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into paranoia—they are already racked with guilt over dropping their darlings off with strangers in a setting where the little tykes could easily get shot or groped.
    In families like mine, grandmothers loom large as yetis. I always thought having Grandma had been a blessing for me, but still I have often wondered if it wasn’t her vigor that had made my father into such a depressed boob. He was a case of arrested development who never made a dime, but Grandma supported him in fine-enough style for around here and at the far end of her apron strings. He was devoted to his aquarelles—his word. The basement was full of them. His little house has remained empty, except for the flowers, bunnies, puppies, and sunsets on every wall. Grandma says it’s without a doubt a meth lab.
    Perhaps I felt some of his oppression as Grandma sat bolt upright holding that half a sandwich (“I trust you washed up before handling my food”) and inhaling the mighty cottonwoods, the watercress in the tiny spring seeping into the broad green and sparkling river. I thought about the drowned bridegroom sailing by, his arms fluttering like a bat. It was Grandma who’d taught me that every river has its own smell and that ours are fragrant while others stink to high heaven, catch fire, or plunge into desert holes never to be seen again.
    I think that at bottom some of these reflections must have been prompted by the mention of my latest DUI, which was a frightful memory. I knew it wasn’t funny. I had left the Mad Hatter at closing, perfectly well aware that I was drunk. That was why I went there, after all. From the window at the back of the bar, as the staff cleaned up, I watched the squad car circle the block until I had determined the coast was clear. I ran through the cold night air to my car and headed up the valley. I hadn’t gone far when I saw the whirling red light in my rearview mirror, and there’s where I made a bad decision. I pulled over and bolted out of the car and ran into a pasture, tearing my shirt and pants on a barbed-wire fence. I didn’t stop running until I fell into some kind of crack in the ground and broke my arm. That light in my rearview turned out to be an ambulance headed farther up the valley. I crawled out of the crack and got back into the car to drive to the emergency room back in town. I soon attracted an actual policeman and hence the DUI, the cast on my arm, and this latest annoyance from Grandma, who may in fact be the source of my problems. I knew that thought was a tough sell which defied common sense, but it was gathering plausibility for me.
    I looked across the river at the row of houses above the line of car bodies. I heard a lawn mower over the whisper of river. A tennis ball came sailing over the bank, a black dog watching as it disappeared into the river.
    Grandma said, “When you were a little boy, I thought you would be president of the United States.” I got that odd shriveling feeling I used to get when our parents couldn’t handle us and she would have to come to our house. I decided to give her the silent treatment. She didn’t notice. I watched as she took in all she could smell and hear with the same upright posture and air of satisfaction. I unexpectedly decided that I was entitled to a little liquid cheer and began tiptoeing in the direction of my car a good distance away, wasted tiptoeing, I might add, as Grandmother said, “Bye-bye.”
    I have no idea why starting the car and putting it in gear gave me such a gust of exhilaration that the quick stop for a couple of stiff ones seemed almost redundant. But that’s what happened, and I felt all the better for it as I walked into the sheriff’s office just as Deputy Crane was leaving. I caught his sleeve and asked about the corpse. I could tell by his expression that he could smell the adult beverage on my breath. “They pulled it out of the water at the Reed Point Bridge. I’m headed there now.”
    “Oh, let me ride