David Gates - A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me

He flips through with Aunt Lissa in his peripheral vision. The one of him as a baby, held by his mother wearing a black dress and pearl necklace, his father in a tuxedo, grinning like Mr. Skeleton, his fingers making a V behind her head. The one of Uncle Martin pitching to him in the backyard in Albany, when he was like eleven and had Henry’s old Hank Aaron bat, with “Hank” in quotes. The one of him at six, in that red flannel cowboy shirt with the white pinstripes and slant pockets. Chubby cheeks. Little heartbreaker.

“ These cover the waterfront,” he says.

“Now, you can’t have them until I make copies.”

“I don’t know where I’d even keep them right now.”

“Well, they’ll be here. You know, it’s such a glorious day. You really should go out and get some fresh air.”

Outside, the cold makes his face sting, but he can feel no difference to his body thanks to Uncle Martin’s old Eddie Bauer coat. Maybe she’ll give it to him: a hoodie under a denim jacket doesn’t really cut it. He walks as far as the corner, to the house with the sign on the lawn that says STOP THE DREDGING. This is about the Hudson River.

Walking back to Aunt Lissa’s he sees something else that could have spoken to her: the vine that—losing the word here— ornates? That ornates the porch in summertime and is now this brown wirelike arrangement clinging to the chalky posts. Does green somehow seep back up into it, or could a whole new vine grow quickly enough to replace itself every year? Both seem impossible, yet one must be true. But he remembers the name: Dutchman’s pipe. Now there’s something that hangs together: when he was a kid, Uncle Martin used to have this expression for a hopeful patch of blue among the clouds, Enough to make a Dutchman a pair of britches . It gave you the idea of big people living in the sky.

—

When the phone rings, he’s back looking at Try and Stop Me . He can’t really follow the anecdotes, but he’s into the cartoons. In one, captioned “Mankiewicz en riposte,” a smirking man removes a cigarette from his mouth and blows a cloud of smoke with an arrow in it at a quailing man. Now are we talking Joe or Herman? Carl knows this Hollywood shit cold.

Aunt Lissa calls, “Carl? For you.” He gets up off the bed, pads out into the hall with socks sliding on the glossy floor and looks down the stairs at her looking up. “Elaine.”

The phone on the kitchen wall is still the only one in the house. Aunt Lissa’s going to break her neck some night coming down those stairs. Because of the socks, he’s extra careful himself.

“Carl. Hi. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“Oh yeah. You know, thanks.”

“Lissa called me yesterday. Apparently she didn’t know that we, you know…”

“Right,” he says.

“I hope you didn’t mind that I told her.”

“No, no. God no.” He picks up Aunt Lissa’s egg timer. Such an amazing touch, giving the Wicked Witch red sand. “So,” he says. Like, To what do we owe the pleasure?

“I really didn’t call because I want anything,” she says.

“Right.” He sees something move out the side window. Just a gray squirrel across the snow.

“So are you using again? Or just drinking?”

“Neither one. You know, to any degree.” He would actually like to steal this egg timer. Whip it out at parties. He puts it back, sand side down.

“Well, so how come they busted you?”

“Oh, you know. Just a stupid thing. Open container.”

“I heard it was a little more than that.”

“Well, you know. They throw in the kitchen sink to make it sound really dire.”

“Did I tell you somebody called about the guitar? He wanted to know if you’d take less.”

“Like how much?”

“He didn’t really say. I’ve got his number here.”

“Look, why don’t you just call him, get whatever you can get and keep the money, you know?”

“Okay, look,” she says, “let’s not worry about the money for now.”

But Carl heard that for now , don’t think he didn’t.

—

He wakes up to the smell of something yummy. It’s like a famous smell, but he can’t come up with the name. Not coriander—something more household. He goes down to the kitchen.

“You must’ve needed that nap,” Aunt Lissa says. Something’s hissing in the skillet. Onion! She gets under it with the spatula. Louder hissing. “I thought I’d make a quiche to take up. Connie asked us for around seven.”

“Cool.”

“I know it’s not the most comfortable thing for you.”

“You figured that out,” he says.

“I must say, they have been wonderful.”

“In all fairness,” he says.

She pokes a fingernail through the plastic that covers a bouquet of parsley on a Styrofoam tray and plows it open. A nosegay? “You know, I often think we made a mistake keeping Henry at Mount Hermon after the accident. If we’d brought him back to Albany to finish high school, maybe you two would’ve had a better chance at…” She takes the parsley over to the sink.

“Bonding?” he says.

“It’s easy to make light of it.”

“Yeah, I guess I’m just a merry Andrew,” he says. “Like a merry widow.”

She turns the water on and begins washing the parsley.

“God, I’m sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean anything by that.”

“I do all right,” she says.

He watches her dry the parsley in a dish towel.

“So when I get this in the oven,” she says, “what do you say we try on that suit? You’ll want to look as respectable as we both know you really are.”

“Now that hurts,” he says.

Up in her bedroom, she opens the closet door and pushes jingling hangers to the side. “I gave his suits to Goodwill, but he kept this one here just in case.” She holds up a gray suit with fat lapels.

“I hear these are coming back,” Carl says.

“Never you mind. Let’s see the jacket on you.”

Carl pulls it on. Tight in his armpits and across the shoulders, sleeves too short.

She lifts the pants up to his front. “They’ve obviously mistaken me for a much shorter man,” he says.

“Maybe I can let the cuffs down,” she says. “We’ll make this work.”

—

By seven o’clock it’s already down in the zeros, but Aunt Lissa insists they walk up the hill. Carl puts on the Eddie Bauer, Aunt Lissa hands him the quiche to carry and they step out into the cold. She doesn’t know he found that vodka under the kitchen sink, so he keeps his distance. Sky’s so incredibly clear there looks to be nothing between you and the stars, as if “the atmosphere” were an old-school theory like phlogiston.

“Jim!” he says when Henry opens the door. “They didn’t tell me you were here. It was grand of you to come.”

Henry says, “Let’s not let the cold in, shall we?”

“Where do I put this?” Carl says.

“What is it?”

“I thought I’d make a quiche,” Aunt Lissa says.

“Christ, you didn’t have to do that.” Henry holds out his hands. “Should it go in the oven?”

“Wouldn’t hurt just to warm it up,” Aunt Lissa says.

She takes one end of the couch, Carl the other. Over on the sideboard, glass decanters with silver tags like good doggies: scotch, rye, brandy. At different levels, but all the same amber.

Connie comes in from the kitchen, wearing black leggings as if she were a slim person, and a big sweater that comes way down. “Lissa, that was so nice of you. Carl? Good to see you too.” She bends down to give Lissa a kiss, and Carl can’t help but see her movieolas swing forward.

“Now what can I get everybody? Tea? Hot chocolate?”