Saturday night and Sarah Jaine and I have nothing to do tomorrow except go swimming at my parent's house in the suburbs. It is my intention to make us breakfast tomorrow morning. Since I already have waffle mix, I intend to make us waffle tomorrow morning. I have no eggs though.
I check weather dot com to make sure that it isn't going to start raining the moment I am half-way (0.2 miles) to the grocery store. The website gives me no reason to believe I will be caught in a rain shower. Further, it informs me that temperatures are "slightly below average," which is a real selling point, as it has been hot as shit in Cincinnati forever (approximately three weeks).
Outside it is slightly cooler than I expected. My street smells exactly as it always smells, dirty and smoky. Except when it rains. Then, it smells like rain. It is a very short distance to the Kroger at 1 W Corry St. Down my own street and left up the hill, past two men in wheelchairs, one without legs, the other drinking a can of of Pepsi. At the cross walk a group of boys maybe 14 years old yelling to a girl "How old is you?" She says she is 17 and one boy breaks off from the pack to ask more questions from a far. I do not hear any of the other questions, nor does the girl seem to. Down the weird covered alley between the Walgreen's and Kroger. Some 20 feet in front of me standing slightly contorted in the green-yellow, bug-swarmed light a man lectures, gesticulating wildly, what to me is nothing. Just blank space in front of him. I become aware that I am slightly nervous. I hope he does not find in me an audience. I realize I hope he does not become violent. I very quickly decide if I would run or not. And I consider how foolish I would look to any standers by if I ran away. When I pass him he says "Hey, hows it going?"
The grocery store is always crowded at surprising times. Tonight mostly older women buying their ordinary groceries: plastic-wrapped packages of ground beef, 2% milk, chips, Big K cola, white bread, frozen pizzas- and guys about my age-ish buying cheap beer in bright blue 24 packs. I came only for eggs, but I got paid on Friday and decided to treat myself to something. For a while now my staples have been the cheapest, healthiest for the price, things I can make into a variety of meals: black beans, cheese, tortilla chips, pasta and tomatoes. I want something sweet. I walk down the "Health Foods" aisles (all both of them) looking left, then right, hoping to find the best tag in the place: "Manager Special." The best for me personally, yet one of the saddest things about this Kroger is that the Organic and "Health" food sells so poorly-either because it is too expensive or because it looks gross as hell-that, more often than not, something will be on sale for a ridiculous price, just to get it out of the store. No good manager specials tonight. Just some organic milk that will expired in two hours and some organic yogurt, the carton of which reports a expiration date that past about a month ago. Some dairy-free organic "ice cream" is super on sale though. I grab the vanilla and close the frosted freezer door. Than I put it back and get the Neapolitan. Because, say I get tired of Vanilla? Fucking right, there's strawberry and chocolate in there too. Done.
So, I get my organic, cage free eggs (despite my skepticism about how legit they are) and my dairy-free Neapolitan. My total is about 7 dollars. That would by exactly seven large bags of Kroger brand chips, about seven cartons of Kroger brand eggs (have you seen those videos of chicken farmers literally throwing chickens into cramped cages? Those kind of eggs)roughly 32 rolls of Kroger Value brand toilet paper (which I do use) or something like 105 slices of Kroger Value brand white bread.
I walk around the other side of the building on my way home, as the aforementioned alleyway I find generally creepy. There is a lot of traffic and I consider whether or not I am wasting my Saturday night. I do not pursue this thought for very long. I find the right key to my security gate under the lamp post. Some one moved into the apartment below ours today and I expect to see him outside for some reason. He is not outside. The ice cream substitute I bought isn't even that good.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Friday, July 30, 2010
"I am not here now, and I miss you": Written Messages and Indexical Reference
Both indexicals and written inscription pose interesting problems to philosophers of language. In this paper I am concerned with two things. Firstly I will explore an issue philosophers often neglect, that is, the differences between spoken or verbal utterances and written inscriptions. Secondly, and related to the previous issue, I will be concerned with indexicals, especially written instances of indexicals. All of this will stem from an examination of how the utterance “I am not here now” may be uttered truly. In the end, I will arrive upon a theory of how to evaluate written messages which proves to be particularly useful in instances of messages containing indexical.
Predelli, at the start of his paper “I am not here now,” briefly outlines a theory of how to evaluate sentences containing indexicals that is basically Kaplan's. Without wading through the complexities of the argument that Kaplan makes in his paper “Demonstratives,” let us put forth Kaplan's general view as pertains to our present purpose thusly: The content that an utterance u of expression e expresses is the content that the character of e yields when we “plug in” the context that pertains to the utterance u. If we simplify and apply this to a relevant example, that is, an expression containing an indexical—such as “I am not here now”—we see that, to Kaplan, “now” refers to t in a situation s if and only if s is the situation in which “now” is uttered, and t is the time of s.
We find that Kaplan's line of reasoning supports our intuitive assumptions about indexicals. If we take the utterance “I am not here now” and evaluate it along Kaplan's line of reasoning, we arrive at the conclusion that the indexicals “I,” “here,” and “now” refer, respectively, to the utterer, the place of utterance, and the time of utterance. It seems to follow from this that “I am not here now” may never be uttered truly, for logical reasons. But, as many have noted, we can find true instances of “I am not here now,” such as written messages. Kaplan's theory does not account for this problem. Predelli and others have offered their own solutions to the problems that written messages pose to the way we usually evaluate sentences containing indexicals. In the first portion of this paper I intend to first discuss some of these solutions and why they are insufficient, then to offer my own solution to this problem.
In his aforementioned paper, Predelli first considers a theory of Sidelle's. According to Sidelle, past theories have failed in solving the problem we are presently concerned with because they confuse what the referents of the indexicals in a given expression actually are. Sidelle claims that, in the case of the written message “I am not here now,” the indexicals “I,” here,” and “now” refer, respectively, to the encoder, the place of decoding, and the time of decoding. When one writes a message, Sidelle claims, one is actually deferring an utterance. That is, one is preparing to make an utterance at a later time. This utterance, which occurs at a later time, Sidelle calls the “genuine” utterance. Predelli challenges Sidelle's theory by offering the following scenario: Jones, expecting his wife home at six o'clock, writes a note at four o'clock which says “I am not here now,” with the intention of informing Mrs. Jones that he is away from home at six o'clock. However, Mrs. Jones is late arriving home, and does not read the message until ten o'clock. In this case, Predelli claims, “now” does not refer to the time of decoding, but must refer to the intended time of decoding. Indeed, Predelli spends the latter half of his paper expounding his belief that what is most important in evaluating written instances of sentences containing indexicals is the utterer's intention.
“Written and recorded messages,” Predelli concludes, “are to be evaluated with respect to the intended context of interpretation, which need not coincide with the context of utterance.” This conclusion is certainly unacceptable. If we follow Predelli's line of reasoning, we arrive at the outrageous conclusion that the referent of an utterance of “now” is whatever the utterer intends it to be. We simply cannot allow for a theory of reference to permit this kind of arbitrary assignation. If I were to put on my door the message “I am not here now” with the intention of my roommate seeing it at three o'clock, but she does not see it until five o'clock, the message is as true—if I am still not at home—at five o'clock as it was at three o'clock, because “now” does not refer to my intended context of interpretation. Any theory that suggests that for any utterance of u, u refers to whatever the utterer intends u to refer to must be rejected, as it makes language, in the end, arbitrary. We will have cause to return to the matter of utterer intention later. First, though, let us approach this problem a different way.
For reasons that will become clear, out of the above theories, Sidelle's gets us the furthest in our understanding of written instances of sentences containing indexicals. But his theory, like Kaplan's and Predelli's, fails, in part, because it fails to consider fully the differences between verbal utterances and written inscriptions. Written inscriptions are different than verbal utterances in that written inscriptions have the unique quality of existing over time. Verbal utterances occur at an isolated point in time. It is easy to conclude that when one verbally utters “I am not here now,” “now” refers to the time of utterance. Written inscriptions, however, do not exist only at an isolated point in time. But let us examine another aspect of verbal utterances and written inscriptions before we further explore the differences between the two.
It is uncontroversial that the specific referents of indexicals vary depending on the context or situation in which they are uttered. Furthermore, for each utterance of a sentence containing indexicals—and even those that do not—there is a set of possible contexts in which the utterance is true. By virtue of having uttered “I am not here now,” one establishes the set of possible contexts in which the utterance is true. That is, those contexts in which the referent of “I” is not at the referent of “here” at the referent of “now.” The set of possible contexts in which an utterance is true, can be found in the syntax of the utterance, and is often not necessarily specific. Establishing the set of contexts in which “I am not here now” is true, does not actually tell us much, such as, what the reference of words are. It simply tells us that, regardless of what “I” refers to, it must not be at whatever “here” refers to at whatever “now” refers to. The sentence “I am not here now” may never be verbally uttered truly—and let us ignore instances of quotation or imitation—because the actual context in which it is uttered is never a part of the set of contexts in which the utterance is true.
Written inscriptions differ from verbal utterances in the following way: written inscriptions have an initial utterance, that is, when they are initially written, but they are then uttered continually until they are physically destroyed; the inscriptions themselves become proxy utterers. When one writes “I am not here now” it is initially false, as the referent of “I” is at the referent of “here” in order to write the note in the first place. But, when one does write this, one establishes the set of possible contexts in which it is true. When one leaves the message, the referent of “I” is still the initial utterer, the referent of “here” is the place of utterance, and the referent of “now” is the time of utterance. When we consider that a note, as a sort of proxy utterer, continually utters the sentence of the initial utterance, we see that the place of utterance is the place of the note, and the time of utterance constantly varies. Note that above I did not say that the note constantly utters the initial utterance, but that the note constantly utters the sentence of which the initial utterance is a token. This is an important distinction, and perhaps not obvious nor intuitive. Of course, the syntax of the written message does not change. But, the note utters not the same utterance continually, but a constant “stream” of new utterance. Of course when the referents of the words of an utterance change, a different proposition is expressed, and thus is a different utterance. As we saw, “now,” in this case, refers to the time of utterance and time is constantly variable. So, we see that the note utters a different utterance each instant, as the referent of “now” constantly changes, and thus a new proposition is expressed by the utterance which is distinct from that expressed by the previous utterance. This leads to the perhaps noncontroversial yet still important claim that one utterance expresses exactly one proposition or none at all (such as in cases where utterances contain words with no referents). This is a claim I will have cause to defend more as I further develop my argument.
So far, we have considered a theory of how to evaluate written messages which seems to deal with the problems posed by indexicals better than the alternatives offered by Kaplan, Predelli, and Sidelle. Kaplan's theory was insufficient because it fails to recognize contexts of utterances in which the actual human body is absent at time of utterance. Predelli's theory which claims that utterer intention determines reference of indexicals carries some very unattractive implications and I have illustrated thus far—and will illustrate further later on—that intention does not have anything to do with indexical reference at all. Sidelle's idea of utterance deferral was a step in the right direction but is ultimately not sufficient in explaining written instances of indexicals, such as “I am not here now.” My examination of this single sentence has lead to a theory which presently seems more appealing than those just mentioned. My development of this theory has led us to some general statements about language which will be important in the remainder of this paper: firstly, utterer intention does not determine (nor even influence) indexical reference, and, secondly, one utterance expresses no more than one proposition. But it seems my working theory of written messages—and all of its implications—ought to be tested more rigorously in order to make sure it is a considerable theory and not just a clever way to explain the sentence “I am not here now.” I intend to devote the rest of this paper to a more in-depth exploration of my theory of the evaluation of written inscriptions (especially written inscriptions containing indexicals). I will begin this exploration with an attempt to explain other instances of written inscriptions containing indexicals within the framework I have heretofore established.
Consider the sentence “I miss you.” Of course “I miss you” does not pose the exact problem “I am not here now” did. In our consideration of “I am not here now” we first had to determine how it is possible to even utter the sentence truthfully at all. We may by-pass this first step in considering “I miss you.” Regardless, we ought to be able to evaluate the sentence along the same lines as the one in the first part of this paper. This requires us to do several things, as we have seen. To evaluate the truth value of an utterance of “I miss you,” we must first do two things: 1) determine what the set of possible contexts in which the utterance is true is, then 2) determine if the actual context is part of the set of possible contexts in which it is true. Before we even consider some examples, we can determine what the set of possible contexts in which utterances of the sentence “I miss you” is: all of those in which the referent of “I” has the relation of missing the referent of “you.” Of course when we consider actual examples of utterances of this sentence, we will need to decide what the referents of “I” and “you” are.
Consider that Smith is going out of town and expects he will miss his partner, who is staying home for the weekend. On Friday, Smith is at home getting ready to leave for the airport and his partner is still at work and will not be home until later that evening. Smith, before walking out of the door writes the message “I miss you,” on a piece of paper and leaves it on the counter top. Now let's say that Smith's mother decides she is going to surprise her son by coming to his house for the weekend. She shows up, not knowing that Smith is going out of town, and of course no one is home. She does, however, see the note on the counter, and she is touched. She thinks, for whatever reason, that her son must have known she was coming, and so left her the note, anticipating not being at home when she arrived. So Smith’s mother stays for the weekend with Smiths partner and when Smith finally comes home his mother shows him the note and says “do you miss me? Is this true?” Consider that Smith does happen to miss his mother, whom he never gets a chance to see, surely he would say something like “Well, I actually didn't intend for you to read that note, I didn't know you were coming, but yes it is true, I do miss you.” Of course the claim I am trying to get at right away is that utterer intention does not determine indexical reference in this case, just as it did not in the case we considered in the first part of this paper. In this scenario, and others we will examine, the referent of “you” turns out to be the decoder, or reader, of the utterance. Of course an utterer often does have in mind something he intends for “you” to refer to when he writes the message “I miss you,” and the note is usually false unless the utterer’s intended referent of “you” is the one doing the decoding. So it is tempting to conclude that the referent of “you” is determined by utterer intention. But this is untrue. It is merely coincidence that the utterance is usually false unless the decoder is the utterers intended referent of “you.” Of course when Smith's mother shows him the note and asks him “Is this true?” he would not say “No,” and scribble a new note that says “I miss you,” and, giving the new note to her—the one he intended for her to read—say “But this is.”
When Smith first wrote the note “I miss you” he began a “stream” of constant utterance. That is, there was an initial utterance—when Smith first wrote the note—but then the note itself became a proxy utterer for Smith, continually uttering tokens of the sentence “I miss you.” As we saw with “I am not here now,” the note does not continually utter the same utterance, but, because referents of indexicals are variable, and this variability causes variation in the proposition expressed by an utterance, the note, all though the syntax does not change, sometimes utters a different utterance. “I miss you” differs from “I am not here now” in the following way: the proposition expressed by “I am not here now” is continually variable, as the referent of “now” is continually variable. Each new instant, the note that says “I am not here now” utters an utterance distinct from the previous one and expresses a proposition distinct from the previous one. “I miss you” is not quite as variable. Rather, the referents “I” and “you” are not as continually variable as such an indexical as “now.” We saw in the above scenario that the referent of “you” happens to be the decoder of the note. So, the note depends on a reader to change the proposition that is expresses. Each time the note is read by a new person, the referent of “you” changes and thus the proposition expressed changes. If we consider the note when no one is reading it (and I am not sure we really need to) we see that when no one is reading it, it fails to express a proposition at all, as one of the words, “you,” has no reference.
Let us consider another scenario which varies slightly from the first one we looked at. As before, Smith is going out of town and leaves a note for his partner that says “I miss you.” Again, Smith's mother decides to drop in for a surprise visit but finds nobody there, so she makes herself at home until Smith's partner arrives. It just so happens that Smith's mother does not notice the note on the counter before Smith's partner comes home. When he does come home though, Smith's mother comes into the kitchen to greet him and they both see the note at the exact same time. Per what we have already illustrated, the note, when read by Smith's partner expresses the proposition “I miss you” where the referent of “you” is he, Smith's partner. When Smith’s mother reads the note the proposition it expresses is “I miss you” where the referent of “you” is she, Smith's mother. This seems to perhaps conflict with one of the conclusions we arrived upon in our consideration of “I am not here now,” that is, that one utterance may express one proposition. In this current scenario, a single utterance seems to express two propositions at the same time. Surely if one utterance did express two propositions at the same time, it would create some holes in my present argument. This is not what occurs in the scenario in which Smith's mother and Smith's partner read the same note at the same time though. The very act of one reading the note “I miss you” creates a new utterance of the sentence written on the piece of paper. When one reads the note, the referent of the word “you” changes. This is difficult to come to terms with perhaps because we are not used to thinking of syntactically identical utterances occurring in almost identical contexts as separate utterances. We can think of this in the following way: When Smith's partner reads the note (at exactly the same time as Smith's mother) the utterance the note makes is this “I miss you1” and the utterance the note makes when Smith's mother reads it is “I miss you2.” This is not to initiate some ontological debate about what entities are actually present in the syntax, but to show that change of reference entails a change of utterance. And though human utterers seem not to be able to make two separate utterances instantaneously, we have no reason to hold that notes, as proxy utterers cannot do so.
So it seems the framework I developed in the first part of this paper is not merely a clever way of explaining written instances of “I am not here now” but succeeds in explaining other similar instances of written indexicals. Our methodology has remained useful: In evaluating written inscriptions, we must determine two things: what the set of possible contexts in which the utterance(s) that the inscription makes is true is, and whether or not the actual context is part of that set. My theory of written inscriptions as proxy utters has proved useful in explaining how the methodology above succeeds completely in cases of written inscriptions that contain indexicals. Further, this methodology also allows us to preserve the general conclusions we have arrived upon about language, specifically, that one utterance may express one proposition, and that utterer intention is irrelevant to indexical reference.
Predelli, at the start of his paper “I am not here now,” briefly outlines a theory of how to evaluate sentences containing indexicals that is basically Kaplan's. Without wading through the complexities of the argument that Kaplan makes in his paper “Demonstratives,” let us put forth Kaplan's general view as pertains to our present purpose thusly: The content that an utterance u of expression e expresses is the content that the character of e yields when we “plug in” the context that pertains to the utterance u. If we simplify and apply this to a relevant example, that is, an expression containing an indexical—such as “I am not here now”—we see that, to Kaplan, “now” refers to t in a situation s if and only if s is the situation in which “now” is uttered, and t is the time of s.
We find that Kaplan's line of reasoning supports our intuitive assumptions about indexicals. If we take the utterance “I am not here now” and evaluate it along Kaplan's line of reasoning, we arrive at the conclusion that the indexicals “I,” “here,” and “now” refer, respectively, to the utterer, the place of utterance, and the time of utterance. It seems to follow from this that “I am not here now” may never be uttered truly, for logical reasons. But, as many have noted, we can find true instances of “I am not here now,” such as written messages. Kaplan's theory does not account for this problem. Predelli and others have offered their own solutions to the problems that written messages pose to the way we usually evaluate sentences containing indexicals. In the first portion of this paper I intend to first discuss some of these solutions and why they are insufficient, then to offer my own solution to this problem.
In his aforementioned paper, Predelli first considers a theory of Sidelle's. According to Sidelle, past theories have failed in solving the problem we are presently concerned with because they confuse what the referents of the indexicals in a given expression actually are. Sidelle claims that, in the case of the written message “I am not here now,” the indexicals “I,” here,” and “now” refer, respectively, to the encoder, the place of decoding, and the time of decoding. When one writes a message, Sidelle claims, one is actually deferring an utterance. That is, one is preparing to make an utterance at a later time. This utterance, which occurs at a later time, Sidelle calls the “genuine” utterance. Predelli challenges Sidelle's theory by offering the following scenario: Jones, expecting his wife home at six o'clock, writes a note at four o'clock which says “I am not here now,” with the intention of informing Mrs. Jones that he is away from home at six o'clock. However, Mrs. Jones is late arriving home, and does not read the message until ten o'clock. In this case, Predelli claims, “now” does not refer to the time of decoding, but must refer to the intended time of decoding. Indeed, Predelli spends the latter half of his paper expounding his belief that what is most important in evaluating written instances of sentences containing indexicals is the utterer's intention.
“Written and recorded messages,” Predelli concludes, “are to be evaluated with respect to the intended context of interpretation, which need not coincide with the context of utterance.” This conclusion is certainly unacceptable. If we follow Predelli's line of reasoning, we arrive at the outrageous conclusion that the referent of an utterance of “now” is whatever the utterer intends it to be. We simply cannot allow for a theory of reference to permit this kind of arbitrary assignation. If I were to put on my door the message “I am not here now” with the intention of my roommate seeing it at three o'clock, but she does not see it until five o'clock, the message is as true—if I am still not at home—at five o'clock as it was at three o'clock, because “now” does not refer to my intended context of interpretation. Any theory that suggests that for any utterance of u, u refers to whatever the utterer intends u to refer to must be rejected, as it makes language, in the end, arbitrary. We will have cause to return to the matter of utterer intention later. First, though, let us approach this problem a different way.
For reasons that will become clear, out of the above theories, Sidelle's gets us the furthest in our understanding of written instances of sentences containing indexicals. But his theory, like Kaplan's and Predelli's, fails, in part, because it fails to consider fully the differences between verbal utterances and written inscriptions. Written inscriptions are different than verbal utterances in that written inscriptions have the unique quality of existing over time. Verbal utterances occur at an isolated point in time. It is easy to conclude that when one verbally utters “I am not here now,” “now” refers to the time of utterance. Written inscriptions, however, do not exist only at an isolated point in time. But let us examine another aspect of verbal utterances and written inscriptions before we further explore the differences between the two.
It is uncontroversial that the specific referents of indexicals vary depending on the context or situation in which they are uttered. Furthermore, for each utterance of a sentence containing indexicals—and even those that do not—there is a set of possible contexts in which the utterance is true. By virtue of having uttered “I am not here now,” one establishes the set of possible contexts in which the utterance is true. That is, those contexts in which the referent of “I” is not at the referent of “here” at the referent of “now.” The set of possible contexts in which an utterance is true, can be found in the syntax of the utterance, and is often not necessarily specific. Establishing the set of contexts in which “I am not here now” is true, does not actually tell us much, such as, what the reference of words are. It simply tells us that, regardless of what “I” refers to, it must not be at whatever “here” refers to at whatever “now” refers to. The sentence “I am not here now” may never be verbally uttered truly—and let us ignore instances of quotation or imitation—because the actual context in which it is uttered is never a part of the set of contexts in which the utterance is true.
Written inscriptions differ from verbal utterances in the following way: written inscriptions have an initial utterance, that is, when they are initially written, but they are then uttered continually until they are physically destroyed; the inscriptions themselves become proxy utterers. When one writes “I am not here now” it is initially false, as the referent of “I” is at the referent of “here” in order to write the note in the first place. But, when one does write this, one establishes the set of possible contexts in which it is true. When one leaves the message, the referent of “I” is still the initial utterer, the referent of “here” is the place of utterance, and the referent of “now” is the time of utterance. When we consider that a note, as a sort of proxy utterer, continually utters the sentence of the initial utterance, we see that the place of utterance is the place of the note, and the time of utterance constantly varies. Note that above I did not say that the note constantly utters the initial utterance, but that the note constantly utters the sentence of which the initial utterance is a token. This is an important distinction, and perhaps not obvious nor intuitive. Of course, the syntax of the written message does not change. But, the note utters not the same utterance continually, but a constant “stream” of new utterance. Of course when the referents of the words of an utterance change, a different proposition is expressed, and thus is a different utterance. As we saw, “now,” in this case, refers to the time of utterance and time is constantly variable. So, we see that the note utters a different utterance each instant, as the referent of “now” constantly changes, and thus a new proposition is expressed by the utterance which is distinct from that expressed by the previous utterance. This leads to the perhaps noncontroversial yet still important claim that one utterance expresses exactly one proposition or none at all (such as in cases where utterances contain words with no referents). This is a claim I will have cause to defend more as I further develop my argument.
So far, we have considered a theory of how to evaluate written messages which seems to deal with the problems posed by indexicals better than the alternatives offered by Kaplan, Predelli, and Sidelle. Kaplan's theory was insufficient because it fails to recognize contexts of utterances in which the actual human body is absent at time of utterance. Predelli's theory which claims that utterer intention determines reference of indexicals carries some very unattractive implications and I have illustrated thus far—and will illustrate further later on—that intention does not have anything to do with indexical reference at all. Sidelle's idea of utterance deferral was a step in the right direction but is ultimately not sufficient in explaining written instances of indexicals, such as “I am not here now.” My examination of this single sentence has lead to a theory which presently seems more appealing than those just mentioned. My development of this theory has led us to some general statements about language which will be important in the remainder of this paper: firstly, utterer intention does not determine (nor even influence) indexical reference, and, secondly, one utterance expresses no more than one proposition. But it seems my working theory of written messages—and all of its implications—ought to be tested more rigorously in order to make sure it is a considerable theory and not just a clever way to explain the sentence “I am not here now.” I intend to devote the rest of this paper to a more in-depth exploration of my theory of the evaluation of written inscriptions (especially written inscriptions containing indexicals). I will begin this exploration with an attempt to explain other instances of written inscriptions containing indexicals within the framework I have heretofore established.
Consider the sentence “I miss you.” Of course “I miss you” does not pose the exact problem “I am not here now” did. In our consideration of “I am not here now” we first had to determine how it is possible to even utter the sentence truthfully at all. We may by-pass this first step in considering “I miss you.” Regardless, we ought to be able to evaluate the sentence along the same lines as the one in the first part of this paper. This requires us to do several things, as we have seen. To evaluate the truth value of an utterance of “I miss you,” we must first do two things: 1) determine what the set of possible contexts in which the utterance is true is, then 2) determine if the actual context is part of the set of possible contexts in which it is true. Before we even consider some examples, we can determine what the set of possible contexts in which utterances of the sentence “I miss you” is: all of those in which the referent of “I” has the relation of missing the referent of “you.” Of course when we consider actual examples of utterances of this sentence, we will need to decide what the referents of “I” and “you” are.
Consider that Smith is going out of town and expects he will miss his partner, who is staying home for the weekend. On Friday, Smith is at home getting ready to leave for the airport and his partner is still at work and will not be home until later that evening. Smith, before walking out of the door writes the message “I miss you,” on a piece of paper and leaves it on the counter top. Now let's say that Smith's mother decides she is going to surprise her son by coming to his house for the weekend. She shows up, not knowing that Smith is going out of town, and of course no one is home. She does, however, see the note on the counter, and she is touched. She thinks, for whatever reason, that her son must have known she was coming, and so left her the note, anticipating not being at home when she arrived. So Smith’s mother stays for the weekend with Smiths partner and when Smith finally comes home his mother shows him the note and says “do you miss me? Is this true?” Consider that Smith does happen to miss his mother, whom he never gets a chance to see, surely he would say something like “Well, I actually didn't intend for you to read that note, I didn't know you were coming, but yes it is true, I do miss you.” Of course the claim I am trying to get at right away is that utterer intention does not determine indexical reference in this case, just as it did not in the case we considered in the first part of this paper. In this scenario, and others we will examine, the referent of “you” turns out to be the decoder, or reader, of the utterance. Of course an utterer often does have in mind something he intends for “you” to refer to when he writes the message “I miss you,” and the note is usually false unless the utterer’s intended referent of “you” is the one doing the decoding. So it is tempting to conclude that the referent of “you” is determined by utterer intention. But this is untrue. It is merely coincidence that the utterance is usually false unless the decoder is the utterers intended referent of “you.” Of course when Smith's mother shows him the note and asks him “Is this true?” he would not say “No,” and scribble a new note that says “I miss you,” and, giving the new note to her—the one he intended for her to read—say “But this is.”
When Smith first wrote the note “I miss you” he began a “stream” of constant utterance. That is, there was an initial utterance—when Smith first wrote the note—but then the note itself became a proxy utterer for Smith, continually uttering tokens of the sentence “I miss you.” As we saw with “I am not here now,” the note does not continually utter the same utterance, but, because referents of indexicals are variable, and this variability causes variation in the proposition expressed by an utterance, the note, all though the syntax does not change, sometimes utters a different utterance. “I miss you” differs from “I am not here now” in the following way: the proposition expressed by “I am not here now” is continually variable, as the referent of “now” is continually variable. Each new instant, the note that says “I am not here now” utters an utterance distinct from the previous one and expresses a proposition distinct from the previous one. “I miss you” is not quite as variable. Rather, the referents “I” and “you” are not as continually variable as such an indexical as “now.” We saw in the above scenario that the referent of “you” happens to be the decoder of the note. So, the note depends on a reader to change the proposition that is expresses. Each time the note is read by a new person, the referent of “you” changes and thus the proposition expressed changes. If we consider the note when no one is reading it (and I am not sure we really need to) we see that when no one is reading it, it fails to express a proposition at all, as one of the words, “you,” has no reference.
Let us consider another scenario which varies slightly from the first one we looked at. As before, Smith is going out of town and leaves a note for his partner that says “I miss you.” Again, Smith's mother decides to drop in for a surprise visit but finds nobody there, so she makes herself at home until Smith's partner arrives. It just so happens that Smith's mother does not notice the note on the counter before Smith's partner comes home. When he does come home though, Smith's mother comes into the kitchen to greet him and they both see the note at the exact same time. Per what we have already illustrated, the note, when read by Smith's partner expresses the proposition “I miss you” where the referent of “you” is he, Smith's partner. When Smith’s mother reads the note the proposition it expresses is “I miss you” where the referent of “you” is she, Smith's mother. This seems to perhaps conflict with one of the conclusions we arrived upon in our consideration of “I am not here now,” that is, that one utterance may express one proposition. In this current scenario, a single utterance seems to express two propositions at the same time. Surely if one utterance did express two propositions at the same time, it would create some holes in my present argument. This is not what occurs in the scenario in which Smith's mother and Smith's partner read the same note at the same time though. The very act of one reading the note “I miss you” creates a new utterance of the sentence written on the piece of paper. When one reads the note, the referent of the word “you” changes. This is difficult to come to terms with perhaps because we are not used to thinking of syntactically identical utterances occurring in almost identical contexts as separate utterances. We can think of this in the following way: When Smith's partner reads the note (at exactly the same time as Smith's mother) the utterance the note makes is this “I miss you1” and the utterance the note makes when Smith's mother reads it is “I miss you2.” This is not to initiate some ontological debate about what entities are actually present in the syntax, but to show that change of reference entails a change of utterance. And though human utterers seem not to be able to make two separate utterances instantaneously, we have no reason to hold that notes, as proxy utterers cannot do so.
So it seems the framework I developed in the first part of this paper is not merely a clever way of explaining written instances of “I am not here now” but succeeds in explaining other similar instances of written indexicals. Our methodology has remained useful: In evaluating written inscriptions, we must determine two things: what the set of possible contexts in which the utterance(s) that the inscription makes is true is, and whether or not the actual context is part of that set. My theory of written inscriptions as proxy utters has proved useful in explaining how the methodology above succeeds completely in cases of written inscriptions that contain indexicals. Further, this methodology also allows us to preserve the general conclusions we have arrived upon about language, specifically, that one utterance may express one proposition, and that utterer intention is irrelevant to indexical reference.
Establishing Context: Reader Participation in Hemingway's “Marriage Group” Stories
Neither Hemingway the author nor his characters frequently confront head-on what they seem to consider difficult, if not absolutely terrifying, about life. Avoidance and repression are certainly recurring themes in the author's fiction. When characters do not, or are unable to avoid confrontations with what is in Hemingway the quintessence of life—suffering, failure, meaninglessness—the consequences can be traumatizing. Young Nick Adams, in “Indian Camp,” witnesses the ugliness and suffering with which people enter and leave this world. Though after seeing the pain of the woman giving birth Nick's “curiosity” dissipates and he tries to look away, in the end, he still gets “a good view” of the Indian man who cuts his own throat. Similarly, in the intertexual vignette of Chapter II of In Our Time, a young girl watches a woman give birth. Both Nick and the girl are confronted with their unattractive destinies as humans: painful childbirth for the girl and inevitable death for both of them, and, as the narrator comments in the intertexual vignette, they are both “scared sick looking at it.” Because of the traumatic nature of such terrific realizations, characters in Hemingway more often prefer to deal with life as the older Nick Adams does in “Big Two-Hearted River: Part II”: they recognize the presence of the swamp yet decide there is plenty of time to fish that swamp later, though the reader is usually given no reason to believe that the character will ever face whatever they are repressing.
Though we certainly can not treat Hemingway the author as we do his characters, we surely can see how the themes discussed heretofore may relate to the author's style, and how this style works to reinforce these themes. Like many of his characters, Hemingway often opts not to deal explicitly with certain things in some of his fiction. In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway describes his theory that “you could omit anything if you knew you omitted and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make people feel something more than they understood” (75). We can see this theory being employed, effectively, in Hemingway's so-called “Marriage Group” stories: “Out of Season,” “Hills Like White Elephants,” “Cat in the Rain,” and “A Canary For One.” Here I aim to explore Hemingway's use of intentional omission in the first three of these stories, and the effect of this technique. I will use a discussion of “Hills Like White Elephants” as a way of exploring Hemingway's use of omission in general, then we will look at how a similar process is used in “Cat in the Rain” and “Out of Season.”
“Hills Like White Elephants” is an extraordinary artistic achievement, and it is what Hemingway decides to omit from the story that gives it much of its meaning. Essentially, it is a story about an abortion in which all direct mention of abortion is omitted. As we will see, though, it would be over-simple for us to conclude that direct mention of abortion is the only or most important thing omitted from the story. To understand what is omitted from the “Hills Like White Elephants,” we must briefly examine what I argue is the most important word in the story: “it.” Grammatically, “it” is a demonstrative, and, like all demonstratives, the referent of “it” is context-relative. Without a clear context, demonstratives like “it” refer to nothing, or rather, could refer to many things. This clear context is precisely what Hemingway omits from the story. Of course the author provides a situational or spatial context for the reader, but the conversation the couple has is neither explained nor placed clearly within the context of a larger discussion. To establish this context, and to realize that the couple is indeed talking about an abortion, the reader his- or herself must do a few things. First, a knowledge of Hemingway's works and a cursory biographical knowledge will get the reader far way in filling in what is omitted from the story. Childbirth and anxiety related to childbirth is a recurrent theme in Hemingway, and the author, in his own life, was undeniably at least unsure about the ideas of childbirth and parenthood, if not positively resentful of them. But neither a knowledge of the author's oeuvre nor the author's life is necessary in order for the reader to participate with the story in a way that reveals its full meaning. What is explicitly omitted from the story can be inferred from what is present in the text. It is not difficult, actually, to conclude from the man’s comments that whatever they are talking about is “really and awfully simple operation,” and is “just to let the air in,” that what is being discussed is an abortion (212). Yet the reader surely has no reason to be certain that an abortion is being discussed based solely on these comments. The idea that the operation mentioned in an abortion gains strength when we note certain things within the text.
First, and perhaps most obviously, we should note the repetition of pairs of things in the story, and the word two: the station is situated “between two lines of rails,” the couple order two beers, which are brought in “two glasses,” with “two felt pads,” they get “two Anis del Toro,” the girl takes hold of “two of the strings of beads” hanging from the doorway, they have “two heavy bags.” This repetition—as is common in Hemingway—is intentional and serves a specific purpose. We are constantly reminded that there are two and only two people present, and as we being to piece together the larger context of the conversation, it becomes clear that the mean at least seems to think three would be too many. Secondly, we can look to Hemingway's use of the description of the landscape –another common technique the author employs—for clues about the situation and the “thoughts” of characters. In the story, the girl stands up and walks away from the man, and we are told she looks at the land. The imagery here, the “fields of grain and trees along the bank of the Ebro,” ought to make the reader think of fertility, and we can infer that perhaps the girl herself is thinking of her own fertility as she looks at these things, especially in light of other stories, such as “Cat in the Rain.”
Once the reader notices these things, and others, a second reading of the story is definitely needed and is very rewarding. Now that a possible context for the conversation has been established by the reader, one realizes just how crucial to the story the word “it” is. The word is used in the story too frequently for us to examine every instance in depth here, but it is instructive to look briefly at the versatility of this word in the story. Toward the beginning of the story, when the girl asks the man what is painted on the bead curtain, he answers, “anis del toro. It's a drink.” The girl responds by asking “Could we try it?” Of course this is a reasonable response to the man's statement, but, too, it seems as if the girl has actually changed the subject, and is asking if they could try having the baby. Later the girl says rather enigmatically, “once they take it away, you never get it back.” If we assume “it” refers here to a child, this becomes a very meaningful and resonate sentence. Much of the story can, and I think should, be read in this way. “Hills Like White Elephants” is a great example of the kind of attention Hemmingway gives to each word in a story, and a perfect illustration of the effectiveness of his theory of omission.
“Cat in the Rain” is certainly a story about which, upon initially reading it, the reader will “feel something more than they understood.” The reader can “feel” there is something more to the American wife's attachment to the titular cat, but it is not immediately clear why. Again, the reader must participate with the text to fill in what has been left out by the author. As in “Hills Like White Elephants,” what seems to be left out of “Cat in the Rain” is mention of pregnancy. Keeping in mind how important the landscape often is in Hemingway, the reader is first clued into the subject matter of the story upon noting all of the fertile imagery in the opening paragraph. But perhaps more important is the repetition of the image of the woman at a window looking at these symbols of fertility. This image occurs three times in a three-page story. This image is appropriate given the stories theme of enclosure and entrapment, but it also points us to what may be going on in the woman's thoughts, that is, her looking at the fertile landscape may be correlated to her thinking about her own fertility. Perhaps the most obvious, if not most important, instance of omission is the story is signaled to the reader when the woman comes back into the hotel without finding the cat, and the narrator tells us that “something felt very small and tight inside the girl” (130). This sentence could be read to reinforce the already well established theme of enclosure but it is a rather curious sentence and not a stretch for one to infer that the “something” may be a child, and what the couple is really talking about in the story is pregnancy.
In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway claims that what is omitted from “Out of Season” is Peduzzi's suicide at the end of the story. Even though this ending does seem to fit the story, the reader has no access at all to this ending within the text itself. This is something one does not “feel” about the story unless told by the author himself that this was omitted. For this reason, we can be at least somewhat skeptical of what the author says about this story. Rather, this story is quite similar to “Hills Like White Elephants” in that what seems to be left out is a clear context in which to place the conversation that occurs between a woman and a man. The first indication the reader gets that something important has been omitted from the story is the wife's “sullen” attitude. Later, offering his wife a drink, the young gentleman says to her, “maybe it'll make you feel better” (136). Later still the young gentleman apologizes—though one senses half-heartedly—for the way he talked at lunch. No more is said about the conversation at lunch or about why the wife may be feeling so “rotten.” Many argue that what is omitted from this story is pregnancy and abortion. I think this story lacks adequate textual evidence to come to this conclusion for certain, but the possibility is certainly present. The story is saturated with “muddy” and dirty imagery: the “muddy drinks,” the “rusty bobsleds,” the river “brown and muddy,” and the “dump heap” to the right of the river. These images do evoke the idea of abortion, but could easily point to the wasted state of the relationship.
Hemingway's practice of intentional omission is only appropriate given the themes of avoidance and repression is much of his fiction. As we see often in his stories, things must be dealt with delicately, if not evasively, lest we become overwhelmed by reality, as Nick Adams does in “A Way You'll Never Be.” But the author's technique is not only appropriate but very effective. This technique forces the reader to actively participate in filling in parts of the narrative, involving the reader critically and emotionally in the story.
Though we certainly can not treat Hemingway the author as we do his characters, we surely can see how the themes discussed heretofore may relate to the author's style, and how this style works to reinforce these themes. Like many of his characters, Hemingway often opts not to deal explicitly with certain things in some of his fiction. In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway describes his theory that “you could omit anything if you knew you omitted and the omitted part would strengthen the story and make people feel something more than they understood” (75). We can see this theory being employed, effectively, in Hemingway's so-called “Marriage Group” stories: “Out of Season,” “Hills Like White Elephants,” “Cat in the Rain,” and “A Canary For One.” Here I aim to explore Hemingway's use of intentional omission in the first three of these stories, and the effect of this technique. I will use a discussion of “Hills Like White Elephants” as a way of exploring Hemingway's use of omission in general, then we will look at how a similar process is used in “Cat in the Rain” and “Out of Season.”
“Hills Like White Elephants” is an extraordinary artistic achievement, and it is what Hemingway decides to omit from the story that gives it much of its meaning. Essentially, it is a story about an abortion in which all direct mention of abortion is omitted. As we will see, though, it would be over-simple for us to conclude that direct mention of abortion is the only or most important thing omitted from the story. To understand what is omitted from the “Hills Like White Elephants,” we must briefly examine what I argue is the most important word in the story: “it.” Grammatically, “it” is a demonstrative, and, like all demonstratives, the referent of “it” is context-relative. Without a clear context, demonstratives like “it” refer to nothing, or rather, could refer to many things. This clear context is precisely what Hemingway omits from the story. Of course the author provides a situational or spatial context for the reader, but the conversation the couple has is neither explained nor placed clearly within the context of a larger discussion. To establish this context, and to realize that the couple is indeed talking about an abortion, the reader his- or herself must do a few things. First, a knowledge of Hemingway's works and a cursory biographical knowledge will get the reader far way in filling in what is omitted from the story. Childbirth and anxiety related to childbirth is a recurrent theme in Hemingway, and the author, in his own life, was undeniably at least unsure about the ideas of childbirth and parenthood, if not positively resentful of them. But neither a knowledge of the author's oeuvre nor the author's life is necessary in order for the reader to participate with the story in a way that reveals its full meaning. What is explicitly omitted from the story can be inferred from what is present in the text. It is not difficult, actually, to conclude from the man’s comments that whatever they are talking about is “really and awfully simple operation,” and is “just to let the air in,” that what is being discussed is an abortion (212). Yet the reader surely has no reason to be certain that an abortion is being discussed based solely on these comments. The idea that the operation mentioned in an abortion gains strength when we note certain things within the text.
First, and perhaps most obviously, we should note the repetition of pairs of things in the story, and the word two: the station is situated “between two lines of rails,” the couple order two beers, which are brought in “two glasses,” with “two felt pads,” they get “two Anis del Toro,” the girl takes hold of “two of the strings of beads” hanging from the doorway, they have “two heavy bags.” This repetition—as is common in Hemingway—is intentional and serves a specific purpose. We are constantly reminded that there are two and only two people present, and as we being to piece together the larger context of the conversation, it becomes clear that the mean at least seems to think three would be too many. Secondly, we can look to Hemingway's use of the description of the landscape –another common technique the author employs—for clues about the situation and the “thoughts” of characters. In the story, the girl stands up and walks away from the man, and we are told she looks at the land. The imagery here, the “fields of grain and trees along the bank of the Ebro,” ought to make the reader think of fertility, and we can infer that perhaps the girl herself is thinking of her own fertility as she looks at these things, especially in light of other stories, such as “Cat in the Rain.”
Once the reader notices these things, and others, a second reading of the story is definitely needed and is very rewarding. Now that a possible context for the conversation has been established by the reader, one realizes just how crucial to the story the word “it” is. The word is used in the story too frequently for us to examine every instance in depth here, but it is instructive to look briefly at the versatility of this word in the story. Toward the beginning of the story, when the girl asks the man what is painted on the bead curtain, he answers, “anis del toro. It's a drink.” The girl responds by asking “Could we try it?” Of course this is a reasonable response to the man's statement, but, too, it seems as if the girl has actually changed the subject, and is asking if they could try having the baby. Later the girl says rather enigmatically, “once they take it away, you never get it back.” If we assume “it” refers here to a child, this becomes a very meaningful and resonate sentence. Much of the story can, and I think should, be read in this way. “Hills Like White Elephants” is a great example of the kind of attention Hemmingway gives to each word in a story, and a perfect illustration of the effectiveness of his theory of omission.
“Cat in the Rain” is certainly a story about which, upon initially reading it, the reader will “feel something more than they understood.” The reader can “feel” there is something more to the American wife's attachment to the titular cat, but it is not immediately clear why. Again, the reader must participate with the text to fill in what has been left out by the author. As in “Hills Like White Elephants,” what seems to be left out of “Cat in the Rain” is mention of pregnancy. Keeping in mind how important the landscape often is in Hemingway, the reader is first clued into the subject matter of the story upon noting all of the fertile imagery in the opening paragraph. But perhaps more important is the repetition of the image of the woman at a window looking at these symbols of fertility. This image occurs three times in a three-page story. This image is appropriate given the stories theme of enclosure and entrapment, but it also points us to what may be going on in the woman's thoughts, that is, her looking at the fertile landscape may be correlated to her thinking about her own fertility. Perhaps the most obvious, if not most important, instance of omission is the story is signaled to the reader when the woman comes back into the hotel without finding the cat, and the narrator tells us that “something felt very small and tight inside the girl” (130). This sentence could be read to reinforce the already well established theme of enclosure but it is a rather curious sentence and not a stretch for one to infer that the “something” may be a child, and what the couple is really talking about in the story is pregnancy.
In A Moveable Feast, Hemingway claims that what is omitted from “Out of Season” is Peduzzi's suicide at the end of the story. Even though this ending does seem to fit the story, the reader has no access at all to this ending within the text itself. This is something one does not “feel” about the story unless told by the author himself that this was omitted. For this reason, we can be at least somewhat skeptical of what the author says about this story. Rather, this story is quite similar to “Hills Like White Elephants” in that what seems to be left out is a clear context in which to place the conversation that occurs between a woman and a man. The first indication the reader gets that something important has been omitted from the story is the wife's “sullen” attitude. Later, offering his wife a drink, the young gentleman says to her, “maybe it'll make you feel better” (136). Later still the young gentleman apologizes—though one senses half-heartedly—for the way he talked at lunch. No more is said about the conversation at lunch or about why the wife may be feeling so “rotten.” Many argue that what is omitted from this story is pregnancy and abortion. I think this story lacks adequate textual evidence to come to this conclusion for certain, but the possibility is certainly present. The story is saturated with “muddy” and dirty imagery: the “muddy drinks,” the “rusty bobsleds,” the river “brown and muddy,” and the “dump heap” to the right of the river. These images do evoke the idea of abortion, but could easily point to the wasted state of the relationship.
Hemingway's practice of intentional omission is only appropriate given the themes of avoidance and repression is much of his fiction. As we see often in his stories, things must be dealt with delicately, if not evasively, lest we become overwhelmed by reality, as Nick Adams does in “A Way You'll Never Be.” But the author's technique is not only appropriate but very effective. This technique forces the reader to actively participate in filling in parts of the narrative, involving the reader critically and emotionally in the story.
Old Poems
"At 15 W Hollister St"
In the patch of soil,
Beneath the catalpa,
There's broken a terracotta pot,
Buried in snow.
"Untitled #134"
Nothing has changed.
The dogs a bit fatter
is all.
In the patch of soil,
Beneath the catalpa,
There's broken a terracotta pot,
Buried in snow.
"Untitled #134"
Nothing has changed.
The dogs a bit fatter
is all.
Burr Oak
This is the first draft of a recent story titled "Burr Oak."
The chickens, I check them every morning. Except in the winter. The cold slows them down some and you can get away with gathering every other day or so. And never on Sunday. They don't lay then. Problem with chickens ain't they ain't smart but that theys too damn smart. When they can get a day off, they know it, and they take it.
Had us two chickens once broke out of the coop and made like they'd run away. These two chickens together. We'd just told Verna and Jay we'd sell a couple to them. We didn't usually sell our chickens like that, on account of it being just about the biggest pain in the ass you ever heard of. First you have to kill them, which is a mess, and I never cared much to do it myself. Then you have to pluck them. You have to put them in hot water before you can pluck the feathers off; if it ain't hot enough, it’s too hard to get them all off. And you don't realize how many damn feathers a chickens got till you try to pull off every one of them. If the waters too hot, skin peels clear off with the feathers. But we told Jay and Vern we'd do it since they was friends, and a couple extra bucks wasn't going to hurt us none neither. So, when I gone out there to grab a couple of them, I seen these two chickens hopping and ruffling themselves over the fence and they just kept on going like they knew I'd be after them. Damn if I know how in hell they got out in the first place. We had near fifty chickens, mostly hens, but only these two got out. They was passed the big burr oak when I caught up to them. When they seen me they quit their running without making a sound and just set there like they knew. Like they knew it wasn't no use.
Our line used to be by that oak where I caught them chickens. That was the eastern boundary, right before that tree. When Judy and me first came out here, we thought that was ours beyond that tree a bit, too. That was our tree for close to eight years. Wasn't till that man came by with his clipboard and his map that we learnt what was ours. Judy said “What about that little hill with that mossycup on it?” Judy called a bur oak a mossycup like some folks used to. So this man inspected his map and asked her, he said “What about it?” And Judy said “Ain't you buying that land, too?” The man looked back down at the map and said They already owned it. That that wasn't even our land. He pointed and said our line was right before that tree about a hundred yards from our fence. And after he left our line came right up to the fence on the eastern side and half our fields for corn and beans wasn't ours for corn and beans no more.
It must've been May because I remember the maples had leaves on about as big as squirrel's ears, which meant it was time to plant corn soon. And I know it was '74 because that's when Gabe got sick.
That was the last year I tried growing any tobacco, too. It was hot that spring, and even hotter in a tobacco field. It's easy to forget that tobaccos a living thing. And all living things breathe. So not only is you out there, huffin and puffin in the tobacco, but it's so hot, the tobaccos out there sweating and puffin its own hot breath back onto you. On a hot day, it's twice as hot in the tobacco.
It was me and Bill, who'd been helping out ever since Judy and me came out here—he had to've been ten years older than me, but I swear sometimes he seemed twenty years younger—and a kid from closer to Danville who was helping us out some that year, probably eighteen or so. Randy or Andy, or something. He worked all right.
Now, when I'm working, that's all I'm doing is working. Bill though, soon as he so much as touched a hoe or anything he was talking. And he was one of them likes talking just to talk. Ain't nothing he ever said was true. No, wouldn't surprise me none to find his name wasn't even Bill. Thing you gotta do with a guy like that is not pay him no mind. The more he thinks you just might give two shits about what he's saying, the more he keeps just shittin it on out. This boy who was helping us out though, he thought Bill was a real riot. He didn't talk too much, this kid, and he worked all right, but you would've needed a damn steel trap to keep him from laughing at nearly everything Bill said.
So we meet up at the house and fill us a canteen each and get our gloves on to go out to the field to start pulling the tobacco. Seemed a waste to put more fuel into the tractor just to ride it out to the field so we was gonna walk. And soon as that screen door smacks shut Bill asked me, he said “Ell, I tell you bout that buddy of mine was toppin some burley on a place south of Danville, not too far from here?”
“Probably,” I said. But this kid, he says, “Y'ain't told me, Bill.” and I'm thinking Oh Jesus. So Bill makes a big show of dabbing his forehead with a napkin hes got in his over-all pocket and starts:
“So I had me this buddy was doin a job on this tobacco farm, just toppin some burley. And he's workin and hes got to take him a piss. But he ain't goin to just piss right there in the middle of a half-stripped field so he walks over to some trees where theys a fence, just one of them wire ones. And so he's pissin over there and his stream hits one of them wires and theys this flash and crack like lightning and fore he can feel a thing, his peckers blew right off. He didn't know it was one of them electric ones.” Now I wasn't paying him no mind but this kids laughing like he ain't never heard the word pecker before, and Bill keeps going:
“Just blew clean off in one piece. Ain't no blood or nothin on account of the heat, all the veins got closed up. And my buddy don't know what in hell to do. So he just picks it up off the ground and he starts walkin into Danville, his own pecker in his pocket. He gets out to the hospital there and has to wait in the waitin room like hes got just a cough or somethin. Finally he gets in to see the doctor and he says to him, he says 'Doc, I got somethin needs fixin real bad.' And the doctor, he says, 'Well, whats the problem?' So he drops his drawers down to his ankles and shows the doc whats happened. This doctor he just stands there not knowin what to make of what he seen and finally he says, 'Son,' he says, 'theys some things beyond my fixin, and besides, looks like you done fixed yourself.'
And this kid starts screaming laughing and he says “No he didn't!” and Bill says, “I know, I know it, but I swear to God.” I was almost glad what had happened then, least it shut them both up.
The tobacco didn't feel right when we got into it. You know how you can just tell when theys some one else in a room, even if the lights is out and they ain't making a sound? Like you can just feel it? It's the same way in a good tobacco field, you can feel them big leaves breathing. Breathing like you and me is breathing. And you can feel it when they ain't breathing, too. The leaves was pale and spotty and they was kinda twisted, with the bottoms turned up. It'd been so damn humid the whole crop caught blue mold. I checked every leaf myself, but it was all a waste.
When you get into farming, you call yourself a farmer, and you think you are one. That you're doing all the work, and how much you know and how much you put into it is how much you're gonna get out of it. But you come to see you’re just there to do the heavy lifting while nature, she does all the work herself. You can know when to plant and all that, but corn don't grow unless she makes it grow. When you get into farming, first thing you learn is you ain't got no say in the matter.
So all the tobacco was ruined, but we still had to go in an pull it out of there, roots and all. It wasn't going to just disappear. That was the only time Bill did ever shut up. We stayed out there working at this wasted crop till it started to get a little cooler and Judy called that supper was ready.
Sun had gone down behind the hills by the time we got to the house. Judy yelled from the kitchen when she heard us come in, asking Bill and the kid if they'd stay for some supper. Of course Bill said, “Did I ever say no to you, Judy?” like he always said when she asked him. He sat down at the table and I went to wash my hands at the sink. When I come back Bill was leaning back telling this kid about a buddy of his could teach animals to talk and even read some. “Just simple sentences.” I went into the kitchen to see if Judy didn't need no help.
She was cutting up some white bread and she looked tireder then me when I come in. She tried smiling some.
“You need any help?” I asked.
“Everything's finished,” she said, “you can carry it out though.” So I grabbed a plate of potatoes and a plate of corn and took them out, then came back and got the plate of eggs. I set them down in the dining room and went back into the kitchen.
“You get everything done?” she asked, not looking up. A piece of hair was hanging down over her face.
“Almost,” I said, “I can finish in the mornin on my own.”
“Hows it look?” she said.
“Dead,” I told her.
“Dead?” she said.
“When we got out there, it was all moldy and witherin. Been so damn humid. Blue mold,” I told her.
“All of it?” she asked.
“All of it.” She put down her knife and blew at the strand of hair in her face. Her hands was covered in flour.
“What are you gonna do?” She asked me.
“Ain't much to do,” I told her, “Burn it, I guess.”
“Burn it. Elliot you know we can't afford to do nothin with that tobacco but sell it,” she said, “what are we goin to do?”
“Ain't nobody gonna buy no moldy tobacco,” I told her.
“And you ain't even gonna try?” she said.
“You're actin like I done this on purpose,” I said, “Like I meant to waste our crop. I'm as worried as you is. But wad'nt nothin I could of done.”
“Wad'nt nothin you could of done,” she said, “Ell, a whole damn crop don't go to ruin just over night. Where was you when it was goin moldy? You could'a been out there sooner.”
“Hey, ya'll ain't gonna make us start without you are ya?” Bill yelled from the other room.
Bill had started without us. His plate was clean but I know I brought out more eggs than was left. Judy walked in smiling, still with her apron on and saying “Bill, you know you don't have to wait for us to start. I'm sure you boys starvin after workin so much.”
“Now I wouldn't want to be impolite,” Bill said, shoveling about half of what was left of the eggs onto his plate. Judy was asking the kid who was with us about his family and what he wanted to be when he grew up and all that and Bill leant over and asked me, he said “Where's little Gabe?” And I didn't know. I told him I didn't know. So I asked Judy and she says he's asleep.
“I told him to go play in the other room while I was fixin supper” she said, “but he just set there in the kitchen. I tried seein if he wanted to help me, just stirrin them eggs or somethin but he was fallin asleep. So I put him into bed.” She reached behind her back and untied her apron and hung it on the back of the chair she was setting on. “I think he might be comin down with something.”
And I said nah, he wad'nt getting sick. I said he's just wored out from helping me at gathering eggs and feeding the hogs like he'd been doing.
“Bill, you should see him,” I said, “I ain't never seen nobody as good at gatherin eggs as him. He finds em where I don't even think to look.”
Just that morning he was out there getting eggs with me. He had on his little boots and his thick working gloves just like mine but smaller. And we're out there in the coop and I'm quizzing him the way we liked to do. Like I'd say, “Okay Gabe, which ones lay the eggs?” and he'd say, “the chickens!” and I'd laugh, and he'd laugh because I was laughing, he didn't care if he was right or not. So I'd say, “No, which ones lay the eggs, the hens or the roosters?” He'd get this big smile on his face and point to one of them and shout, “the hens!” and I'd shout it, too. I would. Then I'd pick him up under his arms so he could check up on the shelves if any of them hens left any up there. This one morning I lifted him up and I'm tickling him so he's just laughing and squirming because he can't get away from me and then he just kind of squealed, and stopped laughing. I thought I hurt him so I put him down but he just hugs my leg. Crying. I look back up on the shelf where he was looking and there's a corn snake with his whole mouth around this egg. And he don't move or blink. Just set there. Looking. I took Gabe back inside before I came back out to the coop.
Bill burped and excused himself. “Sounds like you got yourselves a natural farmer,” he said.
“Elliot,” Judy said, “I don't think he's just tired from helpin out. He was coughin some and breathin kinda funny.”
But I told her no, that'll happen being out in that chicken coop.
“Either way,” Bill said, “a little sickness when you're young's good for ya. Makes ya stronger. Good immune system ain't somethin you're born with but something ya build.”
“Thanks, doctor,” Judy smiled.
“I'm serious,” Bill kept on, “best armies ain't them ain't done no fightin.”
“I think there's a big difference between my Gabriel and an army, Bill,” she said.
“Nope,” he said, “it's the same for everythin. Look at tobacco.” And he starts fumbling with his words, saying, “Well, not yours, I mean, I'm sorry about that, by the way, that's a damn shame. But look at tobacco. When its young, ya let it grow a bit, and then it starts to flower and you gotta top it. Cuttin that flower off like that don't hurt it none, really, but makes it so it grows even stronger.”
Bill must have been a healthy kid, I heard he died a few years ago. Cancer. I don't know what kind.
I usually picked Bill up when he was gonna help out, then I'd drop him back off at his house after we was done, but the car was busted then and it didn't look like we was going to be able to get around to fixing it anytime soon, so Bill had been coming in his truck. Sometimes after supper he'd stay for a while talking but that night, wasn't none of us up for much talking, and the kid needed to get home, so Bill and him left once we'd ate.
I took what was left from supper, which wasn't much, scraped it into a bucket and went out to feed the hogs. He loved them hogs. When Gabe first started helping me feed them, it took us a whole week to get him to start eating like a person again. He'd just stick his whole face into whatever we set in front of him. We had to be pretty stern with him to get him to cut that out, but all Judy and me really wanted to do was laugh. Damn funniest thing I think I ever saw. We knew if we did laugh, he'd never stop it. But it was hard not to. I think he knew how funny we thought it was, even though we was pretty stern about it, and that's why he done it so long. And I think every boy at some time wishes he could live like one of them hogs. Just eating and sleeping and rolling around in whatever mud they want to. I don't think I can blame him for trying neither. Sure would be nice sometimes.
Dishes was done and Judy was getting ready for bed when I come in, in front of the mirror in our bedroom, brushing her hair. Sounds awful but sometimes, I can't even remember exactly what she even looks like anymore. Of course I remember her face, but I can't say I can remember what her feet look like. Or her back. But not a days gone by I don't remember her hair. She'd brush it every night in that mirror. Sandy, cedar blonde with strands of red you hardly noticed. Like when the sun falls down behind a field of wheat and there's shades of brown and red you didn't even know there was.
Gabe was coughing in his room. Little, high-pitched coughs. Judy put down her brush and looked at me in the mirror without turning around and said, “I just checked on him. He's been coughing like that for a while now. I think we should take him in to see the doctor tomorrow.”
I walked into the bathroom and said over the water from the sink, “It's just a cough Judy, he just needs some rest. And besides, what we gonna do, walk there?” I came back in and got into bed. She was still setting where she was, staring in to the mirror.
“You could call Bill,” she said, “I'm sure he'd give y'all a ride.”
“I don't think I can stand to be around him no more than I need to be,” I said, “and you know we can't afford to pay no doctor just so he can tell us the boy needs rest, especially after whats happened to the tobacco. He can rest for free without even leavin the house. We just need to keep an eye on him is all.”
“Ell, we's gonna have to get him in to see the doctor, he don't sound good,” she said, finally getting in to bed. I turned off the lamp.
“Ain't nothin we can do about it tonight,” I said.
I stayed awake for a long time, just staring at the ceiling and I could tell she wasn't asleep neither. After a while she turned and kissed my shoulder.
Next day I went back out there to finish clearing that tobacco. We'd got the most of it the day before so I was mainly just hacking at roots with the hoe, then on my hands and knees pulling them up. I suppose the first priority of any living thing is to keep on living, and damn if them roots wasn't holding on like they was still some hope for them.
We'd piled all the tobacco over behind the shed where I got the fire pit. I got a little wood fire going then started tossing the tobacco onto that. It put up a thick, dark smoke that got into my eyes no matter what side I stood on. Smoke was blowing to the east so I moved to the west of it, then the wind would shift and it would be in my eyes again. I stayed out there doing that all morning, circling the pit to get out of the smoke, and tossing more of the tobacco on when what was burning turned to ashes.
I spent the rest of the day out in the corn field just pulling up weeds and rocks, getting ready to plant. When it started to get a little darker and cooler, I didn't much feel like going in yet so I thought I'd go for a little walk. I went down our gravel road toward the old bridge over the creek. The sun was setting and shining right on the burr oak on that hill, with all its leave finally come in and dancing on their boughs even though they wasn't no breeze at all. I turned at the main road and took that to the old concrete bridge. They replaced it a while back with the steel one, but I think the old ones still there, crumbled in the creek.
It was dark when I got back and there was no supper being made. I found Judy in Gabe's room with him. The window was open. The smoke from the fire pit was dark and thick.
“Where have you been?” she asked me when I stepped in. I told her I been out there working all day.
“What's wrong?” I asked her.
“Whats wrong.” She said, She didn't look good. Her hair was a mess like she'd been trying to pull it out and her eyes was red. “Ell, I been lookin for you for an hour. Where have you been?”
“I just went for a walk,” I told her, “What is goin on?” Gabe was lying there in his bed crying. He would stop crying about every thirty seconds or so, but just to cough, or try to cough, then he'd keep crying. She looked at him, then at me and I never seen her so scared.
“I'll call Bill tomorrow morning, first thing,” I said. She stayed in there with him, telling him he was okay, until he wored himself out and fell asleep.
He woke us up in the middle of the night he was crying so loud and coughing so much. He said “Mom,” and she ran in there faster then she ever did run. I came in too. His arms and cheeks was pale and his eyes was only half open. Judy looked at me, and I think that was the last time she ever did, and ran down the hall. I called her name but she didn't say nothing. I heard her pick up the phone and she started talking real fast. Then she said “Uh-huh” and “Uh-huh” and hung up the phone, running into the kitchen. She came back in with a hot towel and said, “Put this on his chest,” and ran out again.
I sat down at the end of his bed. He stopped crying. I sat there holding this towel on his chest and Judy was making all kinds of racket in the kitchen like she was looking for something.
His bed was next to the window. In one corner of the room we'd hung a couple of toy planes that was mine when I was a kid. I could hear his breath. It was like he was drowning. He opened his eyes all the way for just a second, looking at me, then they half-closed again and that's when I knew it.
Judy had stopped banging around in the kitchen and it was real quiet but for his breathing, and that was getting quieter too. I took his little hand. His finger tips was turning from blue to gray.
Through the window I watched the smoke, dark near the flame and thinner and thinner going up until it disappeared. I kissed both of his eyelids and that's how my son died.
Judy was coming down the hall saying, “They said to get him some green tea and a hot compress until the ambulance gets here. I knew we had some somewhere.” Then neither of us said nothing. She picked him up and sat with him pressed against her chest until they got there. They said we could keep him there that night but there was still plenty of papers for me to fill out before they left.
Judy eventually fell asleep in the chair next to Gabe's bed with him in her arms, still holding on tighter than them roots I'd pulled up. I sat there awake that night in front of the window.
I don't really remember that next morning, I guess. I mean, sometimes I remember it was raining when I finally stood up and went out to feed the chickens. And other times I remember it was the prettiest morning you ever saw, nice and cool, the sky bluer than you thought was possible for the sky to be, a blue to make you wonder if you ain't never really seen blue before. But most the times I don't recall that morning either way. Most the time I don't remember that sun ever coming up at all, but that the day was only night. Like the rooster forgot to crow, and the sun didn't wake up. Not that morning.
The chickens, I check them every morning. Except in the winter. The cold slows them down some and you can get away with gathering every other day or so. And never on Sunday. They don't lay then. Problem with chickens ain't they ain't smart but that theys too damn smart. When they can get a day off, they know it, and they take it.
Had us two chickens once broke out of the coop and made like they'd run away. These two chickens together. We'd just told Verna and Jay we'd sell a couple to them. We didn't usually sell our chickens like that, on account of it being just about the biggest pain in the ass you ever heard of. First you have to kill them, which is a mess, and I never cared much to do it myself. Then you have to pluck them. You have to put them in hot water before you can pluck the feathers off; if it ain't hot enough, it’s too hard to get them all off. And you don't realize how many damn feathers a chickens got till you try to pull off every one of them. If the waters too hot, skin peels clear off with the feathers. But we told Jay and Vern we'd do it since they was friends, and a couple extra bucks wasn't going to hurt us none neither. So, when I gone out there to grab a couple of them, I seen these two chickens hopping and ruffling themselves over the fence and they just kept on going like they knew I'd be after them. Damn if I know how in hell they got out in the first place. We had near fifty chickens, mostly hens, but only these two got out. They was passed the big burr oak when I caught up to them. When they seen me they quit their running without making a sound and just set there like they knew. Like they knew it wasn't no use.
Our line used to be by that oak where I caught them chickens. That was the eastern boundary, right before that tree. When Judy and me first came out here, we thought that was ours beyond that tree a bit, too. That was our tree for close to eight years. Wasn't till that man came by with his clipboard and his map that we learnt what was ours. Judy said “What about that little hill with that mossycup on it?” Judy called a bur oak a mossycup like some folks used to. So this man inspected his map and asked her, he said “What about it?” And Judy said “Ain't you buying that land, too?” The man looked back down at the map and said They already owned it. That that wasn't even our land. He pointed and said our line was right before that tree about a hundred yards from our fence. And after he left our line came right up to the fence on the eastern side and half our fields for corn and beans wasn't ours for corn and beans no more.
It must've been May because I remember the maples had leaves on about as big as squirrel's ears, which meant it was time to plant corn soon. And I know it was '74 because that's when Gabe got sick.
That was the last year I tried growing any tobacco, too. It was hot that spring, and even hotter in a tobacco field. It's easy to forget that tobaccos a living thing. And all living things breathe. So not only is you out there, huffin and puffin in the tobacco, but it's so hot, the tobaccos out there sweating and puffin its own hot breath back onto you. On a hot day, it's twice as hot in the tobacco.
It was me and Bill, who'd been helping out ever since Judy and me came out here—he had to've been ten years older than me, but I swear sometimes he seemed twenty years younger—and a kid from closer to Danville who was helping us out some that year, probably eighteen or so. Randy or Andy, or something. He worked all right.
Now, when I'm working, that's all I'm doing is working. Bill though, soon as he so much as touched a hoe or anything he was talking. And he was one of them likes talking just to talk. Ain't nothing he ever said was true. No, wouldn't surprise me none to find his name wasn't even Bill. Thing you gotta do with a guy like that is not pay him no mind. The more he thinks you just might give two shits about what he's saying, the more he keeps just shittin it on out. This boy who was helping us out though, he thought Bill was a real riot. He didn't talk too much, this kid, and he worked all right, but you would've needed a damn steel trap to keep him from laughing at nearly everything Bill said.
So we meet up at the house and fill us a canteen each and get our gloves on to go out to the field to start pulling the tobacco. Seemed a waste to put more fuel into the tractor just to ride it out to the field so we was gonna walk. And soon as that screen door smacks shut Bill asked me, he said “Ell, I tell you bout that buddy of mine was toppin some burley on a place south of Danville, not too far from here?”
“Probably,” I said. But this kid, he says, “Y'ain't told me, Bill.” and I'm thinking Oh Jesus. So Bill makes a big show of dabbing his forehead with a napkin hes got in his over-all pocket and starts:
“So I had me this buddy was doin a job on this tobacco farm, just toppin some burley. And he's workin and hes got to take him a piss. But he ain't goin to just piss right there in the middle of a half-stripped field so he walks over to some trees where theys a fence, just one of them wire ones. And so he's pissin over there and his stream hits one of them wires and theys this flash and crack like lightning and fore he can feel a thing, his peckers blew right off. He didn't know it was one of them electric ones.” Now I wasn't paying him no mind but this kids laughing like he ain't never heard the word pecker before, and Bill keeps going:
“Just blew clean off in one piece. Ain't no blood or nothin on account of the heat, all the veins got closed up. And my buddy don't know what in hell to do. So he just picks it up off the ground and he starts walkin into Danville, his own pecker in his pocket. He gets out to the hospital there and has to wait in the waitin room like hes got just a cough or somethin. Finally he gets in to see the doctor and he says to him, he says 'Doc, I got somethin needs fixin real bad.' And the doctor, he says, 'Well, whats the problem?' So he drops his drawers down to his ankles and shows the doc whats happened. This doctor he just stands there not knowin what to make of what he seen and finally he says, 'Son,' he says, 'theys some things beyond my fixin, and besides, looks like you done fixed yourself.'
And this kid starts screaming laughing and he says “No he didn't!” and Bill says, “I know, I know it, but I swear to God.” I was almost glad what had happened then, least it shut them both up.
The tobacco didn't feel right when we got into it. You know how you can just tell when theys some one else in a room, even if the lights is out and they ain't making a sound? Like you can just feel it? It's the same way in a good tobacco field, you can feel them big leaves breathing. Breathing like you and me is breathing. And you can feel it when they ain't breathing, too. The leaves was pale and spotty and they was kinda twisted, with the bottoms turned up. It'd been so damn humid the whole crop caught blue mold. I checked every leaf myself, but it was all a waste.
When you get into farming, you call yourself a farmer, and you think you are one. That you're doing all the work, and how much you know and how much you put into it is how much you're gonna get out of it. But you come to see you’re just there to do the heavy lifting while nature, she does all the work herself. You can know when to plant and all that, but corn don't grow unless she makes it grow. When you get into farming, first thing you learn is you ain't got no say in the matter.
So all the tobacco was ruined, but we still had to go in an pull it out of there, roots and all. It wasn't going to just disappear. That was the only time Bill did ever shut up. We stayed out there working at this wasted crop till it started to get a little cooler and Judy called that supper was ready.
Sun had gone down behind the hills by the time we got to the house. Judy yelled from the kitchen when she heard us come in, asking Bill and the kid if they'd stay for some supper. Of course Bill said, “Did I ever say no to you, Judy?” like he always said when she asked him. He sat down at the table and I went to wash my hands at the sink. When I come back Bill was leaning back telling this kid about a buddy of his could teach animals to talk and even read some. “Just simple sentences.” I went into the kitchen to see if Judy didn't need no help.
She was cutting up some white bread and she looked tireder then me when I come in. She tried smiling some.
“You need any help?” I asked.
“Everything's finished,” she said, “you can carry it out though.” So I grabbed a plate of potatoes and a plate of corn and took them out, then came back and got the plate of eggs. I set them down in the dining room and went back into the kitchen.
“You get everything done?” she asked, not looking up. A piece of hair was hanging down over her face.
“Almost,” I said, “I can finish in the mornin on my own.”
“Hows it look?” she said.
“Dead,” I told her.
“Dead?” she said.
“When we got out there, it was all moldy and witherin. Been so damn humid. Blue mold,” I told her.
“All of it?” she asked.
“All of it.” She put down her knife and blew at the strand of hair in her face. Her hands was covered in flour.
“What are you gonna do?” She asked me.
“Ain't much to do,” I told her, “Burn it, I guess.”
“Burn it. Elliot you know we can't afford to do nothin with that tobacco but sell it,” she said, “what are we goin to do?”
“Ain't nobody gonna buy no moldy tobacco,” I told her.
“And you ain't even gonna try?” she said.
“You're actin like I done this on purpose,” I said, “Like I meant to waste our crop. I'm as worried as you is. But wad'nt nothin I could of done.”
“Wad'nt nothin you could of done,” she said, “Ell, a whole damn crop don't go to ruin just over night. Where was you when it was goin moldy? You could'a been out there sooner.”
“Hey, ya'll ain't gonna make us start without you are ya?” Bill yelled from the other room.
Bill had started without us. His plate was clean but I know I brought out more eggs than was left. Judy walked in smiling, still with her apron on and saying “Bill, you know you don't have to wait for us to start. I'm sure you boys starvin after workin so much.”
“Now I wouldn't want to be impolite,” Bill said, shoveling about half of what was left of the eggs onto his plate. Judy was asking the kid who was with us about his family and what he wanted to be when he grew up and all that and Bill leant over and asked me, he said “Where's little Gabe?” And I didn't know. I told him I didn't know. So I asked Judy and she says he's asleep.
“I told him to go play in the other room while I was fixin supper” she said, “but he just set there in the kitchen. I tried seein if he wanted to help me, just stirrin them eggs or somethin but he was fallin asleep. So I put him into bed.” She reached behind her back and untied her apron and hung it on the back of the chair she was setting on. “I think he might be comin down with something.”
And I said nah, he wad'nt getting sick. I said he's just wored out from helping me at gathering eggs and feeding the hogs like he'd been doing.
“Bill, you should see him,” I said, “I ain't never seen nobody as good at gatherin eggs as him. He finds em where I don't even think to look.”
Just that morning he was out there getting eggs with me. He had on his little boots and his thick working gloves just like mine but smaller. And we're out there in the coop and I'm quizzing him the way we liked to do. Like I'd say, “Okay Gabe, which ones lay the eggs?” and he'd say, “the chickens!” and I'd laugh, and he'd laugh because I was laughing, he didn't care if he was right or not. So I'd say, “No, which ones lay the eggs, the hens or the roosters?” He'd get this big smile on his face and point to one of them and shout, “the hens!” and I'd shout it, too. I would. Then I'd pick him up under his arms so he could check up on the shelves if any of them hens left any up there. This one morning I lifted him up and I'm tickling him so he's just laughing and squirming because he can't get away from me and then he just kind of squealed, and stopped laughing. I thought I hurt him so I put him down but he just hugs my leg. Crying. I look back up on the shelf where he was looking and there's a corn snake with his whole mouth around this egg. And he don't move or blink. Just set there. Looking. I took Gabe back inside before I came back out to the coop.
Bill burped and excused himself. “Sounds like you got yourselves a natural farmer,” he said.
“Elliot,” Judy said, “I don't think he's just tired from helpin out. He was coughin some and breathin kinda funny.”
But I told her no, that'll happen being out in that chicken coop.
“Either way,” Bill said, “a little sickness when you're young's good for ya. Makes ya stronger. Good immune system ain't somethin you're born with but something ya build.”
“Thanks, doctor,” Judy smiled.
“I'm serious,” Bill kept on, “best armies ain't them ain't done no fightin.”
“I think there's a big difference between my Gabriel and an army, Bill,” she said.
“Nope,” he said, “it's the same for everythin. Look at tobacco.” And he starts fumbling with his words, saying, “Well, not yours, I mean, I'm sorry about that, by the way, that's a damn shame. But look at tobacco. When its young, ya let it grow a bit, and then it starts to flower and you gotta top it. Cuttin that flower off like that don't hurt it none, really, but makes it so it grows even stronger.”
Bill must have been a healthy kid, I heard he died a few years ago. Cancer. I don't know what kind.
I usually picked Bill up when he was gonna help out, then I'd drop him back off at his house after we was done, but the car was busted then and it didn't look like we was going to be able to get around to fixing it anytime soon, so Bill had been coming in his truck. Sometimes after supper he'd stay for a while talking but that night, wasn't none of us up for much talking, and the kid needed to get home, so Bill and him left once we'd ate.
I took what was left from supper, which wasn't much, scraped it into a bucket and went out to feed the hogs. He loved them hogs. When Gabe first started helping me feed them, it took us a whole week to get him to start eating like a person again. He'd just stick his whole face into whatever we set in front of him. We had to be pretty stern with him to get him to cut that out, but all Judy and me really wanted to do was laugh. Damn funniest thing I think I ever saw. We knew if we did laugh, he'd never stop it. But it was hard not to. I think he knew how funny we thought it was, even though we was pretty stern about it, and that's why he done it so long. And I think every boy at some time wishes he could live like one of them hogs. Just eating and sleeping and rolling around in whatever mud they want to. I don't think I can blame him for trying neither. Sure would be nice sometimes.
Dishes was done and Judy was getting ready for bed when I come in, in front of the mirror in our bedroom, brushing her hair. Sounds awful but sometimes, I can't even remember exactly what she even looks like anymore. Of course I remember her face, but I can't say I can remember what her feet look like. Or her back. But not a days gone by I don't remember her hair. She'd brush it every night in that mirror. Sandy, cedar blonde with strands of red you hardly noticed. Like when the sun falls down behind a field of wheat and there's shades of brown and red you didn't even know there was.
Gabe was coughing in his room. Little, high-pitched coughs. Judy put down her brush and looked at me in the mirror without turning around and said, “I just checked on him. He's been coughing like that for a while now. I think we should take him in to see the doctor tomorrow.”
I walked into the bathroom and said over the water from the sink, “It's just a cough Judy, he just needs some rest. And besides, what we gonna do, walk there?” I came back in and got into bed. She was still setting where she was, staring in to the mirror.
“You could call Bill,” she said, “I'm sure he'd give y'all a ride.”
“I don't think I can stand to be around him no more than I need to be,” I said, “and you know we can't afford to pay no doctor just so he can tell us the boy needs rest, especially after whats happened to the tobacco. He can rest for free without even leavin the house. We just need to keep an eye on him is all.”
“Ell, we's gonna have to get him in to see the doctor, he don't sound good,” she said, finally getting in to bed. I turned off the lamp.
“Ain't nothin we can do about it tonight,” I said.
I stayed awake for a long time, just staring at the ceiling and I could tell she wasn't asleep neither. After a while she turned and kissed my shoulder.
Next day I went back out there to finish clearing that tobacco. We'd got the most of it the day before so I was mainly just hacking at roots with the hoe, then on my hands and knees pulling them up. I suppose the first priority of any living thing is to keep on living, and damn if them roots wasn't holding on like they was still some hope for them.
We'd piled all the tobacco over behind the shed where I got the fire pit. I got a little wood fire going then started tossing the tobacco onto that. It put up a thick, dark smoke that got into my eyes no matter what side I stood on. Smoke was blowing to the east so I moved to the west of it, then the wind would shift and it would be in my eyes again. I stayed out there doing that all morning, circling the pit to get out of the smoke, and tossing more of the tobacco on when what was burning turned to ashes.
I spent the rest of the day out in the corn field just pulling up weeds and rocks, getting ready to plant. When it started to get a little darker and cooler, I didn't much feel like going in yet so I thought I'd go for a little walk. I went down our gravel road toward the old bridge over the creek. The sun was setting and shining right on the burr oak on that hill, with all its leave finally come in and dancing on their boughs even though they wasn't no breeze at all. I turned at the main road and took that to the old concrete bridge. They replaced it a while back with the steel one, but I think the old ones still there, crumbled in the creek.
It was dark when I got back and there was no supper being made. I found Judy in Gabe's room with him. The window was open. The smoke from the fire pit was dark and thick.
“Where have you been?” she asked me when I stepped in. I told her I been out there working all day.
“What's wrong?” I asked her.
“Whats wrong.” She said, She didn't look good. Her hair was a mess like she'd been trying to pull it out and her eyes was red. “Ell, I been lookin for you for an hour. Where have you been?”
“I just went for a walk,” I told her, “What is goin on?” Gabe was lying there in his bed crying. He would stop crying about every thirty seconds or so, but just to cough, or try to cough, then he'd keep crying. She looked at him, then at me and I never seen her so scared.
“I'll call Bill tomorrow morning, first thing,” I said. She stayed in there with him, telling him he was okay, until he wored himself out and fell asleep.
He woke us up in the middle of the night he was crying so loud and coughing so much. He said “Mom,” and she ran in there faster then she ever did run. I came in too. His arms and cheeks was pale and his eyes was only half open. Judy looked at me, and I think that was the last time she ever did, and ran down the hall. I called her name but she didn't say nothing. I heard her pick up the phone and she started talking real fast. Then she said “Uh-huh” and “Uh-huh” and hung up the phone, running into the kitchen. She came back in with a hot towel and said, “Put this on his chest,” and ran out again.
I sat down at the end of his bed. He stopped crying. I sat there holding this towel on his chest and Judy was making all kinds of racket in the kitchen like she was looking for something.
His bed was next to the window. In one corner of the room we'd hung a couple of toy planes that was mine when I was a kid. I could hear his breath. It was like he was drowning. He opened his eyes all the way for just a second, looking at me, then they half-closed again and that's when I knew it.
Judy had stopped banging around in the kitchen and it was real quiet but for his breathing, and that was getting quieter too. I took his little hand. His finger tips was turning from blue to gray.
Through the window I watched the smoke, dark near the flame and thinner and thinner going up until it disappeared. I kissed both of his eyelids and that's how my son died.
Judy was coming down the hall saying, “They said to get him some green tea and a hot compress until the ambulance gets here. I knew we had some somewhere.” Then neither of us said nothing. She picked him up and sat with him pressed against her chest until they got there. They said we could keep him there that night but there was still plenty of papers for me to fill out before they left.
Judy eventually fell asleep in the chair next to Gabe's bed with him in her arms, still holding on tighter than them roots I'd pulled up. I sat there awake that night in front of the window.
I don't really remember that next morning, I guess. I mean, sometimes I remember it was raining when I finally stood up and went out to feed the chickens. And other times I remember it was the prettiest morning you ever saw, nice and cool, the sky bluer than you thought was possible for the sky to be, a blue to make you wonder if you ain't never really seen blue before. But most the times I don't recall that morning either way. Most the time I don't remember that sun ever coming up at all, but that the day was only night. Like the rooster forgot to crow, and the sun didn't wake up. Not that morning.
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