Canada by Richard Ford Page B

Cars and pickups arrived as they always did and parked along the curb opposite our house. Families with children walked up to the gray wood building and disappeared inside. I liked watching them from the front porch swing. They were always in good spirits and talked and laughed about subjects that interested them and that I assumed they agreed about. I’d once walked over on a weekday to look in the doors and see whatever there was to see. But the doors were locked and no one was there. The gray clapboard building felt like a store that had gone out of business.
    It was just when the Lutherans’ bell had begun ringing that an old car pulled up in front of our house and stopped. I thought the driver—a man—was one of the Lutherans and would get out and go across to the church. But he just sat in the old, crudely painted red Plymouth and smoked a cigarette as if he was waiting on something or someone to start paying attention to him. The car was from back in the ’40s and was muddied up and dented, and for some reason seemed familiar—though I couldn’t have said why. It had its rear side window broken out and its tires didn’t match and one on the back lacked a hubcap. It had been in more than one accident and looked out of place in front of our house, parked behind our father’s Bel Air, which was shiny and clean.
    After the man had sat inside smoking for a while—Berner and I watched from the side yard by the badminton net holding our rackets—he looked around at our house and suddenly climbed out, which made the driver’s-side door emit a bang, before he slammed it back.
    At almost that same instant my father came out the front door, still in his Bermudas, and went down the concrete walk as if he’d been watching to see if the man would get out. Now that he had, something immediate needed to be done about it.
    We both heard our father say, “Okay, whoa. Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa,” as the man came slowly up the walk. “You don’t need to be showing up here now. This is my home,” he said. “This is going to get settled.” Our father laughed at the end of saying that, though nothing seemed funny.
    The man just stood on the concrete walk with his chin dramatically lowered, and stared at our father. He didn’t step back when our father approached saying “Whoa-whoa-whoa-whoa”; he didn’t offer to shake hands; he didn’t smile as if anything was funny. He was dressed as if he’d come from someplace cold, because he had on heavy maroon woolen trousers and scuffed brown shoes with no socks, and a bright red cardigan over a dirty gray sweatshirt. It was a strange outfit for August.
    When he’d stepped up onto the sidewalk, it was clear things hurt in his legs. He had to navigate himself using his shoulders, and his knees pointed in. He wasn’t a large man—not as tall as our father—but he was heavy, as if his bones were cumbersome and awkward to move. He had a great growth of oily black hair tied in the back to make a long ponytail, and thick black-rimmed glasses. His complexion looked orangish and roughed up with acne whelps, and he had a Band-Aid on his neck. He wore a wispy goatee and might’ve been fifty years old, but possibly was younger. He was a stark presence to be in our front yard, since he gave the impression of being unhappy to be there. As far away as Berner and I were standing, by the badminton net, I could smell an odor on the man—a meaty smell and a medicine smell at the same time. After he left, I smelled it on our father.
    When the man declined to shake hands or to step back, our father put his hand on the man’s shoulder and stepped close to turn him, and they started talking and walking back toward the Plymouth instead of toward our house. But at a certain point the man took a step sideways off the concrete onto the grass—and away from our father’s grip. He looked away—not toward Berner and me—but away from our father in the other direction, as if he didn’t want to look