Stained-Glass Angel Hanging from a Suction-Cup Hook

An excerpt from DEACON, a novel.



DRINK SOME WATER from the tap. It’s fine. It tastes okay.

Look at the yard above the kitchen sink. Watch out the window.

The Deacon’s at the back of the yard spray painting red Xes on the trees.

Why’s he have to do this?

Look at him. Xing the trees. 

He shouldn’t be doing anything to the trees here.

He shouldn’t ever be in the yard. 

He comes into the yard all the time but he shouldn’t

Rinsed this mug for coffee and then I looked up. Saw him.

Looked out the window and he’s out there painting. He doesn’t let up. Everything’s a big fucking thing with the Deacon.

Tracking him. 

Tracking my thoughts. 

Tracking what I see happening and I’m thinking, Why? and What else should I do?

Because I’m seeing it.

I’ve been told a few things. 

Water on the stove for coffee. Waiting for it to boil. Looking out at the Deacon. Another cup of water from the sink. Relax. Watch the Deacon. 

Wish I could have a sense of humor about it but I can’t.

Because this is ridiculous.

I don’t like it.

I’m not laughing about it.

It’s the third time he’s doing this since we got here. We just got here. Two days ago. And he just wants to get a rise out of me. I know that’s it. He gets a rise out of the dog. The dog doesn’t like it too. Hackles up, pacing, barking, howling.

Please, bud, it’s too early. Relax.

The Deacon. Third time in how many days?

And everything else every other fucking year.

For crissakes.

For Christ’s sake.

I move a couple steps back from the sink. A little deeper into the room. A step over. Get a new angle. Look through the slider from here. And then look over at the piece of red Xed bark nailed into the paneling above the slider.

When the Deacon leaves, just go out and chip off the new Xes. Nice and careful. Don’t need another chunk like this one. Imagine the cedar-planked wall covered in chunks of bark with the red Xes like a hunters cabin with mounted deer head trophies. 

Two days or three. 

Two and a half most accurately.

This is the third day here.

I got here.

I unloaded the truck.

Watched the Deacon walk by a few times. And I could hear the dog barking inside. Had to load in in steps. First get everything into the garage. Dog in the living room. Door to the living room and kitchen shut til I was done putting everything in the garage.

When the Deacon quit and the dog quit barking I heard the loon call. Love to hear the loons. Feels good.

Love that I can hear them from here at the house, even up the long hill above the lake.

Loon sound let me let it go for a little.

And this again.



THE DRIVE HERE goes quicker the older I get.

I don’t want it to. I want all the time. I want to get up here and be up here and enjoy my time up here but I don’t want the time I have for anything to go too fast. 

Not even two hours it takes to get here but as a kid it was forever. 

Now, nothing.

Now I don’t even finish thinking. 

I always think about eating lemon and watermelon Italian ices at the lake when the ice cream bell rings. Or cherry-chocolate ice cream pops in the late afternoon. Three o’clock. Everyday all summer.

Half the drive I can’t even picture. No man’s land of 95-North. There’s the baby blue bridge near the ocean towns.

The state liquor store at the border.

Maybe the other way around.

Where the radio switches channels.

But you get to a little rotary and this rotary sends you up the mountain once you’re through it.

It goes around the gas station store and deli—the Circle Store.

You think if you need anything there. A little snack, something for the house, or something at the seafood counter, the deli, anything for fishing. Used to be bobbers and nightcrawlers.

Or you stop in just because.

Or you skip it, go past it and take the right hand exit after the little hardware store.

Past the motel, the patch of lily-padded water behind it.

Up past the soot-white church. The naked cedar-shake second-hand furniture store tacked onto the church.

Up the hill some more.

Turn up at the old stonewalled cemetery onto the dirt road dotted with honor-system produce stands and farm-fresh eggs in coolers.

Love coming up here. My favorite place in the world.

Pull into the driveway along the right side of the house. The beautiful small dark-brown log house.

Not a cabin. Dad says that’s not what it is. One uncle says beach house. Dad says it’s not that either. These things each mean something and they’re different than what we got. Some of the other aunts and uncles say mom and dad’s because it used to be. Mom says that. Dad calls it up north.

We’re going up north for the week or the weekend or the holiday.

Dog’s always good in the car. 

Right, bud?

He knows the place by the turn onto the dirt road. Perks up at the rumble of tire on dirt. He’s always quiet in the car.

It’s quiet here generally. But then the dog’ll start howling or barking. Loves to keep watch. Won’t let up once he starts.

Feel like I have to apologize for him when I see neighbors.

They look like they’re mad or worried about it. Mountain affectation. Backwoods expression.

They tell me it’s not a big deal and they find him charming. Having a classic hunting dog in a rural place. Piques interest.

A couple older men living next to each other. I never see them anywhere but on their porches when I walk the dog that way. They say they used to have dogs like him. They say, Charming and, Good dog.

They ask what I hunt with him. I say I haven’t yet but I’d love to.



FIRST THINGS FIRST kind of thing, I put the new arsenic filter on the well line. Safe water.

Seems good.

Water tastes fine right now.

Double check in a couple days.

Old filter wasn’t even that old but the well tested high. Had to keep an eye on it the last year. Tried to fix it. It leveled out, tested high again and stayed that way.

We thought it had something to do with the new water-softener system but couldn’t make sense of it.

Mountain well water and wild strawberries.

The strawberries.

Have to be careful when you mow the lawn if you want strawberries. I do. I’m careful.

More strawberry than grass.

Otherwise it’s all sand, moss, rock. An unamended construction-sand yard. Some oxeye daisies. A few encroaching ferns.

All in all grass-wise, total, just a few square feet of orchard grass. So when you mow the lawn, if you’re not thinking, naturally you cut the green stuff. Mainly the strawberries.

The strawberries fruited for the first time in years last summer. And now they’re ripe and taste just like strawberry dum-dums.

The collective maintenance of the place.

We take turns. Took turns painting the rooms with a fresh coat. There’s the snow in the winter. Firewood. All the little things.

Have to mow the lawn like I said I would.

Don’t love to.

But I like to be the one who does it. I offer to do it, check on off-weeks, because it’s an excuse to come up. When it needs to be done. Little association rules. If someone else in the family can’t make the trip up for their appointed week in the rotation.

I want to make sure they’ve got a chance to berry.



OPEN THE WINDOW above the sink.

The stained-glass angel hanging from a suction-cup hook swings. Make a little noise for the Deacon to know I’m still watching. Clang a couple pans together. Drop a handful of spoons in the sink.

The Deacon sees me looking and I think of a cartoon man with a why-I–oughta accent.

A rabbit, a duck, and a rooster. 

Morning cartoons.

I says, I says, I says, I swear I could kill him!

A whiff of rain comes in from the window. 

Cigarette hint. Someone’s out there having a puff. On their porch or in their yard or driving by with their window open and smoking.

I love the smell but it gets in my lungs funny these days.

Smell the pitch too like it’s activated by the damp.

Smell the hot water smell of boiling water on a gas stove.

Metal.

Coffee, coffee, coffee.

Hopefully wake me up.

Stuffy all day. Warm rain early summer. Always gets me. 

Sneezing.

I sneezed.

The Deacon pauses.

The dog looks up at me. Long black hound ears, sweet brown eyes. He barks.

A double sneeze. Me. The second one hit louder. Imagine he thinks I’m fake sneezing.

The dog tilts his head at me.

The dog goes back to barking. The dog’s been barking and the Deacon seems to be tuning it out for whatever reason. Probably understands the dog just does this. Or something. Or he’s happy he’s getting the rise he wants.

You think it’d be worse if he still lived directly next door but now he’s down the street and it’s exactly the same.

He’s expanded his domain.

When Mémère used to talk about him, she’d say, He’s always poking around over here.

She’d keep catching him. And she’d say, He doesn’t care.

Growing up, when we’d visit her and Papa here, she’d tell us to avoid him.

Ignore him if he tries talking to you.

Said, Fuhrer, not Father. 

Said, A derelict deacon. The Freakin Deacon. Pastor Bullshit.

His name is Price Bulzier. The locally, self-famed, ex-state senator. Actually a deacon or pastor of some sort. Not sure what denomination. 

His wife is the president of the neighborhood board. Clara Bulzier. Liaison between these houses here on the hill and town proper. And a handful of new rules.

I was up here taking the carpet out of the living room. A couple years ago. Same day my old dog died. He came into the yard through the woods at the back of the yard. The Deacon, his mirrored sunglasses resting on his cauliflower floret nose. He had a chainsaw and a guy with him. The guy had a clipboard. The Deacon pointed around. The guy stabbed at his paper with a pen.

Thought to go and get the chainsaw in the cellar. Hold up a chainsaw of my own. Rev it on the back porch. Hold it up at them.

I told my old dog I was sorry and I’d be right back. I went outside. I asked the Deacon what he wanted.

Can I help you?

The powers that be want it this way, he said.

He told me to get a check ready for half the cost of the lot line survey.

The easement. God’s word.

No. Best if you leave. My dog’s inside and dying.

I know.

Remember thinking, Go inside. The drawer under the microwave. Get that thick-beaded wooden rosary, wrap my fist in it.

Mine against his.

Problem with the message and a question of denomination.

I don’t know what he is.

My old dog, the sweet little cream-colored mutt, died later that day.

And he said—the Deacon said—he knew.

Still think about that.

Knew what? I think I know what he knew.

And I know what can happen to him.

Remember another time in the backyard. About a year later, he came into the yard again, same way. He asked me my name but he knew my name. I’ve been coming up here for thirty years. My family’s been coming up as long as it’s been my grandparents’ home. Forty something years. These are things he knows. He keeps track. Wife’s the president of the neighborhood.

What’s your name, boy?

I just looked at him. Mirrored sunglasses, slightly sliding on his face and stupid.

I can’t hear you. Speak up, boy, he said.

I’m Price. Price fucking Bulzier, I told him.

I know what it is. I’ll pray for you.

Keep em.


_____
Nathan Dragon is from Salem, MA. He is the author of THE CHAMP IS HERE and ERRAND WEATHER.