Member-only story
Tools’ First Disciple
Tools move to him, are drawn by his hands.
By Tom Sheehan
December gave us both a gray day, thick as hardpan, sitting-down thick, a neutral sadness running pole to pole, a day that cried for work or laughter. Work wins out, I told son James, barely three and barely to my thigh. I dressed him for the full adventure; gloves soft as strung rabbit’s neck, stocking cap puffed out of lamb, jacket thick with duck’s outside, a twist of blue knotting under chin, two-ply boots denser than a tire.
Jamie leaned penguin-ish, starchy tight, not quite sure of feet or balance point, where the fulcrum of his day angled, what could tip him this way or that. I sat him, a nugget of a boy, deep in the van among chainsaw, rip ax, six-pound maul, and the pair of blunt wedges I had worn feverishly down through reams of trees.
Oh, James likes iron; it calls attention to itself, hidden core ringing at his feet, hard touch remembered on cold days, surface demanding sweat of hands. He likes iron forcing ways through, iron beating on or back brittle echoes, that sprouts handles, oddest points and sharp edges; iron changing shapes of shapes, moving together or apart, iron crying for sweet will of muscle. James is bound to move earth, carve pieces to wanting, his need.
