That Old Blue Light

That Old Blue Light Gregory Brown (bio) Matt's on the dam, come up in the truck at dawn, come up with Darby's little sister Lucretia to watch the sun lift above the pines because even after three years away he knows it's the first spot in Walineyayo County that gets touched by light and heat. Matt, on the dam in the Ford, up on the same dam and in the same truck in which three years ago Darby had shown him the letters from Sasha when he was home on leave, the same truck that has since been as far north as Canada, as far west as Oregon. The radio hums, a low thin crackle. Then it pops as Lucretia turns in the passenger seat. She raises her hand and with a finger starts drawing on the frosted glass. She hasn't spoken the whole ride up here, hasn't spoken since she came down the driveway and climbed into the truck, and said, "Lookie at what's come home." She moves her hand away from the window, revealing the words. Matt sees what she has written, but he doesn't say a thing about it: Miss me? Miss me not? It's Lucretia's way of goading him, and he guesses she's earned the right, after too many years and too many unanswered questions, after he finally came home though Darby never will. "You want me to wipe that off?" she asks, her arm waving loosely at the glass. "I don't police windows. It's good to see you, Lu." ________ Veteran's Day, 2005, Darby, back home on leave. Darby, his dog tags hanging in the sun. Darby, taking his hands away from his forehead, with his head shaking but no hair swinging since they'd made him chop it all off when he joined. He tossed an empty Molson can down into the reservoir. Matt watched it drop, waiting for it to click off some rock. "So it's happening, Matt," [End Page 34] Darby said. He had the letters out of his grip and was rolling them into a tube between his hands. "I mean I want her to," Darby said. "But it's hard." Herons fluttered the sky, breaking south for winter. Matt followed their flight until they crossed into the sun. Darby kept twisting the letters. Matt wondered how much force paper could take. "I mean I joined so I could make enough money for us to live on, get married. But it's hard because I have to go back. It's hard because I'll be leaving two people in a way. Does that make sense?" It did. Matt wants to reach for Darby's shoulder but can't. He's thinking of earlier that morning: just the two of them, down in the creek, surrounded by that old blue light that blankets the woods in fall, drunk and watching the sun rise up over Darby's mom's house, still rolling an empty Jameson bottle back and forth across the pine needles. And, an hour later, Claudia, Darby's mom, back in the kitchen, cooking waffles and bacon for the big send-off and laughing at the two of them and all their foolishness, out fishing in Bear Pond at two in the morning, stumbling around and hooking each other with each cast. "It's gonna go fast, Darb." "I don't think it will. I think it's like jail, Matty. Like it'll last forever." The safety gate below the truck is open, and the access road winds down through two hundred feet of hairpin turns, to the dry bottom, just the trickle of water and silt in the reservoir. "Shit," Darby says. "We should jump it." His eyes wild, his knuckles flexed white around the letters. "We should gun her and jump the access road. See if we can make it." "Let's start by walking it," Matt says. "We got time to walk down to the bottom and back up." "Okay," Darby nods. "I can walk. I think I can do that." Darby, in the pickup beside him for the last time...

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