completely as his uncle has then perhaps the land will replace his own unwanted shadows, the old man, his mother, his brothers and sisters and especially the boy who walks around in his name just as he walks around in Kenny Flack’s boots. But it is hard to run away from something when all you know is that it has the same name as you.
Once he leaves 38 behind, the landscape darkens. To his left there is an old hemlock forest, to his right a younger stand of white pine. The hemlocks are grizzly but still shapely trees, the pines neater but more variegated in appearance, their soft wood easily molded by wind and weather. The splinter road has no ditches and the two forests crowd its track, dusting its northern edge with feathery hemlock needles and its southern with longer pine pins, and the peaty brown soil stretching out from both sides of the road is nearly devoid of undergrowth, just a little horsetail and gorse and here and there the occasional laurel still in bloom. He doesn’t know who owns the hemlock forest but the pines are part of his Great-Uncle Felter’s land. He planted themhimself, by hand, more than a quarter century ago. Great-Uncle Felter is the old man’s mother’s brother, and though Mary Felter Peck is long dead Great-Uncle Felter lives on in a white house on Route 32 on the southern side of town. He splits his own firewood with a sledgehammer and iron wedge and sows the seed corn in his garden with a soup of chicken guts, and he considers everyone from the boy’s uncle’s generation hopelessly lazy and everyone from the boy’s generation enslaved to machines, if not simply robots clothed in human flesh. The boy has only met Great-Uncle Felter twice, and on neither of those occasions did he see the man sit or stand still, even to eat, and he imagines that he sleeps on the run, mowing his lawn or reshingling his house or vetting a hog for the next morning’s bacon. His uncle only took the boy to see him once, out of duty. The second time they ran into him at the feed store, and they spoke fewer words to each other than they did to the man behind the counter.
His uncle has never volunteered an explanation for his distance from Great-Uncle Felter and the boy hasn’t asked, but snippets have come out in the same way that the story of the old man’s first wife and son came out. Apparently Mary Felter Peck had continued to live with Lloyd and Nancy and the first Dale Peck after they took over the farm in Cobleskill, and when Lloyd lost it, lost farm and wife and child, she had moved into Great-Uncle Felter’s house because the boy’s uncle wouldn’t take her in. This had something to do with the fact that his uncle’s first wife, Ella Mae, was dying of cancer at the time—died right there on that couch, his uncle told him one evening after supper, giving the boy a queasy feeling because he happened to be sitting on the couch—and Mary Felter Peck, who suffered from herown host of ailments, was a burden he wasn’t prepared to accept. But still, it seems like ancient history to the boy, and he can’t understand why they don’t bury the hatchet while there’s still time.
Actually Ella Mae wasn’t his uncle’s first wife: she was his only wife. Aunt Bessie is not actually married to his uncle, which is why she keeps her own house in town and returns to it every morning to feed the two cats that still live there, and tend to the small garden from which she is always bringing radishes and carrots and tomatoes and cucumbers. Aunt Bessie also has a dead spouse, a man named Irving van Clouton, and she has two sons, Joel, who lives out in Rochester, and William, who grows organic vegetables in greenhouse pontoons on a farm in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. On this list of never-seen relatives there is also his uncle’s child Edith. In six months all he has learned is that she was widowed at the age of twenty-seven by the Korean War and is now raising a son whose name his uncle has yet to mention. It was
Once he leaves 38 behind, the landscape darkens. To his left there is an old hemlock forest, to his right a younger stand of white pine. The hemlocks are grizzly but still shapely trees, the pines neater but more variegated in appearance, their soft wood easily molded by wind and weather. The splinter road has no ditches and the two forests crowd its track, dusting its northern edge with feathery hemlock needles and its southern with longer pine pins, and the peaty brown soil stretching out from both sides of the road is nearly devoid of undergrowth, just a little horsetail and gorse and here and there the occasional laurel still in bloom. He doesn’t know who owns the hemlock forest but the pines are part of his Great-Uncle Felter’s land. He planted themhimself, by hand, more than a quarter century ago. Great-Uncle Felter is the old man’s mother’s brother, and though Mary Felter Peck is long dead Great-Uncle Felter lives on in a white house on Route 32 on the southern side of town. He splits his own firewood with a sledgehammer and iron wedge and sows the seed corn in his garden with a soup of chicken guts, and he considers everyone from the boy’s uncle’s generation hopelessly lazy and everyone from the boy’s generation enslaved to machines, if not simply robots clothed in human flesh. The boy has only met Great-Uncle Felter twice, and on neither of those occasions did he see the man sit or stand still, even to eat, and he imagines that he sleeps on the run, mowing his lawn or reshingling his house or vetting a hog for the next morning’s bacon. His uncle only took the boy to see him once, out of duty. The second time they ran into him at the feed store, and they spoke fewer words to each other than they did to the man behind the counter.
His uncle has never volunteered an explanation for his distance from Great-Uncle Felter and the boy hasn’t asked, but snippets have come out in the same way that the story of the old man’s first wife and son came out. Apparently Mary Felter Peck had continued to live with Lloyd and Nancy and the first Dale Peck after they took over the farm in Cobleskill, and when Lloyd lost it, lost farm and wife and child, she had moved into Great-Uncle Felter’s house because the boy’s uncle wouldn’t take her in. This had something to do with the fact that his uncle’s first wife, Ella Mae, was dying of cancer at the time—died right there on that couch, his uncle told him one evening after supper, giving the boy a queasy feeling because he happened to be sitting on the couch—and Mary Felter Peck, who suffered from herown host of ailments, was a burden he wasn’t prepared to accept. But still, it seems like ancient history to the boy, and he can’t understand why they don’t bury the hatchet while there’s still time.
Actually Ella Mae wasn’t his uncle’s first wife: she was his only wife. Aunt Bessie is not actually married to his uncle, which is why she keeps her own house in town and returns to it every morning to feed the two cats that still live there, and tend to the small garden from which she is always bringing radishes and carrots and tomatoes and cucumbers. Aunt Bessie also has a dead spouse, a man named Irving van Clouton, and she has two sons, Joel, who lives out in Rochester, and William, who grows organic vegetables in greenhouse pontoons on a farm in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. On this list of never-seen relatives there is also his uncle’s child Edith. In six months all he has learned is that she was widowed at the age of twenty-seven by the Korean War and is now raising a son whose name his uncle has yet to mention. It was
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