The Fool's Progress

  Lightcap worked on. At noon by the sun he unhitched the horses and led them down to the water trough—a hollowed-out log—below the spring in the woods. Henry rode Ben, the older steadier horse, holding on to the brass knobs of the collar. Watered, Joe brought the team back to the open field and let them browse on the stubble and weeds. He and little Henry sat on the warm brown grass in a corner of the fence, leaning back against the split rails, and ate fried-egg sandwiches in thick slabs of Lorrie’s home-baked bread coated with Lorrie’s home-churned butter. They ate small cool knobby apples, tart but sweet, from the bin in the cellar. They ate the fried drumsticks from a pullet named Hoot, who’d strayed too close to the back porch once too often. They each ate a homemade cookie stuffed with stewed raisins. Joe drank the lukewarm coffee from the bottom of the bucket. Little Henry drank chocolate-flavored milk from a half-pint jar. Lightcap rolled himself another Bugler cigarette. Henry chased white cabbage butterflies through the grass. He never caught one. But he always chased them. In the child’s eyes they seemed to shimmer like fairies in the April sunlight.

  …Remember also your Creator in the days of youth, young Reverend Cripps was reciting, before the evil days come, and the years draw nigh when you will say, I have no pleasure in them….

  Henry looked at Will. Will stared down at his big rough hands, contemplating his grease-filled fingernails. Beyond Will sat their mother, watching the young preacher. Her eyes, behind their glasses, had a clouded appearance. She would soon be undergoing an operation for cataracts. Her face, touched here and there with the brown spots of aging (too much sun) seemed more birdlike than ever. But she was tough inside, indomitable. Beyond Lorraine sat Sister Marcie, a grown woman now, thirty years old, married and mother of two. She had the dark skin, the beaked nose, the long thick black hair of the Lightcap branch—and the Shawnee strain.

  Two of us are missing, Henry thought. Brother Jim in Canada, refusing to serve in the Johnson-Nixon War. And Paul, young Paul, the sweetest gentlest happiest Lightcap who ever lived. Where is Paul? Why, Paul lies nearby, not far at all, only two hundred yards away, down in the earth beside that gaping hole waiting for Paw. Paul has his brass star and his little flag set in its holder, waving over the grass. Home from Korea—Truman’s War.

  At last we are ready, continued the minister, to look beyond our earthly vanities to God the Creator who made us for Himself. The title Creator is well chosen here, reminding us from earlier passages in Ecclesiastes that He alone sees the pattern of existence whole (chapter three, verse eleven); that His was the workmanship we have spoiled by our devices (chapter seven, verse twenty-nine); and that His creativity is continuous and unresearchable (chapter eleven, verse five). If all is futility under the sun, as even the strongest of us must feel from time to time, as Joseph Lightcap must have felt that last day in the forest, what is there to save us from sinking into despair? Only this: remember thy Creator. Nothing under the sun is ours to keep, least of all life itself. But the spirit returns to God who gave it. And that, my friends, my brothers and sisters, is the end of the matter. Chapter twelve, verse thirteen: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. Let me conclude:

  There is a time to mourn, there is also a time to sing and dance. Today we mourn the passing of our brother Joseph, beloved by wife and family. But in those tomorrows yet to come, unless our faith is false, we shall know—beyond the sun—that joy toward which all human longing aims. We shall dance, we shall sing, we shall know the joy of God’s love forever, and behold again the faces of those we loved on earth. That is the promise of our belief. For even in this the most bitter, harsh, pessimistic book of the Bible, we find that faith reaffirmed. There is no death, no departure, no tragedy that we cannot overcome by the power of faith. Vanity of vanities, sayeth the Preacher, all is vanity—and the greatest vanity of all is to think that our life on earth is the only life there is.

  Here Dr. Cripps paused to gaze once more at the faces and into the eyes of the mourners, and in particular, the eyes of the Lightcap family. Those hard gray cold eyes stared back at him. Only in the eyes of the widow Lorraine and the daughter Marcie could he see a reflection of sympathy, a will to share in his affirmation. They at least were capable of tears.

  The young man sighed inwardly, bowed his head, led the prayer. He may have felt, as Henry thought, watching him, that the content of his sermon cut no ice with anyone. No one believed in the referential object of the theopathic rhetoric. The words were meant for ceremony, not meaning. The ritual was the meaning, the only meaning available, to this tiny group of sidehill farmers—grim gaunt red-faced men with bad teeth, wearing stiff black suits, and their lean worn pale women in flowered prints, veils hanging from the brims of little round black hats, wrinkled stockings on varicose calves, feet cramped and aching in their high-heeled Sunday shoes.

  Presently the time came to convey Joe Lightcap to his last known permanent address. Will and Henry and the four other pallbearers lifted the crude coffin to their shoulders and bore it out of the church, through the yard, across the dirt road and up the short incline to the graveyard. They passed the Hintons, the Fettermans, the Lingenfelters, the Cotters, the McIntyres, the McElhoes, the McNairs, the Gatlins, the Brandons, the Wades, the Conways, the Taits, the Ginters, the Adamses, and arrived at the site reserved for Lightcaps.

  Will passed a rope under each end of the coffin. He and the other men lowered the coffin into the grave. The Reverend Cripps recited the litany for the dead. The widow stepped forward in her turn and dropped a handful of dirt onto the lid of the coffin, making a hollow drumming sound. No one could have likened it to rain falling on a roof. Joe, Lorrie said, as she gazed down at the box, I’ll be with you pretty soon. She cried, but quietly, dabbing at her face with a handkerchief. What, join the old man beyond the grave? Not likely. None of us believed that our mother would do anything of the kind; she’d outlive us all.

  Marcie followed her mother to the side of the grave, adding her handful of earth. She was crying freely by now and not quietly either. She was the one who really and always loved that cranky, embittered, isolate old man. Dad, Marcie said, half choking on her sobs, I loved you, Dad. You be good now. On that note she nearly giggled, embarrassed by her words. I mean…you know what I mean. I mean we’ll never forget you. Some of us won’t, anyhow. You were a good sweet dad to me. You…. Well, anyhow, goodbye for now. She broke away and tottered blindly into her mother’s arms.

  Henry’s turn. He stepped to the edge of the abyss and pulled a harmonica from his suitcoat pocket. He played that largo theme from that Dvorak symphony to which the words Going home were inevitably added. Small audience softened to a state of plasmic impressionability, Henry made a speech. He said, My father was a vain stubborn self-centered stiff-necked poker-playing whiskey-drinking gun-toting old son of a—gun. He was a good hunter, a good trapper, a poor farmer and a hotshot but reckless logger. He was hard on himself, on trees, machines and the earth. He never gave his wife the kind of home she wanted or the kind of life she deserved. He was cantankerous, ornery, short-tempered and contentious—probably the most contentious man that ever lived in Shawnee County. He was so contentious he never even realized how contentious he was. He had strong opinions on everything and a neighborly view on almost nothing. He was a hard man to get along with. But I’ll say this for him: he was honest. He never cheated anyone. He was gentle with children and animals. He always spoke his mind. And he was a true independent. Independent, like we say, as a hog on ice. I mean he really believed in self-reliance and liberty. He was what some call a hillbilly—but we call a mountaineer. The mountaineer is a free man. Yes, I know, West Virginia was sold to the coal companies and the chemical companies. Most of the people who live in this sad wrinkled-up pancreas-shaped state are serfs and peons these days, helpless dependents on the big corporations. But someday we’re going to change all that. West Virginians refused to fight for slavery in 1863; one of these days we’re going to fight against
slavery. Montani semper liberii—sic—mountain men will always be free. Our old man believed in that motto. And someday we’re going to prove him right. So long, Paw.

  Henry picked up a clod of dirt, crumbled it in his fist and cast the earthy crumbs on Joe Lightcap’s coffin. Grinning in his guts, grimfaced with satisfaction, he stepped back among the others. No one looked at him.

  Will was the last to pay tribute. He stepped forward. He held Paw’s big broken forty-pound chainsaw in his hand. A McCulloch original. He looked into the grave for a minute, then dropped the chainsaw on the coffin. It made an awful clatter. He said nothing and turned away.

  Well if that don’t wake him up, thought Henry, I reckon nothing ever will.

  The ceremony was complete. Mother walked away, arm in arm with her sister, Mary Holyoak, and Uncle Jeff and Marcie. The remainder of the mourners—all nine of them—shuffled off. Last to leave was the young minister. He shook hands with Will and Henry. I liked your sermon, he said to Henry; you ought to be a preacher yourself.

  I’ve thought of it, admitted Henry. And I liked your sermon too. Except for that last part—chapter twelve. I always did think chapter twelve must have been stitched on later. Maybe by some tentmaker who was good at patching up holes.

  The Reverend Cripps smiled. Why persecutest thou me? It’s a matter of interpretation, Mr. Lightcap. I once thought what you think. And then I thought again. He smiled once more, nodded and left, a long-haired short-legged little man on his way to the next Presbyterian outpost in Shawnee County. There were not many.

  Will and Henry watched him as he hastened to catch up with the widow and pay his respects to her.

  Will said, You gonna let him get away with that, Henry? Ain’t you gonna give him an argument?

  I was afraid he was waiting for the tip.

  Uncle Jeff’ll take care of that. That’s Holyoak business. He’s the banker.

  Henry looked at the open grave. Who’s going to fill in the hole?

  Will began to remove his coat. Me and you. He paused, looked down the hill toward the church and took a pint bottle, half full, from an inside pocket, and unscrewed the cap. Old Forester. He took a pull and handed the bottle, half empty, to Henry.

  Henry poured a modest portion on the coffin, then took a deep swig for himself. He wiped his mouth and looked down again at the wrecked chainsaw. Kind of a cheap gesture, Will. Why not the old crosscut saw? Or why not that beautiful two-bitted ax that Paw was always so proud of? Remember how he always said, if he found himself going down the New River in a sinking canoe, the first thing he’d grab would be his ax?

  Yeah. Will folded his suitcoat and laid it carefully on the clean grass of Paul’s grave. He loosened his necktie and rolled up his shirtsleeves. He picked up the two spades resting behind the dirt pile and handed one across the open grave to Henry. Yeah….

  How come, Will?

  How come what? Will spat on his palms and rubbed them together.

  How come the chainsaw instead of the ax?

  Will put his foot on the top edge of the spade and thrust it deep into the dirt. He levered up a full load and swung it easily into the grave. The dirt boomed on the hollow box below. He paused. Because, he said. Because that ax is a good tool. I already took all the parts I could use out of that there busted chainsaw.

  An hour later they climbed in the wagon and drove slowly down the red-dog road toward home. There was no other traffic through the woods. A little rain came down; petals of dogwood and leathery oak leaves lay scattered across the road. Thinking it evening, fooled again, the spring peepers began bleating their hearts out along the creek. Will and Henry rode the wagon into the Lightcap barn, unhitched the horses and walked them in harness the two miles farther to the Houser farm. When they got back to their own place, still walking, the April twilight had settled in. Marian and Marcie with her husband, Frank, and Lorrie waited for them. Supper was ready.

  The remainder of the Joe Lightcap family gathered around the dining room table, laid with a fresh cloth. Mother said a prayer:

  O Lord we thank thee

  once again. Thou hast taken

  another from us but the family

  remains. Paul is gone and now

  Joe is gone also. And our youngest

  lives in exile. But we trust and

  hope that he will be returned someday

  when the war is over. Meanwhile we take

  great joy in the young ones brought into

  the world by Will and Marian and Frank

  and Marcie. Some are gone, some stay,

  and the new lives come. Bless this house forever.

  O Lord, we thank thee.

  All seated themselves, leaving empty the place at the head of the table. They ate their supper in an amber glow of lamplight and memory. The meal consisted of mashed potatoes and turnips with venison gravy (Henry’s favorite dish), venison sausage (Will’s favorite, from a buck poached the season before on the side of Cheat Mountain) and string beans and tomatoes from Mother’s garden. (Canned the year before.)

  Near the end of the meal Lorrie announced that she was renting a small apartment near her brother Jeff’s house in Shawnee. She had decided that she was going to enroll as a student at the Shawnee State Teachers’ College, study music history, comparative religion, world literature and whatever else caught her interest. Too old? She was only sixty-four. Then to Marian and Will our mother said, I would like you two to live in this house. This place is too big and lonesome for me now. You kept the farm alive all these years; you deserve to live here. Marcie already has a good home. And Henry…She looked at him.

  Henry grinned back at her. And I’m a westerner.

  Yes, she said, you’re the westerner.

  So it happened. Will and his wife took possession of the farmhouse and with it title to the farm itself—barn, pigpen, sheds, well, springs, implements, pastures, fences, fields and woods—all that remained after our old man had logged off the old-growth timber, planted twenty acres in Christmas trees, left a sawdust pile by the creek, turned the barnyard into a lumberyard, grazed the meadow to death with a herd of black Angus beef cattle and leased one-third of the whole—180 acres minus 60—to the gas company and the coal company. (Union Carbide and U.S. Steel.)

  At the age of forty Will finally came into his heritage.

  Did he whine much or complain some about the sorry condition of his estate? Not that anyone ever heard. Not Will. Instead he got to work. Down to work.

  While young Henry Lightcap went back to the West, put on his ranger suit, adjusted the brim of his big hat, and looked forward to the end of tourist season, only five and a half months away, when he would again be freed from routine and regular hours, eligible to resume collecting unemployment compensation, once more at liberty to reconsider, on a fool-time basis, the ontological significance if any of sublunar existence. Such as it is. If it exists. Precisely the question. And also there was Claire. And Pamela. Also Sandy. And Candy. And Heather and Tammy and Ingrid, Valerie, Vanessa, Kitty and X. Not to mention Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Domenico Zapoli and Johann Sebastian Bach. Or Ludwig Wittgenstein, Arthur Schopenhauer, Diogenes in his doghouse, Heidegger in his Alpine cabin, Montaigne on his tower. And that lonesome juniper tree that lives by itself on a ledge of Jurassic sandstone three thousand feet above the confluence of the Green and Colorado rivers. Under the sun. Under God. God the fodder, God the ghost and God the holy sun. Deep in the space-time manifold.

  And also there was Claire.

  15

  Dreams

  Eastward, onward, I drive through Kansas in the moonlight. (Someone has to do it.) Or more exactly, through the moonlight over Kansas. The moonlight lends a special glamour to the flattest world. Nor do I mean to cast disdain upon our flattest state. No sir, by God, this is where our wheat comes from. Our bread, and more beef, honest unsubsidized taxpaying beef, than in the whole vast mythical sagebrush empires of Montana, Wyoming, Nevada, Utah and Idaho combined. In the Rocky Mount
ain states ranching is a rich man’s hobby but in the midwestern states, in the heart of the heart of America, it’s an earnest business carried on by serious folk doing real work for a worthy purpose: food.

  Cowboys. Cowboyism. I toss my empty out the window (Kansas needs a bottle bill) and screw the cap off another jug of Blatz. Rolla flits by at my elbow; ten miles of farmland then Hugoton; eleven miles and Moscow; sixteen and Satanta.

  Change the subject. The wind shrieks past my ear. Think of death and immortality. I extricate the pill bottle from the mess of junk in the glove box, brace the steering wheel between my knees and shake one small round tab of Dilaudid onto my palm. I pop the pill into my mouth and wash it down with a slug of the cheap rotten beer. A regular Lightcap nightcap these days and not for nothing either. I should have bedded down back there on the banks of the arid Cimarron but the moonlight and the crickets made me nervous. The furies of memory drove me on. Now I’ll be forced by the pill to find a campsite within thirty minutes.

  Seven miles from Satanta to Sublette. The moon shines down through a decent veil of clouds. The horizon is ringed with the lights of industrial agriculture—yard lights, security lights, flood lights, traffic lights. Each town crouches with empty streets beneath its grain elevators, pale lordly concrete towers lined up between highway and railway.

  Oil pressure down. I pause at an all-night gas station for fuel and two quarts of cheap oil. Can’t afford it, cashwise—less than $150 in my pocket now—but I’ve got to nurse the old Dodge along.

  The heavy-duty painkiller weighs on my eyelids. For a moment I doze off, then awake with an electric shock of panic to find myself veering into the left lane the wrong lane of this backcountry two-lane highway. I jerk my truck to the right. A forty-ton tractor-trailer rig thunders past on my left, air horn blaring. Cattle truck: the reek of doomed beasts floats on the air. I think of Auschwitz, Belsen, Dachau, Karaganda, Vorkuta, Igarka.