52

 

       THE GRANDFATHER

 

    I don't bother to ask him why that tree.  I know.  We both know.

    It comes down to this.  The rest wasn't enough; it comes down to this.  He stands there, the axe in his left hand, hefting it up and down.  Just can't wait to get at it.  Even with Doug standing there yelling at him, he can't hardly keep from grinning like a goddamned jackanape.  Just look at him!  Loves it.

    Doug gets right up in his face and yells and then he starts pointing at me.  They can't even do this right.  A man's got a right    I look away.  Shit.  That boy looks at me like somebody hit him.  You'd think it was his tree.  I'd send 'em all back if I had my druthers, but I guess it's a little late for that.  Shoulda done that before I married off the first one.  Shoulda just told her mother I didn't believe it was mine.  Woulda saved a lot of grief.  Too damned many of them now.  I shoulda known it would come to this.

    The wood where the lightning struck is all grey, and I can see the cracks down the center of it from here.  It was a nice yellow white for the longest time, but the last coupla years it's turned grey on me.  That tree used to get the nicest chestnuts on it.  Even after the lightning there was nuts for a while.  Nice firm little yellow sweeties.  Nights at that table sorting 'em and looking for worms.  Didn't have no television, and the radio wasn't worth the listening half the time.  Was damned quieter them nights.  At least I think it was quiet.  Seems like everything was quiet          quieter then.  Nobody yelling and gunning their engines up and down the street.  Yes, them was good ones.  Ain't been worth nothing these last few years.  The ones there were had worms or were hard and white like marbles, and now there aren't any.  That was a good old tree.  It just stands there, the old spike of grey pointing up and the place where the whole thing split, gaping like a slit in the belly of a buck.  Wood's all chewed up in there like something's been at it, eating it from the inside and just leaving the chivlins to lay there.

    Grandpa!

    That tree's got the biggest damn root on it.  Ground's all hoved up around it.  Always has been.  Probably run all the way over under there to under the shed.  If he thinks he can just cut that tree down and pull the stump out with that goddamned little tractor, he's got another think coming.  Shit!  Need one of them big bastards like he brought in here to dig up the flower beds and put in that room of his.  Even then it wouldn't          Yes, just like that.  Just like gutting a deer.  Wouldn't I give          anything to do that one more time.  Ain't nothing like that.  Sit there and watch them walk right by.  Take your pick.  Didn't even have to stalk 'em.  Fish in a barrel.  That's what we said, Fish in a barrel.  Just sit there and take your pick, and then it's meat for the winter and horns on the wall.  Simple as pie.  Shit!  You think they remember that?  No!  It's all part of the lie.  Thinking it matters.

    Grandpa!

    I look around, and Doug's got his skinny little face stuck right down in mine.  I can smell him.  Eh?

    Aren't you going to say something?  You going to just let him cut it down?  Say something!

    He smells like cheese, not like he's been eating cheese but like the sour smell of sharp cheese itself.  I just look at him.  His face is pleading.  You're spitting on me, I tell him.

    He stares, his eyes watering.  Slowly, he pulls his face away and begins to back up.  Still looking at me, he backs the whole way to Art.

    What's he want from me?  He think I can do anything about it?  I watch him for  minute.  He goes back to yelling at Art, but every so often he turns and gives me a look like why won't you help me?  Why won't you help?  As if I could do anything about it!  I never thought it would come to this, but I should have.  As soon as he started to take it all so to heart, I should have known.  The first time he showed up with a bunch of blueprints and that shitty grin on his face, that's when I should have known.  But I didn't take him that seriously--I didn't worry--until that damned shovel thing showed up and ripped up my flower beds.  Too late then.  And too late now.  Who'd have thought it?

    Sometimes at night the wind whistles through where the cracks are.  It's dried and pulled away from itself, and the wind gets in the places between and makes the strangest sounds.  Like oooooaa oooooaa oooooaa.  As if it's trapped inside, as if the wind goes down in the cracks and can't get back out.  Oooooaa oooooaa and then it gets weaker and the end just dies off oooooa aaaa and then it's gone.  Dead wind isn't wind anymore.  It's just air, no different from the air that was there before it came.  Hard to think that way, that something that was there and sang like that just isn't anymore.  Dead ain't hard to figure, I seen dead enough times, but just plain isn't  takes some getting used to.  And then isn't          sooner or later          gets to be wasn't  and then it's really all over.  Dead's just the first step.  Shit, dying ain't no trick at all.  If that's all there was to it, I'd have died years ago and gotten it over with.  If it wasn't for that wasn't          Now, that's smart.  How'd he do that, I wonder.  Maybe he didn't.  He wasn't cold before Janice couldn't remember his name.  Sat there with that look on her face and just worked her mouth like a dog with a chicken bone in its throat.  A man one minute and the next an empty chair that might be recovered and put in the new room in her basement if her mother didn't mind.  And of course her mother said no, she didn't mind.  She thought things should be put to use.  You could almost hear it.  Oooooaa oooooaa oooooaaaoooooaaaaa.  And Doug was mad, but it was too late.  There was already a blue--robin's egg she said--flowered slipcover on it, and it already smelled like the basement.

            I never thought it'd come to this.  He hefts the axe like he can hardly contain himself.  Why doesn't he do it?  What do I care?  A tree.  That's all.  Why doesn't he just do it?  Cut it down!  Go ahead!  Why doesn't he just do it?