The Year We Left Home

by Jean Thompson

  “I guess they’re worried about the Posse Comitatus people.” When Anita shook her head, not understanding, Pat said, “Posse Comitatus. They been kicking up trouble different places, Nebraska, the Dakotas. They say that the government doesn’t have any right to tell us what to do, and we’re all what they call sovereign citizens, and we don’t have to have driver’s licenses or pay taxes. Don’t have to deal with Farmers Home. Don’t have to pay bank loans because the government insures the banks. They got some such answer for everything. Wish they would show up here. Or somebody raise some heck. Back in the Depression they had what they called nickel auctions. Neighbors show up and bid a penny or a nickel on everything. Keep anybody else from bidding higher. Then give it all back to the owner. Used to be farmers, big groups of them, show up at the courthouses with ropes slung over their shoulders. Give the sheriff something to think about. I guess that was then and this is now. Well, I better go back and see about Ruth and Jim.”

  “I would like to say hello. If you think it would be all right.”

  “You’re here, aren’t you? At least that’s something.”

  She followed Pat across the yard, pushing through the crowd of waiting men. The Goodells watched her coming. Ruth had been the prettiest of Norm and Martha’s children and she still had a worn-down kind of good looks. Jim Goodell was a big man, heavy in the shoulders. The skin of his face and neck had thickened from windburn and every other weather and you couldn’t read expression in it any more than you could a piece of corrugated cardboard. But there wasn’t any welcome in it. Other men were grouped around him. Some she recognized—Ruth and Pat’s brothers and their sons—most she didn’t.

  Anita stood in front of them. Nobody spoke until Anita said, “Hi, Ruth. Jim. I just wanted to . . .” She trailed off.

  Pat said, “She didn’t have to come,” and Ruth unbent enough to nod at her. Then it was all right, or at least, all right enough for her to stand there with them. Two of the youngest boys were slinging pebbles at the wall of a shed, making a racket when they hit. On any other occasion, they might have been told to stop. Bradley stood a little distance away with his wife, whom Anita didn’t know. She was a pretty girl with red hair, holding a bundled baby, and she looked mutinous, as if she was beginning to figure out she wasn’t going to end up with the life she’d thought she was getting. Bradley didn’t seem to be paying her any mind. He leaned against one corner of the front porch. A skinny, slouching man, only a few years younger than Anita herself. Already he had the closed-up face he’d wear until the end of his days. His two sisters, teenagers, folded their arms against the wind and seemed to dare people to look at them. It wasn’t a family who appeared to be taking any comfort from each other.

  Ruth said, “We don’t have to stay and watch, do we? I could go on back with Melissa and the baby.”

  Her husband said, “Just wait,” and Ruth went to hold the baby and allow the redheaded girl to rummage in the diaper bag for something she couldn’t find, which seemed to put her in an even worse mood.

  The auctioneer had a spry, high-pitched voice. He made a few remarks designed to jolly the crowd up, to no visible effect. The machinery was going first. A Massey Ferguson diesel tractor, a six-row cultivator, eight-row planter, hay baler, corn picker, sprayer, grain wagons. One of the men next to Jim Goodell said, loud enough for everybody to hear, “Might as well drive everything over to the bank. Ask ’em where they want it parked.” Anita didn’t look at him. She thought it had probably been said for her benefit.

  The auctioneer slid into his chant. What am I bid, what am I bid, three now four now four bid I got it, how ’bout five, five, five and a half, who’s got six, six, here’s a six bid, will you give me seven, I need seven. It was all too fast to follow, nor could Anita understand who was bidding on what in the crowd grouped around the microphone, different men holding up bid cards, runners going back and forth among them.

  Pat was still standing next to her and Anita nudged her, tried to whisper. “Can anybody bid? What do you have to do to get him to see you?”

  “Another time might be better for explanations.”

  “No, I have some money.” It embarrassed her, having to come out and say it. “I brought some money.” She opened her purse and watched Pat’s eyes lock onto the tidy stacks of bills.

  Pat took her by the arm and steered her away from the crowd. “Why is it you want to bid on farm machinery?”

  “I don’t.” Exasperated now, because everyone seemed so willing to misunderstand her and think the worst. “It’s for them, I want to give it to them.”

  Pat shook her head. “Just because you feel bad about—”

  “The money doesn’t care how anybody feels.”

  “They won’t take it from you.”

  “Well then you take it for them. Here.” She pulled the bank envelopes out and reached for Pat’s wrist, shoving the money at her. “I’m not leaving here with it. Either take it or watch me start throwing handfuls up in the air.”

  Pat let her hand close around it. “Where did this come from?”

  “I stopped by the bank.”

  “Nita.”

  “You can get some of their things back. Or they can just have it. You decide. I’m going now. I don’t need or want to hear about it later.”

  She turned and started walking away. No one called or came after her.

  At the start of the lane she stopped and looked back. She could make out Pat’s stocking cap bent over the table where the auctioneer’s agents were doing business, and then Pat straightened and joined the bidding crowd. The Goodells had moved in closer to take a look, all except the red-haired girl, still tending to her baby on the steps, maybe wondering just how much a husband was meant to bind you up in a shared loyalty.

  She was tired, and chilled from the wind, and too much had happened and she wanted to think about nothing at all. But that was not possible once she reached the place where she’d parked and saw the station wagon listing with one side higher than the other, sunk into a deep rut, all four tires slashed and flattened.

  Reno, Nevada

  JUNE 1985

  He was supposed to meet Chip at eight o’clock in the Horseshoe Lounge of the MGM Grand, and since it was now past eight thirty, Ryan wondered how much longer he should wait before he gave it up as a bad job. The lounge was decorated in a style he thought of as faux classy, with club chairs and thick carpeting underfoot and swagged draperies over the walls where there would have been windows, if the Grand had such a thing as windows. The bar itself was horseshoe-shaped. Horseshoes decorated the cocktail napkins, the waitresses’ frilly garters, the gold-flecked mirrors mounted above each booth. The room was lit with strips of pinkish orange neon, lurid and overcozy. The cocktail waitresses’ long tan legs showed black, their smiles blue. Ryan ordered a second Scotch and soda, one he didn’t really want. He guessed he both did and didn’t want to see his cousin. Either way would be fine, either way would be something of a disappointment.

  Two of his coworkers came into the lounge then, spotted him and headed over. “Erickson,” said one. “You can run, but you can’t hide.” They were both very drunk.

  “I’m not doing either.”

  “We’re doing both.” Something about this was funny; they sniggered.

  “What happened?”

  “She wasn’t a hooker like genius boy here thought.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “Yes she was. Just stuck up about it.”

  “You guys are assholes,” Ryan said, meaning it but keeping his tone friendly.

  “Thank you.”

  “You know the great thing about this place? You can reset your circadian rhythms. Everything’s open 24/7.”

  “We have to be on the convention floor in twelve hours,” Ryan reminded them.

  “Yes Mom.”

  “Everything you need under one roof the size of three football stadiums.”

  “Is it raining? Somebody said it might be raining.”

&nb
sp; “We could, you know, actually go outside and see.”

  “No, let’s read about it in the newspaper or watch it on television.”

  They high-fived. Ryan said, “You should stay inside. Definitely.”

  “You know what your problem is, Erickson? You lack a lighthearted quality.”

  “Weight of the fucking world on your shoulders.”

  “Yeah, man. Always so serious.”

  “Compared to you guys,” Ryan said, “I probably am. But I’m going to try and be more like you from now on.”

  “Did we order drinks yet? I can’t remember.”

  “You know what I really feel like? Steak and eggs. Maybe a little keno.”

  After they left, Ryan resettled himself, lifted his drink and put it down again. It was the night before the start of a three-day convention. By day three he imagined his colleagues would have achieved some otherworldly state, some nirvana of debauchery. It was true he didn’t drink much these days, or do much of anything else in the way of vices. Sometimes he couldn’t believe how boring he was.

  The cocktail waitress had made another two passes, asking if he needed anything else—the drink he hadn’t drunk freshened—when he became pretty sure the man sitting at the end of the bar was his cousin Chip.

  Ryan stood and made his way toward him. It must have been more than ten years since they’d seen each other. If this really was Chip (hard to see anything clearly in the lurid, unnatural light), some things about him had changed and some things hadn’t. Which he guessed was true of himself as well, and a part of him watched himself advance, across the room and through time.

  His cousin swung around on his barstool as Ryan approached. “Man,” Chip said. “Somebody’s been living right.”

  “I guess you mean the shoes.”

  “They’re some really nice shoes,” Chip said, with apparent sincerity.

  They shook hands. Ryan took the stool next to Chip and there was a moment of settling in when they didn’t have any need to talk and could get used to the idea of each other. He was trying not to scrutinize Chip and instead sorted through his first impressions. Cigarette pack at the ready. Hair cut short and receding into a widow’s peak. A permanent-looking slouch, as if he lived somewhere without any such thing as a straight chair. Where did he live, anyway? There had been only a post office box and the briefest of notes back and forth, Ryan saying he’d be in town and suggesting they meet. What he got back was a postcard of a jackalope and Chip’s enthusiastically scrawled Yes.

  Chip said, “This has got to be the weirdest fucking thing in the world, you know? Meeting up here of all places. Two Iowa kids, hanging out in the lap of luxury.”

  “That what it is?”

  “Nah, more like the armpit. And maybe not really luxury.” Chip laughed his stuttering laugh. That, at least, had not changed. “Yeah, I never come in the casinos.” Chip took a drink from the beer in front of him, looked at it critically. “There’s cheaper bars.”

  “I’d hope so.”

  “And things like grocery stores and post offices and muffler shops, you know, a real city. The casinos, they aren’t just fake. They’re like, fake elevated into an art form.”

  Ryan said he couldn’t disagree with that. The open doors of the lounge led directly out to the casino floor, where people crowded around the gaming tables and slots, everyone milling and pushing, like hell’s own idea of fun.

  Chip tapped a cigarette out of his pack. “Lost much yet?”

  “Twenty-five on slots, a hundred and fifty at blackjack,” Ryan admitted.

  “Ah, that’s small change. I bet you’re good for a lot more.”

  He was. “I guess it doesn’t have that much appeal for me.”

  “Small-town boy’s not into the bright lights.”

  That struck Ryan as an annoying thing to say, as if skanky old Chip was calling him some kind of hick. Now that Ryan’s eyes were used to the pinkish glow, he saw that Chip looked older than he would have expected. His face had a dry, seamed look that spoke of heat and sun. Ryan said, “So what are you doing out here? Why Reno?”

  “No. You first. What’s ‘information technology’?”

  “Short answer? Computers. We’re the guys who talk to computers in computer language. We program the machines so they do what somebody wants them to. Keep track of inventory, sales, money. Come up with new things for them to do. It’s kind of cool because it’s always changing, the systems get better and better, so there’s always more to learn,” Ryan finished up, aware that he was dumbing down his talk. Most people couldn’t follow the details of what he did anyway.

  “Weren’t you going to school somewhere, so you could be a big smarty-pants?”

  “That kind of fell by the wayside.” He didn’t feel like dredging it up, explaining. How naive he’d been, naive being a nicer way of saying dumb, to think that ideas could protect you from the world’s catastrophes, or from cruelty or unfairness or your own vanity. “Anyway, the money’s better.”

  It was a lot better. He’d never made this much money, enough to allow him to spend without worrying. He belonged to a downtown health club where members could gather in the attached bar and admire each other’s pumped-up and burnished physique. He had mutual funds that were paying off every quarter. He had a two-bedroom condo in Lincoln Park. He bought what he felt like at the grocery, cheeses whose names he couldn’t pronounce, fancy prepared dinners from the gourmet counter. He had a company expense account for conventions such as this one. It felt unnatural, even sinful at times, to have so much money—small-town boy lives fast life in big city! Pleasure, the devil’s tool!—but everyone else he knew was living the same way, making money at jobs that hadn’t existed a few years back, and it would have been foolish to pretend he was any different or better.

  He said to Chip, “Your parents were glad to get word of you. Said you’d been out of touch for a pretty good spell.”

  Chip let that one pass. Ryan guessed he’d had his reasons for staying away and staying hard to find. He didn’t exactly look like he’d come up in the world. Chip said, “I was sorry to hear about your sister.”

  “Thanks.” Ryan felt some part of himself tighten, then fall away.

  “How’s she doing these days?”

  “Not great. Not terrible.” Not herself. Not recognizably anyone else.

  “Is she—”

  “Is it OK if we don’t talk about her? I mean, not right now.”

  “Sure, man. Sorry.”

  Ryan felt Chip watching him as he stared into the gaudy complications behind the bar, the backlit shelves of stacked glassware and liqueur bottles, things nobody ever drank, like Chartreuse and Benedictine. “Hey,” Chip said. “You done with that one? How ’bout we take a walk? This place makes me feel like I’m inside somebody’s damned rib cage.”

  The casino floor was brighter and much noisier than the lounge, and Ryan tried to get his eyes and ears up to speed. “Would you look at all this,” he said, giving up on any better effort to try and fix it with words. A huge expanse of green felt tables and chandeliers and its multitude of little figures engaged in their separate dramas—fanning cards, throwing dice, acting out pantomimes of winning and losing. Here two old men in cowboy hats and worn-down boots and bolo ties, small-time ranchers on a holiday, Ryan guessed, joined the crowd around a blond woman got up in a pink satin cowgirl outfit, all fringe and sequined stars and white chaps, who was using a microphone to promote some upcoming stage extravaganzas. A pack of Japanese businessmen in dark suits had taken over a blackjack table. There were junketing senior citizens, bikers, women who might have been hookers—he could understand the confusion—women who might have been men, and hard-eyed men who might have been cops, or else convicts.

  “You been downstairs yet?” Chip asked. “Come on, you got to see Metro.”

  “Metro?” Ryan repeated, deafened. His ears were still full of din.

  “Yeah, you can’t say you were at the Grand until you see Metro. He’s t
he lion.”

  “I thought you never came here,” Ryan said, still trying to make sense of what Chip was saying. Lion?

  “Got to make an exception for Metro.” Chip led him down an escalator. The moving stairs and the echoing racket gave Ryan a feeling of vertigo, floating between two spaces. He was able to notice more about Chip now without being obvious. He was dressed like a bum, there was no other way to say it, in wash pants of industrial green, a flapping shirt with a faint plaid pattern over a white T-shirt. On his feet, gnarled flat sandals with leather toe rings. He looked down on his luck and used to being that way.

  The basement level was a shopping arcade of sorts with a floor of gleaming tile. Signs directed them to the beauty and barber shops, a bowling alley. Store windows displayed clothing whose only real purpose was to look expensive: sporty cashmere blazers trimmed in gold buttons, pearl necklaces, suave leather handbags, golf and tennis outfits in candy colors. It was less crowded than the casino floor upstairs and it was easier to make themselves heard. “Why a lion?”

  “Come on, man, MGM? You ever go to the movies? The part at the beginning where the lion roars? They got a whole movie theater down here, show stuff like Doctor Zhivago.” Chip picked up the pace. “Here you go. Here’s the guy.”

  The lion reclined on a mat of artificial grass like an indoor putting green, like the unnatural irrigated lawns they favored in these parts. A collar around the lion’s neck was secured to a cement post with loops of chain. More posts and a waist-high Plexiglas barrier kept him well away from any crowds, but still, it was closer to a lion than Ryan guessed he’d ever been. The lion had a shabby look. His mane reminded Ryan of ancient fur coats stored in mothballs. His muzzle was gray and he blinked without looking at anything around him. Just another day at the lion office, his expression seemed to say.

  “They keep him pretty stoned,” Chip said. “Plus he’s kind of old.”