American Rust: A Novel

Poe walks through the freezing rain with no coat, chilled to the bone and traumatized by the recent encounter. Since he’s neglected to chop wood for the woodstove, his mother’s trailer will be cold as well. As he approaches the trailer, he sees his mother waiting up for him, so he hides in the trees, hoping she’ll go to bed soon; he can’t bear the shame of telling her the story. He thinks about his philandering father and all his mother’s less-than-stellar boyfriends, and he resolves to “[s]top being an asshole while [he’s] still young” (22). Sitting under the trees, Poe ponders his relationship with Isaac and his casual fling with Isaac’s sister, Lee. He begins to feel warm, but he knows something is wrong.

Inside the trailer, Poe’s mother, Grace, stares at her reflection and sees a woman who appears older than her 41 years. Life has broken her—she never wanted to live in a trailer on 80 acres, but now she’s willing to settle for her ex-husband moving back in. Gazing out the window, she sees Poe, motionless under a tree and covered in snow. She runs out to bring him inside; he’s barely conscious, but she eventually gets him into a tub of hot water. She rouses him from his stupor, pulling off his wet clothes. Seeing the cut on his neck, she panics, asking if someone is coming after him. He responds, “No one is coming” (28).

Lying in the bath, Poe remembers the terror of the knife against his throat, and he fills with rage and revenge fantasies. He also wonders about the legal ramifications of the recent manslaughter. His mother dated the sheriff—who once let Poe slide after an assault—but he knows this is far more serious. He hears his father’s truck outside and retires to his room. Thinking about the dead man, Poe resolves to call the recruiter from Colgate College and to take school seriously this time. Then he remembers that his letter jacket (with his name) is in the machine shop next to the dead body, and he decides to go back, remove the evidence, and dump the body into the river.

Back at home, Isaac’s father never mentions the stolen money. Isaac, in his room, observes the changing weather and thinks about the dead Swede, about his own academic promise—three straight first-place finishes at the school science fair—and about his father’s broken spine. He sees a car pull into the driveway—his sister, Lee. When she knocks on his door, he pretends to be asleep. He thinks about their relationship, another thing that has changed. They were once close—he, Lee, and their mother—but their mother’s suicide and Lee’s leaving for college has distanced them. Like Poe, he fears that the dead Swede will be traced to them. Isaac has killed an unarmed man, and there’s not much defense for that despite what the man may have been planning to do.

Poe shows up at the edge of Isaac’s property, and they head back to the scene of the crime. As they near the old steel plant, Poe begins to sweat in a flashback from the trauma of the previous night. He and Isaac trade blame as they consider the course they are about to take—disposing of a dead body. As they approach the machine shop, they see Harris’s Ford truck.

Grace Poe drives into Brownsville—a neighboring town with a European vibe—for work. She sews wedding dresses. The job aggravates her arthritis, but she feels a minimum-wage, fast food job is beneath her. She has considered college but can’t afford it. As a teenager, she wanted to leave Buell, but after graduation, her father secured her a job with the local steel mill. There, she met Virgil, whom she married before becoming pregnant. She still found time to pursue her Associates Degree, but then Virgil, along with most of the workforce, was laid off. They’ve scraped together what little they can to survive, but jobs are scarce.

Back at home, she wraps her hands in a hot towel when Virgil returns. She asks him if he’s looked for a job, but he is evasive and angry. They argue over their next step—they won’t qualify for welfare, he claims, because they won’t pass the “asset test.” He fetches a bottle of whiskey from his truck; they each take a shot, and then they make love. Afterward, he suggests they “take it slow” (48). Grace realizes Virgil just wants a place to sleep and a body to sleep with, so she threatens to get the police involved over his unpaid child support. They fight, and she kicks him out.

To distract herself from Virgil and her worries about her son, she plants tomatoes and peppers in the yard. She thinks about Bud Harris and imagines spending the night with him, a thought that triggers regret over her many mistakes in her life. Having dumped Bud twice in favor of Virgil, she knows she has to “take it slow” herself, allowing him his dignity before asking him back into her life.