Agriss wheels his gas-perfumed cart into the garage, then starts a noisy heater. Tiptoed,
quiet, he sneaks to the corner and lifts a shelf from the chest freezer. Under vacuum-packs of
venison or turkey and colorful Popsicle twigs, an ice-plashed bottle hides like unleavened wafer.
Agriss sneaks it to his lips—although is it sneaking if the sneakiness is a routine everybody
knows about, has known about, and takes every chance to deride? I don’t want to think about it,
he says to himself, or to the fog of his breath.
Ramona at the door asking Daddy where’s the colors?
With the word “color,” Agriss recalls Marianne at the velveteen alter: Her sunlit hair
wove to the threads of a modest white gown, braless, arched below green candles reflected in
blue eyes. It was May, but an unceasing downpour hassled them inside. Okay, she said, nodding.
He may now kiss the bride. Back up the aisle of that glass-ceilinged building—a crystalline
palace. When the DJ’s lights flashed, everything was prismatic, as if you were the brightness
inside a young star, a new constellation. Even “The Chicken Dance Song” felt sacred. So the
maid-of-honor—noticing a breast slant out of the bride-gown as Marianne threw the bouquet and
legged her pink garter—swelled tears. . . . Agriss hears tiny footsteps and returns to the window.
Simon, the oldest, age ten, shrinks his look up, as if he knows what will come. Agriss smiles at
the boy, whose eyes descend, then, with a yawn and a fidget, become vague, tawny.
Forner dashes into the room between father and son, “Right, now,” he shouts toward
Agriss, “You needa” (hiccup) “cutch up.” Wind carps through the doorway. Forner makes a run
to shut it, yelping. And as he laughs into his belly, there’s a tug at the lowest ridge of his shirt.
It’s Ramona, lisping a smile.
“My mommy says you’re a Loser,” she says, then wanders off toward the fireplace with
her crayons, to draw over yellowed newspaper, all the yellowed faces called back to stagelit
lifespan. Uproars of wind denizen night. The stereo-voices meld with percussions of storm—of
things gathering outside, as the three men hack musty cigar smoke into Nascar-themed saloon
cards, inhaling all but the glass around the vodka, then gin—beer long empty—and, last, the
wine so red it reminds them of communion.
“Think we needa put some gas in that generator, Agriss?”
Deep laugh: “Nah, Forner, no need. Not yet, at least.”
“But,” says Forner, “what if it goes out, we’ll be stuck in the dark?”
Agriss closes an eyelid and lifts a hand to his earlobe, teeth at rear: “Is that your voice I
hear?” slapping his own knee, “Come on, princess, dance for us—wiggle.”
“Princess?” says Forner, blushed and reeling. Dolt, half-smile, picks at his nail.
With a look at Forner, Agriss lowers his head into his version of an apology: “Boys, will
you show me your hands already or do I have to take your money myself?”
Everyone in the room, dog included, listens to Marianne’s rout with the bedroom
television, some political talk show, her voice barbed with something cold and pointing. Agriss
leaves the table and the game breaks apart. Doric sheaths of ice leap to ground; but no one pays
attention. Then, with Dolt Cameron, hair matted by travel and the yank of little hands, prostrate
beside the two children, all giggling together as they draw; with Agriss in the backroom,
unzipped and holding Marianne, who was nearly ready to say yes; with Forner at the table
clenching a fitful mess of cigar as he thumbs through the deck of cards, saying “How did I lose it
all”—and when he drops his head into his hands: the pulse stops: the power goes out.
61