The Parish

Parish

Chapter 28: The Parish

Clem wakes at 4:30. The clock on the nightstand glows red in the dark of the bedroom, the same dark, the same clock, the same red glow that has been the first thing Clem's eyes have seen every morning for twenty-eight years, the glow being the morning's opening note, the note that starts the day's music, the music that is the practice, the practice that is the day.

But today the practice is not the day. Today the day is the surgery. Today the clock's red glow is the opening note of a different music, the music of the hospital and the gown and the anesthesia and the surgeon's hands, the hands that will do to Clem's body what Clem's hands have done to a thousand animal bodies, which is: Open. Find the thing. Remove the thing. Close. The surgery being the same surgery regardless of the species, the same sequence of opening and finding and removing and closing that is the surgeon's art, the art that Clem practices on animals and that Dr. Nguyen practices on humans and that the practicing is the same, the hands knowing the same knowing, the reaching into the dark and the finding of the thing and the removing of the thing and the closing of the space where the thing was.

He lies in bed. Renee is beside him. Renee is awake. He knows she is awake because her breathing has the quality of the awake, the breathing that is not the slow deep rhythm of sleep but the shallower, more alert rhythm of a person who is listening, who is lying in the dark listening for the sound that says the other person is awake, and the sound is Clem's breathing, and Clem's breathing has changed, and the changing is the signal, and the signal says: I am awake. We are both awake. The day has begun.

He does not get up immediately. He lies in the dark for a moment that is not measured by the clock but by the body, the body measuring the moment in heartbeats and breaths, the body counting its own rhythms in the dark of the bedroom on the morning of the surgery, the counting being the body's inventory, the body's version of Clem's morning check of the veterinary box, the systematic confirmation that the tools are in their places, the tools being the heart and the lungs and the kidneys and the liver and the prostate that will be removed today, the prostate that is one of the body's tools, one of the compartments in the body's box, the compartment that has developed the problem and that the problem requires the removal and the removal is the surgery.

He gets up. He does not put on the jeans from the chair. He does not pull the LSU t-shirt over his head. He puts on the clothes that Renee laid out last night, the clean clothes, the going-to-the-hospital clothes, the clothes that are not the uniform of the practice but the uniform of the patient, the uniform that says: Today I am not the veterinarian, today I am the man, the man whose body will be on the table, the man whose body will be opened.

He goes to the kitchen. He cannot eat. The surgery requires an empty stomach, the emptiness being the preparation, the preparation that the anesthesia requires, the anesthesia being the drug that will take Clem from the conscious to the unconscious, from the awake to the asleep, the artificial sleep that allows the surgeon to work, the sleep that is deeper than sleep, the sleep that is the absence, the total absence of the awareness that has been Clem's primary instrument for twenty-eight years, the awareness that he uses to read the animals and the farmers and the parish, the awareness that will be turned off today, turned off like the refrigerated unit when the truck's engine stops, the hum stopping, the awareness stopping, the stopping being the surgery's requirement.

He cannot eat but he makes coffee. He makes it out of habit, the habit being the body's morning, the body doing what the body does at 4:30 regardless of what the day holds, the habit being the comfort, the comfort of the familiar sequence, the French press and the dark roast and the standing at the counter and the drinking of the coffee that is the fuel, the fuel that the body does not need today because the body will not work today but that the body wants because the wanting is the habit and the habit is the comfort and the comfort is the morning.

He takes the coffee to the porch. He sits in the chair. The green rocking chair. The chair that has held him for twelve years of evenings and that holds him now in the morning, the morning that is not an evening but that has the evening's quality, the quality of the rest, the quality of the sitting, the quality of the not-working that is the chair's purpose, the chair being the place where the working stops and the sitting begins and the sitting is the rest.

But the sitting this morning is not the rest. The sitting this morning is the waiting. The waiting for the drive to Baton Rouge. The waiting for the hospital. The waiting for the surgery. The waiting that is the morning's activity, the activity of the patient, the patient who has no other activity, the patient who cannot drive the truck or open the box or reach for the tools or do the work, the patient who can only sit and wait and drink the coffee and watch the parish wake up.

The parish is waking up. Clem can see it from the porch. The Carter Street lights are still on, the sodium-vapor orange, the orange that will be extinguished by the dawn that is coming, the dawn that is the October dawn, earlier than the summer dawn, the October sun rising at 6:48 instead of the June sun's 5:42, the later rising being the season's fact, the fact that the mornings are darker longer and that the darker-longer is the October quality.

The first light appears in the east, over the river, over Natchez, the light that precedes the sun, the light that is not the sun but the sun's announcement, the announcement that says: I am coming, the day is coming, the light is coming. The light is gray at first, the gray of the pre-dawn, the gray that is not a color but the absence of the dark, the absence that precedes the arrival, the arrival of the color, the color that will be the day.

The gray becomes blue. The blue becomes gold. The gold is the October light, the light that Clem has been seeing with the sharpened attention, the attention that the diagnosis provided, the light that is the parish's best light, the light that makes the flat green land glow with the beauty that is always there but that the sharpened seeing sees more fully, the fully-seeing being the gift.

The sun clears the tree line. The light crosses the soybeans. The soybeans that are being harvested, the fields half-cut, the combines parked at the field edges waiting for the day's work, the combines that will resume the cutting and the threshing and the separating when the dew dries and the day's work begins. The soybeans catching the October light and the light making the yellowed plants golden, the golden being the beauty of the thing at its end, the plant at the end of its growing, the plant having produced what it was grown to produce and now standing in the field waiting to be harvested, the waiting being the plant's last activity, the activity of the completed.

The river is visible from the porch. Not the river itself but the levee that marks the river's boundary, the levee visible as the long low line on the horizon, the line that is the parish's horizon, the line that divides the parish from the river, the parish from the water, the living from the force that could end the living. The levee is quiet. The levee is October-quiet, the quietest the levee is all year, the river at its lowest, the gauge reading twenty-four feet, the number that is the comfortable number, the number that the parish does not watch because the number does not require watching, the number being the October gift, the gift of the river's retreat.

Somewhere in the parish, a cow is calving. Clem knows this because October is calving season for the spring-bred cows, the cows that were bred in January and that are due now, the gestation being 283 days, the 283 days having elapsed, the cow's body having carried the calf through the spring and the summer and into the fall, the carrying being the cow's work, the work that ends with the calving, the calving that is happening somewhere in the parish right now, on a farm that Clem knows, in a pasture that Clem has visited, the cow doing what cows do, which is: Push. The push that brings the calf from the dark into the light. The push that does not require the veterinarian, most of the time, the most-of-the-time being the normal, the normal being: The cow calves on her own, the calf comes, the calf breathes, the calf stands, the calf nurses, the life begins. The veterinarian is there for the abnormal, for the dystocia, for the calf that is stuck, for the head that is turned. But the normal does not need the veterinarian. The normal does not need Clem.

Somewhere in the parish, a horse is lame. Not Dex — Dex is managed, Dex is comfortable — but another horse, on another farm, the lameness being the condition that the parish's horses produce with regularity, the lameness being one of the things that horses do, the body producing the pain that produces the limp that produces the call that produces the vet. But the call will go to Dr. Tran today. The call will go to the covering veterinarian. The call will be answered and the horse will be treated and the treatment will be the practice, the practice continuing, the continuing being the parish's nature.

Somewhere in the parish, a man is standing beside an animal. The man is standing beside the animal in the October morning, in the light that is the best light, in the air that is the best air, the cool October air that smells of the harvest and the turning, and the man is standing beside the animal and the man is talking. The man is telling the animal the things he cannot tell anyone else. The man is telling the animal about the wife who left or the wife who died or the job he lost or the child who is sick or the money that is not enough or the loneliness that is the condition, the condition of living in a parish where everyone knows your business and no one knows your heart. The man is confessing to the animal because the animal listens the way Clem listens — without judgment, without advice, with the simple presence of a living thing that is there, that is paying attention, that is bearing witness.

The animal listens. The animal listens the way the levee bears witness to the river, by standing beside it, by holding, by being the thing that stands between the weight and the breaking.

Clem sits on the porch. The parish is waking up. The light is crossing the land. The soybeans are golden. The levee is quiet. The river is low. The cattle are grazing in the morning cool. The horses are standing in the pastures. The goats are in the brush, the bells ringing, the bells being the sound of the parish's morning, the sound that says: The goats are working, the goats are eating, the goats are doing what goats do, which is everything they want to do and nothing they don't.

Renee comes to the porch. She carries her coffee. She sits in her chair. The chair beside Clem's chair. The two chairs on the porch in the October morning.

She does not speak. Clem does not speak. The not-speaking is the silence that is not empty but full, full of the thirty years of marriage and the twenty-eight years of practice and the twenty-eight years of library and the two daughters and the 8,000 books and the 214,000 miles and the confessions and the roses and the goats and the river and the levee and the parish. The silence is full of everything they have been and everything they are and everything they will be, the will-be being the future that the surgery makes uncertain in the way that all futures are uncertain, the uncertainty being the human condition, the condition that the prognosis moderates but does not eliminate, the prognosis being excellent but the excellent being a probability and the probability being a number and the number being the best guess, the best guess being the closest the future comes to the certain.

The silence holds them. The porch holds them. The morning holds them. The parish holds them.

Clem looks at the parish. He looks at it from the porch that is his porch on the street that is his street in the town that is his town in the parish that is his parish, the his being the belonging, the belonging that twenty-eight years of practice have earned, the earning being the daily driving and treating and listening and holding and carrying, the daily giving of the self to the place, the giving that produces the belonging, the belonging that is the his.

He belongs to the parish. The parish belongs to him. The belonging is mutual, the way all belonging is mutual, the man shaping himself to the place and the place shaping itself to the man and the shaping being complete now, after twenty-eight years, the man and the place being the same shape, and the shape is the parish, and the parish is the man, and the man is sitting on the porch in the October morning watching the parish wake up and the watching is the love.

He loves the parish. He loves it the way he has loved it for twenty-eight years, silently, through the work, through the daily driving and treating and listening and holding, the love expressed not in words but in the practice, the practice being the love's form, the form that the love takes when the love is a man and a place and the man has given himself to the place and the place has given itself to the man and the giving is the love.

He loves Renee. He has loved Renee for thirty years. The love is the hand on the hand. The love is the rice and gravy. The love is the evening on the porch. The love is the morning on the porch. The love is the coffee and the silence and the chairs and the thirty years of chairs.

He loves his daughters. Margaux in Baton Rouge. Colette in New Orleans. The daughters who left the parish for the cities and the leaving was the evidence that the raising worked and the raising was the love. He will see Margaux today, in Baton Rouge, at the hospital. Margaux is coming. Colette is coming. The daughters are coming to the hospital because the coming is the love, the love that the leaving did not end, the love that the distance did not diminish, the love that the diagnosis has intensified, the intensity being the attention, the attention being the love.

He loves the animals. He has loved the animals for twenty-eight years, the love that is not sentimental but practical, the practical love that says: I will care for you, I will treat you, I will hold you, I will do the thing that your body needs, the doing being the love, the love of the veterinarian for the animals that are his patients, the patients that are not his but that are his, the his being the responsibility, the responsibility being the love.

He loves the mornings. He loves the 4:30 waking and the dark kitchen and the coffee and the truck and the box and the roads and the driving, the driving through the parish in the early light, the driving being the practice's opening act, the opening act that is the love's form, the form of a man in a truck driving through a place he loves to do the work that is the love.

The morning is a morning in October in Concordia Parish, Louisiana. The morning is a morning like all mornings, carrying what all mornings carry.

What all mornings carry.

The mornings carry the possibility. The possibility that the day will ask more of you than you have. The possibility that the calf will be stuck and the head will be turned and the reaching and the finding and the turning will require more than the hands have. The possibility that the confession will be heavier than the carrying can hold. The possibility that the river will rise and the levee will be tested and the testing will require more than the engineering can guarantee. The possibility that the body will produce the thing that the body should not produce and the producing will require the surgery and the surgery will require the absence and the absence will require the faith, the faith that the practice will continue and the parish will continue and the continuing is the nature of the thing, the nature being the persisting, the persisting being the parish's character and the river's character and the levee's character and the morning's character.

The morning carries the possibility that the day will ask more of you than you have.

And you will give it anyway.

Because giving what you do not have is the definition of care. You give what you do not have when the calf is stuck at 2 AM and the hands are tired and the back aches and the body has been awake for twenty-two hours and the giving-what-you-do-not-have is the reaching into the dark and the finding of the head and the turning of the head and the pulling of the calf into the light. You give what you do not have when the farmer confesses the thing he has never told anyone and the hearing of the thing requires the space that you do not have because the space is already full of the other confessions and the other griefs and the other weights, but you make the space, you make it by carrying more than you can carry, which is the giving of what you do not have.

You give what you do not have when the wife packs the bag and drives to her sister's and the eleven days are the empty and the empty is the learning and the learning is: Touch her. Touch her hand when she gives you the coffee. Touch her shoulder when you pass her in the kitchen. The touching is the giving of what you do not have, the giving of the tenderness that the shell hid, the tenderness that was always there but that the shell would not release, and the releasing is the giving, and the giving is the care.

You give what you do not have when you drive to Angola every third Sunday, three hours each way, to visit the man who hit you, to hold your daughter on your lap while the man plays "You Are My Sunshine" on the guitar they let him have, to give the child the father that the father's violence should have forfeited but that the child's need has not forfeited, the need being the thing, the child's need being the thing that produces the giving, the giving of the drive and the visiting and the holding, the giving that costs you more than you have and that you give anyway.

You give what you do not have when you keep the library open against the budget cuts and the council's indifference, when you shelve the books and turn on the lights and welcome the patrons and give the child the library card that the child carries in her pocket like gold, the giving being the library and the library being the giving and the giving being the care.

You give what you do not have when you maintain the roses. When you prune them at the right angle and feed them at the right time and water them at the right depth and the maintaining is not love of roses but love of the woman who planted them, the woman who is dead, the woman whose hands were in this soil and whose hands are gone and whose hands you are replacing with your hands, the replacing being the giving, the giving of the care that the dead cannot give, the giving being the love, the love continuing after the death, the continuing being the giving of what you do not have, because what you do not have is her, and the not-having is the grief, and the grief is the fuel, and the fuel powers the giving.

Care is the practice. The practice is the parish. The parish is home.

Clem sits on the porch. Renee sits beside him. The October morning is full. The morning is full of the light and the air and the parish and the waking. The morning is full of the possibility. The morning carries what all mornings carry, which is the day, the day that will ask, and the asking will be answered, and the answering is the practice, and the practice is the care, and the care is the giving, and the giving is the love.

The parish is waking up. The sun is over the soybeans. The river is low, September low becoming October low, the summer's water passed. The levee is quiet. The levee holds what the levee has always held, which is the line between the water and the land, the line between the force and the parish, the line that is the prayer, the prayer that is: Hold.

The levee holds. The levee has held for ninety-nine years. The levee will hold today. The levee's holding is the faith, the faith that the engineered thing will do what the engineered thing was built to do, and the faith is the parish's, and the parish's faith is the morning, and the morning is here.

Clem sits on the porch. Renee sits beside him. The coffee is warm. The air is cool. The light is golden. The parish is the parish. Clem is Clem. The morning is a morning in October in Concordia Parish, Louisiana.

They will drive to Baton Rouge. They will drive across the bridge, the bridge that connects the low side to the high side, and they will drive east on Highway 84 and south on Highway 61 and the driving will be the leaving, the leaving of the parish, the leaving that is temporary, the temporary being the plan, the plan being: Leave. Surgery. Recovery. Return. The return being the thing, the return to the parish, the return to the truck, the return to the box, the return to the roads, the return to the practice, the return to the hands reaching into the dark and finding the thing and fixing the thing.

The return. Six weeks. The six weeks are the pause. The pause is the body's requirement. The body requiring the pause the way the parish requires the levee, the pause being the protection, the protection that allows the healing, the healing that allows the return.

But now is not the leaving. Now is the porch. Now is the morning. Now is the coffee and the silence and the parish waking up and the sun on the soybeans and the levee quiet and the river low and the cattle grazing and the horses standing and the goats eating and the bells ringing.

Now is the morning.

Renee reaches over. She takes his hand. She holds it. The hand that has held the parish for twenty-eight years. The hand that has been inside a thousand animals. The hand that has carried the confessions and the diagnoses and the births and the deaths and the weight. The hand that is scarred and calloused and arthritic. The hand that is Clem's hand. The hand that is the practice. The hand that is the care.

She holds the hand. The holding is the love. The love is the care. The care is the practice. The practice is the parish. The parish is home.

Clem sits on the porch. Renee sits beside him. The parish is waking up. The morning carries what all mornings carry, which is the possibility that the day will ask more of you than you have and that you will give it anyway, because giving what you do not have is the definition of care, and care is the practice, and the practice is the parish, and the parish is home.

The morning is here. The parish is here. The porch holds them. The chairs hold them. The silence holds them. The love holds them.

The levee holds.

The morning carries. The parish wakes. The sun crosses the soybeans. The river moves south, the way it has always moved south, carrying the continent's water to the Gulf, and the carrying is the river's practice, and the practice is the movement, and the movement is the constant, and the constant is the parish's companion, the river beside the levee beside the parish beside the morning beside the man beside the woman beside the hand in the hand.

Clem sits on the porch. The parish is the parish.

The morning is enough.