I told him yes and he nodded once, returning his attention to the snake. Very few of the boys I grew up with had finished high school, but they accepted that I was a writer. I was merely doing what other men did—following in my father’s footsteps. Sonny was a plumber. The son of a local drunk was the town drunk in two towns. Sons of soldiers joined the army. That I had become a writer was perfectly normal.
The water level lapped against the walls from our movement. One of Dad’s boots began to leak. Sonny shut off the machine. He told me to go down the hill twenty-five feet to the old sewage trench, now replaced by a septic tank. As a kid I’d spent hundreds of hours over the hill, finding snakeskins and rabbit dens, old bottles and animal bones, feathers and lucky rocks. I knew the gap in the brush and the best route down. In the forty years since my last venture, bushes had spread and grown, and I was much less agile. My boot skidded and I went to one knee but remained upright. Rooted in earth rich with human waste, the forsythia tendrils were higher than my head, bigger than my thumb, tangled and knotted together. Rain fell in waves. I had no hat or gloves.
Facing a row of briars, I knew instinctively to rotate my body into them, letting the thorns scrape but not grab hold. Now I had to find the old sewage trench. The rain increased. I crawled beneath the heavy overhang, moving slowly, joints stiff, the weight of my body hurting my hands pressed to the ground. Sonny yelled from the top of the hill. I couldn’t see him, but I waved my arms and shook a bush. He wanted to know if I heard anything.
“What am I supposed to hear?” I said.
“Anything, son. Listen at the ground. It’s not supposed to make no noise, so anything you hear is good.”
He went back in the house. The rain slackened momentarily. I bent forward and cupped my ears toward the earth. I heard cars on the blacktop at the foot of the hill and the gentle sound of thousands of raindrops striking thousands of leaves. I heard my own ragged breathing.
After a few minutes, Sonny yelled for me to come back to the house. The bushes were too intertwined for me to stand upright, and I had to scuttle backward. Limbs scratched my skin. Water ran into my pants. I emerged into a small clearing and tugged my clothes in place, shivering from the cold and sweating from exertion. I took two steps, slipped, and fell. Mud spattered my glasses. My cell phone rang and I ignored it. I fell twice more, scraping my hands. A branch tore along my cheek. I was breathing hard. It occurred to me that if I had a heart attack, Sonny would drag me up the hill and drive me to the hospital. Maybe I’d share a room with Dad.
I regained the safety of the yard. Sonny had packed up his snake machine and said he’d come back later and look for another drain. I was wet and muddy, irritated at the world and myself. Only a damn fool plunges down a steep hill, out of shape at age fifty-four, and attempts to hear the sound of dirt. I listened to the voicemail on my phone. The doctor thought my father might need a transfusion and my blood type matched his. I told Sonny, who looked away, then spoke quietly: “You need you a ride to the hospital?”
I shrugged and he said to get in. The sun was going down. We talked of our varied marriages, old buddies, and grade school teachers. Sonny dropped me at the hospital, but the medical emergency turned out be premature. Dad’s condition had stabilized. The catheter had begun draining.
Late that evening, the water was gone from the basement. I called Sonny, who said he’d found a better clean-out drain against the wall closest to the hill. He suggested I write its location on the wall in case someone else came next time. Sonny’s idea was practical and smart, but it shocked me. The notion of writing on the wall, even a dim basement corner, was unthinkable. It violated Dad’s rules. You wrote on pieces of paper, organized them into a manuscript, and produced a book. You didn’t write on a wall any more than you would spit on the floor. But Dad was sick and I was Sonny’s assistant. I had my instructions.
In the corner, I found the correct drain that led to the septic tank. I removed the cap of a black marker, its sharp scent momentarily overpowering the mold. In my life I’ve written over ten million words, but never before on a wall. If Dad found out, he wouldn’t like it, and I’d get in trouble. In large letters I wrote “Clean-Out Drain” with an arrow pointing down.
At the foot of the steps, I glanced around the muddy basement one more time. I’d spent a lot of time down here, especially during winter, when school was canceled from snow. Now it was full of old Tupperware, empty beer bottles, and rotting wood. A rusty metal shelf held canned food that had expanded, the paper labels chewed by mice. I remembered killing a snake in a corner, then setting mousetraps for months.