deathbed to deathbed and ministers to the weary sickly organisms, collecting and distilling their feverish misery, the wicked, white blow of death deep within her gullet—all the better to steel herself for the unspeakable tragedy which is always on its way, inevitable.
Likewise does she, with immaculate solicitude, shower care and compassion upon the mentally defective, the ones born simple, slow, their eyes set wide apart, innocent and uncomprehending, destined all alike to perish young and no further enlightened as to why this should be so—the utter explosive unfairness of this, it is, he is, you are, that’s all—all founded and predicated upon a reality which is unacceptable to mere mortal minds.
To Momma Simpson this is the Ultimate Backdrop of Reality before which we play our foolish Punch and Judy show of life: disease and misery are not aberrations but rather well-being and happiness are, mere brief intervals in the ongoing rush of death and decay—and as such, are to be savoured and prized, transient though they may be.
Never does she perceive a rose but that its oncoming blight and withering are immediately perceptible to her—and never even on the brightest day does the sun shine bright enough to erase the hungry black mist encroaching around its circumference—and never does the human form present itself but that she sees the oncoming ashiness of face, the grizzled limbs, the palsied hands, the hard bone of skeleton impatiently awaiting release.
It is for this reason her bleeding mosquito bites and scabs, her jabbering mouth never ceasing to detail the latest catastrophe, crisis, hectoring on into the deep night when the mood takes her, causing poor old Daddy Jack to clasp his head with trembling hands (he is a great sufferer of migraines) and with an almost-weeping expression on his wincing face cry, “Grace. Please, just STOP it. JESUS!”
For stumbling blocks must and will come with admirable efficiency and haste, while miracles are oft lost in the mail. It’s always something and if it isn’t it soon will be, and so it is in the grim comfort of imminent and utter devastation that Momma Simpson unreservedly and trustfully places the whole of her faith.
Now Momma Simpson rises from the table with her empty bowl, turns and rinses it out in the sink. She stands before the sink and looks out the little window above it, sees the misty cornfields and the Jacksons’ barn a half-mile away, sees the desolate highway and the little black sparrows on the drooping hydro lines.
Jack surely does ride that boy’s ass, she thinks in her mind—never gives him a moment’s peace at all, always on at him about something that means nothing from morning till night. Pickin’ on him and pickin’ at him, trying to break him down. Well, soon the tale will be told because it was the very same way for Bud when he reached Harley’s age, ’round the time of comin’ into high school.
For a year there he would not let the boy alone, always gripin’ and bitchin’ at him about something until finally, suddenly one night he was drunk as a skunk and came on at Bud about his missing hammer, yes the missing hammer, always something stupid like that. Jack came at him drunk and red-faced and screaming, spit comin’ out of his mouth, and he pushed Bud back on the couch and Bud’s feet came up at Jack and he kicked at him. “Did you see that? Did you see that little cocksucker take a kick at me?” Jack shouted.
“Leave the boy alone!” Momma Simpson said but Jack reached down to grab him by the collar and Bud rose up and hit Jack in the face and Jack staggered back and fell crashing so that the floor and walls of the house all shook and clattered and his head hit the wall and the dishes rattled in the china cabinet. Jack just lay there on the floor for the rest of the night, stinking of the booze. Momma Simpson could tell Bud had not wanted to do it and felt bad, but Jack never did bother him again that way from that time on.
And now Harley’s comin’ up to that age and Bud and Jack both gang up on him, but it won’t be long now. Harley’s fillin’ out, those arms of his are gettin’ bigger, likely he’ll grow half a foot in the next year, and if he won’t be able to beat Jack sober then he’ll surely be able to beat Jack drunk. Momma Simpson lays down the dishrag and clears up the table—feeling a certain pity for her husband, a certain apprehension for the beating he’ll take, but knowing there’s nothing she can do about it. Might as well try and stop the sun coming up. Oh well, just more proof that this life is a struggle and a heavy yoke to be borne and endured.
There is a stumbling and a clambering at the back door as Daddy Jack, Bud, Harley, my brother and I come in from the barn stamping our big black barn boots at the door, all caked with mud and shit. Daddy Jack’s gravelly voice rumbles on about the axle on the grain wagon: “Gotta go to town to get the axle on the grain wagon fixed since Bud didn’t git it done yesserday.”
“Ah shit, I said I’d take it in tomorrow!” grumbles Bud but Daddy Jack says he wants to git ’er done today, and he’ll need Harley and Bud to hoist it in and out of the pickup—the Ole Clunker they call it, an ol’ truck from 1957.
“There goes my fuckin’ day,” moans Harley.
“Stop yer bitchin’,” Daddy Jack snaps and grunts as he strains upon a chair changing from his barn boots into his town boots.
“Oh,” Momma Simpson says, “I gotta go into town to take a casserole to the Henderson’s funeral.”
“Well hurry the hell up!” mutters Daddy Jack as he changes his hat. My brother and I are excited because we’re all going into TOWN and Momma Simpson pulls the pan from the fridge and Harley and Bud go out to get the axle and we all stamp out to the Ole Clunker.
Daddy Jack leaps in the front and fires up a smoke, Bud and Harley come struggling across the yard with the axle (“Slow the fuck down!” shouts Harley, “Keep yer fuckin’ end up!” yells Bud) and Daddy Jack guns the engine which comes clanking, quivering, revving, shaking, grinding, turning over with a chugging sound and then with a blast like the world splitting in half, the Ole Clunker starts pounding and vibrating, voluminous clouds of exhaust in the back.
Daddy Jack reaches under the seat and pulls out a bottle with a mouthful of warm beer left in the bottom which he sucks back with a smacking sound then pitches it out the window. Momma Simpson jogs out with her casserole covered over in cellophane, her whole body flapping and flopping, going on about something about the Henderson’s funeral, but Daddy Jack just yells out with a sharp shake of his head, “Git in the truck, woman. Jesus ye give a dog’s ass a heartburn!” and guns the truck again as Bud and Harley hoist the axle into the back and then jump in after it.
Momma Simpson crawls in the front with us, and all is a big thrill and a calamity and a commotion because we’re all going into town, and though nobody even smiles there is a special thing about going into town but only if you have a reason to do so, and as we do in this particular case then everything is all set, this is a special day, and with a roar the Ole Clunker backs across the grass and vrooms down the driveway, clouds of exhaust and dust and gravel crackling and flying up everywhere.
We swerve out onto the highway, Daddy Jack’s tiny eyes watching the road expressionlessly as he taps his cigarette at the window, Momma Simpson going on about the funeral: “Never sick a day in his life till the cancer, started out a bump on his back, dumb doctor didn’t know nothin’.” But there’d be a good lunch at the reception.
The hydro lines bob and jiggle at each side, barns, houses, horses, forests, farms and fields, swelling and shrinking, Johnson’s Variety, Pepsi-Cola and sky all up above, the yellow-rimmed clouds and the sun going higher, the white line of the highway and in the back Harley and Bud smoke crouched on the floor watching everything disappear.
Harley kneels and shoves his face out into
