, stroking his slack face, telling him we loved him. He had been awake for a while with the tube down his throat. He’d arched his back and teared up and made noises with his eyes wide and tried to work his jaw; he wanted the tube out, we could see that. Cyanosis, another unwanted word I’d learned; his lips and fingertips were blue.
It’s okay, sweetie, May said, and explained why it was in there, getting both scientific and abstract.
Only for a day, buddy, I said. When it comes out, you’ll be fine.
With my phone I took a picture of him, thinking it might be the last I’d ever get. The oxygen tube, a scar on his beautiful face. Then I bent and kissed his warm forehead and walked out without looking back. It wasn’t a Bible verse I clung to, but wisdom from a more secular wise man, Satchel Paige. Don’t look back. Whatever you’re afraid of might be gaining on you.
We sat in the waiting room holding hands while they removed the tube, hoping he’d breathe. At one point May said, That Dr. Pradhep has a kind face. Then nothing for the next few minutes as we waited. My throat clogged, I couldn’t speak.
I don’t know what May was thinking, but I began incoherently praying, even though I’ve never believed in God. The son of the man lying next to my son in the Neuro-ICU ward sat next to me, swinging his feet. Six, seven, mostly patient through the long hours of waiting, polite—twice, he’d thanked me for the donuts. Unlike the rest of his extended family, he spoke no Spanish, and whenever they wanted to discuss the state of his father without him knowing, they switched to it.
His mother was on the phone with an older daughter and handed him the phone. Say where you at, Santiago, she told him.
Santiago shouted into the phone. Where you at?
Take him, I thought. If you need to take a boy? Take this one. I was appalled, but I didn’t take it back. Car accident or a fall down the stairs or a sudden inexplicable illness in the darkest watches of the night, it didn’t matter. Just that it not be Liam.
And we waited. Waited and waited, to learn if he’d breathe with the tube out.
Liam at Seven
APRIL 2014
He was all dressed for his new school in his favorite jeans and chambray shirt, a couple of months after we moved. A late spring. Blue jays called and dropped from bare trees to peck at tufts of grass or mounded dirt showing around the patchy snow, and the scent of the warming earth floated on the warm breeze. He stopped on the porch, one hand on the white wooden rail, and said, I like the smell of this day.
He hopped down the stairs and skipped on the gravel driveway to the car and turned to face me before opening the door. Inside my nose, he said, it’s mixed up with the smell of other days I like. It smells kind of like spring, and it’s a happy smell.
Smart enough to realize it was a moment, as soon as I dropped Liam off at school, I called May to tell her.
Bycatch on the North Ship
APRIL 2, 2019
I bypassed Burlington for a motel on Lake Champlain, small A-frame cabins on the hills sloping down to the lake, mostly empty and completely dark; in another couple of months they’d smell of fishermen. Fox News on the TV, the bird-boned clerk dressed like he was trying out for a role as a Mormon in a high school play.
The school shooting, he said, tapping my license. The government did that.
The government shot the kids?
No, they’re devious, but not that bad, he said. Crisis actors. No kids died.
Still drained from my moonlight ride, I contented myself with staring, hoping my black eye gave him pause, then paid cash and grabbed my key and parked on the brown grass in front of my cabin. I could go back in, confront him, but the odds were that would only escalate, and I didn’t want to end up arrested. Time spent in court was time I didn’t spend tracking Kate down; better to save my anger for her.
Full Gandhi, as Lamont would say. I sighed, grabbed my bag, let myself in. The pleasant woodsy scent of an unused lake cabin. The bed was fine, the bathroom small, but I’d be able to stand in the shower. I tossed my bag on the bureau and shut the light off and moonlight streamed across the wide pine floorboards, and when I closed my eyes I saw Hardy Starling’s terrified face and wished it made me happy.
Morning fog, my shoes and ankles soaked during the short walk back to my car. The nearest bait shop had a big red door with a dog door cut into the bottom and a fat black dachshund poked its nose out, its front legs too, but then it got stuck and barked at me in a friendly way. It kept barking and struggling to get out until, with a last bark, it popped free. Right on its heels were two others, barking as they circled my legs, then two more, a clown car for dachshunds. Liam would love it.
My mood lifting, I imagined the GIF I’d send to his email and wondered if I could do something similar for the cheeses, convince Henry and Cora to name one after the dogs. Fat and creamy, a triple dachshund.
The counterman poured over maps, light shining off his bald head.
Planning to move? I asked, envious of the detailed pen-and-ink drawings of schooners behind him. The drawings themselves and the skill of the draftsman.
Ha, he said. No. Stuck behind the counter. With a pencil he pointed to a spot on the lake about three miles down. Was thinking that that would be the best place to fish this morning. Nice weed beds. Largers like the warmer water close to shore.
You have a website? I asked. Run it from your boat. Give advice that way.
Can’t give it away, he said. I’ll be broke.
The dogs had made it back in, all but the fat one, which was stuck coming in now, and barking again. Do a subscription service, I said.
Great! he said. You gave me the idea for free. Now if I can just get someone to design and market it, I’ll be all set. In the meantime, what can I do for you?
Hire me, I said. To do the web design. That’s what I do. Graphic arts.
His head went back. You see other customers here? he said. Let me guess. You pitched someone else the other day and they didn’t like it either.
My bruised eye? No. A bar fight I stood too close to. You don’t like my idea?
I like your idea fine. I don’t like you coming in here pretending to be after fish knowledge when the only thing you were fishing for was money.
Hey, I said, hands up, palms out. It’s not like that. I walked him through my thought process and said, I rea
lly am here to fish, and ordered a sandwich and wandered around the bait shop. Antique bamboo fishing rods, a cork-handled Kit Kast ice fishing rod, racks of fishing lures—Heddon, Creek Chub, Bagley, South Bend; a man who liked the present and the past.
He’d put on a straw hat and picked out lures for me and put together the sandwich—a local ham and cheese, which he cut on top of the map. I took a picture.
I can write down the name of the cheese makers, he said.
Pics are enough, I said. Visual clues work best for me.
Smart, he said. When you’re fishing, look for the cormorants and gulls. They’ll be near the baitfish. The bass will be after them. Anything beyond the clustered birds, the water will be too cold. On the knuckles of his left hand were tattooed the letters FISH. Name’s Homer, he said, and reached across the counter. Brannock.
Otto, I said, and shook his hand. Thanks.
Sorry I was short with you. I get a lot of salesmen in here.
Hard to run a business, I said. I understand.
Tell you what, he said, and nudged the hat brim up with his forearm. If you meant that, about drawing up some stuff, let me know.
I said, I’ll have it for you in under ten days, and, leaving, careful not to trip over the circling dogs, thought, Work just might be the thing to save you.
Almost the Same Beginning, Backwards
He was a bully, two of his friends said, though his parents never knew.
Fall of his sophomore year, weeks before the shooting, he picked out a new African American kid on Freshmen Friday, a kid even smaller than he was, and pushed him up against the lockers and made him smell a girl’s used tampon, one hand at the boy’s throat, the other forcing the tampon to the boy’s nose and mouth. That boy’s wide eyes staring at him over it until they overflowed with tears.
They hadn’t been there to see it but he’d told them about it, everyone knew the story. They even knew the girl he’d paid twenty dollars to for her used tampon.
Nash spoke to them; embarrassed, the girl denied the story, but like the boys who told it to him, it didn’t surprise her he’d shot African American kids. It surprised her he hadn’t shot more. That was why she’d stopped being friends with him, long before.
Bound for Glory
SPRING 2005
South of Trieste, two other couples got on the train. The women reeked of perfume and the men each had on four button-down shirts, one over the other, the collars sticking up. They had enough bags of coffee to wake an army, bunches of bananas, and duffel bags, stuffed with other things we never saw.
We nodded and smiled at one another and fell silent, May and I now and then pointing out a passing sight as we made our way through Slovenia to Croatia. Laundry strung across an alleyway, red sheets translucent in the slanting sunlight, a line of women dressed in black holding bright blue plastic water jugs at a fountain, a farmer scraping the muddy flanks of a white cow with a hoe. By dark, in Croatia, the two couples had begun to talk. Through sign language and limited English, we discovered that they were heading back to Ogulin. They were surprised we were going all the way to Athens. Croatia was beautiful, they said, if broken.
Closer to Rijeka, they began chattering madly, gesturing at us. Three seemed to agree on something but the red-headed woman held out. Finally her husband, who spoke the most English, asked if I liked his shirts. They had enormous collars and were nothing I’d ever wear so I said, Yes.
Good, he said, and stood and unbuttoned the top one. You wear then.
He handed it to me, and indicated that I should put it on over my own, and the next one, and the next. Then the other man gave me his three extra shirts. Soon we were holding the coffee and bananas, and the bulging duffel bags were ours too.
Short-term rental, the first man said. Like holiday.
Okay, I said, unsure what he meant, already sweating under all that polyester.
I stood to open the window and they all burst out shouting. No no no!
So I sat and sweated.
The one with the unibrow looked at me a long time. American, he said at last. George Washington good John Kennedy good.
Yes, yes, I said, and nodded.
I wasn’t up on current Croatian politics, knowing only that they were tricky, and that Serbs would be considered enemies, but Milošević was perhaps too raw a recent wound, so I asked, Tito?
Good! they nodded.
I decided to be venturesome. Putin, I said.
The man closest to the door looked both ways down the rocking hallway, then pulled his hairline back and said, in a low, low voice, Very very bad.
I nodded enthusiastically.
Bush? he said. Very bad. Is war.
Ten minutes later, the compartment slid open and two soldiers with automatic rifles asked for our passports. One flipped through them and handed them back and looked at me with my shirts and May with two coats on.
All this yours? he asked, and pointed.
In unison we said too loudly, All of it!
He stared at me for a long time, the train rocking. Your choice, he said, and left, sliding the door shut behind him. For another hour I wore the clothes, then returned them. They gave us each a banana and poured us some wine. As they were getting re-dressed the unibrow said something to the red-headed woman who’d not wanted to run the scam and she said something back and he slapped her, hard.
Decency, our implacable solidarity, all the pleasure in the compartment, they all drained away faster than the mark of his hand appeared on her pale skin. Her face hardened. May and I held our wine cups, not drinking them, though the four of them did. After a few silent minutes, the unibrow drank both of ours.
An hour after they left, the train stopped in the middle of the country. Dark trees close up against the tracks, just visible in the light spilling from the train.
Another guard appeared at the door and asked for our passports and when he saw we didn’t have visas, said, Come, and I followed behind him, taking May’s with me. He was huge, six eight at least; I jogged to keep up with him.
A long stream of people heading from the stopped train to the station, Perkovic, a name I’d never heard. We’d been told visas were a formality; you could get one in country with no problem, they would just stamp it on the train. Three a.m. and everyone sleepy, no lights on in the town except at the station, yellow against the dark. Taxis lined up outside, headlights on, though no one appeared to be leaving.
The guard said, American? John Kennedy, Bill Clinton.
Recognizing the game, I said, Good! Tito good! Putin bad, Bush is war. He nodded. I didn’t want the game to end so, daringly, I put my fingers across my eyebrows, imitating thick ones, and said, Milošević, bad!
He glanced at me and said nothing but sped up and took me to the front of the line for passport stamps and gave them to the clerk who stamped each like he meant to break them. The guard took me back outside, pointed at the train and said, Run.
I thought he was going to shoot me in the back but a conductor blew his whistle and the train moved and I sprinted down the fifty yards of track while it picked up speed as other passengers tried to turn back and the soldiers yelled and prodded them forward. I flew past all of them, stumbling once on the gravel but remaining upright, and got to the last car before it gathered too much speed and gripped the rail and leapt onto the nubby iron platform, panting.
Later we learned that stopping the train in small towns and stranding the passengers was the only way towns made money, money they needed in the aftermath of war. A cheap trick, but the truth was they had to do it to stay alive; that’s why I remember it. Contradictory truths are the ones that matter.
Liam loved the story; it made him giggle. Bush! he would say, forever after, Bush Is War! Milošević! he’d say, and put his fingers across his eyebrows like furry caterpillars, and roll over in bed laughing, then raise his hands as if he was holding a gun and point around the room and say, All this yours?
His shooting unmade me, and he loved a st
ory where I might have been shot too.
May’s Craigslist Missed Connections
MAY AT SUNSHINE DINER SUNDAY
You’re a cute brunette and you were having breakfast with your friend around 9:30am I think you keep looking at me and smiled a couple of times. He seemed not to like it. You are beautiful and I’d love to get to know you better.
MAY AT THE COMEDY CONNECTION
Beautiful brunette computer lady that I sat with at the comedy show on Friday night. You’re gorgeous and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you that night. While you’re still single, I would love the opportunity to take you out. Please reach out if you see this. You showed me a picture on your phone. What was it?
MAY ON HYBRID BIKE IN MONROE PARK
You were riding your bike in the park we spoke briefly if you find this tell me whose bike you were riding. I never thought about it, but I wanted to keep talking to you.
MAY AT MIDAS ON ELM STREET
You waited next to me and my son for our mufflers to be fixed. You gave him stickers and was so very sweet and absolutely the most beautiful lady i have seen in this town ever. I wanted to ask for your number but didnt think it was good to do so in front of my son. Hope you read this and i hear from you soon.
MAY OUTSIDE YANKEE CANDLE
You heard me and my friend discussing whether Vanilla candles were better than the cinnamon ones and came over to set me straight. You seemed nice and were cute, if you’re single would you be interested in going out for dinner or drinks? I know you don’t have kids.
MAY AT BARNYARD BUFFET
You’re a very attractive brunette woman. I was sitting in the section next to yours but overheard you talking to the guy you were sitting with and you caught me looking at you and we made eye contact several times. You smiled more each time. I got your name but would have liked your phone number. Hopefully you’ll check here while feeling we had a missed chance to talk.