Mr. Splitfoot (27 page)

“The poor?”

“Not even close. Dead people.”

“Right.”

“A totally underrepresented population. The people underground. No one’s looking out for dead people’s rights. Right?” She slams her fist on the counter. “No one’s making sure dead people are invited to speak at conferences on semiotics or the effect of polar vortexes on the Gulf of Mexico. I became a ghost activist. I’d start arguments with my classmates and professors as to why they always privilege being over non-being. Why they behave as if the only words people hear are spoken ones. Makes my blood boil. What about the unsaid? Right? What about the dead?”

A man with well-greased trousers enters the lobby. “How’s it hanging, Sherry darling? Loose?”

“Sure. Loose.” Then she turns back to me. “Ask Carl. He can tell you.”

“What?” He blushes. “And, please, don’t call me that.”

“Sorry. I was just telling her only dead people live here. Right?”

“Not exclusively.” The guy definitely looks like someone who lives in an upstate motel, a sexy bandito with a messed-up past. Lots of silver loot on his hands, bracelets on wrists. The man smiles and shakes one ringed finger at the young woman, scolding with a smile. “You’re a funny one, Sherry. Any caffeinated beverages at the ready?” he asks. “I can’t seem to stay conscious.”

She looks at the brewing coffeepot. “Almost.”

“Right. I’ll be back in a jiff.”

“Sure. Hey, Carl, you have that money you owe me?” she asks him.

“I’m working on it. Working on it.” He swings out through the door. “My great pleasure to make your acquaintance,” he says, though we barely met.

The woman lifts a brow after he’s gone. “So you guys staying another night?”

I look toward the phone, nearly believing my own fabrication of moments earlier. That it had been Ruth, that she’d said something to explain why the plan had changed. Why I was stopped here, waiting for her, holding the knapsack. “Yeah. Another night.”

“Got any plans?”

“Nope.”

“Cool. I get off at eight. I’ll be round to get you. If you’re interested.”

I don’t ask in what. I’m interested. “I’ll look for you then.”

M
R. BELL PULLS
his greased hair behind his ears. “Back to Troy?”

Nat joins them in the car.

Ruth imagines Zeke’s non-nose. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” They pass a dairy farm, an abandoned paint ball area, and a house whose yard is dominated by whirligigs and birdbaths.

“I know a spot. At least for a night,” Mr. Bell says.

“Far from here?”

“Far from any place really.”

Ruth nods a slight yes like a mafia boss. They pass a field of three transmission towers. In the field there’s an abandoned lightweight truck. Nat taps his nails against the window.

The radio speaks of nothing but the coming storm. “It’s going to be a doozy!” DJs ratchet up fear. “No end to this nastiness in sight, folks!” They are bullies taunting winter into bad behavior.

Seventh Lake, Eighth Lake. There are so many lakes in the Adirondacks, some are numbered rather than named. Homes swarm by the lakeshores, leaving huge areas of unpeopled land. Mr. Bell’s car heads up into the mountains. Ruth has her forehead flattened against the window. “A bear.” She sits up. The bear is not alone. There are three, four, and another one across the street standing in front of a trailer. The giant bears have been chain-sawed from trees and painted black as fur.

A highway turns to a county road to a back road. The car climbs higher. Many of the homes look like chalets with carved wooden shutters. Cheaply built vacation condos collapse under the weight of winter and neglect. There’s a plague of empty tourist businesses, restaurants that catered to the summer crowds until the summer crowds found something chicer than a week in the high peaks. Small flakes fall, covering their tracks.

They travel slowly through the morning, higher and higher, up where the snow berms are as tall as a child. No one is here.

Mr. Bell spins the tuning on the radio. Even the weather forecasts have petered out at this higher altitude. There’s one country station and one for Jesus. Mr. Bell switches it off, and they are left with the sound of slush rushing under the tires. He says, “Ah, yes,” or “Of course” every mile or two as if he’s just remembering how to get there. He hurries. “Sorry to rush but there’s one stretch of the road that becomes impassable very quickly in snow. I’d like to get there before that happens.”

Ruth’s breath fogs the window. She wipes it clean in time to catch a momentary view. The trees drop away, the hills open into a vista. Huge ancient mountains disappear into clouds and snow. The road switches back. The view tightens and trees close back in on either side. Ruth fogs her window again. Oxygen thins. The road twists. They drive on.

The next town has an oversize highway department and a bar whose parking lot’s filled with snowmobiles. There’s a gas station and a general store rolled into one. Mr. Bell parks. A community bulletin board on the porch advertises clean fill, chainsaw repair, and a double mattress for sale. The door makes an electronic
ding
as the three enter. Mr. Bell extends his hand toward an uninterested mutt curled on the cashier’s wooden counter. “Bonjour, pooch.” He passes shopping baskets to Nat and Ruth with the instruction, “Fill ’em up.”

“How long are we planning to stay up here?” Ruth asks.

“Depends on the storm.”

Five or six people have gathered by the coffee counter—some seated, some rubbing their hands near a wood stove. They stare. Mr. Bell smiles to his audience. “Could one of you remind me where I’d find the lamp oil?”

No responses but wide eyes drink in Mr. Bell’s shine. He twinkles his fingertips above his head releasing them from his spell. “Hello?”

The clerk jumps to attention. “Follow me.” Mr. Bell disappears down one creaky wooden aisle into the back of the store. Nat and Ruth stand in the gaze of the townspeople before shuffling off to their shopping.

The store specializes in canned, frozen, and cured provisions. Ruth finds whatever is fresh, or once was: eggs, milk, bananas, iceberg, and onions. There’s penny candy and a mounted moose head as large as the ice cream cooler. There’s beer and a wall of movie rentals. There’s a post office, presently closed. There’s a rack of magazines, locally made jams, and a tray of fudge. Road salts, shovels, winter boots, emergency flares, motor oil, and lug nuts. Ruth selects three tins of Vienna sausages, some creamed corn, maple candy, cheddar, yogurt, biscuit mix, fruit cocktail in syrup. She puts her full basket up on the counter beside Nat’s and Mr. Bell’s.

The big ears at the wood stove watch them. There are three older gentlemen individuated only by the messages on their baseball caps.
CAT
says one.
STIHL
says the second.
HOW CAN I MISS YOU IF YOU WON’T GO AWAY?
asks the third. There are two women—one old, one younger. Both with short, styled hair, diamond-chip wedding rings, and winter parkas. All five people stare, prompting Mr. Bell to shuffle his feet, Bojangles style.

“Where you kids headed in this weather?” one of the old-timers finally asks.

Mr. Bell stops dancing. “Up the mountain a stretch. Over the river. Through the woods.”

The man lifts his lip and squints trying to see what Mr. Bell is talking about. He blows a raspberry and turns back to his circle of familiars. “Heard about them city hikers?”

The circle nods, studying boots and cracks on the wooden floor.

“Yup. Two weeks to thaw out their bodies. Though I heard it wasn’t the cold that got them.”

Mr. Bell’s interest in the old guy has now been piqued.

The man nods to his friends. “Yup.” And then the bastard doesn’t say what killed the city hikers.

The cashier rings up their purchases. Nat adds some trucker speed. Mr. Bell pays and their supplies are loaded into three cardboard boxes as Ruth imagines starving to death, falling off a cliff, being hacked to bits by some old-timer in a baseball cap.

With the car loaded, Nat takes a moment to piss over the snow berm in the rear of the lot. A group of young men have parked their trucks and snowmobiles by the propane tank refill center. They practice machismo in front of the strangers. They imagine the fearsome cluster of manhood they present. One boy spits an ugly if expected word in reference to Ruth. She doesn’t hear it. One boy scratches his, as of yet, untested testicles. Ruth notices one of the boys because he’s dressed crazy for the cold weather, in shorts and a concert T-shirt. His hair is as dark as his shirt. She leans back into the seat, making eye contact with this boy as Mr. Bell finds reverse and Nat slams the door shut.

A mile or two away from the store, the town disappears. They take a right onto a road where the plow hasn’t tried very hard at all. The notion of trouble is immediately upon them when two pickup trucks and a snowmobile follow them onto the off road.

“It’s not far now.” Mr. Bell speaks to cancel any alarm.

Ruth monitors activity out the rear window. “The boys from the store are following us.”

Mr. Bell tucks his chin, wraps a hank of hair behind his ear. “Nothing but ignorant rednecks.”

“Ignorant rednecks getting closer.” The first truck races up to their bumper. Ruth ducks. “They’re here,” she says, seconds before the truck lurches. Bumper meets bumper. The second truck pulls up alongside, overtaking Mr. Bell’s average sedan. The truck comes to a dead halt across the road. Mr. Bell uses two feet to brake, sliding toward a small river, one that washes through these mountains timidly, a forgettable stream that collects water from all these lakes, rolling down the mountains until it reaches the magnificent Hudson. The car comes to a stop, leaving just enough space for a minor paperback mystery to slide between the two vehicles.

A number of crows sitting in a spruce wisely decide it’s time to leave.

Mr. Bell steps from the car. Hands on hips, he approaches the lead truck. “What is this? Some sort of pickle sandwich?”

Four boys from the store climb out of the trucks, another arrives on snowmobile.

“Pickle sandwich?” Nat shakes his head and gets out as well. Ruth follows.

The dark-haired boy is there. “Which one’s your boyfriend?” he asks Ruth. She looks down at the truck’s hubcap. “And which one is a mother-fucking faggot?”

She doesn’t understand the question entirely. All she’d done was look at him for a moment. Is it good or bad to be her boyfriend? Does that carry some sort of immunity? Or does boyfriend = head beaten with a crowbar? More likely faggot = crowbar with these boys. Even more likely, nobody’s safe because they don’t even understand what it is that’s making them angry. Chunks of muddy slush cling to the flap behind the tire, hanging on for life.

“Generally.” Mr. Bell draws them off her. “Male homosexuals don’t go in for mothers.” Raw meat to maggots, they turn toward him.

“What’d you say?” asks a slow one.

“Oh, dear.” Mr. Bell sizes him up, hand on chin. “You, presumably, own one of the trucks?”

“Why?”

“Strapping young lads such as your friends here only socialize with the hideously obese who can afford fancy cars.”

“Cocksucker.” The guy begins his waddle toward Mr. Bell’s neck, arms raised zombie style.

“Yes, well, Fatso. The truth do hurt.” Mr. Bell takes a seat on the hood of his car, arresting Fatso’s advance with indifference. Mr. Bell dusts a few snowflakes off his knees.

“I think you three are in trouble now,” says the black-haired boy, closing in on Nat, who suddenly looks tiny in the big world. Ruth churns with nausea, a wave of blind sickness to see Nat made unstrong and scared.

“Is that right?” Mr. Bell asks.

Ruth tries to count. Five of them. Again. No six.

“Yay, boy. We’re the Destructo-Crew.” The black-haired boy’s voice makes a high screech, striving for the amped-up insanity of a metal band but sounding more like a happy dinosaur on a children’s cartoon. “And we like to blow shit up!”

Threats met with silence sound absurd. “Like what?” Mr. Bell finally asks. “Balloons? Bubble gum?” Again he draws the bullies off Nat and Ruth. “I don’t imagine we’re meeting here by coincidence?” He shifts gears, begins his attack. “So I wonder why we’ve been selected for this honor. Is it because one of your lot . . .” He looks around. “I’m guessing you.” He points to the dark hair. “Longs to pound your pale, pitiful worm against the dewed and virtuous flesh of my bride? Yet due to some malformation in your person, you lack the refinement to pursue her eye in the more traditionally charming ways—flowers, phone calls, candlelit dinners? You follow instead the caveman paradigm, the old club and hair drag?” The boys are stunned dumb. “Grunt once for yes, twice for no.”

Brown slush drops from their mud flaps down to the road. Mr. Bell stands, dusts off more snow.

“You’re one of those religious weirdoes from Tahawus. Ether?” The statement comes from a boy who has not yet fully climbed out of his cab. “Yeah. He’s one of them,” the boy says to his friends. “I can tell by his pants.”

Mr. Bell puffs up his chest and regards the pants he has on. “Hmm.” He rubs the fibers of the fabric between his fingers, puzzled.