American rust (35 page)

5. Poe

T
he next day instead of sliding his dinner under the cell door, they told him to cuff up.

“My lawyer here again?”

“Don't know what you're talking about,” said the guard. “Put your hands through.”

“I ain't going.”

“If I don't see your hands outside these bars in ten seconds, I'm calling the SORT guys. I don't give a fuck what your problems are.”

He was a different guard from the previous day. He was tall and thin with neat gray hair and thick glasses.

“Anyway” he said. “They're letting you back in GP.”

“But what I did, it should be a few months.”

“Given the victim, if you'd killed the little bastard the warden probably would have commuted your sentence.”

Poe looked at him.

“Just kidding,” said the guard. “There's no such thing.”

“What if I stay here?”

“You can't. They've got mental cases stacked to the ceiling.”

“Christ,” said Poe.

“Get up now.”

“I'm applying for protective custody.”

“I hear you,” said the guard, “but you need to talk to the people upstairs, I can't do it from down here.”

They led him upstairs and back through the cellblock to a different cell on the tier. One of the younger members of the Brotherhood spotted him and took off walking in the other direction.

When the guard left him alone in the cell, Poe drew the privacy curtain and found his toothbrush and rubbed the plastic handle on the cement until it was a sharp point. He tested the bars and windows for any metal he could pry off, make a real weapon with, but there was nothing. He lay on his bunk with his head to the toilet and his feet to the bars. It was a solution, was what it was. It was the way out. Free ticket. He could get up now and make a run for the guard station, demand protective custody. But he would be right back where he was yesterday.

It was him or Isaac there was not a middle ground. He was breathing very quickly and sweating, his clothes were soaked, it felt like he'd taken a shower. Then there were loud footsteps down the tier, he could hear people walking everywhere. He had told the guard he wanted protective custody. That would be his compromise, he had told the guard, if the guard told someone else they would come for him and take him back to the hole, but if the guard didn't tell anyone they would not come. It was a fair chance either way.

He was still breathing but it was temporary, it always had been. Your life was on a fuse, it was set when you were born it was all people and all lives. It was inevitable, he had never thought about it that way, it was inevitable, that was the one thing you could be sure of there was no reason to be afraid of it, it was coming, a sure thing, it was cold in winter. Except he was still afraid. It was just fear. He would make it mean something, that was all he could do. He would save Isaac English. He hoped he would hold out. He would stop thinking about it.

He was hungry again, there was nothing to eat in his new cell, the third in four days. He wondered if they had really needed the space in the SHU or if the Brotherhood had worked something out, got him stuck back in the general population.

What would it have mattered, doing landfills or playing football. Just another guy doing those things. There was no one else who would do this, there was no one else who would give Isaac a helping hand in any way not even his own family. Even Lee, in the end, she lived only for herself. It would need to happen soon, though. He would not keep a clear mind very long, he knew that about himself. He'd always been fucked he was born that way, it was time to give in to that reality. He would give all he had like the heroes of the past. The higher calling. He was saving Isaac English, that was why he had been put here, there was a design to it, his whole life had led to this moment, he would prove himself the equal. He would be the protector.

He was hungry, he should eat something. Then he heard keys jingling and footsteps, it was definitely a guard coming up the stairs and then onto the tier, they were coming to take him to protective custody, he would be saved. He listened to the jingling keys get closer and there was a feeling of relief. I will be saved. Then he had another feeling, a feeling of being sick, a feeling of change coming over him, a feeling of the rest of his life stretched long in front of him it was despair. He was going to lose—his own legs would betray him, they would not let him die so soon, whatever he thought it didn't matter, his own body would overpower him. He lay there.

But the guard didn't stop at his cell. He kept walking. Poe sat up. The guard walked right past, heading to some other cell, he dropped something off and then turned and went back down the tier and down the stairs, his footsteps disappearing. I am a coward, he thought.

Before he could think about it more he stood up and unlocked the door, he was going to get a quick dinner, that was all, get a quick dinner and save his strength, he was walking quickly down the tier and onto the main floor of the cellblock and then out into the main corridor, he could smell the messhall, he saw the door and walked right through it.

Everyone sitting at the AB tables looked up. Clovis was there with all the younger lieutenants, Dwayne was there, he looked down and he pretended he hadn't seen Poe but Clovis was already standing up, grinning like he'd been expecting him all along and Poe's legs started shaking, he hesitated, then turned around and walked out of the cafeteria. There were only the squares of the hallway tiles in front of him, he made his legs move, the wide empty corridor, he didn't know where he was going. His body felt very light, he thought he passed another inmate but he was no longer sure, he seemed to be moving in slow motion. He turned into his cellblock but then changed his mind, they would trap him there, he went back into the corridor, then turned down the hall toward the rec yard. It was very quiet. There were no other voices behind him. He reached the metal detectors and then the doors. There was no one at the guard station. He tried the doors and they were locked. He shook the doors but they didn't open, then he kicked them as hard as he could. There was no chance.

When he turned behind him it was Clovis and several of the younger men. Clovis was not wearing his hat, and Poe saw for the first time that he had thin red hair that he combed forward, Clovis was very bald.

One of the lieutenants had a knife with a long blade and a handle made of blue tape. Poe tried the doors to the yard again, hit them hard but they wouldn't open. Then he feinted and tried to break past the five men but one of them was too fast, he tackled Poe only Poe wouldn't go down, he was running and dragging the man holding on to him when the others caught up. They were punching him only it hurt much more and then everything was blurry, when he finally went over he saw that his own blood was already all over the floor.

1. Grace

S
he was sitting on the porch, staring out over the Valley and watching the light change, she could feel the sun burning her skin but didn't move out of the chair. She'd gone two days without eating now. Three times she'd decided to go inside and call Harris, to tell him not to do it, that she would rather face other consequences. Three times she had thought of Billy laid out on the mortuary table or in a drawer and how his face would look. She'd stayed in her chair. She could remember the first time he'd moved inside her, a schedule, every night around eleven. His kicking felt like a very strong heartbeat.

He hadn't wanted to come out. Nearly ten months she had carried him and after that she hadn't been able to get pregnant again. As if he had known he would be all she could handle, known he would need all her attention. Looking around now at the hills and soft pastures and clearness of sky it all seemed hostile and cold, an illusion, the land had always made her feel calm, seemed some inseparable part of her, but she saw now how unreal that feeling was. Those things never changed, they were not loving and suffering.

But she was not doing anything. She could not even be sure of what Bud Harris intended. No, she knew. That man, the former auto mechanic, had tried to kill her son once and now he was trying to do it again. But even that, she thought, that's only a lie you're telling yourself, the truth is you have no idea what that man did, or what your son did, but still you have to make this choice, innocent or guilty it has all stopped mattering. That seems like it can't be true, she thought.

But what she wanted was Bud Harris out there right now, going to kill that man. That was what she wanted. She wanted that man dead who she knew only because he had seen her son do something. Or was lying about her son doing something. She wanted that man dead so her son would live. That was the truth. Any mother would want this, she thought. Anyone in your shoes would want this same thing.

No, I didn't tell him anything, I did not actually come out and say that to Bud Harris. He will make his own decisions. Except it was a lie to think that. She didn't have to say anything. They had both known. They knew right now. If Bud Harris does something to that man it will be the same as if you did it yourself. You cannot put this off on someone else. There is evidence you are choosing to ignore—that man who went to the police when your son did not. But that evidence does not change the truth. What would Billy have to have done for you to not want this?

You're at the end, she said out loud. They'll all know. In the past week, Cultrap, the farmer at the other end of the road, had looked right at her as she drove by but hadn't waved, she had known Ed Cultrap twenty years. It was because of Billy killing that man. People forgave you your children but this was too much.

No, what had passed between her and Bud Harris was just as clear as if they'd spoken. And it would be just as clear to anyone else. They would run her out of town or worse, they had all known when Bud Harris got Billy out of his last scrape, that was supposed to be kept very quiet but, somehow, everyone had found out. Now, this—she could not even imagine. I don't care, she thought. As long as it's me and not him.

2. Isaac

I
t was long after dark and he'd walked all day from Little Washington to Speers, nearly twenty miles. From Speers it was only eight miles to Buell.

He stood on the I-70 bridge looking out over the Mon River for a few minutes before making his way down to the train tracks. He passed a group of teenagers sitting under the highway and one of them started to say something. But then Isaac must have given them a look because they all got quiet and when he was past them he realized they had seen his hunting knife.

When he was out of sight he undid the knife from his belt and tossed it into the river without ceremony. The kid renounces the old ways. If he doesn't choose it gets chosen for him. Look at him—walking—he decides to put one foot in front of the other; it happens. Think about that. The way Lee's cat used to knock pencils off your desk. Why? To remind itself that it could. Because some part of it—oldest part—knew that one day it wouldn't be able to. Take a lesson, he thought. Wake up ignorant every morning. Remind yourself you're in the land of the living.

He continued heading south. The tracks passed through a wide meadow and the night was clear and black and the stars stretched down to the horizon. Billions of them out there, all around us, an ocean of them, you're right in the middle. There's your God—star particles. Come from and go back. Star becomes earth becomes man becomes God. Your mother becomes river becomes ocean. Becomes rain. You can forgive someone who is dead. He had a sense of something draining out of him, down his head and neck and the rest of his body like stepping out of a skin.

South of Naomi he decided to stop for the night. A few miles left for morning. He went to a flat place by the river and sat to think. Can't go home—they'll just talk you out of it. As you would do for them. Better to wait.

The old man, he tried. He did try. You can say that for him. Tomorrow you will go and tell Harris what you did. That is the right thing.

As he sat there on the ground he could feel the stiffness easing out of him, as if his bruises were healing. The Swede might have sat in this same camp two weeks ago. Old fire rings. Nice to have one now. No matches, though. He looked out at the river, flowing slowly through the trees. Bedtime, he thought. Your last night of freedom, sleep it off.

3. Henry English

T
hey drove to Pittsburgh to talk to the lawyer that day a big firm at the top of the old Koppers Building near Grant Street. He could tell as Lee wheeled him into the elevator that it was going to be expensive. He couldn't stand the thought of her new husband helping the family with money but no other arrangement was possible.

The lawyer had a corner office, he was a man nearly Henry's age but tall, thin, and fit with a full head of gray hair, the type that probably played tennis. Most women after a certain age would have found him attractive. Henry took an immediate dislike to him but when he glanced at Lee he could tell she felt comfortable. These were her people now. It gave Henry a sick, jittery feeling, or maybe it was just being in this office, or maybe it was knowing why they were here, or maybe it was all three. He shifted himself in his wheelchair.

“Are you comfortable enough, Mr. English?”

“I'm fine. Used to this by now.”

They sat and the man went over the fees and rates and a client's bill of rights, the most important feature of which seemed to be that they could expect their phone calls to be returned promptly. Lee nodded and took out the checkbook. Henry saw her name was on the top along with Simon's. Only it was still Henry's last name. That was a comfort, anyway. All these things he'd never asked her about.

Peter Brown, the lawyer, quizzed them amicably about Isaac's background, where they lived, what Henry had done, even how his accident had occurred. He asked about Isaac's mother and Henry would have protested but Lee told the man everything. She told him too much. Then Lee told the man what Billy Poe said about Isaac having killed the man in the factory. Peter Brown set down his pen for a moment and brought out a small digital recorder from his desk.

“Maybe we shouldn't make a tape of this,” said Henry.

“Those are good instincts, Mr. English, but this is for our purposes and not the state's. They'd have to break in here and steal it from us.” The man had a quiet voice and you had to sit still to listen to him. Henry looked at Lee again.

“Do you remember exactly what he said?” asked Peter Brown.

“I can try,” said Lee.

“My son didn't kill that man. There's no point in making a tape recording.”

“Dad.”

“Your son was there when this man died. If we don't face up to this now, they'll make us face up to it in court. That's the only reason we're doing it.”

“Except that Billy Poe hasn't said a word about this. If he had, they would have already charged my son.”

“Billy Poe hasn't even seen his lawyer yet and once he does, things will start changing pretty quickly. The fact that Isaac hasn't been charged yet is more a technicality than anything else.” He looked down at his notepad. “I'm sorry,” he said.

    — — —

It was ten o'clock and Henry was sitting in his bedroom in the wheelchair, looking at his desk, going through his papers. He heard the shower running upstairs for a long time and then Lee knocked on the door and asked if he needed help getting in bed but he said no. She waited for a minute outside the door.

“Anything else?”

“No. Get some sleep.”

He heard her moving around the house and then she went upstairs and settled into her room and then it was quiet except for the creaking of the house, cooling. He dozed off in his chair, he dreamed he was still working at Penn Steel, he looked forward to waking up, he was tired at the end of the days and dirty and happy to be home to his wife but in the mornings he was always ready to go to work. Something creaked and he woke up hungry for air.

He was still in his bedroom. With effort he took deep breaths, sometimes when he slept he didn't get enough oxygen. How small your life feels—that was what you couldn't explain to people. If I could have known how it would turn out I would have known what to do. Slow slip down.

Mary had left him alone, he knew that, she had given up. It shouldn't have been her to do that, it made no sense. If they had talked about it they could have come to an arrangement that made sense, she could have taken the kids and gone somewhere else, but she had gone and done it without telling him a thing. His arms were trembling, how many times had he wanted to do that, he should have, but she had gone first. She was weak, that was the truth of her, the truth of all women, it was why he'd laid his bets on Lee. He had to get her out, he couldn't have her ending up like her mother.

Maybe you were the one who was weak, he thought. Maybe her doing that makes her stronger. You know the reason she went to the river and you know the reason your son ended up like this. Still, he didn't see what he could have done. The three years he'd commuted from Indiana, home once a month, that had not been easy for them but it had not been easy for him, either, living in boardinghouses and month- to- month hotels. But Steelcor paid plenty well. They just worked you hard and it was not safe. You looked at the stats, they had more accidents. But you didn't have to look at the stats. They were there to make money. They were trying to squeeze every dollar out of that mill before they'd ironed all the kinks out. What would you give to have called in sick that day.

At first he hadn't minded being nonunion, like Reagan said, the labor costs were out of control, it was a problem with the unions, you voted for him. Except it was not just that. Penn Steel hadn't spent a dime in their factories in fifteen years, most of the other big American mills were the same, the places were all falling apart, plenty of them were single-process right up to the day they closed, whereas the Germans and Japs had all been running basic oxygen since the sixties. That was what you didn't hear till later: they—the Japs and Germans—were always sinking money into their plants. They were always investing in new infrastructure, they were always investing in themselves. Meanwhile Penn Steel never invested a dime in its mills, guaranteed its own downfall. And all those welfare states, Germany and Sweden, they still made plenty of steel. Meanwhile they were the ones supposed to go bankrupt. He looked at his desk and couldn't remember what he was supposed to be doing. He drifted off again.

    — — —

They'd tapped the furnace and filled the crucible and the crane was bringing it over, getting ready to make the pour. Then there was a different sound, he'd heard it over all the other noise. Crane keeps swinging but the ladle gives a little wobble and then it's headed for the ground, fifty tons of liquid steel. See the ladle hit the floor and boom, all that steel comes blooming into the air, blinding light, like the sun rising up out of the crucible, everything else was shadows, Chuck Cunningham and Wayne Davis they were shadows, the steel washed over them like lava from a volcano. Missing you by ten feet. Should not have been able to see that and survive, felt like the last thing you would see. Hiding there waiting to die. Felt the building shake as the back end of the shop blew out. Felt how small you were. Didn't seem fair. Didn't think of Mary, only thought it is not fair this is happening.

Supposed to be a safety brake on the hoisting drum. Company too cheap. Something sheared in the gearbox.

Tower was burning and the whole place was on fire and you decided to jump. Three stories. Scrap metal flying through the air, a five-hundred- pound toolbox goes by your head and hits the shop roof. Things kept exploding, the sound like a dragster running nitrous, too loud to even hear, you just felt it, felt your skin start burning under the silver suit, can't see anything, there's nothing but fire and shadows. Dead anyway— fuck it, take a leap. Come to and that black boy is dragging you out— came back through the fire for you. Air full of burning steel and he doesn't get a scratch. Ought to play the lottery. Says he saw you jump.

OSHA fines the company thirty grand. Same amount the company makes every minute.

That was it. Chucky Cunningham gone, Wayne Davis, fat old Wayne, Wayne, you always told him, you're too fat Wayne, hot load washed right over them, you'd been standing there a minute before. Took the jump and that was your mistake. Should have stood your ground, family would have been taken care of, nice payout from the pension and the company. First you felt sorry for Wayne and Chuck but they saved themselves and their families and you did not.

The house had been silent a long time. He thought the longer you wait the more scared you'll be. The boy had done it and it wasn't Billy Poe, all of that is on you. He wheeled his chair back and forth. Regardless of what the boy had done, he himself was the one who'd caused it, the boy was never supposed to stay here. They all want you dead anyway, he thought, your own family. You never should have waited this long. Afraid of your own children. Afraid they would leave you alone, you wouldn't be able to stand it. To lose Mary and Lee in the same year. You were not going to lose Isaac as well.

He rolled to the drawer and opened it and there was his pistol but if Lee were to find him … there was a half bottle of Dewar's he hadn't touched since they told him not to. There you go, he thought. Look after yourself like a prize racehorse but don't give a second to anyone else. He began to feel calm. He knew what he had to do. He wished he'd eaten more of that steak. In the medicine cabinet he found an old bottle of OxyContin, nearly full, he'd been off it a year, he wrapped a blanket around himself and rolled quietly out into the living room and then out the back door to the porch. He closed the door carefully behind him.

It was cold outside and to brace himself he took a big pull off the De-war's. Then he jiggered open the pill container and took two or three of them, chewed them, they tasted awful but it would make them hit faster. His hands were shaking and he put the top back on so as not to spill the rest. Look at you, he thought, everything has been trying to take this from you and now you're just going to give it away. Because I should have before, he thought. Isaac would not have been here, he would have been gone just like Lee.

He decided to roll all the way into the backyard, get to the right spot and then he would think about it some more. He eased himself down the ramp into the grass, felt the wheels sinking into the soft earth and he rolled himself quickly to get to where he wanted to be, scattering the deer that had been standing there.

He took the pill bottle and weighed it in his hand, he was beginning to change his mind again, right there it was all you needed, go out with a smile on your face. There's your choice, he thought. One way or the other you will lose them. It seemed so obvious, he had never thought of it that way before. He had been fighting a battle that he would never win. Dragging them all down with you.

He held the bottle in his hand. No, it would just be from shame. That would not be the right way. They would go down much too easy. You can bear the burden yourself for once, that is not too much to ask, bear your own burden. Well? He put the container back into his pocket. How many did I take? Three I think. Not enough to kill me. Except any minute now you'll be feeling pretty good. Wrap that blanket around you so you don't freeze.

He looked out over the dark woods and the river in the distance, it was a good spot he had chosen, you could see all the way down the Valley. Many good years, more than anyone deserved, it was time to do what was best for the others. For his family. As he thought this the land seemed to fall away, he was on a high ledge, there was a wall of stars and sky in front of him. He had never seen anything like it. The air was so clear. With his last bit of energy, before he fell asleep, he pulled the blanket around his shoulders and began to feel warm.