Going to Meet the Man (8 page)

“And when
they
get married?” Eric prompted.

“All this will belong to
their
children,” his father said.

“Forever?” cried Eric.

“Forever,” said his father.

They turned and started walking toward the house.

“Jamie,” Eric asked at last, “how much land has
he
got?”

“Jamie doesn’t have any land,” his father said.

“Why not?” asked Eric.

“He didn’t take care of it,” his father said, “and he lost it.”

“Jamie doesn’t have a wife anymore, either, does he?” Eric asked.

“No,” said his father. “He didn’t take care of her, either.”

“And he doesn’t have any little boy,” said Eric—very sadly.

“No,” said his father. Then he grinned. “But
I
have.”

“
Why
doesn’t Jamie have a little boy?” asked Eric.

His father shrugged. “Some people do, Eric, some people don’t.”

“Will I?” asked Eric.

“Will you what?” asked his father.

“Will I get married and have a little boy?”

His father seemed for a moment both amused and checked. He looked down at Eric with a strange, slow smile. “Of course
you, will,” he said at last. “Of course you will.” And he held out his arms. “Come,” he said, “climb up. I’ll ride you on my shoulders home.”

So Eric rode on his father’s shoulders through the wide green fields which belonged to him, into the yard which held the house which would hear the first cries of his children. His mother and Jamie sat at the table talking quietly in the silver sun. Jamie had washed his face and combed his hair, he seemed calmer, he was smiling.

“Ah,” cried Jamie, “the lord, the master of this house arrives! And bears on his shoulders the prince, the son, and heir!” He described a flourish, bowing low in the yard. “My lords! Behold your humble, most properly chastised servant, desirous of your—compassion, your love, and your forgiveness!”

“Frankly,” said Eric’s father, putting Eric on the ground, “I’m not sure that this is an improvement.” He looked at Jamie and frowned and grinned. “Let’s cut that cake.”

Eric stood with his mother in the kitchen while she lit the candles—thirty-five, one, as they said, to grow on, though Jamie, surely, was far past the growing age—and followed her as she took the cake outside. Jamie took the great, gleaming knife and held it with a smile.

“Happy Birthday!” they cried—only Eric said nothing—and then Eric’s mother said, “You have to blow out the candles, Jamie, before you cut the cake.”

“It looks so pretty the way it is,” Jamie said.

“Go ahead,” said Eric’s father, and clapped him on the back, “be a man.”

Then the dog, once more beside his master, awoke, growling, and this made everybody laugh. Jamie laughed loudest. Then he blew out the candles, all of them at once, and Eric watched him as he cut the cake. Jamie raised his eyes and looked at Eric and it was at this moment, as the suddenly blood-red sun was striking the topmost tips of trees, that Eric
had looked into Jamie’s eyes. Jamie smiled that strange smile of an old man and Eric moved closer to his mother.

“The first piece for Eric”, said Jamie, then, and extended it to him on the silver blade.

That had been near the end of summer, nearly two months ago. Very shortly after the birthday party, his mother had fallen ill and had had to be taken away. Then his father spent more time than ever at The Rafters; he and Jamie came home in the evenings, stumbling drunk. Sometimes, during the time that his mother was away, Jamie did not go home at all, but spent the night at the farm house; and once or twice Eric had awakened in the middle of the night, or near dawn, and heard Jamie’s footsteps walking up and down, walking up and down, in the big room downstairs. It has been a strange and dreadful time, a time of waiting, stillness, and silence. His father rarely went into the fields, scarcely raised himself to give orders to his farm hands—it was unnatural, it was frightening, to find him around the house all day, and Jamie was there always, Jamie and his dog. Then one day Eric’s father told him that his mother was coming home but that she would not be bringing him a baby brother or sister, not this time, nor in any time to come. He started to say something more, then looked at Jamie who was standing by, and walked out of the house. Jamie followed him slowly, his hands in his pockets and his head bent. From the time of the birthday party, as though he were repenting of that outburst, or as though it had frightened him, Jamie had become more silent than ever.

When his mother came back she seemed to have grown older—old; she seemed to have shrunk within herself, away from them all, even, in a kind of storm of love and helplessness, away from Eric; but, oddly, and most particularly, away from Jamie. It was in nothing she said, nothing she did—or perhaps it was in everything she said and did. She washed and
cooked for Jamie as before, took him into account as much as before as a part of the family, made him take second helpings at the table, smiled good night to him as he left the house—it was only that something had gone out of her familiarity. She seemed to do all that she did out of memory and from a great distance. And if something had gone out of her ease, something had come into it, too, a curiously still attention, as though she had been startled by some new aspect of something she had always known. Once or twice at the supper table, Eric caught her regard bent on Jamie, who, obliviously, ate. He could not read her look, but it reminded him of that moment at the birthday party when he had looked into Jamie’s eyes. She seemed to be looking at Jamie as though she were wondering why she had not looked at him before; or as though she were discovering, with some surprise, that she had never really liked him but also felt, in her weariness and weakness, that it did not really matter now.

Now, as he entered the yard, he saw her standing in the kitchen doorway, looking out, shielding her eyes against the brilliant setting sun.

“Eric!” she cried, wrathfully, as soon as she saw him, “I’ve been looking high and low for you for the last hour. You’re getting old enough to have some sense of responsibility and I wish you wouldn’t worry me so when you know I’ve not been well.”

She made him feel guilty at the same time that he dimly and resentfully felt that justice was not all on her side. She pulled him to her, turning his face up toward hers, roughly, with one hand.

“You’re filthy,” she said, then. “Go around to the pump and wash your face. And hurry, so I can give you your supper and put you to bed.”

And she turned and went into the kitchen, closing the door
lightly behind her. He walked around to the other side of the house, to the pump.

On a wooden box next to the pump was a piece of soap and a damp rag. Eric picked up the soap, not thinking of his mother, but thinking of the day gone by, already half asleep: and thought of where he would go tomorrow. He moved the pump handle up and down and the water rushed out and wet his socks and shoes—this would make his mother angry, but he was too tired to care. Nevertheless, automatically, he moved back a little. He held the soap between his hands, his hands beneath the water.

He had been many places, he had walked a long way and seen many things that day. He had gone down to the railroad tracks and walked beside the tracks for awhile, hoping that a train would pass. He kept telling himself that he would give the train one more last chance to pass; and when he had given it a considerable number of last chances, he left the railroad bed and climbed a little and walked through the high, sweet meadows. He walked through a meadow where there were cows and they looked at him dully with their great dull eyes and moo’d among each other about him. A man from the far end of the field saw him and shouted, but Eric could not tell whether it was someone who worked for his father or not and so he turned and ran away, ducking through the wire fence. He passed an apple tree, with apples lying all over the ground—he wondered if the apples belonged to him, if he were still walking on his own land or had gone past it—but he ate an apple anyway and put some in his pockets, watching a lone brown horse in a meadow far below him nibbling at the grass and flicking his tail. Eric pretended that he was his father and was walking through the fields as he had seen his father walk, looking it all over calmly, pleased, knowing that everything he saw belonged to him. And he stopped and pee’d as he had seen his father do, standing wide-legged and heavy in the
middle of the fields; he pretended at the same time to be smoking and talking, as he had seen his father do. Then, having watered the ground, he walked on, and all the earth, for that moment, in Eric’s eyes, seemed to be celebrating Eric.

Tomorrow he would go away again, somewhere. For soon it would be winter, snow would cover the ground, he would not be able to wander off alone.

He held the soap between his hands, his hands beneath the water; then he heard a low whistle behind him and a rough hand on his head and the soap fell from his hands and slithered between his legs onto the ground.

He turned and faced Jamie, Jamie without his dog.

“Come on, little fellow,” Jamie whispered. “We got something in the barn to show you.”

“Oh, did the calf come yet?” asked Eric—and was too pleased to wonder why Jamie whispered.

“Your Papa’s there,” said Jamie. And then: “Yes. Yes, the calf is coming now.”

And he took Eric’s hand and they crossed the yard, past the closed kitchen door, past the stone wall and across the field, into the barn.

“But
this
isn’t where the cows are!” Eric cried. He suddenly looked up at Jamie, who closed the barn door behind them and looked down at Eric with a smile.

“No,” said Jamie, “that’s right. No cows here.” And he leaned against the door as though his strength had left him. Eric saw that his face was wet, he breathed as though he had been running.

“Let’s go see the cows,” Eric whispered. Then he wondered why he was whispering and was terribly afraid. He stared at Jamie, who stared at him.

“In a minute,” Jamie said, and stood up. He had put his hands in his pockets and now he brought them out and Eric stared at his hands and began to move away. He asked, “Where’s my Papa?”

“Why,” said Jamie, “he’s down at The Rafters, I guess. I have to meet him there soon.”

“I have to go,” said Eric. “I have to eat my supper.” He tried to move to the door, but Jamie did not move. “I have to go,” he repeated, and, as Jamie moved toward him the tight ball of terror in his bowels, in his throat, swelled and rose, exploded, he opened his mouth to scream but Jamie’s fingers closed around his throat. He stared, stared into Jamie’s eyes.

“That won’t do you any good,” said Jamie. And he smiled. Eric struggled for breath, struggled with pain and fright. Jamie relaxed his grip a little and moved one hand and stroked Eric’s tangled hair. Slowly, wondrously, his face changed, tears came into his eyes and rolled down his face.

Eric groaned—perhaps because he saw Jamie’s tears or because his throat was so swollen and burning, because he could not catch his breath, because he was so frightened—he began to sob in great, unchildish gasps. ‘Why do you hate my father?’

“I love your father,” Jamie said. But he was not listening to Eric. He was far away—as though he were struggling, toiling inwardly up a tall, tall mountain. And Eric struggled blindly, with all the force of his desire to live, to reach him, to stop him before he reached the summit.

“Jamie,” Eric whispered, “you can have the land. You can have all the land.”

Jamie spoke, but not to Eric: “I don’t want the land.”

“I’ll be your little boy,” said Eric. “I’ll be your little boy forever and forever and forever—and you can have the land and you can live forever! Jamie!”

Jamie had stopped weeping. He was watching Eric.

“We’ll go for a walk tomorrow,” Eric said, “and I’ll show it to you, all of it—really and truly—if you kill my father I can be your little boy and we can have it all!”

“This land,” said Jamie, “will belong to no one.”

“Please!” cried Eric, “oh, please! Please!”

He heard his mother singing in the kitchen. Soon she would
come out to look for him. The hands left him for a moment. Eric opened his mouth to scream, but the hands then closed around his throat.

Mama. Mama.

The singing was further and further away. The eyes looked into his, there was a question in the eyes, the hands tightened. Then the mouth began to smile. He had never seen such a smile before. He kicked and kicked.

Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama. Mama.

Far away, he heard his mother call him.

Mama.

He saw nothing, he knew that he was in the barn, he heard a terrible breathing near him, he thought he heard the sniffling of beasts, he remembered the sun, the railroad tracks, the cows, the apples, and the ground. He thought of tomorrow—he wanted to go away again somewhere tomorrow.
I’ll take you with me
, he wanted to say. He wanted to argue the question, the question he remembered in the eyes—wanted to say,
I’ll tell my Papa you’re hurting me.
Then terror and agony and darkness overtook him, and his breath went violently out of him. He dropped on his face in the straw in the barn, his yellow head useless on his broken neck.

Night covered the countryside and here and there, like emblems, the lights of houses glowed. A woman’s voice called, “Eric! Eric!”

Jamie reached his wooden house and opened his door; whistled, and his dog came bounding out of darkness, leaping up on him; and he cuffed it down lightly, with one hand. Then he closed his door and started down the road, his dog beside him, his hands in his pockets. He stopped to light his pipe. He heard singing from The Rafters, then he saw the lights; soon, the lights and the sound of singing diminished behind him. When Jamie no longer heard the singing, he began to whistle the song that he had heard.

I
WOKE UP
shaking, alone in my room. I was clammy cold with sweat; under me the sheet and the mattress were soaked. The sheet was gray and twisted like a rope. I breathed like I had been running.