Hadn’t snowed since I made parole. Even in lockup, made me feel like a kid when it did, making snow angels with the wolves, gnashing teeth, crunching bone and ripping flesh so close I could smell them. On my back after dinner each night, snow falling put me in a trance. Never been that at peace.
Two months out, got to where I was watching the sky more than TV. Cottonwood’s branches bare down the drive, I sat staring out the window, waiting for Gunsmoke last week like always when my boy pulled up. Hadn't seen him in years, let alone since I been free.
“Johnny!” I greeted him through the screen. “I’ll be damned!”
“Hey Dad.” He was wearing one of my old shirts, standing on the same porch he played cars on as a kid. After half a hug at the door, he looked around. “Place feels strange without Mom.”
“Her choice.” I put my thumbs in my pockets. “What ya been up to?”
He sat in my chair at the hearth, told me how he’d been going to school in Wichita, where he lived. Graduated a couple months back with a degree in criminology.
“Good field,” I chuckled, sitting on the davenport. “Can I get ya anythin t’drink? Coffee? Tea?”
“No, thank you though.” Didn’t have long, he said, "Gotta pick up little Loran at daycare in about an hour.”
“‘Little Loran?’”
“Yep.” He opened his wallet for a picture. "He's got your eyes.”
And he did. Kid looked about four years old, tiny teeth grinning like he got away with murder.
“I’ve been trying to bring him by, but you know Rachel.”
“Little Loran…”
“I know.” He closed his wallet. “Thought it might teach him right from wrong.”
“I need a cup a’coffee.”
Instead of speaking up, John followed me to the kitchen and kept on about some job he got teaching at Texas Christian, where they were moving. “That’s where I was,” he said, “getting things in order, finding a place, that sorta thing.”
“Whatever happened with the church?” Lighting the stove, I put the kettle on. “Thought ya were studyin under Father Dale.”
“Father Dale died three years ago.”
“Tha’s right.” I counted scoops of coffee, “four, five. Guess I jus’ figured ya’d keep studyin. Church is important.”
“But you stopped going.”
“That don’t matter. I’m an old man.”
“No you're not. Hell, you’re not even sixty,” he patted me on the back and left his hand there. “That’s why I’m here. I have this idea for class – The Evolution of Hate Crimes in America – implements, methods, ideologies… and I need your help.”
“Ah hell,” my knees cracked as I sat back on the sofa. “What for?”
“I was wondering if you could build what you used in ’86, full on, for the students.”
“C’mon John, ya know I ain’t got no use for that," I tried getting comfortable.
“I know, but it’ll be good for you. Remember how great you were? We used to have a blast blowing shit up out back. Think of it like that. We’re doing something together again, for a good cause. Changing lives.” He knelt and looked me in the eyes. “You’d be helping me a lot, Dad.”
The kettle whistled on the stovetop.
“Been too damn long," I got up to pour the water. “Liable t'kill myself. That or get sent back.”
“Yeah, what if I built it?” He kept tailing.
I blew steam off my cup and eyed him. “When do I get t'see my grandson?”
“I’ll bring him by on our way through next week."
"We'll talk about it then." This time I sat in my chair.
"That's the thing. Semester starts right after we get back. I gotta have it by then."
Wind whipped the windows and the walls creaked.
“Soon as I'm done I want it outta here, ya hear me? I don’t want it ‘round no longer than need be.” I took a sip and rested the mug on my lap.
“It’s a deal. Need me to get you anything?”
I told him to see about Rachel and get my grandson ready to visit.
He agreed, “Yeah, it’s getting dark. Best be on my way,” and never sat back down. Opening the screen, he turned around. “Oh yeah, almost forgot. That bitch of yours had a litter of pups 'bout a year after you got locked up. Last one left’s named Ol’ Bill. He’s out in the truck – thought maybe you could use some company.”
“Suppose I could.” I took another sip and stood to look past him. Sure enough, an old black dog barked in the bed of his Dodge. I liked him already.
“He’s an old man now," he told me as he opened the taligate, "so you gotta cut his food up small or feed him from a can. That and his hips are damn near shot.”
“We’ll make a good pair.” I looked the dog in the eyes and scratched his head. “Thick as thieves… Well, drive safe. We’ll see ya next week.”
“Sounds good.” He slammed the tailgate, “Give a call if you need anything,” and handed me a business card. “Just call my cell. You know Rachel.”
Ol’ Bill and I watched as John drove off. I patted his ribs. “Time for supper, old man,” and he hobbled up the porch behind me.
Next afternoon during Gunsmoke, I couldn’t shake it.
The shed attached to what’s now the garage was Dad’s workshop before mine. So were most the tools. I got his crowbar and a mallet from beneath the fluorescents – smoked some pipe with Ol’ Bill and thought about a doghouse – then got to it.
Back inside, I moved Gramma’s nightstand away from the bedroom closet wall, put the crowbar between two cedar panels, and swung the mallet.
Smell made me sneeze.
Once the bar caught, I started prying. Damn panel broke to pieces, so I tore it off by hand and saw the cut-out, nailed back piece of drywall behind it. The second piece of paneling come up easy.
“Never at home” was Anne’s only rule. Twenty years ago I broke it to hide my gear, and it was just like I left it. Behind cedar, drywall and fiberglass, in a nook between two studs, sat my eight-quart stockpot with her picture on top. The one when John was born.
I sat on the floor and stared. Ol’ Bill set his chin on my lap and closed his eyes. With the wall busted out beside Gramma’s bedstand, I couldn’t touch it. Instead, I poured my first whiskey since ’86 from a flask stashed in the garage, pulled a book from the shelf, called off work, and fell asleep in my chair.
Come morning, I couldn’t find the dog. I was starving and knew eggs on grease would stir him, so I fried three on a skillet with some bacon and called again. Still didn’t come. Then I heard barking from the back of the house.
Ol’ Bill was on his haunches growling at Gramma’s nightstand. A mouse scurried beneath, and he went crazy.
I reached past him for my kit in the wall.
Some of it used to be Dad’s. We used to blow up all kinds of stuff until he died in the collapse of ’63. Eight years after, I was baking and blasting for the mine myself. This shit come when the coal run out, Dale rose, and I went into radio. Chose plastique so they couldn’t trace it back. Didn’t work out like I hoped. None of it did.
Built two triggers for two clinics. First one got me caught, while the second sat in the stockpot with the rest of my tools, twenty years covered in dust.
“Prob'ly jus’ needs batteries,” I thought, turning the parts in my hands. “Maybe some new wires.”
I drove to Pittsburg for everything else. Kansas, not Pennsylvania.
Seeing the health kick these days, NoSalt was easy to find, just acted like an old fart with a bad heart and the kid at Mitchell’s found it for me. Then I went to a sportstore for the gas and rucksack. Started sweating bad enough I had to wipe my hands on my trousers to shake the cashier’s on my way out.
“Tha’s enough,” I thought, laying it all on the counter in the kitchen. But I still couldn’t shake it. All dinner I stared at the trigger. So instead of my pipe and The Waltons, I took the damn thing to my chair and put on my reading glasses.
Like I say, after the mine closed I went into radio, broadcasting Father Dale across southeast Kansas on AM 760. We were on the air until they caught me. Like most my talents, it served its purpose.
After several trips to the garage, I changed all the wires, hit the solder points, and put in fresh batteries.
Next morning I woke to Ol’ Bill licking my hand, transmitter on my lap, circuit taped to the receiver at my feet. It was almost 9:30. Last thing I remembered was looking at the clock at three and testing the connection. That’s when I left a message at the store saying I wasn’t coming in again.
Couldn’t even make breakfast, just swallowed two hard-boiled and cut a couple up for Ol’ Bill. He gummed them down grinning.
I patted him on the head and got started.
Everything layed out, I opened every window and door in the house. The bleach, the vaseline, the gasoline, the whole process – I fell into a trance. Cook for chlorate. Cool. Filter. Repeat. Powder. Blend. Cool again. The smells, the mixing, molding, waxing – in method, I reconnected.
Before I knew it I was done, sunset burning everything in the house with colors I ain’t ever seen. Ol’ Bill lay at the screen door, snout pointing out on account of the stench.
I cut and sealed the cubes, taped them together and put them in the brokedown icebox out back with Anne’s dehumidifier to keep them dry.
Then I realized I hadn’t called for the caps.
“Hey Earl, it’s Loran. Yeah, I know. I was thinkin ya could stop by tomorra. How ‘bout nine? Ahright. Hey, I gotta favor t’ask. Could ya bring a few caps with ya? I know, I’ll explain tomorra. No trouble. Yeah. 3’s. Thanks again.”
In bed after cleaning up it occurred to me I hadn’t slept there in weeks, and I was out like a light.
I dreamt I was driving, snow falling so hard I couldn’t see. Anne was riding shotgun. We were kids. She was scared, I was driving so fast, and I kept calling her Annie. Then there he was. Standing up from a snow angel, little Loran stared back in his pajamas in the middle of the road with the face of a monster, twisting as I hit him. His teeth were long, sharp and bloodied. The sound of his body on the hood, the force, his small bones breaking and rolling across the windshield – the black in his eyes – was so real it shook me awake.
I got up and boiled water. It was quarter to eight. Overslept again. Three rounds cracked out front and I knew it was Earl, firing a few off down the drive.
We shot most the day at the mound, 15 acres out. Earl brought a couple six-packs in a cooler and I took a thermos of Lipton. Talk was plain, about Midway, mining for the state, his wife running out, kind of shit we usually yap about when we’re shooting.
Back at the house, he come in for a drink. We sat in the living room finishing my flask in the last cuts of daylight bleeding through Anne’s old drapes.
“So what ya need ‘em caps fer, Loran?” Earl swigged the whiskey and chuckled, “Blowin up more nurses?”
“Fuck off, Earl.” I took a nip. “I gotta blast a bridge outside Topeka for a guard from El Dorado. Says if I do it clean, he’s got more work for me – get me the hell outta the grocer's.”
I don’t know why I lied.
“Shit, don’t tell me yer tired a’bein a bag boy!” Earl drained the flask, handed it back and popped a can from his Coleman. “Why don’t ya come ‘round Covenant no more? Lotta folks ain’t seen ya since ya got out. Now all a’sudden yer lookin fer caps.”
“I got my reasons for skippin church, Earl. Ya gonna help me out, or keep chappin my hide?”
“Ya usin sticks, er that plastique shit?”
“Sticks.” I lied again.
“Don’t matter,” he sat back in the sofa with his beer and kicked his feet up. “I’ll take care a’ya after Bonanza.”
When he left, I got back to it.
The cubes were perfect. Broke the wax with the caps and they set straight in, nice and tight. Packing tape bound the whole thing like a baby, wires spilling a snake’s nest across the counter, and I started shivering. Couldn't even connect the receiver, on account of my hands shaking so bad.
First snow since I been free come three nights later. Heard it falling on my front porch rooftop, like salt shaking on an empty plate. Seeing I could, I went out to enjoy it. Sky was violet, laced brown, with fat white flakes, bright as daylight. Darkness never sets in a storm like this.
Then it really started falling.
That’s when they come up the drive, after I'd been standing out there half an hour or so, breathing in the cold. Seen the lights before I heard them.
I stood up straight, put my hands in my pockets, took them out, looked off, looked back, adjusted my cap and walked toward them. My boots crunched, wind smacked my face, and I gasped against it.
Ol’ Bill come barking up behind me from around back. I pet him on the head and squinted as they parked at the end of the drive. A ’55 Chevy. Back door creaked and a small boy stepped out. Then he come running.
“Grampa!”
Ol’ Bill’s tail wagged and I hugged my grandson. Behind him the driver’s door swung open. It was John, talking to someone in the front seat, laughing.
Inside, the kid plopped down in front of the TV. I turned it on for him as his father opened the screen.
“I see you two have met,” John raised an arm for half a hug and patted me on the back. I did the same.
Beneath us, Ol’ Bill lay next to Loran on the floor.
“Who’s car?” I asked.
Said he bought it outside Denton from a buddy of his.
“Seems foolish, spendin money like that.” Pushing back the drapes, I looked out at the headlights through the snow.
“Naw, Dad, 'member the ’55 we were working on before you got locked up, the old thing on blocks out back?” He squeezed my shoulder.
“Why don’t ya invite yer friends in fer a cup a’coffee. I need time with little Loran here.” My knees popped as I sat beside him. The tyke was glued to the tube.
“I don’t know, it’s getting nasty out there.” He hovered over us. “You finish what we talked about?”
“It’s in the closet,” I pointed down the hall and turned to little Loran. “Ya like wolves?” They were hunting on TV.
“Yeah,” he moved his fingers while he talked, like his Grandma. “Daddy says all dogs are wolves. Even Ol’ Bill.”
John opened the closet and unzipped the rucksack. “You’re not done?” He handled the bomb by its satchel like a grocer with fruit, so as not to bruise it.
“If ya can tell, finish it.” I looked over my shoulder at him. “I’m through.”
Come the next commercial, the sky cracked, rattling the windows.
“Sounds like we best get going.” He slung the bag easy on his shoulder. “Storm’s getting worse.”
“Gonna be a rough one,” I gave him my hand to help me up. “I can feel it.”
“Yes it is. Well Pops, I’ll call if I need anything,” he raised his arm for another hug. “C’mon Loran, say goodbye to Grampa. Mommy’s waiting.”
The tyke shot up and hugged my legs. “G’bye Grampa.”
I tossled his hair, “See ya soon kiddo,” and winked at him.
He tried to do the same.
“Ahright,” I opened the screen, “drive safe John, an’ don’t be a stranger.”
He walked off with little Loran in front. “You bet, Dad. Thanks again.”
Snow started melting the next day and I fell back in my old routine, hoping John might come by with little Loran again. Back to waking up at five, bagging at Jan’s, getting home for Gunsmoke, news at six, dinner with Ol’ Bill, my pipe on the porch, then Animal Planet and The Waltons before falling asleep in my chair.
Met a clean-cut con from Jersey in lockup who was as big a fan of Gunsmoke as me. Said he liked it best when Chester was around because Festus was dirty and unkept. His favorite and mine, the one where Chester’s supposed to get married, come on about a week after John left, so I pulled the blinds tight and got comfortable. Ol’ Bill snoring under my footrest like usual, thing had me in stitches like the first time I seen it before the news broke in with TERROR IN THE HEARTLAND across the screen – fire trucks, smoke, and people bleeding in front of a burning mosque.
I turned off the TV and walked out on the porch. Stood there staring down the drive at the cottonwood’s branches bending, until Ol’ Bill come sat beside me. Scratching his head behind the ears, I pulled the frozen air in deep and watched the sky brew gun-metal grey, too cold to snow.
Two months out, got to where I was watching the sky more than TV. Cottonwood’s branches bare down the drive, I sat staring out the window, waiting for Gunsmoke last week like always when my boy pulled up. Hadn't seen him in years, let alone since I been free.
“Johnny!” I greeted him through the screen. “I’ll be damned!”
“Hey Dad.” He was wearing one of my old shirts, standing on the same porch he played cars on as a kid. After half a hug at the door, he looked around. “Place feels strange without Mom.”
“Her choice.” I put my thumbs in my pockets. “What ya been up to?”
He sat in my chair at the hearth, told me how he’d been going to school in Wichita, where he lived. Graduated a couple months back with a degree in criminology.
“Good field,” I chuckled, sitting on the davenport. “Can I get ya anythin t’drink? Coffee? Tea?”
“No, thank you though.” Didn’t have long, he said, "Gotta pick up little Loran at daycare in about an hour.”
“‘Little Loran?’”
“Yep.” He opened his wallet for a picture. "He's got your eyes.”
And he did. Kid looked about four years old, tiny teeth grinning like he got away with murder.
“I’ve been trying to bring him by, but you know Rachel.”
“Little Loran…”
“I know.” He closed his wallet. “Thought it might teach him right from wrong.”
“I need a cup a’coffee.”
Instead of speaking up, John followed me to the kitchen and kept on about some job he got teaching at Texas Christian, where they were moving. “That’s where I was,” he said, “getting things in order, finding a place, that sorta thing.”
“Whatever happened with the church?” Lighting the stove, I put the kettle on. “Thought ya were studyin under Father Dale.”
“Father Dale died three years ago.”
“Tha’s right.” I counted scoops of coffee, “four, five. Guess I jus’ figured ya’d keep studyin. Church is important.”
“But you stopped going.”
“That don’t matter. I’m an old man.”
“No you're not. Hell, you’re not even sixty,” he patted me on the back and left his hand there. “That’s why I’m here. I have this idea for class – The Evolution of Hate Crimes in America – implements, methods, ideologies… and I need your help.”
“Ah hell,” my knees cracked as I sat back on the sofa. “What for?”
“I was wondering if you could build what you used in ’86, full on, for the students.”
“C’mon John, ya know I ain’t got no use for that," I tried getting comfortable.
“I know, but it’ll be good for you. Remember how great you were? We used to have a blast blowing shit up out back. Think of it like that. We’re doing something together again, for a good cause. Changing lives.” He knelt and looked me in the eyes. “You’d be helping me a lot, Dad.”
The kettle whistled on the stovetop.
“Been too damn long," I got up to pour the water. “Liable t'kill myself. That or get sent back.”
“Yeah, what if I built it?” He kept tailing.
I blew steam off my cup and eyed him. “When do I get t'see my grandson?”
“I’ll bring him by on our way through next week."
"We'll talk about it then." This time I sat in my chair.
"That's the thing. Semester starts right after we get back. I gotta have it by then."
Wind whipped the windows and the walls creaked.
“Soon as I'm done I want it outta here, ya hear me? I don’t want it ‘round no longer than need be.” I took a sip and rested the mug on my lap.
“It’s a deal. Need me to get you anything?”
I told him to see about Rachel and get my grandson ready to visit.
He agreed, “Yeah, it’s getting dark. Best be on my way,” and never sat back down. Opening the screen, he turned around. “Oh yeah, almost forgot. That bitch of yours had a litter of pups 'bout a year after you got locked up. Last one left’s named Ol’ Bill. He’s out in the truck – thought maybe you could use some company.”
“Suppose I could.” I took another sip and stood to look past him. Sure enough, an old black dog barked in the bed of his Dodge. I liked him already.
“He’s an old man now," he told me as he opened the taligate, "so you gotta cut his food up small or feed him from a can. That and his hips are damn near shot.”
“We’ll make a good pair.” I looked the dog in the eyes and scratched his head. “Thick as thieves… Well, drive safe. We’ll see ya next week.”
“Sounds good.” He slammed the tailgate, “Give a call if you need anything,” and handed me a business card. “Just call my cell. You know Rachel.”
Ol’ Bill and I watched as John drove off. I patted his ribs. “Time for supper, old man,” and he hobbled up the porch behind me.
Next afternoon during Gunsmoke, I couldn’t shake it.
The shed attached to what’s now the garage was Dad’s workshop before mine. So were most the tools. I got his crowbar and a mallet from beneath the fluorescents – smoked some pipe with Ol’ Bill and thought about a doghouse – then got to it.
Back inside, I moved Gramma’s nightstand away from the bedroom closet wall, put the crowbar between two cedar panels, and swung the mallet.
Smell made me sneeze.
Once the bar caught, I started prying. Damn panel broke to pieces, so I tore it off by hand and saw the cut-out, nailed back piece of drywall behind it. The second piece of paneling come up easy.
“Never at home” was Anne’s only rule. Twenty years ago I broke it to hide my gear, and it was just like I left it. Behind cedar, drywall and fiberglass, in a nook between two studs, sat my eight-quart stockpot with her picture on top. The one when John was born.
I sat on the floor and stared. Ol’ Bill set his chin on my lap and closed his eyes. With the wall busted out beside Gramma’s bedstand, I couldn’t touch it. Instead, I poured my first whiskey since ’86 from a flask stashed in the garage, pulled a book from the shelf, called off work, and fell asleep in my chair.
Come morning, I couldn’t find the dog. I was starving and knew eggs on grease would stir him, so I fried three on a skillet with some bacon and called again. Still didn’t come. Then I heard barking from the back of the house.
Ol’ Bill was on his haunches growling at Gramma’s nightstand. A mouse scurried beneath, and he went crazy.
I reached past him for my kit in the wall.
Some of it used to be Dad’s. We used to blow up all kinds of stuff until he died in the collapse of ’63. Eight years after, I was baking and blasting for the mine myself. This shit come when the coal run out, Dale rose, and I went into radio. Chose plastique so they couldn’t trace it back. Didn’t work out like I hoped. None of it did.
Built two triggers for two clinics. First one got me caught, while the second sat in the stockpot with the rest of my tools, twenty years covered in dust.
“Prob'ly jus’ needs batteries,” I thought, turning the parts in my hands. “Maybe some new wires.”
I drove to Pittsburg for everything else. Kansas, not Pennsylvania.
Seeing the health kick these days, NoSalt was easy to find, just acted like an old fart with a bad heart and the kid at Mitchell’s found it for me. Then I went to a sportstore for the gas and rucksack. Started sweating bad enough I had to wipe my hands on my trousers to shake the cashier’s on my way out.
“Tha’s enough,” I thought, laying it all on the counter in the kitchen. But I still couldn’t shake it. All dinner I stared at the trigger. So instead of my pipe and The Waltons, I took the damn thing to my chair and put on my reading glasses.
Like I say, after the mine closed I went into radio, broadcasting Father Dale across southeast Kansas on AM 760. We were on the air until they caught me. Like most my talents, it served its purpose.
After several trips to the garage, I changed all the wires, hit the solder points, and put in fresh batteries.
Next morning I woke to Ol’ Bill licking my hand, transmitter on my lap, circuit taped to the receiver at my feet. It was almost 9:30. Last thing I remembered was looking at the clock at three and testing the connection. That’s when I left a message at the store saying I wasn’t coming in again.
Couldn’t even make breakfast, just swallowed two hard-boiled and cut a couple up for Ol’ Bill. He gummed them down grinning.
I patted him on the head and got started.
Everything layed out, I opened every window and door in the house. The bleach, the vaseline, the gasoline, the whole process – I fell into a trance. Cook for chlorate. Cool. Filter. Repeat. Powder. Blend. Cool again. The smells, the mixing, molding, waxing – in method, I reconnected.
Before I knew it I was done, sunset burning everything in the house with colors I ain’t ever seen. Ol’ Bill lay at the screen door, snout pointing out on account of the stench.
I cut and sealed the cubes, taped them together and put them in the brokedown icebox out back with Anne’s dehumidifier to keep them dry.
Then I realized I hadn’t called for the caps.
“Hey Earl, it’s Loran. Yeah, I know. I was thinkin ya could stop by tomorra. How ‘bout nine? Ahright. Hey, I gotta favor t’ask. Could ya bring a few caps with ya? I know, I’ll explain tomorra. No trouble. Yeah. 3’s. Thanks again.”
In bed after cleaning up it occurred to me I hadn’t slept there in weeks, and I was out like a light.
I dreamt I was driving, snow falling so hard I couldn’t see. Anne was riding shotgun. We were kids. She was scared, I was driving so fast, and I kept calling her Annie. Then there he was. Standing up from a snow angel, little Loran stared back in his pajamas in the middle of the road with the face of a monster, twisting as I hit him. His teeth were long, sharp and bloodied. The sound of his body on the hood, the force, his small bones breaking and rolling across the windshield – the black in his eyes – was so real it shook me awake.
I got up and boiled water. It was quarter to eight. Overslept again. Three rounds cracked out front and I knew it was Earl, firing a few off down the drive.
We shot most the day at the mound, 15 acres out. Earl brought a couple six-packs in a cooler and I took a thermos of Lipton. Talk was plain, about Midway, mining for the state, his wife running out, kind of shit we usually yap about when we’re shooting.
Back at the house, he come in for a drink. We sat in the living room finishing my flask in the last cuts of daylight bleeding through Anne’s old drapes.
“So what ya need ‘em caps fer, Loran?” Earl swigged the whiskey and chuckled, “Blowin up more nurses?”
“Fuck off, Earl.” I took a nip. “I gotta blast a bridge outside Topeka for a guard from El Dorado. Says if I do it clean, he’s got more work for me – get me the hell outta the grocer's.”
I don’t know why I lied.
“Shit, don’t tell me yer tired a’bein a bag boy!” Earl drained the flask, handed it back and popped a can from his Coleman. “Why don’t ya come ‘round Covenant no more? Lotta folks ain’t seen ya since ya got out. Now all a’sudden yer lookin fer caps.”
“I got my reasons for skippin church, Earl. Ya gonna help me out, or keep chappin my hide?”
“Ya usin sticks, er that plastique shit?”
“Sticks.” I lied again.
“Don’t matter,” he sat back in the sofa with his beer and kicked his feet up. “I’ll take care a’ya after Bonanza.”
When he left, I got back to it.
The cubes were perfect. Broke the wax with the caps and they set straight in, nice and tight. Packing tape bound the whole thing like a baby, wires spilling a snake’s nest across the counter, and I started shivering. Couldn't even connect the receiver, on account of my hands shaking so bad.
First snow since I been free come three nights later. Heard it falling on my front porch rooftop, like salt shaking on an empty plate. Seeing I could, I went out to enjoy it. Sky was violet, laced brown, with fat white flakes, bright as daylight. Darkness never sets in a storm like this.
Then it really started falling.
That’s when they come up the drive, after I'd been standing out there half an hour or so, breathing in the cold. Seen the lights before I heard them.
I stood up straight, put my hands in my pockets, took them out, looked off, looked back, adjusted my cap and walked toward them. My boots crunched, wind smacked my face, and I gasped against it.
Ol’ Bill come barking up behind me from around back. I pet him on the head and squinted as they parked at the end of the drive. A ’55 Chevy. Back door creaked and a small boy stepped out. Then he come running.
“Grampa!”
Ol’ Bill’s tail wagged and I hugged my grandson. Behind him the driver’s door swung open. It was John, talking to someone in the front seat, laughing.
Inside, the kid plopped down in front of the TV. I turned it on for him as his father opened the screen.
“I see you two have met,” John raised an arm for half a hug and patted me on the back. I did the same.
Beneath us, Ol’ Bill lay next to Loran on the floor.
“Who’s car?” I asked.
Said he bought it outside Denton from a buddy of his.
“Seems foolish, spendin money like that.” Pushing back the drapes, I looked out at the headlights through the snow.
“Naw, Dad, 'member the ’55 we were working on before you got locked up, the old thing on blocks out back?” He squeezed my shoulder.
“Why don’t ya invite yer friends in fer a cup a’coffee. I need time with little Loran here.” My knees popped as I sat beside him. The tyke was glued to the tube.
“I don’t know, it’s getting nasty out there.” He hovered over us. “You finish what we talked about?”
“It’s in the closet,” I pointed down the hall and turned to little Loran. “Ya like wolves?” They were hunting on TV.
“Yeah,” he moved his fingers while he talked, like his Grandma. “Daddy says all dogs are wolves. Even Ol’ Bill.”
John opened the closet and unzipped the rucksack. “You’re not done?” He handled the bomb by its satchel like a grocer with fruit, so as not to bruise it.
“If ya can tell, finish it.” I looked over my shoulder at him. “I’m through.”
Come the next commercial, the sky cracked, rattling the windows.
“Sounds like we best get going.” He slung the bag easy on his shoulder. “Storm’s getting worse.”
“Gonna be a rough one,” I gave him my hand to help me up. “I can feel it.”
“Yes it is. Well Pops, I’ll call if I need anything,” he raised his arm for another hug. “C’mon Loran, say goodbye to Grampa. Mommy’s waiting.”
The tyke shot up and hugged my legs. “G’bye Grampa.”
I tossled his hair, “See ya soon kiddo,” and winked at him.
He tried to do the same.
“Ahright,” I opened the screen, “drive safe John, an’ don’t be a stranger.”
He walked off with little Loran in front. “You bet, Dad. Thanks again.”
Snow started melting the next day and I fell back in my old routine, hoping John might come by with little Loran again. Back to waking up at five, bagging at Jan’s, getting home for Gunsmoke, news at six, dinner with Ol’ Bill, my pipe on the porch, then Animal Planet and The Waltons before falling asleep in my chair.
Met a clean-cut con from Jersey in lockup who was as big a fan of Gunsmoke as me. Said he liked it best when Chester was around because Festus was dirty and unkept. His favorite and mine, the one where Chester’s supposed to get married, come on about a week after John left, so I pulled the blinds tight and got comfortable. Ol’ Bill snoring under my footrest like usual, thing had me in stitches like the first time I seen it before the news broke in with TERROR IN THE HEARTLAND across the screen – fire trucks, smoke, and people bleeding in front of a burning mosque.
I turned off the TV and walked out on the porch. Stood there staring down the drive at the cottonwood’s branches bending, until Ol’ Bill come sat beside me. Scratching his head behind the ears, I pulled the frozen air in deep and watched the sky brew gun-metal grey, too cold to snow.
Photo by Dave Hitchborne
