The South Side Tour Guide

by Shelter Somerset

  Andy glanced at the scratches on his arms and legs from his stint battling through the corn maze. “That’s because they work hard here. Farmers especially, even into the night. You try toiling the soil in one of your muscle shirts, cargo shorts, and sandals. And they have gay marriage too, Kenneth. The courts here legalized it before New York and Sweden did. Not that that means anything to you.”

  “Don’t start on me about that, not when I’m in public. Maybe I ought to come out for a visit and knock you around. I have Wednesday and Thursday off this week.”

  “I’ll be back in Chicago by then.”

  “No you won’t.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You stay put.”

  “But I’ve already been here for—” Has it only been three days? “—for long enough.”

  “You need to keep out of Chicago until things settle down with your assailants.”

  Assailants. The word sounded strange while lying snug in a basement bedroom, with Iowa’s farmland outside. “I don’t care about those punks,” Andy said. “They won’t bother me anymore. I should be out right now escorting my passengers. I’m ready to come home.”

  “If you do, the city will probably find a way to confiscate your license.”

  “They can’t do that.”

  “They sure can. Stay in Iowa where it’s safe. Relax. I’ll keep checking your mailbox. So far you’ve only gotten about four pieces of junk.”

  Andy sighed. “I can’t stay here too much longer. Who visits people for two weeks? It’s not like I’m in some Jane Austen novel.”

  “Then go somewhere else for a week or two. Visit an old college friend.”

  “They all live in the Chicago area. Can you tell me how I’m to pay for this extended holiday? I’ve already lost tons of money because of you forcing me to come here. It’ll take me weeks to make up the income.”

  “Stop bellyaching. If you don’t want to waste more money, stay put. So how long a drive is it to where you’re at?”

  Andy hesitated. “About five hours. You have to take back roads once you get past Rockford. It’s very windy and hilly. If you’re not used to it, the driving can be treacherous.”

  “Sweet. I’ll let you know if I can make it. Gotta run. Meanwhile, keep your head.”

  Andy set the phone aside and envisioned Ken with his tight “beater” shirt and bronzed muscles and shaved chest in Iowa. He’d really rather not merge his Chicago world with life at Burr Oak Farm. Despite what Harden had said about technology colliding their two cultures, Ken in Iowa would be like marrying a mouse with an elephant.

  The rural landscape moved slowly, unforced, easy, and natural. Ken was a jittery, quick-tempered blaze of muscle. Nothing like the way Harden must appear snoozing above him. His chest rising and falling slower and slower, infused with the dreams of a trouble-free youth and renewal for better things to come.

  The corn roast ladies had hinted at an Iowa like that. With its dichotomy of gay marriage and crocheting circles, Iowa ebbed and flowed between the past and the future. A land where, as Harden had mentioned, the modern computer was invented, yet the phases of the moon still ruled many people’s movements.

  Officer Ken Millpairs, city boy from Chicago’s southwest side, could never fit into that setting.

  Andy switched off the table lamp and squirmed under the bedcovers. How long, he wondered, before Iowa’s countryside caught him between its undulations, leaving him abandoned and shattered. The same as what had happened to him earlier that day. Lost and knocked to his haunches inside a corn maze.

  He stretched his mouth into a tight grin. He visualized Harden coming to his rescue. Of course, sooner or later, he would have found his way out of the tangled grid. But that Harden had sought to locate him made his unanticipated and extended stay in Iowa less annoying.

  Stay in Iowa where it’s safe, Ken had said.

  Andy supposed worse scenarios had beleaguered him before.

  Chapter 16

  NEXT morning at the kitchen table, Harden asked Andy for a second time if he’d like to attend Mass with him and the kids. “I’m not a churchgoer,” he replied.

  “I’m not much of one either, but, well, with the kids….”

  “Don’t explain,” Andy said, raising his hand. “I understand.”

  They had already finished chocolate chip pancakes and salty Baltic beef sausages, and now they sat sipping coffee while the kids dressed for church. Harden looked handsome in his brown slacks and light-blue Oxford, the sleeves rolled to the elbows to expose yesterday’s sun on his forearms. Rich brown forearms, dusted with the perfect amount of blondish hair.

  “Funny how you want to protect your kids from all the things you used to think were cool,” Harden said with a modest snicker.

  Andy chuckled. “That’s all part of getting older. I’ll hold down the fort while you guys are out. Don’t worry about me.”

  “We usually spend time at my parents’ after Mass. Mom cooks up something to eat, and we play a few hands of cards. If you want, you can drive over there and meet us. I can give you the address.”

  “Honestly, I don’t think I’d be comfortable. But, Harden, before you go, I wanted to ask you something.”

  Harden had stood, ready to leave the kitchen. At present, he stared down at Andy, his hand clasped on the back of Andy’s ladder-back chair. “What is it, Andy?”

  “If it won’t be any trouble… I was thinking. I’d like to stay on here a few more extra days than what I had planned, maybe even until the end of next week.”

  Harden shrugged. “Sure. That would be great. Any more trouble back in Chicago?”

  “Nothing like that. I was just thinking I’d hang out a while longer, spend more time with the kids. Make up for lost time. Although I’m sure Kamila the Hun won’t approve.”

  Harden threw back his head and laughed. “I told you not to worry over her.” He squeezed Andy’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re staying on board a while longer. The kids will love the news.”

  Andy resisted placing a hand on top of his. “Thanks, Harden.”

  The house grew dead still with everyone gone. Bored and antsy, Andy finished his coffee and stretched on the sofa to watch television. Nothing much on Sunday morning other than political talking heads who shouted at each other from across shiny round tables. If only they’d shut up long enough to listen to each other, they’d realize they echoed the same positions.

  Maybe he should have tagged along to Mass. Would Harden think less of him for refusing? Even Harden had confessed he lacked an ardent belief. The kids had looked adorable in their church clothes. Mason, dressed in khakis and a brown polo shirt, had been a pint-sized carbon copy of his father. And Olivia in her green little-girl summer dress had resembled a princess. But the more he imagined facing Harden’s family, with their cold country cordiality, he realized he’d made the correct decision to stay behind.

  His eyes began to itch. Next thing he knew, he’d rolled to his side and nearly fallen off the sofa. He sat upright and tried to shake off the post-nap fog. The clock above the computer desk read nine-thirty-five. He’d slept a meager twenty minutes. He would still be sound asleep in Chicago if he had his tour business to run through the night, deep into the dark morning hours. He switched off the yakking political PEZ-heads and wandered downstairs.

  More restless after his nap than before, he changed into nylon basketball shorts and a sleeveless T-shirt with “Illini” embroidered across the chest. A few minutes later, Burr Oak Farm grew smaller and smaller in his rearview mirror as he headed down the road. His goal: to find a gym in the town of Duncan.

  Thick-stalked yellow wildflowers edged the narrow country roads. Cawing and hemming crows perched on wooden fences faced the sturdy breeze. Heavy farming equipment dipped and rolled with the land through the braids of corn. Distant puffs of smoke from the exhaust pipes pumped with the power of man-made machinery meeting earth. A typical Sunday for Iowa, Andy figured.

  Different
from his prowls along the streets of Chicago, that’s for sure. Deep down, Andy knew Harden was right when he’d said his job as the South Side Tour Guide wasn’t suited to him. But hadn’t that been the idea? To go against his nature, fling convictions and decency aside? To lose himself in the moral rot and feed off the carcass like everyone else until nothing remained but splintered bones?

  He recalled standing alongside the body of the boy shot near Aberdeen Street, watching his blood stream toward the gutter. Andy had learned later, the boy, seventeen, had been a gifted student who’d attended one of those inner city magnet schools with a curriculum focused on engineering. Had that been the reason his peers had targeted him? Because he had a future? A lamb surrounded by resentful, covetous wolves. Destruction for destruction’s sake.

  And Andy cashed in on that ravenous, wanton annihilation.

  At least I’m no hypocrite. At least I don’t cheat and steal and lie. My biggest sin is I give people what they demand.

  He drove past a good-sized office building with the signpost: “Marshall Farming Enterprises.” Harden’s worksite. Made Andy feel good looking at the modern facility. A place where Harden rolled his sleeves to his elbows, clenched a pencil between fingers pumped with blood, and sweat beads exposed his churning mind. Good, sincere work. But what had Harden said about selling out to ethanol investors? Maybe only honest work came from self-subsistence, isolated from society’s games.

  Duncan’s sole Catholic church emerged. Andy had always thought it odd a town Duncan’s size should have a cathedral with a steeple taller than most of the surrounding silos. In nearby Dyersville, the church Harden and Lillian had wed in had a massive steeple also—two of them—visible from a mile down the road.

  Many cars lined the street outside the church and filled the small parking lot. He spotted Harden’s forest green Jeep Patriot. Another twinge of regret for refusing to attend church with the family needled him. Maybe I’ll go next Sunday, if I’m still here. It won’t be so bad to face his family’s condescension.

  He cruised the short shopping district and scanned for a gym. Nothing but food joints and retail stores, most of them closed.

  He drove on and noticed a barbershop with an “open” sign. Remembering he needed a haircut, he parked and headed inside. The employees and patrons chatted in both English and what he gathered was Bosnian. They seemed to know Andy, and they waved and hollered greetings. He overheard one of the barbers mentioning a man who’d gotten lost in the maze during yesterday’s corn roast, but Andy was unsure if the barber meant to tease him. No one indicated they recognized him as the infamous fool.

  After a short five minute wait, a female barber waved him to her chair. She draped the smock over him and asked in a thick accent what kind of a haircut he’d like. “Off the neck and ears,” he said, considering how Ken preferred it. And no, she and the others didn’t know of any gyms other than the one in Concord, fifteen miles away.

  Twenty minutes later (and ten dollars and fifty cents lighter), he left the barbershop and checked his Magellan for a gym. The display concurred with the barbershop folks. Unwilling to drive fifteen miles for what might prove to be a closet-sized facility with nothing but cardio equipment, he turned back for Burr Oak Farm. He’d only been home ten minutes when the kids rushed inside the house.

  “Uncle Andy!” Olivia hurried to him. “Is it true? You’re going to stay with us for longer?”

  Andy patted the top of her head. “You got me to tug around a few extra days.”

  Grinning like a truant schoolboy, Harden stepped behind Olivia and explained they’d agreed to skip his parents’ brunch and head for home, not wanting to leave Andy home alone. “We just saw Lance yesterday, anyway,” he added.

  “You look different, Uncle Andy,” Mason said, squinting at him.

  “Hey, you got a haircut,” Harden said. “When did you get that done?”

  “I went out for a drive and found a barber in town.”

  “Looks real nice. That reminds me, Mason, you’re due for a cut. Now that it’s on my mind, we better get it over with so we can have a free day ahead of us. Head upstairs and change. Meet me out back.”

  “I’ll do it,” Andy said.

  “You?”

  “Sure, I’ve cut hair before. He’s got straight hair like yours, can’t be too difficult. Just hand over the clippers.”

  For the next half hour, Andy trimmed Mason’s hair in the backyard, using a twenty-dollar clipper Harden had said paid off tenfold on haircuts its first year. Andy recommended Mason fly down the slide and swing to shake loose the hairs. Olivia rushed to join him.

  The remainder of the afternoon, they explored by the creek and played board games. Later, they ate the dinner Andy had made: Chicken a la Andy, with some of the yummy leftover sides the women handed them before they’d left the corn roast. Afterward, Harden permitted the kids to put on their swimsuits and run through the sprinkler. Harden and Andy watched from the porch steps, sipping pops under the hot sun that had turned the western sky lavender.

  “You know how long it’s been since I ran through a sprinkler?” Harden said.

  Andy eyed him. “A while, I’d guess.”

  They sat quiet, sipping their drinks.

  “You thinking what I’m thinking?” Harden said.

  Andy’s grin hurt his sunbaked face. “Let’s do it.”

  They both set aside their pops and jumped to their feet. Harden kicked off his slippers and socks, stripped off his shirt and jeans, and ran through the sprinkler in his light-blue boxers. Andy flung off his shirt and sandals and scurried after him. He was still wearing his nylon gym shorts and cared little if they got wet. Overjoyed with the antics of the adults, the kids laughed and leaped higher over the tiny pulsating jets. They jumped on Harden’s back, begging that he act like a show horse, and he leaped with them through the sprinkler.

  Not bad for a single dad, Andy mused, catching glimpses of Harden’s naked torso and legs—and wet boxers that adhered to his solid-looking butt. Even with his papa pack and farmer’s tan, not bad.

  Their fun continued into Monday. Harden had decided to take the day off work, and last night Andy had overheard him telephone Kamila, asking her to remain home. Once they’d finished storing the last of the cleaned breakfast pans, Harden suggested the aquatic center. The kids raced to see who could get ready faster. They arrived an hour later. Harden and Andy played “catch the kid” in the near-empty pool. Last night, Andy had fallen asleep picturing Harden running through the sprinkler, and here he was again, in full view, the sun radiating off his wet skin and the light brown hairs on his chest.

  Wearing Harden’s same dark-blue trunks from last time, Andy also felt sexier. Who needed a gym when he could tread water for a lactic burn? Harden and Andy tossed the kids airborne, and the water splashed and sparkled. Their laughter faded in and out each time Olivia or Mason dragged Andy under the water. Harden blew water from his mouth, impersonating a spitting fountain.

  Mason and Olivia climbed on Andy’s and Harden’s shoulders to play chicken until the lifeguard blew his whistle and demanded they stop. The aquatic center filled with more people. Some of the same children from Andy’s last visit played with them, but Randy Lederman stayed out of sight. Andy was delighted to see Olivia and Mason get along better with the other children. Olivia insisted they play find the nickel. Harden raised his hand and, breathing heavily, begged off. “I need a rest,” he said, his wet hair dripping down his heaving chest.

  “I’m with Dad,” Andy said. “I’ll toss you a nickel and you guys can play with it yourselves.”

  He trailed Harden out of the pool and rummaged through his shorts pockets. While the children swam for the coin, Andy lay by Harden on a lounge chair. Oakleys secured on nose, he found himself examining more of Harden’s body.

  He wore a pair of light-blue cargo trunks with a double white stripe along the outside legs that accentuated his thighs. He lacked Ken’s bulging, taut muscles, but he had a natural
man’s look. A body that worked when needed and was well fed. Solid meat on his bones. Biceps round and full. Not marble hard, but enough to…. Sink my teeth into?

  He looked straight ahead when Harden turned to him.

  “Nice to see the kids all smiles and laughs,” he said. “Come to think of it, I haven’t seen the kids with their noses buried in a hand-held game since you got here.” Harden lowered his sunglasses with the orange mirrored lenses and eyeballed Andy. “I guess you make a better plaything.”

  Andy spread his arms. “And I don’t need toggling.”

  “Sure about that?” Harden jabbed Andy’s ribs, and Andy shrunk back, chuckling.

  They settled into their chairs and absorbed the sun while the aromas of honeysuckle and chlorine and suntan lotion drifted over their heads. In the background, a chorus of shouting and giggling kids ebbed with the sound of splashing. Andy quivered from a combination of the sun drying his skin and good feelings. They remained like that, side by side, their toes pointing toward the blue sky, relaxing and chatting and chuckling, until shadows vanished under their lounge chairs.

  Harden stretched to a stand. “Guess we better get going before the kids turn into prunes. We can grab lunch on the way home. Sound good?”

  Andy agreed, and he collected their gear while Harden waved in the kids. The four left the pool, laughing and ribbing each other and talking about their fun morning and how they looked ahead to an even more enjoyable afternoon.

  No prying eyes had bothered Andy at the aquatic center that day.

  “I promised the kids a movie and dinner,” Harden told Andy later that evening, once Andy had climbed from the basement, fresh and clean from a hot shower. “There’s a seven-thirty showing in Concord.”

  Andy shrugged. “I have no other plans.”

  They piled in Harden’s Jeep and headed for Concord, where they ate at a local diner and watched a G-rated animated feature at the town’s twin theater (four dollars for adults, three for children). Afterward, they crossed the street for ice creams and sat outside at one of the parlor’s boutique tables. Andy scanned for the gym and saw that it was as small as he’d expected.