As I Walked Out One Evening

by Donald Wetzel

  You do not forget a thing like that.

  I don’t anyhow.

  (And now I have it written down.)

  Lucian bathing his ancient hands in the flow of the cooler reminded me of it.

  The simplicity of the act I suppose.

  The gentleness.

  Fathers and mothers and sons and daughters …

  … brothers and sisters are we all in the simple things … in the end as in the beginning …

  … And so: Lucian, then, my brother?…

  … ah yes, even so, even Lucian but for the awfulnes of his stink …

  Actually it had come to seem less awful what with the air conditioner running; as with fish on ice I suppose.

  I looked over at him.

  He had let his hands come to rest on his knees.

  He was nodding seemed to be earnestly in agreement with something privately weighed something possibly heavy; you drink? he said.

  He had not forgotten.

  Not anymore I said not to speak of.

  Shouldn’t never quit drinking Lucian said you want to sell this truck? Bill Stallings he’ll buy it—out on the four-lane—used to be in town—right on the corner across from the bank—one new car in the showroom three used ones in the lot—now he’s big time out on the four-lane you drive by you can’t see the vehicles for the flags and balloons and such as that—vehicles what old Bill Stallings use to call them ’fore he got rich—reliable transportation he used to say was what his vehicles was if they was junk—got himself a circus now it looks like—hardly seems the way to sell people cars—for the money he gets it don’t seem proper—sold him an old truck of mine one time you could say I sold it more like he stole it sold me a worse one—called it business—he got the money I got the business—way they say—this a Ford?

  A Dodge I said no I don’t want to sell it.

  You rich? he said.

  No I said.

  You’re a good fellow he said—I knew a lawyer once—you a lawyer?

  I’m a writer I said.

  You can write him a letter he said—old Bill Stallings—tell him you don’t want to sell him your truck.

  He whacked his knee and laughed … he he.

  Too bad for old Bill Stallings I guess.

  I thought of Mattie.

  Maybe I thought of Mattie because this was one of the roads I might take on the way to Larson one of the ways to the farm what was left of it.

  Anyhow this was before I had seen Mattie after being in Arizona all that time—which I have mentioned earlier in these pages I believe—after being sent for by son Mark—not sent for exactly but asked could I come to Fairfield and stay awhile? and naturally being retired so to speak I could—and of course I called Mattie first thing when I got to Fairfield and promised but I still hadn’t made it over there; and now here I was on my way or on the way I would go if I was going there and I thought why not? I could show her what could be found on the streets of classy up-town Fairfield these days—a dirty drunk old man that’s what—as good a one as might be found anywhere else in the county—and then I thought better of it hardly worth it just for a laugh and maybe not that and then what to do with the old man later?

  So instead I just drove along thinking about Mattie and Larson and how I could hardly imagine Mattie being old—being sixty anyhow—trying to remember meanwhile to look for county road thirty-eight going off to the south with the old man gone silent maybe sleeping at my side.

  I remembered how it had been when I first got to Larson being met at the station by an uncle I had never seen before not even a picture and taken thirty miles in a borrowed pickup over a dirt road to Larson—and on through Larson—I remember thinking: this is Larson?—and on to the farm and at first hardly noticing Mattie at all other than as a persistently present or as they say now an in-your-face kind of kid and other than how it surprised me some—I was thirteen then; I have to remember that; I was still pretty much a kid myself—how it surprised me considerably as a matter of fact that Mattie my cousin a six year old girl child was allowed by her mother to run around all day half naked bare chested and barefoot like a boy; in fact in no time at all the kid had come to seem mostly like a boy to me except for one thing—even if it took me awhile to figure it out—which was that even at six years of age Mattie was a flirt a natural flirt even then even no matter that she had nothing at all to flirt with nothing at all moveable to flaunt as it were except maybe her shoulder blades which I believe is what they are called which her mother would refer to when Mattie was acting prissy as her mother called it; just flap your little wings on out of here her mother would say—and it took me awhile to figure that out too, that she meant the way Mattie worked her shoulder blades when she was being prissy—and Mattie would go prissing on out of there with her shoulder blades working like nubby little wings; she was just a kid that could easily have been a boy the way she ran like a boy with her elbows bent and her arms held in and her hands sometimes made into fists if she was really serious about it—I noticed it early with Mattie the neat quick way she ran even if it was like a boy—and there was the way she always said “Hey” before she said anything else and the way she would poke whoever it was if they didn’t pay attention; and she had these skinny legs that were always scratched and scarred and knobby knees which most of the time were either green or black depending on the occasion and the terrain I guess; and I mean how could she even think of flirting? and on top of that flirting away like crazy finally with me her big old cousin? but she did—it just took me awhile to figure it out.

  It got lots clearer to me of course—to the both of us I guess—as we both got older.

  And I remembered also when it changed between us and how it happened—when we became really friends or when and how it all really started anyhow—back when Mattie was still just six and I was thirteen and still mostly aware of being somewhat lost in the newness of my situation with the region and the farm being still pretty much new to me if not actually foreign and myself it seemed almost foreign sometimes to myself that much alone and uncertain like a cat in a strange house you might say—I remember it, the time and the way it happened even way back then when we both were just kids—when it came crashing in on me so to speak that Mattie was separate and single and flesh and blood a warm and living person and a girl.

  Not just some kid.

  Push me she said and I did I pushed the swing higher and higher the way she liked it as high as it would go the way she had had me swinging her almost from my first day there calling out hey come push me and I would—why not?—and it was late evening this time I remember already dusk enough that the bullbats the nighthawks were out and busy I could see them watch them circling and swooping not all that high above Mattie at the highest of her arc with Mattie sort of up there with them hanging there an instant and the first cool of the evening coming on at last; and Mattie said stop me now, and bit by bit I slowed the swing with a hand on Mattie’s back as she went by and then I caught her by the waist and stopped the swing and she lay her head back against my shoulder and said help me and I lifted her up off the swing and held her and she turned and curled up against my chest and put her arms around my neck and hugged me and said carry me and I did I carried her right on into their house Mattie opening their screen door with her foot not letting me put her down until her mother said to Mattie well now aren’t you the pretty one and I put her down and she stood there next to me where I had set her down and her mother said to me I think you better watch out for this one, and laughed.

  Of course it was nothing for any of us to worry about—not right then at least—but I remember it because I was stunned sort of or awed that something like that had happened although I couldn’t have said exactly what it was that happened, but I knew it had.

  I had never been hugged that way by a kid—boy or girl—not that I could remember.

  Not recently for sure.

  And I had never felt so old before or so male if I can say that or so honored. />
  Thank you Mattie said.

  Any time I said.

  And then I didn’t know quite what else to say but something else seemed called for so I put my hand on Mattie’s shoulder standing next to me and I said it to her mother—or at least I was looking at her mother when I said it—I said the pleasure indeed has been all mine.

  I must have read that some place.

  Well now aren’t you but the smartest her mother said; but she seemed not so sure about it, even then.

  But I had meant it.

  Little Mattie up against my chest her arms around my neck; it had indeed been my pleasure, and more, it had been a wonder, a connection made, a recognition, a kinship.

  And I had been smart enough to know it.

  And maybe that is why later we never went for the two headed calf, Mattie and I.

  It could have had a bearing on it anyhow.

  So I looked over at the old man and saw that he was shivering sitting there with his hands on his knees his shoulders and head practically vibrating he was shivering so hard and I thought oh shit and knocked off the air conditioner and reached over and rolled down the window and the hot air blew in hot and heavy smelling of the earth of piney woods somehow even over Lucian’s stink and I remembered how it was again that here even when there are no pine trees anywhere in sight you will still smell the piney woods—I don’t know why we always used to say piney woods not pine woods but we always did and so I still do it it seems—anyhow it came flooding in over the old man’s smell the odor of the ubiquitous southern pine: jack pine, yellow pine, long leaf, loblolly—my favorite name for a tree the loblolly pine—even when there is not a single tree in sight in this part of Alabama you can always smell the pine like a damn bus station smell I will sometimes say when I am sick of the South but other times I like it the sweet sour scent of pine trees an odor I remember a little like the sweet sour stink of babies’ barf when they finally give you that burp and it is mixed with barf. Or maybe it is just that I have the two odors connected from back when Mark was an infant and I was a first time father lacking all instruction and afraid the great relief that would flood through me when the kid finally burped even if he barfed a little, and there would be moonlight on the bare dirt in the back yard and the mixed odor of pine scent and baby barf with me there on the screened back porch and I would have this powerful sense of real peace and accomplishment and happiness.

  Just that the kid had burped.

  Remembering it now I marvel.

  I looked over and the old man was still shivering shivering hard his whole frame shaking, his head every so often jerking back and he would be looking up at the sky with his hands on his knees hanging on hard as though he was trying to stop either his hands or his knees or both from shaking but it wasn’t working.

  Maybe it isn’t the air conditioning I thought.

  Oh boy I thought oh shit.

  I looked away.

  He was on his own.

  Was I God?

  I thought of my mother.

  She always said that one day I would shoot up like a weed.

  I never did.

  She was also pretty sure that I would be a great composer someday.

  Classical.

  I used to sing myself to sleep.

  She had these great expectations for me the kind that can haunt a man.

  Even knowing how wrong a mother could be.

  I looked over at Lucian.

  Don’t die I thought.

  Okay?

  Chapter 19

  He carries a gun and the name of an animal; which is enough to identify the man to my fellow Bisbee townspeople even the dumber ones who naturally and not unreasonably to my way of thinking associate the gun on the hip and the man who wears it with an aggressive male stupidity not unlike their own while those other Bisbee citizens of whom there are a goodly number more than would at first blush be apparent to the casual visitor—of which casual visitors there are way the hell too many among us these days—while those other Bisbee citizens among us as I started to say earlier more notable for their intellectual achievements or proclivities as it were or those anyhow who think of themselves as the thinkers amongst us are inclined to think of the man as rather being instead one of them one of the Bisbee intelligentsia a characterization of the man which they achieve by allowing among themselves as to how the man is indeed well read and smart as all hell, which is true, and by dismissing the gun as an affectation, which is a mistake.

  Simple caution on all fronts legalistic and physical leaves me reluctant to use the name of this man—a friend of long standing I might add but who knows?—he—as do I—grows proportionately more irascible—although he more so than I—as he grows more old and more deaf and although he is some ten years my junior the simple mathematics of it does not bode well for me in this contest so to speak as we both grow older and older and he continues to wear that goddamned gun—the logic in my reasoning here should be clear to any but the most obtuse I believe—anyhow I see the man more and more as belonging more rightly to neither of the two above mentioned groups who claim him as their own—and certainly I do not see him as in any way the fearful if noble predator suggested by his given name—but more and increasingly—to my way of thinking—do I see him in fact as a kind of feral dog.

  By which I hasten to add no pejorative meaning is intended no indeed I have nothing but the highest regard for a dog gone wild gone native out there and making it on its own beholden to no one man or beast far from the comfort/curse of the human community; no, indeed but rather should the phrase invoke as was only my intent all along the way of one who proudly pursues alone and with simple dignity—albeit sometimes with a warning growl—the humble domesticity of the cave …

  How could I not but admire such a one?

  How could we all not?

  Well anyhow, one day I asked him I said F.D.—which is what I shall call him for the remainder of this brief account I mean I have to call him something—F.D. I said why in God’s name do you wear that monstrous weapon on your hip all the time? (as he grows older and more frail—although somewhat fat in recent years—the weight of the thing is starting to give him a list to starboard—or that is what I tell him anyhow—) and he said and I quote in reply to my query as to why he wore a gun as follows:

  Because I have an abrasive personality and I am growing old.

  Which struck me as an answer accurate honest reasonable and altogether typical of the man.

  And something to think about.

  Which is to say and as I have observed before or I believe I have you never know with the Irish which way it will come down and he of which I speak is of that race or lineage or at least in part he is—if the family name and his former way with the bottle means anything—a product a consequence of the great potato famine, which parenthetically may well be what it was or is that has left the Irish even unto this day with such a suspicious edgy and contentious relationship one with the other and with their God …

  … but I digress …

  To give you a better idea of the personae or the inner workings if that is the right term of the man F.D. I will cite the following example which had to do with a particular pacifist activist activity to which I subscribed a few years back an episode in support of my continuing if more often than not bootless nonviolent soldiering in the cause of world disarmament or at least toward the banning of the bomb—which by the way is fucking well still out there—the activity the episode in point being a peace march across the continental U. S. of A. aimed—believe it or not—at persuading to a down-with-the-bomb point of view even such people as grow corn or is it wheat? in Nebraska and/or voted for Reagan etc—an enterprise which I knew to be pretty far fetched pretty outrageous possibly a little mad right from the start but I went along with it even so—different soldierings different craziness—and anyhow it was the only game in town—but the point is I was also foolish enough thoughtfully to mention these plans and their high minded purpose one da
y while forgetting who I was talking to who was F.D. old Feral Dog himself who heard me out to respond at the end in sum as follows: you have got it all wrong; you want them hot for peace it should be rape and pillage all the way.

  He offered to loan me a gun.

  Not the one on his hip another one an AK47 I believe.

  Incidentally some time later it so happened that F.D. was among the spectators as the peace march marched through Colorado Springs I think it was—somewhere in Colorado anyhow—where F.D. was testifying at a trial of some sort—no need to be too specific about it I suppose—anyhow he pulled me off the march and into a gay bar where he bought me a drink and tried—quite earnestly; I was moved by it—to prevail upon me to quit the march which surely—he argued—had got ridiculous even to me—said we looked like the Charles Manson gang—which I suppose by that time we did what with the march having gone belly-up in Barstow California with those of us continuing with it even belly up being largely ill-clothed ill-fed unwashed and out at the ass.

  (Actually after we got out of California I always hoped for rain as we approached the larger cities or towns; we looked better in our rain gear—our female nudists our males with ribbons in their hair and our sandaled and white-robed Jesus Christs at one time two of them—but unfortunately it seldom rained.)