Michelangelos Shoulder | Page 5

were all full of hope once, he thought.
He leaned against the car and watched a man approach. The man was
carrying a shovel. He had a white handlebar moustache and a vaguely
confederate look. "Hey," Charlie said.
"Yup," the man said. He stopped and leaned on his shovel.
"Nice day," Charlie said, after a moment.
"Yessir. Black flies ain't woke up yet."
"Don't disturb them."
"No. Jesus, no. I guess we got a couple of days yet." He tested the
ground with the shovel and looked into the cemetery. "Margery
Sewell," he said.
"You know Margery?"
"Since she was about so high." He gestured toward his knees. "Used to
go smelting with her father, Jack."
"I'm Charlie, friend of Margery's."
"Tucker," the man said. "Tucker Smollett."
"That's an old name."
"Smolletts go way back around here. Smolletts and Sewells, both."
They stared into the graveyard. "You from around here, then?" He

knew that Charlie was from away; he was being polite.
"Live in Portland, born in New York. Family came over in the famine."
"Well, then." The world divides into people who have been hungry and
those who haven't. Charlie felt himself grandfathered into the right
camp. It was strange how some people you got along with and some
you didn't. "I'll tell you one thing," Tucker said, "there weren't nobody
smarter than Margery Sewell ever come out of here. She got prizes,
awards--some kind of thing from the governor, even. Whoever he was.
Can't recall."
Charlie nodded. "She's a professor--classics--Latin and Greek."
"It don't surprise me," Tucker said.
They talked, from time to time glancing into the graveyard. Tucker was
waiting for Margery, Charlie realized. When she appeared, she was
walking slowly. Her head was up but her attention was dragging, as
though she were pulling part of herself left behind. She was nearly to
them before she focused. "Hello, Tucker."
"Hello, Margery."
"Good to see you," she said. "It's been a while."
"Yep. Since the service, I guess." Tucker straightened. He seemed
younger.
"Tucker lived up the road from us," she said to Charlie. "He made me
the most marvelous rocking horse. I think that was the nicest present I
ever got. When William--" She swallowed. "When--I'm sorry." She
turned away. "William loved it too," she said in a low voice.
There wasn't anything to say. Margery gathered herself and turned back
to them.
Tucker cleared his throat. "I was--thinking you might come over for a
bite to eat, for old times sake." Charlie expected Margery to decline,
but something in the old man's tone had caught her attention.
"Well, that's nice of you. You have time, don't you, Charlie?"
"Plenty of time." A few years earlier, she had shown him where she
lived, not far from the cemetery. "Ride or walk?"
"Ride," Tucker said. "I'll just put this shovel in the shed."
Tucker's house was a weathered collection of gray boxes that were
settling away from each other. A reddish dog got down from a couch
on the porch and came to meet them. There was white around her
muzzle. "Company, Sally. Margery Sewall and her friend, Charlie."

The dog received Tucker's hand on her head and greeted them, sniffing
each in turn. "Sally don't see as well as she used to--do you girl?" Her
tail wagged and she led them to the house.
"You've got bees." Charlie pointed at four hives that stood on 2x4's at
the end of a narrow garden.
"Yep. Good year, last year."
"The lilacs are even bigger than I remember," Margery said.
"They keep right on going." Tucker took them through the house and
kitchen to a screened back porch. Charlie and Margery sat at a large
table while he brought bread, cheese, pickles, salami, mayonnaise,
mustard, a bowl of lettuce, and a smaller bowl of radishes. He set plates
and three glasses. "I've got beer, water, and--a little milk."
"Beer," Charlie said.
"Margery?"
"Beer."
"Three sodas coming up," Tucker said.
He and Margery reminisced. "Jack had a taste for the good stuff,"
Tucker said. "Five o'clock, regular. Never minded sharing, did Jack."
Charlie ate steadily and accepted another can of beer.
"Not bad, Tucker," he said. He had noticed a small wooden horse on a
shelf when he first entered the porch. During lunch, as Tucker and
Margery talked, his eyes kept returning to it. He got up and walked
over to the shelf. "What's this?"
"Something I made."
"Do you mind if I look at it?"
"Nope."
Charlie carried the horse back to the table. It was carved from wood,
light colored, about five inches high, galloping across a base of wooden
grasses and flowers. There was an air of health about it. It seemed to
belong where it was. "Nice," he said. "What kind of finish is that on