Al Fresco
- Jan 28, 2023
- 4 min read
by Marvin Shackelford
1.
At the head of the lake I tell Brenda over the phone it’s my goddamn house too, I’ve paid my time and money, and it’s my endless goddamn life as much as hers. She’s taken me by surprise. Across the weak waves the water narrows, runs long and slender to the earthen dam and parking lot, unseen beyond, where we started. I’ve come too far. A few camo-green paddleboats circle like predators flipped wrong-side up. Fins disappearing somewhere below their floating bodies. What about the dog, I say to my wife. What about this one little life we’ve sort of made together, which I realize immediately isn’t nearly enough. He’s down right at the edge of the dead grass, nub wagging and jaws working as he barks, Welsh and fierce and mostly just curious, at the pair of geese that strut along the lake’s thin band of pebbled beach. His bristling fur and their puckered beaks are almost the same cautionary orange as the early sun. I know how this ends, and I shouldn’t have left him off his leash. I should have taken better care. I should have come sooner, thought ahead, left more quickly, I should have done better. I tell Brenda it’s bullshit. The dog bounces like a spring-wound toy, and the geese arch, spread their wings. In some place or at some time I know I’ve read somewhere that people use geese as watch animals. They’re mean, their looks deceiving. They can hurt you. I should have seen this coming.
2.
I’ve grown so fat my knees ache, won’t let me cross my legs. I sit like a tubby schoolboy at the edge of a church pew through some long convocation, elbows crossed and bare-kneed and sweating. Around me the women of my extended family line side dishes and desserts, condiments and utensils, atop the long, splintery table of the picnic area. It stretches across the roofless slab of concrete almost perfectly, and as dark clouds gather in conversation north of us, far out above the woodlands still, everyone asks my nephew, Why, Jerry, why in the world didn’t you just reserve the covered pavilion? He works at the grill, his back to us and flanked by a handful of our fawning cousins. He’s my nephew but nearly my age, son of an older brother. He’s my kin but confident. He turns and shares with us his grin, we all see ourselves in it, and it’s relaxing, disarming, hopeless. The sun is good! he proclaims. Look at us. We need the sun. It’s al fresco! he shouts. He’s almost charming. I don’t know how gently to explain the care and centuries it took, the generations of humankind that struggled their way to a knowledge of escaping the rain. I don’t know how to tell him you can have a roof, a house, a home, and leave it any time. Return when you need. The sky blackens, thinks about lightning, and finally comes down to us more quickly than expected. The sudden wind. Our entire family gathers together on the earth and grows dim. It rains, of course. The women cry out and cover what they can. The children run shrieking from the field and playground and forest trails, soaked already and beautifully, delightedly chilled. The grill’s fire turns to voluminous smoke, the meat surely ruined, and Jerry curses wildly and waves his hands about as though he’ll clear the air or threaten the storm to stillness. Al fresco! we call to him in response, and he gestures harder. We hustle to our cars, climb inside and struggle to breathe. Thunder murmurs our names, tells us where we went wrong. Al fresco, I say again, and I laugh.
3.
Maggie leads me up the trail between trees stripped nearly clean. Their leaves rattle and crunch beneath us, set me watching for snakes, wishing I had the dog. It’s too cold though. I watch Maggie’s hips rock back and forth, hear the faint mesh swishing of her gait as we climb higher up the valley, and I feel guilty. I’d feel worse but about then she makes a crack about my old-man wheezing. She can hear me too. I clear my throat and straighten my back. I’m just starting to find my legs again, my wind, some second or third I hadn’t expected. I watch her ass. I feel guilty all the time now, and we’ve talked about it. We sometimes ride in circles around my neighborhood, and we talk about it, and we never go home. We sit at lunch or buy our groceries, two separate carts, or catch a late showing at the multiplex. We take gift baskets to old ladies from church or take an afternoon outdoors. She’s leading me somewhere new. I feel myself moving. I look at my feet and out into the trees and up over the dark crown of her head. We rise. I expect to see a deer sooner or later but we never do. We meet other hikers, move gently to our own side of the trail. Below us the world finally disappears, I don’t know exactly when, but we’re more or less alone. We round a large old beech carved about with initials and turn sharply uphill. This is it, Maggie says. Close. We push toward the peak of the hill, the valley giving away around us, and finally burst with burning legs and the last of my breath into a sharp clearing of browned, trampled grass and the overcast sky. I guess I expected sun, but the air spans the forest and gives us a glimpse of town, the commercial strip and neon lights, the courthouse and neighborhoods square and flat. It isn’t all of creation but enough. Maggie takes my hand and pins us in place. For a moment I’m triumphant, the earth is adequately divided into its kingdoms, and we wait, watching.
Marvin Shackelford is the author of Endless Building (poems) and Field Guide to Lonely Birds (forthcoming stories, Red Bird Chapbooks). His work has appeared in The Kenyon Review, New Ohio Review, Best Microfiction and elsewhere. He lives in Southern Middle Tennessee, working as a caretaker of persons, places, and things.
