He shut his eyes, the tears squeezed out onto his cheeks. She stayed next to him, not talking anymore, and when he went to sleep again she went out and climbed the stairs to her room on the second floor and lay down in the bed in the hot afternoon while the wind blew the curtains in and out at the window.
36
AT THE PARSONAGE John Wesley used most of that same long hot summer afternoon to clear everything from his computer. Then as the day stretched toward the end, when the sun had moved far westward, he came out of the bedroom and walked down the hall to his parents’ room at the front of the house and looked in the drawers in the walnut bureau that had belonged to his mother, but she had taken all her clothes and makeup with her to Denver. He drew the curtain back from the window and looked out at the corner of the street and into the high branches of the trees. The late-afternoon light in the street had a slanted look. He walked back down the hall and searched the upstairs bathroom in the cabinets and chests, but there was none of her mascara or lipstick on the shelves or in the drawers.
Downstairs in the kitchen he took out the box of wood matches from the junk drawer together with a flat dish from the cupboard and carried them into the bathroom. He struck a match and smeared the charcoal end on his fingers, it made a black stain. He lighted a dozen more matches and set them in the dish. Then he began to blacken his face. When he was finished he stood looking at himself in the cabinet mirror, all his face was dark now, and he shut the light off and dumped the match ends in the trash can and rinsed the dish and put it away and drank a glass of water at the sink and went out the door to the garage.
There was a long narrow driveway running alongside the house to the garage. Grass had grown up in the gravel. In the garage he pulled the overhead door shut and locked it and locked the side door. Light filtered in from the small windows at the sides.
From the rear of the garage he brought out an old wood chair and set it in the middle of the floor where the fine dirt was black and shiny with oil leaks from the car. Then he brought out the wood box from under the workbench. On the bench were a steel vise and cans of nails and old hammers and wrenches all coated with oily dust. He set the box on the chair.
After that he got out the cotton rope he’d bought at the hardware store on Main Street and hidden in the corner by the workbench.
Then he stood next to the chair and threw one end of the rope over a rafter, making the fine dust from all the years sift down and hang in the air, and tied a knot in the rope and pulled it tight. He leaned against the rope to test if it would hold.
Then he walked over to the window and looked out at the backyard where his father had started a garden. He looked past the yard to the neighbors’. Through the trees he could see the town water tower, with Holt spelled out in red, at night it was always lit up but he wouldn’t see that anymore, and he crossed to the other side and looked out west across the street. Nobody there. Nothing happening.
He came back and climbed up on the box and immediately he lost his balance and had to step off. The box tumbled down. He brushed the dirt off and set it back on the chair and stood up on it slowly, carefully, leaning and tottering, then stood still. He reached around behind and brought the rope over his shoulder so that it hung in front of him. He held it for a moment, looking at it. Then he tied a slipknot and fit the loop over his head and drew it tight around his neck, with the knot at the back of his head just under the bulge of the skull, and let the loose end fall behind him. Then he lowered his hands and arms to his sides.
For a long time, for maybe twenty minutes, he stood without moving. He turned once and looked out the window at the day and all the nearby world. The light was lower now. In the garage it was darker than it was outside.
Out on the high plains the sun went down and disappeared beyond the low flat horizon. The boy still stood on the box with the rope around his neck.
He hadn’t been able to make himself kick the box out from under his feet. Then he discovered that he couldn’t untie the knot behind his head without moving the box. If he moved at all the box tipped. He began to cry, without daring to move, as the room darkened. The tears left runnels in the charcoal on his face. He watched afraid, as the light seeped out of the room. He couldn’t hear anything outside.
It had been completely dark for an hour when his father came home and the headlights of the car came tipping and rocking up the gravel drive. Then the headlights went off and he heard the car door shut and heard his father going up the back steps into the house. He called to him, but there was no answer. Then after a while Lyle came back out of the house to the garage and tried to open the door. He peered in through the window.
Dad.
What’s going on? Are you in there?
Help me, Dad.
Why? What are you doing?
Help me.
Lyle smashed the window with a rock and reached in and unlocked the door and stepped inside.
Dad, don’t touch me.
What is this? What are you doing?
You can’t touch me. You might push me off.
My God.
Help me get down. You’ll have to cut the rope.
I’ll turn the car lights on.
No, don’t. Somebody might see me. Just get a flashlight. Please.
Lyle stood looking up at his son’s dark face. I’ll be right back, he said. Don’t move.
He rushed into the house and came back with a flashlight and a kitchen knife and played the beam over the boy’s face, blackened and smeared, tracked by tears.
God Almighty, son. Oh my Lord.
You can’t tell Mom. You promise?
What do you mean? She has to know.
I don’t want her to know. Promise me, Dad. Nobody else either.
I have to get you down from there first. He got a stepladder from the side of the garage and stood it next to the rope.
Dad. Don’t bump me.
I know, son. Be quiet.
You can’t even touch me.
Stay quiet now. Hush.
He climbed the ladder slowly and shone the flashlight up and down the rope and over the boy’s frightened face and cut the rope loose with the knife. The end fell away. The boy began to cry, and he stumbled off the box and fell down in the dirt. Lyle climbed down and pulled the rope from his neck.
You’re all right now, honey. He held him tight. It’s all right now.
I want to go with Mom.
Yes, you can go with her. You’re safe now.
But you won’t tell her.
No. Not if it’s important to you.
37
IN THE EVENING, on the following day, Dad lay awake with the window open, the smell of dust and mowed grass drifting in.
Mary came in the room with a pan of hot water and set it on the chair next to the bed and brought in a second pan and set it on another chair and went out again and returned with towels and washcloths. She switched on the bedside lamp and got Dad out of his pajamas and his diaper and covered him with a flannel sheet. Are you ready to get cleaned up, honey?
That water isn’t too hot, is it? he whispered.
No. But I don’t want you to get chilled.
She began by washing his face and head with a soapy washcloth and rubbed his face and head with a washcloth from the rinse water and dried him with a towel. She washed his chest and arms and hands and rubbed him dry, and pulled the flannel sheet up, covering his upper body to keep him warm, and washed his wasted legs and feet and rinsed and dried them. Roll over on your side now, honey. Hold on to my hand. He made a little moan in pain and turned slowly to his side and she washed his back and his gaunt behind and cleaned him thoroughly and dried him, then he turned back and she washed between his legs.