would eat—and after that, they shot
at bottles or cans. Calmer could hit bottles on the fence posts from across the lake, so far away that Spooner could barely
make out their shapes. Calmer cleaned and skinned the rabbits in the lake, gutting them and then cutting off the heads and
tails and stripping them down to purple muscles, leaving the fur and guts on the ground, inside out, and after he’d finished,
what was left—the bare little bodies—did not look big enough for all the insides that came out of them.
They took the rabbits home in a pail, and it didn’t matter who did the cooking or how long it lasted, or what vegetables and
seasonings were thrown in with them, the animals came out of the pot as wiry as they went in, and even the smallest pieces
were like biting into something still alive.
Something else about it too, back at the lake. Spooner had begun looking at the wet piles of fur and organs they left behind,
crawling with flies and bees, and feeling uneasy about what they’d done, about leaving the evidence of it in plain sight.
He never said anything about this feeling to Calmer—in the first place, as far as he knew he wasn’t supposed to notice the
rabbits were dead—and in the second place, he was afraid that anything he might say would get back to his mother, and there
would be no more hunting.
As to the matter of playing catch in the yard, Calmer was not as good at catch as he was at shooting, and didn’t have a glove
of his own and sometimes missed the ball when it came right into his hands.
One night he heard them talking in the kitchen. He heard Calmer telling her that the balls Spooner threw had begun to break,
and Spooner went to the closet and took the ball out of his catcher’s mitt and looked it over but couldn’t see that it was
broken at all, and he wondered if Calmer was telling her it was so that he wouldn’t have to play catch anymore.
There was no question about whose idea it had been, by the way, all this hunting rabbits and catch.
Months passed and still no one spoke to him directly regarding his expulsion from kindergarten, but he understood it was still
on their minds and could see them watching him all the time, bathtime especially. He was no longer allowed to bathe with Margaret,
for one thing, and these days if he got out of the tub and his mother or grandmother saw that his pecker was sticking out,
Calmer had to come over during lunch the next day and play catch, even in the rain.
It didn’t make much sense, but then these were people who looked up into the night sky and saw the shapes of animals in the
stars.
FIFTEEN
E arly in May, Calmer and Spooner’s mother were married in the backyard. A preacher from the Methodist church downtown presided,
not the Sunday-morning Methodist preacher but one of his assistants. Spooner’s grandmother said they should have hired a Baptist.
She’d gone over to the Baptist side some years earlier, even though the family had belonged to the Methodist church since
before the Civil War. The Baptists, she said, didn’t treat you like white trash if you had a reversal in fortune.
A month or so before the wedding Calmer suspended hunting and games of catch in the yard and spent every free moment doing
touch-up work outside the house, painting the picnic table, raking pine needles, hanging decorations, and then, on Friday,
while an assembly of Spooner’s aunts and uncles and cousins were inside drinking lemonade and beer in front of the fans that
Calmer had borrowed and set up all over the house, Calmer himself was making trips back and forth to his school to pick up
folding chairs for the party. The chairs didn’t fit easily into the car and it took four trips, and Spooner went along, carrying
one chair while Calmer carried six, three in each hand.
At home, they put the chairs in rows in the backyard, then went back for more. When there were enough chairs, they collected
two
at bottles or cans. Calmer could hit bottles on the fence posts from across the lake, so far away that Spooner could barely
make out their shapes. Calmer cleaned and skinned the rabbits in the lake, gutting them and then cutting off the heads and
tails and stripping them down to purple muscles, leaving the fur and guts on the ground, inside out, and after he’d finished,
what was left—the bare little bodies—did not look big enough for all the insides that came out of them.
They took the rabbits home in a pail, and it didn’t matter who did the cooking or how long it lasted, or what vegetables and
seasonings were thrown in with them, the animals came out of the pot as wiry as they went in, and even the smallest pieces
were like biting into something still alive.
Something else about it too, back at the lake. Spooner had begun looking at the wet piles of fur and organs they left behind,
crawling with flies and bees, and feeling uneasy about what they’d done, about leaving the evidence of it in plain sight.
He never said anything about this feeling to Calmer—in the first place, as far as he knew he wasn’t supposed to notice the
rabbits were dead—and in the second place, he was afraid that anything he might say would get back to his mother, and there
would be no more hunting.
As to the matter of playing catch in the yard, Calmer was not as good at catch as he was at shooting, and didn’t have a glove
of his own and sometimes missed the ball when it came right into his hands.
One night he heard them talking in the kitchen. He heard Calmer telling her that the balls Spooner threw had begun to break,
and Spooner went to the closet and took the ball out of his catcher’s mitt and looked it over but couldn’t see that it was
broken at all, and he wondered if Calmer was telling her it was so that he wouldn’t have to play catch anymore.
There was no question about whose idea it had been, by the way, all this hunting rabbits and catch.
Months passed and still no one spoke to him directly regarding his expulsion from kindergarten, but he understood it was still
on their minds and could see them watching him all the time, bathtime especially. He was no longer allowed to bathe with Margaret,
for one thing, and these days if he got out of the tub and his mother or grandmother saw that his pecker was sticking out,
Calmer had to come over during lunch the next day and play catch, even in the rain.
It didn’t make much sense, but then these were people who looked up into the night sky and saw the shapes of animals in the
stars.
FIFTEEN
E arly in May, Calmer and Spooner’s mother were married in the backyard. A preacher from the Methodist church downtown presided,
not the Sunday-morning Methodist preacher but one of his assistants. Spooner’s grandmother said they should have hired a Baptist.
She’d gone over to the Baptist side some years earlier, even though the family had belonged to the Methodist church since
before the Civil War. The Baptists, she said, didn’t treat you like white trash if you had a reversal in fortune.
A month or so before the wedding Calmer suspended hunting and games of catch in the yard and spent every free moment doing
touch-up work outside the house, painting the picnic table, raking pine needles, hanging decorations, and then, on Friday,
while an assembly of Spooner’s aunts and uncles and cousins were inside drinking lemonade and beer in front of the fans that
Calmer had borrowed and set up all over the house, Calmer himself was making trips back and forth to his school to pick up
folding chairs for the party. The chairs didn’t fit easily into the car and it took four trips, and Spooner went along, carrying
one chair while Calmer carried six, three in each hand.
At home, they put the chairs in rows in the backyard, then went back for more. When there were enough chairs, they collected
two
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