“Not again! Not again!”
Bobby Kennedy lies in a pool of his own blood, shot in the head by a man disguised as a cook in a hotel kitchen. He is dying on a million TV screens across the country. All we can do is watch.
Bobby Kennedy, like his brother the president, is dead.
And it’s just like it says in the Book of Ecclesiastes: Nothing under the sun is new.
Will is gone.
Just started across the fields by himself the day after Kennedy’s killing, his long legs carrying him away over the spine of our hill in the early morning light.
I’m through the screen door and almost off the porch after him when Pete stops me.
“Let him be, Jack.”
“But, Pete, he’s hurting!”
“It’s a time for hurting. Let him be.”
I do like Pete says and watch Will slip over the horizon.
Day breaks over the world and it burns hot and fierce. Knee-Deep Meadow’s golden yellow burns brown. The valley’s far wall is lost in haze. It stays lost all day in murderous heat. But Will does not return. The sky goes orange in a dusty twilight, and the pines burn black against all that bright color. Shadows pool at the bottom of our hill, preparing for their long march to our house. Still Will ain’t come back.
He don’t show for dinner or for Walter Cronkite on the TV.
Night comes down around our stone house, hot and humid. Dad greets the dark in smoky silence on the porch, his cigar burning slowly between his fingertips. Seems he’s taking a while with it tonight.
I stay and wait with him.
There’s flashlights on the wall inside. We could grab them and go looking for him. But Dad stays in his chair and so I do too.
When the cigar burns down to just a stub and Will still ain’t back, Dad makes a move like he’s going inside for the night. He drops the stub, crushes it out under his shoe. But instead of heading in, he reaches into his breast pocket and pulls out another. He bites off the end, puts it between his teeth, and lights it. Fresh blue smoke spills through his knuckles. In yellow porch light, the scar on his hand shines a ghostly white.
“Go on up to bed now, Jack.”
I hadn’t been tired till then. But after Dad speaks, a great weariness invades my body and I feel like my bones have all turned to lead. It’s a great effort to even pull the screen door open. A greater one still to climb the stairs to my room.
Frankie is sprawled on his mattress, his arms and legs splayed out. At the sight of him, my mind runs right back to the TV and bleeding Bobby Kennedy lying that same way on the hotel floor. I push the thought away as I fall into my own bed.
It’s a jumpy kind of sleep, like you get when you’re sick with a fever. It must be hours later when I come all the way awake again, my whole body trembling, the sheets clinging to me, and the dead face of Bobby Kennedy that has somehow become Will’s face staring at me in the dark.
Will’s bed is still empty.
I sit, awake in my bed, and shiver in the warm night until a few minutes later, when I catch a whiff of the breeze coming through my open window:
Dad’s cigar. Still burning.
The days after Kennedy’s killing come hot and dry, with the sun hanging like a ball of white fire over our valley. Tree leaves scorch and crinkle. Islands appear in the middle of Apple Creek; the fish retreat to their darker holes.
I’m first one to spot the dust clouds rising at the bottom of our hill.
I raise a holler to Dad just as Kemper’s big black car comes out of the trees.
Kemper’s horn blares twice, but he never gets out. Through the dusty windshield he checks around for Butch. Then the tiny eyes fall on me. As best I can with my dry mouth, I spit.
Dad takes his time coming around the barn. Hands in his pockets. Walking easy. Real easy.
My father is mad.
Kemper rolls the window down and sticks out one arm. His small fingers clutch an envelope, and he waves it at my father like a flag of truce. Dad stops just out of reach of it and stands still beside the idling car.
“Days are numbered, Gene,” Kemper says. “Take a look and see for yourself. A judge has ruled that the county can have this land if they want it.” He pauses, adds, “And we want it.”
“If,” Dad says.
“When,” Kemper corrects. “Read it. Sell this place while you can. I’m giving you a last chance. This is the best offer you can get, and it’s not half as good as what you could have had last time. Chase me out now, I promise it won’t ever be this good again. Sell the house now. Half-price. Or I’ll take it from you and you’ll get next to nothing.”