Thomas Mcguane - Gallatin Canyon

My aunt Constance functioned as a kind of hall monitor. She had no legitimate authority, but she enforced the general rules as laid down by her mother, and at a time like this she saw to comings and goings, the hanging of visitors’ hats, and the drawing of blinds and the pulling of draperies; she liked to catch me out in little infractions, since I had, besides the unearned affection of my grandmother, the fewest accrued rights around the place. This had to be undertaken discreetly or there would be my mother to contend with, younger than Constance but spoiling for a fight with her. I’d once heard my father say that Aunt Constance’s ankles were thick. One day she came to my room where, out of quiet desperation, I was committing self-abuse in consideration of the rate condoms were being consumed up on Hood Street by the homeless cop and his teenage bride. She told me through the door that she would be taking me to see my grandmother. There was a platitudinous tone she used, even when she addressed me as Elvis or when she reminded me that others needed the bathroom too or wouldn’t it be nice if I picked up a few of my things so that others didn’t have to do it for me. When I emerged, she gave me a stare that insinuated either that she knew what I’d just been doing or that I was unaware of the gravity of the situation. Is it Miracle Time? I wondered. I already had enough to fear, because I couldn’t grasp what was happening to my grandmother. Well, I told myself, we aren’t there yet.

As if I lacked sufficient power in my legs, Aunt Constance gave me a last little push into my grandmother’s bedroom then followed me inside. My mother was already there, red-eyed and helpless. She was far the prettiest of the sisters and had been indoctrinated somehow in the idea, perhaps by the whole family, that handling crises would not be her strong suit. Years later, she would tell me that at the moment I’m now describing she wanted to curl up on the floor and break down completely; however, even semiconscious, her mother still had strong authority, and such behavior could fall under the proscribed category of shenanigans.

My grandmother spoke my name with groggy satisfaction, her face lit by the candles surrounding a figurine of the Virgin Mary that rested on her bedside table, a cheerful statue, trophy-sized and a lovely Bahamian blue. My mother appeared to have been there awhile, and sorrow transfigured her face in a way that I’d never seen it before, which upset me thoroughly. Aunt Constance fidgeted around, disturbed that my grandmother’s mouth remained open. My mother caught Constance’s briskness, and when she gently tried to close my grandmother’s mouth, my mother hissed under her breath, “Don’t touch her!” Constance’s hand rested in midair, her eyes meeting my mother’s with a kind of warning. It was like one of the showdowns I’d been investigating. Our awkward vigil didn’t last much longer, as Uncle Walter soon arrived and shooed us out. We waited on the first floor for half an hour until Walter came down. He walked straight through us, speaking only as he went out the door: “I’ll get the priest.” He had a deep voice, and everyone in the family knew he was the law.

It was summertime. Our parish priest, Father Corrigan, had gone to the Cape for a few days, so we wound up with some alien in a round collar, Father Cox, whom Walter kept on call in the parlor, reminding us that Extreme Unction did not reside in persons. Meanwhile, a bulletin was sent out for Corrigan, who appeared the next morning with a raging sunburn and loftily dismissed his surrogate. Father Corrigan took me aside, to a quiet spot past the stove. I was alert. He looked at me gravely and asked if I had noticed that Birdie Tebbetts had been promoted to starting catcher for the Cleveland Indians. I admitted ignorance in a way that suggested that at another time I would have been better informed. Father Corrigan reminded me, “Birdie went to Providence College with your uncle Paul — say, where is Paul?”

“He couldn’t make it,” I replied impulsively, based on no particular knowledge. Everyone was relieved that Paul had declined to be here, although Aunt Constance had conveyed my grandmother’s condition to him by a note to his landlord.

“What’d you do that for?” my mother demanded.

“Ma asked me to,” said Constance contentedly.

Father Corrigan, handsome enough that his departure for the seminary had sown heartache, was a priest of old-fashioned certainties who saw nothing cheerless in the present circumstances. He had gone completely bald, not even any eyebrows, but he wore a wig, a small vanity that was considered to have humanized him. He had a redhead’s complexion and the wig was auburn. It didn’t fit particularly well: the hairline was too emphatic around the front, and when he bent over, as he was usually careful not to do, it pried up from behind and exposed an eerie sanctum of white scalp.

As my grandmother’s confessor, he knew she was bound for the ultimate destination, a place whose glory was beyond the descriptive powers of the most effusive travel agent. We fed off his optimism, sort of. He and Uncle Walter consulted away from the rest of us, who tried to read their lips from across the wide kitchen. Uncle Walter worshiped his mother, and it could not have been easy for him to recognize that she was ending her life in his professional hands.

Aunt Constance now brought her two girls, my cousins Kathleen and Antoinette, who viewed me as a corrupt hoodlum because of the then ubiquitous blue suede shoes I wore. My uncle Gerry finally showed up too, in his glossy black trooper boots and Boston police uniform, which seemed thrillingly archaic, like something Black Jack Pershing might have worn. But Gerry was so shy and sweet, he could barely speak. “He gets it from the horse,” said Walter. I retired quietly to my room, where I resumed my study of the Old West, a place where do-gooders and mad dogs alike lived free of ambiguity and insidious family tensions. At the moment, the Earps and the Clantons were beginning the open movements of their mortal ballet.

By evening, our two authorities agreed that my grandmother would not live much longer, though she was conscious enough to make one thing clear: she wished to see her baby, Paul, before she died. My mother got on the phone and confirmed that my father had set out by automobile. “He’ll be here in no time!” she said into thin air.

Uncle Walter departed for the Mohican. Bickering the whole time, Aunt Dorothy and my mother made a desultory attempt at cooking supper on the big gas stove from which my grandmother had so long and so majestically ruled: this time, macaroni and cheese. We were seated before our identical platters, my cousins studying my deployment of the silverware, when Uncle Walter returned and, entering the dining room, announced to us all, “He says no.” After a suspicious glance at the macaroni, he turned significantly to the adults, who rose as one and left the dining room, leaving me with my cousins. We heard “bloody bugger” through the door.

Kathleen, who had snapping blue eyes and jet black hair in tubular curls that hung alongside her face, announced, “We’re awfully sad over at our house.” Antoinette, a plainer brunette with a thin downturned mouth, looked on and remarked, “It’s too bad your father isn’t here to help. Why is it he never comes?”

I couldn’t tell her that the household melodrama was unbearable to him or that he was busy, in my mother’s absence, making the two-backed beast with his secretary. Instead, I replied, “He has a job. He’s on his way now. How fast do you expect him to drive?” Both smiled: Anyone who couldn’t broil in an old mill town all summer long was to be pitied. I remembered with satisfaction the day this pair appeared at Horseneck Beach. They looked like two sticks in their bathing suits, no butts but the same superior smiles. Naturally, they started a shell collection, everything lined up according to some system.