平凉市招生办电话号码:《The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off》 卡佛小说原文

《The Third Thing That Killed My Father Off》


I'll tell you what did my father in. The third thing was Dummy,that Dummy died. The first thing was Pearl Harbor. And the second thingwas moving to my grandfather's farm near Wenatchee. That's where myfather finished out his days, except they were probably finished beforethat.

My father blamed Dummy's death on Dummy's wife. Then he blamed it on the fish. And finally he
blamed himself--because he was the one that showed Dummy the ad inthe back of Field and Stream for live black bass shipped anywhere inthe U.S.

It was after he got the fish that Dummy started acting peculiar.The fish changed Dummy's whole personality. That's what my father said.



I never knew Dummy's real name. If anyone did, I never heard it.Dummy it was then, and it's Dummy I remember him by now. He was alittle wrinkled man, bald-headed, short but very powerful in the armsand legs. If he grinned, which was seldom, his lips folded back overbrown, broken teeth. It gave him a crafty expression. His watery eyesstayed fastened on your mouth when you were talking--and if youweren't, they'd go to someplace queer on your body.

I don't think he was really deaf. At least not as deaf as he made out. But he sure couldn't talk. That was for certain.

Deaf or no, Dummy'd been on as a common laborer out at the sawmillsince the 1920s. This was the Cascade Lumber Company in Yakima,Washington. The years I knew him, Dummy was working as a cleanup man.And all those years I never saw him with anything different on. Meaninga felt hat, a khaki workshirt, a denim jacket over a pair of coveralls.In his top pockets he carried rolls of toilet paper, as one of his jobswas to clean and supply the toilets. It kept him busy, seeing as howthe men on nights used to walk off after their shifts with a roll ortwo in their lunchboxes.

Dummy carried a flashlight, even though he worked days. He also carried wrenches, pliers,
screwdrivers, friction tape, all the same things the millwrightscarried. Well, it made them kid Dummy, the way he was, always carryingeverything. Carl Lowe, Ted Slade, Johnny Wait, they were the worstkidders of the ones that kidded Dummy. But Dummy took it all in stride.I think he'd gotten used to it.

My father never kidded Dummy. Not to my knowledge, anyway. Dad wasa big, heavy-shouldered man with a crew-haircut, double chin, and abelly of real size. Dummy was always staring at that belly. He'd cometo the filing room where my father worked, and he'd sit on a stool andwatch my dad's belly while he used the big emery wheels on the saws.



Dummy had a house as good as anyone's.

It was a tarpaper-covered affair near the river, five or six milesfrom town. Half a mile behind the house, at the end of a pasture, therelay a big gravel pit that the state had dug when they were paving theroads around there. Three good-sized holes had been scooped out, andover the years they'd filled with water. By and by, the three pondscame together to make one.

It was deep. It had a darkish look to it.

Dummy had a wife as well as a house. She was a woman years youngerand said to go around with Mexicans. Father said it was busybodies thatsaid that, men like Lowe and Wait and Slade.

She was a small stout woman with glittery little eyes. The firsttime I saw her, I saw those eyes. It was when I was with Peter Jensenand we were on our bicycles and we stopped at Dummy's to get a glass ofwater.

When she opened the door, I told her I was Del Fraser's son. I said, "He works with--" And then I
realized. "You know, your husband. We were on our bicycles and thought we could get a drink."

"Wait here," she said.

She came back with a little tin cup of water in each hand. I downed mine in a single gulp.

But she didn't offer us more. She watched us without sayinganything. When we started to get on our bicycles, she came over to theedge of the porch.

"You little fellas had a car now, I might catch a ride with you."

She grinned. Her teeth looked too big for her mouth.

"Let's go," Pete said, and we went.



There weren't many places you could fish for bass in our part ofthe state. There was rainbow mostly, a few brook and Dolly Varden insome of the high mountain streams, and silvers in Blue Lake and LakeRimrock. That was mostly it, except for the runs of steelhead andsalmon in some of the freshwater rivers in late fall. But if you were afisherman, it was enough to keep you busy. No one fished for bass. Alot of people I knew had never seen a bass except for pictures. But myfather had seen plenty of them when he was growing up in Arkansas andGeorgia, and he had high hopes to do with Dummy's bass, Dummy being afriend.

The day the fish arrived, I'd gone swimming at the city pool. Iremember coming home and going out again to get them since Dad wasgoing to give Dummy a hand--three tanks Parcel Post from Baton Rouge,Louisiana.

We went in Dummy's pickup, Dad and Dummy and me.

These tanks turned out to be barrels, really, the three of themcrated in pine lath. They were standing in the shade out back of thetrain depot, and it took my dad and Dummy both to lift each crate intothe truck.

Dummy drove very carefully through town and just as carefully allthe way to his house. He went right through his yard without stopping.He went on down to within feet of the pond. By that time it was nearlydark, so he kept his headlights on and took out a hammer and a tireiron from under the seat, and then the two of them lugged the crates upclose to the water and started tearing open the first one.

The barrel inside was wrapped in burlap, and there were thesenickel sized holes in the lid. They raised it off and Dummy aimed hisflashlight in.

It looked like a million bass fingerlings were finning inside. Itwas the strangest sight, all those live things busy in there, like alittle ocean that had come on the train.

Dummy scooted the barrel to the edge of the water and poured itout. He took his flashlight and shined it into the pond. But there wasnothing to be seen anymore. You could hear the frogs going, but youcould hear them going anytime it newly got dark.

"Let me get the other crates," my father said, and he reached over as if to take the hammer from
Dummy's coveralls. But Dummy pulled back and shook his head.

He undid the other two crates himself, leaving dark drops of blood on the lath where he ripped his hand doing it.



From that night on, Dummy was different.

Dummy wouldn't let anyone come around now anymore. He put upfencing all around the pasture, and then he fenced off the pond withelectrical barbed wire. They said it cost him all his savings for thatfence.

Of course, my father wouldn't have anything to do with Dummy afterthat. Not since Dummy ran him off. Not from fishing, mind you, becausethe bass were just babies still. But even from trying to get a look.

One evening two years after, when Dad was working late and I tookhim his food and a jar of iced tea, I found him standing talking withSyd Glover, the millwright. Just as I came in, I heard Dad saying,"You'd reckon the fool was married to them fish, the way he acts."

"From what I hear," Syd said, "he'd do better to put that fence round his house."

My father saw me then, and I saw him signal Syd Glover with his eyes.

But a month later my dad finally made Dummy do it. What he did was,he told Dummy how you had to thin out the weak ones on account ofkeeping things fit for the rest of them. Dummy stood there pulling athis ear and staring at the floor. Dad said, Yeah, he'd be down to do ittomorrow because it had to be done. Dummy never said yes, actually. Hejust never said no, is all. All he did was pull on his ear some more.



When Dad got home that day, I was ready and waiting. I had his oldbass plugs out and was testing the treble hooks with my finger.

"You set?" he called to me, jumping out of the car. "I'll go to thetoilet, you put the stuff in. You can drive us out there if you want."

I'd stowed everything in the back seat and was trying out the wheelwhen he came back out wearing his fishing hat and eating a wedge ofcake with both hands.

Mother was standing in the door watching. She was a fair-skinnedwoman, her blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun and fastened downwith a rhinestone clip. I wonder if she ever went around back in thosehappy days, or what she ever really did.

I let out the handbrake. Mother watched until I'd shifted gears, and then, still unsmiling, she went back inside.

It was a fine afternoon. We had all the windows down to let the airin. We crossed the Moxee Bridge and swung west onto Slater Road.Alfalfa fields stood off to either side, and farther on it wascornfields.

Dad had his hand out the window. He was letting the wind carry it back. He was restless, I could see.

It wasn't long before we pulled up at Dummy's. He came out of the house wearing his hat. His wife was looking out the window.

"You got your frying pan ready?" Dad hollered out to Dummy, butDummy just stood there eyeing the car. "Hey, Dummy!" Dad yelled. "Hey,Dummy, where's your pole, Dummy?"

Dummy jerked his head back and forth. He moved his weight from oneleg to the other and looked at the ground and then at us. His tonguerested on his lower lip, and he began working his foot into the dirt.

I shouldered the creel. I handed Dad his pole and picked up my own.

"We set to go?" Dad said. "Hey, Dummy, we set to go?"

Dummy took off his hat and, with the same hand, he wiped his wristover his head. He turned abruptly, and we followed him across thespongy pasture. Every twenty feet or so a snipe sprang up from theclumps of grass at the edge of the old furrows.

At the end of the pasture, the ground sloped gently and became dryand rocky, nettle bushes and scrub oaks scattered here and there. Wecut to the right, following an old set of car tracks, going through afield of milkweed that came up to our waists, the dry pods at the topsof the stalks rattling angrily as we pushed through. Presently, I sawthe sheen of water over Dummy's shoulder, and I heard Dad shout, "Oh,Lord, look at that!"

But Dummy slowed down and kept bringing his hand up and moving hishat back and forth over his head, and then he just stopped flat.

Dad said, "Well, what do you think, Dummy? One place good as another? Where do you say we should come onto it?"

Dummy wet his lower lip.

"What's the matter with you, Dummy?" Dad said. "This your pond, ain't it?"

Dummy looked down and picked an ant off his coveralls.

"Well, hell," Dad said, letting out his breath. He took out hiswatch. "If it's still all right with you, we'll get to it before itgets too dark."

Dummy stuck his hands in his pockets and turned back to the pond.He started walking again. We trailed along behind. We could see thewhole pond now, the water dimpled with rising fish. Every so often abass would leap clear and come down in a splash.

"Great God," I heard my father say.



We came up to the pond at an open place, a gravel beach kind of.

Dad motioned to me and dropped into a crouch. I dropped too. He waspeering into the water in front of us, and when I looked, I saw whathad taken him so.

"Honest to God," he whispered.

A school of bass was cruising, twenty, thirty, not one of themunder two pounds. They veered off, and then they shifted and came back,so densely spaced they looked like they were bumping up against eachother. I could see their big, heavy-lidded eyes watching us as theywent by. They flashed away again, and again they came back.

They were asking for it. It didn't make any difference if we stayedsquatted or stood up. The fish just didn't think a thing about us. Itell you, it was a sight to behold.

We sat there for quite a while, watching that school of bass go so innocently about their business,
Dummy the whole time pulling at his fingers and looking around asif he expected someone to show up. All over the pond the bass werecoming up to nuzzle the water, or jumping clear and falling back, orcoming up to the surface to swim along with their dorsals sticking out.



Dad signaled, and we got up to cast. I tell you, I was shaky withexcitement. I could hardly get the plug loose from the cork handle ofmy pole. It was while I was trying to get the hooks out that I feltDummy seize my shoulder with his big fingers. I looked, and in answerDummy worked his chin in Dad's direction. What he wanted was clearenough, no more than one pole.

Dad took off his hat and then put it back on and then he moved over to where I stood.

"You go on, Jack," he said. "That's all right, son--you do it now."

I looked at Dummy just before I laid out my cast. His face had gone rigid, and there was a thin line of drool on his chin.

"Come back stout on the sucker when he strikes," Dad said. "Sons of bitches got mouths hard as doorknobs."

I flipped off the drag lever and threw back my arm. I sent her outa good forty feet. The water was boiling even before I had time to takeup the slack.

"Hit him!" Dad yelled. "Hit the son of a bitch! Hit him good!"

I came back hard, twice. I had him, all right. The rod bowed over and jerked back and forth. Dad kept yelling what to do.

"Let him go, let him go! Let him run! Give him more line! Now wind in! Wind in! No, let him run! Wooee! Will you look at that!"

The bass danced around the pond. Every time it came up out of thewater, it shook its head so hard you could hear the plug rattle. Andthen he'd take off again. But by and by I wore him out and had him inup close. He looked enormous, six or seven pounds maybe. He lay on hisside, whipped, mouth open, gills working. My knees felt so weak I couldhardly stand. But I held the rod up, the line tight.

Dad waded out over his shoes. But when he reached for the fish, Dummy started sputtering, shaking his head, waving his arms.

"Now what the hell's the matter with you, Dummy? The boy's got holdof the biggest bass I ever seen, and he ain't going to throw him back,by God!"

Dummy kept carrying on and gesturing toward the pond.

"I ain't about to let this boy's fish go. You hear me, Dummy? You got another think coming if you think I'm going to do that."

Dummy reached for my line. Meanwhile, the bass had gained somestrength back. He turned himself over and started swimming again. Iyelled and then I lost my head and slammed down the brake on the reeland started winding. The bass made a last, furious run.

That was that. The line broke. I almost fell over on my back.

"Come on, Jack," Dad said, and I saw him grabbing up his pole. "Come on, goddamn the fool, before I knock the man down."



That February the river flooded.

It had snowed pretty heavy the first weeks of December, and turnedreal cold before Christmas. The ground froze. The snow stayed where itwas. But toward the end of January, the Chinook wind struck. I woke upone morning to hear the house getting buffeted and the steady drizzleof water running off the roof.

It blew for five days, and on the third day the river began to rise.

"She's up to fifteen feet," my father said one evening, lookingover his newspaper. "Which is three feet over what you need to flood.Old Dummy going to lose his darlings."

I wanted to go down to the Moxee Bridge to see how high the waterwas running. But my dad wouldn't let me. He said a flood was nothing tosee.

Two days later the river crested, and after that the water began to subside.

Orin Marshall and Danny Owens and I bicycled out to Dummy's onemorning a week after. We parked our bicycles and walked across thepasture that bordered Dummy's property.

It was a wet, blustery day, the clouds dark and broken, moving fast across the sky. The ground was
soppy wet and we kept coming to puddles in the thick grass. Dannywas just learning how to cuss, and he filled the air with the best hehad every time he stepped in over his shoes. We could see the swollenriver at the end of the pasture. The water was still high and out ofits channel, surging around the trunks of trees and eating away at theedge of the land. Out toward the middle, the current moved heavy andswift, and now and then a bush floated by, or a tree with its branchessticking up.

We came to Dummy's fence and found a cow wedged in up against thewire. She was bloated and her skin was shiny-looking and gray. It wasthe first dead thing of any size I'd ever seen. I remember Orin took astick and touched the open eyes.

We moved on down the fence, toward the river. We were afraid to gonear the wire because we thought it might still have electricity in it.But at the edge of what looked like a deep canal, the fence came to anend. The ground had simply dropped into the water here, and the fencealong with it.

We crossed over and followed the new channel that cut directly intoDummy's land and headed straight for his pond, going into it lengthwiseand forcing an outlet for itself at the other end, then twisting offuntil 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. I motioned to the other fellows, and we all got down.

Dummy was standing at the far side of the pond near where the waterwas rushing out. He was just standing there, the saddest man I eversaw.



"I sure do feel sorry for old Dummy, though," my father said atsupper 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 menanymore, not if he could help it. No one felt like joking with himeither, not since he'd chased Carl Lowe with a two-by-four stud afterCarl tipped Dummy's hat off. But the worst of it was that Dummy wasmissing from work a day or two a week on the average now, and there wassome 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 werecleaning the garage. It was a warm, drifty day. You could see the dusthanging in the air. Mother came to the back door and said, "Del, it'sfor you. I think it's Vern."

I followed Dad in to wash up. When he was through 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 thepasture 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 thislean, pock-faced man in slacks and sports shirt and wearing a shoulderholster. 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 wehad the day we tried fishing. There were motorboats going on the pond,dirty fluffs of exhaust hanging over it. You could see where the highwater had cut away the ground and carried off trees and rocks. The twoboats 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 tocast for Dummy's bass. Two men in white lounged against the back,smoking cigarettes.

One of the motorboats cut off. We all looked up. The man in backstood up and started heaving on his rope. After a time, an arm came outof 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 bundleof 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."



But 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 afterthat. Just like Dummy, he wasn't the same man anymore. That arm comingup and going back down in the water, it was like so long to good timesand hello to bad. Because it was nothing but that all the years afterDummy drowned himself in that dark water.

Is that what happens when a friend dies? Bad luck for the pals he left behind?

But as I said, Pearl Harbor and having to move back to his dad's place didn't do my dad one bit of good, either.