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Arcadia

Steve Carr

    Like huge flakes of snow, chicken down blew across the open field, swirling, rising and falling in the late October breeze, forming small mounds and drifts in the clumps of grass all the way to the bay. At my knees the metal of the heater vibrated slightly as it hummed and chugged out a steady flow of warm air. On the other side of the field, a car took the sharp curve on the road leading into town, spitting up dust and rocks as its back tires swerved into dirt and gravel, then slowed and continued on until it disappeared down the main street lined with stores and restaurants. I turned from the window and surveyed the wreckage in the room: strewn clothes, beer bottles, a pizza box, my emptied duffle bag.
    In the other bed, next to the bed I had slept in, lay a naked man, sprawled out in what looked like a drunken stupor. An empty whiskey bottle rested in his left armpit. I tried, in vain, to recall his name or how he came to be in my room.
#
    Passing beside the poultry manufacturing plant I watched men in green overalls remove live, squawking chickens from wood crates, quickly bind their claws with short pieces of bright red cord, then hang them upside down on hooks from an overhead conveyor belt that carried the birds through wide open metal doors into the bowels of the factory. Brushing down from my olive-colored Army field jacket I quickened my pace, passing by large Victorian homes painted in bright colors with contrasting painted shutters that gave them the look of oversized doll houses. The leaves on the trees that lined the street were turning from bright oranges and yellows to shades of brown. Balding branches poked out in all directions like arthritic fingers.
#
    Pearl’s Diner was almost empty. The small bell above the door tinkled melodically as I entered. I stood there momentarily allowing my eyes to adjust to the neon pink décor and inhaled the aromas of fried fish and floor cleaner. I took a seat at my usual booth in the back corner and smoothed out a wrinkle in the plastic table cloth, then removed my jacket, and waited.
    Grace was working. She came to the table, as always dressed in a pink uniform with a white apron and her bleach-blond hair piled high into a beehive. The porcelain smoothness of her plump cheeks was colored with the faintest hue of pink blush.
    “What’ll it be today, sweety?” she asked, taking the order pad from a pocket in her apron.
    “Waffles and black coffee.”
    “You sure you don’t want to try something different?” she asked, scribbling on the pad.
    “Just waffles and black coffee.”
#
    A bell on a buoy clanged loudly in the choppy waters as fishermen unloaded lobsters in the traps from their small boats and stacked them on the wood planks of the dock. Screeching seagulls circled overhead, sometimes swooping down toward the pier but never landing. Sitting on a barrel I tasted the saltiness in the air being carried inland.
    The captain of the blue and white boat with the name Endora painted on its side in large black letters stepped off the boat and walked over to me, a large metal ring with keys hanging from his belt clinking with every step. “You seen Dave?”
    Dave! That was his name. “No.”
    “He didn’t show up for work this morning and his wife is looking for him. He didn’t go home last night,” he said. “I thought I saw him walking up the road with you yesterday after he was finished here.”
    “No,” I repeated. “I haven’t seen him.”
#
    Dave remained under the thin sheet staring at the television, the pillow behind his head, an unlit cigarette dangling on his lower lip. At the window I watched night spread over the ocean and town forming a landscape of blackness. Rain pelted the glass sounding like muted gunfire. In my reflection in the glass I fought to recognize the face staring back at me.
    Without turning to face him I said, “You need to go home now.”
    Wordlessly he got out of bed and put on his clothes. “You staying here?” he asked, his voice filled with longing to be somewhere else, to be someone else, that he had just spent an hour bemoaning while drinking a six-pack of beer.
    “I’m leaving in the morning.”
    He left the room, leaving in his wake the aromas of lobster, sea water and booze.
#
    On the ridge of a valley looking down at a large dark blue lake I heard the moose before I saw it. As it came out from a line of pine trees into a clearing beneath where I was seated on a rock it made a guttural snort and stopped and turned its head toward the same scene I had been looking at. The thought of how easy it would be to kill from my position if I had my rifle crossed my mind. I picked up a stone and threw it near the moose’s rear foot. It didn’t move, stubbornly waiting to be killed.
    I stood up and hoisted my duffle bag onto my shoulder and headed north.
#
    Standing on the side of the road I waved on two cars that slowed, apparently to see if I needed a ride. Since that morning the air had turned crisp, cold and damp. My breath came out as mist that hung in the air before dissipating. I leaned against a pole with two signs. One pointed north toward Nova Scotia. The other pointed south toward Bangor, and toward the Army base. In my ears was the echoes of shots being fired and voices calling out in pain. I crossed the road and stuck out my thumb to hitch a ride to return to the Army base.

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