Machine Dreams

shaming children. In the big dim church, Danner really had looked lame; there were shadows on the red aisle from the candles. At the altar where the angel waited, there were so many candles itwas like day in one small place. Danner was
fanciful
and it wouldn’t hurt her to practice her sounds over summer, then help Billy at home.
    His mother was erasing the board. Chalk dust made a cloud around her fingers, and the day was warm.
    Tomorrow there was no class at school or at home because it was the Fourth of July and there would be fireworks. His father would barbecue chicken on the grill and then they would set off their own fireworks instead of driving into town to see the Armory show. Mitch had rockets and Japanese lanterns that exploded tails of sparks. Gladys, his mother’s friend, would come for supper and bring the sparklers that Aunt Jewel always sent home from Ohio.
    His mother shucked the corn into a plastic bucket on the porch, but the yellow silk fell around her feet. Gladys stood beside her, shaking clods of dirt from the fresh-pulled onions. The garden wasn’t really a garden anymore; Gladys said Jean and Mitch were no farmers except to kids and green onions, which could grow anywhere. Gladys wore red shoes that were brighter than her hair, and Billy watched both women through a curtain of wavering heat. He stood near the barbecue while Mitch cooked. Mitch never cooked except outside at barbecues, when the grill was a simple machine rolled out on small wheels, and the metal rack cranked high or low over coals white-hot because fire had
burned to the center.
    The coals were flaky and pale as dirty snow, and they lay in the cradle of the drumlike pit. The chicken crackled and his father stood still, holding the long fork, his work cap tilted back, one hand on his hip. He was silent and smoked his cigarette. Billy waited beside him but Danner had to set the table, a big wooden picnic table Mitch had been given by the State Road Commission after a road job. The table had long benches and thick legs bolted in the shape of an X. In winter it sat in the snow, but every summer Radabaugh came out from the plant and helped Mitch move the table onto the porch. The men would lift it, staggering a little, and when they set the weight down Billy felt a tremor in the concrete floor of the terrace. The jolt of weight seemed to please the men; they laughed and shook their heads. Then Mitchwould bring a beer for Radabaugh. Both men sat down and drank from one bright can, their hands splayed out on the rough wood of the table. Billy sat with them and Radabaugh always gave him a drink of the cold, bitter beer. Billy would swallow, serious, his face expressionless, but Radabaugh grinned anyway and said Big Man was going to be a Cowboy like Old Mitch, nothing Jean could do about it. Soon the men would go back to the plant, and Billy knew his mother would come outside; she put a slick red oilcloth over the tabletop so no one would get splinters from the old boards. The oilcloth was as bright as Gladys’ shoes or Gladys’ painted toenails. Gladys called the table
a healthy issue
and when they all sat down there was plenty of room on the benches. The food steamed and the chicken was hot and reddish on the platter Mitch had filled. Mom said Gladys was like family since she was Aunt Jewel’s mother, and Billy felt strange eating outside. Sometimes Danner or Billy wouldn’t eat and had to sit with full plates past the dinner hour, watching the day go dark through the screen of the kitchen door. The green of the ragged grass slanted downhill to the tall wire fence and the fields until green turned gray in the secretive dusk. Now Gladys passed the food while she talked to Billy’s mother.
    “Lately your brother wants to be a wholesale shoe salesman,” Gladys said. “Jewel told him he could get himself a van and drive shoes all over Ohio, she wasn’t moving again. And if they split up over shoes, so be it.”
    Mitch touched the edge of his plate with his fingertips and looked at Gladys. “It’s real trouble trying to find work these days”, he said. “Sounds to me like Jewel might need a good shaking.”
    “That’s a Hampson for you,” Gladys said. “I have a mind to get up from this table right now.”
    “Gladys, I didn’t say he should knock her out.”
    “If my daughter needs shaking,” Gladys said, “I’ll do the shaking. Not some man. Men have got no excuse to beat on women. I’ll tell you, a man might