American Rust Part 8

"You're a good boy." She hugged him but still, he could tell, she didn't believe him. Who could blame her? He was hungry and he went to the fridge, there was nothing he wanted. He checked the chest freezer on the porch, but it was nearly empty as well. Some venison wouldn't hurt anything. He would go and get a deer-poaching-it ran in the family. There were too many deer now, they kept on extending the hunting season but never enough to catch up with the deer population, a little poaching it was no big deal. Fifty pounds of venison, it was free money. Though his mother wouldn't touch it.

After getting dressed he took his .30-30 off its rack, his Winchester 94 from before Winchester went to s.h.i.+t, the gun was fifty years old. Top-eject the way G.o.d wanted and no scope-that was for people who couldn't shoot. An original Lyman peep. Someone might have guessed it was his father's or grandfather's rifle but neither one of them knew or cared to take care of anything this nice. He'd saved and bought it himself, pa.s.sing up the clunky newer models, mostly plastic, that cost half as much.

He dropped a few cartridges in his pocket, three was the right number, then walked down into the field, it was definitely spring now, that rich green smell was everywhere, he wondered where it came from. After slipping into the small blind he'd built, he drew in the air, even the damp soil in the blind smelled rich, it was just the smell of things growing. Smell of life, really. He pushed a pair of blunt- nosed rounds into the magazine. It was all a cycle. It would continue long after he was gone. It was turning out to be a good day. Though already he'd nearly p.i.s.sed it away, he wouldn't get to the library before it closed. It's Sunday, he thought. Probably closed anyway. He would get it done tonight and still mail the apps tomorrow. But for now it was a nice day and you did not p.i.s.s away days like this in the library.

The field had not been mowed in a year and the gra.s.s was high and the goldenrod was taking over. He would have to mow it soon. He would do that tomorrow as well, a field unmowed did not stay a field very long. He would stop being the kind of punk that put everything off till tomorrow. No excuses it was time to grow up. In his way he was still a momma's boy. He admitted that now. He was good at some things but not at others. He looked out over the land, rolling off in all different directions as far as the eye could see, it was all ridges and hollows, deep wrinkles in the earth as if G.o.d had taken a great armful and squeezed it in on itself. Like when you play with the skin on a dog's face, it all wrinkles up. He had not even bothered to get another dog, he thought about that. He was still mourning Bear. But Bear had been dead two years. Was that mourning or being lazy? He went back to the rolling terrain. Of course G.o.d was not the explanation. Isaac would know why it did that. Underground plates, probably.

The field descended gradually to a stream and then the land went uphill again, a hundred different types of green, the pale new gra.s.s and new buds on the oaks and darkness of the pine tree needles, the hemlocks. Spring-Christ even the animals loved springtime. You called it all green but that was not correct, there should have been different words, hundreds of them. One day he would invent his own. The air was cool and the sky was very blue. Christ it was a nice day. It could have been back in Indian times, a day like this, with the land all greening up and beautiful. He did not see why people would ever want to leave here. It was a beautiful place and it was no exaggeration to say it. It was because of the job situation. But that was changing as well. The Valley was recovering. Only it would never be what it had been and that was the trouble. People couldn't adjust to that-it had been a wealthy place once, or not wealthy but doing well, all those steelworkers making thirty dollars an hour there had been plenty of money. It would never be like that again. It had fallen a long ways. No one blinked at taking a minimum- wage job now. He had not been old enough to see it fall is why it didn't bother him. He just saw the good parts of it. That is a gift, he decided, to only see the good parts. Because we're the first ones to grow up with it like this. The new generation. All we know. But things are improving in different ways. Right now, right from where he was sitting, there were patches of woods that he remembered being overgrown fields when he was younger. Oak, cherry, birch, the land going back to its natural state.

He looked at the area he was hunting, the strip of woods at the edge of their property, a long thin funnel of trees that ran along the edge of the field down to the creek. There were creeks everywhere, that was the other thing about this land. It was rich with life only most people went by it without noticing, as he often did himself. The deer would break from the end of the treeline into the small opening before the creek. He would take the smallest one. He sat and let his mind empty out.

Time pa.s.sed, he was just watching, he was in his trance, his body was all numbed out he couldn't even feel it, he hadn't even twitched in an hour at least, just his eyes. That was the trick, disconnect your mind from your body. It felt very natural, his father had taught him, you watch any nature show and you know all animals do it, it was not possible to sit still for any length of time otherwise, to just completely blend in. You put every part of you to sleep except your eyes. But people didn't have to do that anymore. You did not have to be a part of your surroundings. You just went to the drive- through. He decided there was something wrong with that. He himself couldn't eat a McDonald's hamburger, he could taste the chemicals in it, he had a delicate stomach. He could eat a pile of vension, or rabbit or quail or anything that lived in the woods, just anything where he knew where it came from. Any wild meat you could tell, it gave something back to you. But Christ, McDonald's. Not to single them out. It was not that their product was inferior. Burger King, Wendy's they were all just as bad. They gave him diarrhea. It was most likely the chemicals. He checked his watch again and only a minute had pa.s.sed. That's what you get for thinking, he thought. Time won't move if you think. He let himself focus again. He thought about the deer. Taking a nap under those trees where you'll hear anyone coming in after you. But soon you'll want to eat and maybe take a sip from that cool stream and you'll have to cross that little opening. He sniffed and turned his head slowly and sniffed again to check the wind. It was still favorable, coming from the direction of the treeline, blowing toward him. The deer couldn't smell him.

Wait for them to come get a nice cool drink from this stream. He thought about Lee. That will be fine, he thought. Even if she's married she still loves me. He wondered if he would see her that night. It didn't have to be so tragic, their ending. They loved each other but the stars were not in favor of it, so to speak. She was doing what was best. He thought about Isaac then, and the dead man in the factory. He s.h.i.+vered, it was not a good thought and he put it out of his mind. Harris had taken care of it anyway. It was a big f.u.c.kup and he'd caused it but Harris had taken care of it.

He heard another car come up the road and then pull into their driveway. One of Mom's friends. He wondered if he should go check. And waste all your two hours sitting and letting the woods forget you're here. All the squirrels and birds are feeding again like you don't even exist. Little Mrs. Whitetail's guard will be down. Sit like an Indian, wait them out. They're probably bedded down a hundred yards from here.

Twenty or so minutes later there was movement at the top of the field. He moved his body slowly in that direction but didn't raise his rifle. Then he saw it was not a deer. A person-Harris-appeared at the top of the hill next to the trailer. Poe could see the sunlight on his bald head. Harris was looking all around the field. Christ he'd get busted for poaching. First he catches me yesterday and now again today. He felt sweat run down his armpits all of a sudden, he could see Harris scanning the field, he could practically watch the man's mind working; Harris saw where the treeline funneled to the stream and then spotted the small thicket and the brush pile that gave good vantage on the opening. It was the best place to hunt that funnel and Harris began walking down the hill toward it, right toward him. Poe knew he couldn't see into the thicket, the sun was in Harris's face but still Harris was coming right for him. It was not for poaching. He would not have come all this way for poaching. He couldn't have known besides. It was that Isaac had been right-Harris was only biding his time and Christ he didn't know, he'd barely slept he couldn't think straight. Harris knew, you were not going to pull the wool over on Harris. Lee she would never talk to him again, getting her brother in trouble like that, the last one who needed trouble was Isaac English, tried to kill himself in the river like his mother did. He felt the weight of the rifle. It was two hundred yards to Harris, maybe one eighty, it was all he could think about, there were plenty of places to brace it was maybe a six- inch holdover at that distance. Only chance you'll ever have. You or anyone else Harris he was a f.u.c.king machine everyone knew it. He looked at Harris and thought that way for a long time. He had a strange feeling in his bowels, it was fear, he thought let this be over quickly. By the time he set down the .30-30, Harris was only seventy paces away. Christ. Christ you're a f.u.c.king lunatic an actual insane lunatic thinking about shooting a law enforcement officer you've known since you were a kid. As if that will make your problems go away.

He slid the gun under the brush pile and crawled for a while behind the brush so that when Harris saw him come out, he would not be near the gun.

Harris waited for him to stand up.

"Billy," said Harris.

"Afternoon, Chief Harris."

"Go on and fetch your rifle back up to the house so it doesn't rust."

Poe looked at him.

"Go on," said Harris. "We've got bigger things to worry about."

2. Isaac

He picked his way along the creek, the new moon, he thought, the night was very dark. Soon enough the ravine had shrunk to a flat streambed and he was on the grounds of the steelmill just south of town. He made his way north, past the long empty buildings, each a quarter of a mile long and twenty stories tall. He pa.s.sed the four remaining blast furnaces and their powerhouses, the furnaces were rusted black but still rose high above even the buildings, hundreds of enormous pipes snaking over and around each other, intricate windings. There were dozens of slag cars still on their tracks. He pa.s.sed under the ore crane and then pa.s.sed stacks upon stacks of I-beams and T-beams, other structural members. They'd run out of money during the dismantlement. No one wanted to buy an old steelmill. Too much liability.

It was dark and he was comfortable. He followed the train tracks out of the mill, past the town and his old school, past the road to Poe's. All of it went quickly out of sight. The railbed was dark and narrow and winding, cut into the side of the hill, the woods dense on either side, the sound of his footsteps seemed to carry a long way. The kid begins his journey for real. As alone now as when he came into the world. Deadest time of night-the day creatures still asleep and night creatures bedded down. A kid afoot. Bound for California. Warmth of his own desert.

There were a few hobo camps in the woods along the tracks and he kept his eyes out for fires. The kid will be fine, he thought. King of the snakes and duke of all hoboes. He watched a light move quickly across the sky high above him. A satellite. Comrade to Arab traders and astronauts. All wanderers.

Gradually the sky began to expand with a pale gray light and the few minutes before the sun rose properly he thought: right about now, right about now, and shortly after he heard a single chirp and then another, and within a few seconds the bushes and woods were rustling with movement, the sound of birdsong and fluttering wings, tanagers, grosbeaks, orioles. All on the same clock. Live by the same rules, never changing. Not like the kid. He makes his own sun. Decides he prefers the night. and shortly after he heard a single chirp and then another, and within a few seconds the bushes and woods were rustling with movement, the sound of birdsong and fluttering wings, tanagers, grosbeaks, orioles. All on the same clock. Live by the same rules, never changing. Not like the kid. He makes his own sun. Decides he prefers the night.

On the opposite side of the river the sun was. .h.i.tting brightly and the shadows on his side seemed to get darker. Ahead of him he could make out the tall smokestack and rotting water tower of the traincar plant. He began to feel nervous. No, he thought, the kid relishes any test. Pits his wit against any who tell him thou shalt not. thou shalt not. Decides to retrieve his backpack and belongings just for the sake of doing so. Only this time he will approach the plant from the rear. Decides to retrieve his backpack and belongings just for the sake of doing so. Only this time he will approach the plant from the rear.

Leaving the tracks, Isaac followed a small stream up the hillside, a canopy of alder, the bark white against the green of everything else, moss dragging in the clear fast water. Flowering plants. White ones bloodroot, purple ones don't know. Mayflowers, too-nearly extinct- too pretty for their own good. At the top of the hill the stream came out of a hole in the ground and he lay in the damp moss and splashed the cold water into his mouth until his stomach was full. After that he moved slowly through the woods, slipping from tree to tree until he could see the clearing where Harris's truck had been parked the previous night. The clearing was empty. He stayed in the woods anyway, walking parallel to the fireroad until he reached the meadow and the machine shop. It had taken a long time and the sun was well up now. He looked into the open dark doorway of the shop. Guilt and another feeling. Place of victory. Shouldn't be proud but I am. Thinking that he had an even stronger guilty feeling and went to look for his backpack in the field.

This calls for further reflection, he decided. How many people do you know who have never struck a person in anger? Only you. Which includes what happened the other night.

Meanwhile here's your pack, just where you left it... money and notebooks still inside. Though slightly damp. A sandwich bag of raisins and peanuts. A nice breakfast. It occurs to the kid that he has not eaten in two days. No worries-food can be found anywhere. After consolidating the things he needed into the larger army surplus pack, he left his smaller schoolbag in the field and made his way back toward the train tracks, finis.h.i.+ng off the raisins and peanuts.

Two hours later a short train pa.s.sed him in the middle of a long straightaway and all he could do was watch in frustration as the cars sped by, too fast to grab hold. Tired and hungry anyway. Might have gone under the wheels if you even tried. What would it matter? Speeding up the natural process. Beings in time, moving toward our expiration. It's cowardly, he thought. That's why it matters. Of all the sperm and eggs that ever existed, here you are, moving under your own power. Odds of you existing-one in ten trillion, no, smaller. One to Avogadro's number: 6.022 times 1023. Meanwhile people throw it away.

He decided not to think about it-sadness too much for him. He calculated where he was, and his speed. On flat ground he makes 3.5 miles per hour. Slightly slower on this gravel. Tires the ankles. Plus the tracks follow every curve in the river-the roads would be shorter. Except the land here is flat and the river will take him where he wants to go. The kid knows that the roads will just get him lost. He tunes himself to the rhythms of the cosmos. Slow and steady.

Belle Vernon was the next major town downriver. There'd been development there recently, a shopping mall, a Lowe's home improvement, a Starbucks, places like that. Traveling properly on foot, the kid is now beyond the places he knows anyone. His material comforts falling away, no place will be foreign. The world is his home. He teaches these lessons and sends them through the ether for others to soak through their skins. A child speaks his first words, a mother conceives a daughter. An old man in India and his deathbed realization-that's the kid.

He came around a sharp bend in the river, a retaining wall to keep the hill from sliding down over the train tracks, and surprised two men standing at the wall with their s.h.i.+rts off. It was an isolated spot, and the two men had cans of spraypaint in their hands. One had a shaved head and a tattoo of an eagle that spread across his entire chest. Isaac wasn't sure whether to turn around and go back the way he came or to keep going. Then he recognized one of them-Daryl Foster. He'd been a year behind Isaac but he'd dropped out. He worked at the Dollar Store in Charleroi. Isaac relaxed some.

"Isaac English?"

"Nice to see you, Daryl."

"Yeah," said Daryl, "been a while now, hasn't it?" He was smiling; he seemed genuinely happy to see Isaac.

"How you doing?" said Daryl's friend with the shaved head.

"Good," said Isaac.

"It's Nietzsche," said Daryl, pointing at what they were spraying.

Isaac nodded. They'd written, in tall neat block letters: OUT OF LIFE'S SCHOOL OF WAR, WHAT DOESN'T KILL OUT OF LIFE'S SCHOOL OF WAR, WHAT DOESN'T KILL and there he'd interrupted them. and there he'd interrupted them.

"Alright then, brother," said his friend, giving Isaac a nod.

"Take it easy," said Isaac. He took the signal and began to walk again.

"Hey," called Daryl. "You still taking care of your dad? s.h.i.+t I thought you'd be long gone, doing science experiments or something."

"Making my escape," Isaac called back. "If anyone asks about me ..."

"Won't say a G.o.dd.a.m.n word, brother."

Isaac waved and kept going. That was the good thing about the Valley. There was a serious anti- authoritarian bent. Being a rat was lower than being a murderer. Even two like this are the kid's allies, he thought. He chooses equally among heroes and murderers. Among the rich and the helpless.

He continued walking. As for Daryl hanging around the white supremacists, it was not unusual. Stormfront, they called themselves. They'd come in when the mills went under and Pennsylvania was now full of them. More than any other state, he'd read. All the hills-they can meet without anyone knowing. Still, no one took them seriously. Never heard of them hurting anyone. Of course it's easy to say that when you're white.

Shortly after, he pa.s.sed Allenport on the opposite side of the river, the Wheeling Pittsburgh steelmill still running there, though everyone knew it was bound to close soon-they were down to one s.h.i.+ft, only a few hundred people. There was a long train pulling out of the yard carrying sheetmetal rolls.

Next he pa.s.sed through a long section of forest and then a few miles later he saw the towboat station across from Fayette City, the piers and enormous white storage tanks, a handful of towboats tied up, smokestacks and pilothouses and stubby square bows, empty barges moored along the opposite bank. The trees and brush, the green was pus.h.i.+ng out everywhere, it was an uprising, it was above him and around him and over the water, there was not a single bare spot except for the trackbed gravel. Patch of white in the brush. Styrofoam? Legbone. Stripped and bleached, stray or suicide train jumper. Phosphorus donor. Old bones make new blooms. Regeneration. The kid has been here before. The kid has ridden Viking prows, hunted polar bear. Attempting to save his comrades, he is among the Fallen at Omaha Beach. Struck down, he rises again. Lives with honor-one of the few. The people retreat shamefaced from him and the kid stands alone. Accepts the company of the best and the worst. Accepts the company of himself.

The kid will rest a minute, he thought. The kid has not slept in seventy- two hours. He found a place along the riverbank in the heavy brush, lay out on top of his sleeping bag, and pa.s.sed out quickly. It was near dark when he woke up and started walking again. You slept eight hours. Recharge. It was completely dark when he came into Fayette City, the low square houses and empty shops, the train tracks ran right at the river's edge, a woman's dress in the gravel. The tracks pa.s.sed small white houses with manicured lawns. He was hungry again, he figured he'd come about ten miles, and he left the tracks and walked over to the main drag in search of food. There was nothing. All the stores had moved to the strip malls outside town. It's fine, he thought. Go thirty days without eating. Long way from today. He made his way back to the tracks.

The river was black and the stars were very clear. Feels like a long time since you've talked to anyone. Ignore that feeling in your stomach. Sharp pain then dull pain back to sharp again. Think about something else. Closest star is twenty- five trillion miles. Proxima something. Burning before the dinosaurs. Burning still when there isn't any human left on earth. Different galaxies, a trillion stars. However small you feel you're nowhere close to the truth, atoms and dust- specks.

Weak thinking, he thought. Of course it's true. Like getting depressed about your own death. Your only duty-make the best of it. The only true sin-not appreciating life. Meanwhile there's Charleroi on the other side, making good progress. Those cranes must be Lock Four. Wake up. He slapped his face. Felt that. On the other side of the river he could see the lights of Charleroi blanketing the hillside. He got closer to the cranes-it was the spot they had found her. In the actual lock channel they spotted her, it was only because of the contrast against the light cement walls. Lee told you that. How did she know? No one knew where she went in, only where she came out. Was taken out. Missing two weeks. Old man sure she was murdered, must have been skinheads, but then the autopsy: lungs full of water. I thirst. Found drowned, woundless otherwise-miracle she was noticed at all. River stones in her coat pockets, eleven pounds. Your educated guess. Filling your pockets with rocks from the field and checking the scale. Eleven pounds take anyone under, even Poe-precious balance keeps you afloat. The old man caught you doing it, weighing yourself. Imagining your mother walking along the river, collecting those rocks, humming. Had her own pain. Worst kind internal. Eternal. Let her off.

He began to walk faster, looking straight ahead, walk all night, put some miles between us. Sleep in the day. He was going past an old building, maybe a warehouse, when a car turned onto the small road alongside the tracks. He stepped into the bushes without knowing why and then saw a searchlight s.h.i.+ne from the car-a cop. He squatted in the weeds until the cruiser went past, the light shone in the branches just overhead. People in the houses must have called. Hate just the sight of you. Then he thought you could just go ask him for a drink of water, but he didn't get up until the car was long gone.

He pushed through the brush making his way toward the old building. Mouth very dry now-fixating. Mental game and you're losing. Find a stream again. But there would be no streams-it was an industrial zone. Several minutes later he was walking down the gravel road toward the warehouse; off to one side there was an old front- end loader, abandoned and grown over with devil's tear thumb. He picked his way through the thorns and went to the bucket and it was full of rainwater. Brus.h.i.+ng the leaves aside, he cupped his hand into it, it tasted tannic and like metal but he swallowed it anyway just to wet his throat, then took another palmful. Might be sorry about this later, he thought.

He was nearly to the building when he had a sudden urge to use the bathroom, he barely had time to squat in the ditch by the road. Nothing to wipe. Good- bye Mr. Clean. Something in that water? Too soon for that, just shock of something in the stomach. Can't remember the last time you felt this dirty.

He went around the warehouse, trying the doors, they were all locked but one. s.h.i.+ning his penlight around, the floor of the warehouse was filthy, piled with debris, people had been scavenging the copper wire and pipes. Right next to the door he'd come in through was another door that led to a small room, it looked like the office, it was cleaner and less dusty than the rest of the building. There were old file cabinets and desks. This is the spot, he thought. Smell of old p.i.s.s. He took his sleeping bag out and spread it on a desk, it might have been a workbench, he couldn't tell.

It was hard but he kept getting warmer and then he was actually comfortable and warm but he lay there and couldn't fall asleep. Can't stop the mind from going, try the old trick. He put his hand down his pants and pulled for a while but nothing happened. Too tired. He thought about Poe and his sister he had heard her cry out once, a stifled m.u.f.fled holding your breath noise, and after a minute of thinking about it he was hard, it was a disgusting thought, his own sister, but fine he'd take it, it was the closest he'd been to actual s.e.x in two years, not since he and Autumn Dodson had done it after her graduation party, he still was not sure why she had done it, she'd gone off to Penn State after that. Because you were the only one with a brain in the entire school. That was not the only reason-the kid took over that time, too. The kid made it happen, saying things old Isaac English never would have had the b.a.l.l.s to say. Then you're down on the couch in her den, she lifts up that cute little rear of hers to let you get her pants off. Then, look at you, a naked girl in front of you with her legs spread. Put your finger in her and watched it go in and out for a long time, seemed a miracle the way it was slippery like that. Lying there in the dark with his hand down his pants he thought about that, it was old material but good enough, he finished and fell asleep right after.

Sometime later he was dreaming, there was a car and then he heard voices and he was wondering if he could wedge the door closed when the voices got much louder and he realized he wasn't dreaming. There were people in the factory with flashlights.

"Someone cracked that door. It wasn't like that before."

"Come on, Hicks."

"You gotta look. You don't look from over there."

The next voice was loud: "If there's any piece- of- s.h.i.+t b.u.ms down there you might as well come out now and save us some work." People were laughing. Someone said: "You're a G.o.dd.a.m.n dumb- a.s.s, Hicks."

Isaac began to disentangle himself from the sleeping bag; the room he was in was small, the office maybe, there was only one way out of it and he was only partially out of the sleeping bag when the door swung open and light swept around the room. He put his hand on his knife but he saw them and they were young people, high schoolers. He let go of the knife.

"Hold up," he said, but he'd barely gotten off the workbench when one of them walked directly up to him, looked back briefly at his friends as if to make sure they were paying attention, and punched Isaac in the face.

"I went to Buell Memorial," he said, but the others were on top of him and he was knocked to the ground. He tried to protect his head but something caught him on the jaw anyway and then in the stomach and then his ribs and back and he tried to protect his sides and got kicked in the mouth again. He covered his head and they kept kicking. His wind was knocked out and he couldn't breathe, he was choking. Then the light was in his face and the kicking abruptly stopped.

"Christ, Hicks. It's a f.u.c.king kid."

Isaac stayed where he was, covering himself.

"Shut the f.u.c.k up," said Hicks. "All of you."

One of the others said: "f.u.c.k yourself, Hicks. The car is leaving, you can walk home if you want."

The person he knew was Hicks squatted down next to him and said: "You'll be alright, buddy. We got you confused with someone else. You want a beer or anything?"

"Don't touch me," said Isaac.

Hicks knelt there a few more seconds, unsure of himself, and then Isaac heard him stand and walk quickly outside. He heard car doors slam and then heard the car pull away. He was afraid to touch himself for what he might find. He stood up and walked outside to the dirt lot. It was empty. It hadn't taken more than a minute. Most of his face was still numb and he went back inside and repacked his things and finally he stopped heaving. He found a rubber welcome mat and carried it outside to sleep on. The kids had been sixteen, seventeen, maybe younger. Good, he said out loud. Now you know. He walked through the tall brush toward the river until it seemed no one would find him. When he crouched down there was no wind. His heart was still racing and his mouth tasted like blood. You could have stopped that, he thought. If you'd cut even one of them, the rest would have taken off. He decided it was fine. Fool me once. He took out the knife and set it next to his head. It took a long time before his heart slowed down enough for him to fall asleep.

3. Poe

He was in the back of Harris's truck and they pulled into the police station. It was not the first time he'd been there, it wasn't even properly the police station, in fact, it was called the Buell Munic.i.p.al Building on account of there were other offices, the mayor's and the city council's. According to the newspaper, the mayor now slept in his office because his wife had kicked him out. It had been a minor scandal, the mayor living out of his office. The munic.i.p.al building was white cinderblock, three stories with a flat roof, it looked like a big repair shop of some kind, not the headquarters of a town. The inside was painted yellow. It was not old but it looked that way. The original city hall had been condemned years ago and several times Poe had broken in and walked around inside; it was a large red brick building that looked like a castle, iron windows, wood paneling inside and dental molding, it looked like the home of a rich person, a place you could respect yourself. But the city did not have the money to maintain it.

Inside the new building Poe saw the pudgy Chinese officer, he was watching Fox News, it looked like he was having a conversation with the television. Harris took Poe downstairs to the holding cells, Poe had been there before, a long hallway with what looked like big steel firedoors every ten feet or so. The cell had a butcher block for a bed and no mattress. The light fixture outside flickered like it would give him a seizure. There was one window that looked up from the ground toward the parking lot, but the plastic was hazed over.

"I'll be back for you in a bit," said Harris. When he wasn't busting heads he had an open, easygoing face, eyes that forgave you, like he was meant to be something else, maybe a schoolteacher. Which was probably the reason he had to bust so many heads, to make up for the way he looked.

"How long do you think-" Poe said, but Harris closed the door on him.

"Make yourself comfortable," he heard Harris tell him. He heard other doors slamming after that.

He had no coat and there seemed to be a vent blowing cold air directly onto him, not to mention there was a puddle from the leaking toilet; water covered most of the floor. Here he was, you didn't think they could do this to you-put you in a locked room-but they could. There was no way around it. It was a tragedy of life. In fact that was how he'd felt the first time they'd locked him up, that there had been no way around it, but in hindsight that hadn't been true. It wasn't true now, either. It was his own choices. They never felt like choices while he was making them, but nonetheless they were. It was nice to think it was a vast conspiracy of others but the truth was something different.

The last time he was locked up it was the boy from Donora. Big, though not quite as big as Poe, and aside from the pimples all over his face and neck there had been nothing wrong with him. A B student, people said. But when Poe got through with him it was different. He remembered holding the boy down, they were both bleeding some, girls watching. They were in a dirt parking lot at night and it was very quiet, everyone had stopped talking to watch them, there was no one even cheering them on, just the sound of their heavy breathing and grunting. The boy was pinned and Poe knew he should not let the boy up. Stay down, he whispered, but he knew the boy wouldn't, he could tell the boy did not want to lose, the boy did not have it in him to lose. It would be the downfall of both of them. Stay down, he said again, quietly into the boy's ear, but he had to let him up, they couldn't lie there all night. He should have choked him out, it would have been for the boy's own good, but others would have gotten involved if he'd done that. It was no win either way, and finally he had to let the boy up, though he knew what would happen. Obviously he did not know exactly exactly what would happen, he only knew the situation would not improve. what would happen, he only knew the situation would not improve.

The boy went to his car and came back and everyone stepped away. He had a knife, a military bayonet you might buy at a gun show, and the crowd made way for Poe to retreat but Poe had stood his ground, it would have been easy to walk away, the kid was insane at losing the fight, he was not really going to use the bayonet, he was the type who would go off to college, he was embarra.s.sed, was all.

But Poe had stood his ground. Because his fire was going. Because he'd won and now he didn't want to lose. He had stood there and no one knew what to do, not him, not the boy and then Vincent Lewis had put a bat in Poe's hand, a child's bat from Little League it was light and short, a good weapon. It was something out of gladiator times, knife versus club. Neither of them really wanting to do it, it was only because of all the people. The older you got the more serious things became. Your margins for f.u.c.kup disappeared. First there was the boy from Donora and now the Swede. It was getting worse. He wondered what would come next. Both times he should have known better but he hadn't. The next time Christ it would be someone he loved, his mother, or Lee, it would be something unthinkable.

As for the boy from Donora, Poe had asked after him several times but he was not okay. He couldn't even work a cash register, couldn't keep the numbers straight on account of Poe hitting him with the bat. He hit him and the boy went down in the dirt and then he didn't know, he'd hit him once more in the head. Because he was still holding on to that bayonet. And yet that was why the a.s.sault charge-the second hit, they were teaching him a lesson. But you didn't learn it, he thought. You did not learn that lesson.

He was always trying to see what he could get away with-that was why a man was dead. He was always trying to game it. See how far he could push. That was in the bloodstream and why he ever thought he'd escape it, who the f.u.c.k knew? Hiram Poe, his grandfather, the Valley's biggest poacher, had shot himself, no one knew why, because he was a crazy old f.u.c.k is how Poe's father put it. Don't worry, you ain't like him, is what his father told him, but Poe hadn't even been wondering. It hadn't even occurred to him that he was anything like bats.h.i.+t old Grandpa. Now, though. Now things were going downhill.

His father had a talent for making things go his way, he'd worked on the towboats when Poe was younger, then gotten fired because he hadn't lashed the barges right and a storm came up and a f.u.c.king barge full of coal went floating off down the Mon, nearly causing a wreck. But still that weaselly old f.u.c.ker, weaselly Virgil had managed to come out on top, something had happened to him on the boats, he jammed his back somehow, so he managed to collect a little disability from it, claimed he had something permanently wrong with his back when really it was fine. He still lost his job but now he got a permanent paycheck from it. He was always moving around, he'd come into town once in a while for a piece of p.u.s.s.y, mostly from young girls, but occasionally from Poe's mother. It was not something Poe liked to think about, his mom in that position, but it was true, you did not have the luxury of thinking otherwise when you lived in a trailer. As for Virgil, he worked odd jobs once in a while, sat in the bars reading books so the girls would believe he was a great thinker, a rebel, when really he was just a lazy b.a.s.t.a.r.d who didn't give two s.h.i.+ts for anyone. Probably holding the books upside down. Put his mind up against someone like Lee or Isaac, they'd crush him.

He looked around-outside, it had already gotten dark. His cell was big for a jail cell, maybe ten by twenty feet, but the floor was soaking wet. And now that no light was coming in from the outside, it was even darker-the light fixture in the hallway did a poor job-you would have gotten eyestrain if you'd tried to read. He had nothing to read anyway. He tried to keep his mind moving so the boredom wouldn't set in, the death spiral. What got old Hiram-sit around long enough with nothing to think about eventually your mind locks into it-fact that this here, your breathing, is a temporary situation, and why bother pretending otherwise.

Hiram had got what was coming and he was not sorry Hiram was gone. When Poe was seven, he and his father and old Hiram had been sitting in a deer blind, and Poe had fallen asleep, and when he woke up there were deer in front of the blind, and he'd said look, a deer, and spooked them all, including a big twelve- pointer, and Hiram had missed his shot. Later he'd heard his father saying you ain't mad, are ya? He's just a kid. you ain't mad, are ya? He's just a kid. But Hiram was mad-at a small boy on his first hunting trip. Virgil had knocked Poe around plenty, but once, when Virgil wasn't around, Hiram had done it too. The thing is it was not Hiram's fault, or Virgil's, it was in the blood and it was the fault of someone way back before either of them. G.o.d, maybe. But Hiram was mad-at a small boy on his first hunting trip. Virgil had knocked Poe around plenty, but once, when Virgil wasn't around, Hiram had done it too. The thing is it was not Hiram's fault, or Virgil's, it was in the blood and it was the fault of someone way back before either of them. G.o.d, maybe.

He stood up and banged on the cell door until his hand hurt, knowing the whole time no one would come. When he got bored with that he stood looking out the window, there were things moving but he couldn't tell what, a bird, a truck, a person walking. He himself was not going anywhere and he never had been. As for college the whole idea was a joke, if there was one thing he was bad at, one thing he'd never been good at in his life it was book learning. Let him do it with his hands no problem, rejet a carburetor, gut a deer, he was good at those things but stick him in a room with chairs and desks and he blanked out. He couldn't see the importance. He couldn't distinguish between what was important to know and what wasn't, he remembered the wrong things. It had always been that way.

It was only when he was playing ball, competing against others and living outside himself, something happened then, it was like information coming through a firehose but he took it all in, he would literally float above the others, he knew more about people than they knew about themselves, the exact patch of gra.s.s where their foot would land, the holes opening and closing between the bodies, the ball hovering in the air. It was like seeing the future. That was the only way to describe it, a movie where he moved in real time and everyone else moved in slow motion. Those were the times he liked himself best-when he was not really himself. When it was some part of him in control that he didn't understand, when others couldn't see him.

That was the truth-he was f.u.c.ked. When it came down to it, when it came down to making life decisions, either his fire got going or he froze. He either went ballistic or came to a full stop, dead in the water, he needed to think about things too long, examine them from every angle. Like going to Colgate, it seemed they had not given him enough time to think, and then everyone telling him to go for it just go for it. And he froze-two years later he was still thinking. He should have just gone, then none of it-the boy from Donora losing his mind or the Swede being dead-none of that would have happened. If he had gone off to Colgate, it would not have been physically possible for any of that to have happened. It was a mistake and he had made it, only it had not really been. It was inevitable. There were men who would die heroes but he was not one of them. He had always known it.

4. Harris

He chose the worst cell for Billy Poe and decided to leave him overnight so the boy would figure out what was in store for him. Lying on that piece of butcher block. Which, when you thought about it, was fitting. Something big was going on at the DA's office, it wasn't clear exactly what, but Harris had a suspicion that however it turned out, it was not going to benefit Billy Poe. He locked his office and went to say good- bye to the night guy. It was Steve Ho.

"You again?"

"Miller called in."

Harris made a mental note to check how many times Ron Miller had called in.