Sleet: Selected Stories

Well, what do you know? So I see I get the treatment today. Can see that as soon as we pull into the station. Greeted like a town worthy! Ulrik, he’s waiting by the station house in his greased-leather boots and best hat — the one with the widest brim — looking out over the tracks in his usual gloomy way. The grieving band and black bow tie just complete the picture as the horse leans down behind him and grazes in the flower bed. So I get to ride in the buggy, do I? That’s something I haven’t done since I was a kid. Guess I really am getting the full treatment, all on account of the old man dying. Otherwise I’d be hoofing it out to the farm like always, no matter if the mud’s so deep it swallows your feet whole. The only exception being Mamma’s funeral, of course.

That’s good old Ulrik for you! Can’t come over and meet you climbing down off the train, even if he sees you got your arms full with a wreath and a satchel full of brännvin. Suppose I could have sent the wreath on ahead of me, but you can never be sure how that’ll turn out. Look what happened to Mamma’s wreath, for Christ’s sake! Goddamn railway folks made such a mess of that there wasn’t any way to set it straight before the funeral. My goddamn eyes got shamed right out of their sockets, I’ll tell you that — me stuck there fussing around with the ribbons just before the service to try and hide the wreck of all them mutilated flowers. Not like it would’ve done me a damn bit of good to take it up with the railway folks. All them bastards do is pass the buck right back to you and leave you standing there like a clod.

So anyways, I finally get a proper nod from Ulrik — or Ultrick, like I used to call him when we was kids. He raises two fingers to the brim of his hat and flashes a mouthful of teeth like a regular hayseed. What do you expect? And then all of a sudden I’ve got the tin knocker at my elbow, three sheets to the wind like always, trying to get me to stop and jaw with him. He can probably make out what’s in my bag from the outlines of the bottles. “Sympathies,” he says. “For the old man. Happened quick, awful quick. Saw him just the day before and he was merry as a man can be.” It wasn’t a secret of the crown or anything that the old man was fond of the bottle in his later years, but that don’t mean you need to declare it to everybody within earshot at the station. Wonder if he’s been invited to the funeral dinner. I’m sure he and the old man polished off their fair share of bottles together, ’specially lately, but that don’t mean he should be invited on that account.

Cripes! Now the grieving band’s hanging all crooked on my arm. I already lost my first one, out drunk one Saturday night. Didn’t notice it was gone till I got home. Not really like you grieve with your clothes anyway, but to lose it like that, out on a binge, makes a man feel pretty low, even if it was a month after we buried her. But my woman, she keeps buying them a size too big. Either that or I’m just getting too spindly for them. Who the hell knows? Makes me look like some kind of hick, the way it keeps slipping down like that.

And Ulrik, what’s he do when I come up to him? He don’t put out his hand, even when I set down the bag so I can shake it. And he don’t utter a word, even when I greet him not just once but twice! Always the mule, Ultrick, broody and bound up in himself.

“Why don’t you take the wreath, brother?” I say with a friendly pat on the shoulder.

We’re family, after all, so what’s the point of getting off on the wrong foot when there’s no need. Sure enough, the wreath box fits in nice right under the seat. But the satchel I hold onto myself. Ulrik clicks his tongue and that dumb-ass horse Blenda lumbers around slow and lazy with a bouquet of the stationmaster’s flowers disappearing into her jaws.

“Put the bag away,” Ulrik says, just like you’d expect.

But me, I can’t help thinking of what happened when we buried Mamma. Our little brother Tage wanted to show us all what he was made of. So he grabbed my satchel and then THONK! He whacked it right into the gatepost, breaking two of the bottles. I had to set out in the middle of a scorcher of a Saturday trying to scare up a little replacement brännvin for the funeral dinner. This time the bag stays right with me.

It’s warm back here at home. Makes you wonder if they haven’t seen rain. Turns out, sure enough, they haven’t had a drop in a month.

“Hell of a nice October you got out of the bargain,” I can’t help remarking to Ulrik.

“The cards got sent out a bit late,” Ulrik says. “But I figure you must’ve got yours OK.”

The cards. We’re coming up on the bank, and the doctor’s office, and the café that’s got its own mini-golf course. That’s where Frida worked. She was a good one, that gal. Used to be I could come in through the back door and get my drinks and food for free, as long as it lasted, anyway. Yesiree, romancing that gal saved me a pretty penny.