Sometimes a Great Notion

  I always say to him it is our lot to accept our lot and the best way to accept that lot is back off and see what a ball it is, I tell him, back off and see what a boot in the rear it is! Because it is, it is, if you just back off and look at it with your mouth held right. And Hank could be gassed by this lot, he could, just like he likes having to milk the cow sometimes. Don't I tell him so about a thousand times a day? Be gassed and happy and running around and loving every bit of it and even the bad stuff like this if you just hold your mouth right, Hankus. Now I don't expect you to know the Redeemer liveth like I do, but you do know what's coming up right here on earth, because I can always see in your eyes how you see already. So how come, when you can see already what's coming up ahead and know already what you're gonna have to do about it, why don't you save yourself all this fretting and cut across to what you see coming and do what you already know has to be done . . . ?

  But, then, I don't know about that neither. Maybe not being able to cut across to what he sees already is part of that lot he's got to accept. Because I recall what almost happened the one time, when we was sixteen or seventeen in high school, and he almost cut across to what he could see already, instead of going all the way around. Seventeen. Right the first few days when we're enrolling for our senior year. We drive up and park his cycle in front of the front steps where everybody hangs around waiting for the eight-o'clock bell to ring. The guys are there, in blue and white lettermen's sweaters, thick-weaved wool all messed up with initials and numbers and badges and golden-ball emblems and any other decoration they can sew or pin on. Standing there, they look like generals in some kind of slouchy army, leaning back to watch, reviewing the troops passing by. And a new guy on the steps too, a visiting general, with a yellow and red Lebanon High letterman's sweater with just one decoration, just one, just a pair of tiny brass boxing gloves.

  There's no boxing allowed at Wakonda, so he stands out with that one decoration.

  Hank isn't wearing his sweater. He says it make him feel rinkydink.

  Guy Wieland gives Hank a corny wave he learned from pictures in Life about teen-agers. They don't wave to me. They don't know why Hank troubles with me. Guy waves. Watcha say, Hank? Not a whole lot, Guy. Oooh, feel that rubber tire there; pretty soft, ain't it. Might be, Guy. Oooh, can't have that. How was the summer, Hank? How? You felt, didn't you? Pretty soft. . . . I bet it was, Hank; oooh, feel that rubber tire; I bet you didn't do anything all summer. I bet you didn't do anything all summer except you and that hot-britches stepmama of yours all the time--

  Hank looks up into Guy's face and smiles at him. Just a little smile and nothing mad or threatening about it. Just the littlest smile, pleading, to tell the truth, with Guy to lay off because he's tired, the smile says, after a whole summer of just that sort of thing and fighting about it. Soft and pleading. But, pleading or no, there's threat enough in that smile to shut old Guy Wieland off stone cold. And Guy fades back out of the way. There's a minute with nobody talking and Hank smiling down again, like he was so embarrassed he could die, then, all of a sudden, the new guy from Lebanon steps forward to fill in the place Guy just emptied. So you're Hank Stamper? Smiling himself, just like in the Westerns. Hank looks up and says yeah, like in the Westerns. Yeah, Hank says, and I say to myself right at that instant that Hank knows already what's going to one of these days have to happen. Hank grins at the new guy. And his grin is just as tired and pleading and bashful as it was for Guy Wieland but I see he knows already, too.

  We stand around. Behind us, out on the playground, this year's yell squad is practicing.

  Guy comes back up and says Hank, this is Tommy Osterhaust from Lebanon. Hank shakes the hand. How's it going, Tommy? Pretty fair; how about you? Tommy--you know, don't you, Hank?--made All-District last year at Lebanon. No foolin', Guy, is that right? Yeah; yeah; so with you and Cyrus Layman and Lord and Evenwrite and me and Tommy too, tell me we won't have some depth in that backfield! Huh, tell me.

  I lean against the cycle ticking itself cool, and listen to them talk football, watch the way this Tommy Osterhaust studies Hank's forearms. From the playground come the scattered voices of touch football, keep away whatever, and the yell squad two four six eight who do we appreciate. I lean there, wait, watch everybody else wait too. They fart around awhile. Guy clears his throat and finally gets around to it. He flips the little boxing gloves on Tommy's jacket with his finger. You know, don't you, Hank, that Tommy is the big boxer too? No foolin', Tommy, is that right? I spar around some, Hank. You must be pretty good to get that medal, Tommy. Yeah, Hank, I spar around little bit now and then . . . we had a championship team in Lebanon. Tommy was captain, Hank. You guys don't box? It's against the rules, Tommy. Do you know, Hank, that Tommy here took All-District and State and--which was it?--was either third or runner up in Northwest Golden Gloves! Third, Guy, just third; I really got my ass waxed when I got up with those Army guys from Fort Lewis. Hank--you know, don't you, Tommy?--Hank took the one-sixty-seven division at the state wrestling meet in Corvallis last year. Yeah, I guess you told me that before, Guy. Oh boy, oh boy, tell me we won't push Marshfield around this season like they was paper dolls; a boxing champion!--Guy takes Tommy's sleeve--and a wrestling champion! He takes Hank's sleeve, pulls them close. Tell me we won't!

  I start to say now go to your corners and come out fighting. But I see Hank's face and I don't say anything, I see his face and hush. Because that is all it would take. I know that look. With the grin white right at the edges like the muscles in his face holds each end of his mouth and wrings the blood out of it. I know the look and I know already and get set. Hank smiles that smile and watches Tommy; he's already gone through the whole act, past the first few ignored remarks and past the bumps in the hallway and past the dirty playing on the field, and past whatever the final insult will be, to the place where they get down to what he knows already, what everybody knows already, will have to happen. And Hank is ready to get it over with. Because, after a whole summer of being teased and fighting, he is tired of it, sick and tired of it all, and any part of it he can bypass is fine with him. He smiles at Tommy and I see the cords in his neck start lifting his arms up. Behind us those scattered dumb girls two four six eight with Tommy distracted for just a hair to turn and listen, and he don't have the vaguest inkling that the fight which he plans on happening three or four weeks from now is already right this minute ringing the bell round one and no preliminaries. And I lean and watch the cords lift Hank's arms up, like number-ten cables lifting a log up to a truck. I'm the only one knows full-scale what this means. I know how unnatural stout Hank is. He can hold a double-edged ax straight out arm's length for eight minutes and thirty-six seconds. The closest I ever seen anybody else come to that was four-ten, and he a rigger thirty-five years old, big as a bear. Old Henry says Hank's so godawful stout because something odd happened to Hank's muscle tissue because of all the sulphur his first wife, Hank's real ma, ate while she was pregnant with him. Hank grins when Henry says this and says must be. But I think different. I think there's a lot more to it than that. Because Hank didn't set that eight-thirty-six record until the day Uncle Aaron kidded him about some jack in Washington holding a double-edge out there for eight. Then Hank did it. Eight-thirty-six by stopwatch. And no sulphur, neither, so that's not it. Whatever the reason, I do know he's godawful stout and if he clips Tommy Osterhaust while Tommy's looking off there at the yell squad he'll split him like a mule kicking a watermelon, but I don't say anything, though there's still time. Maybe I don't say anything to stop it because I'm tired too, of just watching, of having to watch Hank wade through all the horse manure. Because back then I'm not accepting my lot and enjoying it and getting a gas out of it. Anyway, I don't say anything.

  So if it wasn't for the eight-o'clock bell rings just at that instant Hank would have sure as shooting caught Tommy Osterhaust from his blind side like a mule kicking and would sure as shooting busted his skull like a ripe melon.

  Hank knows it too, how
close he come. When the bell stops him, his shoulders sag and he looks at me. His hands are shaking. We go to class and he doesn't say anything to me till lunchtime. He's standing at the cafeteria fountain, looking at the water running, and I come up. Ain't you gonna get in line for chow? I'm gonna cut the rest of the day, Joby. Can you get you a ride home? Hank, you--Or look, I can leave you the cycle and hitch a ride, if--Hank, I don't give a hang about the cycle; but you--Didn't you see this morning? Didn't you, what almost happened? Boy; I don't know what's the matter with me. Flank, listen. No, Joe, I don't know what's the matter . . . am I getting punch-drunk? Hank, now listen. I would of creamed him, Joby, you know that? Hank. Listen. Listen, ah, listen.

  He stands there, but I can't say what I want to. That was my first time back to school with my new face, and I'd changed outside but it hadn't come inside yet. So I didn't have the words to tell him what I knew. Or maybe I don't already know then. But I couldn't tell him that, listen, Hank: maybe whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God and everyone that loveth him is got of him. That maybe someday the morning stars sing together and someday all the sons of God'll holler for joy and someday maybe the wolf is going to dwell with the lamb and the leopard lie down like a kid and maybe someday everybody'll beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into fishhooks and all that sort of thing but until that time you might as well take what the Lord's judged is yours to do and do what the Lord has already decided is yours to do and have a gas with it! Do I know that then? Maybe. Down in the middle of my heart, maybe. But I don't know it to tell him. So all I can say is Ah ah ah listen Hankus listen Hank while he watches the water run.

  So he goes on home and he doesn't come the next day, or the day after that, and then at practice Coach Lewellyn wants to know where's the big star and I tell him Hank is under the weather and Guy Wieland says more likely under the bedspread, and all of them except the coach laugh. And after practice I take the activity bus instead of walking to the motel where me and Pop are staying those days back then. The bus goes past the motel, but I don't like to ask to be let off there.

  Through the window I see my daddy in the kitchen as the bus flashes by, head back in the lamplight with his teeth like quicksilver grinning at somebody I can't see, Lord only knows who this time. But it gets me thinking. You sow the wind you're going to have to reap the whirlwind. There's no getting away from it, not for Papa or me or anybody, and not for Hank neither, and he and that woman sure been seeding wind enough not to have much gripe coming about how much he has to reap. Maybe I'll tell him that.

  At the landing I stand and holler until I see a light show in the boat shed and he comes over to me in the motorboat. Hey look, is that you, Joby? Yeah, I came up to see if you'd died or what. No, dammit, I just been holding things down while old Henry's gone to Tacoma on a timberland contract. Hank, Coach Lewellyn was asking if--Yeah, I'll bet he was asking. I told him you was sick. Yeah, what did you tell that Tommy Osterhaust? Huh? Never mind.

  He stoops down and picks up a handful of flat rocks and goes to skipping them across the water, one after the other in the dark. Lights blink around in the house over there. I get me some rocks and I skip rocks for a while. I came out to talk to him but I knew already before I even got off the bus that we wouldn't talk, because we never do. We've never been able to talk. Maybe because we've never had to. We growed up close enough we pretty much know what's happening. He knows I'm out here to say to him you might as well come on back to school and get on with it because you and Tommy Osterhaust are going to fight it out sooner or later. And I know he is already answering sure but didn't you see the other day how I can't do it sooner and I can't take all the bullshit that goes before the later. I don't care about the fight. Oh, yes I do care. But I mean I don't care about the actual hitting and getting hit so much as I care that I always have to be goddammit working up to fighting with some-guy-or-other!

  (And always will, too, Hank, right up from then till now and from now till doomsday, so you might as well accept what you know already and see what you can find about it to have a ball with. Always will, with Tommy Osterhaust or Floyd Evenwrite or Biggy Newton, or with the falling-apart donkey or the berry vines or the river, because it is your lot and you know it is. And I guess it is your lot as well that you got to do it by the rules, because if you'd caught Tommy Osterhaust the other day while he was ogling the yell squad you'd of killed him and for no reason at all.)

  But I don't say anything. We skip rocks a while longer, and he takes me home on the cycle. The next day he's at school. And after school he draws his practice togs and we all go out to the field and sit on the ground while Lewellyn tells us all about his college days for about the dozenth time. Hank isn't listening, it looks like. He's digging turf from his cleats with a stick, tired of Lewellyn's bull. Everybody else really listening to Lewellyn tell how we're a fine bunch of young men and he's gonna be proud of us come what may this season because he knows win, lose, or draw we'll be good sports and a credit to Wakonda High. I see Tommy Osterhaust, who hasn't heard all this before, with his mouth open like he tastes the words, nods every time the coach says something he likes. Hank stops digging at his cleats and throws away the popsicle stick. Then he turns and happens to see the way Tommy eats up Lewellyn's words. And men, the coach says, and men . . . I want you to remember this always: You are like sons to me. Win, lose, or draw, I love you. I love you boys like sons, win, lose, or draw. And I want you to remember this: what that grand old man of football said. Grant-land Rice. Remember this poem. Remember this.

  Then he closes his puffy eyes like he'll pray now. Everybody is still. The coach sounds like Brother Walker's blind brother, Brother Leonard the Seer, when he gets up to talk. Remember this, men, the coach says, remember this:

  For when the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name,

  He marks--not that you won or lost--but [the coach draws a breath]

  But how . . . you played the game!

  And Hank says, just loud enough, bullshit.

  The coach doesn't act like he heard. He never does. Because right behind his head is that big scoreboard donated by the Rotary, and all the records list down along it Hank Stamper, record-holder in this, Hank Stamper, record-holder in that, on almost every other name, so he knows better than argue with it. But Tommy Osterhaust turns and glares at Hank and says I don't think that's very funny, Stamper. And Hank says I almost give a rat's ass what you think, Osterhaust. And so forth and so on until the coach stops it and starts the practice.

  After shower everybody's ready. Tommy Osterhaust talking low with a bunch of guys next to the foot-powder trough. Hank and me get dressed by ourselves, not talking. After we get dressed and Hank combs his hair we all go outside together and they fight in the gravel at the bus stop. And all the rest of the year everybody blames Hank for Wakonda High's not winning district title and maybe even state, like we might of done if Tommy had been capable to play for us. And for a long time after that the talk in the Snag was that Hank Stamper would never of made the Shriners' All-Star team if Osterhaust had been back there to divvy up some of the running. Hank never say anything about it even when they told him to his face. Just grins and shuffle his feet is all. Except one time. When me and him and Janice and Leota Nielsen all go out on the dunes and get drunk on wine and Leota brings the fight up because she'd been going with Tommy. We all think Hank's passed out on the blanket with his hand over his eyes. I'm trying to tell her what really went on, that Tommy had been spoiling for a fight from the first day he set eyes on Hank and that it was really him, not Hank like everybody always says, really Tommy that wanted the fight. Yes, but, but just because Tommy wanted to fight I don't see . . . well, if Hank didn't really want to do it why did he beat him up so terrible?

  I start to say something but Hank beats me to it. He doesn't even move the hand off his eyes. He says Leota, sweetheart, when you come after me to do it you don't want me doing some half-assed job, do you? Leota says what! And
Hank repeats the same thing--you want the best I can put out, don't you? Leota gets so upset we have to take her home. At her door she turns and hollers back, what do you think? you're God's gift to woman? Hank don't answer but I holler some things at her that she doesn't understand. About how she's just like Tommy Osterhaust, only doesn't fight as fair. I should keep still. It was the wine. I yell and she cries and yells some more; then her big brother comes out on the porch and he gets into it, hollering. He is one of Hank's motorcycle buddies. Once they gypsied all the way to Grand Canyon. Now listen here, he says. Listen here, Stamper, you sonofabitch! He doesn't understand. Hank tells me to drive the hell on. We pull out. He knows already about the brother but he doesn't want to think about it yet. He can't let himself think about it yet, though he sees already there's another scrap brewing. But that he's got to let it brew its course or everybody will figure him more a bully than they do already.

  So . . . I guess . . . I ought'n' to look for him to be any different with this business with Leland. He won't cut across to the place where he knows already he's going to have to knock the boy's ears down. Because he way down keeps hoping it won't come to pass. He's got to keep hoping these things won't come to pass. Or get hard and lonely as a old pit dog.

  Oh, Hankus . . . Hank . . . I always say to you the thing to do is accept what your lot is. But that's pure bull when I come down to it. Because you can't accept that you can't quit no more than you can quit, and you can't cut across to what you know already no more than you can keep from hoping that what you already see coming won't ever come. Because they are the same thing, every bit the same exact thing. . . .

  "This meeting will now come to order! Everybody rise and pledge 'legiance . . ."

  A gravel rapped. Joe Ben started up from his stump and then leaned back toward the open few inches of window. The hall inside was lighted now and most of the chairs were full. Howie Evans rapped the speaker's stand and repeated, "This meeting is going to come to order!" He nodded and from a chair behind him Floyd Evenwrite rose with a handful of yellow papers. Floyd pushed Howie Evans aside and spread the papers on the stand.