Philipp Meyer: American Rust

He sat down under a tree. He watched the flurries land on the grass, had a faint awareness that time was passing and he began to feel warmer, sitting there under the hemlock. The miracle being it was Isaac who'd saved him. He didn't look like much, his wrists and hands were so thin. Delicate, that was the word you would use for Isaac, his face as well, he was light- boned, it was not a man's face. It was the face of a boy bugeyed, people teased him about his eyes. He was an easy target but Poe had always defended him, he had a much easier time because of Poe. Poe was king back then, glory days. Two years gone by since. Now Isaac was the only one who didn't look down on him. The others were all happy to see the king come back to earth, he had been someone and now he was not — that was a story everyone liked to hear. The human race — they despised anyone they thought was better than them. The sad thing being it was all in their own minds, he didn't think he was better than anyone. He had no such illusions. He had always known it wouldn't last. He had made friends with Isaac, who had no other friends — and why? Because he liked him. Because Isaac was the smartest person in the Valley, maybe the entire state, Pennsylvania — it was not a small place. Though possibly, he could admit it, he'd known that hanging out with Isaac would get him points with Lee.

The wind, he thought. Getting out of that wind was all it took. He kept sitting and felt warmer. He felt better and he thought it must really be warming up now, it was definitely warming up, so why could he still see the flakes swirling in the porchlight. He had not always defended Isaac, that was the truth of it. Isaac did not know about those moments but they had occurred and there was no undoing them.

Except that things equaled out. Two months back the river had been frozen over, skim ice, Isaac had looked at him and said you dare me and then stepped off the rocks and only made it a few steps before he broke right through and disappeared. Poe had stood panicked for a minute and then jumped in after him, crashing through the junk ice, he'd dragged Isaac out of the water, both of them soaking wet and nearly frozen to death, Isaac who had gone swimming in the river like his mother. If that wasn't a sign, he didn't know — he had saved Isaac and now Isaac saved him. It showed you there was a reason for all of it.

He looked at their trailer, his mother had not wanted to buy it but there was a lot of land and his father had wanted the land. Somehow he won that one, but then they split up and his mother was stuck with the trailer in the boonies. His mother, who talked about moving to Philadelphia, who'd done several semesters at college. Who used to roll out of bed looking good but now goes shopping in dirty old sweatpants and her hair tangled up. That and her husband leaving her. Your own situation not doing much to ease her mind, either, should have gone off to college if only for her. He decided to think about something else: all this wetness and sun the grass will be fresh tomorrow and the rabbits will be out. Wild meat heals you. Stew and a beer for lunch. He thought maybe there was some of last year's venison in the freezer but nothing was as good as a fresh rabbit, stew it a couple three hours falling off the bone. Or pound it flat and dip it in Bisquick and fry it. Yes it was the wild meat, before the games he ate it and now it would sort him out as well. So get up. He watched himself from a great distance. English won't tell anyone they grabbed you like that but so what, saved you — owe him now. Whatever he says you have to do. Probably tell his sister about it. She won't care, though. He didn't want to think about Lee. He had trouble thinking about Lee anyway but especially right now, not to mention she'd gotten married, she hadn't told him, she hadn't told him a goddamn thing about that, even though he'd always known it was just fun and games between them. He watched the flurries in the light, it was warm under the tree watching the snow come down, something is wrong, he thought, he couldn't quite put his finger on it, everything was quiet.

— —

Grace Poe was sitting in the trailer in the shapeless gray sweatsuit she wore nearly every day now, even when going to town. She didn't know how long she'd been sitting there, staring at the brown panel walls inside the trailer. She'd turned the TV off to let herself think, it might have been nearly an hour, recently she'd come to prefer it to the television, just sitting and thinking, crazy thoughts, she was imagining herself on a trip to the Holy City, a trip she knew she would never take. She imagined herself on a steep rocky coast in Italy, all the old castles and the hot sun, hot and dry. Easy on the bones. Lots of wine and everyone suntanned.

Outside it was not quite as dark as normal, the storm clouds carried light from the town. She thought she'd seen her son coming up the road. Maybe she'd just imagined it. You're turning into an old lady, she thought, you're going a little bit crazy. It was either tragic or funny. She decided it was funny. She was annoyed at her son — they were out of firewood and she was wrapped under two blankets and it wasn't so much to ask, keep the wood split and the house warm. It was okay to be angry about that. It wasn't as if they were going to freeze, there were electric baseboard heaters but they cost a fortune, it was out of the question to run them. The best thing would be installing propane or oil heat, but she hated living in a trailer and for years she'd been hoping to move out of it. Buying a real furnace, sinking money into the trailer, was like giving up. It was better to be cold. She got up and went to the window, looking through her reflection, but nothing was moving in the road or the field, just the quiet emptiness that was always there. She had never expected she would live in a trailer, never expected she would live in the country.

She looked back at her reflection. Forty- one and her hair had gone mostly gray, she'd stopped dying it when her husband moved out, to spite him or herself, she didn't know, but she'd put on weight, too, it was bunching up under her chin. She'd always been a little heavy but it had never showed in the face. It seemed to her that even her eyes were going dull, burning down like old headlights. Soon enough she would have the kind of face you saw and could not imagine as anything but old. Cut the pity party, she told herself. You could take care of yourself a little better. She was right to let Virgil come back. Virgil would not have let the stoves sit empty.

As for Virgil, she had her hopes but it was getting not to matter — the ones her age, if they had jobs, would stay around a few weeks, months at most. Each time she'd gotten her hopes up and each time it'd spoiled, they all wanted to be taken care of, for dinner to appear in front of them, it should have been a joke but it wasn't. Half of them didn't even put any effort into sex, you would have thought there'd at least be the dignity of that, but not even. At the library she'd signed up for an Internet dating service, but all the men her age were looking for women much younger, and even in the bars it seemed there was nothing for her but the fifty- and sixty- somethings, men expecting to screw women they could be the fathers of. So at least Virgil was coming back. Yes, she thought, now that it's convenient for him, quiet little mouse that you are.

The snow was beginning to fall harder and she saw someone moving at the edge of the yard, drunk, she thought, playing around, pissing his name in the snow while the stoves are out of wood. Years earlier, just after Virgil left, she'd gotten a job offer in Philadelphia and she'd nearly taken it but Billy was doing so well in school, playing football, and she'd still had hopes that Virgil would come back to her quickly. She knew what that life would have looked like— thirty- five, apartment in the city, night school, single mom — like a movie. She would have married a lawyer. Finished her own degree. Instead she was living in Buell in a trailer with her spoiled child, man, whatever he was now, her son who had nearly had everything, a football scholarship, but had decided to stay home with his mother, going hungry if she didn't cook his dinner. She wondered why she was in such a bad mood. Maybe something was happening.