They're Calling You Home

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve Forty-five miles outside of Smallwood my intestines begin to rumble. The potholes on the Indiana state highway don’t help, and I’m regretting having a big breakfast buffet at the hotel. It’s almost 1 p.m., and we’ll be in Smallwood in less than an hour, but a burp makes me slow down. My stomach roils, and I’m embarrassed that a series of uncontrollable flatulence seems to rumble the inside of the truck. Browder waves his hand in front of his face, but doesn’t look at me or say anything; he simply appears to be wholly irritated with my uncouthness as he shines his harmonica. I can’t help it, and another round of wind escapes me. Finally he says, still working a tube sock over the silver mouth harp, “gross. you’re rotten.” “excuse me,” I say. “Sorry.” We drive on as flat fields stretch out toward the cirrus horizon, and large tractors creep over black earth, plowing under last year’s corn stubble, while smaller John Deeres pull discs over the furrows, and others drag harrow rakes, the clumps of fertile topsoil splitting into perfect loam, the land ready for seed. It’s windy, and gray, the newly green fescue in the ditches bending parallel to the ground. There’s an old gas station along State road 13, just outside of Swayzee, where in 1996 workers at the limestone quarry discovered the Pipe Creek Sinkhole, with fossils dating back five million years. White dust settles on the hood of the truck as I unbuckle and hurry into the station, clinching, taking the key and rushing to the rest rooms outside. after ten minutes I step back into the fresh air. I’m feeling no better, chilled, sweaty, and hollow, as if I could simply blow away in the strong wind. across the street, in a chain-link fenced yard, a little chubby boy in a knit cap and seed corn company parka tries to hold on to a kite that is lifting at an alarming rate into the drab atmosphere. I walk back toward the pickup and They’re Calling You Home 77 don’t see Browder anywhere. Pascal is asleep on the seat when I jog up to the truck and peer inside. I look around, heart starting to pound some. I haven’t even gotten him to our trip’s destination, and already I’ve lost him. I quickly move back inside the station, but a man with a short-cropped goatee, grease on his hands, holding them up as if he’s a surgeon, hasn’t seen Browder. I run back out to the parking lot and holler for him. The cold air feels more like winter than spring, and I can hear the howl of it in my ears, taste its clean, frosty breath on my tongue as I call out for Browder again. I turn toward the truck in time to hear Pascal barking, sitting up in the seat now, back to me, his attention across the street, where I can see Browder inside the fenced-in yard, helping the little boy with his kite, the unfurled tail tangled in the maple tree. I jog across the street and try to smile as Browder methodically removes a long plastic strip from the tree that has ripped off the kite’s tail, and the runny-nosed boy winds the string around a miniature rolling pin, his chubby hands red and chapped. I feel a freezing rain droplet bounce off my nose as I put my hand on the gate, but decide to stay on this side. “hey,” I say to the little guy, who smiles and then sucks in the snot under his pink nose, swallowing and breathing through his mouth, sounding like Pascal panting. “That’s nice of you, Browder, but we better go now.” he nods, and from the kitchen window a woman waves, and while the glass is glared, reflecting the dull sky, I think I can see her smile broadly. The little boy finishes rolling up the kite string, then takes the tail and kite from Browder, who is patiently standing over the kid, holding the whole plastic tangle in one hand. “you got it okay?” asks Browder, and the boy nods, sniffles, licks that shiny lip. “There’s bones in that big hole down there,” says the little boy. “They found all kinds of ’em, and once I saw them pull...