Richard Ford - The Lay of the Land

And yet. In this strange, changed state I for this moment find myself, and for reasons both trivial and circumstantial (the bar, the booze, the day, even Fred Frantal), my son Ralph Bascombe, age twenty-nine (or for accuracy’s sake, age nine), comes seeking audience in my brain.

And I am then truly immobilized. And with what? Fear? Love? Regret? Shame? Lethargy? Bewilderment? Heartsickness? Whimsy? Wonder? You never know for sure, no matter what the great novels tell you.

It may go without saying, but when you have a child die — as I did nineteen years ago — you carry him with you forever and ever after. Of course you should. And not that I “talk” to him (though some might) or obsess endlessly (as his brother, Paul, did for years until it made him loony), or that I expect Ralph to turn up at my door, like Wally, with a wondrous story of return or of long, shadowy passageways with luminous light awaiting, from which he bolted at the last second (I’ve fantasized that could happen, though it was just a way to stay interested as years went by). For me, left back, there’s been no dead-zone sensation of life suspended, hollowed, wind-raddled, no sense of not leading my real life but only some consolation-prize life nobody would want — I’m sure that can happen, too.

Though what has developed is that my life’s become alloyed with loss. Ralph, and then Ralph being dead, long ago became embedded in all my doings and behaviors. And not like a disease you carry that never gets better, but more the way being left-handed is ever your companion, or that you don’t like parsnips and never eat them, or that once there was a girl you loved for the very first time and you can’t help thinking of her — nonspecifically — every single day. And while this may seem profane or untrue to say, the life it’s made has been and goes on being a much more than merely livable life. It’s made a good life, this loss, one I don’t at all regret. (The Frantals couldn’t be expected to believe this, but maybe can in time.)

Of course, Ralph’s death was why Ann and I couldn’t stay married another day seventeen years back. We were always thinking the same things, occupying and dividing up the same tiny piece of salted turf, couldn’t surprise and please each other the way marrieds need to. Death became all we had in common, a common jail. And who wanted that till our own deaths did us part? There would be a forever, we knew, and we had to live on into it, divided and joined by death. And not that it was harder on us than it was on Ralph, who died, after all, and not willingly. But it was hard enough.

Out of the rosy bar-light distance, as though emerging from a long passageway, so long she’ll never reach me in my state — I’m drunk, okay — is Termite, thumbs provocatively in her black denim pockets, inquisitive grin on her mousy mouth, eyes shining, fixed on me. We are like lovers who’ve become friends late in life: She knows my hilarious eccentricities and failures and only takes me half seriously. I love her to bits but no longer feel the old giddy-up. We could spend hours now just talking.

“You know all what I was yakkin’ about back den? I’m probably gon’ forget about it tomorrow. It ain’t permanent — goin’ crazy. You know whut ahm sayin’?” She sweeps away my empty highball glass, drops it plunk into the sudsy sink. “Do you say drought or drouth ?” She stares across at me, though her face has turned suspicious in a hurry, as though I’d offered her a counterfeit tenner. She takes a step back, cocks her flat-topped head, her mouth curls cruelly the way I knew it could. “Whut’s wrong witch you?”

Unexpectedly, my eyes flood with tears, my hot cheeks taking the runoff. I’ve known about them for the better part of a minute but have been stuck here, unable to blink or wipe my nose with my sleeve or to think about a trip to the gents or about seeking a breath of rescue in the out-of-doors. I don’t know what to say about drought or drouth. Dry comes into my mind, as does I’m in a terrible state. Though like a lot of terrible states, it doesn’t feel so bad.

“I–I—” My old stammer, not heard from in years but always lurking were I to laugh inconsiderately at another stammerer — which I never do — now revisits my glottus. “I–I-I don’t know.” I want to smile but don’t quite make it.

Termite’s hard little ferret’s eyes fix on me. She performs one of her flash glances back down the bar, as if my predicament needs to be kept under wraps. “Wadn’t nuthin I said,” she announces, but not loud.

“N-n-n-o.” My hands clutch the Buyer’s Guide and give it another fierce re-spindling. N is a hard one for stutterers. My chest empties as if somebody has just stamped on it. Then it heaves a big sigh-sounding noise, which I manage not to let out as a groan, though stifling it hurts like hell. I have to get out of here now. I could die here.

“You piss drunk is all,” Termite snarls. This is not old-lovers-become-friends. This is, “I’ve seen the likes of you all my life, been married to it, fucked it, wallowed in it, but I’m well out of it as you see me now.” That’s what this is.

“Ahhh, yeah.” This time an actual groan issues forth. Then more tears. Then a shudder. What’s going on? What’s going on? What’s going on?

“Jew drive here?”

“Yeah.” I reach my nose with my jacket sleeve and saw back and forth.

“You drive off and git in a wreck and kill some kid, you ain’t sayin’ you been in here. You got dat? I’m spose to take dem keys”—She regards me with revulsion, right hand on her silver bowie knife hilt. How can things change so fast? I haven’t done anything—“but I don’t wanna touch you.” She snorts back a stiff breath, as if I smell bad.

I am climbing off my bar stool, feeling light-headed but terribly heavy, like a sandbag puppet.

“Y’hearin’ what ahm sayin’?” Her eyes narrow to a threat. Termite might be her real name.

“Okay. Sure.” From my pocket I produce a piece of U.S. paper currency along with my Realty-Wise card. It could be a million-dollar bill. These I place on the bar. “Thanks,” I say, my mouth chromy. My hands are cold, my feet thick.

Termite doesn’t regard my pay-up. I’ve become her problem now, something else to lose sleep over. Will there be repercussions? Her job in jeopardy? Jail time? One more thing not to be thankful for.

But I’m already away, heading for the door, my gait surprisingly steady, as if the way out was downhill. I am, in fact, not drunk. Though what I am is a different matter.

R ain needles sting my cheeks, nose, brow, chin, neck when I make it out into the dark parking lot — painful but alerting. It was burning up in there, though I was frozen. Again, I may be catching something.

Cars with cadaverous colored headlights pass over the Route 35 bridge, motoring home to relatives, a quiet night before the holiday tangle, a long weekend of parades, floating balloon animals, football and extra plate-fulls. I have no idea what time it is. Since Spring Ahead gave way to Fall Back, I’ve been uncertain. It could be six or nine or two a.m. Though I’m clear-headed. My heart’s beating at a good pace. I even give a sudden optimistic thought to Ann and Paul (and Jill) in Haddam, enjoying each other’s company, reacclimating, forging new bonds. I don’t feel panicky (though that could be a sure sign of panic). It is merely odd to be here now — the opposite of where the evening seemed to be heading, though, again, I had no plans.

But bad luck, bad luck heaped on bad luck! The Quonset across the lot looms dark and silent, from all appearances closed up forever, the big metal door rolled down, the office — I can see from here — wearing a fat bulletproof padlock that catches a glint off the sulfur lights from the boatyard next door. Cut-out turkeys and Pilgrims in happy holiday symbiosis are taped to the window there, too. NO JOB TOO ABSURD.