Percival Everett - Big Picture - Stories

He fished for a couple of hours, catching two more trout of about the same size, then stopped for a sandwich and coffee before working his way upstream to the confluence of the two rivers.

When Lucien got to the place where the rivers met, he was surprised to find another fisherman sitting on the bank. He looked at the man and realized that he knew him. The short, pudgy Indian was Warren Fragua, a deputy sheriff who had been a friend of his father’s.

“Mr. Fragua?”

“Hello.” The man tried to place Lucien.

“Lucien Bradley. Henry Bradley’s son.”

“Oh yeah. You’re in the army.” He shook Lucien’s hand.

“Not anymore.” Lucien hated having people define him by his army association. “I just got home.”

Fragua nodded. “I’m sorry about your father.”

“Yeah.”

They looked at the river.

“He was a hell of a fisherman,” Fragua said.

“Yes sir.” Lucien stretched. “You been doing any good out here?”

“Doing okay. Nothing to write home about.”

“I caught three ten-inchers downriver a ways.”

Fragua yawned. “So you’re home. I know your mother’s happy about that. What are you going to do?”

“Don’t know yet. Get a job, I guess. Go back to school maybe.”

“You’re young. You’ve plenty of time.”

“Are you still with the sheriff’s office?”

“Yep.”

“Must be pretty interesting.”

“Sort of. There’s not much excitement around these parts, as you well know. I think that’s why I keep doing it. It pays the bills and I can fish. What did you do in the army?”

Lucien smiled. “What does anybody do in the army? Waited to get out.”

Fragua laughed softly, his eyes on the river.

“Well,” Lucien said, “I’m going to work my way on up the Red here.”

“Check you later, Lucien.” Fragua called to Lucien when he was some yards away. “It’s good to see you.”

Lucien fished his way up the Red River. Most things didn’t make any sense. He’d been home less than twenty-four hours and already he felt deeply unsettled and anxious and ready to call himself a bum or a vagrant or some kind of freeloader. He was afraid he was going to end up living his life one paycheck to the next like his friends from high school.

He didn’t have any further luck with the trout that morning — even when he floated a Jassid beetle down a riffle, a method he usually considered cheating — but he didn’t care.

He ate his last sandwich, washed it down with water from his canteen, and began the hike back up to his truck.

When Lucien walked into the house at noon he was nearly ready to fall over. Sleep kept nudging him and his mother offered a smile shy of laughter when she saw him. He sighed, walked past her and into his room where he managed to get out of most of his clothes before passing out. He was even sleepy in his dream.

In his dream, he was stumbling through a dense forest following the sound of a woman crying. Birds were screaming, monkeys were speaking from branches, water was dripping from giant leaves of a canopy that let in limited light. He worked to make himself alert, to keep his eyes open, to focus on something, anything, and there in front of him, open-mouthed and silent, nailed to a tree was the figure of Jesus, turning from flesh to wood to carbon. In the woods, he came upon a bed in which his father, missing many pounds and dressed in a hospital gown, lay dying. The dying man swung his legs around, landed his feet on the floor of matted leaves, stood up, and began to pace.

“So, you’ve finally come to see me,” his father said, walking away toward a flowering tree. He turned and walked back.

“I’m sorry.”

The man started for the tree again, then whipped around, clutching his gown. “Ha! Caught you! Didn’t I? Admit it, I caught you peeking at your old man’s crack. Damn these gowns.” He staggered to the bed and sat.

“Dad, I’m sorry.”

“Shut the hell up. Stop apologizing.” He leaned back and put his head on the pillow. “Death is really fucked up, Lucien. It has its downside.”

“What’s that?”

“It’s only temporary. Life goes on forever, but death is only temporary.”

Lucien rubbed his eyes and watched shapes fade in and out. “I don’t get it.”

“What’s your favorite color, son?”

“Dun.”

Lucien watched his father close his eyes and begin to swell, first his face, his cheeks pressing beyond their limits, then his neck and arms. Christ was talking now, strange words that were not clear. Lucien looked at Jesus and said, “But I don’t know you.” And all was silent.

Joseph Martin straightened, cracking his back. He winced, and a sigh of release softened his face. Letting the pitchfork rest against the stall wall, he twisted his torso again but heard no sound. He leaned his head and shoulders past the gate and called out to his son.

Wes left the water trough he was watching fill up and walked across the hard-baked ground of the corral toward the barn.

“I want you to finish up in here,” Joseph said, stepping out of the stall and stomping his boots to free the clinging dung and straw. He watched the boy set to work. “I’m going to take a look at your mother’s car.”

The boy paused, particles from a pitched load settling. “She ain’t here.”

Joseph pushed up his hat and raked at the perspiration on his forehead with the back of his hand. “She told me her car was acting up.” He looked toward the house. “Where’d she go? She say?”

“I don’t know, Daddy.”

Joseph looked at the horizon, and the hot, dusty day. “When you finish in here, come get me and we’ll worm the last of the horses.”

The boy nodded and Joseph left him to work.

Joseph went to the house and stopped in the kitchen to pour himself a glass of cold water from the bottle in the refrigerator. He held the glass against his face, looking around for a note that his wife might have left. He thought about replacing the leaky T-pipe at the top of the water heater, but instead went outside and sat beneath the big cottonwood. He soaked up shade and watched the driveway, the road, the magpies, the jays.

Wes came to the front yard and stood by Joseph, stunned momentarily by the shade. “Ready to do the horses?”

Joseph stood up.

“What were you doing, Daddy?”

“Nothing.”

“I got the medicine out.”

“Good.” Joseph slapped a hand on Wes’s shoulder. “Good.”

They walked to the small corral beyond the barn.

“Daddy, you think it’d be all right if I went out for the basketball team this year?”

Joseph smiled. “Sure, why not?”

“Just figured I’d ask. I know there’s a lot to do around here.”

Joseph looked at his son and for the first time actually noticed his height. “When did you get as tall as me?”

“Taller,” Wes said.

Joseph pressed his back against the tiled wall of the shower. Once, more of his body struck flush; now his shoulders curved over a bit. Dirt and dust followed rivulets down his body, twisting off his tired legs and finding the drain. He turned off the water and dried his body roughly with a white towel that was stiff from hanging on the line.

While he dressed he listened to his wife downstairs in the kitchen; he heard her footsteps, the clattering of plates and pots settling on the table. She was whistling. The tune annoyed Joseph, but he couldn’t help listening closely. He laughed softly at himself, discovering his anger, but the emotion was no surprise. He was only startled by the calm of it all.

He dressed in new jeans and a white shirt and went downstairs. He sat at the dining-room table, where he always sat, his back to the window.