By: Justin Crouse Lowell Bennett and his mother, Abby sat opposite each other at the kitchen table watching Mr. Harris shovel his driveway. Neither spoke, the only sounds were the rhythmic scraping from across the street and an occasional crackle from the woodstove. Their thoughts centered on a nervous anticipation of the upcoming dinner conversation. They were lost enough that neither heard the porch door squeak open, and both startled at the stomping of boots as if someone had touched off a shotgun. Nelson Bennett wiggled a chunk of maple into the firebox, masking the tangy supper smell with smoke. He whistled an Irish folk song while he washed his hands in the deep cast iron sink. He turned and reached a dripping hand between Lowell and Abby, lifting the lid from the lime green casserole in the center of the table. "Well, what's this? Fish sticks in spaghetti sauce, and this one right here-" Steam floated out of a bright yellow dish as Nelson lifted the clear glass cover. "Yup, cauliflower with cheese." He peeled the aluminum foil from the last dish, a brick-colored bowl, like a can of sardines, "Well there it is, mashed with gravy. You must have something to tell your old man?" He stood behind Lowell's chair, squeezing the boy's shoulders in his massive hands, stained black from years of working potato chip vats. Lowell stuck his chest out and looked up into his father's eyes. "Number five," he said, drawing out the syllables. His senior math fair project, "Probability of Random Chance Outcomes: A Study in Heads vs. Tails", while thorough in content, lacked the dramatic wallop of the other entries, particularly Spence Flannery's faux-statistical predictions on the upcoming Crusader's basketball season. Nelson leaned forward. "Out of how many, son?" His voice was soft. "Out of six," Lowell replied, glancing at his mother. She slopped steaming heaps of food onto their plates without looking up. She hadn't asked him when he came home, and he knew that he didn't have to tell her, never would. His mother had been class valedictorian and his father was still regarded as having the finest jump shot in northern Maine. Lowell only saw himself through the eyes of his parents, and he felt their disappointment for them. Nelson sighed and shrugged against red suspenders. He patted Lowell's greasy head, and then slumped into a squeaky chair. "Well, you weren't last again at least. That's worth celebrating." Lowell nibbled the breading off a fish stick. "Lucy Ellis was sick today, so she didn't make it," he whispered without looking up. Nelson looked at Abby's face. Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes were red-rimmed, fixated on a spot in the center of the table. He had planned on convincing her that it was time Lowell went hunting with him and Earl, but he couldn't now. If Lowell could have just made the top three, number four even. Abby worried so much that Lowell would end up like her old man. Nelson had even agreed to lock his guns in a safe in the basement and give her the key. He knew the boy was over-sensitive maybe, but not depressed, not, like that. "Well, there's next time, son. Nothing to be ashamed about," he shoveled potatoes into his mouth. Abby snapped a disapproving look as soon as the word left his lips. He knew trying to clarify would only make things worse. He looked away from them both, into his own plate. Nelson fidgeted in his chair, anything to break the silence. "I picked up a Saturday shift, so I'll walk in with you." Abby sat forward. "I don't think Lowell should work tomorrow. I mean maybe he should just…" "Damn it, Abby. Just because he…" Nelson pressed his fingers against the oak table. Her eyes flashed back into his. He looked at Lowell, who aligned another stripped fish stick on his plate. "It's up to you, son. You want to go to work tomorrow? I'll need to call Murphy if you don't." He felt her stare hot against the side of his face. Lowell looked up at them both. He knew the question was about more than getting up and going to work, it was about his mental state. He had been three when his grandfather died. He still remembered the wake up at the farmhouse, the closed casket, his mother crying into her hands on the front porch, his father sitting in a chair beside her staring out at the potato fields just coming into pink and white blossoms. He had been named after his grandfather, and sometimes wondered if his parents had at that moment thought it was a mistake. When he was younger, he had shouldered that burden, but eventually came to the realization he could only do his best to balance their feelings on each end of the yoke instead. "Sure. Earl needs my help anyway." Lowell had worked on the maintenance crew with Nelson's best friend since he turned sixteen. He put his hand over Abby's. "It's no big deal, Ma, really." She flicked more food onto his plate, then leaned out and did the same to Nelson's. "Alright, but you're coming to church with me on Sunday, and I won't hear how you're too tired." The iridescent hands read four-fifteen when Abby slid into tiny, worn moccasins. She switched the upcoming alarm off, and then padded down the stairway that reverberated with Nelson and Lowell's snoring. She lit the cook stove and rattled a teapot over the growing roar. By the time she stirred life into the basement boiler, her tea water was hot. The room glowed blue-green from the small fluorescent ring over the kitchen sink. Abby pulled the seat-worn rocker, her father's, in front of the stove and opened the firebox door, staring into the flames while she sipped her tea. She felt better about Lowell going to work. She also felt ashamed at the way she had acted at dinner and after; she cried herself to sleep on the couch once they went to bed. She knew she projected her father's depression on Lowell. She also knew she shouldn't take it out on Nelson. He had never been anything but supportive to their son, but he hadn't been there the morning-right after he started junior high-that Lowell threw himself out with the trash. She had been at the sink doing the morning dishes when George, the trash man, knocked at the door. "Mornin' Abby. Umm we got a situation with the trash. I mean…" "Probably one of them raccoons. I'll get a new bag George, be out in just a minute." "Ain't that, it's just, well, you better just get your coat and come out here." Lowell sat shivering between the two garbage cans. She thought he had gone on the bus hours before. "I tried to tell him, Abby, you know, we got a weight limit…" "Land sakes, Lowell, what are you doing out here, and why aren't you in school?" He stopped her cold with her daddy's eyes, all black, wet pupils. "I'm no good, Ma. I'm throwing myself out," he said. His voice was her daddy's too, distant like after the farm auction. With dumbstruck George's help, she managed to get Lowell to his feet. She held him in a tight hug as she lead him inside, the whole time assuring him she wouldn't tell his father. Abby's body trembled for a moment, |
and she shook her head to clear her thoughts. She slid two shiny black cast iron frying pans onto the stove and climbed the stairs to roust Nelson and Lowell. Every Saturday, the eight vats of molten lard were shut down sequentially for twenty minutes each to let the maintenance crew, Earl and Lowell, clear the rotting potato from the drive chains. Lowell stared into the monstrous array of gears, chains, and belts of the No. 3 line, the Green Machine. "You coming with your old man and me next week?" Earl asked, pulling sulfurous rot from the sprocket with a long iron gaff. "Oh I don't know. I'm not too good at it." "Damn son, you don't have to be good at hunting to come with us. Matter of fact, all you need to be is half-good at keeping the fire going when we're drunk." Earl laughed a phlegmy cough and set his hook down against the stainless steel tool cart. "Well I don't know, we'll see." Lowell stepped back and waved all clear. The belt controller threw a lever and the Green Machine roared to life. The flywheels sped up, turning against a series of step up gears, which set the main sprocket of the drive chain into motion. The drive chain took seventy seconds to reach operating speed once started. Earl threw his tools on the cart, and raised his other hand blindly to balance himself on a guard fender. His hand slipped on the shiny green paint, and the sleeve of his shirt caught in a tooth of the sprocket. He tugged quick, short yanks against the fabric. It wasn't the first time he'd gotten fetched up. His first thought was about the riot act his wife would read him when she saw the ripped sleeve. His eyes widened as he remembered that she had bought him new, tear-proof work shirts. He swung his head around to the person closest to him, Lowell. His back was turned, but he heard Earl yell before he got the plug fully implanted in his ear. He turned the wrong way, looking across the belt where Earl should be on his way toward the donuts in the maintenance room between the Green Machine and No. 4. He spun around into Earl's full-moon eyes flipping back and forth between his exponentially tightening shirtsleeve and Lowell's face. Earl's black boot soles drew lines on the concrete floor as he edged closer, faster, toward the sprocket. Lowell waved his arms at the controller to stop while he stared into Earl's welling eyes. The controller lunged onto the red button. Lowell leaned into Earl, mouthing words that couldn't carry over the machine. He rifled Earl's tools, finally laying his hand on a pair of wire cutters. He dove on the shirtsleeve with the cutters making small incisions in the tough twill fabric. "Get your fucking hands out of there." Earl screamed in his ear. Lowell nodded, nibbling the fabric in undersized blades. He yanked on the sleeve. The wheel and the whine slowed. He could see that the rate was too fast for Earl's arm to be safe from the teeth. Lowell threw the cutters to the ground, and grabbed the sleeve in both hands. He ripped it free in time to save Earl's fingers. Earl slumped onto him, and Lowell shifted, reaching out to keep from falling. His fingers jammed into the gears. By the time the controller reached him, all he could do was hold Lowell as his arm churned into the grinding teeth. Lowell's screams rose in proportion to the Green Machine's silence. Nelson caught his breath as he held his son's twitching, sweaty head in his hands. "Where's the fucking medic?" he screamed at the gathered ring of men. "I'm right here, Nelson" John, the plant's safety officer, yelled in his face. He knelt on the stump of Lowell's upper arm, slowing the stream of blood that spurted from it. Lowell's eyes fluttered. The black pupils sat in hollow relief to the yellow-white of his skin. He looked into his father's eyes. They closed and his lips formed a grin, "Grampie," he stuttered. Nelson rocked back and forth, twisting his son's head. Tears washed white streaks into the black exhaust soot caked on his face. "Ohh my boy," he chattered. John grabbed Nelson's face in his hands and forced it to his own. "Nelson, the boy's going to die if we don't get him down to the medical center. Do you understand? We can't wait for the ambulance. Put him on the cart." The ring of men gathered around them sprang into blind action. Lowell's body convulsed twice as they lifted him onto the cart, causing two streams to smack against the green sheet metal. John guided Nelson onto his spot on Lowell's arm. "Talk to him Nelson. Let him know you're there." John screamed. The men got around the cart and pushed it out through the mud of the landing and up to the slushy road. A crowd followed behind to spring into place if someone slipped in the slush. At one point Nelson stopped screaming into Lowell's face long enough to yell for Abby. Two men took off toward the house. Lowell Bennett was dead on the operating table for seventy seconds, but Dr. Daniels brought him back. Men lined up in the waiting room to give blood, regardless of the type, for Lowell. The operating room wasn't as equipped as he had in Korea, but Dr. Daniels sewed what was left of Lowell's arm. Nelson and Abby held each other in front of the swinging door with a porthole window, praying together for the first time since their wedding. Nelson slipped out of bed at four. He stopped at the top of the stairs to smile at the call and response snoring between Lowell and Abby. It was a chilly spring, so he started a small fire to heat his water. He measured a teaspoon of instant decaf into his brown stained mug. Dr. Daniels convinced Nelson to get a physical while Lowell was in physical therapy; coffee and salt were out. He filled the sink with water and peeled potatoes in one curly strand for his father's potato salad. Many people in the town stopped by Lowell's graduation party. In addition to the potato salad, Nelson barbequed a side of beef, provided by Earl, and made his mother's strawberry rhubarb pie. Off to the side was a plate piled high with fish sticks, broccoli and mashed potatoes. Abby spent the day catching up with women she hadn't talked to since her own graduation. Lowell's diploma sat on the kitchen table alongside his commendation from the state legislature. Lowell, Nelson, and Earl played thirty-one on the porch in the evening after cleaning up the yard. Abby slipped passed them, their heads almost pressed together over Lowell's hand, and went inside. She pulled a long, hand-tooled leather case from her corner of the bedroom closet. She sat on her bed and laid it across her lap fingering the stitched initials. She carried the case outside and held it out to Lowell. He yanked out his grandfather's Winchester, held it to his shoulder, and fumbled the lever action. Nelson and Earl lunged for it as it rattled on the floor. Nelson picked it up and handed it back to Lowell, smiling. "It's going to take some practice, son." "I only have to keep the fire going anyway," Lowell said. "It's all your Grampie ever did," his mother said, grinning. |