swam fat and single-minded while Patrick’s coffee can sliced around them to fill the black rubber buckets. The young horses turned at the pitch of tin against oats and moved to the feed bunk, first in disarray and then in single file; and then snaking out at each other, rearranging the lineup as the yellow granules poured from the bucket.
The laminations of heat-and-serve yielded to the hot suds rising about Patrick’s reddening forearms. He looked at the pleasant inflammation and thought: It proves I’m Irish. Then, with the bucket and brush, he could better see the undersides of the table as well as scrub the floor.
Here’s something new: He’s wetting the bed. And where does that lead? Is it a little thing, as incontinence? Or is it a nightmare with the impact of a cannon, rending and overwhelming, that would soak the tunic of the bravest grenadier? We will not soon have the answer to this. As of the here and now, we have a bed that needs changing.
At the very moment the Whirlpool goes from rinse to spin, it bucks like a Red Desert Mustang and would continue to do so if Patrick didn’t heave a great rock on top of its lid, a rock that, as an interjection to its cycling chaos, restores order to as well as performs the last cleansing extraction of Grandpa’s socks, underdrawers, shirts and jeans. This recalcitrant jiggling is, Patrick’s old enough now to know, the deterioration of bearings and the prelude to a complete collapse—not necessarily an explosion of Grandpa’s soiled linens around the laundry room, but certainly, in a year of poor cattle prices, a duskier and less fragrant general patina to this two-man operation. So Patrick views the rock as a good rock, keen stripes of marble and gneiss, a rock for all seasons.
“I have no idea what he saw. But it’s sure enough undignified.”
“Let me put it another way: Why did he go to Tulsa?”
“What he said was, his quail lease had come up for renewal and his father is sick, which I know is true.”
“Your note said to stop by for the details.”
“I guess I just wanted you to stop by!”
“Of course I
would.
And I owe you for bail.”
“Anyway, what is this?”
“Damned if I know.”
“It’s sort of got this painful side to it.”
“I know.”
“Maybe nothin but ole remorse.”
“Yeah, ole
re
morse.”
“At least you’re—whatchasay?—‘unencumbered.’ ”
“I decided to marry my grandfather yesterday morning. As I am doing all that a wife could do for him, there’s but little sense in our not making it legal. So don’t go calling me unencumbered.”
All of this was said, and nothing more, through the screen door of a porch, silhouettes freckled by afternoon light; they barely moved.
20
HEADING HOME , PATRICK NEARLY HAD TO GO THROUGH DEADROCK or around it; and despite that he wanted to avoid stopping in a place renowned for its money-grubbing, bad-tempered inhabitants, a place whose principal virtue was its declining population, he needed an economy-size box of soap powder for the floors. So he went through Deadrock. He pulled off into a grocery store where he and its only other customer, Deke Patwell, ran into each other in aisle three.
“I see I’m in the papers.”
“Yup. Real nice type of fellow heading for Yellowstone. Little Kodak is all it took.”
“You write the caption?”
“Sure did.”
“Very imaginative.”
“Thank you. How’s the head?”
“Not at all good, Deke. You know those pool cues.”
“Only by reputation. They say one end is much worse than the other.”
“Thicker.”
“That’s it, thicker.”
Patrick pulled down a large box of soap.
“Floors?” asked Patwell. Patrick studied the contents.
“Exactly.”
“Comet’s a mile better.”
Patrick got a can of Comet.
“And you’ll want a little protection for the knees,” Patwell said, and went to the cash register with his impregnated dish pads.
Patrick followed him. “I’d use rubber gloves with those hands
The laminations of heat-and-serve yielded to the hot suds rising about Patrick’s reddening forearms. He looked at the pleasant inflammation and thought: It proves I’m Irish. Then, with the bucket and brush, he could better see the undersides of the table as well as scrub the floor.
Here’s something new: He’s wetting the bed. And where does that lead? Is it a little thing, as incontinence? Or is it a nightmare with the impact of a cannon, rending and overwhelming, that would soak the tunic of the bravest grenadier? We will not soon have the answer to this. As of the here and now, we have a bed that needs changing.
At the very moment the Whirlpool goes from rinse to spin, it bucks like a Red Desert Mustang and would continue to do so if Patrick didn’t heave a great rock on top of its lid, a rock that, as an interjection to its cycling chaos, restores order to as well as performs the last cleansing extraction of Grandpa’s socks, underdrawers, shirts and jeans. This recalcitrant jiggling is, Patrick’s old enough now to know, the deterioration of bearings and the prelude to a complete collapse—not necessarily an explosion of Grandpa’s soiled linens around the laundry room, but certainly, in a year of poor cattle prices, a duskier and less fragrant general patina to this two-man operation. So Patrick views the rock as a good rock, keen stripes of marble and gneiss, a rock for all seasons.
“I have no idea what he saw. But it’s sure enough undignified.”
“Let me put it another way: Why did he go to Tulsa?”
“What he said was, his quail lease had come up for renewal and his father is sick, which I know is true.”
“Your note said to stop by for the details.”
“I guess I just wanted you to stop by!”
“Of course I
would.
And I owe you for bail.”
“Anyway, what is this?”
“Damned if I know.”
“It’s sort of got this painful side to it.”
“I know.”
“Maybe nothin but ole remorse.”
“Yeah, ole
re
morse.”
“At least you’re—whatchasay?—‘unencumbered.’ ”
“I decided to marry my grandfather yesterday morning. As I am doing all that a wife could do for him, there’s but little sense in our not making it legal. So don’t go calling me unencumbered.”
All of this was said, and nothing more, through the screen door of a porch, silhouettes freckled by afternoon light; they barely moved.
20
HEADING HOME , PATRICK NEARLY HAD TO GO THROUGH DEADROCK or around it; and despite that he wanted to avoid stopping in a place renowned for its money-grubbing, bad-tempered inhabitants, a place whose principal virtue was its declining population, he needed an economy-size box of soap powder for the floors. So he went through Deadrock. He pulled off into a grocery store where he and its only other customer, Deke Patwell, ran into each other in aisle three.
“I see I’m in the papers.”
“Yup. Real nice type of fellow heading for Yellowstone. Little Kodak is all it took.”
“You write the caption?”
“Sure did.”
“Very imaginative.”
“Thank you. How’s the head?”
“Not at all good, Deke. You know those pool cues.”
“Only by reputation. They say one end is much worse than the other.”
“Thicker.”
“That’s it, thicker.”
Patrick pulled down a large box of soap.
“Floors?” asked Patwell. Patrick studied the contents.
“Exactly.”
“Comet’s a mile better.”
Patrick got a can of Comet.
“And you’ll want a little protection for the knees,” Patwell said, and went to the cash register with his impregnated dish pads.
Patrick followed him. “I’d use rubber gloves with those hands
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