Northern Lights

by Raymond Strom

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  For Ria

  And now I cannot remember how I would have had it. It is not a conduit (confluence?) but a place. The place, of movement and an order. The place of old order. But the tail end of the movement is new. Driving us to say what we are thinking. It is so much like a beach after all, where you stand and think of going no further. And it is good when you get to no further. It is like a reason that picks you up and places you where you always wanted to be. This far, it is fair to be crossing, to have crossed. Then there is no promise in the other. Here it is. Steel and air, a mottled presence, small panacea and lucky for us. And then it got very cool.

  —JOHN ASHBERY

  I

  * * *

  One

  Day was breaking when I rang the buzzer. Birds chirping, morning traffic sighing eastward, the sky lightening. When I was sure that my mother wasn’t home I rang the super and he showed up red-eyed and angry, wearing boxer shorts and an old T-shirt, the long white hair that circled his dome standing up in an odd comb-over. I stuttered a hello and began to tell him why I had come.

  “Wait,” he interrupted. “Are you a boy or a girl?”

  “A boy,” I said, then finished my story. I had come to Holm to find my mother, to spend some time with her for the first time in years, before I made my way to Minneapolis to begin college in September. My backpack held all that I owned: three changes of clothes, an old videogame system, and a Christmas card with the return address One Center Street East, Apartment 3D. Everything but nothing.

  “She was your mother, eh?” he said, rubbing an eye with a fist. “Yeah, I remember her. Whyn’t you head into the Arlington there and I’ll meet you with some clothes on.”

  The building where my mother lived was once known as the Arlington Hotel and Restaurant, though by the time I arrived the restaurant was merely a diner, a few booths, a line of Formica tables, and a long lunch counter with round, padded stools mounted on steel pillars, and there hadn’t been a hotel for decades, the rooms converted long ago into rentals, the dusty first homes of the newly divorced and others down on their luck. A bell sounded as I pushed through the glass door and two bearded men in red baseball caps spun on their stools, watched me with matching slack-jawed expressions that I didn’t like as I crossed the dining room and took a booth near the window. A waitress came over with a “Good morning, darling” and a menu and the two men turned back to their toast.

  The smell of bacon started my stomach growling like a wild animal and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything warm for twenty-four hours. I had fried an egg the previous morning, before I had gone to my high school commencement, but returning home in my cap and gown I found a note from my uncle next to my empty backpack. You can fill this up, but that’s it. Be gone before I return. Bus at Cooper’s at 2:30. The house closed in on me then, the arched doorways narrowed, the walls moved toward one another, squeezing me out as I scrambled to fill my sack. My uncle and I hadn’t gotten along since my father’s death. The six months since the funeral were proof we had never been close, but I didn’t think it would come to this. Be gone before I return played as a refrain in my thoughts and I grew afraid of what he’d do if he found me there. My hurry was so great that I had no lunch and at the transfer station in Duluth, where I had waited until one in the morning, the vending machines only contained cookies and chips.

  Looking over the menu and taking in the dining room, the aproned waitresses, the symphony of jangling silverware and glasses, I was glad to see that my mother had a good place to eat while she lived here—I often wondered about her after she left, hoped she was looked after, well taken care of. Like my uncle, and my father before he died, I hadn’t ever had anything nice to say about my mother, but when I turned seventeen, the age she was when she had me, I could no longer say what I’d have done in her place. She had been trapped from the inside into a life she didn’t want. Until then I had blamed myself, but it became clear on my birthday that she hadn’t run from me but rather the situation, and I planned to tell her before I went on with my life that I understood her decision and had forgiven her. My uncle had done me a favor by kicking me out this early in the summer because I wouldn’t have had the time to stay and look for her if I had found her missing in August—I’d have had to get right back on the bus to school.

  The next time the bell on the door sounded, it was the super in paint-splashed blue jeans and a gingham vest. He turned to the waitress with a finger in the air and answered her question of “The usual?” with a nod and a smile, then I blotted my eyes with a napkin and ordered what I thought my mother might have gotten: bacon, chocolate chip pancakes, and coffee. The super took a seat across from me and said a soft “Thank you” when the waitress brought our drinks.

  “Karen,” he said, “do you remember this boy’s mother? She used to live upstairs.”

  Her face betrayed her when he went on to say my mother’s name. Karen had known her and, though she said nice things, I could tell she wasn’t a fan. I wasn’t offended. My mother did what she pleased—I knew that better than anyone.

  “You don’t happen to know where she went?” I asked, but only got a “Sorry, darling” in return.

  We sat there in silence for a moment preparing our drinks, my spoon tinkling softly on the ceramic as I stirred in my sugar while the super squeezed the last drops out of his tea bag before setting it aside.

  “I checked my records and saw that your mother left just over a year ago,” he said. “Her place is still open if you want to take a look or whatever. Shit, you could even stay a week. No charge.” He dug down into his pocket, then threw a key ring on the table. THE ARLINGTON HOTCL, it said on the plastic fob, the thin crossbar of the lowercase e scratched away so it looked like a c. I picked it up, this object my mother had held, and my hand trembled.

  “No one’s going to need that room and even if they did, I got six other rooms open now anyways. Maybe you could poke around town and see if you can find out where she got off to. Who knows—you may know where she went before the week is up. Let’s hope.”

  “That’s very generous,” I said, happy for the first time since I had left Grand Marais, and my face must have lit up because the super’s eyes widened at my reaction. “I’d love that.”

  The super gave me a price for the remainder of the month, nearly all the money I had, and said we could talk about it on Thursday. He stuck his hand out across the table and I shook it, then Karen brought our breakfast. I ate like the howling wolf that my stomach had become while the super forked cut fruit into his mouth. His meal was small and he finished quickly, throwing a ten on the table as he stood to leave.

  “Boy, I wish I could still eat like you do,” he said. “Chocolate and bacon in the morning. What, you gonna have the peanut butter burger for lunch?”

  “That sounds delicious,” I said, pushing my bacon toward him. “One won’t hurt.”

  “There’ll come a time in your life when you too will need to make decisions that go against your desires. It hasn’t come for you yet so you better enjoy it while it lasts. I’ll see you on Thursday.”

  I didn’t watch him leave, too concerned with the final smears of chocolate on my plate, and when the bell that sounded his exit evened off into silence I signaled Karen for a refill and t
urned to the warm summer morning outside. A red light hung over the intersection, blinking, swaying on a cord in the wind. How many times had my mother stared out at these streets over her morning coffee? The handwritten letter inside the card that led me to Holm described a simple life: her job at the plastics factory, her long walks around town, and her inability to save any money. It looked like a lonely crossroads but, given life as it had been lived in my father’s house, it must have seemed to my mother a world of opportunity, as even this small town was five times larger than where we had lived according to the sign posted at the city limits.

  I waved Karen away when she came by with the change. The super had left enough for both of our breakfasts plus a two-dollar tip, and as I watched her walk back to the kitchen my attention was drawn to the bearded men still sitting at the counter, now harassing the girl working the coffee machine who was at least ten years their junior.

  “Just a date,” the guy sitting on the left said. “I don’t see why you won’t let me buy you dinner. I’m a gentleman.”

  “It’s true,” the other guy said. “And he’s got a huge cock.”

  “I do have a huge cock,” the first guy said. They laughed loudly and slapped a high five before the girl blushed and ran off toward the kitchen.

  I wanted to say something to these men, to show them this wasn’t right—no one deserved to be treated like that, especially a woman so young—but the impulse sent quakes of fear through my body, driving my heart to pound like a trip-hammer. Unable to confront them, I lifted the last of my coffee to my mouth and then stood, took up my backpack, and made my way to the door, spinning the unoccupied seats at the lunch counter like prayer wheels as I passed, leaving the grown men to continue acting like children, uncorrected. The same bell that sounded my entrance now marked my exit and then I was in the street, free from all but guilt and the resonance of my pounding heart, my pulse so loud in my ears I was deaf to the world, the blood vessels behind my eyes throbbing so that colors appeared before me. Lightheaded, I stepped to the curb, turned on pointe, and looked up at my new home.

  Four stories of dark brick, the Arlington was the tallest building in Holm. Nearby, many of the downtown storefronts were empty, windows papered over, names still legible on the signs above the doors. Kristina’s Pet World, Karl the Kobbler, and The Bible & More were all closed. The dime store and the rodeo supplier were still open, for now. The barber shop. The Spirit River Theater two blocks down. Beyond a string of chain restaurants—tacos, pizza, and burgers—a Tweed’s Discount and a More-4-You stood at opposite ends of the Old Rail Terminal Mall, a long brick building that housed the army recruiting station and a dozen other empty storefronts. Holm wasn’t quite a ghost town, but given half the stores were now abandoned it was clear something was eating away at it.

  After fumbling with the keys for a minute I was inside the door where I had met the super, creaking up the stairs in the near dark, each flight turning back on itself once between floors. The other key opened the door marked 3D, my mother’s square room with windows in two adjacent walls looking out on the intersection. I stepped in and took a deep breath. Nothing. The passing year had erased her smell, leaving that of an old closed room. A beat-up mattress on an iron frame took up most of the space and an old desk stood near the sink and mirror in the corner, all covered in dust. The door I assumed was the bathroom turned out to be a closet, as the shower and toilet were down the hall past the pay phone.

  I opened the windows and stripped the bed—I would need to do laundry—then took a pillowcase and wiped all the dust from the windowsills, bedside table, the chair, the desk. Opening each drawer, I hoped to find some lost thing that had belonged to my mother, an old picture or a note, but I found only more dust. I had to turn the pillowcase inside out to get the last of it. Once that was finished, I sat on the corner of the bed and tried to take it all in, this room where my mother lived, realizing finally that I might not find her, that this might be as close as I would get. Who was I kidding anyway? I was no detective, but I had nowhere else to go. I’d put in some time looking for her, but it was only a summer after all, then I’d make my way south for my first day of college. If I didn’t find her I could still see what she saw, do what she did. Work and wander the streets. Spend all the money I could find.

  As I considered my mother’s life in Holm, a flash of red played across the wall among the shadows, catching my eye. The traffic signal at the intersection, blinking outside the window, battled the rising sun so that the hairline cracks in the plaster took on alternating hues of light and dark to the beat of a pulse. The slow encroachment of the white light held me captivated, the flickering shadows on the wall growing into images familiar yet unnameable, until finally the red light was overpowered by the day.

  * * *

  I asked the man at the laundromat if he had known my mother while he changed my five for quarters but he said he’d need a picture.

  “Don’t get to know too many names here,” he said. “People like the anonymity of it, I think. You got dirty clothes and cash? I won’t judge.”

  I told him that was fair then walked over to a washer near the Pac-Man game and threw in my dirties. As I prepared the wash I noticed a couple in the corner arguing in hushed tones as a young girl danced around their legs, oblivious to the conflict. The woman had half her head shaved and the other half’s hair hung long and straight, down to her waist, fire-engine red. Her partner had done something wrong, his shoulders slumped, eyes on the floor.

  “I can’t believe we have to wash everything we own and use this cream because of your stupid ass,” the woman said. “Have you seen your daughter’s arms? Rashes up and down. Are you a fucking idiot?”

  At this question, the man slammed a fist down on a washer, then walked out the door and the woman picked up her daughter and ran out after him, hair trailing behind her, like a superhero with a long red cape. I wanted to step out behind them and find out what they were talking about, what this guy had done, but instead I turned back to my washing.

  Once I got the machine running, I set all my money out on the nearby folding table. After taking out what I’d owe for the remainder of the month and setting aside money for food I had eleven dollars leftover, enough for laundry and toiletries. Certainly no money for cigarettes—I wasn’t old enough to buy them anyway—but I had alternatives. The wash cycle still had at least thirty minutes on it so I stuffed all my money back in my pocket and went outside, stood on the sidewalk, and looked both ways down Center. That was when I heard the catcalls.

  “Hey pretty lady, look over here. Yeah you, blondie.”

  I didn’t think they were yelling at me until they got more specific:

  “Hey, you in the flannel!”

  An old, beat-down pickup truck slowed as it rolled by, young men leaning out the windows, leering. Another whistle stopped in the middle, then came the yelling: “Get a haircut, faggot, you look like a woman.”

  A bewhiskered young man in a cowboy hat snorted like a pig and spit at me. The loogie slapped the ground near my feet, an unsettling green in the mid-morning light, then the engine roared as the truck hurdled the train tracks and the boys disappeared around the corner.

  I did look like a woman from behind, I’m sure, though more like a tomboyish girl. My hair hung past my shoulders and I wore jeans and flannel shirts no matter the season. There is something about seeing a thin figure with long hair on the side of the road that makes a guy want to be heard, I guess.

  The crossing arms came down, red lights flashed, and steam whistles sounded in the distance: two long, one short, one long. A minute later a train engine chugged out from behind a grove of leafy trees, pulling a hundred and fifty boxcars, creaking and groaning as the weight shifted, railroad ties keeping rhythm with odd clicks and snaps as the wheels passed. Graffiti covered the sides of many cars: thin-lined scribbles, illegible tags, and squared-off pieces that must have been done with a paint roller, but only one artist had any consistency: HOPE.
This word appeared most often in three-dimensional lettering, blocky or bubbly, but sometimes shaped into odd representations: a clown juggling four balls that hovered above his open hands spelling out the word, another time four raindrops falling from a cloud said the same. I had always loved graffiti—it was a special way of remembering, of reminding the world of what has gone overlooked, been forgotten. Everyone gets caught behind a train from time to time, and though much graffiti is of the “i wuz here” variety, the true artist sneaks in a bit of style and optimism for the captive audience.

  The caboose passed, the arms came up, and the few cars and trucks that were waiting pulled up the slight incline to mount the crossing. I got onto the tracks and turned north, hoping they would lead me to the Old Rail Terminal Mall, and once I got around the corner, past the grove of trees that must have been planted to conceal it, I was in the old rail yard. The tracks I walked split in two before me and that second set split into five that came to dead ends, where a number of train cars were parked. I thought I’d go climb up the ladders and look in the open doors of the empty shipping containers, images in my mind from old television programs of hobos hanging their feet out of the cars as trains chugged through the countryside, but I came up on another amazing piece, this one a sculpted mountain—no, a volcano—with a single rivulet of lava trailing through the ridges of the mountainside to spell out HOPE. It was a mishmash of browns and blacks and warm colors against the rusty maroon backdrop of the car but it worked. I couldn’t look away. At the bottom corner were numbers: 6.6.97. I stepped to the car and touched the stream of lava, leaving a perfect fingerprint in the wet paint. The piece had been painted that day. June sixth. This artist lived in Holm. I reminded myself to keep an eye out for graffiti around town and cut over to the grocery store to see if I could find a cigarette, or at least a halfie in one of the ashtrays.