An hour later, after the wild celebration at home plate, the presentation of the championship trophy, then the pizza and the distribution of the smaller trophies Artie had brought, someone thought to go out to the corn field and find the winning ball. It had become a team activity, and even Artie had joined in.
Ultimately, one of the boys found the ball perched precariously on the scarecrow’s hat. It was a one-in-a-million shot. Days later, Artie had found Cadbury on his doorstep, newly mounted on his own stand, with a card affixed to his chest, signed by every member of the team. He’d been in the corner ever since, and in some ways he was Artie’s most trusted confidant, or at least his best listener.
Artie wondered if the slow foot traffic had anything to do with Sal Baxter’s death. The news seemed to color most of the conversations he’d heard since word came down from the Baxter place this morning. Some of that conversation was from people who’d been involved in the pool, and who would not be collecting on Sal’s choice of today as the day to cast off his mortal coil. Artie, who was mildly miffed along those lines, would have never spoken those sentiments to other people. Although he’d let Cadbury in on his displeasure.
Outside his store window, only a few cars moved along Main Street. This told him that whatever it was that had affected his business today was making itself felt on the whole town, or at least that portion he could see from his vantage point on his stool. Artie sighed and looked over at the pallet of Scotts fertilizer, which he should have been moving to a display near the door. He knew that wasn’t likely to happen now; in fact, it was more likely that he’d close the store, and since history didn’t favor that action either, he knew the pallet would be waiting there for him tomorrow.
He reached for the book he’d placed on the counter, open and facedown to preserve his spot. With it in that position he could see the author photo on the dust jacket. Every time he bought one of CJ Baxter’s books it was something of a treat to see how CJ had changed, how the few years that had passed since his last book had made their marks on his person.
He’d read all of CJ’s books, and so far, he liked this one well enough, although it was unlikely it would replace Road to Glens Falls as his favorite. The Buffalo Hunter was probably more literary than the others. The paragraphs were longer, and CJ seemed to be going for weightier ideas. It wasn’t quite as accessible as CJ’s other books, but Artie could see that CJ was experimenting.
Like everyone else in Adelia, Artie had not laid eyes on CJ since the boy left for college. Although he had to remind himself that CJ was hardly a boy anymore. He had to be in his mid–thirties now. He’d simply been a boy when Artie last saw him, which meant he remained a boy in the hardware store owner’s thoughts. As he picked up the book to read a few more pages, he wondered again if the funeral would bring CJ back to Adelia.
He’d certainly written about the place enough. Artie had followed a bit of the critical banter about CJ’s work—specifically how much of it was autobiographical. Artie had a unique vantage point on the question and thought he could speak with some authority. And in his opinion, he thought that anyone who could read even one of CJ Baxter’s books and not immediately see that a good portion of it was drawn from this place, and from his own childhood, was a complete idiot.
He wondered, then, what it would be like in the house on the hill if CJ did indeed make an appearance. Very little of what was written in CJ’s books was, with his own family as the model, complimentary to his kin. And that might make for some awkward moments.
Of course, drama had been a frequent guest among the Bax-ters as far back as Artie could remember. That was something else upon which he had a unique perspective, and not just because of the time he’d spent as George’s boyhood friend. While CJ was in high school, he’d spent a few summers working at Kaddy’s. In Artie’s opinion, CJ was the best employee he’d ever had. He was a natural with tools, and he had the eye of a true craftsman. Over the last two years that he’d been in his employ, Artie had been confident enough in the boy’s skills that he’d dropped CJ’s name to anyone looking for someone to do basic contractor work. During that time, CJ must have hung drywall, replaced a roof, or installed an appliance for half of the families in Adelia.
But where CJ had really excelled was as a woodworker. The week the boy left for college, he’d presented Artie with a rifle stock he’d coaxed from a piece of balsam wood. It was a beautiful piece, with silver inlays and Artie’s name carved by the rear swing swivel. Artie had it finished with Remington parts that winter, and had used it the following fall for hunting whitetail. It was a shame CJ had never got the chance to see it.
He took a last look at CJ’s photo, searching for the boy in the man he’d become, and feeling much older than he had when he’d walked into the store this morning. With a sigh, he turned the book over and found his place in the story.
Nashville, Tennessee
Each August, when highs over a hundred degrees came with regularity and people moved with the purposed paces of those traveling between air-conditioning, young men and women from all over the country—all over the world—descended on the city of Nashville. An energized mass of fashionable clothes and deep credit lines, the odor of privilege evident before one got close enough to smell them. They were the high academic achievers, the sons and daughters of wealthy alums, the athletes who could devote sufficient time to study in order to remain eligible under the university’s high standards. It was a throng that filled West End Avenue as lines of cars streamed onto campus grounds, as those who arrived early navigated their bicycles around Centennial Park, or walked past businesses that had been waiting for this influx. Most of these were returning students, with a year or more under their belts, their knowledge of the campus and the surrounding city hard-earned. Among these, though, were a percentage of teens who, while as energized as the rest of their contemporaries, were also bewildered—overmatched by the sprawling university and the weight of its history.
At one time, CJ had been among these first-year students, although that seemed like a very long time ago. Even so, he could remember stepping onto the pristine grass at Charles Hawkins Field for the very first time. He’d taken off his shoes and let his toes sink into the grass, absorbed in a place that seemed so unlike his home.
It was his first time away from the Northeast, and he’d come with no preconceived ideas about what life in this part of the country would be like. It surprised him how quickly he learned to love it. It had taken only a week—the beauty of the campus, the friendliness of the locals, and one lovely young lady—to start him toward eventually achieving the status of transplanted Yankee, a status he had held now for seventeen years.
In truth, Nashville was Southern sleight of hand—a halfway house of sorts for Northerners. A cosmopolitan community that over the last few decades had seen its demographics change to the point where, in certain communities, it was difficult to find someone native to Nashville, or even to Tennessee. Whole sections of the city and the surrounding suburbs were made up of people who came from somewhere else. Nashville was a transitional city, a place to stop and get one’s bearings before continuing on to the deeper South, to places where families could trace roots back to the dawn of the nation. In that respect, those far-flung places were much like Adelia.
CJ had come to Vanderbilt on a baseball scholarship. Scouts from all over the country had come to Adelia to watch him play. He could have punched his higher education ticket to just about anywhere. He’d selected Vanderbilt for reasons that still eluded him, and he’d played ball for just a year. He knew in high school that he would not play baseball for a living; his heart just wasn’t in it. It was in writing, which became his major after a single misguided semester in anthropology. He’d devoured the courses on literary studies, creative writing, and specialized critical studies. His first novel was published while he was in his third year.
From the beginning, there were those who suspected that much of CJ’s work was autobiographical. Ther
e were others who suspected it wasn’t quite as good as most everyone else seemed to think it was. CJ thought that both suspicions might or might not have been right; it depended on the day.
He guided the Honda onto I-40, his detour off the interstate to navigate West End so that he could drive by his alma mater now finished. He liked to do that every now and then; he’d experienced the refining of his writing skills in this institution, and it always energized him to pass by, even if he was now almost twice as old as many of the freshmen.
His detour had something of the delaying tactic in it as well. He hadn’t been back to Adelia since 1993. He’d been close—as near as Albany in support of one book or another. He wondered what it would be like after all this time, even as he suspected that it would be just as he’d left it. It wouldn’t have surprised him to discover that, aside from the prisons, not a single new structure had been built. Adelia was that kind of place.
Thoreau was in the passenger seat, watching out the window, eyes tracking anything that moved. He’d whined once when they passed Centennial Park, and CJ had scratched behind his ears until West End fed into Broadway. He didn’t have any idea how much trouble he would get into for stealing his own dog. For what he was paying his lawyer, CJ thought he should have been able to commit a murder in broad daylight and walk away a free man.
Janet had called twice while he packed the few things he would take to Adelia. He’d let the machine pick up both times, feeling pleased with himself when he heard the anger in her voice. The only thing that had given him a moment’s pause was when she’d told him she was going to call the police. He’d wondered how a cop would assess the act of breaking into one’s own home. It was, after all, still his house, and he and Janet were not officially separated. It was a somewhat muddied issue, and so he decided the most logical course of action was to not worry about it. Anyway, he and Thor were leaving town, and would be beyond reach of local law enforcement. He did wonder what Pastor Stan would say, but suspected that even a minister would give due consideration to extenuating circumstances.
New York was a more imminent concern for CJ. For all that he had written about it, the prospect of returning to it in physical, rather than literary, form tied his stomach in knots. After seventeen years, even family can become like strangers.
Seventeen years. It was a long time no matter how one parsed it. Four years of college, thirteen years of marriage, seven novels of varying quality, one literary award, two short stories in The New Yorker, and one dog. A lot of water under the bridge. He was tempted to ignore the summons to attend his grandfather’s funeral. Sal wouldn’t know if he showed up or not. As was so often mentioned, funerals were for those left behind. And CJ was not close to a single one of these orphans of truncated lineage. He’d missed other deaths, along with births, marriages, family reunions, and his brother’s swearing-in ceremony for his state senate seat. He wondered why this should be any different. Why couldn’t he stay in Tennessee and send a card and flowers across the miles?
It was a question he couldn’t answer, except to suspect that his father’s call had caught him in a vulnerable spot. The dissolution of his marriage, the destruction of his reputation with the literary community, the situation with his dog—all were good reasons to decide to do something he’d told himself he’d never do.
It was a fourteen-hour drive. He could have flown, but somehow driving the whole way seemed appropriate. He would find somewhere in Ohio to spend the night.
The thought struck him in the silence between the hypnotic sounds of the Honda’s tires hitting the evenly spaced grooves separating sections of asphalt: his big brother might soon be a senator. Six years ago, when Graham won the state version of that office, CJ couldn’t help feeling the requisite pride a brother was supposed to feel, even if he’d tried his hardest to keep those brotherly feelings in check. And many of the reasons for his reluctance to celebrate Graham’s success were spelled out in varying degrees of detail in CJ’s books. He’d always found it funny that the critics who had suspected that much of his writing was autobiographical would never have presumed that the most authentic parts were the ones that made for good fiction.
Sort of like stealing a dog and a miter saw from your own house.
As if in sympathy to the absurdity of it all, Thoreau turned away from the window long enough to meet CJ’s eyes, and then he let go of the king of all dog belches. CJ agreed with him wholeheartedly.
Chapter 5
Adelia, New York
The dog was asleep as CJ followed the fir- and maple-lined SR 44, approaching the last curve that separated him from Adelia. The SR 44 became Buckley Road after the curve, where the speed limit slowed to forty-five as drivers passed the small industrial park just within the city limits, its brick factory buildings from before the war suffering a self-inflicted industrial melanism, the walls dark with soot and time, and the more modern-looking structures wearing their age almost as poorly. Farther on, the speed limit dropped to thirty-five for a quarter mile before the colonial-style houses he’d seen sporadically since Winifred started to cluster into neighborhoods and subdivisions. A half mile after that, Buckley became Main Street, and stayed that way until one was through Adelia and heading into the thick pine and maple forests that hugged the road all the way to Canada.
It was something CJ had considered—shooting straight through town, perhaps picking up an image here or there to feed the small pangs of nostalgia that had surprised him somewhere around Pittsburgh. It was the last thing he’d expected to feel— any sort of affection for this place. Adelia was just something he’d thought he would have to bear in order to see the old man off. But who can factor the pull of a heritage on a man who had been absent from it for the better part of two decades, especially when that heritage had its roots sunk deep into a land, into a familial constancy, that had remained unchanged for more than two hundred years? There was a saying that the house on the hill, the historic family home, had infiltrated the blood of every living Baxter, and when a Baxter died, it was sawdust he turned into in the coffin.
As CJ guided the Honda around the last curve, spotting the street sign that gave Buckley Road its asphalt birth, his thoughts went back to a poorly worded phrase from one of his books. “This part of the country was like a magnet ever pulling at the heart of every person who shared blood with Hal and his forefathers.” It was the sort of unwieldy line that made him wonder why anyone would have given him an award for his writing. And as far as his family was concerned, he suspected the name Hal wasn’t far enough away from Sal for there to have been any doubt what land he was referring to.
Poor prose and family reference aside, it seemed appropriate as he approached Adelia. The farther north he’d driven, the more he’d started thinking about the people and places he hadn’t seen in a long time, and how he looked forward to seeing some of those people and places again. He’d tried to push those thoughts aside rather than indulge them, remembering there were reasons he had not visited since college—reasons that no amount of nostalgia, however pleasant it all might feel, could diminish. Despite his best efforts, however, the scale seemed to tip in favor of the nostalgia.
Even so, there was still the matter of his family. The critics could argue all they wanted about the possible autobiographical nature of his work; most members of his family weren’t stupid. If they read his stuff, they would call a spade a spade.
At the speed he was driving, ignoring the sign that told him to begin slowing down, it didn’t take long before the place of his birth opened up before him. There was nothing gradual about the reveal—nothing like an anticipatory ascent up a high hill, then getting to the top and seeing the place spread out in front of him. He simply reached the top of a rise he hadn’t known he’d been climbing, and it was there, as if a giant hand had dropped the place down to the earth at the instant before it appeared in his line of sight.
From where he was, gazing past the incorporated areas and the industrial park and taking in the
city proper, he was amazed at how familiar it looked, how much it seemed as if he’d just taken his old Mustang to Winifred to see a movie and was on his way home. He wasn’t sure what he’d been expecting when he saw it for the first time in seventeen years, but if someone had pressed him, he would have bet against it being pleasure. Strangely enough, though, that’s what it was.
Before he started down a hill noticeably steeper than the one he’d climbed to gain this vantage point, he could see enough to determine that while some things looked out of place—structures and cleared plots of land in places he didn’t remember seeing before—for the most part, Adelia looked the same, like the image of it that had burned its way into his memory. It was odd, really. He thought that he could even see the decorations for the Fall Festival around the square.
For generations, Adelia had survived as one small Upstate New York town among many—one that always seemed to be heading toward some ultimate demise that it never quite reached. While everything about the place appeared older with the passing years, there was just enough new construction, just enough new birth, to keep it on the map. At its heart it was a manufacturing town; most of its people had earned a living, at least since the forties, at either the sawmill, the Chevy plant in Winifred, or at Jordan Gum & Machine. CJ had spent a few summers at the latter, scooping large gumballs in and out of the coaters that looked like cement mixers, hosing the coaters out whenever they ran another color, filling the pulley that carried the gum from the forming floor to the finishing floor, losing maybe a gallon of sweat a day as it ran down his arms and into the gum with each scoop. To this day CJ couldn’t see a gumball machine without envisioning hairy, sweat-soaked arms scooping and pouring.
It had been hard work among hard men, most of them twice his age. He’d learned some words he’d never heard before, and witnessed how constant ten-hour days in heat and noise could fray tempers. There was an undercurrent of violence to the production floor that he’d learned to read. Only once had he seen the violence escalate to anything beyond fists. It had happened during a slow period on the production floor, when one of the younger guys had used a marker to color a couple of the white gumballs black and then offered these new licorice-flavored gumballs to one of his shift mates. Though CJ had found the man’s surprised expression amusing after he bit into the gum, he was unprepared for the speed with which the guy had pulled out a pocketknife. He got in two slashes before being held down by others. The practical joker had required several stitches to reattach his ear.
Don Hoesel Page 5