Train Passing a Man Who Has His Hands in His Pockets MAX ZIMMER I. Dorothy's Recital Deaf, Ralph looks at the motion of her throat and moudi, and how she, his daughter he has diought at times, expresses the inflections of her song for his sake, widi her hands and her arms, when she does not sing widi her hands in die pockets of her skirt. In the diird row of the small auditorium, you feel him behind you: he wants to put his own hands into die pockets of his overalls, and work die filaments of lint and tobacco up under his fingernails and out again, or warm his keys or his watch in his palm. Or the tuning fork. He diinks, for now, the tuning fork has made her his daughter. For now, he has it in his pocket, and he wants to hold it. Beside him, his wife Rudi writes. She holds die small pad in her fist, and the pen in her odier fist, near her face, as diough trying to strike a match in a wind. He waits beside her to see what she has written. And he knows diat while he looks at her daughter, he must keep his hands in view on his lap, on the diin armrests when diey are vacant, on his knees. He has his wife's conditions. He lifts a hand to his face, smells the edge of his thumb; it has the smell of Black Velvet. The smell bodi calms and provokes him. Rudi has also forbidden him to place his arm across die backs of her various chairs at die recitals of her daughter. He would argue, now, diat she was his daughter; you, perhaps a caseworker, would equivocate about giving die daughter to him or to her, were Ralph Max Zimmer teaches at the State University of New York, Oswego. ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW67 and Rudi to divorce. Ruth once wrote him, when he had lowered his arm around her and put his hand on her shoulder: Take your hand off you mother hen. One to him. Now she suddenly holds die pad in his face. He squints. She has her other hand on die back of his hand, and holds it to his knee. Where he hit her this afternoon, on her shoulder at die railyard, the bruise would now look like a bloody yellow ear. One to her. She has written: We're staying this time. After what you did this afternoon we have to stay or else talk will start & won't stop until it's gotten to this afternoon. She squeezes the back of his hand; perhaps he has finished reading; yet he looks intently at the pad, and when she draws it away at her daughter. The air in the auditorium is dead. The woman before him has a scarf tied over her head. He wants to put his workshoes on the rung of her folding chair. But he is afraid he would not hear it if he were chastised, still afraid diat everyone would hear but him. It still bewilders him—Ruth has taken her hand away from his, he feels the last of her sweat vanish—that air can be this dead. And lastly, while he looks at her daughter, he cannot place his hands over his ears; in seven years he has not heard a sound except what noises have pushed up his throat and alerted his dog. Now, at die amateur hour, he looks at Dorothy and is listening, listening. And it has the curve of a question mark when he cups his hand to his ear. II. To Him In February, seven years ago, Ralph Summerhays worked die swing shift, four p.m. until midnight, as a brakeman for the Denver & Rio Grande Western depot in Salt Lake City. He'd taken to smoking Pall Malls, because he'd found he needed more to do dian read magazines in the swing room between trains. Smoking had let him stay outside, on the docks or in the yard. Later, he'd taken to drinking, and by February he was accustomed to the pint bottles of Black Velvet that pulled like...
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Jun 1, 2007
Nick Bosanquet 
Open Access