Land o ked

The sun crept slowly out of the depths of the sky, shooting bands of deep red and purple out into the blackness. It had been one of those nights in late October when the frost got in between the husk and the maze. It was the kind of frost that gets in bones. Glistening, it looked as if God had cried that night.

A grain farm was nestled outside of a town in southern Illinois called Caseyville, a small ex-coal mining town ten miles from the Mississippi River. It was a dirty place that had turned into an agricultural area after the coal mine shut down and left men who stank of honest work for no pay to find new jobs. With one gas station, a Wendy’s, and Lester’s Bar, there wasn’t much to be done in that place but eat and drink.

The farm overlooked nothing but rolling hills with the occasional drop of forest and a stream that ran east and to the north until it hit a feeding river.

That morning grew in beauty as each moment thrust the sun farther above the horizon line. It was about six o’clock when the alarm went off in the house for Karla, the farmer’s wife. She stretched just like the shadows of the morning in the sun and got out of bed and looked out her window in the bedroom of the old farmhouse. If there’s really a heaven, how could it be better than right now? She walked downstairs and threw on a coat, stepped into her boots, and went outside to fuel up the combine in the steel building. As she turned the corner, she found the doors to the building were wide open—hanging between them was her husband being kissed by the sun one last time. *** On the east side of Nashville, a cell phone broke the silence of a dank basement apartment. Noah had been out the night before playing a couple gigs and wasting his pay on the drinks that weren’t covered by the band tab. He had taken the train tracks home after the bars closed, stumbling to get a six-pack from the corner store down the street from his place. After that stop, he went home and wrote the saddest cowboy song, pining about the girl he lost and the family farm where his dad had killed himself.

He grabbed the phone. “What?” he garbled, trying to find the last line in the dark basement.

The other voice hesitated, “Tyson is dead.” He recognized the voice and blurted, “What are you talking about?”

Karla’s voice creaked as she went on, “He did it just like your dad. He’s gone and left me this hellhole, and I don’t know what to do. I wouldn’t have called you unless I absolutely needed to. Please help me, at least for the next few days. Come to the funeral.”

Noah couldn’t understand. Why did he have to do this now? Idiot Tyson. “Okay, I’ll get on a plane tonight after my gig.” “Thank you, Noah. I’ll see you soon, yeah? Bye.” Noah hung up the phone. The light peering in through the barely-above-ground window began to move across the room and hit his face. He grabbed a bottle of whiskey and took a swig big enough to kill any hurt that a man could have. Idiot Tyson. Noah had left home at twenty-one to pursue music in Nashville. His father had disowned him in the only way a midwestern father knew how to deal with a creative son, hurling ideas of what it could do to the farm and how he didn’t stand a chance. He and Karla had been dating since high school when he decided to move. He left his girl like most men do, in the middle of the night, drunk, with a vision impaired enough to only focus on himself.

Noah’s brother began dating Karla soon after, and they got married a year later.

Noah had made a name for himself as a singersongwriter in Nashville. Three years after he’d left the farm, he was in the middle of celebrating an album release when he got the call from Tyson that his dad had hanged himself. He remembered the grimacing voice of his father denouncing his music because it took time away from the farm. He didn’t go to the funeral.

Noah’s taxi from St. Louis got off the highway and

55 Short Story

56 Short Story began driving through Caseyville. “Stop at that gas station, will ya? Thanks.” Noah stepped out of the car and looked across the street. The red neon sign of Lester’s reminded him of the dives he’d played in towns you wouldn’t even know existed. Those are my kind of people, songs sittin’ at that bar. He pushed open the door and waited in line as the people in front of him bought their frozen dinners and fumbled for their EBT cards. Noah bought a bottle of Rich and Rare. He returned to the taxi, and it meandered out of the red tint of Lester’s neon sign. Noah cracked the seal and began guzzling the bottle.

“Hey,” the taxi driver scolded, “you can’t do that in here!” Noah retorted, “I don’t give a crap. I’ll give ya what’s left at the farm.”

“Yeah? Okay. It’s a deal.” Noah lit a cigarette and laid his head back, staring into the forest that ran along the side of the road, the stream within it emanating light from the moon. “All right. This is the place. Stop.” Noah got out of the car, giving the taxi driver some cash and the half bottle of whiskey. “Don’t drink and drive, bud.”

The taxi driver took three quick gulps, mumbling, “Uh-huh,” and sped away.

Noah took a deep breath of the farm air. He still remembered that smell. He opened his eyes and saw the corn beginning to freeze in the black cold of the night. Couldn’t you have gotten that done before? He approached the door to the farmhouse and saw Karla sitting at the table in the dining room, finishing a bottle of red wine. She saw him, jumped up, and opened the door. They stared at each other for too long without speaking.

“Got any more wine?” Noah said, breaking the silence. “No, sorry.” “When’s the funeral?” “The wake is tomorrow night. The funeral is the next morning.” Karla stared at her empty wine glass.

“Alright, I can stay for both, but I can’t stay any longer than that. I got two shows the next couple days, and—”

Karla snapped, “Well, I wouldn’t want to take you away from any of that. I’m sure your brother wouldn’t want to, either.” Karla stared into Noah’s eyes.

“I’m not doing this,” he said. “Especially right now. I’ll just go to the room and sleep.” Noah stumbled up the stairs to his childhood bedroom that was now an office. Sighing, cursing, he lay down on the old wooden floor. *** The light from the window broke into the room and hit Noah’s face. He winced with cold sweat from the whiskey and hot sweat from the sun. He checked the time; it was 4:45 in the afternoon. He sat up, wiped his eyes, and burped out the old familiar taste of a hangover.

He walked to the bathroom and swung open the door to find Karla standing in a towel getting ready. “The wake is in an hour.” Karla drew the lipstick across her lips and puckered, never looking at Noah.

“I’ll meet you there.” He whirled toward his room. Mumbling, he put on some clean but wrinkled clothes and shuffled down the stairs.

“Noah, do you know where the wake is?” he heard as he reached the bottom of the stairs.

“I got a pretty good idea of where it’ll be.” Noah closed the front door and began walking toward town. I need a shot just to get right before this crap. He knew the wake for his brother would be at the VFW Hall in town, same as his father’s. He felt crisp air on his face while light warmed the back of his leather jacket. He walked alongside the stream while the afternoon sun cast movements of dark and light into the water. He reached down and scooped a handful, smacked his face, slicked his hair. He closed his eyes and breathed in as if to save all the air he took into his lungs. Not bad for a hellhole. Noah walked all the way to Main Street, hung a left, and made a beeline for Lester’s. He cracked open the door, allowing light to pour in, revealing smoky stares, then sat at the bar and ordered a double of whiskey. “Neat, no ice.” He opened up his notebook, wanting to use the time to find a song in this mess.

I can feel it comin’ with the wind Leaves are changing, summer’s at an end That old fire ya built grows dim And it’s dark in the hearth of the den

A large, fleshy ghost from his past approached, muttering, “Sorry about your brother, man. Suicide just keeps happening around here. Too bad no one killed his ass, right? You’d have got a pretty penny then.”

Noah turned his head and saw Zach Lewis’s ugly face and fake smile.

“Yeah,” he told Zach, “my family’s only rich in workin’

too honest and killin’ themselves.” The fake smile disappeared when Noah’s fist smacked it. Dark spit splattered, and Zach fell backward. Noah grabbed the guy’s shirt and began punching again, saying, “You’ll get your life insurance today!”

The bartender cocked his shotgun. “Get out now, song boy!”

Noah tossed a ten-dollar bill on the bar. “Keep the change.” He strode out the door and headed toward the VFW. His hand pulsed, and the blood on it chilled in the air. Noah wiped it off as he walked through the parking lot, then he stopped at the entrance and paused, collecting himself in his reflection on the glass door.

Finally, he walked in, seeing most of his family gathered. They stared, saying nothing to him, but whispering to themselves about how his hair was too long and his tattoos too many.

Good to see you too. He walked further into the dim room. He saw his brother in the casket, surrounded by flowers and picture collages. No pictures of me. He sat next to Karla in the front row and stared off into someplace where this reality was far in the distance.

Karla whispered in his ear, “Why do people have open casket funerals? It’s unnerving. I know he’s dead. I’m the one who found him. Do people need to see for themselves to believe it?” She wiped her eyes. “I knew you’d know where to go. Even though you weren’t here last time.”

Noah felt an anger rise and subside within him, “I’m sorry. For all of it.”

“Yeah? Really? Are you really sorry?” Noah paused for a moment before continuing, “You know, the church down the street claims to follow this God that loves broken people, that gives them strength to fight off things that can harm them. But what if what harms that person is their own self? They won’t allow the funeral there, will they? I know because Tyson killed himself and that’s unforgiveable. They didn’t let Mom have a service there for Dad, either. So let me ask you a question. What good could possibly come from believing in something that calls you, too far gone, for His graces?”

Karla shuddered, replaying the color of the sun radiating off her husband’s flannel shirt, finding the warmth given to him in that last kiss. “Your family are the religious ones. I never really believed. I just went along with it.” Noah felt a weight fall off of him; maybe it was the whiskey, maybe not. “I’ll stay, Karla.” Her head turned quickly, “You’ll what?” “I said I’ll stay. The livestock feed needs to be done. I can change the dates on my shows lined up. I can make it work, at least until all this is over, and you figure out what to do with the place, because I sure as hell don’t want it.”

Karla finally broke and began letting the full weight of Tyson’s death escape from her. She hadn’t felt the ability to grieve, or perhaps it was that she couldn’t find the time with all the chores that had to be done.

“Why would you do this?” escaped her lips. “Because maybe it’s the only way I can try to make up for what I’ve done. I have done a lot of awful things to find some semblance of success, and you know what? It’s never enough. I want more, always. So maybe Tyson was right to work the farm. Maybe that was success. Not pushing a fake career, but at the end of the day just sitting on that stupid front porch with you.”

Karla slowly got up, and then ran to the exit and flung open the doors. Her face was lit up with the dank, red neon sign of Lester’s, while the sun was falling into the endless fields of corn and the St. Louis skyline in the distance. In a bright pink and purple hue, it kissed her face before it fell into the ground. 57 Short Story