The Hearts of Men

by Nickolas Butler

  This little house, in this cozy blue-collar East Hill neighborhood, the steady sound of the tire factory, even the noise of the train across the river—none of it is a comfort to her. She has locked every door and window of the house and even placed a dining room chair against the front door’s knob. Sometimes, moving around the house, she laughs to herself, or sings—wants her voice to ward off any burglars or Peeping Toms.

  Dorothy is, foolishly, she thinks, afraid.

  “Don’t be dumb,” she mutters to herself. “More dangerous with him around, probably.” Clete, she means. It is as if he has become another man, someone very different from the young soldier she fell in love with, honeymooned in St. Paul with, once shared a bed with. He is so frustrated, so bottled up with anger, such a bully. A few months ago, after church, he went into a gas station for a Coca-Cola, leaving her and Nelson in the car, and there was an instant when she considered crawling behind the wheel and leaving him altogether, driving away, anywhere, but then she was stymied by a ridiculous sense of hope. The hope that Clete would rise up out of this malaise, perhaps into a new job, or even enroll in a college—take advantage of the GI Bill, anything to escape sales and the frustrations that followed him home. Hope had held her hostage.

  She vacuums the house for the third time since Clete and Nelson have left. Takes her time with the Hoover, making lines in the living room shag as deep and linear as furrows.

  At two o’clock in the morning, the radio station signs off and she falls into Clete’s chair, exhausted, and closes her eyes.

  SHE WAKES TO THE SOUND OF RAIN hammering the roof and thunder shaking the china in her cupboards. Morning has come, darkly. All of the lights are still on, the radio back to its warbling. Dorothy is wearing yesterday’s clothes. She teeters into the kitchen and percolates some coffee. Rubs at her shoulders. Her back is sore.

  She sponges off her face, and brushes her hair, changes clothing. Taking a cup of coffee, she moves the chair away from the front door and finds the morning paper on the stoop. So she sits in the entryway, reading the paper, smoking a cigarette, and occasionally peering out at the street’s gutters, where the rainwater gushes in torrents toward the city’s two rivers. Daytime isn’t so bad—she can see everything, for one thing, and, were it not for the rain, some of her neighbors would be about: hanging their laundry out to dry or weeding a garden, say, pushing a stroller, perhaps trimming a hedge. She thought that this week would be restful, time to sleep in, perhaps sit in the backyard and read a novel, or walk downtown and window-shop. She was unprepared for this loneliness. Perhaps it doesn’t help that Clete and Nelson have their car, that she can’t just drive around.

  This is what it would be like. You would need a job, she thinks. That’s right. If you left him, you would need a job. Money for bills, groceries, an automobile . . .

  When she thinks about all the stumbling blocks, all the challenges involved in leaving Clete, her first impulse is simply to stay put, to absorb this man’s frustration, to shield Nelson. She knows many other such women in just this position, and not a few of her aunts and cousins. Women biding their time . . . She wishes, for the boy’s sake, that there was another answer, a surrogate for him. But her parents have passed on and she has no siblings. In six years he’ll be off to college anyway, and then, she supposes, things will be quieter. Perhaps she can simply avoid Clete—why, they haven’t slept in the same bed since before Nelson was born. Clete only seems interested in her to the extent that she can be counted on to provide meals and mix a strong drink.

  Before the lunch hour, Dorothy spies the mailman, tiptoeing around puddles and dashing through the rain, water sluicing off his hat and poncho. She’s always secretly admired Gordon, the mailman. Perhaps, she is even attracted to him; his face is square and soft, but deep dimples mark his cheeks and his eyes are bright and sincere. A man of seemingly infinite positivity, he wears a smile no matter the season or weather or the weight of his mailbag. A daily reminder to her that the world is not populated exclusively by men like Clete, but by optimists, too, happy men who whistle and sing as their shoes pound the sidewalks. Men who spontaneously throw the pigskin to neighborhood boys, or give golden butterscotch disks to the neighborhood girls. Rising from where she sits, Dorothy pushes the front door open, stands out on the porch, extends a hand beyond the eaves, feels the rain on her palm.

  Rushing up the front walk, the mailman tips the brim of his hat. “A wet one out there!”

  “Why, you’re soaked to the bone, Gordon!” she exclaims. “Come inside and have a quick cup of tea.”

  “Oh, I couldn’t, Dorothy,” he says, shaking his head. “I’m near the end of my route, anyway.” He peers around her, inside the house. “Say, where’s that Nelson off to, anyway?”

  “He’s at Boy Scout camp,” she says. “He and Clete. They come back in a few days.”

  “Bet you miss him,” Gordon says.

  She notes that it’s the singular he’s used, rather than the plural—rather than them. She nods.

  “He’s a good boy,” Gordon nods. “You know, sometimes he’ll walk my route with me. Not just a few houses, either. I mean, that boy will walk for blocks. Asks about foreign stamps and calligraphy. Envelope sizes and different inks, typewriters. The other day he was asking me about graphology. Had to explain to me what it was. I’m not talking kid stuff, you know? I mean, he was a good companion. Just curious about everything. Sharp cookie.”

  Dorothy feels a blush spread across her face. It’s true, he is a good boy. “Thank you,” she manages. Wonders what Gordon would be like as a husband, father. Then instantly feels guilty. No—she isn’t that kind of wife, to be idly fantasizing about another woman’s husband.

  “Well,” Gordon says, leafing through his mailbag. “Thought I saw only one letter. For Clete. From Wrigley Field, if you can believe that.” He laughs, shakes his head.

  “I’m sorry,” Dorothy says. “Wrigley where?”

  “You know, the Chicago Cubs. Ernie Banks. All that ivy on the walls. Wrigley Field.”

  She doesn’t, exactly, but claps her hands in mock bemusement, “Oh, how silly of me. Of course, the Cubs.” The Cubs? For Clete?

  Gordon shakes his head apologetically. “Anyhow, here you go. The envelope got a little wet.” He shrugs. “What can you do? It’s a deluge. Anyway, my father was a farmer. I learned never to complain about rain. Have a good day now, Dorothy!”

  And with that, the mailman charges back out into the storm, his head tucked against his chest, his uniform fairly drenched.

  THAT NIGHT, at the barren supper table, Dorothy stares at the envelope, its flap all but open. She can’t imagine what is inside. Nelson loves baseball, true, but Clete has never shown any interest in professional sports. The envelope is puffed out even, like it’s inviting her to read whatever it is that may be inside, like it’s holding its breath. She considers that even in its current state, Clete may accuse her of opening it. Maybe the best thing, she decides, is to quickly read what is inside and then seal the envelope back up, a little better even, lickety-split. And what if Clete has somehow ordered baseball tickets? Wouldn’t that be grand? A father-son trip down to Chicago! How Nelson would love that! The Field Museum and Art Institute! Oh, a trip to the big city would be ever so stimulating for Nelson.

  She reaches carefully for the envelope and with a tender fingertip, slides the flap up and open. This motion is slow and patient. Now the envelope gapes and she examines the flap. It is completely undamaged. Inside, she sees, is a piece of letterhead. Her hands shake as she frees the paper, unfolds it, and reads:

  1060 West Addison Street

  Chicago, Ill. 60613

  June 21, 1962

  Mr. Clete Doughty

  1325 Fairway Street

  Eau Claire, Wis. 54701

  Dear Mr. Doughty:

  After careful consideration, the Chicago Cubs and Wrigley Field are pleased to offer you the position of Assistant General Manager of Concessions & Vending. Your employ
ment is effective August 1st. Please report to the Clark Street entrance for employee processing.

  Sincerely,

  Mack Prior

  General Manager of Concessions & Vending

  Stunned by this, Dorothy delicately slides the letter back into its envelope, like the secret it is, and exhales deeply. The rain continues to fall.

  After some time has passed—she’s not sure how much, really—Dorothy rises from the table, searches through a drawer until she finds a small jar of glue, then gently seals the envelope shut. She carries it to a wire basket near the front door, where the rest of Clete’s mail awaits his return.

  She pulls a red box of Pall Malls from her apron, and lighting one, stands at the front door, blowing smoke outside.

  “What am I going to do?” she whispers. “What the hell am I going to do?”

  So the die is cast now, and some of her wishes seem to have come true, in the saddest of ways. Just like that; be careful what you ask for—because you just might get it.

  She stubs out the cigarette, walks back into the kitchen, grabs a stack of plates from the cupboard, and for a moment stands in the middle of the room, holding all of that porcelain above her head, her shoulders shaking with fear and sadness, but she does not throw the plates at the floor. Can’t. And so she lowers herself to the floor, the dishes carefully balanced on her lap, and cries. She was not raised to waste good things, especially in anger. And what a silly demonstration that would be anyway, with no witnesses, in a house otherwise ever so quiet. There is no radio that might console her now, no vacuum noise that might bury her sadness.

  After a time, she breathes deeply, begins to think of answers to her question.

  5

  HOURS LATER, FEET RAW IN SWEATY SOCKS, NELSON stumbles back into camp. It is his nose that led him the final thousand feet or so: the smell of the latrine overlaid with wood smoke. All is quiet; no one seems to have noted his disappearance. He skulks into his tent, removes his shirt and trousers, kicks off his boots, pulls off the socks wet with perspiration, and lies on his cot, so relieved to be at rest and free from the mosquitoes. He does not know how he will explain the glasses to his father, but is too exhausted to further consider it.

  Reaching out to the right of his cot, where he hangs the bugle each night from a tiny nail hammered into a wooden post, he is shocked to feel cold metal, where he expected to only wave his fingers in the thick air. Clenching the bugle, he pulls it from the nail and holds it against his chest, feeling the cool contours of brass, which have been quite rudely deformed.

  The bell is badly bent and crumpled in the edges, so that it feels like what he imagines the early stages of cauliflower ear must be like, something beginning to fold into itself. The mouthpiece, too, is now misshapen, though the coils seem blessedly intact. He runs his hands over and over across the metal, feeling every ding, every scrape, every dent.

  And then it hits him: the bugle smells of piss, too. He imagines them, spraying their pee over his instrument. Who could say how many of them had emptied their bladders into his bugle? He shakes his head, no longer tired. Dawn isn’t so far away and he cannot play the bugle in this state; it must be cleaned, perhaps repaired.

  He keeps a washbasin in the tent so that he can avoid trips to the shower room whenever possible, not feeling safe in those claustrophobic stalls constructed of concrete block, with their well-mildewed tile floor, and the weak yellow light thrown by a single cobwebbed bulb, with the other boys amid the cacophonous sounds of jetting water, acerbic shouts, the snap of wet towels. No, his washbasin and mirror have always sufficed. Lighting the lantern, he sits on the cot and washes his face clean, then wets and parts his hair.

  He is still a frightful mess: cuts, bruises, bags sulking beneath bloodshot eyes. This morning he will not tend their fire. With a spray bottle of vinegar and water, he spritzes his uniform, dresses, and leaves the tent. Already the sounds of whippoorwills and robins and wood thrush. The stars disappearing into the paling sky by the dozens.

  Working the brass with his hands, he pushes out some of the dents, but the bugle is forever brutalized. No amount of coaxing will burnish out the scrapes and scratches that adorn it now, as if the bugle has just come through a war much worse than its first one. Nelson walks hard in the direction of the parade ground.

  Low clouds almost meet the terrestrial fog and though it is early, rain seems a promise. Nelson is thankful; he’ll be able to return to his tent between merit badge classes or assemblies and perhaps even sneak a nap in, unnoticed. He has never napped at camp before, like some of the older boys who practically sleep away their entire week at camp, but now he yearns to.

  Halfway to the parade ground, Nelson takes a side trail toward Bass Lake. In his pocket: a small container of dish soap. At the shoreline, he unlaces his boots, hangs his socks on the limb of an alder, and moves out into the shallows.

  The lake bottom is gravelly on his toes, the water morning-cool. He can see next to nothing, but feels the tiny tickles of minnows rushing around his ankles, and in one moment almost amusing in its sharp pain, the pinch of a crayfish at his big toe. Kneeling in the lake, he pulls the crayfish free and holds it up and out of the water, examines its ruddy armor and angry pincers, its inquisitive antennae.

  Once, he and his troop mates harvested crayfish by the hundreds and then boiled them, spilling the well-cooked crustaceans out onto a picnic table and roaring with glee before busting their shells to suck at their tiny claws and thoraxes for meat. That seems an impossible memory now. He tosses the crayfish far out into the lake, then pours a small amount of soap onto the horn and begins washing off the piss tainting his beloved heirloom.

  His toes are still wet when he pulls his socks on, laces up his boots, and begins the final march to the parade ground. Beside the naked flagpole, Nelson raises the horn to his chapped lips, tastes his mother’s blue dish soap, and blows.

  The music that limps out of the horn is pitiful, as damaged as the instrument itself. Nelson slumps, waits for ten minutes to pass, then blows again. By now, Scouts have begun collecting on the parade ground and the counselors beneath the canopy of the massive maple, the birds beginning to sing with more vitality, even as the sky darkens and a rumble of thunder rolls over the forest.

  After his final muted reveille, Nelson steps away from his appointed spot and joins the line of counselors. He can sense a devious trilling from the Scouts before him, and almost does not blame them. He is a joke, his arms and face badly scratched and the bugle sounding less like a call to battle than some injured waterfowl. He hangs his head as the color guard raises the flag; everyone knows they will be rushing to pull it right back down any minute when the rain comes. For a moment, he is thankful he can’t see anything, the world a smudged blur.

  If Wilbur has noticed Nelson’s off-key reveille, he betrays nothing, saying only, “Foul conditions moving in, boys, a real squall. Recall your weather safety tips. We’ll stay indoors today, then, as best we can. A good opportunity to write your mothers, I would remind you, and read your handbooks. Keeping one’s mind sharp is just as important as a fit body.

  “Now, please ready your ropes and tie a bowline.”

  Nelson’s mind comes into sharp focus, crystallizes: Here is the rabbit’s hole, out runs the rabbit, rushes around the tree, and hops back into its hole.

  One by one, several hundred lengths of rope rise into the air in the shape of a knot and Wilbur surveys the boys’ efforts.

  “Very well,” he nods. “All right, then—dismissed.”

  Careful to camouflage himself amid a crowd of taller counselors, Nelson falls into the throng. In the mess hall, he takes his appointed place, at the end of the table, feeling his face go hot with embarrassment. He is so lonely right now, so utterly ready to return home.

  His father sits down beside him without so much as a slap on the back or a rub of the shoulder—nothing. Nelson steals a glance at him. He doesn’t even notice my glasses are gone. His father seems well re
sted, almost happy. This is quite at odds with his visage at home, always so haggard and angry looking.

  “Morning, Dad,” the boy offers.

  “Good morning, Nelson,” Clete replies, sipping at his coffee.

  Are you having a nice time? Nelson wants to ask. He hopes so. Would like to imagine some idyllic weekend when he and his father could go camping together, just the two of them, without any of his father’s office worries, without any bottles of brandy or newspapers or squawking television. Just the two of them exploring the backwaters of a state park or paddling a canoe down the Red Cedar River. Wonders if this fantasy was ever, or could ever be, a possibility. Or would such a trip actually be an expedition of frustration and anger, so much time in a canoe without any words, just fuming resentment?

  Nelson looks down the table at some of the other boys. Even without his glasses, several of them appear exhausted, with mosquito bites decorating their foreheads, and forearms marred with the same sorts of cuts and bruises as his own. The vandals, he thinks. The boys ignore him, waiting restlessly for the morning prayer, scratching at greasy hair with dirty fingernails. Barbarians, he thinks.

  Breakfast is pancakes, sausages, and orange slices. Nelson is famished, and when the serving plate comes to him, he serves himself greedily, eating quickly and ravenously, thankful at least to have a mouth full enough that he needn’t struggle to manufacture conversation with his father. Not that there was much dialogue at home, true. Though Nelson knows there are, somewhere, fathers and sons who talk, who sit beside one another at ball games, who toss a baseball in the backyard, who rake leaves as a team. It’s just that this is not his experience, his life. A normal evening at home is his father arriving late, retreating to his chair to read the newspaper, and then his mother entering the family room with a TV tray laden with Swiss steak or chicken Kiev and a brandy old-fashioned. Sometimes Nelson kneels to unlace and remove his father’s shoes; other times, he simply sits in the same room quietly, waiting to be asked about his school day, but those inquiries rarely come, and almost always, his father falls asleep right there, in situ, mouth agape, highball drained, newspaper neatly folded into quarters and set beside the chair.