The Tractor at the Church Door

To the church

The wedding was at two. I had to be at the church by one for pictures with the family, in my suit, which Joan had pressed and hung on the bedroom door.

My tie was already knotted on the hanger, because she doesn’t trust me with a tie.

At a quarter to twelve I put the suit on, in the house, and then I walked out to the shed in my good shoes and my suit coat, and I climbed up on the 60. Joan was taking the car with her mother.

I drove it the four miles to St. John’s on County Road N.

In sixth gear she will do about eleven and a half miles an hour, and that is what I did, right on the shoulder, with the flashers I’d wired in going.

Pickups came up behind me and passed, and almost every one of them honked and waved. Gordy Hanson leaned out his window and hollered, “Lookin’ sharp, Wayne!” I waved back.

It was a perfect day. Cold in the morning, but by noon it was going on sixty, and the maples along the road were as red as I’ve ever seen them.

St. John’s is a white frame church with a tall steeple, set out by itself between two fields with the cemetery behind it.

My grandparents are buried there. My father and mother too. I could see the steeple from two miles out.

There were a few cars already in the lot, the photographer’s and the florist’s.

I drove the 60 up the gravel and parked it right beside the church door, just off to the side of the front steps, where it wouldn’t block anybody. I shut it down and the quiet came back.

Then I sat on the seat a minute and looked at it. The ribbons were lifting a little in the breeze. The paint was shining. It looked like it did in the old picture.

Just in case, I thought. That’s all. It’s just here, in case.