Philipp Meyer: American Rust

He sat on the opposite side of the couch from her and then she pulled him over and he laid his head in her lap. His head was against her belly. He let his eyes close and he stopped thinking about the Mexican, he could hear her breathing in her belly and everything was going to be fine and he fell asleep immediately.

He slept like that for half an hour and then they heard his father's truck in the driveway. Poe got up and his mother gave him a hurt look and he tried to smile at her but he didn't think he could stand taking any shit from Virgil right now. He went to his room.

He could hear Virgil and his mother talking. Soon they would either be yelling or screwing. He figured the yelling would come soon enough— he'd seen enough of his father to know where this would go. But the next sound Poe heard was the maul ringing against the wedges, the sound of Virgil splitting the wood that Poe himself was supposed to split. Shit he thought shit shit shit, it should have been him going out there and doing it but it was too late, he'd fucked it up and now the old man would get the credit.

He thought about Otto again, thought you should call Chief Harris, he got you out of the last scrape, only it was too late for that, too — now they would look guilty. It was not that simple anyway. Technically, the big Swede hadn't been doing anything. He was about to, that was for goddamn sure, but really all he'd done was toss a couple of punches. He thought about him there on the floor of the machine shop with his head all bashed in and he felt guilty. He was supposed to be in college right now, going to class, his coach at Buell High, Dick Cannedy old Dick had gotten Poe into three colleges, that one Colgate in upstate New York looked good but he wasn't ready. No, the truth was he'd been plenty ready, if they'd left him alone he would have gone. But when everyone is shouting at you to do something … He'd flipped them all off, given the entire town the middle finger, turned down college for a job at Turner's Ace Hardware. And he'd flip them off again when he disappeared suddenly and went away to college. The coach at Colgate had told him to call anytime, anytime you change your mind, Mr. Poe. Well, he thought, I have changed my mind. I am going to call him.

It seemed his head was getting clear, things would be alright. Then he thought: my coat. My letter jacket is sitting in that machine shop with my name and player number on it, right next to a dead man and probably covered in blood. They would find the body it was only a matter of time and it would not be Isaac English they'd come after. It would be him, Billy Poe, the one who had a reputation, he'd nearly killed that boy from Donora, it was self- defense but that was not how anyone else saw it.

They would get his jacket and the body as well. We will drag it to the river, he thought. How many deer had he dragged out of the woods — it would be no different. Only he knew it would be. But there was no choice about it. They would have to go back.

Isaac didn't sleep and in the morning he could hear the old man moving around downstairs. When he'd come in the previous night, he and the old man had looked at each other and nodded and the old man hadn't said anything about the stolen money.

From the window of his second- floor room he could see that the snow had already melted on all the hills. He remembered looking out this same window in the dark when the mill still ran and the night sky was enormous with fire. It was a faint memory from youth. It was not the first dead bum that year. The other they found in that old house, January. Froze to death. Except this one didn't die — was killed. That was the difference. This is the one they won't let go.

It was a strange time of year, not quite spring and not quite winter— certain trees were already leafed in while others were still bare. It would be a warm day. All the hills and hollows and nooks — it felt comforting. There wasn't a flat piece of land for a hundred miles. Hidden away wherever you were. That will not help you with the Swede, he thought. They will find the Swede eventually and they will not be on your side — see a dead man, think mother father brother sister man. Think I am a man like him. Don't let dead men lie without asking why. Dog left to rot — man is different. Do dogs look at dead dogs and wonder? No, you've seen it, they walk by without looking. Nature of a dog to accept a dead dog.

He could feel things were changing. This is your room but soon it won't be. A picture of his mother over his desk, smiling, young and pretty and bashful. A few awards from the science fair, first prize in seventh, eighth, ninth grade. No more after that — they didn't understand your projects. You knew they wouldn't but you went ahead anyway. Quarks and leptons, string theory, and then you learned your lesson. Half of them think the earth is four thousand years old. The others aren't much better — Colonel Boyd telling the class that humans had once had gills but the gills disappeared when we stopped using them. Actually, you tried to suggest, that's classic Lamarck. I'm not sure people believe that anymore. Gave you a C for making him look stupid. Only C you ever got. Naturally Colonel Boyd loved your sister. Why? Because she tells people what they want to hear. Didn't care if all her classmates were being taught things that weren't true.

He went back to looking out the window. He had always admired his sister for her easy way with people, tried to learn from her. Only now you see the cost — she lies more easily than you do. Same as the old man. No, he thought, the old man is different. Doesn't understand or have interest in anyone but himself. Meanwhile ask yourself if you'd act any better in his shoes — spine broken at L1, progressive neuropathy. Or take Stephen Hawking — your favorite crippled genius abandons his wife. Twenty- six years of changing his bedpan and then — sorry, honey, I think it's time for a newer model. He and the old man would understand each other well.

He looked at the clock and tried to remember when Poe was coming. Did we set a time? He couldn't remember. That was unusual. He made a note of it.

There was the sound of a car turning up the driveway and he jumped up and ran to the window to see a white sedan — cop? No. A Mercedes. Lee's car. She must have left Connecticut in the middle of the night to be getting in now. He watched her park next to the house. Knows you stole the money, is why. Christ. He began to feel even worse. I don't care, he said out loud. She's done a lot worse herself. But had she? It was hard to explain exactly what she'd done. Left you here, he thought. Promised she'd come back for you but she didn't. Meanwhile that car she's driving is worth more than this house.

He heard her come into the house and greet their father downstairs and a few minutes later he heard her on the stairs, coming up to see him. He slipped quietly under the covers and pretended to be asleep.

She hesitated outside the door, listening for a long time before opening it silently, just slightly. He felt the air coming in. She stood there, she must have been looking at him, he didn't open his eyes. He felt himself choke up but he kept his breathing even. He could imagine her face, nearly the same as their mother's, the same dark skin and short hair and high cheekbones. She was a very pretty girl.

“Isaac?” she whispered, but he didn't answer her.

She stood a minute or two longer and then finally she closed the door and went downstairs.

Was that right? he thought. I don't know. How many promises can someone break before you stop forgiving them? There had been a time, most of his life, really, when it had been very different. When he and his sister could finish each other's thoughts, when at any given time each would know exactly what the other was doing, whether at school or just in a different part of the sprawling brick house. If he had a bad day, he would go to his sister's room and sit on the foot of her bed while she read or did homework. He went to her before he went to his mother. The three of them, Isaac, Lee, and their mother, had been like a family within the family. Then their mother had killed herself. Then Lee went off to Yale. His one visit, she'd taken him around the campus, all the tall stone ivy- covered buildings, and he knew it was where she belonged, and where he would someday follow her, but here he was, twenty years old and still living in Buell. And now, he thought.