Sleet: Selected Stories

And now Ulrik’s sitting there beside me staring at the hat on my head, but if he wants the damn thing off my scalp he can yank it off with his own hands. Out of the corner of my eye I can still see a bit of the boardinghouse we just passed. Used to have one hell of a lady friend working there. Name of Irma. Now that was a gal to hold on to. Used to meet me in the woods out back in the evening and bring me a full dinner from the boardinghouse, all wrapped up in a nice big napkin. A man had everything he could ever want then. But then Mrs. Lund, she got wind of it and put an end to that real quick. And Irma, she run off with this lieutenant that come and stayed at the boardinghouse for four days. “Sure beats a freeloader with a bottomless stomach!” she says to me right to my face, the witch. The grief I’ve had to endure! But I’ve been known to give back just as good as I take. I’ll say that much!

Back on with your hat, Ulrik. There you go, Ultrick. And sure enough, he doffs it again the moment we pass the last grave and then gives Blenda such a whack with the whip that she bolts right down the hill. The blacksmith stands half-hanging over his gate, three sheets to the wind from the look of it. So we’re not far now. First across the little creek that I thought you could fish when I was a cub, then past the parsonage and into the open fields. “Maybe we should’ve dropped off the wreath at the church,” I say to Ulrik. Not like he’d bother to give me an answer. He’s in a surly mood now. You can tell by the way his moustache is drooping. There’s a car in the yard, that I can see right away, and then Lydia’s bloated lout comes out on the steps. He’s wearing a white shirt and is puffing away on a cigar. The place looks pretty tiny to me — it gets smaller every time I come home. Even at Mamma’s burial, it didn’t seem like there was much of it left, and now it’s shrunk down to almost nothing.

I can tell Ulrik’s looking at me off to my side. He’s probably thinking: “Take a good hard look, ’cause it’s the last time you get to come here to my home on a free ride.” Lydia’s fat boy comes over and opens the gate for us as we drive in, and of course I can’t get out of saying hello, so I hand him the bag and climb down, then reach my arm out to give him a hearty clap on the back, but then he stiffens up and starts away with the bag like he just got stung by a wasp or something. He thinks I’m stewed, of course. And that shirt of his is too spanking white to get pawed by an honest working man’s hand. Ulrik drives ahead to the trough to let Blenda drink. I’m not about to go chasing after the radio dealer. He can just slow down and wait for me, which he does, but only so he can show off his car.

“Yes, sir — this beauty is brand new!” he says, as if I’d asked him. “And a six seater too! Pontyac. Just the thing for business trips.”

Alright, so business is good, for Christ’s sake. Good for you. At the little gate he manages to remember his manners, though, offering his condolences to me as he opens the gate. Right then Lydia comes running out on the porch. Lord God, has she gotten fat! But at least she ain’t wearing her Women’s Auxiliary Corps uniform, nor that god-awful folk-dress getup. She hugs me so hard my spine feels like it’s about to cave in. Then she lays her head on my shoulder, crying and hiccupping, while that idiot of hers just stands there gawking at us like he’s at the circus.

We finally get around to going inside, and at first it looks just like always. Dad’s clothes hanging there in the hall, his cap sitting there on the shelf, all dented in and dust covered. And when we go into the kitchen I don’t notice anything different there, not at first. Only the longer I stand there listening to Lydia’s hiccups, the emptier it begins to feel. The door to the old man’s room, that don’t open up suddenly. And he don’t amble out with his suspenders dangling at his backside. And the calendar on the wall — nobody’s bothered to change the date since he stopped breathing. It says October 8, so it seems he got around to tearing the old one off on that last day. Lydia’s hiccups just keep coming as Ulrik slams shut the stable doors and that useless radio fellow stands there lost in the middle of the room, holding the bag I gave him like it’s some kind of bomb. When the whole thing gets too unbearable, I mention how empty the place feels. “You can tell something’s missing,” I say.