The Arrangements First dust in the air a dog yelping and circling its tail behind the fence A small house behind a chain-link fence a dog snapping at itself and then the dust along the ground rising Past a torn screen door half-open a woman in a sun hat and braces on both legs over worn coveralls coughing and working herself crabwise down the steps to the yard A woman in braces with a hoe pivoting and levering up weeds Or is it the grass she's ripping at blade by blade in clumps In a sun hat in the dust I am there to see it Me laid out on the steps opposite full of things I did last night and liked only half watching her hoe across the street arcing her braces locking and unlocking and the dust Why tear up all that grass for Christ's sake? Why with a hoe? It'll take months Someone ought to let her know about the dog "It looks good like that" I say "the grass it's beautiful" "Too much trouble" she says "beautiful or not I'm sixty-two years old and crippled I don't have the time" And never did I guess which is why forty years ago she gave it up because there's no strength or thrift in it beauty nothing we can decently use It lights up the eye and leaves the hands idle which is sin It attracts men and sent one away again whistling with his hands in his pockets the right or wrong of it small enough comfort then She tried it again in the mirror and when her eyes cleared she looked at her hands opening and let it go I see it now watching the hoe waving away the dust "Hard case" I think "hard case" with last night gone this morning too almost I have things to do and my ears ringing What to make of Della? Dust at least that's what I can tell people about the dust And when the dust settles thirty by forty feet of scalped grass a snaked length of dog chain crossing it between fence and house and the trees I like the trees One in particular always green at dawn and still if only for a moment And after that moment one morning in the parted branches of the same tree Della crippled lopsided goddess of protestant horticulture Della waving her discount pruning saw and looking for the serpent "Sweet Jesus Della get down You want to kill yourself or what?" "Will you look at these loquats I can't even give them away I've got a kitchen full and the ground still covered with them I can't be picking up loquats all summer Not now not with Jim the way he is I want it down" She runs a hand over the saw teeth I pull a leaf tear it into two halves along the vein She tells me he's dying about the house they just bought bad plumbing bad wiring and him inside it choking on sawdust and cancer trying to fix things "For me" she says "No matter what happens he wants me to go on living here And I want the yard cleared I want something I can keep up No telling how I'd pay anyone enough to do all this gardening" I know I know I tell her I know and go on sweating and working the saw all morning pulling at amputated branches It seems we've made a pact about this tree the delicate fruit seed most of it but sweet the bark like grey silk wood white unexpectedly white where the blade opens it to view I'll help her send it on ahead of him agree that love is her excuse She'll offer me a bowl of loquats when I leave go in to him believing I've accepted William Timberman |