Robert Coover - Pricksongs & Descants

“No, sit down. Just be a moment…”

Well, hell, stop and think, goddamn it, you can’t stick a lighted match around a gasoline motor. “Well, I just thought…” Carl wondered why Swede didn’t carry a flashlight My Jesus, a man live up here on a lake all these years and doesn’t know enough to take along a goddamn flashlight Maybe he wasn’t so bright, after all.

He wondered if Swede’s wife wasn’t worrying about them by now. Well, she was probably used to it A nice woman, friendly, a good cook, probably pretty well built in her day, though not Carl’s type really. A little too slack in the britches. Skinny little daughter, looked more like Swede. Filling out, though. Probably be a cute girl in a couple years. Carl got the idea vaguely that Quenby, Swede’s wife, didn’t really like it up here. Too lonely or something. Couldn’t blame her.

He knew it was a screwy notion, but he kept wishing there was a goddamn neon light or something around. He fumbled under the seat for the other beer.

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I asked Daddy why he shot my cat,” she said. She stood at the opposite end of the livingroom, facing them, in her orange shirt and bright white shorts, thin legs apart It was a sad question, but her lips were smiling, her small white teeth glittering gaily. She’d just imitated her daddy lobbing the cat up in the air and blowing its head off. u ‘Well, honey, I gave it a sporting chance,’ he said. ‘I threw it up in the air, and if it’d flown away, I wouldn’t have shot it!’” She joined in the general laughter, skipping awkwardly, girlishly, back to the group. It was a good story.

○ ○ ○

She-slips into the water without a word, and dogpaddles away, her narrow bottom bobbing in and out of sight What the hell, the house is dark, the dogs silent: you drop into the water — wow! sudden breathtaking impact of the icy envelope! whoopee! — and follow her, a dark teasing shape rippling the moonlit surface.

You expect her to bend her course in toward the shore, toward the house, and, feeling suddenly exposed and naked and foolish in the middle of the bright bay, in spite of your hunger to see her again, out of the water, you pause, prepare to return to the point. But, no, she is in by the boats, near the end of the docks, disappearing into the wrap of shadows. You sink out of sight, swim under water to the docks — a long stretch for a man your age — and find her there, holding onto the rope ladder of the launch her father uses for guiding large groups. The house is out of sight, caution out of mind.

She pulls herself up the ladder and you follow close behind, her legs brushing your face and shoulders. At the gunwales, she emerges into full moonlight, and as she bends forward to crawl into the launch, drugged by the fantasy of the moment, you lean up to kiss her glistening buttocks. In your throbbing mind is the foolish idea that, if she protests, you will make some joke about your beard.

○ ○ ○

He punched the can and die beer exploded out He ducked just in time, but got part of it in his ear. “Hey! Did I get you, Swede?” he laughed. Swede didn’t say anything. Hell, it was silly even to ask. The beer had shot off over his shoulder, past the bow, the opposite direction from Swede. He had asked only out of habit. Because he didn’t like the silence. He punched a second hole and put the can to his lips. All he got at first was foam. But by tipping the can almost straight up, he managed a couple swallows of beer. At first, he thought it tasted good, but a moment later, the flat warm yeasty taste sliming his mouth, he wondered why the hell he had opened it up. He considered dumping the rest of it in the lake. But, damn it, Swede would hear him and wonder why he was doing it This time, though, he would remember and not throw the empty can away.

○ ○ ○

Swede, Quenby, Carl, Ola… The story and the laughter and off to bed. The girl has omitted one detail from her story. After her daddy’s shot, the cat had plummeted to the earth. But afterwards, there was a fluttering sound on the ground where it hit. Still, late at night, it caused her wonder. Branches scrape softly on the roof. Squirrels whistle and scamper. There is a rustling of beavers, foxes, skunks, and porcupines. A profound stillness, soon to be broken surely by rain. And, from far out on the lake, men in fishing boats, arguing, chattering, opening beercans. Telling stories.

Scene for “Winter”

No sound, it gets going with utter silence, no sound except perhaps an inappreciable crackle now and then, not unlike static, but our ear readily compensates for it, hears not that sound but the absence of sound, stretches itself, reaches out past any staticky imperfections there might be and finds: only the silence. And that’s how it starts. Not even a wind. Merely the powderfine snow dropping silently, evenly, no more than infinitesimal flecks of light, settling idly on the quiet forest like frozen dust. The snow has folded itself into drifts, or perhaps the earth itself is ribbed beneath, cast into furrows by fallen trees and humps of dying leaves — we cannot know, we can be sure only of the surface we see now, a gently bending surface that warps and cracks the black shadows of the trees into a fretwork of complex patterns, complex yet tranquil, placed, reflective: the inter laced shadows and polygons of brightly daylit snow suggest the quavering stability of light, the imperceptible violence and motion of shadow. So close to the drifts are we that whole trees cannot be seen, only thick black trunks flecked with white and plunging branches weighted with snow, sweeping perilously near the white heaps of earth: we pass beneath them, sliding by the black trunks, over the virgin planes of groundsnow.

Brief sharp crackling sound! We pause. Different from the static Again! Next to us, up close: the columnar trunk of a great pine. Crack! In the wood. Yes, again! The subtle biting voice of wood freezing. We hesitate, expectant, straining to hear it again— but our attention is suddenly shaken, captured by a new sound, an irregular crumpling smashing noise that repeats itself four or five times, stops, then sounds again — yes, of course! the squeaky splashing padded unmistakable crash of snow being crushed underfoot! A motion! Now we see him— there! White past white, but distinct. Rabbit! Crush crush crush crush crush. Stop. Crush crush crush. Stop. Listens. Nervous twitch of wide-nostriled nose. Gone! Diminishing crush crush beat. Stop. Then again, louder now. Stop. Ah! behind that pine! Then away again, crush crush crush crush. Finally: silence. Sudden astonishing close-up of dog’s head, small black glittering eyes, long black nose flicking swinging sniffing over the white earth, sharp triangular ears alert, and now we see the whole dog, lean, light-coated, of noble origin, taut-bodied. Nose down, the dog slips soundlessly through the muted forest, through the soft snow’s weightless fall.

We reach, forgetting the dog, what appears to be a small open space, nearly flat, die familiar chiaroscuro configurations unbroken by upspearing forms. Here we pause. Our gaze drifts upward, through the diminishing snow, past the arch of reaching branches, toward the sky, up where the treetops lean inward as though possessed by, drawn toward some omnipotent vanishing point. We cannot see the vanishing point, or even the sky: the snow that tumbles down and away upon us obliterates all but the static black outlines of the trees. When we look back down, we see that this open area is really a park, with lamp posts standing rigid and inscrutable, wide snow-pillowed benches sprawling in the deep snow at their feet, a small weathered sign poking up, its paint all but weathered away. We can barely discern, and then at extremely close range, the word men on it, but there is ho arrow to tell us where they might be found. The lamps are not lit: it is the bright part of day.