“Mrs. Saltzman cut out a garden plot here. The Turners say it was a marvel: rabbit wire, noontime shade, clematis on the bean poles. I’ve been lazy about my seedlings.”
“I don’t like to garden; I just like to eat.”
Jesse clutched his trousers and craned his legs into alignment. He said, “Maybe I’ll nail together a Martin box.” He peered at his right knee and his left and rapidly pounded them with his fists. “I’ve got pains in every inch of my body. My ears ring; my eyes are itchy. I’m going to lose my gift of second sight.”
“Do you see future things like they were long gone, or do you just get inklings about what’s to come?”
Jesse showed no inclination to answer. He paused for some time and then asked, “Did you know Frank and I looked for my father’s grave over in Marysville, California?”
“You’ve mentioned that, but not at any length.”
“I could picture the grave and the wooden cross but I couldn’t get the geography right. They said it was cholera that killed him. They might as well’ve said the bubonic plague. You can always tell when it’s Satan’s work.”
“How?”
“Trickery. Empty promises.” Jesse scratched at his skull hair with all his fingers and then scratched at his jawbeard. He rubbed his eyes with his wrists. “You missed the Palm Sunday service.”
“I used to go every week but that was because my daddy put a gun to my head.”
Jesse shut his eyes and recited, “ ‘For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him. But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.’ ”
Jesse said, “A good preacher will match that up with Matthew twenty-six.” He coughed meanly and spat to the right. He squeezed his mouth with his palm. “Sometimes
I get so forlorn and melancholy. Do you ever get that way?”
Bob shrugged.
“Do you know what it is you’re most afraid of?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I’m afraid of being forgotten,” Bob said, and having admitted that, wondered if it was true. He said, “I’m afraid I’ll end up living a life like everyone else’s and me being Bob Ford won’t matter one way or the other.”
“It isn’t always up to you, Bob. It may not be in the cards for ya.” Jesse looked over to Kansas and leaned on his knees for a minute. “Do you ever get surprised when you see yourself in a mirror? Do you ever find yourself saying, ‘Why do they call him by my name?’ ”
It seemed to Bob that Jesse expected no response.
“You’re wrapped in a ragged coat for your three score and ten and nobody gets to see who’s inside it.”
“It’s getting chilly,” Bob said.
Jesse’s thoughts seemed to fly and he concentrated on something that Bob couldn’t see. “His voice is like a waterfall.”
“Whose voice?”
“If I could stand in it for a second or two, all my sins would be washed away.”
“I honestly can’t follow this conversation.”
Jesse approximated a smile. “Do you know who I’m jealous of? You. If I could change lives with you right now, I would.”
Bob said, “I guess this must be a case of the grass always being greener on the other side of the fence.”
“You can go away right now if you want. You can say, ‘Jesse, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but the Good Lord didn’t put me here to rob the Platte City Bank.’ You can go inside and get your gatherings and begin a lifetime of grocery work. I’m roped in already; I don’t have my pick of things; but you can act one way or another. You’ve still got the vote. That’s a gift I’d give plenty for.”
Bob thought negligently, as a young man might—totally within his body and his own history, without etiquette or any influence other than his hunger and green yearning. He gripped the tattersall quilt at his neck, smelling borax in it. He said, “I don’t know. I’m not acting according to any plan. I’m just getting myself out of spots and pressing for my best advantage.”