Jane Smiley - Early Warning

When Jesse came in for lunch, they heated up the stew from the night before, and they were just setting the table when the phone rang. Joe held it against his shoulder while he served up the food. Jesse was rummaging through the silverware drawer. The voice on the other end of the line was Frank’s. Joe nearly dropped the phone, maybe because Frank said, “I’m heading your way. I’ve got a new plane — a Learjet. I’m going to fly into Des Moines and drive up.” Joe almost said, “Why?”

Jesse said, “Who’s that?”

Frank said, “I can spend a couple of days with you, right?”

“Sure,” said Joe. He could not think of a single thing they would talk about.

Jesse said, “Is that Grandma? Did she have an accident?”

Joe shook his head.

Jesse said, “She’s a very weird driver.”

Frank said, “Let’s see, I think I can get out of here by eight. Flight time is supposed to be three hours. Don’t know if that’s true. I guess we’ll find out.”

Joe said, “Are you bringing anyone?”

“The pilot, but he’ll stay in Des Moines,” said Frank.

Jesse said, “But at least she uses her seat belt all the time.”

“What about Andy?” said Joe, but Frank had already hung up.

“Who was that?” said Jesse.

“Your uncle Frank is flying out in his new Learjet.”

They attacked their food as if this were at least reasonably routine news, on a par with the tornado that touched down out by County Road 27 a month before — not the one that killed two people the same day and cut a swath of destruction from Ankeny to Carlisle, right through East Des Moines, convincing Paul Darnell to expand his bomb shelter from one room the size of a closet to three rooms.

That afternoon, Joe called Rosanna. She said she would be happy to eat supper the next night with Frank, but the morning after that, she was leaving for Minneapolis, planning to spend the night at a Holiday Inn in Bloomington.

“By yourself?”

“You want to come along?”

“Why are you going?”

“I figure Interstate Thirty-five is a better road to practice going seventy on than Interstate Eighty.”

In other words, after that first supper, he was on his own with his brother. Joe wondered if that had ever happened on a voluntary basis — yes, they had slept together as boys, but Frank had hated it. If Joe had a bad dream, Frank shook him awake and told him to roll over and shut up. If Joe had to go to the outhouse, Frank sometimes wouldn’t let him back in until he had said various “magic words,” which could be anything. Frank had tossed water on him, slapped him, poked him with sticks, tickled him, hidden his nightshirts. They laughed about these antics once they were grown up, but there was that residual reluctance to be alone with Frank, wasn’t there?

He tried to talk his mother into going to Minneapolis over the weekend. (“Roads too busy,” she said. Didn’t she want to see Frank? She said, “I’ve seen Frank.”)

Frank showed up in khakis and a short-sleeved pink shirt, a little sweaty from the hot day, carrying a suspiciously large suitcase, and hugged everyone, including Joe. He hugged Joe rather tightly, actually, as if he meant it.

When he went out for a walk after supper—“just to look around”—Rosanna said, “I guarantee you, he’s getting a divorce.” But when he came in after an hour, he didn’t offer any news, and he didn’t seem tense or upset. They talked about Watergate. That’s what everyone talked about these days. Frank, of course, had already read All the President’s Men , which had only been out a couple of weeks, and he wasn’t buying it, not really. Didn’t trust Woodward. Arthur didn’t trust Woodward. And he thought Bernstein was the beard. “What’s that?” said Rosanna.

“Oh, when a homosexual gets married, you know. His wife is the ‘beard.’ ”

Rosanna tossed her hands in the air and said, “Good heavens!”

Joe and Lois exchanged a glance.

Frank said, “Anyway, you ask me, Bernstein thinks all this is on the up-and-up, and he wrote the book. Woodward knows better. He just shaped the corners. I mean, it’s a good story, and people seem to be buying it. Anyway, I figured Nixon would be out of there once Agnew was gone, but he’s hung on this long, so maybe he’ll stick it out.”

Lois started going on about what her new best friend, Pastor Campbell of the Harvest Home Light of Day Church, thought, evidence of the sinful nature of human beings, and powerful human beings in particular, while Jesse sat near Rosanna, holding out his hands so she could roll skeins of yarn into balls. Joe watched Jesse watch Frank, both at supper and afterward. But he couldn’t tell anything. He guessed maybe Jesse just saw an old man, fifty-four now, and his gaze passed over him as over every old man. But Joe saw a hunter, lean and avid. Though what Frank might be hunting, Joe had no idea.

Frank was gone before breakfast, and out all day. Joe and Jesse were sitting on the front porch, waiting for an evening breeze, when Frank pulled up. He threw open the door and jumped out, clearly in a good mood, then trotted up the steps and sat down in the empty chair. He said, “I wonder where my old shotgun is.”

Joe said, “There’s a rifle in the gun cupboard at Mom’s.”

“I do wonder if I’ve still got the eye.” He said to Jesse, “You shoot?” Jesse shook his head.

“You want to learn?”

“What’s in season?” said Jesse.

“Targets, anyway. Tin cans.”

The next morning, Joe heard them through the open front window, talking as they went out the door. He was still lying in bed, planning to feed the ewes at about seven. All he heard was Frank’s voice saying, “Fox was all I hunted back then. Twenty dollars a hide, which is a hundred dollars today, or more. Had to shoot it in the head, though, so you didn’t damage the pelt. I knew a guy in New York, when I first moved there, who fed himself by shooting ducks in Central Park early Sunday mornings, which was fine, because they are a terrible nuisance.”

Jesse said, “Where is Central Park?”

Frank laughed and said, “You come visit me and I’ll show you.”

Joe’s heart sank, not because he had never visited Central Park, but because he had never even thought to visit Central Park.

They were back by noon. It was ninety-six degrees, and they set their guns down, splashed their faces with water from the outside pump, and flopped in the shade of the back stoop. Joe said, “How’d you do?”

Jesse was grinning. He wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt and said, “I did get a squirrel. Uncle Frank got two jays and a crow.”

“That crow was sitting on the branch, screaming at me, daring me to shoot him, so I did. We killed about a hundred bottles, too. I’m surprised there was that much ammo around.”

Jesse said, “Do Richie and Michael hunt?”

“They learned to shoot at school, but they aren’t fond of it.”

“Did you ever kill a person?”

Frank looked at Jesse with a steady gaze, but didn’t say anything. Jesse looked at Joe. Joe could not help his eyebrows lifting. But he said, “You two hungry? There’s plenty of that rolled roast left.”

Frank said, “Where’s Lois?”

“Getting her shop ready. She wants to open in two weeks. She called and told me she found a perforated veneer rocking chair. Out in someone’s barn, right beside an old Pierce-Arrow.”

“Say…” said Frank.

Joe stiffened.

“Can I borrow a couple of things?”

“Like what?”

“Pair of overalls, your truck.”

“You’re up to no good,” said Joe, but he said it jovially.

“Always,” said Frank.

“That’s what Pop said.”