Just North of Nowhere

by Lawrence Santoro

  Anyway, Borgos land isn’t worth anything. Not worth killing or eating anyone over. Even old Lurgo used to say, “Cripes my land’s fer shit.” He’d say, then he’d laugh. Like he did.

  The place is out past Einar's Formerly. Head out Commonwealth. You pass the Consolidated, that's to your left, the old hydroelectric is on your right. From there on the road climbs. You pass Bluffton's last houses. Doc Mouth’s is on the left and a handful of others are scattered here and there, then you're at Einar's, that's a t-junction. Commonwealth bears right and becomes County H again. You stay on that maybe a mile, you pass Karl’s Bad Kabins then hang a hard fast left. Blink and you miss it. That’s Borgos Road. From there on and for a while that’s Borgos land.

  You see the signs pretty quick, old Burma Shave signs. One after another. One set might read:

  These signs

  We gladly

  Dedicate

  To men who've had

  No date of Late

  BURMA-SHAVE

  The words, "BURMA-SHAVE," are made of curly white letters on red-painted wood. Words on the other signs are white on red too, but they’re regular. Time was, folks passed those things on the highway doing 40-50 miles an hour, zoop, zoop, zoop, zoop, zoop. BURMA-SHAVE! Folks said them as they went, then laughed aloud at the end. Used to be, people went out Borgos way whether or not they had to just to see if the Burma people had put up some new funny sign. When a one showed up, word got out. Folks would stop and write it down so they could say it at supper or get it right over a couple beers at the Wheel. First to bring word, you know?

  These days you don’t go out Borgos Road. If you do, you take your time because the way has not been kept up. The surface is heaved up by the freeze, settled out with the thaw and washed away in the spring downpours. That’s that. The road's a mess; nobody goes there anymore. And Fatty doesn't drive.

  Bunch laid a long fire on the plot Fatty had sketched with a pointy stick in the frosted ground. It sat away apart from the other plots, the wives, children, ancestors and such. Bunch and Fatty sat waiting until the flames reared up hot, then waited more until they died to the coals. When he figured the ground was ready Bunch pick-axed deep as he could into the freeze. He griped but kept it to himself.

  Fatty stood back sniffling and sucking snot. He didn’t say anything Bunch could hear over the crackling fire and, later, through his pick-axing, just whimpers and snorts. Bunch didn't mind an all-day job but he did hate someone blubbering over his shoulder. Worse, he hated a shadow being cast over him on a cold day. Fatty cast a big shadow.

  "Say, Bet’!" Bunch called out using the name everyone over 35 had called Fatty since maybe seventh, eighth grade, "Mind leaving me a little sun, there, would you?" Good-natured.

  Fatty went wide-eyed and squeaky. "Aw, hey, sorry, Bunch," he said. The big fellow shuffled a half-dozen steps back. He almost tripped over another grave marker and tottered for a moment. “Whoa! Whoa there Bet,’” Bunch could almost feel the fall that was coming. But the man-mountain of flesh and dungaree, a thundercloud on the hoof, a bluff’s worth of bagged and sagged suet, a universe of blue veins all-over sprouted with sparse black bristles and a bison’s-breath of grunts, caught its balance and righted itself. Sun poured over the departing shadow and spread across Bunch and the grave he was digging.

  "Sorry," Fatty said again.

  More than him shuffling out of the sun’s way, Bunch wanted Fatty back from the edge. He did not want Lurgo’s grave and nearly a half-ton of flesh collapsing on him. This was the old man's hole, not his.

  Bunch took from near sunrise to early dark to make Lurgo’s grave. The job kept him warm, but when he climbed out to stretch or get him a bite of sandwich or take a leak by the woods, the air took a drop.

  Day had slid across the clearing and Fatty had kept his planetary shade off Bunch, like Bunch had asked him to. He’d perched near the trees, his bulk threatening one or another Borgos marker, in the stone forest of his family. Now and then he’d waddled to the edge of the woods and blew some whimpers into the dark. Or now and again, he’d wade over to the peeling outbuilding at the far edge of the clearing, stand on the porch, run his fingertips over the iron padlock on the door and say a few wet grunts to the cold metal.

  Damn, Bunch thought, looking at Fatty. Damn, damn. Damn. Even when he'd dug himself below the frost line and the squared off walls of the grave rose above him, dirt, worm parts and cut off roots all ‘round, Fatty up there, walking, sniffing, stuck in Bunch’s head. Well, try not thinking about Fatty. Can’t be done.

  What Bunch was thinking was, best make myself scarce when it’s Fatty’s time to go to ground. "Hell yes," he said to the dirt he tossed over the lip of the grave. He hoped the fat son of a bitch would live forever. Bunch got philosophical making a man's grave.

  The job done and squared, he climbed up into the evening. Twilight-chilled sweat wriggled down his back. He shook it off.

  "There you go, Bet’. Sorry for your loss there, you know.” Bunch headed toward town.

  "Oh. Yeah. Thanks. Oh, hey!" Fatty rumbled toward him holding out a pawfull of folding money.

  "Huh?" Bunch said.

  Fatty cocked his head, blinked a couple times, wide. "For the hole." He pointed to make sure Bunch knew what hole they were discussing. "And for after, you know?" He kicked a frozen clod. "For filling it, after."

  "Cripes, Bet’. You don't give me no dollars now. You know I just…"

  Bunch stopped dead and stupid. He worked for food, for shoes, a pretty good shirt or a mended pair of pants, that sort of thing. Everyone knew that. The Italian Lady even. Bunch stretched a roofing job over to the Sons of Norway Lodge into a whole summer of sausage, beer, and a half dozen bird houses he was still trying to figure what to do with. At the Wurst Haus, Karl paid in carry home grub. Esther at the American House - Eats fed him ready-to-eat. For snow shoving here and there around town and the occasional tune job on the town cruiser, Vinnie let Bunch sleep the coldest nights down at the lock-up. Life was like that. What the hell. What could Bet’ give him he could wear, didn't already have, would eat, might want or ever be able to trade? Bunch considered those facts while staring at the money.

  Fatty started bawling again. His arm dropped to his side like the money was too heavy to hold. "What’ll I do, Bunch? Daddy’s gone like…." He snapped two noiseless sausage-soft fingers. “…that. Aw heck, Bunch," he blubbered some more, "Daddy’s a dead guy, now. He don't ever say nothing new, you know? I remember all kinds of stuff about him but there's nothing new ever going to happen, not about him or from him!" Fatty stood slobbered. Then he raised his arm and pointed the money at Bunch again.

  "Cripes, there, there," Bunch said and took the damn stuff.

  Snow was collecting on them. Somewhere along the day, snow had started and now the two guys stood at the edge of the family cemetery, the man-mountain turning white-capped and Bunch dripping in the melt.

  "Well, that's a good thing, ain't?" Bunch said louder than Fatty's crying.

  "Huh?" Fatty said.

  "We got it dug down before the weather, right?"

  Fatty looked up, his mouth open to the sky. Snow disappeared into the hole. When he started breathing heavy, his cheeks puffed holding back a sob. "Daddy always stayed home for snow. Didn't like being on the road, on the Interstate nor nothing, not for the Amish cheeses or no one during weather. Said a man could lose himself, white blowing like it does up north or out west."

  He'll stay now, Bunch thought but did not say it.

  Bunch started walking back toward the main road. He’d soon have his first paid for drink in how long? He thought about it. The first payed-up beer in two, no, maybe two and half years. Huh. Maybe he’d even drop some money and have a tune on the juke.

  Fatty was still talking above the silence of the woods and snow. His voice and in-sucking snot drowned the occasional sweep of ice-laced wind that tickled the trees around them. A stump hole in the dark of the woods moaned a hollow sigh. That covered Fa
tty’s blubbers for a moment. Then there was the crunch of feet and a few other Fatty noises that couldn’t be helped in this time of his distress. Apart from that the woods were quiet.

  "Ever know much about my daddy?" Fatty said.

  "Can't say I…"

  "Yeah. Folks didn't like him. Even them others didn't." He cocked his head toward the woods.

  Others? Them Borgos dead folk back there, Bunch figured.

  "Figures. But I liked him," Fatty said putting an end to it.

  "Yea. Guy's mostly like their pops." Bunch said, lying.

  "Yeah, you’re right,” Fatty said, ending it again. “He sold cheese, you know?"

  "Yeah?" Bunch knew.

  "Yeah. For the Amish. The Co-op, you know? Sold them cheeses everywhere in four states. Five when he could sneak it." Fatty laughed. "'What a friend we have in Cheeses.' He used to say." Fatty chuckled.

  "Huh?"

  "Daddy used to say. Don't know what he meant. He always laughed when he said it. Daddy laughed a lot."

  Bunch nodded, thinking a hot cup of coffee and a cold beer at the Wheel would go pretty good about now. He actually was going to give Ivan dollars for beers and hot Joe!

  "He’s always laughing. Hey Bunch, how d’you like this one?” Fatty squinted, thinking. “Oh yeah, here: ‘On curves ahead. Remember sonny. That rabbit's foot. Din't save. The bunny. Burma-Shave.’ Heck, I remember Daddy seeing that’n the first time after the shave folks put it up. We was going somewheres together. I don’t know where. He laughed and laughed, but you best believe he kept his eyes peeled for some hippidy-hop critter. He wanted one bad, ‘I want me a rabbit,’ he said.”

  Bunch and Fatty crunched in silence for half-minute.

  “’…Want me a rabbit. Ha!’” Fatty shouted, “’There’s one!’ he yells and whomp! ‘Four feet of good luck!’ he yells.

  “Yeah. He’d go on the road laughing, come home laughing, throw down a wad of money on the table or he’d have him a new wife for a while. Laughing. You know? Pop already was an old fart," Fatty snuffled and let out a wet little laugh, "he used to say that, you know? Call hisself an 'old fart' all the time. Yeah. Already old by the time I come along," Fatty said. "An’ always... You know, I didn't know what for most times. Figured it was because he was an old fart. '…a friend in cheeses…'" Fatty shook his head and went on and on laughing. "Most of them wives, they didn't stay long or they'd die or whatever. You know?"

  Bunch wasn't a fast walker, just steady. He liked a certain pace and hated being made slower or pushed faster. Poking tired him out. Coming back from the Burgos's graveyard place, Bunch didn't want to just dig out and leave Fatty behind, but he sure as hell didn't want to poke along either. It was dark and a ways to go.

  "Huh. Folks always said daddy was about as set up as a man could be. He used to say, 'they figure a man's got a wife whenever he needs one, got some kids, got himself a job as does itself just for the drivin’, got his own land to sit on while he's alive and -- even if it is lousy land, just rocks and no damn good for nothing, Goddamnit!' he always said that too!" Fatty laughed, "'and got someplace to get planted in when he ain't no more, all the world’s assholes figure a man like that's got it made. Right?' Daddy used to say that."

  Bunch nodded. "Guess so, Bet’."

  "Nah, but see? Pop didn't see it that way. No. Every little thing, he'd be 'Py damn, I sure got me some lousy luck, huh?' he'd say. Yeah. He'd throw down a hand of cribbage at the Sons of Norway, and say that about his lousy luck. No one’d say nothing. Then he'd up it with something like, 'Py damn, my luck's to shit tonight, huh?" And still nobody'd say nothing. Then he go, ‘Guess I ought bottle that shit luck I got for fertilizer, ain't!?' Then he'd give it a while and laugh some more. And no one else would, no. Then he'd play his next crib and cripes he'd win! Win big! And everyone'd go home, him the winner! Ha. Ha."

  "Ain't that something?" Bunch said.

  "Darts one night," Fatty said. "You know darts? Thursdays at the Wheel, you know, darts?" Fatty was on a roll, laughing.

  “Sure. Darts.”

  "So he says about bottling his shit luck for fertilizer, like he always done, you know? And that Albers Karlsen from Waddling Grange, you know, he was new then, so he has a laugh along with Daddy, him being agreeable and trying to fit in you know? Well, daddy, he says nothing. But soon as that week's punch up gets going, old Pop is first in and by jingo the last down, too."

  "Huh," Bunch said.

  "Ya, but here's what. Somewheres in between going in and going down, Albers Karlsen starts yelling. Screaming about his big front tooth!"

  "Lost a tooth, huh, Bet’?" Not that Bunch cared but it was something to say.

  Fatty's laugh knocked snow from the branches that sagged over the path. Ice crystal whipped in the wind from the clearing at their back. Fatty stopped dead with laughing. "I was just a little shit then. No mom. I don't think I had no mom at the time. Anyway daddy told me it all. He says to me, 'That Albers, now,’ he says, ‘he starts yelling to Vinnie Erickson when we’re hauled over to the Township Building, sez ‘Gottdamnit, Little Erikthon,’ Albers sez…” Fatty looked to Bunch. “Lots of folks called Vinnie ‘Little Erickson’ then, him being the kid and his dad being sheriff and more important than just a town cop. Anyways daddy say Albers is crying like a baby to Vinnie, ‘That Thon of a bitth there…’ he done it just like Albers talked without his tooth. Anyway Albers points daddy out, ‘his hand shakin,’ daddy says" Fatty held up a quivering finger and aimed it at Bunch's eye. “’like this. He sez, ‘bathtard bit my big front tooth from me! Bit it right off my mouth!’ So daddy looks all surprised and like butter wouldn't slide off his tongue and he says to Vinnie, 'Aw py Cheesus, Little Erikson! I got no tooth of his!'"

  Fatty doubled over with the memory.

  Bunch bounced on his toes, wanting to get a move on. "Huh. Well what the hell."

  "So daddy, he puts up his hands and turns around like he’s offering himself for Officer Vinnie's search and says, 'I yust got all shit up over that trip-20-for-out-and-the-match them Waddling Grangers was claiming. Then that little flicka there…' and he points back at Albers, 'he goes and pulls out that damn dart before anyone goes to verify what side of the wire it’s hanging from! So I was hot, sure I was. Haw, haw, haw! But, now, bite a tooth out a man’s mouth?' daddy sez, and tells Vinnie, ‘Ho, ho, Crimminies, I yust head-butted the son-of-a-bitch. See here!' And he shows Vinnie where his head’s bleeding like a pig."

  "’Little Erikson,’" Bunch said. "Yeah, Bet’, I remember people calling Vinnie that. Right after his old man come to be County Sheriff and Vinnie took up as town cop.

  Fatty’s look went snow-cold. A laugh hung out in his eyes. "Bunch. You ought stop calling me 'Bet’.'"

  In twilight, Fatty was just a dark hole in the snow, but Bunch saw eyes. Fatty's arms wrapped his chest like roots. "Them guys called me that down there.” The shadow head nodded toward the path ahead. “Said I had tits like ‘Betty.’ They called me. Bet’.” The shadow laughed. “I didn't like it."

  "So that’s where that come from," Bunch said. “Sorry.”

  “Yeah,” Fatty said, took a breath and went on. "So Vinnie. He looks at the blood on daddy's head and says, 'Wellllll…' you know, like he does, and he says, 'welllll, I guess.' And he looks over to Albers. And Albers, he sticks up his hand and swears an oath on it, sez, 'I theen that Lurgo coming at me. I theen them whithkers come. I theen them whithkers open. I theen Lurgo'th dirty red mouth and he wath biting down and there my tooth WATHN'T no more. Cripeth he mighta took off my lip! Then what’d ya thay?'

  "So Vinnie, he looks back at Pop… And daddy frosts the cake, like he does selling cheeses, you know? When he's selling for the Amish on the road. 'Bit off the Son of a Bucket's tooth? So, py gum, I yust open wide…' Pop always got all Scandahoovian when he's selling, 'I yust open up and I bite off that feller's tooth, huh?!' So he waits, and Vinnie smiles and shakes his head and Daddy goes, 'Haw, haw, haw…' Like he always done. 'Py Cheeses,'
he says to Vinnie, 'your daddy'n me'd haf a pretty good laff over that one, that's fer sure a laugher! Huh?' Haw, haw haw…"

  Bunch wasn't sure if it was Fatty laughing inside himself or if it was Fatty telling the story and being his old man laughing, but he kept both eyes on him.

  “You want to know one damn thing about all that? I’ll tell you. I happen to know that cut on daddy’s head? It come from a swipe took at him by Janus Aukerlund who clipped him one good one with his Shriner’s ring. Aukerlund kept his damn mouth shut about it though, ‘py cheeses, he’d better,’ daddy said. Hell, Janus was on his own damn team. Why’d anyone punch his own team guy? Know how I know?”

  Bunch shook his head and stared down the long road toward County H.

  “Do you?”

  “Sure, sure,” Bunch said.

  “I’ll tell you. Now everyone’s gone, I’ll tell you. One of the moms tole me. Not my real mom, just one of them. The Injun, I think it was, the one daddy said he bought when he’s up selling cheese. She come back and wasn’t very old. Said she was sitting on the soda pop thing by the store on the res, then daddy come by and tole her she was sold and had to come with him. She come but didn’t last long, but she tole me about the Shriner’s ring and Janus Aukerlund. She patched daddy up after that. An’ daddy tole me most of the story after the Injun was gone.”

  “Yep. What was it about?”

  The wind swept the trees and the rest of the light went away.

  “What?”

  “What was between your daddy and Janus Aukerlund.”

  “None of your gottdamn business.”

  The wind again. And the dark. Fatty’s head shook from side to side. Then the laugh came again. He was Lurgo again, telling the story. "'Bite off a man's tooth!' Ya, sure! Couldn't stop laughing. ‘I put one over on Vinnie. Put a good one over.’ Course Vinnie'd only been cop for about a month and he didn't know too much about much then.

  "Ah. Vinnie believes anybody," Bunch said.

  The bulking shadow of Fatty went still again. "Well, HELL no, Bunch," the shadow said. Snow crystals whisked between them. "Vinnie's one damn fine police officer. Daddy is too smart for him is all. Okay?"