Free Return to Oakpine by Ron Carlson Page B

with real authority. I’m still sorry.”
    â€œIt’s okay. You’re looking at the king of the type A’s. I’ve always only done one thing: drive hard for the hoop. And the lesson is that I never really understood the game. Listen to me. Listen to me talk to Shirley Stiver, the tallest blonde in Catchett County. Anyway, dear, I’m going back to Denver today and come back in a week or sooner. Can you call and get the power back on here? The water’s still connected. Who do you guys hire for help?”
    â€œCall Craig. Craig Ralston, down at the hardware. He likes a project, and his boy is a good worker too. If there’s nothing structural, they’ll be good.”
    â€œYou remember that?” Mason asked his old friend, pointing down three houses to the red boat.
    â€œWhat is it?
    â€œIt’s that boat Matt was driving after graduation.”
    â€œThat was too bad. That whole deal.”
    â€œWere you out at the reservoir?”
    â€œOh yeah. I think Jimmy’s back.”
    â€œJimmy Brand?”
    â€œI heard he’s back home. He’s sick.”
    Mason Kirby walked in a little circle shaking his head, and then he escorted Shirley over and held her car door. “This place wants to get to me, Shirley. How can it smell the same?”
    â€œI know,” she said. “It’s your hometown. It’s how a hometown works. It doesn’t always sell a house, but you can’t ignore it.”
    â€œThanks for coming out,” he told her. “I’ll get it fixed up, and then you sell it to some homesick soul.”
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    The next afternoon Jimmy Brand sat in a lawn chair in the backyard. He’d had some toast and tea, and his headache was almost nil, the buzzing gone. It was just noon on a warm day in late September, and though the sun was already well south, he could feel it on the back of his head like some small pleasure. His mother was working before him in the garden, showing it off: “We’ve already had two crops of carrots, and this one could come out any time.” She parsed the lacy tops with her fingers and pulled one of the bright orange carrots from the ground.
    â€œI’ll eat that right now,” he said. He started to push himself up, but she came over, stopping to wash it in the trickle that ran from the garden hose. She’d been watering her tomatoes. There were thick green clusters on the eight tall plants, hanging heavily, a few already red.
    â€œHow do you feel?”
    â€œI’m eating the best carrot in the world in Oakpine, Wyoming,” he said. “Who would have thought?”
    She stood beside him, her hand on his chair.
    â€œYou’ll have plenty of tomatoes, Ma.”
    â€œPlenty of everything. Every year it all gets a little bigger. It’s something about me. We need less and less, and I’m planting bushels.” She had rows of peas and green peppers looking polished, three rows of corn, and then the wild section of squash and pumpkin, the vines in cascades, spilling out in every direction across the lawn.
    Jimmy could smell the earth here, the high musk coming off all the plants. With the bees working through the garden, it felt as if you could see things growing. The carrot had been sweet. He stood, happy to be out of the rigid chair, and felt how dangerously tall he was for a moment, and then he walked carefully to the pooling squash vines. He bent with no dizziness and lifted the broad leaves so he could see the squash and melons in the lambent green shade. He walked around the perimeter and then into a short passage. “This one will be mine, right here.” He knelt and tapped a zucchini for his mother to see. It was as big as a football. “It is going to be vast. This squash will outweigh me.”
    â€œThey grow fast,” she said. “I can hardly keep up. We’ll come out next week and take a load down to the