“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.
