A Quality of Light (8 page)

O
f all the farmer’s rituals, the one I love the best is the washing up. The sweat and grit of the land mixed with the flowered aroma of the soap has always induced deep pangs of hunger in me. But it’s the tactile facet of the ritual that charms me. Land and water, the stuff of life, coming together in a familiar rubbing of the hands and splashing of the face. I’ve always thought of it as the one human ceremony that joined us all, primordial to present, Bedouin to fisherman to farmer, linked forever by well-scrubbed hands and the common delight in a meal well taken. Scrubbing and rubbing the whitewash, dirt and perspiration from me that day was pure boyhood glee.

Johnny was coming out of the other bathroom off the kitchen by the time I got back downstairs. The afternoon in the sunshine had tanned him a little and he looked far healthier than the pale reed of a boy I’d first seen at his grandfather’s. He grinned and held a finger up to his lips. I nodded, and we headed into the living room to await my mother’s call to supper. Life without television leads people to a level of invention unseen in more electronically attuned homes. Cards, board games and hobbies were the television of the day back then, and although we had an Electrohome console with record player and radio, it was seldom used. My mother’s gospel records and Mozart concertos and my dad’s Floyd Cramer and Chet Atkins records were as close as we ever came to contemporary entertainment. “Cool,” Johnny said and headed over to the unit as soon as we entered the room. He fiddled with the radio dials and for the next minute or two the room was filled with snippets of sound, until he finally heard what he wanted and eased up the volume.

“Curt Gowdy here on a day that’s seen some dramatic ups and downs at Tiger Stadium. The visiting Boston Red Sox lead the Tigers by a run in the seventh, erasing a three-run deficit on the homer by Tony Conigliaro. Tony C.’s bat is in fine form this season after his sensational rookie year last year. Twenty-four balls cleared the fences for the Fenway faithful last year, and he’s on his way to eclipse that mark this campaign.”

“See, Josh, baseball’s everywhere!” Johnny chortled. “We can even watch it on the TV at my place sometimes.”

“Wow. I’ve never seen a real game before.”

“Me neither, really. We never watch it at my place.”

We settled into chairs to listen to the mellifluent voice that flowed from the radio and although we both had some trouble identifying the situations he was describing, we listened intently, eager to hear anything that might give us a hint, an edge, an advantage in this game we were discovering. When my mother entered carrying a small tray of cheese and crackers, Johnny leapt for the volume control, spun to greet my mother and smiled shyly all in one flash of motion.

“Hi!” he said, managing to sound casual.

My mother grinned and set the tray down on the coffee table. “Well, hello, John! What are you boys listening to?” she asked secretively.

“Oh, nothing really. Just stuff. Checking around, you know,” Johnny said, looking hard at me and pumping his fist against his thigh.

“Yeah,” I said, smiling. “Just stuff. How’s supper?”

“It’s ready. We’re just waiting on your father to come in. Roast pork, beans, potatoes, beets and pie for dessert. Sound okay to you, John?”

“Oh, yes, ma’am. Great.”

“Well, you boys enjoy the snacks and have fun with the radio,” she said and returned to the kitchen.

Johnny sighed with relief. I was beginning to discover that secrets were a hard thing to maintain. We munched on the cheese and crackers and listened to Curt Gowdy call the rest of that game before my father came in, washed up and whistled his way into the kitchen. Tiger Stadium was in Detroit, which was only a day’s drive away, but it was the sound of the Boston team, the Red Sox, with players named Carl Yastrzemski, Rico Petrocelli, Tony Horton and especially Tony Conigliaro that drew our hopes that day. Their names sounded like working men’s names. The kind of men I was used to seeing around me. Callused, gritty, down-to-earth and diligent men with families like my own, battered cars, hearty appetites and a chair on a porch they eased into when their days closed in upon themselves like the blooms on a rosebush. My mother’s call to supper broke our reverie, and we gave each other a firm thumbs-up and marched in to eat.

My mother bowed her head for grace. Johnny looked uncomfortable, though he politely followed suit. She finished her blessing and my father and I followed with a diminished “Amen” before we raised our heads and looked at each other. Looking at each other, recognizing our presence and our connection, was as much of a ritual as the offering of grace. Again, Johnny appeared discomfited, but he nodded his head at each of us and grinned shyly.

“Well,” my dad said, “this is a fine spread, Mother. Joshua, please hand the meat to John and let’s get at this feast! You boys must be hungry after all the painting you were doing.”

Johnny and I looked wide-eyed at each other as he reached for the platter and I saw my parents trade a smirk.

“What were you painting, son?” my mother asked.

“Nothing, really. Just fooling around,” I said, uncomfortable with the lie.

“Nothing really?” my dad said, voice rising. “There’s some kind of work of art on the equipment shed and you say ’nothing really.’ John?”

“Umm. Well, it’s kind of a secret, sir,” Johnny said, reaching out to secure the potato dish I was offering his way.

“Oh,” my dad said. “Secrets. Well. There’s good secrets and there’s bad secrets, I suppose. Would this be one of the good secrets, John?”

“Yessir. It’s a good secret, eh, Josh?”

“Yeah. It’s a school project,” I said. Johnny raised his eyes at my cleverness.

“Will we get to see this project when it’s finished?” my mother asked.

“Yes, ma’am,” Johnny said. “Everyone will get to see it.”

“Well, that’s good,” my father said. “And when will that be?”

“Don’t know. Maybe … two weeks?” Johnny said, grimacing.

“That doesn’t seem like too long to wait,” my mother said.

“Two weeks. Hmm. Well, I guess I can rest my worries about my equipment shed for two weeks. You guys aren’t going to move it or anything, are you?” he asked.

“Oh, no, sir,” Johnny said. “It’ll be right there when we’re done.”

“Good. Good. How’s the folks, John?” he asked.

Johnny gulped down a mouthful of beans. He glanced around at us and I could sense his uneasiness with this turn of conversation. “Fine, sir. They’re fine.” He shoveled in a mouthful of potatoes.

“Your dad’s never worked in the hardware business before, has he, John?” my mother asked quietly.

“No, ma’am.”

“And your mom. What does she plan to do in Mildmay? Will she work?” she asked.

“No, ma’am. She doesn’t work. I don’t know what she’ll do.”

“We’ll have to have them out here one of these days for a visit. We’d like that,” my mother said, smiling at Johnny.

“They don’t go out much, ma’am.”

“Surely they’d come to meet your new friend’s family?” she asked, surprised.

“No, ma’am. I kind of don’t think so.”

“Well, we’ll work on that,” she said, kindly.

“Your dad’s not really a stranger to hardware, John,” my dad said. “I remember when we were kids, he was always helping your grandfather out in the store after school. Nuts and bolts and things are in his blood. Just like Joshua here with farming. No matter what he does or where he goes in life, he’s always going to have the farm and the land in his blood. He was born to it.”

“I didn’t think my dad was ever a kid.”

“Pardon me, John?” my mother said.

“Nothing. Can I have some more beans, please,” he said, with the energy withdrawing from his face like I’d seen at the welcoming. My parents looked over at him with concern and then at each other.

“Pass the beans, Joshua,” my mother said.

“So what is it you like to do, John? Do you have hobbies? Sports? You don’t happen to fish, do you?” my dad asked, with a wink at me.

“Fish? No, sir. I’ve never been fishing. I’d like to, though. Mostly I just read, sir.”

“Well, reading’s good,” he said. “Joshua reads all the time too. What do you like to read about?”

“Indians, mostly, sir.”

“Indians?”

“Yessir. I like ’em.”

“You know that Joshua’s an Indian, don’t you, John?” my mother asked.

“Yes, ma’am. But I mean
real
Indians. You know, warriors and stuff.”

“I think there’s more to Indians than just being warriors, isn’t there, John?” my dad asked.

“No, sir. I read about it. They were warriors.”

“Joshua’s not a warrior,” my mother said.

“Yes, ma’am. That’s what I mean.
Real
Indians.”

The rest of that meal passed amiably with my parents chatting about the farm, the animals and the crops and Johnny and me eating as hungrily as boys can eat, grinning at each other now and then, happy with the secrets of baseball and blood brotherhood.

I had a sense that these secrets were leading me up and away from the nest of security I’d always found in the friendship with my parents and I teetered on the edge of flight, wings flexing slightly, eager for the adventure of the air.

My dad drove Johnny back to town at twilight. We strapped his bike to the roof and sat in the front seat together, and we grinned when my father started whistling a slow version of “Sally Gooden” while he drove. No one spoke, we just watched the road and the setting sun over the ripple of hills, the cows in the fields and the hawks swooping low over them. It was a comfortable silence. Now and then Johnny would turn his head and we’d exchange a grin, joined forever by our mingled blood and our solemn pledge. Such are the bonds of Indians and of boys.

We pulled up in front of Old Man Givens’s place. The Gebhardts had moved into it after turning down Harold’s offer to live with him. Old Man Givens was about ninety-five when he’d passed away the year before. He’d known everything and anything about everybody. He’d watched generations of boys become men and girls become women, friendships formed and ended, marriages, funerals, farm foreclosures and Mildmay itself move from shabby hamlet to bustling agricultural center for the county. Farmers liked Mildmay. Walkerton with its three thousand people was like a city in our scope of things and Mildmay was, and is, the unofficial center of Bruce County.

Old Man Givens had watched it all evolve, and the days when he was well enough to make the journey to Harold’s store were days rich with storytelling and laughter. His wrinkled, bony fingers pointed out individuals, and the crowd huddled around the coffee station listened intently while he recounted embarrassing escapades of their younger days. His passing left us shallower somehow. I remember him for the smell of snuff and old houses and the lollipops he always seemed to have for any kids lurking around the store those days. I was glad that Johnny was living in his house.

We were pulling the ropes that secured the bike when Ben Gebhardt appeared on the porch. He was reeling slightly and he leaned on the porch column.

“John! Is that you, you little bastard? Get in here!” he growled.

“Evening, Ben. Everything okay?” my dad asked, handing the bike down to Johnny.

Ben Gebhardt squinted through the haze of twilight. “Who’s that?”

“It’s Ezra Kane, Ben. I’ve just driven John back from visiting us.”

“Ezra? Well, thank you very much, Ezra Kane,” he said theatrically, with a sweep of his arm. “God’ll love ya for that. Now send the little prick in here and we can get to bed!”

“You gonna be okay, John?” my dad asked, putting a hand on Johnny’s shoulder.

“Yessir. He’s always like this. Good night, sir. Josh,” Johnny said and started to trot the bike towards the porch.

“Good night,” I said.

“Coulda phoned, ya little prick!” Ben said as Johnny passed him on his way into the house.

“Good night, Ben,” my father called, and Ben Gebhardt offered a lazy flick of the hand as he followed Johnny into the dark house. A single light burned in an upstairs window and I saw a flicker there and then Mrs. Gebhardt’s gaunt face peering out at us. She held the gaze for a moment and then she was gone. The door slammed and we looked at each other before climbing back into the car.

“What a grouch!” I said when we’d reached the edge of town.

“He was drunk, son.”

“Drunk?”

“Yes. People get kind of ugly sometimes when they’ve had too much to drink.”

“Like beer, you mean?”

“Yes, like beer. Other kinds of alcohol too.”

“You and grampa have beer at threshing.”

“That’s true. But there’s a difference between having a beer or two and drinking too much.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, too much means you don’t care much what you say, who you say it to or even how you say it.”

Like Johnny’s dad?”

“Yes. Like Johnny’s dad.”

“Will he be okay?”

“Johnny?”

“No, his dad. He looked kind of sick.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine, son. I’m sure he’ll be fine,” he said and reached over to rub my shoulder.

We drove the rest of the way in silence. The kind of silence that good friends share when they’re busy with their thoughts. I don’t know where my dad was in his thoughts that night, but I know that I was in the branches of the willow tree, feeling the prick of pin on flesh and the weight of the words we’d spoken. Laughing Dog and Thunder Sky. Blood brothers. Guardians of a secret and of each other. Friends. As our headlights pierced the night and framed the highway ahead of us, I offered a silent prayer of thanks to the God of the universe for bringing me Johnny Gebhardt. I lay my head down upon my father’s lap as he drove and the hum of the tires eased me into sleep. I felt him pick me up, cradle me in his arms and carry me into the house and even though I could have made it on my own, I surrendered myself to the brawn of his arms, the warmth of his shirt, the gentle nuzzle of his lips on my cheek and the whispered words, “I love you, son,” that I whispered over and over to myself as I
drifted into sleep in the downy comfort of my bed, my new baseball glove tucked beneath my pillow. Such are the bonds of Indians and of boys.