Rivendell
from Wreckage
Ron RashThis is all you need to know about Owen Glenn, the men at McCall’s Grocery said the day after the wreck. Then they told about the dog that guarded the junkyard, a snarling mix of shepherd and doberman big as a calf, one end of a chain snapped to its collar, the other latched to the door handle of a crumpled ’65 Corvette. Like it took a whole car to keep that dog off people, they said. And despite the chain and collar that dog had managed to attack a man anyway, and when it was killed Owen Glenn was too sorry to bury his own dog—hadn’t even bothered to take off the collar and chain, just let it lie there in the junkyard, letting maggots and possums and whatever else showed up have their way until there was nothing but bones, a collar, and a rusty chain. Was it any wonder a man like that would almost kill three people, and do it in a cowardly sort of way?
That was all you needed to know, the men said. I was twelve years old, and as I listened I knew those men had no understanding of the man my uncle was. They were wrong about the wreck as well, a wreck I knew better than anyone had not been caused by my uncle.
“Our favorite customer,” Uncle Owen had said when the Plymouth Wildebeest rumbled into the patch of red dirt that served as a parking lot. The car was light blue, what race fans called Petty Blue, and it was the same make and model Richard Petty raced downstate at Darlington each fall.
Donny Starnes drove that car because his father owned the trailer park where my mother and I lived, plus other houses and trailers scattered around Oconee County. Donny worked for his father, getting a hefty check each week for collecting rents and making small repairs, but according to Uncle Owen Donny Starnes’s principal job was being an all-around jackass.
“He’s come for the tachometer I took off that hot rod,” Uncle Owen said.
Uncle Owen went to the shed. Donny let the engine idle a few more moments then shut it off and got out. He wore a blue short-sleeve dress shirt, jeans and narrow-tipped boots. Blonde hair reached to his shirt collar, an attempt at a mustache on his upper lip. A leather biker’s wallet filled a back pocket, the chain snapped to a belt loop.
As soon as Donny came through the gate Duke began barking.
“You’d think that damn dog would know me by now,” Donny said.
“Dogs are a pretty good judge of character,” Uncle Owen said. “Maybe he knows you but don’t care much for you.”
Uncle Owen gave the tachometer to Donny, who took out the biker’s wallet with his free hand.
“Twelve,” Uncle Owen said.
Donny opened the wallet and lifted out a twenty-dollar bill.
Uncle Owen looked at the bill but didn’t take it.
“You got anything smaller?” Uncle Owen asked.
“No,” Donny said.
“Well let me go get my roll of ones.”
As Uncle Owen walked toward the trailer, Donny picked up a car antenna from the ground and stepped closer to the Corvette. Duke barked louder, the bristles on his back raised like porcupine quills.
“If you was my dog, I’d teach you how to behave,” Donny said, waving the antenna in front of Duke like it was a sword, the tachometer held in his hand like a back-up weapon. He poked the antenna tip at Duke’s face, backing Duke up each time it made contact. The chain went slack but Donny seemed not to notice or care because he continued to step closer.
“Not such a bad ass now, are you,” Donny said, backing Duke up against the Corvette.
“You ought not do that,” I said.
Donny turned his head.
“Mind your own business, you little shit-britches,” he said.
Duke leaped and latched onto Donny’s left arm and didn’t let go until part of Donny’s skin let go too. Donny stumbled backwards and fell. He got up using only his legs, his mouth filled with curses and threats, the palm of his right hand pressed to the wound like a compress. Duke’s chain was tight as a guy wire but Donny was out of range. Uncle Owen came up beside me, the roll of ones in his fist.
“He was hitting Duke with an antenna,” I said.
“I know,” Uncle Owen said. “I saw him from the trailer steps.”
Blood seeped from where Donny’s palm pressed against the bite.
“Damn dog,” Donny muttered.
Uncle Owen nodded at the tachometer Donny had dropped.
“That thing will cost you twenty dollars now that you cussed my dog.”
The steel-capped toe of Donny’s boot kicked the tachometer and it skidded past Duke and under the Corvette.
Donny turned back to us before getting in the Wildebeest.
“You ain’t heard near the last of this,” he said.
Gravel clattered against the mesh-wire and a plume of red dust rose as Donny swerved out of the lot and onto the black top.
“That boy thinks just because his daddy’s a councilman and got money he can do most whatever he wants.”
Uncle Owen walked over to Duke. He placed his hands on Duke’s head and moved it side to side.
“You look to be ok, fellow,” he said.
“You best get home,” Uncle Owen said. “Your Momma’s there by now.”
“I reckon so,” I said.
“She working in the morning?”
“Yes sir.”
“Well, I’ll be looking for you about nine.”
Uncle Owen nodded at the gate.
“Lock up as you go out. I’m going to let Duke off his chain.”
As I snapped the padlock Uncle Owen spoke again.
“And try not to look so hang-dog. You ain’t wallowing because of your daddy again, are you?”
“No sir,” I said.
Home was a quarter mile down the blacktop. I walked through weeds at the road edge, keeping my eye out for drink bottles worth a nickel apiece at McClain’s Grocery, the much rarer hubcap that Uncle Owen paid a dollar for. When I crossed Parson Creek Bridge I stopped and looked down at the deep pool below. I’d seen a big bass once, but now I saw only minnows and tadpoles.
I had four bottles in my hands as I stepped on the red dirt scabbed by patches of wire grass that was our front yard. A Ford Pinto with a missing headlight was parked beside the trailer. Six months ago a blue Chevy pick-up would have been parked nearby, but that pick-up and the man who’d driven it were two states away now.
“This ain’t nobody’s fault,” Daddy had said the day he left. “It ain’t yours or your momma’s or mine.”
But it had seemed pretty clear to me whose fault it was, because only one of us leaving.
Momma lay on the couch, her eyes opening as the door rattled shut behind me. Since the divorce she hadn’t slept well. For the first few weeks I’d heard her crying on the other side of the thin piece of sheet rock separating our rooms. Now nights she turned on the radio, needing something else in that room besides just herself to get back to sleep.
“You and your Momma’s going through a hard time,” Uncle Owen had told me the day the pick-up pulled out of our yard a last time, “but you ain’t the first or the last to go through such. It’ll get better, sooner than you might think. You just got to make sure you don’t get to where you wallow in your own misery. You do that and you’ll waste your life feeling sorry for yourself.”
But half a year had passed now and I didn’t see that much of anything was better. You look to be wallowing, Uncle Owen would say every once in a while. He’d smile when he said it but I knew he was being serious at the same time.
“I was just resting my legs a minute,” Momma said, looking up at me from the couch. “Standing on that concrete floor eight hours can tire legs worse than anything. I believe that’s worse than gutting those chickens all day.”
She lifted a back cushion to lay her head on. Caught between the upholstery and the cushion was a silver cigarette lighter, knife-scratched on its side the initials S. C. S. My mother ran her thumb slowly across the initials.
“He won it at the fair back when we were dating,” she said. “He won me a teddy bear the same night.”
She looked at my empty hands.
“Where’s your school books?”
“It’s Friday. No homework.”
“I’d forgot what day it was,” Momma said, forcing a smile. “You’d think a body wouldn’t forget it was Friday.”
“You’re just tired,” I said.
“Maybe so. I just work in the morning tomorrow, so I got most of the weekend to rest up. I get paid tomorrow so maybe we can go to the movie house Saturday night.”
She lay the cigarette lighter on the floor and closed her eyes.
“I’m going to lay here a minute longer. Then I’ll fix us some supper.”
But she was asleep on the couch thirty minutes later when I gathered my bottles and walked to McClain’s Grocery. I picked up the cigarette lighter as well.
“I heard your uncle’s dog bit Donny Starnes,” Mr. McClain said when he’d finished counting up my bottles. “A dog like that out to be put to sleep.”
Mr. McClain opened the cash register and took out three quarters and a nickel. I opened my palm but he held the coins above it a few moments.
“Your momma get paid tomorrow?”
“Yes sir,” I said.
“Well, tell her we need to settle up.”
Mr. McClain let the coins dribble into my hand.
“You might tell that uncle of yours to get rid of that dog before he’s got a lawsuit on his hands.”
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