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Harold.
    "Maybe
a little
less," confirmed, George. "Maybe that's it. Maybe he's parched. A
man'll do weird shit if he's parched."
    "Sure
got
a bug up his chimney," said Norman.
"You want I should bring him back, Leo?"
    "No,"
I said. "We'D leave the slave labor to Judge Brennan."
    BY
THE TIME we
broke for lunch at one, we'd made serious progress on both the yard and
the
cooler. In the yard, the old cedar fence that ran along the cliff had
been
pulled down board by board, the rotting posts torn from the ground and
added to
the substantial blaze which Norman lovingly tended in the rear corner
of the
yard.
    Harold
yelled
across the yard, "Leo, we need more suds."
    I
turned off
the Weed Eater, smeared my sweaty brow with my bare forearm and
strolled over
to the cooler. All that remained was the sixer of Bud Light I'd told
Rebecca
not to buy.
    "It's
not
empty," I called.
    "Nothin'
but Light shit."
    "Well,
have a Light. I'll get some more of the other out of the fridge as soon
as I
finish this section." "I'll wait," he said.
    I
made a
disgusted face. "What? One light beer's gonna kill you?"
    From
behind me,
George piped in. "Light beer's like screwing in a canoe."
    Normal nodded and grinned. I was
supposed to
bite, so I did.
    "How's
that?" I inquired.
    "Fucking
w-a-a-a-y too close to water," they said in unison.
    They
yukked it
up, hooting and hollering as they stomped about.
    "Let's
break for lunch," I said and headed inside for beer.
    The
tray of
cold cuts Rebecca got from Safeway was a big bit. What the catering
manager had
assured her would be ample for a party of eight disappeared, right down
to the
paper doily, in about twenty-five minutes.
    George
belched
loudly into his fist and said, "Ralphie don't know what he's missin'.
Poor
bastard."
    "He
hates
missin' a free meal," Harold agreed.
    "A
free
anything," Norman added, tilting his head back and swallowing the last
pickle slice whole, like a gull downing a herring.
    "Sure
had
a burr under his saddle," I said.
    George
pounded
on his sternum with the top of his fist.
    "I
think
maybe it was just too much for him. You know, seein' the house lookin'
all
different, you know, with other people livin' in it and all."
    "I'm
not
other people," I protested.
    "You
know
what I mean. He and your old man were real tight, and you know
Ralphie's the
sentimental type."
    "Really,"
I said. "I hadn't noticed."
    George
nodded
solemnly. "Oh, yeah. Couple of weeks ago we snuck into that new theater
up
on Seventh and Pike, the one with all the screens." He pointed at
Harold.
"You ask Harry, halfway through The English Patient Ralphie boy was
blubbering so hard we had to get the hell out of there before we got
pinched."
    "Snot-nose
kid behind the candy counter wouldn't give us no more napkins," Harold
added.
    "What
are
we gonna burn next?" Normal
asked, eyeing the redwood benches beneath us.
    "That
thing," I said.
    I
pointed to
the right rear corner of the house, where the partially collapsed
remains of a
small greenhouse listed precariously to starboard. Right after my
parents moved
into the place, my mother had gotten into a screaming argument with the
landscape contractor and decided that henceforth, landscapes be damned,
she was
going to propagate and plant her own shrubbery. The old man, as I
recall,
thought the idea ridiculous, but after a couple of weeks of listening
to her
gripe, he'd relented and called in a crew. I could still hear his voice
as he
spoke to the foreman. "What the hey," he'd said. "Who knows,
maybe it'll keep her out of the house." The foreman had nodded
knowingly.
    Twelve
years
later, during my sophomore year at the University
of Washington,
she had a massive cerebral hemorrhage and died while repotting tuberous
begonias. The doctor said she never knew what hit her. If the peaceful
expression on her death face was any indication, I suspect he was
correct in
his assessment
    I
never went in
there again, and, to my knowledge, neither did my father. Instead, for
months
afterward,