He heard a noise and saw lights. It was the Mercedes, coming toward him along the avenue of trees.
He stepped down off the porch, into the mud.
The boy was driving. His brother sat beside him. The boy parked in front of Billy, like a valet at a restaurant. He rolled down the window and called, “We brought the car.”
“You brought the car,” Billy said.
“The flood almost took it down the mountain.”
“I thought it surely would have.”
“We got it in time,” the boy said, and Billy said, “Your mother is sleeping.”
The boy got out, leaving the door open for Billy. “Come on,” he said to his brother.
The hood and the roof were covered with leaves, and scratches and dents ran along the body of the car, where it had crunched onto the rock.
The boy pointed. “Drive between the trees and don’t cross the creek. Follow the side of the mountain. Turn left at the train tracks. There’s a busted fence. Go through it and drive across the field. There’s an empty house and a pond. Go past the house to the gate. The road is on the other side.”
“OK,” Billy said.
He watched the brothers climb onto the porch, kick the mud off their shoes, and go through the right-side door into the cabin.
Billy swept the leaves off the car with his hand—first the roof, then the hood—and pulled more from under the wipers. He got in the car. The rain had about stopped. He rolled up the window, just in case. His scraped hands hurt beneath the gloves, but he could hold the wheel.
He drove out of the hollow, and the gray sky opened to view. He heard the rushing creek on his left, and kept going. It wasn’t long before he had to thread between trees and under branches. He saw only glimpses of sky. A deer jumped in front of the car and scared him, and several times he had to back up and redirect the Mercedes around fallen logs. He didn’t know how far he’d come, but he could feel the slope of the mountain rising beside him on his right.
He was on the tracks before he saw them. They were ancient and broken, buried in the weeds. He turned left and followed them. The Mercedes bumped along over the crooked ties. after a mile or so, he saw the field and the fence that the boy had told him to look for, and, beyond the field, the empty house and the pond. He relaxed his grip on the wheel and took his time crossing the waterlogged grass. He stopped at the gate, put the lever in park, and got out. The gate was chained and locked. He yanked on the lock. “Fuck me,” he said, and walked back to the car.
He opened the trunk and retrieved the Browning, unzipped the case, and removed the rifle. He took a bullet from the box and loaded the gun. He walked over and stood about ten feet from the gate, raised the rifle to his shoulder, and aimed. It took one shot. The lock jumped and settled. Billy expelled the shell, walked up to the gate, removed the shattered lock from the chain, unwrapped the chain from the fence, and pushed open the gate. He carried the gun, the chain, and the lock to the car. He put the Browning into its case, and the lock and the chain into the canvas bag full of cans. Before shutting the trunk, he walked back to where he’d fired the gun. It took him a minute to find the shell. He picked it out of the grass, then tossed it into the bag with the other things. Before closing the trunk, he opened his box of comic books. He didn’t take any out. He knew what they were, pretty much. He should have given them to the boys. He closed the trunk, took his phone from his pocket, got into the driver’s seat, pulled off one of his gloves, and dialed 911. The operator, a woman, said, “What is your emergency?”
“I want to report a dying woman, a woman who’s dying,” he said.
“Can you tell me your name, sir?”
“My name is Billy French.”
“Where are you located?”
Billy looked about. He said, “I thought I was below Afton Mountain, but things don’t look right. I’m in a field. There’s a vacant house near a pond.”
“Can you be more specific, sir?”
Billy said, “She’s in a cabin on the mountain. There’s a man and two boys. You go through a field and along some rusted tracks. There’s a kind of lane or alley or something in the woods.”
“I’ll need an address, sir.”
“There is no address.”
“I need to know where the woman is, sir,” the operator said.
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Sir?”
“I’m not sure.”
He hung up.
He turned off the phone and put it in the glove compartment. He put the driving glove back on his hand. He buckled his seat belt, steered up to the road, and looked both ways.
It was too late to make the trip to the dump. Mary was coming, and he had to get ready. He’d thought of braising rabbit. Did he still have time for that?
Left or right? He turned the car to the left.
As he drove, he decided that he would keep Julia’s paintings a while longer. He could clear some space in the attic, or stow them under a tarp in the barn.
He went over and down a hill. He had the mountains on one side and a cow pasture on the other. The sky above the mountains glowed. Soon the sun would come out and the day would be blue again. He was certain that the road would lead him somewhere familiar if he drove long enough. He rolled down the window and felt the breeze on his face. The damp, shining road curved over the gentle foothills, and the trees alongside seemed to become greener and lusher in the growing light, and before long a car passed him going the other direction; and, a little farther down the road, he did in fact come upon a house that he recognized. He slowed the car and pulled into the driveway. How had he got so far from home? He was all the way up past White Hall.
Soft white clouds and a few birds were in the air. The thunder and lightning were over at last.
Billy circled the drive, eased the Mercedes to the road, checked both directions, and went back the way he’d come.
Permissions
“The Case for Reparations,” by Ta-Nehisi Coates, originally published in The Atlantic. Copyright © 2014 by The Atlantic. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
“Women Aren’t Welcome Here,” by Amanda Hess, originally published in Pacific Standard. Copyright © 2014 by Pacific Standard. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
“The College Rape Overcorrection,” by Emily Yoffe, originally published in Slate. Copyright © 2014 by Emily Yoffe. Reprinted by permission of Emily Yoffe.
“When Michael Dunn Compared Himself to a Rape Victim, He Was Following an Old, Racist Script,” by Rebecca Traister, originally published in The New Republic, February 23, 2014, © 2014 The New Republic. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.
“I Don’t Care If You Like It,” by Rebecca Traister, originally published in The New Republic, July 16, 2014, © 2014 The New Republic. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.
“The Slenderman Stabbing Shows Girls Will Be Girls, Too,” by Rebecca Traister, originally published in The New Republic, June 4, 2014, © 2014 The New Republic. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of this Content without express written permission is prohibited.
“Shame and Survival,” by Monica Lewinsky, originally published in Vanity Fair. Copyright © 2014 by Monica Lewinsky. Reprinted by permission of Monica Lewinsky.
“Inside the Iron Closet,” by Jeff Sharlet, originally published in GQ. Copyright © 2014 by Jeff Sharlet. Reprinted by permission of Jeff Sharlet.
“Love and Ruin,” by James Verini, originally published in The Atavist. Copyright © 2014 by The Atavist. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
“The Ballad of Geeshie and Elvie,” by John Jeremiah Sullivan, originally published in New York Times Magazine. Copyright © 2014 by The New York Times Company. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
“The Truth About Chicago’s Crime Rates: Dead Wrong,” by David Bernstein and Noah Isackson, originally published in Chicago. Copyright © by David Bernstein and Noah Isackson. Reprinted by permission of David Bernstein and Noah Isackson.
“The Truth About Chicago’s Crime Rates: Getting Washed?” by David Bernstein and Noah Isackson, originally published in Chicago. Copyright © by David Bernstein and Noah Isackson. Reprinted by permission of David Bernstein and Noah Isackson.
“The Sea of Crises,” by Brian Phillips, originally published in Grantland. Copyright © 2014 by Grantland. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
“Zombies on the Walls: Why Does So Much New Abstraction Look the Same?,” by Jerry Saltz, originally published in New York. Copyright © 2014 by New York. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
“Taking in Jeff Koons, Creator and Destroyer of Worlds,” by Jerry Saltz, originally published in New York. Copyright © 2014 by New York. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
“Post-Macho God: Matisse’s Cut-Outs Are World-Historically Gorgeous,” by Jerry Saltz, originally published in New York. Copyright © 2014 by New York. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
“Follow Me: Kate Upton Leads the Charge of Models Who’ve Gone Crazy for Social Media,” by Jonathan Van Meter, originally published in Vogue. Copyright © 2014 by Vogue. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
“Jackie’s Goodbye,” by Tiffany Stanley, originally published in National Journal. Copyright © 2014 by National Journal. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
“This Old Man,” by Roger Angell, originally published in The New Yorker. Copyright © 2014 by Roger Angell. Reprinted by permission of Roger Angell.
“The Emerald Light in the Air,” from The Emerald Light in the Air by Donald Antrim. Copyright © 2014 by Donald Antrim. Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC.
Contributors
ROGER ANGELL has contributed to The New Yorker since 1944. He is a senior editor and a staff writer. Since 1962, Angell has written more than one hundred “Sporting Scene” pieces, mostly on baseball but also on tennis, hockey, football, rowing, and horseracing. In addition, he has written film reviews, stories, casuals, “Notes and Comment” pieces, and, for many years, the magazine’s Christmas verse, “Greetings, Friends!” His writing has appeared in many anthologies, including The Best American Sports Writing, The Best American Short Stories, The Best American Essays, and The Best American Magazine Writing. His work has also been collected in nine of his own books, among them The Stone Arbor and Other Stories, A Day in the Life of Roger Angell, and, most recently, Let Me Finish. His baseball books include The Summer Game, Five Seasons, Late Innings, Season Ticket, Once More Around the Park, A Pitcher’s Story, and Game Time. Nothing but You: Love Stories from The New Yorker is an anthology of fiction selected by him. He has won a number of awards for his writing, including a George Polk Award for Commentary, a Kenyon Review Award for Literary Achievement, and the Michael Braude Award for Light Verse, presented by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2011 he was the inaugural winner of the PEN/ESPN Lifetime Achievement Award for Literary Sports Writing. In 2014, Angell received the J. G. Taylor Spink Award, the highest honor given to writers by the Baseball Hall of Fame.
DONALD ANTRIM is the author of the novels Elect Mr. Robinson for a Better World, The Hundred Brothers, and The Verificationist, as well as a memoir, The afterlife. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and an associate professor in the writing program at Columbia University. He is a 2013 MacArthur Fellow.
DAVID BERNSTEIN is the features editor at Chicago magazine. This year and in 2013 he and coauthor Noah Isackson were finalists for a National Magazine Award in the prestigious Reporting category. He has received numerous other awards, including from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University, the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, the Society of Professional Journalists, the City and Regional Magazine Association, the Chicago Bar Association, and the Chicago Headline Club. Previously, Bernstein was a freelance writer, contributing frequently to the New York Times, Chicago, and Crain’s Chicago Business. His work has also appeared in The Best Technology Writing 2006 (Digital Culture Books) and The Best American Crime Reporting 2007 (Harper Perennial). He has a master of science in journalism from Medill.
TA-NEHISI COATES is a national correspondent for The Atlantic. He is the author of The Beautiful Struggle and Between the World and Me (forthcoming September 2015).
AMANDA HESS is a Slate staff writer and a contributor to the New York Times Magazine. She has written about Hollywood, sex, teenagers, and the Internet for places like ESPN the Magazine, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, Details, the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times, and Pacific Standard. She cowrote the Book of Jezebel: An Encyclopedia of Lady Things and was featured in the anthology The Best American Sports Writing 2014. She lives in New York but left her heart scattered across several western states.
NOAH ISACKSON is a magazine writer based in Chicago. A contributing writer at Chicago magazine, his work has also appeared in Time, People, the Chicago Tribune Magazine, Time Out Chicago, the Boston Globe, and Men’s Health, among other publications. His work has received awards from the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University, the Society of Professional Journalists, the City and Regional Magazine Association, the Chicago Headline Club, and the Chicago Bar Association and has been recognized as a notable selection in the anthology The Best American Sports Writing. In 2015 and in 2013, he and coauthor David Bernstein were finalists for a National Magazine Award in Reporting. Previously, Isackson was a general assignment reporter for the Chicago Tribune and the Associated Press, assigned to the Chicago and Sacramento, Calif., bureaus. He began his journalism career in 1997 after graduating from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism.
MONICA LEWINSKY is a social activist, public speaker, writer, and consultant. As ambassador and strategic advisor to the antibullying organization Bystander Revolution, she has advocated for a safer social-media environment and has battled online harassment. A contributor to Vanity Fair, Lewinsky has a master’s degree in social psychology from the London School of Economics and has recently spoken at the Forbes 30 Under 30 Summit, the annual TED conference, and the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
BRIAN PHILLIPS has been a staff writer for Grantland since 2011.
JERRY SALTZ is the senior art critic at New York magazine and its entertainment site Vulture.com, a leading voice in the art world at large, and an innovative user of social media. He joined the magazine’s staff in 2007, and his writing ranges from cover stories to reviews to quick online commentaries. He won a National Magazine Award for Columns and Commentary in 2015 and was a finalist for the same award in 2011. Saltz was previously the senior art critic at the Village Voice, where he was twice a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism (in 2001 and 2006) and was the recipient of the 2007 Frank Jewett Mather Award in Art Criticism from the College Art Association. A frequent guest lecturer at major universities and museums, Saltz was also the sole advisor on the 1995 Whitney Biennial. Saltz has written for Frieze, Modern Painters, Parkett, Art in America, Time Out New York, Flash Art, Arts magazine, and many others. His Village Voice columns were compiled into a book published by Figures Press, Seeing Out Loud: The Village Voice Art Columns, 1998–2003. A second volume of his criticism, Seeing Out Louder, was published by Hardpress Editions. Saltz appeared as a judge on Bravo’s Work of Art: The Next Great Artist for the show’s two seasons and has been a guest on CNN,
CBS This Morning, NPR, and other news outlets.
JEFF SHARLET is the best-selling author of The Family, C Street, and Sweet Heaven When I Die. His edited books include Radiant Truths and Believer, Beware, and he is coauthor, with Peter Manseau, of Killing the Buddha. He is a contributing editor for Harper’s, Rolling Stone, and Virginia Quarterly Review and a frequent contributor to GQ. Sharlet is an associate professor of creative writing at Dartmouth College. Among his distinctions is belletrist Ann Coulter’s designation of him as one of the stupidest journalists in America.
TIFFANY STANLEY is a contributing writer at National Journal. She lives in Washington, D.C., where she is managing editor of Religion and Politics, the journal of the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in St. Louis. She has also written for The New Republic, The Daily Beast, and Paste, among other publications.
JOHN JEREMIAH SULLIVAN was born in 1974 in Louisville, Kentucky. He now lives with his wife and two daughters in North Carolina, where he writes books and essays. “The Ballad of Geeshie and Elvie” is part of a larger project having to do with the origins of the blues.
REBECCA TRAISTER is a journalist who covers women in politics, media, and culture from a feminist perspective. Currently a senior editor at The New Republic and a contributing editor at Elle, she spent ten years at Salon and has also written for the New York Times Magazine, The Nation, the Washington Post, the New York Observer, Glamour, Marie Claire, and elsewhere. Her first book, Big Girls Don’t Cry, about women in the 2008 election, was a New York Times Notable Book of 2010 and the winner of the Ernesta Drinker Ballard Book Prize. Her second book, about unmarried and late-married women in the United States, will be published by Simon and Schuster in early 2016.
The Best American Magazine Writing 2015 Page 45