We Are Not Like Them(63)

“Bathroom’s round back. Rooster’s got the key.”

If I went missing behind this gas station, would anyone ever know what happened to me? I’m an easy target, a woman alone on a desolate road, a tragic headline in the making. My former colleagues a hundred miles down the way in Birmingham might even cover it.

Rooster spits a wad of tobacco on the ground before he hands over a metal spatula, the kind you use to flip hotcakes, a key tied to it with a dirty piece of twine.

“Bathroom’s around the side. Sorry ’bout the toilet. It don’t flush real well.”

I swallow a gag as I squeeze myself into a bathroom the size of a closet. The toilet doesn’t flush at all, and it’s close to overflowing. I don’t want to add to it, but what choice do I have?

As I come back around the shop, Rooster is standing right in my path to the car. My stomach quivers, then plunges.

This is it.

He takes a step toward me, blocking my way, and I don’t even have time to think about where exactly I’ll run, or remember whatever I learned in that one self-defense class I took in college, before he extends his hand.

“Can I get the key, please? I gotta piss,” he mumbles. “Hope you don’t mind, we went ahead and did the windows too.” Beyond Rooster’s shoulder the bald guy pulls a squeegee across my windshield.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah, fine, fine.” Relief quickly spirals into embarrassment.

“Where you headin’?”

“Perote.”

“About a mile to the town line. Welcome.”

As promised, it’s only a minute’s drive before I see the sign PEROTE BULLOCK COUNTY. I snake through the desolate remnants of what was once probably a bustling main street, now deserted, lined with a general store, post office, the white church, the Black church, a diner, police station, library, and the city hall. The town is neither welcoming nor threatening, but it is depressing. Empty streets, boarded-up buildings, a stillness in the air, a reminder that entire towns, like people, can just wither and die. There’s a certain inevitably to it, the understanding that heydays come and go and life marches on elsewhere while this husk of a place sits abandoned like a dusty artifact. Not even a quaint nostalgia lingers; there’s only the sense of life, opportunity, and better days come and gone. There’s no cell service, though I had the good sense to print out directions before leaving Philly. I had a feeling it’d be spotty. The little icon in the corner of my phone shows zero bars. Going off the grid like this makes me twitchy, imagining all the calls, emails, and news I’ll miss in the next twenty-four hours. What if Scotty needs to reach me? Being completely unreachable almost feels like missing a limb. There’s nothing I can do about it though, and there’s a kind of exhilarating freedom in that.

The printed directions aren’t much help since not all the roads are well marked. I’m stuck on what seems to be a narrow dead end, hemmed in on all sides by dense brush and knee-high red-ant hills. In my mind’s eye, I see galloping horses and white robes, fiery crosses. I don’t want to be out here after sundown, that’s for sure.

Creeping along slowly, I search for the house, set back from the narrow road. When I finally see it, it feels like an accident, or like it decided to find me.

There are a few cars scattered randomly across the wide patchwork of weeds, dirt, and gravel that make up what can only loosely be called a yard. Uncle Rod’s giant RV towers over all of them. It’s bigger than the house.

I take in the modest brick ranch my great-grandfather Dash allegedly built with his own bare hands, which may explain why it leans slightly to one side. It’s amazing to me that Gigi held on to this land for so long even though she never came back here except for Aunt Mabel’s funeral. She used to rent it out to hunters during deer season and use the small income it generated as her “fun money,” mostly paying the cable bill and buying scratchers. I guess she was also socking it away in that Hefty bag. The place has been empty for a few years though. It’s four tiny rooms and one bath on a couple acres of land, but it was all hers, and Gigi was proud to have it. She said owning a piece of land made you someone, or at least it made you feel like you were someone. And no one could take it away from you… until they could. I have to shake the thought of my parents losing their house. One heartbreak is enough for now.

The railing shakes as I climb the uneven concrete stairs of the porch to the front door. It’s propped open and everyone has gathered in the living room.

I haven’t seen my uncle Rod since I was a kid. He and Momma have been estranged ever since they had a falling-out after Grandpa Leroy’s funeral over something no one ever talks about. When he steps up to hug me, the smell of his pipe sends me hurtling right back to the second grade. He’s the only person I’ve ever seen smoke an honest-to-God pipe, like a Black Sherlock Holmes.

I give quick hugs to Aunt Rose and two of my cousins, twin girls in their early twenties who are essentially strangers to me and who immediately return to looking at their phones.

Shaun thrusts a glass of wine into my hand. “Here, saved this for you. That’s the last of it, and we can’t get more because of the dumbass blue laws down here. So better drink up.”

The wine tastes like vinegar. That doesn’t stop me from taking three fast sips.

“Where’s Mom and Dad?”