The Savage(9)

Waking, they packed up. Horace needed fuel and Van Dorn was bit by the want for something more than the weight of carp or bluegill being snagged and reeled from the Blue River.

With the windows down, they headed west on 62, turned north on 66. Passing a Pilot gas station. Van Dorn questioned why Horace didn’t stop, and Horace told him, “Wanna see the old land I’ve distanced us from after all this time.”

Highway 66 curved and dropped, though it was less steep than Van Dorn recalled. There was a time when riding down it felt as though one were free-falling from a cliff that had been dug out. Reconstructed and widened. Trees looked as though they were dying. Their leaves turning early. The land around them weathered, not green but singed like a burnt russet.

Horace followed 66 all the way to Marengo, where it turned into Main Street. Crossing over old 64, Horace cruised by wood-sided homes. Brown shutters peeling, front doors missing and jambs rotted, and roofs collapsing. Old Dodge with doors ajar, paint discolored by sun. Trees littered what yards there were, dead of growth. Where torn garbage bags knotted and hung from limbs. White signs with red letters had been nailed on the front of each home, reading: THIS BUILDING OR STRUCTURE HAS BEEN DEEMED TO BE IN UNSAFE CONDITION AND SHALL NOT BE USED OR ENTERED BY ANYONE WITHOUT THE WRITTEN PERMISSION OF THE BUILDING INSPECTOR OF MARENGO.

Horace wheeled past the red brick of the Old General Store that was no longer in business. Metal barrels sat on the side. One mashed a decaying black, the other rusted and dented. A busted-up pay phone mounted to the building’s outer wall. They turned down Water Street. Steered a U-turn in front of a powder-blue metal-sided pole barn. On the white bay doors someone had spray-painted SUPer SHInE DeTAIL ShOp. Heading back the way they’d come, Horace fired up a cigarette. Let it lie loose on his lip. Turned down 64 and drove west toward English. Van Dorn took in more of what they’d been away from for so long: the small road side park with a rock-climbing wall that was more of a pull-off and rest area than a park. The Jay C food store and the Curby ice cream shop, an area that still had not been built up or overrun by Walmart and fast-food chains. It was still simple and small. Mom-and-pop businesses. Not polluted with too many choices. The way towns should be, or had once been.

Horace turned down 237. To the right stood a greening turquoise statue of William Hayden English, the man the town had taken its name from, an Indiana politician. Pulling to a stop next to a pair of dated gas pumps, with long metal levers on the side, Horace looked to the calico brick building with a red tin roof—it was the English minimart—and Horace said, “From 1859 to 1990—”

Van Dorn finished for his father. “—the community encountered six floods, town council bought one hundred and sixty acres, and moved everything to higher ground. Second-largest relocation for a town in U.S. history.”

Evening was upon Van Dorn and Horace. Smirking at the boy, he said, “At least you’ve still a mind for the importance of the historical. Of learning where people come from and what they’ve suffered to get where they’re at in life.”

“It’s what you learned me.”

“That it is. Glad it’s stuck.”

The minimart’s door lay steel-framed in the center with a bay window on either side. To the right sat a scratched white newspaper box. On the left, a huge ashtray sat spilling over with butts. Horace stubbed out his remaining smoke and they entered the mart.

Brass bell overhead jingled. To the left stood a female behind the counter. Ale-burnt skin. Locks thick, dark, wavy, reared, and banded atop of her head. She wore a gray T-shirt. Nodded without expression.

“Evening.”

Horace adjusted his cap, brushed his hands over the stained and messed Hanes he’d been wearing for days, and said, “Evening, ma’am. Me and the boy be grabbing some provisions.” He pointed to smokes lined up above her head. “I’ll be needing a carton of Camels and twenty-five dollars of fuel.”

“Sure. I lay the smokes here for when you’s ready to check out,” the female said as if she were lost in a catatonic haze.

In front of the counter stood a blanched-faced beast of a man with graying shards of beard, grease-stained trousers, a head sheared of any hair. Folds of scar lined his neck with a thick black graving of ink that Van Dorn couldn’t make out. He twisted his face to Horace and Van Dorn, spoke in a rusty tone. “Is a wave of heat out there, ain’t it?”

Discomfort melded through Van Dorn’s body like butter to hot toast. Horace nodded to the man. Fucked him with his eyes. Said, “About the same as it’s been.”

Keeping his body between the man and Van Dorn, Horace and Van Dorn surveyed the aisles of shelving to their right. Upon tiers lay bags of chips, candy bars, jarred sauces, canned goods, and relishes. Sensing his father’s unease—something was out of order—Van Dorn could feel Horace’s protecting, keeping himself closer to Dorn than usual. Not letting him walk the small aisles alone. Horace’s eyes darted to the man without shifting his view while pulling cans of chicken, SPAM, and sardines, beans, a bag of rice, and a loaf of bread from the shelves. A radio sat on the shelf behind the lady, playing Jamey Johnson’s “High Cost of Living.” They approached the coolers to the back; drinks, lunch meats, and eggs were enclosed, kept cold. Dorn pulled out bottles of water, a package of ham and bacon from within. Walked back toward the counter with Horace.