1957
The old man holds the claw hammer in his right hand, his fingers curling around the wooden handle. He has just finished reattaching the wire fencing to the posts with galvanized staples. His hammer tap, tap, WHACK-ed along the perimeter of the property fixing the fence to the posts to straighten and redefine the boundary. Those cedar posts by the walkway have been standing in the ground for a dozen years and they are getting to the point where it would be wise to replace them. He stands and looks along the fence and savors a feeling of accomplishment.
2025
The old man holds the claw hammer in his left hand, his fingers cradling the metal head with the rotted wooden handle. He is up to his knees in weeds and this piece, this artifact is a curiosity. He found it on the ground by the old pickup truck that has been standing vigil for over fifty years by the fence. The old man studies the rusted hammer head and wonders how it fits into his life, or rather, if it does. This corner of the family property has not been attended to for decades. His mind has traced the memories of this lovely old yard in the middle of Boston. The fruit trees have all fallen into earth and the flower beds are shallow mounds under the detritus and new growth. A few ash trees and a maple have taken charge, their forms casting deep shadows preventing anything from growing too tall. He remembers seventy years ago sitting atop a vintage radio flyer wagon filled with brush and weeds that his sisters were joyously pushing toward a compost area. Their parents had recently bought the house and property for a song from the old widow who was dying alone here. The compost area was rapidly becoming a huge pile of green cuttings and pulled stalks of grasses and golden rod and aster and he sitting on the pile in the wagon making hand motions like the news reel of Pope Pius he saw at the neighborhood theater. His sisters were laughing uproariously as he sat and solemnly blessed the holly hocks and peony beds they were skirting. He was the youngest of five children and he was the last child to leave this home for places beyond the horizon. He’d joined the Navy as soon as he could legally. He left his mother and father here and went away and only returned for the funerals or to help with the house maintenance and maybe prune back a few limbs of the fruit trees and other duties. He was the only child, the only one of the offspring to take an interest in the property and the house and the condition of this lovely old yard.
1957
The old man patted his shirt pocket and drew out a package of cigarettes. He kept his eyes on the fence and the line of the wiring as well as the set of the posts as he slipped a cigarette into his mouth. He turned and walked along the cracked and tilted cement walkway that surrounded the house and led to the back of the property where his truck was parked. As he traversed the path he felt the familiar loss of feeling, the numbness and dizziness growing. The old man stopped and waited for his heart to moderate and for his breathing to give him air. He couldn’t catch his breath and the lack of oxygen caused him to nearly lose consciousness. This was normal for him; it had been going on for years and getting worse. He was familiar with the situation but the cause unknown. He nearly stopped walking but he knew he needed to be at a place where he could hold himself up to keep from falling over. He headed for his truck.
2025
The old man put the hammer head in his coat pocket and turned to follow a walkway toward the front of the house. The cement pathway was cracked and crumbled but still held sway amongst the weeds and grass. He followed it easily while he felt the steel with the fingers of his left hand. His mind was zeroing in on something familiar and he had a slight smile on his lips as he picked his way across this well-known landscape. The old man remembered the bench by the grape arbor and he found it and sat carefully on the remaining wooden seat. His gaze slipped over to the left where there were steps going up slope toward the grape arbor. He remembered as a child sitting on those steps making an attempt to drive finishing nails into two oak boards. His attempts to hammer the nails through the boards frustrated him greatly. His tries were thwarted when the nails refused to go into the wood and bent after a few blows with the hammer.
1957
The old man staggered as he neared the back porch of the house and he was running out of air and he was feeling weak and woozy. His eyes were searching for a landing spot just in case. Another few yards and he could catch a break by holding onto the back of the pickup truck. He glanced at the steps near the grape arbor and thought of his son who was now in the Navy and studying electronics. He loved his son and he was happy that the boy was grown and gone into the world. He felt relief as well as pride for the boy. He was reminded of the time his son grew frustrated trying to hammer finishing nails into oak boards and had come to him angry and crying and swearing to cover his tears. He couldn’t understand why the nails would bend as he tried driving them with this very same hammer the old man held in his right hand. The old man had taken the boy and shown him he needed to pre-drill a hole for the nails to pass through the hard wood, that nails couldn’t penetrate the fibers of the oak without help. He made a mental note to give this old hammer to his son, one he’d gotten from his father in Maine quite a while ago. He imagined it would please the boy to have it.
2025
The old man took from his pocket this now treasured find of his. He clearly recalled the shape of the hammer head and he felt the irony of the situation. This is that damned old hammer that gave him fits when he was trying to nail two boards together. He never could get a nail driven with this hammer. He’d had many hammers throughout his long life. He became handy with tools like his dad and he could fix most anything around the house. This hammer though was always a most uncompromising piece in his dad’s collection of tools. As a child his hands were never large or strong enough to command respect from the hammer. The head would wiggle and twist during his efforts to swing it accurately at the head of a nail. The hammer would fly toward the target and get lost along the way and strike a glancing blow and bend the nail or mar the wood but never fasten two pieces together. The old man lifted his head to search back toward the old pickup. He wondered how the hammer ended up on the ground. His dad was careful with his tools and it was not likely that he would leave it outdoors to become ruined by the weather.
1957
The old man made it to the pickup truck and held on to the tailgate. He was blacking out and now he was holding on with both hands. He couldn’t see what he did with his hammer but that was something he’d have to attend to later. Right now, he needed to hang on to the truck and keep his lungs moving. He could feel his heart beating rapidly in an uneven way and his lungs were not filling with air. He was losing consciousness. The old man turned away from the truck and made a move toward the back porch and as he did, he died.
2025
The old man rose from the bench and zipped the pocket of his coat shut to prevent the hammer from slipping away and getting lost. He walked carefully across the backyard retracing his steps past the pickup truck and along the old crumbling sidewalk. He opened the gate and left the yard to get to his car parked along the street. He turned and looked back briefly at the old property with its for sale sign nailed to the side of the house. With a slight shake of his old gray head, he continued to his car. He needed to get started on the road back to Maine.
G.M. Goodwin
11 July 2015
Playing Fair and Being Kind 