Lineage(43)

“You’re my best friend and I know you’ve got my back. There’s a story here, buddy, I know there is. Just give me some time and I’ll put out the best novel of my career.” There was a long pause of silence on the other end of the phone before a begrudging reply. “Thanks, Andy, I owe you. Next time we go to dinner at Fosa Rachel’s I’ll buy you that port you like. Love you, Andy.” Lance nodded and shut his phone off completely. He didn’t want distractions now, not when he was getting close to the house.

His eyes roamed the edges of the highway and took in the healthy trees growing around the houses that lined the road. The day was bright, and without thinking, Lance reached to the dash and turned the radio on, letting the sounds of Green Day pour out of the surrounding speakers. A sign bearing the words Duluth 5, Stony Bay 47 approached and flew by the right side of the Land Rover. As he hummed along with the song, Lance went over the events of the day before yet again, as he tried to make sense of what had actually brought him to this point.

When the phone was answered, he didn’t have to ask for Carrie. She was the one who picked up the line, and when he inquired about the house, there was a pause, as if she had no recollection of listing it. When the pause elongated into an uncomfortable silence, Lance began to describe the property and Carrie suddenly exclaimed and apologized. The house hadn’t been shown in a while, she explained, but she was happy to set up a time for him to tour it. He chose the earliest slot available that allowed for travel from Ardent Falls.

By the time Billie Joe Armstrong quit telling everyone where he would be found when he came around, the city of Duluth rose up on his left and Lake Superior stretched out on the opposite side. Lance kept looking at the lake. The far side of the shoreline stretched out and around in a sweeping arc that gradually narrowed until it faded from view completely, as if it were the last edge of Atlantis slowly slipping below an ancient unnamed sea. He had seen the ocean several times but had never ventured this far north of the cities, and Superior reminded him of the Atlantic. It looked cold, even on a warm August day with the sun beating down. The city around him was smashed into the side of the steep hill that shot up to his left. It was as if an asteroid made of homes and businesses had fallen and dashed itself against the edge of the rise, leaving scattered pieces of itself mingled in with the winding roads and rocky landscape.

Lance looked at the liquid-crystal display and relaxed. It was just past 10:00 a.m. and the showing of the house wasn’t until one in the afternoon. His stomach ached with hunger, and he resisted the urge to turn off on an exit promising dining at a local restaurant.

The story had begun to pull at his mind the way most of his novels did, but for some reason his thoughts were limited. He could see the main character: a man his age, long blond hair and a sharp nose. A deep aura of sadness surrounding him, as if he had seen heaven and had been sent away. Lance could see him standing, facing the gray waters of the lake that expanded to his right, and waiting for something. But what was it?

“What are you waiting for?” Lance said to himself as he tried attacking the story’s plot at different angles, but to no avail. The story was like a shape behind a gossamer curtain—there in form but without detail. Having a story stunted in his mind felt unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Perhaps the writer’s block had only loosened its grip and was still there, waiting to whisk away the idea at the slightest hint of creation.

The city gradually gave way to a more rural landscape, and soon signs that informed him he would have to make a choice in the near future as to the route he would take to get to Stony Bay began to appear. To the right was the scenic way—a winding road that appeared to hug the edge of the great lake according to the SUV’s GPS. To the left, a narrow highway shot directly through the rocky, wooded countryside.

Lance hesitated for only a moment before turning on his right blinker and angling the vehicle off the interstate, onto a two-lane blacktop so near to the edge of the cliff that Lance veered the SUV closer to the middle of the highway.

“The road less traveled for sure,” he said to the empty car. Collective Soul now blasted through the speakers and Lance began to sing along with the chorus. Sunlight glared off a billion points in the water and made the lake look as if it were a shifting pool of jewels. Sets of long-forgotten train tracks began to appear on either side of the road. They stretched off in the distance, sometimes close to the road, and at others disappearing completely from his view. The twin steel rails crosshatched by many dark timbers supporting them were like constant reminders of a memory beginning to fade. Every so often a line of boxcars would appear, their sides tattooed by graffiti that was just slightly less faded than the paint it graced, the artists long having grown up and surely moved on to less juvenile practices.