Will mumbled as he swept. A car accelerated past heading out the exit, and the passenger threw out a cigarette butt. “Are you saved?” he imitated Dickson. “And what the hell are you going to say to him when he asks again, Will Burk?” He picked up the shovel and heaved the first pile of dirt. “What the fuck are you going to say?”
For a while, Hank Williams filled his head. Hear the lonesome whippoorwill. He sounds too blue to fly. Will had heard a whippoorwill last night outside his apartment window, there at the edge of Spring Run. It had surprised and pleased him to listen to that little bird so close.
He’d heard them as a child on his father’s farm, the rocking rhythm putting him to sleep. But his father didn’t like them, their loud calls “an aggravation.” One whippoorwill kept singing from a stump at the edge of their yard, so one evening, his father lit the stove and heated an empty iron skillet. When it got too hot to touch, his father picked it up with his shirttail, loped out of the house, and set the skillet on that stump. A few minutes later, the whippoorwill started to sing, but his song ended after the first whip. Will ran out to find an empty skillet. He was thankful for that, at least. He knew his father would’ve been happier to have a dead bird rather than a scared bird.
The midnight train is whining low. I’m so lonesome I could cry. Will matched his sweeping to the rhythm of the song. Gravel clattered in the shovel. He coughed from the great dust cloud.
Where he worked, Will couldn’t hear Woody or the other men at the pumps. They were too far away, and the cars building up speed as they passed drowned out all other sounds. Most of the travelers ignored him, but some beeped and waved. Will waved to the first one but stopped when he saw the jeering smile. Except for the cars and his swirl of dust, the air didn’t move. He bent to sort out burger wrappers, butts, and other debris. Dickson watched, so Will tried not to rest too often. Best to plow through this chore and be done.
Will’s biceps burned from pushing the damn broom, and the old injury in his right elbow flared with each stroke. The worst, though, were the blisters on his hands. They burst to reveal the rawness of each layer of skin—pink and red and seeping.
When his mother died, Aunt Amanda took over most of Will’s raising, and this included taking him to church. Even when he was only six, he tired of Mrs. Clayborne always having that “I’m so sorry for you, you little orphan boy” look in her old eyes. He hated the hard benches and the boring sermons. He hated everyone else sitting with their mother and father. He hated never getting an answer when he asked why the Lord couldn’t save his mom. And he especially hated the preacher saying the Lord worked in mysterious ways. Even at that age, Will knew it was a lie.
“So, I’m saved from going to church.” Will wiped his forehead and talked to himself. That might be the one thing he had in common with his dad—that and blue eyes.
But Dickson was in his head now. “What do you believe in, Will Burk?” he heard Buddy ask.
“Goddamnit, what’s it any of your business?” Will almost shouted this. His sweeping quickened. “I believe in doubt, if you have to know. Or I believe in being saved from religion.” This brought a smile. He remembered Mr. Harris, his high school history teacher, who taught them to know thine enemy, so he had the class read a little of Mr. Marx. Will thought the old Commie had it right—that “opium for the masses” line.
I’m one of the not-masses, he thought. I believe in birds and trees and Aunt Amanda’s shoofly pies. A nip of whiskey every now and then. And, of course, the beauty of the female body, can’t forget about that.
Around 10:00, Woody brought him a glass of water. “How you doing?”
Will shrugged and spat.
Woody was two years older, and Will used to catch rides home from football practice with him in his sunrise red Chevy that flew over the hills at 90 mph. “My first day”—Woody talked fast, always talked fast—“I had to do this for ol’ Dickhead, too. That was two years ago, and I don’t think it’s been swept since.”
Will downed the water. “You got any beer in that car of yours?”
Woody looked at the Bel Air. “Not today. Can’t say I’d recommend it either, with ol’ Dickson. If ’n you want to keep your job.”
Woody offered him a stick of gum. “Don’t take it personal or nothing. This is just how he treats all the new hires.” He took in what Will had swept so far. “You’re getting it.”
Woody turned to head back to the pumps, but Will stopped him. “Did he try to convert you?”
“Oh, hell yeah. Me and everyone else that’s worked here since 1901. Just tell him what he wants to hear and he’ll leave you alone.” Then Woody added, “Buddy’s all right, just a stuffy bastard sometimes. But he’ll treat you right once you survive this.”
Will mopped his forehead and combed his hair before he returned to sweeping.
A raven cawed from somewhere to the north, close by. All morning, Will had heard or seen two of the big black birds, and several times he watched one fly down to the incinerator and pick up bits of donuts and hamburgers. Just about every time, the raven flew straight up to an outcrop above the plaza. “You got a nest up there, don’t you?” Will said as he watched for movement on the cliff. He considered how far a hike it might be, how much time it might take, and when he might be able to go look. Not today, but soon.
By 11:30, Will saw the end of his sweeping another fifty yards or so away. This close to the incinerator, the smell of rotten food wafted over him, rank in the dead air of summer. He had some shade, now, at least, but his hands burned with each grip of the handle. He’d given up cursing Dickson. And he’d stopped thinking about the fool he was, thinking his time working through high school at Ernie’s shop would somehow elevate his status in the pump jockey world. Instead, Will wished for another cup of water, or even better, a cold beer. And he wondered about that fire.
At noon, he pushed the broom one last time and walked into the garage to hand it to Dickson. “I hope you had time to think about all I asked you,” the old man said.
Will ignored him. He found his thermos of water and held it gingerly away from his blisters. Again, he thought of his father—all of those years of silence, of never getting answers, the power in just shutting up. Dickson got called out to the pumps, and Will sat on a swivel chair in the garage to eat his lunch.
Finally, after his meal, Will approached the pumps. There was a break in traffic, so the men gathered in a loose circle. Will shook hands as Dickson said their names. Along with Woody, Will knew round-faced Scoop, who’d taught him in Sunday school when Will used to go, and Dino, whose red hair flared at first base on the Doylesburg softball team. But he didn’t know the other one—a tall, bald man named Bishop; he lived somewhere on this side of the mountain, just off the Blue Mountain exit.
Will crossed his arms and listened. Someone asked Bishop about a barn fire.
“It was as big as the Bailey fire two years ago,” Bishop said slowly. “Almost as big as the sock factory fire way back.” He kept his head down. “And there wasn’t a damn thing we could do. We pulled in and emptied our tanks, sprayed close to ten thousand gallons, all for nothing. We saved the other buildings, but not the big one.”
Scoop saw the question on Will’s face. “The Peter Franklin farm at the edge of Hopewell, just on the other side of that little ridge there.” He pointed to the southwest, across the pike. Will looked to see a thin column of smoke still rising.
“The daughter, Ada, works at HoJo’s,” Woody said. “She’s a looker,” he added with a wink. “I already tried, but she’s too religious for me. You might have better luck.”
“Anyone hurt?” Dickson asked Bishop.
“Not too bad, I don’t think. Jesse Shupe sucked in too much smoke and had to sit in the ambulance for a while. And one of the Franklin women burned her hands real bad. I think it was Kate, the mother. Those two women, boy, I tell you, they went into that