Going to Meet the Man (7 page)

“It’s not my fault,” said Eric’s father, “if you’re getting old—and haven’t got anybody to bring you your slippers when night comes—and no pitter-patter of little feet—”

“Oh, leave Jamie alone,” said Eric’s mother, “he’s
not
old, leave him alone.”

Jamie laughed a peculiar, high, clicking laugh which Eric had never heard before, which he did not like, which made him want to look away and, at the same time, want to stare. “Hell, no,” said Jamie, “I’m not old. I can still do all the things we used to do.” He put his elbows on the table, grinning. “I haven’t ever told you, have I, about the things we used to do?”

“No, you haven’t,” said Eric’s mother, “and I certainly don’t want to hear about them now.”

“He wouldn’t tell you anyway,” said Eric’s father, “he knows what I’d do to him if he did.”

“Oh, sure, sure,” said Jamie, and laughed again. He picked
up a bone from his plate. “Here,” he said to Eric, “why don’t you feed my poor mistreated dog?”

Eric took the bone and stood up, whistling for the dog; who moved away from his master and took the bone between his teeth. Jamie watched with a smile and opened the bottle of whiskey and poured himself a drink. Eric sat on the ground beside the dog, beginning to be sleepy in the bright, bright sun.

“Little Eric’s getting big,” he heard his father say.

“Yes,” said Jamie, “they grow fast. It won’t be long now.”

“Won’t be long
what?
” he heard his father ask.

“Why, before he starts skirt-chasing like his Daddy used to do,” said Jamie. There was mild laughter at the table in which his mother did not join; he heard instead, or thought he heard, the familiar, slight, exasperated intake of her breath. No one seemed to care whether he came back to the table or not. He lay on his back, staring up at the sky, wondering—wondering what he would feel like when he was old—and fell asleep.

When he awoke his head was in his mother’s lap, for she was sitting on the ground. Jamie and his father were still sitting at the table; he knew this from their voices, for he did not open his eyes. He did not want to move or speak. He wanted to remain where he was, protected by his mother, while the bright day rolled on. Then he wondered about the uncut birthday cake. But he was sure, from the sound of Jamie’s voice, which was thicker now, that they had not cut it yet; or if they had, they had certainly saved a piece for him.

“—ate himself just as full as he could and then fell asleep in the sun like a little animal,” Jamie was saying, and the two men laughed. His father—though he scarcely ever got as drunk as Jamie did, and had often carried Jamie home from The Rafters—was a little drunk, too.

Eric felt his mother’s hand on his hair. By opening his eyes very slightly he would see, over the curve of his mother’s thigh,
as through a veil, a green slope far away and beyond it the everlasting, motionless sky.

“—she was a no-good
bitch
,” said Jamie.

“She was beautiful,” said his mother, just above him.

Again, they were talking about Jamie’s wife.

“Beauty!” said Jamie, furious. “Beauty doesn’t keep a house clean. Beauty doesn’t keep a bed warm, neither.”

Eric’s father laughed. “You were so—poetical—in those days, Jamie,” he said. “Nobody thought you cared much about things like that. I guess she thought you didn’t care, neither.”

“I cared,” said Jamie, briefly.

“In fact,” Eric’s father continued, “I
know
she thought you didn’t care.”

“
How
do you know?” asked Jamie.

“She told me,” Eric’s father said.

“What do you mean,” asked Jamie, “what do you mean, she told you?”

“I mean just that. She told me.”

Jamie was silent.

“In those days” Eric’s father continued after a moment, “all you did was walk around the woods by yourself in the daytime and sit around The Rafters in the evenings with me.”

“You two were always together then,” said Eric’s mother.

“Well,” said Jamie, harshly, “at least that hasn’t changed.”

“Now, you know,” said Eric’s father, gently, “it’s not the same. Now I got a wife and kid—and another one coming—”

Eric’s mother stroked his hair more gently, yet with something in her touch more urgent, too, and he knew that she was thinking of the child who lay in the churchyard, who would have been his sister.

“Yes,” said Jamie, “you really got it all fixed up, you did. You got it all—the wife, the kid, the house, and all the land.”

“I didn’t steal your farm from you. It wasn’t my fault you
lost it. I gave you a better price for it than anybody else would have done.”

“I’m not blaming you. I know all the things I have to thank you for.”

There was a short pause, broken, hesitantly, by Eric’s mother. “What I don’t understand,” she said, “is why, when you went away to the city, you didn’t
stay
away. You didn’t really have anything to keep you here.”

There was the sound of a drink being poured. Then, “No. I didn’t have nothing—
really
—to keep me here. Just all the things I ever knew—all the things—
all
the things—I ever cared about.”

“A man’s not supposed to sit around and mope,” said Eric’s father, wrathfully, “for things that are over and dead and finished, things that can’t
ever
begin again, that can’t ever be the same again. That’s what I mean when I say you’re a dreamer—and if you hadn’t kept on dreaming so long, you might not be alone now.”

“Ah, well,” said Jamie, mildly, and with a curious rush of affection in his voice, ‘I know you’re the giant-killer, the hunter, the lover—the real old Adam, that’s you. I know you’re going to cover the earth. I know the world depends on men like you.”

“And you’re damn right,” said Eric’s father, after an uneasy moment.

Around Eric’s head there was a buzzing, a bee, perhaps, a blue-fly, or a wasp. He hoped that his mother would see it and brush it away, but she did not move her hand. And he looked out again, through the veil of his eyelashes, at the slope and the sky, and then saw that the sun had moved and that it would not be long now before she would be going.

“—just like you already,” Jamie said.

“You think my little one’s like me?” Eric knew that his father was smiling—he could almost feel his father’s hands.

“Looks like you, walks like you, talks like you,” said Jamie.

“
And
stubborn like you,” said Eric’s mother.

“Ah, yes,” said Jamie, and sighed. “You married the stub-bornest, most determined—most selfish—man I know.”

“I didn’t know you felt that way,” said Eric’s father. He was still smiling.

“I’d have warned you about him,” Jamie added, laughing, “if there’d been time.”

“Everyone who knows you feels that way,” said Eric’s mother, and Eric felt a sudden brief tightening of the muscle in her thigh.

“Oh,
you
,” said Eric’s father, “I know
you
feel that way, women like to feel that way, it makes them feel important. But,” and he changed to the teasing tone he took so persistently with Jamie today, “I didn’t know my fine friend, Jamie, here—”

It was odd how unwilling he was to open his eyes. Yet, he felt the sun on him and knew that he wanted to rise from where he was before the sun went down. He did not understand what they were talking about this afternoon, these grown-ups he had known all his life; by keeping his eyes closed he kept their conversation far from him. And his mother’s hand lay on his head like a blessing, like protection. And the buzzing had ceased, the bee, the blue-fly, or the wasp seemed to have flown away.

“—if it’s a boy this time,” his father said, “we’ll name it after you.”

“That’s touching,” said Jamie, “but that really won’t do me—or the kid—a hell of a lot of good.”

“Jamie can get married and have kids of his own any time he decides to,” said Eric’s mother.

“No,” said his father, after a long pause, “Jamie’s thought about it too long.”

And, suddenly, he laughed and Eric sat up as his father slapped Jamie on the knee. At the touch, Jamie leaped up,
shouting, spilling his drink and overturning his chair, and the dog beside Eric awoke and began to bark. For a moment, before Eric’s unbelieving eyes, there was nothing in the yard but noise and flame.

His father rose slowly and stared at Jamie. “What’s the matter with you?”

“What’s the matter with me!” mimicked Jamie, “what’s the matter with me? what the hell do you care what’s the matter with me! What the hell have you been riding me for all day like this? What do you want? what do you
want?
”

“I want you to learn to hold your liquor for one thing,” said his father, coldly. The two men stared at each other. Jamie’s face was red and ugly and tears stood in his eyes. The dog, at his legs, kept up a furious prancing and barking. Jamie bent down and, with one hand, with all his might, slapped his dog, which rolled over, howling, and ran away to hide itself under the shadows of the far grey wall.

Then Jamie stared again at Eric’s father, trembling, and pushed his hair back from his eyes.

“You better pull yourself together,” Eric’s father said. And, to Eric’s mother. “Get him some coffee. He’ll be all right.”

Jamie set his glass on the table and picked up the overturned chair. Eric’s mother rose and went into the kitchen. Eric remained sitting on the ground, staring at the two men, his father and his father’s best friend, who had become so unfamiliar. His father, with something in his face which Eric had never before seen there, a tenderness, a sorrow—or perhaps it was, after all, the look he sometimes wore when approaching a calf he was about to slaughter—looked down at Jamie where he sat, head bent, at the table. “You take things too hard,” he said. “You always have. I was only teasing you for your own good.”

Jamie did not answer. His father looked over to Eric, and smiled.

“Come on,” he said. “You and me are going for a walk.”

Eric, passing on the side of the table farthest from Jamie, went to his father and took his hand.

“Pull yourself together,” his father said to Jamie. “We’re going to cut your birthday cake as soon as me and the little one come back.”

Eric and his father passed beyond the grey wall where the dog still whimpered, out into the fields. Eric’s father was walking too fast and Eric stumbled on the uneven ground. When they had gone a little distance his father abruptly checked his pace and looked down at Eric, grinning.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I guess I said we were going for a walk, not running to put out a fire.”

“What’s the matter with Jamie?” Eric asked.

“Oh,” said his father, looking westward where the sun was moving, pale orange now, making the sky ring with brass and copper and gold—which, like a magician, she was presenting only to demonstrate how variously they could be transformed—“Oh,” he repeated, “there’s nothing wrong with Jamie. He’s been drinking a lot,” and he grinned down at Eric, “and he’s been sitting in the sun—you know, his hair’s not as thick as yours,” and he ruffled Eric’s hair, “and I guess birthdays make him nervous. Hell,” he said, “they make me nervous, too.”

“Jamie’s
very
old,” said Eric, “isn’t he?”

His father laughed. “Well, butch, he’s not exactly ready to fall into the grave yet—he’s going to be around awhile, is Jamie. Hey,” he said, and looked down at Eric again, “you must think I’m an old man, too.”

“Oh,” said Eric, quickly, “I know you’re not as old as Jamie.”

His father laughed again. “Well, thank you, son. That shows real confidence. I’ll try to live up to it.”

They walked in silence for awhile and then his father said, not looking at Eric, speaking to himself, it seemed, or to the
air: “No, Jamie’s not so old. He’s not as old as he should be.”

“How old
should
he be?” asked Eric.

“Why,” said his father, “he ought to be his age,” and, looking down at Eric’s face, he burst into laughter again.

“Ah,” he said, finally, and put his hand on Eric’s head again, very gently, very sadly, “don’t you worry now about what you don’t understand. The time is coming when you’ll have to worry—but that time hasn’t come yet.”

Then they walked till they came to the steep slope which led to the railroad tracks, down, down, far below them, where a small train seemed to be passing forever through the countryside, smoke, like the very definition of idleness, blowing out of the chimney stack of the toy locomotive. Eric thought, resentfully, that he scarcely ever saw a train pass when he came here alone. Beyond the railroad tracks was the river where they sometimes went swimming in the summer. The river was hidden from them now by the high bank where there were houses and where tall trees grew.

“And this,” said his father, “is where your land ends.”

“What?” said Eric.

His father squatted on the ground and put one hand on Eric’s shoulder. “You know all the way we walked, from the house?” Eric nodded. “Well,” said his father, “that’s your land.”

Eric looked back at the long way they had come, feeling his father watching him.

His father, with a pressure on his shoulder made him turn; he pointed: “And over there. It belongs to you.” He turned him again. “And that,” he said, “that’s yours, too.”

Eric stared at his father. “Where does it end?” he asked.

His father rose. “I’ll show you that another day,” he said. “But it’s further than you can walk.”

They started walking slowly, in the direction of the sun.

“When did it get to be mine?” asked Eric.

“The day you were born,” his father said, and looked down at him and smiled.

“My father,” he said, after a moment, “had some of this land—and when he died, it was mine. He held on to it for me. And I did my best with the land I had, and I got some more. I’m holding on to it for you.”

He looked down to see if Eric was listening. Eric was listening, staring at his father and looking around him at the great countryside.

“When I get to be a real old man,” said his father, “even older than old Jamie there—you’re going to have to take care of all this. When I die it’s going to be yours.” He paused and stopped; Eric looked up at him. “When you get to be a big man, like your Papa, you’re going to get married and have children. And all this is going to be theirs.”