As she said, to Clay, when she told it:
“Strange to think, but I’d marry that man one day.”
As you might expect, in a household of boys and young men, it wasn’t so much spoken that one of us was leaving. He just was.
Tommy knew.
The mule, too.
Clay had stayed the night at The Surrounds again, waking Sunday morning, with the box still in his hands.
He sat and reread the letter.
He held the lighter and Matador in the fifth.
* * *
—
At home he brought the box inside and put the Murderer’s sticky-taped address in, placed it deep beneath his bed, then quietly did his sit-ups, on the carpet.
About halfway through, Tommy appeared; he could see him from the edge of his sight, each time he came back down. The pigeon, T, was on his shoulder, and a breeze flapped Henry’s posters. They were musicians, mostly; old ones. A few actresses; young and womanly.
“Clay?”
Tommy triangled each time into sight.
“Can you help me later with his feet?”
He finished up and followed to the backyard, and Achilles was near the clothesline. Clay walked over and gave hi
m a sugar cube, open hand, then crouched and tapped a leg.
The first hoof came up; it was clean.
Then the second.
When the job was done on all four, Tommy was hurt in his usual way, but there was nothing for Clay to do. You can’t change the mind of a mule.
To cheer him up, he took two more small white sugar cubes out.
He handed one over to Tommy.
The yard was full of morning.
An empty beanbag lay flat on the porch; it had slid off the ledge of the couch. In the grass was a bike with no handlebars, and the clothesline stood tall in the sun.
Soon Rosy came out from the shelter we’d built for Achilles at the back. She got to the Hills Hoist and started rounding it up, and the sugar lay melting on their tongues.
Near the end, Tommy said it:
“Who’ll help me with this when you’re gone?”
To which Clay did something that caught even himself by surprise:
He grabbed Tommy by the scruff of his T-shirt, and threw him on Achilles, bareback.
“Shit!”