© 1995 J. B. Chevallier


                              Roadside Views

	The graveyard sat on the side of a hill, across from the Gulf 
station. The hill was hugged by the main highway, which came from 
Sweet Hollow and veered sharply towards Rye Creek. Carson's Pike, a 
smaller road, cut in at this bend. It began at Carson's Hook, a hamlet 
long ignored by everyone but its residents. Rye Creek's reputation as a 
society playground had begun to draw the affluent to neighboring towns, 
and now Carson's Hook had its own winery and several antique shops.  
Still, unlike Rye Creek, it was peopled mainly by its original families.
	Tim Stumpel was one of these.  He had left at eighteen to join 
the Navy.  But after five years, his urge to see the world had spent itself 
in smelly ports and sterile cabins.  Even the hookers he'd found in big 
cities had made him nostalgiac for the girls who worked the railroad 
bars.
	Now he had the station, which might as well have been his 
home.  He was there from six to six each day, six days a week.  He still 
had friends from high school, and a number of cousins in the area.  But 
really this was his life, this half-acre and the cars that crossed it.
	When he'd first bought the station, this spot had been remote, a 
place cars passed coming off the Parkway.   But Time had moved it 
from the outskirts to nearly the center.  The town he'd been in such a 
hurry to leave was now in all the guidebooks.  TV crews came up to the 
winery.  A page from Town and Country was taped to the back of the 
register, showing Tim himself behind a sturdy man with white hair. One 
of the Rye Creek crowd.  The man though a newcomer, was from an 
old family, with one of those money-Dutch names.
	Tim liked that picture, though he wasn't particularly vain.  With 
his hangdog hair and weak chin, he knew he was nothing to look at.  But 
the picture said something was happening, that a ship was coming in and 
he was there to meet it.   He enjoyed that, just being there. He didn't 
really ask for much more.
	Trooper Don saw somewhat differently.  Don Scullins had been 
a year behind Tim in high school, a football hero, always the focus of 
female attention.  Back then, Tim had tried not to think about people 
like Don, but now they were buddies after a fashion.  The troop had its 
own garage, pumps and all.   Still,  Don was by twice a day, just to 
shoot the breeze.
	Tim had to grin sometimes when he saw him pull up.  Even in 
his gray state uniform, Don reminded him of Dudley Doright of the 
Royal Mounted Canadian Police.  Rich blond curls, a jaw like a spade.  
And that smile.  All  square teeth, polished white.  Don played tennis 
now, and he'd lost much of his jock bulk.  But he hadn't gone to seed, 
like some of their beefier schoolmates.  He was still what they call a 
good-looking man.
	Don could play the hick when he caught some broker with City 
plates going over the limit.  But by now too many of them were 
regulars, and had met him at the Grand Union or the Chicken Shack.  
He'd driven more than one home to their newly bought estates after 
seeing their cars weave a little too wide.  There'd been other, grimmer, 
meetings:  drug busts, a suicide.
	"Found Chapin in his stables.  He'd used an empty stall."
	Tim sucked at his Sprite.  Chapin had bought that big home, the 
one where the widow used to set a place for her dead husband every 
night.  Chapin's wife had left him last year.  Both were in their fifties, 
and her leaving him had been big news.  After all, it was generally the 
men who left in these couples, always for some high-priced blonde.
	Most people had thought it was a shame.  Chapin seemed a 
decent sort.  He didn't talk much.  Maybe he'd just made her lonely. He 
hadn't made a fuss when she'd gone. But it appeared now that it had hit 
him hard.
	Don pulled a Slim Jim from the stack.  "At least he did it in the 
hay." His thumbnail cut the cellophane open.  "That banker Henry found 
was in his den." He nipped off a piece of the mottled jerky.
	"People don't think about who cleans up," said Tim.
	Don reproached him with those cartoon hero eyes. "I'd guess a 
thing like that demands your whole attention."
	"Well, sure, it would."  Sometimes Tim thought Don would be 
happier not trying so hard to see all sides. "Family making plans?"
	"Can't say.  He's still with the State."
	"His wife would be the one."
	"Ex-wife, except for the papers."
	"That make her an ex-widow?"
	Don didn't smile.
	"Anyway, it's ugly, something like that."
	"Life goes on."
	"I wish it'd hurry."

	The next afternoon, Tim was reading Town and Country. After 
AAA World, it was his favorite magazine.  They'd sent him the issue that 
had his picture.  When Nancy Ruysdael - she insisted he call her Nancy  
- had seen it, she'd brought him her own copy to sign.  This had made 
him blush, a thing he never did.  There was an article on Singapore in 
the same issue, with a picture of the Raffles Hotel.  "I was by that 
once," he said.
	After that, she'd brought him all her old ones.  In one or two, 
he'd seen people he knew from Rye Creek.  When the articles showed 
his old ports of call, he'd recall what it was like to walk down 
unfamiliar streets, to hear talk as music instead of words.  Most of the 
photographs were of hotels and restaurants he'd never seen, places you 
went when money was a plaything, not a need.  This too was a kind of 
travel, a hint of what these new, earnestly rustic neighbors did when they 
weren't riding horses, planting shrubs or buying antiques out of old 
barns.
	This was all the traveling he did, or wanted to do.  It was exactly 
the fact that none of this was like him, that he would never eat at those 
restaurants or walk most of those streets, that made him enjoy the 
magazines.  They reminded him who he was and where he belonged.  
	A BMW bike broke the calm, then sputtered into silence by his 
door.  The driver wore a black helmet.  Removing the helmet, a slim 
young woman started towards him. She was dressed head to toe in black 
leather.  Her left ear was hung with safety pins and miniature chains. 
	"Rye Brook to the right?" She stepped inside.
	"Yes it is.  About four miles ahead."
	She inspected his display: mugs shaped like cows, pine tree air 
fresheners, a small yellow guide to local events.
	"This stuff sell?"
	"That's why it's there."
	Her skin was pale.  Dark circles rimmed her eyes.
	"That you?" She pointed to the picture from Town and Country.
	"Sure is."
	"Big star, huh?"
	Why bother to take offense?  She'd be gone soon enough.
	"How far up's the barracks?"
	"Troopers? About three miles.  You know someone there?"
	The wry lines of her face went slack.
	"Sort of.  They've got my Dad."
	Until these words, she'd been a cut-out, someone he'd later tell 
Don about: "Young lady on a motorbike.  Hair short as a soldier's, 
hardware hanging from her ear."  Now she took on depth, and moved 
fully into his world.  This was Chapin's daughter: same knife-straight 
nose, same thin, determined lips.  He'd never really known the man, but 
this was his daughter.  Of course she was.
	Her face went tight again.  "You know all the details, don't 
you?"
	He flinched. "It's like that, hereabouts."
	"So?  What's the buzz?"
	"How's that?"
	 "The word on the street.  What's your little backwoods rumor 
mill say?  About why, I mean."
	Tim was surprised at his own heat.
	"We haven't been backwoods for a hundred years."
	She bent towards him.  For a moment, he actually thought she 
might hit him.  Instead, she turned red, bright red, and began to cry.  
Large full tears which fell on Tim's hand.
	"Just give me a reason, OK?  I don't give a shit about your 
fucking little burg.  Just give me a reason."
	Tim felt completely helpless.  He shook his head, ever so gently.  
Then he picked up the phone.
	"You don't look ready to get back on that bike. I'll call one of 
the troopers.   He can run you out there."

	Her name was Timothi.  People called her Timmy. He didn't 
mind that their names were so close.  No one had ever called him 
Timmy but his mother. Just the same, it was a funny name for a girl.
	Her mother was in Nepal.  They didn't talk much, so she didn't 
know which hotel. She'd left a message at all the big ones.
	This was all he learned before Don drove up.  Tim was glad to 
see him.  He'd always felt awkward making small talk with women. 
Especially at times like these.
	For Don, it was easy.  He had a natural kindness towards them. 
Even in high school, when he'd been the most popular of the broad-
shouldered boys on the team, he'd flattered the wallflowers the others 
ignored.  Tim had seen Plain Janes blossom into beauties, just because 
Don had given them a smile.
	He had good instincts too, and knew when to hold his distance.  
Which he did with Timothi.
	"We already got an ID.  Parker Storch - he's one of our locals - 
did some work for your dad.  So there's no need for you to... view.  
We'll just need some signatures from a relative."
	"I want to see him."
	"Well, and of course, it's fine if you do."
	But as they walked to the car, she began to cry again, her long 
body shaking as she struggled to stand.  Normally, Don would have 
taken her in those quarterback arms.  Now he simply stood nearby, one 
large hand on her shoulder.  It was like watching a handler grip a snake.  
For a long moment, her dark form twitched, snapping its violence at the 
air.  Then she turned to the car and got in.
	Nancy came by right after they left.   She was a slim gray-haired 
woman with the good color and excellent carriage of a lifelong rider.  
She must have been something while she was young, because she was 
still the most womanly human being Tim had ever met.  He always felt 
better about himself after he'd seen her, though he supposed she spoke 
to her maid about the same as to him.
	She didn't do much more than top off her tank - the car was a 
wreck, over twenty years old -, but of course she was there just to be 
neighborly.
	"Nice hog," she said.
	"Come again?"
	"The motorcycle, Tim.  Whose is it?  It's a gem."
	'The Chapin girl's.  She's just up."
	Her face sobered.  "Foster did say he had a daughter.  I don't 
believe they got along.  Did she bring Betty?"
	The idea that he would know these people by their first names 
tickled him, the same way it did when she tried to talk shop.  It was one 
of those missed steps that should have put him off, but in fact made him 
like her more.
	"The mother's in Nepal.  She came on her own."
	"Poor child.  How'd she look?"
	"Like she was trying real hard not to be Mr. Chapin's daughter.  
Though I guess she's realizing now she is.  Excuse me. Was."
	"Still is, Tim.  It's him that's gone."  She studied the black 
BMW, gleaming in the shadows.  "Not for her though.  You can bet on 
that."
 
	Tim's own father had died while he was in the Navy.  His 
father'd been one reason he left.  Not that he was a hard man.  Not at 
all.  But he'd worked for an auctioneer, carrying other people's things, 
things he could hold but never own, thanking old women for stingy tips.  
His work ahd left him stooped, with grey, tired skin.  Tim had been 
ashamed of him, and wished he'd been one of the people who bought 
things - even the housewares, the old ice boxes and such - rather than 
carried them.  His father'd been hurt when he left, then treated him like 
a hero when he came home on leave. This had embarrassed Tim, who 
knew he was just a swabby who had to pay for girls.  But though he'd 
never been a good liar, he'd learned to talk up his travels, just so his 
father could boast.
	That had been a long time back.  Tim really missed his father 
now.

	Timothi came by that evening to pick up her bike.  Tim offered 
to put it in his pick-up and run it out to the estate, but she said she could 
handle it, thanks.
	She wasn't acting tough now, but it didn't look either like she 
was about to cry.  She'd crossed into someplace where she couldn't 
feel, but just do the small things, like picking up the bike.  
	Before she left, she emptied out her saddle bags.  This took 
longer than it should have, and of course he didn't hurry her.  Along 
with some apples and an old bagel, she pulled out a copy of Vanity 
Fair.
	"Here," she said, "Maybe they'll put you in this one too."
	Then she rode off, her headlight dull in the gathering dark.
	Tim had never read this magazine, though he spotted it in town 
more and more.  After he'd shut off the overheads and locked up out 
front, he flipped on his gooseneck lamp and took a moment to leaf it 
through.
	As his thumb cut it open, the first thing he saw was Nancy's 
face. Young, with dark hair.  But Nancy's just the same.  On the next 
page, a pictures showed her at her Rye Creek estate, looking exactly as 
he saw her everyday.
	The article covered several pages. He wasn't much of a reader, 
so he just started where his eyes fell:

The young heiress surprised everyone by returning to Pine Refuge to live. How  
could the same flighty young beauty who had so outraged her father with her 
Bohemian escapades now  abandon her painters and poets for an isolated 
house literally drenched in her parents' blood?   (One detective, who had 
worked on gangland cases during Prohibition, said that the murder of her 
parents had rivaled in viciousness the worst bootleggers' revenge.)

Speculations abounded.  Was she doing penance for her rejection of her 
parents so near their (albeit unforeseen) deaths?  Would the house become a 
shrine to her father (who had bought it with the proceeds from his patent)? 
Would Nancy herself become a recluse, one of those eccentric elderly people 
with a long-forgotten tragic past?

For a year, no one saw her but certain discreet family counselors.  But  just 
when she had faded completely from the Society columns, her name reappeared 
there briefly as she reemerged long enough to put the house up for sale.  Then 
she left for the Far East.  When she returned, six months later, she was Mrs. 
Richard Ruysdael. The perfect society hostess.  Exactly the person her parents 
had hoped she would be.

But by then of course it was too late.

	Tim stopped there.  He felt as if he'd been reading about a 
stranger.  He had no more desire to know about this person than he did 
about the Italian princesses and wealthy muckamucks he saw mentioned 
in Town and Country.  Nothing about the Nancy he knew suggested 
such dark events.
	He curled the magazine into a tube, bent it double and pushed it 
into the trash. Then he turned off the gooseneck lamp, stepped outside 
and pulled the door shut.

	"She's an artist. Makes masks of some sort."
	Don wore a plaid shirt and a pressed pair of jeans.  It was his 
day off, and Tim had been surprised to see him. But even dressed like 
this, Don seemed to be in uniform.
	"Who's that?"
	Tim was unclogging a nozzle.
	"Timothi Chapin.  She went to that school up the river.  The one 
with all the rich kooks."
	"Everyone dress that ugly up there?"
	Don shrugged.
	"Didn't ask.  She had a lot of questions about her dad."
	"You tell her you'd seen his... the scene?"
	"Mentioned it." Don turned away.
	His profile was impregnable, straight and manly.  But Tim 
sensed the strain in his eyes.
	"They train you for that kind of thing?  The troopers, I mean?"
	"In a way.  Talk about it's what they say.  There's counselors."
	A turpentine odor chafed the air as Tim cleaned his hands.  
Don's standing there made him feel extra soiled.
	"So," he said, "You talking?"
	"So," Don answered, "You listening?"

	Betty Chapin was back from Nepal.  Nancy told him that 
afternoon, but he would have heard it soon enough.  The Chapin place 
lay between the Stork Inn, a mile down the road, the Patriot's Pantry 
and Golden Farms, which was right across the way.  Not a move in or 
out went undetected.  Especially not in the last few days.
	She was flying in to the local airport. Nancy 'd dropped by 
before lunch to offer Timothi a ride.
	"What'd she say?"  Tim asked.
	Nancy looked amused.  "Without putting it in so many words, 
she let me know she'd spent her adult years trying to get away from 
people like me."
	"That's poor manners."
	"Oh now.  When I was her age, I spent quite a bit of time trying 
to get away from people like me too.  Besides, I think it was just for la 
bonne forme.  She was very polite after that.  She said she was taking 
her father's Rover."
	Tim only half-listened. He was thinking, as he had many times, 
that Nancy had wonderful eyes.  Like doll's eyes, tinted some unnatural 
but entrancing blue.  The deep long lines sunk into that fine vibrant skin 
seemed to lead you towards those eyes, so that you forgot all about her 
age and felt with her what it was to be alive.
	He tried now to find in those eyes two dead parents and a house 
drenched in blood.  But he couldn't. There wasn't a trace of that at all.

	Late in the day, Timothi and her mother stopped for gas.  He'd 
only seen Mrs. Chapin a few times.
	"I'm sorry for your loss, Ma'am."
	She murmured her thanks. Nepal he'd heard was a place where 
people went to rough it, to trek up mountains and say they had.  But her 
hair was coiffed and frosted as if she'd been on a luxury cruise.  She 
was plump, and her skin sagged a little.  He'd always thought she wore 
too much gold.
	Holes dotted Timothi's ear where'd she'd unplugged her 
hardware.  To please her Mom?  Maybe it just felt silly up here.
	As the tank filled, he heard her say, "That's the one."  She 
pointed to the cemetery.
	Her mother stared straight ahead.  "We'll discuss it later."
	"We've got to - "
	"Later, Timothi."
	Tim felt like a butler who'd come in the sitting room out of turn.  
He was glad to see them go.

	Rafe Modo was not in a good mood.  Not that an undertaker 
should be, but in fact Rafe was generally pretty cheerful. Not with his 
clients of course - with them, he looked like the Grim Reaper's second 
cousin, and only answered to "Raphael Modo". Mostly, though, Rafe 
was as good company as any other local businessman.  Maybe better, 
since he avoided talking shop.
	Today was an exception.
	"It's not that we lack the facilities," he said.  "Maybe she thinks 
we're particular about the state of the remains.  What she wants to 
understand is that a professional appreciates a challenge.  Remember 
that pile-up off the Pike?  Didn't I put them all right? There wasn't but 
the one we had to do closed.  The families made a point to write me 
later.  That isn't easy at a time like that.  But they all wrote to thank me, 
every one."
	Tim could understand Rafe's position. Personally he didn't take 
offense when people went elsewhere.  But more people needed his 
services than Rafe's. On the other hand, Rafe had less competition.
	Chapin's body was still at the morgue.  Mrs. Chapin hadn't even 
been over.  But she had to be making arrangements.  That was just 
sense.  Where, though, no one knew.  Not with Rafe, was the only thing 
for sure.   
  

	
	Being so large and empty, the ocean seems like a good place to 
lose things.  Which was why people threw just about anything 
overboard, sure it would sink or float away soon enough.  Tim had 
always been surprised, standing at the rail, to see what passed: a big 
purple doll, a half-deflated raft, a white polystyrene sign.
	Route 80 also had its flotsam: a broken sack of plaster,  the 
bright red mouthpiece of a toy horn, gum wrappers, a hair net.  Did 
people just throw these on to the road, or had they blown out windows 
or off pickup trucks?
	All these flattened, scattered, incomplete objects had meant 
something - maybe no more than a laugh or a taste of sugar. But they 
had had their place and someone had gone to some trouble to make or 
buy them.  Then they'd ended up under a steady flow of tires or wedged 
along the shoulder.
	The thought neither saddened nor discouraged him. It was just 
the way things were.  If anything, he found this reassuring, that each 
thing, however humble, had its moment, no matter where it ended up.
	What's more, this was a place where trash had value.  The 
Andersen boy, just up the road, had dug up the hill near his house and 
found some old bottles.  He'd washed them out and sold them to a 
dealer.  Since then, he'd mined his parents' whole property and found 
bottles of every sort: cobalt blue, thick crystal, cloudy green.  Some had 
held pills, some sarsaparilla, some hair tonic.  He'd proudly read the 
labels off to Tim once while his mother was in the ladies.  Tim 
hadenjoyed this glimpse of local history.  Until then, he'd never given 
thought one to how it had been here before.
	Sometimes he thought he might walk up to the graveyard and 
see what history was there, look for old headstones with familiar names.  
But when he was at the station, he never had time.  And when he was 
off, well, why come here?

	"They're having him cremated."
	Rafe's whiskey glowed, lit by the low bar light.  At the K&T, 
light and customers were equally rare.  Only the locals stopped in.  King 
and Tina had opened it before the first influx of week-end tourists, and 
they'd kept it basic: brown wood panel, a pulsing jukebox. No one came 
here for the 'color'.
	Tim was only an inch into his beer.  He'd done all his hard 
drinking in the Navy, and didn't miss it one bit.
	"When they having the service?"
	Rafe frowned at the horseshoe hung above the register.
	"I don't know that they are."
	"Have to have a service."
	"There isn't any 'have to' with these people."  Rafe's black 
eyebrows met in a 'V'. "They don't like the rules, they buy themselves 
new ones.  Custom made."
	Clearly, Rafe was out of sorts.
	"Worried?" Tim asked.
	"Hell, yes."
	"It's not like it's a trend."
	"Who knows how these people think?  I heard one saying how a 
cross in a jar of pee's a work of art."
	"Can't be."
	"Ask Nancy Ruysdael.  She was right there."
	"Still and all.  Art's according to taste.  Death is one size fits all.  
Some things just have to be done."
	"Try telling that to the Chapin woman."
	How did you explain the obvious, Tim wondered on the way 
home. Death was as private as Life got.  And yet, everybody knew, it 
was important to share it, to mark each passing in a public way.  But 
why?  What good were some flowers and a few pretty words when your 
husband's blown his brains all over a stable?  There's the comfort of 
friends of course.  But what's that worth, if you think they're looking at 
you crooked?
	Maybe by her lights Betty Chapin was right.  Burn the body like 
so much trash, then tuck the ashes away.  Bury them later, with nobody 
watching.
	Only, he knew that was wrong.  When Don had come to see 
him, all clear and crisp, then spent his day off watching Tim swipe 
credit cards and check tires, he hadn't had any bodies to bury.  Just 
some things he'd seen and wished he hadn't. He hadn't hit Tim with it 
all at once.  They'd talked about high school, about their own fathers.  
Then, a few words at a time, he'd described it - the chunks of brain, the 
dried blood.  Tim hadn't liked it, but he'd listened. Knowing these 
things would haunt him now too, that he'd dream of drenched straw and 
an eyeball blown away.  Knowing that he now had half of this to carry, 
but that Don was free of the worst part: the feeling that what he'd lived, 
he'd lived alone.
	How would the Chapin women get free, when they'd shut the 
world beyond them out of their grief?

	Monday was his day off.  It had been on Sunday, but now the 
week-end business was too good to miss.
	Usually, he'd do chores, maybe have lunch at the K & T. Some 
days he'd take a drive, out past Rye Creek or up the river.  His 
wanderlust was pretty much done, but still he liked to look around.
	Today he got up early and drove to the Chicken Shack for 
coffee.  Then without exactly meaning to, he drove right up to the 
station.  It was funny to be there with the lights out and everything 
locked, and no plans at all to go inside.  He felt like a ghost, come back 
to haunt the place.  That was how he imagined being dead - being able 
to look at Life without ever stepping back into it.
	Traffic was light and he crossed the highway without hurry.  A 
steep track led up to the graveyard.  It was really just two gravel-filled 
ruts and petered out at the top into an approximate parking lot.
	Below, the cries of birds blended with the purr and rush of cars. 
But up here they were all you heard - ratchets, whistles, hoots; quick 
gurgling trills.  The trees enclosed the graves in a spiked crown of song.  
The sound of the motors below was lost in the wind.
	The graveyard itself was quiet.  He'd expected that.  Still, it 
caught him a little by surprise.  And reminded him how the area had 
changed.  There'd been many places just as quiet when he was a boy.
	He was surprised, too, at how sparse it was.  Wide spaces 
remained between each group of graves.  They didn't seem too ordered, 
either.  A lean line of headstones, worn and thin, followed one slant.  A 
massive group of modern stones followed another.
	The stones nearest the entrance were new.  Even the small ones 
were several inches thick, the letters on them deep and sharp.  As he 
walked towards the far slope, he saw that those here were much older.  
The stone was brown and brittle.  The inscriptions had never been very 
deep and many now were worn smooth.  Still, he could make out dates: 
' 850', '18 9' - and the simply drawn faces of cherubs and Death's 
heads.  Many bore the same designs.  A few had only crosses over the 
names and dates.
	Here and there, he could make out squares which once had been 
family plots.  But most of these were in disrepair, the headstones 
cracked and fallen.  He recognized some of the names - several Carsons, 
a Bowman and a Storch - but there were no unbroken lines, no names on 
the large polished stones which echoed those on the older slope.
	Rye Creek and Carson's Hook each had their own cemeteries, 
so no one had to be buried here.  Which would explain why it wasn't 
too crowded. Still, it was quiet, and had good light.  Tim could think of 
worst places to spend your time. Dead or alive.
	He spent about twenty minutes going from stone to stone, trying 
to make out the oldest inscriptions.  Then he sat in the shadows towards 
the top, between two roots which formed a small seat.
	He felt some satisfaction for having come up.  True, there wasn't 
much here.  But even the old unreadable stones told him something, 
gave him a purchase on his own unknown history.  The very fact that the 
graves were so few made it special, a silent but select gathering.
	A sound like an angry zipper came from the highway, then grew 
louder until it tore at the calm.  In the small flat where the road died, he 
saw the slanted windshield of the BMW just into view, then jerk to the 
left, showing Timothi's angular profile.  The polished black segments of 
the bike were like the carapace of some alien beetle, stalking the small 
brown tombs before it.  Slowly, she inched the bike forward, glaring at 
the uneven stones.  Sometimes she'd lean towards one, trying harder to 
read it.  But her movement as she went was steady, that of a general 
passing troops in review.  Even her posture suggested purpose.
	At the end of the outer row, where the slope became too steep 
for graves, she began to race the motor.  Suddenly, with a vicious twist 
to the right, she shot the engine to top speed and nosed the bike back 
through the crooked rows of graves.  She whipped from one end to the 
other, shooting between the broken ranks of headstones, the dark trail of 
her tires running from the old to the new sections and back down, 
joining them with one long lean coiled band of darkness, a sprawling 
angry signature across the untroubled grass.
	After several rushing rounds of the graves, she headed straight 
upwards towards the largest and newest, a huge arch of marble set at the 
high edge of the hill.  Tim started to his feet as the bike headed straight 
towards the massive stone, then relaxed as it suddenly stopped.  
	Timothi cut the motor.  Then she gripped the handlebars, let her 
head fall and began to sob, sob with an awful animal sound which 
reached Tim, tucked away in the shadows.
	Sitting back between the old roots, he felt her pain hit him.  He 
wanted to get up and comfort her, to say that he knew exactly how she 
felt.  But he was afraid that she'd laugh at him, that she'd hate him for 
having seen her in this state. So he just sat there, watching her body 
shake, feeling the terrible violence of her unspent grief.
	After a while, she sat up, stepped off the bike and slumped to the 
grass.  She lay like that for a long time, curled up in the sun.  Tim 
became aware that he was crying, slow hot tears which ran down his 
cheeks until their salt taste touched his mouth. He hadn't cried like this 
for years.  At first he thought it was because he was sad for her, sad for 
that rage she had scrawled across the graveyard.
	Then he realized it was her peace that made him cry, the sight of 
her curled up, spent, in the sun.  He was glad she was empty, washed 
clean of thought.  This wouldn't last long, but at least it was something 
and he was glad she had it.
	He watched her like that for a long while, until at last she got up 
and slowly wheeled the bike around, towards the highway.  Then she 
got on, kicked it into motion and rode out of sight.
	Before walking down himself, he strolled around the graveyard 
one more time.  Where the old graves faced the neighboring forest, he 
noticed an anthill now, a low dry mound pocked with holes.  The busy 
black little bodies ran back and forth, eager, urgent, defying the human 
death all around them.  
	Behind the old stones, the grass lifted and spread in the air, 
erasing the track of Timothi's passage.   Only scattered patches of dirt 
still showed the marks.  A little wind, a little rain, and these too would 
fade.
	He took a long last look at the old slanted stones and the great 
cold blocks of new marble.  The old and the new, even among the dead.  
Even here, you could see it.  You could see the change.
	
	He had lunch at the K+ T.  Parker Storch was the only other 
customer, except for two squat men with dark skin, speaking in a shy 
but lively Spanish. King frowned.  "Workers from that mini-mall 
they've started up the way."  He didn't like strangers as a general thing.  
On top of that, his own son was out of work.
	Tim sat a seat away from Parker.  Parker had the kind of face, 
you could tell he was from here.  His jaw line showed through his skin.  
His hair was gray, except where he'd dyed it black, and still thick 
enough to comb.  Stray white hairs stuck out of his neck.  His teeth 
weren't pretty, but he only showed them when he chewed.
	Parker had fought the Big One and when it was over came back 
home and stayed put.  His wife had been his childhood sweetheart, 
though it was hard to imagine either using the word.  She didn't get 
about much and neither would have he, except he was born to work. 
The State sent him enough checks now that he didn't really have to, but 
he would until he dropped and that was that.  You wouldn't hire him if 
you liked to chew the fat, but he was a sure bet otherwise to get the job 
done. Which made him just right for the Chapins.  She wasn't one to 
gab with the help and he wasn't one to talk, period.
	According to Don, Parker had reported his employer's death 
right away, but with no more passion than if he'd been calling the 
nursery for a new load of soil. The way he'd described the body's state, 
he might have been describing the blight on a shrub.  When Don had 
come, he'd found everything exactly like that, exactly like Parker had 
said.
	Parker'd been back at the house now, helping Betty Chapin get 
things packed.  She wouldn't want to live there now.  She'd leave the 
place empty a few months, then probably sell it off.
	Tim wondered how he'd dealt with Timothi.  Probably just 
steered clear of her.  He'd never make any comments.  But it was a safe 
bet he wouldn't approve.
	"How's it look out there?"
	Parker shrugged, pursing dry lips.  "Mother's off this afternoon.  
Daughter's hanging about.  Why I can't see."
	"She ask you to stay and help."
	Parker's nostrils flickered.  "That sort needs no help from a 
man."
	"Much left to take care of?"
	"Not a thing."
	"So what's she got to do?"
	Parker sipped his whiskey before he answered.  He did this with 
a deliberate, almost vicious, care.  He held the small portion of liquid in 
his mouth a long moment, then swallowed it quickly and completely.
	Finally he turned to Tim.  "You find out, you let me know."

	After lunch, Tim drove up to Rye Creek.  The town proper was 
really just a street which started at a small park and rose in a steady 
incline to St. Mark's, the Episcopalian church.  Rafe's establishment 
was across the street from this.  Between the two ends were a diner, a 
bar, a hardware store, several new gift shops, a small bookstore and a 
one-room post office, as well as one Italian and one French restaurant.  
The Italian was cheap - it had been there forever.  The French was 
pricey, though it had a brunch menu and one moderate dinner.  The 
owner was actually French, and had just moved to the town five year's 
ago.  Rafe's brother owned the Italian. 
	Tim sometimes watched pool games at the bar.  Today, 
however, he just felt like walking.  He parked at the start of the hill and 
got out.
	The grass-edged sidewalks were sunny but empty.  The people 
from around here were working, often pretty far away.  The more recent 
residents were either in the City, keeping up their incomes, or working 
at their gardens or word processors.  Anyone walking around today was 
like himself, an exception.
	Tim stopped in front of the gift shop next to the post office.  
Astrid's.  He didn't really like the place - too much chinaware and too 
much pink.  But it was something to look at.
	He started at the sight of Nancy's face, reflected in the glass.  
They'd never met outside the station and he wasn't sure how to act.  
But, as always, she put him at his ease.
	"Planning to surprise some lucky girl?"
	He smiled, dropping his eyes.
	"Getting some ideas, just in case."
	This was a polite lie.  His luck with women was such, presents 
weren't often a problem.
	"Walk with me," she said, and took his arm.  This simple 
gesture filled him with confusion.  She'd done it without asking, pulling 
him into her world, where people did these things.  She touched him 
shyly, as if confiding herself to his masculine care.  Yet it was clear that 
she was the one in charge.
	They began walking towards the park.
	"Class is a funny thing," Nancy said.  This made him still more 
uncomfortable.  He thought for an awful moment she would say their 
different backgrounds didn't matter. But she wasn't talking about him at 
all. "Betty's people are 'the right sort', as some people put it.  And yet 
she hasn't the fiber to do the right thing.  She's so afraid that people will 
judge her.  And so they would, some of them.  But the better natures 
face the flame, and come out purer for it.  They don't hide away, and 
hope no one will notice."
	Tim wondered at her confiding in him this way.  But then, 
perhaps she couldn't say this in her own crowd. And it wouldn't make 
much difference in his.
	"Maybe she was thinking of the daughter," he said mildly.
	The change in Nancy's face was unlike anything he'd ever seen.  
"Her daughter?  Do you think she cares one whit about that child?  Her 
father is unburied, Tim. Not his body.  Not those ashes in a can.  What 
he means to her.  His presence in her life."
	Her face was flushed now, brittle with fury.  For a moment, her 
eyes fixed him, incandescent.  Then she seemed to collect herself, the 
gather back in some hidden core the bright raw rage he'd just witnessed.
	Now her face relaxed, and changed again.  He had the illusion 
that she was younger, hardly in her twenties, as the slightest film of tears 
gleamed in her eyes.
	"You have to go through it.  No matter how awful it is.  Until 
you face the dead once and for all, you won't be rid of their ghosts."
	Just then, a Jeep Cherokee stopped across the street.  The 
occupants waved to her.  Waving back, she turned to Tim, her face still 
young and vulnerable, and kissed him quickly on the cheek.
	"Thank you," she said, then hurried off to join her friends.
	For what, he didn't know.  He'd hardly said a word.

	He got home about five o'clock.  There wasn't much to his 
apartment - a living room with a white couch, a TV, a stereo and a wall 
where he hung his Navy pictures, and a bedroom just big enough for his 
twin bed, a bureau and a closet.  The paneling was a bland blond veneer.  
The same dull red carpeting joined both rooms.  His kitchen was small, 
but bigger than he needed.  The bathroom smelled of lemon, and pink 
soap.
	A lot of what still meant the most, he kept at his mother's place.  
He'd lived there when he got out, and for a while after he'd bought the 
station.  At first, they both thought he'd get married, though no one in 
particular came to mind.  After that began to look unlikely, he'd decided 
he should have a place to himself.  But he hadn't looked far.  The 
building was on the edge of Carson's Hook, one of the new places 
which had been put up in a hurry.  It was built like a barracks, long and 
plain, only two stories high.
	What he liked to do at night was watch TV or drive down to the 
K & T.  Once a week, he went to see his mother.  She was in her 
eighties now, but still in top form.  Though she enjoyed seeing him and 
his sister, it wasn't like she got lonely when he wasn't around.  She had 
her own group of friends, some of whom she'd known since she was a 
girl.  Only a few had passed.  The others got together all the time.
	Tim didn't go to church much, but he had the same feeling now 
as if he'd been.  Partially, it was the graveyard, and that funny secretive 
fellowship he'd shared with Timothi. But of course there was also 
Nancy, with her sudden fury at this thing left undone.
	Whatever it was, it had left him feeling satisfied, as if he'd 
completed some monumental task.  Really, so far as he could see, he 
hadn't done much at all.  Yet he felt now as if he'd come home for a 
second time.

	He was crying when he woke up.
	He'd dreamed his father was the captain of a cruiser.  Tim was 
doing maintenance on the deck, trying to lubricate a large pulley.  He 
had on his uniform from the station. His father walked by, dressed all in 
white.  Crisp and erect, not  hunched, as he had been in life.  His skin, 
which had been so gray and tired-looking, here was tan, weathered by 
the salt air.
	"Out of uniform, aren't you sailor?"
	Tim snapped to, flushed with shame. But his father put his hand 
on his shoulder.
	"You're doing fine, son, perfectly fine."
	Then they both stood together, looking out at the horizon.
	"What's our heading, sir?"
	"Antarctica."
	Tim shuddered.
	"It's not so bad as they say," said his captain/father.
	"No sir," said Tim, his eyes on the blank horizon and the dark 
blue waves.
	He had to be up just after five.  He got right out of bed and took 
a cold shower.  The Chicken Shack wasn't open yet, so he would wait 
to have coffee at the station.
	Carson's Pike was still dark, but dawn had started to turn it blue.  
The orange streetlamps were already dim. Only one car passed him, its 
headlights faint.
	As he came to the main road, Timothi's motorcycle rounded the 
curve, heading towards Rye Creek.  A second figure sat on the back.  
One he thought he recognized.  
	For a moment, he almost drove after them. Instead he pulled into 
the station.
	The last shadows had not yet faded.  Before he opened up, he 
looked at the dark hill across the way.  He thought he saw lights, 
peeking through the trees ever so faintly.  But with the flickering of the 
leaves, he couldn't be sure.
	Much later, in the afternoon, he saw the bike again.  Rider and 
cycle, dark together, headed towards New York.  He thought she might 
stop, to say good-bye.  But of course she had no reason to remember 
him.
	He had a question or two for Nancy, and kept watching for her 
car.  But she didn't drop by the whole day.
	He did see Don though.  First when he drove up into the 
graveyard, about four o'clock, then a little later, when he drove back 
down.
	"The Anderson boy called us.  Said some vandals hit the 
graveyard."
	"Any damage?"
	"Not much.  Lit a few candles.  Messed up some of the 
headstones.  But nothing the rain won't wash away. Looks like black 
magic, or some kind of cult."
	"Area sure is changing."
	"Sure is.  You see anything yourself?"
	"Not to speak of."
	Don had to get back to the barracks.
	"Anyway, it's some sight.  Take a look if you get the chance."
	 
	The sun still lit the highway when Tim closed the station.  The 
trees hiding the graveyard were a brilliant gold.  He stood for a moment, 
the keys bright in his hand.  Then he crossed the road.
	Climbing the hill, he saw the newer tombs.  They appeared 
unchanged, still white beneath their orange glow.  The track left by 
Timothi's bike had faded.  The grass looked undisturbed.
	Below, on the older slope, shafts of light came through the trees.  
The thin brown stones shone in this light.  But something looked 
different.
	Slowly, he approached them.  Through the blinding glow, he 
made out colors: orange, purple, yellow, red. The fading lines of the old 
images - the angels, the crosses, the skulls - had been painted in, 
transforming them into fierce, primal idols.  Even the cherubs seemed to 
be screaming, their hymning mouths open in bright red cries.  The 
feathers on their wings were multicolored, incandescent layers of flame.  
The skulls, painted yellow, seemed to rise from the porous stone.  
	The whole front row had been painted in this way.  Before it, a 
ring of candles, thick and white, surrounded the ant hill.  Each was 
burned down to its squat round base.  In the middle of the candles, the 
hill itself was now also white, covered with a fine ash which 
innumerable scurrying ants carried with them into the dark, into the tiny 
mouths which pocked the mound, leading into the teeming nest, into the 
fertile heart of the earth.
	Tim had seen such dust before, though he denied to himself at 
first what he saw.  But he understood now what Nancy had decided, 
standing there with him in Rye Creek.  Timothi could have come on her 
own, of course, but it wouldn't have worked.  Like Don, she needed a 
witness, someone to share the weight she would lay down.  Whatever 
rite they'd improvised here, Nancy had been its high priestess, granting 
Timothi her chance to mourn.
	Now the ants had taken over, doing the work denied to Rafe.  
Bit by bit, they took the dust deeper.  Bit by  bit, unaware, they bore 
Foster Chapin underground.