THE RUST BELT

I started this story a couple of years back and ran out of direction.  I’d appreciate suggestions.  About 4500 words

By Jerry Donaldson

A rusty, jagged sunrise collected in the east, orange and violent. It was 4:45 am and a new day was barging in. I’d been up half the night, sitting on the back porch thinking about McDougall. He was now four days overdue and I was getting edgy.

Gathering light hardened up the shadows in the overgrown yard behind my ugly little rental house. Beyond the fence, down the hill and miles away, the mighty Ohio rolled west toward the invisible horizon. Ten years ago the fires of the foundry reflected dull red in the black water all night long. But the foundry shut down, and now the nights are dark.

I got up out of the broken and sagging old armchair, stretched, and went into the house. The screen door slammed behind me. I had time to shower, dress and eat something before I drove into town to meet the eastbound Greyhound at 6:15. For the fifth day running. Maybe today MacDougall would be on the bus.

My shower was stone cold because my house had no real hot water system, only a sun tank. I shaved and dressed and went back to the kitchen. There was a stale, steaming half-inch of last night’s coffee in the pot on the stove. I dumped it down the sink and started over. Then I ate a bowl of Wheaties standing over the sink while I waited for the fresh stuff to perk.

Where the hell was MacDougall? On Monday he’d phoned from Kansas City. He’d met Marcos, he’d said. Done the deal and he’d be on the Tuesday morning Greyhound. I hadn’t heard from him again, and now it was Saturday.

Breakfast done, I whistled Jack out from under the back porch. He bounded into view, apparently feeling a whole more chipper than me. We got into the cab of my old Jeep pickup. After several false starts the engine caught, and settled into a lumpy idle. I jammed the truck into gear and then we jounced, slowly, along the rutted and uneven clay of the rock-hard, quarter-mile long driveway.

At the highway I swung the wheel right and hit the gas. Jack stuck his head though the window and into the breeze, tongue out and ears flapping. I crashed through the gears and coaxed the old truck up to cruising speed. There was no other traffic around.

Highway 3A was two lanes of frost-heaved blacktop that followed the river west. In the early morning traffic was light. Some folks still get early to drive to work, but not many now that all the jobs are gone. Lots of my pals from the Ford plant left town to find work somewhere else after the place shut down, but I hadn’t heard any success stories lately. I have two kids living with their mother over in Clinton, so I’m not going anywhere.

The drive into town was not a scenic one. Or maybe I’d just seen it too often. We passed scrapyards full of rusty metal bound for China, weather-beaten abandoned houses, and derelict businesses with graffiti-covered plywood on the windows. “John’ Eats” proc1aimed the sign on one battered and defeated little cube of a building sitting in a gravel parking lot. MacDougall and I had eaten there from time to time until the lights went out for good in 2009.

The road twisted and untwisted and the wide, placid Ohio winked in and out of view.

The sun was well up into the sky when Jack and I reached the outskirts of town and the speed limit dropped to 40 miles per hour. Then sidewalks appeared and Highway 3A became Main Street. Ten minutes later I pulled up in front of the Greyhound station. I switched off the ignition and sat in my truck. Soon the bus arrived and pulled up to one of the four platforms beside the bus station.

The front door of the bus swung open and passengers began filing off. Some were being met by family or friends. Others were alone. McDougall was not among them, again.

The driver finished unloading boxes and luggage. Then he handed off the bus to a fresh driver, who would pilot the Greyhound on down the road to New York City, the end of the line. New eastbound passengers stood in a line with their tickets ready and their bags at their feet. The driver checked tickets and stowed luggage. In a few minutes all the riders were aboard; their heads were dark shadows behind the tinted glass of the side windows. Then the Greyhound pulled out of our sad little bus station, headed for points east.

After the bus left I went into the building to use the men’s room. It smelt of urine cakes and despair, and the ancient fluorescent lighting buzzed and popped. I relieved myself and washed my hands at the cracked and stained sink. Afterwards I stood examining my reflection in the mirror.

The past five days had taken a toll, no mistake about that. I hadn’t slept properly, so my eyes were bloodshot and my face was drawn. I was sporting nearly a week’s growth of beard, black shot through with gray. My tee shirt had a coffee stain down the front. It was also on inside out. That I could correct, so I took off my wire-rimmed glasses and put them on the sink while I pulled off the tee-shirt and pulled it back on right side out. Then I put my glasses on and walked back out into the waiting area.

The room had been empty when I went into the can, but now there was a man sitting in the center of the front-most of the three rows of fiberglass benches. I took little notice of him as I walked past on my way to the door and my beat-up old truck waiting at the curb. Then he spoke behind me.

“Are you Blaine Little?” he said.

I turned slowly. “That’s me,’ I said. “Do I know you?”

“I’ve got a message from MacDougall,” he said. His right hand was behind him and moving, and I just knew he had a gun. He and I were ten feet apart and there was nowhere to go.  So instinct kicked in, moves I’d learned the hard way, fighting door to door in Mogadishu in ’94. I lunged at the stranger.

I hit him in the midsection, knocking him off-balance. His weapon discharged harmlessly into the ceiling. We grappled, stumbling about the waiting room, each of us struggling to find balance while keeping the other on uncertain footing. The man was not tall, and at 6 foot 2 and 200 pounds I had at least 6 inches and 40 pounds on him. I managed to get my left arm around his neck. He scrabbled at my arm with his right hand while maintaining a grip on the gun with his left. The man had ridiculously dainty hands, I noticed, as I managed to grab his left wrist. I pounded his hand against the back of the hard fiberglass waiting bench until he let the gun drop with a grunt. I gave it a good kick and it slid under the benches and hit the back wall of the waiting room. Then I gave the little creep three or four good hard shots to the face until I felt him grow limp. I released my headlock and the small man collapsed to the floor. I stood over him with my fist clenched

“Had enough, prick?” I said.

The man pushed himself to his knees, and supported himself with his right arm while he waved his damaged left hand at me in a gesture of surrender. He was coughing and blood streamed from his nose onto the dirty green linoleum.

“I’m done, man,” he said. “Let’s call it a day.”

I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and jerked him to his feet. Then I pushed him into a seat and stood over him.

“Where’s MacDougall?”

“I don’t know, I was paid a grand to find you and deliver the message.”

“A thousand bucks to deliver a message, that’s good pay. A little light for killing a man, though.”

“Kill? No way, brother! The message is in my pocket. I can pull it out if you promise not to slug me again.”

“Do it,” I said, “and do it slowly.”

The stranger reached into a back pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. “Here,” he said. “Here’s your message.”

I took the pack and weighed it in my hand.

“So,” I said, “What the hell is this about? When did you see MacDougall?”

“I told you, I never saw MacDougall. My name’s Caution, Rolf Caution, and a guy gave me that [message], a thousand bucks and a bus ticket.”

“So why were you drawing down on me?”

“Guy that hired me said you were a hothead, like as not to plug me, so I was being cautious.” Caution wiped snot and blood off his face with his sleeve. “Listen, man,” he said, “can I get some paper towel or something and clean myself up.”

My sense was Caution was telling the truth. And, anyway, I had his gun and there was no window or other way out of the bathroom. “Go,” I said. “And come right back. We’re not done talking.”

Caution scrambled to his feet and went into the can. I sat near the door and waited. Caution was back in under five minutes. He’d done his best to clean up, but he was going to have a hell of a shiner tomorrow. Not that he didn’t deserve it, the dumbass. Over the next few days I’d learn that Caution was not very bright. I grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him out the door.

“This way, matey, we’re taking a drive.”

“What if I say no?”

“Then I’m dialing the police.” That was a bluff and Caution knew it. I didn’t want the police around anymore than he did. We had business to transact in the shadows. He was quiet as we left the building and walked to my old International.

“Get in.” I said. He did so.

“Where are we going” he asked me.

“Visiting,” I said.

 

Chapter 2

I drove away from the deserted bus station, back the way I had come. We did not speak. Caution beat a nervous tattoo against the passenger door with his right hand until I told him against the passenger door with his right hand until I told him to stop. I needed some quiet time to think things through before we arrived at Lucy’s place.

Lucy was the third partner in this drug scheme. Me, MacDougall and Lucy, we’d all worked at the Ford plant, and we all been laid off together. We didn’t have jobs, and the unemployment insurance benefits had run out for all of us. We survived doing this and that, and not all of it legit.

Far from it. We bootlegged, and sold weed, pills, whatever there was around. We boosted electronics off the back of trucks at the Walmart, but after a couple of close calls we decided it was too risky. MacDougall had a plumber’s ticket, but there was no real union work happening. Just cash repairs for homeowners as bad off as we were. Homeowners holding on, punch-drunk. Just holding on and waiting for the next economic battering to occur. Lay-offs, adjustable rate mortgages, foreclosures, re-possessions.  Everything costs money and no-one’s got any.

Sometimes I tend bar at Smokie’s for minimum wage and tips. People always have money to drink on. But Smokey has two nephews laid off from the foundry, and his sister wants them to work for him. So work at the bar is spread thin, and I’m not getting by.

So, the deal with MacDougal was all about oxycontin. A ten-thousand lot from a dealer in K.C. We borrowed money from Mark the Mick to finance the buy, and MacDougall took off to Kansas City. And he made the buy, and then he was headed home. But he never made it and the message Caution carried was bad news. Jack of spades meant: trust the bearer; I’m safe; I’m in trouble. And now that’s all we knew. I needed to talk to Caution in detail, and Lucy need to be there too.

Lucy’s house was about a mile out of town. She lived in a near-new trailer in a small park, courtesy of her ex-husband Rudi. Rudi was serving time in the penitentiary, 15 to 20 years for robbery, kidnapping and aggravated assault. Lucy swears he never laid a hand on her, but she divorced him anyhow, served him his papers in prison during a family visit. Hear Lucy tell it, Rudi wasn’t really surprised.

Lucy likes to have a man around, you know. For a while that man was me and that was okay. Lucy is quite a gal, you see. Smoking hot, a head turner. Tall, solidly built, blonde hair and lots of tattoos. Some guys don’t like the tattoos, but I don’t mind as long as they’re good art. Not jailhouse shit.

But, as I said earlier, Lucy has a kid living at home and I didn’t feel good about hanging around without a plan. It’s not the right way to treat a single mom. So now we’re just business partners, you might say. And today the business was in trouble.

The trailer park drive way was the first past the turn-off for the old Stardust Drive-In. Lucy and I used to go there together sometimes. We’d drive there in her old Buick convertible, watch a double-bill, share a bottle of wine, eat popcorn and neck. Now the drive-in is closed. People watch Netflix, I guess, but let me tell you, or them, that nothing beats sitting at the drive-in in a huge old convertible on a warm evening with a good buzz on and Lucy Grenville snuggled up next to you.

I turned into the trailer court, past the dumpster and the ratty, dirty office and onto the pot-holed gravel lane dividing two rows of trailers. Or manufactured homes I think they like to call them now.  Some trailers were old and falling apart, some were fairly new. The place had that trailer-park vibe, like, we’re-living-here-right-now-but-it’s-only-temporary. Sure, yeah, that’s right. Some people had lived here 25 years.

I swung into Lucy’s driveway, killed the motor and got a good grip on the front of Caution’s shirt.

“Stay in the back,” I told Jack, and he lay down in the pickup bed without further ado. Lucy didn’t allow dogs in her home, and Jack had spent many evenings here. He knew the drill.

I hauled Caution out through the driver’s door and walked him up onto Lucy’s front porch. She’d heard me pull in, and she had the screen door open when we arrived there. She didn’t look happy.

“Who’s this, Dennis?” she said. “And why is his face all busted up?

“This is Frank Caution and he has a story to tell, Lucy. About MacDougall. Can we come in?”

“Let’s make it fast, okay?” She stepped back to let us in.

 Chapter 3

Lucy’s place was clean and tidy and I was briefly reminded of happier times. Then I dropped Caution into one of Lucy’s rock maple dining room chairs and sat myself down in the one next to it. Lucy closed the drapes across the picture window on the bow of the trailer to discourage nosy neighbors, and then she sat down with us. We all had our elbows on the table.

“Okay,” I said to Caution,”spill.”

“It’s like I told you, man. This guy in K.C., Marcos, paid me to bring you a message from your pal MacDougall,” said Caution. “But, like, just you, you know.” He nodded at Lucy.

“This is Lucy, dumbass.  My partner. Know what that means?”

“I guess it means she’s your partner. But I got my orders, man.”

I leaned across and grabbed the front of Caution’s shirt and gave him a good shake. “Get on with it, asshole,” I said.

“Okay, okay man, stay cool!” Caution dabbed at a cut over his eye with a wadded lump of damp paper towel for the bus station. “I got no beef with you, I’m just the messenger, you know. I don’t want to be here, it’s not worth the grand Marcos paid me. I didn’t want anything to do with any of this, but I owe the man, and I couldn’t say no.”

“What does that mean?” said Lucy.

“It means if I want to keep living I have to do this. Gotta come here and tell you what you gotta do to help out your friend.”

“Clarify, right now!” Lucy slapped the table, hard and we both jumped, Caution and me both. Caution looked as if he was about to cry.

“It’s Marcos, man. He’s in charge of everything and everyone in K.C. I owe him money, and so does your friend, and we’re both dead, me and him, unless we help him out.”

“MacDougall owes money? He was only there for one day!” said Lucy. “What the fuck!”

“Easy, Lucy,” I said.

“Don’t ‘easy Lucy” me, Dennis! MacDougall is an idiot, I told you he’d screw this up.”

I turned to Caution and leaned in. “You’d better start talking sense, right now.” And Caution told us a story.

Or started to, anyway. I heard the clump of boots on the wooden steps up to Lucy’s front porch and seconds later the door opened. I was on my feet and reaching for Caution’s gun stuck in the waist band of my jean when two men blue jumpsuits came through the door. The one with a blond buzz cut was pointing an AR15. I froze.

“Hands up folks, let’s see them up there, that’s right,” said buzz-cut. Meanwhile the second man — wire-rim glasses, greasy mullet and a Glock — moved swiftly toward the rear of the trailer. I heard doors opening and closing and then mullet was back.

“No one else here, Chuck,” he said to the buzz-cut.

“That so, folks?” Chuck said. “Just you three?”

“That’s right, friend,” I said. “What about you lower that AR and tell us why you’re here?”

“We need a word with this one,” said Chuck, pointing at Caution. He lowered the AR and then it disappeared into his jumpsuit. Mullet had his Glock pointed at the floor, but it was ready for action, we all understood that.

“We’re taking him with us, ain’t we Jimmy-boy?” said the mullet, poking Caution with his Glock. “As long as you folks are done roughing him up.”

“Aw, Gus,” said Caution. “You know we’re square. I’m in Marysville on separate business with these folks,” he whined. “Like I told Dennis here, I don’t want to be here but I got no choice.”

“We’ve all got choices, Frank. Or Jimmy, or whatever your real name is,” I said. Right now I’m thinking you chose to come here and do me at the bus station. And I don’t know who these two are or why they’re here, but I’m thinking we’re not done with you yet, so they may have to wait a while before you’re ready to go.”

“I don’t want trouble,” said Lucy. “I think I want you all out of here, now.”

“Roger that, sister,” said Chuck the buzz-cut. “So maybe we take young Jimmy here along, and you can come too,” he said to me.

“Let’s just get to where we can talk.  Lucy, I’m sorry about this and I fill you in later.”

“You’d better do that. Now all of you, out!”

So we left. Me, Frank/Jimmy, Chuck and Gus, we all walked out of the trailer and got into a large black SUV and drove back toward town.

(to be continued)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rust Belt

By J. Gordon Donaldson

 

A rusty, jagged sunrise collected in the east, orange and violent. It was 4:45 am and a new day was barging in. I’d been up half the night, sitting on the back porch thinking about McDougall. He was now four days overdue and I was getting edgy.

Gathering light hardened up the shadows in the overgrown yard behind my ugly little rental house. Beyond the fence, down the hill and miles away, the mighty Ohio rolled west toward the invisible horizon. Ten years ago the scorching hot fires of the foundry reflected dull red in the black water all night long. But the foundry shut down, and now the nights are dark.

I got up out of the broken and sagging old armchair, stretched, and went into the house. The screen door slammed behind me. I had time to shower, dress and eat something before I drove into town to meet the eastbound Greyhound at 6:15. For the fifth day running. Maybe today MacDougall would be on the bus.

My shower was stone cold because my house had no real hot water system, only a sun tank. I shaved and dressed and went back to the kitchen. There was a stale, steaming half-inch of last night’s coffee in the pot on the stove. I dumped it down the sink and started over. Then I ate a bowl of Wheaties standing over the sink while I waited for the fresh stuff to perk.

Where the hell was MacDougall? On Monday he’d phoned from Kansas City. He’d met Marcos, he’d said. Done the deal and he’d be on the Tuesday morning Greyhound. I hadn’t heard from him again, and now it was Saturday.

Breakfast done, I whistled Jack out from under the back porch. He bounded into view, apparently feeling a whole more chipper than me. We got into the cab of my old Jeep pickup. After several false starts the engine caught, and settled into a lumpy idle. I jammed the truck into gear and then we jounced, slowly, along the rutted and uneven clay of the rock-hard, quarter-mile long driveway.

At the highway I swung the wheel right and hit the gas. Jack stuck his head though the window and into the breeze, tongue out and ears flapping. I crashed through the gears and coaxed the old truck up to cruising speed. There was no other traffic around.

Highway 3A was two lanes of frost-heaved blacktop that followed the river west. In the early morning traffic was light. Some folks still get early to drive to work, but not many now that all the jobs are gone. Lots of my pals from the Ford plant left town to find work somewhere else after the place shut down, but I hadn’t heard any success stories lately. I have two kids living with their mother over in Clinton, so I’m not going anywhere.

The drive into town was not a scenic one. Or maybe I’d just seen it too often. We passed scrapyards full of rusty metal bound for China, weather-beaten abandoned houses, and derelict businesses with graffiti-covered plywood on the windows. “John’ Eats” proc1aimed the sign on one battered and defeated little cube of a building sitting in a gravel parking lot. MacDougall and I had eaten there from time to time until the lights went out for good in 2009.

The road twisted and untwisted and the wide, placid Ohio winked in and out of view.

The sun was well up into the sky when Jack and I reached the outskirts of town and the speed limit dropped to 40 miles per hour. Then sidewalks appeared and Highway 3A became Main Street. Ten minutes later I pulled up in front of the Greyhound station. I switched off the ignition and sat in my truck. Soon the bus arrived and pulled up to one of the four platforms beside the bus station.

The front door of the bus swung open and passengers began filing off. Some were being met by family or friends. Others were alone. McDougall was not among them, again.

The driver finished unloading boxes and luggage. Then he handed off the bus to a fresh driver, who would pilot the Greyhound on down the road to New York City, the end of the line. New eastbound passengers stood in a line with their tickets ready and their bags at their feet. The driver checked tickets and stowed luggage. In a few minutes all the riders were aboard; their heads were dark shadows behind the tinted glass of the side windows. Then the Greyhound pulled out of our sad little bus station, headed for points east.

After the bus left I went into the building to use the men’s room. It smelt of urine cakes and despair, and the ancient fluorescent lighting buzzed and popped. I relieved myself and washed my hands at the cracked and stained sink. Afterwards I stood examining my reflection in the mirror.

The past five days had taken a toll, no mistake about that. I hadn’t slept properly, so my eyes were bloodshot and my face was drawn. I was sporting nearly a week’s growth of beard, black shot through with gray. My tee shirt had a coffee stain down the front. It was also on inside out. That I could correct, so I took off my wire-rimmed glasses and put them on the sink while I pulled off the tee-shirt and pulled it back on right side out. Then I put my glasses on and walked back out into the waiting area.

The room had been empty when I went into the can, but now there was a man sitting in the center of the front-most of the three rows of fiberglass benches. I took little notice of him as I walked past on my way to the door and my beat-up old truck waiting at the curb. Then he spoke behind me.

“Are you Blaine Little?” he said.

I turned slowly. “That’s me,’ I said. “Do I know you?”

“I’ve got a message from MacDougall,” he said. His right hand was behind him and moving, and I just knew he had a gun. He and I were ten feet apart and there was nowhere to go.  So instinct kicked in, moves I’d learned the hard way, fighting door to door in Mogadishu in ’94. I lunged at the stranger.

I hit him in the midsection, knocking him off-balance. His weapon discharged harmlessly into the ceiling. We grappled, stumbling about the waiting room, each of us struggling to find balance while keeping the other on uncertain footing. The man was not tall, and at 6 foot 2 and 200 pounds I had at least 6 inches and 40 pounds on him. I managed to get my left arm around his neck. He scrabbled at my arm with his right hand while maintaining a grip on the gun with his left. The man had ridiculously dainty hands, I noticed, as I managed to grab his left wrist. I pounded his hand against the back of the hard fiberglass waiting bench until he let the gun drop with a grunt. I gave it a good kick and it slid under the benches and hit the back wall of the waiting room. Then I gave the little creep three or four good hard shots to the face until I felt him grow limp. I released my headlock and the small man collapsed to the floor. I stood over him with my fist clenched

“Had enough, prick?” I said.

The man pushed himself to his knees, and supported himself with his right arm while he waved his damaged left hand at me in a gesture of surrender. He was coughing and blood streamed from his nose onto the dirty green linoleum.

“I’m done, man,” he said. “Let’s call it a day.”

I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and jerked him to his feet. Then I pushed him into a seat and stood over him.

“Where’s MacDougall?”

“I don’t know, I was paid a grand to find you and deliver the message.”

“A thousand bucks to deliver a message, that’s good pay. A little light for killing a man, though.”

“Kill? No way, brother! The message is in my pocket. I can pull it out if you promise not to slug me again.”

“Do it,” I said, “and do it slowly.”

The stranger reached into a back pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. “Here,” he said. “Here’s your message.”

I took the pack and weighed it in my hand.

“So,” I said, “What the hell is this about? When did you see MacDougall?”

“I told you, I never saw MacDougall. My name’s Caution, Rolf Caution, and a guy gave me that [message], a thousand bucks and a bus ticket.”

“So why were you drawing down on me?”

“Guy that hired me said you were a hothead, like as not to plug me, so I was being cautious.” Caution wiped snot and blood off his face with his sleeve. “Listen, man,” he said, “can I get some paper towel or something and clean myself up.”

My sense was Caution was telling the truth. And, anyway, I had his gun and there was no window or other way out of the bathroom. “Go,” I said. “And come right back. We’re not done talking.”

Caution scrambled to his feet and went into the can. I sat near the door and waited. Caution was back in under five minutes. He’d done his best to clean up, but he was going to have a hell of a shiner tomorrow. Not that he didn’t deserve it, the dumbass. Over the next few days I’d learn that Caution was not very bright. I grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him out the door.

“This way, matey, we’re taking a drive.”

“What if I say no?”

“Then I’m dialing the police.” That was a bluff and Caution knew it. I didn’t want the police around anymore than he did. We had business to transact in the shadows. He was quiet as we left the building and walked to my old International.

“Get in.” I said. He did so.

“Where are we going” he asked me.

“Visiting,” I said.

 

Chapter 2

I drove away from the deserted bus station, back the way I had come. We did not speak. Caution beat a nervous tattoo against the passenger door with his right hand until I told him to stop. I needed some quiet time to think things through before we arrived at Lucy’s place.

Lucy was the third partner in this drug scheme. Me, MacDougall and Lucy, we’d all worked at the Ford plant, and we all been laid off together. We didn’t have jobs, and the unemployment insurance benefits had run out for all of us. We survived doing this and that, and not all of it legit.

Far from it. We bootlegged, and sold weed, pills, whatever there was around. We boosted electronics off the back of trucks at the Walmart, but after a couple of close calls we decided it was too risky. MacDougall had a plumber’s ticket, but there was no real, union work happening. Just cash repairs for homeowners as bad off as we were. Homeowners holding on, punch-drunk. Just holding on and waiting for the next economic battering to occur. Lay-offs, adjustable rate mortgages, foreclosures, re-possessions.  Everything costs money and no-one’s got any.

Sometimes I tend bar at Smokie’s for minimum wage and tips. People always have money to drink on. But Smokey has two nephews laid off from the foundry, and his sister wants them to work for him. So work at the bar is spread thin, and I’m not getting by.

So, the deal with MacDougal was all about oxycontin. A ten-thousand lot from a dealer in K.C. We borrowed money from Mark the Mick to finance the buy, and MacDougall took off to Kansas City. And he made the buy, and then he was headed home. But he never made it and the message Caution carried was bad news. Jack of spades meant: trust the bearer; I’m safe; I’m in trouble. And now that’s all we knew. I needed to talk to Caution in detail, and Lucy need to be there too.

Lucy’s house was about a mile out of town. She lived in a near-new trailer in a small park, courtesy of her ex-husband Rudi. Rudi was serving time in the penitentiary, 15 to 20 years for robbery, kidnapping and aggravated assault. Lucy swears he never laid a hand on her, but she divorced him anyhow, served him his papers in prison during a family visit. Hear Lucy tell it, Rudi wasn’t really surprised.

Lucy likes to have a man around, you know. For a while that man was me and that was okay. Lucy is quite a gal, you see. Smoking hot, a head turner. Tall, solidly built, blonde hair and lots of tattoos. Some guys don’t like the tattoos, but I don’t mind as long as they’re good art. Not jailhouse shit.

But, as I said earlier, Lucy has a kid living at home and I didn’t feel good about hanging around without a plan. It’s not the right way to treat a single mom. So now we’re just business partners, you might say. And today the business was in trouble.

The trailer park drive way was the first past the turn-off for the old Stardust Drive-In. Lucy and I used to go there together sometimes. We’d drive there in her old Buick convertible, watch a double-bill, share a bottle of wine, eat popcorn and neck. Now the drive-in is closed. People watch Netflix, I guess, but let me tell you, or them, that nothing beats sitting at the drive-in in a huge old convertible on a warm evening with a good buzz on and Lucy Grenville snuggled up next to you.

I turned into the trailer court, past the dumpster and the ratty, dirty office and onto the pot-holed gravel lane dividing two rows of trailers. Or manufactured homes I think they like to call them now.  Some trailers were old and falling apart, some were fairly new. The place had that trailer-park vibe, like, we’re-living-here-right-now-but-it’s-only-temporary. Sure, yeah, that’s right. Some people had lived here 25 years.

I swung into Lucy’s driveway, killed the motor and got a good grip on the front of Caution’s shirt.

“Stay in the back,” I told Jack, and he lay down in the pickup bed without further ado. Lucy didn’t allow dogs in her home, and Jack had spent many evenings here. He knew the drill.

I hauled Caution out through the driver’s door and walked him up onto Lucy’s front porch. She’d heard me pull in, and she had the screen door open when we arrived there. She didn’t look happy.

“Who’s this, Dennis?” she said. “And why is his face all busted up?

“This is Frank Caution and he has a story to tell, Lucy. About MacDougall. Can we come in?”

“Let’s make it fast, okay?” She stepped back to let us in.

 

Chapter 3

Lucy’s place was clean and tidy and I was briefly reminded of happier times. Then I dropped Caution into one of Lucy’s rock maple dining room chairs and sat myself down in the one next to it. Lucy closed the drapes across the picture window on the bow of the trailer to discourage nosy neighbors, and then she sat down with us. We all had our elbows on the table.

“Okay,” I said to Caution,”spill.”

“It’s like I told you, man. This guy in K.C., Marcos, paid me to bring you a message from your pal MacDougall,” said Caution. “But, like, just you, you know.” He nodded at Lucy.

“This is Lucy, dumbass.  My partner. Know what that means?”

“I guess it means she’s your partner. But I got my orders, man.”

I leaned across and grabbed the front of Caution’s shirt and gave him a good shake. “Get on with it, asshole,” I said.

“Okay, okay man, stay cool!” Caution dabbed at a cut over his eye with a wadded lump of damp paper towel for the bus station. “I got no beef with you, I’m just the messenger, you know. I don’t want to be here, it’s not worth the grand Marcos paid me. I didn’t want anything to do with any of this, but I owe the man, and I couldn’t say no.”

“What does that mean?” said Lucy.

“It means if I want to keep living I have to do this. Gotta come here and tell you what you gotta do to help out your friend.”

“Clarify, right now!” Lucy slapped the table, hard and we both jumped, Caution and me both. Caution looked as if he was about to cry.

“It’s Marcos, man. He’s in charge of everything and everyone in K.C. I owe him money, and so does your friend, and we’re both dead, me and him, unless we help him out.”

“MacDougall owes money? He was only there for one day!” said Lucy. “What the fuck!”

“Easy, Lucy,” I said.

“Don’t ‘easy Lucy” me, Dennis! MacDougall is an idiot, I told you he’d screw this up.”

I turned to Caution and leaned in. “You’d better start talking sense, right now.” And Caution told us a story.

Or started to, anyway. I heard the clump of boots on the wooden steps up to Lucy’s front porch and seconds later the door opened. I was on my feet and reaching for Caution’s gun stuck in the waist band of my jean when two men blue jumpsuits came through the door. The one with a blond buzz cut was pointing an AR15. I froze.

“Hands up folks, let’s see them up there, that’s right,” said buzz-cut. Meanwhile the second man — wire-rim glasses, greasy mullet and a Glock — moved swiftly toward the rear of the trailer. I heard doors opening and closing and then mullet was back.

“No one else here, Chuck,” he said to the buzz-cut.

“That so, folks?” Chuck said. “Just you three?”

“That’s right, friend,” I said. “What about you lower that AR and tell us why you’re here?”

“We need a word with this one,” said Chuck, pointing at Caution. He lowered the AR and then it disappeared into his jumpsuit. Mullet had his Glock pointed at the floor, but it was ready for action, we all understood that.

“We’re taking him with us, ain’t we Jimmy-boy?” said the mullet, poking Caution with his Glock. “As long as you folks are done roughing him up.”

“Aw, Gus,” said Caution. “You know we’re square. I’m in Marysville on separate business with these folks,” he whined. “Like I told Dennis here, I don’t want to be here but I got no choice.”

“We’ve all got choices, Frank. Or Jimmy, or whatever your real name is,” I said. Right now I’m thinking you chose to come here and do me at the bus station. And I don’t know who these two are or why they’re here, but I’m thinking we’re not done with you yet, so they may have to wait a while before you’re ready to go.”

“I don’t want trouble,” said Lucy. “I think I want you all out of here, now.”

“Roger that, sister,” said Chuck the buzz-cut. “So maybe we take young Jimmy here along, and you can come too,” he said to me.

“Let’s just get to where we can talk.  Lucy, I’m sorry about this and I fill you in later.”

“You’d better do that. Now all of you, out!”

So we left. Me, Frank/Jimmy, Chuck and Gus, we all walked out of the trailer and got into a large black SUV and drove back toward town.

(to be continued

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Rust Belt

By J. Gordon Donaldson

 

A rusty, jagged sunrise collected in the east, orange and violent. It was 4:45 am and a new day was barging in. I’d been up half the night, sitting on the back porch thinking about McDougall. He was now four days overdue and I was getting edgy.

Gathering light hardened up the shadows in the overgrown yard behind my ugly little rental house. Beyond the fence, down the hill and miles away, the mighty Ohio rolled west toward the invisible horizon. Ten years ago the scorching hot fires of the foundry reflected dull red in the black water all night long. But the foundry shut down, and now the nights are dark.

I got up out of the broken and sagging old armchair, stretched, and went into the house. The screen door slammed behind me. I had time to shower, dress and eat something before I drove into town to meet the eastbound Greyhound at 6:15. For the fifth day running. Maybe today MacDougall would be on the bus.

My shower was stone cold because my house had no real hot water system, only a sun tank. I shaved and dressed and went back to the kitchen. There was a stale, steaming half-inch of last night’s coffee in the pot on the stove. I dumped it down the sink and started over. Then I ate a bowl of Wheaties standing over the sink while I waited for the fresh stuff to perk.

Where the hell was MacDougall? On Monday he’d phoned from Kansas City. He’d met Marcos, he’d said. Done the deal and he’d be on the Tuesday morning Greyhound. I hadn’t heard from him again, and now it was Saturday.

Breakfast done, I whistled Jack out from under the back porch. He bounded into view, apparently feeling a whole more chipper than me. We got into the cab of my old Jeep pickup. After several false starts the engine caught, and settled into a lumpy idle. I jammed the truck into gear and then we jounced, slowly, along the rutted and uneven clay of the rock-hard, quarter-mile long driveway.

At the highway I swung the wheel right and hit the gas. Jack stuck his head though the window and into the breeze, tongue out and ears flapping. I crashed through the gears and coaxed the old truck up to cruising speed. There was no other traffic around.

Highway 3A was two lanes of frost-heaved blacktop that followed the river west. In the early morning traffic was light. Some folks still get early to drive to work, but not many now that all the jobs are gone. Lots of my pals from the Ford plant left town to find work somewhere else after the place shut down, but I hadn’t heard any success stories lately. I have two kids living with their mother over in Clinton, so I’m not going anywhere.

The drive into town was not a scenic one. Or maybe I’d just seen it too often. We passed scrapyards full of rusty metal bound for China, weather-beaten abandoned houses, and derelict businesses with graffiti-covered plywood on the windows. “John’ Eats” proc1aimed the sign on one battered and defeated little cube of a building sitting in a gravel parking lot. MacDougall and I had eaten there from time to time until the lights went out for good in 2009.

The road twisted and untwisted and the wide, placid Ohio winked in and out of view.

The sun was well up into the sky when Jack and I reached the outskirts of town and the speed limit dropped to 40 miles per hour. Then sidewalks appeared and Highway 3A became Main Street. Ten minutes later I pulled up in front of the Greyhound station. I switched off the ignition and sat in my truck. Soon the bus arrived and pulled up to one of the four platforms beside the bus station.

The front door of the bus swung open and passengers began filing off. Some were being met by family or friends. Others were alone. McDougall was not among them, again.

The driver finished unloading boxes and luggage. Then he handed off the bus to a fresh driver, who would pilot the Greyhound on down the road to New York City, the end of the line. New eastbound passengers stood in a line with their tickets ready and their bags at their feet. The driver checked tickets and stowed luggage. In a few minutes all the riders were aboard; their heads were dark shadows behind the tinted glass of the side windows. Then the Greyhound pulled out of our sad little bus station, headed for points east.

After the bus left I went into the building to use the men’s room. It smelt of urine cakes and despair, and the ancient fluorescent lighting buzzed and popped. I relieved myself and washed my hands at the cracked and stained sink. Afterwards I stood examining my reflection in the mirror.

The past five days had taken a toll, no mistake about that. I hadn’t slept properly, so my eyes were bloodshot and my face was drawn. I was sporting nearly a week’s growth of beard, black shot through with gray. My tee shirt had a coffee stain down the front. It was also on inside out. That I could correct, so I took off my wire-rimmed glasses and put them on the sink while I pulled off the tee-shirt and pulled it back on right side out. Then I put my glasses on and walked back out into the waiting area.

The room had been empty when I went into the can, but now there was a man sitting in the center of the front-most of the three rows of fiberglass benches. I took little notice of him as I walked past on my way to the door and my beat-up old truck waiting at the curb. Then he spoke behind me.

“Are you Blaine Little?” he said.

I turned slowly. “That’s me,’ I said. “Do I know you?”

“I’ve got a message from MacDougall,” he said. His right hand was behind him and moving, and I just knew he had a gun. He and I were ten feet apart and there was nowhere to go.  So instinct kicked in, moves I’d learned the hard way, fighting door to door in Mogadishu in ’94. I lunged at the stranger.

I hit him in the midsection, knocking him off-balance. His weapon discharged harmlessly into the ceiling. We grappled, stumbling about the waiting room, each of us struggling to find balance while keeping the other on uncertain footing. The man was not tall, and at 6 foot 2 and 200 pounds I had at least 6 inches and 40 pounds on him. I managed to get my left arm around his neck. He scrabbled at my arm with his right hand while maintaining a grip on the gun with his left. The man had ridiculously dainty hands, I noticed, as I managed to grab his left wrist. I pounded his hand against the back of the hard fiberglass waiting bench until he let the gun drop with a grunt. I gave it a good kick and it slid under the benches and hit the back wall of the waiting room. Then I gave the little creep three or four good hard shots to the face until I felt him grow limp. I released my headlock and the small man collapsed to the floor. I stood over him with my fist clenched

“Had enough, prick?” I said.

The man pushed himself to his knees, and supported himself with his right arm while he waved his damaged left hand at me in a gesture of surrender. He was coughing and blood streamed from his nose onto the dirty green linoleum.

“I’m done, man,” he said. “Let’s call it a day.”

I grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and jerked him to his feet. Then I pushed him into a seat and stood over him.

“Where’s MacDougall?”

“I don’t know, I was paid a grand to find you and deliver the message.”

“A thousand bucks to deliver a message, that’s good pay. A little light for killing a man, though.”

“Kill? No way, brother! The message is in my pocket. I can pull it out if you promise not to slug me again.”

“Do it,” I said, “and do it slowly.”

The stranger reached into a back pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. “Here,” he said. “Here’s your message.”

I took the pack and weighed it in my hand.

“So,” I said, “What the hell is this about? When did you see MacDougall?”

“I told you, I never saw MacDougall. My name’s Caution, Rolf Caution, and a guy gave me that [message], a thousand bucks and a bus ticket.”

“So why were you drawing down on me?”

“Guy that hired me said you were a hothead, like as not to plug me, so I was being cautious.” Caution wiped snot and blood off his face with his sleeve. “Listen, man,” he said, “can I get some paper towel or something and clean myself up.”

My sense was Caution was telling the truth. And, anyway, I had his gun and there was no window or other way out of the bathroom. “Go,” I said. “And come right back. We’re not done talking.”

Caution scrambled to his feet and went into the can. I sat near the door and waited. Caution was back in under five minutes. He’d done his best to clean up, but he was going to have a hell of a shiner tomorrow. Not that he didn’t deserve it, the dumbass. Over the next few days I’d learn that Caution was not very bright. I grabbed him by the elbow and dragged him out the door.

“This way, matey, we’re taking a drive.”

“What if I say no?”

“Then I’m dialing the police.” That was a bluff and Caution knew it. I didn’t want the police around anymore than he did. We had business to transact in the shadows. He was quiet as we left the building and walked to my old International.

“Get in.” I said. He did so.

“Where are we going” he asked me.

“Visiting,” I said.

 

Chapter 2

I drove away from the deserted bus station, back the way I had come. We did not speak. Caution beat a nervous tattoo against the passenger door with his right hand until I told him to stop. I needed some quiet time to think things through before we arrived at Lucy’s place.

Lucy was the third partner in this drug scheme. Me, MacDougall and Lucy, we’d all worked at the Ford plant, and we all been laid off together. We didn’t have jobs, and the unemployment insurance benefits had run out for all of us. We survived doing this and that, and not all of it legit.

Far from it. We bootlegged, and sold weed, pills, whatever there was around. We boosted electronics off the back of trucks at the Walmart, but after a couple of close calls we decided it was too risky. MacDougall had a plumber’s ticket, but there was no real, union work happening. Just cash repairs for homeowners as bad off as we were. Homeowners holding on, punch-drunk. Just holding on and waiting for the next economic battering to occur. Lay-offs, adjustable rate mortgages, foreclosures, re-possessions.  Everything costs money and no-one’s got any.

Sometimes I tend bar at Smokie’s for minimum wage and tips. People always have money to drink on. But Smokey has two nephews laid off from the foundry, and his sister wants them to work for him. So work at the bar is spread thin, and I’m not getting by.

So, the deal with MacDougal was all about oxycontin. A ten-thousand lot from a dealer in K.C. We borrowed money from Mark the Mick to finance the buy, and MacDougall took off to Kansas City. And he made the buy, and then he was headed home. But he never made it and the message Caution carried was bad news. Jack of spades meant: trust the bearer; I’m safe; I’m in trouble. And now that’s all we knew. I needed to talk to Caution in detail, and Lucy need to be there too.

Lucy’s house was about a mile out of town. She lived in a near-new trailer in a small park, courtesy of her ex-husband Rudi. Rudi was serving time in the penitentiary, 15 to 20 years for robbery, kidnapping and aggravated assault. Lucy swears he never laid a hand on her, but she divorced him anyhow, served him his papers in prison during a family visit. Hear Lucy tell it, Rudi wasn’t really surprised.

Lucy likes to have a man around, you know. For a while that man was me and that was okay. Lucy is quite a gal, you see. Smoking hot, a head turner. Tall, solidly built, blonde hair and lots of tattoos. Some guys don’t like the tattoos, but I don’t mind as long as they’re good art. Not jailhouse shit.

But, as I said earlier, Lucy has a kid living at home and I didn’t feel good about hanging around without a plan. It’s not the right way to treat a single mom. So now we’re just business partners, you might say. And today the business was in trouble.

The trailer park drive way was the first past the turn-off for the old Stardust Drive-In. Lucy and I used to go there together sometimes. We’d drive there in her old Buick convertible, watch a double-bill, share a bottle of wine, eat popcorn and neck. Now the drive-in is closed. People watch Netflix, I guess, but let me tell you, or them, that nothing beats sitting at the drive-in in a huge old convertible on a warm evening with a good buzz on and Lucy Grenville snuggled up next to you.

I turned into the trailer court, past the dumpster and the ratty, dirty office and onto the pot-holed gravel lane dividing two rows of trailers. Or manufactured homes I think they like to call them now.  Some trailers were old and falling apart, some were fairly new. The place had that trailer-park vibe, like, we’re-living-here-right-now-but-it’s-only-temporary. Sure, yeah, that’s right. Some people had lived here 25 years.

I swung into Lucy’s driveway, killed the motor and got a good grip on the front of Caution’s shirt.

“Stay in the back,” I told Jack, and he lay down in the pickup bed without further ado. Lucy didn’t allow dogs in her home, and Jack had spent many evenings here. He knew the drill.

I hauled Caution out through the driver’s door and walked him up onto Lucy’s front porch. She’d heard me pull in, and she had the screen door open when we arrived there. She didn’t look happy.

“Who’s this, Dennis?” she said. “And why is his face all busted up?

“This is Frank Caution and he has a story to tell, Lucy. About MacDougall. Can we come in?”

“Let’s make it fast, okay?” She stepped back to let us in.

 

Chapter 3

Lucy’s place was clean and tidy and I was briefly reminded of happier times. Then I dropped Caution into one of Lucy’s rock maple dining room chairs and sat myself down in the one next to it. Lucy closed the drapes across the picture window on the bow of the trailer to discourage nosy neighbors, and then she sat down with us. We all had our elbows on the table.

“Okay,” I said to Caution,”spill.”

“It’s like I told you, man. This guy in K.C., Marcos, paid me to bring you a message from your pal MacDougall,” said Caution. “But, like, just you, you know.” He nodded at Lucy.

“This is Lucy, dumbass.  My partner. Know what that means?”

“I guess it means she’s your partner. But I got my orders, man.”

I leaned across and grabbed the front of Caution’s shirt and gave him a good shake. “Get on with it, asshole,” I said.

“Okay, okay man, stay cool!” Caution dabbed at a cut over his eye with a wadded lump of damp paper towel for the bus station. “I got no beef with you, I’m just the messenger, you know. I don’t want to be here, it’s not worth the grand Marcos paid me. I didn’t want anything to do with any of this, but I owe the man, and I couldn’t say no.”

“What does that mean?” said Lucy.

“It means if I want to keep living I have to do this. Gotta come here and tell you what you gotta do to help out your friend.”

“Clarify, right now!” Lucy slapped the table, hard and we both jumped, Caution and me both. Caution looked as if he was about to cry.

“It’s Marcos, man. He’s in charge of everything and everyone in K.C. I owe him money, and so does your friend, and we’re both dead, me and him, unless we help him out.”

“MacDougall owes money? He was only there for one day!” said Lucy. “What the fuck!”

“Easy, Lucy,” I said.

“Don’t ‘easy Lucy” me, Dennis! MacDougall is an idiot, I told you he’d screw this up.”

I turned to Caution and leaned in. “You’d better start talking sense, right now.” And Caution told us a story.

Or started to, anyway. I heard the clump of boots on the wooden steps up to Lucy’s front porch and seconds later the door opened. I was on my feet and reaching for Caution’s gun stuck in the waist band of my jean when two men blue jumpsuits came through the door. The one with a blond buzz cut was pointing an AR15. I froze.

“Hands up folks, let’s see them up there, that’s right,” said buzz-cut. Meanwhile the second man — wire-rim glasses, greasy mullet and a Glock — moved swiftly toward the rear of the trailer. I heard doors opening and closing and then mullet was back.

“No one else here, Chuck,” he said to the buzz-cut.

“That so, folks?” Chuck said. “Just you three?”

“That’s right, friend,” I said. “What about you lower that AR and tell us why you’re here?”

“We need a word with this one,” said Chuck, pointing at Caution. He lowered the AR and then it disappeared into his jumpsuit. Mullet had his Glock pointed at the floor, but it was ready for action, we all understood that.

“We’re taking him with us, ain’t we Jimmy-boy?” said the mullet, poking Caution with his Glock. “As long as you folks are done roughing him up.”

“Aw, Gus,” said Caution. “You know we’re square. I’m in Marysville on separate business with these folks,” he whined. “Like I told Dennis here, I don’t want to be here but I got no choice.”

“We’ve all got choices, Frank. Or Jimmy, or whatever your real name is,” I said. Right now I’m thinking you chose to come here and do me at the bus station. And I don’t know who these two are or why they’re here, but I’m thinking we’re not done with you yet, so they may have to wait a while before you’re ready to go.”

“I don’t want trouble,” said Lucy. “I think I want you all out of here, now.”

“Roger that, sister,” said Chuck the buzz-cut. “So maybe we take young Jimmy here along, and you can come too,” he said to me.

“Let’s just get to where we can talk.  Lucy, I’m sorry about this and I fill you in later.”

“You’d better do that. Now all of you, out!”

So we left. Me, Frank/Jimmy, Chuck and Gus, we all walked out of the trailer and got into a large black SUV and drove back toward town.

(to be continued