WHAT THE SUN HAS NOT ALREADY TAKEN by Andrew Freiman
Night here begins with a growing silence occasionally broken by the howls of wild dogs. A roadside restaurant, tucked close to the blacktop and squat to the soil, shines bright in the darkness with polished steel shining throughout. The owner goes outside hours after nightfall to look at the sky, and smoke a cigarette. The long roads are still visible in the dark. He cannot hear the dogs crying outside the final throws of light. His face is revealed as a wad of wrinkles, erosion of a thousand years, red and worn around his eyes. But the match is only a flash of light followed by the rhythmic expansion of the orange dot as smoke drifts through the air.
Looking up into the sky, Eustace sees nothing but stars—the stretch of the Milky Way above, a distinctly solid arch from horizon to horizon; the glow of the cigarette grows slowly and then bleeds orange and then fades. He raises his eyes skyward and unknowingly finds Cassiopeia, Pegasus and the edge of Eridanus. His eyes stare ahead blankly for a number of a seconds, dully reflecting the brightness overhead and all around him. To Eustace it sounds as though an animal is dying miles away—but it is nothing.
In one movement he stretch-cracks his back and flicks the cigarette into the dust. A wind blows in from the north, hissing through the levy of tumbleweeds caught in a barbwire fence. When the door closes behind him it is quiet outside.
“Lou Ann, pour yourself a cup of coffee and sit down for a bit.”
The two of them sit down in a booth underneath a large window throwing a square of light onto the road. She stirs sugar into her coffee and looks out the glass and then back at Eustace twisting his mouth to light another cigarette. He exhales toward the hanging light to speak, but she is already half finished.
“I already know what you’re going to say.”
“Is my job that easy?”
“It makes sense to do it, Eustace.”
“That doesn’t mean that it’s easy.”
“It’s fine. I know where we live. It isn’t a surprise.”
Lou Ann taps a cigarette out of the pack and he leans forward, hand on tie, to light it for her.
“But for how long?”
“Two weeks after New Year’s.”
She looks toward the kitchen, then at the counter and everything there, then the table and her hands worn and dry from cleaning. Her eyes are tired, her knees hurt. She wants to be somewhere else entirely. Not at home or in her bed. Somewhere else. Her shoulders go up and fall down again.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Surprised?”
“I’d say so… That’s three months. You can’t just expect me to be ok with this”
The diner is still quiet with the buzzing of appliances and lights and the humming of the air-conditioning in the background. Stoves older than lifetimes rest behind the counter like old meteors half forgotten.
“It probably won’t be any better then. I’m barely breaking even right now, and if I want to stay open and afford it and all, I have to run light.”
“And Rebecca?”
“It’s just going to be me for a spell”
“Well shit.”
She crushes her cigarette into the ashtray between them and looks Eustace full in the face. Lou Ann does not blink.
“You gonna let me work the week out?”
“Of course.”
Eustace thinks about the sky and then he thinks about its long bright white betrayal, the soil that he felt underneath his feet turning into cement and things even harder than that. The long days of bright sky and nothing else, the cows dying or dead, the lambs led to slaughter earlier and earlier, lighter and lighter. He thinks of the brown mud scar that has expanded as though to replace the river completely. Lou Ann gets up from the booth and grabs the ashtray, walks to the counter and speaks over her shoulder.
“Seems like it’s getting worse, doesn’t it?”
Eustace looks out the window just like he has for the last ten years, and he thinks on that too, exhaling until he is forced to breathe again.
“Yep. Every single day.”
The long road going east and west and the other going north and south and the mesas against the horizon are all outside and waiting, now almost as dark as the night itself. And home is a dry place; someone is probably yelling or crying, and after that silent. Everything hurts, and the people that live in and around Milam hurt with it all. Still looking out the window he notices his reflection, picks up his cup of coffee and drains it, then picks up a small notebook and begins to write something down. There is a slight pause, but he continues without looking up from his work there.
The drought has all but ruined their small town. Stronger businesses have closed and harder men and women have already left. It is something that no one could explain. No matter who it is, the sheriff, the preacher, the mayor, no one can explain what is happening or why—Not even Clyde, and he is the oldest man alive yet.
Lou Ann comes from the kitchen holding beers in her hands and a large piece of cake, humming to herself in a low tone. She stops when she sees Eustace still sitting there. She moves to the far booth and sits to face him head on. Lou Ann raises her beer, making all of the air around them electric, and she holds it there for a little while longer while Eustace holds her eyes. It’s bad for everyone, he tells himself. He smiles weakly, glances at his hands, then back onto the empty road, then at his smoldering cigarette, already finished, and his leather bound book. The night was lifeless just outside the restaurant. But just over the far hill to the east something bright moves without making any noise.
Lou Ann drinks and flips through a magazine. She doesn’t seem upset about the restaurant closing down; in the end it wasn’t really a surprise. After months of a peopleless view in any direction, getting rid of extra work only made sense. Of course it made sense. It had happened to everyone. Everyone had been affected, from farmers and ranch hands and the hardware shop and the bank to everyone else. Rigby and his sons had already left, the McCreeleys, the Germans, Taffy and his wife, Reynolds, Simmons, Clark—all the folks up river for thirty miles. People got laid off. Things had changed. Some things disappear.
Eustace had seen the different faces moving back home for different reasons: family or work or water; they’d stop at the restaurant and talk and get a meal, then look out the window with heavy breaths, shoulders forever forward with unseen burden—a quiet secret already known by everyone. Leaving was nothing, he told himself. Staying put was the hard part. Staying put took strength.
Headlights shine down the road moving closer and closer without any sound other than wind. A moment passes as Eustace brings his cup to his face and notices the car slow, falter, then turn haltingly into the parking lot. A bright white light is thrown through the window and they have to shield their eyes until the headlights turn off. Two men get out of the small colorless sedan. The driver steps out with his hat in his hand, still in conversation with his partner.
“No. The county judge is Fenpool. Clemens was four months ago—there was an election.”
The other man, two inches shorter than the driver, has black hair pressed against his skull by perpetual use of his hat. He wears it now. The two men notice the window with old Eustace framed glorious and bright within it. The driver stops suddenly to look back at the car as though in deep thought; then he waves at the building with his bright teeth flashing. He barges through the door already talking to Eustace before it closes completely.
“We’ve been driving on that road for hours, it may be the longest, flattest, most lonely one in the state. I can’t tell you all how happy I am to see this place open.”
He talks quickly. His eyes dart about and never land completely on Eustace, who stands without moving behind the counter waiting for the two to sit down or do something else. The tall man rushes forward with a board-straight back, his heels knocking into the floor like deliberate gunfire.
“My name is Howard Thrush, it’s a pleasure meet you. My quiet friend is Mr. P.T. Cravitt.”
Cravitt stands still, touches his hat, and sits down in the booth by the door. He puts his back to Lou Ann and her magazine and cigarette smoke.
“Nice to meet you fellas. I’m Eustace and that’s….”
“Lou Ann Simmons, recently unemployed.”
She speaks with a sarcastic tone and Eustace wonders how much beer she has drunk. Cravitt doesn’t turn his head, he only nods and taps the end of his fingers together as though he is waiting for something. He looks larger in the booth, taking up most of it with his girth, a fine layer of sweat covering his entire face. Howard looks up, nods his head and smiles across the diner.
“You’re eating cake I see?”
“Yessir, sure am.”
“I hear that it’s good for the complexion.”
“Don’t know about that, but it sure helps the bellies of the poor.”
She looks at Eustace and shows him the cake mush in her mouth, mostly yellow with lines of white, then drinks her beer until the bottle is empty. Eustace is the only one who seems to notice, but he doesn’t blink or respond—he is still stuck on the floor, unable to move, his face entirely broken. The men order two cups of coffee and a piece of cake, and he slowly walks to the back room. In the diner Lou Ann is quiet and looks out the window as the two men begin to talk to each other, periodically turning their eyes to glance toward the kitchen or swiveling their heads around the room as though worried that something terrible may happen all of a sudden. The large room stays silent for some time, bodies exactly placed, each existing apart from the other.
Eustace returns to the table with two mugs filled with coffee, then leaves again with silent footsteps to retrieve the cake. He stops in a room of stainless steel and stoves, fry pits long cold, standing for just a moment, dully thinking about life and trying to remember a number of things—the center of each already forgotten. He was being honest when he told Lou Ann that he needed to run light to stay open. The idea was truthful, but in practice it would be impossible. I’ll be shut down by the end of the month, he tells himself. His voice sounds so quiet he can barely hear it. Eustace stands still for a moment longer with incapable hands at his side, looking over the items that seek to overthrow him: rent, bills, mortgages, insurance, propane, pantries to fill and stomachs too. For a moment his mind is overwhelmed. For a moment a widening hollow forms between his eyes. For a moment Eustace is no longer a man, only a series of receipts and ignored letters and a strange rattling noise as his imaginary economy continues to collapse. He tells himself that things change and parts of him agree; but still, some things don’t change at all. Some things just end. When Lou Ann moves up behind him and puts her hand on his shoulder, he jumps and turns and throws his hands up in fright.
“That tall man outside wants to know your name.”
Eustace leans up against a countertop and wipes his forehead with the back of his sleeve.
“He already has it.”
“No. He wants your full name.”
“What for?”
She is inside the walk-in fridge pulling out two different pie plates, one apple, one cherry.
“Didn’t ask him. And I ate the last piece of cake so you can just take these pies out of my last check if you want to.”
She leaves him standing there. Arms and legs and a network of bowels at the start of resignation. An eroded face, completely broken. There is no more fight in him. Not after all of this. Not after air so dry eyes become marbles of chalk. Not after so many fights with his wife and her estranged body, or the ranch barely breaking even, or the price of water going up, or the shelves of Cecil’s store becoming more and more barren. He looks at his watch and thinks about dying. Then moves, propelled by some old memory, out into the light of the diner with a mask on—he is happy, confident, slightly amused. The two men are in conversation; they look up, see Eustace and return his smile.
“It’s Conway if you’re asking.”
A heavy sigh comes from the men at the table. Cravitt stretches out his short arms in front of his body, rotating his wrists in opposite directions, as Howard pulls something from his pocket and hands it to Eustace.
“I assume that you have seen something like this before?”
It is hot in his hand. A small white envelope, one of many, more than a dozen, month after month appearing in his mailbox. The words heavy inside. Eustace loses his focus and things become blurry. He backs up, hits a table, and sits down in a chair with the letter in both hands.
“Yes. I’ve seen them before.”
Cravitt pulls a fork from his lips and talks with the red cherry pie moving around in his mouth, glistening as he forms words with his child voice, throwing them over the table and linoleum floor. The fat of his neck heaves from side to side.
“You must understand, Mr. Conway, what our position is. After so long, after having seen all of your friends move from this place, you must understand what is coming to your town. Something is coming that you cannot stop. A beautiful dam, a glorious lake. Progress. Unavoidable, eminent progress.”
He finishes with a sip of his coffee, a slurry of noise and the large movement of his gullet as he swallows. Cravitt and Howard both wait, watching Eustace. Expecting, wanting him to respond. All he says is, “No.”
Howard moves his hands over his tie. He becomes nervous and looks over his partner to see Lou Ann there, drinking another beer, and flipping through her magazine. She has been listening this whole time, to every word between the men, and she thinks that she knows what is going on. Howard leans toward Eustace and tells him that it might be better if she wasn’t there to hear everything, tells him that it might be easier for everyone. She hears him and closes the magazine, finishes her beer then walks to the kitchen with every intention of eaves dropping. The three men watch her leave with their mouths closed and only resume talking when they hear the radio from the kitchen become louder.
“You boys knew my name, didn’t you?”
The two of them nod at the same time.
“So you came here for this?” He holds up the letter between all of them as though it is on fire. Howard leans forward and begins to speak.
“Mr. Conway, Mr. Cravitt and I are here with the same goal in mind, but we have different reasons. He’s a lawyer, you should know that, and he is here to represent my company to the full extent of the law. And that does not look good for you. This is just a warning, I assure you… Are you listening Mr. Conway?”
There is a dull recognition on his face. Eustace wants to hear nothing, wants this to be over, to go back in time and walk his land in silence and not have to talk about any of this; about the drought, about everyone leaving, and about these two men drinking his coffee, eating his pie, and talking about all of these things that he has been trying to ignore. He holds out the letter to have them take it back, but they just look at him and he crumbles it up and puts it on the table.
“I’m listening. But things aren’t so bad yet. I’m not selling my land.”
Music is the only noise. The men push themselves back from the table as much as they can. Eustace pulls out his pack of cigarettes, takes out the last one and leaves the pack on their table too. Cravitt unfolds the letter, smoothing it out with his hands, and begins to talk in a slow, almost sweet, way.
“We understand what land can mean to people. We’re people too. My father owns land near Dallas and it’s been in the family for years. He’d never sell. But he doesn’t have a reason to sell like you do.”
Howard takes the letter and stands up, places it into the front pocket of Eustace’s shirt, then pats it slightly to make sure he knows that it is there.
“I know that you are running out of money. I know that this place may be foreclosed on and that you have had to pay your land taxes late before.”
He is standing, moving his thin frame around the restaurant, the hard, heavy heels sounding out against the linoleum. His voice rises and falls in his speech appropriately, with one hand on hip and one cutting through the air to make his point.
“This is not a good time for you, for anyone here. Milam is on the brink. On the brink of a new age for everyone. We are here, Cravitt and I, and the company, the people that I work for, are here for Milam. It’s as easy as that. If you sell us your land we will be able to build something wonderful which will give you two things that everyone here needs. And do you know what those are?”
Eustace stares blankly ahead, blowing smoke out of his nostrils. While he may appear that he has not been paying attention, he has been, and is still. Cravitt scrapes his plate clean as Howard faces a window, looking out onto the parking lot and farther beyond it, out into the dark of night with both his hands on his hips.
“Water and clean, renewable, cheap electricity. On the brink, Mr. Conway, and you are right there too. Really, your situation is slightly different, the word brink might be a little confusing. You, sir, are on the edge. And my company is waiting for you to either move out of the way or not. Moving is easier, I promise you that. It’s a better, nicer, idea. We are offering you something amazing. A really wonderful deal. Three times more than the actual worth of your land. Three times.” Howard turns and faces Eustace with a wide smile on his face, he holds out his hands in front of him toward Eustace. “Did you hear that? Are you listening at all? Three times the price in good years. One hundred thousand dollars.”
There is something in Eustace Conway’s throat, about the size of a golf ball, but it is more complicated. A mixture of pride and failure and lineage and shame threatens to choke him. All at once, Eustace wants to kill the men in front of him. To kill them both then bury their bodies in the hard soil just outside, the car too. Light everything on fire. Destroy everything. All at once, Eustace wants to cry. Back in time, he tells himself. I want to go back in time.
This is the highest offer yet. He thinks of his wife and of her family down near the Gulf and he tries to forget the original reasons for staying. Family and blood and ties to his land and the love for it too. But he was betrayed by the land and she never belonged to it. He says the numbers again to himself. They have a heavy meaning and he imagines what all of that would bring. He understands why everyone had left. Why the McCreeleys left in a new station wagon, and why Taffy’s wife had those pearls around her neck. It wasn’t the drought that made them leave, not exactly. It was the money that forced their hands, which asked and then received the full betrayal of a people. They turned their backs because they could afford it. Literally. He smokes his cigarette down to the filter then spits onto the floor at the taste of it. Howard hoists himself up onto the counter by the cash register and crosses his legs there. Waiting for something to be said, to see if any of the information had made it into this man Eustace. He almost wants him to say no. Cravitt coughs into his hand and takes off his hat
“Say yes.”
Eustace stands up in a fury, throws his chair across the diner where it crashes into other tables and chairs and fills the place with such a raw heat that he doesn’t know what to do next.
“Say yes? How about no. To the both of you. Hell no to the company too. I don’t give a good God damn what you think you are going to offer me, what you think that I have lost, what you think you can sell me. Take your money and go to hell.”
Neither of the men notice Eustace or his actions. They have seen it before. Lou Ann pokes her head out from the kitchen but doesn’t say anything. When she hears Eustace yelling she thinks that it is someone else. He never yells. She has never seen him upset. But when she looks outside she sees a different man and so is quiet and just stands there not knowing what to think about anything. Cravitt is the first to speak.
“Conway, we’ll forgive this first outburst. Most men have them. But the offer is better than anything else that you will be able to get. This is your lottery, Conway. Take it. We need that lake to hold a certain amount of water and that amount stops on your land. Milam needs it too. Take the offer. If not, I will see to it that you get nothing, and that your land will see more than its fair share of water no matter what you have to say about it.”
Eustace still stands, he has not moved, his face red, shoulders hunched forward. His fists are balled up into rocks fastened to iron poles. He wants to fight back, to fight both of them.
“I won’t let you build your dam on my family’s land.”
Howard slides off of the counter and walks to the thrown chair and the cluster of things around it. He picks it up and brings it back to Eustace.
“Sit down… Please.”
They stand next to each other for a moment, Eustace looking out the window with clay for eyes and Howard standing there as though he was just outside of church—he inspects the shine on his shoes in the light and talks quietly as though the two are old friends.
“Sit down for a spell. Let’s talk. Just normal talk for a minute or so.”
Howard pushes the chair toward Eustace, who sits down and rests his head in his hands. Cravitt begins to say something but Howard interrupts him and then continues.
“I don’t expect you to answer me or respond to anything I say. I need you to listen to a few things first, some ideas you might be over looking. Things are bad out here. I’ve heard about it in the news, and I’ve read it in the paper. I was talking to your county judge just the other day and he says that he’s lost most everything on his land. Says he still has the view but not much else. You need help. The company can give you all the money you need. You just need to move. You can stay here, buy some lake front property now, and probably go skiing in a summer or two.”
He moves to sit down in the booth and he sips his coffee there, looking out the window into the black expanse. He gestures with his hand.
“You think they’ll judge you because you’ve moved a couple of miles. Once they have cheap energy in their homes and water in their fields, they’ll remember you as a hero. It’s up to you. Change is happening. You either help us, or you don’t. You can either win, or you can lose.”
Cravitt and Howard look at each other for a moment then turn and face the worn out bones in the chair. Eustace doesn’t say anything, he thinks of his wife and his kids in different parts of the state. Then of the ground and the sky and everyone else leaving. There are thousands of questions that Eustace wants to ask himself, but there isn’t enough time for them, and they are more of a jumble than anything else. He stares at the ground for a few seconds.
“I can’t sell.”
Cravitt nods to Howard who leaves the booth, walks over to a phone on the counter and begins to dial a number. Music surrounds him and he can smell dish soap from the kitchen. Lou Ann, a few feet from the phone, has heard every other word and is still somewhat confused.
“Mrs. Conway?”
Eustace moves to the counter and reaches out for the phone, but Howard only steps backward with his free hand out. Not knowing what else to do Eustace stops and looks around thinking: receipts and mortgages, and the river is drying up, and the cattle is dying; so many faces worn thin and dry like dust.
“Hello mam, my name is Howard Thrush. I was talking to your husband and he told me that he might like to sell the land. The price is a good one. One Hundred Tho….”
The line goes dead as Eustace’s hand pushes the receiver down. He doesn’t seem upset; maybe tired, cornered, finally realistic. But not upset.
“Could you boys wait outside? The coffee and the pie are on me… Just wait outside for a moment.”
The men face each other and P.T. Cravitt puts on his hat, pushing it far down around his ears. The men finish the swill of coffee and go through the glass door with their chins and eyes moving over their shoulders. Eustace stands there and moves his eyes, beginning to fill with water, around the back wall of the restaurant. He thinks of his father, and of his children, and of the body of his wife in their bed and how she so often feels like a piece of hot coal underneath the covers in the winter. He thinks about crying, shakes his head slowly and then moves into the kitchen. Lou Ann is just finishing up the dishes and drying her hands, she looks up and smiles weakly not knowing what he is going to say. He notices her for a moment, without eye contact, and tells her, “You’re unfired,” as he walks to the front door.
She hears the door open and close.
It’s still a clear night outside with an endless sky above them stretching all the way over one horizon, farther and farther still, then back over the other. Eustace looks up and breathes a deep breath of the cool pre-dawn air and stretches slightly in his shoes. Thrush and Cravitt stand by the car with their chins close to their chests, arms folded against the darkness. They are waiting for him to come outside. Knowing that he would. They have seen it all before. The sad movement of man like a piece of wood on a turbulent sea. Eustace sets his feet and grits his teeth for a couple of seconds.
“Can I have some time to think on it?”
P.T. Cravitt claps his hands together while Howard reaches into the back seat and pulls out a leather briefcase with gold colored clasps that catch the light and flash like lightning. He holds the briefcase out to Eustace with one hand, nodding his head with a thought out motion.
“Consider this a promise to show you our seriousness in the matter. You’ll receive the rest once the paper work is finalized.”
“You can open it if you’d like to count it.” Cravitt says from the other side of the car.
“I didn’t say yes yet.”
Thrush reaches for Eustace’s hand and shakes it with a firm grip, a slight smile forming at the corners of his lips.
“Of course not, but you’ll make the right choice. A hero. A bona fide hero. You know, they told me that you were going to be the most stubborn man out here. But you’re too smart for that Eustace.”
“Well.”
Car doors close, lights turn on. Eustace is left with a hand shielding his eyes as the car turns off onto the road heading toward town. Suddenly it’s dark again and the night and the air and the cloudless sky and everything, absolutely everything, is different. Eustace notices a spot in his chest. A new spot. It should be filled with hope, but it isn’t. It’s just a lump, and he waits for a while longer and thinks of his wife and her face when he sees her in the morning. Tomorrow morning, with everything different and changed all of a sudden. He could buy her a new dress, a new pair of shoes, some flowers, a new stove and a new refrigerator. A new life. He stops, looks out toward the horizon and the place in the east where he expects the dawning sun, then he hears the door open behind him and hears Lou Ann’s voice bright over the small parking lot.
“What’s in the briefcase?”
He looks at it on the ground, just outside the light of the restaurant, and shrugs his shoulders.
“Just some paper.”
“Paper?”
“Yep. Paper… Not much else.”
//ww
Looking up into the sky, Eustace sees nothing but stars—the stretch of the Milky Way above, a distinctly solid arch from horizon to horizon; the glow of the cigarette grows slowly and then bleeds orange and then fades. He raises his eyes skyward and unknowingly finds Cassiopeia, Pegasus and the edge of Eridanus. His eyes stare ahead blankly for a number of a seconds, dully reflecting the brightness overhead and all around him. To Eustace it sounds as though an animal is dying miles away—but it is nothing.
In one movement he stretch-cracks his back and flicks the cigarette into the dust. A wind blows in from the north, hissing through the levy of tumbleweeds caught in a barbwire fence. When the door closes behind him it is quiet outside.
“Lou Ann, pour yourself a cup of coffee and sit down for a bit.”
The two of them sit down in a booth underneath a large window throwing a square of light onto the road. She stirs sugar into her coffee and looks out the glass and then back at Eustace twisting his mouth to light another cigarette. He exhales toward the hanging light to speak, but she is already half finished.
“I already know what you’re going to say.”
“Is my job that easy?”
“It makes sense to do it, Eustace.”
“That doesn’t mean that it’s easy.”
“It’s fine. I know where we live. It isn’t a surprise.”
Lou Ann taps a cigarette out of the pack and he leans forward, hand on tie, to light it for her.
“But for how long?”
“Two weeks after New Year’s.”
She looks toward the kitchen, then at the counter and everything there, then the table and her hands worn and dry from cleaning. Her eyes are tired, her knees hurt. She wants to be somewhere else entirely. Not at home or in her bed. Somewhere else. Her shoulders go up and fall down again.
“Jesus Christ.”
“Surprised?”
“I’d say so… That’s three months. You can’t just expect me to be ok with this”
The diner is still quiet with the buzzing of appliances and lights and the humming of the air-conditioning in the background. Stoves older than lifetimes rest behind the counter like old meteors half forgotten.
“It probably won’t be any better then. I’m barely breaking even right now, and if I want to stay open and afford it and all, I have to run light.”
“And Rebecca?”
“It’s just going to be me for a spell”
“Well shit.”
She crushes her cigarette into the ashtray between them and looks Eustace full in the face. Lou Ann does not blink.
“You gonna let me work the week out?”
“Of course.”
Eustace thinks about the sky and then he thinks about its long bright white betrayal, the soil that he felt underneath his feet turning into cement and things even harder than that. The long days of bright sky and nothing else, the cows dying or dead, the lambs led to slaughter earlier and earlier, lighter and lighter. He thinks of the brown mud scar that has expanded as though to replace the river completely. Lou Ann gets up from the booth and grabs the ashtray, walks to the counter and speaks over her shoulder.
“Seems like it’s getting worse, doesn’t it?”
Eustace looks out the window just like he has for the last ten years, and he thinks on that too, exhaling until he is forced to breathe again.
“Yep. Every single day.”
The long road going east and west and the other going north and south and the mesas against the horizon are all outside and waiting, now almost as dark as the night itself. And home is a dry place; someone is probably yelling or crying, and after that silent. Everything hurts, and the people that live in and around Milam hurt with it all. Still looking out the window he notices his reflection, picks up his cup of coffee and drains it, then picks up a small notebook and begins to write something down. There is a slight pause, but he continues without looking up from his work there.
The drought has all but ruined their small town. Stronger businesses have closed and harder men and women have already left. It is something that no one could explain. No matter who it is, the sheriff, the preacher, the mayor, no one can explain what is happening or why—Not even Clyde, and he is the oldest man alive yet.
Lou Ann comes from the kitchen holding beers in her hands and a large piece of cake, humming to herself in a low tone. She stops when she sees Eustace still sitting there. She moves to the far booth and sits to face him head on. Lou Ann raises her beer, making all of the air around them electric, and she holds it there for a little while longer while Eustace holds her eyes. It’s bad for everyone, he tells himself. He smiles weakly, glances at his hands, then back onto the empty road, then at his smoldering cigarette, already finished, and his leather bound book. The night was lifeless just outside the restaurant. But just over the far hill to the east something bright moves without making any noise.
Lou Ann drinks and flips through a magazine. She doesn’t seem upset about the restaurant closing down; in the end it wasn’t really a surprise. After months of a peopleless view in any direction, getting rid of extra work only made sense. Of course it made sense. It had happened to everyone. Everyone had been affected, from farmers and ranch hands and the hardware shop and the bank to everyone else. Rigby and his sons had already left, the McCreeleys, the Germans, Taffy and his wife, Reynolds, Simmons, Clark—all the folks up river for thirty miles. People got laid off. Things had changed. Some things disappear.
Eustace had seen the different faces moving back home for different reasons: family or work or water; they’d stop at the restaurant and talk and get a meal, then look out the window with heavy breaths, shoulders forever forward with unseen burden—a quiet secret already known by everyone. Leaving was nothing, he told himself. Staying put was the hard part. Staying put took strength.
Headlights shine down the road moving closer and closer without any sound other than wind. A moment passes as Eustace brings his cup to his face and notices the car slow, falter, then turn haltingly into the parking lot. A bright white light is thrown through the window and they have to shield their eyes until the headlights turn off. Two men get out of the small colorless sedan. The driver steps out with his hat in his hand, still in conversation with his partner.
“No. The county judge is Fenpool. Clemens was four months ago—there was an election.”
The other man, two inches shorter than the driver, has black hair pressed against his skull by perpetual use of his hat. He wears it now. The two men notice the window with old Eustace framed glorious and bright within it. The driver stops suddenly to look back at the car as though in deep thought; then he waves at the building with his bright teeth flashing. He barges through the door already talking to Eustace before it closes completely.
“We’ve been driving on that road for hours, it may be the longest, flattest, most lonely one in the state. I can’t tell you all how happy I am to see this place open.”
He talks quickly. His eyes dart about and never land completely on Eustace, who stands without moving behind the counter waiting for the two to sit down or do something else. The tall man rushes forward with a board-straight back, his heels knocking into the floor like deliberate gunfire.
“My name is Howard Thrush, it’s a pleasure meet you. My quiet friend is Mr. P.T. Cravitt.”
Cravitt stands still, touches his hat, and sits down in the booth by the door. He puts his back to Lou Ann and her magazine and cigarette smoke.
“Nice to meet you fellas. I’m Eustace and that’s….”
“Lou Ann Simmons, recently unemployed.”
She speaks with a sarcastic tone and Eustace wonders how much beer she has drunk. Cravitt doesn’t turn his head, he only nods and taps the end of his fingers together as though he is waiting for something. He looks larger in the booth, taking up most of it with his girth, a fine layer of sweat covering his entire face. Howard looks up, nods his head and smiles across the diner.
“You’re eating cake I see?”
“Yessir, sure am.”
“I hear that it’s good for the complexion.”
“Don’t know about that, but it sure helps the bellies of the poor.”
She looks at Eustace and shows him the cake mush in her mouth, mostly yellow with lines of white, then drinks her beer until the bottle is empty. Eustace is the only one who seems to notice, but he doesn’t blink or respond—he is still stuck on the floor, unable to move, his face entirely broken. The men order two cups of coffee and a piece of cake, and he slowly walks to the back room. In the diner Lou Ann is quiet and looks out the window as the two men begin to talk to each other, periodically turning their eyes to glance toward the kitchen or swiveling their heads around the room as though worried that something terrible may happen all of a sudden. The large room stays silent for some time, bodies exactly placed, each existing apart from the other.
Eustace returns to the table with two mugs filled with coffee, then leaves again with silent footsteps to retrieve the cake. He stops in a room of stainless steel and stoves, fry pits long cold, standing for just a moment, dully thinking about life and trying to remember a number of things—the center of each already forgotten. He was being honest when he told Lou Ann that he needed to run light to stay open. The idea was truthful, but in practice it would be impossible. I’ll be shut down by the end of the month, he tells himself. His voice sounds so quiet he can barely hear it. Eustace stands still for a moment longer with incapable hands at his side, looking over the items that seek to overthrow him: rent, bills, mortgages, insurance, propane, pantries to fill and stomachs too. For a moment his mind is overwhelmed. For a moment a widening hollow forms between his eyes. For a moment Eustace is no longer a man, only a series of receipts and ignored letters and a strange rattling noise as his imaginary economy continues to collapse. He tells himself that things change and parts of him agree; but still, some things don’t change at all. Some things just end. When Lou Ann moves up behind him and puts her hand on his shoulder, he jumps and turns and throws his hands up in fright.
“That tall man outside wants to know your name.”
Eustace leans up against a countertop and wipes his forehead with the back of his sleeve.
“He already has it.”
“No. He wants your full name.”
“What for?”
She is inside the walk-in fridge pulling out two different pie plates, one apple, one cherry.
“Didn’t ask him. And I ate the last piece of cake so you can just take these pies out of my last check if you want to.”
She leaves him standing there. Arms and legs and a network of bowels at the start of resignation. An eroded face, completely broken. There is no more fight in him. Not after all of this. Not after air so dry eyes become marbles of chalk. Not after so many fights with his wife and her estranged body, or the ranch barely breaking even, or the price of water going up, or the shelves of Cecil’s store becoming more and more barren. He looks at his watch and thinks about dying. Then moves, propelled by some old memory, out into the light of the diner with a mask on—he is happy, confident, slightly amused. The two men are in conversation; they look up, see Eustace and return his smile.
“It’s Conway if you’re asking.”
A heavy sigh comes from the men at the table. Cravitt stretches out his short arms in front of his body, rotating his wrists in opposite directions, as Howard pulls something from his pocket and hands it to Eustace.
“I assume that you have seen something like this before?”
It is hot in his hand. A small white envelope, one of many, more than a dozen, month after month appearing in his mailbox. The words heavy inside. Eustace loses his focus and things become blurry. He backs up, hits a table, and sits down in a chair with the letter in both hands.
“Yes. I’ve seen them before.”
Cravitt pulls a fork from his lips and talks with the red cherry pie moving around in his mouth, glistening as he forms words with his child voice, throwing them over the table and linoleum floor. The fat of his neck heaves from side to side.
“You must understand, Mr. Conway, what our position is. After so long, after having seen all of your friends move from this place, you must understand what is coming to your town. Something is coming that you cannot stop. A beautiful dam, a glorious lake. Progress. Unavoidable, eminent progress.”
He finishes with a sip of his coffee, a slurry of noise and the large movement of his gullet as he swallows. Cravitt and Howard both wait, watching Eustace. Expecting, wanting him to respond. All he says is, “No.”
Howard moves his hands over his tie. He becomes nervous and looks over his partner to see Lou Ann there, drinking another beer, and flipping through her magazine. She has been listening this whole time, to every word between the men, and she thinks that she knows what is going on. Howard leans toward Eustace and tells him that it might be better if she wasn’t there to hear everything, tells him that it might be easier for everyone. She hears him and closes the magazine, finishes her beer then walks to the kitchen with every intention of eaves dropping. The three men watch her leave with their mouths closed and only resume talking when they hear the radio from the kitchen become louder.
“You boys knew my name, didn’t you?”
The two of them nod at the same time.
“So you came here for this?” He holds up the letter between all of them as though it is on fire. Howard leans forward and begins to speak.
“Mr. Conway, Mr. Cravitt and I are here with the same goal in mind, but we have different reasons. He’s a lawyer, you should know that, and he is here to represent my company to the full extent of the law. And that does not look good for you. This is just a warning, I assure you… Are you listening Mr. Conway?”
There is a dull recognition on his face. Eustace wants to hear nothing, wants this to be over, to go back in time and walk his land in silence and not have to talk about any of this; about the drought, about everyone leaving, and about these two men drinking his coffee, eating his pie, and talking about all of these things that he has been trying to ignore. He holds out the letter to have them take it back, but they just look at him and he crumbles it up and puts it on the table.
“I’m listening. But things aren’t so bad yet. I’m not selling my land.”
Music is the only noise. The men push themselves back from the table as much as they can. Eustace pulls out his pack of cigarettes, takes out the last one and leaves the pack on their table too. Cravitt unfolds the letter, smoothing it out with his hands, and begins to talk in a slow, almost sweet, way.
“We understand what land can mean to people. We’re people too. My father owns land near Dallas and it’s been in the family for years. He’d never sell. But he doesn’t have a reason to sell like you do.”
Howard takes the letter and stands up, places it into the front pocket of Eustace’s shirt, then pats it slightly to make sure he knows that it is there.
“I know that you are running out of money. I know that this place may be foreclosed on and that you have had to pay your land taxes late before.”
He is standing, moving his thin frame around the restaurant, the hard, heavy heels sounding out against the linoleum. His voice rises and falls in his speech appropriately, with one hand on hip and one cutting through the air to make his point.
“This is not a good time for you, for anyone here. Milam is on the brink. On the brink of a new age for everyone. We are here, Cravitt and I, and the company, the people that I work for, are here for Milam. It’s as easy as that. If you sell us your land we will be able to build something wonderful which will give you two things that everyone here needs. And do you know what those are?”
Eustace stares blankly ahead, blowing smoke out of his nostrils. While he may appear that he has not been paying attention, he has been, and is still. Cravitt scrapes his plate clean as Howard faces a window, looking out onto the parking lot and farther beyond it, out into the dark of night with both his hands on his hips.
“Water and clean, renewable, cheap electricity. On the brink, Mr. Conway, and you are right there too. Really, your situation is slightly different, the word brink might be a little confusing. You, sir, are on the edge. And my company is waiting for you to either move out of the way or not. Moving is easier, I promise you that. It’s a better, nicer, idea. We are offering you something amazing. A really wonderful deal. Three times more than the actual worth of your land. Three times.” Howard turns and faces Eustace with a wide smile on his face, he holds out his hands in front of him toward Eustace. “Did you hear that? Are you listening at all? Three times the price in good years. One hundred thousand dollars.”
There is something in Eustace Conway’s throat, about the size of a golf ball, but it is more complicated. A mixture of pride and failure and lineage and shame threatens to choke him. All at once, Eustace wants to kill the men in front of him. To kill them both then bury their bodies in the hard soil just outside, the car too. Light everything on fire. Destroy everything. All at once, Eustace wants to cry. Back in time, he tells himself. I want to go back in time.
This is the highest offer yet. He thinks of his wife and of her family down near the Gulf and he tries to forget the original reasons for staying. Family and blood and ties to his land and the love for it too. But he was betrayed by the land and she never belonged to it. He says the numbers again to himself. They have a heavy meaning and he imagines what all of that would bring. He understands why everyone had left. Why the McCreeleys left in a new station wagon, and why Taffy’s wife had those pearls around her neck. It wasn’t the drought that made them leave, not exactly. It was the money that forced their hands, which asked and then received the full betrayal of a people. They turned their backs because they could afford it. Literally. He smokes his cigarette down to the filter then spits onto the floor at the taste of it. Howard hoists himself up onto the counter by the cash register and crosses his legs there. Waiting for something to be said, to see if any of the information had made it into this man Eustace. He almost wants him to say no. Cravitt coughs into his hand and takes off his hat
“Say yes.”
Eustace stands up in a fury, throws his chair across the diner where it crashes into other tables and chairs and fills the place with such a raw heat that he doesn’t know what to do next.
“Say yes? How about no. To the both of you. Hell no to the company too. I don’t give a good God damn what you think you are going to offer me, what you think that I have lost, what you think you can sell me. Take your money and go to hell.”
Neither of the men notice Eustace or his actions. They have seen it before. Lou Ann pokes her head out from the kitchen but doesn’t say anything. When she hears Eustace yelling she thinks that it is someone else. He never yells. She has never seen him upset. But when she looks outside she sees a different man and so is quiet and just stands there not knowing what to think about anything. Cravitt is the first to speak.
“Conway, we’ll forgive this first outburst. Most men have them. But the offer is better than anything else that you will be able to get. This is your lottery, Conway. Take it. We need that lake to hold a certain amount of water and that amount stops on your land. Milam needs it too. Take the offer. If not, I will see to it that you get nothing, and that your land will see more than its fair share of water no matter what you have to say about it.”
Eustace still stands, he has not moved, his face red, shoulders hunched forward. His fists are balled up into rocks fastened to iron poles. He wants to fight back, to fight both of them.
“I won’t let you build your dam on my family’s land.”
Howard slides off of the counter and walks to the thrown chair and the cluster of things around it. He picks it up and brings it back to Eustace.
“Sit down… Please.”
They stand next to each other for a moment, Eustace looking out the window with clay for eyes and Howard standing there as though he was just outside of church—he inspects the shine on his shoes in the light and talks quietly as though the two are old friends.
“Sit down for a spell. Let’s talk. Just normal talk for a minute or so.”
Howard pushes the chair toward Eustace, who sits down and rests his head in his hands. Cravitt begins to say something but Howard interrupts him and then continues.
“I don’t expect you to answer me or respond to anything I say. I need you to listen to a few things first, some ideas you might be over looking. Things are bad out here. I’ve heard about it in the news, and I’ve read it in the paper. I was talking to your county judge just the other day and he says that he’s lost most everything on his land. Says he still has the view but not much else. You need help. The company can give you all the money you need. You just need to move. You can stay here, buy some lake front property now, and probably go skiing in a summer or two.”
He moves to sit down in the booth and he sips his coffee there, looking out the window into the black expanse. He gestures with his hand.
“You think they’ll judge you because you’ve moved a couple of miles. Once they have cheap energy in their homes and water in their fields, they’ll remember you as a hero. It’s up to you. Change is happening. You either help us, or you don’t. You can either win, or you can lose.”
Cravitt and Howard look at each other for a moment then turn and face the worn out bones in the chair. Eustace doesn’t say anything, he thinks of his wife and his kids in different parts of the state. Then of the ground and the sky and everyone else leaving. There are thousands of questions that Eustace wants to ask himself, but there isn’t enough time for them, and they are more of a jumble than anything else. He stares at the ground for a few seconds.
“I can’t sell.”
Cravitt nods to Howard who leaves the booth, walks over to a phone on the counter and begins to dial a number. Music surrounds him and he can smell dish soap from the kitchen. Lou Ann, a few feet from the phone, has heard every other word and is still somewhat confused.
“Mrs. Conway?”
Eustace moves to the counter and reaches out for the phone, but Howard only steps backward with his free hand out. Not knowing what else to do Eustace stops and looks around thinking: receipts and mortgages, and the river is drying up, and the cattle is dying; so many faces worn thin and dry like dust.
“Hello mam, my name is Howard Thrush. I was talking to your husband and he told me that he might like to sell the land. The price is a good one. One Hundred Tho….”
The line goes dead as Eustace’s hand pushes the receiver down. He doesn’t seem upset; maybe tired, cornered, finally realistic. But not upset.
“Could you boys wait outside? The coffee and the pie are on me… Just wait outside for a moment.”
The men face each other and P.T. Cravitt puts on his hat, pushing it far down around his ears. The men finish the swill of coffee and go through the glass door with their chins and eyes moving over their shoulders. Eustace stands there and moves his eyes, beginning to fill with water, around the back wall of the restaurant. He thinks of his father, and of his children, and of the body of his wife in their bed and how she so often feels like a piece of hot coal underneath the covers in the winter. He thinks about crying, shakes his head slowly and then moves into the kitchen. Lou Ann is just finishing up the dishes and drying her hands, she looks up and smiles weakly not knowing what he is going to say. He notices her for a moment, without eye contact, and tells her, “You’re unfired,” as he walks to the front door.
She hears the door open and close.
It’s still a clear night outside with an endless sky above them stretching all the way over one horizon, farther and farther still, then back over the other. Eustace looks up and breathes a deep breath of the cool pre-dawn air and stretches slightly in his shoes. Thrush and Cravitt stand by the car with their chins close to their chests, arms folded against the darkness. They are waiting for him to come outside. Knowing that he would. They have seen it all before. The sad movement of man like a piece of wood on a turbulent sea. Eustace sets his feet and grits his teeth for a couple of seconds.
“Can I have some time to think on it?”
P.T. Cravitt claps his hands together while Howard reaches into the back seat and pulls out a leather briefcase with gold colored clasps that catch the light and flash like lightning. He holds the briefcase out to Eustace with one hand, nodding his head with a thought out motion.
“Consider this a promise to show you our seriousness in the matter. You’ll receive the rest once the paper work is finalized.”
“You can open it if you’d like to count it.” Cravitt says from the other side of the car.
“I didn’t say yes yet.”
Thrush reaches for Eustace’s hand and shakes it with a firm grip, a slight smile forming at the corners of his lips.
“Of course not, but you’ll make the right choice. A hero. A bona fide hero. You know, they told me that you were going to be the most stubborn man out here. But you’re too smart for that Eustace.”
“Well.”
Car doors close, lights turn on. Eustace is left with a hand shielding his eyes as the car turns off onto the road heading toward town. Suddenly it’s dark again and the night and the air and the cloudless sky and everything, absolutely everything, is different. Eustace notices a spot in his chest. A new spot. It should be filled with hope, but it isn’t. It’s just a lump, and he waits for a while longer and thinks of his wife and her face when he sees her in the morning. Tomorrow morning, with everything different and changed all of a sudden. He could buy her a new dress, a new pair of shoes, some flowers, a new stove and a new refrigerator. A new life. He stops, looks out toward the horizon and the place in the east where he expects the dawning sun, then he hears the door open behind him and hears Lou Ann’s voice bright over the small parking lot.
“What’s in the briefcase?”
He looks at it on the ground, just outside the light of the restaurant, and shrugs his shoulders.
“Just some paper.”
“Paper?”
“Yep. Paper… Not much else.”
//ww