The first time I seen them was the last time. That is, first and last, they were always there, or so it seemed. Always. Late mornings. Or just after the main group of the lunch crowd had cleared weekdays, there they just were. Came out of the woodwork or from the back kitchen or the men’s room. Always sitting in the corner, with one of them sitting facing the other two, swiveled around on one of the lunch counter stools to form, what is it? the apex? Yes: the apex of a triangle of conversation—a conversation that you would have to walk through to get to the back dining room or to the restrooms or the bulletin board where they posted the auctions for the week and the notices of church suppers and the like. Early afternoons, it was a conversation I often walked through, and, as though its words were gossamer clinging to my outfit or my apron or my coffee pot, I often carried some away.
I remember two of them from my childhood, so you will have to forgive me if I see them as perhaps a bit younger and a bit more vital then they are. Howard’s the one who always sits on the stool. Mr. Apex. And his old-time friend Burkemeister who lives up to Sabin, he sits always looking away to the east, straight into the knotty pine woodwork of the corner as though its a window. And the third, the one facing west and looking out towards the door, well, that’s the youngest of this group, the only one who is still farming—Ralph. Ralph Wenger, it would be.
Ralph was sitting there in a short sleeve plaid shirt with his thinning air and his glasses all silver, and he was focusing the group’s attention on the activity of the weekend. A kind of Monday quarterbacking it was, but it wasn’t all about the Packers. Ralph was discussing his weekend of tree trimming. If he was a year, Ralph was surely fifty, but he looked kind of youngish in his present company as he described taking down the long extended branches of a cherry tree on his place.
“Well, you know, you’d be surprised.”
His hair looked like it needed a cap. There was line where one would be most days, but he was in his town clothes and, with Today’s Special of roast beef and mashed potatoes and gravy, a side of cottage cheese, and a slice of bread with butter all directly in front of him, he was in no great hurry to get back. Besides, he had an audience.
How trapped they were, pinned into the corner by his words, I could not really tell, because I only heard what I heard while making change at the register or working the coffee route around that bend from back dining room to side dining room.
He’d glance up, noticing my plaid skirt, as I broke through the invisible barrier of his words at that turn in the counter with my coffee and again later with a sandwich order for the side room. And then he would just as quickly be back into those trees.
“Carl, he has some real experience with those booms, so he showed up around—oh, I guess eleven it was—to do some super-visory work.”
“He did…” Mr. Apex said with a tone that invited further forays. Howie was always sitting on that swivel.
“Yes,” Ralph responded right on cue. “Didn’t say much. Looked it all over. Walked around the truck and looked at the jack stands and kind of squinted up at things.”
“Well, I suppose, he would be there all right,” said Apex.
“Oh yes! And he’s got an eye for things, you know.“
“Yeah… and when he finds what it is he is looking for, he also has a voice as I recall.”
Ralph smiled. “Well, he didn’t say much Saturday noon. The limbs were coming down nicely and working in that basket was pretty slick. Only I sure hate to lose a tree like that.”
“Yeah.” Burkemeister grunted. The rest of what he said was lost while I rang up another Special but, whatever it was, it didn’t slow Ralph any. He just shifted some and ran his hand up through the strands of his thinning hair as though looking for the bill of his cap and then plunged ahead.
“Yeah. I sort of feel like a part of me dies when those trees come down. After all those years. I just hate to see a tree go.”
“Uh huh.” Burkemeister, it seemed, was not a tree hugger. I wondered if he owned a woodlot. Lots of trees up there in the back forties around Sabin.
“So it all went pretty slick,” Apex said. “Say, wasn’t Carl the one who had an operation a while back?”
“Yes indeed, Howie.” Ralph said.
“’Bout a year back, fourteen months?”
“Yes, that’s it. Last year when we just were coming off the haying season.”
“I thought so,” said Apex, anxious to make the point, “and how’s he gettin’ along with that prostrate of his!”
“Oh fine! But it wasn’t the prostate, Howie.”
“It wasn’t!” Twirling a bit on his stool, Apex looked surprised.
“No, it was some kind of a nasty gut surgery that Carl had. You know, one of them inflammatory things, Di ver tick cu lit tis!”
“Oh…okay.”
“He had a real nasty go of it up there at the University Hospital was what I heard, but you would never know it.”
“Yeah. Well, fourteen months, I suppose that helps some!”
At this point, more of what was said was lost in a milk shake lesson I was giving Mabel. She’s new—a woman in her late forties with heavy arms and kind of thick glasses and a real good heart. But, for some reason, that mix-master milkshake machine bothers her. She was real timid about it, so we stood there, not four feet from the men, and I looked at Ralph with his ruddy face and the pens and notebook in the bulging pocket of his checked shirt as he turned towards Burkemeister, who apparently was commenting on Carl’s medical woes. Whatever it was, it was lost in the clatter and chatter and the groan of the machine.
Mabel poured the first part of the shake out into one of the glasses. I gave the shake a twirl or two more on the machine and put the remaining portion into another glass, and, when I could hear again, it was Ralph once more doing the talking.
“Oh, that might be, Russell,” looking at Burkemeister, “but you’ve got to remember that a guy like that’s not going to be kept down long. Now that fella’s got drive. He’s a rebounder. And when I saw him down at the mill or ran into him in town, he’s a guy who always gives me the impression that he thinks he’s got an awful lot of juice.”
Ralph had been looking straight at Burkemeister, but after making this last statement, he kind of leaned back in his chair and shifted some so that he could take in both Apex and Russell as he leaned forward and lowered his voice a notch:
“You know what I mean?”
Both men said they did not. And so the highway for Ralphie was broad and wide and paved smooth just like that new bridge they’ve been building over the Kickapoo down on Front Street. I walked back towards the kitchen where I could pretend to be waitin’ on an order as Ralph continued:
“Well, you know Carl. Serious as hell one minute and then off he goes. Yesterday when I got down off that boom and out of the bucket, well he tells me that he’s been on one of them Viagra stimulus meds.”
“No!” Burkemeister offered in his deep voice.
“Well, that’s Carl.”
“Yeah,” Apex said, “I suppose it would be.”
“Yes. And he said it really works, too. He said that he had it for seven days.”
“No.” Again the deep voice sounded from the corner.
“Seven days he says he had it. Running around the house chasin’ the wife. Chasin’ her all over until she finally locked herself in the bedroom was how he told it.”
Just then the bells on the door to Ida’s jingled and two customers came in bound for the side room. I kind of turned from the register where I just had finished ringing up a bill and made off to get them water and menus, but Mabel was there ahead of me. Another, though, was coming out with check in hand, so I turned and walked back to the register and right back to these three locked into their Male Sexual Legend.
“Well,” Burkemeister snorted, “that just sounds like Carl, don’t it. He would have himself wandering around in a high state of—mind, now, wouldn’
t he?”
“Locked herself in her room?” Apex still was a step or two behind, not yet ready for any kind of analysis.
“Oh, Howie, that’s just what he said,” Ralph stated, looking at Apex directly, “but of course you have to take it with a grain or two of salt.”
“Or salt peter!” Burkemeister boomed out.
The corners of Ralph’s mouth started to turn up at Burkemeister’s commentary, but I could see that there was more to this business that he wanted to get out. To regain control, he curled his body and lowered his gaze:
“Well. Seven days is a wonderful thought, I suppose, for old Carl. But the fact is that the man’s heart would go if” –and here he lowered his voice for emphasis—“it was still, you know, active much of that time.”
“Yeah?” Howie was catching up.
“Yessir! And here’s how I know. You know Walter Broske?”
“Heard of him,” offered Burkemeister.
“Yes!” Apex responded.
“Oh,’course you do, Howie. Well, Walter did have prostate surgery. About two or three years ago. A complete one, too; I guess they took it all.”
Burkemeister groaned. Apex shifted his place so that his elbow, resting on the counter, now lifted as he stroked his chin.
“And back then, well, they give him this shot to take.”
“Oh I see,” said Apex.
“Yeah, this shot, and Walter said that they really scared him with it. Kept talking it up all the time. Don’t let it go too long.”
“Scared him, I suppose,” Burkemeister said.
“Yes. When they gave it out, they kept saying that after three hours, max, after three hours if it is not down,YOU COME ON IN!” He whispered this last part for emphasis and because he was aware that I was not that far away. I looked over in their direction and saw their little cluster drawing closer and was almost sad for them, the schoolboy awkwardness, the fascination with sexual function barely disclosed. And then I thought of Walter, who comes in sometimes, and of him inventing this grand erection, this masculine tower behind which to hide the hurt cut deep into his body. Or was it Ralph?
Apex’s hand paused near the point of his chin as he considered the Walter’s dilemma. “How’s that?” He was falling behind again.
“Well,” Howie, “I guess that’s the limit. Can’t go on longer because it’s too hard on your heart.”
“Yeah,” said Burkemeister, suddenly an expert.
I only half-wanted to be there. I knew Ralph was coming to something good. I could see it in his eyes and in the way that he was nursin’ this thing along, but I couldn’t stay too close. I walked past them on the counter side, past the milkshake machine and down past the ice cream in the freezer chest and towards the clean plates and silverware. I pulled out a couple of placemats and silver for a table nearby, close enough for whatever it was that was coming, while Ralph continued.
“The first time Walter tried it, he said it went real good only it wouldn’t go down. He gave himself the shot just like they said, but it just refused.”
“No!” said Burkemeister, right on cue.
“That’s what he said. Just wouldn’t.”
“So he went on in to the ER?” Apex offered
“Yup.” Ralph said. I suppose I really screwed him up by going right on through this invisible wall right at the height of his tale by coming with my coffee pot, but I didn’t care. Fact is, Ralphie was headin’ in a direction that was getting worrisome. I could see Kittie and Miss Angelica in the next room, the blue tint of their two heads bent together as they counted change, getting ready with their bill, and I was afraid that a little of Ralph’s bawd in the midst of their early afternoon tea might be upsetting to them and get back to Miss Ida, so I went in there as though I hadn’t heard a word.
“Coffee, boys!”
This jerked Ralph back to reality. He turned towards his cup and offered it up limply, while Burkemeister clutched his, “No thanks. Three’s my limit!” he boomed. So that left Apex, who had turned around back to his cold cup on the counter. He offered it my way:
“Thanks, Darlene.”
I took my time, walking away from them, and I could feel their eyes on my back as Ralph gathered what remained of his thoughts on the matter:
“He went on in. And you know Walter. I mean, he’s not just going to go in. He’s going to go in. Comes in there with this swagger. And speaks his problem out real plain. I mean, when Walter has a problem, you’re going to hear about it. Real plain.”
“Yeah.” Howie was laughing into his coffee cup, but Ralph was not stopping.
“Said the nurse just refused—wouldn’t even look at him. Just waited for the doctor. I guess she didn’t want to believe in this three hour business. But then the doc came and fixed him up with whatever it is that they give you in situations like that. Another shot or something.”
“Salt peter shot,” offered Burkemeister unimaginatively, and then they were off to talk of the coming corn harvest and the bean crop.
The last time I came through, no one wanted coffee. But, like I said, I walked away with these little wisps of their conversation stuck to my outfit and placed in my mind. And that’s why I suppose I am telling you all about it now.
It’s funny, you know. Ralph’s got a kid in college, been married about twenty eight, thirty years. But old Burkemeister, he never married. I remember him as a kid, always standing in a circle of men. I don’t think I ever knew of him even havin’ a woman. And Clarese, who kind of tracks things pretty good up there in Sabin and who’s got a nose for news, she’s of the same mind.
Howie? Well, his wife died about ten years ago. I really don’t know where he was with all of this at the end. Didn’t say much.
And then there’s Ralph, sitting there, having divested himself of all this news, looking around as he did, for his audience to respond on cue as he told his tale of Sir Walter, and all the time sitting there, with them little pills tucked into his front shirt pocket.
“Antibiotics,” he told me two days later.
“Just some antibiotics, Darlene,” as I poured Ralphie his second refill of the morning while he was fishin’ one of them things out of his shirt front.
“I see, honey,” I said, pouring away. And then he actually looked around in the room, small as it is, and whispered,
“Prostatitis. Just a little flare-up, you know.”
Did I want to know all this?
Anyway, he seemed to go out of his way to tell me, and I caught the drug name while he was putting on the cap. You know me. Couldn’t let it go. I checked with Verna at the Medical Center, and sure enough. The stuff’s not for prostatitis at all.
It’s for cancer.
AT THE WINDOW
The window becomes a part
of his mind’s history, the entrance
of days into it. And awake
now, watching the water flow
beyond the glass, his mind
is watched by a spectre of itself
that is a window on the past.
–Wendell Berry, No.16, Window Poems