Chapter 94

If this was the last of it, I wanted the last look of good-by. I wanted the reserve to be shed for that final glowing gaze of farewell that is traditionally awarded two souls that have touched, that is deserved by two people who have been so daring as to have truly shared, without reserve or fear, that rare, hope-filled moment we call love...I touched her dripping chin with my finger, lifting her face to mine, determined to have at least that last look. “Viv, I . . .” But the hope was not there, only the reserve and fear. And one thing else, a darker, heavier shadow that was hidden beneath the dropping of her eyelids before I could classify it. “Let’s go in,” she whispered, pushing open the big door. (I kept worrying about what I was going to say to Lee when they got back. Since he’d left I’d been satisfied that it was done and we wouldn’t have to say anything; I hadn’t thought he’d come back; I hadn’t even wanted to think about him. But now here he was again all of a sudden, and something was going to have to be said, and I didn’t even have an inkling. I kept watching the TV. The front door opened and he came in behind Viv. I was still sitting in the big chair. He came across toward me, but right then the teams came back out on the field and my problem was solved for a while anyhow: maybe something was going to have to be said all right, but there wasn’t nothing so important it couldn’t wait for the Thanksgiving Day Classic, Missouri and Oklahoma tied nothing to nothing at the start of the second half ...!) In the living room we found Hank seated watching a football game on television; with a quilt tucked about him, a glass of evil-looking liquid by his chair, and a large livestock thermometer dangling cigar-fashion from the corner of his mouth; he looked so much the archetypical invalid that I was amused and a little ashamed for him. “How’s it goin’, bub?”—as he watched a rigmarole of prekickoff activities. sometimes a great notion “As well as could be expected, for a being not accustomed to existing under water.” “How are things in town?” “Dreary. I stopped in to see the old man.” “Yeah?” “He’s in a coma of some kind. Doctor Layton claims he’s dying.” “Yeah. Viv talked to the doc on the phone last night and he told her the same thing. I don’t know, though, I just don’t know.” “The good doctor seemed very positive of his diagnostic skill.” “Yeah, well, you can’t never tell about them things. He’s a tough old coon.” “What’s happening with Jan? I couldn’t make that funeral . . .” “Just as well. They’d put make-up all over him. It was kinda the last dirty trick Joby had pulled on him. Jan? She’s took the kids to Florence to stay with her parents.” “I suppose that’s best.” “I reckon. Now hang on; here comes the kick . . .” Except to glance down once for his can of beer, his eyes never left the television. Like Viv, he kept his attention fastened away from me, as painfully aware as we were of the feelings our inane chatter sought to conceal. Neither did I seek his gaze. I was truly afraid to; behind the cloud of our spoken words our thoughts rustled like impatient lightning, charging the air of the old house with such intensity that it seemed that the only way to avoid detonating the whole room was by keeping the contact points insulated—should our eyes connect there was no predicting whether or not our wiring could support the voltage. I crossed the room to the table, unbuttoning my coat. “I was just telling Viv that I plan to start back toward civilization right away.” I picked a Golden Delicious apple from the bowl on the table and ate it as we talked. “To school.” “Is that right? You’re aiming to leave us?” “Winter term starts in a few weeks. And, since the word in town has it that the deal with Wakonda Pacific is off—” 682 ken kesey “Yep.” He stretched, yawning, rubbing his chest through the front of his woolen robe. “It’s all she wrote. Today’s the deadline. Everybody laid up one way or another...and I damn sure couldn’t run them booms down by myself, even if I was in good runnin’ condition.” “It seems a shame after we’ve worked so hard.” “That’s the way she bounces. It won’t kill us. We’re covering ourselves. Floyd Evenwrite says this Draeger said they’re going to get a sales agreement with the mills as a sorta fringe demand in the new contract.” “What about Wakonda Pacific? Couldn’t they supply you with some help?” “They could but they won’t. I checked on that some days back. They’re just like us; with the river coming up like it is, they just as leave not have all them booms on their hands. Keeps up out there like this, we’re in for higher water than last week.” “Couldn’t you lose the booms in a flood, all that work?” He drank from the can and set it back beside his chair; “Well, what the dickens . . . it just seems like nobody wanted them goddam logs delivered.” “Except”—I started to say Joe Ben—“old Henry.” I hadn’t meant it as a cut, but I saw him flinch, just as Viv had at the mention of swimming. He was silent a moment and when he spoke again there was the vaguest edge to his voice. “Then, by god, old Henry can just get his ass out of bed and deliver ’em,” he said. And looked neither left nor right from the Gillette commercial. “The reason I came out—” “I was wonderin’—” “—is about an insurance policy the doctor claimed exists.” “By gosh, that’s right. I remember something about a policy.... Viv, chicken?” He called, though she still stood only a few feet behind his chair, toweling her hair. “You know anything about them life-insurance papers? Are they up in the desk?” “No. I cleaned the desk of everything but papers to do with the business, remember? You said you couldn’t find anything?” sometimes a great notion “What did you do with the other stuff.” “I took it up to the attic.” “Oh Christ.” He moved as though to stand. “The motherin’ attic!” “No, I’ll get it.” She tossed her hair back and turbaned the towel around it. “You’d never find it. And it’s drafty up there.” “Okeedoke,” Hank said and settled back in his chair. I saw Viv start up the stairs, her tennis shoes pit-patting a dim print, and I had sense enough to realize that this pit-pat was probably the final, fading knock of my last opportunity to be alone with her. “Wait . . .” I dropped my apple core into Hank’s abalone-shell ashtray “. . . I’ll come with you.” At the end of the hall past the bathroom and the room used as an office, a ladder, made of two-by-fours nailed like horizontal bars across the window there, took us up through a hinged trapdoor into the peaked top of the house ...a gloomy, dusty, musty room that ran from the front of the house to the back, like an elongated pyramid braced upright with crisscrossing diagonal beams. Viv slid up through the trapdoor behind me, quiet as a burglar. I helped her stand. She wiped her hands on her Levis. The trapdoor fell shut with a muffled thump. We were alone. “I haven’t been up here since I was five or six,” I said, looking about me. “It’s as delightful as ever. It would have been a nice little nook to repair to on some of these long rainy Sunday afternoons to sip tea and read Lovelace.” “Or Poe,” she said. We were both whispering, the way one does in certain rooms. Viv stretched out a leg and rolled a mangy Teddy bear over with the point of her tennis shoe. “Or Pooh.” We laughed beneath our breaths and began to move carefully forward through the dim clutter. A small window at each end of the long room provided space and light enough to be a building site for spiders and a cemetery for flies; what light was left over strained through the little warped panes and sifted like soot from a chimney across an ominous array of boxes and chests and trunks, rough-hewn packing crates and ornate bureaus. A 684 ken kesey dozen or so orange crates were lined up on end, appearing to stand at brooding attention, like geometric ghosts. About this array of larger objects, like lesser spirits of gayer and freer form, were gathered incidentals like the Teddy bear Viv had rolled over . . . fifty years of paraphernalia, tricycles to tambourines, dressmaker’s dummies to diaper pails, dolls, boots, books, Christmas ornaments . . . you’re wasting time, and, over everything, dust and mouse manure by the bale. “Of course,” I whispered, “one would have to bring more than a book and a cup of tea: I think I might like a knife and a shotgun, and perhaps a radio so I could call in reinforcements in case I needed to put down a revolution.” “A radio by all means.” “By all means.” When this is all over, I told myself, you will hate yourself for wasting so much time . . . “Because some of these natives look restless and very revolutionary.” I prodded a stuffed owl and it responded with a high-pitched squeak and produced from its feathers a little brown mouse which scampered off behind some Japanese lanterns. “See? Very restless.” When you get yourself alone later you are going to call yourself all kinds of names for not taking advantage of this situation. Viv had reached the window and was looking out through the webs. “It’s too bad there isn’t a room up here—I mean for living in ...you can see so well. The garage across there, and the road and everything.” “It is a nice view.” I was standing right beside her, close enough to smell her damp hair—go ahead! try something! at least try something!— but my hands stayed in my pockets, safe and well-mannered. A wall of protocol and passivity rose between us—she would not breach it; I could not. “That policy ...where would you think we might find it?” “Boy, in this mess,” she said brightly, “finding anything is going to be a chore. Here; you start on this side and I’ll start on the other and we’ll work our way down to the other end. It’s in a shoebox, I remember, but old Henry was always up here moving things around...” sometimes a great notion Before I could think over a cozier way to hunt, she was off, rummaging through crates and crannies, and I was forced to follow suit. But you can still talk with her, idiot; go ahead and tell her how you feel. “I hope...you didn’t have anything else you were doing.” “Me?”—from the other side of the room. “Just breakfast dishes . . . why?” “No reason. I didn’t want to drag you away from something to help me beat about the attic.” “But I drug you away, Lee. You volunteered to come with me, remember?” I didn’t answer. My eyes had become accustomed enough to the gloom to see a path leading between the beams through the dust and debris to a corner with a pronounced diminishment of spiderwebs. I followed the path to an old rolltop desk somewhat less dusty than its surroundings. I opened the rolltop of the desk and finally found the shoebox I was seeking. Along with a museum of mementos so maudlin that I would have burst out laughing had not the laughter stuck in my throat like a fishbone. I intended to joke about the find. I meant to call to Viv but I was voiceless, as in a dream, and I experienced again that bright billowing medley of excitement and trepidation and outrage and guilt that I had first felt that first time I placed my eye to a hole in the wall and spied breathlessly on a life not my own. For once again I spied. Except the life before me now stood bared so much more, so terribly much more, than had the lean white body that had come with snarls and grunts to mount my mother in the lamplight so long ago.... Before me in the desk was a careful and terrible litter ...of high-school dance programs pinned with flaky brown carnations, of certificates for letter awards, of dog collars, scarves, dollar bills with dates inked across the pressed faces—Christmas 1933 John, Birthday 35 Granpa Stamper, Birthday 36 Granpa Stamper, Christmas 36 Granpa Stamper—all tacked onto a shop-class breadboard with the woodburned inscription “Not by god Alone!” There was a feeble stamp collection and a shell collection, precious as diamonds in a jewelry-store necklace 686 ken kesey box...and a flag mounted on a suction cup, and a foxtail, and stacks of Christmas cards, an album of Glenn Miller 78s, a cigarette smoked to the fading lipstick stain, a beer can, a locket, a shot glass, a dog tag, a service cap, and pictures, pictures, pictures . . . The pictures were as typically American as the suction-cupped flag. There were sets of snapshots in their little yellow envelopes; and studio portraits in glass frames; and family reunion shots swarming with devilish youngsters making faces between the legs of pompous grown-ups; and the five-dollarsfor-a-dozen pictures signed and exchanged your senior year in high school and generally thrown away the year after. I picked up one of these from its place on the shelf; across her white cashmere a sultry sixteen-year-old had penned: “To Hank the Hunk; a gorgeous Hunk of male I hope to let clean out my car pocket once again. Doree.” Another hoped he might “see fit to be a little more friendly in the future with certain interested parties.” Still another advised him that any such interest “wouldn’t get him nowhere so don’t go getting any ideas.” I had seen enough; I tossed away the bundle... high school pictures! I would have never believed my brother to be so banal. I picked up the boxful of policies, planning to sort through them in the better light downstairs, and was just turning to announce my find when I noticed, sitting behind a large maroon photo album, one of those cheap pasteboard frames holding a photograph of Viv seated beside a small bespectacled boy. The child, about five or six—one of the up-and-coming younger Stampers, I surmised—glowered solemnly in the direction of the photographer’s telltale shadow that fell across the grass before him. Viv was seated with her skirt spread about her, hair swirling, laughing open-mouthed at some remark made by the clever shutterbug intending to pierce the hard looks of the youngster. The photograph itself was of very bad quality; obviously blown up from a small and very bad snapshot, it was practically a masterpiece of the hazy focus and the direct lighting ...yet, for all its faults I understood why it had been chosen for sometimes a great notion enlargement and framing. That the photograph did not resemble the Viv that one saw every day wiping back a delinquent lock of hair as she hummed over a skillet of frying sausage, or sweeping dried mud into a dustpan or hanging wet clothes over the stove in the living room or rummaging about the attic in dirt and tennis shoes . . . this was not important; the picture’s singular charm lay in the accidental entrapment of the girl one sensed waiting behind that skillet of sausage or that pan of dust. The laughter, the blowing hair, the tilt of the head showed her caught in an attitude that perhaps for that one instant fulfilled completely all that her slight smile perpetually suggested. I decided I must have that picture. Didn’t I deserve at least a bit of a snapshot to show the boys back home? The photograph was rubber-banded to a small bundle of other papers for which I had no use, but if I could detach the picture and slip it inside my shirt no one would ever be the wiser. I set about trying to slip the rubber band off but it was sticky with age and I only succeeded in binding the picture more tightly to the bundle. Don’t, picture, please... I brought the packet to my mouth to try to bite the sticky bands; my hands were shaking and I was nervous beyond all proportion to my theft. Don’t be this way. Please. You can be mine please. You can come with me please... “I can’t, Lee.” Until she answered I had not been aware that I was talking out loud. “I just can’t, Lee. Don’t, oh, Lee, don’t . . .” I had not even known I was crying. The photo flowed before my eyes, as the girl swept across toward me, through dust and cobwebs. “Why not, Viv?” I asked stupidly. She had almost reached me. “Why can’t you just flick everything here and—” “Hey . . .” A hoarse word stopped us. “...ain’t you two found that outfit yet?” He was speaking from the trapdoor; his bodiless head could have been mistaken for another piece of the clutter. “You clucks oughta get some more light up here, for chrissakes. It’s like a grave. Find anything ...?” “I think I have it here,” I called to him, trying to control 688 ken kesey my voice. “A lot of policies to check through. We’re almost finished.” “Okay. Say, listen, bub: I’m gonna go slip into some clothes and run you back across. The air’ll do me good. You be ready to move when I get my clothes on.” The head disappeared. The trapdoor thumped shut. She was in my arms. “Oh, Lee, that’s why. He’s why. I can’t leave him like he is now...” “Viv, he’s just putting you on with this sick bit; he isn’t sick . . .” “I know that.” “And he knows, too. He knows about us, couldn’t you tell just now? This sick bit, he’s just doing it to keep you.” “I know that, Lee ...but that’s why I say I—” “Viv, Viv, baby, listen...he’s no more sick than I am. If he and I were off out of your sight someplace he would probably beat the daylights out of me.” “But don’t you see what that means? How that means he feels?” “Viv, baby, listen; you love me! If I ever knew anything I know that.” “Yes! Yes, I know! But I love him too, Lee . . .” “Not as much as you—!” “Yes! As much! Oh, I don’t know...” Desperately, I grasped her shoulders. “Even if that’s so, that you love him as much, I need you more than he does. Even if you love us equally, it’s all the more reason; can’t you see I need you to keep—” “Need! Need, is that all!” she wailed against my chest, her voice muffled by the heavy wool and her near hysteria. “Viv,” I started to say again, but she pushed back to seek my eyes. Beneath us we could hear Hank returning, heavy-heeled. “Let’s make it,” he called from below the trap. “Hear me Lee? Viv?” At the sound, her look of conflict and anguish suddenly changed, and her eyes dropped, as though borne to the ground by the weight of an awful shadow, that same shade I had seen across her face at the front door but hadn’t recognized. Because, I would have never believed it possible to find that sometimes a great notion shadow on Viv. But, now, it was unmistakably nothing more mysterious than plain old shame. I had not recognized it earlier because it was not shame for herself or her guilt, or for me in mine, but shame for the man so weakened by his illness that he was unable to let his wife disappear momentarily from his observation into the attic, so stricken with fever that nothing would do but take me across the river himself to keep her from being alone with me that little time more . . . “Say, Viv, can I borrow this family album for a while? To show off my heritage back at school?” And being responsible for some of this weakness, she was trapped by it. It would be her memento of the thing we almost had, just as that photograph hidden inside that album was mine. I could think of nothing to say. She walked from me, away from the trapdoor toward the window—“You better go, Lee; he’s waiting, “—moving slow, weighted. That a shame focused on another should burden one as terribly as the personal variety was practically inconceivable to me. The poor kid is just too compassionate, I told myself . . . And yet, as I climbed down the ladder into the hallway, where Hank waited gnawing on a hangnail, I felt that I too was encumbered by a shadow as unnatural as it was unwieldy. “Let’s go, bub,” he said impatiently. “I’ll pull on my boots downstairs.” “A bit ago you were too sick to bend at the joints.” “Yeah, well maybe a little of that nice fresh-washed air out yonder is what I been lackin’. Is that okay with you? You ready to make it?” “Fine with me. I’ve got everything I came for . . .” “That’s good,” he said and started down the stairs. I followed, thinking, Unnatural, and unwieldy, and a hundred times heavier than any of the score of personal varieties that I have so often carried. Hank, my shame for you, believe it or not, is as great as that I hold for myself. Maybe greater. And, brother, that’s going some . . . From the attic window through cobwebs, Viv watches as they walk to the boat and get in. The boat starts, noiseless at this distance, and begins to creep across the river like a little red water 690 ken kesey beetle. “I don’t know any more, Lee, what I want,” she says, like a small child. And becomes aware of her image once more, vaguely reflected in the dirty attic window: what does it mean, all this concern about our images? It means this is the only way we ever see ourselves; looking out, at others, reflected through cobwebs from an attic window... (I ferried the kid back across; we were pretty casual about it. I said I didn’t blame him for wanting to shake the Oregon mud off his shoes and go back to hit the books. He said he was sorry to take me away from my ball game. We were getting along all right; standing pat seemed the best way to handle things . . .) “It’ll be nice to get back to some drier country ...even if it is colder.” “Sure. A fella gets tired of this friggin’ drizzle all the time.” As the expanse of water lengthened between myself and the slim blond girl alone in the echoing wooden house, I began searching frantically for some last hope, some last unplayed trump that would win me this hand; I no longer cared about beating my brother, I cared about winning the game. And there is a difference . . . “By the way, the doctor and Boney Stokes told me to ask how you were feeling . . .” (I’d had some things to say to him, on this boat trip across, but what the hell, I figured, don’t go picking at scabs . . .) “I’m probably gonna survive.” “They’ll be happy to hear that.” “I’ll bet they will.” When the bow touched dock I was desperate to the point of bursting; I felt I must do something or die! In another minute I would be gone from her for good, and she from me...for good! So do anything! Kick, scream, throw a tantrum for her to see and so she’ll know that— “Look who’s pulling up in the jeep. It’s Andy, big as life. Hey, Andy boy, how’s it hangin’?” I barely noticed as Hank waved to Andy climbing from the jeep. I had seen something far bigger... “What’s up, Andy, man? You look draggled.” sometimes a great notion Something far better . . . across the river, at the top of the old house, in the little attic window, like a candle lifted as a signal to me, at last . . . “Hank,” Andy approaches them, panting, “I just come from the mill. Somebody set it on fire last night.” “The mill! Is it burned?” “No, not real bad; rain kept it down pretty much so’s it hadn’t burnt more than the green chain an’ some stuff. I put it the rest of the way out . . .” “But for chrissakes the mill? Why? How do you know somebody lit it?” “ ’Cause there was this stuck to the glass on the front office.” Andy unfolds a smudged circular sticker and holds it to Hank. “This: a black cat, grinning . . .” “The old Wobbly sign? Who in god’s green world . . . with a Wobbly sign?” “It seems you have enemies, brother,” I said. He turned to look at me suspiciously, wondering if I’d had anything to do with the mill; it amused me a little, knowing that he was suspicious of my past when sabotage was already cooking in the future. “Still, it also seems you have some very devoted friends. For instance, Boney Stokes was most insistent that I pass on his regards.” “That old spook,” he said and spat (besides, I figured, to myself, there’s no sense me and the kid getting into it), “someday I’m gonna trip that old bastard and bring him down like a stack of dominoes . . .” “Oh, you misjudge him . . .” I glanced again across at the house. “Mr. Stokes is full of appreciation for you”—she was still framed in that dark square of window—“and determined to prove his good faith to you.” “Stokes? How’s that?” He looked at me, puzzled. (I figured, There’s no sense in saying any more when everything we could say we both already knew . . .) “Well, he asked me to advise you—” She’s still watching. Still at the window. He doesn’t know! “—advise you that, due to another change in his delivery route...he will be coming up the river this far and is willing to give you the benefit of his services 692 ken kesey once more.” “Yeah? Stokes? Is that right, now?” (I figured, There’s no sense doing anything when everything’s already been done...) “Yes, that is right; and he furthermore asked me to say that he was indeed sorry—wait; what was it?” Go ahead! It’s the only way. You know that it is! “...sorry for any inconvenience he might have caused you during your, let’s see, weakened condition, Mr. Stokes put it, I think. Is that right? Have you had a weakened condition, Brother Hank?” “You might say so, yeah . . .” (I had figured, I’ll just go on and drop the kid off in town and leave things where they are, just stand pat . . .) “Also, the good doctor told me to tell you that he was buying you a turkey—” “A turkey?” “Yes, a turkey,” I went blithely on, acting as though I were completely unmindful of the line of anger tightening about Hank’s lips like a bowstring—Go on! you have to go on it’s the only way!—as though I were completely unaware of the disbelief and shock in Andy’s eyes. “Yes, the good doctor said that he was paying for you a nice big gobbler for Thankgiving, compliments of the hospital.” “A turkey? Wait a minute...” “A free turkey, brother; it almost seems that you should get in a sick and weakened condition more often, doesn’t it?” “Wait a minute; what’s this all about, goddammit?” (I had figured, Yeah, there’s no reason dragging up the ashes, he’s finished with what he set out to do and there’s nothing I can do back, so what the hell . . . let it stand pat.) “And then Mr. Stokes said—let me recall—that ‘Thanksgiving dinner without the traditional gobbler just ain’t Thanksgiving,’ and that he considered the doctor a true Christian in Heart and Deed for helping you in your time of need.” “My time of need, he said that?” “That’s what he said. Boney Stokes. The good doctor said something different.” “What did the good doctor say?” “He said Hank Stamper deserves a free turkey for all he’s done for us.” “Doctor Layton said that? Goddam you, Lee, if you’re—” “That’s what he said.” “But I didn’t do anything to deserve—” “Now, now, brother...in a moment you’ll be saying you didn’t deserve to have your mill burned.” “Didn’t really burn, I tol’ you, Leland, I got to it—” “Okay, Andy . . .” “—they jus’ tried to burn it, but the rain—” “Okay, Andy.” (Yeah, that’s what I had figured . . . that it was all done and over. sometimes a great notion But the kid had a different notion.) “Yes, you have a lot of friends, Hank.” “Yeah.” “A lot of people interested.” “Yeah. Wait; let’s see if I get it right; Boney Stokes ...is coming here to push a turkey off on me?” “I don’t think Mr. Stokes is looking on this as a business transaction. Or the doctor either. I think it is more a consideration, don’t you, Andy?—a show of gratitude for Hank’s cooperation.” “My cooperation?” “Yes, about the contract and all . . .” “What in the hell do they think I want with charity or gratitude ...or a goddam turkey either for that matter?” “Oh, and there are other incidentals, too . . . that the citizens are going to donate. I think a whole basket. Mr. Stokes mentioned yams, cranberry preserves, mincemeat—” “Hold it.” “—pumpkin pie, dressing—” “Hold it now,” I said— “—for just one goddam minute...” Hank stood up in the boat, his hand held slightly before him as if to hold off an attack of air. “Now just you tell me, bub: what are you driving at? just let’s have it straight, once.” (Yeah, I had figured everything had been done...) “I mean I didn’t order any goddamn mincemeat or yams. Are you shitting me? Or what the hell are you driving at!” “You must not understand, Hank; I know you didn’t order. Mr. Stokes isn’t selling this to you...he’s giving you the groceries. Or donating might be the better word. He said that anything else you might need, just hang out the flag for it. Simply hang up the flag. Can you handle that? In your weakened condition?” “Hold it . . .” (But I was wrong. He was still pushing. There was something left after all.) “Say, Hank—” “Hold it, bub...” Don’t stop now; you can’t stop now. “How is your condition, by the way?” “Hold it, bub, don’t push it too far...” (He don’t even act like he knows what I’m signifying; can he be that dense?) “Push what, Hank?” “Just don’t is all.” “How far is too far, Hank?” “Okay, bub—” He stopped speaking and looked at me. I stood up; the boat, only tied at the stern, rocked and bucked beneath us. Andy looked back and forth from each of us. Hank stepped over the center seat. This was it; here comes the bomb. We stood facing each other with the boat bobbing and the rain bristling between us, and I waited . . . 694 ken kesey (He just stands there grinning at me. I feel that old mounting howl swirl in my stomach and arms, tightening my fists ...and he just stands there grinning . . . what’s with him? What’s he got going now for the chrissakes?) And, waiting, I noticed for the first time that Hank was a good two inches shorter than myself. The revelation in no way excited me. How interesting, I kept thinking, as I waited for the bomb to drop; how peculiar. “You were going to tell me, Hank,” I asked again; “that one has to push...” He started to clench his jaw. “Maybe instead I oughta just come right out an’—” “Over there!” Andy shouts and points. From across the river comes a moist, cracking explosion, like wet lightning followed by a rumbling of heavy earth. The three figures start, turning to the crash in time to see a great section of the bank pitch out from the foundation and slide crashing onto the boathouse. For a second the earth floats on the little structure, then the boathouse rolls over, the way an ice cube rolls with sugar piled on it. (I stopped, watching the bank bright and dry and deep as a shell crater, ragged at the edges with shredded two-by-fours and frayed rope and snapped cables. It gapes this way a moment, from the bank below the barn. Then the earth, heavy with water, drops to fill the hole, carrying part of the barn down with it. Dust muddies the rain. Animal hides and gunny sacks swirl away, gathering foam. Broken red planks thrust floating upright for a moment, then flatten out to float away. Some of them veer into the foundation around the house, actually shoring it up against the current as though the barn has sacrificed itself for the house. The cow lumbers bellowing from the ruin, up toward the orchard. Another small slide heaves down about the half-submerged barn, clattering and scraping; then it is still. None of the three have moved during the half-minute. Now Lee steps out of the boat up onto the dock with Andy, and Hank follows. (I stopped then, with my mouth hung open. It wasn’t the cave-in that really made me spin my wheels. The cave-in just distracted me for a second; it was something else, something I seen at the house that really pulled me up short. And the kid seen it, too, way before I did...) On the dock, I saw that Hank had noticed my concerned glance at the attic sometimes a great notion window... (Viv was up there, up there still in the attic! And the kid’s known all along she was watching. That’s why he was pushing . . .) “You knew, didn’t you?” Hank turned toward me with a slow, restricted control that made me think of the Tin Woodman of Oz straining against the rust in his joints. “You knew she’d see if I fisted you...ain’t that right?” “That’s right,” I told him, watching him closely and for some reason still waiting; because, though he was onto my reasons and my plan, he still didn’t sound like he’d dismissed earlier intentions. “Now everybody knows,” I said and waited . . . (Then it all come over me; I mean for the first time really come over me, just how nigger slick he’s got it all balanced out. He’s got it near perfect. He’s built it like the hanging nooses we useta build as kids, that can’t get any way but tighter; he’s built it to where I can’t advance any direction but what I’m bound to lose ground. He’s arranged it so’s I’m stuck in a place where it’s damned if I do and damned if I don’t, whipped if I fight and whipped if I don’t . . . That’s how nice he’s got it balanced.) ...waited, watching him weigh the situation carefully. Andy rocked from boot to boot in mute confusion, like a big perplexed bear, while I waited and Hank thought it over . . . (And seeing that, I think to myself, bub, right here is where your genius outfoxes you; because you’ve got it arranged better than you know. “Bub, we’ve tore up too much of each other to stop now.” Because you got it worked out so well that it doesn’t matter to me any more that she’s watching. “We’ve messed in the nest now, bub, messed in it good,” I tell him. Because he’d got the balance heavier on one side than he knew, the noose tighter than he realized. “Because there’s too much salt, bub, rubbed in, to stop now just because she’s—”) I started to ask Hank what he meant when an abrupt, almost involuntary twist of his neck stopped me. His chin was being tugged to the right, toward the house. He would pause, look at Andy, at me, then the neck would twist again, further right . . . then back at me, at that black-cat sticker Andy held, then right again as though he were being jerked by an invisible rein leading across the river up to that attic window. The rein pulled taut. He faced the house for a moment, looking at that slim 696 ken kesey glow in the dark window, then the rein snapped in two and his head swung back, facing me... (“Yeah, there’s too much rubbed in to leave now,” I told the kid. Because he’d finally made standing pat tougher than advancing, and losing ground easier than standing pat . . .) “So get your best hold,” Hank said and drew a deep breath, grinning at me. (“Because we’ve messed in it,” I said, and let him have it, for all I was worth, right on the side of the head.) The blow surprised me no more than had the discovery of my advantage in height: How interesting, I thought, as I saw stars sparked from my cheekbone. (The kid took the punch. He just stood there and took it. I guess I knew he would, with her watching, because that’s another part of the way he’s got it so worked out . . .) How interesting, I thought—Lee spins backward, tripping, slamming into the side of the garage; Andy bobs and weaves along the dock; Hank moves forward; Viv watches the tiny figures, her fists at her throat—how very interesting and peculiar, I found myself thinking, as bells rang in my ears and birds sang round my head just exactly the way it is described in the pulps ...(He went down at the second punch and I figured that was that, he’s let her see all she needs to see . . .) Viv throws open the window, shouting through cobwebs and rain, “Hank! Don’t!” as Lee slides down the mossy boards of the garage wall. “Hank!” Hank steps backward, crouching, throwing back the hood of his parka like a catcher tossing off his mask. (I heard Viv hollering something at me from that attic window, but I was past the point of being hollered at.) Lee lifts his head, groaning ...Nor was I really surprised by his second blow, which started as a mere white speck in the distance, then swelled suddenly before me into a great knobby hammer of fist that splashed Fourth-of-July crimson in all directions. (I popped him again, bloodying up his nose . . . that oughta do it, I figured.) “Hank! Stop! Stop it!” Viv’s voice stretches across the water, as Hank hunches, waiting for Lee to push himself groggily from the wall. (But, by god, he got back up again. I busted him another one.) Lee pushes himself upright, frowning, annoyed by the numbed and useless hinges of his jaw. Only one side of the jaw seems to sometimes a great notion function. His mouth opens at a slanting angle. Hank waits until the weaving stops and the mouth closes “Hank, no! Please, honey, no!” (I hit him again, harder) takes deliberate fastidious aim and fits another fist over Lee’s nose and lips, carefully missing the glasses ...Nor was I much more than slightly surprised to discover myself still standing when the crimson splash cleared. It all seemed natural, somehow, at the time... (The kid just kept sticking his face out. Fall down and stay, I kept saying under my breath, fall down and stay or get up and fight or I’m gonna beat you silly, or, or I’m gonna beat you to death.) “Hank!” Lee snaps back bouncing again from the wall, and begins sneezing. “Hank!” He sneezes violently, three times, creating a thin red mist between them while Hank waits, crouching, cocking his arm again. (...you just stand there keep letting her watch me pop you goddam you I’m gonna beat you clean to death!) ...But I must confess that I was thunderstruck to find, that, after I had blinked the tears and terror away, I was striking back! IMBECILE! DON’T . . . “Lee! Hank! No ...!” Lee’s hand jumps, springing forward, seemingly of its own accord, like a small animal into the air after a passing insect; the coat’s weight throws it off its aim so the blow is short, glancing off Hank’s chin and thumping against his Adam’s apple IMBECILE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING? FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T FIGHT BACK! (Then I think the kid got the idea, that if he didn’t do something I was going to pound him to death. Because he finally went to hitting back. Maybe he sensed it, that I’m going to kill him. But now it’s too late. I figured, You waited too long and now I’m going to kill you.) My thunderstruck astonishment, however, compared to that of my back-reeling, eye-popping, air-sucking brother, became mere wonder; Hank dropped to one knee, making a noise like a man swallowing his tongue, and his face was a study of stupefaction: What’s this? he marveled; Who can this be belaboring me about the chops? (I know I’m gonna kill you, I figured.) Who can this cat be, standing there in little Leland’s coat and pants, pasting me in the puss? (Because there just ain’t any reason any more not to kill you.) After my initial pride and astonishment receded, I cursed myself for losing control. Why 698 ken kesey did you have to go and hit back, imbecile? WATCH OUT! Now he’s down and you’ve got to let him get up and knock you down once more; do you think Viv is going to come rushing to the victor? Now; taunt him again but this time be cool. “Do I—” My voice quavered pathetically with a mixture of grim and giddy panic as I goaded him once more. “Do I now go to my neutral corner?” From his kneeling position of disgrace Hank half smiled at my attempt at humor, not his usual hidden grin of mock shyness, but an icy, cruel, reptilian smirk that turned my wet hair brittle and my saliva to slush. WATCH OUT! a voice warned, and Hank said “You better be reh—reh—” I tried to take heart from the fact that he was having a worse time speaking than myself; I had clearly landed a telling blow to the larynx. “—you better be by god ready to go a sight farther than that,” he went on, and the voice in my skull shrieked WATCH OUT WATCH OUT NOW WATCH OUT! “Because I’m gonna kill you goddamn you...” When I saw Hank come up off his knees and advance toward me behind his frozen lizard’s smile—RUN! BEFORE IT’S TOO LATE!—I knew that my blow to the larynx had been a good deal more infuriating than telling. It had stunned nothing but his reason; there was a look now of trapped, futile rage. That one blow was the straw that snapped the animal’s mind! I told myself. NOW YOU’VE DONE IT, NOW HE’S GOING TO MURDER YOU. RUN! RUN FOR YOUR MISERABLE LIFE! (I can’t see any reason not to kill you, don’t you see. You’ve outfoxed yourself making it too tight . . .) RUN! the voice kept screaming, RUN! But the river swirled at my back and the voice said nothing about swimming. And for once, I wasn’t able to run for my miserable life. I could not back up at all. In spite of the hysterical demands for retreat, I could only move forward. Thus, while the voice screeched IMBECILE! IDIOT!, while my ears rang and Andy shuffled wordlessly, and Viv’s calling came again over the water, my brother and I finally, totally wholeheartedly embraced for our first and last and oh so long overdue dance of Hate and Hurt and Love. Finally, we quit fooling around and fought, as Andy kept time sometimes a great notion with his foot. It kept reminding me of a dance. Clinging to each other in a paroxysm of overripe passion we spun the fight fantastic, reeled to the melodious fiddle-cry of rain through the firs, and the accelerating tempo of feet on the drumhead dock, and the high whirling skirl of adrenalin that always accompanies this dance...jointly trampling my surprise, Andy’s shock, and Hank’s astonishment underfoot in the action. (I have to kill you now. It’s what you’ve been begging for so long . . .) And, for never having danced together before, we came on passing fair if I say so myself . . . Viv watches in horror as the two of them, with Andy shuffling so close he appears to be refereeing, crash together through the rain. She has stopped calling. “Don’t,” she whispers. “Please don’t . . .” (I have to go ahead and kill you because you pushed too much . . .) After one overcomes his natural aversion and hesitation and takes the first steps, enters into the spirit, so to speak, of this particular form of primitive gavotte, he finds it is not nearly so unpleasant as his apprehensions had given him to believe. Not at all. Certainly it can be a bit more difficult than fox-trotting at the Waldorf or mamboing at the Copa, but then it can also be, in the final analysis, a good deal less painful. For although a clout on the side of the head can set up a ringing sting that makes the ear burn like the fires of hell for the duration of the dance, who has not suffered more violent attacks on that same organ in the calm and cozy two-step? The clout will cease its ringing and the ear its burning, but who hasn’t suffered a few well-placed words breathed softly cheek-to-cheek over the strains of a hotel orchestra? words with the power to ring on for months and years, and not just burn the ear but char one whole side of the brain as well? In this fistic dance a glaring misstep may leave you open for a quick, heavy, sickening punch in the stomach—I managed twice to lace the dock with my Golden Delicious—but this gut-rolling sickness is a sickness you know will pass, a pain you can endure by reminding yourself Hang on; it has to be over in a moment—whereas I have made missteps in far more placid dances, and have suffered lighter slower lower punches that still sicken with a pain 700 ken kesey that compounds itself by reminding you that it may never go away. (Yes; he’d pushed more than he’d need of. But. To where he knows I can’t but kill him. But. Kept rubbing things in like one red flag after another in front of a bull until— But why, if it’s just for Viv?) We reeled and shuffled from the dock up onto the gravelly bank; we rocked and rolled down the bank through a litter of roadside garbage. Always with Andy right beside us, cheering neither one nor the other of us. Always with Viv’s voice trickling out of a gray distance, pleading with Hank to stop. Always with that other voice screaming from a much closer gray— IMBECILE—and demanding the same thing of me: STOP FIGHTING! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! HE’LL KILL YOU! (Like everlastingly pestering a man who has a gun until the man— But why does he keep on?) YOU KNOW YOU CAN’T BEAT HIM. IF YOU KEEP FIGHTING HE’LL KILL YOU. LIE DOWN! STOP! (Like prodding a bear with a stick until— But if he knows that already, then why is he—?) HE’LL KILL YOU, Old Reliable kept screeching, LIE DOWN! But something had happened. In a fist fight there is a point, after a cheek has been split or a nose broken with a sound in your skull like a light bulb being popped in mud, when you realize that you have already survived the worst. DON’T GET BACK UP! the voice from the shadows insisted as I struggled to free myself from a deep green net of berry vines where I had been thrown by a booming, eye-closing right. JUST LIE HERE. IF YOU GET UP HE’LL KILL YOU! And the voice, for the first time in a long, long reign over my psyche, met with opposition. “No,” said a stranger in my head. “Not so.” YES. IT IS SO. LIE STILL. IF YOU GET UP HE’LL KILL YOU. “Not so,” the voice dissented again, calmly. “No, he can’t kill you. He’s already done his damnedest. You’ve survived his worst.” DON’T LISTEN! RUN FOR YOUR LIFE! HE’LL BEAT sometimes a great notion YOU UNCONSCIOUS, THEN STRANGLE YOU WHERE YOU LIE. FOR GOD’S SAKE DON’T GET UP! “Listen to me. He won’t kill you. If he wanted you dead he could have gutted you with that peavey pole leaning against the garage there. Or he could have cut your throat with that whittling knife he carries. Or just could have stomped your head in with those boots when you were looking for your tooth over there in the gravel pile. He’s not trying to kill you.” “OH?” the first voice stopped its shrilling and demanded with a sly arrogance.