In Every Place

IN EVERY PLACE /Andrew Alt THINGS CHANGED ONCE they shed the city and got on Michigan 37 heading north: the names of towns—Newaygo and White Cloud, for instance, sounded Uke places Indians would Uve—as well as their size; the way that trees filled all space between buildings; how the road conformed to the land, rather than slicing through it; the smell of wood and moss that came in through the car's vents. The world became wUder, there was the possibUity of adventure, and it seemed as if everything changed for the better. To Watassa was a three-beer trip. It was the boy's job to retrieve the brown bottles from under the seat, twist them open, and trade them for the ones warmed by his father's thighs, empty. The boy marked their progress by counting beers and naming towns. "Look out below!" His father's beUowed warning preceded a great, roUing belch—wet thunder—that sent them both into clutches of giggling. His father was more capable of having fun than any adult Henry knew. Now that it was Friday afternoon, and they were on their way, he forgot about his mother's anger and was excited. His father had caUed on Wednesday. Visitation rights on the weekends. Sometimes this meant the whole weekend, sometimes only one afternoon. Henry knew he was a shared thing. Of course, he loved both his parents, but he recognized the need to keep his love for each mostly hidden from the other. His mother would, often on Mondays, teU Henry stories about how badly his father had treated her whUe they were StUl married. His father would teU him that his mother had not even known how to cook hot dogs when they were wed, and that her coddling would ruin him if he let it. "Ifs my birthday Saturday," Henry reminded him. "Yeah, I know." His father sounded irritated. "I thought we could celebrate it up at Watassa." "That would be fun." There was a small hum as the line carried sUence. "Mom has plans though, I think. Dinner and stuff. I think Granny and Gumpah are coming." "Hmm." Then his father said, "Well, you do whatever you think is best. But you're with your mother and her parents aU the time, 158 · The Missouri Review and I think it would be nice if you could spend one birthday with your old man." Now, with the sky smudging over as evening settled, Henry could see twin pinheads of yellow winking far up the road, at the town of WalhaUa's only fuUy paved intersection. There were no other signals Uke it on Highway 10, once you left Baldwin; this one was new, here because of a bad accident. Highway 10 was long, twisting, hüly and mostly forest-lined. They had driven it once near midnight and, out of the darkness at the roadside, deer had begun appearing in the fuzzy edges of their car's Ughts. It was weird: his father said he had never seen anything like it— cluster after cluster of them, locked by the headlamps with eyes amber, glowing, and their coats gray in the artificial Ughts. From the time Henry started counting, they saw more than seventy, aU within a stretch of five mUes or so, aU within a few feet of the asphalt. His father had driven slowly, and they kept saying, "God," or "Jesus," every time new animals appeared. Henry had felt as if they were trespassing, witnessing something wholly apart from them, and secret. They turned south on Walhalla Road at the bUnking light. A few mUes later, they reached the unpaved drive, about twenty yards of which was visible before it curved and was swaUowed up by the state forest. They had an easement on the government-owned and -constructed drive, obtained in the early thirties by the boy's great-grandfather, whose name was carved into the wooden sign marking its mouth: WATASSA-KeUer—Private. The name made perfect sense to the boy. Watassa meant "heaven" or "paradise" in Potowatomie dialect. The drive was rutted and puddled, mud-slick with the midApril thaw. His father tried to...