He Galahad

He Galahad

by

Matt McGuire

The old man and the boy set out from the house at first light. The old man crawled into the driver's side of his blue Jeep truck while the boy strapped down the heavy, orange Husqvarna saw, two mauls, a double bladed axe, and a Thermos containing heavily creamed coffee. The heavy steel door of the Jeep snapped to with a clang as the boy slid leftways on the terrycloth cover and fished in his pocket for a cigarette.

The truck smelled of sweet old work sweat, rock dust, mason tools, and tobacco. The old man ground his false teeth on a peppermint as the road grass ticked by on the way to the wood lot.

You ought not to be smoking.

I know.

I quit before you was born. My uncle Claude died from it. He drowned in his own bed.

I know.

You ought not to be smoking.

The Jeep climbed a bare rock hill through two black mud tracks and the boy leaned forward, rolling up the window after tossing his butt into the muck. At the top the old man killed the throttle and it took a few seconds for the engine to die, but the boy was already out the back unstrapping the saw and one of the mauls, clambering through the mud split by the truck and hurrying with his load over to the first of several piles of logs.

I gotta pee. Go ahead and start in on that bunch of cherry.

Okay.

The boy started the saw, making sure to kick back the guard so the blade would run and tore into the nearest five hand log, young muscles rippling in his arms with the vibration of the saw. The old man pulled his pants up and picked up the hickory handled maul, raising it over his head and dropping it onto the upturned stumps the boy sawed and then sat up for him.

After an hour the two traded trades and the old man sawed while the boy split. The sun was up good and hot now and the boy's sweat soaked through his cotton tee while the old man kept his blue poly long sleeve on without even bringing a lather. The boy mauled viciously the stumps the old man sawed as if they were dragon necks and he Galahad.

When the two had accumulated a large run of stovewood, the old man killed the throttle on the saw and stood up with his hands against the small of his back, the sun on his face. The rays tinted his shopworn spectacles and he spat against the ground, proclaiming,

That's about a cord.

I figured.

Let's load up and take it slow. I don't wanna lose nary a piece.

Okay.

The old man and the boy stacked the cut wood onto the back of the Jeep methodically, placing each piece as if it were a stone in the tomb of a pharaoh. The old man gently chided the boy for his lack of skill in the art of stovewood building, but the boy just laughed. When they were done they sat together on a large oak stump and drank coffee from the Thermos.

The boy lit up and the old man looked off into the morning as if the day held all the sustenance he would ever require.

What did the doctor say the other day? You never did tell me.

The old man spat against the earth and continued staring off into the trees ringing the high bald.

The boy stubbed out his cigarette on the oak and said,

Well?

It ain't good.

How bad is it? It caint be that bad...

The old man doused his cup on the ground and stood slowly, painfully, and placed his hands against the small of his back.

We're burning daylight. Let's go.

The boy sat on the oak, immovable, a crest of terror crashing over the barriers of his common sense, of his memory, of the very earth upon which he strove with truth.

Come on son. Your momma is gonna be worried.

The boy picked his nauseous frame up off the oak and walked slowly to the truck where his grandfather was tying down the tools and the worn steel Thermos. The doors clanged shut and the old man cranked up the truck, the scent of goldenrod and saw gas strong on the September air.

I bet your momma has something good for us when we get home.

The road slid by as the boy peered off into the valley where a brown ribbon of water wound round gray boulders and scrub on its way to the sea.

He rose a crumpled cigarette to his lips slowly, bar oil and wood dust coloring the scent of the white paper, but he didn't light it, he just let it hang from his lip, and then he began to cry.

The boy heaved in hard swells against the dash and pounded it with his fist while the old man drove, never speaking, sphinxlike, a bent haggard stone on the seat while the boy had his fit with hard fate.

They pulled up the drive towards the old shipboard house, and the old man killed the throttle. While the Jeep sputtered the boy sat in his fury while his grandfather creaked open the driver's side door and stepped around back to unharness the saw.

You gonna help me unload this or are you laying down on the job?

The boy swung open the blue and silver door and slammed it behind him. He ran around to where the old man was beginning to stack the stovewood carefully, methodically, onto the winter's store and said,

Lemme do that for you.

The old man stepped back, propped his foot on the rusty chrome rear bumper and looked off towards the house.

You know, if a man took a notion, he might have a run of blueberry bushes along that drive. For pies and such.

I reckon.

You don't need to worry, son. Everything is gonna be okay.

The boy said nothing and continued off bearing stovewood.

Look at me.

He said it slowly: Everything is going to be okay.

The boy looked up for a moment, and then turned back to his work.

You're as fine a man as I could have ever hoped for.

The boy paused for a moment, just long enough to absorb the words, to feel them resonate within his bones, to engrave them upon the very foundations of his life, and then finished the job while his grandfather put away the saw, the mauls, and the axe.

They walked up to the house together, the old man leaning slightly on his grandson, not because he needed to, but because the leaning lent strength to the firmness of his line, as an oak rests upon its roots in the storm, or a mountain defies time by the granite at its core.