The rain was good news for lawns and
gardens; some of them turned so green, you look at them and see green
for the rest
of the day -- Your kids turn green, your food, even your thumb.
Some kids turned green Friday night after the Junior-Senior Prom.
The theme was "Carribean Escapade," and the gym
was decorated to look like a beach house under palm trees and an
illuminated tropical moon. And a Plexiglass lagoon on a
night in June. With a macaroon by the old spittoon. Couples of
seventeen-year-olds in evening dress, dancing close, and
the visions of elegance led to delusions of invincibility when the
bottle was passed in the parking lot. Some kids learned
thatalthough vodka-and-apple-juice is tasteless going down, it's quite
memorable on the return trip. That night, in and
around town, a few sailors had to weather heavy seas. If any preachers
had been awake at 3:00 A.M., they could've
converted them to temperance, Methodism, Masonry, yoga, or Japanese
yen; the fields were ripe for harvest.
The rain was more than farmers needed and came at the wrong time,
keeping them out of the fields, and now planting is
late. Farmers are in enough trouble as it is, and even if they could
run the weather as they please, they still might not make
it. Roger got so nervous he couldn't sit down for two minutes. He'd
start to say something, jump up in the middle, look out
the window, and forget what he said. Cindy said, "You're driving us
crazy, let's get out of here. You can't do anything until
it dries up,so let's get away and do something this weekend." He said,
"You must be crazy." "No," she said, "not yet."
Leave before we get the corn in? "We'll go to Grand Rapids and
stay with my sister," she said, "it's only for a couple of
days." "Yeah," the girls said, "you need a break, Dad. You ought to go."
It was the eagerness in their eyes that Roger kept thinking about
as he and Cindy drove north toward Grand Rapids
Thursday evening, and how pleasant his girls were, how helpful as they
saw their parents out to the car. "Here, Dad, let me
carry that. In you go. Okay, you two have a good time and don't worry
about us." Driving north, he could hear Cathy's
voice saying, "Don't worry about us, don't worry about us," and just
north of Aitkin, he turned around and headed south. "Are you
crazy?"Cindy said. "Yes," he said -- "as the father of two teenage
daughters, I'd be crazy not to be crazy."
When they turned onto the country road a half-mile east of their
house, they noticed more cars than you normally see, all
heading west. They came over the hill. Up ahead their house was blazing
with lights. All the traffic was turning into their
driveway. They could hear the music quite clearly from the road as they
cruised past. "You don't want to go in?" she said. Roger said, "I don't
know. Maybe it's something we don't want to know about." "Then let's
turn around and forget we ever
saw this,whatever it is. God help us, I hope it isn't what I think,"
she said.
At the crossroad, he parked on the shoulder and they got out and
looked at the farm. Across the muddy field, with so
much standing water the house looked like a cruise ship with a big
party on board. More cars drove up the gangplank.
"Probably it's not what we think," she said. "If we're going to
trust them, then we have to trust then and not go around
spying on them to see if they do what we want or not."
"I'm curious. I'm going over and see what's going on. Want to
come?"
"Of course I do," she said.
It was hard going. They took off their shoes and socks and waded
through mud up to their ankles, straight across the field
in the dark, toward the carnival in their farmyard. Headlights, loud
music; he didn't know their were this many teenage
kids in the country. They got to the edge of the windbreak. It didn't
seem like their place with the music blasting. Voices
screeching, drums pounding. "My gosh, they're going to kill the
chickens," she said. She looked in the coop, and the
chickens did look dazed. Some of the hens seemed to be turned upside
down in their nests. Where was Oscar the faithful
watchdog? Oscar, who goes crazy when the mailman turns around in the
yard.
Roger peeked around the corner of the coop. Kids milled about,
went in the house, came out. More cars pulled up, kids
got out. Two kegs of beer by the back door. Kids moving around,
restless, hanging around, watching other kids hanging
around, boys circling, girls waiting -- a lot like a party he sort
ofremembered from twenty-five or so years ago.
Oscar lay by the back steps, an empty beer cup by his head, his
head on his paws. Some kids lit cigarettes, took long
drags, big clouds of smoke. Lighting up -- Roger remembered that. Kids
passing the cigarettes around. That's generous, he
thought. And there was his own little girl, Martha -- reaching for a
cigarette. No! No! he thought. Don't. She put it in her
mouth, his sweet little daughter. Oh darling child, don't. A boy lit it
and out of her sweet lips came smoke. Roger had taken
two steps out from behind the coop. He wanted to run to her and yet he
really didn't.
Cindy was right behind him, her hand on his back. "This is so
ridiculous. I can't believe they'd do this. Are we going to
allow this?"
"I don't know."
"You don't? No? Well. I don't know either," she said. "I was
hoping you'd know. You're always so -- so --"
"Strict?"
"Yes."
"You know something?" he said. "I'm tired of being a dad." He
didn't want to march in and be the cop, have everybody
get quiet and him make a speech while sullen kids slink away cursing
him under their breath. He wanted to take his lovely
wife by her cool hand -- Come away, come away, my love, my sweet slim
darling, mother of my children, come away...She
said, "Look! They're tramping on my petunias."
"Come," he said.
"You're going to just walk away and leave them?"
"Yes."
"Are you sure this is right?"
"No."
He took her hand and they stepped carefully over old lumber in
their bare feet and past the wreck of the old corn planter
under the box-elder trees and Grandpa Steen's Model A, sunk down to the
hubcaps.
"You know, that party at the gravel pit was like this," she said.
"What party?"
"Roger, honey, you know very well."
There were fast footsteps behind them, and a snarl and a bark. It
was Oscar coming straight at them -- "Oscar! Good
boy!" Oscar stopped, growling. "Oscar! Oscar -- easy boy, good boy."
Roger took a step toward him; the dog barked. He
backed up and barked and barked. He followed them across the field,
barking.
How strange! To spy on your own house and be chased away by your
own dog and then -- to find that your own car is
parked too far down in the ditch, and when you put your foot on the gas
to come away my love, come away my dear one,
your rear end slips to the side and you're stuck. What then?
They made it to Grand Rapids at 4:00 A.M. and tumbled into bed.
Before he went to sleep, he saw it all over again: his
long hike back to the house, up the driveway; the silence when he came
around the corner; someone shut off the tape, there
was a lot of shuffling and muttered hellos, and he said, "Can somebody
give us a push?" And when Martha said, "What
were you doing parked on the road?" and he said, "None of your
business," she said, "Oh Daddy, you didn't," and he said,
"Well, I'm just human,you know," and she said, "You're so sweet. I had
no idea," and smiled at him. "Huh?" he said. He
said, "I meant that -- you mean you thought that -- you really thought
that your mother and I--?" And then, after the
Tollerud boy pulled them our with his old pickup, Roger had a bad
feeling in his rear end: no billfold. He must've dropped
it when they ran through the mud with Oscar on their tails. Maybe it
was in the field, but he didn't think he'd look for it
right then. He said to Cindy, "You got some money?" She said she
thought that he had money. So he said to Martha,
"Would you happen to have some money you could let me have until
Monday?" "Hey!" she said. "My dad needs some
money." They passed around a hat and collected sixty dollars. "I'll pay
you back!" he said to them all. "No problem, don't
worry about it," they said. And the quiet ride to Grand Rapids in the
middle of the night. He thought Cindy was asleep and
then she said, "Sure, you remember that party, that's where we met. You
were with my cousin, and he spilled beer on my
pedal pushers, and you wiped it off with your hankie. I had beer
running down my leg and you tried to clean it up."
Later she said: "What do you think your grandpa would have thought
if he'd come home and found a hundred kids
hanging around in his house?" He said, "He woulda been darned surprised
to be alive in 1997, I'll say that."
Her sister left a note on the door: "We went to bed. The rollaway
is made in the basement, help yourself to anything in
the fridge. Will wake you up at 7. XXX Gloria."
Settling down on the rollaway, he thought again: I'm getting tired
of being a dad. Love my girls, but I've been a parent
long enough, I did what I could. I can't go on being in charge much
longer. These kids, this world, are going to continue
long after I'm gone, and I should get used to that and even enjoy it. I
can't run them. I can only love them and this good life.
Thank you, God, for this good life and forgive us if we do not
love it enough. Thank you for the rain. And for the chance
to wake up in three hours and go fishing: I thank you now for that,
because I won't feel so thankful then.
Good night, my sweet wife, sweet dreams. He kissed the back of her
neck and lay, full of love, and fell asleep.
That's the news from Lake Wobegon, Minnesota, where all the women
are strong, all the men are good-looking and all
the children are above average.
