Unchaining amends

Unchaining Amends

“We must do this. Just once. My way,” said the driver of the tarnished Subaru. “No, that's not right Luke,” replied Tory as she leaned over to hug him. “There's another way. Let’s get on with it,” she finished, leaving the shelter of the car to stand under a lumpy sky threatening a scrappy ravine of store fronts. A late September squall blew drops across the avenue. Tory’s lips pursed as the moment to savor Luke’s plea heeded to the call of finding refuge. Rainwater slowly poured from the street into storm water planters made of stone cubes, garnished with sedge meadow, like a bourbon julep over ice.

Spiked heels, lifting her ankle boots fastened with rivets and chain into allure, returned Tory to the sidewalks of her Fountain Square days as an unsorry prodigal. She felt bewildered how time changed things; familiar haunts gone. Buried underneath the concrete lie dormant rails of trolley car lines and root tubers of newer pipes and cable streaming nutrients for a bustling season. In spite of the rain, she slowed at a flitter in the planter mud. A muskrat had burrowed a home. Tory watched, then turned away.

“There it is,” brightened Tory abiding a quaint New England style sign's entreaty to enter its coffee shop, then halted, confused to see ample room and not the familiar tight corridor. Her taut neck, offsetting a single round earring, rose as she looked for Chelsea. She spotted Chris, the owner’s ponytailed son, in a far corner, cheerfully grinding free trade blends served strong as a lofty dollop to a crowd weak for caffeine. In the center of the shop, she saw lean Edward the librarian, secure from reproach having inclined to life under few requirements; a product of nature not art. In a wet blink she was a younger self in the yellow bricked branch, just across the road, turning long overdue materials into wide eyed Edward while kids bumbled about the stacks in close orbit to their mother bees browsing the job info center.

Teary eyed, Tory had a bone to pick with Luke, even then, but Edward, tethered at the counter, became the target. “No, I won’t pay today. Can’t. Who are you to ask? You don’t know a thing,” she ranted. Sweet Edward standing like a goat with front hoofs on the check-out counter bleated back, “Dorothy, you’re on a borrowing hold. You’ll get a letter from the main office.” She seethed and fled, too young to find a simple way to say that Luke had taken the books when he moved out - to take up with Chelsea. And that when Luke moved out from Chelsea’s, he left the books there. And so, months later, Chelsea invited a wary Tory over to reclaim the books and find solace in common ground.  And comfort did move their hearts, yet amends stayed unpaid to those still rooted in the urban canyons around them and felt as if pokes upon hardened hides.  And so these now united souls trailed away from town to far horizons. And some years later, back at the coffee shop, Edward digested granola and fruit unaware of Dorothy’s return.

Beyond Edward's pasture, in a front corner, sat Stacy carefully lifting morsels of crumb cake into her thin lipped mouth as an eager circle of friends waited for sage tidbits. “Dear god, not Stacy,” Tory grimaced. Stacy took over the mantel when Chelsea and Tory split, slightly better than everyone else in the crowd, avidly warding off contenders. The shop space was too vast for Tory to linger. She had to get out. "Where was Chelsea?" and with that, a spark kindled within, and soon Tory was at an after midnight venture with Chelsea forcing open a security door of a long closed pharmacy at East and Lincoln to have a look.

Remains of the pressed tin ceiling and fallen ceiling fans littered the floor as a sensual aroma of rotted beams filled her nostrils. Barely finding room to squeeze behind the soda counter for a look - only to step on the bones, at first not realizing it, then comprehending another smell - of death, and curious to see if they knew the body. They did. It was Luke’s father, a lost artist looking for found objects to assemble, with a sure and swift thrombosis in a lonesome place, bushy weeds now growing up through his chest. The community gathering at the funeral anointed the pair with honor they had not earned. And the odd moment with Luke, who had taken from them, coming forward in despair. This sacrifice brought the three of them back together, but in a new way - Luke drinking, enticing, and always rebuffed.

Dorothy’s dad took her return as a welcomed surrender from too fast a life. Tory though felt a vow to keep fully alive in the haunts that started it. Not like Stacy, trading stories of her better years for kibble from the puppy eyed. Her phone vibrated and Tory glanced at Chelsea’s text: “ur hot.” Tory started to type: “Where r” when a hand rested on her shoulders. Tory spun around and there was Chelsea. “Finally!” she erupted, “and here, too. Quick let’s go.” Too late, Chris came up smiling, “Look at you two. Hope you’re starving. I’ve got wild salmon fresh in from Olympia served over tabouli.” “No, we gotta head out,” started Chelsea. Tory broke her off, “Yes, but sit us with dear Edward.” The pair talked non-stop as Edward grazed away. Edward was accepting when Chris refused to bring his check, unaware that Tory had paid. Once Edward left, Tory spoke about driving with Luke, “He wants to return to the pharmacy - that pharmacy, and lure us in, too. I said we can’t. Can we? We can go to the cemetery instead.” “No Tory, let's take our lumps with Luke,” responded Chelsea, “Can you imagine?” Tory riveted on Chelsea as she texted Luke: “Meet us there at midnight.” They each looked over at Stacy and she looked back in chains.

Boundary lines

Boundary lines

“Move forward. That’s it, hold steady, now forward,” called out the surveyor from a corner of the farm. Down the way, under a crescendo of old roadside trees, a pole with red and white bands rose and fell as if a drum major’s baton. After each call the marks on the pole lurched forward in front of narrow slats on a farm fence like slow notes on sheet music. The surveyor’s hand flew up, “There, stop!” he said bending low to mark notations on his pad. Rusty shoved the pole into the ground and with hands on hips saw the beaten house on the other side of the fence, imposing and regular in an Indiana way and with enough flourish for admiring for a long time. “Well, well, would you take a look here,” said Rusty. “The day’s too old for this. But, you and I have a date,” his eyes drawn upward to the overhang of the roof decorated with a few elaborate brackets. Tall and narrow windows across its front greeted eastern light, with black shudders on the outer panes sustaining interest. A separate cookhouse hinted of a wood stove warming the main house through crisp winters.

“Rusty, get back here. Let’s finish this job,” shouted the surveyor. With his phone, Rusty snapped photos of the farmhouse and the musky hallows of an old walnut tree. Still early in courtship, Rusty longed to shower this worn patch of ground with attention. The surveyor grabbed a loop of Rusty’s jeans, “You get these pants on discount? You love that wreck like your jeans were a hundred percent off. Hump that pole back to the truck instead.” The surveyor’s truck and an obscure road lay ahead. Rusty halted, jutting his palms firmly against an unseen wall as if to force a way out. “Go to hell with your damn boundary lines,” muttered Rusty as he plucked the surveyor’s pole from the soil, heaved it across the road, and began walking the other way. A car braked and then went on. “You’re not suited for this labor. You’re fired,” shouted the surveyor, “No pay for you, either.” He gathered the pole, looking back over his shoulder for Rusty’s return. After a while, he loaded his truck and drove off.

Rusty left Rangeline Road cutting through a golf course to the Monon Trail and sat on a brightly painted bench to see trail-goers emerge from the concrete hollow of an overpass. He took a photo of a rust colored line of paint caked on the asphalt path channeling traffic. A steady rumble of tires crossing the bridge cascaded from above, muting conversations between companions sharing times on the path below; the tunnel then careening the words into echoes. A flood of various tribes of show-offs and adventurists gushed out, some washing into the basin in front of Rusty, soaked in afterglow. A girl on a bike with training wheels stopped to look at a bug. A skater veered across the center line, a bike swerved, and the girl’s dad nodded affably; small feats born of wary eyes distilling the impurity from journeys shared along the Monon in moments woven with cautious ribbons. Startled, the girl plucked the bug into a fabric keepsake slung around her neck.

Fatigue descended on Rusty as his phone vibrated. “Hey there, Ray,” answered Rusty. “Where are you? We got another night ahead of us. Let’s go,” replied Ray. “I’m at 96th and the Monon. My car’s at work. Come get me.” “Man, that was great,” said Ray. “I can’t believe that place. We’re going back. Good times are about to roll!” “Well, well, I got somewhere else in mind. She’s a beauty, too. Get on over here,” replied Rusty as he retreated to a parking area where a toned woman hoisted her bike off an SUV. She joined up with a mom sipping bottled water who then splashed a few drops toward her infant coddled in a bike trailer. They looked blankly at Rusty, and he dully at them. Rusty fled down the Monon to a Target store where he bought a hammock. Ray called on the phone, “Where are you?” “I’m at Target. I had to get something.”

It was dusk as Rusty and Ray arrived at the beaten house enamored with possibility. Rusty lashed the hammock tight around the crevice of the old walnut tree. A soft thud cut short his tying off the other end to a cottonwood as a purple finch crashed into the house to lie in spasms in a weedy garden bed. Rusty approached the bird and saw a berry in its beak. Rusty found a twig to poke at the berry. It dislodged. The finch shook and flew off into the trees. Ray squinted at Rusty, “Wow, I didn’t know you could do that.” “Well, me either,” replied Rusty, “Let’s get to it.” Using a crowbar, Ray forced open a side door. A sweet smell filled their nostrils. They entered, picking their way through inner chambers as if for cherry-filled chocolates in a sampler. A cast iron stove, pushed over past its tipping point, lay wedged against a wall. A chipped sink basin exposed entrails of copper pipes. Rusty and Ray climbed stairs stripped bare of millwork, past ragged holes punched through plaster and lathe boards, to an alcove off the second floor landing. Rusty leaned heavily against the door, at length freeing its stubborn latch.  He opened it, hopeful to encounter signs that steadied the vagaries of daily life in the past: a comforting mother, a sister rousing a sibling in trouble, a knowing dad with a headstrong child. Like always, he found none here; again on the wrong side looking in. He sighed deeply, casting out sweetness he wanted to breathe in.

From an upstairs bedroom, Ray parted frayed curtains opening a window to spot the moon. He howled. Rusty smiled and went back outside to finish securing the hammock and then climbed in. Ray looked down from the window at Rusty swaddled in the hammock as if a few more pushes of hard labor might deliver him from the womb of the walnut tree. Ray clung tight to the fabric drapes to lean further out the window wanting to shout down to Rusty, but could summon no words for this moment; seeing no way to dislodge Rusty from his perch, bound in sway by unstructured joy. Ray threw caution to the wind and howled once more at the moon.

Crossing Paths

Crossing Paths

Tom gripped a handle bar swinging his shoe hard against the kick stand and then over the long bike seat grabbing the other handle to pedal out on his journey. Two legs of his trip skirted the turkey farm along the railroad tracks and 62nd street. Grown-ups on their way to places followed these paths. Tom rode their narrow shoulders. He reached the stores along the last leg. Tom dismounted looking over at the farm. Several weathered coops in clusters edged the tracks. Chicken wire kept varmints out. The rumble of trains greeted hatching poultry. The hatchlings’ mouths would open as they gazed up at the sky and drowned during rain storms. Turkeys were stupid. Didn’t matter, this was an egg farm. A few peahens strutted among the turkeys. Peahens were different. They had peacocks as mates, with those blue, green, and bronzy-brown tail feathers. Turkeys had each other.

Tom leaned his bike against a wall. Two boys scrambled out the door of a shop. They ran from under the store awning to a station wagon. Tom caught the shop door before it closed and held it for their dad. He went inside. No kids were inside. No one but the barber was there. Tom got a Hot Rod magazine and sat down to flip through its pages. It spoke of a different life. Not a boy’s life. Tom knew a neighbor kid working on a Chevy in his garage and another boy up the street who raced go-karts. Here were ladies in photos holding auto parts. Ladies posing against cars. That was their job. The door opened. Tom squinted. His dad entered. The barber spun the chair, turned to his dad, and said, “Tom, hop up. Same as usual, Bill?” Tom tossed the magazine at the table. It slipped off. Tom leaned to pick it up. He stopped and instead went over to the barber chair. Tom looked at his dad who looked back. “Do what you can, Gene.” said his dad, “Would you pluck some off the inside too?” Gene smiled, tucked Tom’s collar down, and draped a brown apron across him. He pulled scissors out of a jar filled with blue water and began to groom. He lifted tufts of Tom’s hair between two fingers and then snipped, again and again. At times, the barber tilted Tom’s head to the side. “You got a pimple.” said the barber, “Want me to get it?” The barber pushed Tom’s head into his neck and dug in. Then he razored peach fuzz off Tom’s shoulders. At length, he shook talcum into a brush and dusted away the trimmings. He spun Tom to face the mirror. Dad approved. Haircuts messed with Tom. Haircuts were childish, and then not.

Some mornings, before heading to the bus stop, Tom would sneak a look at his dad shaving. His dad took a thick handled brush and stirred it around a soap bar into rich foam which he lathered on his stubble. He wet his double edge razor, wiped the steam off the mirror, and began to shave - first the neck, then the cheeks and chin, and finally from nose to lip. He splashed water on his face, patted with a white towel, and dabbed on aftershave. Tom saw that and wanted to see more. Barbers groomed men. They sized up a customer. They clipped what wasn’t needed and in that cutting revealed the man. Men went there to get the ear of other men. Tom wanted to go there, alone. His dad followed. Afterwards Tom would ride over to see friends. His dad would head back home. They left the shop together. Tom saw his dad lift his hand above his eyes as he got in the car. He was blocking out the sun to get a look.

Tom heard a commotion over by the turkey coops. A strident choir of gobbles diminished into raucous laughter. He saw two kids emerge from a coop with eggs. As he rode over, Tom heard the low whistle of an approaching train. The kids got set to egg the train. He had to see this. He lifted the rod of the gate and entered the farm. Across the way sharp, cracking sounds echoed as the kids struck their mark. As the train passed, a stodgy conductor waved frantically from the caboose. As Tom reached the kids, he saw Brenda walking along 62nd Street. Her brother delivered the paper in the morning. His throat tightened. Brenda was pretty. He liked to sit behind her on the school bus. He raised his hand high toward her. He saw Brenda quickly point back at him. Tom suddenly felt a sharp pain in his thigh as he tumbled hard. One of the kids had clipped him. The other moved in pinning Tom to the ground, straddling his stomach. The kid gripped Tom’s wrists. Tom looked up and saw the kid’s mouth open to dangle a thick drop of spit down at him. The kid slurped the rubbery liquid back into his mouth and then let it drool it out again. Tom felt his blue jeans slip down his tail bone. The other kid was pulling Tom’s pants off. Things were going terribly wrong. Spit landed on his cheeks and edged down his chin. As Tom grimaced a hand appeared over the kid’s scalp. The hand grabbed hair and yanked the kid aside. Then a foot piled into a shoulder of the other kid.

Brenda savaged them. The kids scattered. Brenda shrugged. She swept her long brown hair behind one ear revealing a lovely jaw. She turned as Tom got up and tucked his shirt back into his pants. He found his comb and swept it quickly through his hair. “Hey, McSoley’s Pharmacy is right over there. I was just headed there. Let's go.” Brenda said, “They have great stuff.” “Sure, thanks." said Tom. “Sorry they messed with you,” replied Brenda. Silently, they left the farm. Brenda closed the gate and joined up with Tom at his bike. His legs quivered on either side of his bike as Brenda hopped on behind. They set out, Brenda’s shoes scraping the road along the way. Tom stood up on the pedals and pushed hard over to the drug store. That was his job.

Note to Arriving Pioneers

Note to Arriving Pioneers

Your farm wagon bustles with keepsakes. Its fabric canopy protects you. Remember, the relics it stows connect you with the rest of the nation. At stops, brew ginseng tea from roots you buy at a Connecticut market. Have in mind bartering your wife’s calico dress for passage along the Lancaster Turnpike. Be proud of resistance to the British coastal blockade in 1812 for inspiring this overland road and many others. Be grateful of learning patience from miles of rough travel up and down the Appalachians and across Ohio streams. Appreciate the curved bottom of your wagon. It keeps vestiges of your Yankee life from tipping against the tailgate.

Be thankful this journey is behind you. Celebrate your migration, and that of thousands of farm families, leaving New England in promise of better conditions. Reminisce about the spectacular yellow tinged sunsets as you travel west along the origins of the National Road. Do not fuss over missing the tie between these gleaming twilights and the summer frosts and snowfalls killing hardy crops across New England. Unknown to you, some thirty years earlier, Ben Franklin draws a connection between a severe winter in Europe and volcanic eruptions in Iceland. Think that it is better, on balance, that your Old Farmer’s Almanac does not forecast this Year Without a Summer - with volcanos erupting in 1815 on a scale last seen when the western world plummeted into the dark ages. Waiting for disaster is unbearable. Forgive its publisher for lack of remedies to ameliorate conditions as the northeast dims in spring and summer under a persistent sulfate veil. Admit that you, a farmer, face hunger and illness even as the eastern seaboard offers a wide range of food and comfort shipped from the south. Hold fast to the notion of an unyielding land stripping you of farming’s bounty, but not of your traditions. Do not be sorry for those staying behind in these times, for sufficient food is available in markets once enough folks leave.

Regret that there is suffering and loss along your path. Honor your survival. Be reticent. Consider that fate often wrongly rewards. Plow ahead. Accept that you are living your life. There is ample time for forgetfulness to do its work. Understand that your descendants romanticize your journey as they, and future generations across this nation, trace maps with thick lines of common routes westward as though interstates with internet connections.

In the New Purchase, your know-how with crops, livestock, and timber is useful. Your familiarity with merchants in stopovers along your land and river routes west helps as you ship your products back east in exchange for factory made building materials. Your ingenuity keeps you from isolating yourself from the rest of the country. Hold on to names of towns where you camp. Towns like Mansfield, Lucas, Perrysville, and Loudonville where you savor the sour apples in orchards of a generation earlier thanks to Johnny Appleseed. Oblige yourself to bring order to this wilderness. Even as nature decays your efforts, take pride in your work.

Nightly, gather with fellow travelers around campfires. Listen to blacksmiths, tanners, and wagon makers in taverns and stores along the way. Think of settling where there is a grist mill, a saw mill, and a distillery. Hear tales of Indiana with its towering forests and fertile valleys thick with game. Embrace the prospect of land with soil so rich that you need to coat your corn seed in axle grease or the plants will burn themselves up shooting out of the ground. Think of it as a sacred spot. Decide opportunity lies in the land of Indians. Try to see that to the Indians you are the barbarian.

For those of us to follow will surely sketch pictures of you blazing trails through a vast wilderness and raising log homes with nothing more than the axe over your shoulder. Politicians living in fancy homes win elections with that image. Draw lessons from those living in hasty round-log shelters as well. Have in mind a hewn-log house with clapboard siding, glass-pane windows, cast iron hardware, and plastered and painted surfaces. Covet items in the ads in the Indiana Gazette. Link yourself to the factory system. It changes your folkways, but births the consumer.

Decide to follow Brookville Road out of Cincinnati toward a new state capital instead of floating down the Ohio. Wander along a small creek flowing to the White River, where in 1819 Ute Perkins crafts the first round-log cabin in what is now Indianapolis. Take heed that Perkins abandons this shelter during the cold winter out of loneliness and high-tails it for more settled parts. Hear that in the following spring, George Pogue and his family find the cabin and claim it as their own. Be wary, as a year later, shortly after Delaware Indians take Pogue’s horses, a fierce Wyandotte Indian named John, who lives in a hollow sycamore log, stops in at Pogue’s cabin to spend the night. Concur that Pogue thinks it best not to refuse him. Savor the hearth cooked meal and indulge Wyandotte John as he tips off Pogue of his stay at a Delaware tribes’ Buck Creek camp and describes seeing Pogue's horses there. See courage in Pogue as he vows to his family to head east to Buck Creek to take back his horses. See practicality in Wyandotte John as he leaves early the next morning and heads west to the McCormick settlement along White River. Watch as Pogue puts on his broad brim, black wool hat and his drab overcoat with several capes as he too leaves the cabin. Follow Pogue follow the Wyandotte west for a while to allay his fears that the tale of Pogue’s horses at Buck Creek is not a ruse for luring him into the woods. Be sad upon learning that after a while George Pogue turns east and is never heard from again. Pay your respects as the creek flowing by his cabin becomes Pogue’s Run.

Be there during the following October, as lots within the donation lands sell through the Indianapolis Land Office run by Commissioner Christopher Harrison. Hear gossip that Harrison is a long-time hermit. Wonder as he once proclaims himself as governor of Indiana. Be leery that Harrison hires Benjamin Blythe as clerk. Feel grand that crowds are large and business is brisk. Be cheerful as patrons assemble each night around hearths at four taverns hashing out the sale before retiring to camps. Have relief that although the woods fill with moneyed people, there is no fear of robbery. Celebrate that three hundred and fourteen lots sell. Regret that more than half of these that sell are later relinquished. See the town grow slowly. Help families erect hewn log cabins on stumpy lots leaving piles of limbs and logs. Curse the thick clusters of hazel, spice brush, and pawpaw making it hard to go from place to place. Brood silently about the lack of commerce. Persist in spite of the town’s reputation for sickness. Struggle in hope of better conditions.

Face scandal arising in efforts to close out sale of the remaining donation lands. Be stunned of no audit of the books of the Indianapolis Land Office for a dozen years. Figure out Blythe’s extensive concerns with other respectable gentlemen in opportunities in relinquished lots. Commiserate with fellow purchasers putting down twenty percent and undertaking the rest in installments. Size up that many of the purchasers are speculators looking to resell to you and other families hobbling in from New England. Read the fine print as only with the last installment, do you receive a patent from the land agent to take to the county recorder for a deed. Fear that if installments are not made, your land can be taken away by the land agent and resold. Question that enterprising gentlemen are taking funds from the Land Office till, lending these funds to struggling families like you, and taking a lien upon your tracts at fifty per cent interest. Be furious as these gentlemen pay Blythe a stipend as they file applications for relinquishment of your land. Be angry, as only after receiving applications do families find they are in default, and not the other way around. Be suspicious, as defaults arise in time for lots to resell to the next arriving pioneers. Watch enterprising merchants scramble, before the end of each quarter, to gather up all the money they can for a few days, to balance the books the Land Office needs to present to federal offices in Cincinnati. Reflect that Hoosier woods are the least place to fear.

See that plight and opportunity stir desire to look hard at what has gone before. Assemble around the hearths of farmhouse, campfires, taverns, and homes to share passions and interests. When problems arise be willing to break off, struggle, and emerge in some new place. Be a part of the new order taking shape around the whole. What you hold dearest rests on a curving platform. Keep your eye out for the tipping points. Take a hard look at uncomfortable things. Opportunity is shrouded. You are almost always better off arriving as a pioneer. Reach into your trousers feeling for the fresh Indiana ginseng root in your pocket. See many of your roots resting in bins in New England markets. Hold on for another twenty years as the railroads are coming your way.

The Twist

The Twist

Rosemary sat in the front of the Pontiac looking at the smudge pots offering a path along Road 100. Ahead, a semi-truck swayed onward to Chicago, smoke billowing from its exhaust. Rosemary tapped a pen against the side window as if to keep bad spirits away. It seemed hours since leaving home. Rosemary still was inside the city limits. She wanted to visit Chicago. Her girlfriends spoke of trips there to the department stores for trunk shows. Rosemary shopped at Ayres at Glendale Mall. She purchased her clothes at Ayres warehouse. Without fashion, she learned to delight.

Artie drove past Rock Island Refinery and wheeled the Pontiac into a Phillips 66 service station. Two uniformed attendants hurried over. One pumped gas while the other cleaned the windshield and checked the oil and tires. Artie walked to a pay phone and fished for a dime. Rosemary noticed a kennel next to the station. Three dogs were leashed together by a harness. One dog barked at the field behind the building, while another pulled toward the gate. The dog in the middle shivered helplessly, caught between the two. Fumes lingered from the refinery. Rosemary realized she had a headache.

When he returned, Artie signed the gas receipt for the attendant, took the green stamps, and handed back the small clipboard. The attendant snapped out the customer copy and wished them safe travels. Finally, Artie turned to Rosemary and broke the silence. “You’re an idiot if you think I’m changing my mind.” Rosemary smiled, “You charm people a room at a time. Why won’t you do this? When you’re in your scraps, I’m always on your side.” Artie replied, “Really? Do I have to bleed for you?” Rosemary responded. “You’re thick skinned. Would take a deep cut to draw blood from you. Besides, a doctor learns from his patient’s ailment. They’ll make money from their next victim.” The silence returned.

The Pontiac sped past the highway junction to Chicago, crossed Eagle Creek, and after Lafayette Road braked hard and turned into a gravel drive. Artie cut the lights. Ahead was a stone sluice flowing away from an old mill. It ran next to a stone house with a few cars parked outside. “That turn can sneak up on you," said Artie. Rosemary got out of the car and said, “Come get me in a few minutes.” Artie watched as Rosemary waited by the front door. It opened and Rosemary disappeared inside the house. He turned on the radio. The Twist was playing. After a while, a Plymouth Fury pulled beside the Pontiac. A man rolled down the window. “Thanks for the call. She inside?” Artie left the keys in the ignition and the radio blaring as he got out of the Plymouth. “We’re up, let’s go, Frank.”

Artie and Frank knocked at the front door. A pudgy man with thick glasses answered and motioned them in. Frank expected a welcome but got none. Rosemary stood by a large map of the city pinned to a wood panel wall. A dapper man pointed out two red circles on the map. Rosemary shook her head and gestured at two blue circles. It was hard for Frank to pay attention to the dapper man as Rosemary commanded all the light in the room. Rosemary walked behind the dapper man, rested her palm on his shoulder, and extended her other arm past him at the blue circles. Her breasts pressed into him. The pudgy man nodded. The shoulders of dapper man sunk. Artie motioned to Frank and said, “Frank is the engineer for the Department of Transportation. Shouldn’t be too hard to push the entrance to the interstate to your land over there. Right, Frank?” Frank threw back his shoulders, gestured at the map, and said, “The mayor needs your help. Councilor Walls may challenge him. He needs five grand to get some things done.” The dapper man extended four fingers and a thumb at the two red circles and said, "The mayor needs less help."

Frank stopped. Rosemary looked over at Artie, who broke into a big grin. Artie slid one foot forward, began to do the Twist, and said, “That Chubby Checkers is no fool. Folks see him on television and want to be near him. Folks follow him. On tour he stays free at Howard Johnsons. Happy to have his fans stay there. There’s always a party in the parking lot. Artie stopped dancing. “We have known each other a long time. The Township Trustee is making us raise property taxes so we can pay you doctors at Wishard for abortions and alcohol treatments. You’re making money off pistol and knife wounds, too. You would be smart to help out with our downtown convention center. That’s where your action is. Do you really want hoopla springing up at your exits on the interstate circling this city? That kind of help is eight grand, blue circles. That's it, we are leaving.” Artie gathered up Frank and the two walked out without further word. Outside, they climbed into the Fury and drove off.

Rosemary turned to the two doctors, “Sorry, that Artie is such an idiot. I’ll get him to change his mind. What do you say? Help out, ten grand for the red circles?”