American Rust

  Finally they reached a door and the guard turned and the door clicked and they entered the cellblock. It was a long wide space with two tiers of cells on each side and a large common area in the center. Several televisions were turned up to maximum volume, blaring Jerry Springer and rap videos. There were tables on which men were playing games of some sort, checkers or maybe chess, some wore the same khakis and blue denim shirts as Poe did but most wore sweatshirts or pants that didn't look state- issued. Immediately the noise died down in the room as people sized him up.

  “I like them shoes,” called one of them.

  “Look at that pretty- ass motherfuckin fish.”

  “Some tight- ass Britney Spears booty down there. I be grabbin on that shit and …” Out of the corner of his eye, Poe could see one of the inmates making an exaggerated humping motion.

  “Bullshit nigga,” said another. He called to Poe: “I'ma take care of you, baby. Don't let these other motherfuckers worry you. You too pretty for them.”

  There was loud laughter and competing catcalls about what they would do to him.

  Poe looked to the guard to say something to quiet the inmates down but he didn't.

  “Don't you worry, fish,” said someone, “that punk- ass CO won't say shit to us. Will he. Cause that nigga is next in line after you.”

  The corrections officer was staring rigidly ahead. He waved his arm at a group of inmates blocking the stairs but they only stepped out of the way at the very last second. The CO, who was not much older than Poe, didn't make eye contact with any of them.

  All the cell doors were open and finally they got to one that wasn't. The guard checked his keyring and found the correct key and turned it. They stood there until Poe figured he was supposed to slide the door open.

  The cell was maybe six feet wide and ten long. Two steel bunkbeds were bolted to the wall and took up half the width; opposite the door was a stainless steel toilet without a seat, a sink with a pushbutton faucet. Only one person would be able to stand up at a time inside the cell.

  “This like the place you stick new guys or something?”

  “What'd you expect?” said the guard.

  “Be a little bit bigger for having two beds.”

  “You think this is bad,” he said, “most of the time the fish get stuck in the hole a couple weeks for processing. Least you're going right in the general population. Plus your cellmate's in the hole right now so you got it to yourself a few days.”

  “Which bunk,” said Poe.

  “The one where there isn't anything on it, shitbird.”

  Poe took the top one, set his bundle on it.

  “Lockdown's in five minutes,” said the guard. “Don't fuckin go nowhere.”

  “What about dinner,” said Poe.

  “You missed it,” said the man. He shrugged and walked away.

  Poe made his bed, looked for things to occupy himself. There was nothing. He drank water from the faucet. He lay down. There was a pressure inside his head, like the motor up there was spinning too fast, the bolts and screws holding him together were about to let go and he'd end up torn to pieces, he'd choke himself, there would be no stopping him. It was a mistake, is what it was. That was it. It was a mistake. He was not supposed to be here. There was no way he was ever supposed to be put in a place like this.

  9. Isaac

  The faint light of dawn woke him and he opened his eyes quickly. He thought he might be back in his bed. No. In the sleeping bag at the edge of a lawn. He turned his head. Goes on a ways, out of sight. Fairway of a golf course. Soft bed. Easy on the bruises. He checked the air with his breath, watched the vapor drift up. Cold and not a sound anywhere, could be the only one alive on earth. Used to like being up this early. Back to sleep.

  He closed his eyes again and waited until the sky brightened enough to wake all the birds, a single chirp and then a spreading chorus, twitters and warbles, cooing pop pop pop piit piit piit sreeeel sreeel sreeel. Something fluttered just over his face, a gray- and- white flash: kingbird. Bee eater. He put his arms behind his head and lay there for another ten minutes, listening to birdcalls and watching the sky change color as the sun rose.

  He sat up quickly and the pain startled him—rib cage. Did I get jumped again yesterday? No. Sunday leftovers. Internal pain, turns the stomach. Better to break an arm. Depends. Good rib- break better than bad arm- break. Leg- break the worst—can't move—done for. Plus lose a quart of blood per femur. Reason they break your legs on the cross—act of mercy.

  It took him a long time to get his bag packed, there was no way to move that didn't hurt. Worse than yesterday, he thought. The second day after you get beaten is worse than the first. Body won't let you know you're hurt until you're out of danger—waits till you can handle the news. Preserves your mental outlook.

  Finally he stood feeling the sun on him, head down, getting the light directly to the brain, cheering, pineal gland. Also the feeling of danger— they can all see you. See how hurt you are. Sleep by day, move by night. Oldie but goodie—reason animals see in the dark. Night eyes reflect light but also absorb it. Think on that a while, Watson.

  Shouldering his pack he made his way back into the forest, down the rocky hill along the drainage, his legs hurting more than yesterday. He walked hunched and with small steps as if carrying an enormous load. He wanted badly to lighten the pack but there was nothing inside it he wouldn't need. There were strange, brightly colored flowers along the stream, but even his slow movement took all his effort; he passed without looking. What's on the day's menu. Broken back, maybe. Fight the old man for his wheelchair. He'd win—special tactics. Wheelchair warfare. What he'd say if he saw you now: ungrateful shit, the strong survive. Send your poor your tired and your hungry. Stick em in a grinder, sausage for the king. Dirt for dinner. How far to the next town.

  He reached the ridgetop and looked down over the river flowing in its valley, green and winding, thick with trees. The Elrama plant dominated the skyline on the other side, the stack was bright orange and maybe fifty feet in diameter, five hundred feet tall. The steam plume a mile long. It's only three or four miles to Elizabeth. Only, he thought. Take all day at this pace.

  He picked his way slowly down the steep hillside. He could see the road he'd left the previous night and just beyond it the train tracks and the river. Each downhill step hurt his legs. Except the kid is not worried. Knowing how easy the journey will be with two good legs, he prefers to get gimped up. Empty stomachs make for clear heads. Bored with walking he grows gills, swims upriver, comes out downtown. Crowd swoons. Mermaids revere the defeater of Swedes.

  — — —

  Every few hundred steps or so he would stop and rest. He was hungry again. He passed a few small clusters of houses and then a shipping facility of some sort. There was a vending machine outside one of the buildings so he limped around the fence and he found a dollar bill and put it in and got a Dr Pepper. He drank it quickly standing in front of the machine, and immediately felt better. He spent another dollar on a second can for later.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw someone in uniform crossing the parking lot toward him and made his way quickly back into the woods. That's right, keep moving. Good—he's not following you. A short while later he felt sufficiently alone to rest by a small stream that ran down toward the river. There was no one around. He sat against his pack, dozed for a while, then got up and kept walking until he was back on the train tracks.

  Eventually he could see a bridge over the Mon and he knew he was getting close to Elizabeth. The kid perseveres. Chased by man and beast alike, he worries he'll finish his journey with no sense of accomplishment. Complains his legs are only bruised, not broken. The Atlas of his country he's the new Paul Bunyan. A moral emperor—his people renounce popes priests and presidents. He's five foot five and rising. Walking on feet while he's got em.

  Approaching Elizabeth the terrain was hilly and wooded though there was a long riverflat with yet another power plant with a tal
l orange-and- white smokestack, a mountain of coal piled nearby, itself at least a hundred feet tall, barges tied up, unloading more coal. Farther downriver he passed a chemical refinery, another river lock. There were many houses noticeable along the hillside. At the Elizabeth bridge there was a small pier and two kids about his age were sitting on it.

  “Spare a cigarette?” the boy called.

  Isaac shook his head and went slowly past.

  “You sure?” the girl asked.

  “I don't smoke,” Isaac replied, louder than he'd meant.

  “I believe you,” said the boy grinning.

  There was a gas station near the bridge with a food mart. The kid strikes gold, he thought. He does fine alone.

  Inside the counterman stared at him. Feeling superior. Indian or Pa kistani—own all the hotels and gas stations. Wonder why. He ignored the man's stares and filled a basket with Slim Jims, several tins of Vienna sausage, a carton of milk, a half dozen candy bars, two large bottles of water. Just holding all the food in his hands his mouth got very moist, it was all he could do to not tear open the packages. He put it on the counter and the clerk scanned his items. On the map rack he found a road atlas and put it on the counter as well.

  “What's up ahead?” Isaac said.

  The clerk stared at him.

  “What town? Clairton?”

  “Clairton is across river. Glassport is next town on this side. Eighteen and seventy.”

  He paid the clerk and noticed he had only a dollar left in his wallet. Plenty in the pants pocket though. He put the food into his pack and stuffed the atlas in as well and then had a thought, went to the napkin dispenser by the hot dog rack and took a thick handful of napkins. The clerk watched him, making a mental tally of the napkins, but didn't say anything.

  A little over thirty dollars now he'd spent, coming twenty miles. He had to get onto the trains. He drank the milk immediately for the vitamins, the entire quart, and began to feel much better. You could actually live off this stuff, he thought. The only liquid that satisfies hunger. Where had he read that? A hangover from infancy.

  Elizabeth was as run- down as any other place in the Valley, unpainted houses dotted the hillside, a steel- frame bridge crossed the river, the only for ten miles. Just to the north was Glassport, one of the wealthier towns. He would stand out there and there would be police. He went back toward the bridge. Traffic was heavy—he was getting closer to Pittsburgh. Downriver, toward Pittsburgh, he could make out the long barns of the Clairton coke works, building after building as far as the eye could see, dozens of smokestacks. The plant itself was several miles long—bigger than the town. He passed the first parking lot, newer model cars, men milling about in dark blue mechanic's coats. It was a good job—seventeen an hour to start. Along the river maybe forty or fifty barges in various states of unloading, a huge trainyard. Still, the city was run- down, abandoned houses on the main boulevard. Biggest coke works in the country couldn't stop the city from going to shit. Niggerton the old man calls it now. Don't even repeat that, he thought. Don't be like him. Resting on a grassy hillside, he watched the river and the coke works, the Valley was steep here, on both sides the land rising sharply above the river. Careful you don't get jumped—lots of heroin comes from Clairton. Nursery rhyme. He watched the barges unload their coal for processing. From darkness we pull light—black oil and coal. Carbon the reason—burn your ancestors.

  He drifted off and it was near midnight when he woke, he was very cold, he'd left his coat unzipped. It was dark. The only light came from the coke works, small dim safety lights outlining every building and smokestack, as far as the eye could see. In the dark it looks like connect the dots. Several miles long. How many feet of pipe—millions, easily. Hundreds of buildings. Coke ovens, cranes, conveyors, who knew what all those buildings did, steam rose from every pipe and building. Heat and steam and blackness of coal. Underworld.

  Walking down a dark street he passed a man wrapped in a blanket sitting against a fence. The man looked at him, then looked away. Isaac passed but then stopped and reached into his pants pocket and tried to fumble a bill out of the envelope in his pocket. It was hard to get just one out. Just give him the entire wad, he thought. If you give it to him you can just go home. He stood there thinking. No. Have to keep going.

  He walked back and handed the man a twenty, and looking up at him, the man hesitated before accepting it. He was a young man, Isaac saw. A dirty face, maybe a junkie. “Appreciate you,” he said to Isaac.

  “No problem,” Isaac told him. He continued down the road. Time to catch the train, the great escape. Collecting himself he made his way toward the coke works, the wind shifted and the smell was intense. city of prayer the sign called it, more nice old buildings boarded up, dark streets, detritus of an older way. What was the joke? A boy and girl are making out in his car, and finally she can't take it anymore. Kiss me, she whispers. Kiss me right where it stinks. So he drives her to Clairton.

  Ahead of him along the hillside he could hear a murmuring he knew must be a gathering of people, there was light coming from behind an old building, a school, maybe. There weren't any houses around it. Probably not locals. Maybe someone to tell you a train schedule.

  Two enormous fires in trash cans behind the school, nearly two dozen people sitting or standing in groups against the walls, around different fires, a few shelters made of salvaged plywood or corrugated tin. Sitting against one wall, a dreadlocked teenager was beating on two white sheetrock buckets, a stick in each hand, the rhythms syncopated, he was not an amateur, a school band dropout. A drum major gone native.

  Isaac stood behind some overgrown bushes, watching. The people were a mix, half local wino types and half younger people, kids in their teens and twenties. It was chilly but a large- breasted girl took her shirt off and danced around the courtyard in her bra and a few whoops went up. Eventually she went and sat down again. A few people were doing something over a candle and he realized they were shooting up.

  Just go in there, he thought. You're no different than any of them. But he couldn't bring himself to. A fight broke out suddenly, a big man and small man swinging wildly but neither connecting and finally a few people went and separated them. The big one with the shaved head was younger and he went and stood with his group. The older smaller man went and stood by himself. A few more people came around the end of the building and Isaac saw it was the boy and the girl he'd seen earlier under the bridge. The boy was carrying a case of beer in each hand; the girl carried a grocery bag.

  Isaac had just gotten up the nerve to join the group when the skinhead and the older man were fighting again, but this time the skinhead tripped and the older man hit him in the head with a stick and the skinhead fell over and was hit several more times as he rolled around on the ground. The small man who'd done the hitting picked up his backpack and walked immediately out of the area of the loading dock and people watched him, he nearly walked straight into Isaac.

  “I can't see you,” the man said, crashing through the dark brush, “but I ain't who you want to be worrying about.” He was about Isaac's size and Isaac relaxed slightly.

  “This ain't a good spot,” he continued. “There's a couple of bad seeds in there, dopeheads, and when they take a look at the big bald bastard I was hitting they're gonna be out for serious.”

  The man was wearing a backpack with a sleeping bag strapped to the bottom of it and he headed downhill toward the train tracks. Isaac hesitated, then decided to follow him.

  After a hundred yards or so the man slowed to let Isaac catch up.

  “We might as well either fight it out or not.”

  “I'm not fighting,” said Isaac.

  “Okay then, so walk together and stop making me nervous.”

  He started down the dark street again and Isaac kept up with him.

  “Some real troublemakers in there,” said the man. “Sometimes it goes like that.” He had a good deal of blood on the side of his face. He saw Isaac looking.
“Christ,” he said. “Got me good, didn't he?”

  “Looks like it.”

  “It'll heal, they always do. You know it around here at all?”

  “I'm from here.”

  “You headed out?”

  “Somewhere south.”

  “That's bass- ackwards. Summer be here before you know it—time to head north.”

  “I'll be alright.”

  “A rebel, huh?”

  Isaac shrugged.

  “After my own heart,” the man said.

  They walked toward the coke plant. When the man stopped to piss in the middle of the tracks, Isaac adjusted his knife and the sheath. You're just being paranoid now, he thought.

  “What's your actual destination?”

  “California.”

  “How you getting there?”

  “No idea,” said Isaac, and then he realized why the question had been asked, was immediately sorry he'd answered it.

  “Ah shit, I'll point you the way. Head that way myself for a while.”

  Isaac didn't say anything.

  “Be good for you. Always good to have a mentor around. I don't mind doing it.”

  “I'm doing fine on my own.”

  “Well just give me the word and I'll take off then,” he said. “If you're one of those loner types that can be a pain in the ass.”

  Isaac shook his head and grinned. “I got no problems.”

  They were coming up the north end of the coke plant. Isaac still couldn't get over the size of it, it was bigger even than the mill in Buell had been, but the man seemed not to notice and they stood in the brush at the riverbend, looking at the trainyard. There were at least a dozen different tracks. There were several long trains loaded with coke.

  “You wanna go find a rail and ask which is which.”

  “What do I say to them?” said Isaac.