Sourland

funny! his mom says uncertainly oh yes I suppose so my father is known for his dry sense of humor Jason says, wishing she’d leave, sure Mom that’s about all that anybody knows about Grandpa isn’t it? next morning Jason does an unexpected thing, calls his grandpa hasn’t been on easy terms with the old man for years but Jason says to him why’d you say what you did last night on Charlie Rose, Grandpa! you kind of hurt our feelings, Grandpa especially Mom the old man is quiet for a moment as if he’s surprised by this then laughs saying Jason you must know that I was just joking my God everybody in the family has been calling me chiding me just joking for God’s sake wouldn’t have thought my own family lacked a sense of humor Jason isn’t going to let the old man off so easily he’s remembering fishing for bluefish off Grandpa’s boat, in Nantucket Sound he’s remembering Grandpa hugging him, when his dad died saying God damn Grandpa you expect grandparents to say things like Life is precious, and this is the happiest time of your life while you’re young you don’t expect your grandparents to say life is shit Grandpa is protesting now remorseful-sounding dear Jason, dear boy it’s my pride, I abhor cliches Jason says you had a happy life, Grandpa you have money, you’re a famous man all my friends have heard of you, ask about you Grandpa is quiet again for a moment then says Jason you are correct my life has been pretty damned good and I like being famous it’s like seeing yourself in a room of mirrors if you’re good-looking especially still if I had to live my life over again, I’d swallow poison Grandpa bursts into laughter terrifying old-man laughter Jason is stunned gripping the phone receiver stammering Grandpa what? Grandpa you’re joking are you? Grandpa why? Grandpa manages to control his laughter saying why son, you tell me

Death Certificate

“God damn.”

It was more a sob than a curse. Somewhere overhead, deranged bells were ringing. She’d pushed open the heavy door of the county courthouse and descended into a dimly-lit and soupy-aired ground-floor corridor like a tunnel only to discover that the office of the county clerk of records was locked and on the door a snotty notice WILL RETURN AT 1 P.M.

Noon! She’d arrived at noon.

In exasperation she rattled the doorknob. She wasn’t one to resist a gesture only because it is futile.

She had come to receive from the Chautauqua County Office of Records, for a fee of five dollars, a facsimile of a death certificate. She had no personal wish for this document, the very thought of which made her wince, and her eyes shift in the rapid-eye-movement of the deepest phase of sleep, but lawyers were insisting she must have it and so she’d driven three hours, forty minutes halfway across the massive state of New York and now she was herself in a state somewhere between manic and wounded. She was wearing stylish, very dark sunglasses that made her resemble a sleek-sexy insect not entirely steady in the upright position, in high-heeled summer sandals. She was wearing a white cord skirt that showed much of her sleek-sexy thighs and a flame-red top showing, at the midriff, a sliver of creamy skin. Her legs (calves, thighs) were sturdy and supple and her upper arms had a meaty firmness, yet. Beneath her likeness she could see the caption Would you guess thirty- eight?

Though since the death, the awful death, eleven days before, that had come at the worst possible time in her life, she’d been in a foul, mean mood. “Fuck.”

She’d drifted to the end of the corridor past more locked doors. Frosted glass windows the color of dingy teeth. It had been eight years, seven months since she’d been in this northwest corner of the state. More years than that, since she’d been in this very building with her husband, before he’d been her husband, acquiring a marriage license. She’d been too young to be incensed at the absurdity of such a law, such logic, that legal documents are required for being born, being married, dying.

Mount Olive, New York. A small town south of Lake Erie. When she’d lived here, here had been everywhere. Now she lived elsewhere, here was nowhere.

Noisy and panting, there came another customer to the county clerk’s office. Yvonne smiled meanly to see this guy — youngish, big, blundering, in white T-shirt and khaki shorts, bald-blond-fuzz head and what looked like mallet hands — squinting at the notice on the door and tugging, hard, at the doorknob. She heard him curse under his breath, “Shit.”

It was Woody Clark. That big beautiful boy Woody who’d broken her heart.

“Woody?”

“Yvonne?”

They greeted and grabbed at each other. They laughed like demented kids. It was lightning flashing! It was pure chance, therefore innocent. Yvonne would recall afterward almost in disbelief how immediate, how without hesitation they’d been, each of them. Each of them equally. Their dazed delight in each other, that had been wholly unplanned.

“Jesus, look at you! Gorgeous.”

Woody was staring. His scrutiny of her was beyond rude: her breasts, her rear, her legs (calves, thighs), even the creamy slice of midriff he couldn’t resist pinching between his big forefinger and thumb.

Yvonne teetered on her high-heeled sandals, with happiness. She couldn’t keep her hands off Woody, either: his brawny forearm dense with sand-colored hairs, his big rounded jaw where she’d smeared scarlet grease from her mouth.

“And you. You haven’t changed, either.”

Woody laughed, this was so hugely untrue. He’d gained weight, he’d lost hair. There was some sort of W- pattern on his sunburnt forehead where wanly curly sand-colored hair was receding. Woody had been vain of his good looks, not that he’d have ever admitted it, and was rubbing his head now with both hands, frantic-funny: “I’m looking like an American dad, which is what I basically am.”

This remark, seemingly playful, uttered with bared teeth and a goofy grimacing grin, was possibly a warning, Woody would use his kids as human shields in this encounter, or, maybe, it was an unconscious un-premeditated gesture. Yvonne decided not to care. Woody Clark was so luscious! She was so starved! “Woody, my God. I’m crazy for you. I mean, I love you. Just the look of you.” She was laughing at the sick scared look in the guy’s face, remembering how everything had showed in Woody’s face, every quick thought, every fleeting emotion, Woody Clark was direct and guileless as a dog wagging, or not wagging, its tail, or so she’d wished to think. She’d removed her dark glasses — or maybe Woody had removed them — and she was swiping at her eyes quick and deft, just the edges of her fingers, so that her mascara wouldn’t run. Oh, she shouldn’t be saying these things to Woody Clark! Her words had come out unbidden, like bats. She had a quick flash of an antiquarian drawing of, what was it, Pandora’s box, ugly winged things flying out past horror-stricken Pandora.

Or maybe it was Medusa’s head she saw: horror-stricken Medusa with a head of writhing snakes.

“Oh, hey. Yvonne.”

Woody was blushing. His entire face went sunburnt. He was glancing around, guilty-like. But no one was likely to be observing them. His reaction was reflexive: he was recalling their seemingly accidental meetings at their kids’ soccer games, at the hardware store and the drugstore and Grand Union and Barre Mills, the library, Starbucks, The Ice House Grill on Main Street — they’d grab at hands and arms, brush lips against cheeks, no mouth kisses only just smiles like released springs, the two of them fine physical specimens of a clearly superior species, gleaming and glistening, you might say preening with happiness, on public display and yet, maybe, innocent — it was only when they were alone in their secret places, not by chance but by design, that there might be cause for Woody’s guilty look.

“I’m serious, Woody. I miss you.”

Woody laughed, uneasy. Because maybe she wasn’t serious. (Was she?) It had been a contention between them, like a badminton birdie they’d batted back and forth, that Yvonne said the most extravagant things and didn’t, couldn’t, mean them; while Boy Scout Woody said only truthful things or at any rate practical/sensible things, and meant them.

Woody was hugging her now, nearly cracking her vertebrae. He was all sudden vehemence hugging to hurt. “Put your mouth where your money is, baby.” Woody’s dumb jokes, that was what she’d been missing. Nobody she knew now, not one person in her life, made such dumb-ass jokes and expected you to laugh. Her arms came around