sink.
On the way back to the wagon Mr. Harvey put his hands in his pockets. There was my silver charm bracelet. He couldn’t remember
taking it off my wrist. Had no memory of thrusting it into the pocket of his clean pants. He fingered it, the fleshy pad of
his index finger finding the smooth gold metal of the Pennsylvania keystone, the back of the ballet slipper, the tiny hole of
the minuscule thimble, and the spokes of the bicycle with wheels that worked. Down Route 202, he pulled over on the shoulder,
ate a liverwurst sandwich he’d prepared earlier that day, then drove to an industrial park they were building south of Downingtown.
No one was on the construction lot. In those days there was no security in the suburbs. He parked his car near a Port-o-John.
His excuse was prepared in the unlikely event that he needed one.
It was this part of the aftermath that I thought of when I thought of Mr. Harvey—how he wandered the muddy excavations and
got lost among the dormant bulldozers, their monstrous bulk frightening in the dark. The sky of the earth was dark blue on
the night following my death, and out in this open area Mr. Harvey could see for miles. I chose to stand with him, to see
those miles ahead as he saw them. I wanted to go where he would go. The snow had stopped. There was wind. He walked into what
his builder’s instincts told him would soon be a false pond, and he stood there and fingered the charms one last time. He liked
the Pennsylvania keystone, which my father had had engraved with my initials—my favorite was the tiny bike—and he pulled it
off and placed it in his pocket. He threw the bracelet, with its remaining charms, into the soon-to-be man-made lake.
Two days before Christmas, I watched Mr. Harvey read a book on the Dogon and Bambara of Mali. I saw the bright spark of an
idea when he was reading of the cloth and ropes they used to build shelters. He decided he wanted to build again, to experiment
as he had with the hole, and he settled on a ceremonial tent like the ones described in his reading. He would gather the simple
materials and raise it in a few hours in his backyard.
After smashing all the ships in bottles, my father found him there.
It was cold out, but Mr. Harvey wore only a thin cotton shirt. He had turned thirty-six that year and was experimenting with
hard contacts. They made his eyes perpetually bloodshot, and many people, my father among them, believed he had taken to drink.
“What’s this?” my father asked.
Despite the Salmon men’s heart disease, my father was hardy. He was a bigger man than Mr. Harvey, so when he walked around
the front of the green shingled house and into the backyard, where he saw Harvey erecting things that looked like goalposts,
he seemed bluff and able. He was buzzing from having seen me in the shattered glass. I watched him cut through the lawn, ambling
as school kids did on their way toward the high school. He stopped just short of brushing Mr. Harvey’s elderberry hedge with
his palm.
“What’s this?” he asked again.
Mr. Harvey stopped long enough to look at him and then turned back to his work.
“A mat tent.”
“What’s that?”
“Mr. Salmon,” he said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Drawing himself up, my father gave back what the ritual demanded.
“Thank you.” It was like a rock perched in his throat.
There was a moment of quiet, and then Mr. Harvey, sensing my father had no intention of leaving, asked him if he wanted to
help.
So it was that, from heaven, I watched my father build a tent with the man who’d killed me.
My father did not learn much. He learned how to lash arch pieces onto pronged posts and to weave more slender rods through
these pieces to form semiarches in the other direction. He learned to gather the ends of these rods and lash them to the crossbars.
He learned he was doing this because Mr. Harvey had been reading about the Imezzureg tribe and had
On the way back to the wagon Mr. Harvey put his hands in his pockets. There was my silver charm bracelet. He couldn’t remember
taking it off my wrist. Had no memory of thrusting it into the pocket of his clean pants. He fingered it, the fleshy pad of
his index finger finding the smooth gold metal of the Pennsylvania keystone, the back of the ballet slipper, the tiny hole of
the minuscule thimble, and the spokes of the bicycle with wheels that worked. Down Route 202, he pulled over on the shoulder,
ate a liverwurst sandwich he’d prepared earlier that day, then drove to an industrial park they were building south of Downingtown.
No one was on the construction lot. In those days there was no security in the suburbs. He parked his car near a Port-o-John.
His excuse was prepared in the unlikely event that he needed one.
It was this part of the aftermath that I thought of when I thought of Mr. Harvey—how he wandered the muddy excavations and
got lost among the dormant bulldozers, their monstrous bulk frightening in the dark. The sky of the earth was dark blue on
the night following my death, and out in this open area Mr. Harvey could see for miles. I chose to stand with him, to see
those miles ahead as he saw them. I wanted to go where he would go. The snow had stopped. There was wind. He walked into what
his builder’s instincts told him would soon be a false pond, and he stood there and fingered the charms one last time. He liked
the Pennsylvania keystone, which my father had had engraved with my initials—my favorite was the tiny bike—and he pulled it
off and placed it in his pocket. He threw the bracelet, with its remaining charms, into the soon-to-be man-made lake.
Two days before Christmas, I watched Mr. Harvey read a book on the Dogon and Bambara of Mali. I saw the bright spark of an
idea when he was reading of the cloth and ropes they used to build shelters. He decided he wanted to build again, to experiment
as he had with the hole, and he settled on a ceremonial tent like the ones described in his reading. He would gather the simple
materials and raise it in a few hours in his backyard.
After smashing all the ships in bottles, my father found him there.
It was cold out, but Mr. Harvey wore only a thin cotton shirt. He had turned thirty-six that year and was experimenting with
hard contacts. They made his eyes perpetually bloodshot, and many people, my father among them, believed he had taken to drink.
“What’s this?” my father asked.
Despite the Salmon men’s heart disease, my father was hardy. He was a bigger man than Mr. Harvey, so when he walked around
the front of the green shingled house and into the backyard, where he saw Harvey erecting things that looked like goalposts,
he seemed bluff and able. He was buzzing from having seen me in the shattered glass. I watched him cut through the lawn, ambling
as school kids did on their way toward the high school. He stopped just short of brushing Mr. Harvey’s elderberry hedge with
his palm.
“What’s this?” he asked again.
Mr. Harvey stopped long enough to look at him and then turned back to his work.
“A mat tent.”
“What’s that?”
“Mr. Salmon,” he said, “I’m sorry for your loss.”
Drawing himself up, my father gave back what the ritual demanded.
“Thank you.” It was like a rock perched in his throat.
There was a moment of quiet, and then Mr. Harvey, sensing my father had no intention of leaving, asked him if he wanted to
help.
So it was that, from heaven, I watched my father build a tent with the man who’d killed me.
My father did not learn much. He learned how to lash arch pieces onto pronged posts and to weave more slender rods through
these pieces to form semiarches in the other direction. He learned to gather the ends of these rods and lash them to the crossbars.
He learned he was doing this because Mr. Harvey had been reading about the Imezzureg tribe and had
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