Spoonwood by Ernest Hebert Page A

bottles in the heated water. He changes my diaper, putting the used one aside; he washes me, dresses me, then takes me in one arm and feeds me with the other hand, as per instructions in the Doctor Spock book. Unlike lightning-quick Grandma Elenore, Dad does everything slowly and deliberately. I enjoy the change of pace. I don’t remember the meal. I do remember that Dad follows Cooty’s advice and talks to me. As I mentioned earlier, it isn’t as if I know what he’s saying (mercy, I don’t even know what I’m saying), but I memorize every vowel and consonant as musical notes. Today when I remember Dad’s speeches they sound like opera in my head.
    After my meal Dad puts me down on a blanket on the ground and constructs a baloney sandwich.
    I’m about to eat when I remember the bottle of vodka under the truck seat. In an instant Old Crow is back in spirit if not voice. I put the sandwich down and go around to the cab for the bottle.I’m of two thought-meisters. One says pour the bottle into the ground, and the other—Old Crow—says pour the bottle into the throat. In the end I can do neither. I return the bottle to its place under the seat. I pace, and pace some more. I must drink something—anything. I rummage around in my foodstuffs and find a jar that my mother gave me years ago, when I took off on my first road trip—Ovaltine. I boil some water, pour it into a ceramic cup (made in pottery class back in college), dump in some Ovaltine, and, thinking about my mother, drink with, surprisingly, immense satisfaction.
    I spend the next four or five hours sitting by the campfire. I read Doctor Spock by firelight, then whittle. Read, whittle, read, whittle, knock down the Ovaltine: something a man can do instead of boozing. When it’s time to go to bed, I dump the remainder of my wash water to douse the fire. A flaming stick captures my attention. The god of fire is teasing me. I pull the stick out of the fire. It’s part of a maple branch that has fallen from one of the ancient trees on the property. The stick is burnt halfway through. Something about the texture and shape of the stick, almost scooped at one end, intrigues me. In this object I see something I don’t in myself—possibilities—but for what I cannot say; I’m just responding to a feeling. I put the stick in the crook of a tree.
    That night Birch and I sleep under the stars. He wakes me twice for feedings.
    The next morning I bathe Birch, dress him, and give him a bottle. I make a long list of things I need, things I might need, things I do not need but want. Like my father, I’m very handy with tools and imaginative in using them. I spend most of the morning cutting maple and birch saplings and shaping them with my jackknife into a crude crib lashed together with fish line. Later I put Birch in his car seat and we drive off.
    â€œBetter get used to me, buddy,” I say. “We’ll be spending a lot of time in each other’s company.”
    We’re headed for Ike’s Auction Barn. On the drive I tell Birch about the Jordan clan, because they’re part of his heritage. Ike Jordan was murdered a couple years back. His son Carleton,a.k.a. Critter, took over the business, and some people believe the murder was a family affair, that Critter did in his old man, or maybe it was Ike’s brother, Donald, who runs the junkyard in Keene. The Jordans have been in this county since the last ice age, maybe longer, but nobody really knows who they are inside. They don’t know themselves, or maybe the it’s the other way around: they know themselves too well. Ollie Jordan, another brother, was Howard’s best friend until he froze to death in the woods. Elenore hates the Jordans because, I suspect, she secretly fears she might be one. Anyone can see the resemblance around the mouth—bad teeth.
    â€œElmans or Jordans, we’re both pretty close to being in the