Authors: Gary Brandner
Rot
ROT
Gary Brandner
a division of F+W Media, Inc.
For all the Brandners and the Gehrmans in Wisconsin.
They may rest assured that the only character in this story
based on reality is the dog
.
On the other side of the dusty bus window the Wisconsin towns slid past like a faded diorama in some worn-out theme park. Yesterdayland. Slinger, Allerton, Theresa, Horricon, Waupon, Fisk. As far as Kyle Brubaker could tell it was the same town over and over. He saw himself on a
Twilight Zone
rerun doomed to ride forever through deadly boring farmland, past silos and windmills and bleak little towns with their names painted on water towers. The Greyhound from Hell.
Gradually, childhood memories stirred as the town names became more familiar. New London, Bear Creek, Sugar Bush, Clintonville. When he was eight Kyle’s parents had brought him back to Bischoff, Wisconsin for a month to visit Grandpa Reuthman’s farm. Deadly. The only kid living there, his cousin Carney, was a year older and no fun at all. Kyle’s lasting memories were of vicious mosquitoes and heat lightning and men in rough clothing who smelled of the barn. Blessedly, he had not been asked to make the trip again. Not until now.
This should have been his summer of fun. His last as a student. Next year he would graduate from UCLA and would have to go out into the real world and find a job, for Chrissake. Now, while his buddies were catching the waves off Point Dume or checking the action at the hot new clubs, he was on his way back to what was now Uncle Bob’s farm.
And on a
bus
, if you could believe it. The only time you rode a bus in Los Angeles was when your car was in the shop and you had no choice. Now Kyle’s funky little Jeep Wrangler sat home in the Brentwood garage while he shifted and squirmed in the seat of a Greyhound bus.
From his slouched position Kyle let his eyes dust over the other passengers. Farmers, most of them, he guessed, from the sunburns that ended at collar and wrist. A couple of overweight women fanning themselves. Was everybody in Wisconsin fat? Maybe there was a state law. Directly behind him was a baby that alternately cried and puked. Didn’t those things ever sleep? And way in the back sat three silent and stony Indians. Not a fun group.
The flight from LAX to Mitchell Field in Milwaukee had been more Kyle Brubaker’s style. He’d drunk Coors beer and kidded around with a high-assed little stewardess. He could probably have made a date with her if he had been staying in the city. But noooo. Once he stepped out of the plane reality hit. He was Bischoff bound, and the only way to get there from Milwaukee was on the bus.
Kyle allowed himself the luxury of a little hatred. He hated Uncle Bob for not selling Grandpa’s farm when the old man died, and for then having a stroke trying to run it himself. And he hated his cousin Carney for not staying home with Uncle Bob where he belonged. He hated the bus passengers just for being there, and he hated the state of Wisconsin on principle.
He recalled Cousin Carney for a little additional hatred. If his stupid cousin hadn’t joined the stupid army out of high school and marched off to some stupid camp in the state of Washington, he would be home now attending to his father’s farm and Kyle would be catching the rays and building his tan. The
army
, for Chrissake. Who joined the army any more? Cousin Carney, that’s who.
The air brakes hissed and the bus shuddered to a stop.
“Bischoff.” The driver did not bother to turn around with his announcement.
Kyle grabbed his red nylon roll bag from the overhead rack and made his way between the rows of seats to the front of the bus. The farmers ignored him, the fat women wheezed, the baby yowled, and the Indians remained silent. Kyle paused at the door to give them a farewell wave. Nobody waved back.
He stepped down from the bus onto the asphalt of Main Street. Kyle did not have to look for a street sign. In this part of the country they were always Main Street. The rubber lips of the bus door flapped shut and the Greyhound from hell rumbled away to drop its motley load in other anonymous towns.
Kyle took a despairing look at his surroundings. Behind him was the Rexall Drug Store, which also served as the bus depot. Across the street was the post office, New Emporium Department Store, and the Shawano County court house. To his right was Dave & Emma’s Tavern, Salzman Ford, and the Majestic Theater with an empty marquee. To his left the Senate Cigar Store and Happy Otto Inn. Bookending Main Street were the Idle Hour and Thriftway Grocery and Liquor. That was it for Bischoff, Wisconsin. It was not, Kyle observed, Hollywood Boulevard.
Here and there saw grass sprouted through cracks in the asphalt. The sidewalks were nearly empty of pedestrians. At midday in June, Kyle supposed, everybody was out in the fields planting or plowing or harvesting or whatever the hell they did. A stooped man in bib overalls shuffled by and looked at him with narrowed eyes. A little girl clutched her mother’s skirts, and they detour ed around him. He was probably the first stranger in town since the Carter administration.
A sudden snarl behind him spun Kyle around. A pimply-faced kid with heavy upper arms sat astride a bright yellow Kawasaki. He wore a black muscle shirt and leather jeans, and sneered at Kyle as he gave the three-cylinder engine another goose. He had a bad punk haircut and pouty Elvis lips. As Kyle met his eye the kid revved the throttle a couple more times then kicked the yellow cycle off down Main Street.
Kyle let the breath hiss out between his teeth.
Welcome to Bischoff
.
A big dusty Plymouth Caravelle rolled down Main Street and came to a stop in front of the bus bench. A woman leaned across the front seat and looked him up and down. She had a lean, weathered face and sharp little eyes that didn’t miss much.
“Kyle Brubaker?”
“That’s me.”
“I’m Dorothy Simms.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m supposed to bring you back to your Uncle Bob’s.”
She didn’t sound too happy about it. Fair enough, neither was he. Kyle tossed his bag into the back seat and got in next to the woman. The interior of the Plymouth was littered with tools, greasy rags, and scraps of metal and leather. It smelled of farm animals.
The woman swung the car in a U-turn. No problem, considering the lack of traffic on Main Street. She headed north out of town. In less than a minute Bischoff was behind them.
Kyle peered gloomily out at the pasture land, the barns, the fences, the patches of hardwood forest. The woman’s silence got on his nerves. Somebody, he felt, ought to say something.
He gave it a try. “This is my first time back in fifteen years.”
“That so?”
“I was six years old. Don’t remember much about it.”
“I s’pose not.”
“No.”
So much for the conversation. Kyle settled down with a sigh and watched the telephone poles march by.
After three miles of silence the woman swung the Plymouth off the blacktop, across the railroad tracks, and up a hard-packed dirt drive toward a cluster of outbuildings and a two-story clapboard house with a mansard roof. There was an expanse of green lawn in front of the house. Behind it lay a vegetable garden, then the fence. Beyond, pasture land rolled off to a patch of woods. As the car pulled in a caramel and white collie came wagging and barking toward them.
Mrs. Simms parked next to one of the outbuildings and set the brake. “Here we are,” she said.
“So I see.” Kyle got out and retrieved his bag as the dog sniffed curiously at his feet. He held out a hand. The dog licked at it and gave him a friendly bark.
At least somebody’s glad to see me
.
Mrs. Simms strode off toward the house. Kyle gave the dog a pat on the rump and followed. Oh, yes, this was going to be one hell of a fun summer.
The farmhouse was at least eighty years old, but it looked solid enough to withstand an earthquake. If they had earthquakes in Wisconsin. The house was painted a dull mustard with brown trim around the windows, and a gray-shingled roof. It was a color scheme that Kyle found depressing. At least the paint job looked fresh.
The gloomy aspect of the house was lightened somewhat by bright curtains in the windows and flower beds along both sides of the path that led to the porch that extended the width of the house. There was even a porch swing suspended by chairs. Kyle thought those things existed only in nostalgic old movies.
A tractor mower chugged into view around the corner of the house as Kyle and Mrs. Simms approached. In the driver’s saddle was a copper-skinned man in a sleeveless jacket and black felt hat. The driver looked over toward the house as Kyle followed the woman up on the porch. The wide hat brim threw a shadow across the man’s face, making his expression unreadable.
Mrs. Simms pulled open the screen and the oak paneled door behind it and walked inside. Kyle followed. It was cool, and there was the faint musty odor that lingers in old houses. The smell of people and pets long gone, dinners long ago cooked and eaten. A smell of the past.
A high-ceilinged hallway with rooms on both sides led from the front door to the far end of the house. A stairway with a well-worn bannister climbed to the floor above. To the right of the door an archway opened into a room cluttered with overstuffed chairs and couches, mismatched tables, knickknack shelves, an upright piano, and an antique standing Victrola.
“I’ll go see if your uncle’s awake,” Mrs. Simms said. “You can wait in the parlor.”
The parlor. Kyle walked into the room feeling like he was in a museum. Although there was no system to the arrangement, everything seemed somehow to be in the place it belonged. The furniture was old without being antique, and showed signs of regular cleaning. The faded carpet with its tangled floral pattern did not match the curlicued wallpaper.
Kyle hit a couple of keys on the piano and winced at the twangy discord. He opened the doors of the Victrola cabinet and pulled out several of the records stored below. They were old 78s in paper jackets with labels he’d never heard of. Brunswick. Bluebird. Okeh. He eased the records carefully back into the cabinet and prowled around the room.
From a marble-topped table he picked up a 12-inch model of a birchbark canoe so delicate he feared it would crumple in his hands. He put it back quickly. There were pictures everywhere, on the tables, on shelves, hanging on the walls. Most of them were posed black and white photographs of people dressed in the fashions of past generations. It gave Kyle an odd feeling to look into the photo faces. These people had lived, loved and sinned, possibly right in this room, and had gone their way, each leaving behind a little bit of himself.
He wandered around feeling himself pulled back into past generations of his mother’s family as chronicled in the photographs. He recognized great-grandfather Henry Reuthman of the fierce red beard who arrived from Germany in the 1880s. There was a yard-long photo of Grandpa’s World War I company lined up outside their barracks in campaign hats and the leggings of 1918. There were childhood pictures of his mother, her brother Bob, and her sister Helen, who had disgraced the family by marrying a black musician, of whom there were no pictures present. Kyle reflected that he would rather be visiting Aunt Helen, wherever she was, than here. There was a fading color photo of Uncle Bob in unfamiliar suit and tie for his wedding. And Aunt Esther standing beside him, fresh and pretty before the cancer started to eat her.
Cousin Carney was much in evidence. In football uniform, The Bischoff Bisons, helmet under his arm, hair tousled, smiling in victory. And again, looking earnest in high school cap and gown. A recent studio shot in his army uniform.
Kyle came to a stop at a blown-up color snapshot of Carney in swim trunks, one tanned arm around a laughing girl whose red-blonde hair glinted with sunny highlights. The girl wore a modest swimsuit that would never have made
Sports Illustrated
, yet she exuded a wholesome sexiness that caused a stirring in Kyle’s pants. Cousin Carney was apparently not a complete dork.
“Your uncle’s awake.” Mrs. Simms’ voice startled Kyle out of a contemplation of the girl’s flaring hips and sculptured legs. “You can go on up. Top of the stairs on the right.”
“Thanks.” Kyle spoke to the woman’s narrow back as she marched away up the hall.
He climbed the stairs and walked through the open door into his uncle’s bedroom. The window was open, but a breeze that fluttered the curtains would not blow away the sickroom smell.
His uncle lay propped by three pillows, a patchwork quilt covering him to the chest. A metal and canvas wheelchair stood empty in a corner. Leaning against the wall was a pair of aluminum crutches, the kind with braces to fit around the arms. Uncle Bob held out a bony left hand, reaching across his body while his right stayed under the quilt.
“Kyle, glad you could come.” The words were faintly slurred, and the smile was lopsided, but Uncle Bob seemed in fair shape, considering. “Damn nuisance being laid up. They tell me I’ll be good as new, but it’ll take time.”
Kyle took the hand, which gripped his strongly. “Glad I can help out.” It was a flat out lie, but what else could he say.
“I’m darn glad to have you here, at least until Carney gets home.”
“Uh, when do you think that will be?”
“He’s due to be discharged in September, but family hardship may get him out earlier.”
“Let’s hope so,” Kyle said, truthfully this time.
“Did Mrs. Simms show you your room?”
“Not yet. I just got here.”
“You’ll be up here at the end of the hall. It’s a nice room, bathroom right across from it. Hasn’t been used in a while, but Mrs. Simms will have it all aired out and scrubbed up for you.”
“She doesn’t say a whole lot, Mrs. Simms.”
Uncle Bob gave him the crooked smile. “Don’t worry about it, she’s that way with everybody. Even if I didn’t know her I’d put up with a lot for her cooking. Wait’ll you taste it. I’ll bet you put on a few pounds yourself before you leave.”
Kyle faked a chuckle.
“Course, you look to be in pretty good shape. Your mom tells me you were on the boxing team out at UCLA.”
“Not exactly. I did a little intramural boxing for my fraternity.”
“Your nose is still straight, so you must be pretty good.”
“It’s no big deal. We use pillow gloves and headgear. Anyway, I don’t plan to make it a career.”
“That’s good.” Uncle Bob’s smile faded. His right eye drooped slightly. “What
do
you plan to make your career, Kyle?”
“Well, I’m majoring in business and accounting.” There were times when Kyle wished he could say
astronaut
or
bank robber
or anything to grab people’s attention and avoid the half-disappointed expression now clouding his uncle’s face.
“Like your father.”
Kyle shrugged. “Dad’s in corporate finance. I’m still not sure where I’ll wind up.”
“I’m sure you’ll do fine, whatever you choose. How much do you know about farming?”
“Zippo.”
The lopsided smile returned. “That figures. Not much in the way of open land out in Los Angeles, I guess.” He pronounced it Los Angaleez with a hard
g
.
“When they find some they build homes on it,” Kyle said.
“Well, you won’t have to know much to help out around here. Mrs. Simms runs the house. Has for years.” He nodded toward the open window through which could be heard the tractor mower below on the lawn. “Amos Deerfoot takes care of the stock, the machinery, and the fields.”
“Deerfoot?”
“He’s an Indian. Damn good man. Hardest worker I ever saw.”
Kyle hesitated, framing the question carefully. “Uncle Bob, with everything so well taken care of, what do you need me for?”
“Just to keep an eye on things. I like to have somebody here who’s family.”
Terrific. “I’ll do what I can.”
“You’ll be fine.” He shifted his body under the quilt with some difficulty. “You’re probably hungry.”
“I ate on the plane.”
Uncle Bob snorted. “Airline food. All tastes like cardboard. Go on down and tell Mrs. Simms to fix you something to hold you until supper. Before you go, can you hand me that ball on the table?”
Kyle picked up a red sponge ball and held it out to his uncle. The stricken man reached under the covers with his left hand and carried his right up as though it were not attached to him. He took the ball from Kyle and placed it in his limp right palm. His fingers twitched toward the ball.
“I’m supposed to exercise between therapy sessions. You go on down and see about some food.”
Kyle understood that his uncle did not want him to watch. “I
am
hungry,” he said. “I’ll talk to you later.”
He went back downstairs and followed the hallway to the other end of the house where he found the kitchen. Unlike the cluttered if comfortable parlor, this room sparkled with bright new appliances. Gleaming copper-bottomed pans hung in order of their size over a range that looked like the bridge of the
Enterprise
. The kitchen smelled warmly of fresh milk and home-baked bread. A breakfast nook looked out over the garden lawn behind the house and the rolling pasture land beyond.
Mrs. Simms stood with her back to him, chopping at something at a butcher-block table.
“Uh, Mrs. Simms — ” he began when she did not look up.
She turned abruptly and handed him a plate with several fat red radishes and a fat sandwich on yellow bread. “I expect you could eat something.”
He took the plate from her. “I sure could. Thanks.”
“There’s milk in the refrigerator.” She looked him up and down. “Or beer if you want it. I guess you’re old enough.” Without further conversation she left him and he could hear her clumping up the stairs.
He took a bottle of Miller’s from the refrigerator and carried it with the sandwich out to the breakfast nook. The sandwich was thick sliced roast beef with mustard and sweet red onions. Kyle ate with sudden ravenous hunger. Washing it down with long gulps of beer.
Someone rattled the back door. Kyle looked down the hall for Mrs. Simms, didn’t see her. He swallowed the last of the beer and went to the door.
He opened it to see a girl carrying a basket of milky yellow pears. She had red-gold hair, a pert nose, startling blue eyes. It took Kyle a minute to recognize her in the full skirt and peasant blouse. Then he visualized the body underneath, put it into a swimsuit, and saw the girl in the picture with his cousin Carney.
“Hi,” she said after waiting for him to say something. “I’m Marianne Avery. You must be Kyle from California.”
“That’s me. Am I wearing a name tag or something?”
The girl shrugged. “Nobody comes to visit in a town the size of Bischoff without word getting around.”
“I guess not. Come on in.”
“I can’t stay,” she said, setting the basket of pears down on the counter. “I brought these over for your uncle.”
“They look good.”
“They are. We’ve got a tree out in back, and it always has a lot more fruit than we can eat.”
“Well, thanks. Do you want to go up and see my Uncle Bob?”
“No, I don’t want to bother him. How is he?”
“He’s … gee, I don’t know, I just got here. He’s not moving around much, but his mind seems OK.”
“That’s a blessing anyway. Well, nice meeting you, Kyle.” She turned and started out the door.
“Marianne … wait a minute.”
She turned and looked at him expectantly. Kyle felt the stirring in his crotch again. He said, “Uh, would you like a beer? Or something?”
“Can’t. I’ve got to get back to work.”
“Where do you work?”
“The New Emporium. That’s our department store. At least until Walmart moves in.”
“I saw it when I got off the bus.”
“You couldn’t miss it. My father’s the manager. I’m just working there for the summer.”
“What happens in the fall?”
“That depends. Daddy wants me to go to college. Carney, your cousin, wants to get married. I haven’t really made up my mind.”
“You and Carney are … that serious?”
Marianne absently touched her ring finger. “There’s nothing official. We’ve been more or less going together ever since I can remember. A lot of people take it for granted we’ll get married.”
“Including Carney?”
“I guess so. I haven’t seen him for nine months.”
“Do you think he’d object to you doing something with me? I mean it’s all in the family.”
Marianne cocked her head and looked at him from an angle. “What did you have in mind?”
“I don’t know. Going out. What is there to do around here for fun?”
“Quite a lot, as a matter of fact. I guess it depends on your idea of fun. But to answer your first question, yes, I think Carney might very well object.”
“Well, then — ”
“But he doesn’t make my decisions for me.”
“That’s good. Will you think about it?”
“Maybe.” Marianne gave her fine head of hair a shake and went out the door. “See you.”
Kyle watched from the kitchen window as the girl swung across the lawn, got into a red Mustang, and drove back out the dirt roadway. He grinned for the first time since leaving Los Angeles.
Just maybe this wouldn’t be such a rotten summer after all.
