2.

It can hurt you, loving somebody that others you love keep punishing. This was April 15, 1956, near as I can tell. (I used to know a simple formula to determine which day of the week any date in history fell upon; but at my present age, I swear I think I’ve cleanly forgotten it!)

I do recall forsythias’ bursting out their yellow exclamation marks, upsetting the bell curves of otherwise modest farmyards. I recall how even the oldest trees looked younger—wearing an April green that is the truest green of all because it is the color of first trying.

Our car trunk was stacked with books enough to overcome a higher-than-usual number of sadnesses and thefts. Packing Bibles, I’d decided that they smelled of hot black rubber. But maybe I confused the vehicle with its merchandise, the Spare with the Saved.

Dad sang us well past Falls and out into brown baritone country: “‘I was sinking, deep in sin, far from the peaceful shore. Very stained and soiled within, sinkin to rise no more. Then the Master of the Deep heard my despairing cries, from the water lifted me, now safe am I.’ Join me on the chorus and feel better, Meadows? … ‘O love lifted me, when nothing else could help, love lift-ed me.’—Boy, but that shore hits the spot.”

Rubbery good news as black yet promising as rubber smells. I sat picturing Christ as a circling buoyant lifesaving inner tube, just in time, His bobbing by.

Then Pop stated again, as he did on certain Sundays, “Your mother’s a mighty excellent woman.” I grunted, bored of hearing this. My eye and forehead throbbed, especially if I turned my head his way too fast. Neither of my parents, pressing ice to me, had dared ask why I fought. I tried not remembering what the bully said to me before I hit him and he hit me worse and I then tried talking sense. He sangsong loud at me, “My dad says you’re just one more trick out of Doc Dick Dix’s big ole dick, is what Pappy called you.”

It’s not a phrase you’re likely to forget. Not when you’re the little mongrel-bastard they say it of.

Now I slid over. Across the flannel car-seat toward him. Lately I had chanced this less and less. But today I laid my head into Dad’s lap. Looking up at him from below could be better than our trip to the Norfolk Aquarium. Upside down, Clyde’s face became all flaps and bones and yesterday’s Nu-Grape traces. From here, even his good-natured singing of hymns sounded wonderfully upside down, almost okay. Dad was that splendid and rarest of “novelty items”—a good man. Maybe they’re the ones most destined to be disappointed by this meanish Bible-swiping world?

He soon let me “drive.” “Got to earn your keep, chauffeur boy.” Below his loose one-handed grip, my fists tightened on the wheel. His sharp leg bones contained then forgave my weight, some streamlined ashwood sled I slid along on. Usually I resented his huge feet working my pedals. Today I felt content to let Dad do all that down there.