April is the cruelest month

My Grandfather Cox scared me. He wasn't an angry man, and he never threatened corporal punishment the way my other grandfather sometimes did. But he was a large and serious man. He was a Methodist minister and thought having a pack of cards in the house was an invitation to a life of debauchery. He spoke low, calmly, and infrequently about important things like religion and how not to waste your money on comic books. He and Grandmother Cox lived in a spare one-story house in rural Indiana with a long treeless lawn stretching to the country road. There was a drainage ditch along this road and at the end of the driveway a culvert made from four-foot aluminum pipe, ubiquitous in the Midwest.

My older brother, Rob, and I were staying with my Grandparents for a week in early spring. One morning we were sitting on the concrete front step with nothing to do—the absence of cards was only part of a more general ban on fun; the only diversions in the house being a bible trivia game and a dish of Kraft caramels. Grandfather Cox had been down by the edge of the road inspecting the ditch for some time and he abruptly strode with purpose towards the two of us. I had a sense of unease. Grandfather caught my gaze and brought his finger to his lips. Rob and I waited until he made his way to us and bent down. "Boys," he whispered, "there's a groundhog in the drainpipe. If you each go to a different end and are absolutely quiet you will see him there."

I was confused. Rob and I both loved nature and watching animals (and sometimes catching them and bringing them home in pillowcases to the alarm of our mother), but groundhogs weren't so special. In addition to being distrustful of fun, Grandfather Cox had never expressed any opinion about animals or the wonders of nature. But his eyes were twinkling and he seemed to be having a moment with us, and those were rare. So Rob and I walked very slowly to the edge of the road, covering the twenty or so yards in about two minutes.

We split to opposite sides of the gravel driveway and slid on our cutoffs down the brown dead sloping grass. I cautiously inched my head around the side of the pipe, ready at any moment for the beast to scamper out in terror, but as my angle of vision made its way down the pipe, there was nothing but dirty sediment. Finally I saw light at the other side, and Rob crouching in silhouette.

We stayed like that, staring for what felt like a very long time. Eventually, we stood up and walked back to the house, faster than before but still in silence. Grandfather was standing by the step as he had been the entire time, smiling with a look of benevolence bordering on grace.

"Grandpa," I said, "there's nothing there."

"April Fool's," he said, without any particular inflection. And then he went inside.