The Color of Grace a short story by F.B. Hink |
He sat alone on the bank of a cold pond, surrounded by the fading grass of the hills and trees. He clutched a cane pole between his folded hands. A line dropped from the pole into the pond with a cork that lay flat on the pond's dark waters, occasionally bobbing with a breeze from the north. The man used his knees to hold his fishing pole and reached into his worn leather jacket, retrieving an aluminum flask. He drank from the flask. He fished out a pack of cigarettes from his other pocket and lit one, inhaling without deliberation. On a hill above him, a farmhouse sat on cinderblocks, its white paint long ago crackled and stripped by the wind and the rain; it appeared as if one strong breeze would send the house tumbling down the hill. Behind the farmhouse were three pairs of telephone poles, standing in defiance of time. It had been a pole barn. Now the siding and tin roof lay at the feet of the poles, exposing only a cross beam nailed to one pole. Between the house and the poles stood the skeleton of a tree, some of its long arched branches no longer attached, having fallen through the rotted roof of the farmhouse. Clinging to the hills was a gray blanket stretching far to the southeast. Just over the trees across the pond, a dim brightness was poking through the clouds; some blue could be seen, offering -- at least on this day -- a glimmer of summer that was slipping away. The man scratched his beard, gripping the pole with his right hand, and laid back on the soft bank of the pond. He was waiting and trying to be serene. In 1968, the farmhouse stood on the hill planted firmly with activity. Its clapboards were bright white. Parked behind the farmhouse, under the shade of a mighty oak, sat a red tractor. The clinking from the cooling engine and the soft purring of the cicadas perched high above in the tree gave a song to score the end of another day. An old man sat on a wood bench on the back porch, resting his elbows on his knees. A cigarette dangled from his mouth and he held a can of beer to his forehead. A tan line stretched across his wrinkled forehead just below his matted gray hair. He wore a light blue button-down shirt with dark blue stains encircled by dull white under his arms. His work pants were plastered with dried mud to his knees. His socks were bunched on his feet and a pair of crackled leather boots covered in mud sat neatly beside the bench. A young boy of eight sat next to him in cut-off jeans, a striped shirt, and a salt-stained baseball cap pulled down over his eyes. He was barefoot. "We going fishing in the morning Gramps?" The old man barely turned his head to the boy and resumed his exhaustion. The pond below the house shimmered from the receding light. A brilliant crimson sky reached from the horizon and grabbed the dark blue of the day, its grip a mixture of purple, red, orange, and blue. The boy pushed the hat back and looked at the sunset and he smiled as he realized that what he saw was beautiful. The old man took a long drink from his beer, resting his head on the clapboards. He looked at the boy with his left eye squinting and then turned toward the sunset. "That's the color of grace," said the old man in a heavy German accent, pushing the hat down over the boy's eyes again. "Hey," the boy said, removing the hat and holding it in his lap. He smiled and looked into his grandfather's deep blue eyes. "Why do ya have mud on your pants Gramps?" "I found a calf stuck in the back creek." "You get her out in time?" "No," he said, taking another drink from his beer. He flicked his burned cigarette butt into the yard and held up his empty beer can. "Hey, get me another one of these." The boy obediently ran to the backdoor, the baseball cap falling to the ground, and threw open the screen door, disappearing inside. The door crashed shut with a screech. In two minutes, he was back with a can in his right hand and a rusty can opener in his left, the door crashing again. "Here Gramps," the boy said thrusting the can into the tired hands of his grandfather, "I don't know how to open it." "Don't bang the screen door." "Sorry. Grandma said that's your last one. She's got dinner ready." The old man took the can and opener, forcibly popping two holes in the top, and drank with zest from the can before setting the opener down beside him. He rubbed the back of his neck and then rested his left arm on his knee again. "Damn, it was hot." "Grandma said you ain't supposed to cuss." "Aren't supposed to cuss." "So, we going fishing in the morning?" the boy asked again. His grandfather fished a bandana from his back pocket and coughed into it, wiping his mouth. He sat back against the house, replacing the bandana, and took another drink from his beer. "What time is your father coming tomorrow?" "Ah, I don't know. Not till the afternoon, I guess." The old man sat still, looking past the boy, beyond into the sunset, his eyes becoming cloudy. He blinked and said: "I think we will get a storm tonight." The boy looked over his shoulder at the receding light. "Nah. Red sky at night, sailor's delight." "I'm not a sailor. Here, hand me my cap. Let's go eat." They ate a dinner of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, corn on the cob and greasy biscuits. The boy burped at the table and his grandmother scolded him for being a barbarian. They ate in silence after that. He was dismissed after clearing his plate and followed his nighttime ritual of bathing and dressing in his pajamas. He hated the pajamas because they were itchy inside the hot stale air of the clapboard house, but he wore them because his grandmother insisted after catching him sleeping naked one evening. He scurried into the kitchen just as his grandmother was placing a plate with apple pie on the table. This night was special because she included a scoop of vanilla ice cream that melted down the sides. The boy could hear the faint echoes of a baseball game being called on the radio. From this, he deducted, his grandfather was relaxing on the back porch, listening to the game while fiddling around with some machinery and pretending to drink a cup of coffee. His grandmother washed dishes as the boy ate the last bite of pie and scooped up the remaining ice cream with a fragment of crust. "A boy would be lucky to get two pieces of pie in one night," said the boy, looking at his grandmother. "I would think a boy would be lucky if he got ice cream." He did not respond. "Give me your plate and go tell your grandfather goodnight." "Okay, Grandma. Thanks for the pie." "You're welcome. Tell your grandfather not to stay out there too long." "I will." "And brush your teeth!" his grandmother called out to an empty room as the boy escaped to the back porch, slamming the screen door. "I told you not to slam that door!" yelled his grandfather. "Sorry Gramps." His grandfather returned to his far off gaze out into the night. The yard was not visible but the glow from inside kept enough light around the bench to see. A breeze would gust at times, which broke the usual hot stillness of a normal summer evening and the cicadas' purr was comforting. His grandfather, sipping whiskey from a mug, concentrated on the voice from the radio. The broadcast was augmented with intermittent crackling caused by lightening from somewhere in the night. A crowd could be heard mumbling over the announcer's voice. The announcer screamed, "Strike three! Side retired," and the crowd booed. His grandfather clapped his free hand on his knee and smiled, sipping again from his mug. "Who's winning, Gramps?" "They are but we'll get it back." "So, Gramps. You think we might go fishing in the morning?" His grandfather seemed not to hear the boy. On the bench beside him were scattered parts of some machine with a screwdriver and monkey wrench lying on top of an oily rag. He listened for the game to return but a different announcer was talking about protesters being arrested in Chicago and so his grandfather turned to the child. "I've got to get a new seal and bearing set for this pump. I have to have it for the milking machine." "But Gramps. You promised. You said that before summer was over you would go fishing with me." "You can go fishing in the morning by yourself." "I ain't... I haven't not caught the last fish. I've got one more fish to go before I break your record, Gramps." "You had fun this summer?" "Yes Gramps." "Then why do you complain?" The boy turned around and walked back into the house. "I just need one more," he whispered. From his room he could hear the sounds of the baseball game coming from the radio. He tossed an imaginary ball high into the air and crashed into his pillow, or the center field wall of his imagination, making the catch. When the bottom of the ninth came up with two outs and the bases loaded, he hit the homerun on a three-two count. The crowd went wild and somewhere, while he was riding on the shoulders of his Gramps who had charged out of the stands, he fell asleep... A flash streaked across the darkness of his room and the resulting explosion of sound jerked him out of his dreams. He fell to the floor. Rain pelted the side of the house and the wind howled like a thousand demons tearing at the curtains. The screen door opened and crashed several times and the boy screamed out, "Gramps!" but he did not answer. In a scramble, the boy pulled a blanket from his bed and crawled to the opened closet door. He curled up inside and pulled the blanket over his head. He screamed more but no one answered. The light continued to flash through the blanket and the explosions sounded heavy in his chest, each successive one more profound than the last. The rain sounded as if someone had a God-sized bucket and filled it up and dumped it on the house tirelessly. Even though the house sat on a hill, the boy knew that the waters would reach the house and they would float out to the Gulf of Mexico. Or, the wind would tear the house from the ground and send it flying to Kansas. Either way, the boy wished he weren't there. Where was his grandfather? Somewhere during the assault, the boy fell asleep... In the darkness, in the clouds and the muck and fog, was a sound. It was a sweet song and the boy woke and knew a sparrow was sitting in the oak tree. He was lying in his bed and he looked at his closet where he thought he had been. He quickly got dressed and ran into the kitchen. "Hey Grandma. Where's Gramps?" "Well, good morning. I'm fixing some eggs to have with leftover biscuits. Do you want two or three?" "I'm not hungry." "You've got to eat. You can't go fishing on an empty stomach." "How'd you know I was going fishing?" "Your grandfather is in the pole barn getting his fishing pole." "Yahoo!" screamed the boy with delight. "I knew he would take me. I just knew." The boy ran out the screen door, letting it slam as he passed by the tractor and the tree, dripping from the rain. The air was cooler this morning and the sun was beginning to disperse the clouds. "Gramps!" The boy's eyes adjusted slowly to the darkness of the barn. "Gramps?" He was used to either the wind clanking the tin sheeting on the roof or the tin groaning from the heat of the sun. This morning it was silent. He looked up twenty feet to the shelves on his right, to the top shelf where Gramps kept his fishing pole. He looked to the dirt floor where the ladder laid crushed on the dirt floor with his grandfather beneath. "Gramps!" The old man lay perfectly still without breathing. The boy knelt beside him and touched his cold face. He ran from the barn, stopping at the tractor. He knelt to the ground and with all the force he could muster, slugged himself in his stomach. "It's my fault!" Red-faced and clutching his chest, he looked up at the oak tree and watched a single brown leaf float to earth, landing just in front of him. The cork broke the stillness of the afternoon as it began to dance on the glassy pond. The man awoke and brushed back his hair. He looked down at the cork and smiled. He strengthened his grip on the pole. The cork shot under water and the man gave the pole a slight tug and he felt the pull of a fish on the end. Slowly he pulled the fish from the water. The fish was no more then four and a half inches long but its silver body glistened in a streak of light coming from a cloud bank that was beginning to break. It wiggled and fought to free itself but the hook was firmly gouged in its mouth. The man held the fish up and smiled. He had not fished in a very long time and he was not entirely sure how to, but he managed to remove the hook with only a couple of punctures to his thumb from the fish's fin. He released the fish back into the water and turned away from the pond. He left the pole lying on the bank of the pond and put his hands in his pockets. The last of the clouds on the western horizon were quickly dissipating and the color of grace fell on his back as he walked up the hill, toward the old farmhouse. © 2002 by F.B. Hink |
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