American Rust

  It was not murder but what they were doing it did not look good. He knew he had started it. He knew when Isaac went out to piss he wasn't really pissing. It was the old Billy Poe fire going and it was not the first time it had caused a predicament. He'd wanted to lay hands on those fucks. Thought I'll take all three of them, thought that will be fucking something I'll take all three, only they'd nearly killed him and it was little Isaac English who ended up on top, literally killing and not even just hurting that big Swede. With the stone and not the sword, as they said. Christ he thought they will give you the goddamn chair. Don't give a shit, wish it was both of those fucks dead, the one Otto and the bearded Mexican who cut my neck and goddamn cockhandled me, felt his fingers on my penis. He touched himself between his legs, it was very tender and even jostling it sent waves up into his stomach and he had to stand still a second. He would clean himself with soap. Soap and hot water. Hot bath and soap. It was a big fucking knife but Jesus it was a serious knife. You're alright now. He saw the lights of the trailer up ahead. He thought he would make it.

  He got closer and saw his mother's shape watching for him in the window and he realized he would have to tell her what happened, how his pants got reeking like piss and his neck cut and his walking in a snowstorm nearly frozen to death in a T-shirt. He moved slowly off the road into the trees at the edge of the yard, he would wait until she went to bed, can't tell her those things. She'd tell his father though Christ this town he'll hear anyhow. He thought his mother might be letting that old bastard move back in. Seeing him out with that fucking math teacher, twenty- four fucking years old. He winks at me. Didn't tell Mom about it only I should have because now she is letting him back. Only she is in a bad state and maybe it is what she needs, the other assholes she's bringing home aren't any better, that older guy was fine but the rest of them sitting on the goddamn couch watching TV while she cooks their dinners, acting like king of the castle, couple of those I should have beat with the axe handle for treating her like that. Look on their faces like they thought they could do better. Told that fat one with his Honda motorcycle this ain't your fuckin house and he stopped smiling when he realized I'd break his jaw. Should have done it but Jesus the look on her face when she heard me say that. Didn't speak to me for days. Mental note if you make it to forty remember on how all those fucks treated her. Stop being an asshole while you're still young.

  He sat down under a tree. He watched the flurries land on the grass, had a faint awareness that time was passing and he began to feel warmer, sitting there under the hemlock. The miracle being it was Isaac who'd saved him. He didn't look like much, his wrists and hands were so thin. Delicate, that was the word you would use for Isaac, his face as well, he was light- boned, it was not a man's face. It was the face of a boy bugeyed, people teased him about his eyes. He was an easy target but Poe had always defended him, he had a much easier time because of Poe. Poe was king back then, glory days. Two years gone by since. Now Isaac was the only one who didn't look down on him. The others were all happy to see the king come back to earth, he had been someone and now he was not—that was a story everyone liked to hear. The human race—they despised anyone they thought was better than them. The sad thing being it was all in their own minds, he didn't think he was better than anyone. He had no such illusions. He had always known it wouldn't last. He had made friends with Isaac, who had no other friends—and why? Because he liked him. Because Isaac was the smartest person in the Valley, maybe the entire state, Pennsylvania—it was not a small place. Though possibly, he could admit it, he'd known that hanging out with Isaac would get him points with Lee.

  The wind, he thought. Getting out of that wind was all it took. He kept sitting and felt warmer. He felt better and he thought it must really be warming up now, it was definitely warming up, so why could he still see the flakes swirling in the porchlight. He had not always defended Isaac, that was the truth of it. Isaac did not know about those moments but they had occurred and there was no undoing them.

  Except that things equaled out. Two months back the river had been frozen over, skim ice, Isaac had looked at him and said you dare me and then stepped off the rocks and only made it a few steps before he broke right through and disappeared. Poe had stood panicked for a minute and then jumped in after him, crashing through the junk ice, he'd dragged Isaac out of the water, both of them soaking wet and nearly frozen to death, Isaac who had gone swimming in the river like his mother. If that wasn't a sign, he didn't know—he had saved Isaac and now Isaac saved him. It showed you there was a reason for all of it.

  He looked at their trailer, his mother had not wanted to buy it but there was a lot of land and his father had wanted the land. Somehow he won that one, but then they split up and his mother was stuck with the trailer in the boonies. His mother, who talked about moving to Philadelphia, who'd done several semesters at college. Who used to roll out of bed looking good but now goes shopping in dirty old sweatpants and her hair tangled up. That and her husband leaving her. Your own situation not doing much to ease her mind, either, should have gone off to college if only for her. He decided to think about something else: all this wetness and sun the grass will be fresh tomorrow and the rabbits will be out. Wild meat heals you. Stew and a beer for lunch. He thought maybe there was some of last year's venison in the freezer but nothing was as good as a fresh rabbit, stew it a couple three hours falling off the bone. Or pound it flat and dip it in Bisquick and fry it. Yes it was the wild meat, before the games he ate it and now it would sort him out as well. So get up. He watched himself from a great distance. English won't tell anyone they grabbed you like that but so what, saved you—owe him now. Whatever he says you have to do. Probably tell his sister about it. She won't care, though. He didn't want to think about Lee. He had trouble thinking about Lee anyway but especially right now, not to mention she'd gotten married, she hadn't told him, she hadn't told him a goddamn thing about that, even though he'd always known it was just fun and games between them. He watched the flurries in the light, it was warm under the tree watching the snow come down, something is wrong, he thought, he couldn't quite put his finger on it, everything was quiet.

  — — —

  Grace Poe was sitting in the trailer in the shapeless gray sweatsuit she wore nearly every day now, even when going to town. She didn't know how long she'd been sitting there, staring at the brown panel walls inside the trailer. She'd turned the TV off to let herself think, it might have been nearly an hour, recently she'd come to prefer it to the television, just sitting and thinking, crazy thoughts, she was imagining herself on a trip to the Holy City, a trip she knew she would never take. She imagined herself on a steep rocky coast in Italy, all the old castles and the hot sun, hot and dry. Easy on the bones. Lots of wine and everyone suntanned.

  Outside it was not quite as dark as normal, the storm clouds carried light from the town. She thought she'd seen her son coming up the road. Maybe she'd just imagined it. You're turning into an old lady, she thought, you're going a little bit crazy. It was either tragic or funny. She decided it was funny. She was annoyed at her son—they were out of firewood and she was wrapped under two blankets and it wasn't so much to ask, keep the wood split and the house warm. It was okay to be angry about that. It wasn't as if they were going to freeze, there were electric baseboard heaters but they cost a fortune, it was out of the question to run them. The best thing would be installing propane or oil heat, but she hated living in a trailer and for years she'd been hoping to move out of it. Buying a real furnace, sinking money into the trailer, was like giving up. It was better to be cold. She got up and went to the window, looking through her reflection, but nothing was moving in the road or the field, just the quiet emptiness that was always there. She had never expected she would live in a trailer, never expected she would live in the country.

  She looked back at her reflection. Forty- one and her hair had gone mostly gray, she'd stopped dying it when her husband moved out, to spite him or herself, she didn't
know, but she'd put on weight, too, it was bunching up under her chin. She'd always been a little heavy but it had never showed in the face. It seemed to her that even her eyes were going dull, burning down like old headlights. Soon enough she would have the kind of face you saw and could not imagine as anything but old. Cut the pity party, she told herself. You could take care of yourself a little better. She was right to let Virgil come back. Virgil would not have let the stoves sit empty.

  As for Virgil, she had her hopes but it was getting not to matter—the ones her age, if they had jobs, would stay around a few weeks, months at most. Each time she'd gotten her hopes up and each time it'd spoiled, they all wanted to be taken care of, for dinner to appear in front of them, it should have been a joke but it wasn't. Half of them didn't even put any effort into sex, you would have thought there'd at least be the dignity of that, but not even. At the library she'd signed up for an Internet dating service, but all the men her age were looking for women much younger, and even in the bars it seemed there was nothing for her but the fifty- and sixty- somethings, men expecting to screw women they could be the fathers of. So at least Virgil was coming back. Yes, she thought, now that it's convenient for him, quiet little mouse that you are.

  The snow was beginning to fall harder and she saw someone moving at the edge of the yard, drunk, she thought, playing around, pissing his name in the snow while the stoves are out of wood. Years earlier, just after Virgil left, she'd gotten a job offer in Philadelphia and she'd nearly taken it but Billy was doing so well in school, playing football, and she'd still had hopes that Virgil would come back to her quickly. She knew what that life would have looked like— thirty- five, apartment in the city, night school, single mom—like a movie. She would have married a lawyer. Finished her own degree. Instead she was living in Buell in a trailer with her spoiled child, man, whatever he was now, her son who had nearly had everything, a football scholarship, but had decided to stay home with his mother, going hungry if she didn't cook his dinner. She wondered why she was in such a bad mood. Maybe something was happening.

  She decided to go out to the porch. Her feet got cold and wet but it was beautiful outside, it was all white, the trees, grass, the neighbor's empty house, it was like a painting, really, a spring snowfall, a month out of season, you could see the green underneath, it was very peaceful. “Billy,” she said quietly, as if her voice might disturb the scene. He was sitting under a tree at the edge of the yard. Something was wrong. There was snow in his hair and he didn't have a coat. She leaned over the porch railing. He didn't look up.

  “Billy,” she called. “Come inside.”

  He didn't move.

  She ran out into the yard in her bare feet. When she reached him his eyes moved slowly, focused on her, then looked at something else. His face was white and there was a gash on his neck and blood had come down onto his shirt and stained it. She shook him. “Get up,” she said.

  She tried to pull him up but he was dead weight, no, she thought, this is not fair, she got an arm under him but he still wasn't helping her, he was so heavy, she wouldn't be able to lift him, he barely seemed to know she was there. He was so cold he could have been a log or a rock. “Get up,” she shouted at him, her voice muted by the snow. He pushed weakly with his legs and then they were standing and she told him we are going to walk now, we are going to walk to the house.

  She got him to the bathroom, set him in the bathtub in his clothes. She ran hot water into the tub and took his shoes off.

  “What happened,” she said, but his eyes were somewhere else. The hot water was pouring into the tub but he stared numbly ahead. He didn't know her. The water turned the color of mud. There was a strong odor; she wondered distantly when he had washed himself last, he had not been taking care of himself, she knew that, getting laid off from the hardware store had sent him into a tailspin, she should have done more. She had decided to let him find his own way. She had made the wrong decision. His skin was white and icy to the touch and she pushed his shoulders deeper under the water.

  The steam filled the room and the scab on his neck loosened and his cuts were running and the water nearly black from dirt and blood. She was kneeling and splashing the warm dirty water on his face. His body had cooled it and she drained it partially and ran more hot in. After a few minutes he began to shiver as he warmed up. She couldn't remember if you were supposed to warm a person this fast. She knew there was something you were not supposed to do, you warm them too fast and they die. She sat him up and wiped the scratch on his neck with iodine, the brown stain ran down into his shirt.

  “Let's get these clothes off,” she said, the soft mothering voice she hadn't used in years. He let her take his shirt off. She undid his belt, undid the button on his filthy jeans, tried to get them off but he was holding them up with both hands—he would not let her take his pants down.

  “Billy.”

  He didn't say anything.

  “Let go,” she said.

  He did and she took the pants off with some difficulty, careful to leave his underwear in place. The cut on his neck was bleeding again, it was straight and deep, done with a knife, she realized, like a piece of cut meat, she saw a hint of whiteness, unnatural- looking, she knew it must be the tendon or some other kind of tissue. She tried to remember if she had locked the door. Virgil had left a shotgun but she didn't know where the shells were.

  “Is someone coming after you?” she said. She shook him. “Billy. Billy, is someone going to be coming here?”

  “No,” he said. He was waking up.

  “Look at me.”

  “No one is coming,” he said.

  She saw spots in front of her. It is too hot in this room, she told herself. Her head was getting light. Next time you see him like this won't be in this house, he'll be laid out on a table in a hospital basement. She picked up his wet pants and began folding them, he had pissed his pants when they cut him. Now he was lying there flushed and awake and looking at his pants in her hand.

  He sat up and reached and she leaned over the tub to hold him. He took the pants from her hand.

  “I can wash them myself,” he said.

  — — —

  When she left, Poe stripped his shorts off and scrubbed himself where the bum had grabbed him. The cut on his neck stung and he remembered knowing Isaac had left him, for a second all he'd thought was fucking Isaac he left you here and then he'd felt the cutting burning on his neck. He'd felt the cutting and he'd gone loose, done what was expected of him. Would have cut me all the way, Jesús his name was, Jesús the cocksucking Mexican who is still alive now somewhere, he was not a cruel person but help me Father I'll find him I'll put a stick through his ankles and hoist him up and skin him. Poe could imagine him screaming and the thought of that, of old Jesús screaming as Poe skinned him alive it nearly gave Poe a hard- on or maybe he would gut him first, field- dress him, as it were, leave his guts all hanging out so old Jesús could get a long look. Christ, he thought, listen to yourself. Your fucking brain is out of adjustment. He splashed water on his face. The Mexican had squeezed on his balls so hard he'd tasted the puke come up. That was when he pissed himself. I ain't kiddin, said Jesús. I'll cut these off you don't settle down quick. He'd felt the air going in and out of him and the man's heart beating against his back the way you feel a girl's heart beating when you're on top of her it was fucking disgusting and he'd let it happen, he wanted to sink back under the water and never come up.

  He remembered that enormous fucking crack, though, it sounded like a pistol and the Mexican let go and Poe took off toward the door. He saw Otto, the eyes all bulged out Otto was crying blood and it was swelling from his mouth and ears. Isaac was waiting for him by the door, he was a good man Isaac no doubt about that, a fucking standup human man. Though he might say otherwise he was not sure, when the moment of truth came, that he himself could have done that for someone. He was not that kind of person, that was the truth of it. That was a thing he knew about himself. Whereas I
saac—Poe would have wanted to but he might not have been able. Might not have been capable of making his feet take him in the direction. He had always suspected that but now he was sure. Except I would have gone back for Isaac, he thought. Maybe not for someone else but definitely for him.

  He knew Otto must still be right where he fell. They wouldn't try to bury him—burying a dead body, you're fucked if you get caught doing that. He wondered if they would go to Harris, everyone knew Harris hated bums but maybe these guys didn't know. Maybe they would tell him and Harris would have no choice but to check it out. Went with Mom for a while. He wondered if his mother had done it with Chief Harris. There was no question about it. Bud Harris had gotten Poe out of an assault charge. Everyone knew about that—that Poe had gotten a free ride for what he'd done to the kid from Donora. This time Harris would not be able to help him.

  After a time he got out and dressed and went into the living room. He was so exhausted he could barely keep his head up. The house was dark, she'd turned nearly all the lights off, but it was warm and he could tell by the singed dusty smell that she'd turned the baseboard heaters on. He felt guilty but also relieved.

  She said: “Was anyone else with you?”

  “Isaac English.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Better than me.”