American Rust

  “Screw them,” said Bessie. She stood up straight and shook her head. “Ma'am. You believe that crap?”

  — — —

  Half an hour later, Ray and Rosalyn still hadn't shown up, one of the women at the bar had caught her eye and smiled at her a few times, a bottle blonde, the wife of Howard Peele of Peele Supply, a company that sold pipes and tubes to the coal mines and one of the two biggest employers in town. She was a few years younger than Grace and maybe twenty years younger than her husband, tight black pants and a tight pink top, always wore heels. Grace tried to remember her name. Caught Virgil making eyes at her at someone's barbecue, that's why you never liked her. Heather. Real istically, of course, someone like Heather wouldn't risk that for someone like Virgil. Hard to admit that at the time. Right now, at the bar, two men were laughing at something Heather had said but Grace could tell they didn't really think it was funny.

  She was getting up the nerve to leave when Ray and Rosalyn came in.

  Ray smiled guiltily. “Sorry we're late—Pirates against the Cubs.”

  “We're sorry,” said Rosalyn. “This asshole.” She pointed to her husband. “I'll get us some drinks. You guys want to get that table?”

  Ray kissed her on the cheek and sat down across from her. “So how you doin, princess?”

  “I guess I'm doing good,” she said.

  “Well, I could understand that.”

  Grace looked into her drink.

  “What I mean is you know you got my sympathies, Grace. You know … Christ.” He shook his head. “I'm a bad talker.”

  “Thank you, Ray,” she said. She patted his hand.

  “Waiting on anyone else?”

  “Not really.”

  “I'm sorry I made us late.” Someone came up behind him and Grace looked up. The bottle blonde had come over.

  “You two met?” said Ray.

  “About ten times. I'm Heather, she's Grace.”

  “I remember,” Grace said.

  “I'm gonna sit down, you two mind? Need to get away from those numbskulls.”

  Ray swept his arm toward the seat just as Rosalyn came back with three glasses of wine.

  “Oh hi sweetheart,” said Heather.

  “You need another,” said Rosalyn.

  “Hell no. I need someone to put a stop to me.”

  “Ray, why don't you get your ass up and help me carry the food.”

  Ray followed Rosalyn back to the bar.

  Heather smiled at Grace. “Your poor son. I was so sorry to hear that.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You know, if there's anything you ever need …”

  “We're fine.”

  “I understand what you're going through, I really do.”

  There was an awkward silence and Grace looked over toward Ray and Rosalyn, who were still at the bar, caught up talking to people.

  “Remind me how you and Howard met,” said Grace.

  “He hired me as his secretary. I was tending bar in New Martinsville and he came in and offered me a job. Which was pretty obvious but, well…” She shrugged. “I made him work for it.”

  “You miss your hometown ever?”

  “Hell, no. Howard had to spend ten grand just getting my teeth fixed. See?” She grinned. “I used to be bucktoothed, you should have seen me.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “Sad but true. But…”

  Grace looked at her.

  “I really mean that about your son. I just always thought there was something about you and I was so sad to see that paper the other day.”

  “It's not over yet. Just getting started, really.”

  “Probably the last thing you want to think about right now.”

  “It's alright.”

  “I'm always apologizing,” said Heather. “It's my special talent.”

  “Manicotti,” said Ray. “Plates for everyone.”

  “How'd you get that so fast?”

  “Called from the road.”

  “I can't even look,” said Heather. “I ought to use the restroom.”

  Rosalyn checked to see that Heather was out of earshot, then leaned over toward Grace. “You ought to see their goddamn house. Every single piece of furniture is black. They got a big exercise room and there's art on every wall.”

  Ray said, “You mean those pictures that look like a retard drew them?”

  Grace rolled her eyes.

  “I'm not kidding you,” said Ray. “Looks like someone drew them with their eyes closed. Then you hear what they paid for them.”

  “Like you would even know.” She turned back to Grace. “She told me they've spent two hundred thousand dollars on those paintings. Said it's all doubled in price just in the past year.”

  Ray snorted.

  Heather was back, sniffling. She didn't sit down. “I'm sorry y'all, I really ought to get going.”

  “Good to see you again,” Grace said.

  “You too, sweetheart.” She squeezed Grace's shoulder then walked out, tottering slightly on three- inch heels, the men at the bar watching her tight pants as she left, the door banging behind her.

  “Moneyman must be calling,” announced someone at the bar, after the door had swung shut. A few people chuckled.

  Ray tapped his nose. “Thirty thousand a year goes up there, from what I hear.”

  Grace was surprised at this slight cruelty. But then she was guilty of it herself.

  “Anyway …” said Rosalyn.

  The front door banged open again and Heather reappeared, heading back toward their table. When she reached it she leaned over to Grace. “You let us know if you need anything, hon.” She pressed a scrap of paper into Grace's hand. “Just in case, whatever, you call me.” She noticed everyone staring at her and walked quickly out of the bar before Grace had time to respond.

  “What was that about?” said Rosalyn, once she'd left again.

  “Everybody loves Grace, especially women who—”

  “Stop it,” said Rosalyn. She punched her husband on the shoulder, hard. “What the hell is wrong with you today?”

  “My piehole needs manicotti.” He spooned a large portion onto his dish. “I'm just hungry, is all, it's just my sugar.”

  “I'm sorry we've been away,” said Rosalyn. “How're you holding up?”

  “I'm making it,” Grace told her. “Staying optimistic.”

  “You really think it'll be okay,” said Ray.

  “Yeah,” said Grace. “Somehow.”

  3. Poe

  He was lying in his bunk, thinking about what he would have to do to the guard, thinking about his lawyer coming and what he would have to say to the lawyer, when the cell door clattered open and a young inmate appeared, escorted by a CO. The inmate was about twenty, a sandy- haired country- boy type, a hucklebuck, despite being in the hole six months the kid still had freckles around his nose. He was much smaller than Poe, thin and good- looking in an almost girlish way but his arms were covered with tattoos the same as the others, a green shamrock prominent on one arm, the letters AB on the other, spiderwebs around each elbow. The CO closed the cell door and walked off down the tier.

  Poe sat up in his bunk.

  “I'm Tucker,” said the inmate. “They told me about you.”

  Poe introduced himself and they bumped fists.

  “Heard you're gonna take care of that piece of shit Fisher tomorrow.”

  Poe didn't say anything.

  “You got something to get him with?”

  “Yeah, but I'm not sure about any of it, to be honest.”

  Tucker got a confused look.

  “I'm still waitin for my trial.”

  “Well did you tell them that? ’Cause they told me you was a definite.”

  Poe shrugged.

  Tucker said, “I know you just got in and all, but these ain't a bunch of people you want to fuck with. You gotta put your mind to this shit. I'll go along and keep lookout if you want, but you got to be the one doing the hitting.”


  “I want to get out of here,” said Poe.

  “Well you fuckin won't,” said his cellmate. “If they even overheard us having this conversation they'd cut you into fuckin pieces. Larry and Dwayne got about a half dozen life sentences between them.”

  “I'm more worried about Clovis.”

  “Clovis is just muscle. Fuck Clovis.”

  “I dunno,” said Poe.

  “I'm telling you don't go back on your word. I'll fuckin forget we had this talk. Knowin how they work they'll stick me on the other end of the knife that goes in your fuckin neck.”

  “Whatever.”

  “You don't do it,” said his cellmate. “You might as well just fuckin hang yourself. This is a bad place for a young white man to go walkin around without friends.”

  Poe went back to staring at the ceiling and Tucker took out his foot-locker and began to arrange his things.

  “You touch any of this shit?”

  “I didn't even see it. They must have just brought it today.”

  “I'll know if you did.”

  “Don't worry yourself,” Poe said.

  That night when all the lights were shut off there was a tapping at the bars and Poe woke up. He looked out and saw a guard standing there. The guard looked up and down the cellblock, then unbuttoned the front of her pants so her pubic hair was visible. He heard a rustling in the bunk underneath. That fuckin pervert is jerkin off, Poe thought. To that fat fuckin guard. He watched the guard for a time, out of curiosity more than anything else, and then lay back on the bed until it was over.

  After some time he heard: “Don't look at her again. I been down six fuckin months and I paid for that shit.”

  “I wasn't looking,” said Poe.

  “I heard you looking. I know you were looking.”

  “I got no interest in your friend,” he said. “I didn't know what was happening.”

  Tucker grunted and didn't say anything further. Poe tried to fall back asleep but he was thinking about the guard. It was maybe a setup. They jerk off to one guard but want me to flatback the other one. He couldn't make sense of it. He wondered if they were all working for the DA, trying to trap him further. Except he doubted the DA had any idea what went on here, he doubted anyone did, they wouldn't allow it, it was gladiators every day. It was Roman times. Except maybe he had been sent here on purpose. They acted one way, they wanted the law served, but they didn't mind if you got raped in the shower or your skull cracked by a combination lock. Really, there was no such thing as the law. There was only what people wanted to do to you.

  He lay still for a while and he was shaking, fear or anger he didn't know. He thought if I don't beat that guard I got all of them after me, the whites and the blacks both, and the guards won't care. If I do hit the guard I got the guards and the blacks after me. Except certain guards had side deals. Invisible webs. There were deals going down everywhere, only not with him.

  He thought about it more and more and he wanted to punch something, he slammed his palm into the wall and rocked the bed, the wall didn't move it would never move, his cellmate punched his mattress from the bottom. He would ignore the cellmate. But still he had just been punched. Though no one had seen it he would let it pass.

  He wished Isaac was in front of him, he would knock the shit out of Isaac. All he'd done was get his throat cut and his balls nearly yanked off. He'd paid enough. He'd paid enough that night for anything he'd done. Isaac hadn't paid at all, not a fucking thing.

  There was the same din going on outside, the same pointless shouting and music, underneath him his cellmate moving around on his mattress, trying to get comfortable. Isaac would get massacred. The whole hundred ten pounds of him. He would be a snack for these people. That was why he, Poe, was here. He was doing the right thing. He was being a hero. He would act like other people were watching—it would keep his thoughts and actions pure. That was the key to anything: pretend others are watching. It was just like the field, a bunch of big guys wanting to knock the shit out of you, it was your choice. Wolf or sheep, if you didn't choose it was chosen for you. Hunter or hunted, predator or prey, everyone knew it was the ancient relationship.

  But it was not just that. It was not just pure nobility. In simple truth this place had been waiting for him. There were those who had capabilities and those who didn't and even in his glory days he had known it, known they would figure it out one day, a bullet he would never dodge. His mother she'd had her hopes but he had known. It was his own in-sides. He'd run out his luck and was living his fate and things considered, he'd been lucky.

  He would knock the shit out of the guard. And whoever else. He would treat it like a game he had to play He would go down to the hallway early and run it through his head, visualize the other guy already on the ground. He would take the guard from behind so his face wouldn't be seen. All that mattered here was your deeds, your acts as others saw them, he hadn't known it that morning in the cafeteria but now he did. Then he thought: no. He could not do it. He could not hit the guard. His legs were shaking again and he had to piss and he got down from the bunk and afterward he ran the water in the sink and washed his face.

  He heard Tucker say, “You're wakin me up when you do that. Once you're up there you need to stay there for the night.”

  “You woke me up jerkin off and now you're telling me when I can piss.”

  “That's right,” said Tucker. “I ain't gonna tell you again, neither.”

  “You can talk all you want,” said Poe. “I don't give a fuck what you say.”

  He was about to get back into his bunk when he heard Tucker's weight shift, he swung hard and hit Tucker in the face just as he was standing up, Tucker fell back to his bunk but then seemed to rebound off it, he was on top of Poe, he was very fast. They throttled around like that, they were rolling around in the tiny space between the wall and the bunkbeds, grunting, it was a slow fight it was a wrestle for leverage, to get a chokehold, only Poe was much stronger. He got a few hits in and soon enough he had Tucker's head in both hands and was knocking it against the floor.

  Then he realized that Tucker had stopped hitting back and that the lights had come on. The guards were already outside the cage. He put his hands up but they peppersprayed him anyway and cracked him in the back and legs with their batons, it wasn't like getting hit with a fist, he could feel the damage it was doing. He covered up and finally they stopped hitting, he couldn't see a thing, his eyes were burning, he was shouting for water. He let himself be cuffed and lifted to his feet, he was dragged down the tier, the inmates were all shouting things, everyone was awake and watching, he was blind, he was choking and crying, wet everywhere, he couldn't tell if it was water or spit or tears or blood. He stumbled into someone, a guard, they thought he was trying to break loose and they were hitting him again, he went down. Then they were dragging him again, it must have been a lot of them. They dragged him down a flight of stairs, he pulled his head up so it wouldn't hit the cement, they threw a bucket of water into his face, his eyes felt better, they hoisted him up and bent him over something, this is where it comes, he thought, this is where they take that from you. But then there was more water on his face, a hose, they were squirting it right into his eyes. It was just a sink. They were washing his face. He was taken to another part of the prison, it was the basement, he was in a cell the same size as his old one only there was one bunk. He was on his back on the thin mattress, feeling the relief of his eyes not burning anymore.

  Poe could hear that one of the guards was still there. He heard the guard light a cigarette and he smelled it.

  “You got any money,” he said.

  “No,” Poe said. His nose was still running profusely from the pepper-spray and he had to sit up to blow it on the floor.

  “Must have someone you can call.”

  “Not really.”

  “Well,” said the guard. He looked thoughtful. He offered Poe the remainder of the cigarette and Poe got up from his bed to take it.

  “Fo
r reasons you may or may not know,” said the guard, “we're all glad to see that particular white nigger get beat. But that was real dumb on your part. They ain't gonna let you walk away from that.”

  4. Harris

  Of course he wanted to see Grace tonight but Even Keel knew it was better to wait. Take things a little easy. He was halfway to the compound when the idea of being home all night with the dog seemed more lonely than he could handle. He pulled over and went through his cellphone and found Riley Coyle's number.

  “I'm out with the regular crowd of pricks,” said Riley. “If you want to meet us at the Dead End.”

  Harris went home and changed out of his uniform and headed back toward town. Of course half the reason, no, not half, maybe slightly less, twenty percent, was that if he had a few drinks he would call Grace. And she would answer, and then …

  The Dead End was one of the few bars that had remained open the entire time since the mill had closed, and the joke was it hadn't been cleaned since before the mill had opened. It was a long wood- paneled room, dim and comfortable, with a view from the back deck over the water. Riley, Chester, and Frank had worked at the mill before it closed. Eventually Frank had gotten rehired at U.S. Steel in Irvin, Riley had opened a small machine shop, and Chester had gotten an MBA. He now ran with a slightly different crowd, consulting work for drug companies. When Harris got to the bar, all three of them were sitting at a table, flirting with the owner's wife.

  “Boys.”

  “Mr. Johnny Law,” said Riley He turned to the owner's wife, a pretty brunette about Grace's age. She'd stiffened noticeably since Harris's arrival. “He says he's thirsty.”

  “I'm fine,” said Harris.

  “He's thirsty,” Riley insisted. The woman smiled at Harris and went back to the bar. It was hard to believe she was married to Fat Stan, the owner. Pickins in the Valley must be slim. Obviously, he thought. Look at you. A woman like Grace … He decided to sit down.

  “How's everyone?”

  “Doing great,” said Frank. “Best day of my life.”

  “Frankie just got a new toy,” said Chester. “Would have driven it here if the wife let him.”