Excerpt of Fall of Frost by Brian Hall
(Page 2 of 3)
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Fred stops. Stares. Turns and leaves the room.
There he goes again. The old man. The spoiled baby.
Are they right? Are they? They are, aren't they?
Chapter 2
Methuen, Massachusetts
July 1900
Doctors: they fill the doorframe, impatience in their faces,
their black bags swinging at the ends of their arms with a heavy creak.
They step past you. They pronounce judgment. They wash their
hands and leave.
So this is the way the world ends: red evening light (should one
say "lurid"? should one say "o'ercast with blood"?), white chickens running free
in the yard, and a doctor at the door. Powder House Hill. Is Frost holding the
revolver? (Later, he will wonder.)
The doctor steps past. He and Frost mount the stairs (are there
chickens underfoot?) to the child's room. Here is Elinor, cadaverous with dread,
and the boy, not yet four, lying gray and withered. Four days of diarrhea and
vomit. Thirst; cramps. His screams.
Four days! Why did you delay? (The chickens chirr.)
Frost first consulted his mother's doctor.
The man is an idiot.
He prescribed homeopathic pills.
Your mother is a religious maniac with incurable cancer. Her
doctor calls on God, not medicine. You knew this.
The doctor straightens. Frost sees it all in that movement. Is
he holding the revolver? Might he shoot the man before he opens his mouth? Shoot
himself before he hears? "This is cholera infantum. It's too late now for me to
do anything. The child will be dead before morning."
Elliott. Their firstborn, their baby.
As there is nothing for the doctor to do, he leaves. Hurries, in
fact. Nothing for him here. When is it that night—three? Four? In the dark—the
boy, the baby, held by Elinor, Frost held off by her. Elinor not saying a word,
nor the silent boy: gray and shrunken, a changeling. Where is their baby? They
are not sure. Then they are.
Elinor will never say his name again.
"He is gone home," says Belle, Frost's mother, with obscene
serenity.
Your doctor's fault! Frost could wring her neck.
They have no photograph of him. (They have no camera.)
In Frost's mind, an image: Elliott is in the backyard with his
father, feeding the chickens. Some are inside the run, others out—there is a
break in the wire Frost hasn't fixed. Elliott throws corn kernels, tucks his
feet away from drilling beaks, tucks up his curled hands, laughs in fear. He
looks back to his father for protection. Behind him, beating upward with a stormwind noise: white wings.
Chapter 3
North Station, Boston, Massachusetts
October 1940
Out of the clamor of the crowd, the shouts of porters, a Younger
Poet boards the Berkshire Limited, bound for Albany. He's just found a seat when
down the aisle comes Robert Frost. The Younger Poet prays, and the two seats
across from him stay open. Frost sits down, a woman with him.
The Younger Poet imposes on himself the discipline he reserves
for his Frost encounters. He divests his mind of trivia—the train, the
passengers, their conversations—and opens it to take on the load of Frost. All
that exists are the two poets, and the woman beyond, who, as a Frost familiar,
must also matter. Is that his secretary, Mrs. Kathleen Morrison? The Younger
Poet had heard much. (He refuses to believe the cheap gossip.) He drinks her in.
A slight, pretty woman dressed all in gray, with a pleasing voice. How fine it
would be to know her!
The Younger Poet waits and watches, taking mental notes. There
is a wart on Frost's left eyelid. The backs of his hands are hairy. He seems
changed from when the Younger Poet last saw him, seven months ago. His eyes are
dark-shadowed and strained; he slumps wearily in his seat.
From Fall of Frost, copyright Brian Hall 2008. All rights reserved. No part of this book maybe reproduced without written permission from the publisher.
