The Hard Interpretations of Other Men

Again he dreams of the unformed bowl that will become the world. See him there. See his body inconceivably small in the empty. A stilled mite of life or unlife or whatever speed prevails between the two. The sides of the bowl reach clear and crystal-rimmed to a starless dome enclosure from which come the wildmen. Out of an opaque nothingness they come, down down down to resurrect his body. Howling. Wheeling with insane locomotion. That huddled clump of scrabbling limbs. That ball of insects dusted in the glow of a far-off moon. They travel naked and unshod atop a giant wave of snakes, a thousand reaching tongues to divine the way forward. They bring the sun and with it all creation. Get up. Walk this fresh place. Find the priest and wake him.

I

Roy came up in the dark and sat on the edge of the bed and rubbed his eyes. He went to her room and checked on her. Asleep with a cape of early light across her body. He closed the door. In the kitchen he held a steaming mug and watched the eggs roll in the water.
    When she came in he bent and gave her a slice of buttered toast which she took groggily. One half-open eye under a blownout umbrella of hair.
    "How many you want?" he said.
    She chewed and held up three fingers.
    "That's all there is. I don't get any?"
    She brought back one of the fingers.
    "Where's your socks?"
    She shrugged.
    "Go get em."
    She came back in the socks, the half-eaten toast abandoned somewhere behind. He'd peeled the eggs and crushed them into a gravel with a fork and laid the plate in front of her. Salt and pepper. A little bowl of pico de gallo. She spooned some over the eggs and lost a tomato down her elephant pajamas.
    "Milk or juice?" he said.
    "Are we doing Christmas Eve elf this year?"
    "I'd say that's up to him."
    "Dad."
    "Ruby."
    "I know there's no elf."
    "How you figure that?"
    "Elves can't even drive a car."
    "You can't drive a car."
    "Elves are dumb, Dad."
    "All right." He stood with the refrigerator door open and bit the naked egg. "You want milk or juice?"
    "Can we open one tonight? Just one."
    He put the rest of the egg in his mouth and took the milk off the shelf and closed the door. He set it on the table and brought out a glass. The tree stood at the window, a dark form broken up with outer light like a strip of Milky Way. Ruby got out of her chair and went to the wall socket and plugged in the trimming. String bulbs bloomed and began to fade.
    "This one." She held up a small box wrapped in snowflakes.
    "That aint even your biggest one." He poured a glass of the milk.
    "I'm saving that one. I want this one now because I know it's my knife."
    "You do, huh?"
    "The foldout one with the little gold ducks."
    "Why in the heck would anyone give you a knife?"
    "I told you I wanted it so I can help you with the cows."
    He smiled and took his mug off the counter. "Come finish this."
    She turned to the window and looked over the empty pasture white and dimpled. The posts wore hoods of snow and the lines needled with ice. Out past the field stood the sheetmetal barn. A little chimney exhaling vapor. And past this, past the reach of the property where low winter clouds scraped the ground and closed off the house from the mountains beyond, she thought she saw something moving. Huge and indefinite and slow beneath the white haze. It seemed to go headfirst on thrownout legs, taking steps best measured in acres. Something old, she knew. Made of the world. She watched the thing until a blow of white air came up and erased it. Nothing left. The gray shape of a cedar surfaced in the mist.
    She turned back into the room and went to the table and touched her glass.
    "Can I get juice?"
    He took the last swallow from the mug. "No."

Luciana used her key on the door. Her first attempt had locked it and she'd kicked in a treadmark trying to come through.
    "Por dios."
    In the mudroom, she came out of her boots in wool knee socks, shins encircled by doves with crosses stamped into their breasts. She went into the kitchen and folded her coat in her arms and asked Roy if he'd left the door unlocked all weekend.
    "Morning, Luz." He set his mug on the countertop and pushed his fingers into his front pockets.
    She dropped her coat on him. He walked it to the closet while she flattened Ruby's hair and kissed her cheek. She held the girl's shoulders as she talked.
    "You can no sleep with the door open, Meester Roy," she said. "Es peligroso."
    "Just Roy, Luz."
    She crossed herself. "My granmother work for a man she call by hees first name and she—"
    "Exploded?" Roy finished.
    Ruby snorted and then laughed at her snort. Luciana pinched the girl's cheek.
    "No hay que burlarse de los otros." She said it impassioned and went to the dishes in the sink.
    Roy went to the closet and came back in a wool-lined coat and gloves. Ruby was back at the tree kneeling into the presents.
    "You didn't finish this," he said.
    "I don't want it."
    Luciana wiped her hands. "Y qué breakfast es éso, niño?"
    "Said she wanted eggs."
    Luciana smelled the plate and made a face. She pulled on Roy's ear and went to the kitchen and scraped the egg-sand into the garbage.
    "Mija," she said to Ruby. "Qué quieres?"   
    "I want waffles."
    "Ruby. Luz was kind enough to come see you on Christmas Eve. Don't make her make you breakfast. You don't have to make her breakfast."
    "Is Christmas, Meester Roy."
    "Let me give you the day off."
    She took one of his hands in both of hers. Her fingers were sanded wood. Then she pulled a large mixing bowl from the cupboard and plastic tub of flour and went to the refrigerator.
    Roy put on his hat. "What do you say?"
    Ruby looked back. "Muchísimas gracias, Luz."
    Roy went to the mudroom and pulled on the rubbertoe boots. A black maglight faced him from the built-in shelves and he stood a while looking at it trying to decide something. There was a crack in the glass seal like a bolt of lightning. He reached for it but stopped himself. He went outside. Out past the poplar in the yard he turned around and came back to the mudroom and took the maglight off the shelf. He tried it on the wall but the D cells were dead, so he laid it down and left without it.