King Croesus of Culliver County

       

                  
  Photo: National Bank of The Republic of Kazakhstan. 

Long gone were the days when a man with a good arm could stand at the intersection that marked the center of Exeter, Pennsylvania, in the heart of Culliver County, and throw a stone and not worry about hitting a thing, except maybe the big, brick building a hundred yards away on Route 130 that housed the Old Brown Hound Inn, and only if he were very strong. The tranquility of the once rural community had been all but replaced by the shopping centers, traffic jams and litter strewn along the roadsides. Garfield Cockerhill sometimes shook his head in disgrace, and wondered if the next generation would grow up without seeing a single tree, a deer, a big-sized fishing lake or even a 50 square foot patch of grass in Culliver County.  Cockerhill was one of the handful of people who remembered Culliver County back in the day when there were lots of trees and grass and deer and ponds and fishing lakes and streams. And land. Cockerhill never touted himself as overly sophisticated or refined- he'd never tasted calamari or escargot, couldn't quote Shakespeare, never even went to high school- but he was smart enough to know that when something was plentiful and cheap you bought plenty of it, and that was why he and his four brothers had purchased over 300 acres of prime farmland throughout the county when they were discharged from the service in ’45. "I'm just a poor old country fellow," he would announce with a loud chuckle, a wad of "Good Ol' Boy" tobacco wedged under his lower lip. But he'd served in the Second World War and he'd been to India and China and Burma and Japan and even France once, and in the fifty-odd years since his humble beginnings in Culliver County, the former cesspool cleaner, garbage hauler, township supervisor and justice of the peace had come to regard himself as something of a local dignitary. 

Cockerhill was the habitual type; he still got up at seven o'clock every morning like he had every day for the past 55 years, even though he had officially retired six years ago. Trouble with most folks is that they were plain lazy, not like Garfield Cockerhill. He fixed his own breakfast every morning- eggs, toast, bacon occasionally coffee. No point in waking the wife, poor lady worked sometimes six days a week, and she had hollered at him something awful that time he knocked on her bedroom door one morning because he had brewed a fresh pot of coffee and wanted to know if she'd like a cup. He'd shrugged the whole matter off figuring she was probably tired and a little cranky and women got moody sometimes, that was just the way they were. Cockerhill and his first wife had a good marriage, but she was long gone, rest her soul. So he ate breakfast by himself every morning, and if the Misses wanted to join him she was welcome, but if not, that was fine, too.

Cockerhill didn't eat out much, though occasionally he and his brother Mark and Ralph Little would have lunch at Eddie's Grill. Food wasn't too bad, but it cost too much to eat out, with everybody expecting an extra ten percent or whatever on top of what the meal cost. "Do I get a free cup of coffee with my lunch?" he would ask Charlene the waitress. "How about my senior citizen discount?" And the young lady would blush and not know what to say and he and Mark and Ralph would bust out laughing.

But Cockerhill wasn't laughing too hard the day he got a hernia after trying to lift a coffee table by himself that one of his tenants, old Mrs. Rutherford, had asked him to have someone remove from her apartment, because it was old and the surface was scratched and had a big round water stain in the middle. Benny Altman was supposed to help him that day, but when Cockerhill knocked on his door at 7:30 that morning Benny was too drunk to answer, so after five minutes of knocking and shouting "Hey, Benny!  Come on and get up, I told you I'd be here!" Cockerhill climbed back into his pickup truck and drove to Mrs. Rutherford's himself. Couldn't understand that Benny, who used to be one of his tenants and used to have a good job as a plumber, but then he took to drinking and his wife left him and took their daughter and Benny hadn't seen his own daughter in almost three years and didn't even seem to care. Now he lived at the Jennings Hotel on Route 130 in a room the size of a closet and constantly went from job to job.

A month after Cockerhill had his hernia operation on account of Benny's being too drunk and too lazy to help him like he had promised, Cockerhill pulled the truck up to Benny's door -he decided to take the Dodge Ram that day and not the Chevy Blazer or the Ford Escort or the 1947 Packard- fully restored- that he kept in the barn at one of his properties he off of Carsons Road, and honked the horn about five times. Then he shouted, "Hellooooo, Benny! Rise and shine!" After a minute he got out of the truck, shut the door good and hard, and started walking towards Benny's room, but that wasn't necessary because then Benny stumbled outside, bleary-eyed, hair standing on end, in his long johns, blinked confusedly and replied, "What's up, Gar?" And Cockerhill told him about the hernia and how Benny had stood him up last time and how he was even going to give Benny a couple of dollars but things were different now and Benny owed him one for standing him up last time and to be honest, not to be mean or ornery, it really was Benny's fault and he should go with Cockerhill to the farmers’ market in Dessington and help him pick up some stuff. Then he told Benny, much like a father or even a mother might, that he was plain lazy, and not to take offense, but that was the trouble with him and most folks. While he was at it he also told Benny again that he ought to quit drinking, though he knew that it wouldn't do any good. So Benny agreed, went back inside and came out a few minutes later wearing the same torn blue jeans and dirty red and black plaid shirt that he always wore. He climbed into the Ram next to Cockerhill, who started up the engine and pulled out onto Route 130. About a mile down the road Cockerhill rolled down the window, plucked out the tobacco he'd been chewing since seven that morning and tossed it away. He cursed a little when half of it landed inside the truck, but he could always have Benny clean it for him, maybe in a week or two. After ten minutes and a fresh lump of tobacco, they arrived at the Dessington Farmers' Market and Cockerhill pulled into the parking lot and some guy in a Corvette zoomed past and almost clipped the side of the Ram and Cockerhill swore again, a little harsher this time- fools out to learn to drive. 

Benny and Cockerhill walked around the market for a few minutes, it was a beautiful spring day and a good day for walking, and Cockerhill had marched twenty or more miles in a day when he was in the service and the weather was wet and 35 degrees colder. Spotting a table that looked interesting, he meandered over and Benny followed him, and on this table were pen knives, tools and about six or seven Morgan Silver Dollars. Picking up a screwdriver that had a little nick mark on the handle, Cockerhill squinted hard at the price label, looked like it said five dollars. He cleared his throat, turned his head so as to be polite, and spat a wad of phlegm and tobacco juice on the ground. Then turning back to the lady behind the table he straightened his baseball cap with one hand and asked her politely, "How much do you want for this screwdriver, ma'am? Would three dollars be okay?"

"No, sir, that’s marked five dollars," she answered, also politely, but it wasn't the answer Cockerhill wanted to hear, he remembered when you could buy a whole set of tools for less than that and he was a senior citizen, on Social Security, and he asked her again if he could have it for three dollars. And she told him again, no, she was sorry, but it was marked five dollars and she was going to sell it for that. He didn't understand why she was being so difficult and as he was about to explain that he was a simple working man, the fellow next to him lit up a cigarette and starting puffing and Cockerhill hated people who smoked cigarettes, so he started coughing and pounded his chest a few times and started fanning the smoke away and the fellow completely ignored him, so Cockerhill turned to Benny and said, "Let's go look at that carpet place out back, Benny, and see if they have any remnants. Besides, I need some oxygen." Cockerhill used to be a Camel man himself but not anymore, he hadn't smoked a cigarette in 35 years and he'd served in the Second World War and he'd seen a man's legs blown off by a land mine, and it was a gruesome sight. 

Cockerhill and Benny went around to the back of the farmers' market and walked inside the carpet store, and there was a man standing behind the counter who wasn't too friendly and didn't even say hello and the prices were too high, so Cockerhill decided to check in the dumpsters outside. The Missus wanted a carpet for the foyer and Cockerhill wasn't about to spend $150 on an oriental carpet like she wanted. She'd probably never know the difference.  

"Benny!" Cockerhill shouted, then realized that there was no need to shout, Benny was standing right next to him. "Benny, why don't you climb in that big green dumpster over there and see if you can find any good pieces of carpeting? You know, something about six foot by eight foot." So with a big sigh, Benny climbed over the edge of the dumpster and hopped inside. Cockerhill winced as the steel base reverberated when all 245 pounds of Benny landed.

Benny started rooting around, much the way a rabbit or a mole might root around in somebody's vegetable garden, but Cockerhill had seen enough of moles, and one summer back in '78 most of the corn on his 33-acre farm in Guntersville had been destroyed by weevils. He had sold that property to a real estate developer a few years back, had sold most of his property, wished he'd kept more of it, but in a way he was glad he hadn't. 
     
     After a minute Benny gave a shout and hoisted up a big roll of maroon carpeting. A bit bigger than Cockerhill wanted, but he could always cut it down.

"Yeah, Benny, that's real good! Hoist it on up will, you? Here, I'll give you a hand."


"Watch yourself, Gar," Benny warned him. "We don't want no more hernias."

"Naw, I'm fine," Cockerhill replied, but as he grabbed hold of the roll of carpeting that Benny had lifted over the edge of the dumpster, he heard someone shout, "Hey, you! Both of you! What do you think you're doing? Get outta my dumpster!" 

Cockerhill let go of the carpeting like it was a hot coal, and turned to look in the direction of the shouting. There was the surly fellow from the carpet store, and he was still looking as unfriendly as ever and to boot he was smoking a cigarette.  Cockerhill hated people who smoked cigarettes. 

"What's the big deal?" Cockerhill shouted back. "We're takin' somethin’ nobody else wants."

"Would you please get out of my trash bin?" the surly fellow from the carpet store replied, and that cigarette was still dangling from his mouth and he still looked as unfriendly as ever, and that made Cockerhill so mad he wanted to spit, and did spit, in fact.

"Look here," Cockerhill said, waving his finger at the smoking carpet man. "I don't think you realize who I am, mister!"

"I know who you are, now will you please leave?" And with that he turned around and walked back inside his little store where he belonged with that stinking cigarette, and it seemed to Cockerhill that he muttered something about somebody squeaking, but he couldn't make it out very well, since his hearing wasn't what it used to be. 

"I guess some people aren't very polite!" Cockerhill hollered, cupping his hands in front of his mouth for that bullhorn effect. Then he said, more at a conversational level this time, "Let's go, Benny. There's another place down the road, maybe they have carpeting or something they want to get rid of. I don't want anything that's not mine, but trash in a dumpster’s public domain."

     Benny shrugged his shoulders- he was always shrugging his shoulders- and replied, "I dunno, Gar. Guess he don't want nobody takin' his trash."

Then Cockerhill suddenly realized that he really had to go, and told Benny to wait for him out front while he found a corner or a spot along the back wall of the farmer's market. Benny informed him that the restrooms inside weren't the cleanest or the prettiest, but wouldn't they do? No, Cockerhill told him, he didn't have time for that, and besides, when he was in the army or working out in the fields or dumping garbage at the landfill he never had luxuries like that and it didn't bother him. It wasn't like he was a woman and had to sit down, and even though you could ignore a woman who kept calling you, Mother Nature was one woman you couldn't ignore. Boy, when she called you had to answer.


With that Cockerhill gave a great, whooping laugh, slapped his thighs three or four times, and laughed so hard he went into a fit of coughing and nearly wet himself. Benny grinned sheepishly and said he'd meet Cockerhill in the parking lot in five minutes. So Benny went his way and Cockerhill did his thing, and with couple of jerks and shakes he zipped himself up most of the way and headed around to the front of the farmers' market and he saw Benny talking to the screwdriver lady. Cockerhill noticed that Benny was swaying a little as he stood there talking, but Benny swayed a lot, since he was always drunk. Didn't he have a lot to say to that screwdriver lady? who wasn't all that pretty or young. 


Benny didn't even notice Cockerhill coming up behind him- he kept yakking and yakking- Cockerhill knew a fellow like that in the service, Yakkin' Jack the men called him, but poor Yakkin' Jack took a bullet in the head in the Philippines. As Cockerhill approached he caught the tail end of Benny's conversation, or maybe it was the beginning of a new conversation or even the middle of one.

"-and he's so cheap, he only gave me two dollars for helpin' him out that day. Ebeneezer Cockerhill," he added, with a drunken snort of laughter. The screwdriver lady shook her head in disbelief, but more like in amusement. They were laughing at him!

"Why you stinkin', lousy, good-for-nothin' lush!" Cockerhill shouted, his face deep crimson. "You low-down, backstabbin', stupid, lazy sot! You ain't nothin', mister! You hear me?" Then without even waiting for Benny to respond, who was too stunned to respond anyway, Cockerhill stormed off to his truck. Slamming the door, he drove off down Route 130, not paying attention to the road or the driver who honked and cursed him out for running a red light. He would go visit Seth, and the hell with Benny Altman and that screwdriver lady.

When Cockerhill pulled his truck up the long, bumpy, driveway to Seth's house, he sensed that something was wrong, being as it was awfully quiet, a quiet that you could more sense that hear, or not hear, as the case may be, and whatever the case was, Cockerhill had the premonition that something was amiss. He had the same feeling on July 4th, 1977, when he came home from a hard day's plowing and hauling topsoil to learn that his wife Lydia had died. Not much fazed Cockerhill, but when Lydia died, he wept bitterly. As he turned off the engine and climbed out of the car he heard the gravel from the driveway crunching loudly beneath his feet, and he felt the heat hit him, and the heat felt like it did that day when little Seth, who was about twelve, was running the mower in the summer time and hit a wasps' nest buried in the dirt. Weren't those wasps all over that poor boy in five seconds? And Cockerhill sat by his son's bed in the hospital for twelve straight hours and had never been so scared of losing someone except for when Lydia got cancer. And he did lose Lydia. Cockerhill was always sorry that Seth and his ex-wife never had any children. He was also sorry that he didn't see his brother Mark more than once every couple of months, as Mark was the only brother he had left.

But then Cockerhill shook of his unease, dismissed it as the random pessimism that affects an old man, and went around to the back porch where he usually entered. The door was left open, except for the screen door, but that was probably because it was a warm day and Seth wanted to air the place out, which stunk badly sometimes on account of Grandma Guthrie's being sick and often unable to control certain bodily functions.

"Hello, Seth," Cockerhill called loudly through the screen door. "Helloooooo, Seth! Hello Grandma Guthrie! Is anybody there?" 

After a minute or two, Cockerhill let himself in as he had done so often before, and stood at the base of the stairs. He thoughtfully scratched himself, cleared his throat, opened the screen door slightly and spat a glob of brown onto the patio. Seth's voice floated down the stairs.

"I'm up here."

"Okay, son," Cockerhill called back. With a grunt he took hold of the banister and hauled himself up the steps slowly and carefully. He heard a slight creaking, which he wasn't sure was the staircase or his own body. At the top of the stairs he walked the short distance across the hall to Grandma Guthrie's room, and he could see that her bedroom door was open and he could faintly feel the warm breeze from across the open window, and then he caught sight of the old lady, rocking steadily in her chair and tightly clutching a little cotton blanket draped over her, and in 73-degree weather! Well, she was always cold, couldn't even feel anything in her feet half the time. With furtive little eyes she glanced up quickly at Cockerhill, looked down at the floor boards and began mumbling and rocking even harder and faster.

"Hello, Grandma, Guthrie!" Cockerhill shouted. "How are you, Grandma Guthrie?"

"Don't need to holler," the withered old woman muttered. "We're not all deaf and stupid." Then she fell back into a stream of unintelligible rambling, something about the weather or a Christmas party thirty years ago or her poor daughter's high school graduation.

"Hello, Dad." 

Cockerhill hadn't even noticed his son standing there, it always seemed like Grandma Guthrie automatically drew everyone's attention to her, even when she was younger and her husband and Lydia were alive.

"Hello, son," Cockerhill replied gently. "How is everything?"

Seth told his father that everything was all right, but not really all right, and that he had trouble keeping up the house and paying all of the bills and taking care of his grandmother, and he wished that they would pay him more than $13 an hour, he being a certified electrician. Cockerhill agreed that money was tight and he wished that they would pay Seth a better salary and he hoped that things would turn out better for him. Then deciding to be as magnanimous as he could, despite the fact that she had been a little sassy towards him, he turned to Grandma Guthrie and speaking loudly but not so loudly as before, asked her "So how are you doing today, Grandma Guthrie? Is that leg any better?"

The old lady shrugged in reply, wasn't too talkative these days, seemed to mumble and bemoan the fact that she was all alone, which she really wasn't, since she had Seth to take care of her. She did manage to articulate something to the effect of "How should I be for a dying old lady?" Boy, did Seth hate it when she talked like that, and he told her to stop it and not say such things, but told her gently, not like a reprimand, but a reminder.

Seth stepped out into the hall for a moment, and beckoned Cockerhill to follow him so Grandma Guthrie couldn't hear what they were saying, for in spite of her protests about not being deaf, she couldn't catch a conversation that was softly spoken and more than ten feet away. Seth said he was expecting a call tomorrow from a Mrs. Elle Pendleton, who was director of admissions for Halcyon Manor Convalescent Home in Green Grove, and who was looking into a place there for Grandma Guthrie. Seth admitted he hated to do it, but he couldn't afford to take care of her anymore, and he constantly worried about leaving her alone all day. Grandma Guthtrie didn't have much in the bank, but what she did have they'd take in exchange for letting her live out the rest of her life at Halcyon Manor. How much longer could a sick, 92 year-old, half-crippled woman live? Cockerhill told his son he might be surprised.

Seth added that he was about to go to Miller's Drugs on Milan Street to pick up Grandma Guthrie's prescription when Cockerhill arrived, and he didn't mean to be rude, but he wanted to get there before they closed. Usually Mr. Miller had a boy who made deliveries during the week, but he'd called in sick and everybody who needed medicine had to come and pick it up, since Mr. Miller was too busy to get away from the store. Since Grandma Guthrie wasn't too mobile and had never learned to drive, that left Seth to pick up her medicine. She was almost out, and he didn't want that.

"I'll tell you what, son," Cockerhill said, giving Seth an avuncular pat on the shoulder. "I'll pick up Grandma Guthrie's medication for you, since I'm headed there anyway." Cockerhill generally stopped at Miller's Drugs every day to buy some lottery 
tickets, ten, fifteen, sometimes twenty dollars worth, didn't win very often, and always said how he was going to quit one of these days, being as he was on a fixed income and couldn't afford it. So it was settled, he told Seth, when he stopped at Miller's Drug's to buy his lottery tickets, he'd pick up Grandma Guthrie's prescription for her, and he'd even pay for it, he said, because helping people out was what it was all about, and then with a soft belch and a not-so-discreet scratch he was off to Miller's Drugs.

Cockerhill pulled into one of the handicapped spaces in front of the drug store, he didn't have a handicapped tag but he was buying it for Grandma Guthrie, and if she didn't qualify as handicapped, he didn't know who would. After buying his lottery tickets at the front counter and complaining to Jimmy the cashier how much money he'd spent and how badly he needed to win, and did he think that 214 was ever going to come out? he shuffled back to the drug counter where he saw Bill Miller, his reading glasses balanced on the tip of his nose, glancing over a label on a bottle of pills. When Cockerhill cleared his throat loudly, Miller paused, looked up at him and asked "May I help you, Mr. Cockerhill?"

"Yes, sir," Cockerhill replied, pulling up his pants slightly with one hand. "My son called in a prescription for my mother-in-law, that's Grandma Guthrie, she's 92 years old, and I came down to pick it up. How much you want, Bill?"

Miller's face registered immediate recognition. "Oh, yes," he said. "That was a 30-day supply of Mevacor," he turned around and continued talking as he rifled through some three dozen white paper bags in a large plastic bin behind the counter. "with a total cost of $59.14."

When Cockerhill heard that, he came as close as he had in fifteen years to having a heart attack. "How much?" he asked, slack-jawed.

"$59.14," Miller repeated.

That was too much to pay, Cockerhill protested, that came out to almost two dollars a pill, and when Miller said that he knew that, Cockerhill insisted on knowing what he proposed to do about it, since the medication was for a sick old lady, and Cockerhill himself was retired, and it didn't seem right to ask him to pay nearly two dollars a pill, especially with all of the money that he spent in that store on lottery tickets. Couldn't Miller cut him a break? he asked, but Miller said no, he was already selling it at cost, and Cockerhill countered by pointing out that Miller charged more than the grocery store down the street for his toothpaste and shampoo, so he should be able to reduce the price on the Mevacor a little, and make up that extra money on someone else. But Miller held firm, said he had to sell the Mevacor at that price, and Cockerhill told him he didn't think that was very polite, taking advantage of sick old folks and retired folks, but Miller still insisted his drug prices were the lowest in town, Cockerhill could say what he would about the toothpaste and the shampoo.

"Well, how about the generic?" Cockerhill finally suggested, and Miller told him to hold on a moment while he checked the price and went into the back room for about five minutes and then came out and told him that the generic was $39.17, but that Dr. Dellaris had written out a prescription for Mevacor, not the generic Lovastatin, and that he'd have to call his office to see if it was permissible to substitute. Cockerhill said he didn't see why that was necessary, but told Miller he'd wait, because Medicare didn't cover Grandma Guthrie's medication, and he didn't think it was right to ask an old man like himself to foot a sixty-dollar bill.

Miller went into the back room again, and Cockerhill heard him pick up a telephone and dial. When he returned less that a minute later, Cockerhill knew that the news was not going to be what he wanted to hear. Dr. Dellaris was on vacation for the week, and his receptionist would take a message only if it were an emergency, and Miller disagreed with Cockerhill that saving a retired old working man $19.97 was a matter of any importance, so Cockerhill walked out with a wave of his hand and a gesture of disgust. He'd call Dr. Wharton, that's what he'd do. He'd known him seventeen years, and if he could write generic prescriptions for Cockerhill, he could do the same for Grandma Guthrie. He'd agreed to pay for the medicine to help Seth out, but $59.14 for a lousy bottle of pills was too much. It wouldn't kill Grandma Guthrie to wait an extra day.
     
     Cockerhill trod up the stone steps to his front door, fumbled in his pocket for the keys, and as he pushed the door open and took a tentative first step onto the earth brown doormat inside where he had wiped his feet every day for the past 11 years, he suddenly stopped, remembered something, walked outside again and with a loud, snorting hack spat out his tobacco. If there were one thing that Grace couldn't stand it was chew, and after that totally unproductive argument with the pharmacist, Cockerhill wasn't in the mood to quarrel with anyone else, let alone his wife. He sure was glad to see his little friend Oscar, that was what he liked about Oscar and dogs in general, they were always glad to see you. The dachshund yipped excitedly at the sight of his owner, shuffled around in circles a few times, then thoroughly licked Cockerhill's stubbly face as the old man leaned down to pet him.

"That's a good boy, Oscar," Cockerhill told the dog encouragingly. "Aren't you a good boy?" At that, the animal suddenly turned around, trotted off into the living room, and raising his leg casually, shot a thin yellow stream down the side of a mahogany coffee table.


"No, no, no, Oscar," Cockerhill told the dog. Cockerhill reached into his shirt pocket, took out a ragged blue handkerchief and wiped off the spot as best he could. "Boy, if she found out, you and me'd both be in the doghouse!" Cockerhill said, and laughed hard at his own joke. Oscar barked once.

Seeing that walking the dog wasn't necessary anymore, Cockerhill stuffed the handkerchief back in his shirt pocket, called Seth and told him that he was unable to get the Mevacor because the pharmacy was out of it and wouldn't be receiving a supply until tomorrow, but that he would get it then. Then he called Dr. Jack Wharton and asked him if he could phone in a generic prescription for Mevacor for Grandma Guthrie, and Jack said sure, he'd be glad to do it, and yes he remembered Grandma Guthrie and how was she doing? and oh, he was sorry to hear that. Cockerhill asked Jack if he'd mind calling the prescription in to a different pharmacy, the one in the Great Gryphon Supermarket. Jack said sure, and Cockerhill thanked the good doctor and hung up.


Grace didn't seem to be in a very good mood the next morning, she barely said a word as she sat there sullenly sipping a cup of black coffee. Normally she always took cream and sugar. Cockerhill remembered when he was out in the field one bitterly cold morning in January of 1945, when he was stationed in Burma and had gone three weeks without a single cup of coffee and when he finally had some, he didn't care that there wasn't any cream or sugar to go with it, and didn't even mind that it tasted terrible, it was like nectar! The only words that Grace spoke to him were to remind him about his optometrist appointment Tuesday. Cockerhill said he would make his appointment, thanked Grace for reminding him, and added, "I'll see to it that I get to my eye doctor's appointment Tuesday morning, I'll certainly see to it!" 
     
     Then he whooped with his characteristic laughter, slapping his thigh a dozen or so times, laughing harder and harder as he did so, but the Misses cut him short with a glance that would turn honey into vinegar. Cockerhill stood up sheepishly, burped, said he had to be off, he had things to do. And if not, he'd think of something.

As luck would have it, he did think of something the minute he walked out the door: pick up Grandma Guthrie's prescription at the Great Gryphon Pharmacy.


Cockerhill left the pharmacy very pleased with himself. He'd kept his promise to Seth and managed to do it frugally, and brother, it sure was important to be frugal. The price for the generic was still the same, though, $39.17, and no, the man said he couldn't make it an even $35. He did agree, however, to an even $39, so with a "thank you, kindly" and a "God bless you, brother," Cockerhill was on his way to Seth's house again, with Grandma Guthrie's medicine in tow.

Cockerhill found it strange that the back door was locked, and the storm door, as well. Seth knew that his father stopped to see him frequently. With a loud sigh, Cockerhill headed back towards the front of the house, and noticed that his back was bothering him. He was never one to complain too much about his ailments, worked hard all his life even when he was in pain. He paused by the side of the house and without bothering to look if anyone was watching, he unzipped his trousers and relieved himself. With a satisfied grunt, he tucked everything back in place, and stuffing a fresh plug of "Good Ol' Boy" into his mouth walked around to the front door and knocked loudly. After a minute or so passed with no response from inside, Cockerhill knocked again. This time he heard the clicking of a door being unlocked and footsteps walking away. Puzzled, he turned the knob and entered. 

He could hear Seth puttering around in the kitchen, and was suddenly very curious to know what was going on, because he wasn't used to such an odd reception. Calling his son's name hesitantly and hearing a brief, monosyllabic response, Cockerhill walked into the kitchen and saw Seth setting down a freshly-opened can of smelly pet food for the cat. With an excited squeal, the cat trotted over to its dinner.

"Hello there, Sabrina!" Cockerhill called out with feigned affection. At this the cat paused to hiss at Cockerhill, then quickly set to the business of devouring her Friskies Salmon Buffet.

  "Hello, Seth," Cockerhill said awkwardly.

"Hello, Dad," Seth replied, his back still to his father.

"Back door's locked, son," Cockerhill informed him. "Both doors, matter of fact."

"Oh," Seth replied noncommittally. "Well, I guess you can't be too careful these days."

"Something the matter, Seth?" Cockerhill asked.

As a matter of fact, there was, Seth told his father, and Cockerhill knew that when he asked the question, asking was a formality. Cockerhill could see from his son's expression, one of mild annoyance, that something was bothering him. Cockerhill was reminded of the time Lydia had come from the hairdresser's and he failed to compliment her or even notice anything. Took her two hours before she told him why she was irked, but that was the way women were, they liked to play games, though for the most part, Lydia had been pretty good.

Then Seth shook his head, bit his lower lip a little, and came straight out and told Cockerhill that Bill Miller had called from the pharmacy and wanted to know what he was supposed to do with that Mevacor that Cockerhill "was too stingy to buy," and Seth asked why his Dad hadn't told him what happened in the first place.

"Grandma Guthrie needs her medicine, Dad," Seth said.

Now Cockerhill was downright angry! Was that what that stinker Bill Miller said? Seth shouldn't even pay attention to folks like that, who preyed off of retired people and senior citizens like Cockerhill, and besides, here was Grandma Guthrie's medication and that was what was important and that he was never going to patronize Miller's pharmacy again. Then Cockerhill wanted to know whom his son was going to believe, his father or some two-bit, crooked pharmacist? So Seth backed down, said he didn't mean to cause a row with his father. Then they all sat down to a relatively peaceful dinner. Seth was a good cook, and Cockerhill always tried to flatter him by eating as much as he could, but Grandma Guthrie sat there like a surly garden vegetable, stolidly munching her meatloaf and mashed potatoes and muttering between bites and never looking anyone in the eye. Cockerhill couldn't help thinking how unfair it was that she was alive and Lydia wasn't.

"Elle Pendleton probably don't spend too much time there, herself."

Cockerhill didn't bother asking the old lady what the devil she was talking about, couldn't get a straight answer out of her anyway, more than likely, so he glanced at Seth quizzically.

"Everything's set for Grandma to go into Halcyon Manor," Seth explained. That was that nursing home, remember, Dad? that Seth had been exploring as an alternative living situation for Grandma Guthrie.

"I'm sure you'll like it fine, Grandma," Seth assured her. "All them people I met were so nice."

Grandma Guthrie muttered something that didn't sound very ladylike, but Cockerhill couldn't blame her for being unenthusiastic about being shipped off to a dismal old place that smelled like a pile of dirty diapers so that she could sit around with a bunch of toothless geezers who were waiting to die. 

Cockerhill promised Seth that he'd be over the house next week when it was time to move Grandma Guthrie's belongings, in fact, he'd even bring Benny Altman to help. Benny's mind was like a sieve, so he probably didn't even remember the incident at the farmers' market, and even though Cockerhill recalled it perfectly well, he didn't want anyone to say that he was one to harbor grudges.

Cockerhill kept his promise to Seth, he didn't want anyone to say that he was a promise breaker, so he showed up bright and early and did manage to haul Benny Altman along, and Benny was drunker than he'd ever seen him, even for Benny, but all he needed to do was carry a few boxes, and he managed well enough. All the time that he, Seth and Benny were lugging away her belongings to take to the nursing home, and putting a bunch of other stuff which she hadn't used in ten years in the attic, the old woman sat there in the living room rocking and mumbling, like a squatter staring in stubborn disbelief at a bunch of upstart homesteaders raiding her roosting place. Seth told his father how guilty he felt about sending Grandma Guthrie to some nursing home, but they both agreed that it was the only alternative.

The last thing to pack was Grandma Guthrie herself, and Seth coaxed and sweet-talked her into the car. Then Cockerhill and Benny followed Seth's Plymouth Sundance in Cockerhill's Ford F-150, which was loaded up with Grandma Guthrie's stuff-bed sheets, pillows, clothes and sundry items. When Cockerhill got home that night he was more exhausted than he'd been in ten years. They had hauled Grandma Guthrie and her belongings to the nursing home, unpacked everything and put it in place and stayed with her in the cafeteria for an hour as she stared defiantly at a platter of stuffed flounder and creamed corn. Cockerhill paid Benny five dollars for helping him and Seth out, he was going to give him ten, but Benny got a free dinner out of it, courtesy of Halcyon Manor. Before retiring for the evening, Cockerhill asked Grace if she knew where his old manual typewriter was.

Exactly two weeks to the day, Cockerhill was again pondering the bitter irony of life, again wrestling with the feeling that some very bored Creator was playing cruel games with his hapless creature. That night as he was writing an eviction notice for one of his delinquent tenants he heard the news from Seth that Grandma Guthrie was gone. One of the orderlies had found her sitting there in her rocking chair. All that tipped her off was the fact that the old lady wasn't rocking, because the girl said that during the entire time Grandma Guthrie was there she never did anything but rock back in forth. What was she supposed to do, Cockerhill thought, play basketball?

The next few days were hectic for Cockerhill. He had tried with repeated phone calls to convince Elle Pendleton at Halcyon Manor that a pro-rated refund should be in order, since they had turned over all of Grandma Guthrie's assets, some $3,000, and since she'd lasted two weeks, that wasn't fair to charge $3,000. Elle Pendleton had terminated their final conversation with a terse, "Well, life's not fair, is it, Mr. Cockerhill?"

Cockerhill was sitting in his son's living room, reading the Culliver County Daily Dispatch, and waiting for Seth to return from Halcyon Manor, where he had gone to pick up the last of Grandma Guthrie's clothes, and it was some Wayne Waterman fellow from the Halicarnassus Funeral Home. Mr. Waterman was calling to express "his deepest condolences regarding Mrs. Guthrie" and to inform Seth that after calculating the total funeral expenses at his request, including interment, a memorial service and a modest-sized grave marker, he came out to the figure of $6,732.

“Hello?” Waterman said in response to the stunned silence on the other end of the line. "Am I speaking to Mr. Seth Cockerhill?"

"What? Oh, uh, yes, this is Mr. Cockerhill."

"We can arrange for a funeral service on Friday at 11:00 a.m.," Waterman continued. "Mrs. Guthrie will be buried in Maranatha Memorial Cemetery, next to her husband, Albert, as was her desire."

As was her desire! Cockerhill nearly snorted. Grandma Guthrie could never even stand the surly old son of a bitch! So he set this Waterman fellow straight, told him they couldn't afford seven thousand bucks, and shouldn't this have been taken care of earlier, like when she was in her eighties? And Waterman explained apologetically that indeed it did seem like a lot of money but wasn't his dear departed relative worth it and didn't he want to honor a poor soul's last wish?

"Hell, no!" There. He had come right out and said it. First there would be the burial, then some sappy memorial service, then a big marble monument. Better to have her cremated, he himself was planning on going the same way to meet his Maker, ashes to ashes, he couldn't see paying nearly seven thousand dollars in funeral expenses. 

Then Waterman started getting indignant with him, and if there were one thing that he couldn't tolerate, it was someone thirty years his junior getting indignant with him.

"Now wait a minute, Mr. Cockerhill," he began. "I was under the impression that when you spoke to my secretary this morning -"

"No, you wait a minute!" Cockerhill cut in. "I don't need no lip from you, Waterman, water boy, whoever you are! I'm 73 years old, I served in the Second World War, and I don't need no lip from you! It don't matter what you think I told your little secretary, I'm telling you now- no! Have you already dug that hole, Mister?"

"Well, no," Waterman stammered. "but the plot has already been paid for." 

"Well if the plot's already been paid for, why do you want to extract another seven thousand dollars from us?" Cockerhill shot back.

"Mr. Cockerhill," Waterman went on in his seedy, scripted manner. "As I've explained, there is the fee for the interment, the fee for-"

"Fee, fie, fo, fum!" Cockerhill snapped. "I said cremate her!"

So finally Waterman gave in, said that the cost for cremation was approximately $750, and he also knew of several ministers who would be willing to give a brief memorial service for a mere- No, thank you, Cockerhill cut in again, he himself knew plenty of ministers. So he arranged a date for the service, balked at the $150 fee for renting a room at the funeral home, said they would hold a brief ceremony at the cemetery and sprinkle her ashes over the plot. That would have to satisfy the late Mrs. Guthrie. No, Waterman told him, he was sorry, but Halicarnassus Funeral Home couldn't allow the ashes to be scattered in the cemetery, some nonsense about public health laws, so Cockerhill begrudgingly consented to the room rental, hung up, and called the Reverend Michael Wiley, who had known the family since Seth was a baby. Reverend Wiley agreed to $100. Cockerhill had a headache after he finally got off the phone, but a total funeral bill of $1,000 was a lot better than $6,732. He simply told Seth when he came home that the funeral was on Friday and not to worry about anything, and then he took a ride to the pharmacy in the Great Gryphon Supermarket one final time to see 
if they would be willing to buy back a perfectly good, two-week supply of Lovastatin.

The rain during the next two days left the roads in Culliver County wet and slick, lots of car accidents, even more than the usual number, which was pretty high. Sloppy weather, some people called it, but that's not what Cockerhill called it, the rain relaxed him, he had marched, hiked, worked and even slept in it. No, nothing wrong with the rain, it washed away the old and the stale and left the fresh and the new. After buying his usual set of lottery tickets at Miller's Pharmacy, yes, he had vowed never to return after that ugly incident, but it was convenient and he didn’t have to deal with Bill Miller, Cockerhill decided to pay his son a visit, since he hadn't seen or spoken to him these past two days.

After parking the Ford Escort, which was his vehicle of choice that afternoon, he walked around to the back door as always, found it conveniently unlocked, but it wasn't opened, there was no need to air out the place anymore. He passed the Sabrina the cat, who glowered at him silently from her habitual perch on top of the old beige sofa in the den. 

"Miserable little beast," Cockerhill muttered. 


"Hey, Seth," he called out. "Where are you, son? Thought I'd drop by and see how you're doin'." What a surprise when he turned around and spotted his son standing a few feet away, like a ghost that had suddenly materialized.

  "Oh, there you are," Cockerhill laughed. "How's by you son?"

Deja Vu swept over the old man as he realized that once again, there was trouble in paradise, only this time resolution might not be immediately forthcoming.

Seth's features were those of a man frozen solid centuries ago while on the brink of an angry outburst. Now the ice was yielding, cracking, unable to contain the steam that seeped through its widening fissures. Cockerhill waited for a response.

Seth stared hard into the wrinkled face of his father. “I don’t know,” he replied. “You tell me.”

Cockerhill put on his best face of total perplexity, and swore he had no idea what Seth meant. Was this how a son greeted his father? But Seth insisted his father knew what was going on, insisted that this was the last time, also. 

"I've put up with you for years," Seth went on, barely containing himself. "All your habits, all your stupid idiosyncrasies, all your excuses and your lies."

"Boy, what in hell are you talking about?" Cockerhill demanded.

Then it all came out, like water boiling over the edge of an iron pot and hissing loudly as it spills onto the fire beneath. Seth informed his father that he had just gotten off the phone with Wayne Waterman of Halicarnassus Funeral Home. How could the old man do this to Grandma Guthrie? She had one last request and Cockerhill turned that request into ashes, literally. 

Cockerhill gave a short, embarrassed, well-what-do-you-know? kind of laugh, the kind used to preface an explanation of a funny misunderstanding, but he saw that Seth didn’t find the situation too amusing. 

Then Cockerhill waved his hand authoritatively, like a referee trying to control a bunch of unruly players, and explained that he had done what he thought was best, and maybe Seth didn't understand, but in time, he would realize that it was all for the best, and besides, Seth couldn't have afforded all of those funeral expenses and what the old lady didn't know wouldn't hurt her.

Seth wore the same hard stare, but now there was something else flickering in his brown eyes, something that couldn’t be anything but hatred.

"You did what was best," Seth sneered. "What was best for you, that's what. You never cared about me, you never cared about Grandma, you never cared about Mom!"

"That's enough out of you," Cockerhill shouted back, becoming a little testy himself now, that was no way for a boy, or a man, to speak to his father.

"Don't hand me that 'father' nonsense," Seth replied. “I might have been able to afford a decent burial for Grandma, and I might have been able to afford a lot more, too, if you hadn’t sold me out to Uncle Mark.” 

Cockerhill opened his mouth to deny it, but realized that this time, he couldn’t.

“Sure, I know all about it,” Seth continued. “Because I went over to the plant once, desperately out of money and needing work, anything. I knew going to you wouldn’t do me any good. And cousin Bobby told me, threw it in my face, almost. You sold your half to Uncle Mark on condition that only his kids inherit it.”
Cockerhill stood there mute, wanting to protest, wanting to convince his son that he loved him. But he saw now that it was no use. In Seth's eyes, he was Judas Iscariot.

"I can remember when we ate at the Exeter Diner, years ago, when I was eight or nine," Seth began. "You, Mom and me. And you didn't leave the waitress no tip, because you didn't want to break a ten-dollar bill. And then you came down with food poisoning, puking your guts out for two days straight." Seth shook his head sadly. "Get out. I have no reason to keep up this charade any longer. As far as I'm concerned, both of my parents are dead."

Without lingering, Cockerhill turned away and walked out of his son's house for the last time. He didn't bother to look back as he climbed into his car and started up the engine; no one would be watching. Cockerhill’s mind was numb as he drove past all of the quaint little houses on Seth's block and tried not to look at them. He drove until the landscape went from suburban to rural, until the creeping dusk turned into stark night, illuminated faintly by infrequent street lights and strips of white plastic embedded in concrete. He found himself headed west on the main highway that ran through Culliver County, the highway built 85 years ago that stretched all the way to California, the highway that, as far as anyone could see, went on forever and ever.