Philipp Meyer: American Rust

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From a distance, from the size of them, they might have been father and son. Poe with his big jaw and his small eyes and even now, two years out of school, a nylon football jacket, his name and player number on the front and buell eagles on the back. Isaac short and skinny, his eyes too large for his face, his clothes too large for him as well, his old backpack stuffed with his sleeping bag, a change of clothes, his notebooks. They went down the narrow dirt road toward the river, mostly it was woods and meadows, green and beautiful in the first weeks of spring. They passed an old house that had tipped face- first into a sinkhole — the ground in the Mid- Mon Valley was riddled with old coal mines, some properly stabilized, others not. Isaac winged a rock and knocked a ventstack off the roof. He'd always had a good arm, better than Poe's even, though of course Poe would never admit it.

Just before the river they came to the Cultrap farm with its cows sitting in the sun, heard a pig squeal for a long time in one of the outbuildings.

“Wish I hadn't heard that.”

“Shit,” said Poe. “Cultrap makes the best bacon around.”

“It's still something dying.”

“Maybe you should stop analyzing it.”

“You know they use pig hearts to fix human hearts. The valves are basically the same.”

“I'm gonna miss your factoids.”

“Sure you will.”

“I was exaggerating,” said Poe. “I was being ironic.”

They continued to walk.

“You know I would seriously owe you if you came with.”

“Me and Jack Kerouac Junior. Who stole four grand from his old man and doesn't even know where the money came from.”

“He's a cheap bastard with a steelworker's pension. He's got plenty of money now that he's not sending it all to my sister.”

“Who probably needed it.”

“Who graduated from Yale with about ten scholarships while I stayed back and looked after Little Hitler.”

Poe sighed. “Poor angry Isaac.”

“Who wouldn't be?”

“Well to share some wisdom from my own father, wherever you go, you still wake up and see the same face in the mirror.”

“Words to live by.”

“The old man's been around some.”

“You're right about that.”

“Come on now, Mental.”

They turned north along the river, toward Pittsburgh; to the south it was state forest and coal mines. The coal was the reason for steel. They passed another old plant and its smokestack, it wasn't just steel, there were dozens of smaller industries that supported the mills and were supported by them: tool and die, specialty coating, mining equipment, the list went on. It had been an intricate system and when the mills shut down, the entire Valley had collapsed. Steel had been the heart. He wondered how long it would be before it all rusted away to nothing and the Valley returned to a primitive state. Only the stone would last.

For a hundred years the Valley had been the center of steel production in the country, in the entire world, technically, but in the time since Poe and Isaac were born, the area had lost 150,000 jobs — most of the towns could no longer afford basic services; many no longer had any police. As Isaac had overheard his sister tell someone from college: half the people went on welfare and the other half went back to hunting and gathering. Which was an exaggeration, but not by much.

There was no sign of any train and Poe was walking a step ahead, there was only the sound of the wind coming off the river and the gravel crunching under their feet. Isaac hoped for a long one, which all the bends in the river would keep slow. The shorter trains ran a lot faster; it was dangerous to try to catch them.

He looked out over the river, the muddiness of it, the things buried underneath. Different layers and all kinds of old crap buried in the muck, tractor parts and dinosaur bones. You aren't at the bottom but you aren't exactly at the surface, either. You are having a hard time seeing things. Hence the February swim. Hence the ripping off the old man. Feels like days since you've been home but it has probably only been two or three hours; you can still go back. No. Plenty of things worse than stealing, lying to yourself for example, your sister and the old man being champions in that. Acting like the last living souls.

Whereas you yourself take after your mother. Stick around and you're bound for the nuthouse. Embalming table. Stroll on the ice in February, the cold like being shocked. So cold you could barely breathe but you stayed until it stopped hurting, that was how she slipped in. Take it for a minute and you start to go warm. A life lesson. You would not have risen until now — April — the river gets warmer and the things that live inside you, quietly without you knowing it, it is them that make you rise. The teacher taught you that. Dead deer in winter look like bones, though in summer they swell their skins. Bacteria. Cold keeps them down but they get you in the end.

You're doing fine, he thought. Snap out of it.

But of course he could remember Poe dragging him out of the water, telling Poe I wanted to see what it felt like is all. Simple experiment. Then he was under the trees, it was dark and he was running, mud-covered, crashing through deadfall and fernbeds, there was a rushing in his ears and he came out in someone's field. Dead leaves crackling; he'd been cold so long he no longer felt cold at all. He knew he was at the end. But Poe had caught up to him again.

“Sorry what I said about your dad,” he told Poe now.

“I don't give a shit,” said Poe.

“We gonna keep walking like this?”

“Like what?”

“Not talking.”

“Maybe I'm just being sad.”

“Maybe you need to man up a little.” Isaac grinned but Poe stayed serious.

“Some of us have their whole lives ahead of them. Others—”

“You can do whatever you want.”

“Lay off it,” said Poe.

Isaac let him walk ahead. The wind was picking up and snapping their clothes.

“You good to keep going if this storm comes in?”

“Not really,” said Poe.

“There's an old plant up there once we get out of these woods. We can find a place to wait it out in there.”

The river was a dozen or so yards to their left and farther ahead the tracks bordered a long floodplain with the grass bright green against the black of oncoming clouds. In the middle of the field, a string of boxcars swallowed by a thicket of wild rose. At one end of the floodplain was the Standard Steel Car factory, he'd been inside it before, the plant was half-collapsed, bricks and wood beams piled on top of the old forges and hydraulic presses, moss and vines growing everywhere. Despite the rubble, it was vast and open inside. Plenty of souvenirs. That old nameplate you gave to Lee, pried it off that big hammer forge, polished the tarnish off and oiled it. A minor vandalism. No, think of all the people who were proud of those machines, to rescue a few pieces of them — little bit of life after death. Lee put it over her desk, saw it when you went to New Haven. Meanwhile this rain is coming in. About to be cold and wet. Bad way to start your trip.

“Christ,” said Poe, as the rain started to fall. “That plant doesn't even have a roof. Course with your luck I should have figured.”

Isaac pointed: “There's another building back there that's in better shape.”

“I can't wait.”

Isaac walked ahead; Poe was in a foul mood and he wasn't sure what to do about it.

They followed a deer path that led through the meadow. They could see the smaller building beyond the main factory; half- hidden in the trees, it was dark and shaded. Or sheltered, he thought. A brick building, much smaller than the main plant, the size of a large garage, maybe, the windows boarded but the roof was intact. It was mostly grown over with vines though there was a clear path leading to it through the grass. The rain swept over them and they began to run and when they reached the building Poe shouldered the door. It swung open without any trouble.