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Authors: Craig Davidson
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Jack could
smell him: ripe and musky like the first whiff of a logger's shack. Problem
was, his son's devolution was a threat to their shared futures. What self-
respecting woman would marry a man who picked grapes all day and came at her
with calloused, purple-stained fingers? How could he pass the business down to
a son happy to occupy the lowest rung on the ladder when he'd been earmarked
for the highest?
"Picking
season's over in two weeks," he said. "I'm not sure what you plan to
do then—run off into the forest and live off the land? Some hobo kick? Steal
clothes off laundry lines and sleep in drainage ditches?"
"Maybe
I'll pack a bindle and ride the rails. King of the open road, uh?"
Jack
was appalled. "You're an infuriating little turd—do you know that? You're
like a kid who runs away but only makes it to the end of the block and sits in
the bushes for a few hours, coming home when it's dark and cold and he's got
the hungries in his tum-tum."
His
father's temper was like a busted speedometer: it was impossible to tell how
fast and hot his engine was running. He could go from zero to bastard in
fifteen seconds flat.
"I
love you, Daddy."
"Shut
up, why don't you?" Jack's temper downshifted. "If you're fixed on
staying out here, you're getting paid like everyone else—by the bucket. Expect
your next paycheck to be significantly smaller, old boy old chum."
"Just
pay me what I'm worth."
"You're
worth a lot more than what you've settled for here." Jack looked wretched,
like a tank had run over him and left him lying there in the dirt. "And
for god's sake get your fucking teeth looked after."
When
the picking season ended the field workers went home to their wives and
children to await the spring thaws. Paul did not return to the winery. He
passed his days driving the city.
He
would set out at dawn with the pale moon hanging over the lake and streets dark
with night rain. He drove without motive or clear destination. He parked at the
GM factory gates as the workers waited in line to buy coffee and Danish from a
silver-paneled snack truck. He idled outside the bus terminal as drivers walked
to their buses beneath strung halogens with newspapers folded under their arms.
He spied on janitors sitting on picnic tables behind the Hotel Dieu
hospital, chatting and laughing, dousing cigarettes in soup tins filled with
rainwater. Paul felt a huge sense of disassociation watching these men,
floating, unattached to anything he understood. Men whose lives he'd never
considered because they were unlike any he'd ever aspired to.
What had he ever
really aspired to?
He drove to
Jammer's gym in his replacement wheels: a Nissan Micra, on loan from the
dealership. Paul had expressly requested the crappiest loaner in the lot and
the Micra fit the bill: raggedy and rust-eaten with a sewing machine engine,
power nothing, K-Tel's Hits of the 80s lodged in the tape deck. Even once his BMW was fixed, Paul stuck with the
Micra.
He steered
through the lights at Church and St. Paul. "Big Country," by the
Scottish group of the same name, blasted from the tinny speakers. He butted
the Micra into a streetside parking spot, fed the meter, and headed into the
gym.
It was sparsely
populated: bored housewives going nowhere on the elliptical machines,
university kids in the weight room. He donned his gym garb and hit the weights.
He'd started
coming after picking let off. The only time he'd even considered working out
before now was the time when, maudlinly drunk at three a.m., he'd ordered a
Bowflex after watching an infomercial. But his existential despair had
evaporated the next morning and the unassembled Bowflex, still in its box, was
consigned to the role of mouse-turd receptacle in the backyard greenhouse.
Paul slapped a
pair of weight plates on the bench press. He watched an anorexic-looking chick
with fake tits run treadmill laps. Boobs bouncing, lathered in sweat, her face
contorted into a look of desperate intensity unique
smell him: ripe and musky like the first whiff of a logger's shack. Problem
was, his son's devolution was a threat to their shared futures. What self-
respecting woman would marry a man who picked grapes all day and came at her
with calloused, purple-stained fingers? How could he pass the business down to
a son happy to occupy the lowest rung on the ladder when he'd been earmarked
for the highest?
"Picking
season's over in two weeks," he said. "I'm not sure what you plan to
do then—run off into the forest and live off the land? Some hobo kick? Steal
clothes off laundry lines and sleep in drainage ditches?"
"Maybe
I'll pack a bindle and ride the rails. King of the open road, uh?"
Jack
was appalled. "You're an infuriating little turd—do you know that? You're
like a kid who runs away but only makes it to the end of the block and sits in
the bushes for a few hours, coming home when it's dark and cold and he's got
the hungries in his tum-tum."
His
father's temper was like a busted speedometer: it was impossible to tell how
fast and hot his engine was running. He could go from zero to bastard in
fifteen seconds flat.
"I
love you, Daddy."
"Shut
up, why don't you?" Jack's temper downshifted. "If you're fixed on
staying out here, you're getting paid like everyone else—by the bucket. Expect
your next paycheck to be significantly smaller, old boy old chum."
"Just
pay me what I'm worth."
"You're
worth a lot more than what you've settled for here." Jack looked wretched,
like a tank had run over him and left him lying there in the dirt. "And
for god's sake get your fucking teeth looked after."
When
the picking season ended the field workers went home to their wives and
children to await the spring thaws. Paul did not return to the winery. He
passed his days driving the city.
He
would set out at dawn with the pale moon hanging over the lake and streets dark
with night rain. He drove without motive or clear destination. He parked at the
GM factory gates as the workers waited in line to buy coffee and Danish from a
silver-paneled snack truck. He idled outside the bus terminal as drivers walked
to their buses beneath strung halogens with newspapers folded under their arms.
He spied on janitors sitting on picnic tables behind the Hotel Dieu
hospital, chatting and laughing, dousing cigarettes in soup tins filled with
rainwater. Paul felt a huge sense of disassociation watching these men,
floating, unattached to anything he understood. Men whose lives he'd never
considered because they were unlike any he'd ever aspired to.
What had he ever
really aspired to?
He drove to
Jammer's gym in his replacement wheels: a Nissan Micra, on loan from the
dealership. Paul had expressly requested the crappiest loaner in the lot and
the Micra fit the bill: raggedy and rust-eaten with a sewing machine engine,
power nothing, K-Tel's Hits of the 80s lodged in the tape deck. Even once his BMW was fixed, Paul stuck with the
Micra.
He steered
through the lights at Church and St. Paul. "Big Country," by the
Scottish group of the same name, blasted from the tinny speakers. He butted
the Micra into a streetside parking spot, fed the meter, and headed into the
gym.
It was sparsely
populated: bored housewives going nowhere on the elliptical machines,
university kids in the weight room. He donned his gym garb and hit the weights.
He'd started
coming after picking let off. The only time he'd even considered working out
before now was the time when, maudlinly drunk at three a.m., he'd ordered a
Bowflex after watching an infomercial. But his existential despair had
evaporated the next morning and the unassembled Bowflex, still in its box, was
consigned to the role of mouse-turd receptacle in the backyard greenhouse.
Paul slapped a
pair of weight plates on the bench press. He watched an anorexic-looking chick
with fake tits run treadmill laps. Boobs bouncing, lathered in sweat, her face
contorted into a look of desperate intensity unique
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