—It’s that old vanilla pudding we got when your friend came out here with the . . .
—Anything hot yes, I mean a few more pulls at the bottle he’s got wrapped in that old sock we can put ham gravy on it and he won’t know the difference, of course I suppose that means getting a ham.
—But how long will he be here?
—Well we’ve got to put him up overnight don’t we? I mean after a trip like that I’m sure he expects, oh Oscar. What’s going on in there.
—He’s watching cartoons on television Christina, listen. You’re aware that’s Father’s coat he’s got on aren’t you?
—Why, do you want it? And that battered old Gladstone bag that was Father’s too wasn’t it? God knows what else he’s got in it, I think I smell something burning. I mean bringing a can of human ashes as a house present he may plan to spend Christmas with a roaring fire in the fireplace it’s all he can talk about now, don’t you smell something? Burning bones and papers and libraries he’s, no! No he’s smoking in there Oscar go in and stop him! he’s a pyromaniac go in there and stop him before he burns the place to the ground will you? Lily I’m going up the back way and lie down until we can go shopping, if he gets hungry you can give him some of your pudding and start a list will you? Ham, put down ham and, and grits, don’t they eat grits?
—What are those.
—God only knows, just write it down will you? slipping off her shoes to find her way up the dark stairs as stealthily as she came down them when the empty kitchen had waked to the full light of day, through the hall to tap at the sunroom and lead out through the butler’s pantry and the tradesman’s entrance round to start the car with a bare murmur leaving the house and barren hearth behind.
—Where have you been!
—Well Oscar where does it look like we’ve been, let him take that one Lily it’s heavy, it’s got the ham in it. Will you help her?
—You’ve been gone since, slipping out without even telling me it doesn’t take three hours to buy a ham. Why did you buy a ham. I don’t like ham, I never liked ham and I don’t like . . .
—Will you simply take it in? or do you want to stand out here in the cold reciting poetry, it’s Sunday Oscar. We had to drive sixteen miles down the highway to find a place open in that revolting shopping mall with every bloated obese local specimen pushing mountains of inedible junk food wherever you wait, hold the door will you Lily? That bag’s splitting, will you see what he dropped? as they reached the kitchen, —just put it all down there.
—But what are these?
—Can’t you read the label? It says Tater Skins doesn’t it?
—And Black Bean Nacho Chips, Fried Hog Rinds why did you, Cream of Wheat? Does anyone here eat Cream of Wheat?
—For grits Oscar, they didn’t have grits so . . .
—But grits are corn, hominy grits are made from ground corn.
—Fine! Put ham gravy on it and he’ll be fine, I mean my God Oscar we can do something to make him feel at home short of burning the house down can’t we? He’s not smoking in there is he?
—No, he just brought those packages of Picayunes that Father left because he thought I might like them. He wants to know what we do for fun around here. He thinks the place is gloomy. He says if we’ll put a pool table in there he’ll show me a few tricks.
—Put in a, I mean my God how long does he expect to stay! He was just bringing up some papers and things for us to sign wasn’t he? about the will? I mean Father left more than a few packages of Picayunes didn’t he?
—He brought Father’s decision in that case about Spotskin and Hiawatha’s Magic Mittens, do you want to hear about little James B suing his father as guardian over the royalties and a local court appointing his lawyer J Harret Ruth as his conservator? about the thrilling success of his father’s junkyard theme park The American Way as a tourist attraction till a three year old got locked in an old fashioned icebox? about little James B himself hailed before Wink County Court over his mastiff and salukis fighting making the night hideous with their howls? He brought this latest Cyclone Seven First Amendment decision where Szyrk and the Village reversed their positions before two little kids drove a pickup truck into it just before he came up here and . . .
—Please! I don’t want to hear about it, I mean you’re the one who was longing for someone to talk to weren’t you?
—I didn’t say somebody to listen to did I? I tried to talk to him about the movie, about how the whole thing ended and he said at Appomattox he thought I meant the war so when I told him the war could have ended right there at Antietam if McClellan had sent in his reserves or if Burnside hadn’t made such a mess of that bridge crossing and pulled up short of Sharpsburg when Lee’s lines were destroyed or if they’d cut off Lee’s retreat that night across the Potomac at Boetler’s Ford we would have . . .
—Lily turn on the oven will you? I suppose we have to bake this thing I’ve never fixed one, it probably tells you on the wrapper God knows how long it will take.
—He usually has dinner around four thirty Christina, he said . . .
—At four thirty! We’re not running a nursing home here, you can fix him a nice plate of Tater Skins and try to straighten out all this business about Father, that’s why he came up here isn’t it?
—No but that’s what I’m trying to tell you, he finally admitted he didn’t know how it ended, he said Father got up and walked out after that great battle scene when that ghostly spectre appeared standing there brooding over those two corpses in the Bloody Lane that was supposed to be Grandfather and when I said maybe that was why Father was upset with me for exploiting the family and Grandfather if he thought I wrote the script like it said in the newspaper and I asked him to read my last act he said he . . .
—My God, just hand me that bag of Tater Skins and a napkin, do I have to do it myself like everything else around here? and over a shoulder as she reached the hall —Lily, we’ll eat when we usually do if he can make it to the table, put the ham in when the oven gets hot and then read the directions and some yams in with it, they’re in that bag on the floor.
Bake uncovered on a rack in preheated 325° oven 1/2 hour to the pound, remove 1 hour before it is done and cut away rind, score with diagonal gashes, dot with cloves and glaze with 11/4 cups brown sugar, 1 tsp dry mustard, 2 tblsp vinegar, garnish with pineapple slices.
• • •
—But what about the gravy?
—There wasn’t any, there was just this what looked like this little piece of tar in the bottom of the pan so I threw it out.
—Well we’ve got to eat, get him in to the table will you Lily? And you can start carving this thing Oscar, I mean there’s no sense hauling it in there it’s enough for an army, hand me a glass will you? And where’s the scotch, I mean I don’t dare take it in to the table for obvious reasons God, I wish Harry were here, don’t cut yourself. Has she put out the silver? And for God’s sake keep the wine at your end of the table, we’d better put it in a carafe just the sight of a bottle could, oh Lily. Are we ready?
—He’s asleep.
—Well wake him up!
—I can’t. I poked him a little and he just sort of moaned with that empty bag of Tater Skins in his hand, he looks sort of yellow.
—I mean you don’t think he’s had a seizure or something do you? did you feel his pulse? Oscar go and see.
—No I just, I didn’t want to touch him it’s sort of spooky, he . . .
—Don’t be ridiculous, Oscar put that knife down and do something.
—I am not going in there and feel his pulse Christina. Why did you give him that whole bag of Tater Skins, no wonder he’s turned yellow, you can take these plates in Lily I’ll bring the . . .
—Why on earth should she take the plates in, I mean we can sit down and eat right here in peace and quiet now can’t we? Whatever made me think I could sit down with him in there to straighten out these papers we have to sign for Father’s estate, every time he dug for them
in that awful Gladstone bag he came up with something else, didn’t we fix a vegetable? I thought we had some peas, those instructions he gave the jury over that wretched child that drowned letting Jesus in at the back door when he’d just finished throwing God out of the courtroom when that odious dog was killed? I mean Harry thought they’d be livid when he practically indicted Jesus for manslaughter but they came out singing his praises for respecting their intelligence of course they hardly understood a word he said, throwing in a Latin phrase or two they thought he was speaking in tongues, Jesus he talked English didn’t he? her voice rising to the nasal cadences of far off Stinking Creek—right there in the Bible where he cast those devils into a herd of swine that ran into the sea and drowned just like the time those pigs old Jim Harps had to run and get drowned right there in the Pee Dee where the county agent said it was probably swine fever got to them, did you take those yams out? They’re probably burnt to a crisp, not that it matters at this point pour some wine will you, Lily? Talking to them in their own language with that story about the bonfire sparks blowing over and setting the neighbor’s house afire same thing with old Frank somebody, set a trash fire blew right over and burned Goody’s corncrib down to the ground wouldn’t pay him a red cent, I can’t possibly eat all this Oscar here, take it back. They liked how he got at them Catholics too, baptising their young before they’re hardly off the tit I mean my God, respecting their intelligence? Just a good thing they had a fine man like the Judge to hold this trial, had it down there at Wink County Court with some jury from Tatamount and Stinking Creek where everybody knowed how Billye Fickert shacked up with that fertilizer salesman before she married Hoddy Coops after Earl took off for Mississippi when they run him out for throwing lye down Hoddy’s well a jury like that would have give the whole store away, can you tell me how Father could have put up with that for thirty years? can you?
—No wait Christina, that doesn’t make sense giving the whole store away to somebody who . . .
—That’s what I’m telling you! None of it makes sense, naming this, this babbling lunatic his executor? I mean you think there may not be something to it? that talk about madness running in the family when that loathsome Senator Bilk was ready to impeach him? burning his effigy down there one day and what a great man he was the next when Bilk feels the wind change blowing his trash fire over to burn down Goody’s corncrib so he grabs Father’s ghost for his reelection campaign while his law clerk sits in there eating Tater Skins with a spicy story about Old Lardass he wanted to tell me when I finally gave up, you can try again in the morning I simply haven’t the strength.
—No but wait, don’t you want . . .
—I’m exhausted Lily, I can’t eat another bite just hand me my glass, I’m going up the back way and if Harry calls? already slipping off her shoes —will somebody wake me?
—I never even knew those stairs were back there.
—But then you never had servants either did you, oh and Oscar? pausing there in the shadows —for the love of God, make sure he’s got no cigarettes when you put him in the library for the night, I mean he’ll burn it down and then tell us it’s just like a great man dying.
—It’s spooky she whispered, to the fading creak of treads and risers gone so long untrodden up the dark stairs, taken up when darkness had stilled through the kitchen itself and the bare floorboards of the halls, the hesitant opening of a bathroom door and the wavering trickle that followed, the shuffle of carpet slippers and the distant clatter of a fallen spoon pulling the pillow over her head till at last the eery light of the fishtank yielded to the sunroom reclaiming its name with a day soft as spring and the echo of raucous laughter down the hall.
—What in God’s name is that.
—He’s in there watching a game show.
—At this hour? Oscar take him some coffee and get him started digging out those papers we’re to sign before he gets his hands on that vile green sock again, Lily? What’s this mess on the stove.
—He must have made Cream of Wheat when he was up in the night.
—And the ham, did we leave the ham out? It looks like somebody’d gone at it with an axe.
—Maybe it was these mice that I . . .
—Lily there are no damn mice you’re just seeing shadows, I mean did you hear him out there?
—Maybe he didn’t turn the light on, I heard these noises and this shuffling in the hall when the bathroom door squeaked and this trickle trickle trickle every time he went in there because he left the door open, it was spooky.
—Well it’s more than spooky, as soon as Oscar digs out these papers to sign we can drive him to the airport, I mean we can’t live huddled here in the kitchen like hostages while he sits in there looking like death warmed over cradling that sock in his lap watching game shows and, Harry hasn’t called has he?
—That was Reverend Bobby Joe about Daddy, where he just got out of jail down there? banging the saucepan in the sink, scraping the dregs, muttering —they ought to of kept him there.
—Your daddy’s full of surprises isn’t he, you can throw out those yams too they’re burnt to a crisp.
—It’s not him no, it’s Reverend Bobby Joe that was in jail for yelling at that trial of that boy that got drowned when Daddy was coming up here to get reconciled? So now he can’t come because he’s going in the hospital for this big operation where Reverend Bobby Joe’s down there giving him all this spiritual comfort getting him right with the Lord in case the Lord calls him and if I should go down there and . . .
—Yes, well meanwhile you can go in and see if Oscar’s getting anywhere before the Lord calls all of us, I mean you’d think he could simply pick up the phone and tell me what’s going on, I am his wife aren’t I? Driving out of here like a madman for some kind of showdown with Bill Peyton you can never have a showdown with Bill Peyton, are we out of milk again? I mean that’s why he’s their managing partner, pats you on the back, tells you a joke, you’re off for a chat with the firm’s psychiatrist and suddenly you realize he’s thrown you both ends of the rope up there on the bridge waving goodbye while you’re not waving you’re drowning, now where are you going.
—In to see whether Oscar . . .
—Never mind, I’ll do it myself like everything else here, and those crumbs and God knows what under the table when you sweep up? already through the door with —Oscar? and up the hall —where are you! but here before her loomed only the solitary figure seated in the halo of the screen busied just then with a woman gnashing gleaming dentures with her secret for keeping them in place taken up, as though on cue, in a grimace of clamping in the real thing that stopped her dead. —But, but where’s Oscar? At this a hand came up to flutter fingers stained with a generation of Picayunes off in the direction of the pond, the sea, the tired waves vainly breaking, where hopes were dupes fears might be liars, could they turn this thing off so they could get down to business? breaking through the mists of God only knew what lost soliloquy still trembling on his lips to bring him forward gasping over the gaping Gladstone and hand over a clutch of letters in a faded hand bound up with twine which she thrust aside with the emptied Black Bean Nacho Chips bag from the floor, he’d brought some papers up here for them to sign hadn’t he? her free hand scribbling a lavish signature on the air but wait, those letters? The Judge had wrenched them away from those old biddies at the historical society, threatened them with perdition if they didn’t hand them over when some black showed up down there trying to register them for copyright, maybe should have burned them like the rest of the Judge’s papers but once they’d burned the Judge himself they weren’t rightly his anymore but the survivors’, looked up the law on it right there in 17 U.S. Code 201(d)(1) where copyright ownership may be bequeathed by will or pass as personal property, couldn’t copyright them once he’d burned them up could they? right there in Section 203(a)(2)(c) where the rights of the author’s children and grandchildren are in all cases divided among them and exercised on a per stirpes basis just th
ought he ought to explain it doing his duty as executor right to the letter, those old biddies had already let some outsider in to read them where they had no business to was when the Judge read them the riot act and —Please! she beseeched him, half across the room now to toss the packet on the heap of bills and brochures, threats and glossy invitations to prospects of still further threats crowding the sideboard —you, thank you you, thank you for taking such care but, yes but now what you want us to sign and get it over with so you can get back to your, to get home we can take you to the airport or whatever you, or the bus if you . . .
—Christina?
—Well my God Oscar where have you been! I thought you, who’s that.
—Yes it’s Mrs, it’s that real estate woman Christina, she’s got a prospect waiting out in her car and I’ve tried to tell her there’s some misunderstanding because when I called her we . . .
—This is ridiculous, I mean why on earth did you let her in.
—I thought it was somebody answering my ad for a secretary and . . .
—I just said ridiculous didn’t I? and she turned on the woman with—what made you think the place was for sale?
—Why, I’ve been here before you know, and when your husband called I thought the first thing I could do was to . . .
—He is not my husband! and the second thing you can do is to be on your way.
—No that’s quite all right, I’ve plenty of time and it’s such a beautiful day. You don’t mind if I look around a little do you? smiling the lipstick on her teeth —such a charming site, and just look at the view! flinging a handful of red nails at the pond out there as though already embarked on a sale —or if you’re only thinking of renting? Because you’d need a good deal of work done wouldn’t you, that front porch to start with it’s positively dangerous and old Mister Paintbrush to brighten things up, it’s a little gloomy in here isn’t it but . . .