His father was as he looked and dressed in the Great Depression and during the war. Sitting on the hard chair, patient, leaning forward a little, his hands holding his hat, wearing his old brown suit with the wide lapels, a stain on the lapel and another one at the old fly of the suit pants, the crotch so long that he always pulled the pants up practically to his chest, his hard-won gut paunch rounded out below the belt at the top of the pants, so that he looked short bodied, foreshortened, misshapen, all long thin legs with only a little upper half to him above his belt, like some comic figure out of a vaudeville show. Sitting with his hands idle, loose, not even turning the hat but just sitting motionless, patient, in the old-fashioned brown suit just as Dad remembered him. No hair on his head to speak of. His face burnt red, from working out in all the weather. Outside all day. Down at the hog pen and the cow barn and scooping grain in at the narrow slat-wood door of the granary and digging postholes in the ground, and every year planting dryland wheat back in Kansas and every year harvesting what meager crop there was. Working all the days of his life and never enough to show for it, never enough to get ahead.
And next to him, on her chair, his mother. The silent woman. The uncomplaining unexpressed uninflected woman. Gray hair pulled back in a tight bun. Her Sunday dress, old pearl-colored gabardine buttoned to the neck, shiny in places. Too loose, irreplaceable, out of poverty. And her long thin hands, bony red hands, and red bony wrists. With the scrap of battered adhesive tape wrapped around as guard holding the worn-out wedding ring on her bony finger. Her face wrinkled and lined. Her wire glasses on her nose that was too thin and pinched. Sitting here looking at him. His mother and the old man together just sitting, looking, quiet, as patient as some kind of old work-exhausted animals, waiting.
Beside them Frank was smoking a cigarette again. He looked worn out this time, tough, ragged, disheveled, unhappy.
Dad peered at them for some time. What do you want? he said. What have you come for?
We can’t stay long, his father, the old man, said. We got to be getting on here purty soon now.
We come to see you, his mother said. We come to see how good you’re faring, son.
Frank smoked and looked at them and looked at Dad.
I’m not too good, if you want to know, Dad said. I’m about finished. I’m going down now.
We come to see you, before you do, she said. We’ll be waiting for you.
We got to go purty soon, the old man said.
Where is it you’re waiting for me? Dad said.
Oh you know, she said. Don’t be worried.
He turned toward Frank. What about you? You won’t be waiting for me.
No, I won’t wait for you. I’m still here. I got things to do yet. He exhaled smoke and then dropped the cigarette on the wood floor and twisted it out under his shoe.
So how you figure you’re doing? the old man said to Dad.
I just told you. Not very good. I’m going down.
Well, you sure got you a real fine nice big house here. You done all right that way, didn’t you. This is a real nice big pleasing satisfying house you got here.
I worked for it, Dad said.
Well sure. Of course. I know, the old man said. Had some luck too, I believe.
I had some luck. But I worked hard. I earned it.
Yeah. Sure. Most people work hard. It’s not only that now, is it. You had you some luck.
Goddamn it, I had some luck too, Dad said, but I earned the luck.
Some people got to stay back in Kansas out on the dry prairie, the old man said.
What are you talking about? This is dry prairie. It isn’t much different. No trees. Dryland farming except where they found water underneath.
We never had none of that in our piece of Kansas. No sir. We wasn’t so lucky as that. No sir, we never was that lucky where we was.
That’s all right, Papa, the old woman said. Let it be now. Don’t you fret yourself.
The old man looked at her. We better get on purty soon. We can’t stay here much longer.
Do you know my son here? Dad said.
Of course. Yeah. We know him, the old man said. We met him just now. He takes off of you, don’t he.
I guess he does, Dad said. I don’t see it myself.
Well, course he does. You ain’t looking right. You never brought him to see us, did you. Never once.
No. I didn’t want to.
No. You never did. Out of spitefulness, wasn’t it. Out of meanness.
We better go, Papa. It’s getting late. We just stopped in to see how you was faring, son. Don’t be afraid.
I’m not afraid, Dad said.
Don’t be afraid, son.
I’m not.
It’s not like folks think, she said.
Is it all right though?
Don’t worry about it, son.
I’m not worried about it.
We’ll be a-seeing you, the old man said. You just take it easy here now. That’s all you got to do.
Enjoy all of it while you can, she said.
Take her good and easy, boy. We got to go on.
When Dad woke again the old man and the old woman in their old Sunday clothes were gone. Frank was sitting next to the two empty chairs in the low barn light coming in from under the shade.