Horace Afoot Read online

  I interrupt Maver. “Someone once wrote that every life is many days, day after day.”

  Maver turns to me with a puzzled smile, scratches the back of his head, and nods. “True. True.” Then he returns to Pete, his son-in-law manager at Chevyland, whom, I assume, he has mentioned so I’ll go buy a car from him.

  I get up to leave and for no particular reason say, “The peace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you, Mr. Maver.”

  Maver is silenced. “Nice meeting you, Mr. Horace,” he calls after me.

  I walk up Main Street, the thoroughfare leading into and out of town, and turn onto Liberty, a quiet, shaded street where the well-to-do families of Oblivion built their homes almost a century ago. There are sidewalks here, concrete slabs nicely upturned by the roots of the old elms that grow along the street. The houses are set back from the road, their wide lawns shaded by the mature trees. A car passes by. I hear a thud and a crack. The car slows, stops. The driver gets out, leaving his door open.

  “Did you see them?” He approaches me, a man in his thirties wearing a suit.

  “Who?”

  “The kids.”

  “No.”

  “This is the second time I’ve come down this street. They’ve been at it all morning.” He fumes and steps back toward his car to have a look. He runs his fingers over a tiny dent in the side door. “Goddamn kids are throwing rocks.”

  “What a good idea.”

  The man is engrossed in his inspection. I want to tell him the kids are only trying to preserve the tranquillity of their street by discouraging people like him from driving down it. Suddenly he discovers a crack in the passenger window. “Goddamn those little bastards!” He leaps into his car and pulls over to the curb. He slams the door and stalks across a lawn to the nearest house. I try to spot the band of little Luddites. But they are well concealed in the bushes and trees of their neighborhood, tittering quietly among themselves as the enraged driver goes from house to house complaining.

  It is noon. The sky is clear. I sit in a rusty, wrought-iron gazebo at the end of Liberty Street. It is set in the center of a small, weedy park that forms the southern boundary to this section of the town. A plaque on the gazebo reads Bequest of Major Perry Wilkington, USA, in memory of his beloved wife and daughter. I’ve seen all of their tombstones in the Presbyterian cemetery. Major Perry Wilkington lived from 1851 until 1920. He is buried with his wife, Ann S. Wilkington; his daughter, Martha Wilkington Murrow; and his grandson, Perry Wilkington Murrow. His wife, who was also born in 1851, died in 1884. His daughter was born in 1871 and died on August 6, 1894. In childbirth, it would appear. Perry Wilkington Murrow, his grandson, lived only from August 6, 1894, to August 12, 1894. I’ve knitted together an outline of their lives based on the gazebo plaque and the dates on their tombstones, and I imagine the following: Martha married a man named Murrow. Since he isn’t buried with her, I surmise that he left the town soon after August 12, 1894, and never returned. I surmise too that Murrow was a cad, a seducer; maybe he married her for her money. When she died, either the old major ran him out of town or he ran away of his own accord. I’ve found no Murrow buried anywhere in the cemetery. None of the women in the major’s life lived for very long. I imagine that the last twenty-six years of his life were spent in kind of dignified sorrow and that he erected the gazebo as a monument to both his family and his grief.

  A dog appears at my feet, looks up at me, panting. I glance around for the owner.

  “I see we’re alone.”

  The dog pants, sits at my knee, and stares at me.

  Stomachs infrequently hungry disdain any commonplace victuals, I quote from my Roman namesake. A car turns up Liberty Street, then screeches to a stop as a hail of stones falls on it. The driver, a woman, gets out to inspect the car, then continues on slowly, scanning the street for culprits. I’m in an expansive mood and continue with a few fragments of Horace’s second satire. Values of simple and frugal existence, good friends, is my subject. Not any notion of mine, but the doctrine of farmer Oféllus, unsystematic philosopher, schooled in no wisdom but Nature’s.

  The dog begins to sniff around the bench. I pat it and it looks at me, tongue lolling. I take a carrot from my pocket and begin to eat it. The dog sits and watches me, begging.

  Now let me name the advantages gained by a plain sort of diet…. Have you noticed how pale people look when leaving a multi-course banquet? Not only the body is sluggish … but there is also dullness of mind, and our spark of divine upper air is dragged earthward.

  The dog continues the vigil, droopy eyed and skeptical.

  “I know, I know. Why should I be lecturing?” I have extensive resources and income. Why must unfortunates suffer privation when you are so wealthy? Why must the ancient and venerable shrines of the gods be left shabby? Why, impious creature, why not devote some of your hoard?

  I hand over the remaining bit of carrot. The dog snatches it and swallows. A long, piercing whistle. The dog’s ears prick up and it races off. Not a glance backward. I remain in the rusty little capsule for the better part of an hour. In Wilkington’s gazebo nothing can diminish the vivid present. At one point I spot a little band of four or five boys scampering across the wide yard of the gabled and turreted house on the corner. They start across the street but stop short as soon as they see me and dart off in the direction of the woods.

  On the way home I stop at Winesburg Wine and Liquor. Mr. Anderson takes out his vintner’s charts whenever I come into the store, and I listen to him as he talks about people I couldn’t care less about and who probably don’t even buy wine from him. He’s a puffy little man with a perfectly round belly that juts out like a melon. Whenever I stop in he disappears into the back room and comes out with his latest wares. This time he sells me a bottle of 1982 Château Brane-Cantenac and a cabernet sauvignon from California. He tells me the California vineyard is owned by some Hollywood movie director and it is the best wine they’ve ever produced. I take it home and drink it, my soon unsober mind trailing off into a casual lugubriousness.

  The weather is good. I sit on a battered lawn chair in the back yard, pretending I’m a derelict on the Paris Metro.

  “Monsieur, may I invite you to join me in a glass of wine?”

  “Oui. Of course. How do you like the view?”

  “The view? She is marvelous.”

  “Do you think a woman should go without makeup?”

  “It’s vulgar.”

  “Do you think they should remove the advertisements from the Metro?”

  “Never, Monsieur. Never.”

  Glen Wilkington, the wood behind my house, is thick with leaves. Oak. Maple. Ash. A path leads through it to an abandoned railway line that cuts across the southwestern corner of the town and leads to a crowded intersection on the other side, where the fast-food franchises and convenience stores sprout. Beyond the wood is the water tower, surrounded by a chain-link fence and straddling a small concrete pumping station. Beyond that is a large field, part of which is planted and part of which has gone to pasture, a secluded little meadow. The Wilkingtons of the gazebo owned this land and saved it for posterity. The wood they protected from ax and saw, the meadow from plow, the field from factory. For most of the century the little glen has been the only wooded land left in the whole county. If Major Wilkington had been possessed of less foresight, it too would have been cut down, and the rail corridor that was compromised for in the middle of the last century would now be part of the interstate highway system.

  With Mr. Anderson’s best wine suffusing my blood, I imagine myself to be the very last locomotive that passed through Glen Wilkington. Mushrooms and other fungi grow in the rot of the old ties. It makes me think of sex, of devouring, self-preserving flesh that feeds on a rotten past to flourish in the rotten present.

  A while later I find myself stumbling through the woods.

  There are smoke signals coming from the Indian mound. From a distance they look like large clouds grazing the fields. At si
x in the morning, the sun climbing fast, it is already getting hot. I walk around the base of the mound, then follow the small path up. At the top a few burned logs smolder; a pack of Marlboros lies in the grass a few feet away. There are several left. I remove one, touch the end to the smoldering log and puff it to life, then lie down in a small patch of grass to daydream and watch the sun climb over Oblivion.

  The sheriffs car pulls up at the base of the mound. It idles there for a minute, then the sheriff gets out and begins climbing the mound. I hear his jangling cuffs and keys. For a moment I consider trying to hide.

  “That your fire?” He stands over me, wipes his forehead with a hairy forearm.

  “No. I just got here myself.”

  The sheriff is a large man in exaggerated physical condition. His shirt, ironed and starched, stretches tightly across his chest. I’ve seen him in town, but only driving by. He towers over me. I sit up.

  “What are you doing here?” He prods the smoldering logs with the toe of a well-polished shoe.

  “I was out walking and saw the smoke.”

  “Where were you walking?”

  “Because I enjoy walking, especially early in the morning.”

  “I didn’t ask why. I asked where.”

  I puff on the cigarette. “Along Old 47.”

  He doesn’t look at me but walks around the fire pit searching the ground, elbows jutting above his belt where his gun and other paraphernalia hang. I try to imagine the invisible pump that keeps him inflated. “Did you see who set the fire?”

  “It was out when I got here.”

  “What about a car? Did you see a car?”

  I stand up, shake my head. “No.”

  “Looked to me like smoke signals.” Back turned, he begins to kick dirt onto the smoldering logs. “That what it looked like to you?”

  I shrug.

  “Yup. Looked just like real smoke signals. You know anything about smoke signals?”

  I drop the cigarette and grind it in the dirt, then pick up the butt and put it in my pocket.

  “Indians used smoke signals.” He turns to me, hooks his thumbs into his belt. “You know anything about Indians?”

  “No. Do you know anything about Indians?”

  “I don’t like your tone, buddy.” He jabs a finger at me. “This is an official historical site. It falls under the protection of the State Highway Department.”

  “I’ve read the plaque.”

  He points to the smoldering fire. “Vandalism of an official historical site is a crime.”

  I look at the charred logs, then at the sheriff. “Are you accusing me?”

  “I don’t see anyone else up here.”

  “But I told you I just got here. I didn’t light the fire. I came up here to put it out.”

  “I don’t care if you came up here to pick posies.”

  I am arrested and taken back to town. It is the first time I’ve been in an automobile since I arrived in Oblivion. The overbuilt sheriff steers the overpowered car with his fingertips; a steel cage separates front from back where I sit. The radio, the assault rifle and shotgun, the deep, plush seats, and the little rack holding a large Styrofoam cup of coffee strike a note of parody.

  “Do you have a family?”

  The sheriff doesn’t respond. He leans over and picks up the radio handset and clicks it twice, then puts it back without speaking into it. I assume it is some sort of signal. I settle back in the seat and watch the town slip by. When we arrive at the police station he tells me not to get out. He walks around and opens the door for me. I feel like a visiting dignitary emerging from the back of the car.

  The sheriff marches me into the station. I insist that I’m being wrongfully accused. He shrugs and says, “Sorry, bud.”

  The fine is five hundred dollars. I should feel indignant but can’t bring myself to. The situation is ridiculous. I pay their ransom with all the take-your-goddamn-money smugness I can muster; I actually enjoy paying. Part of it is the thought that freedom must be bought, that these days autarkeia means being able to pay. I have no desire to fight the steroid-fed sheriff. It’s too much trouble.

  On my way back home Tom Schroeder rides past on his motorcycle. He slows down and gives me the finger as he goes by. The kid is a true-blue asshole. One day he’ll get killed in a pileup of cars and trucks on the interstate. He showed up on my doorstep one afternoon with a bag full of cassettes and compact discs.

  “Want to listen to some music?”

  I had been asleep and didn’t hear him correctly. I stepped out onto the porch. He’d driven his motorcycle right up the walkway. It leaned precariously on its kickstand like some old, leaky nag. “Music?”

  He pulled some compact discs from the bag to show me.

  “Isn’t it a little hot to be wearing all that leather?”

  He examined himself as though he hadn’t ever thought about it. His greasy blond hair was fastened to his head by a black bandanna, boots all scuffed and decorated with little chains.

  “Keeps me cool when I’m riding.” He unzipped his jacket, tee shirt soaked through, plastered to his body. Through it I could see a massive tattoo decorating his chest, some kind of jailhouse angel with cleavage and a Harley Davidson logo and a sneer and wings spread from shoulder tip to shoulder tip.

  “I have lots of oldies. Fetus over Frisco. Generation X.”

  “I’m not interested.”

  “The Sicfucks. Dead Kennedys. Butthole Surfers. Meat Puppets.”

  I turned to go back inside. “Not interested.”

  “Here. Take a look. Check ’em out.” He began pulling discs and cassettes out of his bag and stood there holding out his wares, a larcenous grin on his face.

  “Do you still listen to them?”

  “’Course I do, man.”

  “They don’t bore you?”

  “Fuck no, man. Good music is never boring.”

  I stepped back inside and closed the door on him. Schroeder yelled some obscenities, then stomped down the steps and rode away with a roar of smoke and ripped turf. A few days later he came back with a bag full of pornographic videos and asked if I wanted to borrow them. I told him if he didn’t stop bothering me I’d call the police. Now he harasses me at every opportunity.

  Back at home I try a few phone calls.

  “Horace here.”

  “Wallace?”

  “No. Horace.”

  “Wallace? Is that you?”

  “No. It’s Horace.”

  “Wallace, I thought you were upstairs napping. Where have you gotten off to?”

  “I’m not Wallace. My name is Horace.”

  “You’re not Wallace?”

  “No. My name’s Horace. Hor-ace.”

  “Don’t you swear at me, Mister. How dare you?”

  “Who’s Wallace?”

  “He’s my husband. Who are you?”

  “I’m calling to ask what you think love is.”

  “Did you say your name was Horace?”

  “Do you have any thoughts on the subject?”

  “On love? Wait a minute; am I going to be on the margarine commercial?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “I am, aren’t I ? The one that goes, Do you looooove butter? Yes, I looove butter. Then I try Parks Margarine and you go, Do you still loooove butter? That’s the one, right?”

  “No.”

  …

  “Horace here.”

  “What can I do for you?”

  “Define love in your own words.”

  “Love?”

  “Yes. L-O-V-E. Love.”

  “Well, I’d have to think about it a minute.”

  “Take your time.”

  “Let me see. Do you mean what is love for me? Or what is love in general?”

  “For you would be fine.”

  “Love. For me. Well, now, there are different kinds, I suppose.”

  “Are there?”

  “It depends on what kind you’re talking about. There’s hus
bands and wives and parents and children. And then there is the love of Jesus, but there’s no way of explaining that. You have to strive for it alone.”

  “Really?”

  “Of course. I’ll give you an example of what love is.”

  “Okay.”

  “Last year I was in the hospital. I had a bypass operation. My husband stayed with me every day. He only went home to change his clothes. I have two grown daughters, one lives in California and the other in Minnesota. They both came to spend time with me even though they have families and it was a considerable hardship for them. Now, if that’s not love, real Christian love, I don’t know what is.”

  “I don’t either.”

  It hasn’t rained for weeks, and the grass and weeds that sprout up around my house are wilted and turning brown. It is hot and humid. The sun beats down on the tin roof of my little yellow house, and despite open windows and drawn shades the rooms are stifling. The front porch is the only comfortable place, and I rock there all day long in the broken chair I rescued from the dump and restored with nails and glue.

  I have been rocking on the front porch for three days now, and I have discovered something: time passes, and I enjoy having it pass. Inactivity is no easy accomplishment, and finding pleasure in it means overcoming conditioned reflexes. My mind wanders. I permit it to. I try to quiet it, slow it down. A period of what I suppose is called meditation ensues. Without effort I suddenly enter a thoughtless, wordless state. Time passes, and I am unaware of it. Leave it behind. This discovery of inactive bliss comes to me as a revelation. It is the wide-eyed empty-headedness of infant life, self-contained, unconnected to the temporal order of things. Nothing precedes it, and nothing ensues. Now I understand why the newer houses in Oblivion have replaced front porches with rear decks. Porches are for being idle. On decks you entertain yourself to death.

  Often a distraction from outside breaks the spell: a sudden clap of late afternoon thunder, my neighbor revving his engine or honking his horn, a squirrel racing across the porch. Sometimes the distraction wells up inside, and a spontaneous thought becomes a memory and timeless bliss yields to idle irritation. Rocking restores my equilibrium, a sense of unity with the elements—though not with the neighbors. I watch them come and go, hustling from air-conditioned car to air-conditioned house. They come outside in the early evening to water their lawn and cast sour glances at mine.