A Boy of Good Breeding

by Miriam Toews

  Dory had told Knute, when she was pregnant with S.F., that Combine Jo hadn’t always been the way she was now. Years and years ago, she had been the wife of the wealthiest farmer in Algren. She had been beautiful and serene. Before Max was even a year old, she had had an affair with a farmer from Whithers. One stormy spring night she had stayed at her lover’s place under the pretext that the roads were too treacherous to get back to Algren. The next day she returned home to find Max, her baby, just about frozen to death, lying unconscious and bruised on the kitchen floor—her husband beside him, dead and covered with logs. Apparently he had had an epileptic seizure while trying to fire up the woodstove, dropped Max, whom he had been carrying in one arm, fallen down and died right there. After that Combine Jo started eating and drinking and swearing and generally raising hell all over Algren, until she became too fat and alcoholic to easily make her way out of her house.

  With all the money left to her and Max in her husband’s will, and by selling most of the farm, Combine Jo was able to hire enough people to look after Max when he was little, and bring her food and booze. She got the name Combine Jo not because she was as big as one, but because each spring she would take her husband’s old combine out of the barn and drive it up and down Algren’s Main Street as a personal spring-seeding celebration. Dory thought that Combine Jo might carry a sawed-off rifle in the cab of the combine, but nobody knew for sure. She would career down the street, one hand on the wheel, the other clamped around her bottle of Wild Turkey. She would then drive the combine to her husband’s grave, often right up over it, and enjoy a toast with him. She’d pour half a bottle of bourbon into the grass on top of his grave, light a cigarette and prop it up, as best she could, in the grass around where his head would have been, six feet under, and then she’d lie there beside him, where she felt she belonged.

  Combine Jo had loved her husband deeply. The affair had been a stupid distraction, a way to pass the time while her husband farmed night and day. Knute wondered if Jo had ever given Max any advice on love. Maybe she’d told Max to leave town when she found out Knute was pregnant. Maybe it wasn’t his idea at all. Maybe Jo gave Max a million bucks to leave. Maybe I’m a complete idiot, thought Knute.

  If she thought he had left because Jo had told him to, she was fooling herself. And her telling him to get lost the day that she found out she was pregnant and he hadn’t seemed happy enough—happy at all, really—wouldn’t have been enough for him to leave, either. Knute was always telling him to get lost, knowing he’d come back.

  No, Max had left because he’d wanted to leave. And now he was coming back because he wanted to come back, and he wanted to see his “goddamned daughter.”

  “Well,” Knute concluded, “Fuck him.”

  That same evening, Lorna had come out to Algren on the bus to visit Hosea. When Hosea got home from work he had listened to her message on the machine. And then he had listened to it again, sitting on his couch, still in his coat and dripping water from his boots on to the living room carpet. “Hi, Hose,” she’d said. “Are you there? If you’re there, pick up the phone.” Hosea smiled. Doesn’t she know me better? he thought. Hosea had nearly killed himself a couple of times running for the phone when he’d heard Lorna’s voice coming over the machine. “Okay, I guess you’re not there.” Lorna wouldn’t call Hosea at work. She used to, at the beginning of their relationship, but after a while she had told him he always sounded distracted at work and she didn’t need to call long distance to get the cold shoulder. Hosea had pleaded with her to understand. He was the mayor, after all, of Canada’s smallest town. He had work to do. He loved her more than life itself but … But no, Lorna was unmoved. And since then had called him only at home. “Our office is closed tomorrow so I thought I’d come on the bus and stay over and you could take me home the next day or the next, or I’ll just take the bus again. Okay. Whatever. You’re really not there, are you? Hmmm. Okay, call me, but if you get this message after six o’clock, don’t bother because I’ll be on the bus. I should—”

  Damn, thought Hosea. He still hadn’t installed one of those endless-tape answering machines. She should what? he thought. She always seemed to forget about the length of the tape. Sometimes she’d call back—sometimes two or three times—and just carry on with her monologue, entirely unruffled by the fact that she’d been abruptly cut off. This time she hadn’t called back to continue. Why not? Details like this could give Hosea chest pain. Did it mean she was angry at being cut off? Or if not angry, then (and this was worse), oh God, offended? Had she been suddenly incapacitated by an aneurism? Or was she simply in a hurry to get on the bus to see her sugarbaby, her man, Hosea? Hosea would just have to wait and see. But oh, how he hated to wait. Why hadn’t old Granny Funk stuck her bobby pin in the book of Job when they were naming him, instead of at Hosea? Hosea! Could Lorna really love a man she called Hose? He glanced at his watch, a Christmas present from Lorna before she knew him well enough to know that he was never late for anything, and in fact already owned five working watches. Okay, if she takes the 6:15 bus, thought Hosea, she’ll be here at 7:15. That gave him exactly half an hour to get things ready, maybe call the doctor and still make it to the bus depot to pick Lorna up. Hosea decided to make the call first.

  “Dr. Bonsoir?”

  “Hosea?”

  “Yes, Doctor, Hosea Funk here. Yes, I know. Well then, okay. Any news over there?”

  “News?” said the doctor.

  “Yes, news. Has Mrs. Epp—”

  “No, she has not. Hosea, I’m a busy man. I’m sure you understand.”

  “Why yes, yes, indeed I do, but then, quickly, before I go, how’s, uh … Leander?”

  “Do you mean Mr. Hamm?”

  “Yes, yes, that’s the one. How’s he doing? Not good. I see. Any prognosis or—”

  “No, I do not have a prognosis, nor would I be giving it out over the phone to … non-family members.”

  “I see, but—”

  “Hosea?”

  “Yes?”

  “I have to see to a patient.”

  “Of course, well then, thank-you, Doctor.”

  “Mmmmm,” said the doctor in reply.

  “Au revoir, Doctor,” said Hosea cheerfully.

  “Good-bye, Hosea.”

  Well, of course he was busy, he was a doctor, thought Hosea. No problem. He’d go back to the hospital and see for himself how things were. Hosea checked his watch. Lorna would be pulling up in front of the pool hall, which doubled as a bus depot, in a few minutes. He grabbed two old tablecloths of Euphemia’s. One he threw over the dining room table and the other he draped over his shoulder. He lugged his exercise bike downstairs and put it into its usual hiding place, behind the furnace next to the hot water tank. He yanked the tablecloth that was on his shoulder and threw it over the bike. One time Lorna had said, “You know, Hosea, you’re in great shape for a man your age and you don’t even care. That’s what I like about you.”

  Since then, Hosea had pedalled furiously every morning on his bicycle to nowhere—as Euphemia had called it—and had hid it in the basement each time Lorna came to visit.

  Hosea checked his watch. Damn, he thought. The tape!

  “You’re late,” said Lorna.

  “I know. I’m sorry,” said Hosea. He couldn’t tell Lorna the real reason he was late, and he hadn’t had time to make one up, so he stood there, thumping his breast with his big green Thinsulate glove (because he couldn’t get a proper pincer grip to tug), and hoping her love for him would sweep this latest infraction right under the rug. It had taken Hosea twenty minutes to set his new Emmylou Harris tape to exactly the right song. Fast forward, oops too far—rewind. Too far, fast forward again. Darn! Too far again! He had planned to rush into the house ahead of Lorna and push play on his tape deck so that as she entered the house she would hear Emmylou singing “Two More Bottles of Wine,” at which point Hosea would produce two bottles of wine, red for the heart, one in each hand, and they would sit down an
d have a drink.

  None of this happened. The tape hadn’t played when he’d pushed play because he had, in his haste, unplugged the tape deck to plug in his tri-light desk lamp to create more of a mood. He hadn’t been able to find his corkscrew for the wine and so, while Lorna roamed around the house switching lights on and wondering out loud why it was so dark in there, he had rammed the cork down the neck of one of the bottles with his ballpoint pen and then spilled the wine all over himself when it splurched out around the cork. He used the tea towel hanging on the fridge handle to wipe up the wine and then, pushing the cork way down with his pen, managed to pour two glasses without much spillage.

  He brought the wine to Lorna and sat down beside her on the couch. “Oh thanks, Hose,” she said.

  “Lorna?” said Hosea. “Are you mad at me?”

  Lorna shifted around to look at him. “Why would I be mad at you?”

  Hosea jerked his head towards the answering machine. “Well, because of your message. You didn’t call back to finish it. Usually you do.”

  Lorna put her wine down and took Hosea’s hand in hers. She slung one of her legs over his and stroked the top of his hand with her thumb. “Hosea,” she said, “you really are something, you know that?”

  Hosea used his remaining free hand to flatten her hand over his and stop her from stroking. He longed for his glass of wine, but now his hands were busy. He smiled at Lorna. “You’re something, too,” he said.

  “I suppose I am,” said Lorna.

  Hosea shifted slightly and smiled again. He stared at their hands, tangled together and resting on Lorna’s thigh. He noticed that the middle knuckles on Lorna’s fingers were wider than the other parts of her fingers, whereas his own fingers tapered to a point. He wished his fingers were more like Lorna’s.

  “Hmmmm,” murmured Lorna.

  “Lorna?” said Hosea.

  “Yeah?”

  “Are you mad at me?”

  “No, Hosea, I am not mad at you. Look at me here. I’m trying to get closer to you. Jesus, Hose, can’t you figure it out?”

  “But what about the message on the—”

  “I was in a hurry, okay? I love you, I’m not mad at you. I love you.”

  “Well, what were you going to say, I should what, you should what? You know, you were going to say you should do something and I …”

  “I was going to say, ‘I should go if I’m gonna make the bus.’ That’s what I should do, go. Okay? Go so I could make the bus to get to you!”

  Lorna sighed, removed her hands from Hosea’s, and used one of them to reach for her glass of wine.

  “Well, now you’re mad then, aren’t you?” asked Hosea.

  “Hosea, what the hell is your problem? Why do you have to derail every romantic moment in our lives with your paranoid worrying? Do you do it on purpose? Maybe you don’t love me, maybe you’re mad at me and you don’t know how to tell me, and you turn it around to make it look like I’m mad at you and then you won’t feel so bad, and you’ll be the martyr. Great. Now I am mad at you.”

  “I knew it,” said Hosea. “And I do love you.” He looked at his hands, at his tapered fingers. They were pudgy, he thought. Why? The rest of him wasn’t fat. Could he lose weight in his fingers? They looked childish to him. He slipped them under his thighs for a few seconds, then pulled them up and folded them behind his head. Just a minute ago Lorna had been stroking one of his hands and he had wanted her to quit. Now he wanted her to continue, more than anything. He reached for his glass of wine.

  “No, you do not know it, Hose, I’m not really mad at you. Can’t we just have a normal time together?”

  “That’s what I really want, Lorna.”

  “Okay, then why don’t you just shut up and relax,” said Lorna.

  “Oh. Well,” said Hosea. And quickly put his glass back on the coffee table.

  “Oh God, Lorna, I’ve missed you,” said Hosea.

  “Yeah?” said Lorna.

  “You know, I’ve missed you, too, Hose,” sighed Lorna about thirty minutes later.

  Hosea hated lying around and talking after having sex. He preferred to go outside, flushed and happy, and feel the earth and the sky, and himself sandwiched between them, and know that as things go in the universe, he had just been blessed. But he knew from experience this was not Lorna’s first choice. One time he had dragged her outside in the dark, naked and sweaty, and she had started to cough and complain about mosquitoes, and had not said she felt blessed when Hosea had asked her. And so this time he decided he would just get up and get that Emmylou Harris song playing, finally. He brought the tape box back to the floor with him and lay down beside Lorna so that his head was right under the coffee table. Together they listened to the music and looked at the box, at the picture of Emmylou folded up inside it.

  “God, does she have long toes, eh?” said Hosea.

  “Wow. They’re kinda creepy-looking, don’t you think?” asked Lorna. Hosea didn’t think so. He imagined Emmylou’s toes contained in her painted cowboy boots, slightly splayed, planting her body onstage while she belted out “Born to Run.” “Yeah they are, aren’t they?” said Hosea.

  “Hmmm,” said Lorna. “Is this song about heartbreak?” Lorna put her head on Hosea’s chest. He patted her head and stared up at the underside of the coffee table. Made in Manitoba, it had stamped on it.

  five

  Hosea had told on himself. It was eleven-year-old Minty who had spilled the beans to Hosea about where he had come from, but she had made him promise not to tell anyone or she’d be in trouble. “Cross your heart and hope to die?” she’d said to him.

  “Cross my heart and hope to die,” he’d said and moved his tapered little index finger in the shape of an X over the general vicinity of his heart on the outside of his sweater.

  “Okay,” said Minty. “Good boy.”

  They were sitting together in the back seat of a rusted-out car that somebody had abandoned on the edge of Grandpa Funk’s alfalfa field.

  Minty looked out the windows on each side of the car to make sure nobody was watching. Hosea did the same.

  “Lookie,” said Minty.

  Hosea stared. Minty spread her skinny bare legs, making sure her dress didn’t ride up and thumped on her flat stomach a couple of times with the bottom of her fist like she was checking a soccer ball for air. Hosea’s eyes widened and Minty nodded.

  “Yessir,” she said. “But not me. Euphemia. You came right out of her …” Minty thumped her belly again.

  “You’re lying,” said Hosea.

  And then Minty panicked and saw her chance at redemption at the same time.

  “Yeah, I am,” she said. She smiled, relieved.

  “Are you?” said Hosea.

  “Yeah, I am,” she said.

  “Are you sure?” said Hosea.

  “Yeah, I’m sure,” said Minty.

  “Good,” said Hosea.

  They were both relieved. They smiled and giggled and Hosea thumped lightly on his stomach, too, just to try it out.

  “Punch me as hard as you can,” said Minty.

  “No,” said Hosea.

  “C’mon, Hose, just do it. I’ve tightened it up so it won’t hurt.” She put her chin down to her chest and moved her arms behind her back.

  “No,” said Hosea. He started kicking the back of the dusty seat in front of him.

  “Don’t you want to?” asked Minty.

  “I don’t want to,” he said. He was four years old.

  The next evening at the supper table Hosea sat on Euphemia’s lap finishing off his potatoes. From time to time he would thump on Euphemia’s stomach and she, irritated and trying to finish her own potatoes, would tell him to stop. Minty noticed this and tried to get Hosea’s attention. Hosea ignored Minty. He was grinning and he continued to thump Euphemia’s stomach. Minty was afraid Hosea was going to say something to get her in trouble, so she suggested that they go outside and play catch.

  “Uh-uh,” said Hosea. Finall
y, Euphemia had had enough.

  “Hosea!” she said. “Stop it, you’re hurting me!” By now all the Funks were looking at Hosea and Euphemia, sternly, curiously, amusedly, in a number of ways. There were a lot of them.

  “Let me in, let me in,” said Hosea. “I want to get back in!” He laughed and scrunched up his face and put it next to Euphemia’s stomach.

  “Minty told me I lived in your stomach, Mom, then I came out, right, Minty? Right, Minty?” Euphemia, horrified, stood up and marched out of the room with Hosea on her hip. But not without first noticing the look on her father’s face and the way his head swivelled ever so slowly to meet her mother’s own incredulous stare.

  The Funks had, actually, considered the possibility of Euphemia being Hosea’s natural mother before this (five months of sickness, huge coats in the summertime, a man on a horse? The Funks might have been complacent but they weren’t stupid), but hadn’t wanted to make the situation worse. They had decided, without speaking about it or agreeing to it, to leave well enough alone. Euphemia’s honour would remain intact, and so would their reputation as decent people. But now, for some reason, Euphemia’s father broke their unspoken pact and opened a can of worms. Had he kept his mouth shut and his eyes on his plate and allowed Euphemia and Hosea to leave the table without further ado, they would have gone on for another four or ten or fifty years, swallowing their suspicions and not rocking the boat. Maybe Euphemia’s father wanted some drama in his life. Maybe he was tired of shrugging everything off. Maybe he wanted to get angry at something. Who knows? His gaze said it all. His wife knew it. She panicked. The jig was up.

  Euphemia flung Hosea onto his bed upstairs and asked him just what the heck he was talking about, wanting to get back in? Just then Minty came flying through the door, white as a sheet, and said, “Phemie, Phemie, I didn’t tell him anything. I was just joking.” Hosea lay on his back in his bed.