Swallows at Beaverton Crescent
By John Fucking Cheever
Bernie looked contentedly at the lawn chairs that filled the expansive yard. Today was one of the last days that year he’d be able to sit in them. To sit peacefully and drink his iced tea, read the New York Times and muse on Suzanne and Bob’s last barbecue of the season.
In the blink of an eye winter would envelope all their houses in its icy grip and not relent until May. As the sun settled across the lawn and the shadows lengthened he remembered Alice’s pumpkins on the side table. They had to be carved for next week and she would be home from her riding lesson at any point.
He flew inside, stumbling over the now inconvenient chairs. Turning the corner into the kitchen he bumped into Leo. “What’s shakin’ pops?” asked Leo. “You and mom still headed over to the Christie’s end of year steak-o-rama tonight?”
“That depends on your mother Leo. You know how she gets at this time of year — it’s why we always take a trip.”
Leo looked puzzled for a second until the light dawned “Ah right, this time of year. Yeah that incident will probably forever haunt us, unspoken in the background…it’s tough living in the suburbs and being upper middle class huh dad?”
His father looked him up and down, at once close and distant to his beloved son
“Yes son, we have it tough too. It might seem idyllic in these late autumn days in the North Eastern United States, but underneath the surface, this area teems with unspoken secrets, drinking problems and submerged tragedies. It’s almost as if we have it way tougher than people who are poor, with actual problems like ‘where can I sleep at night?’ or ‘where’s my next meal coming from?’ People just don’t get how hard it is to look this contented. We’re plagued to suffer silently into our gin.”
Leo looked sadly at his father. The old man had never been the same since he quit his consulting job with Goldman-Sachs to concentrate on his lawn croquette business. He barely went into the city anymore, and when he did his heavy heart made the whole enterprise a painful slog. Leo gazed wistfully out the window, shielding his eyes against the late evening autumnal light reflecting back off the pool. Maybe the old man wasn’t so bad. He’d been through a lot, even the fellows at the club understood that.
Leo’s father looked quizzically at his son staring out the window at the yard which was now bathed in late evening orange from the smoky, cold harvest sun. Could he even explain or justify to him what had happened? Why their lives had taken the turns they had to this seemingly successful but complex and sad under the surface existence? Probably not, it was not a young man’s world view. The pumpkins for his daughter would have to wait. He had clients coming over — the Applewood’s — to view the new rubber croquet set he was promoting and he’d promised his wife the deal would be done before she got home from the salon.
Leaving Leo to gaze blankly out of the window he moved into the front yard and commenced setting up the croquet game. The idea of this new set was that it was a travel game, to take to the beach or the park — all the venues where people loved to play croquet but found it hard to lug their home sets to. In this travel set, all but one of the mallets was rubber. The one heavy wood mallet was only included to bang the gates into the ground. It looked identical to the other mallets, only it was much heavier and had a steel mallet head for driving in the posts.
After he finished setting up the croquet demonstration he decided to skim the pool. The leaves were already falling and if it was left much longer the Johnson’s would be shouting over the fence that he’d let the neighbourhood down. It was only friendly ribbing but deep down he knew it stemmed from a hostile dislike of his very core. Bernie had only ever appeared to get on with Rodger Johnson. Deep down they were different people, two patriarchs stuck in that eternal struggle between acceptance and tolerance. What a piece of work is man.
Before he could begin skimming the pool, a clatter of chatter from the front lawn announced the arrival home of Alice, his daughter, from her riding lesson. He strode around the front of the house to greet her as she yelled at him “I love the new mallets daddy, this set looks so fun!” She was hitting the ball between the posts with the joy of a grandmother pressing together a new jigsaw.
Bernie turned to look in the house and waved at Leo who was washing dishes ironically. He felt his daughter tugging at his hands. “Mommy’s home! Mommy’s home!” He looked towards the driveway. Indeed his wife was home. She got out of the car and looked at him. Her face was completely blank yet overflowing with meaning.
“Just a minute sweetie, there’s something I have to talk to mommy about then we can play OK?” he cautioned Alice. He started to move towards his wife, looking into her eyes for the answer. “But daddy I want to play now! Look how well I can move this mallet even though it’s rubber! I’m going to hit you on the head with it like when you bopped Leo!”
And with that she brought the mallet sailing through the air towards her fathers temple. As Bernie turned he saw the engraving on the mallet head marking it out as the one steel encased wooden mallet.
