Down River

But the phone call was just the begi

The parking lot was pure dirt, the building long and low. I killed the engine and entered through a filthy glass door. My hands found the counter and I studied the only wall ornament, a ten-pe

His eyes flicked past me, took in the car. I watched him do the math.

“Yes, sir?” he said, in a respectful tone that was rare in this place. He turned his eyes down, but I saw how straight he kept his back, the stillness in his small, leathery hands.

“I’m looking for Da

“Da

“When will he be back?” I hid my disappointment.

“No, sir. He’s gone three weeks now. Don’t think he’s coming back. His father still runs this place, though. I could get him if you want.”

I tried to process this. Rowan County made two kinds of people: those who were born to stay and those who absolutely had to leave. Da

“Gone where?” I asked.

The man shrugged, a weary, lips-down gesture, palms turned up. “He hit his girlfriend. She fell through that window.” We both looked at the glass behind me, and he gave another near Gallic shrug. “It cut her face. She swore out a warrant and he left. No one has seen him around since. You want I should get Mr. Faith?”

“No.” I was too tired to drive anymore, and not ready to deal with my father. “Do you have a room?”

“Sí.”

“Just a room, then.”

He looked me over again. “You are sure? You want a room here?” He showed me his palms a second time.

I pulled out my wallet, put a hundred dollar bill on the counter.

“Sí,” I told him. “A room here.”

“For how long?”

His eyes were not on me or on the hundred, but on my wallet, where a thick stack of large bills was about to split the seams. I folded it closed and put it back in my pocket.

“I’ll be out by tonight.”

He took the hundred, gave me seventy-seven dollars in change, and told me room thirteen was open if I didn’t mind the number. I told him that the number was no problem. He handed me the key and I left. He watched me move the car down the row to the end.

I went inside, slipped the chain.

The room smelled of mildew and the last guy’s shower, but it was dark and still, and after days without sleep, it felt about right. I pulled back the bedcover, kicked off my shoes, and dropped onto the limp sheets. I thought briefly of hope and anger and wondered which one was strongest in me. Nothing felt certain, so I made a choice. Hope, I decided. I would wake to a sense of hope.

I closed my eyes and the room tilted. I seemed to rise up, float, then everything fell away and I was out, like I was never coming back.

I woke with a strangled noise in my throat and the image of blood on a wall, a dark crescent that stretched for the floor. I heard pounding, didn’t know where I was, and stared wide-eyed around the dim room. Thin carpet rippled near the legs of a battered chair. Weak light made short forays under the curtain’s edge. The pounding ceased.

Someone was at the door.

“Who is it?” My throat felt raw.

“Zebulon Faith.”

It was Da

“Just a second,” I called out.

“I wanted to talk to you.”

“Hang on.”

I went to the sink and threw some water on my face, pushed the nightmare down. In the mirror, I looked drawn-out, older than my twenty-eight years. I toweled off as I moved to the door, felt the blood flow in me, and pulled it open. The sun hung low. Late afternoon. The old man’s face looked hot and brittle.

“Hello, Mr. Faith. It’s been a long time.”

He was basically unchanged: a little more whittled down, but just as unpleasant. Wasted eyes moved over my face, and his lips twisted under dull whiskers. The smile made my skin crawl.

“You look the same,” he said. “I figured time would have taken some of the pretty-boy off your face.”

I swallowed my distaste. “I was looking for Da

His next words came slowly, in a hard drawl. “When Ma

I kept my sudden anger in check. “About Da

He waved the comment away as if it a

I rolled my shoulders. “One place is as good as another.”

The old man laughed cruelly. “This motel is a rattrap. It’s sucking the life out of me.”

“If you say so.”

“Are you here to talk to your father?” he asked, a sudden glint in his eyes.

“I plan to see him.”

“That’s not what I meant. Are you here to talk to him? I mean to say, five years ago you were the crown prince of Rowan County.” A despicable grin. “Then you had your little trouble and you’re just up and gone. Near as I can tell, you’ve never been back. There’s got to be a reason after all this time, and talking sense into that prideful, stubborn son of a bitch is the best one I can think of.”

“If you have something to say, Mr. Faith, why don’t you just say it?”

He stepped closer, brought the smell of old sweat with him. His eyes were hard gray over a drinker’s nose, and his voice thi

“I don’t think I like your tone.”

“I tried to be polite, but you’ll never change, you Chases. Think you’re so much better than everyone else around here, just because you have all that land and because you’ve been in this county since creation. None of it means you’re better than me. Or better than my boy.”

“I never said I was.”

The old man nodded, and his voice quivered with frustration and anger. “You tell your daddy that he needs to stop being so goddamn selfish and think about the rest of the people in this county. I’m not the only one that says so. A lot of people around here are fed up. You tell him that from me.”

“That’s enough,” I said, stepping closer.

He didn’t like it, and his hands seized up. “Don’t you talk down to me, boy.”

Something hot flared in his eyes, and I felt a deep anger stir as memories surged back. I relived the old man’s pettiness and disregard, his quick and ready hands when his son made some i