The Risk Pool

contained a letter stating that because my father had had no accidents or speeding tickets for the past five years, he was now eligible for insurance outside the risk pool, at considerably reduced rates.
    By the time I was finished, Wussy had returned from the bank.
    “You sure you don’t want this,” he said.
    “Very sure.”
    We shook hands there on the schoolhouse steps.
    “He was my friend, Ned,” Wussy said. And then he invited me to come up sometime so we could go fishing. “I don’t know about anymore,” he said. “But you used to be a good patient fisherman.”
    Before going over to The Elms, I drove to Fonda and onto the small bridge that spanned the Mohawk River. There was one other thing I had discovered in the righthand drawer of my father’s dresser—a .38 caliber revolver purchased, no doubt, as a hedge against the final ravages of the disease. It was this, I now realized, that he had wanted me to take him home to that afternoon almost three weeks before. I’ve never been able to resolve in my own mind whether or not he would have done it, and I couldn’t that February afternoon as I stood on the bridge above the Mohawk River. If he had been able to do it, he’d have spared himself two senseless operations during those final weeks, and God only knew how many indignities, the last of which was an heroic attempt to resuscitate him, in direct violation of the written instructions he’d placed on his bedstand and which, now, were neatly folded somewhere in the same unmarked envelope that contained the anatomical gift he’d made of his remains.
    But I cannot fault the doctors. In my own way, I too was unable to execute his wishes. He’d begged me before I left that afternoon when he’d tried to go home to stay away from the hospital, now that it was just a matter of time. But I couldn’t, and toward the end I saw in his eyes each time that I appeared beside his bed that he was glad to see me, and scared as hell of dying alone. Which he ended up doing anyway.
    The quirky February warm spell had thawed patches near the center of the icebound river where black water could be seen rolling swiftly, even in the late afternoon dusk. Spring, it occurredto me, was the season my grandfather had left out of his scheme of things, his personal credo.
    The river received the handgun without a splash and hurried it deep out of sight, like a terrible thought. I didn’t worry about its surfacing somewhere and causing harm. The Mohawk never surrendered her dead.
    I didn’t hurry back from Fonda, though my errand there had made me late. It was nearly six, and I’d told Mike I’d be at The Elms around five to help welcome my father’s friends. Still, I was not prepared for what I saw when I rounded the curve and the restaurant came into view. The parking lot was full, and cars lined both sides of the two-lane blacktop for a quarter of a mile. My first errant conclusion was that Mike’s plan to close the restaurant had run amuck. He’d forgotten some local festivity, the aftermath of which was now being felt at the restaurant. There had been a rush, too many expectant diners to turn away. I tried to think what festivity it might be in the middle of February in Mohawk as I weaved my way through the sea of cars and parked Sam Hall fashion, one wheel up a stump. My headlights caught Tree with his baggy pants down around his ankles, peeing on the side of a car that I doubted, from its overall excellent condition, could be his. The expression on his face was one of pure relief. “The l-l-line’s a f-f-fucking mile long in there,” he said when I got out.
    That explained why he was peeing in the parking lot, but much was still shrouded in mystery, like why he’d chosen to pee on the door of the car and not its tire, and even more interestingly, why he’d found it necessary to drop his trousers altogether instead of simply unzipping.
    “Don’t those have a fly?” I said when he bent down to pull them up.
    “Of course,” he said, as if I’d insulted him. He might not be rich, but at least he could afford pants with zippers. When he’d fastened them at the waist, he pulled a portion of colorful shirttail through the opening to show me, in case I doubted his word. I nodded.
    Even the restaurant’s entryway was crowded, though I didn’t recognize anyone there. Tree took the lead and parted the throng by announcing, “I f-found him. M-make way for S-sammy’s boy.”
    Inside, the first person we ran