The Weak Spot

FICTION The Weak Spot William Richardson MY APPALACHIAN VALLEY PRODUCES formidable thunderstorms . The front-porch entertainment that lends drama to those seamless days ofsummer and releases the grip ofAugust's stiflingheat brings with it predictable torrents of rain, spawns the occasional tornado and produces lightning, nature's pyrotechnic extravaganza, which has the power to split trees, strike down both man and beast in the field, reduce barns to their stone foundations and bring out the local fire and rescue squad. It can even discharge thousands ofvolts of electricity right into your TV set. We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you Zeus—livefrom Mount Olympus. "Yes, well! You must be careful of thunderstorms," my neighbor cautioned the summer I moved into the old Reese house in the village of Greenbrier. Verna is married to Daniel, who owns Riley's Feed Mill. Not counting the mill, my village is comprised of six log houses, their handhewn members now hidden under spiffy vinyl siding. Rileys live in four of those six houses. Samuel Taylor, a descendant of Greenbrier's first settler, occupies the fifth, and I, the village's most recent arrival and its only outsider, inhabit the sixth. The Reese house was built by Jacob, a local stonecutter who made a killing selling tombstones in the decade following the Civil War, and while it is the largest, a dog-trotwith double parlors to each side of its wide central hall, it is also the most neglected. But I am restoring it, and in those efforts I often go to the mill to purchase some necessary but forgotten item overlooked on my last trip into town. It's my good fortune that Daniel keeps a stock of common hardware on hand for those farmers who come to have their feed ground. The first time Verna ran over to warn me, I was buying toggle bolts. "There's a big storm coming," Verna announced breathlessly. "Just look how black the sky is! You'd better go right home, Bill, and unplug all your appliances. Don't use any until the storm's over. I've already unplugged the TV," Verna told her husband. "I'm using an electric saw. Since I'm working inside, won't that be all right?" I'd planned to spend the morning cutting studs to fur out the crooked ceiling in my west parlor. "Oh, I wouldn't risk it," cautioned Verna. "Anything that draws electricity can attract lightning. Better wait till the storm passes." I turned 43 to ask Daniel's opinion. He nodded his agreement. "Yes, well! You must watch!" Verna warned, running outside to take her wash off the line. Verna speaks with the conviction of an evangelist preaching at a camp revival meeting. If she said, "Yes, well! The Second Coming has begun!" I'd surely believe her. A cheerful, outgoing woman in her late sixties, my neighbor misses no opportunity to come over to the mill that's located right next to her house whenever she happens to glance out her kitchen window and see the car of "that man who moved here from California," which is how I've heard myself described when I've happened to pick up my phone and overheard her gossip on our party line. To Verna, I am as exotic as a Kuwaiti oil sheik, and while she listens to my citified opinions with great interest, most strike her as peculiar. On more than one occasion unbridled curiosity has prompted her to inquire about my marital status. It puzzles Verna that someone would move here and live alone. "Weren't you ever married? Don't you have any children?" she asked, firing off her questions all at once. "My wife died two years ago. And, no, I don't have any children." "Oh, I'm sorry," Verna murmured, properly contrite but still glad to have found out. "So you must do all your own cooking." "I've always cooked. My wife and I used to share the cooking." "Yes, well!" Verna laughed. "If Daniel cooked, we'd surely starve. He might fry up some bacon at hunting camp, but that would be about it." Though Daniel...