Watching Matthew

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I’M BLIPPING OUT OF THAT place, the dormhouse or whatever you call it, and in two ticks I’m up in the sunlight, getting a bird’s-eye view of Dog River. I can see the two white frame houses side by side near the corner of Eighth and Columbia, each with a half-enclosed porch about big enough for a burial. The front of the house on the right, where our parents live, has two windows, one of them closed by heavy drapes; it’s like a witch-face with one eye open and one shut.

I can tell by looking that it’s the summer of 1933, when you’re ten years older than I will ever be, Matt Kolb. There you are, all by yourself at the back of the strip of lawn between the houses. You’re driving a post into the turf, using a croquet mallet for a hammer. Beside you is the croquet set in its rack — another post, five more mallets and six balls striped around their middles black, red, yellow, green, white, orange, one color for each.

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