George Saunders - CivilWarLand in Bad Decline - Stories and a Novella

“Honey,” the wife screams. “The cat’s standing right on the baby’s tray with his paws in her food! Please don’t dawdle! Cats have germs. Unless you don’t mind your daughter eating cat germs!”

“You’re snapping at me, love!” he shouts as he starts towards the house again. “Please don’t snap!”

“Guys, don’t fight!” one little girl cries out.

“Dad, God,” the boy with the tools says. “Mom does so much for all of us.”

“Don’t correct your father,” the mother screams.

“Don’t scream at him,” the father shouts.

“She can!” the tool boy yells. “She can scream at me if she wants! I don’t mind!”

“Ah jeez,” the father says, rolling his eyes at us.

“Daddy, goodness,” the little girl says. “Please don’t use Jesus’ name as a cuss!”

“Don’t correct your father,” the mother says.

“Family,” the father says tensely. “We have guests.”

“Not many,” the wife says. “Not nearly enough of them.”

“Are we going to lose the house?” the little girl says. “Oh no!”

“We’ve got to pull together,” the father says. “I call for a silent prayer moment.”

They huddle in the yard. They hold hands and bow their heads. We stop eating, except for Buddy, who redoubles his efforts since it’s family-style.

“Yes,” the father says tearfully once they’ve finished praying. “With love there’s always hope. With hope there’s a Ways healing. Yes. Yes.”

“Honey,” the wife calls as she goes back inside. “Shall we serve these gentlemen the dessert they paid for, or let them starve and then spread the bad word about our place up and down the Canal?”

“Yes,” the father says. “No.”

“All right then,” the mother says. “Why not get back to work like the rest of us? Perhaps I’m missing the halo over your head that disqualifies you from having to do your share.”

“This is exactly why I’m still single,” Buddy says while vigorously gumming an eighth potato and catching the drool in his palm.

That night on the barge I dream of Dad. I dream the iceballs on his cuffs and the dried blood on his face from when he fell trying to get us cornmeal from the Red Cross checkpoint. I dream him knee-deep in snow and cursing the Winstons.

When I dream it, I’m Dad.

Imagine: You’re walking through a frozen marsh. Your kids are delirious with hunger and keep speaking aloud to imaginary savior-figures. Sitting against a tree is a snowfrosted corpse. Wild dogs have been at it. Your son puts on the corpse’s coat. It’s bloody and hangs to his knees. You’re too tired to tell him take it off. Your wife sits on a rock to rest. You make the kids walk in circles to stay warm. You make them slap their hands against their thighs and recite the alphabet. You’re scared. You love them so much. If only you could keep them safe.

Then through the trees you see lights. Up on a hillside is a neon sign and a floodlit castle tower.

BOUNTYLAND, the sign says, WHERE MERIT IS KING — AND SO ARE YOU!

Under the words is a picture of a crown with facial features, smiling and snapping its fingers. The sounds from inside are jovial. You smell roasting meat and hear a girls’ choir rehearsing Bach. You run back to fetch your wife. She says she can’t go on.

“It’s all right,” you say. “We’re saved.”

You drag your tired family up the slope. Because of the snow it’s slick and the kids keep sliding down. At the gate a guard with a tattoo on his neck asks for your monthly income. You say things have been rough lately. He asks for an exact figure. You say zero. He snorts and says get lost. You start to beg.

“Christ,” he says, “I would never beg in front of my wife and kids. That’s degrading.”

You keep begging. He shuts the gate and walks away fast. You stand there a minute, then start back down the hill. The kids lag behind, staring up at the sign and hating you for being so powerless. The girl picks up a frozen clod and gnaws at it. Your wife tells her stop but she doesn’t listen. You hate your wife for being so powerless.

Kill me, God, you think, get me out of this.

Then there’s an explosion and you tackle your family into a ditch and lie in the muck looking at the sky above the place on the hill:

Fireworks.

The fireworks get your goat and you drag the kids back up. At the retaining wall you tell them they’ll understand someday. You hug them. They’re so beautiful. Then you take the boy by an arm and a leg and heave him over the wall. He lands on the other side and shouts that his arm’s broken.

“Daddy, don’t leave me,” he screams. “Why are you doing this?”

Your wife starts up the hill in despair, then gives up and sits in the snow.

Your daughter smiles sadly and offers her wrist.

Over she goes. She weighs very little. Your darling.

“He’s telling the truth,” she yells from the other side. “The bone’s sticking out.”

You must be a man of great courage to then turn and sprint down the hill weeping to rejoin your wife. You must be a man with great courage and a broken heart. Because until that day my father had never done a thing to hurt us. To hurt Connie or me. He loved us. On that we’ve always agreed. He threw us over to save us from death. He believed in people. He believed in the people on the other side of the wall.

We often wonder if he and Mom made it, and if so where they live.

We pull all the next day through a region of discolored reeds. At dinnertime we decide to eat ashore. You can get lard cubes or bundles of spiced grass at Canalside stands. At a family operation near Lock 32 they serve raccoon on a stick, with a lemon slice. Where they get lemons in this day and age I have no idea. Lowlifes are lined up behind the stand, hoping to suck a discarded rind. Raccoon bits are laid out on a card table. The vendor guarantees low heavy-metal content in the flesh. I ask how he can be so sure and he says he used to be a toxicologist. His wife confirms this and goes on and on about the number of skylights they used to have in their den. He produces a fading photo of himself holding a cage of lab rats. Meanwhile their daughter’s giving me crazy eyes while skinning raccoons. The toxicologist sees me looking. He says a beautiful woman is a joy forever. He says a dad can’t be too choosy these days. Anybody Normal who’ll treat a woman reasonably well is a catch. He says it’s amazing how quickly moral standards eroded once the culture collapsed. He says: Look at your marriage rate. He says: A young fellow these days doesn’t think family, he thinks pokey-pokey continually.

When he says “pokey-pokey,” his daughter crinkles up her eyes at me.

“Best raccoon in New York State,” the mother says. The daughter nods and takes off her filthy jacket and reclines and stretches in a provocative way, managing to continue skinning raccoons. The paws go in a cardboard box. Likewise the heads. The pelts are piled neatly on the towpath for later sale to furriers.

“So,” the mother says. “That’s a nice shirt you have on.”

“You’re traveling as part of your job?” the father says hopefully.

“Not exactly,” I say. “I’m going to visit my sister.”

“He’s going home,” the mother says. “Isn’t that nice? A family boy. A family boy returning home after some kind of success. You have nice clothes. Your mother will be pleased.”

“A young man out in the world, making the grade,” the father says. “Such a young man was I, back in the toxicology days.”

“Where will you stay tonight?” the mother says. “Probably a hotel. A very nice one?”

“They stay on their boat, dodo,” the father says.

“This may sound nervy ” the mother says, “but we would be pleased to have you stay with us. Why not sleep on dry land?”