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Chapter One

One

When I got home it was still early, the second week of March, as Ipulled into what was left of the barn lot. Whoever'd ended up withthe place had plowed to within about ten feet on the west side of thehouse, looped out some in back, then cut in close around the barn. Itwas hard to imagine there'd been a yard there once, where Byron andI conducted army campaigns, and mounted Indian resistance a centurytoo late. Our football field had been only thirty feet wide to beginwith, but now it was gone, planted to corn.

There were hogs wandering around in the pens, and I walked outto look at them. The grain bin and milk house were gone. Early springin that part or the country is about as desolate a time as you can imagine,and I kind of missed the trees, the two in front and a long row ofpoplars that had run along behind the house. It made for a better viewanyway, across low black fields to a distant row of brush along theditch, and the woods that lay behind the Shaw place, a mile to thesouth.

A house you grew up in is supposed to have pleasant memories, Iguess, but what I thought of as I went up on the porch were the whippingsI'd got, for letting the screen door slam shut a couple dozentimes too often. I deserved them, no doubt, but nobody likes to bewhipped, and I was pleased to come up to the storm door and kick itopen, splintering the frame. I stepped into the dry rot smell of an oldempty farmhouse, our house, the place I was born. The door openedto the kitchen, and the same cheap paneled cabinets we'd had when Iwas a boy. The refrigerator and stove were gone, but there was a newwater heaterover in the corner, wiring coiled around its base. d-Conpellets were spread out along the floor by the pantry.

It wasn't any warmer inside, so I jammed my hands in my pocketsto walk through the house. The last I'd heard, and that had been sometime before, there'd been a family renting it out, a man who'd hauledsteel for Continental in Kokomo. He'd hung on a couple of monthsafter it shut down, until one night he finally packed up his family andleft, still owing two months' rent. The west wall was charred from ablanket fire they'd accidentally started with a space heater, trying tosave on fuel. The miracle was that the old place hadn't burned to theground, but there it still was, cold and empty around me.

The living room floor wasn't used to people anymore, creakingunder my steps. The door to the front parlor stood ajar, and I slid pastit to go inside. It was the biggest room in the house, almost square, sothat's where the trucker had put his pool table. I could see four deepimpressions from where it had rested, and wide jagged holes in theplaster where he'd hung up, and then been in a hurry to tear off, arack for the cues.

On the stairway was a single narrow landing. Right there so youcould see it whenever you went up or down, there'd always hung apicture of the three of us boys, me and Byron and Danny. At the top ofthe stairs was the room I'd shared with Danny; then, after he waskilled, had to myself. Next to it was the bathroom, where the toiletand sink were ripped out and a wide yellow stain had spread across thetile. In the bathroom I pulled the shade free to look out onto wideblack Indiana, heavy on flatness and mud.

Window screens were stacked in the hallway, along with a fifty-poundbag of rock salt and some spare pieces of ducting. Byron's roomwas down at the other end. Across from it was my dad's. I rememberedwell enough the way it used to be - his sagging bed and shinycomforter, always made up crisp and tidy in our house of men. I hadonly the faintest memories of my mother there too, propped on whitepillows. I'd hung back in the doorway afraid of her, the woman whoafter all was almost a stranger to me, someone I'd never really knownnot to be sick.

There wasn't much more to see, so I went down to carry in myduffle bag, along with the groceries I'd picked up in town. The truckerhad made a clean sweep of the place; even the light fixtures weregone, wires hanging twisted and bare from the ceiling. In the kitchen Iplugged in a radio I'd brought. It worked, so I rigged up the drop lightfrom the car, hanging it from one of the wires. By then it was almostdark. From the porch I looked out past the barn to Byron's, out acrossthe sixty acres that had once been my dad's.

Byron had built his own place over on the county road, a quarterof a mile away. I'd seen it when I pulled in, a low red-brick ranchhouse with Bedford stone facing - not elegant particularly, but prosperous,just about right for a vice principal over at Tippy Valley. It satalone on a four-acre lot, and to get there I walked all the way aroundto the crossroads, where the sun had worked through the ice earlier inthe day. The road still glowed wet but the wind was raw, coming inaver my shoulder.

Byron's Toyota and Bronco were in the garage. As I came up thedriveway, I looked in through the picture window, lights up bright andthe news playing on a color TV console just past the drapes. I watchedhis wife, Kendra, come out of the kitchen and stop when she saw methere standing on the porch.

It took a while for the door to open, but when it did he stoodabove me tall and stoop-shouldered, a large soft belly hanging over hisbelt. Kendy must have gotten him into the aviator glasses, bought himthe sharp green sweater, but otherwise it was clearly my big brotherByron, puffy-faced and growing bald-headed, blinking as he lookeddown at me.

"What do you want?" he said, and it was the damnedest thing, Ilost my voice. Kendra was just behind him, but he stood in the doorwayin his stocking feet, blocking my way. There was a low table infront of the TV, and a blond-haired baby, my niece, steadied herselfnext to it.

"You back for a visit?"

"Who's got the place now?" I asked. "Everett still got it?"Byron shook his head. "Charlie Sellars took it over. Everett hadtrouble, so Charlie's got it now." He had the door pushed open withhis arm, newspaper in hand. "I wondered who that Camaro belongedto. You had it long?"

I told him I had, and when Kendra said something behind him, heshifted in the doorway, wiping across his chin with his fist.

"I reckon you've had dinner already." "I don't want to put Kendy out," I said. "That's okay. I got food." "Well, that's good. It's good you got food."

He folded the paper under his arm. I heard Kendra behind himagain, and he reached back for the door. When I glanced up, though, Icould see what the poor bastard was only just then realizing: he wasglad to see me.

"Oh, come on in, Arthur," he said suddenly, pulling me roughly bythe shoulder. I stepped past him onto a throw rug they had by thedoor, bulky in my heavy jacket and boots. Kendy had stayed youngerthan Byron, pretty and smiling, still hugging herself against the draft.She'd turned off the TV, which made the baby start crying, red-facedand unhappy, banging her fists against her legs. A boy about ten oreleven, my nephew Joey, watched me from the hall.

"Well, Kenra," I said, "I don't suppose you remember me much,"but she'd already opened her arms.

"Yes, Arthur," she said, "I do."

Two

It may have taken some effort, that first evening, to leave Byron'shouse and go back outside. Not that we'd been having such a warmand wonderful time: we tried, but I hadn't seen any of them for five orsix years. Byron never was one for a quick decision, and while hestepped back to chew over whether to let bygones be bygones, hiswife took over. She showed me my niece Celeste, introduced me againto Joey. It's the kind of thing you appreciate, because even in the bestof circumstances, my brother and I wouldn't have had much to say.He was the same Byron I remembered, head bent low to thetable, concentrating on his meal. He looked up only to pick at Joey,who, excited by the visitor, squirmed in his seat until Byron sent himto his room. Celeste mashed peas into the tray of her high chair whileKendra played hostess, fussing and apologizing around us.

After dinner Byron and r settled in front of the TV, where he filledme in on who was farming what, which of our relatives had gottenrich or died, what all he was teaching at school. Tedious as it was tolisten to, it meant the past was behind us, more or less, and that Byronwas absorbing me back into his world. It was an effort that didn't involveme, so while he talked r watched Kendra as she cleaned up thetable, got my nephew and niece ready for bed. When she brought outa pillow and blankets, I said I couldn't stay. Byron didn't press it. Bythe time I'd walked back around to the farmhouse, the wind had dieddown, the night was clear, and a solitary hog rooted in the pens nextto the barn.

I'd worked the ore boats a dozen years, and for the last two orthree had run with a guy named Lenny Jaynes. Lenny had gotten marriedright after the season, and he was wintering up Saginaw, wherehis wife had a block of apartments. We were pretty close, and he toldme they'd be glad to find me a place there anytime. So I just as easilycould have gone back up to Michigan then. The Camaro was waiting,but instead I spent a half hour walking around by the pens. On theporch, it made me smile to see the door swinging loose in the moonlight.I liked a little air.

It was just an old house, could have been anybody's for that matter,as much difference as it would have made to me. I made camp inthe kitchen, and when I'd put up my cot and slid into my sleeping bag,the drop light lit a pleasant circle around me. And from that point onthat was all the world there was, three feet wide. Some people feel theneed to peer out into the darkness, let their imaginations run wild,but there's no law that says you have to. The key is to put everythingout of your mind. When I had I could have been in the Delfina jail orthe White House, it didn't matter - I was there to sleep. Most peopleget scared and give in too easily, and then they wonder why they'relost.

Three

The next morning around eight I was back out by the hog pen, whereCharlie Sellars was unloading bags of feed. I'd heard the idle of hispickup as he slowed by the front porch, inspecting the door, so neitherof us pretended surprise.

"Why, hello there, Arthur. Long time, no see." When I complimentedhis hogs, he shrugged. "Oh, they're gaining, I guess. Market'sbetter than it will be when they're finished, though, that's what they'resaying."

Charlie would have been a young man to my dad's middle age, butnow he himself was nearing sixty, heavy in the chest and arms, his earspink under a clear cold sky. He shook my hand when I offered it, butthat didn't reassure him, he was already edging away from me alongthe pen. From what Byron told me, Charlie'd married a widow fromover near Manchester and had a brand-new lease o.n life He'd managedto come up with the money to buy my dad's place and at leastone other, so he was doing fine.

He'd own me since I was a boy, but I stih had the feeling that Ifl'd stamped my foot and shouted "Boo!" he would have scampered offlike a calf. As it was, he settled in a few feet away, watching me warilyout of the corner of his eye.

He turned to nod back to the house. "I see you got in okay. Didyou find some heat in there? The thermostat's in the hall, next to thebathroom. You find it all right?"

"I found it, but I left it where it was. I don't need heat.""I had to put a new furnace in; Byron probably told you that. Thatother one was plumb wore out. The heating man told me he didn'tknow how it lasted as long as it did. That gets kind of salty, a new furnacelike that."

Charlie couldn't have expected me to feel much sympathy, and Ididn't, but I knew he was just slipping on the old heartland prophylactic - nothingmakes a farmer feel more secure than a recitation of histroubles. We leaned against the fence, watching his hogs nose in at thefeeder. It was something I'd seen a hundred times when I was a boy,my dad and some other man leaning in together out in the barn lot.Only this time it was me, and I knew what Charlie was busy wishingwas that he'd burned down this house like he had the one on his otherplace, so he wouldn't have Hurd Conason's thirty-year-old son backaround kicking down his door. What might have comforted him waswhat I didn't feel like telling: I didn't want that damn farm and neverhad.

"You feeling okay these days, Arthur? You doing all right?" "I'm feeling fine, Charlie." "Ain't had no more troubles? Spells like you had?"

He was waiting for me to put him at ease, and when I didn't sayanything he was forced to improvise.

"That's good you're feeling okay. Health's important. Well, anyway,I reckon you'll be shipping out again pretty soon. Them lakesthaw out before too long, don't they? That's where you're at now, upon the lakers? Good pay from what I hear, good pension, benefits, youknow, a fella likes to have those thins..."

His voice had grown too hopeful, so I let him back down"They took our boat off the lake, Charlie, shipping's not what itused to be. Might be a while before I get another."

"Oh," he said, frowning, and we studied the hogs.A lot of people feel sentimental these days, or think they oughtto, about owning a piece of land. Most of them are people who neverhad to stay up all night worrying about how to pay it off, but I guesssomebody still might imagine I harbored some resentments aboutCharlie ending up with our place. You have to think it through, though,because after all, my dad hadn't exactly hacked it single-handedly outof the wilderness. He'd bought it from somebody else, who'd boughtit from somebody else, who'd bought it from somebody else, and thevast majority of all those somebody elses were dead and gone, cleartitle or not. Land changes hands. I know Charlie would have agreed,and not just for selfish reasons - we weren't neither of us children,and both knew the rules. The trouble was, from Charlie's point ofview, that I hadn't kept up my end of the bargain, which was to fadeaway and stay gone.

Out over the empty field a thin line of white smoke came up frorthe chimney at Byron's, so Kendra was home.

"I'll give you a hundred a month," I said to Charlie, "for the timeI'm here. That sound okay?"

Charlie had an old habit I still remembered, of acting like hhadn't heard what you said. You could almost see the sound windingback into his head, and getting lost somewhere deep inside. I was patient,waiting him out.

"Lake people done drove up the prices around here, can't hardlybelieve what these houses go for anymore. You wouldn't believe it,Arthur."

"A hundred a month," I said, "plus take over the propane. You'reheating those pipes anyway, so you might as well let me pay for it."

"Ted Marlin got offered four hundred dollars for that place of hisdad's, can you imagine that? And you wouldn't believe the people thatcall up, wanting to know about this one. Hard to figure, ain't it? Now,look over there, Arthur, look at that gilt. See her? She's got me worried.But goddamn, I can't have a vet out here every ten minutes. Theydon't even want to come out no more, and when they do, costs eatyou alive."

"A hundred and fifty, then. Plus the propane."I was rushing it, there was a rhythm to these kind of conversationsthat I still remembered, but if I'd followed it, we would have wound sofar away from the house that in half an hour neither of us would rememberthat it had ever been discussed.

Charlie scratched the back of his head, his gloved fingers pushingunder his cap. He took it off, rubbing his hand up over his foreheadand flattop.

"You know, I remember your dad out here, all of us do. Don'tseem like seven years since he died. No sir, it don't seem like it, not atall. You wouldn't wish on nobody the troubles he had out here.Nobody." He shook his head, looking at me directly for the first time."You don't want to come back into this goddamn old house, Arthur."

It's not often another man will look at you straight on like that,and what Charlie said was so true on the face of it that for a minute Iwanted to believe him. I almost forgot that he'd been working on hisown plan ever since he drove up that morning, which was to get meback out of his sight forever."You just say how much you want for it," I told him, but I wastalking to his back, he'd already climbed halfway up the fence. Hestraddled it with care.

"These hogs, the fuel, your equipment wears out, all these goddamncosts. It's like throwing money down a hole, Arthur. I don'tknow what things are coming to."

I didn't either, but a half hour later I finally did get the damn placeback again, for three hundred dollars a month. My dad would have hadhis stroke all over again to know what I paid, and I'd realized by thenthat Charlie was right. I didn't really want it, even to rent, even for amonth. It kept me going, though, just to see how little he wanted methere. That, and watching what a poor match he was for his greed.

Once he was officially my landlord Charlie felt free to talk my earoff, and by the time I'd finished helping him fill the feeders, I could seehe was thinking he might come out ahead after all. It never hurt tohave a man around who could open a couple of bags of feed. He hadmy three hundred-dollar bills in his shirt pocket, and maybe it was justan occupational hazard, but I noticed Charlie had taken on that samesly look that his livestock had, a look that always made me laugh atthose goddamn hogs, with their narrowed eyes and smiles, becauselet's face it, this week's slyness is next week's bacon, nothing more.

When Charlie finally left, I went in to survey my kingdom. It wasdepressing enough that I couldn't even get past the kitchen. Out of thesunshine the chill from those old rooms was impressive, and with thetrees gone the March winds blew up unbroken, harder than ever.

Four

It was hard to believe that my dad had been any poorer farmer thanCharlie Sellars, or that any of us had worked any less. Maybe he forgotto pay the preacher, or just didn't hang on long enough to marry awidow from Manchester. But my dad, to be honest, never was able toget it right. He was always a step behind on everything: late to get outon his own, late to get married, late to have us boys, too, for that matterhe'd - seemed like an old man even when Byron and I were kids.

He'd grown up over in Liberty Township, where his family hadfinally started to make a go of it by around 1910, the year he wasborn. He was eleven when his own dad got trampled by a team, andthey'd ended up having to board him out to an Amish family. Later onhe was the hired man over at the Echelbarger place. He saved up untilhe finally had enough to buy a couple of horses and a cultivator, and goon shares. By the late 1930s he'd bought a place over near Deland andwas farming on his own.

If this sounds like a success story so far, don't be fooled, he onlyhad that place three or four years before he was drafted into the armygetting back to Haskell County just in time to miss whatever highprices they'd had during the war. He'd begun to hire himself out again,farther behind than ever.

The high point was when he met my mother, at a Sunday schoolpicnic up at Winona Lake. When they got married, he bought twentyacres east of Delfina, along with the house I'd just rented back. Thatmuck ground fought him every step of the way, but I remember wewere always supposed to think a little less of my Uncle Willy, who'dhad the good sense to get on at GM. Generous Motors, my dad calledit, handing out money with both hands. For that matter he never hadmuch good to say about his sister's husband, Chester, either, who'dtaken his last army paychecks and bought into National Homes. Withina few years Chester was living in Florida, where the decision he facedevery day was a tough one: whether to fish or play golf. They hadn'tdone it right, somehow, but it was hard to see how we had either. Ifthere were any good years, easy years, I came along last and missedthem. I don't remember any real sweetness from back then, just toomuch quiet, a widow woman now and then coming in days, and mewaiting for my chance to leave.

Byron was around too, of course, so he provided some company.It's funny, but what I remembered about Byron were mostly his collections:pennies, matchbooks, feed company ballpoint pens anythingthat didn't take too much initiative or imagination to accumulate.We were a little short on entertainment back then, so I'd comedown the hall to watch him go through them, stretching from where Isat on his bed to catch a glimpse of his "electricity box," a wood cratefull of wires and insulators, and a huge black transformer that I covetedwith all my heart. Whenever he would come in to find me in thatcrate, or see that I'd helped myself to a few of his pennies, he'd poundme dutifully but without any real enthusiasm Byron was dull morethan mean. Later he saved up for a year, sent off in the mail, and thenspent the next eight months putting together what had to have beenthe last vacuum tube radio in America. He gave it to my dad forChristmas, and the old man still had it years later when I visited himin the nursing home, on the nightstand next to his bed.

My brother must have been as surprised as I was when he endedup with someone like Kendra. Her dad worked at the lumber companyin Delfina, and she and Byron had been tapped together in the samesmall high school, so it made some sense she didn't know any better.She was twice the student he was, but stayed home working at theASCS office while he went off to college. Byron put in one year teachingdown at Noblesville before he got on at Tippy Valley, and theyfinally got married. Women are romantic at heart, every last one ofthem, but it's still hard to imagine my brother as anybody's knight inshining armor. All those years that I'd seen Byron hulking through thehouse with his baggy underwear and thick pimply legs made it hard tobelieve that he'd ever gotten them between Kendra's, but the kiddieshad proved me wrong twice already, at the very least.

Now she was Byron's wife twelve years over, and she'd come upto greet me that first night with a married woman's solid hug, herbreasts and butt pulled back, her breath warm on my neck. Joeyshould have been able to remember me, but he'd shaken his head,quick to blush like his mom. When I went by that next morning afterCharlie left, Joey was in school.

Joey was in school, but Kendra and my niece were there, Kendraat the stove and Celeste on the floor playing. Kendy had her sleevesrolled up, and in her western shirt and jeans she looked like any one ofthe new breed of farm wives you see in the magazines: a quick snapshotbefore they dash out to run the combine or tend to some babycalves. Except, of course, that she and Byron didn't farm anything andnever would. There was coffee dripping and fresh rolls set out on thecounter. Uncleness has its privileges: I'd driven by hundreds of houseson my way down from the north, and not one of them could I havecome into like I did this one, to be told it was good to see me, to havemy night inquired about, to sit down to a cup of coffee while a littlegirl played across the room on the floor. Celeste was a cool customer,though, careful in her affections, eyeing me from a distance.

With all Joey's toys out of sight and Byron at work, there wasscarcely a trace of them left. A sideboard from the old house helddishes at one end of the kitchen; French doors at the other made it sobright that Kendra and I had to squint to see each other when she satdown across from me. Squinting took some of the cuteness out of herface, leaving her exactly what she was - an attractive woman in awarm, bright kitchen, her baby safe beside her on the floor. A mouththat was a little too small, and eyes that were a touch too close together,were probably all that had kept Kendra there in HaskellCounty and not out in Hollywood, playing herself on TV.

Everything around us except that sideboard, which I hadn't evenliked in the old place, was modern enough to fit in perfectly, the wayit was supposed to. I remembered thinking as I'd come up that morningthat the house was perfect too, set off by itself just like in the magazines.In the magazines the whole world is right there in the picture,a place so completely possible that almost anyone could imagine fittingin. Not long ago where we were sitting would have been mudwaiting for beans, the west end of a field with drainage problems, likea lot of that muck soil had. Byron knew that much at least: he'd builtup on the high ground nearest the road.

It was my brother's house, but I can't say that we missed him. IfKendra went a little overboard about things, you could understandit she had to, being around Byron. He couldn't help it, I guess, buthe soaked up energy like a sponge. With the two of us at the table shefilled the kitchen with talk: when they'd last seen Willy, a card they'dgotten from Chester's trip to Bermuda, her sister's gall bladder operationin June. It didn't matter what she said: with her short blond hair,her skin that flushed so easily in front of me, it was clear that she was alot prettier and more alive than someone like Byron really deserved.

She slipped in and out of the hostess role, jumping up to get coffee,but letting me steady jars at the counter while she poured outberries she'd been boiling down for jam. Some tar paper on their wellhousing had been flapping in the wind, and I went out to nail it down.A couple of taps from Byron's hammer and it was done. I didn't staymuch longer, but it was long enough for Celeste to finally give in,coming up to bang on my leg as I slipped on my jacket. When I'd hadher on my knee a minute, Kendra complimented me on my ease.

"Oh, I've played daddy a time or two," I told her, and I had, withgirlfriends around the lakes. I didn't mind being nice to their children,but the truth was I'd never really cared for how any of themmothered, smoking around the house, drinking too much they werejust big kids themselves, shacked up with me when they should havebeen paying attention. Maybe she hadn't been particularly fortunate asfar as a husband goes, but Kendra was the right mother, doing thingsthe way they needed to be done.

"Joey thinks you're tops, too," she said. "He's asked and askedabout you. He liked the tattoo."

I remember being embarrassed about that - impressing a ten-year-oldwas about all the damn thing was good for. Kendra wasn't atiny woman, by any means, but slender, she seemed a lot smaller thanI was when I reached over to hand back Celeste.

"Nobody understands all that with you and your dad," she said,"but nobody has to. It's over now."

I shrugged. The time I'd run off with him had caused nothing buthard feelings, and it wasn't a memory I cherished. Still, you could appreciatethat, too, her willingness to say it out loud.

"You won't be kidnapping any of the rest of us, will you?"

My brother's wife smiled as she said it, dodging as Celeste, half-giggling,half-fussy, banged at her face.

"Oh, I don't reckon I will," I said. "Not Byron, anyway."

She laughed, backing away. I decided to take her pat on the arm assomething like friendship, and turned to go back outside.

Five

My car was warmer than that damn kitchen at least, as I drove thenext morning to a pay phone in Delfina. When I finally got through toLenny, he said we might be out longer, until the middle of June. Ididn't tell him I'd rented the house, so he re-offered the apartment - alittle reluctantly, it seemed, his voice low like someone might hear.After I hung up I came back out to the old house and its kitchen,where I had lunch by myself on the floor.

I spent most of the afternoon working on the water heater. Abouttwo I was ready to trace wires to the box. There was a flashlight burieddown in the trunk somewhere, but it was just as easy to walk aroundto Byron's and borrow his.

Joey was toward the end of the school bus line, and wouldn't behome for a while, but I didn't know that yet. Celeste was down for hernap, but I didn't know that either. Kendy met me at the door, and Iwaited while she went down the basement to look.

Now, the church had its way with me early, so some sense of rightand wrong is like a part of you it's the only way you know how tobe. On the other hand, I'd never been one to put a check on my daydreams,or not see things right there waiting to be seen. So sure, I'dwatched Kendra color as she smiled, noticed the life in her my brotherwasn't able to meet. I couldn't help following the tight stretch of denimacross her bottom, might even have wanted those busy hands to touchmy temple too, her attention to focus in on me the way it would onCeleste, quickly, intensely, whenever the baby had a difficulty or complaint.Maybe that morning, sweeping out that cold kitchen, I'd imaginedpulling her, my brother's wife, into my arms - and more butthoughts aren't poison, no matter what they tell you.

The Loneliest Road in America

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By Roy Parvin

Copyright © 1997 Roy Parvin.All rights reserved.
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