17

 

       JOHN PLUMMER      

 

    It looks like a picnic, I say, letting the curtains fall back into place.  It looks like they are having a picnic.  Smells like it too.  Hamburgers.

    Uh huh, she mumbles.  Her Lady's Home Journal is more important.

    I lift the sheer white curtains again and peer out through the new dangling streamers of my weeping willows.  I can see them only when they walk between the leaves.  They are separated like that, so that I can watch each little group independent of the others.  It is as if they are different picnics.  There is Janice and her baby.  There is Susan and her husband          I don't remember his name          Will or something like that.  And then there is him, sitting there like he was a king or something.  The stories he's told me, the things I could go over there and tell them about what he says about the whole lot of them.  The old man, sometimes I feel sorry for him and then other times

    What are you looking at?

    I told you.  It looks like they're having a picnic.

    Well, you weren't invited.

    I didn't

    Were you?

    No.

    And why should you be?  Who do you think you are, Good Old Uncle John?

    I didn't say I should be.  If you'd let me finish a sentence

    Well then, quit looking out the window.  She comes and stands at my elbow.  You can't see anyway.  If you want to play spy you should trim your trees.  The elms over to the side have needed it since the last snowfall, and you couldn't get through those willows with a machete.  And it's only April.  What can you see?

    Not much.

    Then why are you looking out?

    I drop the curtain and sit on the couch.  I don't know.  There's nothing on the TV.  Golf, golf, tennis.  How can anybody watch golf on TV?  I guess I thought there might be a better show over there.  It's just a picnic.  I leaf through the TV Guide.

    She has lifted the curtain again and is watching them.  I see that Susan and Wes came up from the city.

    Down.

    My, doesn't she look different?  Now you just wait.  Lorraine'll be telling me tomorrow about how that daughter of hers never comes--never sees her--couldn't tell me what she's doing now, if she got a job or          What?

    Down.  They live north of us.  It's down from there.

    Well, at least she's not like that girl of Elvira's.  I swear that girl is over there with those kids every day.  I could set my watch by when that car pulls in.  It's a wonder that poor woman gets any rest.  You raise two children--three counting her husband--you should have some rest, not have them little ones in there all the time.

    Never heard Elvira complain.

    How could she?  She's a mother.  Mother's don't complain.

    Lorraine would.  You would.

    Well, I'm not a mother, thank the Lord.  And Lorraine          I don't know if Lorraine's a mother or not.  There's more to being a mother than having a baby.  Some animals eat their young.  Anyway, it's not natural for a kid to be back home everyday.  It's a wonder that Jim hasn't put his foot down.

    Jim?  Are you kidding?  And what makes you think he minds?  I never saw a man like Jim Carbaugh for easygoing.  And if it's not natural for Janice to be visiting everyday, what about Doug?  Twenty-seven years old and still at home?

    What do you want him to do, leave his mother to starve?  Somebody's got to bring some money into that house.

    Oh, I don't know.  They did all right before.  Earl  never was what you'd call steady.  God looks out

    Earl did okay.  It ain't easy

    No, it ain't.

    What are they doing now?  I toss the magazine aside and cross the room to the window.

    I don't know.  Looks like the Killians are having something too.  Lots of cars down there.

    Art is waving a spatula in the air and laughing.  Lorraine stands behind him, watching.  Evidently she didn't get the joke.  Clare sits, as ever, not moving except for an occasional casual twitch of his twisted old hands.  The little boy--Jimmy--plays at his feet, reaching over the old slippers and pulling his trucks from beneath the chair.  The dog barks, excited at the uproar.

    Why don't you go over.  Maybe they have some scraps, make you up a doggie bag.

    What do you mean by that?

    The way you're looking over there.  You'd think you'd never

    I don't think that's funny.

    Neither do I.  That's all you ever get from those people--scraps.  All you do for that old man and you'd think the few bushels of fruit you get were going to break him.  They act like you were a thief.  Treat you like dirt when all you do is help.  I don't know why

    I know you don't.  We've been through this all before; why do we bother to talk about it?

    I've made her angry; she leaves the room silently.  There is nothing like my wife leaving a room silently.  The muscles in her rear are clinched so tight in anger that she can barely walk.  Her arms do not swing.  It is a show; she knows I am watching.  When she is safely behind the kitchen door, she will relax and glare at me through the still swinging wood.

    The tablecloths are coming off.  They are packing things in boxes.  The grill is dumped.  The dog's bowl is filled with the leftovers.  For some reason, Doug starts up through the orchard with his deer rifle.  They wave to him.  The old man watches all this like the owner of a circus watching the big top come down.  They depart in their cars, Elvira choosing to walk the fifty yards to her house instead of waiting for Doug to return. 

    When they are all gone he sits there, still not moving, in the shadow of the lightning-hit chestnut, watching the spot where Doug disappeared.  The sun will go down soon.