I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down: Collected Stories by William Gay

Author:William Gay [Gay, William]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Southern Gothic, Short Stories (Single Author)
ISBN: 9780743242929
Amazon: 0743242920
Goodreads: 294733
Publisher: Free Press
Published: 2002-01-01T11:00:00+00:00

Closure and Roadkill on the Life’s Highway

RAYMER HAD BEEN working at the housing project for more than a month, and during this time the little old man had consistently moved with the sun. Raymer had begun work during the chill days of a blackberry winter, and the man had shuttled his chair as each day progressed, claiming the thin, watery light as if he drew sustenance from it. Now it was well into June, and at some point the man had shifted into reverse, moving counterclockwise for the shade but always positioning his lawn chair where he could watch Raymer work.

Raymer hardly noticed him, for he was in more pain than he had thought possible. He could scarcely get through the day. He was amazed that hearts could actually ache, actually break. Secretly he suspected that his had been defective, already faulted, a secondhand or rebuilt heart, for it had certainly not held up as well as he had expected it to. Corrie, who had been his childhood sweetheart before she became his wife, had inserted the point of a chisel into the fault line and tapped it once lightly with a hammer, and that was the end of that.

By trade he was a painter, and some days he was conscious only of the aluminum extension ladder through his tennis shoes and the brush at the end of his extended arm, which leaned out, and out, as if gravity were just a bothersome rumor, as if he were leaning to paint the very void that yawned to engulf him. When Raymer came down to move the ladder, the old man was waiting for him at the foot of it holding a glass of iced tea in his hand. He was a wizened little man who did not even come to Raymer’s shoulder. He had washed-out eyes of the palest blue, and the tip of his nose looked as if, sometime long ago, it had been sliced off neatly with a pocketknife. He was wearing a canvas porkpie hat that had half a dozen trout flies hooked through the band, and he was dressed in flip-flops, faded blue jeans, and an old Twisted Sister T-shirt.

My name’s Mayfield. Drink this tea before you get too hot.

Raymer took the glass of tea as you’d take a pill a doctor ordered you to, and stood holding it as if he did not know what to do with it.

Drink it up before that ice melts. You don’t talk much, do you?

What?

You don’t have much to say.

Well, I work by myself. Folks might think me peculiar if I was having long conversations.

I mean you ain’t very friendly. You don’t exactly invite conversation.

I just have all this work to do.

Who do you work for?

Raymer sipped the tea. It was sweet and strong, and the glass was full of shaved ice. A sprig of mint floated on top, and he crushed it between his teeth. I work for myself, he said.

I been watchin you ever since you come out here.

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