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Three Stories THE WIDOW’S WOOD Arnie was the one who first brought up the subject of Althea Benoit's woodpile at November's informal meeting of the Sutton Mills selectboard, held for the past three years at Arnie's hunting camp on the south side of Black Mountain. The three selectmen, Arnie Marchesault, Leo Comtois, and Young Joe Buckles, had just started passing around the bottle of whiskey for a second round, warming their insides to even out the warmth on their outsides from the stove Arnie had just got cranking good. No longer snapping and popping, the stove had settled down to an even pace and the smell of damp wool drying had dissipated enough to be comfortable. "I drove by there yestiday, and old Lady Benoit's woodpile was half gone. I'm tellin' ya, something ain't right, and you know that stubborn ole biddy won't as' for help if her ass was blazin'." Arnie nodded sagely at his own statement, and Leo's head started bobbing along. Young Joe, who was actually looking forty-two in the eye come spring, felt the two older men's eyes turned his way, and knew he'd been had once again. He had been volunteered by the senior members of the board. It wasn't in him to say "no" to Arnie, especially, who'd taken him on his first huntin' trip the year after Old Joe dropped a tree on hisself and left Young Joe to mind the farm and take care of his Mom and two sisters as best he could. He was responsible by nature, and Arnie knew that better than almost anyone. Nonetheless, Joe felt he had to make some kind of token protest, lest the two men realize how easily they could manipulate him. "Althea Benoit ain't had two words for anybody in the ten years she's lived in this town. Hell, even at Frank's funeral, she flat out refused ever' bit of help that was offered. I doubt as the last couple years has softened her any. What to hell am I s'posed to do, knock of the woman's door and say, 'Ma'am, the selectmen was wonderin' how come your woodpile is May size in November?'" The three men took contemplative sips of whiskey from their mismatched hunting camp cups, and Leo sent the whiskey around for refills before responding. "Arnie and me both think something's wrong up at her place. It ain't just the woodpile, neither. Althea has brought eggs to town to sell ever' mornin' for ten years. She's hardly missed a day in all those years, too. Even when Frank died, she was in Johnny's store the next mornin', same as always. But Johnny was saying the other day that Althea's missed twice in the past couple a weeks. And that woodpile by her house, I know it was a good twelve cord before the snow come." Arnie interrupted at this point, the two older men trading the conversational ball with the ease of much practice and familiarity. Friends for so long, they completed each other's thoughts sometimes, like an old married couple. "There can't be much more'n eight cord left there. There ain't no way Althea burned that much already. She ain't gonna make it through the winter the rate that pile is goin' down, and as selectmen, it's part of our job to find out what's goin' on." Joe was startled by the amount of wood missing from Althea Benoit's yard. If Leo, an old woodsman with an eye as good as a tape measure, calculated four cords gone, Joe accepted Arnie might not be exaggerating this time, as he was prone to do on occasion. "I can stop by there Monday after chores,” Joe acquiesced, knowing part of being a selectman in Sutton Mills required sticking one's nose in where it wasn't welcome, and recognizing that Arnie and Leo had made up their minds that this particular job was his. They'd keep gnawin' at him until he did investigate the matter, so he might as well make up his mind to do it. "Good boy!” Arnie grinned, and he slapped Joe's shoulder with the hand empty of whiskey cup. The matter settled, and sipped to with proper solemnity, the three selectmen went to telling hunting stories from years past in time honored hunting camp tradition, until they stumbled off to their respective cots in the wee hours.
Monday, on his way to Althea Benoit's and fulfilled promises, Joe thought a lot about Arnie and Leo and hunting camp. He thought he knew just what those two old goats were up to, with this errand and a couple others they'd tossed his way since his official election in 1956, three years ago next March. They were looking for him to carry on looking after their town when they passed on, look after it the way they'd been doing for better than twenty years apiece. Joe, himself, had been chosen to be selectman by Arnie and Leo to fill out Mario Cotnoir's last term, when Mario had suddenly retired one night in his bed, massive heart failure. Joe thought it was funny to call something massive that killed the man so quietly it didn't even wake Mario's half-Indian wife, sleeping right next to him. Once duly appointed to fill the first vacant seat on the selectboard for twenty years, Joe knew he'd inherited the job indefinitely. Town offices in Sutton Mills weren't the object of great envy, after all. No one actually ran for them, mostly they were filled by people who were willing to do them in response to the need. Most people in town were quite satisfied to leave the job of running the place, such as it was, to someone else. Joe pulled his truck into Althea's yard, realizing that some of that mystery fever of Arnie and Leo's had rubbed off on him, as he found himself looking around for more out of jot. Off to his left stood the subject woodpile, and sure enough, Joe figured eight cords was pretty accurate. Something else that seemed strange was that the drive hadn't been shoveled out yet from the three-inch snowfall the day before yesterday. The rubber bottoms of his shoe-pacs disappeared with each step to Althea's side door. He pulled off his glove and knocked on the door, three sharp raps. The only answering sound was Althea's chickens in the shed to his right, squawking like a bunch of hyped up biddies. He waited a couple of minutes, watching his breath plume and rise. She wasn't in. "Mrs. Benoit,” he called out, and the chickens fluttered and squawked a little louder. Joe walked over to the woodpile, four squared-off rows behind and a stumpy fifth in front, most of it nice seasoned maple with some yellow and white birch nestled in with it. Arnie and Leo were right again, though. Althea's drafty old farmhouse was gonna eat through what there was by February — March, easy, even if it did turn out to be a mild winter. He made up his mind to come by again, later, maybe after evening chores were done, and had just taken his first step back to the truck when he heard furious barking and a medium-sized brown and tan mutt burst from around the front of the house. He recognized Frank Benoit's old cow dog from seeing the pair of them moving Frank's small Jersey herd into the barn for milking. The dog had a lot of gray around his muzzle and walked a bit stiff in the hindquarters, but Joe judged its teeth to still be in pretty good shape. The dog ran around him, keeping him in place just as he had kept Frank's cows where he wanted them, snapping his jaws with a loud clack right around the vicinity of Joe's privates on every second or third pass. "Mrs. Benoit!” Joe hollered, not really afraid, but really not liking those teeth quite so close. Even through the heavy wool over pants, blue jeans, and thermal long johns, it would not be at all pleasant to get bit. Joe tried a careful, slow step to the right and the dog's teeth snapped together hard, punctuating a low growl. "Althea, you around?” Joe hollered again, a faint note of desperation slipping in. If he had to hurt the dog to get back to his truck in one piece, Althea would have his hide. "Bon-Bon, come here,” Althea Benoit commanded sharply as she rounded the front of the weathered house. The last word took what was left of the old woman's breath. The dog trotted to her side, tail wagging. Joe could almost swear the damn mutt was grinning, then it turned its head over its shoulder to give Joe another low-voiced growl. It sounded like it was swearing at him in French. "Bon-Bon? Jesus!” Joe thought to himself, seeing nothing of sweet confection about the dog before him. He'd been keeping his eyes on the dog, relief at his timely rescue allowing him to relax his tense body. Then his eyes drifted to Althea's slow progress, and to his shock, he saw shotgun barrels pointed in his direction. The frailty of the old woman contrasted sharply with the intimidating weapon, as incongruous as naming the dog Bon-Bon. "I would not have thought it of you, Joseph Buckles.” Althea said, in her crisp, cultured voice. "Whoa now, hold on there, Althea. I just came to talk with you. You've got no call to be pointin' that at me.” Joe's hands went up as though he could ward off a shotgun blast with his bare hands. "You're here to talk?” Althea questioned, sharp eyes scrutinizing him from a face shrouded by wool: wool cap, wool scarf, wool collar. The shotgun barrel abruptly dipped to the ground, and Althea's shoulders dropped, then the rest of her followed suit, sagging in relief, or dejection, or exhaustion, or a combination of the three. Joe took three quick strides before the dog snapped at his crotch again. "Jesus, are you all right, Mrs. Benoit?” Joe shifted from terror to concern when he got his first good look at the old lady. Even in the frigid single-digit temperature, there was not a spot of color in what face he saw uncovered. "Please do not blaspheme in my presence, young man.” Althea swayed from side to side but her voice cut straight at Joe. Without pausing, she turned to the dog, swayed on her feet again, and said, "Bon-Bon, come. In the house.” She turned to Joe. "Walk me to the house then, Joseph Buckles. If you aren't here for my wood, you can explain why you are here." Joe found himself offering her his arm like some gallant gent from the movies. It would have seemed an absurd gesture under other circumstances or with another woman, but it felt right as he walked Althea into her house, carefully matching his stride to hers up the steps, through the porch and into the kitchen in a slow, linear waltz. Along the way, he removed the shotgun gracefully. Bon-Bon followed closely behind, and immediately settled on a blanket by the woodstove. Neither spoke until the North Country ritual of stripping off boots and jackets was complete. Althea placed the boots behind the stove to dry. "What did you mean, 'If you're not here for my wood?' " Joe settled on the question as the perfect opening — one he hadn't had to find himself. For some reason, this woman with the cultured speech and regal manner intimidated the hell out of him. He felt out of his element, and his usual self-assurance abandoned him. "What brings you here, Joe Buckles?” The old woman countered without answering. "Well, Ma'am,” he stumbled, "it's come to the attention of the selectmen that. . ." "Sit down, young man, and I'll stoke up this fire a bit and fix a cup of coffee for us to take off the chill.” She interrupted in a voice that brooked no argument. "The way you're fumbling about, this could take a while, and I mean to be warm." Feeling very much like a chastised schoolboy, Joe sat and surveyed his surroundings. They were as unusual for Sutton Mills as Althea Benoit herself. Joe's own mother could not have kept the place any more immaculate, and she'd been hell on wheels when it came to keeping house. Quality, that's what it made Joe think of. Every object was neatly in place, and there were delicate treasures here and there; an ornate crystal vase on the mantel near the window that caught the winter sun in fine streams, embroidered lace curtains adorning windows so clear it made Joe blink and squint to look at them. There was a row of cast iron skillets hanging from a wrought iron ring to the left of the stove and a matching ring on the right filled with pans with gleaming copper bottoms. Joe became very conscious of his big, ungainly frame. The crudely darned hole in his gray wool sock was a sudden embarrassment, and he tucked it under the chair. He watched Althea get the fire going, getting the wood from a filled woodbox beside the stove. Although she seemed strikingly frail in some ways, she also seemed impervious to the frailty, as though she was simply not going to acknowledge it. Though part of him wanted badly to take care of it for her, he also knew she wouldn't appreciate it. He waited silently until she had brewed coffee in a stovetop percolator and she finally sat down across the table from him. "So, tell me why you're here, Joseph Buckles,” she demanded. "It's about your wood, Mrs. Benoit. Arnie, Leo and I are concerned that you won't have enough for the winter at the rate the pile is going. We just wanted to make sure nothing's wrong, is all.” Joe ventured, his heavy farmer paws wrapped around the steaming bone-china cup she'd placed in front of him, warming his hands and not quite daring to raise it to his lips, lest it crumble. Althea sighed faintly and seemed to gather herself. "Someone's been taking it. For about a month now, the pile's been getting smaller. At first, I thought I was just imagining things — at my age you do that, especially when the house is so quiet. I've been trying to keep up, you know.” She looked defensively at him. "I was bucking up a blow-down when Bon-Bon ran to say hello to you. I was keeping up, when it was just a few pieces here or there. But, last week, a cord of wood wandered off. I haven't dared to haul down what I've cut, so I've been stacking it up in the woods." "Did you call Bill Whitcomb?” Joe was referring to the county sheriff, who was hard working and well meaning, but had way too much ground to cover to be greatly effective. Althea just gave Joe a meaningful look. "Well, I guess you're right — not much point in that," he said, as if her words had been spoken aloud. It struck to two of them at the same time that his immediate understanding was very funny. Without meaning to, they laughed in unison, she in an almost girlish giggle that sounded slightly rusty, he, with a gusty bellow. He caught his breath and took his first sip of coffee. "But why didn't you talk to somebody?” he asked her, bothered that this old woman living in his town had kept such a problem to herself. Neighbors were supposed to ask each other for help, after all. He understood, suddenly, the paternal attitude of his co-selectmen, recognizing that he was taking the theft of the old woman's stovewood as a personal insult. This wasn't supposed to happen in his town. Rather than addressing the question directly, Althea took a sip from her steaming cup, and Joe got his first good look at her hands. Long, delicate fingers mutilated by deep gashes, cracks that looked bone-deep along each knuckle, and thorny calluses as thick as Joe's own testified to just how rough life had been for Althea Benoit. Joe couldn't help but think of his own mother's hands, rough but strong, and, more important, whole. "My family did not approve of my marrying Frank Benoit. My father never would call him by his proper name. He was always 'That Little Frenchman.'" She gave a half-smile. "Father swore that I'd regret it, but I never did. When we first came here I didn't even know how to milk a cow. Frank taught me, though. The first winter I packed my bags about once a week, always in the morning. By evening, Frank would have me laughing about some foolish thing and I'd go upstairs and unpack my bags again. I felt so lonely, you know, though I never told Frank that. I didn't want to hurt his feelings or make him think that I wasn't happy, but I had such a hard time making friends here. I tried, but I never knew what to say, or how to say it. All those other women, with their children, talking about things I didn't understand. After a while, I decided Frank and I were enough. I know most of the people around here think I'm stuck up. I never meant to be. I was forever that woman from away that Frank Benoit up and married, and I never could figure out how to belong. Who should I have called?" she finally said. Joe knew that she hadn't unburdened herself in a long while, probably not at all since her husband passed. He felt oddly touched that she'd spoken so to him. He thought of all he'd heard about Althea Benoit over the years. it was true, "stuck up" was a phrase he'd heard connected with her before, maybe even more than once. He realized that the only reason Althea was talking to him like this now was because the old woman was tired and worn, and at the end of things. He recognized lonely when he saw it. He'd felt lonely himself a few times, especially after his father died and he'd been left the farm. He'd had Arnie to talk to, but it hadn't been the same ever after that. He had at least felt a part of the community, accepted. He could only begin to imagine the loneliness of Althea Benoit. He figured that, after thirty years, it was time someone made Althea welcome in this town. "Mrs. Benoit, could I have another cup of this coffee? Then, maybe I should see how much wood you've got there. I've got an idea how to keep your wood to home, but it's gonna take me a day or two to get some things together.” Althea didn't ask him any questions, though he could see she was curious. Mostly, she seemed relieved that the matter was in someone else's hands. He went up to the woods to see how much she had bucked up, then returned and had another cup of coffee with her, feeling oddly good as he listened to her reminisce some more in her soft and precise voice until it was time for him to return home.
A week before Christmas, Joe had Althea out to his place for Sunday dinner. He had picked her up in the morning after barn chores, and the plan was for her to spend most of the day with the Buckles family before Joe ran her home after chores and supper that evening. It was Althea's third visit out to the Buckles' place; and to the family, it had come to seem that the old woman held a very real place in their lives. Linda, Joe's wife, liked to tease him that he'd found himself another woman, but she understood the attraction her husband felt for Althea. She was rather smitten herself, once she'd spent some time in the old woman's company. She also secretly liked the courtly side of Joe that Althea somehow brought out. These Sunday dinners, she liked Joe holding first Althea's chair, then her own. Joe had even offered her his arm a couple days ago, the first time she could recall that particular gesture in the twelve years they'd been together. She knew it was Althea's influence behind the changes, and she was grateful to the woman. Althea, herself, had come into her own in unexpected ways. It was as though the years of isolation were a dam that had suddenly flooded open, spilling over Joe and his family. His two kids were also coming to love Althea. They would literally sit at her feet while the grown-ups drank coffee, seven year old Joey, and his sister, Marie, listening to Althea's lovely, cultured voice tell stories of her years with Frank, or what it had been like growing up in the city of Boston. She told them stories from books that she had read, of far-away places, and wondrous experiences beyond the confines of the North Country. They were all sitting in the living room in such a cozy scene when Joe was summoned to the door by a knock. He answered it to find Arnie standing on his steps. Arnie was fairly bursting at the seams with some kind of news. Joe had seen it before, when some particularly juicy tidbit of town gossip had landed in Arnie's lap. He and Leo shared a fondness for what would be called gossip among women, but news to them. They particularly enjoyed one-upping each other to be the first to hear anything especially interesting. The Vermont winters were long, after all, and anything that could help to break up the monotony was welcome. The two men stood together in the kitchen and Arnie launched into speech, talking quietly so as not to disturb the women and kids in the other room. "I just come from Johnny's. He was telling me something real interestin'. Seems Herve Mongeau, that son of a bitch, lazy Frenchman that used to work for me up in the woods, well, night before last, there was a big bang out to his place. Johnny said he heard it hisself 'cause he was just goin' out to his car to fetch some papers. He said it was a hell of a loud noise, made him jump and almost piss his pants. Anyway, he didn't hear anything more after that, but the next day Mongeau, he come in to Johnny's store and ordered him a new stove. Johnny said he had a big old knot upside his head, and it looked like he'd burnt a big bunch of hair on his beard." Joe started laughing, causing the older man to look at him like he might be losing his marbles. "Well, I'll be a son of a bitch!” Joe sputtered. "Figures it'd be him." He took Arnie by the shoulder and guided him to a kitchen chair, glancing through the doorway to be sure the rest of the family was still deep in Althea's latest story. He didn't really want Althea or Linda to hear any of what he was going to tell the old man. Women didn't always understand these things the way men did, and he'd just as soon they didn't know anything about this. "This is kind of selectman business, Arnie, just between us. Remember the trouble Althea was having with her woodpile disappearing?” he began. "Well, I cored out a couple pieces of really nice maple, and I filled them full of black powder. Then, I plugged 'em back up and laid them in with the wood that I piled on top of what was left of Althea's pile. I figured somebody would bite on 'em, and looks like Herve was the trout to do it. I loaded enough powder in there to blast a wood stove clean to hell. I wonder how long it took for it to heat up enough to blow?” He chuckled again, and the old man joined him. "I don't think Herve will be stealin' any more stovewood from Althea again.” Arnie slapped Joe on the shoulder, proud as a parent. "This town's gonna be in good hands. That's what I told Leo — yessir — it's gonna be all right."
Marie had never known anyone like Bobby. God knows, Sutton Mills had never produced his like, and Sutton Mills was pretty much all she ever had known. Nothing in her seventeen years had prepared her for the phenomenon that was Bobby, A.K.A. Buckin’ Bob, Bronco Bobby and Cowboy Bob. Bobby was part of the third wave of hippies to wash up in the new commune in Sutton Mills. People in town had talked of nothing else since the first rumors spread about Martin Robishaw selling out his farmland, two hundred and eighty acres of it, to a bunch of pot smokin’ long-haired freaks from the city. Folks in town had spent the better part of the spring scaring each other witless with predictions of thieving and rape and general pillaging to come. Their favorite place to exchange these glad tidings was Johnny Gray’s small general store. When the first group of hippies hit town though, Marie had overheard Johnny saying it might not be all bad. “I kinda like seeing all these pretty young things. None of ‘em seem to own a pair of undies, far as I can tell. They got more titties flappin’ through this store than Marcoux’s got on his farm.” Before he could say more in this vein, Marie’s father, Joe Buckles, had cast a pointed look at his daughter and Johnny shut up. “Dirty old man,” Marie thought. "Ought to grow up.” The day she met Bobby, she was driving a wagonload of first cut hay to the barn from a field the Buckles leased from Robishaw. The access road to Peace Park ran right through the leased field, and Marie had been seeing a steady trickle of VWs, Novas and Pintos, as well as pedestrians carrying backpacks and duffel bags all morning. She was curious, and watching the traffic flow was a nice diversion from driving the tractor around. About 1:30 that afternoon, she was on her way home with the second wagon full of bales when an ugly avocado Ranchero first passed her Allis Chalmer tractor (what she called her Alice Charmer) then abruptly stopped in a cloud of gray dust. It reversed direction and stopped again in front of her, forcing her to bring her tractor to a halt in a bigger cloud of gray. The wind swept the cloud off to her left in time for her to see a young man bounding out the passenger door in a tangle of limbs. He sprang like a deer, long-legged, one hand holding his bag while his other clamped a battered felt cowboy hat down in the breeze. “Hey, pretty Farmer Girl, can I have a hay ride?” He shouted over the diesel rumble. “What?” Marie asked, stunned by the request. “I never had a hayride. Read about them. I bet it’s cool and want to try it. Could I just hop on back here?” His ginger beard framed the toothiest grin Marie had ever seen. “Please?” He wheedled like a charming child. “I’m just running this to the barn,” she answered, aware that the Ranchero wasn’t waiting for her to answer. As the car swung by her, the three passengers in the back all gave them cheery waves. Bobby waved back, unconcerned that his ride was leaving him. “I won’t hurt nothing, Farmer Girl. I just think it’d be groovy to ride up there, that’s all,” he cajoled again. “Well, okay, I guess.” Marie thought about what her parents would say, or her brother, Joey. He would never let her hear the end of this if he heard anything about it. He seemed to think that it was his duty to keep men away from his sister, whether she wanted them kept away or not, and her parents certainly did nothing to discourage him. “Listen, you can ride with me for a bit, but you gotta get off before we get to the barn or my folks will have a fit.” Marie felt proud at her own daring, letting this strange young man ride on her load of hay. Her heart fluttered, and she tried to tell herself it was just vibration from the parked tractor, that it had nothing to do with the mischievous green eyes looking at her. Bobby climbed nimbly up the side stakes until he was perched cross-legged at the top of the load. Marie waited until he had a good perch, and then put the tractor in gear and they were off in another cloud of dust. He waited in a ditch for her return with the emptied wagon. When she stopped for him, he looped a chain of daisies around her neck before he pulled himself onto the empty wagon. She dropped him off where she’d met the Ranchero, and he rose and fluidly jumped from the back of the wagon. He blew her a kiss as she took off, a gesture no one had made to her since her mother had stopped kissing her goodnight one last time from the bedroom door. Driving the tractor in the hot sun left plenty of room for daydreaming. She’d been driving a tractor since she was twelve, when she had to use a seat pad to be able to reach everything. At seventeen, she could operate on autopilot, sopping sweat and hay chaff from her face with her forearm while the kicker behind her popped hay bales into the wagon. Her brother and father stacked while she followed the line of bales strung out across the field like the necklace of daisies hidden in the long sleeved flannel shirt tucked behind her seat. They finished off the last of Robishaw’s field the next day and rain settled in for the weekend. By Monday, when the sun appeared again, the Buckles crew was working their own fields closer to home and Marie mostly forgot about the leggy hippie cowboy.
Joe sorted through the day’s mail Monday evening after a plate of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and Linda’s village-famous coleslaw. He sat at the dining table with the crocheted lace tablecloth Linda inherited when Althea Benoit passed four years back. He rolled a cigarette, then turned to the day’s assortment of bills, farm catalogs and selectman’s business. Halfway through the chore, Joe found an oversized envelope from Amherst College addressed to Marie Buckles. Just beneath it was another from the University of Vermont in Burlington. The assumption that he’d always had that his little Pony was destined to marry one of the young men in town and be a farmer’s wife choked him. He had never given any thought that she might actually leave Sutton Mills one day. He had always expected Joey to; after all, it was good for a man to find his own way in the world, but somehow it had never occurred to him that he might lose Pony, too. He cast a glance into the living room where she lay across the sofa reading a book. He’d somehow missed the woman in her, stealing his little girl’s face, removing cinnamon freckles and teenage acne. He felt panicked and irritated with himself and life, which seemed to be changing much faster than he’d ever expected. He remembered Arnie Marchesault complaining about how the years started slipping by faster and faster, but he’d never experienced it himself until he read those years on his own girl’s face. “Linda should have said something,” he thought. “She should have pointed out that Marie was almost grown-up, damnit. She knows men don’t pay attention to things like that.” He felt peevish with his wife for a minute, indulging himself in annoyance that he could aim at someone else, but he quickly caught himself up short. He knew he had no excuse for not considering how grown-up Marie was, or that she might want more in her life than Sutton Mills could offer. She was bright enough to get it too, with straight A’s the last three years. He still felt sucker punched like the summer he was fifteen and his cousin, Jerry, drove his fist into Joe’s belly, doubling him over before he’d even got his hands up. Probably it had been over some girl; seemed it usually had been from puberty until he said his “I do’s” with Linda. Realizing he was losing his little girl, more, that she was already gone and turned into a young woman, was a fist in the gut, unexpected, and it hurt. Hard as it was, Joe carried the envelopes out to his daughter and passed them to her with no expression. Marie looked at the envelopes a moment, then looked at her Dad, anxious for some signal or comment. “Your mail,” he said, unnecessarily. “I couldn’t help noticing they’re from colleges. You’re planning on going?” “Well, I was thinking about . . .” she started, and then stalled like their old farm truck sometimes did. The moment hung heavy and awkward between them, more so because they had always been able to talk before. “Mr. French,” she began over. “The guidance counselor?” he asked. “Yeah. Mr. French says my grades are good enough to get some scholarship money. I don’t expect you guys to pay for it all. There’s lots of grants and stuff, and I’ve been working real hard. Mr. French thinks I can do it, and Mrs. Whitley thinks I’m college material, too. That’s what she said, anyway. I figured it couldn’t hurt just to get some information. I’m gonna be a senior in the fall, and the earlier you apply for money, the better your chances. That’s what Mr. French told me.” Her words came out in a stampede, like cows let to pasture after the long winter. Joe wondered to himself why Mr. French and Mrs. Whitley knew more about his daughter’s plans than he did, but he tried to force a hearty voice. “Well, that sounds like a fine plan, Pony, and I know your grades are good, but college, that’s a big step. And what about Maurice? You know that boy’s been sweet on you forever. I kinda thought that the two of you might be heading for something more serious,” he said. “Maurice Gagne’s just a friend, Dad. Besides, he started seeing Shirley a couple months ago, I heard. And anyway, I’m not in love with him or anything. Never have been. And I want more out of my life than Maurice Gagne and a bunch of cows and kids.” There was contempt in her voice, and Joe felt himself touched by her judgment of Maurice. Maurice, after all, was a lot like Joe himself had been when he was younger. How, he wondered, did she feel about Joe himself, deep down. He’d always relied on being a hero of sorts to his daughter if to no one else. “Have you talked to Mom about this college thing?” he asked. “We’ve talked.” His wife’s voice came from the doorway behind him, where she was leaning against the frame, drying her hands on the dishtowel and looking vaguely guilty. “Well, I’d like to know why no one thought fit to mention these plans to me.” Joe’s temper snapped. He felt betrayed by his women, left out and unwelcome in his daughter’s life. And Linda, what right did she have to not mention something this important? His whole life was coming loose, unraveling like old manila rope. Without another word, Joe turned on his heels, and, taking his Farmall cap from the hook by the kitchen door, he swept out, his anger so restrained that the door closed behind him with only the faintest tick. Marie surprised herself a few days later when she found herself describing the scene to Bobby. She’d run into him at the river, coming up the path from one of her favorite fishing holes while she was heading down, pole in hand. She’d gone off to do more thinking than fishing, more hurt and confused at what was happening between her and her father than she wanted to admit. He was hardly even speaking to her, and spoke to her mother in single word sentences. Most of his time, he was avoiding both of them. This time, Marie and Bobby took the time for introductions. Each had thought of the other since the hayride, and both had felt a loss at not knowing the other’s name, some tangible identity to fit the other to. She hadn’t been particularly interested in fishing anyway, and when she saw his hair clinging wetly to his shoulder blades she knew he’d just been skinny dipping in her fishing hole. The fish would be long gone. They wound up sitting on a rock, instead, with their feet dangling in the water. Conversation flowed between them like the water did around their toes. Bobby’s childlike exuberance somehow made Marie open up with him like she’d never done with any of the boys she’d grown up with. When he pulled a plastic baggie from a leather bag he had strung at his side and packed a small, glass pipe with pot, she got stoned for the first time in her life. She felt safer than she had the one time she got drunk with Maurice Gagne. Things looked a little brighter, a little sharper, and she felt almost dizzy but good, relaxed. He told her stories about hitchhiking across the country; staying with friends of friends, often sleeping in his car, the same Ranchero she’d seen him in when they met. He told her about rednecks whose favorite sport was beating up hippies like him. He laughed about his adventures, made her laugh. He shared a melted Babe Ruth bar from his bag of goodies, and they passed the bowl between them. They talked back and forth like old friends that just had not met until then, and she found herself telling him about wanting to go to college, and her father’s odd reaction and how bad it felt that he wouldn’t speak to her. “Dad really is pretty cool. I don’t want you thinking he’s some ignorant farmer or anything. I was gonna tell him, but I just hadn’t figured out how, ‘cause I know he had his heart set on me being here forever. Stupid old Sutton Mills! God, sometimes I hate this town where nobody ever thinks about things. They just keep on farming their farms and cutting their wood, and spring turns into summer, turns into fall, turns into winter, and nothing ever really changes. I think Dad had it in his head that me and Maurice Gagne were gonna get married and I’d have half a dozen kids following me around like a bunch of calves. But, every time I tried to talk to him about me doing something different, something more with my life, he’d start talking about milk prices or how the hay was looking, or some such thing. Mom noticed it, too. We were talking about it yesterday while he was at the feed store. She thinks he just hasn’t wanted to face me moving away, so he’s been avoiding it all this time.” At some point, without her being really aware of it, Marie and Bobby’s hands had become linked. She felt a squeeze of sympathy. "My old man hasn’t even talked to me in three years,” he shrugged. “When I call back home and he answers, he just passes the phone to my Mom. At least he doesn’t hang up, and that’s something, I guess, but it still bums me out sometimes. Your dad sounds like he just needs some time to come around to it, that’s all. But you can’t let him stop you from living your own life, Beautiful.” It was her hand that did the squeezing this time. When she glanced down at their joined hands, she glimpsed her watch and her happy buzz fled. “Oh, God, I gotta go or I’m gonna be late for chores,” her words rushed, even as she rose. His hand steadied her as they headed for the river bank, and before he let her leave, Bobby kissed her, and she kissed him back, liking how his mustache and beard felt soft on her cheek and lips. “I’ll see you, Farmer Girl,” he promised in parting, words that echoed in her head as she jogged home with her unused fishing pole. Over the summer, they fell in love. They met secretly when they could. Distracted by her romance, Marie never questioned that her parents didn’t seem as aware of her comings and goings as they ordinarily were. She was simply grateful that she didn’t have to explain where she went much of the time. September came and Marie started her senior year at the regional high school twelve miles away in Coopersville. She’d expected to feel more excited about it than she did, but school and her old friends felt so . . . small. No one seemed to care what was happening in Southeast Asia, no one was interested in civil rights, and when she brought up the demonstrations happening across the country, her classmates said she must be turning into one of those hippies, making it sound like an accusation. She felt Bobby opening her mind and her eyes to what was really happening in the world. Disconnected from her old friends and her family, she spent more and more time at Peace Park with Bobby and his friends. They called her Bobby’s Old Lady, a title that made her feel better and prouder than she’d ever felt. She came through the door one Friday night in early November and found her father waiting for her at the kitchen table, looking furious. His face was so tight she could see a ridge along his jaw line rise and fall in time with his breath. An open Scotch bottle sat at his elbow in a cluster of concentric rings. Before saying anything, he topped off his half empty glass and took a deep swallow she could hear from her place by the door. Marie knew he’d heard, finally, what she hadn’t found a way to tell him. His voice when it came was deliberate and soft, saturated in anger and liquor. “I heard today that my daughter has been running around with some bum from that commune. I didn’t believe it – no, not my daughter, not my Marie. So, I got in my truck tonight and I parked it out by the hay field and wouldn’t ya know, Armand was right. There you was letting some bastard with hair past his elbows paw all over you like some two-dollar whore. Yup, fooled me all right. “ “Daddy, I never meant for you to find out like this,” she began, frightened by the contempt in his voice. “No,” he laughed, “you never meant for me to find out at all, did you?” He took another bite of Scotch and slammed the glass down hard enough that the ice in it rattled. A drop landed on the back of his hand. She noticed, but if he did she couldn’t tell. She stared at the droplet, unable to meet his eyes. “He’s not a bum, Dad. He loves me. He’s good to me,” she said in a rush. “He’s a bum!” Joe’s snarl was like a slap. “And as long as you’re living under my roof I expect you to stay away from bums. I expect you to act like a young lady, not like some bitch in heat.” Joe began to rise, his knuckles braced on the table for support. The drop of Scotch began to roll across his forefinger to the first joint. Marie was stunned, unable to believe her gentle father could become this crude, angry stranger. Fear twisted into fury in an instant. “Then I guess it’s time for me to get out from under your roof,” she yelled, beginning to cry. Her throat burned as she turned and half-ran, half-stumbled out the door she’d just come through. “Get back here, Marie. Marie. . .” Joe shouted behind her as she left, but it didn’t slow her way to Bobby.
She missed a week of school while Bobby nursed her wounds. He was able to convince her to return, talking about the place they’d have together when she went to college. He spun adventures in the air, shining make-believe stories, while she fell asleep on his chest. She borrowed Johnny Gray’s phone at the general store to find out if they’d let her back and to arrange for the bus to pick her up at the end of Robishaw’s Road. Going back was awkward, especially when she ran into her brother, Joey. He told her Joe refused to talk about what happened and that he and Linda had a few arguments before they stopped talking altogether. Marie felt brief guilt before she latched onto the anger that she still carried to help mute the hurt that Joe’s words had inflicted. Before she had a chance to completely adjust to her new living arrangements, the bottom fell out again. Bobby met her at the end of the road when the bus dropped her off one afternoon with a strained grin and an envelope in his hand. He’d gotten his draft notice. Marie looked to the envelope and off to the line of closest hills to the north. Canada was so near, the border so easy to cross. She’d grown up here and knew all the old logging roads. Forty minutes walking and he’d be safe. They would go together. She could get a job waitressing and Bobby could pick up odd jobs. They could start a life together there. “We can do it,” she said aloud. “We can hoof it into Canada. You don’t have to go to Vietnam; you don’t believe in this war anyway. You said so yourself. Come on, Bobby, it would be so easy.” He shook his head, serious and sad, like she’d never seen him. “I thought about it, Baby. Believe me, I thought about it. That’s half the reason I came up here to begin with, but hell, my old man would never forgive me then. Besides, lots of my friends are already there. I gotta go, Babe, I gotta.” She tried arguing with him the rest of the day, but he’d made up his mind and she knew it by the way he said, “I gotta go.” She’d only just found him, and she was losing him already. They had a massive goodbye party for Bobby, a two-day affair where better than sixty people drifted in and out of the small cabin, smoking and drinking, hugging Bobby and Marie. She didn’t allow any tears to fall, even though she felt brittle, all the muscles around her heart in a squeezing cramp. Part of her believed that if she didn’t cry, he’d be back. If she stayed strong, it would prove her will was greater than anything and it could bring him home to her. When she woke the next morning, the cabin was littered with people sleeping on every available surface, even the rickety table, and Bobby was gone. Marie’s will was strong enough to carry her back to school after Bobby left. Every afternoon she walked the mile and a half on the unplowed road to the cabin where she often spent three hours or more doing homework every night by kerosene lamp and candlelight. Her friends dropped by to check on her, but they left her alone during homework hours. Word was given to any newcomers to leave her alone. She was Bobby’s Old Lady; any man that tried to mess with her was gonna get his ass kicked by a cadre of surrogate older brothers and sisters who carried knives. Bobby had completed basic and was shipped out three weeks when Marie realized she was pregnant. She felt stupid to have missed it all that time, but with everything that had happened she’d blamed missing periods on stress and dismissed the obvious. She thought about not telling Bobby at first, but in the end she wrote the letter, and then spent two and a half weeks waiting anxiously for his reply. “I’m so excited, Baby,” he wrote, “my little Momma, my beautiful, sexy, sweet love. You’re my hippie chick, and she’ll be my chicklet—“ When she read the words, she felt relief first, then something else she couldn’t name, a vague unease of sorts at the flippancy that chipped away at her on sleepless nights. By spring she was obviously pregnant. She felt stares aimed at her every time she entered a classroom or walked down the school hall but no one would meet her eyes. It was as though pregnancy was contagious, spread by eye contact. Every evening her shoulders ached from carrying herself through the day on desperately fought for pride. Even her brother Joey seemed to be avoiding her. Pride can only carry someone so far and the first Saturday in April proved to be her limit. She woke alone in the morning to rain and tears, neither of which seemed to show any sign of ending. By mid-afternoon she was spent, vacantly staring at the fire through the open stove door hearing nothing but the rain. Joe made a mental note to oil the hinges on the pick-up. When he stepped out at his daughter’s home, the screech sounded overloud, even in air made dense with rain. He was more nervous than he could remember ever being, feeling chilled even though he felt sweat gather under his armpits. He wondered how it happened that they’d come to this, him and his Pony. He hurt of it, and the angry words that he’d attacked her with the night he’d driven her away. He stepped through mud ruts to her front door the same gray-brown as the clay that clung to his boots. Rain played like drums on the metal sheet overhang while wind slapped the loose tin on the corner of the wall, a rhythmic bang-bang. He knocked and listened to the rain pick up tempo while he hunched his head deeper into the collar of his red and black checked hunting jacket. He heard the click of the drop latch. Without thought, his eyes went to her belly first, then found focus on her face. The defiance, anger and hurt he’d seen there last were gone. Her pony eyes were disturbingly vacant, registering nothing. It made him think of her eyes when she was a little girl, exhausted at the end of the day from frenetic play. She’d been a dynamo of energy until evening. She’d always sought his lap, then. He’d stroke her already darkening blonde hair and rock in their favorite chair until she slept, her head rising and falling with the rhythm of his chest. Instinctively, he did now what he would have done then and wrapped his arms around his Pony girl. There was no rocking chair, so he settled on the battered easy chair near the stove and drew here onto his lap. Her head fell to the pillow his shoulder made and he was unbelievably grateful for it. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I’m sorry,” she said, her voice muffled in damp wool. “No, I’m sorry, Pony. I never should have said what I did to you.” It was both harder and easier to say the words than he’d imagined. “I want to come home.” Her voice broke on the last word, raw from her morning of tears. “You can,” he answered, and she felt the first comfort she’d known in too long. Then he surprised her by adding, “For a little while.” He let her head rise from his shoulder so she could look at him. “You don’t want me to come home?” She sounded shattered and resigned at the same time. His work-rough farmer’s hand cupped her chin like some precious and delicate object. “I’ve been thinking. I’ve thought a lot this winter. I’ve been damn near crazy with thinking, so’s your Mom will tell you when you get home. Truth is I know there’s no future for you in Sutton Mills; I just didn’t want to face it. I wasn’t ready for all the changes coming.” He smiled crookedly. “I’ve been like a goddamn woodchuck afraid to come out of its hole. But, it’s spring now and it’s time.” He’d come to the hardest part now, no easier for being rehearsed several times over the long winter. “The farm’s going under, Baby. I’ve just been holding on by a hair for the last couple years. I finally decided, and I called Jim Seaver down at the auction house. The auction’s set for the first week of June. All the equipment and cows are going. You weren’t the only one keeping secrets, I guess.” “Daddy?” She was dizzy with the unexpectedness of it, the impossibility of the farm being gone. “As for you,” he continued, “you belong in college. You’re too smart to waste your time in this backwoods town married to some stump jumper like me. And that’s where you’re going.” “But the baby,” she began, but he’d thought about that, too. “We should be getting enough money from the auction for me to get set up to do some logging and you and the baby settled in an apartment near your school, wherever you decide you’re going. Your Mom can stay with you until you find a good babysitter. It ain’t gonna be easy, but you’re a strong girl, and while you’re waiting for your man you need to start your own life off, for you and for this little baby. A picture of his old friend Althea Benoit popped into his head. He’d remembered something she’d said to him one night not long before she’d passed, and he felt compelled to share it with his daughter. “A father can’t choose who his daughter will love, any more than she can. He’s just got to trust that if he’s been a good father, she’ll know what a good man is when the time comes.” Joe was glad, suddenly, that he hadn’t been as stubborn as Althea’s father had been. Althea’s father had lost his daughter but Joe hadn’t yet lost his. It wasn’t my idea to spend the summer in stupid old Sutton Mills, Vermont. I had other plans, but when Mom gets her mind set on something, I mean really set, she’s impossible. ‘Course it didn’t help that I got caught with an eighth of good bud last September. The way Mom reacted, you’d think I was turning into America’s #1 criminal. She made up her mind then that I needed to “get away from my environment.” She carried on like you wouldn’t believe when I got busted, but what’s worse is she decided that my friends, Charlie and Roach, were bad influences. Like she knew anything about Charlie and Roach. She wouldn’t know ‘em if they had their names tattooed on their foreheads. She’s so busy grading papers and stuff, teaching down at the Community College, that she’s totally unaware anyway. Since Mom decided we were going to Sutton Mills for the summer and I couldn’t talk her out of it, I had to forget hanging with Charlie and Roach for a while. They threw a great going away party though, just the three of us out behind Stubby’s service station. Stubby was a friend of Charlie’s brother, and he didn’t mind us hanging out back there after hours as long as we didn’t bring any attention down from the man. Roach gave me a whole ounce of good pot to get me through the summer in Sticksville Hell, and Charlie copped a couple bottles of rum from his Old Man’s liquor cabinet. We all wound up sleeping behind the garage, and didn’t wake up until the next morning when Stubby came to open up. Mom was some pissed at me for staying out all night, but I think she owed it to me just for dragging me off to nowhere. Mom got me out of bed at five o’clock in the morning the first Saturday of vacation. We were off to a great start in the middle of the freakin’ night. She was in a big hurry to get to nowhere fast. Me, I put on some L.L. Cool J on the phones and watched civilization disappear with every mile north we drove. She kept yakking, talking about growing up on the farm, I guess, but I stayed plugged into my music and watched stores turn into houses turn into fields turn into trees. We’d passed the stupid green sign “Welcome to Vermont” three hours ago and Mom made me turn off the music. She’d just got done saying, “We’ll be there in a couple more hours,” when we came around a curve and this humongous thing ran out in front of the car. Mom jumped on the brakes and I guess it was a good thing there weren’t any other cars, ‘cause we went sideways to the left then sideways to the right. I saw the thing’s leg, a dark brown with white underneath and I heard it hit the side of the car, actually felt the door take a pounding. The car just kind of fell with the back wheels down in the ditch and we stopped moving and the big animal trotted off behind the trees, not caring at all that it almost totaled us. “Are you okay?” Mom asked, sounding all out of breath like she’d been jogging. Her hands were all over me, looking for broken bones or something. “I’m okay, Mom,” I said, pushing away her hands so I could see where the thing had gone. I wanted to make sure it wasn’t coming back. “What was that thing? A horse? Don’t these people know about fences? That thing coulda killed us.” Mom did the strangest thing. She looked right at me with her eyes all big and round and started laughing; laughing so hard she was holding her stomach and tears started running down her cheeks. “Andy,” she sputtered, “that horse was a moose.” That set her off laughing some more. I couldn’t believe it, we’d almost got creamed by a real live moose. “Can’t you use the cell phone?” I asked when she finally stopped giggling. “I left it at home,” she answered. Why would she leave our only line to the real world sitting in our apartment? I was trying to figure out what we ought to do. We’d just got out of the car to look at the damage when a rusty blue pick-up came around the corner and stopped. A couple guys got out and Mom went over to them and told them about the moose. I decided I’d better talk to them, man to man, ‘cause I could see one of them eyeballing the front of my Mom’s blouse. “Hi Guys,” I said, walking over to them. “Could you maybe get on your cell phone to call us a wrecker? A moose kicked us, and our car’s stuck.” Mom started in laughing again, and this time the hillbilly twins joined in. The driver, a tall guy with a bushy black beard with lots of gray in it, gave me one of those grown up looks that feel just like a pat on the head. “Don’t worry, kid, we’ll pull you out of there, right off quick,” he said, moving to the back of his truck where he pulled out a big length of chain. Mom got in the car and I stood off in the ditch and watched while the two guys hooked it up. It couldn’t have been five minutes before the car was out of the ditch and we were back on the road following the blue pick-up. I kept thinking about the moose and Mom laughing. I realized I hadn’t heard her really laugh like that since I was a little kid. It was actually kind of cool, and she even sort of looked younger when we passed the pick-up where they turned off on another road. She gave the two guys a cheerful wave as we drove by. Except for a big dent in the door’s side panel just below the window glass, the car didn’t seem too damaged, and we traveled the next couple of hours without seeing anything but birds, butterflies and more friggin’ trees. Mom was getting chattier the closer we got until we finally saw a small green rectangle that said “Sutton Mills.” “These people must really love green,” I thought to myself. “Everything in Vermont is green except for big brown mooses.” Mom got real quiet when she saw the sign and I was kinda glad, ‘cause I was feeling a little nervous myself, wondering what Grampa Joe was gonna be like. I realized I never had to spend any time around old people before. Sometimes Mom had her friends from work over for supper, but a lot of them were middle-aged too, being in the Community College. Before she and my Dad split up they took me to see my Dad’s parents, but I was only six when Mom and Dad got divorced. Guess Granny and Grampy weren’t all that interested in me, ‘cause we never heard from ‘em after the divorce. I don’t really remember them either, so we’re even. I hadn’t known what to expect. Mom turned off on a dirt road that went up a hill. She told me town was a couple miles further on the main road and that this dirt road was where Grampa Joe’s farm was. She still called it a farm, even though Granddaddy had sold off everything but the house and a few acres before I was even born. He logged for a few years after that, before Grandma died and he retired. The house didn’t look too bad. We’d passed worse on our way, old gray buildings needing paint jobs, with junk cars all over the yard and lots of dogs lounging around in the sun. But this house wasn’t bad. It was big; hard to imagine one old man living there alone. The main part of the house was a two-story box with lots of windows at the front framed with black shutters. There was a porch outside it with one of those old-fashioned swings like you always see on old movies where the guy moves in to kiss the girl. It didn’t look like there’d been much kissing on this one for a while. The chain was all rusty. I wondered if Mom ever saw any action in that old swing when she was my age, which was a really creepy thought, so I didn’t go there for long. Off to the side of the house were attached buildings, at least three of them; sheds I guess. I was walking up to the door with Mom, scoping the layout when I heard a dog barking, and I saw Grampa Joe for the first time, coming out the open doors on the shed furthest away with a dopey looking mutt at his heels. “Daddy!” Mom squealed, and she took the four porch steps in two bounds and headed for the old man at a dead run, arms wide open. Me, I hung back, leaning against the porch post, and I watched her hugging Grampa Joe, the two of them rocking from side to side, making me think of the ships I’d seen in Boston Harbor the summer after my Mom and Dad split up. “Pony,” Grampa said, grinning and rocking. “Ahh, Pony, it’s so good to see you.” Mom finally stepped back and held a hand out toward me. “Andy, this is your Grandfather, Grampa Joe.” “Yeah." (like I hadn’t figured that). "Hi,” I said, leaning against the faded white post on the porch. Grampa Joe walked closer and I got my first good look at the old man. It was hard to see him before with my mother glued to his front. He was pretty tall, maybe six feet, and he wasn’t all bent up like some of the old farts I’d seen at the park back home. When he walked I saw one leg didn’t bend right so he kind of held it stiff and swung it like a golf club. He step-swung over to where I was leaning and we looked each other eye to eye. Mostly I could back people off if I looked at ‘em right, gave ‘em what Roach called my “famous killer Andy stare,” but this old man was something different. We looked straight at each other for the longest time and I was damned if I was gonna be the first one to say anything. He wasn’t looking mean or nothing but it was just like he knew everything I was thinking without me telling him anything. “Andy,” Mom’s voice had that bitchy warning edge to it. She was definitely picking up on the vibes. The old man gave me the funniest smile, like he knew all there was to know about me, but that smile said he had secrets I’d never figure out. “It’s okay, Pony,” he said, and he actually laughed out loud. “Me and the boy are gonna get along just fine.” I don’t know what he thought was so funny, but I knew then that me and the old man were gonna war before the summer was over. The next few days proved to me how much I could hate a place. Sutton Mills was the most boring spot on the face of the earth. It was so quiet that I couldn’t sleep at night; I’d just lie there listening to some frog thing Mom told me were called peepers. All day and all night those stupid peepers would cheep until it was enough to drive me crazy. The only way I could stand it was to put on one of my CD’s and play it loud. Then I had to listen to Mom bitch about my music, the old man too. Mom yelled about it for probably the sixth time the afternoon of the third day we were there and I was sick of hearing it. She was the one that wanted to come here, not me, and now she didn’t even want me to listen to my music. Anyway, I decided it was time to show them both I wasn’t some little kid and they couldn’t tell me what to do like I was. I reached over to the porch rail to my ghetto blaster and I cranked that sucker, and then I kicked back on the swing, closed my eyes and imagined both of them exploding from the sound like big, juicy, ripe zits. If it was boring before, now it was even worse. Mom and Grampa Joe kept trying to make me do stuff like fishing or stupid country shit like that. I wouldn’t talk to either of them, not even “Pass the salt, please” at the supper table. Neither of ‘em cared anyway that I was having the worst time of my life and it was their fault. Since I didn’t have my music I started wandering around checking the place out. I was so bored that I was glad when I found a bunch of boxes of books out in the first shed. They were old and most of them were by people I never heard of, with weird names: Edgar Rice Burroughs, G.A. Henty, H.G. Wells, and Rafael Sabatini. There were books about pirates and counts and kings, and one about a time machine. Some of ‘em looked pretty cool actually, and I didn’t have anything else to do, thanks to Grampa Joe and his shotgun, so I started reading them. Grampa Joe’s dog, Mo, had started following me around everywhere. Maybe he was bored, too. Anyway, I’d take a book and Mo would follow me while I found a good spot to lay back and read and Mo would settle down and nap with his head on me somewhere. I didn’t go to the same place more than once ‘cause I didn’t want Mom or Grampa Joe to find me. I’d roll up a joint from the weed Roach gave me, kick back and get into the books. I think Old Mo liked the pot too, ‘cause as soon as I fired it up he’d come up real close, sniffing and wagging his scrawny tail. I bet Grampa Joe would love to know that his own dog was a pothead. One day I took Mo and The Time Machine and a good-sized joint and headed for the old barn. It was a big three level building, boards all streaked gray. It looked just like the ones in my Mom’s book about Vermont barns, one of those that they call coffee table books that mostly people never read, so they always look like they just came out of the bookstore. This one didn’t look new, though, ‘cause I watched my Mom look through it a lot back home, and the pages were torn in a couple places and kinda dirty from Mom thumbing through ‘em, reliving her past, I suppose. I went to the back where the lowest part of the barn was. Lots of light was coming in, even though the windows were covered with cobwebs, dust, and years worth of fly shit. I saw over in the back corner that a couple of the windows were busted and I could feel a nice breeze coming in. There was a pile of old hay bales leaning up against a railing that went right into the floor, so I went over there and stacked the bales up into a nice nest inside the metal bars. I found an old coffee can with a couple of rusty screws in it that I emptied out for an ashtray and Mo joined me up on the hay pile where the breeze blew on us and the sun lit up a swirl of dust. This wasn’t a bad crib for the day especially since the peeper frogs weren’t even too loud in there. I was kicked back, really getting into the story which had just gotten to the good part with the Morlocs, and Mo was already zoning out, snoozing with his head on my feet. Next thing I knew, some small brown thing ran out from under the pile where I got my nest material, a mouse or something, and Mo jumped to the chase. I stood up on the top hay bale to get a better watch on the chase and wouldn’t you know, Mo chased the damn mouse right up to my seat. I didn’t want the thing on me, not that I was scared or nothing, but I didn’t want any creepy thing crawling up my pants and I didn’t want Mo grabbing me instead of Senor Mouse. I didn’t think twice. I jumped off those bales as far as I could, and when I came down I felt the floor cave right under my feet. I didn’t just drop a little bit, either. I went down deep and if I hadn’t caught the edges of the boars with my armpits I might have dropped right through. I felt nothing but air under my feet. It took me a minute or two to get over the shock of it and get my breath back ‘cause I’d got the wind knocked out of me. Mo forgot all about the mouse and was prancing around me in circles looking all worried and trying to lick my face. I was afraid he’d send us both crashing down further and I couldn’t pull myself up out of the hole more than a few inches, so I did the only thing I could do. I started yelling as loud as I could, first for Mom and then for Grampa Joe. I’d watched videos of Lassie on TV when I was a kid. If she had been with me she would have run off and brought back help, but Mo wasn’t that bright. All the yelling just got him all excited and he started running around me faster, barking right next to my ear. Grampa Joe finally heard all that barking and he came running as fast as he could with that step-swing shuffle of his. He came just in time too, ‘cause I was starting to feel sore all over from scraping the edges of the rotted wood and my arms were starting to shake from holding myself up. The edge of one board was poking me hard right under my shoulder blade and I’d of hated it if he’d found me bawling like some baby. “Mo, get back,” he ordered, and the silly dog ran to the hay pile left outside the pen and lay down quiet at last. “Try not to move, Boy,” he said to me. “I’ll get you out of there right quick.” His words made me think of the car getting towed out of the ditch after the moose hit us. Those guys had said almost the same thing. Grampa was back, right quick like he’d said, and he had a bunch of rope with him. He made a loop in it and threw it up over the beam above my head. “Put that around you, right under your arms,” he told me. It was kind of tricky trying to get it under my arms ‘cause all I could manage was a few inches, but finally I got it under me and Grampa started pulling. He was strong for an old man, especially with a bum leg, and with him pulling and me pushing with my arms, I got out of the hole. “Are you all right, Boy?” he asked, all out of breath. My own breath was pretty fast when I answered him. “I think so. Nothing’s broken anyway.” He grabbed hold of my arm and pulled me outside where we both collapsed in the tall grass and weeds. Mo ran out with us all happy with his tail wagging in big goofy circles, trying to lick both of us at once. “What’s under there, Grandpa?” I had to know. “Why didn’t I touch dirt?” I couldn’t understand what had happened in that barn. Grampa Joe went real quiet, for minutes it seemed. He lay on his back on the ground not answering and I’d almost given up when he sat up, and something about the way he did it made me sit up too, facing him. “Do you know what prohibition was, Andy?” The question was real unexpected, so I had to think about it for a minute. “It was a law saying people couldn’t drink, right?” I finally said. He nodded, reaching into his shirt pocket and pulling out a pack of filterless cigarettes. He lit one up with an old looking Zippo lighter, and I saw the flame shake from his hand. “I’d just taken on the farm back then, only a year before they passed it. It was a bad ‘un too, rained the whole damn summer and stay cold, too, so the hay was piss poor. Your great-grandfather he’d kept the farm up for thirty years and got through every bad time, and here, the first year I run it on my own, the farm was going under. Milk prices dropped, I lost my best work horse and then the regular workman quit in the middle of haying to run off with one of the Dion girls, Missy, I think.” I was wondering how all this was gonna lead to the hole in the barn floor and Grampa must have seen some of the confusion on my face. “Arnie Marchessault and Leo Comtois were a couple of older farmers in town. They were friends of mine, and they knew the farm was failing. Arnie had kind of taken me under his wing anyway when my father died. It was their idea, and I became a rumrunner. I smuggled booze down from Canada on the back roads at night and I stashed it in a room I dug out under the floor of my bullpen. No revenuer I knew would ever look too close under a thousand pounds of purely mean bull. Arnie and Leo had some kind of in and would tell me what route was gonna be safe when, and they took care of retailing the stuff down in Boston, I think. They kept me out of that end of it.” “So you were an outlaw! That’s so cool, Grampa Joe! Were you ever shot at? Jeez, it’s just like one of those books I found, those old adventure books. You were just like a pirate, weren’t you?” I was so excited seeing my Grampa in a whole new way, as brave and daring as any desperado ever was. The old man reached out with his big rough paw and grabbed my shoulder hard. He turned those deep eyes of his, almost the same gray as mine, I realized, right into me. It was major intense, not scary or anything like that. He just wanted me to Know. You know? “It was just plain crazy, Boy,” he said firmly, “there wasn’t one run I made that I didn’t think about what it would mean if I got caught. Hell, it would have about killed my mother, and I was sweet on your Grandma Linda then and she wouldn’t have liked me rumrunnin’ one little bit. I would have lost her sure if she knew. But this was the Buckles’ farm and had been for generations, and I was going under. I was desperate, Boy, and that’s pure fact, and Arnie and Leo knew it and helped me the only way they knew how. There was nothing ‘cool’ about it.” “How come Mom never told me about this?” I finally asked after thinking about what he said. “She talked about you a lot. She even told me all about the time you and her fought and you came and got her and that’s how I got born here.” “She doesn’t know and I don’t want her to,” he stated plainly. “But. . .” I started to say, and his gray eyes bored right into mine. “Besides Leo and Arnie, and they’re both dead, you’re the only person I ever told any of this to. I did what I had to do, and I’m not ashamed of it and I’m not proud of it, neither. Plenty of other folks around here done the same. It’s past and it’s best left there.” I looked deep back at the old man, making him a promise I meant more than any I ever made, even to Roach and Charlie. “I won’t tell her, then.” Grampa Joe nodded and we sat quiet for a bit. Mo had settled down right between the two of us and was stoned sleeping again. Without thinking, I’d reached down and been scratching his favorite spot on his neck, just below his half-flopped ear. Grampa Joe sat scratching Mo’s shoulder where his hair was almost the same color as the age spots on the back of Grampa’s hand. “One more thing, Andy,” Grampa Joe said smiling a little bit. “I think you ought to let your Mom know you’ve been smoking pot out here.” “Why can’t that be just between you and me, too?” I asked him, feeling almost betrayed. “I’m not saying anything, Andy,” he continued, “but I think you should. In addition, I think you ought to tell her at supper tonight when we’re all three together. Think about it, anyway. Now,” he started to rise, “if you’re okay, I’ve got to get back on that old skidder of mine. I want to start getting my firewood out next week so it can be drying.” “Is that the thing you been working on out in the shed?” I asked, feeling comfortable talking to the old man for the first time. Hell, he killed my music, but he’d pulled my ass out of that bitchin’ hole and he wasn’t gonna rat me out about the pot to Mom. I hadn’t decided whether or not I was gonna tell her, but I’d think about it. “You want to see her?” He asked me, and he turned without waiting for my answer like he already knew I was coming. Later at supper I did tell my Mom. She started freakin’ like she did when I got busted, but she didn’t get halfway through when Grampa Joe cleared his throat, demanding our attention. “You smoked pot too, Pony, and you weren’t much older than the boy here. Seems you know a thing or two about it you might want to pass on to the boy.” He stood up just like that and left the room to go sit on the porch. Me and Mom did talk. I didn’t promise her I’d quit, but she had me thinking about some things. The best thing was she let that be enough and pretty soon she had out the family photo albums from the living room. We were sitting there going through old pictures of Mom and Uncle Joey when they were kids when Grampa Joe came back in. Mom was just showing me a picture of an old lady sitting in the same room we were in now ‘cause I recognized the stove, and she was telling me that was a good friend of Grampa Joe and Grandma Linda’s.
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