All the Dead Yale Men by Craig Nova Page B

of delight, of love, of romance for her nosey grandchildren. That was why she hadn’t burned this book. If she had burned it, those moments of tingling delight, when pleasure had been like the gold flecks of a sparkler, so surprising and complete as to leave people speechless with dismay. How could such intensity exist for ordinary human beings? It was like being close to a godhead, wasn’t it? If my grandmother had burned this book, the smell of the sweat and wood chips and the bare floor under her feet, the touch of those sheets, the smell of that soap she usedto wash him in the enormous tub with lions’ feet all would have disappeared. In particular, my grandmother had made a note of that: the tub had lions’ feet.
    The notebook continued:
    The new world caught us. Or, I should say a new airline, Pan Am, did it. Pop was in South America on business, and while he usually took a ship, he now took a plane home. McGill and I were in bed upstairs, and the dark Buick, driven by Pop’s chauffeur, Wade, a tall man with tea-colored eyes, stopped in front of the house.
    I recorded this, made notes, was precise, since it was a transformation. McGill pulled on his clothes and went out the front door, past Pop and Wade.
    â€œWade, put the bags inside the door,” said Pop.
    â€œYes, sir,” said Wade. “Mr. Mackinnon, I think I am going to put the car away.”
    Pop and I sat in the kitchen. Light came in the window and lay in squares on the yellow oilcloth on the table. I made tea and poured Pop a cup, the trickle of it into the porcelain at once cheerful and ominous.
    In the yard, McGill cut some short planks to fit those places that hadn’t been filled in the side of the barn. Pop put down his tea and stood, his shadow falling across me like a sheet.
    â€œMcGill,” said Pop from the door. “Come in here.”
    McGill’s boots came up the steps to the kitchen as though he was walking across the top of a hollow log. Then the squeak of the hinges of the door, that sigh and squeak. He stood in front of it, the door left open just a bit, as though that would make it easier to run away. I bowed my head on the other side of the table, not for shame exactly but because I didn’t want to see McGill’s face. Then he sat down.
    â€œYes, sir,” said McGill.
    I cringed at that “sir” as though this diminished him, and me, too. As though the “sir” was an indication of how desperate I had become or how silly, or how the two were so perfectly intertwined as to make no sense at all.
    â€œDon’t call me that,” said Pop. “You know my name. Say it.”
    McGill said, “Mis, Mis, Mister Mackinnon.”
    â€œWould you like tea?” said Pop. “It’s good, dark tea. We should drink something if we are going to negotiate, to decide things. It is very good tea.”
    â€œI know what kind of tea you have in this house,” said McGill.
    â€œDo you?” said Pop.
    Pop poured a cup, his hands absolutely steady, the dark tea coming out of the spout of the pot, which looked like the neck of a bird, like a small goose.
    â€œSugar?” said Pop.
    â€œYes,” said McGill. “I like sugar.”
    â€œDo you?” said Pop. “Life is hard without something sweet.”
    â€œI’ve noticed,” said McGill without the least guile or without any understanding of the meaning of the word “sweet.”
    â€œOne spoon or two?” said Pop.
    â€œTwo.”
    Pop put two neatly measured spoonfuls into McGill’s tea, swirled the dark fluid.
    We sipped the tea. The kitchen was bright. A silver spoon made a slight note against a cup. Overhead the geese honked with that steady, strained, alarmed sound. Pop nodded to himself, up and down, over and over. McGill held his cloth cap in his hand and reached out for the teacup and took a large sip.
    â€œIt’s good sweet tea,” he said.
    â€œDo you have