Gods of Wood and Stone

by Mark Di Ionno

  Michael made a grunt, the sound affirmative, but Horace realized it was over something that had happened on the screen.

  “Can we talk?” Horace asked again. Why do I have to plead with this kid? he thought. I’m the father, goddamnit.

  “Sure. Let me finish this inning.”

  Horace took a look around while Michael played. Michael’s desk was made of angular, heavy slabs of black laminate, a kit Sally bought at Ameri-Mart and Horace put together while Michael played baseball. (Horace wanted him to help as a lesson in tool-hood, but Sally wanted to surprise him.) His laptop computer was open, the screen waving fluorescent colors at him like a kaleidoscopic lava lamp from the old days. Yellow sliding into green, green to magenta, magenta to purple. Against the wall, perpendicular to the desk, was Michael’s “entertainment center”—the new hearth, Horace thought. The old, mesmerizing dance of fire replaced by the mind-numbing flicker of television, the enjoyment of self-taught music on simple instruments as a diversion from a day of hard work replaced by a wall of sound and sight that could be ratcheted up to assault levels.

  Michael’s television was the crown jewel of the entertainment center; a flat-screen with a deep, radiant blue color, like a sapphire October evening over the western shore of Otsego Lake. The entertainment electronics made Horace think of a manned space fortress from a science fiction movie. And he was Rip Van Winkle, waking up in the Kaaterskill Clove of his own home, the black-and-white graybeard in a Technicolor world.

  After a few minutes, Michael put the game down and pulled the plugs from his ears. “Thanks for turning it off,” Horace said.

  “I just paused it. I’m winning. Beating last year’s All-Star team.”

  Horace broke a brief silence.

  “You know, it’s funny, but as I was watching you play, I realized that people, from the time we were cavemen, have always needed something to do with their hands and fingers. So we created primitive art, then invented tools, then musical instruments. Think of all the intricate artwork through history. Think of all the different crafts that evolved just to give people something to do with their hands. You know, kids in the nineteenth century played finger games with string, making elaborate designs. Interesting? Huh?”

  “I guess.”

  Horace decided not to press the message: If you spent as much time perfecting a craft or practicing a musical instrument as you did playing these fucking games . . .

  He wanted to tell Michael these things, but held back; Sally’s critical chirping was always in his ear, whether she was there or not.

  “So, Dad, what up?” Michael said, with a barely audible sigh of impatience, as he looked back at his paused game.

  “I got you a job at the farm,” Horace said.

  “I know. Mom told me.”

  “She did? What else did she say?”

  “She said I’d be working in the fields, and with the animals, in the blacksmith shop. She said it might tire me out for baseball, and I didn’t have to do it if I didn’t want.”

  “She did?”

  “But I’ll do it, if that’s what you want. It’s no big deal,” Michael said, his eyes transfixed on the still screen.

  The resignation in his voice was another Sally echo, a passive-aggressive tactic that always worked.

  Horace, instead of saying “okay, well, good,” and walking away with the win, elongated the conversation.

  “Give it a chance. It’ll be fun,” Horace said.

  “I’ll give it a chance, Dad, but it won’t be fun.”

  “I guess that’s right. Hard work isn’t fun, not in the video-game sense. . . . No, I take that back,” Horace said, unconceding the point. “It is fun, to break a sweat, to build muscle. To feel tired satisfaction at the end of the day. It’s work. It’s life. It’s more than life. When I look out in those fields, and into the eyes of those animals, I see God’s work. It puts you in touch . . .”

  “Dad. It’s just a summer job,” Michael said, again with Sally’s exasperation in his tone.

  “You can dismiss it as that, but you shouldn’t,” Horace said. “Tell you what . . . you think about it. A man should love his work. Work feeds your soul. Otherwise it’s thankless labor.”

  A few weeks earlier, Horace had taken Michael to the town hall to get working papers “just in case.”

  “In case of what?” Michael asked.

  “You’re almost fifteen. In case you want a job,” Horace said, holding back the museum part. “You know, make yourself a little spending money, so you don’t have to listen to me say no all the time. A little work never killed anybody. . . .”

  “I know, Dad. I’m not saying it did.”

  The idea of a job never occurred to Michael, but once he had the state-stamped certificate with his name and Social Security Number in hand, he thought it might not be a bad idea. His baseball practices and games were mostly at night, under the lights at Legion fields. He could work a little part-time job into his schedule and it would be cool to have his own money. No more asking his parents. No more lectures from his father about the apps, tunes, or games he wanted to buy.

  “All this fingertip technology is making people’s brains soft,” Horace would say. “People don’t know their own phone numbers . . . GPS is killing our sense of direction. We can’t find our way without some gadget. That’s a metaphor for the whole damn thing. . . .”

  It seemed whatever Michael wanted—music, movies, sports, fast food, clothes, whatever—brought on one of Horace’s “This is what’s wrong with America” speeches. Michael and his mother even had a code joke about it.

  It started one afternoon when Michael was about ten. He was out with Sally and wanted to stop at a McDonald’s.

  “Or is that WWWA?” he asked his mother.

  “Excuse me?” said Sally.

  “WWWA, you know, What’s Wrong with America,” Michael said.

  Sally had to pull over, she was laughing so hard.

  “Oh, that’s beautiful, priceless,” she said, wiping the tears from her eyes.

  Michael loved that moment. He never saw his mother so happy. She hugged him and called him brilliant. So he used it again and again.

  Now he could work and buy the stuff he wanted with his own money, and that’s what’s right with America, Michael thought.

  * * *

  THE DAY AFTER Horace took him to get working papers, Michael went into town to see if anybody was hiring, and hit the T-shirt shops and memorabilia stores.

  Gone Batty was a narrow shop on Pioneer, with an inventory of replica bats of the most popular Hall of Famers, and a machine that could carve anybody’s signature into a standard Louisville Slugger. Sally once gave one to Michael for his birthday.

  Michael walked in and saw a pretty young woman, no more than twenty-five, hanging up baseball jerseys. He asked for the manager.

  “Why?”

  “I’m looking for a job.”

  “Well, if you want a job here, the first thing you have to do is be smart enough to think a girl might be your manager,” she said.

  “Sorry.” Michael felt his face turn red, which made it turn redder, which made the girl laugh out loud.

  “I’m just joshing you,” she said, and patted his arm.

  “Joshing?” Michael said, relieved. “That’s a country word. My mother says that.”

  “Oh, look at you! So you give as good as you get. We like that here.”

  She smiled at him, and Michael felt his heart do something funny and the warmness spread from his face to his chest.

  “I’m June,” she said, and stuck out her hand, businesslike. Michael shook it, aware his hand had gotten clammy all of a sudden.

  She said, “Follow me” and bounced off with a quick walk, lurching forward, which made the blond hair flutter around her neck and her butt stick out. Michael found his eyes drawn to it, in a way he couldn’t help, like some animal instinct that made him ashamed. She gave him an application, and Michael struggled to make sure his handwri
ting was neat and not childlike.

  She looked it over when he was done.

  “Michael Mul-ler.”

  “Mule-er.”

  “You’re a Cooperstown boy. Chicken Farm Hill Road? Really?”

  “Yeah, it’s on the edge of town. I can walk here,” he said.

  “Okay, hon. I think we can work something out during tourist season.”

  Something about the way she said “hon” deflated him. It made him feel like a little kid, like she was his babysitter or something.

  She explained the job; stocking shelves and polishing bats. Keeping order in the shop.

  “When would I start?”

  “First week of June. That’s when the tourists really start coming. We can use you right up till school starts. One thing, don’t plan any vacation around Induction Day. We get busy as heck. And this year, we’re getting Joe Grudeck in for a signing. You know who that is, right?”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Michael didn’t tell Horace he’d applied at Gone Batty, because he didn’t want to hear the WWWA lecture about the downtown stores.

  “Tourist traps,” Horace called them. “Fools and their money.”

  He told Sally, though, and that’s when she told him about the farm job.

  “What should I do, Mom?” he asked.

  “You should do what you want.”

  Now, as Horace told Michael about the farm job, Michael had to tell him. He sat up on the edge of the bed.

  “Dad, listen. I already got a job in town.”

  “Why’d you do that?”

  “You said to get a job.”

  “I didn’t say that. I said you should have your papers, in case. I got you a job.”

  “But I applied for this one first.”

  “Okay, so turn it down.”

  Michael was quiet, eyes back on the TV screen.

  “Where’s the job?” Horace asked.

  “One of the souvenir stores. Gone Batty,” he said, and knew what was coming.

  “Gone Batty? I’ll say. The whole goddamn town, the whole goddamn country’s gone batty. Maybe I’m missing something, but I think the farm would be a better experience . . . I can teach you how to make things of iron with your own two hands, things that last a lifetime. Isn’t that better than selling souvenirs made in China to tourists?”

  “Most jobs these days are in stores,” Michael countered.

  “What? Is that your ambition? To work in Walmart? Or maybe Burger King? Is that it? To be in a polyester smock, poisoning people with crap food, or peddling shit products made in Asian sweatshops?!”

  “Dad, it’s no big deal,” Michael said.

  “That’s where you’re wrong, son. It is a big deal. It’s bigger than big. Somebody has to make a stand before all the things we once valued are gone.”

  At that point, Sally, who had been eavesdropping, entered the room.

  “My God, Horace, it’s just a summer job!” Sally said. “Why do you make him feel like he’s contributing to the downfall of the democracy?”

  Michael tried to stifle a laugh.

  “What? What the hell? What the hell’s so funny?” Horace said, looking from son to wife.

  Sally jumped in.

  “Nothing, Horace. It’s just that you’re so predictable. We knew what you were going to say.”

  Horace felt rage. The way Sally said “we.” Them. Them on one side, opposite him.

  “Well, I’m glad I’m such a big joke to both of you . . . You know, Sally, goddamnit, all I want is to spend a little time, work time, with my son. My son. Show him something about the work his ancestors did. My grandfather. His grandfather. Show him where he came from, and goddamn you, you have to undermine the whole goddamn thing.”

  “Stop yelling!” Sally said. “It’s his life, Horace, once and for all. It’s not always about what you want!”

  “Can you both stop fighting?” Michael said. “I’ll work at the farm.”

  “No! No, you won’t,” Sally said. “We’ve been bullied enough around here . . .”

  “Is that what we call a father, a man, asserting himself these days, Sally? Bullying? For Chrissakes.”

  “Dad, stop it. Stop yelling at her,” Michael said. And Michael, asserting himself, even with the tears in eyes, left Horace no choice but either escalate the fight or retreat.

  He went out the door, then onto the porch, where he grabbed his tools and headed to the woodpile.

  Eight-pound maul, ten-pound sledge, three-pound wedge, and the double-bladed ax. All were sharp. Every two weeks, he brought them to the smithy and sat at the pedal grinder, pumping until the wheel spun so fast its coarse stone particles blended into one color. He laid the blades on the spinning wheel, and sparks of metal were spat out, stinging his hands and forearms.

  Horace laid the tools down on the pile of tree-trunk pieces, cut by chain saw.

  Damn Sally. She was probably in there right now, babying him. Telling him . . . whatever. What the fuck ever.

  Horace took the wedge and tapped it down in the grain cracks near the center of the log with the sledge. He swung the hammer over his shoulder, arcing it around his head, with a torque twist of his body, then punched it down, arms straight, knees collapsing, with the force of all his practice and anger. With one shot, the log broke in half, except for a few thin bands of splinters, which Horace pulled apart with his hands.

  He worked fast; whole logs became halves, halves became burnable quarters, some quarters were turned into kindling eighths. He didn’t stack; he just threw them in a pile for now, near the rusted overturned wheelbarrow. Maybe Michael would come out and move them to the porch, as a way to make amends. Maybe, bullshit. As Horace broke log after log, he looked back at the porch door, waiting for it to open, knowing it would not.

  The violence of the work usually calmed Horace; he took his anger out on the wood and soon found a calm rhythm, and saw the product of his labor in a growing cord. But on this day, every swing brought more frustration. Goddamn, Sally. Michael, too. Gone Batty. Sucking up to jock sniffers, every one of them. Something was broken. Now, in his own home.

  He pulled a log he knew was too green and would kick back, either bounce the maul blade off its resilient surface or eat the blade and not let go. On his first shot, he buried the maul deep, but the wood did not give. He pushed and pulled on the handle, trying to twist it out. He felt a twinge in his back; the beginning of a muscle spasm. Getting old. His brute body, now, too, a traitor? The muscles between his shoulder blades burned, and there was a dull ache in his lower back and both hips. He couldn’t free the maul, so he grabbed the sledge to drive it deeper and split the log. As he slammed down the hammer with all his force, he hit the maul at a bad angle, flat, without tension, and all that vibration zipped up the handle to his sinew and muscle, like an electrical current. The handle splintered and the pain radiated through his hands and wrists, up the flexors and extensors of both forearms. His elbows, God bless them, did their job as shock absorbers and stopped the pain’s northward march, but the damage was done. He cursed himself for being distracted. He wheeled and threw the broken handle toward the house, hating everybody and everything.

  He was out of breath, and his legs were shaky. Horace’s throat was clogged with a clump of stubborn mucus. He tried to gob it up, but his throat was too dry.

  He sat down on a log, and the chilly air caused vapor to rise off the sweat matting his hair.

  Who the hell was she to judge him?

  Horace hung his head and looked down at his stinging hands.

  Hands that made things. That made things, goddamnit.

  When did that become not enough?

  All he wanted was to show his kid how.

  And now everything was . . . lost. Fucking lost.

  He practically had to beg Grundling to arrange the job and agree to do a college girl’s docent work in the Giant tent. And now Michael wasn’t coming to work. Horace knew that, for sure. He’d bet his life on it. He knew Sally was
in there right now, coddling Michael, telling him he didn’t have to do anything he didn’t want to. He knew she was in there saying, “You do what you want, sweetheart . . . Don’t worry about your father, I’ll take care of him.”

  * * *

  SALLY WATCHED FROM BEHIND THE thin curtain. Horace looked so defeated and alone, and though she tried to feel sympathy for him, she instead felt guiltily victorious. At least it wasn’t Michael or her beaten down this time. Horace didn’t break easily, and there he was, sitting on a log, head down, massaging his hands. He would come in soon enough, and go through his sullen act. He would move through the house, planks creaking underneath his weight, and stoke the fire in his beloved stove, pull up a chair and watch the flames through the grate. He would wait for her to break the silence, and she would. She always did.

  But now, as Horace rose and headed toward the house, Sally saw something that frightened her. He had pulled himself up to his full height with his chest thrust out, and was walking fast. He picked up the shattered handle on the way, the splintered side sharp like the blade of a sword. Sally ran to the door. Lock it? Or go out and confront him, away from Michael? She went out.

  “What, Horace? What are you going to do?”

  Horace saw the fear on her face and it gave him some primordial satisfaction.

  “I broke the sledge handle. I was going to throw it on the woodpile. Then I was going to talk to Michael.”

  “About what?”

  “Since when do I need permission to talk to my son?”

  Sally crossed her arms.

  “You just don’t see it, do you? You just don’t see how you beat him down. How you beat us down . . .”

  “I don’t beat him down, Sally,” Horace said, volume rising. “I just ask him to look at things a little differently. Why is that so bad?”

  “Because you aren’t helping him make choices! You’re making him make choices. You’re overbearing and relentless, you chide him until he comes around to your way of thinking. The almighty Horace way. Can’t you see he doesn’t want to work there? Didn’t you see how proud he was to find his own little job? Can’t you see that he doesn’t want to disappoint you, but that every single little thing he does never meets your approval? You’re driving him away, Horace. You’re just too dense to see it.”