American Rust

anyway. You might have already traded yourself for the Baron.

* * *

Much later the stream teed into a broad clearing for a powerline. It was clear and flat and with the starlight and faint moon he could see a long way in both directions, the land stretching out on either side of him.

Polaris behind you—going south. Sit a minute. He found a place in the tall grass and relaxed, looking into the distance, down the long swath cut for the powerlines. He closed his eyes and the afterimages quickly resolved into faces. He opened them again and looked around in the darkness. There was nothing. Big deal, he thought. He put his head on his bony knees. He could see men sitting around a fire. You’re just tired, he thought. But the faces wouldn’t go away, it was the Swede and the others and something else as well, a dim shape just outside the light. Then the Swede was standing there, fully lit in the glow from the stove, saying he must have already took off. Last words. Small choices—you came in a different door than you went out. Knew not to go back in the same way.

Only reason you and Poe are alive, that small choice. Your own body trying to keep you breathing—go in the other door. Hard-wiring. Old as gravity. Look what you did to the Swede: no premeditation, no knife, gun, or club. A found object. A natural part of you, the lower level. Built into every man woman child, you tell yourself you don’t need it but look around you. Your friend over the stranger. Yourself over the friend. Highest stakes and you are still here and the other guy is not.

Then what is the point? He took a deep breath. Need to get moving again. He was exhausted, his legs had stiffened and cramped in the few minutes he’d been sitting, but he stood up and began to walk.

Here is the point: keep setting one foot in front of the other. Stay warm. What you did in that store you’ll have to do again, maybe not tomorrow but the next day. Pretend you’re different but you’re not. Still have to eat.

You need to admit this. Stop walking. No, I would rather not. Put my faith in the kid, he’ll figure something out.

He continued to push through the tall grass. Above him the sky was broad and dark and he could no longer see lights from any houses.

There is no kid, he thought. There is only you.

10. Grace

She’d barely slept and the light had been coming in the window awhile now, morning again, there was no point. She called in sick to work. She had to think. She found herself standing by Billy’s door; the hole he’d punched and covered with masking tape, some tantrum or other, she didn’t remember the reason, she pushed the door open and went into his room. There was a stillness, sunlight and old dustmotes. Feel of a tomb. She eased herself into his bed, the smell of him still strong, her boy and the man he’d become.

The childish feel of the place, old posters sagging, piles of things clumped together, clothes and shoes and hunting magazines, school papers he’d labored over, a curtain rod that had fallen down months ago but he hadn’t bothered to put back up. She should eat but she wasn’t hungry. She had done the best she could, it had not been enough. She would never know the reasons but she had not been good enough, she would never understand it. He had made her life simple, she saw now— how many times did you keep going just for him. A reason for living the same as a reason for dying. The heaviness she felt, she could not imagine herself getting up.

His hunting bow leaning in one corner, his rifle next to the bed, the only two things he religiously took care of, he always waxed the bowstring and oiled the rifle and kept them both on their respective mounts on the wall, wooden pegs he had made himself. She got up and lifted the Winchester, cocked the hammer, she didn’t know if it was loaded or not. She didn’t check the chamber, just held it in her hands and felt the weight. It was a game she could play, loaded or not. If it turned out to be loaded it would not be her fault.

After a time she put the gun down and her hands began to shake. She needed to leave the room, leave Billy’s room, but she didn’t want to. She sat back down on the bed.

She would have to get rid of the gun, give it to Harris. But maybe it was too late, the thought had entered her mind, a slow undermining, like water along a river, or the way an old mineshaft could suddenly collapse a house. It took the earth out from under you and then…

Except there was still Harris. She wouldn’t be alone. But without Billy she wondered if she would get quieter and quieter, shrink until there was nothing, it had always been borrowed time, it was all built on hope. Underneath all the bullshit about choosing to be happy, there was hope. Meaning doubt. The heart doing its skip jump that everything was about to change.

It was faith she was talking about, always thinking better things were waiting when really it was a rat’s nest, one of those knots you couldn’t untie.

She stood up and opened Billy’s closet, nothing was on shelves, it was all a tall pile that was barely held back by the closet door. It would all have to be thrown away, he was never coming back.

Except I didn’t hurt anyone, she said out loud. Why should I be the one to pay for it. That was true—she hadn’t hurt anyone. The work she did at the women’s shelter—she had helped a lot of people. On Billy’s dresser there were a few old beer bottles, she didn’t know how long they’d been sitting there, she picked up one by the neck, hefted it, she wanted to throw it through the window, she wanted to scream and smash everything in the room. But there was no one there to see it, or hear her. If no one heard your sounds then you did not really make them.

I am a good person, she said out loud, I have always done the right thing. She was the kind of person who went out of her way for people. And Billy, it was self- defense, she could not stop thinking that. Self-defense, she had seen his neck. One of those people, probably the man who’d died, had been trying to cut her son’s throat. It was self- defense but no one was saying that. He would go to prison, lose his life for nothing. And the ones who put him there…

Say it, she thought. Say what you’re thinking. Say what you’re meaning now. She went into the bathroom and looked at herself in the mirror, washed her hands and face. I am a good person but it is not fair what is happening to my son. And Harris can find that man. Good person or a good mother, there was not supposed to be a difference. But there was. It was not the same thing. Except it was. It was self- defense, it was this man, this homeless man, a no one, Harris said, or Billy. There was no question about it, it was not how you were supposed to think but there it was, it was the other man for Billy.

* * *

She took a long bath and used the sandalwood bubble soap she’d been saving for a year now, a present from the women at the shelter. What would they say? But they would all do the same thing, any mother would, there wasn’t a choice about it. She called Harris and he promised to come over.

11. Harris

There was something wrong with Grace, she was sitting on the couch as if surprised to see him there, for a second he wondered if Virgil had come back but his truck wasn’t outside. Then he thought no, she must be drunk.

“I didn’t hear you come up,” she said. She patted the couch next to her.

“Bad day?”

She nodded.

“Anything I can do?”

She shook her head. “I guess I just got to thinking it was a sign, Billy and all. Like I gave it my best and…” She shrugged.

“It’s not a sign. It’s still early.”

“You don’t have to lie about it anymore.”