Thomas held out the shirt to Julie.
Our stomach! they said. He’s taking it away!
The stomach heaved like a trampoline in the direction of its admirers.
Julie put on the shirt tucking the loose ends of it into her long dark-green skirt to the ground.
She looked at Thomas.
Have I lost my beauty altogether?
Not yet, he said.
Quite wonderful, said the Dead Father. I was offended, of course.
Suffer, Julie said.
The pink of you against the green of the fields, said Thomas. Several of my favorite colors.
They told me you were color-blind, when you were a boy, said the Dead Father. I never believed you were color-blind. A son of mine.
I thought I was color-blind, Thomas said, because they told me I was color-blind. To green, they said.
I never thought you were color-blind. You saw what we had agreed to call green.
I saw what I thought and still think was green.
Never thought you were color-blind or dim either, said the Dead Father, despite what I was told by the specialists.
You had hope, Thomas said. Grateful for that.
My criticism was that you never understood the larger picture, said the Dead Father. Young men never understand the larger picture.
I don’t suggest I understand it now. I do understand the frame. The limits.
Of course the frame is easier to understand.
Older people tend to overlook the frame, even when they are looking right at it, said Thomas. They don’t like to think about it.
Alexander approached Thomas.
Look there, he said. He pointed.
A horseman on the hill.
I think he’s following us, said Alexander.
You’ve seen him before?
Yesterday. Always keeps the same distance.
Not one of those we passed back up the road?
No. Those were black, this is a bay.
I wonder who he is, Thomas said. He looked at the Dead Father’s watch, which he was wearing on his wrist.
Okay, he said, let’s make tracks.
The cable taut. The straggle along the road. The horseman following.
5
Thomas helping haul on the cable. Julie carrying the knapsack. The Dead Father eating a bowl of chocolate pudding.
When I asked you to help me, he said, it wasn’t because I needed help.
Of course not, said Thomas.
I’m doing this for you, essentially, the Dead Father said. For the general good, and thus, for you.
Thomas said nothing.
As so much else, said the Dead Father.
Thomas said nothing.
You never knew, said the Dead Father.
Thomas turned his head.
You told us, he said, repeatedly.
Oh well yes I may have mentioned the odd initiative now and again. But you never knew. In the fullest sense. Because you are not a father.
I am, Thomas said. You forget Elsie.
Doesn’t count, said the Dead Father. A son can never, in the fullest sense, become a father. Some amount of amateur effort is possible. A son may after honest endeavor produce what some people might call, technically, children. But he remains a son. In the fullest sense.
A moment’s quiet.
Have you heard from her? Elsie?
There was a postcard, Thomas said, three months ago. Picture of a puppy dog with large staring eyes. Love, she said.
Four months ago, Julie said.
Three and a half months ago. She said she was playing field hockey. She was a left inner, she said.
Hockey, said the Dead Father. Chasing that round hard thing down the field. Develops the thigh muscles. Beyond what is desirable, sometimes.
Thomas jerked upon the cable. The Dead Father fell down. Julie and Emma picked him up.
Great knotted bunches of thigh muscles like a plate of red empty lobster shells, the Dead Father said, I can picture it. Antiaesthetic. Sad to see in a twelve-year-old.
I wrote that she was not to pursue it to excess, Thomas said, over his shoulder.
Why do you abide with him? the Dead Father said to Julie. A boy. A neonate. A weakwick. Probably not even found the button yet.
He’s found it, she said.
Is it a large one? the Dead Father asked.
Large enough.
A tender red?
Tender enough.
Can I see it?
Oh I am tired of you! Julie cried.
She raised her arms with fists at the end into the air.
I am not tired of you, said the Dead Father.
That your tuff luck, she said. Not my tuff luck. Yours. Tuff titty.
Titty, said the Dead Father. A short suck?
You are incredible.
Thomas walked back to the Dead Father and rapped him sharply in the forehead.
The Dead Father said: This is damned unpleasant!
Then: If only I were myself again!
We are making progress, Thomas said.
When I douse myself in its great yellow electricity, the Dead Father said, then I will be revivified.
Best not to anticipate too much, said Thomas, it jiggles the possibilities.
Possibilities! Surely the Fleece is not a mere possibility?
It is an excellent possibility, Julie said quickly. A wonderful possibility.
Have you noticed the weather? asked Thomas.
All turned to look for the weather.
Good weather, Julie said. Great weather.
A very pleasant day, Emma noted.
Pleasant day, said the Dead Father.
Extremely pleasant, Thomas said.
It was on a day much like this, said the Dead Father, that I fathered the Pool Table of Ballambangjang.
The what?
It is rather an interesting tale, said the Dead Father, which I shall now tell. I had been fetched by the look of a certain maiden, a raven-haired maiden —
He looked at Julie, whose hand strayed to her dark dark hair.
A raven-haired maiden of great beauty. Her name was Tulla. I sent her many presents. Little machines, mostly, a machine for stamping her name on strips of plastic, a machine for extracting staples from documents, a machine for shortening her fingernails, a machine for removing wrinkles from fabric with the aid of steam. Well, she accepted the presents, no difficulty there, but me she spurned. Now as you might imagine I am not fond of being spurned. I am not used to it. In my domains it does not happen but as ill luck would have it she lived just over the county line. Spurned is not a thing I like to be. In fact I have a positive disinclination for it. So I turned myself into a haircut —
A haircutter? asked Julie.
A haircut, said the Dead Father. I turned myself into a haircut and positioned myself upon the head of a member of my retinue, quite a handsome young man, younger than I, younger than I and stupider, that goes without saying, still not without a certain rude charm, bald as a bladder of lard, though, and as a consequence somewhat diffident in the presence of ladies. Using the long flowing sideburns as one would use one’s knees in guiding a horse —
The horseman is still following us, Thomas noted. I wonder why.
— I sent him cantering off in the direction of the delectable Tulla, the Dead Father went on. So superior was the haircut, that is to say, me, joined together with his bumbly youngness, for which I do not blame him, that she succumbed immediately. Picture it. The first night. The touch nonesuch. At the crux I turned myself back into myself (vanishing the varlet) and we two she and I looked at each other and were content. We spent many nights together all roaratorious and filled with furious joy. I fathered upon her in those nights the poker chip, the cash register, the juice extractor, the kazoo, the rubber pretzel, the cuckoo clock, the key chain, the dime bank, the pantograph, the bubble pipe, the punching bag both light and heavy, the inkblot, the nose drop, the midget Bible, the slot-machine slug, and many other useful and humane cultural artifacts, as well as some thousands of children of the ordinary sort. I fathered as well upon her various institutions useful and humane such as the credit union, the dog pound, and parapsychology. I fathered as well various realms and territories all superior in terrain, climatology, laws and customs to this one. I overdid it but I was madly, madly in love, that is all I can say in my own defense. It was a very creative period but my darling, having mothered all this abundance uncomplainingly and without reproach, at last died of it. In my arms of course. Her last words were “enough is enough, Pappy.” I was inconsolable and, driven as if by a demon, descended into the underworld seeking to reclaim her.