The Home Jar: Stories: Stories

Vantage Point

Vantage Point thanksgiving day. The changeable ohio weather has changed again. From the top of the hill Don Capachi can spot golfers in shirt sleeves. it’s a pretty sight, the golf course, the mowed countryside that stretches around these little holes with flags sticking out of them. That’s all the game used to be to him, but through the years he’s watched from his secluded hill and learned more about it. He has nowhere to go on Thanksgiving. He won’t go to a restaurant or hotel and eat alone. He won’t go to the free dinner at the convention center and take his place as an eighty-something sad sack. For the past ten Thanksgivings he’s come here, and if the weather is warm enough, like today, he’ll spread out a picnic blanket and watch the golfers squeeze in a game before football and turkey. otherwise, he’ll turn on the motor, adjust the heat, and eat in his car. But today — what a warm beautiful day today is. He pops the trunk of his Buick, works the heavy bag of charcoal over the lip until the weight topples it to the ground. He drags it over to a bare spot, sets up a lawn chair, then looks up and freezes. He hears a noise. it’s not a squirrel. Not the doe and her fawn he saw driving in. Not an animal at all. Someone else is here. That’s never happened before, not on this day. He stops what he’s doing. A woman stands at one of the headstones, staring down. Her head bobs as she carries out both sides of the conversation. Don 108 VA N tAG e Poi N t Capachi backs up to a respectful distance. He waits, watches, bows solemnly to the woman when she finally leaves. Watches her go down the hill, her shoes crunching the leaves, to the car he had somehow failed to notice as he drove in (probably because his attention was on that lovely fawn, the smallest one he’d ever seen, as small as a beagle). When her car is out of sight, he walks over to where she stood, finds the flowers that mark the grave. He reads the stone. A set of parents, dead on the same day. Poor girl. No wonder she had a lot to say. in summer the trees partially obstruct his view of the golf course. Not today. Don Capachi sets up the grill, gets the charcoal going. He plants the lawn chair several steps away. He won’t need the charcoal’s heat today. He carefully places two wieners on the grill. Across the road a kind of crazy whooping noise spins the air. Striding to the 16th green are two happy men with their shirts off. it’s warm but not that warm. They’re young men, still able to maintain their shape even with a layer of beer fat. They look up and sniff the wiener-grilled air and laugh. Don Capachi wonders suddenly where Worm is buried. Here in ohio, or somewhere else? They were about the same size, he and Worm, but Don Capachi had shrunk down to meet him. Was a time he was a lot bigger, a lot stronger. A lot younger, too. Goes without saying. Worm was so young, so small. So stupid, too. really, he was. in the end, he was so very stupid. every day the sign in big red letters said it again: Do Not LUBriCAte GeArS WHiLe MACHiNe iS rUNNiNG! Why couldn’t he just read the sign and obey it? Why did he have to be so stupid? Don Capachi pours his favorite drink into a crystal tumbler and inhales the bouquet. Scotch, neat. expensive scotch. He’s got a 109 Nancy Zafris cupboardful of the stuff, blended and single; he collects and sorts themlikedifferentgradesofcopper.Blended’sforeveryday.Single’s for special occasions. He’ll often decree a day a special occasion just to get a dip of it: a blue moon, a Friday the 13th, a ride home withoutanyredlights,adaywithnotelephonesolicitations.Those gracedeveningsbringhimsinglemalts.Butevenamonghisspecial occasion grades he never touches the Springbank, aged fifteenyears , unless he’s drinking with his mother. He saves the very best for her. today is a Springbank day. He raises his tumbler, toasts her, reaches over to her gravestone and clinks the crystal. every night while...