by Callan Wink
“Forget all that,” he said. “No time to spare here. Fairgrounds. They got the Boy Scouts down there filling sandbags. Let’s go.”
At the fairgrounds, the Boy Scouts had a small mountain of sandbags. They were working in pairs, one boy fitting an empty bag over an orange traffic cone with the end cut off, the other boy shoveling sand in the funnel. Trucks were coming in and out, people tossing bags, classic rock turned up loud. It was Dale’s father’s type of scene. He immediately recruited a couple of loitering Boy Scouts and they hoisted the bags up to the truck bed where Dale stacked them. Dale’s father was circulating, shouting good-natured insults and encouragement. He’d found a Styrofoam cup of coffee somewhere and Dale heard him talking to the Scout leader. “Nah,” he was saying, “our house is on a hill. It would have to get biblical for it to touch us. This is for Dale’s little girlfriend. She’s about to get washed away.”
—
They stacked sandbags all afternoon. Dale and his father standing up to their knees in the icy water, Jeannette right there with them, ducking down to balance bags on her shoulder, walking from truck to stack to truck, a slight woman, but surprisingly capable of bearing weight. She dropped a bag with a grunt and went back for another. Dale watched his father watching her. He was a man who valued work above all else. He’d told Dale a long time ago that he wanted the inscription on his gravestone to read: HE GOT HIS WORK DONE.
The three of them stacked feverishly until their wall was built, a three-foot high barrier spanning the low spot in Jeannette’s lawn. When Dale looked up he could see the boys inside, their faces pressed to the sliding glass doors. His dad occasionally made an exaggerated scowl at them, and they ran back into the kitchen.
It took them two loads of sandbags until they had something that seemed capable of holding back the water. The rain had slackened, and they sat on the back porch, exhausted. Jeannette had gotten them beers and they drank watching the water rush by, still rising.
Eventually Jeannette stood and gathered their empties. “I want you both to go home and get cleaned up,” she said. “And then I want you both to come right back over for dinner. I’ve got lasagna that I made last week and froze. I can heat it up and make a salad and some garlic bread.” Dale’s father was starting to say something to protest but she held up her hand to cut him off. “I insist,” she said. “Dinner in forty-five minutes. Hit the showers. I make a damn good lasagna.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
—
After dinner, Dale’s father thanked Jeannette, and she hugged him, kissed his cheek, his face going red. Dale walked him out to the porch.
“I guess you’ll not be needing a ride home?”
Dale shook his head. “Guess not.”
“Can’t say that I blame you there.”
“Yep.”
“That was good lasagna.”
“Not bad.”
“Well.” He was looking down, scratching at his beard. He cleared his throat and spit. “Good work, son.” He stomped down the steps and Dale could hear him belching as he swung into the cab of his truck.
Dale went back inside and helped Jeannette with the dishes. They went to the porch with a blanket wrapped around them, listening, trying to gauge the depth of the water in the dim broadcast of the moon, not talking much. Eventually she fell asleep with her head on his chest, her arms and legs twitching occasionally.
Dale woke, sun just peeking up over the lilac bushes in the backyard. One of the boys was crying, he could hear it coming through the upstairs window. Jeannette was still sleeping, curled, knees to chest with her back to him. He waited for a moment for her to wake up, but the boy continued to wail, and she showed no sign of movement. He nudged her and she groaned and rolled over, her face still under the blanket.
“One of the boys is up,” he said.
She said something, mostly unintelligible, that might have been, “It’s your turn.”
Dale lay there listening to the boy wail for a few more moments. He slipped from under the blanket and squelched across the soggy, cold lawn in his bare feet. There was a brown scum line on the sandbags marking the high point the creek had reached. Their wall had held. The creek was still rushing but it had settled back within its banks, running straight and hard and tea colored. He walked back to the porch, and the lump under the blanket that was Jeannette had not stirred. It was silent, and then another sob from upstairs. Dale deliberated for a moment.
He went inside. They’re just kids, he was thinking, why are you nervous? He opened the door to the boys’ room and immediately, the crying stopped. They looked at him expectantly, red faced.
“Mom?” one of them said, trying to look around Dale to see if she was back there.
“She’s still sleeping,” Dale said. “Let’s let her sleep.” They were staring at him. The younger one was looking like he was going to start crying again. “Do you guys like coffee?”
Silence. The older one shook his head.
“I bet your mom doesn’t let you have coffee, does she? No? Well, she’s asleep so we can do whatever we want. Let’s go. We’re going to have to hurry before she wakes up and shuts us down.” Dale headed downstairs, not sure if they were going to follow. He was filling the carafe with water when they came into the kitchen, blinking, hair standing on end.
“It’s very important to do this correctly,” he said. “Come here and watch this. You’ve got to put five scoops of grounds in the filter. Okay? Five. Your mom makes coffee and she puts in four, on a good day. We’re men. Right? We want strong coffee. Five scoops. Got it?”
Serious nods.
“Okay. We need mugs. Lots of Cream. Lots of Sugar. When you get older you’ll drink it black. But this is how you start. It’s how my dad used to make mine. You don’t want to go right to the hard stuff.” They sat at the kitchen island. Each with a mug in front of him.
“Now what?” one of them asked.
“We drink our coffee. We talk about the weather.”
“It stopped raining,” one of them said, looking out the window.
“Yep,” Dale said. “I think it’s going to be a nice day.”
“It’s been raining a lot.”
“I like snow better than rain.”
“I like it when it’s sunny.”
“You guys are naturals at this,” Dale said.
Jeannette came in the back door. She had the blanket wrapped around her shoulders and her eyes were puffy. She stopped when she saw them sitting there, Dale with her two boys. He could imagine the way it looked to her. The scene almost the way it should be, one note off. If she was jarred by it, she hid it well.
“Dale made us coffee,” one of the boys said. “And we’re talking about the weather.”
Jeannette sat down. “Girls allowed?”
“I guess.”
She reached for Dale’s mug. I can’t believe I slept for so long,” she said. “Jesus. My back. I’m too old for sleeping on porches.” She was squeezing his knee under the counter, smiling at him.
“We didn’t flood,” Dale said.
“I noticed. I’m going to bake your dad a pie or something. My god, this coffee is horrible. Are you boys actually drinking this?”
“It’s good,” one of them said.
“Because we’re men,” said the other.
—
The summer progressed. Dale studied for his test. He ran in the mornings when it was still cool. Sometimes there was fog coming off the river, and when this happened he found himself picking up the pace, unable to see more than an arm’s length in front of his face, a headlong feeling. Less like running, more like falling.
He did a few more ride-alongs. A few minor incidents, nothing like that first night. He was there for a shooting. An accident, two kids playing with their dad’s handgun. The one kid shot through the leg, a puckered purple hole, his face white. Dale helped carry the stretcher and load the kid into the ambulance. “My dad is going to be so pissed,” the kid was saying. “Is this exp
ensive? It is, isn’t it? He’s going to kill me.”
“You’re all right, man,” Dale said to him. “Your dad’s just going to be happy that you’re going to be fine. Don’t worry.”
He was feeling quietly confident about the test. About things in general. He’d made flashcards and sometimes Jeannette quizzed him, lying on the couch in the evenings after she’d put the boys to bed. She’d have her bare feet in his lap so he could rub them.
“What are the two types of cerebral vascular accidents?”
“Embolic or ischemic strokes and hemorrhagic strokes.”
“Correct-o. You’re going to kill this.”
“I don’t know. We’ll see.”
“Nonsense. You know all these forward and backward.”
“Until I sit down in that room with the clock.”
“Just imagine everyone else in the room naked. Right? Isn’t that what you’re supposed to do?”
“That’s if you’re scared of public speaking.”
“It might still help, though.”
“I’ll try it and let you know.”
—
The morning of the test, Dale rose early. Jeannette, a soft, sleep-warmed shape next to him. He hadn’t seen his own bed in weeks.
She’d recently told him that if he wanted to move his stuff in, that would be fine with her. It actually sounded like a pretty good plan. He was spending so much time there anyway, it made sense. He’d be able to help with money too, just as soon as he passed the test, and the fire department could formally hire him. They’d already given him a verbal agreement. The test would make it official, and then he’d be making a decent wage.
He laced up his shoes in the dark, the house silent. He drank a full glass of water and then closed the door behind him quietly. He hit the sidewalk, his legs nearly twitching with pent-up energy. He was going to fly through this run, and then get another quick half hour of studying in before the test time. He was going to kill the goddamn test, and then his life was going to unfold in a solid, meaningful way with Jeannette, kids and all. You never can tell, he thought. You can’t predict these things.
The sun was starting to come up over the hills just outside of town. He was cruising down the river path now, breath coming easily, occasionally reaching out to brush his fingers over the deep furrows of the cottonwoods that lined the trail. Just before the 9th Street bridge, there was something—a blur on his periphery—a figure in a hooded sweatshirt holding something, coming at him in mid-swing, a stick, a bat. And then Dale was running, but his feet weren’t on the ground. Fog creeping in off the river, black fog, and Dale plunging right into it.
—
Ken hadn’t gone to coffee with the guys in a long time. He didn’t know if he was up to it or not, but he had to get out of the house someway. Last night the leaves had been blasted from the trees in one brutal windstorm. He’d gone to bed and woken up to bare limbs. Clouds forecasting snow. It had been months since he’d come down to the Albertsons like this. He went to the self-serve kiosk and got his paper cupful, pushed fifty cents into the slot in the counter. He sat down at the table, and Greg Ricci, who’d been talking, barely broke stride. He nodded at Ken. “And then I told him, I says, you have to premix the damn oil and gas. I knew this kind of stuff when I was a little kid, and this is a guy with a college education. He’d never mixed up oil and gas for a lawnmower in his whole life. I don’t know. It’s a changing world. I’m sometimes glad I’m on my way out of it.”
“Oh, hell.”
“I’m serious. You go to a bar and no one’s talking to each other. Everyone’s looking down at their phone, or whatever. I went down to Denver to see my kid. I was in the airport. The bars in the airports have all got those damn iPods. Right in front of the stool so you can’t move them. I try to order a beer with the bartender and he tells me he can’t take my order. I have to punch it in on the iPod. I says, what the hell are you standing back there for then, if you can’t take my order? And he says, well, someone still has to twist the top off it, and I says, well, watch your ass because they’ll figure a way to get around that too.” He stopped to take a sip of his coffee. “How you been, Ken?”
“Okay, considering.”
“I hear you. Nice to see you.” Nods all around.
“Yep. A bit blustery this morning.”
“No shit. My old lady is going to be on me to start raking.”
“Goddamn raking.”
“Hell with it, this might be the year I pay someone to do it.”
“Oh, bullshit, you’re too much of a tightwad.”
“We’ll see. Hey, I saw the bench they put up on the river trail for your boy, Ken. Looks like they did a real nice job.”
“It’s just a bench.”
“I know. But it’s in a good spot there. A person could sit there in the shade and see the river.”
“I don’t even know who came up with that idea. I had nothing to do with it.”
“I think it was the folks at the fire department. The other paramedics down there.”
“They never asked me.”
“Well, it’s a real nice bench. There’s a plaque and everything.”
“It’s just a bench.”
“Looks well made, though. Comfortable.”
“It’s just a fucking bench. Okay? Can we all agree on that?”
“They should have asked you.”
“We could go down there and tear the bastard out.”
“I don’t want to tear it out. It’s only a bench, and it means nothing to me. Dogs will be pissing on it long after we’re dead and buried.” Ken took a sip of his coffee. He checked to see if his hands were shaking and they weren’t. This was recent, something he’d never had to do before in his life. “You hear they’re going to start issuing wolf tags?” he said. “I think we should all go get one.”
“Kill one wolf, save a thousand elk.”
“Shoot, shovel, and shut up, that’s what I always say.”
“Goddamn right.”
—
They said that he was on his way to get her. That’s what the cops said, and she had to believe they were right. She didn’t truly think he would have harmed the boys. But who’s to say? Obviously she didn’t know him anymore and maybe she never had. She’d been saved by a traffic stop of all things. He was driving too fast through the park, and when the trooper hit his lights, Tony had sped up going the other way. He was going almost eighty, they said, when he hit the berm along the river. His car came up and over and landed in the water upside down.
Sometimes in the early morning she came awake with the feeling that a hand was on her hip, a male presence at her back. If she was still half asleep she might remember the dream she was having. Sometimes it was Dale, kind and considerate and serious, and when this was the case she woke up sad. Sometimes it was Tony, the old Tony, the one who knew her better than anyone, and on these occasions she woke up flushed and hating herself.
After it happened, weeks after the funeral, she stopped by Dale’s father’s house. She brought him a pan of lasagna. He stood in the doorway. Made no move to let her in.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about,” he said. His eyes saying just the opposite. “I’ll bring your pan back to you tomorrow,” he said. “And I’d appreciate if you never did anything like this again. I’d just as soon you didn’t.” He shut the door carefully and Jeannette walked home. She had to sit on the front steps for a long time before she’d found a face she could present to her sons.
—
They’d gotten a big snow overnight and school was canceled. Their mom had stayed home from work and made them hot chocolate. His little brother had the hot chocolate, but he told her he’d rather have coffee. He made sure she did it correctly, five scoops. He put a lot of cream in it and sugar and a little hot chocolate too and that was pretty good. They sat drinking in the kitchen watching the flakes come down fat and white as the
pom-poms on a Christmas hat.
“Let’s get all our warm stuff on and go out to the park,” his mom said. It was her cheerful voice, the one she used a little bit before but seemed to use a lot now.
He shrugged.
“We could build a snowman,” his little brother said.
His mom was stirring her coffee. “That sounds like a good idea,” she said. “Let’s do it.”
On the way to the park, someone passed them on skis, going right down the middle of the street. The trees were coated in a thick, white blanket, the pines with their branches weighted down and sagging, so that if he bumped them they’d shed their load and spring up in a shower of fine crystal.
They made a snowman, but they hadn’t thought to bring a carrot for a nose or coal for eyes, so they just used sticks but it didn’t look quite right. He and his brother karate-kicked its head off.
He got the idea that he might like to build a snow fort. Kind of like an igloo, but also with some sticks, like a tipi. He enlisted his brother’s help. His mother helped for a while, too, but then she said she was tired and went to sit on a bench. There were some trees over there, and he could just see the river behind her. She was wearing a bright-red Livingston Fire Department hat that used to be Dale’s, and he had the thought that if snowmen had blood, their insides would look like a cherry snow cone.
When he looked up again a short time later, he saw that there was a man, sitting on the bench next to his mother. They were at opposite ends, and he was too far away to see if they were talking. It didn’t look like they were. It looked like the bench was too small for the two of them, like they didn’t want to be on it with each other. The man was wearing a bright-orange hunting cap. Neon orange. His mom had her bright hat on, and this man had his on, and everything else was white snow or gray tree trunks or black river. He stopped working on his fort wall and started to walk over. His mom thought he was a little kid still, but he wasn’t. He was ten years old now and he’d picked up a fallen cottonwood stick as big around as his wrist, and he was stomping fast through the deep snow, watching his mother the whole time.
