Rock Island Line by David Rhodes (most life changing books txt) 📗

“Do we have to go here?” she asked, looking toward the house.

“This is where I used to live,” said July, a little in wonder that Mal would think they might just go away. They went up, rapped on the door, waited and rapped again. It opened an inch and a little more until the chain caught it. A piercing gray eye peered around into the crack.

“Hello,” July began.

“Get away from here,” snapped a voice behind the eye. “Go beg somewhere else.” The door slammed shut.

“Let’s leave,” said Mal. “Think of Butch all cooped up in that little place.”

“Nonsense.” He pounded again, and called out, “Uncle Perry! Hey, Uncle Perry!” Across the street everyone from the garage was outside watching them. “Let me in.”

The door cracked open a second time.

“What’s this? Who are you? Go away.”

“I’m July Montgomery. Open up.”

A smell of cigarette smoke and old beer came from inside. He watched his uncle’s hand go to the wall to steady himself. The eye came back just above the chain latch.

“July Montgomery’s dead. Get on away from here.”

“Look at me.”

“He didn’t look anything like you. His hair was much lighter. He wasn’t nearly so tall . . . very short, in fact.” The eye kept up its constant assessment of him. Behind the yellow flesh in his cheek, July could see the muscles trembling. “Now, beat it before I have the law down on you. Go on, git!”

“Where’s Aunt Becky? I hope she’s back soon,” he said, perfectly at ease. “I hope you’ve kept the rooms as they used to be. I don’t suppose the old furnace Dad took out is still down in the basement, or the boat he was building.”

“Anyone can look through a basement window. Take that little hussy and get away from here. July Montgomery’s dead. He drowned himself in the river.”

“No I didn’t. I’ve been living in Philadelphia. And I noticed you took down the bird feeders and the cottonwoods. Oh yes, here, look at this.” And he drew out one of his photographs and handed it through the narrow opening into a yellow hand. The door closed, but no sounds came to indicate that the lock might be being dismantled. Obviously he was standing, looking at the pictures and thinking. “Oh, by the way, Uncle, you can keep that one—I’ve got a whole lot more.” The silence continued. July looked toward the garage, where the figure of the stooping old man waved to him from the crowd of onlookers.

Realizing that there was no way out of it, Perry Frunt opened the door. “Come in, come in. It’s so good to see you. Why, we’d surely given you up for lost, son. Your poor Aunt Becky nearly died a thousand times since you first was gone and we found your little bed empty in the morning. Come in, come in. Wait till youraunt gets home. What a blessing. How did you ever manage to ...” and as he continued July and Mal came inside, Mal wishing the door could be left open for air. Newspapers and magazines with black and white naked women on the covers littered the floor and couch, a half-drunk quart bottle of beer sat wedged between two cushions. The television was on and turned down low, the fuzzy picture barely bright enough to see. Wallpaper torn and peeling from the ceiling. The curtains were drawn and as the door shut she noticed that all the lights were burning. An ashtray was spilling cigar and cigarette butts onto the table. She felt sorry for July and turned, expecting to see him saddened by the spectacle, but he seemed oblivious to it as he stood and stared at the woodwork. He saw the thermostat control on the wall and ran over to it, from that to the knob of the front door, examining it in rapture, extracting from it every second of past it held silently within it.

“That’s the old television!” he exclaimed. “And the table!”

“We’ve tried to keep them,” said Perry, “just in the least hope that you’d come back.”

“Can we go upstairs?”

“Sure, sure, July. This way.”

“I know the way!” he exclaimed and, dragging Mal by the hand, ran upstairs and flung open the door to his room. It was filled with boxes, old clothes, old farm implements from his grandfather’s barn—things Perry had thought would someday be worth something as antiques and had been afraid someone’d steal if he left them in the barn. But in the closet he found some of his things—his red shirt and in the bureau drawer underneath a loose stack of magazines was his junk box.

What had been his parents’ room was locked. The guest bedroom was obviously what Frunt and his wife used now; one single bed pushed up against the window with a little picture of Christ above it was made and clean, but the rest of the room was in complete disarray and smelled like wet rags.

“Let’s get out of here,” whispered Mal, hearing Frunt’s soft, slow footsteps coming up the stairs. In the back of her mind wasthe rising dread that any minute Mrs. Frunt would come home, and a woman who lived in the kind of house they were in was someone she didn’t want to meet, and would be a little frightened to. Three large rust spots in the hall ceiling marked where water had leaked down from the roof.

“You see, we kept most of your things. Your poor aunt was told by all her friends, ‘Just throw ’em out. There’s no chance of him ever comin’ back.’ But just in the case—” He seemed nearly exhausted after the climb, and stood for a moment panting. “You’ll have to excuse this up here, its not being real tidy, but with poor Becky working her fingers nearly to the bone ten, twelve hours a day, and with losing our only daughter to what I’d have to call a no-good, though I usually don’t hold by any name-calling, and me in