The Round House

Just go ... , Grandma waved her hand toward the door, satisfied that we had come to her.

This one, this one here, said Mrs. Bijiu, lip pointing at me suddenly, fiercely. He is bony!

Our hearts sank at the word.

Bony! Grandma Thunder’s voice cracked. She reared up in her chair. I’ll tell you who’s got a bone in his pants these days!

Holy Jesus! said Mrs. Bijiu. I know who you’re talking about. Napoleon. That akiwenzii goes scratching around at night and it’s not me who lets the old man in. He’s in good shape, though, never drank. Worked hard all his life. Now gets himself laid by a different woman every night!

You boys listen up, said Grandma Ignatia. You want to learn something? Want to learn how to keep your little peckers hard all your life? Go and go? Live clean like old Napoleon. Liquor makes you quicker and that’s no good. Bread and lard keep you hard! He is eighty-seven and he not only gets it up easy, he can go five hours at a stretch.

We wanted to sneak away but were pulled back by that last piece of information. Maybe we were each thinking of our three minutes in the woods.

Five hours? said Angus.

For he never tomcatted around and wasted his juice, cried Mrs. Bijiu. He was faithful to his wife!

That’s what she thought, said Grandma Ignatia, taking a hankie from her sleeve.

The two started laughing so hard they almost choked and we nearly made it out the door.

In addition, he swears by his secret formula.

Our heads turned back.

Look at them swivel necks, the two old ladies laughed. Should we give them Napoleon’s secret formula?

If the bread and lard don’t work, he takes red-hot pepper, rubs it on his ... down there. Mrs. Bijiu made a certain hand motion over her lap, so vigorous it made us leap right out the door. The two old women’s cackling excitement followed us down the hall. I thought of what the red pepper had done to Randall and his buddies. No sign whatsoever of Napoleon’s formula at work as they bolted buck-naked across the quack grass.

I think I’d like a medical opinion before I tried the pepper, I said to myself. But Angus heard it. A medical opinion became one of those ridiculous fake-smart lines I got teased for. Joe needs a medical opinion. Joe, have you asked your doctor if you should do that? I knew as we walked down the hallway I’d never hear the end of it, like Oops. Just before we went out the retirement home doors, I said to wait. I took off Cappy’s shoes.

Thanks, I said.

We switched back. But I still believe that if it would have helped me, Cappy would have kept on walking in my tight old shoes.

Endless June summer light and silence in the dirt yards—everyone fallen back into their beds or kitchens as I wandered my bike up the road. Pearl met me as I came around the corner of the house. She stood alert, gazing at me, and never barked. You knew it was me, I said. You did good. She came up to me and wagged her tail just four times. She had a beautiful creamy plume of a tail that didn’t go with the short-haired middle of her—even though it matched her long, furry, wolfish ears. She sniffed at my hand. I scratched her ears until she shook my hand away. She was hungry. I’d taken one of Grandma’s jam sandwiches as I left and now I gave it to Pearl. Inside, I heard voices. I put away my bike and slipped inside. Uncle Edward was still there, in the study with my father. The kitchen was a shambles, so they’d probably fixed themselves a snack. I sneaked in and stopped outside the study. They were talking just loud enough for me to hear them from the couch. I could listen in, then pretend to be asleep if they came out. I could tell right away from the clink of ice, the glasses, that they were drinking together. It would be the Seagrams V.O. from the bottle behind the dishes on the highest shelf. I craned to hear what they would say.

In all the years we’ve been married we have never once slept apart until now, said my father.

This of course both repelled and fascinated me. I held my breath.

She is isolating herself even from Joe. Doesn’t talk to anyone from work, of course. Won’t see visitors, even her old friend from boarding school days, LaRose.

Clemence says she is cutting her off, too.

Geraldine. Oh, Geraldine! She dropped a casserole, then this. Well, I know that wasn’t it. I frightened her, triggered her terror of the event.

The event. Bazil.

I know. But I cannot refer to it.

There was silence. At last my father said, the attack. The rape. I must be going crazy, too, Edward. I keep losing track of Joe.

He’ll be all right. She’ll come out of it, said Edward.

I don’t know. She’s drifting out of grasp.

What about church? said Edward. Would it help if Clemence took her to church? You know what I think about it, of course, but there’s a new priest she seems to like.

I don’t think Geraldine would find comfort there, after all these years.

We all knew that my mother had stopped going to church after she returned from boarding school. She never said why. Clemence never tried to get her to go, either, that I knew of.

What about this new priest, though, my father asked.

Interesting. Good-looking, I suppose. If you like the type. Central casting.

For what?

War movie. B western. Man on a doomed mission. Of all things, he’s an ex-Marine.

Oh god, a trained killer turned Catholic.

A dead silence opened between the two men and went on for so long it suddenly seemed loud.

My father rose. I heard him shuffle about. I heard the silken pour of liquor.

Edward, what do we know of this priest?

Not much.

Think.

Pour me another. He’s from Texas. Dallas. The Catholic martyr on our kitchen wall. Dallas. That’s where this priest is from.

I don’t know Dallas.

More correctly, he’s from a little dried-up town outside of Dallas. He’s got a gun and I saw him out popping prairie dogs.

What? That’s odd for a Benedictine. They strike me as a more genteel and thoughtful bunch.

True, generally, but he’s new, recently ordained. He’s different from—but oh, who remembers Father Damien? And, ah, he’s searching. He gives very questioning sermons, Bazil. Sometimes I wonder if he’s entirely stable, or then again, if he might be simply ... intelligent.

I hope he’s not like the one before him who wrote that scorching letter to the paper about the deadly charms of Metis women. Remember how we laughed about it? God!

If only it were about God. Sometimes when I’m at the Adoration with Clemence, I see double, just like now.

What do you see then?

I see two priests, one dispensing holy water from a silver aspergillum, the other with a rifle.

Just an air rifle, surely.

Just an air rifle, yes. But he was fast with it, deadly, and accurate.

Gopher count?

Dozen or so. All laid out on the playground.

The men paused, thinking, then Edward continued, Still, that does not make him ...

I know. But the round house. Symbol of the old pagan ways. The Metis women. Setting it all on fire together—the temptation and the crime all burned up as in a fire offering ... oh god.

My father’s voice caught.

Now Bazil, now Bazil, said Edward. This is just talk.