Pick up
I can’t get a grip
Pick up on the wood
My finger’s wont
Pick up.
John finally found his fingering, and with his back he lifted the large plank of wood and put it on top of the doghouse, the hypotenuse, thought John, the oblique angle. He met eyes with his father, who grimaced.
“What is it?”
“You lifted with yer’ back.”
“Something wrong with it?”
“Everything.”
“-You wanna,” he said while showing his son how to squat down, “do it like this.” Joseph pushed up, back straight. Like a right angle, John thought. “Like an arrow,” Joseph murmured.
The day was hot. Sweltering, to where Joseph was thinking of how much water they should have outside, just in case. Missy was gone, and it was just him and the boy. We needed a doghouse, he thought to himself, sometimes the sun gets a bit too hot for her.
The daisies drip with drew in the midst of high weeds, like queens in a mighty court ordained by Mother Nature. Grasshoppers jump around excited. The flies buzz like vultures; the hum of the sun and the wind dancing with the trees. The fences are made with the precision of a necessary amateur. Pride shined from them, cultivated by each of the hits upon the wood.
John didn’t want to do the next part of the work. Didn’t see the point. Wasn’t what he was good at, books are his hammer, his saw, his specialty. But books ain’t close enough to what he meant to say. What does it mean to be good at ‘books?’ What were books reall-
“Let’s get er’ done,” his dad grunted, and John watched as he sprawled open like a bird while he got up. “Getting old,” he said, and walked over to the planks and looked around for the hammer. Glasses filled with condensation, he took them off and wiped them with his shirt. When he did this, John started to notice the gray hairs in his dad’s chin, the light limp he moved with. He remembered when he watched as his father ate with his glasses off too, and how old he looked as his slurped on the food. It so affected him that he had to go to the bathroom with his tears threatening to leak, yet soon he walked out and time seemed to move on without note. And yet the moment was here again, the emotion back, and John wondered if he might cry in front of his father at his very, very old age of sixteen.
Joseph knew some of this, suspected at least. Watched all his life, body getting old but he’s still got his tricks, didn’t get this far with nothing. His son had done good. He wasn’t sure what good meant, but he knew his son had done it. He shook his cousin’s hands, and he didn’t curse in front of the old without them cursing first. None of the sirens, none of the knocking that he remembered from the youth, wondering if his family might have to look on a corpse. None of that, he did good. He knew John drank a few times, yet within the boy was a conscious of himself and others that made him wonder who he might be learning from. Maybe them books? Words he couldn’t even pronounce, wondered where he got it. Missy was gone. Wondered where he got it. Wonder who, wonder who.
They worked late into the evening with the sounds of hammers and directions filling the air. It wasn’t efficient at all. They’d sometimes put the wood on the wrong way or the wrong wood in the wrong place; and this made John irritated and mad at the world while Joseph only laughed while he looked at him.
They sat down on lawn chairs and drank water while eating apples.
“You alright?”
“Yea, I feel alright.”
“That’s good. You looked mad earlier. What’s wrong?”
“I feel useless.”
“You ain’t.”
“But I still do.”
“And you still ain’t. I couldn’t do this by myself.”
“Yes you could. You don’t need me to lift the wood.”
“Lifting is the easy part.”
“I guess.”
The lightning bugs flew.
“How you doing in your classes?”
“I’m doing good. Teachers like me. Mostly my manners.”
“Yea, but you’re smart as a whistle too.”
“I feel like being kind takes you pretty far.”
“Kind and clever takes you to the moon”
“I guess.”
“What you thinking about doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“For making a living. You’re getting about that age.”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t gotta. Ain’t a requirement, just curious.”
“I like math a lot. That’s the one I’m best at.”
“I never was good at that.”
“I could teach you.”
“What would I need that for?” Joseph said with a laugh
John stood up. He looked up at the tree in the distance.
“Give me the distance between this tree and me, I’ll give the angle I look at, and I can calculate the height.”
“That’s pretty neat.”
“Now think of the moon.”
“The moon?”
“The goddamn moon.” Joseph smiled.
“Boy don’t be cussing around me.”
“Sorry.”
“How are your friends?”
“They’re alright.”
“That’s good, that’s good. That’s damn good.”
“I thought you said no cussing.”
“This ain’t a two way street. I’m grilling later. What do you want?”
“Burgers.”
“Alright.”
John watched as his father got up and got the tools and put them in the toolbox and sighed and stretched his back and went into the house below the cold night.
They quit at eight, calling it a day and saying they will work on it next weekend. The weekend came, and no work was made. The days went on, the windows lighting up in passing and then turning off again. Other voices other than theirs sometimes can be heard from outside, yet often they leave. Some longer than others, yet on a long and forlorn evening the voices are heard for the last time as the last boxes are moved and the last walks around are walked.
John is older. He sits for a few moments in front of the wood. Prayers made, wondering of what he might think, how old he’d be, how death comes for all, how quiet it all is. The daisies are still there. The trees are not. The wind cries.
The dog’s little grave sits to the side. Martha. Alongside Miranda, Dad called her Missy, his mother.
His dad’s grave sat still and cold with the dirt still ruffled.
He goes to his truck and pulls out two pieces of wood. Heavy. “Damn, this is what you were carrying?” He said to himself. Starts to drag them, but then he puts them over his head and squats and then lifts up. Two of these, wide woods, on top of the doghouse. Nails them down, easy now.
John sits down and breathes. “Tired.” He said. I’m ready to take a nap. He thought of music and sleep.
And in walking to his truck, he cleans his glasses, and then catches himself in the window. There’s dad, same limp – albeit John has left the hammer here, books back at home with the degree. And then John sees his dad eating with his glasses off, gray hairs and slack face, that in a moment he stops and holds his chest and leans on his truck. Visions flash through his mind as he holds himself and begs his eyes not to cry, to which makes him only want to cry more, and so the newly night sky with the orange sun setting is filled with the sounds of hiccups and sobs and repeatings of ‘Why?’, followed by sniffles and easy laughter well into the peaceful and loving night.
