Sometimes a Great Notion

  Before I could think over a cozier way to hunt, she was off, rummaging through crates and crannies, and I was forced to follow suit. But you can still talk with her, idiot; go ahead and tell her how you feel.

  "I hope . . . you didn't have anything else you were doing."

  "Me?"--from the other side of the room. "Just breakfast dishes . . . why?"

  "No reason. I didn't want to drag you away from something to help me beat about the attic."

  "But I drug you away, Lee. You volunteered to come with me, remember?"

  I didn't answer. My eyes had become accustomed enough to the gloom to see a path leading between the beams through the dust and debris to a corner with a pronounced diminishment of spiderwebs. I followed the path to an old rolltop desk somewhat less dusty than its surroundings. I opened the rolltop of the desk and finally found the shoebox I was seeking. Along with a museum of mementos so maudlin that I would have burst out laughing had not the laughter stuck in my throat like a fishbone.

  I intended to joke about the find. I meant to call to Viv but I was voiceless, as in a dream, and I experienced again that bright billowing medley of excitement and trepidation and outrage and guilt that I had first felt that first time I placed my eye to a hole in the wall and spied breathlessly on a life not my own. For once again I spied. Except the life before me now stood bared so much more, so terribly much more, than had the lean white body that had come with snarls and grunts to mount my mother in the lamplight so long ago. . . .

  Before me in the desk was a careful and terrible litter . . . of high-school dance programs pinned with flaky brown carnations, of certificates for letter awards, of dog collars, scarves, dollar bills with dates inked across the pressed faces--Christmas 1933 John, Birthday 35 Granpa Stamper, Birthday 36 Granpa Stamper, Christmas 36 Granpa Stamper--all tacked onto a shop-class breadboard with the woodburned inscription "Not by god Alone!" There was a feeble stamp collection and a shell collection, precious as diamonds in a jewelry-store necklace box . . . and a flag mounted on a suction cup, and a foxtail, and stacks of Christmas cards, an album of Glenn Miller 78s, a cigarette smoked to the fading lipstick stain, a beer can, a locket, a shot glass, a dog tag, a service cap, and pictures, pictures, pictures . . .

  The pictures were as typically American as the suction-cupped flag. There were sets of snapshots in their little yellow envelopes; and studio portraits in glass frames; and family reunion shots swarming with devilish youngsters making faces between the legs of pompous grown-ups; and the five-dollars-for-a-dozen pictures signed and exchanged your senior year in high school and generally thrown away the year after. I picked up one of these from its place on the shelf; across her white cashmere a sultry sixteen-year-old had penned: "To Hank the Hunk; a gorgeous Hunk of male I hope to let clean out my car pocket once again. Doree."

  Another hoped he might "see fit to be a little more friendly in the future with certain interested parties." Still another advised him that any such interest "wouldn't get him nowhere so don't go getting any ideas."

  I had seen enough; I tossed away the bundle . . . high school pictures! I would have never believed my brother to be so banal. I picked up the boxful of policies, planning to sort through them in the better light downstairs, and was just turning to announce my find when I noticed, sitting behind a large maroon photo album, one of those cheap pasteboard frames holding a photograph of Viv seated beside a small bespectacled boy. The child, about five or six--one of the up-and-coming younger Stampers, I surmised--glowered solemnly in the direction of the photographer's telltale shadow that fell across the grass before him. Viv was seated with her skirt spread about her, hair swirling, laughing open-mouthed at some remark made by the clever shutterbug intending to pierce the hard looks of the youngster.

  The photograph itself was of very bad quality; obviously blown up from a small and very bad snapshot, it was practically a masterpiece of the hazy focus and the direct lighting . . . yet, for all its faults I understood why it had been chosen for enlargement and framing. That the photograph did not resemble the Viv that one saw every day wiping back a delinquent lock of hair as she hummed over a skillet of frying sausage, or sweeping dried mud into a dustpan or hanging wet clothes over the stove in the living room or rummaging about the attic in dirt and tennis shoes . . . this was not important; the picture's singular charm lay in the accidental entrapment of the girl one sensed waiting behind that skillet of sausage or that pan of dust. The laughter, the blowing hair, the tilt of the head showed her caught in an attitude that perhaps for that one instant fulfilled completely all that her slight smile perpetually suggested. I decided I must have that picture. Didn't I deserve at least a bit of a snapshot to show the boys back home? The photograph was rubber-banded to a small bundle of other papers for which I had no use, but if I could detach the picture and slip it inside my shirt no one would ever be the wiser. I set about trying to slip the rubber band off but it was sticky with age and I only succeeded in binding the picture more tightly to the bundle. Don't, picture, please . . . I brought the packet to my mouth to try to bite the sticky bands; my hands were shaking and I was nervous beyond all proportion to my theft. Don't be this way. Please. You can be mine please. You can come with me please . . .

  "I can't, Lee."

  Until she answered I had not been aware that I was talking out loud.

  "I just can't, Lee. Don't, oh, Lee, don't . . ."

  I had not even known I was crying. The photo flowed before my eyes, as the girl swept across toward me, through dust and cobwebs. "Why not, Viv?" I asked stupidly. She had almost reached me. "Why can't you just flick everything here and--"

  "Hey . . ." A hoarse word stopped us. ". . . ain't you two found that outfit yet?"

  He was speaking from the trapdoor; his bodiless head could have been mistaken for another piece of the clutter.

  "You clucks oughta get some more light up here, for chrissakes. It's like a grave. Find anything . . . ?"

  "I think I have it here," I called to him, trying to control my voice. "A lot of policies to check through. We're almost finished."

  "Okay. Say, listen, bub: I'm gonna go slip into some clothes and run you back across. The air'll do me good. You be ready to move when I get my clothes on."

  The head disappeared. The trapdoor thumped shut. She was in my arms. "Oh, Lee, that's why. He's why. I can't leave him like he is now . . ."

  "Viv, he's just putting you on with this sick bit; he isn't sick . . ."

  "I know that."

  "And he knows, too. He knows about us, couldn't you tell just now? This sick bit, he's just doing it to keep you."

  "I know that, Lee . . . but that's why I say I--"

  "Viv, Viv, baby, listen . . . he's no more sick than I am. If he and I were off out of your sight someplace he would probably beat the daylights out of me."

  "But don't you see what that means? How that means he feels?"

  "Viv, baby, listen; you love me! If I ever knew anything I know that."

  "Yes! Yes, I know! But I love him too, Lee . . ."

  "Not as much as you--!"

  "Yes! As much! Oh, I don't know . . ."

  Desperately, I grasped her shoulders. "Even if that's so, that you love him as much, I need you more than he does. Even if you love us equally, it's all the more reason; can't you see I need you to keep--"

  "Need! Need, is that all!" she wailed against my chest, her voice muffled by the heavy wool and her near hysteria. "Viv," I started to say again, but she pushed back to seek my eyes. Beneath us we could hear Hank returning, heavy-heeled. "Let's make it," he called from below the trap. "Hear me Lee? Viv?"

  At the sound, her look of conflict and anguish suddenly changed, and her eyes dropped, as though borne to the ground by the weight of an awful shadow, that same shade I had seen across her face at the front door but hadn't recognized. Because, I would have never believed it possible to find that shadow on Viv. But, now, it was unmistakably nothing more mysterious than plain old shame. I had n
ot recognized it earlier because it was not shame for herself or her guilt, or for me in mine, but shame for the man so weakened by his illness that he was unable to let his wife disappear momentarily from his observation into the attic, so stricken with fever that nothing would do but take me across the river himself to keep her from being alone with me that little time more . . .

  "Say, Viv, can I borrow this family album for a while? To show off my heritage back at school?"

  And being responsible for some of this weakness, she was trapped by it. It would be her memento of the thing we almost had, just as that photograph hidden inside that album was mine. I could think of nothing to say. She walked from me, away from the trapdoor toward the window--"You better go, Lee; he's waiting, "--moving slow, weighted. That a shame focused on another should burden one as terribly as the personal variety was practically inconceivable to me. The poor kid is just too compassionate, I told myself . . .

  And yet, as I climbed down the ladder into the hallway, where Hank waited gnawing on a hangnail, I felt that I too was encumbered by a shadow as unnatural as it was unwieldy.

  "Let's go, bub," he said impatiently. "I'll pull on my boots downstairs."

  "A bit ago you were too sick to bend at the joints."

  "Yeah, well maybe a little of that nice fresh-washed air out yonder is what I been lackin'. Is that okay with you? You ready to make it?"

  "Fine with me. I've got everything I came for . . ."

  "That's good," he said and started down the stairs. I followed, thinking, Unnatural, and unwieldy, and a hundred times heavier than any of the score of personal varieties that I have so often carried. Hank, my shame for you, believe it or not, is as great as that I hold for myself. Maybe greater. And, brother, that's going some . . .

  From the attic window through cobwebs, Viv watches as they walk to the boat and get in. The boat starts, noiseless at this distance, and begins to creep across the river like a little red water beetle. "I don't know any more, Lee, what I want," she says, like a small child. And becomes aware of her image once more, vaguely reflected in the dirty attic window: what does it mean, all this concern about our images?

  It means this is the only way we ever see ourselves; looking out, at others, reflected through cobwebs from an attic window . . .

  (I ferried the kid back across; we were pretty casual about it. I said I didn't blame him for wanting to shake the Oregon mud off his shoes and go back to hit the books. He said he was sorry to take me away from my ball game. We were getting along all right; standing pat seemed the best way to handle things . . .)

  "It'll be nice to get back to some drier country . . . even if it is colder."

  "Sure. A fella gets tired of this friggin' drizzle all the time."

  As the expanse of water lengthened between myself and the slim blond girl alone in the echoing wooden house, I began searching frantically for some last hope, some last unplayed trump that would win me this hand; I no longer cared about beating my brother, I cared about winning the game. And there is a difference . . .

  "By the way, the doctor and Boney Stokes told me to ask how you were feeling . . ."

  (I'd had some things to say to him, on this boat trip across, but what the hell, I figured, don't go picking at scabs . . .)

  "I'm probably gonna survive."

  "They'll be happy to hear that."

  "I'll bet they will."

  When the bow touched dock I was desperate to the point of bursting; I felt I must do something or die! In another minute I would be gone from her for good, and she from me . . . for good! So do anything! Kick, scream, throw a tantrum for her to see and so she'll know that--

  "Look who's pulling up in the jeep. It's Andy, big as life. Hey, Andy boy, how's it hangin'?"

  I barely noticed as Hank waved to Andy climbing from the jeep. I had seen something far bigger . . .

  "What's up, Andy, man? You look draggled."

  Something far better . . . across the river, at the top of the old house, in the little attic window, like a candle lifted as a signal to me, at last . . .

  "Hank," Andy approaches them, panting, "I just come from the mill. Somebody set it on fire last night."

  "The mill! Is it burned?"

  "No, not real bad; rain kept it down pretty much so's it hadn't burnt more than the green chain an' some stuff. I put it the rest of the way out . . ."

  "But for chrissakes the mill? Why? How do you know somebody lit it?"

  " 'Cause there was this stuck to the glass on the front office." Andy unfolds a smudged circular sticker and holds it to Hank. "This: a black cat, grinning . . ."

  "The old Wobbly sign? Who in god's green world . . . with a Wobbly sign?"

  "It seems you have enemies, brother," I said. He turned to look at me suspiciously, wondering if I'd had anything to do with the mill; it amused me a little, knowing that he was suspicious of my past when sabotage was already cooking in the future. "Still, it also seems you have some very devoted friends. For instance, Boney Stokes was most insistent that I pass on his regards."

  "That old spook," he said and spat (besides, I figured, to myself, there's no sense me and the kid getting into it), "someday I'm gonna trip that old bastard and bring him down like a stack of dominoes . . ."

  "Oh, you misjudge him . . ." I glanced again across at the house. "Mr. Stokes is full of appreciation for you"--she was still framed in that dark square of window--"and determined to prove his good faith to you."

  "Stokes? How's that?" He looked at me, puzzled. (I figured, There's no sense in saying any more when everything we could say we both already knew . . .)

  "Well, he asked me to advise you--" She's still watching. Still at the window. He doesn't know! "--advise you that, due to another change in his delivery route . . . he will be coming up the river this far and is willing to give you the benefit of his services once more." "Yeah? Stokes? Is that right, now?" (I figured, There's no sense doing anything when everything's already been done . . .) "Yes, that is right; and he furthermore asked me to say that he was indeed sorry--wait; what was it?" Go ahead! It's the only way. You know that it is! ". . . sorry for any inconvenience he might have caused you during your, let's see, weakened condition, Mr. Stokes put it, I think. Is that right? Have you had a weakened condition, Brother Hank?" "You might say so, yeah . . ." (I had figured, I'll just go on and drop the kid off in town and leave things where they are, just stand pat . . .) "Also, the good doctor told me to tell you that he was buying you a turkey--" "A turkey?" "Yes, a turkey," I went blithely on, acting as though I were completely unmindful of the line of anger tightening about Hank's lips like a bowstring--Go on! you have to go on it's the only way!--as though I were completely unaware of the disbelief and shock in Andy's eyes. "Yes, the good doctor said that he was paying for you a nice big gobbler for Thankgiving, compliments of the hospital." "A turkey? Wait a minute . . ." "A free turkey, brother; it almost seems that you should get in a sick and weakened condition more often, doesn't it?" "Wait a minute; what's this all about, goddammit?" (I had figured, Yeah, there's no reason dragging up the ashes, he's finished with what he set out to do and there's nothing I can do back, so what the hell . . . let it stand pat.) "And then Mr. Stokes said--let me recall--that 'Thanksgiving dinner without the traditional gobbler just ain't Thanksgiving,' and that he considered the doctor a true Christian in Heart and Deed for helping you in your time of need." "My time of need, he said that?" "That's what he said. Boney Stokes. The good doctor said something different." "What did the good doctor say?" "He said Hank Stamper deserves a free turkey for all he's done for us." "Doctor Layton said that? Goddam you, Lee, if you're--" "That's what he said." "But I didn't do anything to deserve--" "Now, now, brother . . . in a moment you'll be saying you didn't deserve to have your mill burned." "Didn't really burn, I tol' you, Leland, I got to it--" "Okay, Andy . . ." "--they jus' tried to burn it, but the rain--" "Okay, Andy." (Yeah, that's what I had figured . . . that it was all done and over. But the kid had a different notion
.) "Yes, you have a lot of friends, Hank." "Yeah." "A lot of people interested." "Yeah. Wait; let's see if I get it right; Boney Stokes . . . is coming here to push a turkey off on me?" "I don't think Mr. Stokes is looking on this as a business transaction. Or the doctor either. I think it is more a consideration, don't you, Andy?--a show of gratitude for Hank's cooperation." "My cooperation?" "Yes, about the contract and all . . ." "What in the hell do they think I want with charity or gratitude . . . or a goddam turkey either for that matter?" "Oh, and there are other incidentals, too . . . that the citizens are going to donate. I think a whole basket. Mr. Stokes mentioned yams, cranberry preserves, mincemeat--" "Hold it." "--pumpkin pie, dressing--" "Hold it now," I said--

  "--for just one goddam minute . . ." Hank stood up in the boat, his hand held slightly before him as if to hold off an attack of air. "Now just you tell me, bub: what are you driving at? just let's have it straight, once." (Yeah, I had figured everything had been done . . .) "I mean I didn't order any goddamn mincemeat or yams. Are you shitting me? Or what the hell are you driving at!" "You must not understand, Hank; I know you didn't order. Mr. Stokes isn't selling this to you . . . he's giving you the groceries. Or donating might be the better word. He said that anything else you might need, just hang out the flag for it. Simply hang up the flag. Can you handle that? In your weakened condition?" "Hold it . . ." (But I was wrong. He was still pushing. There was something left after all.) "Say, Hank--" "Hold it, bub . . ." Don't stop now; you can't stop now. "How is your condition, by the way?" "Hold it, bub, don't push it too far . . ." (He don't even act like he knows what I'm signifying; can he be that dense?) "Push what, Hank?" "Just don't is all." "How far is too far, Hank?" "Okay, bub--"

  He stopped speaking and looked at me. I stood up; the boat, only tied at the stern, rocked and bucked beneath us. Andy looked back and forth from each of us. Hank stepped over the center seat. This was it; here comes the bomb. We stood facing each other with the boat bobbing and the rain bristling between us, and I waited . . .

  (He just stands there grinning at me. I feel that old mounting howl swirl in my stomach and arms, tightening my fists . . . and he just stands there grinning . . . what's with him? What's he got going now for the chrissakes?)