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

she rationalized, not sure exactly how it would work, but convincedthat because nature could blend colors so well, she would learn it simply by exposure. More than anything she missed having a place to paint without fear of being too obvious. Artists aren’t performers, she thought. They don’t like to be watched. But then actors were artists, weren’t they, sort of? Yes, but they were performing artists: a big difference.

July told her that Becky had cornered him about being married and he’d had to tell her the truth: they weren’t. Then the pressure seemed to be on; waiting was interminable. Twice Mal was sure that comments were aimed at her like barbed hooks, to go in easy but catch and rip, and she was just ready to tell July the time had come to take her back to the depot when he decided to move to the country house, and then they were alone.

At first it was too much to believe. Surely she wasn’t really living out in the middle of Iowa, more than fifteen miles from the nearest town over two thousand, in a house that leaked when it rained, with a piston-type water pump that July’d put in that had to be turned on by inching one’s way down into the damp basement and sticking a screwdriver into a little metal box at just the right place to snap the switch—for water that left rust spots when it sat overnight. There wasn’t a blade of grass in the yard. All giant weeds. After they’d cut them down with a sickle, they found an unpainted picket fence. Then the drain line plugged up and the basement began to fill with little splushes every time the toilet flushed, so they had to go out to the barn and sit on a rail when they wanted to go to the bathroom. “You’ll have to dig up the septic tank,” they were told, after a coiled wire they’d rented hadn’t been able to penetrate from the basement, six inches deep with brown water alive with bits of toilet paper and chunks of floating feces, to where the problem was. “It’ll be OK,” said July, “as soon as we know where to dig.” The broken windows still needed to be replaced. There were no storm windows, large cracks in the foundation, and winter was officially a month and a half away.

Mal simply couldn’t believe it.

July learned from one of the men at the garage that the septic tank had been taken out—that there was nothing down there but a straight line of four-inch clay tile, nothing else. So six feet from the house July began to dig.

“How deep does it have to be?” asked Mal.

“It depends on how big the tank is. Anyway, it’s seven feet down to the basement, add another foot and the height of the tank and you have it.”

“July?”

“What?” Another shovelful of dirt flew up out of the three-foot hole.

“We aren’t really going to live here, are we? We don’t know anybody—anybody our age. I feel like people must think we’re—well, that we’re sort of degenerates living here. They all stare when they drive by—I can see them.”

“Nonsense. By next spring we’ll have the place in shape.”

“We can only do so much. You can. I’m almost no help at all. We’re going to have to get jobs, and we can’t depend on that car”—referring to the old Ford. “We don’t have driver’s licenses for this state. Becky said it was against the law to put in a septic tank without a permit. The yard’ll never be a yard. It’s all weeds. We won’t have time to fix the roof before it snows, the nights are cold and I just feel so weighted down all the time—oh, forget it,” and she burst into tears and ran inside.

July sat down in his hole and felt a pocket of nervous energy swelling up in his throat. Everything Mal had said was true . . . except about the yard. He was sure grass would eventually take over if you kept mowing everything down. Maybe I’m idealistic, he thought. Maybe it won’t be as easy as I’d hoped.

Maybe I’m just a fool.

Then he checked his impulse to run back into the house immediately: it was always better to take time and think things out before rushing ahead. Whenever other problems had sprung up between them and he hadn’t taken time to think, he’d endedup saying things he regretted and making a bad situation worse. Mal could always think much faster in a tense situation and whatever he said she could shoot holes through. This time he would let things settle before deciding on how to deal with them.

The first realistic thought he had was that she might be right—it might be just the stupidest thing to be living out here. It might be completely obvious to everyone else that it couldn’t be done, without unhappiness. So what Mal had taken to be staring from the slow cars that drove by in front (and he’d seen them too) was in actuality looks of astonished wonder: How could anyone be so stupid as to try to live there ? Is it some kind of experiment? I wonder how long the girl’ll hold out.

He reconsidered. No, it isn’t that way at all. They’re looking because they’re curious—generally curious—and Mal’s upset. This coincided with the facts as well, and had a better feel. It was more hopeful.

What was Mal upset about? (Be careful, this one’s tricky—you’ve been fooled before.) Start with what she said: complaints about the house.

Then it came to him. She didn’t like it here! He mentally shuddered. It wasn’t that she was in a bad mood, or mad at something he’d done, like the time he’d not really listened to what she’d said and had forgotten all about it—important things about painting; and it wasn’t that she just didn’t know what to do with herself—like not being in school or working. She didn’t