Philipp Meyer - American Rust

The sun was getting lower. She hoped Billy would come home soon but what if he didn't? She should get a dog, maybe. It wasn't too late to go to the shelter, they could always use extra help. She could call Harris.

It hit her suddenly how cruel Virgil was, he was an empty shell, he'd gotten by his whole life on his looks, but that would change for him as it was changing for her, and what would be left — just the mean streak. The parts of Billy she worried about, the quick temper, it all came right from Virgil. She wondered how she'd never seen it before, but then she knew she'd always seen it, she'd chosen to ignore it. She was making another decision now, or it felt like it had been made for her, it felt impossible at that moment that she'd ever loved him. You're probably just in shock, she thought, but then no, it was like a switch had been turned off.

The tomatoes were there in the window, she carried them out and got a shovel from the shed, out behind Billy's half- done projects, a parts car he'd bought to keep his other car running, riding lawn mowers, the four- wheeler. Worrying about him again, coming home last night with the cut on his neck. But things like that had happened many times before, never that bad but still, he was a magnet for trouble. She should have taken him out of this place a long time ago.

Kicking the shovel hard into the dirt, she planted all six tomatoes and the peppers as well, setting the trellises and stepping on them to set them firmly. It was nice standing in the breeze, her hands dirty, looking at the plants and the freshly turned soil, looking out over the rolling hills, it was a good view. Forty- one was not so old. It was almost too young to be president. She would call Harris. He was a good man, she'd always known that.

Of course she could just keep going like this, being alone, but there was no point to it. You felt strong for about a week and then you were just alone. And Bud Harris, he was a good man, uncomfortable but what did it matter, the ones that had the easiest time talking also had the easiest time screwing around behind your back. That was a lesson you didn't learn until it was too late. But it was not too late. Harris, he was respected, there was a reason she'd nearly left Virgil for him, two different times she had thought seriously about it, and Virgil, Virgil was not respected by anyone and there was a reason for that as well. I will sleep with Buddy tonight, she thought, it will clean me out, it was a giddy notion. Virgil had done worse, he'd come to her smelling directly of other women. She wondered if he'd given her any diseases. She had been checked, though most of the time she'd made him use condoms, that was the one smart thing she'd done in her life.

She walked around the inside of the trailer. When they bought it Virgil swore it was temporary, that they would build a house soon enough. She wondered why she'd listened. It was an old trailer, at least it was a doublewide but it leaked air everywhere, fake paneling from the 1970s, she'd splurged to replace the carpets but with the boy in and out of the field so often they were quickly ruined again. Virgil had wanted to put plastic covers on the couch but she hadn't permitted it. She sat on the couch and could feel herself drifting away, thinking about things, but there was no point in it, she needed to get a handle on life instead of spending her time daydreaming. At least the garden was done. That was an accomplishment, it would pay off the rest of the year.

She nearly called Harris's cell phone but then she thought about how he would feel if he found out that Virgil had just been over. It wasn't fair to him. Not to mention Harris probably had other girls himself. Not to mention she had burned him twice, now. She would have to ask him gently. She would have to allow him his dignity. He wouldn't just come at her beck and call. She could wait, collect herself, have some dignity of her own. She went to the mirror, pulled her hair back in a tight ponytail. That was the way she should wear it, tight and away from her face. She would get a haircut, no one wore their hair long anymore, it was stringy. She still had her cheekbones, she'd always had good bone structure. Half of it was the way you carried yourself, she had been depressed, there wasn't any question about that. She would take baby steps. With a little mascara things would be fine, she'd run out months ago, she would get more tomorrow. She fixed herself a small dinner and watched the sun go down from the porch, there was no moon and the stars came out very bright. She went back inside and watched an old scratchy yoga tape the director of the shelter had given her, she liked all the stretching, it felt as if the poisons were coming out. After that she fell easily into sleep.

Harris and Steve Ho had been sitting in the black- and- white Ford Explorer about three hours. It was Harris's idea — he just had a feeling. The state cops, the county coroner, the DA, everyone else was long gone. From the top of the ridge they could see over the meadow, the half-collapsed remnants of the main Standard Steel Car factory, grown over with vines, the small machine shop where they'd found the body. There were old boxcars in the field and a peaceful, pleasant air about the place. Nature assimilating man's work. In his much younger years, he had seen things like it in Vietnam, abandoned temples in the jungle.

Harris glanced at Steve Ho. Steve Ho was off duty; he was not being paid to be there, which was not unusual. Ho looked comfortable, young and comfortable, a short stout man, a full head of black hair, resting his hands on his big belly. An M4 carbine across his lap — like many other younger cops, Ho had an inclination for things like that, body armor and such. Ho was only three years out of the academy, but Harris was overjoyed to have him on the force. Steve Ho was easy to work with and left his radio turned on even when he was off the clock.

By comparison, Harris felt old and bald. He reminded himself that he was not — not that old, anyway. Fifty- four. Anyway this feeling had nothing to do with being old, it was just that this was turning into a very bad day. He wanted to be at home, sitting in front of a fire with his dog and a glass of scotch, maybe watching the sun go down from his back deck. He lived by himself in a small cabin, the compound was how he referred to it, a high place overlooking two valleys. The sort of place a boy would dream of living, but then reality, in the form of a wife and kids, would set in. Harris had talked himself into buying it a few years back. Though well built, the cabin was remote and depended on a pair of woodstoves for heat, had little radio or television reception, was accessible only by four- wheel drive. Not a place any woman would ever want to live. It was another excuse. Another way to keep an even keel, cowardice pretending to be independence. Though Fur, his malamute, loved it.

He'd been first to arrive at the crime scene — there'd been an anonymous tip — and he'd felt relief when he saw the body. Clearly a transient. No painful phone calls, no horrible visits to people he liked. Those things got worse with age, not better.

He was still standing near the body, absorbing things, when he saw a familiar jacket. Then heard another vehicle — the state trooper — bouncing down the old access road. He scooped up the jacket and stuffed it behind a workbench. The young state trooper walked in just after and Harris had tried to conjure his name. Clancy. Delancey He couldn't think straight — he knew this man. But Delancey was oblivious to what Harris had just done. He nodded his greeting, then looked at the body. He's a big one, huh?

People came and went all day but the jacket had remained, unnoticed, where Harris hid it. Now, sitting here with Steve Ho, he was extremely nervous, not so much that he'd hidden the jacket as much as that the jacket belonged to Billy Poe. He rubbed his temples; he'd gone off Zoloft a few weeks earlier, which was not helping things now. He tried to separate the things in his mind. Hiding the jacket was probably not bothering him. You didn't arrest every kid you caught breaking windows. Or every citizen who drove home after a few too many Budweisers at happy hour. Good people got one free pass. Kids got two, though the second one might be a handcuffed ride in the Explorer. There was a role everyone played in the community, an unspoken agreement. Which was basically to do right. Sometimes that meant stopping people for a dirty license plate, other times it meant letting people go who were committing felonies. Which is what anyone did when they consumed three beers and put their keys in the ignition. You couldn't say it but that was the truth — it was not the law so much as doing right. The trick being to figure out exactly what that was.