Buster inserts my credit card, punches in a code, and pulls down the handle. He returns to my open window and hands me back my card.
My daddy taught me the basics of automobiles when I was twelve. After Mama died there were few places where he was comfortable around his two daughters. One was anywhere outside he considered wild, including the patch of woods at the far end of town and down along the banks of the murky Neuse River. Another was in his office at the newspaper, where we would often play under his desk when he was researching a story or putting the final touches on a late edition.
The place where he seemed the most relaxed, however—a man standing between two little motherless girls—was in front of one of his cars, the hood open, his hands and arms greasy from his work, leaning forward, stretching out across the radiator and filters, explaining to the both of us where to check the oil, why it was important for a person to know that the pistons were firing correctly, and how to stop an engine from rattling.
Sandra never stood alongside him for more than ten minutes before she would head back inside the house to play with her paper dolls or, when she got older, to flip through the pages of a fashion magazine; but I stayed as long as he did, trying to take in anything he could teach me, soaking in every second of what it was to feel him at ease, comfortable in his skin and at home, happy to have me near him.
I watch Buster move to the rear of my car and open the gas tank cover. He screws off the cap and starts pumping. I can hear him whistle softly as he leaves the gas tank and moves around to the front of the car to clean the windshield.
I look in the rearview mirror. Casserole is sitting up and I know he needs to take a walk. I leave my place, open the door, push up the seat, attach the leash to his collar, and lead him out. Even though this isn’t a spot we have been before, he seems to know right where he needs to go so I simply follow, holding the leash loosely in my hand.
The sun is out of the eastern sky, high and uncovered by the clouds of the night before. It is a southern summer, early but already in its fullness; the air is thick and humid, the wild daylilies are stretching to reach light above the ditch banks, and the gnats and mosquitoes, already out for the morning, are buzzing around my head. It is a good day to leave.
“Hurry up, Cass,” I say as I slap at my neck, missing the flying insect that has already drawn blood. “I’ll need bug repellent if we stay out here much longer.”
Casserole sniffs around the narrow stretch of grass planted next to the gas station, finally finding a clump of bottlebrush where he’s able to steady himself on his three legs and do his business. I watch only for a second and then glance away, knowing that even years after he came to live with me, it still bothers him to have an audience. He quickly moves on, retreating to the car, where Buster is topping off the gas and replacing the pump handle back into its holder.
“There’s a bowl of water by the door,” Buster says, wiping his hands on a rag that must have been in his back pocket.
“Oh, that’s okay, I have some in the car.” I help Casserole back into his place in the backseat, unhook his leash, and get the gallon bottle of water that I have prepared for him.
He waits until I have finished pouring it and placed the bowl on the seat beside him. He looks at me, his way of saying thanks, and then drinks, careful not to spill.
“You want me to check your oil, tire pressure, anything else?” Buster asks, and it suddenly dawns on me that I should probably tip him. I step back to the front seat and reach for my purse.
“I don’t take tips.”
I begin to wonder if he can read minds.
“The women’s room is around back,” he says then, and now I’m sure he must be a little psychic since that was going to be my very next question.
“Do I need to move the car?” I ask, speaking quickly, glad that he hasn’t answered that one, too.
“Nah.” He shakes his head slowly. “It’s usually slow this time of day. Next customer won’t be here for another hour or so.” He glances out toward the highway as if he knows the direction of the anticipated car.
I follow his eyes and we stand there together in a moment of silence.
“I’m going to New Mexico,” I tell him.
He nods like he knew my plans and puts his hands on his belt, sticking his thumbs in the loops. He appears to be thinking, and he doesn’t take his eyes off the interstate.
I peer where he is looking, but I can’t seem to see whatever has captured his attention.
“It’s a nice drive out there,” he finally says. “Road is good.”
A long truck speeds past. And then a moving van, and then a sports car.
“I’ve never been beyond Tennessee,” I confess. “I don’t know what to expect.”
He turns to me and I don’t know why I’m suddenly sharing such private information with this stranger. I rarely give out such details of my life; I have always been the one to gather the data, reluctant to share any of my own personal details.
And just like that, I realize that I learned more from my father than simply how to clean a carburetor and replace spark plugs. I also learned the paper business. Oscar Wells, the publisher and editor in chief of the Clayton Times and News, taught his elder daughter how to get the news, how to write it in five hundred words or less, and how to fit it into six vertical columns with margins on four sides. I learned how to measure out the gutters and raise the cost of advertising when customers demanded a double truck. I learned how to ask the questions and not to bury the lead. I even learned how to size the photographs and decide where to make a jump.
And I learned something else, something even more profound. My father taught me how to keep from talking about myself, how to navigate the conversation away from what I thought or how I felt. He taught me how to steer clear of the details of my own life story, how to turn diversion into an art form.
“Everything changes just outside of Little Rock,” Buster says, pulling me away from my thoughts, making me wonder about the great state of Arkansas and what I might find there.
I turn to hear more, but, just like a good reporter, Buster isn’t giving much away. “The sky just seems to stretch out in front of you, deep and long and blue.” He shakes his head. “You’ll see,” he adds and then turns to walk back into the station. And I am left staring at the road that lies before me, feeling like I have just received some blessing.
chapter three
“THEY’RE in the top drawer of Dixie’s desk,” I tell James.
I am three hours into the trip, still in North Carolina; and the story of my departure is just now settling upon the staff at the paper. This is the second call I’ve had since watching the flatlands of eastern North Carolina rise to foothills. The first one came just as I weaved through Winston-Salem, choosing to take the business route because I like the way the road seems to go right through the middle of Baptist Hospital. It’s more interesting to me than the interstate.
Ben called first to congratulate me on winning the storage war and seemed to think this trip was somehow a part of the spoils of victory. He assumed I was gone just for a day and simply wanted to know where I had filed the photographs he e-mailed to me over the weekend.
Ben fancies himself a professional photographer, an artist, and keeps his digital cameras locked up in an aluminum case. He does often find interesting shots, but the idea of his pictures of car wrecks and construction sites being art is more than just a stretch. Still, he’s a decent guy, taught high school business classes until he retired and came to work at the paper. He’s got a comb-over that starts just above his right ear and he wears the same outfit he wore when I took his class as a sophomore—black trousers and a white button-down short-sleeved shirt, three ballpoint pens in the front breast pocket. He’s only altered his wardrobe once that I know of and that was when James William told him he looked like a Mormon. The next day he changed to a light bl
ue shirt, the same pants, and the same three ballpoint pens sticking up from the front left pocket. He went back to white when the weather changed and the missionaries returned to college.
Ben hung up and ended our conversation before I could explain that I was going to be gone for longer than just one weekly edition of the paper. A man of few words, he never will stay on the phone for very long.
This call is from James William, the man who motivated Ben to modify his wardrobe. James is our other full-time employee. He covers sports and crime. He runs around with all the policemen and sheriff’s deputies and likes to think he can still play ball. He called because he can’t find stamps.
“It’s tight,” he says, and I know he means that this week’s edition is crammed with ads and that my story about the possible closing of the post office in Wendell won’t make the cut. “Leslie Peele bought an ad to celebrate Lucy’s graduation and apparently the word got out. We have a full page completely dedicated to members of the Class of 2016. The Senior Wildcats are running rampant.”
“You didn’t use that as the streamer, did you?” I asked. James sometimes gets a little carried away with his sports headlines.
“Nah, you know the old man wouldn’t let that happen.”
Right and thank God, I think but do not say. Daddy is a great editor and never lets a paper be printed that he hasn’t gone through story by story, line by line.
“Anyway, we’ll hold your P.O. story and my baseball forecasts for next week’s news hole. There isn’t too much going on over at the courthouse so there’s just farming reports and another story about the bypass scandal.”
I signal, merge over to the left lane to pass a semi struggling to get up the hill. James William has been covering the story of the North Carolina highway expansion projects and the state legislators cited for passing the contracts to their buddies.
“When you coming back?” he asks.
I hit the gas pedal and watch to see if the engine light comes on, since it sometimes does that in the summer. “I don’t know exactly,” I tell him. “A couple of weeks, maybe more. I’m not sure.”
“But you are coming back, right? You ain’t having one of those midlife crisis and left for good?”
I’m not sure which bothers me the most about this sentence, the bad grammar or the fact that James William thinks I’m having a midlife crisis.
“I’m thirty-five years old, James.”
Well, now I guess I know what bothers me most.
“And I’m not having a crisis.”
There is a pause and I wait. The sportswriter is doing math.
“You’re only eleven years older than me?”
“Than I.”
“Than I what?”
“Eleven years older than I. Not me, I. Never mind; that correction remains debatable.”
“Right, okay.” He breathes into the phone. He never hides his frustration at grammar lessons. At least I don’t have to see him roll his eyes.
“Yes, I am only eleven years older than you.”
“Jeez, you seem more like you’re my mom’s age. She had a midlife crisis a couple of years ago, but she didn’t leave town like you—she bought a tanning bed.”
I glance in the rearview mirror just to get Casserole’s reaction. He has heard this kind of conversation more than a few times. He stands up on the seat and circles around his blanket, pointing his backside in my direction, his way of letting me know what he thinks of James William.
“She sold it after she got stuck in it that time.”
Now I’m hooked on this conversation. I haven’t heard this story, and besides, I’ve never really liked James’s mother. Kimmie Johnson sings soprano and thinks I should cover it when she’s giving a solo at church or singing the national anthem at a soccer match. She likes to make the news.
“She was yelling and screaming. Finally, Coach Brown’s wife heard her, thought she was being molested or something, called the cops; and Reggie had to get her out. I guess she wasn’t wearing much ’cause they both still act really weird when they see each other. He quit singing in the choir and she drives way out of her way not to have to pass by the police station. Neither one of them will talk about it and she won’t go out anymore without slathering on the sunscreen; so I don’t know what happened.”
I hear what sounds like a desk drawer closing.
“Anyway, I found them. Dixie had ’em way stuffed in the back. How come we can’t never keep no scissors around here?”
I’m not even going to attempt to work with that one.
“All right, thanks, Al. We’ll see you.” And he hangs up the phone without waiting for a reply.
“Yep,” I say to no one.
James William has been with the paper for four years. He was the star quarterback of the high school football team, had a scholarship to play at State but blew out his knee trying to do some street dance at the senior prom. He started his freshman year in Raleigh, but from the stories I’ve heard, he drank and smoked a lot of pot, and got thrown out of school. He was heading down the wrong path when my dad saw him at a high school game a year or so later and struck up a conversation. The next thing I knew I was teaching the town jock how to tell the difference between a sidebar and a shirttail and editing everything he wrote.
Four years later, he still doesn’t know when he dangles his participles, but he certainly knows how to run down scores and even make football sound interesting. And he loves to hang out at the courthouse and find out who got arrested or sued. Most of the stories we can’t print, because it’s the local business advertising that keeps us afloat. If we mentioned the names of everybody who spent a night or two in jail, we’d end up with only church and anniversary ads. We’d be shut down in a week.
“Midlife crisis,” I say to myself and to my dog. “I have just turned thirty-five and as far as I know from writing obituaries, most everybody lives past seventy. I’m not even close to the middle of my life.”
But the truth is I don’t know how much time I have left. Maybe I have lived almost half of the span of my life. Maybe I will just make it to seven decades. In fact, if I had only my mother’s genes, her unexpected inclination toward brain tumors, her unchecked cerebral cells growing and mutating, I’d already be dead. I’d have been gone for as many years as James William has been reporting sports for the Times and News.
Apparently my stem cells are stronger than any irregular ones and I sidetracked an early demise. And so I’ve simply gone along like every other person, pretending I have plenty of years left to do whatever it is I think I’m supposed to do, offended at the very thought that I might be running out of time.
I look at myself in the rearview mirror and I see the beginnings of the crow’s-feet at the corners of my eyes, the tiny lines at the edges of my smile. And I turn back to face the road. If I am having a midlife crisis and I will be dead before I’m seventy, then at least I’ll die before I’m old and wrinkled and unable to read the news and correct the mistakes I find there; and, unlike Kimmie Johnson, I’ll still be able to look the local police officers in the eye.
chapter four
ROGER Hart is the name of the man whose remains I believe to be resting in the small wooden box now strapped in the passenger’s seat beside me. I glance over at it once again, something I have been doing fairly regularly since I left Clayton, to remind myself why I’m doing what I’m doing.
The butterfly carved on top is in profile. It is the complete outline of only one wing, one side, the other one hidden from the wood-carver’s view. The insect seems to be perched upon some unseen branch or stem, awaiting something before taking off. Like me.
The waiting, the inability to move on and transition, the sitting in space unable to take the next step because of not having the next step to take, these were the thoughts that kept me up night after night once I’d found the ashes. The soul of some ma
n named Roger Hart has been stuck in a box in the back of a storage building in Wilmington, North Carolina, two thousand miles away from the last place he was, two thousand miles away from the mortuary that cremated him, two thousand miles away from where he made his home, lived his life, and died.
I feel responsible for getting him back to Grants, New Mexico, his last known address, so that he can get on to the next step. I feel somehow charged with the duty to return him so that the butterfly can spread both wings, lift itself upon the gentle breeze, and fly away, free. A spirit stuck and lost and forgotten will finally be released. It seems like the least I can do now that the box is mine.
“Are you going to stop by and see your sister?” That’s what Millie asked me when I explained where I was going.
When I called and told her my plans she was happy to feed Old Joe and watch the house because she hasn’t forgotten how I took care of things for her when she had that stay at the rehab center in Southern Pines. She knows I know she wasn’t hospitalized because she mixed up her medicines while staying with her cousin and attending a family reunion like she told everybody else in town. In fact, she showed me the discharge papers documenting her suicide attempt and providing the name and number of a psychologist in Goldsboro she was given and was planning to see. She trusted me with the truth, but she never talked about it, only said how grateful she was to be away from the sorrowful memories of Pinehurst, their hold on her still vast and far-reaching, and how appreciative she was that I’d watered her peonies and picked up her mail and aired out her house.
There’s a story there, of course, but I never pushed. Some things, I have learned since working at the paper, aren’t meant to be reported.
“I doubt it,” I said, feigning indecisiveness even though I knew with great certainty I wasn’t going to stop in Asheville and see Sandra. “I think she’s at her beach house now anyway,” I added, trying to sound like my sister and I had actually discussed the location of where she might be when I drove through.
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