Grover Field

Derelict embargo. Chief surprise, pat answer. We don’t talk about those kinds of things when we’re in the merciful presence of women.

A penny saved is a penny earned. A man’s work is never done, nor is the Lord’s. Always winter and never Christmas. A stitch in time saves nine. Cats with nine lives, a shoulder to cry on.

Mysterious shroud waylaid in the blue lagoons, drifting opaquely real toward the embankments of a cold new front. Driving, just lilting lazily, unencumbered. Repeating the words on the page there in his hands, the page all crinkly and slightly torn from being in the man’s right trouser pocket all along the quail-spotted trail. Pen marks on both sides of the page – something to remember them all by.

She shouted so presumptuously at the end of the final season: “Stay away from Grover Field!” And naturally, that’s the first place he started moving to, after the band had thrown in the towel.

But as he held the paper, and said all those phrases written to soothe or distract, he could see now that Grover was no longer a field. It was a mausoleum.