Little: a Novel by David Treuer

Author:David Treuer [Treuer, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Celia

Stan came back in June 1969. It was after the war, after his war, and after the veterans’ hospital in New York. He came back with one hand and a radio, which he gave to me. This was after Duke and Ellis had found Donovan that winter. He came back without Pick, and without us knowing what happened. He came back to find that not only was there no letter to tell us but that Lyle had run off, no one knew where to. At first he stayed put with his sister Violet and his mother, helping them take care of Violet’s newborn baby girl. Jackie. No one needed to tell him that she was Lyle’s child. Since Stan didn’t work or anything, he came over from across the way with the radio tucked under one arm. He would come over and we’d plug in the radio in the kitchen and sit drinking iced tea. The only stations we ever got were country, but that was okay with me. We never had one that worked good enough to pick up more than one station before, so all summer we flipped stations and drank tall glasses while it got hotter and hotter. I propped open the front door but it didn’t do much good, and the flies flew right through the holes in the screen. The flypaper that we strung up in the kitchen over the sink and above the table caught most of them, and when the music was on we couldn’t even hear their wings flapping against the ooze.

I asked him where he got it, and all he said was that he’d made a trade. I didn’t get it, so he held up his arm and his shirtsleeve hung loose down his arm. His stump was all closed up, and it looked like the end of a sock tucked in on itself. Or a belly button. I nodded and he left the radio there in the kitchen that day, said he was sick of lugging it across the way all the time. But he didn’t live more than fifty yards away, so I just let it drop. He came every day, standing by the screen door, never coming in until I held it open or yelled at him from the back room, or where I was at the oven with hot pans.

Lines. I thought of lines and Stan saw them clear as if they were painted on everything around him. That gave me a good feeling. He was soft-like, but hard because of the lines. With me, and with Donovan, he was real good and so I drew the lines around us big and fat. Wavy. I let them bend and include. I kept on thinking of the words to most of the country songs we listened to on the radio. He didn’t fit on any of them lines either and so my feeling was right. He didn’t own a dog, or drive a pickup, and he never cried into his beer.

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