Del

A STORY

by KARL HARSHBARGER

THE storm broke away slowly, leaving a few low gray clouds and a damp fresh air that welled from the thick foliage. On the highway, the transcontinental Diesels pulled into the night.

Del edged among the men. Some weeks ago, out of boredom, they set up a game of horseshoes, and now, under the single illumination of the yard light, pairs of men took careful steps and threw. Red cigarettes jiggled and rested in the darkness. An occasional match glowed yellow, showing tired, unshaven faces. Del watched this. The gray labor camp stood against the high broken sphere of clear stars. The impact of the horseshoes sloughed into the night.

Del moved along — into the barrack. He twisted the light bulb on above him and rested his head on the drab green upper bunk. A Mexican boy ran his fingers across guitar strings, tuning them.

A man said, “Going to bed, Del?”

Del turned slowly. “Reckon not.”

He opened his foot locker, found the magazine he’d brought from home, and slipped down into the bunk quilt. He tried to read. A mosquito whined and bounced on the screen above his head. He let the magazine drop to the floor.

“Got some stamps?” asked the man.

The man writing the letter and Del and the Mexican boy were the only ones in the barrack. Del found some stamps in his foot locker, crossed the aisle, and gave them to the man and leaned on the window sill above the man’s bunk.

“I don t know, said Del. He slid his chin across his elbows. “I don’t know,” he said blankly. “Read a good story this afternoon.”

“Good,” the man said.

“It was good. Seemed kind of the same though. Just did.”

The man said, “Guess they end pretty much the same.”

“This was a good one, though. I don’t know. Up here something goes wrong. A fellow lays around all day and most the night when we don’t go out, and there ain’t nothing to do but read. And it gets so even the good ones ain’t good.”

“Yeah,” said the man.

Beyond the window the hill down to the cannery merged into hundreds of w inking fireflies.

Del said, “God, it’s summer out.” He pressed closer to the screen. “Something about the air. Gets this way every summer. Always like this back home.”

“Like what?” the man asked.

“God, I remember on the farm like this in the evening. Nothing to do in the evening. Plow corn or pitch hay —dirty and hot all day long — always worked, but nothing to do in the evening. Everything quiet. Most usually walked somewhere. Always warm. Usually walked alone. Anyplace I cared to. Most often walked past the river. There was a bluff where I sat above the highway and watched the Diesels go by. After work almost every day I’d go down to the hill to watch the Diesels and wonder where they were going and I wanted to ride with ‘em. I wanted to ride ‘em anyplace they happened to be going. All day in the fields I’d think about going somewhere away. At night I’d go dow n and watch ‘em. And sometimes I thought my heart was going away with them.”

“Where’d you live?” asked the man softly.

“Some nights I’d get out behind the barn on the haystack. I used to get out there and lay on my back and watch the nighthawks ride in over the hills. You’ve seen ‘em, haven’t you?”

“I seen ‘em.”

“I laid on the haystack and looked out across the fields and seen hundreds of ‘em, right up to the horizon, rising and falling like black specks. Hundreds of them, and each one the most beautiful flying thing you ever saw. Rising and dipping right above you, and skimming the ground. Sometimes I’d pick out one to watch. Sometimes I’d blur my eyes and watch them all.”

“Never thought of ‘em that way,” said the man.

Del stared out past the screen.

“Guess that’s a nice way to look at ‘em, though,” the man said. “I’ll write my wife that.”

The Mexican boy strummed and modulated long chords on the guitar.

The man said, “You married, kid?”

“No,” said Del.

“How old are you, boy?”

“Eighteen,” said Del.

“Oh,” said the man.

“No, I never even thought about it. Getting married. Weren’t any girls. Not where I come from. We never had any girls much at all. We worked all day and were out far from anyplace. That’s what I mean, walking alone and laying on the haystack.”

“Never lived on a farm,” the man said.

“Reckon you don’t understand. You lived where there were plenty of girls. Lots to pick from. Things to do. You always had lots of things to do. That’s the way you had it.”

Del watched the fireflies position the night and slowly lost himself. “Me. We lived on a farm. Away from the cities. We worked all day, and night made more difference than it does other places, and the few things you did propped you up inside. When anything good happened you were like a king and you never forgot being one and on nights like tonight, when the air’s the same, I remember being one. Like having something better than anything else happening to you. And one summer only it was like that. She was the only girl that ever lived around us, and she only lived there a summer. She wasn’t pretty, not what the other fellows call pretty, and we didn’t do like other kids do. Her name was Eva. Eva Brown. All we ever did was walked. I never touched her or kissed her or nothing. But all day in the fields I couldn’t do nothing but think about her, and I’d get chores done soon as possible, and then, like a king, I’d walk easy-like over to her farm while the nighthawks were playing, and she’d come out and we’d walk wherever we happened to go. It was always wherever we happened to go that made it good; sometimes a wood bridge; sometimes a grove of trees or a hollow; and sometimes we’d go down past the river and watch the Diesels go into the night together. Every night we did that. And every night I came home feeling like I’d never felt before — all rich and fine inside. Sometimes, after she left, when the air was like it is tonight, I’d go back to the places we’d been. Can you imagine what that did to me then? Can you imagine what it does to me now, remembering it?”

“Where’s home, kid?”

“Stanton.”

“East of here?”

Del nodded.

“Poor country. I seen it,” the man said. “Been there long, kid?”

“All my life there.”

“No way to spend a life.”

“Hear ‘em?” asked Del.

“Hear what ? ”

“The Diesels. Out alone on the highway. Where d’ya suppose they’re going?”

“I don’t know,” the man said.

“Listen to ‘em. Hear ‘em. Wonder where they’re going? ”

“Chicago. Denver. West Coast.”

“I like to hear ‘em,” Del said.

The man got up from his bunk. “Mail’s going out soon. Better give ‘em my letter.”

“All right,” said Del.

“Good night, Del,” the man said softly.

Del picked his coat off his bunk and opened the barrack door. He stepped out and down the gravel path that led to the creek and the tunnel under the railway track. The warm summer air ruffled inside his clothing. The muffled guitar chords gave way to the steady pulsing of crickets. In the tunnel the air had a rancid smell and the metallic croak of the frogs echoed on the damp walls.

The cannery stood harshly in the tall blank batteries of lights. Trucks waited in a double line while the conveyer belt, riding on a high long steel trestle, carried waste corn fodder that fell loosely into the open truck beds. Del walked past the truck drivers squatting on the ground and found a place by the tool shed to sit unnoticed.

The machinery whined and spewed and each unit clicked gravely as it slowed and stopped. The cannery had run through what little corn had been picked in the afternoon and was shutting down until tomorrow. Already, in the receiving end, clean-up men in black rubber slicker suits swept waste before their fire hoses. Del watched the many catwalks and the T-shirted men and large aproned women who descended to find their lunch pails, talk pleasantly, collect in small groups, and fade through the company gate.

Del sat and waited. One by one the tall batteries of lights dimmed and blacked. The last truck, carrying half a load, crawled from the conveyer belt. Long after the truck rumbled out of earshot, Del waited, still, as if dead, listening to the small sounds, the queer corner sounds issued from the cannery. Then silently, leaving the tool shed, Del stole past the wood pump house, past quality control, past the scales, around by the warehouse docks, and there, powerfully, like a great cat waiting weirdly in the darkness, stood a Diesel tractor and trailer. Dimly Del made out the words—“Pittsburgh-Chicago-West Coast.” Quietly he approached the tractor and touched the high strong fender and looked up at the cab above his head. The motor throbbed deeply, echoing inside itself.

Bracing himself on the running board, he reached and jerked the door handle. The cab door swung open. Del scaled the rungs into the cab and closed the door. He waited, breathing heavily, causing the leather seat cushions to squeak slightly as the minutes passed.

In the distance a door slammed, boots clattered down a stairway, someone was whistling, and steps approached the truck. Del sat very straight. Behind him he heard the two large steel doors slowly swing and echo shut. He waited. The lock fell in place. A flashlight bobbed forward and from his height Del watched a tall thin man wearing a billed hat shine the flashlight on each tire. Whistling again the man pulled a notebook from his pocket, found a pencil, wet the end of it, wrote something, replaced both notebook and pencil, and effortlessly swung up into the seat behind the wheel. The flashlight rested on Del.

“Sorry, kid. Company rules.”

Del turned and looked up at the driver. “Please.”

“Company says no riders.”

On the dashboard the clock ticked softly.

“Sorry, kid.”

Del turned away, opened the cab door, found his footing in the darkness, and let himself down to the ground. The Diesel hissed and slowly eased forward. Del watched it crawl onto the highway and heard it wind and glide through its gears.

And once again the sadness welled inside him. All was gray and smelled of wet fodder. Slowly he went through the cross-wired company gate, to walk under the oak trees and shadows of patterned leaves softly printed on the sidewalk; to walk by the yellow-lighted windows, half-cautious dogs, men in armchairs; the brick streets and ways to turn at the corner . . .