American rust Read Online Free PDF Page B

neighbor's empty house, it was like a painting, really, a spring snowfall, a month out of season, you could see the green underneath, it was very peaceful. “Billy,” she said quietly, as if her voice might disturb the scene. He was sitting under a tree at the edge of the yard. Something was wrong. There was snow in his hair and he didn't have a coat. She leaned over the porch railing. He didn't look up.
    “Billy,” she called. “Come inside.”
    He didn't move.
    She ran out into the yard in her bare feet. When she reached him his eyes moved slowly, focused on her, then looked at something else. His face was white and there was a gash on his neck and blood had come down onto his shirt and stained it. She shook him. “Get up,” she said.
    She tried to pull him up but he was dead weight, no, she thought, this is not fair, she got an arm under him but he still wasn't helping her, he was so heavy, she wouldn't be able to lift him, he barely seemed to know she was there. He was so cold he could have been a log or a rock. “Get up,” she shouted at him, her voice muted by the snow. He pushed weakly with his legs and then they were standing and she told him we are going to walk now, we are going to walk to the house.
    She got him to the bathroom, set him in the bathtub in his clothes. She ran hot water into the tub and took his shoes off.
    “What happened,” she said, but his eyes were somewhere else. The hot water was pouring into the tub but he stared numbly ahead. He didn't know her. The water turned the color of mud. There was a strong odor; she wondered distantly when he had washed himself last, he had not been taking care of himself, she knew that, getting laid off from the hardware store had sent him into a tailspin, she should have done more. She had decided to let him find his own way. She had made the wrong decision. His skin was white and icy to the touch and she pushed his shoulders deeper under the water.
    The steam filled the room and the scab on his neck loosened and his cuts were running and the water nearly black from dirt and blood. She was kneeling and splashing the warm dirty water on his face. His body had cooled it and she drained it partially and ran more hot in. After a few minutes he began to shiver as he warmed up. She couldn't remember if you were supposed to warm a person this fast. She knew there was something you were not supposed to do, you warm them too fast and they die. She sat him up and wiped the scratch on his neck with iodine, the brown stain ran down into his shirt.
    “Let's get these clothes off,” she said, the soft mothering voice she hadn't used in years. He let her take his shirt off. She undid his belt, undid the button on his filthy jeans, tried to get them off but he was holding them up with both hands—he would not let her take his pants down.
    “Billy.”
    He didn't say anything.
    “Let go,” she said.
    He did and she took the pants off with some difficulty, careful to leave his underwear in place. The cut on his neck was bleeding again, it was straight and deep, done with a knife, she realized, like a piece of cut meat, she saw a hint of whiteness, unnatural- looking, she knew it must be the tendon or some other kind of tissue. She tried to remember if she had locked the door. Virgil had left a shotgun but she didn't know where the shells were.
    “Is someone coming after you?” she said. She shook him. “Billy. Billy, is someone going to be coming here?”
    “No,” he said. He was waking up.
    “Look at me.”
    “No one is coming,” he said.
    She saw spots in front of her. It is too hot in this room, she told herself. Her head was getting light. Next time you see him like this won't be in this house, he'll be laid out on a table in a hospital basement. She picked up his wet pants and began folding them, he had pissed his pants when they cut him. Now he was lying there flushed and awake and looking at his pants in her hand.
    He sat up and reached and she leaned