William Gass - Omensetter’s Luck

As he walked he meditated on some passage of scripture or some thought he'd found in St. Jerome or Augustine, trying to penetrate and reformulate it. Finally words would begin to rise, his throat would move, he would begin to mutter and his fingers drum on the book. Although he had taken the same steps many times — indeed he had minutely organized them and given each a symbolic character — and though his downward glance seemed vacant and his posture affected, he did not miss the movements of life at his feet. Indeed he fed his soul on these sensations and there they mingled with his thoughts on equal terms, for Jethro Furber felt that Nature was the word of God as certainly as scrpiture was — his task, therefore, to watch and listen, to interpret and bear witness. We should all be watchmen, and we should pray that God will open our eyes to evil and burn our hearts to admonish the ungodly. Think, he often said, how the demons howl. Their voices are rough and crude; they live in fire; they scream; they sever their words as their heads are severed; but is not the justice of it sweet? In the same way the worst of this world signifies the best of the other. While saying this his voice would rise, his hands flutter, his eyelids squeeze rapturously together.

Rancorous ivy. On the other side of the wall, at the edge of the river, the sand burned. The river lay afire. Kingfishers fell like spots across the eyes and laughter was yellow. Every Sunday Omensetter strolled by the river with his wife, his daughters, and his dog. They came by wagon, spoke to people who were off to church, and while Furber preached, they sprawled in the gravel and trailed their feet in the water. Lucy Omensetter lay her swollen body on a flat rock. Furber felt the sun lapping at her ears. It was like a rising blush, and his hands trembled when he held them out to make the bars of the cross. May the Lord bless you and keep you… He closed his eyes, drifting off. They would see how moved he was, how intense and sincere he was. Cause His light to shine upon you….He would find the footprints of the dog and the imprint of their bodies. All the days of your life…. The brazen parade of her infected person. Watchman. Rainbows like rings of oil around her. Watchman. Shouldn't we be? I spy you, Fatty, behind the tree. He wanted to rub the memory from his eyes. Glittering. Beads of water stood on her skin and drop fled into drop until they broke and ran, the streaks finally fading. Her navel was inside out — sweet spot where Zeus had tied her. She was so white and glistening, so… pale, though darker about the eyes, the nipples dark. Open us to evil. He made a slit in his lids. Burn our hearts. Shawls of sunlight spilled over the back of the pews. Nay-ked-nessss. The droplets gathered at the point of her elbow and hung there, the sac swelling until it fell and spattered on her foot. Nay… nay. To enclose her like the water of the creek had closed her. Nay… Proper body for a lover. Joy to be a stone. Please, the peep-watch is over. Please hurry now. Hurry. Get out of my church.

Though surely not now. With the baby scarcely born she should be home beside it; yet she likely had it cradled in her arm where it would root for her teats in the loose open folds of her dress. Always blue or yellow for some reason, it was lacy around the throat and fell like a golden fountain from her chin. Joy to be a thread. Lord. And all the other mothers, even all the men, smiled, wishing her breasts were their own. Dee dum dee dum. How'd it gone? While his mother lay sleeping, Big Jack had come creeping… Guilty of nessss. Um… some, something to tipple from her mountainous nipple. Cover her nay… No, that wasn't right. Shaymmm. He had mixed the days. So far apart. Years apart. Yet alike. Yet the same. The sky was the same clear blue. There'd been the same sweet breeze — everything as crisp as lettuce. Not years, of course. Seasons. Exactly two. And they were scuffling and shouting down there beyond him, out of his reach.

The rolling brilliant blue and yellow balls, the stiff white wickets, the dark sweet grass lay beyond the fence, and a large man in a white shirt, his coat on the grass, was kneeling, squinting along the handle of his mallet, while a girl in white slippers, puffs of rabbity fuzz at the toes and heels, in a gauzy dress as green as the grass was, as cool, turned very slowly about and swung her mallet in a slow circle; and Mrs. Kermit Hazen was there too, her feet well spaced, leaning forward a little and using her mallet like a cane, speaking rapidly to the man as he sighted until brushing his knees, he straightened up and pointed the grass-stained nose of his mallet at her, making her teeter with laughter; then, taking his stroke, the beautiful bright ball rolled down a gentle slope through the wicket and struck the yellow with a resonant clack. There was also a ferret-faced boy in a black suit and white collar who kept clearing his throat and spitting and who was supposed to be playing though he didn't know how but only rubbed his stomach and complained of an ache.

Futile…Oh my deliberately driven heels clattered on the shale and I held the Bible like a black stone tightly to my chest, pressing the buttons of my coat against me, and I said is this a Sunday thing and does the service come so easy off that you can laugh and shout within the hearing of the steeple? His heart replied to the pressure of the buttons, thundering. The congregation had come by the riverside, going home, while Omensetter was throwing sticks for the dog, shattering images in the water, when a sudden gust blew the ragged straw he always wore on Sunday into the Ohio where the current swept it quickly out of reach. It was studded with fish hooks and sat on the crown of his head like an untidy nest. As if it were a stick, his yellow dog pursued it. There was consequently great excitement and the betting and the bowling of the laughter rose to Furber with such a ring of vulgar, brazen joy that he rushed in anger from his garden, as pale-eyed and black as he could make himself, and flew down among them to stalk stiff-legged like a jackdaw, clacking futilely.

Initially, between the trees, he caught sight of whirling, jumping bodies. Heya-heya-heya. Someone climbing. Rocks pitched after a board; and on the river, tilting patches of reflection. Heya-fulla-heya-heya. Boys were sliding down the bank on their buttocks, roughing the scaly sand. They sailed a can lid on the water where at first it turned, floating, then sank, burning like a mirror. Hiyah-smilah. Hee-mee? Coltch. Skirts rose slowly, slowly subsided. A parasol flew open with a snap. Or-rawk. Gah. Houf. Half buried in the shingle, a deep red brick was then awash. Yo-yo giggy. Teetoo. Sheek? Nam! Lissa-lissa. A willow leaned out, trailing its leaves in the water. Someone was biding under the canopy. A stream of sand poured down the Cate girl's back. Though she wriggled suggestively, hand to her mouth, she had no points to her chest, and Furber decided she still had a glabrous cleft. Ze-e-e-p. A ribbon went up, revolving, and fell over a branch. Sweeping the beach with a broom of leaves was a flimsy little girl in pale green organdy frock, very stiff and frilly, very city. He couldn't place her. Whar? Bally. Karck! karck! karck! Some were crying for the hat; some were shouting for the river; others favored the dog. But no one was really prepared to bet against Omensetter. Furber knew they were pretending that.

The current caught the hat, spinning it round and round on its crown. The dog, his nose cresting the water, swam faster, and the crowd's excitement grew. Children ran frantically about. The women tried to restrain them and restrain their husbands who were slapping their knees, waving their own hats, and calling out encouragement to hat, dog, and river. Arthur was clearly gaining and there was cheering for him. Omensetter smiled. He had the wide moist mouth he bragged his son would have. The hat leaped ahead then, finding its place in the blood of the river. Arthur lunged, and the hat bobbed. There was more cheering. The fever was rising. The hat sped away, a speck in the plaster light. Omensetter yelled come back above the shouting and his girls yelled too, come back, come back. His wife sat placidly, her hands folded on her belly.