CivilWarLand in Bad Decline: Stories and a Novella (17 page)

Next morning lake Ontario’s out the open door. The beach is littered with seagull corpses, which people are scooping up like mad for dinner. Fishmongers on the shore shriek at consumer advocates passing out pamphlets about the hazards of eating lake fish. It’s Dunkirk, then Westfield, then Erie, then Girard. I lie in front of the open door, and as in a dream, the nation unfolds before me. You can
imagine a hill, but an imagined hill is not actual, no clover smell rolls off it, no ugly dog chases a boy down it into a yard where a father is scratching himself before a chessboard set up across a birdbath. You can imagine sleeping Ashtabula but no justice is done the earnest faces manning the security bonfire at the crossroads. Here a drunk shouts advice to a tree, here a fire burns in a field of alfalfa, here the train whistle echoes back from a wall on which is scrawled:
Die Earnest Pricks.
Near Cleveland I see a mob pursuing a pig past a gutted Wal-Mart. Finally the pig’s exhausted and stands heaving on a berm. The mob seems unsure how to proceed. Then some go-getter shows up with a crowbar. The pig takes a whack in the head, then discovers new energy and trots off again with the mob in pursuit. Fortunately at this point the train rounds a bend.

For hours we head west, through Sandusky, Port Clinton, then Toledo, where in a public park militiamen hold back the dispossessed with firearms while emptying Hefty bags of bread crusts into a fountain for public consumption. We pass through Angola and Elkhart, through fields of torched corn, then Chicago, racked with plague, where corpses are piled high in vacant lots beside the tracks and Comiskey is now an open-air penitentiary, then across the plains, where solitary people dressed in sacks wander across the horizon, reminding me of my own cursed family. Sweet-smelling dust fills the car. The nation goes on forever. I never knew. When old people said plenty, bounty, lush harvests, I put it down to senile nostalgia. But here are miles and miles of fields and homes. Nice homes. Once it was one family per. Once the fields were thick with food. Now city men assigned residence by the government sit
smoking in the yards as we pass, looking out with hate on the domain of hayseeds, and the land lies fallow.

On the morning of the sixth day a family gets on in a hop-smelling southern Illinois town. The bearded dad offers me sunflower seeds and briefs me on his child-rearing philosophy. Discipline and other forms of negativity are shunned. Bedtimes don’t exist. Face wiping is discouraged. At night the children charge around nude and screaming until they drop in their tracks, ostensibly feeling good about themselves.

“We ran the last true farm,” one of the kids screams at me.

“Until the government put us out,” the wife says softly. She’s pretty the way a simple white house in a field is pretty.

“Now we’re on the fucking lam,” says a toddler. Both parents smile fondly.

“We’re knowing America viscerally,” says an older girl while digging at her crotch with her thumb.

“Indeed,” the dad says. “My kids are at home on the American road.”

“It’s good for them not to be so staid,” the mom says. “Get out and breathe the air.”

“Live the life that’s being lived,” the dad says.

“Abandon the routines that conspire to force us into complacency,” says the mom halfheartedly.

“Think of the memories they’re accumulating,” the dad says.

“Still, it wasn’t a bad farm,” the mom says.

“Darn it,” the dad says. “Negativity, Ellie. Nip it in the bud. Remember? Forging self-love by creating a positive
environment. Remember? They took our home but they can’t break our spirit?”

“Sorry,” the mom says. “I forgot. I mean, it was positive, because I was saying how much I liked our farm.”

“Never mind,” the dad says. “I love you so much.”

Still, he looks tense. He goes to the door and hanging his feet out tries to teach the kids “This Land Is Your Land.” The kids are busy leaning out of the speeding boxcar and lofting spit at little houses along the tracks.

“Nice shot, Josh,” the dad says. “You sure nailed that garage.”

“Shut up, Dad,” Josh says. “When you talk to me it screws up my concentration.”

“Sorry, buddy,” the dad says.

At Springfield a nutty-looking guy in a dirty flannel shirt gets on and immediately divides the boxcar in half with bales. On his cheek is a burned-in crucifix.

“Some serious privacy’s going to happen here or heads will roll,” he announces. “I’ve had it with interpersonal relationships.” Then he takes out a huge knife and sets it just inside his boundary. Even the wild kids shut up. He stretches out to sleep.

Once the kids get used to him, however, they resume shrieking. One little guy in coveralls keeps reaching across the border to touch the blade. Mom and Dad seem perplexed. To restrain or not to restrain? The blade looks sharp. But why risk quashing his natural curiosity?

I stay out of it. Another fifteen minutes and we cross the Mississippi.

The knife guy wakes up.

“Touch it again, you’re fucked,” he says to the kid, who’s about five. The kid’s eyes go wide.

“Just a minute,” the dad says. “That’s my son whose self-worth you’re bandying about. Don’t you remember what a special place the world was when you were tiny?”

“Don’t jack with me,” the knife guy says, “or I’ll be pleased to cut out and eat your whiny little heart.”

“Pshaw,” the dad says. “Sticks and stones, my friend. That kind of confrontational attitude does nothing but make me feel a lack of respect for you.”

“Keep talking, nimrod,” the knife guy says, “and I’ll have me a woman for free and a bunch of brats to toss off a moving train.”

“Hey now,” the dad says. “Hey now. Is that any way to talk to another human being?”

“Sam,” the mom says, “maybe we should just drop it. Maybe we should drop it and keep the kids on our side of the bales.”

“No, Ellie, I don’t think so,” the dad says. “My family is not something to be treated with disrespect.”

“We don’t want any trouble,” the mom says.

“No trouble at all,” the knife guy says, then picks up the knife and goes for the dad. I make a grab for his hand and the knife flies out the door. He tackles me and rolls me over and starts biting my neck. He’s strong and stinks and I can feel he wants to kill me.

Oh God, I think, now I did it, I’m dead.

“Fellows, fellows,” the dad says. “Violence doesn’t solve problems.”

“Help him, Sam,” the mom yells. “That nut’s going to murder him.”

“I’m not sure I can do that,” the dad says. “I can’t have the kids see me contradict my own moral system.”

“Dad,” one kid shouts, “get off your ass!”

“No,” the dad says gravely. “Someday you’ll understand, and respect me all the more for it.”

Meanwhile the loony’s biting deep into my neck and I’m starting to see stars. I panic. I thrash. Then we sail out the door and my head hits something metallic and I’m out like a light.

I wake up strapped to a stretcher propped against a dilapidated wet bar. Out a slit of a window is a duck on a tether near a mildewing empty built-in pool. Across the room a balding little man sits on the edge of a foldout bed, rubbing the feet of a hag sipping broth.

“Kenny,” she screams, “where are you? I said fish! You call this fish? Is this all the thanks I get, you trying to scrimp on my fish?”

“He’s an ass, Ma,” says the man on the edge of the bed. “You’d think with all you’ve done for him.”

In rushes another little balding man, identical to the first.

“Give her the damn fish, Kenny,” says the man on the bed. “She’s our mother, for crissake. Why try and starve her?”

“I doubt she’ll starve, Benny,” Kenny says, flinching. “That’s all you two do is eat. Eat and yell at me.”

From under the bedcover the woman smacks him with a length of wood. When he drops to one knee his brother knees him in the back.

“Benny, look who’s awake,” the mother says. “Our meal ticket.”

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Kenny says kindly from the floor. “You had quite a lump on your noggin when I found you.”

“Good old Kenny,” Benny says dismissively. “Out wandering the tracks like an idiot.”

“We know all about you, mister,” the mother says. “We’ve had occasion to see you shoeless, Kenny and Benny and I.”

“Very ugly claws,” Benny says. “I almost blew chunks first time I saw them.”

“That is, until Ave noticed the dollar signs on them,” the mother says.

“What dollar signs?” Benny says dully.

“I don’t mean literal dollar signs, son,” his mother says. “I mean if we take this freak to Slavetown and sell him, we’ll be on easy street, and we can hire someone competent to care for us instead of Mr. Sieve-Brain here. And Mr. Sieve-Brain can go back to working at the slaughterhouse and we’ll be able to afford a radio and an occasional night out, like every other family on the block. But we won’t invite Mr. Sieve-Brain out with us.”

“Mr. Doofus,” Benny says.

“Mr. Disappointing Son,” the mother says. “No way will we take him with us.”

“Too embarrassing,” Benny says.

Kenny kneels wet-eyed, blinking madly.

“You must be hungry,” he says to me in a quavering voice.

“You’ll rue the day you put some Flawed ahead of your own mother!” the mother bellows. “If your father were dead he’d roll over in his grave. When I think of all the times I let you suck my breast, I’m disgusted. What a waste of milk. Oh, this is so frustrating! Fish, Kenny, fish, damn you! Get off your knees and bring me fish! I wish I could
get out of this bed and spank your butt like I used to. Benny, give him one in the ass for me.”

“Okay, Ma,” Benny says, and nails Kenny in the rear with his foot.

“My sweet, obedient Benny,” she says. “If only I would have had two sons as good. Now it’s off to find a buyer for this disquieting mutant. Chair, Kenny, chair!”

Kenny quickly pulls a wheelchair from a cramped closet and awkwardly loads her in while Benny licks her broth bowl. She pulls Kenny’s hair and bites his arm and curses him for being cavalier about her torso soreness. Finally Benny wheels her out while telling her how saintly she is and what a hard life she’s had.

Kenny sits disconsolately on the bed.

“Boy oh boy,” he says. “Am I ever the guy they love to hate. They sure can say mean things. And they sure do want me to go back to the slaughterhouse. But no way. Because I’m too dumb to keep up on bone load-up. Don’t think I don’t know I’m dumb. I’m dumb all right, and no doubt about it. Filbert put me on bloodsweeping, but that was hard, using squeegees and all. After that came killfloor. On killfloor they make you help them kill, and that was sad. Heck, I like collies. I like to pet them, not wave a pork chop in their faces so Terry can cut their throats. No sir, I won’t go back and they can’t make me. I’ll run away. No I won’t. That takes money. And I don’t have any money. I can’t run away without money because then if I get hungry I won’t have any money to buy food with. So I can’t run away until I get some money. And how am I supposed to?”

Then he looks at me and his eyes brighten.

“Hey,” he says, “wait a minute. You’re worth a lot. I could sell you. But that wouldn’t be right. You’re no different from me except for your feet and all. I can’t do something wrong. That would be bad. But maybe I could. I could sell you. Then I’d have money. But then you’d be a slave. And that would be bad. Because I’ve seen them whipping those guys before. That would be mean of me to do that to you. I wonder what I should do. I can’t do something mean and selfish. But if I don’t, I’ll have to stay here with Ma and Benny forever, and that would be bad for me. I’d be being mean to myself. And that wouldn’t be good. I should love me. I should love me at least as much as I love you. And I don’t even really know you. Hmm. I wonder what I should do, anyway?”

“Untie me?” I suggest. “Let me go?”

“No,” he says. “That would be bad because then there’d be no hope for me and I’d get cranky and sad. You’d get sad and cranky too if your mom and brother were as mean as mine. Maybe yours are, though. How should I know? But if they are, I’ll bet they sure make you sad. And when someone’s sad, they want to be happy. I sure do. I sure do want to be happy. And the thing of it is, if I don’t sell you, Ma and Benny will. No lie. So you’re in the same boat either way. And I’m either really happy or really sad. So there you go. So I’ll sell you. Ma and Benny are walking to Slavetown, so we can take the car and beat them easy. Okay? Okay? Does that sound good?”

Before I can answer he hefts my stretcher onto his back and stumbles out of the apartment. In the driveway is a ploughhorse tethered to an ancient roofless Nova. Kenny
slides me into the backseat and stuffs an oily rag in my mouth.

“Sorry about the bad taste of this rag and all,” he says. “But we’re still in Illinois and I don’t want you to blow this for me. Do you know I’ve never even kissed a girl? Do you know I’ve never spent a night away from home? Because of Ma. Because of Benny, that turd. I can’t believe I finally got up the nerve to call Benny a turd. What a big day for me! I wish I could call Ma a turd. But maybe that’s asking too much. After all, she did give birth to me and everything. But maybe someday I’ll just call her a turd without thinking, and won’t that be something! I might even call her some other bad things, but I hope not, because that would be mean of me, and there’s no reason to be mean or sad, now that I’m going to be free as the breeze from those two turds, Ma and Benny!”

Lying on my back I watch the sky glide by. Soon the air smells like river and I hear chattering street merchants and the clang of pots. Kenny ties the horse to a picnic table and takes the rag out of my mouth and loads me into a moldering skiff. Birds come alive on both banks as the sun drops into the river and Kenny’s paddles break the pink water.

On the far bank is a fenced-in complex of trailers.

“Slavetown,” Kenny says.

“I beg you, Kenny,” I say. “Don’t do this.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” he says pitifully. “Why make me feel bad just when I’m finally about to do something good for myself? Please be quiet. Because I’m a softie. I’ll do something dumb like let you go. I’m a dumb softie and you could easily trick me. Anyone could. Everyone does. People always have. I’ve taken it and taken it. It’s made me sad
in the heart, and that can’t be good. I’m just sure God sent you to me so I could have a happier heart and really start living!”