Confession II

Parish

Chapter 19: Confession II

The cow is lame. Tag 519, a ten-year-old Angus cow, third-calf, one of Earl's best producers, the producer being the cow whose calves are heavy and healthy and that sell well at the October sale, the selling-well being the measure by which a commercial cow is judged, the judgment being: Does this cow pay for herself? And 519 pays for herself. 519 has paid for herself three times over, the three calves being the three payments, each calf worth $800 or $900 at the sale, the value exceeding the cow's annual cost of maintenance, the excess being the profit, and the profit is thin, but the profit exists, and the existing of the profit is the reason the cow is in the herd, the reason being the math, the math that runs beneath the ranching like the current that runs beneath the river, invisible but essential.

The lameness is in the right front. Clem can see it from across the pen, the way 519 places the right front gingerly, the gingerly placement being the favoring, the favoring being the signal that Clem reads the way he reads all the signals, automatically, without conscious analysis, the reading being the reflex that twenty-eight years of practice have installed in his nervous system, the reflex that says: That animal is not moving correctly, and the not-correctly is the problem, and the problem is in the right front.

The chute. 519 enters the chute and the headgate catches her and the catching is the containment and the containment is the beginning of the work. Clem moves to the right front. He lifts the hoof. He knows what he will find before he finds it because the lameness and the season and the weather tell him: Hoof abscess. July. The heat and the moisture. The hooves soften in the mud and the softened hooves admit the bacteria and the bacteria enter the white line — the junction between the hoof wall and the sole — and the entering produces the abscess, the pocket of infection that forms inside the hoof, and the forming produces the pressure, and the pressure produces the pain, and the pain produces the lameness.

He finds it. The sole is warm to the touch, warmer than the other hooves, the warmth being the inflammation, the inflammation being the infection, the infection being beneath the sole in the space between the sole and the coffin bone, the bone that is the hoof's skeleton, the structure inside the hoof that the hoof protects, and the abscess is pressing on the bone and the pressing is the pain and the pain is the lameness.

He takes the hoof knife. He pares the sole, shaving thin layers of horn from the bottom of the hoof, the shaving being the search, the search for the abscess's opening, the opening that will be visible as a dark spot in the sole, the dark spot being the tract, the tract being the path that the abscess has taken from the white line inward, the path that Clem follows with the knife, following the dark into the hoof, the following being the surgical exploration, the exploration that will end when the knife reaches the abscess and the abscess releases.

Earl stands by the chute. He watches Clem work. The watching is the participation, the rancher's contribution to the veterinary work being the operating of the headgate and the watching of the veterinarian and the speaking of the words that come when the watching creates the space, the space that is the confession's room, the room that opens when the veterinarian's hands are on the animal and the rancher's eyes are on the veterinarian's hands and the attention is divided between the work and the watching and the division creates the opening, the opening through which the words come.

Earl does not begin immediately. The beginning takes time. The beginning requires the work to establish its rhythm, the rhythm of the knife on the sole, the rhythm that is the confession's metronome, the steady beat that allows the words to enter.

Clem pares. The sole gives up its layers. The dark spot appears. He follows it. The knife goes deeper. The horn is softer here, softer near the abscess, the softness being the infection's mark, the mark that the knife reads the way the fingers read the uterus, through the resistance, through the texture.

"Lorraine almost left me," Earl said.

The sentence arrives the way all of Earl's sentences arrive, from the side, obliquely, entering the space between the knife and the sole the way a bird enters a barn, suddenly, unexpectedly, the sentence there before Clem registers that the sentence has come.

Clem does not look up. The not-looking-up is the practice. The not-looking-up is the confessional screen.

"It was 1996," Earl said. "We'd been married twenty-two years. The girls were in high school. I was running the ranch and I was — I don't know what I was. I was forty-four and I was angry and the anger didn't have a reason, or the reason was everything, the reason was the ranch and the cattle and the prices and the weather and the fences and the bills, the reason was the accumulation of twenty-two years of getting up and doing the same thing and the doing producing the same result and the result being: enough. Just enough. Never more than enough. And the just-enough was the anger, because the anger was the wanting of more and the not-getting of more and the not-getting being the failure, or feeling like the failure."

The knife finds the edge of the abscess. The horn changes color. Dark brown becoming black. The black is the infection. The black is the pus that the abscess has produced, the product of the bacteria and the body's immune response, the immune cells and the bacteria and the dead tissue combining into the material that is the abscess's content, the content that is under pressure, the pressure that will release when the knife opens the pocket.

"I was hard to live with," Earl said. "I know that now. I knew it then but I couldn't stop being hard to live with because the hardness was the only thing I had, the hardness was the shell, the shell that I put on in the morning and wore all day and the wearing was the work and the work was the ranch and the ranch was the hardness and the hardness came home with me and Lorraine got the hard part, the part that should have stayed in the pasture, the part that was for the cattle and the weather and the bills, but the part came home because the part was me and I was the part and the part was all I had."

Clem listens. He works. The knife's blade is in the hoof, in the dark place where the abscess lives. He is close. The horn is soft and black and the softness is the proximity, the proximity to the release.

"She told me one night," Earl said. "October. The girls were at a football game. We were in the kitchen. She told me she was going to leave. She said: Earl, I love you but I cannot live with the way you are. She said: The way you are is not the way you were and the way you were is the man I married and the man I married is gone and the man who is here is not someone I can live with. She said it like that. She said it clear. She always said things clear."

The abscess opens. The knife's tip pierces the pocket and the pressure releases and the pus emerges, dark and foul-smelling, the smell that is the infection's signature, the smell that Clem has smelled a thousand times, the smell that is unpleasant but that is also the relief, the relief being the opening, the opening being the drainage, the drainage being the treatment, the body's imprisoned infection released from the prison that the body built around it, the body having walled off the infection the way the levee walls off the river, the walling-off being the containment, but the containment is not the cure, the cure is the opening, the opening that lets the bad out.

"I didn't know what to say," Earl said. "I didn't say anything. I stood in the kitchen and she stood in the kitchen and the not-saying was the proof of what she said, because if I could have said something, if I could have said: I'll change, or: I'm sorry, or: Tell me what to do, then the saying would have been the beginning of the changing, but I couldn't say it, I couldn't say anything, because the hardness was the shell and the shell didn't have a mouth, the shell was closed, the shell was the protection, the protection that protected me from everything including the wife who was standing in the kitchen telling me she was leaving."

Clem drains the abscess. He presses on the sole and the pus flows out through the opening he has made, the flowing being the evacuation, the emptying of the pocket that was the cause of the pain, the pain that will diminish now, will lessen over the next two or three days as the infection drains and the body heals the space that the infection occupied, the healing being the body's work, the body's practice, the body knowing how to heal itself once the obstacle to the healing has been removed.

The obstacle to the healing has been removed.

"She packed a bag," Earl said. "She put it in the car. She drove to her sister's in Natchez. She was gone for eleven days. Eleven days. Do you know what eleven days is on a ranch? Eleven days is: You feed the cattle alone. You check the fences alone. You come home to a house that is empty and the empty house is the echo of what you are, because you are empty, because the thing that filled you left, and the leaving was your doing, and your doing was the not-doing, the not-saying, the not-changing, the shell."

Clem flushes the hoof with antiseptic. The solution enters the cavity that the abscess occupied and cleans it, the cleaning being the next step after the draining, the step that removes the remaining bacteria, the remaining infection, the remnants of the thing that caused the pain.

"I called her on the third day," Earl said. "I didn't know what to say and I called her and I didn't say anything and she didn't say anything and we sat on the phone not saying anything and the not-saying on the phone was different from the not-saying in the kitchen, because the not-saying in the kitchen was the shell and the not-saying on the phone was the — I don't know. The not-saying on the phone was the trying. The trying to get past the shell. The trying to find the mouth that the shell didn't have."

He paused. Clem packed the hoof with cotton soaked in betadine, the cotton filling the cavity, the filling being the bandage, the internal bandage that will keep the drainage open and the infection out and the healing moving forward. He wrapped the hoof with the vet wrap, the stretchy bandage that adheres to itself and that holds the cotton in place, the wrapping being the protection, the protection that will last three days until Clem returns to change the bandage and check the healing.

"She came back on the eleventh day," Earl said. "She came back. She didn't say: I forgive you. She didn't say: Everything is fine. She came back and she unpacked the bag and she put the bag in the closet and she made dinner and we ate dinner and the eating of the dinner was the coming-back, the eating being the act that said: I am here. I am here again. The being-here is what I am offering and the offering is conditional, and the condition is: Change."

Clem set the hoof down. He straightened. His back ached. The ache was the work's receipt.

"I changed," Earl said. "I don't know if I changed enough. I don't know if I changed the right things. I changed the things I could see, the things that I knew were the hardness — the silence, the anger, the coming-home-and-not-speaking, the going-to-bed-and-not-touching, the not-touching being the worst thing, the not-touching being the shell's most visible feature, the shell that would not touch and would not be touched, and I changed the not-touching. I touched her. I touched her hand when she gave me the coffee. I touched her shoulder when I passed her in the kitchen. I touched her. The touching was the change. The touching was the shell cracking."

He stopped. Clem waited. The waiting was the practice.

"I never told anyone this," Earl said. "Thirty years. I never told anyone that she left. I never told anyone that I was the reason she left. I never told anyone what I was. What I am. What I was before she changed me. Because she changed me. Not the other way. She changed me by leaving and coming back and the leaving-and-coming-back was the changing, because the leaving showed me what the empty was, what the ranch was without her, what the house was without her, what I was without her, and what I was without her was: nothing. The nothing that the shell protected. The nothing that the hardness hid."

Clem released the headgate. The cow backed out of the chute. She placed her right front gingerly, still tender, still sore from the abscess and the treatment, but the tenderness would diminish, the soreness would fade, the hoof would heal, the healing being the body's response to the opening, the opening that let the infection out, the letting-out being the cure.

"When she died," Earl said, and the words came slowly now, slowly the way words come when the words are approaching the center, the center that has been circled and orbited and approached from every angle over two years of conversations at the chute, two years of talking about the roses and the garden and the coffee from the percolator, two years of approaching the center by way of the periphery, and now the center was here, the center was the words, and the words came slowly because the center is the hardest place to speak from.

"When she died I wanted to tell her," Earl said. "I wanted to tell her that the eleven days were the most important days of my life. That the leaving was the gift. That the coming-back was the miracle. That the thirty years after the coming-back were the real marriage, the marriage that the leaving made possible, the marriage that the shell would have destroyed if the shell had not been cracked by the eleven days in her sister's spare bedroom in Natchez. I wanted to tell her. I wanted to say: Thank you for leaving. Thank you for showing me the empty. Thank you for coming back."

He stopped.

"I didn't tell her," he said. "She died and I didn't tell her. She died in the living room in the hospital bed that the hospice brought and I was in the chair beside her and she was not conscious, she had not been conscious for two days, and I held her hand and the holding of the hand was the touching, the touching that was the change, the touching that she taught me by leaving, and I held her hand and she died and I didn't tell her."

Clem stood beside the chute. The chute was empty. The cow was back in the pen. The morning's work was done — the abscess drained, the hoof packed, the bandage wrapped, the treatment completed. The treatment was complete.

Earl stood beside the chute. He was not looking at Clem. He was looking at the pasture, at the cattle in the pasture, at the cattle that he and Lorraine had raised together on the land they had worked together, the cattle that were the connection and the land that was the connection and the connection was what Clem serviced when he serviced the cattle.

Clem did not respond to the confession. He did not say: She knew. He did not say: You don't need to have said it for her to have known it. He did not say: The touching was the telling. He did not say these things because these things were the things a therapist would say or a pastor would say, the things that would be true and that would be comforting and that were not Clem's to say, because Clem was not a therapist and was not a pastor. Clem was the veterinarian. Clem was the man who held the hoof while the words came out. And the holding of the hoof was the holding of the man. And the holding was enough.

He packed his instruments. He washed the hoof knife and the nippers and put them in their leather roll. He disposed of the used cotton and the syringe. He loaded the truck. The loading was the routine, the routine that followed the work, the work that was the treatment and the listening, the treatment of the cow and the listening to the man, the two acts performed simultaneously in the space of the chute, in the space where the veterinary medicine and the human confession occupied the same minutes, the same air, the same morning.

Earl walked him to the truck. The custom. The walking. The transition from the chute to the truck, from the confession to the ordinary, from the inside to the outside.

They stood by the truck. The morning was hot. July hot. The heat pressing down on the ranch and the cattle and the two men standing by the white truck with the veterinary box.

"The roses are blooming," Earl said.

The sentence was the return. The return to the periphery. The return from the center to the orbit, from the confession to the roses, from the thing that had never been said to the thing that was always said, the roses being the safe ground, the ground that Earl could stand on, the ground that did not require the cracking of the shell, because the shell had been cracked, just now, in the chute, and the cracking was enough for one morning, and the enough was the roses.

"I'll come back Thursday to check the hoof," Clem said.

Earl nodded. The nod was the acknowledgment. The acknowledgment that the conversation was over and the next conversation would begin on Thursday and the Thursday conversation would be about the hoof and the healing and the roses and whatever else the chute's space produced, and the production would be the practice, and the practice would continue, and the continuing was the thing.

Clem drove out. The cattle guard sang. The road stretched south. The parish opened before him, flat and green and hot, the heat sitting on everything with the weight that July's heat has, the weight that compresses and reveals, and what the heat had revealed this morning was: Earl Fontenot, seventy-two, cattle rancher, widower, a man who carried a shell for twenty-two years and whose wife cracked the shell by leaving and the leaving was the gift and the gift was the marriage and the marriage was the thirty years that followed and the thirty years ended in April two years ago in a hospital bed in the living room and the ending was the death and the death was the beginning of the grief and the grief was the roses and the percolator and the blue gate and the cattle and the chute and the confession.

The confession that does not require a response. The confession that requires a witness. The confession that Clem witnesses by holding the hoof, by draining the abscess, by packing the cavity, by wrapping the bandage, by doing the work that creates the space in which the words can be spoken, and the speaking is the relief, the relief that is the opening, the opening that lets the bad out.

Clem drives. The confessions ride with him. Earl's confession. Marie-Claire's confession. The confessions of every farmer and rancher and animal-keeper who has ever stood beside the chute and said the thing they cannot say anywhere else. The confessions accumulate in Clem the way the sediment accumulates in the river, layer by layer, and the accumulation is the weight, and the weight is the practice, and the practice is the driving, and the driving is the parish, and the parish is the morning, this morning, this July morning in Concordia Parish, Louisiana, where the hoof has been opened and the abscess has been drained and the man has said the thing he needed to say and the saying was the opening and the opening was the healing and the healing has begun.