Key Grip by Dustin Beall Smith

Author:Dustin Beall Smith
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

I took small steps now, trying to focus on the water pipe. My childhood memories of the pasture were interfering with my dowsing instincts. I fought a growing suspicion that something other than the water pipe was drawing me toward that clump of honeysuckle in the center of the pasture, a hundred feet away. Was this path a transparently emotional journey? Did I maybe just want to dig in the earth again, get down in it and hide, like a child playing soldier?

I stopped, took a deep breath, told myself to focus on the project at hand. I did my best to silence metaphorical thought. The most successful dowsers, I’d learned, were simple folk, uncomplicated by personal agendas, ulterior motives, or financial gain.

I began again, having convinced myself that I had nothing invested in this search—not the approval of my father, not some larger abstract meaning, not even an emotional lift. All I wanted was the simple truth: the source of water in my father’s garden. To get there, I told myself, I must locate the water pipe. My search might end right here, or in the next town over. I was open to any answer, without preconception.

My father, who’d been standing at a respectful distance, struck a match on his jeans and lit his pipe. I could hear the tobacco sizzle as he sucked the flame toward it.

“I have no preconceptions,” I said out loud.

“Think pipe,” suggested my father.

“Shhhh,” I said. “Every search begins in darkness. I have no preconceptions. I am looking for the water pipe, the water pipe, the water pipe, the water pipe . . .”

This mantra worked for about fifteen more steps. Then I was interrupted by the thought of making a fool of myself in front of my parents. I’d carried this too far, and I was going to wind up at the honeysuckle—a middle-aged prodigal come home to slobber over his roots.

I took a deep breath and started walking again. Abruptly I stopped. The pendulum had begun swinging wildly.

“What?” asked my father.

“Wouldn’t we have seen some evidence of a well out here, years ago?” I asked. I was stalling, though, to give myself time to think. I’d ceased walking because it had suddenly occurred to me that if water was symbolic of life, then I was out here in this pasture asking for the source of life—specifically for the source of the artist’s life. My hidden agenda, then, was not so much to revisit my childhood as it was to discover a way to begin again, to change the direction of my life. What will it take to begin again? My silent question had provoked the pendulum in a way I’d never felt before. I’d lost all control. Embarrassed, I cupped the device in my fist.

My father took a few puffs, his brow furrowed in puzzlement. He was up for this, and I liked him for it.

“Ask it,” he said, pointing at my closed fist.

The sun was high and hot, the air as still as in a windowless room.

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