That night, the last hot of August air settled onto the porch despite the darkness. Lo and Chester were at the town hall meeting Billy Boyd had called, and Paitsel was in Frankfort lobbying mining regulators.
I poured Pops mash on ice and settled into the wicker chair next to him.
“You know, Thomas Edison only had three months of formal education—made his way on hard work.”
And so it began.
“What are you gonna do on your last weekend of freedom?”
“Dunno. I’m thinking about going up to Jukes. Maybe spend the night up there.”
“Good idea. You’re rooted deep in that hollow.”
“I’m thinking about clearing out all those little trees around the cabin. Maybe get rid of some of the junk in the ruins. Clean the place up a bit.”
“That’s a great respect, son. See if Audy Rae can drive you—I’m not ready for the highway just yet.”
“I think I’m going to ask Mom.”
Pops began to spin his mash slowly. He nodded and gave me the satisfied look of a man cataloging the well-completed segments of a work in progress.
Mom stared down at the car keys as if they were found pieces from a forgotten puzzle. “Audy Rae can take you, or Pops,” she said quietly.
“Pops can’t drive and Audy Rae is shopping in Glassville. I need you to take me.”
“No, I can’t. My mind sometimes… sometimes it…”
“I’ll keep you focused.”
“We’ll get into an accident. If you got hurt I couldn’t forgive myself.”
“You’ll drive slow.”
“Pops has to come.”
“He can’t. He’s resting.”
She exhaled. “I don’t even think I can remember how.”
“I’ll show you.”
“How do you know?”
“Pops taught me.”
She backed slowly out of the driveway onto Chisold, then took an arcing, deliberate turn onto Watford. Once on Main, we picked up speed to low double digits and crept to the stoplight at Green. The streets were nearly empty of cars, which made for easy passage through town—we crawled past Biddle’s, Hivey’s, Smith’s. The lights were on at Miss Janey’s; a cheery Come In! We’re Open! in the door glass. I looked into the big front window at the barren cutting stations, then through to the empty washing department, then over to the reception area.
And there he was, leaning against the desk, arms crossed, smiling proudly from his bright-blue eyes, head cocked slightly to the right, a set of black combs in his white barber’s jacket pocket. Tilroy’s deft pencil and pastel strokes forming a precise rendering of the blade thin and the posture perfect—glassed and framed and hanging in reception as promised.
We turned onto Route 32, the urinal-mint factory dark and empty on the hill cut-in. Mom seemed to be gaining confidence now, speed increasing to thirty, me pulling threads of conversation from everything that had happened.
“Buzzy seems lonely in the hospital. I don’t think he gets many visitors.”
“His family doesn’t come out of the hollow much.”
“He just looks so sad in there.”
“He’s been through a lot.”
“We’ve all been through a lot,” I said with a tired laugh.
“But we’ve got each other.”
“He’s got his family,” I protested.
“True. But those kids are expected to make their own way in the world. They don’t get much support.”
“That sucks for him.”
“It’s just their way. The kids do okay, so maybe there’s a wisdom to it.”
It was the longest and most lucid conversation I’d had with my mother since Josh.