Country Boy: Chapter 4, part 2

The car felt empty without her.  The pointer lay in the back seat with its head on its paws, looking at its owner in the rearview mirror every now and then and huffing a sigh.  Jack felt the same way.

Cities and towns flashed by and gradually gave way to wide, flat fields abutted by woods.  It was four-thirty by the time Jack pulled into his brother’s driveway, a long gravel drive in need of re-graveling where the turbulent spring had washed potholes into it.  The beige house at the top of it was surrounded by soy, rippling green fields of soy that surrounded the pond and came almost all the way up to the swing set on the right side of the house and were absent on the left side only on top of the septic mound.  Swallows darted over the fields, and somewhere at the edges of the property, where marshy areas still stood unclaimed by agriculture, red-winged blackbirds were calling.  Jack stepped out of the car, let the dog out, and inhaled deeply.  Despite the week ahead of him – despite the sight of his parents’ house across the street and his father’s fields of soy – he was glad to be back, if only for the smell of grass and the sight of wide green acres and an open blue sky.

He didn’t have long to enjoy it, however, for the pointer bounded joyfully away from him, and before he could call it back the door of his brother’s house banged open and his two nephews bolted out, yelling, “Uncle Jack!”  A short woman with an auburn pixie cut, a thin face, and a lot of freckles stepped carefully out on the porch after them, smiling and waving.  The pointer jumped on the boys, trying to lick their faces.  They fell over, screaming in delight.  The woman on the porch just laughed, stuck her thumb and forefinger in her mouth, and whistled.  Boys and dog came running and disappeared into the house.  Jack grabbed his bag out of the trunk of the Taurus and followed, shaking his head.

On the porch he was greeted by the woman with a kiss on the cheek and responded with a clumsy hug.  He’d never quite gotten used to Katie’s open affection, coming as he did from this family that usually discouraged rather than encouraged displays of it.  It was one more thing that gave his father a reason to object to her, although Jack knew that the main objection was that she was Catholic.  Her people and his family’s people were still killing each other back in Ireland.  It had been his brother’s one rebellious act in life to marry an Irish Catholic girl.

“Come on in,” Katie said.  “Todd should be in in a few minutes.”

“Thanks for letting me stay here,” Jack said.

Katie grimaced.

“You might not want to thank me yet.  Your parents are coming to dinner.”

She said your parents as if the phrase was a particularly bitter sip of espresso.

Oh, dear God.

“Tonight?”

“Hey, buddy, don’t give me that.” Katie led him into the kitchen and pointed him to a seat.  A black and white cat stood on the island, nosing at a bowl of ground beef beside the stove.  Katie dropped the cat onto the floor and said, “I already had to sit through dinner with them yesterday.  Your mom wanted to surprise you, and when you didn’t show up they decided to come to dinner today too…”

“We got stuck in Ohio,” Jack said.  “Serpentine belt went on the car.”

Katie looked up from shaping the ground beef into burgers.

“We?” she said.

“Yeah,” Jack said uncomfortably.  “Me and Zeus.  The dog, I mean.”

Zeus, now lying at Jack’s feet under the table, thumped his tail against the floor at the mention of his name.

“Uh-huh,” said Katie, but she sounded unconvinced.  Jack wasn’t sure why he was unwilling to mention Adele, aside from the fact that his father would harp on her race if he mentioned that she was African American, and that his brother would tease.  Better to say nothing and avoid the whole mess.

The back door slid open and a man came in, stomping his boots on the rug by the door to loosen the clods of dirt stuck to the soles.  He had the same grey eyes as Jack, the same short light ash-brown hair, the same tall frame and athletic build, but his face was thinner and his nose too straight to have been broken six times by different rodeo bulls in the course of eight years.  When he saw Jack seated at the table, he whooped and said, “’Bout time!  When the hell’d you get here?”

“He just arrived,” Katie said.  “Make sure the boys wash up for dinner, please.  You parents will be here soon.”

Jack followed his brother into the hall and up the stairs across from the kitchen and asked in a low voice, “How they been getting along?”

Todd shrugged.

“Same as always,” he said.  “Dad makes cracks about the Pope and Katie won’t accept that that’s just the way he is.  I keep telling her he’s too old to change, but she says it’s bullshit.”

“It is bullshit.  He could change if he wanted to.”

“He doesn’t want to, is the point.  Boys!” Todd called.  “Time to wash up!  Nana and Grandpa Russell will be here soon.”

Two doors at the top of the stairs banged open and the boys ran into the bathroom, squabbling over the sink.  Todd sighed and clomped back down the stairs.

“We’ll leave them to it,” he said.

“They’re in separate rooms now?”

“Oh, yes.  Nicky’s to that age now where he’s scared of the dark and keeps seeing monsters in the closet, and Russ is at that age where his favorite past time is telling his little brother ghost stories right before bed and then insisting that he can’t sleep with the nightlight on…”

Jack grinned.

“Like you and me, huh?”

Todd punched him in the shoulder.

“Hey, you got over it,” Jack said.

As soon as they got back to the kitchen, Katie said to Todd, “Good, you can help me.  Get over here and make a salad, will you?”

“What can I do?” Jack asked.

“You can sit down and stay out of the way.  I don’t want you spitting in your dad’s burger or something.”

“Only because he would think you did it,” Jack said, but he sat at the kitchen table and leaned back with his hands behind his head and listened as Todd and Katie bickered over the meal.

“Burgers?” Todd said.  “Yesterday you made a three-course meal with tiramisu for dessert! What happened to showing off?”

“Excuse me if I don’t feel like slaving over a hot stove two days in a row just because they have to come to dinner again…”

Jack petted the dog and tried to tune it out.  Plenty enough time and occasion for bickering when his parents got here, he thought.  Might as well enjoy some peace and quiet for the time being.

As the smell of well-done burgers filled the kitchen, there was a rap on the front door, Jack heard his mother’s voice call out, “Anyone home?” and his nephews thundered down the stairs to get the door, shouting, “Nana!”  He felt a grim sense of satisfaction that even amongst the children, Nana and not Grandpa Russell was the favorite.  The air was acrid with the smell of burnt meat.

“Dad likes his burgers rare,” Jack commented.

Katie said, “I know.”

Then his parents were there, in the kitchen: His mother, short and plump, with her hair rinsed back to the same light ash color as her sons’ hair, dwarfed by his father, who was taller even than his two sons, balding and broad, with a gut that hadn’t hung on him two years before.  He caught sight of his eldest son and said, “So you are here!  When you didn’t turn up yesterday I thought for sure your mother was just telling tales again.”

“Didn’t I tell you he’d be here? You old geezer, you never believe a thing I say anymore.  Jack, sweetheart, come give your mother a hug.”

There it was, Jack thought as he came to the doorway and allowed himself to be squeezed by his mother, her told-you-so.  His nephews clamored to be hugged themselves, to be listened to as each tried to outshine the tales of the other’s recent exploits with tales of his own.  You’d never know from their excitement that their grandparents lived just across the street, Jack thought, but he willingly got out of their way and went back to his spot at the table.  His father followed and sat beside him, leaning back in his chair with his broad hands linked behind his head.  Zeus padded up to him and nosed his leg.  He looked around in some surprise, said, “Oh, hello,” and patted the pointer’s head.

“Nice dog,” he said.

“Thanks,” said Jack.

“Reminds me of Pops’ old dog.”

Jack said nothing.  The allusion to Pops hung between them like a breath of stale air.  How he could sit there and mention Pops so casually when he hadn’t even gone to the funeral, Jack thought, but then he remembered that he hadn’t gone to the funeral either.  He’d been in Miami, still spiraling, still recovering from his last rodeo, his ride on Apache Devil.  He’d gone on a two-day drinking binge when his mother called to say that Pops had died and had still been hung over in bed when the flight he was supposed to catch took off.

His father cleared his throat and said, “So.  How’s life in the big city?”

“It’s okay.”

“You doing something worthwhile now or still just fixing up other people’s cars?”

Jack felt a ripple of anger move through him.

“Dad—”

His father leaned forward and said quietly, “See, I fail to understand how you can be happy crawling around in motor oil, but farming is beneath you.”

“Can we talk about this later?” Jack said through gritted teeth.

“At least you’re not busting your face on those stupid rodeo bulls anymore—”

“Dad!” Jack said, but then he realized that everyone else was staring at the two of them.  Todd shuffled his feet against the tile floor, his mother’s eyes were bright, and Russ and Nicky were wide-eyed.  Even the dog cowered beneath the table at the sound of raised voices.  Katie had a fierce look on her face, but she was the first to recover.  She touched her mother-in-law’s arm gently and said, “Could you help me get these dishes out on the deck? It’s so warm out tonight, I thought we could eat outside…”

Jack’s mother wiped her eyes on her arm and said briskly, “Boys, come help Nana take these dishes outside.”  Russ and Nicky scrambled to help, squabbling over who would carry out the burgers.  They followed their father and grandmother out onto the deck, trailed by Katie.  As she passed by Jack she laid her fingers on his arm and said in a low voice, “Don’t, Jack.  Don’t rile him up.  It’ll just make things worse, and this week is going to suck enough already.  Hang in there, okay?”

Jack gritted his teeth and said nothing.  His father pushed back his chair, said, “Well, then,” and followed the rest of them out of the house.  Jack stood for a moment in the empty kitchen, grinding his teeth and swallowing all the things he wanted to say to his father.  Then he pulled the brim of his cowboy hat down over his eyes and strode out onto the deck.