and putting on a new blade , getting your oldest boy to hold up the hitch so you can get at it , the lirst mosquito of the new season buzzes blood-thirstily past your ear with that eye-watering hum that always makes you think it 's the sound loonies must hear just before they kill all their kids or close their eyes on the interstate and put the gas pedal to the floor or tighten their toe on the trigger of the .30-.30 they just jammed into their quackers ; and then your boy 's sweat-slicked fingers slip and one of the other round har ? row blades scrapes skin from your arm and looking around in that kind of despairing , heartless flicker of time , when it seems you could just give it all over and take up drinking or go down to the bank that holds your mortgage and declare bankruptcy , at that moment of hating the land and the soft suck of gravity that holds you to it , you also love it and understand how it knows darkness and has always known it .