For a summer, the old brick building that overlooked the Upper Mississippi was in use. Sam, Edgar and the dog made their home there. The crumbling walls showed the soot of a thousand campfires and graffiti of every color, and the place had the unmistakable sour smell of piss. Only the heartiest of weeds pushed up through the dirt and broken glass. Shiny remnants of bottles sparkled by firelight, and in the forest that had retaken the building, insects shrieked in the trees.
Sam walked through the old doorframe in his muddy tennis shoes. His ankles itched from the weeds that had scraped against them down and back from the water. He had come from the river, and his business had been successful.
“Boo,” Sam said. He raised an arm in his best impression of a ghost. Edgar was startled a bit, throwing his hands up and shaking them. The grungy dog made his way to Sam, barking in his strangled, high-pitched tone. Sam scratched the dog’s ears with his free hand. In his other hand, he held a large catfish on the edge of a formidable-looking stick. The dog sniffled and licked the fish a few times, then sat down next to the thing he held near the fire. It looked at Sam, then back at the fish, and lay down, no doubt waiting for a portion of dinner.
“Huckleberry,” Edgar said. “Get ready to attack.” He moved the pot of water he had drawn from the river away from the flames, and pointed at Sam halfheartedly.
“Gotcha again, Ed. I’m scary. I scared you.” Sam’s arms itched nearly as bad as his ankles. He was dying to set his catch down and get to work getting some food ready.
“Did you?” Edgar replied. “Did you? I’m ready for you and the Kraken and all the demons in the netherworld. And you know it.” He reached into the waistband beneath his threadbare shirt and produced one of the few shiny things he’d ever owned. A knife nearly eleven inches long cast a reflection across the campfire and onto Sam’s long beard and glasses. Edgar raised the blade and pointed it toward Sam’s catch. “Huckleberry, kill him.” It turned to the fish at the end of the stick. The fish was slurping at the air. Its gills and mouth flapped open and shut quickly. Its drying skin still looked shiny in the firelight. Huckleberry circled it for a moment, and then tried his best to bite at it.
Sam set the fish down in front of Edgar, and decided he would take a load off.
“The Kraken, is it? Are you writing these things down?” Sam grinned. Edgar sheathed the knife and smiled. He stood up and pulled the catch from off the stick.
“Looks like someone hasn’t forgotten how to fish. I dunno. How’d you remember ‘em to tell to me? I just do, I guess. They’re scary and they’re great. Never heard ‘em before. Makes me feel like a hero of something to hear ‘em.”
“I know, Ed. Hungry?”
Edgar unsheathed the knife and moved to the edge of the fire pit. He zipped the head, skin, bones and guts off the catfish. To Sam, the man he’d known for some time always seemed ready for something. His arms always flexed back and forth, and his rat-like, sharp features reminded Sam of the guy from Casablanca, Peter-something-or-other. Edgar dropped the waste from the fish in the fire. He moved the pan of boiling river water closer to the hot side of the flames, and he smiled. A few sparks danced up around his face. He took the large stick and impaled two large chunks of catfish on it. The end of the tail stuck out of the fire, and Huckleberry pawed at it as it steamed and popped.
“I am hungry like a demon, catfisherman. Get outta it, Huck. This one would’ve had you for dinner.” Edgar kicked a bit of dirt at the dog, and it scurried just out of the firelight. He looked at the spot Huckleberry had been interested in for a moment, then looked up and smiled at Sam. “Oh, yeah. Take a look at the tree. I did a new one. Only three left. Three more and we can get outta here and go see ‘em. Right?”
Sam leaned back and looked at the sky. A few fireflies danced with the rising sparks and ashes from the fire. He lay back against the ground and closed his eyes. There was no getting out of this conversation. There never was. Sam had always felt he might have to get going with Edgar sooner or later, but he kept putting it off. But these past several days, Edgar had become bolder about suggesting they get under way soon. And for Edgar, that was saying something. He opened his eyes and sat up. His joints didn’t hurt as much as they did in the cold months, but they weren’t exactly doing him any favors tonight, either. A few joints popped and creaked. Edgar kicked the fish out of the fire and went to stand near the one intact corner of their building. A single mulberry sapling no taller than a child grew there. Its ripe berries had been harvested by them some days before. Edgar’s ornaments bounced around on the smooth, tan limbs. He pointed to the latest aluminum can art. An incredible likeness of an old biplane hung from one of the lower branches. The tiny propeller screeched as Edgar spun it over and over. He held a hand under the plane and grinned wildly. To Sam, he looked like a crazed game show host offering a prize.
“It’s pretty much time to go soon, isn’t it Sam?”
***
Sam had met Edgar in Colorado before the spring thaw some two years before. Sam had been crouched between the doorway of his tent and his dying fire, hugging himself and wishing for a blanket or someone to talk to deep in the tree line. The entire night before the only two thoughts going through Sam’s head were how cold he was, and that he should be thankful it was winter, or he’d be bear food. In the freezing cold, Sam started to think of short stories he shouldn’t have thought about. He thought of the gentleman who froze to death in the Jack London story. It didn’t help him feel warmer. And then Edgar had come running through Sam’s camp asking to see his proof of citizenship. Numb from the cold, Sam was sure he was dreaming. The stranger grabbed Sam by the coat and yanked him from the front of his tent, nearly pitching him into the waning flames.
Where is your proof? Where is your proof? Where is your goddamn proof? The stranger demanded. He shook him back and forth, and Sam felt his coat rip at the lapel.
Okay. Okay, I have it. I have it just lay off, will you? Sam cried. He couldn’t think of anything else to say. His neck hurt, and he couldn’t feel his feet. He hadn’t yet learned how to build a decent fire, and that one was quickly going out.
Where in the hell is your goddamn proof? The man yelled. He let go of Sam’s damaged lapel and started pacing at the far side of the fire. Sam reached inside the only tent he had ever owned, and the man moved toward him with a kind of smooth reflex that scared the old man even more.
Here it is, Sam said. Just stop throwing me around. Now you know what no one else needs to. Sit down and get off me, will you? He handed the stranger a book, then backed off and sat down hard in the snow. Sam was breathing hard, and his joints hurt. The man turned an old volume over and over in his hands. He looked at Sam, then at the book, then back at the old man again. The crumbling dust jacket said:
The Loss of an Extraordinary King
By Samuel Kesterson
What the hell is this? the man said.
Sam reached up for the book. The man gave it over. He seemed curious now, but he didn’t seem angry any longer. Sam decided that was probably a good thing. He turned it over and opened the back cover. Sam pointed to the old black-and-white likeness of himself, and gave the man a thumbs-up.
That’s me, Sam said. Wish it weren’t, but that’s me. This is my i.d., I suppose. Would you like some dinner?
The man pulled something shiny from his parka. He handed it to Sam. The shiny thing was in fact formerly an aluminum beer can, but had been cut and otherwise transformed into a bear. An aluminum bear that was pretty recognizable, really. I made these, Edgar had said. When I’ve made enough it’s time to move on. And before the end of that first night by the campfire, Sam had told him about his life before all the wandering, when he had been revered by students, when he’d had a wife and a home and everything else people sometimes want.
And that was how Sam met Edgar in the middle of nowhere, the first of many nowheres the two saw together. As Edgar stoked their first fire correctly that day, Sam saw another bit of shininess tumble from the man’s backpack. It too had been cut, folded and bent by pretty capable hands, it seemed. A perfect miniature Ferris wheel stuck out from the half-melted snow near the flames.
***
Edgar had reclaimed his spot near the fire, and went back to work on dinner. His gaze went from the dog to the tree, and then back to Sam. He never even looked at the fish as he slit the meat on the stick there, pulled in another place, pushed it securely on the stick in yet another. Sam watched from across the fire. He never tired of watching Edgar do what he did, no matter the particulars of any given happening. Edgar seemed like an animal sometimes. Not like a brute at any rate; more like something that slunk along in the night and devoured hikers or kittens or Beowulf.
How in the hell does he do that? Sam thought. From experience, he had learned this simply wasn’t one of the times to ask Edgar a question. It also wasn’t the time to show any alarm or fear. In that moment—like so many other moments since they’d met—Edgar seemed lost in thought and action, moving along as if on autopilot, or if invisible strings attached to his limbs were pulled upon by some unseen master up above the ruins, up there in the darkness overlooking the river. While Edgar probably would never hurt Sam, Sam never really knew. Sam knew Edgar was his friend, and that the feeling and friendship was mutual. Nonetheless, he realized that—about a very small number of things like this thing, this uncertainty—you just…never really knew.
“Do you think Crumbly will show up tonight?” Sam blurted. “It’s been a bit. Maybe he’s going to leave us alone.”
Edgar continued looking after the cooking of the fish, looking Sam in the eye. He pulled pieces of fish from the stick, placing them alongside in a row on a dark river stone.
“Don’t change the subject, my friend. We’re almost ready. Three more, then we can go see ‘em.”
“Three more?” Sam mimicked. “Three more, and then what? What is it we’re supposed to do? Every time you bring this up, I don’t know what in God’s name you’re talking about.”
Edgar wiped the knife blade on the leg of his jeans. He twirled it across the back of his hand before burying it in the dirt with a dull scrunch. He set the heaping stone of meat in the middle of their patch of ground and rubbed at his eyes.
“It ain’t got a thing in the world to do with God,” Edgar replied. “We gotta go help ‘em. Kansas City ain’t that far. And you promised.”
Sam kicked at the ground. He had known that at some point this evening, Edgar was going to remind him that he had indeed promised to go down south and help him look after his sister and nephew. He didn’t want to think about it. He was getting too old for travelling around the woods, and he felt he was already far too old to travel through the wilderness, down the road and all the way to Kansas City. Jack London’s stories seemed wonderful to a fifteen-year-old Sam, before his life had been lived, before the beard, college, graduate school, wife, alcohol, death, curse, and so on. At four-times-plus that age, it was hard on the joints and the nerves. And then Sam thought of Crumbly the Not-So-friendly Game Warden’s words six days ago, and he felt even older.
I mean it, you fucking bums, Officer Crombey had said. You’re trespassing on government land. This is a damn historical landmark thing. I come back next week and see beards and fish heads nailed against the fucking trees and a fucking faggoty tin can Christmas tree in July, I’m gonna take this shit to the next level. Sam had quite gotten the point. He had busied himself by throwing his few books and tools into a bag, ready to be off for the next quiet place away from the rest of the world.
Sit down Sam, Edgar had said. He’d had that look on his face that night he always had when he cut up catfish. He sat at his usual spot near the fire with his back against the bricks. He stared at Crumbly, and he told the bully of a Fish and Wildlife man what he thought about the situation. He ain’t gonna do a goddamn thing, old man. He’s all talk and a two-dollar badge. Come to get at it, his badge really don’t mean so much to me either. So sit down, Sam. Crumbly took a step toward Edgar. Huckleberry had barked and jumped at the oversized park ranger. Without moving his glare from the intruder, Edgar seized the dog by his makeshift collar and clipped a frayed clothesline to it. Huckleberry tried to tug it free, but it held tight to a rusty screw fastened to the base of the can tree. Leave us be, Edgar continued. And then, with a tone and authority Sam had never heard, said, we do not recognize your authority over us. This is your last warning.
Officer Crombey screwed his face up in a bunch. The pockmarks, visible even in near-darkness, looked like several woodpeckers had searched for dinner there. His crew cut seemed to prickle at Edgar’s words. The man stood a good seven inches taller than Edgar, and easily outweighed him by sixty pounds of muscle. Crumbly saw those eyes and it was easy to see he thought something was wrong with that man. Sam had seen what Crumbly had seen before, and he could tell Crumbly wasn’t very happy at all. Sam could also tell that the man would be back. He would bet whatever was left of his sorry excuse for a life on that.
Edgar sat and picked at the ground with the knife, and Sam sat across the fire for a time, trying to think of a way to lighten the mood. They said nothing, but occasionally looked at each other. Huckleberry was curled up like a snail next to the wall, dead asleep.
“Ed?” Sam said finally. “I know I’ve already promised to go with you. I haven’t forgotten. We’ll figure it out.”
Edgar flexed his arms back and forth and twiddled the knife around the back of his hand. He nodded and added a few scraps of wood to the fire. A distant pop sounded, and an unfamiliar glow illuminated the tops of the trees off toward the river. The dog jumped as if someone had pushed him, and he yapped a few times, looking in the direction of the disturbance. The men stood and turned in that direction. It had almost seemed as if it were a green light for a moment, then nothing. Then, before they could ask each other what the other had seen, another pop, and then a gold and green glow. Edgar looked at Sam. Sam was no longer confused. He smiled, walked over to his friend, and clapped him on the shoulder.
“Happy Independence Day, Ed,” Sam said. “It’s over there. It’s over there in Winona. It’s the Fourth of July.”
Edgar smirked, raised his finger, and appeared to do math in the air in front of him. After a moment, he shrugged and laughed.
“Guess that could be about right. Same to you, Sam.”
Sam looked out toward where the town of Winona and the fireworks display was happening, and then back to Edgar and the dog. He had an idea, and he felt surprised at how much younger it made him feel just by thinking it.
“Let’s go up to the fishing spot. I bet we could see it better from the bank.” A few other pops and colorful blossoms, larger than the last ones, lit up more and more of the night sky and the treetops. Sam put his arms out and shrugged in his best impression of Edgar’s motion. “What do you say, Ed?”
Edgar scratched at his head. He knelt down and clapped at Huckleberry. The dog shot over to his side. He patted him a few times, and then pointed at Sam. Huckleberry trotted over to the old man and sat at his feet.
“You guys go ahead. I’ll be right here when you get back. Gotta work on this.” He pulled a flattened soda can from his pocket, and tapped it with the tip of his knife. “It’s a dog,” He said. “This can is gonna look just like Huck. It just don’t know it yet.”
Sam nodded and set off toward the path to the river with the dog close on his heels. On the walk, Sam’s ankles started itching again, but he wasn’t as bothered by it as he was the last time. The mosquitoes clouded around him here, so far from the campfire, and he swatted his face and arms absentmindedly, never moving his gaze from the light show. With each blossom of light from the fireworks across the river, his grin grew bigger and bigger, and he only partially realized his face hurt from the gesture he had not made in quite some time. Sam reached the bank of the Mississippi, and he stopped at their fishing spot. The bank here was trodden down, so that only a few random bits of vegetation remained, and it was nearly fifteen feet down to the water below. Clusters of grapevine and waterlogged brush lay on either side of the path by the water’s edge. The current turned and sloshed by, and when a firework went off, the river reflected wispy, otherworldly lights on the moving surface. This was the place the men caught their dinner and washed up, this grocery store and washroom for the forgotten. He leaned against an oak branch the size of his leg, petted the dog, and watched the show the townspeople had decided to put on. Huckleberry sat down next to Sam, and he noticed the dog was gazing at the explosions just as he was, and he only whimpered occasionally and wagged his tail.
“Pretty nifty, huh boy?” Sam said. He began to sit down, and then stopped as he heard footsteps on the path behind him. “Did you change your mind?” Sam turned around just as Crumbly’s nightstick cracked against his shoulder. He fell at the top of the bank and began to slide down, but somehow grabbed onto a tree root jutting from the dirt at the top of the incline. Crumbly and Huckleberry were squaring off. The dog snarled and hopped back and forth a few inches from the man’s foot. Sam had the root by one hand. His other arm felt numb from the shoulder down. Nonetheless, he pulled a small stick out of the bank and flung it at Crumbly. It struck him in the head, pasting bits of mud across his face. Crumbly laughed.
“That all you got, faggot? Where’s your fuckin’ boyfriend? I thought you guys were tough. Get the fuck offa me!” He gave Huckleberry a sweeping kick. The dog dropped down to the ground and whimpered. Sam watched the man approach him. To Sam, he looked even crazier than the last time he saw him. “I told you fuckers to leave. Didn’t I tell you? I fucking told you.” Crumbly placed his boot on Sam’s forehead, and started to push. Sam held on tightly to the root. He had managed to loop his injured arm into the root as well, and he had a bit of a tighter hold on the edge of the bank. Crumbly moved his foot to Sam’s hand, and started to grind his boot back and forth. For as long as Sam could remember, he had always wanted to say the right thing, that thing that his father or mother, his wife, students, or even strangers walking down the street would stop and admire. He always wanted to say the right thing, the thing with the best timing, like in books or in old films he loved to think about. He always wanted to be that person others wanted around and thought that person was witty and wry and clever. Since he’d met Edgar, he’d admired the way Edgar always seemed to say the tough thing, the right thing, the way John Wayne or Hemingway or Lee Marvin would have. He tried to think of something to say to Crumbly. If this were going to be his last moment on earth, he at least wanted to get in one good line, at least once in his life.
“You piece of shit,” Sam spat. “Your makeup is smeared.”
Crumbly’s grin disappeared. He smeared the mud across his face and then looked at his hand. He lifted the nightstick over his head. Sam buried his head under the tree root and hoped he would miss. Then he heard a strange sound, as if someone had just unzipped a jacket. He looked back up and saw Crumbly, slack jawed, gaping down toward his waist. He had dropped his nightstick in the dirt beside him. A bright green, and then a bright red explosion from the river showed Sam what he needed to see. Edgar stood behind him, covered in mud and dirt. The fireworks lit up the blade on Edgar’s knife. They lit up Edgar’s eyes and bared teeth. They lit up the dark, growing slickness at the stomach of Crumbly’s uniform shirt. Edgar twisted the blade and then yanked it back quickly. Crumbly opened his mouth, but Sam could only hear a gurgling and something about the knife, perhaps. He lurched at Edgar, and they grabbed each other. Edgar laughed and screamed like a crow and Crumbly sobbed and gasped as they wrestled just above Sam’s head. And then they fell over the side of the bank. One of them brushed the back of Sam’s head as they fell, and water exploded against Sam—even from that height—as the two plunged into the rolling water.
Sam felt as if his arms would rip off his body. If they’d only been numb, it probably wouldn’t have been as bad. They burned, and both elbows felt like they’d been stabbed repeatedly. He tried to look at the water, hoping to see Edgar swimming back to the bank, but he couldn’t crane his neck that far. The root was twisting and creaking, and Sam was sure it was going to break at any moment.
Just let it go, he thought. Let it go. It’ll be ok.
Sam’s grip on the root loosened, and he was ready to slip down to meet the others. He heard a whimper from somewhere up on the bank. The sound stopped, and he decided he would try his best to make sure Huckleberry was still breathing. Sam heaved and strained, and he somehow kicked his foot into a hold in the bank. His lungs felt like they were going to explode, and he realized he was holding his breath. Sam heaved and gasped, and threw his leg over the edge and onto level ground. He dug his fingers into the dirt and pulled for all he was worth until he felt his back lying on solid ground next to the nightstick.
“Huck,” Sam wheezed. “Come here, dog.”
Sam lay on the edge of the high bank, looking up at the sky. He wondered if their fire had gone out. A blue blossom of fire popped across the river, and then Sam could hear distant clapping and cheering from families and children and people who sounded as if they had nothing to worry about. When Sam was a child, he used to go to fireworks displays. After it was all over, everyone would cheer just that way. And then it was off to the diner for phosphates and pie, or back home for ice-cold milk and Roy Rogers on the radio.
Huckleberry half-hopped, half-walked to Sam. He lay down next to the old man, and licked his face a few times. The dog favored one of his legs a bit, but other than that, he seemed to be in one piece. Sam sat up too quickly, and felt like throwing up. He steadied himself, and looked out in the water.
“Ed,” he croaked. “Ed? Everything alright? Ed?” Sam and Huckleberry sat on the riverbank just that same way, waiting for Edgar to swim out, until they fell asleep some hours later, a short time before sunrise.
Sam jerked awake and realized he and the dog were still alone at their fishing spot. He called for Edgar and heard no reply. Sam stood up shakily and walked to the edge. One of Edgar’s shoes lay at the edge of the water, swirling around in a small eddy next to the waterline. Huckleberry climbed down to the edge and sat next to the shoe. He tried to bat it with his paw as it swirled closest to him. Sam felt his stomach drop.
“I’ll be back, boy. Just wait here.”
Sam walked back to their brick home. He loaded the few possessions he’d come here with into the courier bag and looked around. The tin can tree caught his attention. Try as he might, he couldn’t stop looking at it for many minutes. The wind picked up, and Edgar’s ornaments jumped and spun on their tree. He walked back to their fishing spot. Sam shifted the bag to the other arm so that he could lean over the edge of the riverbank. Huckleberry was still sitting at the water’s edge.
“Huckleberry, come here. Come on, boy.” The dog looked at Sam, and he knew the dog planned on staying put. Sam nodded, and made for the service road that led away from the river valley.
The summer morning was a decent one, considering how miserably hot it had been the past several nights. The sun was giving a white-orange show, and a few Black-eyed Susans and coneflowers seemed to wave at Sam as he walked along the road. They reminded him of his wife’s garden. It seemed strange that they would be growing out there in the middle of nowhere; all that beauty and no one around to see it.
Sam scratched his beard, straightened his glasses, and then headed south. He had made a promise, and Kansas City was one hell of a walk from this place.
Craig M. Workman was born in Harvey, Illinois on January 31, 1975. He attended the University of Kansas and graduated in 2003 with a Bachelor of General Studies in Literature, Language and Writing. He later was admitted to graduate studies at the University of Missouri-Kansas City, and graduated in 2010 with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing and Media Arts. His emphasis was fiction, and his sub-emphasis was screenwriting. While completing his graduate work, he taught a six-week Hemingway seminar and completed a two-year appointment as a graduate instructor of academic prose. In addition, he served as Number One Editor-in-Chief, Vice-President of the UMKC chapter of the English Graduate Student Association and a member of Graduate Students in Creative Writing. He was a featured reader in multiple sessions of Working Words, a series spotlighting creative writers from the University of Missouri-Kansas City. In 2008, he was inducted into the Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi. In 2009, he was one of three hundred fiction writers nominated in that year for the AWP Intro Journals Award, a literary competition for the discovery and publication of best works by new and emerging writers. He currently lives in Prairie Village, Kansas. He is an adjunct professor/lecturer of composition, literature and creative writing and an I-Ph.D. student at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. His work has appeared in Midwest Literary Magazine, Kerouac’s Dog, and Literary Juice.
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