Read Online Cannonball by Joseph McElroy - Free Book Online

sentence, forget an idea.”
    â€œWell, they have to take this guy out,” I said, meaning the war. “Right. Nothing fancy about…” my father began but oddly didn’t finish. “That’s what I understand, keep things simple,” I said but at a slant probably. “You’re so—“my father began as the front door shook the house—“You don’t a pol ogize,” he said, I believe of America. Business as usual about everything, I think I said. “Business as usual,” my mother called out, recyclable paper bags crackling with forethought, fresh home from the Presidio Farmer’s and her particular friend, the butcher, it came to me and to my sister catching my eye. My father muttered something. They’ll find it somewhere, I said. Find what? my father said. Their mission statement, I said. Where? he said curiously.
    Division of labor, I said. Someone had said—I stopped— Some one? my dad said—that the value of a fixed calling gave us a warrant for it. For what? The division of labor, I laughed. Dad more than didn’t like the conversation. My job will be…(I thought a moment). You two , he said.
    â€œWe’ll get it in writing,” I said. “A mission statement,” my sister said. “Setting out our way of life,” I said. “You people are never wrong but you don’t have a plan and you never will have,” my father said. “You people have a privileged life, time to give something back. In writing did you say?” I humored my dad, I said I didn’t want to be doing work with no point to it, Mrs. Browning had figured that out, though she didn’t know where I’d borrowed the guy endlessly pushing the stone from who knew the secrets of the gods. “Enough of that old stuff,” my father said. “You should know,” I said. My sister, on my side, said, “She thought Zach made it up, veins in the earth, and she didn’t like that.” But we couldn’t get a laugh out of Dad, who had never perhaps had the full experience of working in the dark. He was less a loose gun than…a loaded gun (E said). And where did they say that about cutting off the dog’s tail? she wanted to know. “Chile, of course,” a place my dad wanted to visit. Dad had been known to go camping alone when a mood came over him. My sister told her librarian friend things I said—she always answered me and it was she really who said the things. What did he mean You don’t apologize —you mean me or…? “You just don’t,” said my sister. That summer she was “EZ,” incorporating my first letter. (She played softball and had a great free uninhibited left-handed swing.) When did she seem to change her name? You didn’t know when exactly it would happen. It wasn’t advertised.
    Time twisting, braiding, stumbling, for me to see my way out—time to leave. I put off going to see Wick, the teacher I trusted. My home had been escaping me. About this I didn’t tell my sister; or didn’t need to, it was so old and impenetrably understood, leaning toward her or she toward me, hands, no hands, who could tell the difference? “What you get might always seem less than you should but it’s fate,” she said of me, the stony gray light of her eyes warming mine but to see more than just the future.
    Which I’d espied just yesterday upon leaving The Inventor’s: the truck, clean of graffiti, parked up by the bungalow. Most of all, for it was she in her hat and skimpy sunsuit, the old woman picking weed-like greens by the porch whom my sister would have known from the pool.
    I hoped for success for my father. What exactly was it about life that was hell for him? He was serious as a person. What a coach he was, hoping to be tapped for Olympic trials. With his unique method yet willing to use whatever came to hand. He knew. And at a glance