Dirt

Chapter 10

Dinner was not chicken and dumplings. That would come later, when it could cook all day in the stew pot. Dinner tonight was a tuna casserole. A jar of mayonnaise, several large cans of tuna, a large bag of potato chips, and squares of American cheese on top.

You’ve really gone all out, Galen said.

Galen’s mother was just setting the casserole on a hot pad in the center of the small table. The kitchen was tiny, and they were all elbow to elbow.

You’ve used an entire bag of potato chips, Galen said. Do you have any idea how much salt that is?

He was already starting to sweat, the cast-iron stove emanating incredible heat. They had the windows and back door open, but that wasn’t enough.

Maybe it’s time to throw away the white-trash cookbook, Galen said.

His mother grabbed his upper arm hard, pinching the skin, and yanked him out of his seat.

Suzie-Q, his grandmother said, and his mother let go. He sat back down.

Are we white trash? he asked. I’m never going to college, and none of us have jobs, and here we are out in the woods. Next thing you know, I’ll be sleeping with my cousin.

Stop, Helen said.

Jennifer narrowed her eyes and then looked down at her plate. Maybe this was how he could have some power over her. Maybe she needed everything kept a secret more than he did.

This isn’t you, Galen, his grandmother said. Your grandfather designed a bridge in Sacramento. You’re a Schumacher, and you can always be proud of that.

Sorry, Grandma.

A pile of mush on everyone’s plate, the wilted potato chips golden and oily.

Men are the problem, Helen said. First Dad and now you.

You won’t talk to my son that way, Galen’s mother said.

Weren’t you just trying to rip his arm off?

He’s not like Dad.

But I thought Dad was perfect. I thought he drank lemonade and had lovely lunches under the fig tree. Isn’t it good to be like Dad? What happened to that whole story?

Your father was a good man, Galen’s grandmother said. He worked hard all his life.

Yeah, we know, Helen said.

No you don’t. You don’t seem to understand. He provided for all of us.

I would rather not have been born, Helen said. Seriously. I would rather have skipped the entire miserable fuck-job of a life this has been.

Helen.

I’m serious. And I’m not putting up with your lies anymore. Why are you giving everything to Suzie? Why are you giving nothing to me, and nothing to Jennifer? I want to know, Mom.

Wow, Galen said. You can kick some ass when you get on a roll.

Galen’s aunt punched him in the shoulder, hard. She punched him again, looking him right in the eyes, pure hatred, and punched him again. He tried to block, but she was fast, and she hit hard.

And then the strangest thing happened. Everyone looked away. No one said or did anything in response to the fact that his aunt had just punched him. His grandmother was humming to herself, looking down at her lap, and his mother was eating. Jennifer had crossed her arms and was looking down also. His aunt had gone back to eating. And what Galen realized was that this was the first time he’d been punched, but everyone else in this room must have been punched many times before. Or in his mother’s case, maybe she had only been a witness to it, but a witness many times.

Galen’s shoulder was throbbing, but he served himself some tuna casserole and tried to eat a couple bites. The sound of the fire in the stove, popping of coals. The sounds of chewing and swallowing, wet and amplified. The taste of salt.

Well, he said. I guess this is who we are.

Would you like some more casserole, Mom? his mother asked.

Thank you, yes. This is very good.

Galen’s mother made a show of serving the casserole, raising the spoon high. Tomorrow we’ll have your chicken and dumplings, Mom. That will be such a treat.

Galen could see his mother was the reconstructor of worlds. That was her role. When all fell apart, she stepped in and made time move again.

Tomorrow we can take a walk down at Camp Sacramento, she said.

Oh, that will be nice, his grandmother said.

I’m still waiting for an answer, Mom, Helen said.

Would you like some wine, Mom? Galen’s mother asked.

Yes please.

Galen’s mother stood and turned to the counter beside the stove. There was no space in this room. The five of them bunched around three sides of a tiny old table that was built into the wall, covered in a yellow plastic tablecloth. The walls uneven planks painted white. A single bare bulb with a chain. The floor a faded brown linoleum. The stove like a furnace. All their faces wet with sweat.

Galen’s mother opened a bottle of white wine, Riesling, and the smell brought Galen instantly back. She poured glasses for herself and her mother and didn’t offer to anyone else. The two of them drank and ate while Galen and the mafia watched, and Galen wondered why they were all together here.

What’s the point of trying to be a family? he asked. Why are we doing it?

Galen’s mother sighed and downed the rest of her glass, then refilled it. Galen’s grandmother was staring at her own wine with a kind of wonder. She had rested it, nearly empty, on the table, just beyond her plate. The stem between two fingers, she was swirling it gently, her hand facing downward, open, as if she were waving her palm over something, as if the table were a looking glass and the wine upon it a kind of golden key. She looked mesmerized, her blue eyes wet and large, her lips moving slightly, as if she were reciting some invocation, something from long ago, something none of the rest of them would understand. She seemed about to announce something, and this was what kept the rest of them silent.

The bare bulb and its harsh light made it seem that if you removed his grandmother, you’d have to cut her from the fabric of the world and there’d be a hole left. Each of them felt that way to Galen, as if all were two-dimensional, flattened, and lodged in place. Jennifer with her arms still folded, looking down, unmoving, stationary. His mother with deeper lines around her mouth than he had noticed before, as if her lips were separate from the rest of her face, something added. Her eyes buried in sockets too large. The waves of her hair something sculpted and not attached. She looked fabricated, put together in pieces, invented.

Galen felt the unreality of her, felt it for the first time as something immediate and undeniable. She raised her glass again to her lips, but even that movement was jointed. The world put together with some kind of ratcheting action, each piece pulled into place under tension, all of it threatening to snap.

Galen wanted to leave. He wanted to get away from this table. This table felt extremely dangerous. He understood now that what held his family together was violence. But he was locked here, glued in place, unable to move. He could only watch, and the only movement was his mother’s glass, and his grandmother’s glass and palm moving in its slow circles, and the wavering of the light.