Sleet: Selected Stories

It’s dark now. The wind sifts through the leaves with a hiss, creaks through the church roof. Should I go somewhere? Maybe sit at the café for a while? I might run into some folks I know. Probably not a bad idea to show my face for once while I’m back here. Otherwise people talk. Say things like: “That Knut, he’s so goddamn full of himself now that he lives in the city. Can’t bother to spend any time in the village except when he’s passing through on his way to the train.”

Or Doughboy’s place. I could always stop by there. But then it can’t be like when Mamma was buried. That time I dropped by Doughboy’s to borrow some brännvin to make up for the bottles my little brother Tage broke. Next thing I know I’m out half the night. Who the hell knows how many places we got around to before I made it home that night? Things can get a little wild over at his place, that’s for sure. I wouldn’t mind hearing about the old man, though. It was Doughboy, after all, that come up behind him in his car and almost ran him over when the old man crashed his bike. So I could head over there just to hear about the old man, whatever he can recall. And if Lydia and Nisse and the rest of them want to get all bent out of shape about it, well, they can go right ahead. What regard did they show the old man when he was alive? Now that he’s lying on the other side of that door over there, they carry on and make a big production of everything. Nobody but me troubled over him when he still drew breath. Sent money every month for eight years. I’d like to see how much small change Lydia squeezed out of her purse for the old man. Yeah, it only makes sense for me to go and get the story from Doughboy the way it really happened. Don’t care if it’s the last thing I ever do for the old man. I don’t plan on letting him down now. I’ll get to the bottom of things. And who better to ask than the fella that helped carry him in from the road? I’ve got to remember to thank him for that. Yes, it’s the right to do, going over and thanking him proper for what he did for the old man. That’s the least a man in my situation can do.

So I shut the gate behind me and fish around in my pocket for a cigarette butt under the streetlight. And as I’m lighting up I can see a car coming my way, almost like it’s looking for somebody, crawling along the road so close to my side that its lights wash out the churchyard wall. When it gets up alongside me the car stops. Then the door opens and what do you know? It’s Doughboy.

“Climb in, friend,” he says. And I do, of course, ’cause there ain’t anybody I want to see more than him right now. Him and only him.

“I went by your house,” Doughboy says. “And that sister of yours, she told me you come here to the churchyard. So I say ‘Maybe I’ll go over and catch up with him there.’ And her face looked like it was ready to explode when I said that, so I just got the hell out of there.”

Sitting there in the front seat, I can’t help getting irritated. Everybody knows goddamn well it was Doughboy that helped the old man in to the nurse’s. The least Lydia could’ve done was thank him for the good turn he did. Doughboy turns on the high beams, and the road opens up before us, white like a dance floor, and off we go. He must have put on some aftershave — it smells good, like sitting in a barber’s chair. This is an awful nice car, runs very smooth. That Nisse’s car sure as hell don’t have anything on it. But some folks just have to be better than the rest.

He’s a good driver, Doughboy, no denying that. At the nurse’s place he slows down and sticks out his right hand. But he don’t say a word. Meaning, of course, that some things just don’t need explaining. Looking out the window I think I see somebody lying in the road there for a second, right by Jacob’s hedge. It’s just a fancy, though, my own goddamn mind playing tricks on me.

“What do you say we take ourselves homewise for a while first?” Doughboy says, and then hits the gas so hard the car jumps forward and jerks me back.

Homewise. What kind of goddamn word is that? That’s something he picked up since last time I was home. Probably heard it from some flour salesman. I wonder if I should ask about the old man now. But then again it might be better to wait till we get to his house. Might irk him for me to start talking about something like that when he’s trying to keep his mind on the road. I have that three-quarter-pint bottle in my jacket pocket. I can give that to Doughboy as a thank you gift. Yeah, that’s it. I’ll ask him about the accident and thank him all at the same time when we get to his place.

Neither of us has said a word by the time we pull up outside his gate. Doughboy probably thinks I’m blue on account of the old man and everything, so just before we get out of the car he gives me a friendly pat on the shoulder and says: “Cheer up there, fella.”