Richard Ford - The Lay of the Land

And then I see my son Paul again, wading out of the surf in his soaked cargo shorts, his pasty belly slack for age twenty-seven. He is shoeless, shirtless, his skull — visible through his mullet — rounder than I remember, his beard-stached mouth distorted in a smile, hands dangling, palms turned back like a percy man, his feet splayed and awkward as when he was a kid. He does not look the way you’d like your son to look. Plus, he must be frozen.

I track down to the hole he’s dug beyond the hydrangeas, and it’s there, “finished,” coffin-shaped, not large, ready for its casket to be borne down. My shovel stands in the sandpile to the side.

When I find Paul again, he’s seen me glassing him like a sub-captain and has fixed his gaze back on me, his red-lipped smile distorted, his feet caked with sand, pale legs wide apart like a pirate’s. He flags his bare arm like one of those drowners out of reach — lips moving, words of some sentiment, something possibly that any father would like to hear but I can’t at this distance. Paul cocks his fists up in a Charlie Atlas muscle man’s pose, jumps sideways and bears down stupidly and shows his soft abs and lats. The young Frisbee spinners, the elderly walkers in bright sweats, the metal-detector cornballs, a late-arriving fisherman just wading into the sea — all these see my son and smile an indulgent smile. I wave back. It’s not bad to wave at this remove as our first contact. On an impulse, I put down my binocs and give my own Charlie Atlas double-bicep flexer, still in my tartan robe. And then Paul does his again. And we are fixed this way for a moment. Why couldn’t we just stop here, not go on to what’s next — be two tough boys who’ve fought a draw, stayed unvanquished, each to leave the field a victor? Fat Chance.

I n front of my closet mirror, I get into my 501s, my Nikes and my block-M sweatshirt with the yellow polo underneath. I am Mr. Casual Back to Campus, booster dude and figure of wholesome ridicule. I have called Clarissa and left a message: “Come home.” I have called Wade and left a message: “Where are you?” Clearly, I’m fated to wait for Sally’s call, at least until I’m back from Timbuktu and can make calls of my own. I have another full-out yearning for a cell phone, which would render me available (at all times) to hear her voice, answer a summons and go directly to Maidenhead if necessary — though she would need to know my number. I’d gladly forget Thanksgiving (like any other American). Most of my guests have been decommissioned anyway. I’d take the organic turkey, the tofu stuffing, the spelt, the whatever else, straight down to Our Lady of Effectual Mercy, where the K of C ministers to Sea-Clift’s neediest and thankfulest. Or else I’d put it in Paul’s time capsule and bury it for later generations to puzzle over.

I am, however, exhilarated, and take a last scrutinizing look at myself. I look the way I want to — dopey but defended — the genial Tri-cities orthodontist. Though as usual, exhilaration doesn’t feel as good as I want it to — as it used to — since all sensation, good or bad, now passes through the damping circuitry of the cancer patient, victim or survivor. The tiramisu never tastes as sweet. The new paint job doesn’t shine as bright. Miss America’s glossy life-to-come wears a shadow of lurking despair, her smile a smile of struggling on in a dark forest. That’s what we survivors get as our good luck. Though think about the other poor bastards, the ones who get the real black spot — not just my gray one — and who’re flying home to Omaha this morning, urged to put their affairs in order.

I’ve, however, learned to let exhilaration be exhilaration, even if it only lasts a minute, and to fight the shadows like a boxer. Staring at the mirror, I give myself a slap, then the other side, then again, and once more, until my cheeks sting and are rosy, and a smile appears on my reflection’s face. I blink. I sniff. I throw two quick lefts at my block-M but hold back on the convincer right. I’m ready to step into the arena and meet the day. Once again, it’s Thanksgiving.

I ’m taking this bad-boy outside to see how it fits,” Paul’s saying energetically. I’ve come down munching a piece of bacon, following voices to the daylight basement, chilly mausoleum of old Haddam furniture — my cracked hatch-cover table, my nubbly red hide-abed, my worn-through purple Persian rug, several non-working brass lamps bundled in the corner and a framed map of Block Island, where Ann and I once sailed when we were kids and thought we loved each other. I’ve thought of opening things up down here as a rumpus room.

I’m already smiling as I come to the bottom of the stairs, very conscious of my booster-club get-up, though Paul is just exiting the sliding glass door to the beach, toting his time capsule, which is a chrome bomb-shaped cylinder as long as two toasters. A tall young blond woman he’s been talking to is in the middle of the room and she looks at me. She’s beside the defunct old rabbit-eared DuMont that was my mother’s and that I’ve kept as a memento, and she unexpectedly smiles back widely to broadcast her surprise and enthusiasm — for me, for Paul, for the overall good direction things are taking down here. This is Jill, dressed — I don’t know why I’d expect any different — in bright red coveralls with a white long-john shirt underneath and some kind of green wooden clog footwear that makes her look six foot seven, when she may only be six three. Her long yellow hair hangs straight past her shoulders and is parted in the middle Rhine maiden — style, exposing a wide Teutonic forehead. Her generous mouth is unquestionably libidinous, though her sparkling dark eyes are welcoming — to me, in my own basement. A great relief. And as advertised, at the bottom of her left sleeve is the alarming hand absence, though there’s good evidence of a wrist. Here, I realize, is the girl who may become mother of my grandchildren, mourner when my obsequies are read out, will tell vivid rambling tales of my exploits once I’m gone. It’d be good to get off on the right foot with her. Though in a day’s time, I’ve met two of my children’s chosen ones. What’s gone wrong?

“Hi, I’m Frank,” I say. “You must be Jill.”

“Listen, Frank,” Paul’s saying, just leaving through the door. “You wanna come out and attend the trial internment?” He may mean interment, but possibly not — though he’s talking too loudly for indoors. He pauses, grinning from behind his smudged specs (we’re all grinning down here), his capsule clasped to his wet tee-shirt, which bears an Indian-warrior profile in full eagle-feather war bonnet — the Kansas City Chief. Paul’s still barefoot, still has his gold stud in his left ear. He looks like the guy who delivers the Asbury Press before dawn out of his backseat-less ’71 Cutlass and, I suspect, lives in his car.

“You bet I want to.” I make a step forward. “Let’s do it.” But he’s already out the sliding door, heading toward his site. My positive response hasn’t registered. I look to Jill and shake my head. “We don’t communicate perfectly all the time.”

“He’d really like you to approve of him,” Jill says in a slightly nasal midwestern voice. Though startlingly and with an even bigger, eager-er smile, she strides across the linoleum and with her right hand extended gives mine a painful squeeze, the kind lady shot-putters give each other outside the ring. Her smile makes me look straight at her nose, which is noble and makes her wide eyes want to draw in, in concentration, toward the middle. One central incisor has shouldered a half-millimeter over onto its partner, but not to a bad effect. In someone less imposing, this could be a signal to exercise caution (turbulent brooding over life’s helpless imperfections, etc.), but in Junoesque Jill, it is clearly trifling, possibly a giggle, in contrast to her injury and to how monstrously beautiful she otherwise is. I like her completely and wish I wasn’t wearing this preposterous get-up. She looks admiringly out the glass door at Paul, who’s already down inside his hole, bent over, apparently testing the dimensions of things. “He’s really a big fan of yours,” she says.