Just North of Nowhere (12 page)

This was different than running. In all his running days, he did not remember ever getting anywhere. He remembered the start: his farewells, a man already dead to his People, a man who would run to bring relief. He said farewell to wife, children, to his friends, to the old, the young, all the People that were left. He remembered slipping from the cave above the river before sun had found its way down among the smoldering embers of the enemy. He remembered moving like a ghost through the Animal's camp, slipping by the sleeping enemy, going for help, for relief. He remembered a noise, a shouted alarm, then he remembered running, being followed, running, running, his whole body yearning for others of the People, other People to come to help. For safety, running. He remembered.

The metal shovel scraped the hard sidewalk in front of the restaurant. He stretched the path, lifting, piling, he widened it along the street.

What had been at odds between the People and the Animals?

Eagle Feather Proud could not remember. Did he ever know? He could not remember that. It had been important; young men were to have died for it.

And the night before the war, the Animals had come with twilight. Light still washed the flats above the river, but on the banks where the People lived it was dark. Fires of lamentation and victory were already raised, had roared and were now embers. The Animals came without warning, came through snow in silence and came among the People, killing, before anyone knew. Many of the People's warriors were slain suddenly. The women, the old, the children who could, fled to the bluffs and hid in the caves above.

The remaining warriors – Feather Proud was one – threw rocks, logs, and burning things down on the Animals who screamed below, their bones breaking, their heads shattering and jaws snapping. People, indeed! These creatures had begun the fight before the time agreed to! These were not people. No.

The shoveling was finished. Porch and sidewalk, were clear. He was square with the woman.

The wind blew. Hard crystal snow drifted across his feet. He scooped it away. It was a good job.

At the frosted window Esther yelled him to come in, come on in.

He did.

“That's a fine job. Bunch couldn't a done her better.” Feather knew of this Bunch. For long, long years. Bunch lived near where the run began. He was a soft shirt but not. He was a hairy man and mostly dirty. He slept under the bridge the soft shirts built near the warring place. Bunch slept and missed Feather Proud's run most mornings.

“He's true to form, Bunch'll show up about two this afternoon. He’ll be pissy 'cause the walk’s shoveled. It's what he gets. I told him, he could sleep in the storage room, in back, for winter, be my permanent cleaner-upper, winters. Sleeping rough down by Engine Warm. What kinda life is that?”

Feather Proud could not answer that question.

A couple eggs and a slab of ham lay on a plate on the counter. Another steaming coffee next to it. The Indian sat to eat.

Running was a dream. Ham, eggs, coffee were real. He'd been the only warrior left. The People hiding in the caves above the river were starving. The Animals had taken their land. Only the caves were left.

None of the People remained, anywhere. None of the Animals, either. He'd watched it over the years. Back in his time, the People had starved. Mostly. Some jumped from the cliffs and shattered on the rocks. Some surrendered and were smashed dead by the Animals. They all died.

The Animals, too, died or left, they blended into the land and vanished.

That first day, his first run, Eagle Feather Proud had slipped down the cliff. He’d left family, friends, life behind; to bring help, yes, and to save himself. Going, he was saving himself. A risk, but the only one that would, perhaps, allow him to live.

He slipped away.

On his first run, the Animals in pursuit, Eagle Feather thought something had hit him. Where the eagle feather he wore as his namesign was tied to his head, something hit him hard. He felt the feather break, or maybe it had been his head, but he kept running and quickly the pain went away. He ran and ran until the running became this dream. Then he woke from the dream and was back in the cave where his people starved, cried and begged to die. He awoke from his dream of running, said goodbye and ran and ran again until he dreamed again.

The eggs were good. The ham was sweet and slippery with grease. It was good too.

He figured he’d been dead for a long time and his people had been dead almost as long. He might as well sit and enjoy the morning sun and the coffee and the, what did she say? “The grunts,” she called it. He hoped his people had found a good place in the Shadows.

“Hardly anyone can see me,” he said to Esther.

“'S'okay,” Esther said. “Most people in the world can't see most of the others.”

“Hm,” he said. That was probably true. Someday. . . Someday, maybe he'd find help. And then? Then. He didn't know. Then he'd fight and maybe never run again.

When Bunch came in, two o'clock in the afternoon, the porch was clear and the walk was still mostly open but drifted shut enough, so that Esther had him do it all again. And fed him for it. By then, Feather was gone, running.

The boy was quiet, so good his mother's heart wanted to break every time she looked. Without looking she said, “Let's try that diner, huh? You hungry?”

He looked at his watch and nodded. He was good at silence.

That end, the town looked like the Old West in movies.
Yippie-eye-oh
, the boy thought and checked his watch again.

The American House—Eats promised Great American Pies. The sign also advised eaters to “Ask About Our Specials!”

Yeah, he'd do that!

The building stood alone at the end of the street and raised above, four, five feet. White, the place had been painted and painted again, then a couple more times. Marshmallow thick paint had softened the building’s wooden features, smoothed architecture and detail into creamy softness.

Inside, the boy thought the place was made of light, that was first. After that there was the obvious: varnish, dull Formica counter tops and tables, wide-plank wood floor, bumpy but clean. A tin ceiling, spiral flytraps and slow-spinning fan blades topped the dining room. The top half of the Dutch door to the kitchen stood open. From there, florescent blue-white light poured into the room. The smells of cooking followed.

The boy peeked into the kitchen, then kept his head averted from the half-open door. Something. Something there. One of the outer people maybe.

Whatever was in the kitchen, the whole place smelled great: grease, roasting meat and steaming stew, animal fat and vegetable blending, things deep frying and spitting-hot tumbled up his nose. And another, there was another scent the boy could not identify; like earth, like dirt, but dirt made tasty. Above that was another, a back-of-the-nose aroma of sweetness, of fruit, thick syrup and browned pastry. The smell of pie lingered from earlier in the day. He looked at his watch again.
Between time. Not lunch. Not supper.
He hated between-time.

A counter ran the length of one side, booths down the other. Between, were small tables, one, two, three...he counted ten of them, to seat two or four eaters, each. A couple guys in jeans, flannel, and DeKalb caps sat in back, talking close and gripping coffee mugs. They spoke in growls and gravel, ignored everything around. The boy didn't understand a word.

At the counter, a chunky girl leaned over a magazine. Cigarette smoke drifted up both cheeks and sifted through her hair. Her eyes flicked up for a moment then dropped back to the glossy pictures.

When the boy and his mother started to slide into the booth nearest the door, the girl looked up. “Booth's taken, ma'am,” she said, tired as any waitress ever, and dropped her face back into the smoke.

They went to the next booth. No one said not to, so they sat. In a few minutes, the girl heaved up, brought water, menus. Once there, she waited. “Did you want to know about our specials, then?” she asked. Her voice was full of cigarette.

The mother's eyes flicked down the right side of the menu. “No,” she said. She clicked her tongue as she considered.

The boy knew, his mother was doing meal-math on the roof of her mouth, clicking off dollars, cents, and tip. “Just a bowl of the chowder,” she said, “New England, right?”

“It's white,” the girl said.

Mother's tongue clicked again, “and a small dinner salad. Thank you,” she added. She folded the menu and looked at the boy.

No matter where, the boy ordered hamburger, French fries, if there was the option, bake beans on the side. Today his mother's look said,
easy; order from the price side of the menu
.

“Burger and fries,” he said.

“Burger fries,” the girl said. “To drink?”

“Water.”

Mother had coffee, please and thank you.

“I need it,” she said, apologizing after the waitress left.

It had been a long trip from the ocean to that booth.

The ocean had been in the boy's ears since birth. The ocean was the horizon; it cooled and scented the air as he grew. A million people passed their house, summers, just to be near it. Maybe it kept them away, winters.

When he learned in school that he was made mostly of water, it didn't surprise him. He knew he was ocean for the most part. He knew also some people weren’t. They made him afraid.

When his father didn't come home from work one day, mother cried for a long time. Daddy didn't come home the next day, either or the one after. He never did.

The boy was relieved.

Mother cried less and less and got madder and madder. “There will never be another,” she said. There would be no brothers, no sisters for him. “No, sir, young man, you are IT.”

He and the car got older and older, the house got dingy. Things stopped working well. Then things didn’t work at all.

On a morning at the end of school, he awoke, mother put him in the car and they drove away from the ocean. Within hours they were in the mountains. They rode long, lonely stretches where trees rolled off forever on slopes going down and slopes rising. By nightfall the ocean was far behind. The night that night was quiet, but the outer people were busy.

They stayed in a Quali-Tel Motor Lodge. It was like the one down from where they had lived on Surf Street near the ocean. “Just like it!” Mother said. He'd always wondered what it was like inside, what kind of things lived there. Now he knew.

The ceiling whispered to him all night. Mother slept in her bed, he lay awake in his listening to the outer people. They whispered terrible things to him. They bulged the old paint. The carpet wriggled and rolled in waves like the ocean, but not. The mattress quivered just beyond his feet and in the corner, farthest from the door, a shadow breathed. In the parking lot, a few feet from the front door, their footfalls ticked away the night. Small chuckles, deep breaths.

The next day the ocean was still not outside. The salt smell that he recognized, now, by its absence, was still absent. The day was hot in a way different from the summer heat of the shore.

They drove all day. By nightfall the land had flattened and another Quali-Tel took them in. This one smelled of pine oil too. Here, the outer people flowed in dark waves across the ceiling, hardly bothering to lean down and reach for him. Almost not at all. He was asleep within an hour.

By the third day they drove through land that was sometimes flat, sometimes not, they passed over cities that spread on all sides of the expressway and vanished into gray haze.

Back in the country, hills popped up on the horizon. They left the expressway at 1:38 by the boy’s wristwatch. Soon the car rode narrow roads among strange small mountains. Mother didn't say where they were going. He didn't ask. She looked worried, he didn't want to add.

Later, the rattle in the engine was worse.

The sign by the side road said “Bluffton” and had some numbers below that. 671. Mother pointed the car down the hill toward the river they'd crisscrossed for the past fifty miles. The boy tensed.
That bridge. There were things there, things in the shadows, things across the river and in the woods
, he knew,
not just outers, but others
.

It was okay, though. They were going through, not stopping.

The knocking in the engine grew louder. The front end of the car blossomed into streaming steam.

“Keep going, mother,” he said.

She tried. Steam streamed past, the windshield became spittled with rust-red drops that flowed upward. The knocking stopped and the steam billowed slowly upward. In the last few rolling feet, the woman pointed the car blindly toward the side of the road.

They sat in silence, mother and boy. He didn't move, didn't look back toward the old iron bridge. “Better have a look, huh?” his mother said and uncurled her fingers from the wheel.

When she popped the hood, steam wrapped them then cleared. The engine smelled of hot rubber and wet oil, everything was damp with condensing steam and crusted with black age and road dirt. It ticked heat. To him it looked stubborn, impossible.

On one side of the street where they had come to rest, a row of two and three story wood-frame houses led downhill toward a town. On the hill above the houses, were more houses. Finally, trees and slope became a rocky cliff that rose over everything.

On the other side, the road sloped to a tree-lined bank that dropped to the river. Across the stream, another bluff rose. The bluff was steeper on the far side of the river.

The boy took it all in.

Things moved among the trees, under the rocks, within the forested floor of earth. The boy took that in, too. His mother did not. Here, things hid, peered, whispered.

“No traffic at least,” mother said. “Ever see a town with no traffic at, what?”

“Four-forty,” he said without looking.

“Four-forty in the afternoon? No people. No anything, period.”

He shook his head.

She looked back into the engine. “I don't know, hon. It's not working.”

He nodded. The engine quivered, ticked, exhaled. A tail uncurled from beneath a pipe, a narrow mouth yawned near the radiator, its tongue slurped dried moths. Mother didn’t notice.

She looked both ways then at him. “We walk downtown and see what’s what. Want to do that?”

He looked and didn’t nod.

“I think…” she looked around again, “I think the car'll be alright here. We're almost off the road. It'll be okay until somebody can come look.”

He nodded.

She took her bag from the back, her jacket, and they headed toward town.

Here it was: school was over, summer was now official. In the shade by the trees, near the big rocks, in this little town a million miles from the ocean, piles of dirty snow remained; a bit of winter endured. Snow in May. Imagine! Where the heck were they?

They walked two blocks to the intersection. To their left, the town stretched out long-wise. Wasn't much. There were people. That was a relief. They hadn't driven into some movie story with them the only people left in all the world. This was just a very quiet little town. Bluffton. Bluffton, Somewhere. Somewhere far from the ocean.

To the right, the roadway sloped toward the river. The sidewalk was raised. There were a few shops in a row along a covered wooden boardwalk. Nice. The last building in the row of shops, and separate from them, was a restaurant. The sign said “American House—Eats.”

Then the block ended. Beyond was an open space and past that, a barn surrounded by a parking lot. “Compass Players,” the sign at the barn said. Beyond, was the river, across the river, trees, the far cliff.

“Don't see a gas station or garage. But there has to be. Really just has to. Right?” She squeezed his hand a little.

He couldn't say.

Snugged in their booth, the American House—Eats felt okay. Except for the
Whatever
it was in the kitchen, the boy didn't see anything wrong with the place. The people were mostly just people. He peeked under the table. His feet. His mothers. That was all.

As they waited, mother wrote numbers on the back of an envelope. Since daddy, she’d lived in arithmetic. After a few minutes she sighed and folded the envelope into her checkbook. She looked at her son. “I just don't know how much the car'll be, fixing it. So there's no point in worrying, is there!

He had waited, patient, time passing.

She smiled. “We're going to be okay. No, we are okay.”

The woman who brought the food was tall and old, her hair was gray and black in streaks and she'd pulled it into a tail that hung below her neck. She wore a white cap and a pink plaid uniform, pants and shirt. Her hands were muscles, veins, and knucklebones. She smiled and told them there they were.

“Here you are,” she said. She brought soup for two.

“Oh, I'm sorry,” mother said. “I was having the chowder. And just me...”

The woman smiled at the boy. “You're not sorry, honey. Not as much as if you'd had the chowder.” She winked at the boy. “I make it and I wouldn't eat it. No sir, wouldn't feed Midwest chowder to nobody with Jersey plates. And anyway, burger and spud fries is no meal for a boy growing. He needs balance, ain't?”

The boy looked. The soup was thick, the scent, rich. It was the source of the something-else in the air.

Mother went gape-mouthed and squinty. “How do you know? Jersey?”

“You're the couple,” she called them a couple and the boy hung his head, “with the broke down car up on Slaughterhouse, ain't you?” she said.

Mother gulped. “Yes.”

“Well, I figured anybody from back east – I’m from Philly, by the way,” she wiped and stuck out her hand to be shaken, “name is Esther – would NOT want a clam stewed this close to the Mississippi.” She gave her hand to the boy.

He took it. It was dry, hard and strong.

“Same for bagels.” She made a face. “Never ate a bagel west of Harrisburg, PA, myself.” Then a big smile. “Pies we do good!” She looked at the boy. “I'm going to recommend the apple. It's good, hot, and conservative. Mostly local product, ‘cept the cinnamon. You'll like it.”

Mother readied up to shake her head no. Numbers blinked behind her eyes, clicked the roof of her mouth.