The thoughts that accompanied July’s solitude were, he felt, almost like no thoughts at all—like being dumbly aware of awareness itself—consciousness at its lowest level. This was something of a revelation to him, as he’d always thought before of mere consciousness being more closely associated with entertainment than thinking, and seeing now that these two were somehow one and the same thing, working in and out of each other mysteriously and irrevocably, he felt he was just about to burst upon a new level of understanding. But when he talked about it with Mal that evening he couldn’t make himself completely understood, and where he’d been able to see the distinctions so clearly before, now all his thoughts, in words, seemed meaningless and foolish. It was then he realized, though he didn’t try to communicate it, that he had come to an even greater understanding than he’d at first thought: mere consciousness was the very act of putting things together in one’s mind. Making sense of something was the act of sensing itself.
He worked at cultivating for several weeks and then helped Isaac Bontrager build fence. It looked as if in the summertime he wouldn’t ever have to go out looking for work again, because he’d become known as a friendly, good worker and the farmers would stop over occasionally if they needed help, and ifthey didn’t he stayed at home and read or went swimming with Mal, or sat on the back porch with Holmes and Butch, watching the rain and trying to experience the sort of things he imagined the Indians back in the seventeen hundreds might have when the oaks and prairies were an endless, inviting expanse of uninterrupted nature.
Mal went back to work at the restaurant in late August. The baling crew came through the Sharon Center area for the second cutting of hay and July got on it again.
They had a list of thirty-eight different birds they’d seen during the summer, and could identify most of the trees along the roads and down the hill behind their barn. Mal was getting together twelve paintings which she’d decided to take around to the shops in Iowa City and see if they would display them.
Wally, Leonard and his half-brother Billy Joe sat in the front of their Mercury sedan eating slices of peaches from a can Billy Joe, the mute, had stolen in a grocery store along the Coralville Strip. Wally, the driver, was twenty-six; Leonard was from a little town along the Mississippi and was wanted for burglary and assault in Cedar Rapids, and was twenty. Between them, Billy Joe, released one month ago from the state reformatory in Eldora, was almost seventeen, and had shared the same mother as Leonard. The parking lot in the Wardway Plaza was hot, but they had the windows rolled up to keep out the flies.
“God damn it, Billy Joe, don’t spill none a that on the pictures!” said Leonard, and pulled the Zap comic book away from the peach syrup dripping from his hands.
“Slobbing bastard,” said Wally. “Hold it over here closer,” and he pulled the comic book closer to him. “And fuck, don’t eat all of ’em, I only got two so far.”
“Billy Joe got ’em,” said Leonard carefully, not wanting to anger the older, bigger boy, but wanting to plead his half-brother’s right to at least an equal share of the sweetened peaches. “An’ you already read it once.”
“God damn it, get your fuckin’ finger out a there!” And Wally hit Billy Joe’s arm, causing peach juice to spill onto his lap and the pictures and making him begin crying with sucking sounds.
“You di’n’ need ta hit ’im!” shouted Leonard.
“Fuck if I di’n’. Son-of-a-bitch keeps puttin’ his finger into the rip in the dashboard ‘n’ tears out all the packin’.” He bent the torn corner back to hide the hole and tried to smooth it over.
“You di’n’ need ta hit ’im.”
“Do more’n that too if he don’ cut it out. Slobby bastard. We should never’ve brought him along.”
“He don’t hurt none. Got the peaches, di’n’ he?”
“Fuck peaches.”
Billy Joe had stopped crying and tried to wipe the pages off with his pants.
“Careful,” said Leonard, and took it from him. “Pages break easy if you got ’em wet.”
“Shit. We got to get us some money.” And Wally pounded the steering wheel. “We ain’t got but a quarter-tank of gas.”
“I thought you said we’d just make it down to your friend’s place. Didn’t he say we could stay there?”
“That’s what I said, di’n’ I? And that’s what I meant. But we can’t go down there flat broke. Hell, ain’t you got no class at all? Don’t you got no style? We got to give him somethin’. Shit, if I wasn’t with you little punks, I’d do me somethin’.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. But I’d do me somethin’. There’s always ways ta get a little coin together, or snatch, I might get me some snatch. There’s plenty a cunt in this town for a guy who knows how to do it.”
“What’re we goin’ a do, Wally? Son-of-a-bitch, there’s a patrol car! He’s comin’ over here!”
“For Christ sakes, try to be cool. Jesus, what a couple of punks. Don’ go lookin’ like that or he’ll know somethin’s up, you dumb fuck. Just sit there. Can’t no cop do nothin’ to ya if you’re just sittin’ there.” The police car drove by and Wally sneered at themen inside it from the corners of his eyes, his mouth curled at one edge, as though daring them not to stop. They went by.
“What’re we goin’ ta do, Wally?”
“First we got to get some more food—then we think. Send Billy Joe back in for somethin’ else, an’ no more fuckin’ fruit. Get some ice cream.”
“He went the last time.”
“Well,
