The War by Michael McDowell

Author:Michael McDowell [McDowell, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror, Fiction, General & Literary Fiction
ISBN: 9780380827763
Google: xzhXAAAAYAAJ
Amazon: 038082776X
Goodreads: 467104
Publisher: Avon
Published: 1983-03-01T07:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 51

The Proposal

As Danjo prepared to go away for basic training at Camp Blanding on the Atlantic coast of Florida, James fussed about the boy relentlessly, wanting him in sight every minute. Most boys Banjo’s age would have quickly resented an old man’s worrisome solicitude, but Danjo bore with it. The last few days when he ought to have been going around town paying farewell calls, Danjo was allowed only to sit on the front porch with James and listen to the old man sigh and say things like: “I sure hope I’m alive when you get back, Danjo. I sure hope there’s somebody here to open your letters when you write home.”

The unhappy day of departure came at last. James had wanted Bray to drive him and Danjo the four hundred miles to Camp Blanding so that he could hug his boy at the front gate, but Danjo drew the line at this. “I’m taking the bus, James, just like everybody else does. You want to do something for me, you get Elinor to make me some candy to take along and remind me of Perdido.”

The box of candy, cookies, and cakes Elinor prepared for Danjo under James’s supervision weighed nearly as much as all the boy’s luggage.

On the afternoon of the day before Danjo was to leave, James and his daughter sat on the front porch of their house. “Daddy,” said Grace, “why are we just sitting here moping? Why don’t we at least go on over to Elinor’s where there’s some people?”

“Grace, you go on. This afternoon, I want you to let me mope in peace.”

“I don’t know if I ought to point this out, Daddy, but you are making me feel real bad, going on about Danjo like this.”

“Why, darling?”

“Because you act like you’re left all alone. But you’re not. I’m here, and haven’t I sworn up and down the churchyard steeple that I’m never gone get married or leave you?”

“You have.”

“Then why do you act like you are all alone in the world?”

The afternoon was hot, and James sat in his shirtsleeves. His chair was placed in the shadows of the porch so that no one passing by chance in front of the house should see him in such dishabille. He fanned himself with a paper fan. Grace sat beside him, full in the sunlight, with her arms turned outward for an even tan. Across the road, the cows in the orchard lay in the shade of the pecan trees, swishing their tails against flies.

“Let me ask you, darling,” said James. “You remember how you loved all those girls who used to come and visit you here in the summers?”

“ ‘Course I do.”

“You remember, though, when you went off to Spartanburg, you sort of got to love one girl special?”

“I do, and then she up and married and I never want to hear her name spoken aloud by you or anybody else in this town!”

“I’d never do that,” returned James calmly. “Well, that’s how I feel about Danjo, darling, that’s how much I love that boy.

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