Returning to Earth by Jim Harrison

to Cynthia’s family home as the “haunted house” and I can’t shake this early perception. When I arrive Clare has picked up her uncle David from the early plane from Chicago. David and I eat breakfast in the denwith Donald, who can only manage his coffee and then eggnog through a straw. Donald is amused by David’s story about a crush he developed on a waitress in the Red Garter Club at the O’Hare Hilton. Cynthia says that with women David is a benign version of their father. Each new woman is an undiscovered country, but then he has learned nothing from the other countries he has visited. She added that he is always loaning them money to start a new life. Of course I already knew this. At breakfast David says that teaching in Mexico for several years has taught him “the banality of Eros.” What can you say about a man that says such things? Donald wants a clear explanation. David hems and haws, saying that the problems of the poor are so overwhelming that one’s sexuality drifts away. Donald says, “Bullshit” and that all of his working crew were involved in love and sex to such a crazy degree that it reminded him of the worst country music. David said that he meant that he had become less sexually motivated while teaching the poor. “You don’t fall in love down there?” Donald asked and David said, “Well, occasionally” and we laughed. When Clare comes into the den and picks up our dishes she points out that though David’s shoes are the same make and model, one is dirty gray and one is beige. “How could this happen?” he asks, a little irritated by her laughter. She says, “Finish your eggs,” which he does with a frown, clearly not wanting to finish his eggs. She kisses his forehead and he blushes. She told me that when he comes home a couple of times a year he’ll go down to Getz’s clothing store and buy a half dozen of the same shirt so he won’t have to decide what to wear. She thinks her uncle is “goofy” but she likes him verymuch. Her dog Betty comes into the den, jumps up on the bed with Donald, and growls at David. “Nice dog,” he says. In David you see the inevitable melancholy of the mix of high intelligence and unearned income. It can’t be much fun to always feel vaguely unworthy. Clare has observed that there is always a tinge of the homeless to her uncle, almost unbelievable but true. She says that he never seems quite comfortable except when he’s sitting on the rickety porch of his remote cabin over near Grand Marais. I once offered to repair this porch and he delaminated as if I were intent on modernizing a cathedral.
    Clare and I take Donald out to Presque Isle but he falls asleep in the easy chair I’ve hauled along. Donald likes to sit under a tree near the graves of Chief Kawbawgam and his daughter. This man’s life spanned three centuries, from 1798 to 1901. Donald sits there and stares at Lake Superior as if it is an enormous puzzle and his puzzlement puts him to sleep. It’s a windy day and the crashing of the surf against the rock promontory is repetitively loud. Clare is upset as we’re having a little picnic and the milk shake she bought her father is turning to soup. Donald can manage only liquids. He wanted me to make some pork barbecue the other day just so he could smell it. Clare said that it’s strange to think that his body is at war with itself. After breakfast this morning she sat out near a grove of lilacs near the garage and read Donald’s story. I was at the workbench in the garage and saw her out the window. She would lift her eyes and look at the lilacs, then go back to reading. Nowshe wipes her father’s drooling mouth with a handkerchief and he smiles in his sleep.
    â€œDo you still own any bib overalls?” I asked. Clare imitated her father’s dress until she was in her early teens.
    â€œYes, of course. I have