Big Picture: Stories (14 page)

“Taller,” Wes said.

Joseph pressed his back against the tiled wall of the shower. Once, more of his body struck flush; now his shoulders curved over a bit. Dirt and dust followed rivulets down his body, twisting off his tired legs and finding the drain. He turned off the water and dried his body roughly with a white towel that was stiff from hanging on the line.

While he dressed he listened to his wife downstairs in the kitchen; he heard her footsteps, the clattering of plates and pots settling on the table. She was whistling. The tune annoyed Joseph, but he couldn’t help listening closely. He laughed softly at himself, discovering his anger, but the emotion was no surprise. He was only startled by the calm of it all.

He dressed in new jeans and a white shirt and went downstairs. He sat at the dining-room table, where he always sat, his back to the window.

Wes said nothing, just tore into his meal, keeping his eyes cast down at his busy plate.

“How’s your car?” Joseph asked.

Cora was not ready with an answer. Her voice broke as she searched for words. She landed on, “It did fine today, for a while, but the noise started again.”

“The squeaking you described?” he asked, not really paying attention to her, but tossing a sidelong glance toward the boy.

“Yes,” she said.

He nodded and mumbled that he would tend to it later. He asked Wes to pass the bread. After a silence he asked, “By the way, where’d you go earlier?”

Her response was ready and clear and its suddenness pulled Wes’s eyes from his fork to her. “I was at Amy’s house, helping her choose wallpaper for her kitchen.”

“She doing it herself or having somebody come in?” Joseph buttered his roll.

“Having somebody come in,” Cora said. “And of course I picked up some groceries.”

The moon was unrelenting as Joseph stared out the bedroom window. The cornbread globe, just shy of full, sang a glow of restful light, but Joseph was up cursing it. He went to the window and looked down at the bay mare in the pasture. He couldn’t climb back into bed. He couldn’t lie between the sheets with that woman; he couldn’t have her foot brush his leg or her hair tickle his shoulders. He pulled on his pants and went down the stairs, outside, and across the yard to the corral. The night was cool and not very dark. He took up a handful of earth and looked at it. He knew that if he threw it as hard and as far as he could, all of it would still fall on his land. He let the dirt sift through his fingers.

The next weeks saw a steady rain that had come late, but had come. The pastures were soft and the horses stayed near the trees in the corner of the pasture. Cora’s car was gone more and more. He had seen her car parked in the same place in town several times. Refusing to acknowledge that a blind eye is just as vulnerable as one that sees, he went about his work, rising early, falling silent in the evenings. He could see her car in his sleep, through the windshield of his truck, the rain rolling down it, the wipers counting cadence.

Finally one day he greeted her with the same face he had for weeks and told her that he knew. She smiled, a cutting, wicked smile, Joseph thought, and his calm faded, his eyes narrowed and hardened. His brain spoke to her, telling her to feel his pain, the hurt of the betrayal, telling her to open his shirt and see the gaping wound.

Cora’s smile went away and she was afraid.

Joseph did nothing, said nothing. “Wes,” he called to his son.

Wes came into the room.

“Come on, let’s ride into town.”

Wes looked at his parents, one then the other. “Okay.”

Joseph did not offer Cora another glance. He followed Wes out the door and through the drizzle to the truck. It was dusk as they stopped at a diner.

Wes waited until they were seated and had ordered before he asked, “What’s going on?”

“Your mother and I are having some problems.”

“No kidding.”

Joseph looked at his son, not knowing what to say or whether he should say anything. “She’s been cheating on me, Wes.”

The boy looked at his father.

“She’s been with another man.”

Wes shook his head and looked out the window. “I don’t believe you. Who?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

The waitress brought the food.

Wes looked at his chicken-fried steak and moved it with his fork. “So, what’s going to happen?”

Joseph shrugged, and drank some coffee.

Joseph and Wes came home to a dark house. They said good night and Wes went upstairs to bed. Joseph sat in the kitchen for a few minutes, then climbed the stairs to the room he shared with Cora, and found her in bed. He sat on the edge of his side, holding his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. He heard her stir and sit up.

“Joseph, we have to talk about this,” she said, her voice looking for steadiness.

He wanted something to happen, wanted to talk, but he didn’t have the stomach for it. He stood up.

“Don’t leave,” she said.

He turned to face her and she switched on the bedside lamp.

“I’m not leaving, Cora,” he said, “not this ranch anyway. And I’m not going to ask you to leave. But I’m not asking you to stay.”

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Yeah, well, maybe this will blow over. I don’t know.” He turned and walked away from her, but stopped at the door. “I don’t want to know who it was.”

“It didn’t, doesn’t mean anything,” she said.

Without looking at her, he said, “Oh, it means something.” He rubbed a hand over his head.

She said, “I want you to talk to Wes.”

“And tell him what?”

Cora switched off the lamp and lay back down. He could tell her eyes were open, fixed on the ceiling. He could feel her not looking at him.

Joseph stepped away, leaned against the wall outside his room and looked at his son’s bedroom door. Talk to him? He didn’t know what to tell him. He didn’t know what to tell himself.

It was hot again. Joseph was just about to climb the ladder and find out what was wrong with the vapor lamp on the barn. His stomach had felt uneasy all morning and now there was a pain in his gut. It had been giving him trouble for a couple weeks, but he had waved it off. He swayed a bit, thought about the dizziness, and passed out.

He awoke to the drawling voice of the retired doctor from Tennessee who lived down the road. The obtrusive space between his teeth made him hard to look at. Joseph sat up, and noticed he had been moved to his bed. His wife stood at the foot of the bed.

“Just a bug, eh, Doc?” Joseph said.

The doctor shrugged. “I can’t say. You need to go in and ‘get looked at,’ as we say.”

“Thank you, Dr. Wills,” Cora said.

“Yeah, thanks, Doc,” Joseph said, not looking at the man but out the window.

Once Cora led the doctor out of the room, Joseph wrapped an arm across his tender middle, and stood up despite the pain. He went to the window and looked out. Wes was on the ladder fixing the light. Wes looked back at the house and saw his father. The boy climbed down and came running across the yard to the house.

Wes came upstairs and gave Joseph a hug.

“Thanks for fixing the light.”

“I knew you wanted it done.” He studied his father. “Shouldn’t you be lying down?”

“I’m okay,” Joseph said.

Cora appeared, and stood in the doorway. Wes ignored her.

Cora sighed and left.

“Don’t treat your mother like that,” Joseph said.

“Yes, sir.”

Joseph rubbed the hair on his son’s head roughly. “Since when am I a sir?”

“I don’t know.”

“Go see what you can do to help your mother while I lie down for a while.”

Wes left the room.

Cora made an appointment for Joseph with the same doctor her father had gone to some months earlier. He drove into the city for the preliminary examination, which was short enough but ended with an invitation to return.

“Didn’t they say anything?” Cora asked when he returned. “They must have said something.”

“What do you care?”

Wes stepped into the kitchen just in time to hear his father’s words.

“Just that I have to come back,” Joseph said.

“Not even a hunch?”

He shrugged. “Said something about it maybe being an ulcer.” He sat at the kitchen table to eat the cold meat sandwich she had made for him.

“That’s what it is,” she said. “You hold things in. And you don’t eat right, Joseph.”

He nodded and looked at his son. “I guess I do,” he said, turning to look into his wife’s eyes.

“That’s what it is,” she said.

Joseph went out to the pasture fence and looked at his horses. Wes followed him.

“How you feeling?” the boy asked.

“Fine. Ulcer.”

The boy spat into the dust and covered it with the toe of his boot. “They give you pills?”

“Not yet.” He put a foot up on the lowest rail of the fence. “Everything’s fine, Wes.” He coughed into a fist. “You any good at this basketball stuff?”

Wes chuckled. “I’m okay.”

“I’m glad you’re going to play,” Joseph said. “It’ll keep you out of trouble.”

“Right. That’s why I’m playing.”

The next visit to the doctor started early, one test followed by another. The congenial grins faded into knitted brows. Then he was given an endoscopic examination that fascinated and scared him. A lighted tube was passed down his throat and into his stomach. Calipers were fed through the tube to extract tissue that was biopsied by pathologists who Joseph imagined deep in the basement of the University Hospital.

Joseph sat by the doctor’s desk and watched the man light a cigarette and blow out a cloud of blue smoke. “How’s the ranch, Joseph?”

“Fine.”

“Good bunch of foals this year?”

“I’ve seen better.”

The doctor put out his cigarette, looking at it with a bit of disgust. “Joseph, it seems we have a problem.”

Joseph nodded.

“We have gastrointestinal lymphomas.”

“We do?”

The doctor cleared his throat. “Infiltrates have embedded themselves into your stomach wall. That’s why we thought ulcer at first.” He coughed. “It’s serious. We’re in trouble.”

“How much trouble?” Joseph asked.

“Chemotherapy might help, but I can’t make any promises.”

“Are you telling me we’re dying?”

“Yes, I am,” the doctor said. “You want it straight, Joseph?”

“Of course.”

“I wish I could say something good. My guess, well it’s more than a guess, is that treatment will only keep you alive a little longer. But who knows? The body is an amazing thing.” He studied Joseph’s face. “I’d like you to come back next week and we’ll run the tests again.” He pulled a small white pad of paper in front of him and started to write. He glanced up at Joseph. “Here’s something for the pain.”

Joseph took the prescription and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. He stood up and shook the doctor’s hand.

“You all right?” the doctor asked.

Joseph smiled. “Apparently not.”

Joseph thought about his wife as he drove his pickup out of the parking lot of the medical center. Cora was no pessimist. He knew that she believed with every ounce of herself that her husband would step through the front door and tell her that he was all right. He knew she expected this and so he planned to lie. Just an ulcer, he would say, then stand witness to her relief. And she would tell him again that it was because he held things in. At a stoplight in the middle of town he recalled how much he disliked the city; he couldn’t see any purpose in living like that. He also failed to see the point in telling a lie like the one he had planned, a lie that could not be maintained indefinitely. He would tell Cora the truth and be with her while she came to terms with things. He would tell her, she would stiffen a little, straighten her back, and say that they would see their way through. Then he’d tell her that he was refusing treatment because it would only moderately prolong his life and greatly enhance his suffering, at which point she would fall to the floor crying and cursing him. Truth of the matter was he had no idea how it would go, or even if he would have the courage to tell her.

Joseph was thirty-eight, a young man. He was younger with the passing of every block as he left the city behind. He saw some teenagers on the basketball courts of a middle school. He parked and went to stand by the far goal, where he leaned against the post. An errant pass bounced his way. He stopped the ball and picked it up, held it.

“Mind if I take a shot?” he asked.

They told him to go ahead. He put his hat on the ground and stepped forward, dribbled a couple of times. He threw up a thirty-foot jumper that bounced long off the rim back to him. He walked closer to the basket, bouncing the ball slowly, feeling it rise each time to meet his palm and fingers.

“Come on, man, shoot,” said one of the boys.

“Why don’t you try guarding me?” Joseph said. A breeze pushed at his back.

The boys laughed and the one who had told him to hurry came forward, flashing a smile back at his buddies. He was a tall boy with long arms and fancy basketball shoes. He took a quick swipe at the ball, but Joseph turned his body.

“Make a move, old man.”

Joseph gave the kid a head fake and dribbled left. The kid stayed with him, so he spun right on the heel of his boot and put a fall-away jumper.

“Yes,” Joseph said as the ball banged around the rim and fell through the hole. “How do you like it, sonny?”

The boys teased their friend. The kid shrugged it off, got the ball, and dribbled to the top of the key. He pointed at Joseph and gestured for him to come. Joseph smiled and went to him. The kid tried to drive right, but Joseph stepped over and stopped him. Joseph feigned a move for the ball and the boy almost lost control of it.

“Okay, old man,” the teenager said and made a quick move again to the right.

Joseph was caught flat-footed in his heavy cowboy boots and fell a full step behind. Joseph reached out and pushed the kid in the back. The shot went wild and the boy fell and rolled across the blacktop into the grass.

The kid got up. “What’s the matter with you, man?” The other boys rallied behind him.

Joseph was confused, but angry and he found himself stepping up to the kid. “What’s the problem?” He squinted up at the sun. “Are you mad at me?” he asked the boy. The kid looked at him like he was crazy; he was ready to back away, ready to run, but Joseph wouldn’t let him. “You’re mad at me. I can see that. You want to hit me, don’t you? Don’t you?”