Russell Banks - The Sweet Hereafter

My old Dodge wagon, which was a masculine-type car, had been nicknamed Boomer by my own kids during a period when the springs were bad. Since the district was not then paying for repairs, I couldn’t afford to get them replaced right away, causing the vehicle to make a booming sound when it bottomed out on the washboard ruts on Bartlett Hill Road, which at that time had not yet been paved. I noted how fast the other children seized on the use of the name, asking me, “How’s ol’ Boomer today?” and suchlike when I picked them up, as if the vehicle was a horse they felt affectionate toward. So later, when my sons were in high school and I got the GMC, I made a little act of introducing it to the children as Rufus, Boomer’s larger, dumber cousin, which is how it seemed to me and to the children as well. The International got named Shoe because when I drove it with a load of thirty, thirty-five kids I felt like the old woman who lived in a shoe who had so many children she didn’t know what to do, and it tickled the kids to hear me tell it, and in no time they were slapping old Shoe on the side as they lined up at their stop to climb aboard, saying things like “Shoe sleep good last night?” “Shoe eat a good breakfast this morning?” That sort of remark. By staying away from the cutesy names, sticking with names that were slightly humorous, I was able to get the older kids, especially the boys, who could be curt, to go along with the game, making the ride more cheerful for everyone that way. It was something we could all participate in together, which was a value I tried to promote among young people.

My first stop that morning was at the top of Bartlett Hill Road, where it branches into Avalanche Road and McNeil. I pulled over and made my turnaround so the bus was facing east and waited for the Lamston kids to come down the hill on McNeil. The three of them, since the day the oldest, Harold, started school, always got to the stop late, no matter how often I threatened to leave them if they weren’t there waiting for me, so eventually I just made it a habit to come a little early and pour myself a cup of coffee and wait. It’s like when they were born their clocks were set permanently five minutes behind everybody else’s, so the only way you could meet them on time was to set your own clock five minutes early.

I didn’t mind. It gave me a chance to enjoy my second cup of coffee in solitude in the bus with the heater running. It was peaceful, way up there on top of Bartlett Hill looking east toward Giant and Noonmark and Wolf Jaw, watching the sky lighten, with the mountains outlined in black against this milky stripe of light widening from the horizon. Made you appreciate living here, instead of some milder place, where I suppose life comes somewhat easier. Down in the valley, you could see the house lights of Sam Dent coming on one by one, and along Routes 9 and 73 the headlights of a few cars flashed like fireflies as people headed out to work.

I’ve spent my whole life in this town, and I can safely say I know everyone in it, even the newcomers, even the summer people. Well, not all the summer people; just the regulars, who own their own houses and arrive early and leave late. Them I know because when school’s out I work part time sorting their mail in the post office and helping Eden Schraft deliver it. That is, I used to, before the accident. Now I work in Lake Placid, driving for the hotels.

That morning, while I waited for the Lamstons, I was thinking about my sons. Reginald and William. We always called them that, never Reggie or Billy; I think it helped them grow up faster. Not that I was in a hurry for them to grow up. I just didn’t want them to become the kind of men who think of themselves as little boys and then tend to act that way when you need them to act like adults. No, thanks. William, who is the younger, is in the army in Virginia and was just back from Panama then, and although he had not been wounded or anything, he was sounding a little strange and distant to me, which is understandable, I suppose. He hadn’t been shipped out to Arabia yet. Reginald was having some marital problems, you might say, in that his wife, Tracy, was bored with her job at the Plattsburgh Marriott, where she worked as a receptionist, and wanted to get pregnant. As he was still in night school at Plattsburgh State and wasn’t making much as a draftsman, he preferred to wait a few years before having a child. I told him why didn’t he tell Tracy to find a job that wasn’t boring. That irritated him. We were talking on the phone; I guess she was out somewhere. “Ma, it’s not that simple ,” he said, as if he thought I was simpleminded. Well, I knew it was complicated — I’ve been married twenty-eight years — but what else could I say? Anyhow, I was feeling cut off from my sons, which is unusual and gives me an empty feeling in the stomach when it happens, almost like hunger, and I wanted to do something to change it, but nothing would come to my mind.

Then suddenly there they were, the Lamstons, the two older boys, Harold and Jesse, banging on the door, and the little girl, Sheila, who was barely six, running along behind. I flipped open the door, and they marched in, silent, sober-faced, as always, wearing their hand-me-down snow-suits, lugging lunchboxes and schoolbooks, all three plumping down next to one another halfway back. They had their choice of seats, but they always put themselves behind me precisely in the middle of the bus, between the boys, most of whom preferred to sit way in the back, and the girls, who tended to cluster in the front near me, while whoever was last to get picked up took whatever seats were left, usually those nearest the Lamstons.

I never exactly liked the Lamston kids; they made it hard. But I felt sorry for them, so instead I acted as if I was very fond of them. They were what you call uncommunicative, all three, although they certainly communicated fine with one another, always whispering back and forth in a way that made you think they were criticizing you. I think they felt different from the other kids. Due to their father, Kyle Lamston, a sometime housepainter who was a drinker and was known in town for his propensity to commit acts of public violence. Their mother, Doreen, had the hangdog look of a woman who has to comfort such a man. The Lamstons were field-mouse poor and lived until recently in a trailer on a lot a half mile in on McNeil Road. Poverty and house trailers are not uncommon in Sam Dent, however. No, I’m sure it was the violence that made those children act like they were different from the others. They had secrets.

Little, pinch-faced kids, a solemn trio they were, commiserating with one another in whispers behind my back while I drove and every now and then tried to chat them up. “How’re you this morning? All ready to read ’n’ write ’n’ ‘rithmetic?” That sort of thing. Make myself sick. “Pretty damned cold this morning coming down the hill, I bet.” Nothing. Silence.

“Harold, you planning to play little league this summer?” I asked him. Still nothing, like I was talking to myself or was on the radio.

Most days I just ignored them, left them to themselves, since that’s clearly what they wanted, and whistled my way down the hill to the second stop, treating it in my mind like it was my first stop coming up and not the second and I was still alone in the bus. But that day for some reason I wanted to get a rise out of at least one of the three. Maybe because I felt so cut off from my own children; maybe out of some pure perversity. Who knows now? Fixing motives is like fixing blame — the further away from the act you get, the harder it is to single out one thing as having caused it.

Their father, Kyle Lamston, was a man I’d known since he was a boy in town; his family had come from over the border, Ontario someplace, and settled here in the early 1950s, when there were still a few dairy farms left in the area that kept unskilled people working year round. The only Canadians you see nowadays are tourists. Kyle was a promising youth, athletic, good-looking, smart enough, but he got into alcohol early, when he was still going through the turbulence and anger of a male teenager, and like a lot of unruly boys, he seemed to get stuck there.