America America (40 page)

I looked at him. “Murph Mills’s boy?”

“Got his union card. Working his way up.”

I looked at him again. Nothing on his face.

“This is the fall of our culture, Dad. This is the end of a way of life.”

“Oh, come on.”

“It’s a fake tree.”

“It’s a statue. A bronze monument.”

“This guy is merciless, Dad.”

“He is. You’re right. Merciless. A hack. A thief. An Irish pirate.” He cracked his knuckles. “But I see two hundred men out here.”

I thought about that.

SCOT

“Double or nothing, Eugene,” said Dad. He lifted his cap and ran his hand through his hair. “But it takes a lot of men to do something like this. A lot of men working. And a lot of bronze in it, too.”

“And?”

But he didn’t seem interested in pursuing it. “Well,” he said. “You have to admit, it sure looks heroic out here. The lone holdout.”

By now, it was nearly dark, but in the distance the pavers were still at their task. The concrete trucks were stirring their loads and adjusting the mix, and now and then the sound of the gearing would rise as they pumped. We started across the street to the arcade. The crews were working in pairs, leapfrogging each other so that the finishing team could float out one load while the pouring team spread the next. They were good. Even I could see it. I watched one of them cover at least five yards in the time it took us to walk half the length of one wall of stores. Mr. McGowar led the way, bouncing along in his high-kneed style.

Here and there as we moved along the façade, a piece of blackout paper had come free from a window and we could see into the building itself, where more fountains were running under the glass-roofed atrium and a series of footbridges arched over what must have been an artificial stream. Out on the lot, a row of sodium lamps blinked on.

“What do you two think of all this?” I said.

“Looks like they’re tight on a deadline.”

AL FAK NO GRANITE

“Good, Eugene.”

“No, I mean
this
. What they’re doing.”

“What do I think?” Dad said, stopping to look at me. “I don’t know what I think, to tell the truth. That’s the way progress is. It’s always half criminal. Greeks said it about their mall, too—the whatever-it’s-called.”

Further along the sidewalk, where it broadened at the entrance, we came within reach of the lamps and I saw that the paving here had been flecked with something to make it glitter. In front of us were bicycle racks and iron benches and mini courtyards with raised planters in their centers. Maple saplings stood in pairs, held true by guy wires. A slant of land to the left caught my eye and I had the sudden feeling that we were walking on what used to be the dirt ring of Breighton’s corral, just south of the main house and a hundred yards up the low slope that ended at the flood berms. The casting pools had been cut diagonally across those berms, so that they wouldn’t face the rising or the setting sun. I saw now that the courtyard had been planned the same way.

“But tell me,” he said quietly, “what did you
used
to think?”

“What do you mean, what did I used to think?”

“Well…” he said. “You know…” He swept his hand across the expanse. “What did you think when all this belonged to one man?”

We walked on.

“It did, Dad,” I said after a time. “I know.” I paused. “But there was a public trust then. Eoghan Metarey took care of a whole town. Liam Metarey planned for the next generations.”

“Yes, yes. But still—that’s a hell of a lot of land for one family.”

“It was conserved for public use.”

“Part of it. And never mind what Hobbes would say about that.” He turned to me. “But all this”—he gestured again—“this was sold straight to the builder. Fair and square.”

We walked in silence again.

HUZ HOBS

After a few moments, Dad said, “A philosopher, Eugene. A dismalist. But a realist.” Then, to me, “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve been catching up on that kind of thing.”

“I
had
noticed.”

“And at least this way everybody gets to use it,” he went on. He stopped abruptly. “The
Acropolis
,” he said. “That’s it. I read that the Greeks thought it was an abomination. Or enough of ’em did.”

“You think this is everybody using it?”

“No, it’s a scandal. But I just think about it sometimes.” He resumed his pace. “In my old age.”

Something happens to him these days if he’s out around sundown, a primitive kind of wilding, followed by a bout of wordless melancholy, and I could see now that it was upon him. Dr. Jadoon has warned me about it. I’ve witnessed it myself a couple of times, and I probably should have taken both of them home right then. It was almost dark already and beginning to get cold. But in the eerie light of the sodium lamps, Dad looked particularly brittle: I don’t know why that stopped me. He stepped around a sawhorse and started off across the darker surface of yesterday’s pour, and when Mr. McGowar realized that I wasn’t going to do anything, he hopped right over the sawhorse, too. All I could do was follow. Next to Dad, Mr. McGowar seemed to be loping along. There was a lane of unpaved gravel to the side of us, and Mr. McGowar was scanning it as he walked. Maybe it was the contrast, but behind him I could see Dad more clearly than I wanted to: the loose sleeve of his shirt around the bad arm and the gaunt pinch of that shoulder. The pants bunched at the belt. The stiffened gait. I didn’t like watching. Proud men have a force field.

At a bench at the far end of the lot—soon to be a bus stop, I thought—Dad finally sat down; but when he looked back I saw only a contemplative stillness on his face. Mr. McGowar took the spot next to him.

“Fine looking,” Dad said to him. “Isn’t it?”

PRIDY

I have to admit, it was. The dusky stars, just now appearing. Steam swirling above the mixers. The two distant encampments of concrete pourers, glowing in the void. The glinting bronze limbs of the oak, hovering in the dark behind them.

“I’ve always thought that what we did was beautiful, Eugene,” Dad said then. “You know that? In a really profound way. The clarity of it all. Granite. Tin. Silver. The physical undeniability. Lead. Antimony. Heat it right, keep it dry, slope it—and it works. Figure the load, pour the slab—and it works. Know the span, size the beam. Bang, the whole damn job. Bunch of stiffs like you and me, putting up our great pyramid. You couldn’t stop us.”

IT WZ OK

“It
is
beautiful, Dad. It’s very impressive.”

“Good way to have spent a life. Building things.”

“It was. It is.”

The two of them sat looking back over the work.

“Anyway,” Dad said abruptly, “I was thinking of taking up painting.”

TO MUCH PREP

“Oil painting, Eugene.” He pointed at the eerily lit crews. “Art,” he said. “Beauty. It’s what you’re left with when your joints give out.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“And Gaelic. I’ve always thought it might be worthwhile to learn Gaelic. In case I go back.”

“Gaelic, Dad. Okay.”

His look darkened. “Well, why the hell not?”

That’s when he took his cap, set it on the bench between them, and, turning to support himself with his good arm, slid off stiffly onto the ground.

I was the first to reach him, and by the time I had him under a shoulder Mr. McGowar had him under the other. But all Dad said was, “You’re in my light.” He shook himself free. “Both of you.”

“Dad, what are you doing?”

“Someone should tell him his mix is too wet.”

He had his key ring in his hand. Mr. McGowar had gone back to the bench.

“Dad, what exactly—”

“I used to want to kill those damn kids.” He rose on all fours and nodded toward the crews. “Waiting for me to go home. The Duffy boys. Vic Connors. Waiting till I gave in and went home to eat supper. Those no-good Blair brothers. Pack of wolves, all of them. One of the reasons I gave up the trade.” Laboriously, he undid a key. “But now the little bastards are the ones out here working.”

For the record, I didn’t watch.

But Mr. McGowar did. He sat there on the bench, smiling.

And whenever one of the mixers quieted, I could hear the scratching.

In the distance the silhouettes of the crews moved about the work. The shovels. The long bull float. The high rubber boots. In front of me, Dad’s dark shape like a man praying.

When the scratching finally stopped, Mr. McGowar and I stepped over. Dad was cleaning the key. From a chain on his neck he brought out a tiny flashlight, which didn’t surprise me, and shone it on the surface:

Philosophers have only interpreted

The world in various ways.

The point

Is to change it.

“What’s that?”

“A saying.”

Mr. McGowar was grinning like a monkey now.

Finally, Dad leaned over and scratched out, with a last flurry of work:

—September 1971—

“Dad?” I whispered.

He was struggling to push the key back onto the ring. “What?”

I set my hand on his shoulder. It was chilly under his shirt. “Is everything okay?”

He didn’t answer, but he rose to his haunches, like a catcher, and presently I felt something settle over the back of my fingers. Like old, cracked rope, but surprisingly warm. It might have been that Dad was just holding on so he wouldn’t fall over. It probably was, in fact. But I stayed like that anyway. Mr. McGowar turned away.

“You
have
been reading,” I said. “That’s Marx, isn’t it?”

“Yes, it is,” he answered. “And yes, I have.” Then he added, “I can see why you like it.”

“A
LMOST LOOKS LIKE AN
I
NDIAN VILLAGE,”
Mr. Metarey said, quietly.

It was May 1st, early morning, and I’d just unhitched a pallet of folding chairs from the hay hook to carry out for the Senator’s party. “Sir?” I said.

He tilted his head. “Out on the plain.”

He pointed. On the lawn beyond the house, the main pavilion tent was being raised, and the poles were pushing the canvas into a row of peaks that looked like a village of tepees against the sun. Smoke from the roasters hung over the horizon, too, and in the long shadow of one of the oaks, where the pigs were turning on spits, spears of flame were jumping. It was an arresting sight.

“Come to take it back,” he said.

“Eerie looking, Mr. Metarey. I see it.” I came up next to him at the door. “Good thing we’re living when we are.”

“I suppose you could say that.” He took a step into the barn but caught his foot and leaned heavily against the post. I moved past him to unhook the pallet of chairs from the gable wire.

“Still a few Indians here when my father had it, you know,” he went on. “A few dozen, anyway. In the hills to the east. Tonawanda Seneca, if I’m not wrong. From the old Iroquois Confederacy. Men the government didn’t know about. Living the old ways.”

“When was that, sir?”

“Eighteen ninety-six, I think. If you can believe that.” He looked down. “That’s how long we’ve held it between the two of us, Corey. Seventy-six years. My dad and I. I have to say, that’s not so bad. Great Law of the Iroquois said that in every—what was it?—every
deliberation
, you had to think of what it meant for the seventh generation.” He shook his head. “And so far, we’ve had three generations here on this piece. Four if you count my granddad.” He pointed behind him. “Lived in Gil’s shed for a couple of years till he died. That was before the house was built. Still, though—I think we’ve been pretty fair with it.”

“It’s beautiful land, sir. I imagine there’s nowhere like it.”

“Thank you, Corey. You know, when my father came over from Fife he was six years old and his own father was something like twenty-three. You know what my granddad did for a living?”

“No, sir.”

“Back in Tayport he was a blacksmith, but here he was a bonded servant. You know what that is, don’t you?”

“Not exactly.”

“Not teaching that kind of thing at Dunleavy, are they? A good thing to learn on May Day, I guess. It meant he was in debt to the man who paid their passage. Seven years, just working off the trip. But evidently Granddad used to say it was the best deal of his life.”

I could see that he was watching the driveway now, where the first cars had begun to arrive. At this hour, they still carried only the day’s workers, the drivers heading down the two-track and parking a few hundred yards behind the garage so that there would be room for the invited guests closer to the house. Mr. Metarey was quiet, but I was rooted there by the hope that he was going to say more. He’d never spoken to me about his family.

He turned from the driveway. “And my own dad was part of the deal,” he said finally. “On top of it. We’re talking about 1881. Worked full-time starting at the age of six. For their benefactor. Besides all he did at home because my grandmother was still back in the old country. Did he get an education? Not a dime’s worth. He was a son of a bitch, all right—but I remember him reading Greek when I was a boy and practicing English elocution. Kept an English teacher around with him when he was older, too, just for his speech. Never quite could banish the brogue, though.” He shook his head again. “That’s what those men were like, you know. The best of them, at least. Hell bent on self-improvement.”