20

 

       DOUG

 

    Picnics.  They ain't no picnic.  When they're over it's like they were never here.  The cars go down the hill and within the time it takes to walk up here and sit down, it's all like it was before.  The grass is a little trampled but it's getting dark and you can't see it anymore.  I'll have to cut it tomorrow.  It's funny how it can all be gone in just no time at all.  Like a film in reverse, the cars back out and the air gets quiet and all of the sudden I can smell the blossoms again.

    The rock is hard.  I lean the rifle against it and inch my butt around, looking for a more comfortable place.  It's hard all over.  There is no comfortable place.  From here I can see the whole town, from here I can see the world.  Route fourteen going somewhere, east and west.  Her coming here with her new hair and her new          and him with his big city smile.  Goes off and goes to college and gets married and now          I sound like Aunt Lorraine.  Never would have thought it, me sounding like her and saying all the thinks that she passes for truth          and her no different, going off and becoming too good for her own sister and trying to show us up with the stuff she brought back.  Then why the hell did they come back?  The city too small or just nobody to be better than?

    I can see the whole town.  The lights from Endicott Street from fourteen to the bottom of the hill, a bright line, a line through the dark.  That girl--Cathy--is down there in the IGA, bagging up groceries and thinking about something else and maybe thinking that I looked familiar.

    Or more likely in the storeroom with the night manager, insuring job security.  They're all the same.

    I pick up the rifle and make my way along the crest.  I'd like to see anybody get around up here in the dark.  I'd like to see Eric do it.  He can barely make it across these rocks in the daylight.  He don't deserve these rocks.  Nice enough kid but he don't have any business claiming half this land.  Clare ought to have been able to see that, city kid like that.  Don't matter what blood is in him, he don't deserve this land.  If my Daddy was alive         Well, maybe not.  Mom might think that, but I ought to know better.  I ought to know better'n to think things would be any different.  Maybe they wouldn't talk to me like I was less because of his dying but in the long run, it'd be no different.  Half for me and half for Eric.  And Art'll see that Eric gets the good pieces.  Art'll see to that.

    Just a little ahead of me a deer--a buck--stops and listens.  Without thinking, I squat and throw down on him.  His neck is in the sight.  He doesn't move an inch.  His skin ripples, and I can smell the wildness coming off of him like something you can touch, something you can taste.  The lights on Endicott silhouette him    an easy shot.  He knows I'm here.  We wait like that for some time, waiting to see how much of this we can take.  He can't move.  I can't move.  For either of us it would be too much to ask; it's almost too much just to breathe.  And then it is over, and he knows I won't shoot; he walks on, resumes his life.  I exhale.  For a moment I think about squeezing the trigger, but I don't.  I couldn't.  He knows I couldn't, and to do it would be breaking the rules.  If I did that then I'd deserve whatever happened to me.

    The lights in John Plummer's house go out.  The kitchen light at home makes a dim half circle on the grass and crocuses along the driveway.

    Lights go on all along the street.  I begin to go slowly down the steep grade.  In the spaces between the fruit trees, I can see him sitting there like the sun hasn't gone down and the air isn't getting cool.  It doesn't matter to him; he can see as well in the dark as in the light.  He sees what he wants, no matter.  I smile at the picture he makes.

    As I get closer, almost to the doghouse, a car slows on the street.  It's the station wagon.  Art is driving; he leans over and rolls down the window.  I was just checking, he calls.  Can you take care of him?  He motions at the old man sitting alone in the darkness.

    I nod and wave.  He drives on.  My slight movement has disturbed the dog.  He comes out of his little box and lunges against the chain, barking in my general direction.  Grandpa turns his head and stares right at me.  He hasn't even pulled the sweater up around his shoulders.  The dog quiets and contents himself with fretting his way along his little path.

    Doug?  Is that you, Doug?

    I raise the rifle and draw a bead in the space where I know the bridge of his nose is.  He stares at me or rather where he senses me.  Only the dog moves.

    After a minute, he says it again, Doug?  Is that you?

    I tuck the stock tighter against my shoulder and squinch my eye closer along the barrel.  I inhale and hold it until my heart stops.  Exhaling, I drop my arm and smile.  Yes, Grandpa, it's me.