Keep the Change

2

Joe rode with his father in a rental car to visit his Uncle Smitty and Aunt Lureen. They were his father’s brother and sister. It was late afternoon and Lureen would be home from her teaching job. Smitty could always be found at home.

“This is what you call a social obligation,” said his father.

“Oh, I like them, Dad.”

“They’re all yours, son, at least for the summer. I like Lureen and I suppose I should like Smitty better than I do. He’s my brother, after all.”

The house was three narrow stories tall, with sagging porches on the two upper floors; it was clapboard and painted a pale green that stood out against sky and telephone wires. The scudding spring clouds moved overhead rapidly. When Joe looked at the house, its cheap simplicity reminded him of his modest family origins of city park employees, Democratic party flunkies, mill workers, railroad brakemen, mechanics, grocers, ranch hands. It forever fascinated him that such unassuming people could have been so mad with greed and desire for fame or love. Joe’s father was the first and only member of the family to take on the notion of landholding. One uncle had written passionate letters to aborigine women in care of the National Geographic. A cousin had lost his dryland farm in a pyramid scheme. A locket his grandmother had worn all her life contained the photograph of a man not known to the family.

Smitty and Lureen were in the doorway, Lureen in a brown suit she had taught in, and Smitty in the checked shirt and beltless slacks that seemed to suggest well-earned leisure. He looked like a commuter.

They got out of the car and Joe’s father stormed up the short flight of steps with insincere enthusiasm. He hugged Lureen fiercely and pumped Smitty’s thin arm with comradely fervor. Joe stood back smiling until it was his turn for the hugs and handshakes. It was well known that Smitty had great reservations about Joe’s father but they didn’t show until he greeted Joe with a suspicious squint and wary twitching of his eyebrows.

The visit was a raucous parade behind Joe’s father, who thundered through the rooms, refusing Smitty’s suggestion of a drink and Lureen’s of tea. He borrowed the telephone for a quick call to the bank in Minnesota, then hung up the phone conclusively as though his conversation with the bank had been the end of his conversation with Lureen and Smitty.

“Junior’s got to go to work,” he said, gesturing at Joe with his straw hat. He bobbed down to kiss Lureen goodbye, then shot his hand out and let Smitty walk over and shake it. “We’ll call you Christmastime!” he thundered and got around behind Joe, pushing at his shoulder blades until the two of them were out on the street and a very strained Smitty and Lureen were waving at them. “You can’t have a drink with Smitty without having to go his bail that night.”

As they drove, his father said, “Can you imagine a grown man living off his spinster sister like that?”

“I thought Smitty had some problem from the war,” Joe said.

“Oh, he did, he did. But I was in the same goddamn war. Listen to me, I want to make a long story short. Don’t ever take your eyes off Smitty. He’s dumb like a fox. Cut Smitty a little slack and he’ll take her all.”

They drove back out toward the ranch. “I wish I could have found a way of staying in this country,” said his father. “But any fool can see it’s going nowhere. Still, you look at it and it just makes you think, What if? You know what I mean?” Joe was so startled by what for them was a rare intimacy that he looked straight down the road and waited for his stop. He thought he knew exactly what his father meant. What if.

Joe’s father dropped him at the Overstreet headquarters, next to the tin-roofed granary and saddle shed and bunkhouse where Joe would live for the summer. He leaned over and gave Joe a hug. Joe felt his great body heat and smelled the strong and heartening aftershave lotion.

“Well, son,” he said, “it’s time to whistle up the dogs and piss on the fire. Have a good summer, and keep an eye on things. You make a hand and they’ll have to use you. Then you can watch. Think of it as being yours someday and you’ll watch fairly closely.”

“Tell Mom hi for me.”

“In particular,” said his father, “the hay ground. If they aren’t changing water three times a day they’re lying to both of us.”

All of Joe’s father’s quirks, including this one of not listening to him closely, only made Joe love him more. He loved the motion of his father, the bustle, the clear goals he, Joe, could not always understand. After all, he was the only father Joe would have and Joe seemed to know that.