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This was it. This was where he had written all of the books. This was where he had eaten and slept and walked and known people and bought things like potatoes and newspapers and gas for his car. Most of the people here had known him. Had known Marshall France.
The main part of the town was on the other side of some railroad tracks. As we approached the crossing, the safety bars started to descend and a bell began its warning. I was delighted by the reprieve. Anything that would postpone our seeing A
When we got to the lowered bars I switched off the engine and rested my arm on the back of Saxony's seat. It felt hot and clammy. It had turned out to be one of those summer days when the air feels like soft lead and the clouds can't decide on whether they want to downpour or just move on.
"You can let me off here."
"Can you tell us where Miss France lives?"
He stuck his ski
He got out of the car, and when he walked away I saw that he had colorful patches sewn onto both of his back pockets. One of them was a hand giving you the finger, the other was of a hand giving you the V-for-peace sign. Both patches were red, white, and blue, and the fingers had stars all up and down them.
The train turned out to be a slow-moving two-hundred-car-long freight. A passing parade of Erie Lackawa
When the train was gone, the red-and-white-striped bars began rising slowly, almost as if they were tired and weren't in the mood to go up. I started the engine and bumped the car up and over the tracks. I looked in the mirror and saw that there was no one behind us.
"You see? That's the difference between here and in the East."
"What is?"
"We were just at that crossing for what, five or eight minutes, right? Well, in the East if you were there half that long there would be a line of cars ten miles long waiting to go. Here… well, just look behind us." She did, but she didn't say anything. "You see? Not a car. Not one. That's your difference."
"Uh-huh. Thomas, do you realize where we are on this earth? Do you realize that we are actually here?"
"I'm trying not to think about it yet. It makes my stomach ache." An understatement. I was quickly on my way to being terrified of talking to A
"Hey, look, Sax, a barbecue! Let's have some lunch."
A big green canopy had been set up in an open lot between Phend's Sporting Goods and the Glass Insurance Company. Underneath the canopy about twenty people were sitting at redwood picnic tables, eating and talking. A hand-painted sign in front a
"What is this, Ode on a Grecian Urn?" I mumbled to no one.
I watched the woman with the rolls spear open a box with a barbecue fork. The freeze on the rest of them lasted maybe ten long seconds, and then a loud engine noise which turned out to be a truck carrying a palomino horse broke the spell. One of the men behind the grills smiled and waved us over with a greasy spatula.
"There's plenty here, folks. Come on over and support the Galen Lions."
We started over, and the man nodded his approval. There was space on one of the benches, so Saxony sat down while I went over to the smoking grills.
My new pal scraped grease off the silver bars into the fire and called over his shoulder for more ribs. Then he looked at me and tapped the grill. "Co
He had on a puffy white cooking glove that was stained grease-brown on the palm. I smiled stupidly and laughed through my nose.
"Now, you see, I got the ribs and Bob Schott over there's got the hamburgers. If I were you, though, I wouldn't eat 'em, because Bob's a doctor and he might try to poison you so he'll have a couple of new customers later."
Bob thought that was the fu
"But now, you take some ribs from me, and you'll know what good is, because I own the market here and this meat is fresh off the truck this morning. It's the best stuff I've got." He pointed at the grilling ribs. They were basted in a red sauce and dripped hot grease onto the coals, which in turn gave off an almost continual sizzle. They smelled great.
"Sure, Dan, sure. You know that they're just the ones you couldn't sell last week."
When I looked over my shoulder at Saxony to see how all these knee-slappers were going down with her, I was surprised to see her laughing.
"Us dopes's keeping you from eating, friend. What would you and your lady like?"
Dan, the master of ceremonies, was shiny-bald except for some short brown hair on the sides of his head. His eyes were dark and friendly and set into a fat, red, unwrinkled face that looked as if it had eaten a lot of spareribs over the years. He had on a white T-shirt, rumpled tan pants, and black work boots. Overall he reminded me of an actor who died a couple of years ago named Joh
My father used to bring home men like Joh
If I was in the room with my mother, she'd inevitably groan and look at the ceiling, as if the answer were written up there. "Your father's found another monster," she'd say, and then push herself wearily up and out of her chair so that she'd at least be standing when he appeared in the doorway with his new pal in tow.
Looking sheepish and naughty at the same time, he'd boom out, "Look who's in for di
Joh