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

ride. Outside the tinted windows everything smelled of the disgust and nightmare of war. January thaw, he thought. My father’s dead, he remembered again. My mother: they might not have wanted to tell me about my mother. He resolved then, passing over the Mississippi and into Iowa, that if he could salvage his broken and splintered religion, if he could become a part, in a small way—any way—of those things he hadso many nights feared were never true, if he could lie against Sarah’s body and be only a little happy—he would never breathe a word of the last five years. He would deny them. The bus went on farther into his state and he began seeing familiar landmarks, familiar towns. His sleeplessness since getting into the States had honed his nerves to an edge, and by the time they pulled into Iowa City, fear was soaking him in cold sweat. Beyond the window Sarah stood against the brick wall. Tears wanted to be let out of his eyes. Men were staring at her. Her face looked anxious. His desire to touch her frightened him. Maybe, he thought, she won’t want to. Maybe she’ll say when we get home, “John, I’ve got to tell you something, while you’ve been gone away—” God help me, please help me, I am a wreck of a man.

It was in this condition July would have first seen his father, had John come out of the bus at that time. But a large woman getting baggage from the overhead rack forced him back into his seat. Angry and frantic, he looked out the window again. This time he saw his son standing behind her against the wall, and it was as though he had not known before and had just been told: Did you know, you have a boy, old enough to talk and understand, with a complete personality of his own. Here he is. He’s yours.

He’s a pretty good-looking boy, he thought, staring out of the besmudged window. He stands well, making no trouble . . . no idea what a man would think in a bunker—what he would do to save his own miserable life, the extent to which he would go . . . The woman with her bags bumped on down the aisle, and John slid out of his seat. At the door he stopped and gathered as well as he could all the loose ends and stepped down, reminding himself over and over: Be careful. Nothing can be taken for granted. Make no assumptions.

July felt his mother’s hand tighten and tremble as the uniformed man stepped down from the huge metal bus onto the ground. “John,” she called, and he came slowly over, carrying a cloth bag, holding his hat in his hand. Dark moons like blue wounds under his eyes, ugly hairs on his face, smelling clothes.The man held out his hand and at first July was afraid to touch it, even though pressed to by his mother. The knuckles and joints and veins were so awful. July touched it and wanted to cry: it was so hard. Then the hand squeezed and he felt the power, the child-crushing strength that lay dormant like a crouching panther, controlled only by the sallow face’s intention. Red lines in his eyes.

They went over to the car, and his mother wanted “Daddy” to drive. No, he said, he didn’t want to. He sat next to July’s window, July next to his mother behind the wheel. They left the station and headed home. The stranger looked suspiciously at the telephone poles and houses, at the dashboard and at July’s mother’s feet. His smell overpowered July’s mother’s. He spoke once on the ride home, asking about Grandma, only he called her Mom. The rest of the time he was silent.

Once home, he remained standing in the driveway, looking suspiciously at everything outside as though it might grow wings and flap away into outer space. The bird feeder (which his mother had carefully filled before they drove to the bus station) seemed to hold him mesmerized. His mother waited silently for him inside the opened door to the house. Finally, he came toward them with his cloth bag. July rushed to the door, slammed it and locked him outside so that he could never come in. He looked back to his mother, whose face was a betrayal of her erupting emotions: fear, hatred, sorrow and despair. She sank to the sofa.

The doorbell rang. “Go away,” July shouted.

“Please,” came from outside, and the word cut through the door and into July’s throat. There was sadness and loneliness unimaginable in an older person. “Please,” he repeated, and July opened the door. “Thanks, July,” he said and put out his hand again. July took it and squeezed as hard as he was able.

“Ouch,” said John.

Tears ran down Sarah’s cheeks as she tried to stand up from the sofa. “Go outside and play now,” she said.

July left, glad to be out of the oddly electric house. He knew “Daddy” had been joking, but still felt as though he could smash rocks with his fists. He closed the door and stood outside it.

“Would it be all right ...” John was saying inside.

“I hope you’re never satisfied,” said his mother.

July left to play in the empty garage across the street.

FIVE

In 1948, Della Montgomery was prevailed upon by John to quit her country home, where she had lived alone since the death of her husband, and move into John’s house in town, where (as she suspected) she could be watched more closely.

Coming up that first day, carrying her personal belongings in a shopping bag (a truckload would come later), she stopped on the porch with her son and his family, looked at them all, put her hand on the wooden railing and jumped over it, landing three feet away on the ground, walked up the step, picked up her bag again and went inside the house.

“How