would be a 4-H tent there, and boys my age would be demonstrating the fine points of beekeeping and honey harvesting. “Sounds like a large-size undertaking to me,” he said. “You have to be careful you don’t get stung to death. Bees gang up on you is what I’ve heard.” He walked down to my sister’s door and asked her about her activities and talked about her fish. My mother came out of the bathroom, looking serious, and wearing a green cloth bathrobe and a towel wrapped around her wet hair. She went in the kitchen dressed that way and began taking food out of the refrigerator. My father went in the kitchen after her and said, “I’ll get this straightened out.” She said something I didn’t hear because she said it in a whisper. Then my father walked out onto the front porch, where it was dark and cooler. The street lights were on. He sat in the swing, which had a thin, popping chain, and rocked to the sound of the cicadas. I heard him saying some things to himself, which made me know he was worried. (He talked to himself often—they both did—as if some conversation couldn’t be shared. There was more of such talking when things bothered them.) Once, as he sat rhythmically swinging, he laughed out loud. In a little while he walked out to the street and got in his car and drove off—I guessed—to try to get whatever was worrying him straightened out.
THE NEXT DAY was Sunday. Again, we didn’t attend any church. My father kept a big family bible, which had his name written in it, in his dresser drawer. He was officially a Church of Christ member and had been saved years before in Alabama. My mother professed to be an “ethical agnostic,” in spite of being Jewish. Berner said she believed everything and also nothing, which explained why she was the way she was. I believed nothing at all that I can remember, not even what belief meant, other than birds flew and fish swam—things you could demonstrate. Sunday, however, was still a day set aside. All day long no one spoke much or loudly, particularly in the morning. My father watched the TV news and later baseball, wearing Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, which he didn’t do on weekdays. My mother read a book, worked on her school plans for the fall, and wrote in her journal, which she’d kept from when she was a teenager. She usually took a long walk by herself after breakfast, up Central Avenue and across the river into town, where nothing was going on and the streets were mostly emptied. Afterward she came home and cooked lunch. I’d designated Sunday as my day for practicing chess moves and learning more of the rules, which the boys in the club had informed me were the keys to everything. If you completely internalized the complex rules, you could then play intuitively and with daring, which was how Bobby Fischer played, even when he was only seventeen—not much older than I was.
Nothing was discussed that Sunday morning about what needed to be “straightened out” the night before and that our parents had spent an hour in the bathroom discussing. I wasn’t aware what time my father got home from wherever he went that night. He was simply there Sunday morning in his Bermudas, watching TV. The telephone rang several times. I answered it twice, but there was no one on the line—which wasn’t that out of the ordinary. Nobody let on anything was peculiar. My mother went on her walk to town. My father watched Meet the Press . He was interested in the election and believed Communists were taking over Africa but that Kennedy would prevent it. Berner and I went out into the hot, sunny yard and repositioned the poles of the badminton net to give ourselves more room beside the house to play. It was a pretty, vacant morning. Hollyhocks were blooming against the side of the garage. There was nothing to do in Great Falls.
At eleven, the Zion Lutherans, kitty-corner across the street on the side of the park, began clanging their bell as usual and taking in.
THE NEXT DAY was Sunday. Again, we didn’t attend any church. My father kept a big family bible, which had his name written in it, in his dresser drawer. He was officially a Church of Christ member and had been saved years before in Alabama. My mother professed to be an “ethical agnostic,” in spite of being Jewish. Berner said she believed everything and also nothing, which explained why she was the way she was. I believed nothing at all that I can remember, not even what belief meant, other than birds flew and fish swam—things you could demonstrate. Sunday, however, was still a day set aside. All day long no one spoke much or loudly, particularly in the morning. My father watched the TV news and later baseball, wearing Bermuda shorts and a T-shirt, which he didn’t do on weekdays. My mother read a book, worked on her school plans for the fall, and wrote in her journal, which she’d kept from when she was a teenager. She usually took a long walk by herself after breakfast, up Central Avenue and across the river into town, where nothing was going on and the streets were mostly emptied. Afterward she came home and cooked lunch. I’d designated Sunday as my day for practicing chess moves and learning more of the rules, which the boys in the club had informed me were the keys to everything. If you completely internalized the complex rules, you could then play intuitively and with daring, which was how Bobby Fischer played, even when he was only seventeen—not much older than I was.
Nothing was discussed that Sunday morning about what needed to be “straightened out” the night before and that our parents had spent an hour in the bathroom discussing. I wasn’t aware what time my father got home from wherever he went that night. He was simply there Sunday morning in his Bermudas, watching TV. The telephone rang several times. I answered it twice, but there was no one on the line—which wasn’t that out of the ordinary. Nobody let on anything was peculiar. My mother went on her walk to town. My father watched Meet the Press . He was interested in the election and believed Communists were taking over Africa but that Kennedy would prevent it. Berner and I went out into the hot, sunny yard and repositioned the poles of the badminton net to give ourselves more room beside the house to play. It was a pretty, vacant morning. Hollyhocks were blooming against the side of the garage. There was nothing to do in Great Falls.
At eleven, the Zion Lutherans, kitty-corner across the street on the side of the park, began clanging their bell as usual and taking in.
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