Ted May Gets Out of the House

The yellow parallelogram moved up the wall. He could see it move. He fell back into sleep then awake again. The room became very hot and he was thirsty. His pillow was soaked and his mouth tasted of sulphur. After some time he reached for his glass but found it dry. With real effort he rolled his legs off the bed and used the railing to get downstairs. He gulped water.

This is my bed and I'm lying in it, he thought. The bed I made.

The afternoon sun beat on the faded carpet and the window sash ticked in the heat. The light lensed through the neat row of Jameson bottles and he thought of church and then of his wife and the ranch and his mind followed the deep singletrack of failure and loss.

The water revived him. He resolved to go out. He knew he needed his friends at this guttering end of two days drunk. He showered and shaved and put on a fresh shirt and his good hat and boots then drove the two blocks to the sawmill. They were just shutting down. The jointer still spun and thrummed a low note. The late light projected the opening of the overhead door into the drifting pine dust.

I am a wreck, he thought. Hi, Tomasz, he said.

Evening, Ted, said the younger man.

The houselike bulk of the Bishop straightened and turned and came forward out of the gloom. Brother Ted, he said, his voice full of outsize delight.

Good to see you, Bishop, said Ted, and smiled though it cost him some effort in his bleary discomfort.

Ted took a broom off the wall and started moving sawdust toward the truck. The mill men did, too, and they swept for a while in near silence, til the Bishop started to whistle.

You have a spirit of gladness, Bishop, said Ted, and the Bishop laughed.

Yes I do, Brother Ted. I was born happy. It is the gift The Lord hath given me.

Tomasz was new here, just arrived a few days ago from out of state, looking for ranch work. He wondered at the Bishop's language, that he could be an old rancher one moment and a jovial Old-Testament prophet the next. He expected a deep and frightening cultic certainty in the big man but so far had seen nothing but good humor and moments of silliness.The Bishop seemed genuinely elated to run a decrepit sawmill and a good-size ranch and to return home spent every evening to his round wife and several children.

Ted was thorough with his sweeping. He ran the broom around and under every obstacle he could lift as he went. The mill men were tired and the Bishop was sloppy but Ted left his area nearly spotless. Got to floss the shop, he said. I got to do something, can't just lie around watching the houseflies.

You can work here any time I got work, Brother Ted, said the Bishop.

You know I don't work for pay, Bishop.

Along the road, in the gravel, the girl walked by, her posture erect, her head canted to keep her hair in place. She thumbed her cell phone intently, proclaiming with her body and her absorption that she did not notice the sudden stillness in the shop. The lowering sun came to the men through her yellow hair and through her yellow skirt and she and the sun and the pine dust that hung in the air seemed to them all of a piece, contrived for their benefit, a silent golden tableau in the sudden silence at the end of a loud and punishing workday.

The Bishop returned to his broom. Tomasz glanced at Ted. Ted smiled and shook his head. You see that Tomasz?

Yessir, said Tomasz.

What's that? said the Bishop.

The girl Kandace, is what, said Ted, with laughter in his voice.

I tried not to, said the Bishop, and then looked down as though the pile of sawdust contained an instruction, or a cure.

Well, I saw her, said Ted. And she is the sweetest thing I maybe ever seen. At least in recent decades, he added, after a moment of thought.

She doesn't even know we saw her, said Tomasz.

Ted said: She don't wear that tight little getup for no other purpose. She knows something. About being looked at.

They went back to sweeping and the sun reached deep into the shop a downangled wedge of light and bats dropped out of the high rafters.

I am getting old, thought Ted. It is unseemly to say such things of a girl at my age. I guess I got to learn to keep my mouth shut, he said. Carrying on like a boy. He thought, Sometimes you don't mark the passing time and make adjustments to your behavior.

They swept the three piles of sawdust into one at the tailgate of the truck.

Civilization and its discontents, Ted said. And Tomasz looked uncertain.

Ferral Young, Kolob, Utah, February 15

One thing is in Kolob some don't know the day we was born.  It wasn't the custom to keep that day, and all I know is I was born this month, February, in 1923.  My mother always said they had lost track of the day which they could do in them winters that was so cold and snowed-in.  They could go a month without that anyone came by and in them days there was no 144, just the old cattle trail over to Youngville.  It could take half a day to get to town and so snow on the ground kept us at home.  I was born in this house.  I was the second youngest and now the only Young left, unless my boy is still alive.

As a boy I mainly remember ranch work.  We had the biggest outfit this side of the mountain, maybe two thousand head after the war for a few years.  Sometimes I rode to town for mail.  That was half a day riding, then get the mail from Sister Larsen, then go up to the schoolhouse to see if there was some children there, then spend the night at my cousins' house, where the yurts is at now, then ride home the next morning.  I did not see people except my family and some ranch hands, only in town now and then.  There was ever so often a dance in town, and one time a year we rode over to Youngville, too.  Them times was what we talked about and looked to all year, when we saw other young people at the Tabernacle.  There was a picnic and all the cars circled and still some wagons and many horses.  Horses was how we went over the mountain and did most all of our traveling seeing how the ranch is mainly ledge and steep, all rock and tumble-down pine and too rough for cars.  So one time a year we rode over to Youngville.  That took a hard two days each way.  The ride was part of the excitement, spending two days on the mountain with the other Kolob families, all the mule trains, a few wagons.  The riding and talking, the campfire, the music and dancing.  I knew the Kolob families more from fetching mail and crossing to Youngville than from being neighbors.  Now with 144 paved and driving I can see people every day, though I mainly do not.  I got used to the quiet and alone.

Them dances in Youngville was so exciting!  Families went from Kolob, like I said, and from the crossing, and Cedar, and even four days' ride from Castleton and John's Flat.  I think it was five hundred people one year.  This was between first cut and when I and my brothers went for firewood, so June.  We didn't know how alone we was in all this country till we saw all them cars and horses and the dust and so many people, each one with his town's color on him, a bandana or a scarf.  Yellow for Kolob.  We watered down the Tabernacle horse lot so's there's not so much dust and we set up shades and passed the time talking and eating and flirting, getting reacquainted with them's we hadn't seen since the year before, and music and dancing at night.  We was all in the church in them days but there was some drinking though you could never see it, just its effects, some of the men got pretty loud and boisterous and to carrying on.  But I think the bishops pretty much just looked the other way.  I remember once this old boy got to yelling and swung at Joseph Richards and the boys took him and throwed him in the ditch to sober him up.   The dancing went all night.  When I was sixteen there was girls' choice and I danced with Lena Young and I thought about nothing else but them two minutes for the next year when I found she was just married up to Cedar.  That broke my heart.

In '42 I got called up.  It was a letter in the mail.  One for me, one for my big brother Hyrum.  Mainly, we did not hardly know of the war.  There was no news except rumors, and we was the first to get called up in Kolob.  We just read them papers and didn't hardly know what to do.  It said report to our post office, which in them days was just Sister Larsen's front room.  We had to leave our chores and go down.  When we got there Sister Larsen did not once stop crying and we learned we had to report to Salt Lake, which maybe we never would of gone but we did go.  We had two weeks I think, then rode over to Youngville with my little brother William so he could take the horses back.  We rode in a government car with some other boys to Salt Lake.  I was sick scared, I admit, but I kept it hid.  I was over Lena by then, but leaving my mother crying broke my heart.

Once I had seen a picture of ZCMI, but it was so big and pretty I just stood there and about got killed by a delivery wagon, I was such a country boy!

We went to bootcamp and trained and got split up.  The last I ever saw of my big brother Hyrum he was in a line going into a tent.  He was a big man.  I remember I was encouraged by how big he was in that line of skinny boys, but he did not come back from the Pacific.  He was killed on Midway.

Me, they sent to France.  I was a shooter.  It was the hunting they said. Thing is, I was never much for hunting.  We had more beef than we could eat.  Now there's deer everywhere on the ranch, but in them days they was mostly gone.  I shot some when they got in the hay, but there was little call for it.  But the army thought I was a shooter, so I did that.  On this, there is not much to say.  I saw some Germans at a distance a few times, but they was always heading away.  I did what i was told, but there was little action till Paris.  It was the end of the war, which, now, we of course didn't know, but we walked into Paris and there was some shooting, but in the morning they was gone.  I got the job of guarding a line of Germans that surrendered.  I just had to stand with my rifle and watch those boys.  They was in bad shape and I have to say I was praying they would not run because I would hate to of shot them so close after seeing how regular they was.  I had to watch them for a week.  Every day a pretty girl walked by and the Germans watched her and pointed and whistled and some called to her in French.  She ignored them, but she smiled at me a few times.  Now, one thing is that the Paris people appreciated us Americans and we took that in and we did get so's we wore our helmets at a tilt, and carried on like peacocks.  Even the shyest boys winked at the Paris ladies and strutted like roosters.  Some of the boys got girlfriends.  They couldn't talk French, but they was everywhere American boys with Paris girls on their arms.  Off duty at night there was dances and lots of drinking but it was not like them Youngville dances back home.

This is when I met Clothilde.  She was the one I mention, a pretty Paris girl that walked by my guard station every day.  So I was at the dance one night and I saw here there, and I don't know what got into me but I walked up to her and told her my name.  There was nothing we could say, what with my no French and she being a French girl never been to school neither of us.  She was so pretty.  Her dress and shoes was worn down from the war and living poor, and she was too skinny, but I fell in love with her that night.  She was small and chestnut-haired and always about to smile.  I hardly know who I was them days after that dance.  I learned a few words of French.  I found flowers out of that city that was mainly empty of what to buy.  I got her a cake and she was so pleased.  I was there maybe one more month.  I proposed we get married and she agreed.

Then I had to go back to America on the boat to New York.  But then I went back and the Colonel married us.  She was not allowed in our camp, so we saw each other only walking around the city.  It is hard to remember now but I about died of not being with here all the time, of only holding her hand and dancing with her.  It was some time and then we went on the boat to America.  We took the train to Salt Lake, then got a ride to Youngville, and all the time she got quieter and quieter.  Then the horses back to Kolob.  This was a bad time, as Clothilde never had been on a horse, which I did not consider, and I could see she was scared and sad.  I did what I could, trying to make her smile, bringing her flowers, but when we got back home here she was not talking.

Neither would my mother she was so angry I got married to this French girl not of the church without even her blessing.  It made the family very upset the way I come home with Clothilde.  We moved into the cabin out back.  Clothilde stopped talking at all.  Then the winter, which was more quiet and alone than ever I remembered after the war and Paris.  Most days Clothilde never once out of bed, just lying  facing the wall.  In the spring our boy Hyrum was born, named for my big brother.  In that June I was haying some long days.  When I come back to the cabin one night Clothilde had taken our boy.  I rode up the mountain looking, but she was gone.  That was in '46.  I never seen her or our boy.  Hyrum is old now hisself, I think 67 years old and I don't know him.  All the days of my life I miss him and his mother.  My family is dead and buried on the ranch now, and I have lived by main force of hoping they would come back.  That and that I like my work here.  My dogs, my ranch, this good life.  I just wish they was in it.

The Girl Kandace Is Bored and Goes up to the Store

5/5/2014
rev 7/7/2014

The Sheriff's wife had forgotten the list. Again.

Chips, she thought. And cream of chicken soup.

Go outside, she said to her boys.

And the other chips. For his lunch. Where did she leave the list?

Go outside, she said again, barking this time.

Gladys covers that stool. Hangs over the edges like her butt is the top of a mushroom or a cupcake.

One of the boys started bawling. Out, she heard herself yell in the small store.

The boys went out. The smaller one sat down on the edge of the porch with elaborate collapse and too much looseness in the arms.

That one is a queer, she thought, then crossed the idea out with her free hand.

Frozen pizza. Two bottles of pop.

Gladys had her enormous breasts propped on the counter. This was a joke just this morning at the Post Office, the great weight of Gladys' breasts requiring her to always prop them on whatever burly structure was nearby. The Nelson boy had a cow down and now had it in a harness hanging from his loader and he suggested such a contrivance for Gladys and her breasts.

She took her shopping to the counter. Gladys slowly focused on the pile and sighed and started to tally. The Sheriff's wife squinted out at the gas pumps. The girl Kandace was there leaning on the tailgate of the red jeep belonging to a boy who lived down at the yurts. The girl's hip rocked out and that knee straightened and she propped her hand and her skinny elbow jutted. That is a girl flirting, thought the Sheriff's wife. The sun came through the girl's yellow skirt.

The least that little bitch could do is wear a slip, said the Sheriff's wife.

That little hooker, she thought.

Gladys heaved herself around to look. She snorted and went back to her tally.

The girl Kandace flipped her yellow hair out there in the white sun. The boy from down at the yurts was hanging up the nozzle. The girl laughed, threw her head back, her big white teeth, her red mouth.

That little bitch, said the Sheriff's wife. She is asking for it.

All the boys watch her, said Gladys.

And all the men.

Gladys and the Sheriff's wife looked. The girl did a little wave as the boy got back in the jeep. She turned on the toes of her flip-flops and walked toward the store.

If her mother wasn't such a fall-down. Teach that little hooker to be a lady. She finished saying this as the door jangled open and the girl entered with a blast of white light and heat and perfume.

The Sheriff's wife said You have a good day, Gladys and shouldered past Kandace and out.

You too, love, said Gladys, too quiet and too late.

Gladys turned and watched Kandace sway into the store. Just a filly, she thought. Under all this there is a filly like that, she thought, and settled her breasts onto the counter. What a cow I am, she thought.

* * *

Kandace got tired of TV. Her mother was sleeping it off in the back room, snoring. She thought, He will come home soon. She felt it in her chest, the hot surge of warning in the boring day. She went to the bathroom and brushed her teeth while she looked in the mirror. She spit and rinsed and turned this way and that. She pulled in her tummy and arched her back and she thought I will not always look like this I will get old and ugly so I will let them see me now. She folded the top of her skirt over once, then twice to show more above the knee. She brushed her hair with a little water. She took her mother's sunglasses and two dollars from her frumpy old shoulderbag. She stepped out into the glare. She headed toward the woodshop and prepared to be seen. She heard the jointer running before she turned at the head of the driveway, and the men laughing in there, and she smelled the pine. The lowering sun on her face and the heat off the road. She took out her phone and studied the screen and pretended to chew gum and flipped her hair back as she walked in front of the shop's big overhead door. She knew they were watching. She had known them her whole life, they gave her blocks of cutoff wood when she was a girl and always warned her away from the machines. She kept her gaze on the mountain, blue in the north. Rain, she thought. She walked and behind her one of the men laughed and their half-deaf talking resumed. She glanced at her reflection in the window of a parked car and adjusted her posture. To look purposeful but unhurried, to show confidence, this is what she tried to do, but she was careful not to show her effort or her calculation. When she was out of the carpenters' line of sight she prepared to show delight and surprise around the next corner at the Trading Post, where the new woman worked. She reminded herself that Meredith had brought the jewelry back from Taos, and to remark on it. She turned the corner and saw in a stealthy glance that the Trading Post door was closed. Two men sat in the porch rockers but they didn't notice her. She thought I can get up on the porch and look through the window at the display of T-shirts and mugs and they will look at me and I will be able to look back in the reflection, but she did not.

She started to cross the Post Office road right when the red jeep pulled up to the gas pumps in front of the store. The college boy Billy got out and waved to her. Just lifted his hand and smiled. She smiled back.

Hi Kandace, he said. How's it going?

She held up her thumb and finger a little apart like she was picking a cherry and she looked at him through the gap. Just a little bit boring, is what, she said, and smiled.

You? What're you up to? Not out foraging. She put this word in quotes with her fingers.

They chatted. She laughed. He grinned. He was done pumping and said Okay, then, and she waved and turned toward the store as he climbed back into the jeep.

Those fat cows watched the whole thing, she thought when she saw Gladys and the Sheriff's wife. Their faces looked to her like moons behind the Visa and Mastercard stickers.

She pulled the door open. The bells jangled. It was cool and dark inside and it smelled of bread and money. The Sheriff's wife's fat arm banged her as she let her eyes adjust. Gladys muttered something, too quiet to hear. The girl walked very slowly under the evaporative cooler, feeling her sweat dry. She could feel Gladys watch her. Gladys had put on like two hundred pounds. Kandace could remember when Gladys had been pretty and busty, and now she is just enormous and has breasts like gallons of milk.

She bought a popsicle and walked toward home as slowly as she thought she could without seeming strange. Several motorcycles growled by, each with a couple astride, heading for the Park. She didn't see anyone then. The highway went silent again and the heat from it distorted the cliffsides and the sky itself was leached of blue above its long scar. The chairs on the Trading Post porch were empty. She sat there in the shade and slouched down with her elbows up on the sticky arms of the chair. Smoke rose from an inch of cigarette in the can of sand. She rhythmically clapped her knees together, feeling the sweat stick and unstick. The sun lowered into the trees and the breeze started and cooled her. Her hands were sticky with popsicle. She got up and walked toward home.

As she approached the house she saw her stepfather upstairs, vague behind the curtain. She saw the shape of his workshirt collar and the epaulettes. She imagined his horsey smell. She would have to talk with him if he was upstairs and she felt the tedium of the day come down on her as the sun set and she thought I will be pretty old and he will still be in my life. He will be an old man. I will know him long after my mother is dead. From drinking. From lying in bed all day. She imagined the weight of the pistol and imagined several TV murder scenarios. She thought of her future in prison and felt a wave of grief for everything she would never have, for going to the electric chair for her hatred of him.

* * *

He stood at the top of the stairs. She came in and started up, then saw him there.

'S it going, Kandace? he said.

T.J.

Where you been?

Out, she said and sidled past him. She could smell him. She pushed her door open against the weight of the piled clothes.

You eaten? he said.

Uh huh, she said, though the popsicle was not enough.

Nothin in the house.

Don't I know it, she said. Goodnight. She met his eyes for a moment and smirked.

Night, he said as she clicked the door shut.