What We Talk About When We Talk About Love: Stories

thought it might still have electricity in it. But at the edge of what looked like a deep canal, the fence came to an end. The ground had simply dropped into the water here, and the fence along with it.
    We crossed over and followed the new channel that cut directly into Dummy's land and headed straight for his pond, going into it lengthwise and forcing an outlet for itself at the other end, then twisting off until it joined up with the river farther on.
    You didn't doubt that most of Dummy's fish had been carried off. But those that hadn't been were free to come and go.
    Then I caught sight of Dummy. It scared me, seeing him.
    The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off
    I motioned to the other fellows, and we all got down.
    Dummy was standing at the far side of the pond near where the water was rushing out. He was just standing there, the saddest man I ever saw.
    "I s U R E do feel sorry for old Dummy, though," my father said at supper a few weeks after. "Mind, the poor devil brought it on himself. But you can't help but be troubled for him."
    Dad went on to say George Laycock saw Dummy's wife sitting in the Sportsman's Club with a big Mexican fellow.
    "And that ain't the half of it—"
    Mother looked up at him sharply and then at me. But I just went on eating like I hadn't heard a thing.
    Dad said, "Damn it to hell, Bea, the boy's old enough!"
    He'd changed a lot, Dummy had. He was never around any of the men anymore, not if he could help it. No one felt like joking with him either, not since he'd chased Carl Lowe with a two-by-four stud after Carl tipped Dummy's hat off. But the worst of it was that Dummy was missing from work a day or two a week on the average now, and there was some talk of his being laid off.
    "The man's going off the deep end," Dad said. "Clear crazy if he don't watch out."
    Then on a Sunday afternoon just before my birthday, Dad and I were cleaning the garage. It was a warm, drifty day. You could see the dust hanging in the air. Mother came to the back door and said, "Del, it's for you. I think it's Vern."
    I followed Dad in to wash up. When he was through
    What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
    talking, he put the phone down and turned to us.
    "It's Dummy," he said. "Did in his wife with a hammer and drowned himself. Vern just heard it in town."
    WHEN we got out there, cars were parked all around. The gate to the pasture stood open, and I could see tire marks that led on to the pond.
    The screen door was propped ajar with a box, and there was this lean, pock-faced man in slacks and sports shirt and wearing a shoulder holster. He watched Dad and me get out of the car.
    "I was his friend," Dad said to the man.
    The man shook his head. "Don't care who you are. Clear off unless you got business here."
    "Did they find him?" Dad said.
    "They're dragging," the man said, and adjusted the fit of his gun.
    "All right if we walk down? I knew him pretty well."
    The man said, "Take your chances. They chase you off, don't say you wasn't warned."
    We went on across the pasture, taking pretty much the same route we had the day we tried fishing. There were motorboats going on the pond, dirty fluffs of exhaust hanging over it. You could see where the high water had cut away the ground and carried off trees and rocks. The two boats had uniformed men in them, and they were going back and forth, one man steering and the other man handling the rope and hooks.
    An ambulance waited on the gravel beach where we'd set ourselves to cast for Dummy's bass. Two men in white lounged against the back, smoking cigarettes.
    The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off
    One of the motorboats cut off. We all looked up. The man in back stood up and started heaving on his rope. After a time, an arm came out of the water. It looked like the hooks had gotten Dummy in the side. The arm went back down and then it came out again, along with a bundle of something.
    It's not him, I thought. It's something else that has been in there for years.
    The man in the front of the boat moved to the back, and together the two men hauled the dripping thing over the side.
    I looked at Dad. His face was funny the way it was set.
    "Women," he said. He said, "That's what the wrong kind of woman can do to you, Jack."
    B U T I don't think Dad really believed it. I think he just didn't know who to blame or what to say.
    It seemed to me everything took a bad turn for my father after that. Just like Dummy, he wasn't the same man anymore. That arm coming