“It wouldn’ta been no diff’rent. No matter what you say.”
“Hey, I had plans.”
“Yeah?” the old man said. “Like what?”
“We was gonna go eat somewheres. Maybe picnic out somewheres too. Buy him somethin’ nice.”
“Tell him that.”
His father looked at the kid. He seemed to have trouble focusing. He scratched at his head and grabbed the back of one of the chairs and spun it and sat down hard. He shook his head to clear it and mopped his face with the palm of his hand. The back of it was grimy and the fingernails were rimmed with black. “Well, shit, kid. I dunno. I kinda thought we’d just find out what you wanted to do most. Wanda here’s a friend. We’re kickin’ up our heels some. Work hard, play hard, you know?”
The kid stared at him. The room was quiet but for street sounds and the dull clump of footfalls on the second floor. His father was flustered and he hitched about in the chair and the kid watched him eye the bottles on the counter. He sweat. His eyes were webbed with red and the kid could see the yellow pall of tobacco on his fingertips. “You’re supposed to try to get to know me like a father knows a son,” he said quietly.
“Jesus. I know that. Think I didn’t want that? Think I’da asked you here if I didn’t wanna get to that?”
“You lied. All you wanna do is drink and dance and break stuff.”
“Wanted to see ya, was the point of it all.”
“Well, you seen me.”
“I’m your dad.”
The kid shook his head. “Ain’t got one. Never had one. Wouldn’t know what it’s supposed to mean ’cept what you show.”
“Hey, I’m workin’ at the mine now. I got money. I could give you some. You could get you somethin’ nice.”
The kid looked up at the old man. There was a stern cast to his face and he eased the kid back through the door and
stood facing his father, who looked up with his mouth hung open. He seemed dumbstruck and simple. “He’s got no call for your money. He come here wantin’ some of you. Not yer money. Any fool can give cash.”
“Sorry.”
“Tell
him
that.”
“I’m sorry, kid.”
The kid only stared. The old man turned his head and regarded him a moment and then put his hand on the door. “Wait for me outside, Frank,” he said.
The kid turned and walked down the dank hallway and through the busted door and out into the yard. A fat tomcat sat cleaning his paws on the sun-warmed walk. He could hear raised voices. He felt awkward as though there was something expected of him that he had no idea of. It made him feel sad and he wanted to cry but he didn’t know why. So he shifted his feet and kicked at loose pebbles of cement. Some of it rattled by the cat and he sprang to his feet and rolled his girth down the walk and down the street. The kid held a breath in his cheeks and stared back at the house.
After a while the old man came out and stood beside him. “Sorry you had to see that,” he said.
“He’s just lettin’ off steam is what he said.”
“I mean I’m sorry you had to see him like that.”
“Drunk.”
“Yeah. It ain’t proper.”
“What’s proper mean?”
“It means ya come to kids clean. Not slopped-out drunk. I apologize for bringin’ ya so you had to see that.”
“So there’s not gonna be no stories, no picnic, nothin’.”
“Not this time, no. But I spied an ice cream joint on our
way through town. How’s about you’n me treat ourselves to a big dish of that?”
“Okay. But you know what?”
“What?” the old man asked.
“We’re both kinda at the same spot, him’n me.”
“Is that a fact?”
“Well, he don’t know nothin’ about bein’ a father and I don’t know nothin’ about bein’ a son. Kinda makes us even, I figure.”
The old man pinched his lips together solemnly and then leaned down and put both hands on the kid’s shoulders. He looked at him openly and the kid felt uncomfortable. “You know everythin’ there is to know ’bout bein’ a son. Trust me on that.”
The kid nodded. When the old man straightened and took a step down the sidewalk the kid stood there and stared at the house. It seemed to sag like it was tired, as though it had borne weight for far too long and needed to slump to the ground. There were cracks in all the windows. Shingles had come loose and blown away in the wind. Down the one side was a tangle of lilacs, un-pruned and ramshackle, old and uncared for, scraping against the side of the house, and there was only one bloom. It sat high at the point farthest from the house. A small dab of colour. It made the house more sullen, bleaker, and the kid wanted to pluck it and carry it somewhere where it would not feel alone, save it maybe, in a jar in the sunlight, and he felt the tears come until the old man walked back and put his arm around him and they made their way back to the barn where they’d left the horses.
He didn’t go again until the next year. It was his birthday. The old man rode along but stayed at the farm with his friends and the kid walked to his father’s place alone. There had been no letters, till the one recently asking for him to come. Whenever he thought about him he felt sad and remembered the drunken dance he’d done with the woman named Wanda and the dumbstruck look on his face when the old man had faced him down. His father was like a photograph that had been in the light too long. He was a stranger. But the kid felt a tie to him and there was a dull ache when he thought of him so he didn’t lend much time to those thoughts. Still, there were fathers around the school, families, and the talk of them, and he was embarrassed at his lack. It made him more of an outsider. The old man taught him the word “guardian.” It meant protector. It meant that as long as the old man was around there was nothing for him to be afraid of. It meant he was safe and cared for. But it didn’t mean “father.” The definition of that word was left to his observation. The men he saw around the school were quiet in the way of country folk but bearing a strength and resiliency he could see in the way they walked and held themselves. He never saw them drunk. He never saw them in a light that was less than predictable and he came to believe that fathers were made of trustworthy stuff, heroic in quiet ways, strong, made up of a thousand small details. He wondered if time was what held them in place long enough to get to know those details. So when he was asked to share a birthday with his father he was gladdened and went eagerly.
“See here,” the old man said, showing him the words on the page of the letter. “He says that he promises to be straight. Says ten is a mighty important age and he wants to be with ya.”
“You figure he means it?”
“As much as he can, I guess.”
“Kinda wonder how much that is.”
“Can’t know. Up to you.”
He was suddenly big for his age. Heavier, bulkier than the skinny kids at school. The work around the farm gave him a rugged, tensile strength that showed in his walk and the slope of his shoulders. He didn’t look ten. When he walked through the town people studied him for a stranger and he kept his head high and walked purposefully. His father had moved and the kid found the street a few blocks away from where he’d last seen him. It was a brighter neighbourhood. The homes were neat and groomed and he liked the way the lawns framed for the verandahs and porches and the grand three-storey cliffs of them. The smells of paint, mown grass, and baking hung in the soft, unmoving air of morning. His father’s place was at the far end of the wide street.
At first it struck the kid that maybe he had the number wrong. The house was painted a pale orange with blue trim. There was a truck in the driveway. There were flowerboxes hung along the length of the verandah and there was a swing rocker and deep wooden deck chairs. The main door was open. Through the outside screen door he could see people moving and heard the sound of laughter. He looked at the paper in his hand and then opened the gate and walked down the walk toward the front steps. A tall woman with white hair and blue eyes answered his knock.
“You’d be Frank, wouldn’t you?” she asked.
“Ma’am,” the kid said.
“I’m Jenna. Your father is so excited you were coming I swear he bathed twice.”
“That’s good, ma’am. It’s my birthday.”
“I know, and we are so glad to have you. Come in. I’ll call your father.”
The house was cool. The wooden floors gleamed with waxing and there were thick carpets everywhere. The kid had never seen plants indoors but the front room was filled with them. The furniture was pillowed and sturdy. He sat on the edge of a sofa and put his hand down and rubbed at the material. The place seemed to shine with care. Several men drifted down the hallway and then back and up the stairs where the woman had gone. They looked at the kid quizzically. They were big, muscled men in work socks, flannel shirts, and jeans. None of them said a word.
His father walked down the stairs behind Jenna. She was smiling when she entered the room and went to a chair beside the sofa and sat. His father stood in the doorway leaning against the jamb. He’d shaved and scrubbed his face ruddy. He wore jeans and a white shirt. He had his hands folded in front of him and the nails were trimmed. His hair was freshly cut and slicked back and when he looked at the kid he had a surprised look as though he were unused to appearing like that. The kid smiled.
“You ride them horses here again?” his father asked.
“Yeah. It’s what we like best.”
“Long ride.”
“Yeah. But good.”
“This here’s Jenna. She’s my landlady.”
“What’s that?”
“Means I’m a roomer. Me an’ all the other guys work at the mill and rent out rooms here. She cooks for us, bags us lunches. It’s a good go.”
“I’ve packed a whopping picnic for you two,” Jenna said. “It’s such a grand day you’ll have a wonderful time.”
“What are we doin’?” the kid asked.
“Expect you’ll have to open yer gift in order to know,” his father said.
“You got me a gift?”
“It’s yer birthday isn’t it?”
“Yeah but …”
“But nothing. Birthdays are for presents and if you go into the kitchen it’s on the table waitin’ fer ya.”
The kid rose and the three of them walked down the hallway to the kitchen that was flooded with sunlight. There was a long, skinny package on the table wrapped in bright paper and tied with a ribbon. He stood a few feet away and stared at it.
“Go on,” his father said.
He sat and pulled the package to him and stared at it. Then he cast a look at his father and Jenna and eased a thumb into the seam. He parted the paper gently.
“Go on,” his father said. “Just rip it.”
He tore the paper off. It was a fishing rod. It was a two-piece rod with a reel and a small tin box of flies. He’d never used a rod and reel. The old man had taught him to bush fish with a hand line or trot lines baited and set out at night. He held the rod in his hands and looked at it as though it were a magical thing. He ran a palm along its length and felt its smoothness.
“You know how to fly-fish?” his father asked.
“No,” the kid said.
“Well, ya will by the end of today. There’s some big trout where we’re goin’. The rig is all set up with line in the reel. All’s ya gotta do is learn to throw it out there.”
“You know how?”
“Well, I ain’t exactly the best fisher but I can toss a fly out, yeah.”
“Thanks.”
“Hey, I figure every kid should fish with his old man.”
Jenna had baked a small cake and they had a piece each. She packed the remainder in wax paper and set it in a wicker basket on the counter. She handed it to his father. “Take care with the truck,” she said.
“I will.”
She kept her hand on the handle of the basket and looked sternly at his father. “I mean it now, Eldon. You take care. No foolishness. Not today.”
“I hear ya,” he said. “It’s my kid’s birthday. God.”
He turned to the kid. “No hooch, kid. Not today. Promise. All right?”
“Sure,” the kid said.
His father looked pointedly at Jenna. She held the look a moment longer then let go of the basket. His father rattled keys in his pocket and grinned at the kid. “Burnin’ daylight, young’un,” he said. He walked down the hallway and the kid wiped cake crumbs off his face with the napkin Jenna had set by his plate. He thanked her. She smiled and put a hand on his head and looked at him steadily. Her eyes were so clear the kid felt as though he were falling into them.
“Go,” she said. “Have the best day.”
His father was waiting by the truck. It was red with black fenders and wooden slats on both sides of the bed. The kid climbed into the passenger side and set the rod between his knees. His father sat down behind the wheel and gripped it with both hands, staring out the windshield at Jenna, who
stood with her hands on her hips at the top of the verandah stairs. He waved weakly. She only stared. He put the key in the ignition and the truck fired up right away and he slipped it into gear and backed slowly out of the driveway and drove carefully down the street. “Old worrywart,” he said.
“She seems nice,” the kid said.
“Battle-axe is what she is.” The kid turned to him. “Means she’s more bother’n good.”
“She give ya her truck.”
“Don’t mean she’s not a snoop and a stool pigeon.”
His father threw him a look. He drove slowly until he turned the corner and then he stepped on the gas, worked the clutch fast, and the truck revved and spun gravel. His father whooped and slammed a palm on the steering wheel. He reached over and gave the kid a playful shake. Then he shifted gears and sped up as they passed the mill. They hit the edge of town and he worked the gears hard and they rounded a long, sweeping curve and were off.
He felt the pull of the country. The road his father drove was single lane and it wound its way up around the foot of a low mountain before it cut between twin rock columns at the head of a wide alpine meadow. There was a creek there, water glinting like a winking eye. The creek was narrow, bordered by small red willows and thickets of dogwood and thrusts of twitch grass and bramble. Rocks glistened with the sheen of spray tumbled into the air by small rapids that slunk into shallow pools of gravel and stone. Ridges ambled casually to the west and the meadow seemed held in place by them. There was a trio of birches set close to the rut of the
road that bent and snaked its way to the creek. His father drove with both hands while the truck bucked and swayed and careened along the dip and jut of it, laughing now and smiling at the kid, who held on to the frame of the open window with both hands. He parked beside the trees.