“Shut up,” Alex whispers. “She don’t need to pay.”
“This is her house,” Chadron says.
“Yeah,” Jeff whispers back, “but we’re the ones paying rent.”
The window next to the table is dark and all the lights in the house are on because it’s easier than fiddling with them if they change rooms. Later, they’ll move to the sofa and watch TV. It’s what most men in the world do when they lack an essential ingredient—talent or ambition—they sit around a dreary room and drink.
“I meant to call you this week,” Chadron says. “It’s been two weeks. That’s the longest I’ve ever gone.”
“It’s been a month,” Amy says. She wears her coat zipped under her chin.
“I call you regular,” Chadron says. “This month’s an exception.” He adds, “We been real busy at work.” The other two laugh at him. “Last night I was going to call. But we got some Glenlivet.”
“It wasn’t really Glenlivet, Shaddy.” Jeff frowns as he says this, the edge of his mouth pulling down the droopy skin of his babyface. “I found the bottle in a closet and filled it with Kessler.”
Chadron allows his smile to fade as he looks to his wife. He can’t say the right thing.
“Let’s go outside,” Amy says, looking at Chadron. She wrings the fingers of one hand with the palm of the other. “I need to talk to you.”
When they’re outside Chadron asks Amy what the problem is. From inside he can hear the TV pop on, the other two calling spots on the sofa. “I told you they were living here,” he says.
“I know that.” Amy pulls a green hat over her hair, earlobes sticking out the bottom. “They’re real pieces of work.”
“We didn’t make a lease or nothing. I can ask them to leave.”
“That isn’t necessary.”
He looks up at the house, standing on the porch. It was a wedding present from her parents, a bungalow with white vinyl siding. There’s a chimney on the roof that pumps out steaming exhaust from the furnace and through the curtainless windows Chadron sees Alex and Jeff on the sofa watching TV, their guts stuck out as they sip Kessler.
“Will you please get in the car?” Amy is across the lawn, next to the Neon.
“What’s that?” Chadron asks. “Where are we going?”
“Get in the car.”
“I’m coming.” He hurries down the walk and slides into the passenger side. “Don’t you want me to drive?”
“No. You’ve been drinking.”
“But, Amy. So have you.”
“Put your seatbelt on,” she says. “You’re not going to drive my car.”
Days later, Chadron will remember that it was his wife who told him to get in the car. It was her idea from the beginning.
Chadron and his roommates had eaten an early Christmas dinner in the basement of the Unified Presbyterian Church earlier that week. The UPC Men’s Club organizes meals on Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter. In December it’s honey baked ham, beans, scalloped potatoes, white bread, mincemeat pie. The year prior a farmer shot them a goose.
Some parishioner on the serving line handed Chadron a loaded tray and pointed to where Alex and Jeff had already settled at a card table near the exit. The three of them wore their uniforms from the Dog Shit Factory, having seen to the mutts that morning on their way to the church. They smelled earthy and acidic, like the sick animals they played with, and vaguely of the previous night’s liquor in their skin. Alex wore a cigarette behind his ear.
Most of those eating were familiar to Chadron, people from AA, some who worked in the feedlots with him, when he worked there. Mistletoe hung from a doorway and the men jokingly pushed each other under it, calling the younger men faggots if they didn’t move away quick enough. Chadron and Amy had been to this church for Sunday services before, when they were first married three years ago. These people knew all about him, probably more than he knew himself.
“You call Amy?” Alex asked, stirring his green beans in with the potatoes.
“Yeah, you call her?” Jeff echoed. This was something they each had an interest in—whether Chadron would reconnect with his deed-holding wife, or if they could hold on in her house a while longer without being harassed.
“Not yet,” Chadron said. “I meant to. I call her every week.”
He tore open a packet of salt and poured half of it over his plate, then Jeff took the packet and poured the remainder on his bread and potatoes.
“What do you see in that woman anyway?” Jeff asked.
“Chadron likes Amy,” Alex explained, “because she’s a smart woman and mouthy. He’s seen these attributes in women, of course, but before Amy, he’d never been asked out on a date by one.”
“That’s not true,” Chadron said.
“It’s pretty simple, isn’t it?”
“She’s too good for him,” Jeff answered.
“She isn’t that great of a woman, really, but Chadron doesn’t know that.”
“She’s still too good for him. Any woman would be. He knows this.”
“That’s why he worships the ground she walks on. That’s why he follows orders.”
“It’s not that complicated.”
“He knows she’s too good for him. That’s why he likes her. It’s like getting something in exchange for nothing.”
“That isn’t true,” Chadron said. “I love Amy. That’s what it is. We love each other.”
“Hey,” Jeff said. He put his hands up. “Don’t shoot the messenger.”
Alex and Jeff picked on Chadron a lot. They enjoyed a sense of superiority over most everyone in town because they were from rich Lincolnite families. They’d known each other in college, had lived in the same fraternity, and were expelled for ethics violations related to a cheating scheme they devised as a means of passing calculus. Alex was Pre-Med when they were expelled, he’d wanted to be a psychiatrist; Jeff was Pre-Law. They were too smart to work at the Dog Shit Factory—they let anyone who’d listen know this—and were only there because it was an easy paycheck. For some reason they acted like this was a temporary state of affairs, that it was only a matter of time before they transformed into Dr. Alex and Jeff, Attorney-at-Law. Even Chadron understood those ships had sailed.
“Look alive,” Jeff said. “Here comes the clergy.” He inched his chair closer to the table and hunched his shoulders over himself.
“Shit,” Alex said. “No such thing as a free meal.”
“Afternoon, gentlemen.” The pastor sat at an open folding chair at their table. He was jowly and had a potbelly that stretched the fabric of his sweater. Amy’s father was old friends with the pastor. He was the one who’d helped Amy find work in St. Paul. “I trust this meal is serving you,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Glad to hear it.”
“This is good food,” Chadron said, holding up a slice of bread to prove it.
“Good, good,” the pastor said. “I’m glad you’re enjoying what we’ve provided.”
He put his hand on Chadron’s shoulder. “There’s no delicate way to say this,” he began. “I probably shouldn’t say anything.”
“What is it, sir?” Jeff asked.
“Well,” the pastor said. “Chadron, I was down at the café yesterday and noticed Amy is in town.”
“Is that right?” Alex asked.
“That’s news to us,” Jeff said.
“Now, Chadron. Do what you will. Just thought you would want to know. Not that it’s my business—”
“Thank you, sir,” Chadron interrupted. “I appreciate it.”
“I didn’t speak to her personally, but—”
“He understands, sir,” Jeff said, winking at the pastor. “We didn’t hear it from you.”
“That’s not what I mean.” The pastor lowered his voice. “She mentioned that she isn’t coming back—that her intention is to move permanently to Minnesota.”
“That a fact?” Alex said.
�
��It is,” the pastor confirmed. He clapped Chadron on the shoulder as he stood. “Just thought you would want to know, there’s some papers she wants you to sign.”
Chadron lies in the back when they’ve finished. Her coat draped over his naked legs. Amy sits in the front seat, her clothes back on, applying lipstick in the mirror. She pulls a folder from her bag and sets it on the seat. “Put your pants on,” she says. They’re parked on an access road north of town, between an irrigation pump and some railroad tracks.
“I haven’t been with a woman since you left,” Chadron says. After a moment, he asks, “Do you still want me to sign?”
“Put your pants on,” Amy repeats. She kills the ignition then pumps the clutch with her leg and wiggles the stick into first gear. “We’ll go for a walk first.”
Chadron and Amy follow the tracks for a good while. It’s a cool night but not bad for December. “Compared to Minnesota,” Amy says, “this is nice.” The fields nearby are plowed under, black clods of soil stretch for miles in every direction. This is a spot they’ve been to many times, mostly in the days before their love went public.
Chadron moved to Aurora in order to apprentice as a machinist at the Goertzen plant, but it didn’t pan out. Young and strong, just out of high school, he was better suited to work stock and ended up at the feedlot, where Amy had a job in the office. She was a few years older than Chadron, she’d just quit college a couple years short of a degree. Her father managed the office, that’s why she took the job. It was never her intention to move back to Aurora, she just needed a steady paycheck. “You don’t seem like such a shithead,” she told him when they first met, standing in the doorway of the dusty, wood-paneled office. “Give me time,” Chadron laughed. “I’ll prove you wrong.”
He doesn’t like to talk about it, but the county Chadron comes from is one of the poorest in the nation. The Gutschows lived near the bottom of a rocky canyon, where biker gangs put up shanties to cook meth. Families like Chadron’s lived in these places too. There were wildfires there in the summer, and when brush burned, smoke became trapped between the canyon walls and saturated everything with its odor. The kids at school called Chadron Bacon Boy because he smelled like smoked meat.
Chadron was the bright spot of his family, though, because he was physically able, he could move and lift things, he’d finished high school. When he left after graduation, his family stood at the door and watched him load a few boxes and a suitcase into his Pontiac. His parents smiled on him when he turned the engine over, waved good-bye. His three younger brothers and his sister were sitting in the yard. Chadron revved the car’s motor before putting it in gear, because it always made the little ones cheer. This time was no different, even though he was moving on.
While they were dating Amy often told Chadron that she was just waiting for someone better to come along, that’s why she stayed with him. Chadron laughed when she said this, but he always kind of suspected it was true. It occurred to him a woman will latch on to someone who’s bad for her and build the guy up so that he seems better than he really is, all for the appearance that she’s doing something substantial with her life. This is why Amy agreed to marry him, Chadron figured. That when she tired of her father saying she was dating a loser, it made a twisted sort of sense that she could prove him wrong by marrying the same guy.
Being with Amy gave Chadron a sense of importance anyway. Their life wasn’t so bad then, there were plenty of good times. Chadron made steady money at the feedlot, before Amy left for Minnesota, and he didn’t drink too much.
He watches Amy survey the fields, the black perimeter of soil, the fence posts that slant out of the ground here and there. “I’d like to take a shot,” she says, “if I had a gun. I’d shoot all the time in high school, with some guys off a country road.”
“Pumpkins and stuff?”
“Melons mostly.”
As they walk down the tracks Chadron tells Amy about a dream he had a few months ago. “Don’t let it freak you out,” he warns. “It was just a nightmare.” Off in the distance, in the direction of the car, a train whistle sounds.
“You were at a nightclub in the city dancing. I wasn’t there. The bad part was that you were dancing with this woman. She didn’t look like a dyke, the both of you were just having fun, but you let her take you out to her car, and, you two made out, kind of, except, she went down on you too. Your leg kicked in the steamy back window, this lady’s face between your thighs.”
Amy looks away as Chadron explains. She takes small steps, kicks at the chalky railroad rocks, her hands in the pockets of her coat. She squints when she looks at Chadron, sucking her lips, the moonlight behind her head.
“It was like I was outside the car, watching it. I knew what was happening and it kind of made me sick. Knowing that lady and you were doing those things in the back of a car.” Chadron stops and looks at his wife, scratching into his hair. “Does that freak you out?”
“It wasn’t a dream,” she says, wincing as she shakes her head at him. “I told you about that a few months ago. You called my cell every night then. You were wasted.”
“That happened?”
Amy turns her shoulders away from Chadron and walks back toward the car. “There’s things you can’t understand. Nothing will change that.”
He follows her, trotting to catch up. There’s litter among the railroad rocks, crushed beer cans and fast-food cups, random pieces of steel. The train whistle sounds again, moving through town.
“Amy,” Chadron says, grabbing his wife by the arm. He can see her car in the distance, the train rumbling closer behind it. “You got to come home. I don’t want to sign those papers. Things are out of control, but you need to stay with me.”
Amy frees her arm and keeps walking. “I’m sorry, Chadron. You know that’s not going to happen.”
“What do you mean?” Something quivers in his stomach and he feels the tears beginning to well up. He knows that trying to stop them makes it worse.
“You, Shaddy. I’m talking about you.”
“This is my fault? You’re blaming me?”
“Come on.” She pulls him behind her by the hand. “Don’t cry.”
“You’re the one who left me. I’m the one who wants to make this work.”
“Nothing is going to change. A woman needs more than drinking Kessler and haunting Aurora. You and those boys can keep renting the house. I don’t want to live there.”
The ground beneath them shakes before the engine passes. The chug and whoosh of railcars follows. “Here she comes,” Amy yells, pointing to the engine lights. Chadron follows a few steps behind her, his face contorted red. She stops to watch the train pass, steel grinding on steel. There are farm implements on open flatbeds and inside the boxcars are tractor tires, fire hoses, bent pipes, other odds and ends, cars with smashed fenders and broken windows.
“There she goes,” Amy says. The way she looks at the train, hands clasped over her chest. Chadron doesn’t know what to think. She moves past him in the other direction.
Chadron has to jog behind her, his long legs keeping pace with her violent, choppy strides. “What are you doing?” he shouts. She runs faster, leaving him behind, easing close to a railcar until she can grab a service ladder. “I’ve got it,” she shouts, bouncing on one foot until she can pull both up. She stumbles to the flatbed from the top rung and flops to her back. Her arms spread above herself, the puffy black coat heaving. Her breath streams above her in small white clouds that wash away in the train’s draft.
“Amy,” Chadron shouts. “Wait!”
Amy sits up and looks at him running. She cups her hands around her mouth and shouts, “Jump!”
“What the fuck?” Chadron mumbles, hot all over, taking longer strides to keep up with the train. He notices a break in the path ahead, a wooden bridge that spans a creek and is just wide enough for the train.
He accelerates closer to the car, hands shaking. He reaches for her.
“No,” she say
s. “The ladder.”
Chadron stumbling next to the clinking railcar, his chest aching. “Jump,” she shouts again. “You can make it.”
“I can’t!”
Chadron touches the painted metal of the ladder with his fingertips. He lunges for the bottom rung but trips on the rock as he tries to pull himself up. He grasps for the handrail but can’t reach.
All he can do is watch, on his chest in the ditch, as Amy bounces away. She stands on the railcar, the moon behind her, and waves her arms in what must be half celebration, half good-bye.
Chadron has no idea where she’s headed. It bugs him, later, that neither does she.
3
It isn’t until the wind cuts through her that Amy actually considers what she’s doing. This is December after all and she’s riding north on the bed of a railcar after sunset. She nestles into her downy black coat, shoves her hands deep in its pockets, and waits for the train to pass through a town where she can jump into a grassy ditch and roll away from the rails.
She’ll have to call her father, wherever she lands, and beg him to pick her up, the way she did in college. A tall man with a dopey mustache, her father would wear gray sweatshirts and blue jeans if he came for her on a weekend, or a tweed jacket and corduroy pants if he had to take time off from work. He never asked why she needed him, but just came for her, then hummed almost happily as they returned home. “My baby girl,” he’d say, as if it were part of an old song. “What has happened to you now?”
Amy isn’t scared of riding on the train, even if she should be, and she doesn’t mind the cold, the way her nose and cheeks burn from it. She’s been schooled in patience and won’t jump before she has to. She likes listening to the clink and groan of the cars, and smelling the layers of grease that pervade the train.
She lets the first few chances to jump pass her by, hesitating at the edge of the flatcar, and then the next few until several towns are behind her and she’s still standing on the precipice, rogue strands of hair working out from under her stocking cap to whip the back of her neck. She stands on the train bed, serves witness to the abandoned industrial yards of small towns, the timber stands and feedlots unmanned during the night.
Bad Faith Page 13
