by Paul Theroux
I looked back and saw it hanging in the empty field, the old clothes stuffed with straw. Sweat had made my poison ivy itch, and I wanted to claw my face.
“Because it sure has you scared!” And he laughed.
3
THE STORY WAS that Tiny Polski, who had heard about his inventions, visited Father and pleaded with him to come to Hatfield. We lived in Maine then, not Dogtown but in the woods. Father was trying a year of self-sufficiency, growing vegetables and building solar panels and keeping us out of school. Polski promised money and a share in the farm. Father did not budge. Polski said he had unusual problems because he wanted, by mechanical means, to lengthen the growing season, even make it a two-season farm. It was a good area to raise kids in. It was safe, a happy valley, miles from anywhere. So Father accepted. That was the story he told me. But I knew better. Things had not gone well for us in Maine. Father had refused to spray insecticides on the vegetables—the worms got them before they could ripen. Rain and storm raised hell with the solar panels. For a while, Father would not eat, and he was taken to the hospital. He called it The Buzz Palace, but came out smiling and said, “I didn’t feel a thing.” He was healthy again, except that now and then he forgot our names. We drove to Hatfield with nothing. He liked starting from scratch.
It was impossible to think of Polski, or anyone else, as Father’s boss. Father did not take orders. He described Polski as “the runt,” called him Roly, and Doctor Polski—but “Doctor” was pure sarcasm, to frustrate any friendship. He believed that Polski, and most men, were his inferiors.
“He owns people,” Father said. “But he doesn’t own me.”
Polski was waiting for us on his piazza as we drove in. His eyes were gray and as hard as periwinkles. He was older than Father, and small and plump, and looked full of sawdust. He wore a checkered shirt and clean Dubbelwares and a belt around his middle that bunched his bib overalls into two bags. His Jeep was shiny, his boots were never muddy, there was no sweat stain on his hat. He did not smoke. He was always dressed for dirty work but never got dirty. We had not been inside his mansion, but whether this was because Father flatly refused to enter or because we had not been invited, I could not say. Maybe Polski knew better than to invite Father in and hear one of his speeches about crapsheets or cheeseburgers. I had looked through the windows and seen the polished table and the cut-glass vase of flowers, the plates in a wheel-row on the hutch, Ma Polski’s busy back as she stooped and tidied. None of it said welcome. And Ma Polski looked like part of the room.
“Nice day,” Polski said.
“You bet,” Father said.
“Hope it’s like this on the weekend. I got something doing on Saturday.”
Sumthun doo-un on Saddy was what he said. But Father did not comment. He was excited. He had driven with impatience, he was eager to show Polski the hopper he had made, his Worm Tub. He was proud of it, whatever it was. And yet he was still sitting in the pickup truck, chewing his cigar.
“Got a match, Doctor?”
Polski screwed up one eye and rocked a little on his heels. The question baffled him. He said, “You come all the way over here for a match, Mr. Fox?”
“Yup.”
“Be right back.” Polski said his r’s like v’s—vight back, vemember, vobber, veally, vong. It was his lower lip catching on his front teeth. He went inside.
Father studied my rashy face and arms. He said, “You’ve got the mange. I hope you learned your lesson.”
He hopped out and set up the block and tackle behind the truck. “We’re going to knock his boots off,” he said. He swung the Worm Tub onto the driveway. “We’re going to straighten his hair.”
Polski returned with a box of big kitchen matches and looked at the Worm Tub and said, “Pretty small for a coffin.”
“I wonder if you’d do one more little thing for me,” Father said. “I need a glass of water. Just a small glass of regular water from your faucet.”
Muttering “a glass of vegular water,” Polski entered the farmhouse. I could tell from the way he said it and how the door banged shut that he was getting exasperated. When he brought the water out and gave it to Father he said, “You’re a mystery man, Mr. Fox. Now let’s get volling.”
“You’re a gentleman.”
Now Polski looked at me for the first time. “Poison ivy. You’re crawling with it. Ain’t that something.”
Hearing crawlun and sumthun, I stepped back and touched my face in shame. I had been fooled by a scarecrow. And I had figured it out. It made sense to put scarecrows up at night, so the birds would not know. Was that my lesson?
“What is it, anyway?” Polski was saying to Father.
“Tell you what it ain’t,” Father said, opening the door of the wooden box and revealing the metal compartment with its hinged flap and the rubber seal we had bought in Northampton. “It ain’t a coffin, and it ain’t a piece of diseased meat. Ha!”
He picked the flap open and said, “I want you to tell me what you see inside.”
“Nuthun.”
“You’re the witness, Charlie.”
Polski laughed. “Only his eyes are all swole shut.”
Father tipped some of the water out of the glass, seeming to measure it in splashes until there was about an inch left. He put the glass inside the metal compartment, closed the flap, closed the door, closed the hasp, then lit a match.
Polski said, “Don’t tell me you’re going to cook that glass of water.”
“I’ve got better things to do.”
“Likewise!”
Polski moved his lips after this. He was boiling.
Father said, “You won’t be disappointed.”
“What’s that stink? Kerosene?”
“Correct. Range oil. Cheapest fuel in America.”
“And smelliest.”
Father said, “Opinions vary.”
This made Polski gobble. “And you say you’re not cooking anything?”
“Not exactly.”
Father was enjoying himself. He worked at the back of the wooden box, where the tubing and the heating element were. Worm Tub was a good name for this crate of pipe joints. He had lighted a wick that was fed and moistened by a spout on the fuel tank, and adjusting the flame he sent bats of sticky soot out of the chimney. There was a gurgle inside, the sound a hungry stomach makes, but apart from this surge of discontented squirts in the tubes, nothing, no motor and not much heat.
“Does she burp or fart?” Father said. “That’s what you’re asking yourself.”
Polski grunted with embarrassment and clicked his eyes and looked impatient as he fussed his footsoles over pebbles. Heat, loose weeds of it, were growing blackly out of the chimney. Polski backed away.
“If them pipes are sealed, she’ll blow up,” he said. “Pressure.”
“Hide in your house if you want,” Father said. “But she’s got a full set of safety valves. Reason she’s smoking is I’ve got her turned up full blast. For demonstration purposes.” He snatched at his visor. “She can take it.”
He looked proudly upon it, and he seemed so certain of it, so carelessly confident, that I half expected it to wheeze open with a boom of flame and explode in his face. We had had other explosions. “Just testing,” Father would say. The workshop ceiling was scorched, and Father had not lost the tip of his finger opening a can of tuna fish, as he sometimes claimed.
Polski said, “If I ever wanted to cook a glass of water, I’d shove it on the front burner. Only I never veally wanted to voast a glass of water.”
Polski looked at me for approval, and then turned gloomy when he saw the column of greasy smoke. His head turtled into his shoulders, and he squinted, awaiting the bang.
Father winked at me. “Like the way she purrs?”
“Vumble, vumble,” Polski said.
“Not a wire anywhere,” Father said, walking slowly around the box. “She’s not connected to anything. I’ve got nothing up my sleeve. No moving parts, Doctor. Nothing to w
ear out. Last forever.”
“Just the ticket for my chicken coop,” Polski said, and he looked at me. “During the winter. It’d keep the birds warm as toast and laying vegular if it didn’t kill them with fumes.”
“He’s a great kidder,” Father said. “The fumes can be rectified. It’s all a matter of fine adjustment. I only want to show you what she’s capable of.”
“I’d say she’s capable of putting skunks out of business.”
Polski cleared his throat, then spat, and toed dust onto the medallion of spittle.
Father said, “How’s the old asparagus?”
“Too damn much of it. It’s this dry weather. It’s shooting up in this heat. It’s mostly all vipe. I’ve got more than I can store.”
Mow ah than I can stowah.
“Sell it, then,” Father said.
“They’d like that.”
“Everyone likes asparagus.”
“The market’s glutted,” Polski said. He filled his jaws with spit and used a jet of it like a reply. “I wouldn’t tell you what I’m getting for a pound. I’ll be selling it by the ton next. Or giving it away.”
“That’s the idea.”
“I’ll be in the poorhouse.”
“Sure you will,” Father said.
“You too, Mr. Fox.”
“I’ve been there. It’s an education.”
Polski said, “The cold store is chock-a-block. I want you to look at the fuses later on. I don’t know how much they’ll bring back today, but if it’s more than a couple of truckloads I’m in trouble. I mean, we’re all in trouble. Last year, I couldn’t cut it fast enough. I was making a dollar a pound some weeks. This year it’s vuining me. I’m buried in grass—”
He went on complaining this way and spitting and angrily nuthuning and sumthuning and kicking dust until finally, in what was almost a shout, he said, “I guess that glass of water must be good and cooked by now!”
Father said calmly, “Wouldn’t be a bit surprised.”
“Mind opening it up, Mr. Fox? I’ve got work to do. Show me whatever you’re going to show me.”
Father turned to me. “He wants us to open it up.”
Polski was gobbling again. “You talk to him, Charlie. He won’t listen to me.”
“Don’t plow with my heifer,” Father said.
Drawing harsh bellyaching breaths, Polski said in a suffering voice, “For pity sake, Fox, will you see if this thing’s emulsified!”
Father sucked on his cigar. He tasted it. He swallowed. He puffed and blew a smoke ring into the windless air. It was a blue hoop, it grew handles and pedals and a rider, it cycled away. We watched it slant toward the fields, pulling itself apart like a sinking comma from a sentence of skywriting, filling Father’s pause with visible delay.
“Here we go,” he said.
He unfastened the door and plucked open the metal flap, and without stooping or looking inside, he took out the water glass, flourishing his arm like a magician. He handed this to Polski, who bobbled it from one hand to the other, blowing on his fingers.
“Hot potato,” said Polski. “I mean cold.” He blew at his neat fingertips. “She ain’t cooked. That’s for damn sure.”
Father said, “Go on, pour it.”
Polski tried. He turned the glass upside-down and shook it. “She won’t pour.” He smacked the bottom. “She won’t come out.”
“Ice,” Father said. The word allowed him to grin and hiss at the same time.
“Ain’t that sumthun.” Polski was impressed in spite of himself. The Worm Tub was still glugging and squirting softly through its guts, the sooty smoke still rising. It looked comic and potbellied, like a fat boy with his coat open, puffing a stogie.
Polski warmed the glass in his hands, then jerked out the disk of ice and lobbed it into the rose bushes.
“I should have known it was an icebox,” he said. “I should have expected it from you.”
“But where’s the juice?” Father said in a taunting way. “Where’s the electrical cord?”
“Range oil you said.”
Father said, “You mean, I made ice in a firebox?”
“So it seems.”
“And range oil is dirt cheap. She’s an energy saver.”
Polski said, “I’ve got work to do. I’m buried in grass.”
“Want to know how she operates?”
“Some other time.”
“Stick your hand in that locker. Feel how cold she is. It’ll take your fingerprints off. You’ve never seen anything like it.”
“No,” Polski said. “But I’ve heard of them. You’ve invented sumthun that was invented thirty years ago.” Polski started to walkaway. “It’s like coming to me with a toaster. ‘Look, no wires. And the toast pops up.’ Fine, but it’s still a toaster. And that’s still an icebox. You can’t invent an invention.”
“It’s perfection!” Father said, and Polski winced at the word. Puffection. “I perfected it. Those other ones were small. Inefficient. Low-grade coolants. They didn’t know a thing about coolants until yesterday afternoon. Gas operated. Couldn’t make an ice cube if you shoveled snow into them. Ammonia water, lithium bromide. Brine. But this baby”—and he touched it tenderly—“this baby uses a new formula of high-expansion liquid, enriched ammonia, and hydrogen under pressure. She’s a scale model. I’m planning to make a huge one. What do you think?”
Polski said, “That’s another thing. It’s a fire hazard.”
“Not if it’s ventilated.” Father was explaining, not pleading. “Not if it’s sealed right. I’ve got a patent pending on those valves, never mind the rest, never mind the original idea. This is poetry.”
“And a big visk.” Polski was not listening at all. “A big one would be a big fire hazard. Smoke all over everythun. It’d be a blast furnace. If she ever blew, we’d be picking up pieces in Pittsfield. Know where sumthun like this belongs? Some far-off place, where they test A-bombs, where it can’t hurt anybody—that’s where, far away. Not here, where it’ll do damage and frighten the horses. You’re visking your life with sumthun like that.”
He set his face at Father.
“There’s no risk,” Father said. “I’m asking you to consider the principle of the thing. A firebox that makes ice. No noise! No juice!” “Electricity’s cheap.”
Father smiled at him. “How old are you, Doctor?”
Spouting with his lower lip, Polski cracked a splinter of spit onto the gobbed ground.
“What about in ten years?” Father said. “What then? Or twenty years. Think of the future.”
“I won’t be here in the future.”
“There’s America’s epitaph. That’s criminal. That’s monkey talk.”
“You can have fires all over the place,” Polski said. “I can do without them.”
At this, Father sprayed him with laughter. “It’s no more than a teeny flame,” he said, as if explaining a candle to Jerry, halting his words, half mocking, half teaching. “A pilot light. Get down here and look at it. You can hardly see it. Why, you need more fire than that to light a ten-cent cigar!”
“I can see it’s ingenious,” Polski said, looking at his watch, which was buried in wrist hairs. “I always said you had veal Yankee ingenuity. But I haven’t got the time for that now. In a couple of hours I’m going to be over my head in asparagus. And that’s serious.”
Father said, “You’re not interested in her”—he drummed his finger stump on the lid—“that correct?”
“I’ll bet you think it’s a gold mine.”
“Only a gold mine’s a gold mine.”
Polski was crunching back to the piazza. Turning, teetering on gravel, he said, “You’re not going to get rich on that contraption, Mr. Fox.”
Father let a laugh curl his tongue, but his eyes were darkened by the shadow of his visor. He watched Polski go. “If I ever wanted to get rich—which I don’t—I’d raise me some asparagus.”
“That wouldn’t get you rich.” Polski did
not turn. “Get you an ulcer.”
Father hooked his thumbs on his pockets and set his feet apart—a policeman’s posture. “We’ll leave you to your ulcer, Doctor.”
“Don’t go away mad, Mr. Fox,” Polski called out from the piazza, but he still was not looking. “I told you, it’s a fine contraption, but I’ve got no use for it.”
He pulled himself inside his house and said his wife’s name, “Shovel”—her name was Cheryl.
Father said, “I’d raise me some asparagus, and I’d hire fifty migrant savages to cut it. That’s what I’d do. And, Charlie, you’d have yourself a new pair of sneakers and the best dungarees money could buy.” He doused the flame on the Worm Tub, then looked upon it fondly, as if it were a living creature, and said, “That nearsighted turkey called it a contraption.”
He smiled and his bright face widened.
“You couldn’t ask for a better reaction than that.”
I said, “But he didn’t like it very much.”
“That’s an understatement.” Father laughed, and shivering out each word, he said, “He positively hated it!” And snorted. “That’s ignorant contempt—the stupidest kind of reaction. ‘It’s a big visk.’ But I’m grateful for it. That’s why I’m here. That’s the sort of thing that gets me cooking on the front burners, Charlie. Just think what would have happened if he’d liked it. Yes, I would have been very worried. Ashamed of myself. I’d have gone back to bed.”
Polski left his house by the back door. He climbed into his Jeep and revved it and threw it into reverse.
“Grind me a pound,” Father said. “There he goes—old Dan Beavers. Give these wimps an L. L. Bean catalogue and they all think they’re frontiersmen.”
Now Polski was hurrying over road humps to the upper fields. “That piece of diseased meat he calls a Jeep is a contraption,” Father said, pointing with his cut-off finger. “But this is a creation. You can’t buy this with money.”
He was so wildly certain of himself there was nothing I could say, and he did not ask. So, without speaking, we loaded the Worm Tub onto the pickup truck.
I said, “It looks like a fat boy.”
“This is a little baby. But when we make the big one, that’s what we’ll call it—Fat Boy.” He peered at my poison ivy and added, “Gaw, don’t you look awful.”
