Limestone People - [excerpt]

  As far as he knew, Tom had never been a brother to Herman, never reached out in fraternal fondness, never been more than an employer - not that the question had ever actually stirred his mind to pondering.  Pondering was not Tom’s normal state.  Doing and resting were his normal states, with meals thrown in to keep the machinery working.  It could be said, however, that they shared a certain type of persona and of ethos, and had long trod similar paths.  Indeed – what resonance there was would only increase over the next few days.

It took longer than usual that night to put away the tractor, long enough that Herman ought to be coming soon with the pickup, but it evaded Tom’s mind, and he closed and latched the barn door.  Herman would have to swing back by the house to get the key for the big door from the hook next to the cellar stairs.

No matter – the lack of attention caused discomfort for nobody, since by the time Tom had locked the door and started up the back steps, bound for supper, Herman was already dead.  While coming to a stop at the orchard crossing, a slight inattention similar to Tom’s had propelled the pickup and Herman sideways off the mudded crown of the road, the kind of slippery, clotty clay mud that seems always to propel inattentive drivers partway into the path of oncoming trains.

Such was the case with Herman – the graded, ungated crossing lay at the base of a curved road coming down the mesa where the apple trees were.  With a little more traction, the driver’s front corner of the truck wouldn’t have been clipped by the passing train, and the truck wouldn’t have been kicked, spinning down the tracks to the only water crossing in miles.  Had he been conscious when the truck landed in the water, his broad, hard farm-honed shoulders might have rescued him from yet another perilous position, but there was no summons and no saving.

With the roast being loaded into the refrigerator for tomorrow’s sandwiches, Miriam finally asked herself, “I wonder what’s keeping Herman.  Maybe I should leave him a plate.”  Tom replied with the confidence borne of ignorance, “I’m sure he went by to see Schmidt.  Probably wants one of those pups his beagle bitch just had.”

Miriam flicked her eyebrows in acceptance, though she knew as she did so that if Herman had told anyone of any knowledge of Schmidt or any interest in his beagle bitch’s offspring, it would have been her.  Never had he mentioned it. Somewhere in Tom’s head, however, a head which scarcely gave Schmidt a thought, that response had become the prima facie answer.  Clearly, that would be where Herman was.

In an odd piece of irony, it was Schmidt’s lady – something that starts with a W – who came across the crossing from the opposite side in the twilight.  She swerved around a bumper and an upended bushel basket and told Schmidt who set out in his truck to investigate.  He found the truck, suspected the driver’s identity, then recognized Herman.  Having nearly slipped and broken his neck climbing down the ravine, he factored in the passing of Herman’s soul, and more gingerly and pragmatically made his way back up the ravine to his pickup, having a great desire not to show up at the same destination as Herman, covered in mud.  He called Henry McInerny. the sheriff, to roust his cousin Evan from whatever assignation he was on (it was a known fact that Evan could not spend an entire day without somebody’s woman).  Evan McInerny was Fire and Rescue – he would pull the truck from the water, then Herman from the truck, and deliver the one to Tom’s place and the other to the mortician.

Schmidt drove down to call on Tom and Miriam, and waited at the door while a trail of lights came on between the back parlor and the front porch.  He was about to knock again, just to have something more useful to do than just stand.  He was not a man for standing and thinking overmuch.

When the lights reached the front door and Tom opened it, Schmidt put his case simply.  “Herman’s dead.  Looks like the 7:30 clipped his front end at the crossing by your apples, and spun the truck into the crick.  He was dead when I got there.  Willi – Wilhelmina – saw some junk in the road and come home and told me, and I went to take a look.”

Tom stood in silence for a moment, and replied dully, “Thanks, Schmidt.”  After another pause, he started to close the door, then with a page of manners blown fresh into his memory, said further, “You want to come in for a minute?  We got fresh pie.”

“Nah – Willi’s holding pot roast for me.  Spoil my appetite, then I’d wish I was under that railroad trestle.”

“Yah.  Know what you mean.”

“So, Henry and Evan are down there, ‘least they was when I went by.  You ought to go by and do something.”

“Yah.  Gonna go get dressed now.  See ya in town.”   The final sentence was actually muttered as the door was closing, a bit to Schmidt’s surprise.  More surprising still was the proximity of the voice on the other side of the door a moment later that said, “Thanks, Schmidt.”  Beyond all surprises was the fact that Schmidt had remained standing just as close to the door – couldn’t have been more than a foot away – and was able to respond, without raising his voice, “Sure. anytime” while trusting that this was surely the only time he’d be called on to perform this service for Tom.  After all, nobody in sixty years had been damn fool enough to run himself off the road at the orchard crossing until Herman came by, the dumb bastard, may he rest in peace.

Tom trudged back through the house, leaving lights on now that he knew he was going to be using them later in the evening.  Miriam was in the bathtub, soaking off the day’s household cleaners and solvents and scrubbing every inch of herself vigorously.  When she departed her baths, her pale skin always had the most outlandish glow.  Once when her hand was bandaged from a mishap with the ten-inch cleaver, she looked enough like a lobster that the normally taciturn Tom could do nothing but howl in amusement.

Tom knocked twice and the door gave way.  Miriam never locked the bathroom door, and sometimes failed even to make sure it caught the jamb securely.  She was not overly modest; nor was she given to flaunt her body – or flout her body as Tom sometimes phrased it.  Even with Herman in the house, she scarcely considered that someone might walk in on her.  Tom lacked the initiative, and Herman was … German.  A man who stopped in open doorways to make sure he wasn’t intruding would never dream of opening a closed door without permission, be it bathroom or supply room.  With all three in the same sitting room after supper, she sometimes felt dry and alone, miles from any sustenance and contact.  There would be a few words exchanged about the day or the weather or the upcoming market or harvest or planting or something else fairly frequent and interchangeable in conversation, and in the midst would fall a dead silence of often only a few seconds. Miriam knew that both her companions had left the room far behind.  It’s not that they were off on flights of fancy, she surmised, just that they were off, had drifted into a distant inertia.  The molecules of their thoughts had cooled and settled down low by the floor.

After a pause lasting sometimes as long as forty-five minutes (maybe longer – she only once had the nerve to actually time the delay), either Tom or Herman would pick up the fallen-and-left-for-dead conversation, usually starting off with “Of course…”

Tom crossed the room as Miriam’s scrubbing hand left the back of her neck.  She followed him silently with her eyes, not so much the silence of foreboding as the silence of attendance.  There had to be something of interest happening for Tom to walk in on her naked, let alone bathing.  Tom lowered the toilet seat and sat heavily on it – the weight of his unease causing it to bow and groan slightly.

“Herman’s dead.” he said, with a dragging pause behind.  “He had an accident coming back by the orchards – train hit the truck and spun it into the crick..  Coroner don’t know yet exactly how he died, but he’s dead all the same.  Schmidt just come and told me.  I’m gonna head down and see what I need to do.”

She handed back a tentative “ok” – then her eyes followed him as he rose and exited as quietly and effortlessly as he entered.

Tom didn’t know why he told her the coroner didn’t know how he died.  As far as he knew from Schmidt, the coroner hadn’t been anywhere near the accident yet.  It was certainly true that the coroner had made no determination, but not true the way he said it.  He didn’t ponder long – soon shrugging off any ambiguity he was carrying in his mind as he shrugged on his jacket and headed out past his lighted porch into the frosting gloom.

Miriam lay still in the tub, her hand caught in mid-descent from her neck, the chill of soft shock soaking into her head, and cooling the blood passing through – slowly working its way into her submerged torso.  She had no thoughts.  Images of the Herman-who-no-longer-was drifted past her opened eyes – grunting a shy hello, wrestling a cow through a gate, slipping on a patch of ice and bounding toward a fence post.  No voice – just images drifting in, then fading, to be replaced by others.  She was struck by how thin the image was – even now there was a vagueness about his face.  Did he have a mole, or was it a freckle on his cheekbone, or maybe that was just a spot of mud he’d gotten while out freeing the truck from the mud that time in the spring.  She finished her rinsing - thoughts of a vigorous scrubbing now as thin as the images of Herman, present, but without substance or power.

Tom arrived creekside to see the pickup being hauled off in the opposite direction, doubtless toward his farm.  It looked disheveled, as though it had been in a fight, but wasn’t the crumpled heap he feared he would find voraciously wrapped around Herman’s body.  It might even be possible to straighten the frame and keep using it – but it was too early to think long about that.  He followed the wisps of foggy breath around the side of the Fire and Rescue truck, the vapors being turned an uneasy red by the taillights of the vehicle.

There stood Henry and Evan, and Tom knew immediately that Evan was trying to regale Henry with his latest assignation.  Henry was no more impressed than other times about his rutting cousin, and readily stepped away to greet Tom, departing fluidly from Evan in mid boast.

“They just took the truck, Tom.”

“Yah – I know – I saw it go by.  To the farm?”

“Yep – He’ll just drop it and head on.  How’s Miriam?”

“Oh, she’s fine – she was taking a bath.” Tom replied without hesitation, as though his words somehow explained something.

“No – I mean with Herman – she doin’ ok?”

“Oh, yeah – sure. I come in and told her what happened and I was coming up here.  All she said was ‘ok.’”

Wanting and not wanting to ask more, Henry left it lying.  “Well, that’s him there – we took him out when we got the truck up here, and wrapped him in the blanket that was behind the seat – seemed clean enough.”

Tom barely heard Henry’s words – but replied anyway, “Sure – I didn’t need it.  They can just toss it.”  Behind the speaking, Henry could tell that all the silent parts of Tom were staring at the man-shaped roll lying on the ground alongside his feet.

“We took out his personal stuff – put it in the glove compartment.  Wallet, keys, knife, stuff.  In a baggie.”

Without looking, Tom could tell that Evan was smirking off to the side of him, and suddenly more aware of that hidden smirk than the body before him.

“How’d he look?” he turned and asked Evan.  Seeing the smirk fade was enough for him.  Evan replied and the words slipped by, untrapped, unfiltered, unnoticed by his own mind.

Nodding, he made certain that he wasn’t leaving them in a lurch, and that the body would soon be taken off.  The next morning would be soon enough to make the appropriate arrangements – they had a pretty good notion that Herman had no family to contact, so it would be a simple matter of placing him in the ground with a few quiet words.

As Tom’s truck faded into the blackness which was soon also to engulf his taillights, Evan turned to Henry and said “He’s got to be a real treat at home.”  Henry replied with a non-committal grunt, and began packing away his gear.  It was late, and whatever good he could do there was long since done.

When he got home, Miriam was in the recliner, still in her robe and wet hair, covered with an afghan.  The old kettle had just started its moaning whistle, but she didn’t rise immediately, so Tom went back and shut the flame off and poured her water for tea.

“How did he look?” was her first question as he brought the cup around.  “Oh, fine” was his reply – trying to sound, he supposed, reassuring.  When he realized it sounded more casual than reassuring, as though he’d just gone down to examine someone’s choice of shirt, he reddened slightly, a reaction not lost on Miriam.

“You didn’t see him, did you?”

“No – he was covered.  I think Evan said he looked ok.  Not beat up or anything.  Maybe broke his neck or something when the truck rolled over.  If he’d a-been bloody, I’m sure Henry woulda said.”

“Wayne dropped the truck and left,” she said.  “He was in and out before I could get my robe on and make it to the door.  I guess I wanted to talk to someone I thought might actually tell me something.”

The criticism sailed past Tom.  “Yeah – they said he’d probably just drop off the truck and go.  I guess I better turn in.  It’s going to be a long day tomorrow, I’m sure.  His stuff is in the glove box, by the way, but I don’t figure there’s any hurry right now to dig it out.  Nothing that won’t keep ‘til morning.”

With that, he didn’t so much exit the room as fade from it.  His voice stilled, he sat for a few minutes further, looking nowhere in particular, least of all particularly at Miriam.  She could feel him spiraling downward toward inertia, then watched as – right before the inertia became complete – he hoisted himself from the chair and lumbered down the hall toward his bed.  His eyes had flirted with closure once, twice, three times, before he rose silently.

She sat.

The wind whipped around the eaves of the house, now and then drawing a hum from a loose piece of gingerbread on the porch, then changing direction and slapping it firm against the house, ending its serenade.  With the rhythm of a wound-down clock, she sipped slowly, but rhythmically, at her tea, scarcely noticing the transitional phases from burning the lips to warming, to chilling slightly.

When the characteristic Lipton bitterness overtook the other sensations, she stopped, threw off her afghan, and slippered herself into the kitchen to dump the remains.  She watched the dregs swirl down the sink with her mind already pointed out the window.  Switching off the sink light, she could now see past the screen, across the yard, to the truck.  The yard light’s rays glinted off the few patches of un-mudded truck, and she began to sway slowly, mesmerized by the slight shimmer that caressed her retinas as she moved.

Crossing the kitchen to the back door, she did as she always did – flipping the thumb lever on the deadbolt to the left to lock it for the night.  Finding that it was already locked, her hand rested there for a moment before rerouting her path to bed through the yard.  With a backward glance down the hall, Miriam slipped through the door – driving a bit of the kitchen’s warmth before her, her glasses fogging over as she made her way across the yard.

The truck hid itself off to the side of the yard, nestled in near the barn, looking muddied, wounded, and forlorn.  The yard light hung above, but the net effect was to make the wounded truck seem even more isolated, rather than tucked in snugly beside the barn.

Miriam cursed upon reaching the truck, sure she'd have to trek back for a key, but tried the passenger-side handle and was relieved when it gave way to her already chilled fingers.  The door swung open, the dome light flickered on, and her eyes fell on the clutter on the seat.

"Glove compartment, my eye" she muttered into the cab of the truck.  "Should've known Evan would've done as little as he could get away with."  She scooped up keys, wallet, a few scraps of paper, and tried grabbing the few large coins she could see, but quickly gave up after inadvertently forcing them further down between the cushions.  She noticed the baggie

Gathering it all in fist and forearm, she clutched her bundle to her bosom, then retraced her steps to the back door, being more careful now not to tump herself on the already-freezing mud in the yard.  Inside again, door once more locked for the night, she spread her spoils out on the table, then washed her hands at the sink.  While drying her hands on the still-damp dishtowel, she caught sight of her mother's reflection in the toaster, then discreetly turned it away from herself.  This seemed like a bad time to be reminded of how quickly days turn into years.

She sifted through the loose papers first – nothing of consequence, as she might have expected.  Anything important would surely be packed in his wallet or secreted in his room somewhere.  A few slips of paper with phone numbers – a grocery list, receipts for some bailing wire and sixteen penny nails from the co-op.

What treasure-trove she expected to find, she didn’t know.  Her tired eyes wandered over the free-offerings, then watched as her hands probed the wallet – pulling out his driver’s license – one that did not flatter him any more than anyone else’s, and which had expired seven months to the day before he had.  She stopped and wondered – had she known it was his birthday – when had he arrived – was he off that day – in a particularly light or foul mood?  Did he take any more notice of the day than she and Tom had?  Of course, that was a bit unfair – she had no idea when his birthday was, and could scarcely blame herself if she failed to bring it up in conversation.  But, it’s the kind of thing one looks for when death comes suddenly – something you’ve missed – some little thing might have betokened something special with the departed.  Failing that, the second option is to blame yourself for what you missed.  Gasping over a missed opportunity was almost sacramental in itself – giving the feeling that perhaps next time around – next opportunity – something special would happen.  And then … later tonight, Miriam would sleep – and the resolve she placed on her shoulders now would doubtless slip off and be lost in the bedding.  Lost, but not gone – perhaps wandering through the quiet house like a ghost.

Beyond the drivers’ license, there was an impressive lack of content – scraps of paper with names of truck or tractor or combine parts – put into the wallet and left for history to sort out.  A small card-sized six-month calendar – with certain dates circled; a punch card from one of the local burger places, Frank’s.  Two more punches and he would have had a free burger, with his choice of fries or onion rings.  She reflexively placed that to the side, then realized what she was doing.  The idea of finishing the punches and redeeming Herman’s free burger seemed too ghoulish to consider, despite her frugal German upbringing.  The punch card went back in the pile with the rest of the scraps.

Sandwiched between two worn movie tickets, Miriam found a nearly-pristine photo of a young-ish girl with blonde hair. Of the varied scraps, this was the only thing with an actual human identity. With a sudden thrill from having discovered a significant clue, she quickly flipped the photo in search of its inscription.  Finding only "grade 3" written there, she flipped it back, thumb gliding across its surface as gently as it would across the girl's cheek.  It was a portrait, but not a studio portrait; it had all the assembly-line appearances of a school picture.  On the surface, she looked much older than third grade - she had the naive, confident smile of someone planning to plunge into and remake the world, not just explore the infinite combinations of her Barbie dolls.  But, whether she was niece or daughter or neighbor girl Miriam could not know.  Maybe she was the daughter of some family Herman worked for a few years back. Maybe she was a thousand different girls. Maybe outside Herman’s wallet, she wasn’t alone.

Feeling the weight of sleep tugging her face downward, Miriam declared this phase of the investigation closed - for now.  The kitchen chair grumbled its way across the wooden floor as she rose.  Before she had gone far, however, she gingerly reached back and slipped the photo from the table.  Anyone present would have noticed the tender shelter her hand provided the picture on its trip from table to robe pocket.  The kitchen light extinguished, Miriam followed the stream of light from her bedside lamp back up the dark hall, past Herman’s room, past Tom's room, through her doorway, and into sleep.