The Weather and Women Treat Me Fair by Percival Everett Page B

“Just attempting to isolate and define a few parameters,” he would say and stagger on past people in the street. “Ain’t he just about the smartest drunk you’d ever want to meet?” folks would say. They encouraged their children to spend time with him.
    Ricky died and Clomer was forced to retire from her job at the county utility company. That’s when she went to live with Darnell on his six acres just west of town. Most nights she’d watch television while Darnell rocked and watched the sun sink behind the hills.
    Morning came and Darnell pulled his legs out of bed. He sat facing the window and the trees outside. He put on his trousers and boots and went to the kitchen. He sat down to a breakfast of Clomer’s doing.
    “I can’t eat these sausages,” Darnell said, pushing a link across his plate with his fork.
    “Why not?” asked Clomer.
    “Look at ’em.”
    Clomer leaned forward and examined the meat. She was damn near blind, legally she was, but Darnell wouldn’t understand this. If she wasn’t walking into walls, she wasn’t blind.
    “Squintin’ up like that won’t help you see nothing,” he said. “This meat ain’t cooked thoroughly.”
    “I cooked it for a good long time, Darnell.”
    “High heat or low heat?”
    Clomer fell back into her chair and sipped her coffee. “There was a flame. That’s all I know.”
    He pushed his plate to the center of the table.
    “Ricky wouldn’t eat pig neither,” Clomer said. “Said it wasn’t healthy. Used to say—I can hear him—’Religious restrictions on the diets of middle eastern peoples were founded in legitimate considerations of health.’ Damn, that man could talk.”
    Darnell frowned. “Often, I thought Ricky was one of them homosexuals. But when he married you I knew he was only stupid.” He stood and started away.
    “Where are you going?” Clomer asked.
    “I’m going to sit guard for awhile.” He stopped and turned to her. “When you’ve a mind to, cast an eye out back.”
    “What am I looking for?”
    “Anything that ain’t a tree or a chicken.” He went into the front room and took his pistol from the mantel. On the porch, he sat and rocked and stared off into the woods and down the dirt drive. He looked for a while at his pickup, recalling the first time he’d driven it after Jamie dropped in that souped-up engine. It had been parked at Judd Carlton’s garage. He had barely touched the gas and truck kicked out like a shot. Shame about Judd’s dog. “Can’t that baby move,” he muttered.
    After some time, Clomer was at the screen door. “Darnell, something fuzzy out back.” He didn’t look at her and she went on. “Too tall for a chicken. Trees don’t move.”
    He pulled himself up. “Then I guess I’d best come have a look.”
    “I wish you would.”
    “Weren’t no person now?”
    “Awful fuzzy.”
    They walked through the house and into the kitchen. Darnell stood, looking through the screen of the back door while Clomer screwed up her face and peered out the window over the sink. A couple of hens dashed across the yard. “Somethin’s got the gals nervous, all right,” Darnell said. He flipped open the chamber of his revolver, observed the shells, slammed it shut.
    “There it is,” said Clomer.
    And there it was, stepping from behind the shed, a black bear four feet high. Darnell cocked his weapon. “It’s a bear, Clomer.”
    “Oh yeah,” she said as if the knowledge had helped her to see more clearly. “You gonna shoot him?”
    He let the hammer forward to rest. “I can’t shoot him, Clomer. He’s a sign.” He turned away from the door. “I’ve got to wrassle him, knife-fight him.”
    “With all due respect,” said Clomer, “that don’t sound like the swiftest of ideas.”
    Darnell sat at the table. “Nonetheless.”
    “The critter’s leaving,” Clomer said. “Getting away.”
    “He’ll be back.”
    “He was right big. What I could see of him.”
    “He’s got to be