Benediction (Plainsong #3)(27)

Go over here to the east, he said. I want to look at these streets too.

They went over a block and then south on Albany and over to Boston and Chicago where Rudy lived and onto Detroit where Bob’s house was and then onto the state highway and back to U.S. 34.

You’re going too fast, Dad said.

I can’t go slow on the highway.

Let them go around. It don’t matter.

Where to now?

Back up Main.

They went up the street again past the little houses that were built at the south end and the old water tower on its tall metal riveted legs and past the post office and then the three blocks of businesses.

Let’s go back in the alley here, Dad said.

She turned slowly into the dark alley behind the stores. The mismatched backs of the buildings, the jumble of various things, and only a few cars and pickups parked along the way in the potholed gravel.

Stop here, please, Dad said.

She parked the car and they sat in the alley behind the hardware store. He looked at it all, the old brick wall with white flaking paint and the rusted Dumpster and the telephone pole black with creosote, the old rear entrances of the businesses on either side.

He shook his head. I should of painted that back wall again.

It looks about the same as always to me, Lorraine said.

That’s what I mean.

Wooden pallets were stacked on one another, and there was the scarred wooden door with the window in it that peered out into the alley.

How many times I went in and out that door. Wasn’t that the way, Mary?

How many times do you think, honey?

Fifty-five years times six days a week times fifty-two, he said.

What’s that come to?

It comes to a lifetime.

That’s right. It amounts to a man’s lifetime, Dad said. All right. We’ve been here long enough. Drive us around front now, please.

Lorraine started the car and they came out on Main Street. Should we stop?

Yes, pull in here at the store.

She parked at the curb in the middle of the block. The store was two old brick buildings side by side with high false fronts. Dad sat looking at the plate-glass display windows with the signs touting table saws and generators. The wide front doors propped open on the hot Saturday morning. The new lawn mowers and garden tillers wheeled out on the sidewalk with chains run through them to keep anybody from taking off with them.

A woman came walking toward them, she stopped to peer in through the window, cupping her hands beside her face to block the glare. She glanced up the street and looked inside again and went on.

What did she want? Dad said. We would of had it for her.

She’s got to make up her mind, Mary said. She wants to take her time.

Let her come back then, he said.

From where they were sitting they could see Bob inside behind the front counter waiting on some man. The man paid, they watched him remove his wallet and put money out and Bob take it and ring the sale and make change and tear off the receipt. Then he ducked out of sight behind the counter and he reappeared with a brown paper sack in his hand and put the purchase—something silver, not shiny, a pipe wrench maybe—in the sack, slipping the receipt in with it, speaking to the man, thanking him, nodding his head, then something more, and the man saying something in return, and then the man swung around and came out through the open doors onto the sidewalk with the paper sack in his hand, coming directly toward them in the car, so near that they could see the buttons on his summer shirt, before he turned and went up the block in the bright sun.

Who was that, Daddy?

I can’t think of his name. But I know him. I’ll think of it, he said. His voice sounded odd and then suddenly he began to weep.

Daddy, what is it?

He covered his face with his hands, his shoulders shaking. Mary leaned forward and put her arms around him.

Dear, it’s all right. What’s wrong? What are you thinking? What happened?

He shook his head. He went on weeping as they sat in the car in front of the hardware store on the hot Saturday morning, with people going by on the sidewalk. Lorraine watched her father and looked forward toward the storefront and Mary kept her arms around him and rested her head against the side of his head. After a while he stopped and wiped his face.

Oh, Lord, he said. Well, we can go on now, if you want. I’m sorry.

Are you all right, honey?

Yeah. I’m going to be.

Where to now, Daddy? Should we go home?

No. Out in the country. Out south. I want to show you something. I was thinking about it last night.

They backed out into Main Street and went around the block and back to the highway, past the Chute Bar and Grill and the grocery store, and turned south on the blacktop. There was wheat stubble shining in the sun and waist-high rows of corn, very green, and then pastures with black cattle scattered out in the native grass and sagebrush and soapweed, and presently Dad said, Slow down. Turn here, please.

Lorraine steered them onto the unpaved road. They could hear the gravel kicking up under the car. There were barrow ditches on both sides and above them the long run of telephone poles and the four-strand barbed-wire fences.

Careful, Dad said. You don’t want to go too fast.

She slowed down and they came to an old place set back off the road behind a front pasture. The road leading back to the house was closed off by a padlocked gate. Below were outbuildings and a horse barn and loafing shed and some stunted cedar trees. Everything looked to be in good repair but it didn’t seem as if anyone were living in the house.