Just North of Nowhere (30 page)

A bloody fool of himself? Yes! His first day in India and he falls out of the landing boat! A junior officer, falling out of a boat, a slip of the foot, a grab at an iron ring set in the wet concrete of the pier, a sharp wrenching pain, a splash in the water! Damned fool thing to do in front of his superiors, his men.

He sat on his horse, now, the pain a distant memory. The day was well beyond morning. The mists had cleared. Later, he'd be on the train for Ottawa.

“Give you a hand?” he said, reaching down. “Not every day a common man may offer God a ride on so fine a steed, eh?”

Ruth paused, but only for a moment. Then she took Winston Churchill's hand. His left one. He drew her into the air, then the horse quivered between her legs. “Hold firm,” he said and threw himself forward. She barely had time to reach round and grip him to her.

The horse flew, she with it. The three of them.
For the first time
, she thought, hugging Winston Churchill's chest and stomach,
this is what speed is! Not car speed, not train, this is muscle speed. The way it all should be.

The woods slipped past, brushing her face lightly, sometimes with a sting and a whispered sweep. At first, every fall of the horse's hooves sent a shock up her spine. Then the way smoothed into a white turbulence of going.

When Winston bent low, she was drawn with him and tree limbs flew over their heads, inches above. Only inches!

A flash of light and they were out of the woods. The cold flowed over them and they crossed the hard stubbled field, frozen clods scattering behind, the trees drawing further into their distance.

“Wondrous! Oh, wondrous!” she shouted.

Churchill nudged the animal faster.

Day, earth, time flowed through them. Sometimes she felt weightless, falling; at other moments, the animal rose up against her, inside her. “How wonderful,” she called again. She didn't crow, but she could have.

Then it was over. In so few minutes it was gone. Gone forever!

“How is it you travel?” he said when he'd set her onto the road by the edge of town. “How do you enter Burroughs' pictures?”

“I don't know,” she answered simply. “I get here, knowing I can. I return by not believing in you, anymore,” she added.

He tipped his head back and laughed. “How infinitely like a woman,” he grumbled in his chest.

When he looked down she was gone. Winston stared at the place where she was not.

Let the Empire lose a war
,
he thought.
Dammit, maybe I will. Serve them right, ignoring me.
Serve them bloody right
. Though, he had to admit, that Dardanelles campaign she'd outlined was a sweet bit of work. Let Britain loose a war, to save the future, though? Interesting idea. He'd have to think about it.

Sometimes God is so small a thing, he thought. So small a thing as a Woman on a rock crowing the sunrise. Then She'll turn and tell you your whole life, let you know everything that's going to happen in the little world you live in. Lets you know your life is no more than a puppet play, a silly masque for children, invisible in the great darkness. He liked the way she put that.

“Children, invisible, watching from the great darkness.” He said it aloud, then tried it again a bit different.

He laughed aloud. By the time he boarded the train for Canada he was smiling. But not as much.

Borgoses have been out there forever. Fatty, being the way he is, and all other living Borgoses having left town gloomy, unsettled or whatever, Fatty was bound to be left squatting alone on Borgos land when old Lurgo Borgos went into the ground in the family back-acres. So this is not about people eating each other. That was just a story kids told years back and nobody could say yes or no. Still, seven hundred pounds of Fatty squatting alone on family land out there, some folks might start telling the old stories. No, this is not about cannibalism and such. It’s not about ghosts either. Not exactly.

Anyway, Borgos land isn’t worth anything. Not worth killing or eating anyone over. Even old Lurgo used to say, “Cripes my land’s fer shit.” He’d say, then he’d laugh. Like he did.

The place is out past Einar's Formerly. Head out Commonwealth. You pass the Consolidated, that's to your left, the old hydroelectric is on your right. From there on the road climbs. You pass Bluffton's last houses. Doc Mouth’s is on the left and a handful of others are scattered here and there, then you're at Einar's, that's a t-junction. Commonwealth bears right and becomes County H again. You stay on that maybe a mile, you pass Karl’s Bad Kabins then hang a hard fast left. Blink and you miss it. That’s Borgos Road. From there on and for a while that’s Borgos land.

You see the signs pretty quick, old Burma Shave signs. One after another. One set might read:

These signs

We gladly

Dedicate

To men who've had

No date of Late

BURMA-SHAVE

The words, "BURMA-SHAVE," are made of curly white letters on red-painted wood. Words on the other signs are white on red too, but they’re regular. Time was, folks passed those things on the highway doing 40-50 miles an hour, zoop, zoop, zoop, zoop, zoop. BURMA-SHAVE! Folks said them as they went, then laughed aloud at the end. Used to be, people went out Borgos way whether or not they had to just to see if the Burma people had put up some new funny sign. When a one showed up, word got out. Folks would stop and write it down so they could say it at supper or get it right over a couple beers at the Wheel. First to bring word, you know?

These days you don’t go out Borgos Road. If you do, you take your time because the way has not been kept up. The surface is heaved up by the freeze, settled out with the thaw and washed away in the spring downpours. That’s that. The road's a mess; nobody goes there anymore. And Fatty doesn't drive.

Bunch laid a long fire on the plot Fatty had sketched with a pointy stick in the frosted ground. It sat away apart from the other plots, the wives, children, ancestors and such. Bunch and Fatty sat waiting until the flames reared up hot, then waited more until they died to the coals. When he figured the ground was ready Bunch pick-axed deep as he could into the freeze. He griped but kept it to himself.

Fatty stood back sniffling and sucking snot. He didn’t say anything Bunch could hear over the crackling fire and, later, through his pick-axing, just whimpers and snorts. Bunch didn't mind an all-day job but he did hate someone blubbering over his shoulder. Worse, he hated a shadow being cast over him on a cold day. Fatty cast a big shadow.

"Say, Bet’!" Bunch called out using the name everyone over 35 had called Fatty since maybe seventh, eighth grade, "Mind leaving me a little sun, there, would you?" Good-natured.

Fatty went wide-eyed and squeaky. "Aw, hey, sorry, Bunch," he said.  The big fellow shuffled a half-dozen steps back. He almost tripped over another grave marker and tottered for a moment. “Whoa! Whoa there Bet,’” Bunch could almost feel the fall that was coming. But the man-mountain of flesh and dungaree, a thundercloud on the hoof, a bluff’s worth of bagged and sagged suet, a universe of blue veins all-over sprouted with sparse black bristles and a bison’s-breath of grunts, caught its balance and righted itself.  Sun poured over the departing shadow and spread across Bunch and the grave he was digging.

"Sorry," Fatty said again.

More than him shuffling out of the sun’s way, Bunch wanted Fatty back from the edge. He did not want Lurgo’s grave and nearly a half-ton of flesh collapsing on him. This was the old man's hole, not his.

Bunch took from near sunrise to early dark to make Lurgo’s grave. The job kept him warm, but when he climbed out to stretch or get him a bite of sandwich or take a leak by the woods, the air took a drop.

Day had slid across the clearing and Fatty had kept his planetary shade off Bunch, like Bunch had asked him to. He’d perched near the trees, his bulk threatening one or another Borgos marker, in the stone forest of his family. Now and then he’d waddled to the edge of the woods and blew some whimpers into the dark. Or now and again, he’d wade over to the peeling outbuilding at the far edge of the clearing, stand on the porch, run his fingertips over the iron padlock on the door and say a few wet grunts to the cold metal.

Damn
, Bunch thought, looking at Fatty.
Damn, damn. Damn.
Even when he'd dug himself below the frost line and the squared off walls of the grave rose above him, dirt, worm parts and cut off roots all ‘round, Fatty up there, walking, sniffing, stuck in Bunch’s head. Well, try
not
thinking about Fatty. Can’t be done.

What Bunch was thinking was,
best make myself scarce when it’s Fatty’s time to go to ground.
"Hell yes," he said to the dirt he tossed over the lip of the grave. He hoped the fat son of a bitch would live forever. Bunch got philosophical making a man's grave.

The job done and squared, he climbed up into the evening. Twilight-chilled sweat wriggled down his back. He shook it off.

"There you go, Bet’. Sorry for your loss there, you know.” Bunch headed toward town.

"Oh. Yeah. Thanks. Oh, hey!" Fatty rumbled toward him holding out a pawfull of folding money.

"Huh?" Bunch said.

Fatty cocked his head, blinked a couple times, wide. "For the hole." He pointed to make sure Bunch knew what hole they were discussing. "And for after, you know?" He kicked a frozen clod. "For filling it, after."

"Cripes, Bet’. You don't give me no dollars now. You know I just…"

Bunch stopped dead and stupid. He worked for food, for shoes, a pretty good shirt or a mended pair of pants, that sort of thing. Everyone knew that. The Italian Lady even. Bunch stretched a roofing job over to the Sons of Norway Lodge into a whole summer of sausage, beer, and a half dozen bird houses he was still trying to figure what to do with. At the Wurst Haus, Karl paid in carry home grub. Esther at the American House - Eats fed him ready-to-eat. For snow shoving here and there around town and the occasional tune job on the town cruiser, Vinnie let Bunch sleep the coldest nights down at the lock-up. Life was like that. What the hell. What could Bet’ give him he could wear, didn't already have, would eat, might want or ever be able to trade? Bunch considered those facts while staring at the money.

Fatty started bawling again. His arm dropped to his side like the money was too heavy to hold. "What’ll I do, Bunch? Daddy’s gone like…." He snapped two noiseless sausage-soft fingers. “…that. Aw heck, Bunch," he blubbered some more, "Daddy’s a dead guy, now. He don't ever say nothing new, you know? I remember all kinds of stuff about him but there's nothing new ever going to happen, not about him or from him!" Fatty stood slobbered. Then he raised his arm and pointed the money at Bunch again.

"Cripes, there, there," Bunch said and took the damn stuff.

Snow was collecting on them. Somewhere along the day, snow had started and now the two guys stood at the edge of the family cemetery, the man-mountain turning white-capped and Bunch dripping in the melt.

"Well, that's a good thing, ain't?" Bunch said louder than Fatty's crying.

"Huh?" Fatty said.

"We got it dug down before the weather, right?"

Fatty looked up, his mouth open to the sky. Snow disappeared into the hole. When he started breathing heavy, his cheeks puffed holding back a sob. "Daddy always stayed home for snow. Didn't like being on the road, on the Interstate nor nothing, not for the Amish cheeses or no one during weather. Said a man could lose himself, white blowing like it does up north or out west."

He'll stay now
, Bunch thought but did not say it.

Bunch started walking back toward the main road. He’d soon have his first paid for drink in how long? He thought about it.
The first payed-up beer in two, no, maybe two and half years. Huh.
Maybe he’d even drop some money and have a tune on the juke.

Fatty was still talking above the silence of the woods and snow. His voice and in-sucking snot drowned the occasional sweep of ice-laced wind that tickled the trees around them. A stump hole in the dark of the woods moaned a hollow sigh. That covered Fatty’s blubbers for a moment. Then there was the crunch of feet and a few other Fatty noises that couldn’t be helped in this time of his distress. Apart from that the woods were quiet.

"Ever know much about my daddy?" Fatty said.

"Can't say I…"

"Yeah. Folks didn't like him. Even them others didn't." He cocked his head toward the woods.

Others? Them Borgos dead folk back there
, Bunch figured.

"Figures. But I liked him," Fatty said putting an end to it.

"Yea. Guy's mostly like their pops." Bunch said, lying.

"Yeah, you’re right,” Fatty said, ending it again. “He sold cheese, you know?"

"Yeah?" Bunch knew.

"Yeah. For the Amish. The Co-op, you know? Sold them cheeses everywhere in four states. Five when he could sneak it." Fatty laughed. "'What a friend we have in Cheeses.' He used to say." Fatty chuckled.

"Huh?"

"Daddy used to say. Don't know what he meant. He always laughed when he said it. Daddy laughed a lot."

Bunch nodded, thinking a hot cup of coffee and a cold beer at the Wheel would go pretty good about now. He actually was going to give Ivan dollars for beers and hot Joe!

"He’s always laughing. Hey Bunch, how d’you like this one?” Fatty squinted, thinking. “Oh yeah, here: ‘On curves ahead. Remember sonny. That rabbit's foot. Din't save. The bunny. Burma-Shave.’ Heck, I remember Daddy seeing that’n the first time after the shave folks put it up. We was going somewheres together. I don’t know where.  He laughed and laughed, but you best believe he kept his eyes peeled for some hippidy-hop critter. He wanted one bad, ‘I want me a rabbit,’ he said.”

Bunch and Fatty crunched in silence for half-minute.

“’…Want me a rabbit. Ha!’” Fatty shouted, “’There’s one!’ he yells and whomp! ‘Four feet of good luck!’ he yells.

“Yeah. He’d go on the road laughing, come home laughing, throw down a wad of money on the table or he’d have him a new wife for a while. Laughing. You know? Pop already was an old fart," Fatty snuffled and let out a wet little laugh, "he used to say that, you know? Call hisself an 'old fart' all the time. Yeah. Already old by the time I come along," Fatty said. "An’ always... You know, I didn't know what for most times. Figured it was because he was an old fart. '…a friend in cheeses…'" Fatty shook his head and went on and on laughing. "Most of them wives, they didn't stay long or they'd die or whatever. You know?"

Bunch wasn't a fast walker, just steady. He liked a certain pace and hated being made slower or pushed faster. Poking tired him out. Coming back from the Burgos's graveyard place, Bunch didn't want to just dig out and leave Fatty behind, but he sure as hell didn't want to poke along either. It was dark and a ways to go.

"Huh. Folks always said daddy was about as set up as a man could be.  He used to say, 'they figure a man's got a wife whenever he needs one, got some kids, got himself a job as does itself just for the drivin’, got his own land to sit on while he's alive and -- even if it is lousy land, just rocks and no damn good for nothing, Goddamnit!' he always said that too!" Fatty laughed, "'and got someplace to get planted in when he ain't no more, all the world’s assholes figure a man like that's got it made. Right?' Daddy used to say that."

Bunch nodded. "Guess so, Bet’."

"Nah, but see? Pop didn't see it that way. No. Every little thing, he'd be 'Py damn, I sure got me some lousy luck, huh?' he'd say. Yeah. He'd throw down a hand of cribbage at the Sons of Norway, and say that about his lousy luck. No one’d say nothing. Then he'd up it with something like, 'Py damn, my luck's to shit tonight, huh?" And still nobody'd say nothing. Then he go, ‘Guess I ought bottle that shit luck I got for fertilizer, ain't!?' Then he'd give it a while and laugh some more. And no one else would, no. Then he'd play his next crib and cripes he'd win! Win big! And everyone'd go home, him the winner! Ha. Ha."

"Ain't that something?" Bunch said.

"Darts one night," Fatty said. "You know darts? Thursdays at the Wheel, you know, darts?" Fatty was on a roll, laughing.

“Sure. Darts.”

"So he says about bottling his shit luck for fertilizer, like he always done, you know? And that Albers Karlsen from Waddling Grange, you know, he was new then, so he has a laugh along with Daddy, him being agreeable and trying to fit in you know? Well, daddy, he says nothing. But soon as that week's punch up gets going, old Pop is first in and by jingo the last down, too."