Bill Johnson's Fiction

The Death of Shawneetown - Part 6

2005-07-11T18:03:00.000-07:00

The following is the sixth and final part of this story. If you haven't read the previous parts yet, click the links on the right-hand side of this page.

I didn't sleep well that night.

I sat up for a long time on my dingy motel bed. I hadn't noticed this from the previous night, but it smelled of tabacco smoke and had cigarette-burn holes in the covers. The carpet wasn't much better. It must've been thirty years old, and the parts of it that weren't worn were spotted with stains of various colors, shapes, and sizes. I didn't care though. It's funny how single men often don't care about the cleanliness of their surroundings. Just throw us in a cave with beer and cable TV, and we're happy.

Speaking of cable, the television in my room didn't have it. Only four channels were available, with varying degrees of clarity, depending on where in the tri-state area their respective station transmitters were located. That wouldn't have been so bad, except the only thing showing on all four station at that time of night were infomercials. I learned all I could possibly want to know about an uncomfortable-looking contraption called the "Ab Shrinker". I had a choice between learning about that fine product, and this amazing stain lifter. I wonder if the motel's management knew about that item.

Really, I just had the TV on for background anyway. I was still fuming about what Mandy had said to me earlier that day. I decided she must have thought I was the biggest loser she had ever met. She'd probably be right. Here I was, about to turn thirty, and I was still hanging on to playgrounds and swingsets, oak trees and ball-parks, old school buildings and swimming pools, the past and my childhood. Did I have such a pathetic life that I had to escape into the past just to cope? Was I that miserable? Maybe not miserable, but unfulfilled certainly. Unsatisfied, definately. I kept going over our conversation in my head. The more I would go over it, the more it would eat at me, twisting my stomach into knots. Thinking about it made me angry. Angry at Mandy for saying those things, angry at myself because I knew she was telling the truth, then angry at Mandy for telling the truth, then angry at myself for being angry at Mandy for... you get the picture. Of course, it probably didn't help that I had started on a six-pack of Millers and finished them inside of an hour, which is fast for me.

Usually that much drinking causes me to sleep the "deep sleep", as I call it, a sleep so heavy, that, if not for my snoring, you'd think I was in a coma. It didn't happen that night, though. I kept having these strange nightmares. They weren't normal nightmares with stories and visuals. No, it was like I was dreaming in emotions instead of pictures. The first dream was grief, just grief. I can't say what I saw, because I didn't see anything. I only felt. But I felt it, the grief, intensely. Anyone who has ever lost someone close to them knows how it feels - the sudden emptiness, like some part of you has been ripped away, leaving you with less of yourself. And the feeling of powerlessness, the helplessness, the sensation that you're lost and don't know what your going to do or how you can go on without that person in your life anymore. That was my dream. I felt it. I felt all of it. And it was one of those dreams that seemed to go on forever and ever. When I finally woke up, I found my pillow soaked all the way through, but I wasn't sweating. I must've cried - a lot.

After much tossing and turning I had another dream. Now the feeling was relief. It's over, I kept thinking to myself, hearing the words in my head over and over again. It's finally over. I woke up, hearing myself ask out loud, "What is? What's over?"

More tossing and turning. This time I finally had a dream with pictures. I was outside the little funeral home in town. Stewart was there, but he wasn't retarded. He was dressed in a sharp dark suit, like he was the funeral director. He opened the front door and motioned for me to go inside. As he looked at me, he had that insincere, practiced, sad smile that funeral directors often use to make themselves look empathetic. "Go right in," he said with that low, somber voice also used by funeral directors, "we have a seat for you with the rest of the family."

As I stepped inside, I found myself several feet away from an ornate, shiny black casket. It was open, but I couldn't see who was inside. Somehow, Stewart was already there, standing next to the coffin. "Would you like to view her before the services start?" he asked, still sporting that creepy smile.

I walked up close to the casket to get a better look. It seemed to be a very fancy casket, with silver handles and fixtures lining the outside of it. Even though it was black it seemed very shiny, as if it had been polished with extreme care.

I was about to look inside the coffin when I noticed Mandy was standing in front of it, crying softly. She was dressed in a black mourning dress that looked like the ones worn by women around the turn of the early twentieth century, the kind of dress that covered every part of the body, from the top of the neck to the bottom of the ankles. She was also wearing a small black hat with a black lace veil covering her face, but I could still see it was Mandy. "She looks so peaceful," she kept saying, "she's at rest now."

I turned to look back at the casket, but it had changed. Now it was just a plain pine box, the kind of casket you see in old westerns. It was dirty and falling apart, like the wood was old and rotted.

"Oh no," Mandy said softly, "she didn't want to go like that. It's because all her children left her. That's why she has to go like that now."

Then Stewart spoke. "She's very happy that you're all here now."

I tried to look inside the coffin, but I couldn't make out any form inside it. There was just darkness, pitch-black darkness. "Who is she?" I asked.

"She's who you came back to see," Stewart said.

"Who is she?" I asked again, "I don't know who she is."

Suddenly, Stewart snapped. He got this enraged look on his face, as he yelled, "You don't know who she is?!" He pushed his face close to mine until we were almost touching, his face still full of rage, contorted into a crazy, wild-eyed expression. He was screaming now, "You don't know who she is?!!! You don't know who she is?!!!"

I sat up in bed, screaming. This time, I was sweating - profusely. My heart was beating so hard, it felt like it was going to come out of my chest. I couldn't breathe, I needed fresh air. I jumped out of bed and ran outside, leaving the door open behind me. I walked out and stood by the street, trying to force myself to take slow, deep breaths, sucking in the hot, muggy, summer night air. I was still sweating. Sweating and trembling. I felt cold, even though I knew it had to be eighty degrees outside.

After several minutes, I began to calm down and breathe normally. But I still didn't want to go back inside. I was wearing nothing but my boxer shorts and a T-shirt, but I didn't care. I was too afraid to lie down and close my eyes. So I stayed outside awhile, watching the occasional semi-truck roll over the dark lonely highway in front of me, until finally sleepiness forced me to return to bed.

I woke up the next morning feeling like I had been beaten up. I didn't feel rested at all. I looked at the large digital clock beside the bed. 10:45. Just enough time to wash up, pack my clothes, check out of the motel, and meet Mandy for lunch. Wait, I thought, check out? I was actually ready to leave town, or rather I knew I'd be leaving some time that day. It was the first time since I had arrived that I didn't feel stuck there, like I had to stay for some indeterminate amount of time. I knew I couldn't leave just yet, but I would very soon.

I met Mandy at Reba's Barbecue. Reba's was a fairly non-descript little diner that sat at the front of town along Highway 13. It was also the only place in town besides the churches that were open on Sunday.

As I walked in, I noticed how crowded the place was. I couldn't remember it ever being so busy. I was afraid I was going to have to wait for a table to open up when I saw Mandy had already gotten one for us. Clem was there too, we had asked him to join us.

Mandy smiled warmly at me as I got to the table. "Hey there, we've been waiting on you."

I smiled back at her. We didn't have to say it. We knew things were alright between us now.

"I guess this is the church crowd, huh?" I asked, "Is this place always so busy on Sundays?"

"Nah," Clem said, "it's all the visitors that come in this weekend. We sure did get a lot of them."

I looked around at the other customers, noticing a lot of people my age or younger mixed in with the older folks. "I see what you mean."

We chatted for awhile, mostly about the weather and other mundane trivia. But gradually the conversation turned to Clem's dad and Mandy's mom. Both had died of Cancer, and both Clem and Mandy had taken on the roles of caretakers.

"Dad had a pretty rough time there towards the end," Clem said. "The Cancer grew real fast there those last two weeks. There wasn't nothing the doctors could do about it, but give us medicine to give him to make the pain go away. He was hurtin pretty bad, too. The tumors had swelled up real big inside him. You could tell too, because he looked all swolled up."

I was surprised to hear Clem open up like that. But Mandy always seemed to be able to make people feel comfortable so that they could share things that they normally wouldn't.

"The drugs put him out of his mind," Clem continued. "It was like most of the time you couldn't tell if he knew you was there. You'd say somethin to him, and he might say somethin back to you, but you couldn't understand it. Other times, you'd say somethin and he wouldn't say nothin, just lie there. The only times he'd kinda snap out of it was when he had to go to the bathroom. But I had to help him with that too - take his pajama pants down, even wipe him after."

"Wow," I said, "that part must have been hard on you."

Clem looked up at me, looking slightly surprised and a little annoyed. "It was my privelege. And I wouldn't trade it for nothin. The only times I could half-way talk to him was when were in the bathroom together. For some reason, he'd snap out of it for just a little bit, then we'd talk. That last time in the bathroom," Clem started to choke up, "he told me he loved me. That was the first time we ever said that to each other, ever. And it wouldn't a never happened if I just let some nurse take care of him."

Mandy touched his hand. "You were a good son, Clem. Your dad must've loved you very much. I know he had to have been very grateful for all you did for him at the end."

Clem's eyes had started to water, but he tried not to look at us so we wouldn't notice. "You think so?"

"I know so," said Mandy.

She always knew the right words to say at just the right time. She should have been a psychiatrist.

Mandy started talking about her mother. Her experience was a little different. They were trying to treat the Cancer all the way to the end, so she died in the hospital in the care of nurses, instead of at home. "Of course, that last week, we were all there in the hospital with her. All of four of us kids. That was important to Mom. She wanted all of her children there at the end."

At that moment, I looked out the window and say Stewart riding his bike down the street. Then it hit me. It was like someone had thrown a bucket-full of ice cold water on me and woke me up from a deep sleep. "What did you say, Mandy?"

She turned to look at me. "Huh?"

"That last thing you said. What was it, the exact words?"

"Well, I don't know. I think I said something like, 'Mom wanted all her kids with her at the end'."

I slapped the table. "Oh my god. I got it. Oh, I mean I'm so sorry. I know you were talking about your mom and everything, but oh my god, I got it. I understand now. Oh, I know."

Other people in the restaurant had turned around to look at me. I didn't care.

"Know what?," Clem asked, "What are you talking about?"

"Why I'm here! Why everybody's here. Why the grass suddenly started growing so fast. Why buildings are falling down. Why the streets are coming apart. I know!"

"Well stop making a scene and tell us, for crying out loud!" Mandy said.

"Remember yesterday when we were at Cottonwood," I asked her, "What did you say happens when a town dies, about the grass and buildings and stuff."

"I don't understand..."

"Just say it!"

"Well, houses and buildings fall down because there's no one there to take care of them. The grass and underbrush grow up and take over everything, until there's pretty much just a patch of weeds left."

"Don't you see?" I pleaded, "That's what's happening to Shawneetown!"

"Rob, are you nuts?" she asked, half-jokingly, "that happens when there isn't anyone to take care of the place, and it happens over time, not all of the sudden, like it's happening here, while people are still here."

"But what if Shawneetown didn't want to die that way? What if she didn't want to wait until she was so neglected, so run-down that she just starts to slowly fall apart?"

I could tell Mandy didn't quite know what to make of me at the moment. "Rob, you're talking about Shawneetown like it's a person. It's just a town. Regardless, why would she, I mean, it want to die all of the sudden."

"You said it yesterday. You said when the young people leave, the life of the town leaves with them. Shawneetown knows what's happening to it, and doesn't want to have to suffer for a long time like your parents did. Don't you see?"

"Hold on," Clem said, "Are you sayin that Shawneetown is pullin some kind of Kevorkian and makin itself die faster? You are nuts.

"Ok, then why did all the young people come back to town? You said you knew that, too."

At that moment, the building started to shake violently. Plates fell off tables and shattered, paintings fell off the walls, light fixtures fell off the ceiling and broke into thousands of tiny pieces.

"Everyone under the tables!" someone shouted.

Part of the ceiling crumbled and fell to the floor.

"No," someone else shouted, "everybody get outside!"

Somehow we all knew that was what we had to do. Unforunately, there had to be over eighty people in that little diner, and one small front door for everyone to shove and push their way out of. Someone threw a chair through the large plate glass window in the front. Several of us got out that way. I pushed Mandy out the window ahead of me and then jumped out behind her. Once outside, most of us started running up Shawnee Boulevard towards the square, which was the only open area close by where no buildings could fall on us. In the confusion, I momentarily lost Mandy and Clem.

"Mandy!" I yelled, "Clem!"

"Rob!", Mandy yelled back.

I saw her a few yards away, already on the square. She looked like she was nursing a cut or bruise on her leg.

"What happened? Are you alright?"

"Someone fell on me while were getting out of the restaurant. There was so much pushing and shoving."

"Here," I said, "let me take a look."

It looked like a bad bruise, but nothing was broken, and there wasn't any bleeding.

"Where's Clem?" I said.

Mandy pointed to Clem. He hadn't come all the way to the square, but was standing about half-way between it and the diner, watching the building shake as people still piled out.

"Man," some lady in the crowd said, "what an earthquake!"

Clem had walked back a little by this time, so he was a little closer to us. "No, it's not an earthquake," he said, "Look, we ain't even fifty yards from the restaurant, but the ground's not shakin over here. If it was an earthquake, we'd feel it too."

He was right. Mandy and I looked at each other as we both realized the ground wasn't shaking underneath us.

"Well what is it, then?," the lady asked.

Before anyone could answer, Reba's Barbecue trembled for one last time then collapsed to the ground, just seconds after the last person left in the restaurant had stumbled out. Then the same thing started happening to the bar next to it. Then another building, then another. It being Sunday most of the buildings were empty, but then the chain reaction came up our direction until it reached the big white Baptist church on the corner of Marshall and Lincoln. The big bell at the top of the huge steeple started to clang loudly and horribly as the whole building shook, from foundation to spire. Parishioners started running out, yelling, grabbing their children.

"Is that everybody?" An older gentleman dressed in his Sunday best yelled at the last person to come out.

"Yeah," the other man said, "I was the last one."

Seconds later, the church collapsed too. Then grass shot up out of the ground as if someone were pushing it up from underneath, and covered the rubble from view.

People were running from their homes too.

"My kids!" Clem said as he started running for his truck, "I gotta check on my kids!"

"My dad!" Mandy said, "Oh Rob, we have to go get my dad!"

"Quick. My car's this way."

We jumped in my car and sped off towards Mandy's house. All the time we had to dodge people running onto the streets out of buildings and homes, running for their lives. It was chaos. Then the street started breaking up entirely as grass and weeds started forcing their way up from the ground through the pavement. Finally, we reached Mandy's house. Her dad had found his way outside and was in the driveway. I jumped out and quickly helped him into the backseat.

"We need to get out of here," I said.

Just then, weeds and ivy had completely overtaken the walls of the house and appeared to actually pull the house a good five feet into the ground. All of the windows shattered. And a big, gaping whole formed in the roof as part of it fell in.

We sped off back through town, and across the highway on to a dirt road.

"Where are we going?" Mandy asked.

"Up on Gold Hill" I said.

"Why?"

"I don't know." I really didn't know. It just felt like that's where we were supposed to be.

There's a large plateau jutting out about half-way up the side of Gold Hill called Make-Out Point. This place had a great view of Shawneetown from above. Somehow, I knew that's where we needed to go. Evidently I wasn't the only person who felt that way. There were already several cars there as we arrived, and cars kept coming after us.

As we looked out over the town, we could see the rubble scattered across the little business district, slowly being covered over by a patch of green. Every fifteen minutes or so, another church would crumble and fall. We could see people running around, like a bunch of little ants that had been whipped into confusion because someone knocked over their ant hill.

"It's odd," Mandy said, "it's like the buildings wait for everybody to come out first, then collapse."

I had noticed that too. "She doesn't want to hurt anyone," I said, "It's just time for everybody to leave."

Another strange thing, most of the houses weren't collapsing like the businesses were. Instead of falling down completely, they were getting overrun and torn apart by weeds and other plant life. It looked like maybe the owners might be able come back and take their belongings out in a day or two, but nobody would be living in those houses ever again. I was sure it wouldn't be but a couple of months before the houses fell down too.

Eventually, I saw Clem's pickup winding its way up the dirt road to Make-Out Point. His kids and ex-wife were with him.

He pulled up and jumped out. "You guys alright?"

"Yeah, we're ok," I answered.

"What's everybody doing up here?" he asked.

I scanned the rather large crowd that had formed on this little nook. Several women were crying as their husbands held them. Some of the group seemed be walking around in a shocked daze. Others had their eyes fixed on the town below as they watched in disbelief. Then, I spotted Stewart standing there, smiling at me.

I knew why we were up here. We were her for the same reason that so many of us came to had come to town that weekend. I turned to Clem, "We're here for the funeral."

Mandy sidled up beside me, grabbed my arm, and leaned her head on it. I started to get that warm and fuzzy feeling again, stomach knots and all.

-The End

The Death of Shawneetown - Part 5

2005-07-01T19:28:00.000-07:00

The following is the fifth part of this story. If you haven't read the previous parts yet, click the links on the right-hand side of this page.

Mandy and I had planned to get together later that day for a drive in the country. It was my idea. Mandy thought it was silly. She got to live in the country, or very near it, every day. But it had been a long time since I had driven on a gravel road. I missed the back country roads. Gravel forces you to drive slowly, because if you drive a little too fast you could easily lose control of your car and find yourself in a ditch. Besides, you never know when you're going to meet another car coming your direction as you go over a hill or around a blind curve. On the other hand, the slow speed allows time for looking at the countryside - rolling green hills of wild grass interrupted by islands of ancient trees or spotted by lazy cows standing calmly, field after field of tall corn stalks gradually maturing from baby green to seasoned brown, or sometimes patches of woods chaotically populated by jagged, forbidding trees that change the road from a sunny stretch of dirt and rocks into a dark shady lane. When we were teenagers we used to drive around in the country just to see if we could get lost, which isn't hard if you find yourself in a corner of the county you've never been before. But just like Mandy, I think I may have taken the scenery for granted back then.

Before I go any farther, I should probably clarify the nature of my relationship with Mandy. You see, she and I were never "officially" boyfriend and girlfriend, at least not according to a teenager's understanding of the terms. We had known each other since we were very small and had been best friends our entire childhoods. Puberty may have complicated our friendship, but we both made sure not to indicate that to the other. We knew we had a good thing going, and I think we were both too nervous to try anything that might mess it up. Not that I didn't think about it. Back then I was always wondering if maybe what we had could be even better.

Still, we were always together. And I don't remember either of us going out seriously with anyone else. I'm sure that the other kids must've thought we were "going together", as we used to say back then. We even went to the prom with each other, claiming we were doing so because neither of us had anyone else to go with. I think maybe if I had just asked Mandy to be my girlfriend, she would have. I never did, though. I was stupid.

I drove to her house to pick her up. Shortly after getting into the car, she flipped down the visor to look at the make-up mirror and started applying lipstick. This struck me as odd.

"What's the occasion?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the only times I ever remember you wearing makeup was if somebody was getting married, or there was a funeral or something."

She laughed and punched me playfully on the arm. "We all have to grow up sometime, Robby. I'm not the little tomboy you knew in high school, you know."

But... I liked that tomboy. That pretty little girl who didn't care as much about how she looked as she did about whether she was enjoying herself at the moment. She was fun. What was so wrong with her that Mandy would want to throw her away?

At the moment, grown-up Mandy was sitting next to me, painting her face. She then spent the next fifteen minutes trying to comb her hair with her fingers, complaining about what a mess it was. I didn't know why this was bothering me so much. Most women wear makeup and occasionally check in the mirror to see how their hair looks. It's normal. Not for Mandy, though. Not my Mandy.

At one point, Hungry Like a Wolf by Duran Duran came on the radio, which caused us both to start singing loudly and off-key. That was one of our favorite songs and Duran Duran was our favorite group. I remember how we drove all night once just to go to one of their concerts.

I asked Mandy if she had their latest CD.

"No, I don't really listen to them much anymore."

"You don't listen to them anymore?!" I blurted, "That's our favorite group!"

"Was our favorite group," she corrected.

The subject gradually changed to Shawneetown and how it seemed to be going downhill. I talked for a long time about how I remembered it, what a wonderful place it used to be, and how I was so disappointed to find it so decayed. I got the sense that Mandy was beginning to get bored.

All the time, I never told her where we were going exactly. When we were kids, we used to hop on my ATV and ride through the myriads of trails that ran through the woods around Shawneetown and Gallatin County. There were so many ATV trails that you could go anywhere you wanted in the entire county from anywhere else in the county all on the back of your four-wheeler.

On these trail rides, there was one place where we always used to stop. It was called Cottonwood. Cottonwood was a tiny little village hidden way out in the middle of nowhere. There wasn't a highway or paved road anywhere in sight of it. It had five houses and a tiny general store run by some man in his nineties. I think Mandy and I may have been his only regular customers. His store was the only place I knew of where you could still buy soda pop in those glass bottles with the lids that had to be popped off.

"You know we've passed this house twice already, don't you?" Mandy asked.

"I'm sorry," I said, "I know it's around here somewhere."

"What is?"

"Cottonwood."

"Rob, we passed Cottonwood back there on the left."

"What? I didn't see it. Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure, Silly. Turn around and I'll show you."

I found a driveway and used it to turn around. "There it is," Mandy said, pointing at a clump of trees and underbrush.

I stopped the car.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I have to get out and see."

Mandy got out with me. "I don't know why you'd want to see this place."

"What happened to the store and the houses?"

"You can see what happened to them, Robby. The houses that didn't fall down were torn down. The old man who ran the store passed away, so it was torn down too. Then weeds and underbrush grew up over it all because no one was here to take care of it."

She was right. When I looked closely, I could see broken remnants of houses in amongst the weeds and knee-high grass. I sighed heavily, "It's so sad."

"It's life," she said, "It's what happens to little towns at the end of their lives when they stop growing. Businesses move out and take their jobs with them. Families move to follow those jobs or find new jobs someplace else, usually in a bigger town. With no families, there's no kids. There's no kids, so there's no life left in the town. It's just a bunch of old people who want to be left to themselves in their quiet little homes, while they wait to die. And when they die, then there is no town left."

"I know," I said, "It's just so sad."

"Is it?"

That question surprised me. Didn't she share my sentiment about this place? Didn't she feel the same way? "Don't you think so?" I asked her.

"I think it's life," she said, "Besides that, it's just a place. Any town or city or village or patch of real estate - it's just place. What's important is what you do with your life while you're there."

"Shawneetown's not just a place," I said.

"Of course it is. And one day, probably when we are both old, maybe after we're dead, the same thing's going to happen to Shawneetown too. It's already slowly and painfully slipping away. Families have moved out. Businesses are closing one by one. The only people left are either old or drunk white trash, who probably would move out, if they had a car that worked. And one day Shawneetown is going to end up like this place, a patch of weeds. But it won't matter, because it was just a little patch of dirt where some rednecks put their houses and mobile homes. Once it's gone, the rest of the world won't be any different, and it won't care or even notice."

I couldn't believe what she had just said. How could she talk about our town like that? How dare she! The Mandy I knew loved our town. What was wrong with her?

"You know," I said, "you've changed."

"Why, Rob? Because I don't live in 1985 like you do?"

Ouch. "What do you mean..."

She turned to face me squarely, "I won't be in Shawneetown forever. I'm here because of my Dad, that's all. Eventually, I'm going to move away and never bother to think about that place again. Not because I hate the place, but because it's just a place and I will have moved on. That's what most people do - they move on. But not you. All you've talked about since you came back is how Shawneetown used to be and how it's so run-down now and how sad it is. Have you ever stopped to think that maybe you're not comparing that place to how it really was, but to how you remember it instead? Did it occur to you that maybe Shawneetown was never the little paradise you have pictured in your mind? That maybe it looks so bad to you now, because it doesn't live up to some romanticized picture you have of it?"

Then she came closer and put her hand on my face. "Robby, I'm telling you all of this because I'm your friend. And I think that maybe the reason you're obsessing so much about Shawneetown and the past is that you're not really happy with your life now. Am I right?"

She was right, but the truth in her words just made me angrier. I turned away from her and stomped back to the car, got in, and slammed the door. It was a long, quiet ride back to her house. I don't think I said two words to her the whole time.

I pulled up to her house and she opened the door to get out. I knew she could still see I was hurt. She leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. "You know I care about you, don't you Robby?"

"Yeah," I muttered incomprehensively. I couldn't believe how immature I was being about all of this. Mandy being nice to me made me even more embarrassed.

"Do you still want to have lunch together tomorrow?" she asked.

I started to mutter another incomprehensible reply when I noticed something strange. "What's wrong with your driveway? And your house?"

All of the concrete in her driveway had crumbled into little pieces as weeds and grass were pushing their way through from underneath. What's more, the bushes that used to line the walls under the large front window were now completely blocking that window from view. The yard looked like it hadn't been mowed in a month and weeds had climbed their way up the outer walls of the house all the way to the gables.

"Oh my God," she said, "It wasn't like that this morning."

The Death of Shawneetown - Part 4

2005-06-26T17:32:00.000-07:00

This following is the fourth part of this story. If you haven't read the previous parts yet, click the links on the right-hand side of this page.

It was fairly late when I woke up the next morning. Mandy and I spent several hours talking, so I ended up going to sleep well after midnight. Still, it wasn't quite noon when I woke up, and I was hungry. Getting breakfast can be a challenge in Shawneetown as the one restaurant doesn't open until lunch time. I decided to visit one of the convenience stores to see what I could scrounge up. It wasn't pretty. The selection of food there was pretty minimal.

I had just sat down with my fruit pie, chocolate milk, and day-old bologna sandwich, when Stewart walked in. Stewart was a mentally-retarded man who lived at the local nursing home. He was maybe only fifteen years older than me, and wasn't so impaired that he couldn't function. In fact, the people at the nursing home would let him go out by himself all day, as long as he came home at a reasonable hour. I had heard that his parents put him in the nursing home because they were getting up in years, and couldn't properly take care of him. I think they just couldn't be bothered.

Whatever the case, Stewart was pretty well known around town. He used to ride all over on his bicycle, pulling a little old rotary lawn mower behind him. I remember he was always asking my Dad if he could mow our lawn for us. As a favor, Dad would give in every once in a while and pay him to cut our grass. He never seemed to be able to mow in straight rows, and he would always end up missing a few spots, but it wasn't that bad, considering he only charged four dollars to do the whole lawn.

He spotted me as he walked through the front door. "There he is!" he said, as if he knew exactly who I was. Stewart would act that familiar with everyone.

I smiled at him. "How are you doing, Stewart? Still mowing lawns?"

He sat down across from me, not bothering to take off his little fluorescent green bicycle helmet. "Yeah. Been too hard now, though. Grass is too thick. It grows too fast. My lawn mower keeps getting stuck. I push and push, but it's too hard."

Several of the lawns around town were looking pretty neglected. "I guess people are waiting too long to have their lawns mowed, huh?"

"No," he answered. "It grows too fast. Like I was cutting Old Man Tanner's yard, and... You know Old Man Tanner, right? He lives down there by Mary."

I didn't have any idea who Old Man Tanner or Mary were, but I nodded anyway.

"Yeah, I was cutting his yard last week, and then the next day, it was just as long."

"You mean the grass grew back that fast?" I asked.

"Yeah, it grew real fast. And then, old Mrs. Cooper's grass was the same way."

"Do they have a special kind of grass in their yard or something?"

His blank expression told me he didn't quite understand. I re-phrased, "Is it just their yards?"

He shook his head, "No, it's everybody's. Grass is growing real fast everywhere. I can't cut nobody's yard. I don't know where I'm gonna get money now."

I took another chug of my milk, and handed him my fruit pie, hoping to cheer him up. "I'm sorry, Stewart. But, you know, it's been pretty hot and dry this summer. Grass can't keep growing like that if doesn't rain regularly. It will probably go back to normal for you in a couple of weeks."

He opened the package and took a big bite of his pie. Then, with his mouth full of pie, he asked, "You here for the funeral?"

"What funeral?"

He looked up from his pie and stared at me through his thick eye glasses which made his eyes look at least twice their actual size. "You know," he insisted, "her funeral."

"Whose funeral, Stewart? Who died?"

"She ain't died, yet. But she's going to. That's why all her kids came back, you too. For the funeral."

All I could do was sit there and stare back at him. I kept trying to tell myself that Stewart was just speaking nonsense, that even if he did know of someone who was dying, he must be confusing me with one of her kids. But somehow, I knew he was right. As he looked at me, I could feel he knew. He knew why I was in town, and why I felt like I couldn't leave yet. I didn't even know, but he did. There, trapped inside his fragmented mind, were all the answers.

I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn't even know what question to ask. Before I knew it, he was up and walking out the door.

I jumped up, spilling my chocolate milk. "Stewart, wait..."

"Gotta go now. Bye." was all he said as he darted out the door. A split-second later he was speeding off down the street on his bike.

I ran out to the street, but he was already too far away. Looking down, I noticed Main Street looked different than it did the day before. There were cracks in the pavement I hadn't noticed before, zig-zagging intermittently across the street. Pushing their way up through the cracks were tall weeds and long, ugly blades of grass.

I went back into the store, and sat down. As I tried to finish my bologna sandwich, I kept hearing Stewart's words in my head, over and over again, "That's why all her kids came back, you too." What did he mean by that? Who's dying? Who are 'all her kids'?

The Death of Shawneetown - Part 3

2005-06-19T16:27:00.000-07:00

This following is the third part of this story. If you haven't read parts 1 and 2 yet, click the links on the right-hand side of this page.

There was something else I had been wanting to do since I got here. But I couldn't do it in broad daylight. There might be witnesses, and I didn't need that.

I left the square and walked the six blocks to the elementary school. It is a very solitary experience to walk through a town this size at night. There was no one else on the sidewalks, and no cars on the streets. The only activity belonged to the insects that danced feverishly in the glow of the street lights. Other than a lamp shining through the front window of the police station, those street lights were the only lights around the square that were turned on. The little stores and shops were all forbiddingly dark, inside and out. There didn't seem to be much life coming from the houses I passed, either. Every so often, from inside a living-room window would come the soft blueish-gray glow of a television set. Other than that, the town itself seemed to be asleep.

No noise, either. Just the insistant humming of cicada bugs, accompanied by the occasional lonely croak of a single frog. A visitor from a large city is often struck by the complete lack of noise here in the country, especially at night. No cars, no trucks. No sirens to pierce the air, no loud car stereos insinuating themselves into everyone's consciousness. Quiet. I don't think anyone who hasn't been to the country can know the true meaning of that word.

As I got near the school, I was relieved to see that the veil of darkness had almost covered the blemishes in the old building. When I passed by here today on my walk around town, I was saddened to see that this building was in no better shape than the high school. It too, had long snaky cracks on its walls, accompanied by broken windows, and huge holes in the roof. The painted stucco covering the outside was chipping off like dead skin after a sunburn. But in the dark, none of this was easily visible, making it easier for me to pretend I was a kid again, visiting the playground for a nighttime romp.

I almost tripped as I was crossing over the two concrete basketball courts on my way to the ball field. As I looked down, I saw a huge crack where a part of the court had actually broken off and risen a couple of inches above the rest of the concrete. Strange. I didn't remember seeing that crack earlier that day, and I was sure I would've noticed it. It was very big.

As I made my way through the rest of the playground, I noticed something else that was odd. The grass, which was so high I could feel it as I walked, seemed taller than it did earlier that day. In fact, I couldn't remember seeing a single lawn in the whole town that looked like it had been mowed recently.

But I had come here to do something, and I was determined to do it. When I was a kid, there was, on the edge of the playground where the playground ended and the ball field began, a large swing set. On the end of that swing set, next to the other swings, hung a swing that wasn't like any other swing on the entire playground. It sat higher than the others and had a hard blue plastic seat, unlike the black flexible rubbery seats of the other swings. The other swings would break from time to time or get rusty and need to be replaced, but not this swing. This swing endured and stayed unchanged througout my entire childhood. I used to get on that swing every day during recess and swing for the whole period. I would go higher and higher, faster and faster, until I could feel the whole swing set start to move like it was about to come out of the ground. The higher I would go, the faster my heart would beat, until I could feel it pound against my chest. It would scare the stuffing out of me. But even as I was getting more and more frightened, I would be trying to build up my courage. Because once I would get enough nerve, once the swing could go no higher, and once my heart could beat no faster, I would close my eyes, and... jump. All the air would rush out of my lungs, and for a fraction of a second I would feel like I was flying. Then, I would hit the ground, hard. That would sting a little, but somehow, the pain was all a part of the fun, the thrill. Once I had regained my balance and the playground stopped spinning, I would pick myself up out of the dirt and do it all over again.

Sure, it was crazy. But children are expected to do crazy things. Men my age, on the other hand, are not, which is why I had to wait until it was dark to do this. I finally reached the swingset, and there Old Blue was hanging, waiting faithfully for me as it had my whole elementary school career. I couldn't believe it when I passed by earlier today and saw that my favorite swing was still here. It was the one thing in this whole town that seemed unchanged, uncorrupted by the cruelty of time. I didn't seem to sit as high as I remembered it, but that was because I was taller now.

I sat down on the swing and closed my eyes. I could hear the screams of excited classmates running around on the playground. I could see a game of softball being played on the dusty field beyond, while dirt devils spun around the infield as if they wanted to play too. Then I started to swing. Slowly, at first. So many years had passed since I last sat in a swing, I had to get used to it again. Gradually, as I felt more comfortable, I started going faster, and higher. Doubts started to pop into my head, like What if this swing isn't meant to hold my grown-up weight? How old is this swing, anyway? I started to feel the swingset move again, as if it were going to tip. What if the swingset itself can't hold me? My heart started to beat fast and hard like it did when I was a kid. I closed my eyes and got ready to jump. The next swing forward would be it. I swung forward, ...but couldn't jump. I didn't have enough nerve. It was ok, it used to take me several tries as a kid, too. I took another couple of swings forward. I can do this. I got ready. Another swing forward. I'm not as young as I used to be. I swung back. Don't think about it. Just don't think. I closed my eyes, swung forward, and...jumped. I felt the air leaving my lungs, the brief rush of excitement during my short flight, and the familiar pain of hitting the ground. Only, I didn't remember it hurting so much. I made a quick self-examination - nothing felt broken, twisted, or sprained. Good.

"Impressive," called a female voice from the dark.

I gasped loudly as I looked up and around, trying to see who had said that.

The voice giggled, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

"It's alright," I said, "I didn't think anyone else was here."

The mystery lady stepped out of the shadows into the beam of the nearby street light.

"Mandy!" I jumped up to give her a hug, forgetting how embarassed I should have been at that moment. But then, I don't remember ever being embarassed in front of Mandy. She and I had been friends since before we could walk, and our mothers were friends before we were born. We lived two houses down from each other the entire time we were growing up. I must have seen her every day from the time I was born until the time I left Shawneetown to go to college. There has never been anyone I could feel so comfortable being myself around.

"Oh, Rob, it's so good to see you." She put her arms around my neck and pulled me down tightly in one of the warmest hugs I had felt in a long time. The ten years that passed since I had last talked to her seemed like no time at all, yet, at the same time, I started to feel guilty for going that long without seeing her.

"How did you know to find me here?" I asked.

Her grip loosened as she backed away an inch or two to look at me. Even in the glow of the street light I could tell she still had the same straight black hair, the same dark brown eyes, the same little pug nose, that was just slightly, but charmingly, crooked. Still, she wasn't the teenager I left behind. She seemed to possess a grace, or dignity she didn't have before. She had become a woman.

She looked at me and smiled, "Where else would you be? Clem told me you were in town. I checked at the motel, you weren't there. I checked at the square, you weren't there either. I figured you must be here. You're such a silly nostalgic."

I knew she'd understand.

We sat down in the grass and talked like we had never been apart. We both laughed at the same old stupid stories we use to find funny, complained to each other about our parents, talked about our futures as if we were still ignorant teenagers who didn't have a clue about what to do with the rest of our lives, and we found out we still enjoyed being with each other. For the first time since coming back, I felt like I was home.

Still, we had a lot of catching up to do. Sure, we had sent each other the occasional letter, and then the less occasional email. But we had been, for the most part, out of touch these last ten years. There was a lot about Mandy's life since high school I didn't know. It turned out, she had finished college, earning a master's degree in architecture. Unfortunately, she never got to use that degree because she had to move back home to take care of her mother, who had fallen ill. But before that, she had met a guy and actually got engaged, before dumping him after she decided he was too controlling. Her mother was dead now, but she still lived in town with her Dad. I didn't know she was living here again. If I had, the first thing I would have done was see her.

After a while, she punched me gently on the arm. "Hey, why do you keep looking up at the sky?"

"I'm sorry. I'm looking at the stars. I had forgotten how many you could see out here." It's true. I tell city kids all the time about the night sky out in the country, and how it is filled with stars. Some of those kids may never know what it's like to see a real night sky that puts the universe on display for us tiny humans. For some reason, it makes me sad to think about that.

Mandy grabbed a handful of grass, pulled it out of the ground, and threw it at me, making me laugh. Then she sidled up next to me and put her head on my shoulder. I remember the first time she leaned on me like that. We were on the school bus, coming back from a field trip. Mandy was tired, so she grabbed my arm and laid her head on my shoulder. When she did that, I started to feel warm and fuzzy, and knots started to form in my stomach. I was fourteen and had never even held hands with a girl. When you're that inexperienced with the opposite sex, any kind of affectionate touch can make you feel strange like that.

"Mandy," I asked, "does the town seem the same to you as it did when we were kids?"

She looked up at me quizzicly. "What do you mean?"

"Well, like this school, for instance. It looks like no one cares about it anymore, like people just stopped taking care of it. And the high school looks the same way. Plus, the lawns all look like no one mows them. I mean this whole town, it just looks like no one cares about it anymore."

"Funny you should say that."

"Why's that?"

She laid her head back down. "The schools aren't the only buildings around here that look like that. A couple of weeks ago, buildings all over town started getting cracks in their walls. Windows started breaking for no apparent reason. Roofs that seemed sturdy one day, would just cave in the next. It's mostly been places that haven't been used for a while, but still, these buildings aren't that old."

I didn't like the thought of my home town falling to pieces. "What's causing it?"

"Some people are saying it's dry rot."

"Dry rot doesn't work that fast, does it?"

"No," she said, "and it doesn't make windows break, or cause a lot of the other kinds of damage we've seen here lately."

"So, what it is it, then?"

"I don't know, Robby. No one does."

"Weird," was all I could say.

Mandy tightened her grip on my arm. "Yeah, weird."

The Death of Shawneetown - Part 2

2005-06-15T12:53:00.000-07:00

This is part 2 of this story. If you haven't read part 1 yet, find the link on the right and go there.

Clem and I made plans to meet up later that night. He was going to see if Chad and Shawn could make it too. I was looking forward to it. The four of us hung out together all the time as teenagers. It would truly be like old times.

Meanwhile, I asked around to see if anyone else had heard about a class reunion. No one else had heard of it. But I found out that my buddies and I weren't the only visitors in town that weekend. There were a lot of people who had showed up. And most of the ones I spoke to had stories similar to mine. They had heard that cousin so-and-so was sick, or there was a funeral, or a party. And of course, none of it was true, nor could they remember who told them the news or invited them to come.

Then there were others I met who didn't have a reason for coming to town. These people all said pretty much the same thing - they came because they felt like they needed to come. It unnerved me to hear that. Because, as odd as that sounded, I understood exactly what they meant. Even though I knew now that there was no reunion, I felt like I needed to stay, as if leaving would disappoint somebody close to me.

I didn't know why I felt this way. It certainly wasn't because I was enjoying myself so much. I walked all over town that afternoon, trying to soak in the atmosphere, trying to think about old times, trying to feel like that young boy again. But it wasn't working. Shawneetown had changed, not significantly, I suppose, but enough for it to feel like it wasn't the same town I moved away from. One disappointment after another awaited me on every block. Around every corner of every street, there was a memory in the form of a building, or a house, or a vacant lot that was missing. In place of the stately old houses that used to stand stylishly at attention on Wilson Street, there were dirty mobile homes placed vicariously in the middle of unkempt yards containing rusted broken-down cars and discarded water heaters. The ballpark on Roosevelt which had been host to so many impromptu games of softball played by dirt-covered little boys, was now used to hold farm equipment. Shawneetown was the same, but it wasn't. It was like the town had become a poorly-done copy of itself.

It made me feel so empty. I felt like I was trying to re-start a relationship with somebody I hadn't seen for a long time. But we had drifted too far apart. We both had changed, changed too much, and what had once made us so good for each other, wasn't there anymore.

I hoped that seeing my old friends might somehow make it better. That night we met where we had hung out so many times as teenagers - the town square. The square was actually two squares, divided by a cross street. One part was the big grassy yard I described earlier. The other was sort of a large gravel parking lot that was hardly used during the day, but at night was filled with young people having a good time, mostly standing by their beat-up old cars, listening to loud country music, and talking. Those that weren't parked on the square, would "cruise" around it, driving along Lincoln Boulevard, which flanked the square on both its west and east sides. Lining the outside of Lincoln on one side was the hardware store, the old dime store, the barber shop, and a couple of other shops. On the other side was the Moose Lodge, the post office, and the small one-story building which housed the fire department, police department, city hall, and public library. I guess you could call these two blocks "downtown", though that designation seems pretty absurd considering how small Shawneetown was.

Tonight, the square was pretty empty. All the businesses had closed hours earlier and there were only two cars parked on the square - one of them being Clem's old pick-up. The four of us stood there, leaning against the bed of his truck, drinking beer and talking about what we had done with our lives since high school.

Clem had gotten a job at the nearby coal mine, and was divorced with four kids whom he saw every day because his ex-wife lived in the trailer next to his. Out of the four of us, he was the only one who had stayed in Shawneetown.

Shawn was an account manager at an investment firm. He lived in a suburb outside of Chicago with his wife and little boy. He and the mrs were expecting their second child in January. They were already planning what pre-school, prep school, and even college their children would attend. "We've decided to stop at two kids," he announced.

"Yeah," Clem said, "that's where I thought I'd stop too. Didn't work out that way, though."

Out of all of us, Chad struck me as having changed the most. He had been pretty conservative as a kid. He always wore button-down shirts to school along with low-top sneakers when everyone else was wearing high-tops. Now, he donned a black T-shirt over jeans that had a belt made of what looked to be a chain. He had pierced his nose and was sporting a goatee. And I wasn't sure, but I believe I had seen a tattoo poking out from under one of his sleeves. The way he talked and held himself exuded defiance.

Even though we had always hung out together as kids, there was something about Chad that use to annoy the crap out me. I kept trying to remember what it was. For the life of me, I couldn't put my finger on it.

Still, tonight, he was the one with the most interesting topics for conversation. "I don't know, man. I just think about deep stuff all the time. Like, does anybody really do anything for anyone else? You know, a real, selfless act? I don't think so."

"Parents," said Shawn, "Parents make sacrifices all the time for their children."

Chad snickered. "Yeah, but that's because they love their kids. And couldn't it also be because they want to feel good about themselves, you know, that they're good providers and stuff?"

"What about all them people who help the homeless and them starvin' kids in Africa?" Clem pointed out.

"But are they doing it really for those starving kids, or to make themselves feel good?" Chad countered.

"Are you telling me," I asked, "that people like Mother Theresa who sacrifice their entire lives for poor people across the world are just doing it because it feels good?"

"Think about it, man," Chad said, "did she really do it for those poor people, or to get brownie points with God?"

I remembered now what used to annoy me so much about Chad. He was an idiot.

I thought I would change the subject. "Where are all the kids, tonight?"

"What ya mean?" Clem asked. I thought it funny that Clem was the only one who had not been able to get rid of the lazy English spoken so much out here in the boonies. I wondered if he realized how much he sounded like a redneck to the rest of us.

"I mean when we were teenagers, this square would be full of kids on a Friday night. And there would be cars cruising all over Lincoln. But tonight, the only people here besides us is that couple in that car over there. And since we've been standing here, I think I've seen only one car go by." I said.

"There ain't no more kids in Shawneetown, Rob."

"What do you mean there's no kids in Shawneetown?" I asked, "There's got to be some kids. What about your kids?"

Clem took another sip of his beer. "Oh, there's some, but very few. That's why they built that consolidated school out there on Highway 13 for the whole county. There weren't enough kids left here to keep the schools in town open."

"Where did they all go?" I asked.

"Their families all moved out, just like you'ns did. Once the coal mine laid off two-thirds of its workers, there wasn't any reason for anyone who wasn't already retired to stay here no more. There ain't no jobs for nobody. Now, it's just a bunch of old people who live here mostly."

I took a seat on the tailgate of Clem's truck. "That's why this place seems so dead now."

"What do you mean?" asked Shawn.

"Haven't you noticed," I said, "how much this town has changed in the past ten years?"

Chad shook his head. "Still seems like the same little mud hole it always was."

That comment upset me. "No! It wasn't a mud hole. Not when we were kids. Don't you remember? The old houses, the ballpark, riding our bikes all over town, going to the pool in the summer, playing in the square? Don't you remember how it used to be - how this place was alive and beautiful? Don't you remember?"

Clem reached into his cooler and handed me another beer. "Here, sounds like you need another one of these. You still a Miller man, Rob?"

"Somethings don't change," I said.

The conversation pretty much died down after that. Someone would say a few words, then there would be long, awkward periods of silence. We had already talked about what we had done since high school, how our families were getting along, and so forth. And since it seemed like none of us wanted to talk about why were here in the first place, or why we couldn't remember details about what caused us to come, we really had nothing left to say. The truth is, the four of us had nothing in common anymore.

If we were still teenagers, at this point we would have gone off and climbed the water tower and spray painted our names on it, or found a stop sign out in the middle of the country and shot holes in it. But we weren't teenagers anymore, and we weren't all that excited about hanging out with each other for much longer. Though, I kind of liked Clem. Still, his company was wearing on me a little. We decided to call it a night and go our separate ways.

I decided I wouldn't go straight back to the motel. There was something I needed to do, and I couldn't do it in the daylight. No, I would have to do it while it was dark, and no one would see me.

The Death of Shawneetown - Part 1

2005-06-13T12:55:00.000-07:00

As I got close to town, I turned off the radio and rolled down my window, hoping to hear sounds or smell odors that were familiar - familiar, that is, to the boy I had been. That boy was dead now, but his ghost still haunted me, constantly reminding me of better times long past, joys that were no longer felt, mountains that had never been climbed, trips that had never been taken, books that had never been written, and girls that had never been kissed, at least, not by me. I came here for him. I came so he could swing on the old swing on the school playground, talk with old friends again, walk through the dark hallways of his old elementary school, or maybe go on one last adventure before he decided to rest finally in peace.

Or, that’s why I thought I had come.

According to the sign that welcomed visitors to the area, Shawneetown was now a proud city that boasted a population of twelve hundred people - that’s three hundred less than when I lived there. As I remembered, it contained two banks, a hardware store, a fire department, two gas stations, a small grocery store, an auto parts store, two restaurants (one in the Winter), and a fine ice cream stand (during the Summer). A resident of this community had only to drive but a mere forty-five minutes to one of several nearby towns if he wanted to see a movie, visit a supermarket, or if he required the use of a hospital. But it also had great big, beautiful trees to climb on or simply lay under to enjoy the shade on a warm summer day. It had a wonderful grassy square right in the middle of town that was ideal for holding the fair that came to visit us every year. It was flanked on all sides with woods and dry creek beds that were perfect for running around in and getting into all kinds of trouble. What more could anyone ask for? It was enough to raise a small boy and his friends all the way into manhood.

It was less, but somehow more than what I had living in the big city. Of course, there’s plenty to do in the city, more than there is to do in a small town. But what big city dweller has time to do it? That’s why people visit cities; it’s not why they live there. I moved to the city because I thought more was there - just more. More of what, I didn’t know, or even think about. I guess I thought I would find something there I couldn’t find in Shawneetown. What I found was more aggravation, and I came to realize that it is really the small town that offers more. It offers freedom - freedom from having to fight for the one available parking space, freedom from traffic jams, freedom from having to look over your shoulder when walking down the street, freedom from being afraid in your bed behind double-dead-bolted locked doors and barred windows. Small town living is freedom.

So perhaps it was to feel this freedom again that I came back. The class reunion was just an excuse. I knew that. At this point I couldn’t even remember who was organizing the reunion or where it was going to be held. To be honest, I didn’t care. There were only a few of my old friends I really wanted to see, and I wouldn’t be too disappointed if I didn’t get to see them. I really just wanted to sit on the grass of the town square, eating a chocolate-vanilla twist cone from the old ice cream stand while watching the clouds roll past the hills off in the distance. If I got to do that, this whole trip would be worth it.

I noticed some changes as soon as I rolled into town. The two gas stations were now convenience stores, one of them complete with a car wash and Laundromat. The Burger Bin restaurant, which had always been open during the summer, now appeared to be closed for good. The little old bank that stood for decades on the corner of Lincoln and Main had been torn down and replaced by another little bank, a modern-looking building with a drive-up window and ATM. The south side of the railroad tracks, on which all of the black people in town had lived in unofficial but none-the-less real segregation, now had only three houses and a trailer left to occupy it. There were other little changes - the grocery store had a different name on the front, what used to be a barbershop was now a store that sold arts and crafts, what used to be a dime store now rented videos, and so forth.

There was one change I noticed that made me pull over and stop. My old high school seemed to be in terrible shape. Most of the windows were broken or completely out, exposing the building‘s insides like open wounds. There were visible cracks coming up from the foundation, snaking their way in crooked paths along the outer walls. The front steps had all but crumbled into tiny pieces like a cupcake does when it‘s eaten too quickly. Large, gaping holes cratered the landscape of the gymnasium roof. And the lawn - the lawn was awful. It was a sea of tall grass intermingled with all types of weeds interrupted here and there by islands of ugly bare patches of dirt. The whole place looked like it had been abandoned for thirty years, but that was impossible. I had been out of high school just ten years, and I knew that the old high school had remained open for at least a few years after that. A new K-12 school had been built outside of town, but it must’ve been open only a couple of years. So how could this grand building, this edifice that had been housing so many of my fondest memories, have fallen into such disrepair? All I knew was how it felt to look at the place. It was like expecting to see an old friend but instead finding out that he had passed away. I sat there in my car for a long time, staring in disbelief.

At least the only hotel in town was still standing and open for business. The Shawnee Brave Hotel had always had a pool and eighteen rooms, all in various degrees of cleanliness. It hadn’t changed much. The sign in front still boasted proudly that each room was equipped with air conditioning and color TV. I noticed, however, that the pool was now filled in with concrete.

A Pakistani gentleman named Rahim was standing behind the front desk. “You’re lucky,” he said after checking me in.

“Why is that?”

“I have one vacant room left.” He told me.

“Really? Don’t tell me Shawneetown has become a draw for tourists!” I joked. He didn’t smile. “Have a lot of people come to town for the class reunion?”

“No, it’s not that. All of the migrant workers moved in a couple of weeks ago. They could’ve taken all of my rooms, but their boss is cheap, so he crowded them all together as much as he could. I had to bring in bunk beds just to house them all.” He didn’t seem too pleased about his new tenants.

“Kind of late in the season for migrant workers to be coming in, isn’t it?”

“Oh, they’ve been here in town for months. But they moved into the hotel two weeks ago. They were staying in that old school across the highway, but they had to move out when the roof started caving in.” he said.

“You mean they were staying in that dump?” I was surprised at how I was able to refer to my old high school in that way.

“It wasn’t a dump until a couple of weeks ago.” He answered. “It was in very good shape. Suddenly, it just started falling apart.”

“It didn’t get that way in a couple of weeks.”

“Oh yes,” he insisted, “it was in excellent condition until just a few weeks ago. The owners did a very good job of maintaining the property.”

I left it at that, wondering if Rahim had enjoyed a couple of cold ones before I arrived. Not even bothering to step into my room, I opened the door, tossed in my suitcase, and left. I wanted to see the town before the sun went down.

I didn’t take the car. When I was a kid, until I got old enough to drive, I used to walk everywhere. So I got to know Shawneetown from the sidewalks, which is a much more intimate way to know a town than from a car window. I thought I could I feel this intimacy again, pick up where we left off, as it were.

I was very relieved to find the ice cream stand was still open. It looked as though the menu had not changed while I was gone. I ordered my long-time favorite, chocolate-vanilla twist in a waffle cone. The day was still hot, so the ice cream started to melt immediately. I licked off the ice cream that was running onto my hand while I strolled across the street to the town square.

The big oak tree was still there, faithfully stretching out its limbs, offering shade to anyone who needed it. There was a bench, but I didn’t sit on it. I wanted to sit under the tree like I did as a boy. While I was picking out a spot, I couldn’t help but notice how long the grass on the square was. This was one lawn in town that had always been well manicured. I sat down anyway. I just wanted to enjoy my waffle cone and look at the hills off in the distance. What I saw almost made me choke on my ice cream.

The range of hills just south of town was known as Gold Hills. It had always been a favorite site of mine. I loved to watch the wind roll through the waves of grass and trees. In the spring and on through the summer, the hills would be spotted in places with large, colorful patches of wild flowers that pleasantly interrupted the landscape. During the fall, the trees would be alive with color as the leaves turned a thousand different shades of orange and yellow. And in the winter, when it was cold enough, the hills resembled a sleeping giant, resting comfortably under his sheet of snow. It was a kind of a virgin beauty, because aside from a few houses discreetly tucked away in hidden corners, these hills had pretty much remained untouched by man. But, now this had changed too. As I looked up from my seat on the grassy square, I could see great big ugly scars where huge chunks of the ground had been ripped out by strip-mining.

“Rob?” came a voice behind me, “Robby Wilson? Is that you?”

I turned around.

“Clem!” Standing there was Clem Fletcher, an old schoolmate and one of the people I was hoping to run into while I was here. He hadn’t changed much since his teen years. He had the same unruly mop of red hair and his face was still dotted with little brown freckles. But there were subtle differences. Unlike when he was a teenager, the size of his arms, feet, and hands now seemed to be in proportion with the rest of his body. He seemed to have better posture than I remembered, too. Now he had sort of a manly, more confident way of standing. This was grown-up Clem.

“Man, it’s been so long since I’ve seen you!” he said as he gripped my hand in a very macho handshake. “So, what brings you to town?”

“The class reunion, of course! Aren’t you going to be there?”

“What class reunion are you talking about, Rob?” He really seemed as if he didn’t know what I was talking about.

“Surely you heard about,” I said, “there were only thirty people in our graduating class.”

Clem’s eyebrows furled into a look that seemed to express both concern and confusion.

“What is it?” I asked. I hoped whoever was organizing this reunion hadn’t excluded Clem on purpose. In that case, I would hate to be the one to tell him about it.

“This is weird.”

“What’s weird, Clem?”

“I’m pretty sure there’s no reunion,” he said vaguely.

“Why would you say that?”

“You remember Chad Olden and Shawn – Shawn Biggerstaff, don’t you? We use to run around with those guys a lot.”

I nodded my head.

He continued, “Well, they’re both back in town for the weekend. Got here yesterday. Chad came back because he thought his mother was sick.”

“What’s wrong with her?” I asked.

“That’s the thing. Nothin’s wrong with her. She’s in great shape. But Chad was sure someone told him that she was sick, and that he needed to come right away to see her.”

“Who told him she was sick?”

“No one! At least, not that we can tell. We asked everybody. No one remembers callin’ him or sendin’ him a letter, or nothin’. Even Chad can’t remember who told him.”

“That is weird.” I said.

“Yeah, it is. But Shawn’s the same way. He came because he thought he was invited to somebody’s wedding. But there ain’t no wedding here this weekend. He can’t even remember who’s supposed to be gettin' married!

”By the way, Rob – who told you there was going to be a reunion, anyway?”

At that moment, an unseasonably cool breeze rushed past us, and through me, causing shivers from my hair down to my toes. A cold, empty feeling started to overtake my insides, as it occurred to me – I couldn’t even remember how I found out about this class reunion in the first place. Just what the heck was going on here?

To be continued