The Coldest Night

by Robert Olmstead

  “No, ma’am.”

  “There’s a little fire inside,” she said.

  “It’s a cold dark scene out there, buddy boy,” the man said. Henry thought how he too carried a shadow in his mind, the after-­images burned deep in his retinas.

  The woman held the door and Henry bumped the man in his wheelchair over the threshold. Inside was warm and dry and there was light and cushioned chairs to sit in. The woman took out a pack of cigarettes and a small box of stick matches from her apron pocket. She studied his face as she lit one for herself and then passed them to the man who did not offer to pass them along. They were waiting for him to speak.

  “I knew your son, ma’am. I am here to pay my condolences.”

  “Lew is dead?” she said. And then, “Lew is dead.”

  “I am sorry, ma’am. I thought you already knew. I only came to pay my respects.”

  “Who are you? How do you know?”

  “I was with him, ma’am.”

  “In Korea?”

  “In Korea.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “We got hit pretty hard, ma’am.”

  “Why don’t you just cut right through it,” the man said. He tipped back his head and released a plume of smoke.

  Henry cleared his throat and as he did he scraped back his chair. The woman took his wrist before he could stand and implored him to stay with a litany of apologies.

  “I am sorry,” she said. “I am so sorry. You’ve come all this way.”

  “I thought maybe you’d have known by now. I just wanted to tell you he was real brave.”

  “That’s my Lew,” she said, and she began to weep. Henry gently tugged his wrist, but when he did her grasp tightened as if she were afraid one of them were about fall.

  “Now he belongs to the angels,” she said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “They told me he was missing,” she said. “That much I knew.”

  “He was very good company,” Henry said, “in some very hard times.”

  “You couldn’t be mistaken?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “He was a special boy,” the woman said.

  “Yes, ma’am. Your son was a man far above average.”

  “You’re just a boy yourself. How old are you?”

  “Old enough.”

  “If he wasn’t before, he is now,” the man said. His was a dust yellow face with red spots. He took up a walking cane he’d never be able to use, perching his hands on the crook.

  “I will thank the Lord you have come to me,” the woman said. “You were the last to ever see my son alive and now you are sitting in my home.”

  “He was like my brother.”

  “Do you not have a brother?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Henry paused.

  “He didn’t want me to leave him there, but I had to,” he finally said.

  “Of course you did. You couldn’t very well carry him out.”

  In moments he felt like a bomb looking for a place to go off.

  “He always had to win,” she said. “He could even beat you at bingo.”

  “How bad were it?” the man asked.

  “It were bad,” Henry said.

  “Your living, your wanting to live, does not make you bad,” the man said, wagging a finger at him.

  “I struggle with that,” Henry said.

  “Where are your wounds?”

  “Ralph,” the woman cried.

  “I don’t have any but a few,” Henry said.

  “Your guardian angel,” the woman whispered. She had begun to weep.

  “What happened to your face?”

  “I cut myself shaving,” Henry said, having had enough of the man.

  “I will pray for you,” the woman said.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “It could have gone the other way, but it didn’t,” the man said. “Right now Lew could be visiting your people.”

  “Yes, sir. It could have.”

  “But it didn’t,” the man said, and then he said, “Did you get any medals?”

  “A few,” Henry said. “They were passing them out by the handfuls.”

  The woman’s lower lip was caught between her teeth. Then she stood. It was time to leave. It was time for her to go into her bedroom alone and weep the loss of her son.

  “Don’t take any wooden nickels,” the man said, extending his hand.

  “No,” Henry said, taking the man’s hand. “I wouldn’t think of it.”

  “He was a tough kid,” the man said.

  “He was as tough and hard as any man,” Henry said.

  Henry stood and straightened his body. He let himself out and paused on the porch to light a cigarette. He drew deeply and the tobacco crackled and sparks flew. He knew why Lew went back and it did not have anything to do with a persimmon yellow Jaguar automobile. If he hadn’t gone back he would have died here or been killed and it wouldn’t have mattered. It wouldn’t have been for any reason at all.

  Chapter 35

  IT WAS A HOT moonless night when he arrived at the riverbank. The moon was cloaked in a passing gray scud, but by the time he was ready thin ribbons of moonlight were slipping through the tangled vines on the far bank.

  There was the little boat that he knew he’d find tied there, the one he watched the boys use to let out on a rope from where it would float under the bridge. He walked along the riverbank to the path that led the way down to the river and sure enough he found the flat bottom boat.

  He wet a finger and held it aloft.

  “When the wind’s in the east the fish bite least,” he whispered, and boated his gear.

  In the shallows and reed banks the croaking frogs went silent as he stepped into the boat. He untied it and with a long pole he pushed away from the bank and set out on the dark river. A powerful invisible current captured the boat and in no time laid it gently atop the pool. Its flat black surface repeated the image of the bridge and the moon and the shadows of the drooping willows.

  He swung into the current at the head of the deep pool and where the current slowed he swung like a flat slow pendulum. Down there the light and darkness commingled. Under the moonlight were the yellow fritillaries dancing the sky and there was a dog somewhere baying at the moon. The air was cool and there was a gentle floating silence as if the air and water were in agreement.

  He lit a small lantern with a reflector that shined a spot of light on the backwater where he hoped the fish might congregate. He raised his arm and with the flick of his wrist he cast the line into the pool between the bridge and where the water toppled and necked and flowed in the direction of the great midwestern river.

  “Not much luck,” he said after a short while. Overhead was the night glow of the town. From the pilings there was a soft tearing sound and a gurgling as the water raked down their walls.

  I am afraid these fish have seen all the bait there is to see, he thought.

  He cast in the direction the rod pointed and his line carried beyond the pool, wrapped the near limb of a tree and entangled itself.

  “Better have a drink,” he said, and took up a highball glass he’d filled from a bottle. He downed the drink and then let out more of the tether that held him. He managed the boat to the edge of the low bank where he was able to stand and reach the limb and untangle the line. Then he took up the rope and pulled himself back into the shadows.

  “After all that you better have another,” he said, and laughed and agreed with himself.

  On the next cast he took a strike and lost his bait and so he rebaited from the can of night crawlers he’d dug from the garden and cast his line again. He set down the pole and mixed another cocktail. There was leftover chicken in a sack and bread and butter, mustard pickles, and potato chips.

  He picked up the pole and reeled in the line and after losing both his bait and hook, thought it was a turtle he was feeding.

  “Catch it and we’ll make turtle soup,” he said.


  “Catch it with what?” he mumbled back as he pawed through the disarray in the tackle box.

  “This,” he said, and untangled a length of wire with a treble hook knotted at the end. He rigged and baited and cast again, the wire singing through the air, but without any luck.

  He watched the floating cork. Something was at the bait. Then the cork went under and stayed. He pulled up hard to set the hook and began to reel in what had taken his hook. A fish raised the surface once and then let itself be hauled to the boat. Dropping to his knee he boated the fish, gave the hook a twist and set the fish to swim again. He’d not felt such pleasure since when he could not remember.

  At midnight there was the banging sound of an explosion and the streetlights went off and then the rest of all lights extinguished in a checkerboard pattern and the final moment was complete and abrupt and soundless. The darkness on the water was made manifold as the only lights to be seen were from the few automobiles that traveled so late at night. He flinched and the little boat quaked.

  “Steady,” he said. Something was prodding again at the treble hook.

  There was an automobile approaching from the city. He watched the headlights come on and then he could hear the engine. On the bridge, midspan, the automobile stopped and a man got out. He lit a match in the darkness and touched it to a cigarette. He looked to the white ropey water of the downstream side.

  Maybe we dropped the bomb, Henry thought.

  A flight of birds crossed the moon. Before the moon their black arrowed wings warped and straightened and warped again. The red eye of the cigarette paced the bridge over his head. He boated his fish pole, blew out the lantern, and picked up the line that tied him to the bend in the riverbank.

  The droning buzz of an airplane could be heard. It came out of the east and swooped low and made another pass.

  He began to argue with himself. He knew everything was okay and yet his heart was beating fiercely inside his chest. It was as if there was something he’d long dreaded was coming to be and he’d been caught out in it when it was the last thing he wanted to happen.

  Then came places of light. The hospitals with their backup generators lit up. Pinpoints of light were being made and had begun to converge from the so many candles and kerosene lanterns and automobiles carrying their electricity with them. At the station an unscheduled train was arriving, a special. The light was growing and it was coming to the river bridge.

  He took the rope in both hands and began pulling against the current. The little boat swung into the eddies that circled the steep bank. It tangled in cattails and reeds, and the low-­hanging limbs of the willows threatened to scrape him from the boat. He pulled hard, as hard as he could to get back to the landing, the rope taut and shedding water as it twisted in his hands. He held steady in the shadowed place of reeds and cattails and bowered willows.

  He sat down to catch his breath, to arrest his beating heart.

  The smell of gasoline came to him and he turned and looked up in time to see the automobile parked on the bridge explode with flames that rose in the night to twice the height. The water flashed the color of pewter and his vision went red and then he saw the man was similarly lighted by the flames and when the flames exploded to three and four times his height the man toppled from the bridge. His body fell, flames ripping through space, splashing sideways into the black water below where he disappeared beneath the water’s surface.

  He wasn’t simply and terribly dead, but was surrounded by death: the dead pool, the dead bridge, the dead city, the dead air.

  Breathe, Henry told himself. Breathe.

  He watched that place in the river until he could watch it no longer. He wished he had another drink, but the bottle was empty.

  He did not know what to do. The automobile continued to burn, the flames sawing and quavering and their flagging smoke black and gaseous and roaring. A siren began its blare and did not relent and suddenly there was the roar of another great generator and another building burst with lights and glowed with singularity. Another generator joined and another and the buildings of government lit up and joined the lights of the hospital and the darkness was split and driven back to the ragged mountains.

  In the dark morning as he walked, far from the scorched stanchions of the iron bridge beyond the bend in the river, he could still smell the burning.

  He went to bed in the upstairs room under the eaves, but he could not find sleep. He could hear the wind in the trees. It was still dark and wouldn’t be light for some time. He sat up and yawned and then he sat forward on the edge of the bed and let his wrists fall between his knees and his chin drop to his chest.

  All that had happened was in him and surrounding him and he could no more set it aside than he could set aside his arm or leg. Maybe someday.

  He could hear the train whistle and the clackety clack of its passing. In the air was the burning stench of oil and gasoline and flesh. He wanted a drink.

  At what point did the man on the bridge understand that he would suffer life slowly and painfully until he died? Did his mind relieve him of his understanding for what was happening, or did his mind insist on living and divide so that one half struggled against the hopelessness and the greater half sought relief?

  Henry lit a match off his front tooth, let the flame linger close enough to his face that he felt the heat. Nothing in the world had changed. The night was no tear in the fabric of life. It was not chaos. It was not anarchy. It was the exception that proved the rule. The great clock was still ticking.

  He knew in the morning he would hear the milkman lugging his rack of rattling of bottles.

  Chapter 36

  THE NEXT NIGHT WHEN Henry left the house he was wearing a short-­sleeved shirt with a long tail he stuffed into the back waist of his khakis. He thought how he was learning again to like this dreary gray city. It was a sad city in how optimistic and unaware in its dreaming.

  He’d put a bottle of beer in his jacket pocket and when he left out the gate he uncapped it and took a drink. The sky was gray and cloudless. The rain and the wind had disappeared and the weather was high and clear. He was neither happy nor unhappy.

  Inside the hotel he stopped at the cigar stand and bought a cigar for after dinner. An encyclopedia salesman approached him, but he was not interested. He found a chophouse and after he ate he lit the cigar, throwing the match over his shoulder and kicking it with his heel. Pigeons swarmed in the square. They were intent and busy and then, as if of a single mind, they broke and tore the air with their wings and disappeared.

  The western sky was heart red and the mountains smoked with twilight fog. He plucked at the creases in his trousers and then he sat down on a bench. Soon would come the darkness and then the far bright stars. He recalled the pork chop and the baked potato and green beans and peach cobbler with ice cream he’d just eaten. He remembered the man on the bridge and did not want to. He drew on his cigar, drew the soporific smoke into his mouth. He crossed and uncrossed his legs. It was time for a drink.

  He took a stool in the shadows, his elbows on the bar. When he arrived it was still early, but now it was so late. The Red Pony was filling with a surge of people just arrived from some late-­night event and becoming loud and raucous. A woman was drunkenly trying to get someone on the pay phone. She rifled the coin into the slot, dialed the numbers, and tilted her head into the receiver. She waited, but there was no answer on the other end. She eyed him, gave up on the pay phone, and receded into the noise. He ordered another beer and a whisky.

  He was hearing the call of the past, but in that moment its granite weight lightened. He thought about wintering in the mountains. He’d raise a cabin and keep the fire going.

  Not far away, there was a blond-­haired woman in a dress, sitting with her legs crossed. She was watching him and yet he had the impression she was waiting for someone else. The thigh of her top leg was long and smooth and creased by a muscle where her skirt parted and let it to the light. She kept moving her ha
nd along her thigh as if it was something she’d just discovered.

  The bartender forwarded him a shot and indicated the woman who’d been trying to make the phone call as the one who’d purchased it for him. He relayed that he didn’t have to drink alone as she’d like to meet him. He pointed her out as she was weaving through the crowd toward him. He thanked her as graciously as he dared for she was in a precarious state.

  “What are you doing standing out like that?” the woman said, but he didn’t reply.

  She took a friendly swing at his shoulder and he caught her as she fell past. He held her upright and she tried to make language, and when she could not do that she began licking her tongue in the direction of his cheek.

  “How about you and me go somewhere,” she said.

  “Sure, I’d love to,” he said.

  Then a look crossed her face that was not hard to read. He turned her away from him as she went down on her knees and vomited on the floor. The crowd at the bar erupted in cheers.

  The drunk woman stirred and groaned. Several women bent down to attend her. Henry thought to leave, but he was there already and warmed inside the deep crowd at the bar. He continued down the road of drunkenness, perhaps on his way to a deep and profound sleep. He raised a finger when the bartender looked his way and slid his empty glass forward.

  The streets sparkled with light. He watched a patrol car do a slow pass. He was enjoying the drink and noise and the feel of so many people tucked inside one place. He knew he was close to something. He wasn’t sure what it was, but it seemed like there really were reasons for coming here.

  I should leave now, he thought.

  Then Mercy’s brother, Randall, came out of the crowd, a drink in his hand and an unlit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He approached the blond-­haired woman and it was clear there was a kind of familiarity and even friendliness between them.

  Henry watched him for how sudden his appearance and yet he did not turn away. It was only a matter of time before Randall saw him. His face, at first, was expressionless and then a look of recognition crossed his face and then it blackened. He set down his drink and took time to light the cigarette. He left the side of the blond-­haired woman and came to the bar where Henry sat. Henry turned away but knew Randall was walking in on him.