Long Way Home (9 page)

If you were scouting locations for an Andy Hardy remake, you'd be ecstatic about Berdine's. The store still sells penny candy, even horehound and sassafras, from an old oak display case. They empty the case during the summer, though, because the store isn't air-conditioned and the candy would melt. The ceiling's made of pressed tin, and the wood floors are aged and worn.

In the market for a foot-long pencil? They're just down the aisle to your left, not far from the ant farms and the magnetic King Tuts. Berdine's sets aside a corner for ornery boys, too, where they can stock up on itching powder and phony soap that turns your hands black.

HAS CAIRO LOST ITS MARBLES?
a roadside sign inquired. Cairo's marble factory shut down in 1986.

Parkersburg was a railroad and river town from the Kerouac bible, all redbrick, train tracks, and back alleys perfect for polishing off a poorboy of muscatel in peace. Tattooed short-order cooks presided over funky little cafés, where Sal Paradise could bust his gut on ice cream and homemade apple pie, the only meal he ate as he hitched across the country.

Long ago, Parkersburg's waterfront bars and whorehouses earned it a rough-and-tumble reputation—the Sodom of the Ohio, Robert Mitchum called it after a quick spin there while filming
The Night of the Hunter
.

Parkersburg seemed particularly American, and not only because of the zillions of flags. The solitary diners at a lunch counter, glimpsed through a plate-glass window, were stolen from an Edward Hopper. Huck Finn might have drifted down the murky Ohio on his raft. George F. Babbitt, late of Zenith, would covet a house in the Julia-Ann Square Historic District—yes, another!—exhilarated to see his name inscribed on an arch next to the other movers and shakers.

The city's early moguls had made their money on oil and natural gas before and after the Civil War. The Rathbone brothers, former salt miners—salt lies in fifty-foot-thick deposits in the subsoil of West Virginia, often in proximity to oil—drilled a well in 1859 and hit pay dirt at a mere 140 feet. With oil selling for thirty dollars a barrel, the rough equivalent of two thousand dollars today, speculators were quick to follow. Burning Springs, Petroleum, and California were hot spots, while so much oil dribbled from the banks of the Kanawha River into the water the boatmen named it Old Greasy.

Parkersburg quickly evolved into a transport hub. Crossing the Appalachians by wagon was laborious and expensive, so the oil and gas traveled on flatboats and barges to the Mississippi and New Orleans instead, where oceangoing ships carried them to Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and gave birth to a class of instant millionaires.

The moguls chose the nexus of Julia and Ann streets for their colossal abodes, each constructed on a monstrous scale that would require a man to father a dozen children, at least, if he hoped to populate the bedrooms. The wealthy merchants of the city, often German Jews, resided here as well—W. A. Hersch of Union Woolen Mills, and M. Oppenheimer, a dealer in clothes and furnishings.

Around Julia-Ann Square, there are currently 126 stately houses, many restored to their original majesty. One of them was once home to Captain William Butterworth Caswell, a lumber baron and founding member of West Virginia's Republican Party, and has thirty-four rooms over three stories. In Caswell's day, the extra rooms might have been used as servants' quarters, but what did the present occupant do with all that space?

The district's air of privilege grated on me. It made too much of itself, rejoiced too noisily in its own good fortune. The patriotic impulse had run amok in the square, decorated as if for a Fourth of July parade. Flags, bunting, eagles, and even a couple of Uncle Sam posters graced the windows and porches of mansions. On one front lawn stood a replica of the Statue of Liberty nearly eight feet tall.

How odd that in a humbling era for America these citizens should seize on its symbols so zealously. We're still proud to be Americans, they appeared to be saying, no matter how badly our country has behaved. There was a mild hysteria afoot, a need to invest those tarnished symbols with a meaning they'd temporarily lost.

Babbitt would have joined right in. He was a joiner par excellence, and belonged to the Boosters' Club and the Zenith Athletic Club. Parkersburg would afford him a spate of fraternal organizations to choose from—the Moose, the Elks, and even the Improved Order of Red Men, once a power to be reckoned with although now in decline.

The Red Men dress as Native Americans, and gather in tribes and councils under the leadership of the Great Incohonee. Their treasurer is the Keeper of Wampum, while the women's auxiliary is known as the Daughters of Pocahontas. The Improved Order of Red Men Museum in Waco, Texas, displays such artifacts as Aaron Burr's writing desk, a bugle recovered from the battlefield at Gettysburg, and a ring of Rudolph Valentino's.

The Shriners have the highest profile in Parkersburg. An impressive mural covers an outside wall of the Nemesis Shrine Temple, Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine. To be a Shriner, you must first be a Mason, as were five U.S. presidents—Kennedy, FDR, Ford, Truman, and Harding. And to be a Mason—or an Elk, a Moose, or a Red Man—you must profess a belief in either a Supreme Being or, more to the point, God.

For most Americans, that wouldn't pose a problem. A recent Pew Forum on Religion I'd read found that 92 percent of the respondents believed in God or a “universal spirit.” About one third had witnessed the divine healing of an illness or injury, and fully 9 percent of the Christians polled confessed to speaking in tongues on a weekly basis.

EARLY SATURDAY MORNING,
I walked through the city's redbrick slumber to the Ohio, still a major artery for coal and grain. The river used to be quite shallow, but dams and dredging increased its depth to facilitate the flow of cargo ships. The Ohio's fish are mostly bottom feeders—catfish, longnose gar, and silver carp. Sportsmen go after big paddlefish with snag hooks and bows and arrows.

Of the river's 981 miles, 475 are sometimes unfit for swimming after any heavy rain because of the high count of fecal matter. Tanning, pulp, and paper factories contribute to the pollution—“chemical wastes in the river,” said John Steinbeck, “metal wastes everywhere, and atomic wastes buried deep in the earth or sunk in the sea.”

In the clear light of day, Parkersburg looked even shabbier downtown. There were many vacant storefronts and derelict buildings. Opposite a weedy lot stood C&D Pawn with the following painted on one wall:

GUNS    GOLD    MUSIC

LOWEST RATES

I wondered how a pawn shop might be faring in difficult times, but I hesitated to enter C&D, assuming I'd be accosted by a stereotypical broker—burly, balding, short-tempered, and devoted to screwing his customers. Yet the only person inside was Norma Jean Nedoff, who presented an entirely different image. Articulate and well mannered, dressed neatly enough for church, she'd been involved in the family trade for about forty years.

The “C” in C&D represented Charles, her late husband. “He died recently of congestive heart failure,” Norma Jean confided as the tears welled up. “It was a long, slow decline.”

“I'm sorry to hear it.”

“He drifted off to sleep the way he wanted to go.” She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue, and I felt awkward and ready to leave until she stopped me. “No, no, it's all right. I'm just not used to it yet.”

We made some small talk until she regained her composure, and then I asked, “Has the economy affected your business?”

“We're really struggling.” Norma Jean offered a halfhearted smile. “Lots of pawning, but not much buying.”

C&D had once provided a good living for the Nedoffs and their partner, but not lately. Norma Jean coped by monitoring the price of gold and selling any she had on hand if she noticed an uptick. She'd stripped her inventory of every wedding ring, all melted down now. The divorces weren't happening fast enough to compensate.

A pawnshop can be a sad place, obviously. The extent of Parkersburg's travail could be measured in the junk people had consigned in exchange for no more than the cash to buy a case of beer—old drills and chainsaws, a busted weed whacker, eight-track cassette tapes, a ragged golf bag with one iron, car batteries, rusty jumper cables. Norma Jean must sometimes fork over a few dollars just for the sake of kindness, I thought.

“It'll probably pick up here come hunting season,” she predicted. Rifles, fifty or more, lined a wall rack. “The boys have got to have their guns.”

In spite of her problems, Norma Jean had no intention of quitting or moving. Her son and her daughter, one an orthopedic surgeon and the other an executive with Motorola, had both invited her to live with them, but she'd declined.

“I wouldn't do it for nothin',” she insisted. “This is my home.” She became nostalgic then, dreamily revisiting the past. “Parkersburg was so beautiful before they let those old buildings go! I decorated my house with antique prints and photos of the city.”

Norma Jean's stocks and shares had taken a dive, but she could still afford a comfortable old age. That wasn't true of her partner, who had six kids and nothing squirreled away for the future.

Inevitably, we got around to the election. “Did you watch the first debate between Biden and Palin the other night?” I asked.

“I watch every minute of every debate.” She spoke firmly, as if she believed it was her duty as a citizen to watch. “During the debate between McCain and Obama, I was visiting my daughter, and her boyfriend—he's big on McCain—made so many snide comments, I pretended I wasn't interested and snuck upstairs to see it on another set.”

“Any opinions on Palin?”

“I don't like her. She's so phony. She has a lot of personality, though. I'll give her that.”

“So you're for Obama?”

“I am. My husband was a hunter, and he voted for Bush twice.”

“Can Obama win here?”

Norma Jean shook her head ruefully. “West Virginia isn't ready for a black man, I've heard the rednecks say as much, only they don't put it so politely.”

From C&D, I returned to the river through a Parkersburg that still slumbered even as noon approached. The streets were like palimpsests, a faded sketch of an earlier and more vital form. A sense of loss seemed to haunt much of the country, although its precise nature wasn't easy to define. It manifested itself as a vague anxiety rooted, perhaps, in the discrepancy between the idealized America of schoolbooks and the present reality.

On October 4, the hazy heat of Indian summer still held. The gridiron warriors—“suicidally beautiful,” as the poet James Wright from neighboring Ohio put it—would sweat buckets under their pads that afternoon. In West Virginia, the clashes would be titanic. Football mattered here.

My farewell to the state was fond, if not misty-eyed. It gave one faith to see the good works being performed unheralded in such towns as Aurora and Lost River—and surely elsewhere, too—and the stunning Appalachian landscape was a justifiable source of pride. As for the drive from Burlington Junction to Clarksburg, I could make it every autumn for the rest of my life and still feel a sense of wonder.

I
N THE
Hocking River Valley of Ohio, just across the Parkersburg-Belpre Bridge, the woods flared with a first burst of fall color. Blackbirds fluttered around an old barn bearing an ad for the Red Man chewing tobacco once endorsed by Napoleon Lajoie, who owned a .338 lifetime batting average. “Lajoie chews Red Man,” the slogan went. “Ask him if he don't.”

The Hocking isn't a glamorous stream. It's as dull as a mud puddle and limps along even more slowly than its big brother, the Ohio, but the banks in Hockingport were still elbow-to-elbow with campgrounds, RVs, and pickups hauling trailers, a regular working man's paradise. The barbecues were lit and smoking, and the kids who hadn't listened to their moms and refused to put on any sunblock were already badly burned.

I knew this scene well. I'd lived it every summer of my childhood, dragged by my parents from Long Island to the Midwest for our annual two-week fishing vacation. Though my father loved his job in New York, he came from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan—my mother was from Minnesota—and missed the outdoors, so he insisted on renting a cabin at a lake near his roots to recharge his batteries.

On these trips, I learned the esoteric pursuits of the heartland from my uncles, aunts, and cousins. I played canasta, pinochle, and cribbage; ate pasties stuffed with such weird vegetables as turnips and rutabagas; and mastered the art of casting a Jitterbug without hanging up in the lily pads. Occasionally I caught a bass or a crappie. The Norwegian relatives on my mother's side spoke like the cast of
Fargo
. “Oh, ja,” they said. “You betcha.”

Riverside Bait in Hockingport further stirred my memories. It sat right on the water, and its irresistible greeting—“Cold Beer, Welcome”—made me realize I
would
welcome a cold beer. The dark interior was a refreshing sanctuary, where night crawlers and red worms slithered around in their mossy bins. Minnows bobbed in a tank, while doomed crickets chirped their final chirps. I recognized some of the lures for sale, among them the deadly Rapala from Finland, a favorite of my Uncle Ned.

The shop's rear door opened onto the river. Little dimples rose all along its surface, and I saw the boil of a feeding fish now and then. Anglers cast to them from their boats and the shore, oblivious of the splashing swimmers and the antics of a madcap speeder on a Jet Ski.

John Davis, Riverside Bait's owner, emerged from an alcove. Tall and fit, with white hair and a matching mustache, he looked a hardy type who relishes a physical challenge. He'd been in the military, had worked as a trucker, and liked to ride motorcycles, but his true passion was fishing. Even in January, he could be found wetting a line somewhere, with a fire going to keep the guides of his rod free of ice.

Gizzard shad caused the dimples, Davis told me. “They're baitfish, and they're running now. The white bass go on the bite.”

“What else can you catch here?”

“There's big crappies down deep. Catfish, smallmouths.”

“Any pike?”

“Sauger. It's kinda like a walleye. The Hocking's loaded with fish.”

As if on cue, a pretty woman appeared in the doorway, holding a fat white bass on a stringer. She beamed as people do when they cash a lottery ticket or bet on the right horse.

“That's a beauty, hon,” Davis said approvingly. The woman clapped in delight, then vanished.

“Nice fish.”

“She's my wife.”

Davis had a setup one could envy—the easy life, or so it seemed. He described himself as semiretired, and lived above the shop in spacious quarters with a deck on the river. In a township that had once been dry, he'd built his business from scratch, circulating petitions and collecting signatures to obtain the necessary support. He'd found the right hole to fill, because the beer was flying out the door.

“How're you doing, Slick?” Davis addressed a ponytailed customer still battle-scarred from Friday night.

“I been better.”

“Stay out too late, did you?”

“Way too late.”

Davis gave Slick's twelve-pack of Bud a friendly pat. “That'll fix you up.”

I passed up the Bud and bought a six-pack of imports, marking me as a city slicker. If John Davis seemed to have an easy life—even though no life is entirely easy—I thought he might feel good about the country, but I'd read him wrong.

“I'm terribly disappointed in Bush,” he said, shaking his head in disgust. “I'd say he's counting the days till he'll be out of there.”

“Did you vote for him?”

“Yes, I did.”

“Will you vote for McCain this time around?”

“Probably. I'm an American, not a Democrat or Republican. I just vote for who I like.”

“What do you like about McCain?”

“It isn't the POW stuff. That doesn't qualify him to be president, but I respect him. He doesn't agree with Bush on everything. He's voted against him plenty of times.”

That was enough political jabber on such a fine day. The revelers on the banks of the Hocking had realized it long ago.

“Think those white bass might take a fly?” I asked.

“They might. You never know till you try.”

I transferred the beer to what Uncle Ned used to call an ice chest. Once I'd assembled my rod, I tied on a big bushy caddis fly known as an attractor pattern, but the bass were too busy gorging on gizzard shad to be attracted. I'd been skunked, as Ned would say.

TWO WEEKS INTO
his journey, John Steinbeck took a breather and spent a long weekend with his wife at a Chicago hotel. Imelda was still in Dublin, alas, but I intended to take a similar break at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. A professor friend had invited me to meet with some of his students and talk about creative writing, so I deserted U.S. 50 again and started for Columbus on U.S. 33 through Fairfield County.

Athens, where I stopped for lunch, is the home of Ohio University, the oldest in the state. It's also the former site of the Athens Lunatic Asylum, opened in 1874 to treat disturbed veterans of the Civil War. Psychiatric care, still in its infancy, prescribed a lobotomy for intractable cases, and the doctors doled them out like aspirin.

A report from 1876 listed masturbation as the primary cause of insanity in men, while the change of life or menstrual problems were responsible for unhinging the oppposite sex. Ghosts from the asylum frequently stalk the campus, or so the rumors have it.

The Village Bakery and Café, a student hangout, shook me up after all my nostalgic musing. If the bait shop felt like Minnesota in 1953, the café replicated Berkeley in 1969. Americans seem to have a talent for recycling cultural styles of the past, as I'd first noticed at Pistone's. We have enough space, it appears, to let the iterations of different eras coexist.

The young women working at the Village dressed in casual, loose-fitting hippie gear, determined to reject the tyranny of
Vogue
, Hollywood, and the cosmetics industry. They all wore head scarfs, too, as if they belonged to a sacred sisterhood of organic food purveyors. When they took your order, you felt they might be guessing at your astrological sign. It was wonderful to bask in their well-meaning aura, even though I'd begun to suffer flashbacks.

The cooks were guys with beards, earrings, tons of hair, and head scarfs of their own, and they darted from the kitchen at random intervals with a fresh pot of lentil soup or an esmerelda salad of organic lettuces and sprouts, tomato slices, avocado, baked tofu, roasted onion, and whole roasted almonds.

The Village thrummed with happy vibes. I looked forward to my veggie burger after all the garbage I'd been eating. The monster land may be huge, but the chance of finding restaurant food that will do more good than harm is depressingly small. Americans will gobble up anything, it seems, as long as it's either salty, fatty, sugary, or—better yet—all three.

My meal was slow to arrive. Hippies operate in a parallel universe, I remembered, where the clock is merely a device to quantify and keep track of time, something Native Americans did by being in touch with nature, observing the flight of birds, ingesting peyote, and so on.

Twenty minutes went by before a server finally set a plate in front of me. She rippled with enthusiasm, as if the burger represented a sublime moment of creation. And why not? Ah, youth!

ATHENS PROVED TO
be unusual for Fairfield County. The university kept it healthy and solvent, but elsewhere people were strapped for cash. There wasn't much farming anymore, except for some dairy cows and orchards. The only jobs were in the service industry. Rocky Boots and Shoes, once the main employer in Nelsonville, had recently moved its factory overseas, and almost one third of the families in town had dropped below the official U.S. poverty line.

Late afternoon found me in Lancaster, a city gradually blending into the Columbus metro area. The local paper consisted primarily of obituaries and ads for foreclosed properties. Ohio had so many foreclosures, in fact, that the secretary of state had instituted measures to assure residents they could vote without a fixed address. Only Mississippi, California, and South Carolina had a higher rate of unemployment that October.

According to a cynical blogger, Lancaster has just three businesses: bars, churches, and tattoo parlors. In the blogger's view, “You go to a bar and become an alcoholic/drug addict, ask God for forgiveness (at Fairfield Christian), then have your excuses tattooed on your body.”

At twilight, I sat in Square 13, one of Lancaster's
four
historic districts. Under a blood-red sky, City Hall and the county courthouse were bathed in rosy light, and a carillon rang out to mark the hour. The square looked transcendent, but not a soul was around to appreciate it, while you already had to wait for a table at the Red Lobster and Applebee's on motel row.