“Doesn’t it look wonderful?” she would ask.
Nobody would put out a pamphlet for a place that didn’t make it look wonderful. They don’t photograph the dirty grocery store with the water-stained ceiling and dusty shelves. They wouldn’t write about how the police have given up trying to keep the drug dealers away from the elementary school. Tourist pamphlets lie, and they’re not meant to entice people to move to a place anyway. They’re meant to get you to spend a vacation hiking up to the top of Mount Syphilis, or whatever. That’s not something a local person would ever do anyway.
But that’s what she would use to try to get me excited about an upcoming move.
I have to admit that I was always pretty willing to move regardless. A move to a new neighborhood and a new school is like a fresh start. I wouldn’t have to worry about the bad impression that I had made with the principal of the old school. I wouldn’t have to worry about the fact that I had shoplifted from the drug store and wasn’t allowed to go in there anymore.
We tossed most everything—furniture, clothes I had grown out of, and toys that I didn’t play with—and we moved. This happened several times when I was growing up.
I took that family tradition and kept it going after I graduated from college and lived on my own. I would work in some generic cubicle for a company that did whatever. Then, a couple of years later, I would pick up and go to the next place. It wasn’t until Kimberly that I felt the need to put down roots and build a life in a place. That was over in New York. When she died, I was set adrift again.
Now, I don’t know what to throw away and what to keep.
My uncle kept all this stuff, so he must have thought that he would want it one day. He had VHS tapes of how to train a colt. As far as I know, he had never trained a colt. Maybe he was planning to one day. I toss them out since I got rid of the VCR on the last trip to the dump.
He had a stack of Fine Furniture magazines. Each one was tabbed with sticky notes that had little messages to himself.
“For the foyer,” he wrote about a blanket chest.
I’m not sure whose foyer he meant. His house—my house—doesn’t have a foyer. The front door, that I have never seen used, opens to the living room. The side door opens to the kitchen. If you come in through the shed, you are in the back of the pantry.
“Foyer,” I say. I toss the magazine in the recycle bin.
I could throw everything away, I suppose.
Nobody will ever care about any of this stuff. All the memories associated with this place are going to die with me. I don’t have anyone to pass them along to. Uncle Walt never had any kids. Me and my mom were the last of his family. Now, it’s just me.
I lean back against the wall. I’m surrounded by piles of memories, trying to decide which ones to discard. I don’t have to make the final decision tonight. For the moment, I’ll get rid of anything that doesn’t resonate with me personally. Uncle Walt is dead. His plans for a blanket chest should be buried too. I keep the magazine that has plans for a weathervane. That’s something that I was going to help him build. He taught me how to weld and hammer metal into different shapes. We discussed the most appropriate symbol for his farm. In the end, we decided that the weathervane should be two animals rearing up on their hind legs, like you might see on a coat of arms. I said it should be a horse and a deer. Uncle Walt had wanted a pig and a ram. We had settled on horse and ram. He already started to pound his ram out of a sheet of copper. I drew the outline of my horse, but I haven’t cut it out yet. The magazine will tell me how to make the base and the swivel.
That one, I keep.
I’ve had enough sorting for the night. All the windows are open so the cold air might infuse the house while I sleep. I walk around, making sure the doors are locked and lights are out.
Uncle Walt never locked the doors.
I stop and look through the kitchen window. Everything is perfectly still out there in the moonlight. It would be a good night to go up to the deck on top of the barn and look at the stars. That’s the kind of thing that should be shared with someone else though. I’m afraid that if I go up there alone, I won’t know what to do with the odd thoughts that occur up there. If you have someone to share them with, they aren’t so frightening.
In the distance, I hear the train whistle.
“Nope,” I say.
I close all the windows on the first floor and lock them.
(The night is long.)
The night is long.
It seems to get hotter and hotter throughout the night. When I wake up at three, I’m covered in sweat and the moonlight coming through the window is so bright that I swear I can feel the heat on my skin.
Uncle Walt’s last bedroom in this house was down on the first floor. There was a period of time there, just before the end, when he couldn’t use the stairs reliably. He had his bed set up in the dining room. After he died, I moved it back upstairs. I offered to come stay with him, but he wouldn’t hear of it.
“I’m sure you have plenty more important
