Early Autumn

CHAPTER 33

Paul sat astride the ridge pole of the cabin, nailing the final row of cedar shingles four inches to the weather. He was shirtless and tan and the muscles moved on his torso as he took the wide roofing nails one at a time from his mouth and drove them three to a shingle with the hammer. He wore a nailing apron over his jeans and periodically he took some nails from it and put them in his mouth. I put together the ridge cap on the ground. When he was finished with the final row, I climbed the ladder with the ridge cap and we nailed it in place, working from each end and moving toward the center of the ridge. The early fall sun was warm on our backs. At the center I said, “You drive one on that side and I’ll drive one on this.”

He nodded, took an eightpenny nail out, tapped it into place, and drove it with three hammer swings. I drove mine. We slipped the hammers into his hammer holster and I put out my hand, palm up. He slapped it once, his face serious. I grinned. He grinned back.

“Done,” I said.

“On the outside,” he said.

“Okay, half done,” I said. “Enclosed.”

We scrambled down the ladder, me first, Paul after, and sat on the steps of the old cabin. It was late afternoon. The sun slanting along the surface of the lake deflected and shimmered in formless patches when we looked at it.

“I never thought we’d build it,” Paul said.

“Never thought you’d run five miles either, did you?”

“No.”

“Or bench press a hundred fifty pounds?”

“No.”

“Or put on twenty pounds?”

Paul grinned at me. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, you were right. I was wrong. You want to have an award ceremony?”

I shook my head. There was very little breeze and the sweat on our bodies dried slowly. On the lake someone water-skied behind a hundred hp outboard. There were bird sounds in the close woods. The area was strong with the smell of sawn wood and the faint burnt odour that a power saw produces when the blade dulls.

I got up and went in the cabin and got a bottle of Moet & Chandon champagne from the refrigerator and two clear plastic cups from the cupboard. I put some ice and water into a cooking pot and stuck the champagne in to keep cold. I brought it and the plastic cups out onto the back steps and set it down.

“What’s that?” Paul said.

“Champagne,” I said. “Elegantly presented.”

“I never had champagne,” Paul said, “except that time at Susan’s.”

“It’s time again,” I said. I opened the bottle and poured each cup full.

“I thought the cork was supposed to shoot up in the air.”

“No need to,” I said.

Paul sipped the champagne. He looked at the glass. “I thought it would be sweeter,” he said.

“Yeah, I did too when I first tried it. It grows on you though.”

We were quiet, sipping the champagne. When Paul’s glass was empty he refilled it. The water skier called it quits and the lake was quiet. Some sparrows moved in the sawdust around the new cabin, heads bobbing and cocking, looking for food, now and then finding it. Grackles with bluish iridescent backs joined them, much bigger, swaggering more than the sparrows, with a funny waddling walk, but peaceable.

“When do we have to leave tomorrow?” Paul said.

“Early,” I said. “Eight thirty at the latest. We pick up Susan at eleven.”

“How long a ride to the school?”

“Four hours.”

“How come Susan’s going?”

“After we drop you, we’re going to have a couple of days together in the Hudson Valley.”

What breeze there was had gone. It was still, the sun was almost set. It wasn’t dark yet, but it was softer, the light seemed indirect.

“Do I have to have a roommate?”

“First year,” I said.

“When can I come home? Back home? To see you?”

“Any weekend,” I said. “But I’d stay around out there for a while. You need to get used to it before you come back. You won’t settle in if your only goal is to get out.”

Paul nodded. It got darker. The champagne was gone.

“It’s better than that place in Grafton.”

“Yes.”

“Everybody there will know everyone and know how to dance.”

“Not everybody,” I said. “Some. Some will be ahead of you. You’ll have to catch up. But you can. Look what you did in one summer.”

“Except I wasn’t catching up on anything,” Paul said.

“Yeah, you were.”

“What?”

“Life.”

The woods had coalesced in the darkness now. You couldn’t see into them. And the insects picked up the noise level. All around us was a thick chittering cloak of forest. We were alone at its center. The cabin was built and the champagne bottle was empty. Biting insects began to gather and swarm. The darkness was cold.

“Let’s go in and eat,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. His voice was a little shaky. When I opened the door to the cabin I could see in the light from the kitchen that there were tears on his face. He made no attempt to hide them. I put my arm around his shoulder.

“Winter’s coming,” I said.

The End