Payton Hidden Away (2 page)

My apartment doesn’t feel quite
like my home anymore. All of my things are in their proper places, but they
don’t feel like mine either. It feels like an exhibit with a chain barrier and one
of those signs reading ‘
Do not touch.
’ I bought each stick of furniture,
each book and each framed picture as a means to define myself as an individual,
but now as I look around, nothing I own seems to reflect who I am. I feel like
an intruder in another man’s life, poking through dresser drawers, closets and
medicine cabinets as I pack my suitcase. Opening the blinds, sunlight streams
in, revealing a space that feels packaged for someone else.

I step out onto
the balcony. The sounds of the city hang like a cloud just below me. Honking
horns of all shapes and sizes, faint laughter, faint shouting, people spilling
into the streets like dominoes. Smells of diesel, asphalt and hamburgers. I
can’t remember why I moved to Atlanta in the first place. All I know now is that
I don’t belong here, though I don’t know that I belong there either. I feel
like an orphan stranded somewhere in between.

Tony, I think
she was murdered
.

I haven’t talked
to Kristie since I left home. I haven’t even thought about her. Well, maybe in
the beginning, but just like any friends you move away from, those thoughts
become less frequent until they’re no longer thoughts. They’re black and white
prints from a life left behind. I remember her being pretty, but at that age,
all girls are pretty. We were just kids messing around, jacked up on teenage
hormones. Who really knows anything at that age?

There are other memories
too. Things like an ice cream stand, a rusty bike, a hammock, Payton Hill—that
place teenagers go to make out. And things like that big, goofy smile boasting
a row of chocolate-stained teeth, one of which was cracked in half during a
fight while defending—

Yo, Triple A…

I smile without
meaning to. Triple A. I’d forgotten my own nickname, and I’d forgotten who’d
given it to me. Ritchie took shortcuts, and since baseball was his whole world,
and since my first, middle and last name all started with ‘A,’ and since he
didn’t like multi-syllable words, Anthony Alexander Abbott became Triple A. Together,
we owned that town. We would—

Ritchie.

Ritchie Hudson.

My best friend.

I’d forgotten
all about him. Him and his ways. Him and his transient little world where the
term ‘couth’ did not apply. Nor did manners. He couldn’t understand the meaning
of either any more than he could discriminate between the two. He was just a
big oaf, rudely stumbling his way through life, as innocent as the bug that smacks
the windshield and splatters, the wipers smearing its remains.

Yo, Triple A,
the distant call repeats from the back of my mind, this time with more
urgency. I lean over the railing, looking down. The city is down there;
millions of people, millions of cars, millions of miles of pavement, but when I
look up, I don’t see anything that resembles the city life I’ve become adjusted
to. There’s only a grassy slope held upright by trees swaying gently in the
breeze, and there’s a chubby kid trudging up the hill toward me, that big, dumb
smile on his face. “What you doin’?” he asks.

“What?” I ask,
unaware that I’ve spoken aloud.

“I gotta show
you somethin’.”

“It can wait.”

Ritchie eyes me
a moment before shaking his head. “Not really. You’ll wanna see this.”

“It can wait.”

Ritchie narrows
his eyes. “Look, there’s something I
gotta
show you. It’s
important
.”
He slaps me on the arm. “Let’s go.”

I blink my eyes,
the general sounds of the city drifting up at me. There is no hill, no trees,
no grass. There’s just another gray building like mine not fifty feet away, an
old man across the way leaning against his railing while smoking a cigarette and
staring at me.

“I’m going,” I
whisper, turning my back and returning to my apartment to finish packing. I’m tossing
in all kinds of crap. Underwear, socks, jeans, shirts, shampoo, shaving cream,
toothbrush, toothpaste, mouthwash, deodorant and all the things I don’t really
need but I have enough room for. I even pack Viagra. It’s past its expiration
date, which reminds me of how long it’s been since I was last laid, but it’s
also the only medicine I have in my medicine cabinet. I don’t even have
aspirin, a thought that reaffirms my own judgmental perception of where I stand
amidst society’s reliance upon pharmaceutical propaganda.

My hands are
trembling as I zip the suitcase shut, and it’s a sad commentary that my entire
life apparently fits somewhat comfortably into a single suitcase. Standing in
the open doorway with the lights out, my shadow stretches into the lonely
apartment, though it’s not like I’m feeling nostalgic. I haven’t been happy here
since I moved in, but now that I’m leaving, all those ‘things’ I spent so much
time picking out—the couch, the recliner, the TV, the bookcase, the end
table—they all look like an argument intended to keep me from changing my mind.

Locking the door
behind me, I push the keys into my pocket, grab my rolling suitcase by the
plastic handle and make my way along the hall to the elevator.

I hate airports.

The long lines,
the uncomfortable seats, the vending machines, the food wrapped in plastic, the
impatient people, the prices, the magazines, the carpeting, the escalators and
the robotic voice coming from the ceiling asking me over and over for my
attention please.

I hate flying.

The seats that
smell like a smoldering vacuum cleaner, the upright tray tables, the seatbacks,
the air vents recycling stuffy air, the SkyMall magazines, the in-flight
passenger announcements, the feeling like I’m going to puke the moment the
wheels leave the tarmac, the little bastard sitting behind me, the gorgeous
flight attendant that waits on the couple one seat ahead of me and the male
flight attendant who asks if I’d prefer soda or juice.

I hate rental
cars.

The pretentious
smile at the front desk, the paperwork that comes folded in a glossy pocketbook
with a picture of a family laughing on the front, and my bill tucked inside,
the new car smell that’s been baking all day under the hot sun, the controls
for the windshield wipers and blinkers which are on the wrong side of the
steering wheel, the radio and all of it’s digital choices, the air conditioning
and it’s—

Actually, the
car is pretty nice. I’m just grumpy.

Kristine Lambert. She had a
middle name, but I’ll be damned if I remember what it is. I probably wouldn’t
have remembered her
last
name if she hadn’t told me. It’s odd, but the
harder I try to remember my past, the fuzzier it all feels. I’ve heard of
things like memory repression and amnesia, but I never really believed in it.
Not until now.

It’s eighty
miles from the airport to Payton County—an hour and some change by car—so I
have plenty of time to get frustrated while trying to remember the
inconsequential details of my childhood. It’s still hard to wrap my head around
the idea that just this morning I woke up in Atlanta, and only a few hours
later I’m in Michigan driving toward a place I call ‘home.’ It doesn’t sound
like home, but maybe that’s okay. Atlanta doesn’t feel like home either. 

“Kristine
Lambert,” I say aloud. “Kristine Lambert. Kristie.”

She’s a skeleton
in my closet. Kind of like my ex-wife. They’re both chapters in my life that
have ended. The difference between the two is I don’t remember why I left
Kristie. I remember with great clarity the reasons why I left my marriage. I
remember how Heather and I fought, I remember how nothing I did was what ever
good enough, I remember how our inability to conceive was my fault, how the
miscarriage was also somehow my fault, and I remember feeling free the day our
divorce was finalized.

Thump-thump,
thump-thump.

One thing I
do
remember is Michigan highways. Cracks in the pavement beneath the tires will
sing you to sleep until potholes jar you awake again. The slogan “Pure
Michigan” does not apply to its roads.

Thump-thump,
thump-thump.

The radio offers
no relief. There’s nothing but country or Christian music out here. I try
scanning the dial but find nothing to my liking, so I switch the radio off and
return my concentration to the road that seems to stretch into forever.

Exit 110 is
coming up fast. I’m exhausted, and I almost disregard the sign entirely when
something at the back of my mind triggers a memory. None of the landscape looks
familiar, but there’s something about that sign...

Exit 110

Route 89

1/4 Mile

Route 89 was the
fastest way out of town, and since every kid fantasized about leaving, we
looked at the two-lane highway stretching into oblivion like the Yellow Brick Road. We said Route 89 led all the way to the edge of the Earth and beyond,
and it must have, because anyone who took Route 89 never came back.

That means I’m
close.

Yanking the
wheel, I swerve off the interstate and follow the exit inland, merging onto a
two-lane highway that feels hidden from the rest of the world. The trees get
taller, hovering overhead like cheerleaders waving pompons as they welcome me
onto the playing field. The hairs on my arms stand up. Without even checking my
odometer, I instinctively know I’m only five miles from town. It looks
familiar. I don’t think I would have remembered it had I not seen it, but now
that I’m here, it all looks vaguely familiar. I can’t remember things as
explicit as street names, but still, these markers…these trees…that house…

I crank my neck
as I pass an old farmhouse on my left. It’s battered and neglected, having been
abandoned for decades, yet it’s still standing. So is the barn. I remember that
place. The old Johnson farm—Payton’s last outpost. I hung out there a hundred
times as a kid. They say it’s haunted, and I smile as I zip past, crest a tall
hill and head into town. As I draw closer, I recognize the landmarks right down
to the trailer park on my right. The trailers are exactly the same, just a bit
worse for wear.

A sign on my
left reads
Payton County Welcomes You
, but I don’t feel all that
welcome. People will see me. They’ll either recognize me or they won’t. Either
way, they’ll stare. This isn’t exactly a town designed for tourism. There’s
only one hotel, and the ‘vacancy’ sign is always lit.

5:48 p.m.

There’s my
elementary school on the left, and there’s Jimmy Taylor’s house where we lit a
firecracker and accidently burned the garage down. They still haven’t rebuilt,
and the old charred ruins are overgrown with weeds.

There’s Janet’s
house. Janet something or other. The house is in desperate need of paint or
siding, but it looks like somebody still lives there. I wonder it’s her parents
or someone else—maybe even Janet. We were eleven when she flashed me. She
hadn’t fully developed yet, but boobs are boobs even to an eleven year old kid.
She wouldn’t let Ritchie near her no matter how much he begged, but she asked me
if I’d like to touch them. They didn’t feel like I’d imagined after years of
silently rubbing one out from within the sanctity of my bedroom where I kept
the door closed and my eyes shut while my mom watched TV from the other side of
the wall.

And there’s John
Fisher’s house. He was only nineteen when he got hit by a drunk driver and
killed. We were only nine, so nineteen seemed like a lifetime away. All that
changed when I saw the skid-marks and the blood on the road. I watched with
gaping wonder while they took photographs, a tennis shoe still connected to a
foot sticking out from under the tarp.

On the other
side of the street is Old Man Jacob’s house. The sailboat he half-buried as
some kind of weird lawn ornament is still there too. Nobody really understood
why he did it, but then again, no one really understood Old Man Jacob either. There
isn’t a lake within fifty miles of Payton, so why he owned a sailboat to begin
with seemed to baffle everyone. Ritchie had sex with Jill White inside that
boat while Mr. Jacob mowed the lawn around them, utterly oblivious. Ritchie
said it was the best sex he ever had, but I think he was just trying for
attention. Ritchie didn’t love Jill. He only ever loved one girl.

Today, the boat
looks terrible. The mast fell over years ago, and the windows are broken out.
Mud has ingrained itself into the fiberglass and moss has taken root. The roof
of Old Man Jacob’s house has fallen in too, and the door is hanging wide open.
The place is abandoned, and my guess is the bank was unable to sell the dump
after he died.

And there it is;
the old high school, though it’s not quite like I remember. It looks tired, as
if it survived a war. Incredibly, however, it appears as though it did survive
since the old marquee sign out front is welcoming back students for the fall
semester set to begin in just under four weeks.

The baseball
stadium is on my right, and I’m astounded by how small it seems. The bleachers
can’t hold thousands of people the way I remember them, and the outfield is
mostly brown grass. It’s odd how the memory works. When I was a kid, that place
was larger than life. Today, it just looks like a high school baseball park in
desperate need of some attention.

I haven’t
thought of these people or these places in years, and if I weren’t here today,
I never would have thought of them again. Even so, I can feel an eerie sense of
wonderment as I drive through town. There’s the old gas-station, but it’s been
remodeled into a bright green and yellow BP. There’s the former Pic ‘n’ Pac
grocery mart, but now it’s called Apples ‘n’ Oranges. I suppose this is
progress, though you’d never know it judging by the lack of cars in the parking
lot. And Gerry’s Auto Sales across the street is boarded up. It doesn’t look
like Gerry has sold any cars there for years.

There’s Rachel
Roberts pushing a stroller for two while a little girl walks beside her. I
can’t believe I remembered her name just like that. She’s put on sixty pounds
or more since high-school, and she looks tired and sunburned, but it’s clearly
her. I’d recognize her fire-red hair anywhere. She was a popular cheerleader
while I was nothing more than a name in the yearbook, yet I had a gargantuan
crush on her right up until I started dating Kristie.

And there’s the
Payton Inn, owned by Jim and Sherry Loren. They were always nice folks, though
I once told Sherry a knock-knock joke that she never did get, and I think she
held it against me for embarrassing her. All the high school kids liked the
Lorens because they’d rent rooms by the hour and wouldn’t ask any questions.
It’s not like they approved of teenage fornication, but owning a hotel in a
town that doesn’t need one isn’t exactly a gold mine. They needed the money.
Nobody visits Payton on purpose, so the only customers they could count on were
horny teenagers. Prom night was their biggest night of the year. All the
parents knew what was going on, but nobody said anything because they had done
the same thing when they were the same age. It was a Payton tradition. Half of
the children born out of wedlock were conceived in one of those 26 rooms.

The Payton Inn
is now a Days Inn. The difference is the sign. The fountain isn’t working, but
it never really worked right anyway, so I guess that’s not much of a surprise.
Sadly, the pine trees the Lorens had planted and nurtured from saplings are now
dead, just skeletons poking at the sky. The neon light that always reads ‘vacancy
’
now only reads ‘ancy,’ and even those letters are blinking on and off as though
they are moments away from burning out for good.

Pulling into the
parking lot, I hit another pothole and realize the nostalgic dream of Payton County has ended. Shutting of the engine, I climb out. The parking lot is empty, but
the smells, the humidity, and the sounds of my hometown are exactly the same as
I remember them as a kid even though the overall feeling has changed.
Everything is quieter, slower, emptier and weedier. Shrugging off my
disappointment, I walk under the enormous overhang that was once used for
curbside pickup. There just isn’t enough traffic to necessitate anything quite
so fancy, and as if to validate my assumptions, the hotel shuttle is parked out
front, but its front tire is flat, and looks to have been so for some time.

Discouraged by
the notion that my own cynicism has tainted the perception I have of my hometown,
I step forward, pointedly reminding myself that all things change over time,
age forgets no one, and I should expect less while doing more. It’s then that I
feel something crunch under my shoe. Lifting my foot, what remains of a
cockroach sticks to the underside of my Sketchers, its wiggling legs not yet
aware that the body they’re attached to has died.