The Risk Pool

the stretched sleeves of his t-shirt until they were ribbed with brown.
    “I don’t know,” he said dubiously, glancing at the rectory when I suggested we swap jobs. On the one hand, he didn’t want to be observed shirking his duties. On the other, he didn’t want to do them. This particular day he had a driving headache, and the very idea of starting the rattling engine of the power mower made him feel weak. There was a nice cool patch of ground on the far side of the church that needed his attention. It was well out of sight from the rectory and he kept a flask in the vicinity for company. He could even bring along the hand shears. “I don’t know,” he repeated, scratching his stubble.
    We decided, predictably enough, on “just this once,” a phrase Skinny found so reassuring that the next time the grass needed mowing he used it again. Each time he pulled the mower out of the shed he handed it over to me “just this once” before disappearing. I liked both the mowing and the idea that the whole thing was more or less illicit. Some morning the old Monsignor would look out the window and catch me at it, and that would be the end. It didn’t happen though, and after a while I caught on to the fact that when the old priest went upstairs after breakfast it was to take a long nap that lasted until lunch. My friend Father Michaels caught me behind the mower one morning and looked startled. He began to shout something at me, but when I waved at him happily, he changed his mind. He watched me though, until he was sure I was in command of the situation, then wavedagain and shouted something at me before getting in the parish station wagon and driving off. It looked like it might have been, “Ned, you’re a wonder.”
    There was other work too. Though he wasn’t much with lawns, Skinny earned his keep with flowers. His rough fingers moved expertly among the good plants, uprooting weeds with a deft, flicking motion. He never got confused, as I sometimes did. With a small hand spade he could turn earth without disturbing the tender roots, as if by intuition he could sense how far out and down they grew. He knew in advance if any growing thing was going to turn sick and often began to administer the cure before the first leaf turned yellow. After a while I began to learn some of the signs.
    I was surprised to discover one day that he knew my father. “Everybody knows Sam Hall,” he said.
    “He’s out west building roads,” I said, ashamed I could offer no other information about him.
    “He is like hell,” Skinny said. “He’s right here in Mohawk.”
    Home was only a few blocks from the church, but Father Michaels liked to bring me home in the afternoon. Sometimes he and my mother would sit on the porch and talk while I threw grounders. The day Skinny told me about my father, I wished the priest had just let me walk. He tried to get a conversation going, but I clammed up.
    We pulled up in front of the house as my mother was inserting her key in the door. She turned and flashed a big smile that encompassed me and my friend. There was nobody else on the street. I looked.
    “Patrick Donovan,” said my mother, in reference to Skinny, “is a fool and a drunk.”
    It was later that same night, and I’d told her what Skinny said. She was never generous where Skinny was concerned, and my stories about him were always greeted coolly. It was true what she said, though. Skinny was always drinking or getting over drinking. But even so, it seemed to me that if he said Sam Hall was in Mohawk, it might be true. My father wasn’t the sort of thing you’d just imagine. I could tell that my mother was worried that it might be true, though she kept saying that it wasn’t and that Skinny wasa malicious little snail. “Trust me,” she said. “If your father were in Mohawk, he’d be here tormenting us.”
    “Maybe he’s afraid you’ll shoot him,” I ventured, realizing as I said it that I resented her for wishing him away and for shooting his car. I had always been on her side, and it surprised me to feel annoyed with her. I hadn’t thought about my father or their conflict in a long time, but now, for some reason, when I recalled that afternoon over three years ago, her emptying my grandfather’s revolver into the white convertible seemed a little excessive. My attitude toward my father had changed subtly too. I remembered enjoying myself fishing with him and Wussy, though I still felt guilty about it. My