When an animal gets itself hit, it’s a gamble where it ends up. Mostly you see them on the shoulder, when they lay there, and your stomach lurches, but you can’t stop from looking as they slink past. Like maybe you owe it to them to look. If it’s a deer or a dog, a driver might stop to drag it away. If it’s small, maybe you don’t even know it happened. You’re probably fine to leave it. Usually other wheels will pass behind you. Usually they trample it so good that whatever’s left sinks down into concrete or runs off in the rain. 

I didn’t really do much driving. I just stood behind the register and heated up frozen pierogies for those ghosts bundled against 5 a.m. freeze, the bloodstained memories of roadkill still settling inside them. 

This one guy, he came in about every two months. I knew he was Mike, because his credit card said so. He knew I was Folarin, because everybody called this Foli’s place, though it was just one installation in a whole statewide enterprise. Some old Polish family by the name of Zieliński figured out that drivers like to piss occasionally and maybe even get coffee. Imagine that. 

So I’d been general manager at that location off the I-39 for ten years, and everybody called it Foli’s place. They had this cafe and a convenience store too, for when you’re behind schedule and only have time for gas and a Nutri-Grain. Let me tell you, ten years ago that cafe was rough. Just these spindly-ass stools and sticky metal tables. I went to corporate and everything, in my gray suit, said that more drivers would stop there if it were a nicer place to sit. Fools said no of course, so I took up this whole collection, saw about some armchairs from that thrift house down in Colfax, and my cousin he built those tables right up from discount lumber. Then you can bet that people hung around this spot. Including Mike, who’d started out driving for Jewel-Osco and had worked his way up to Frito-Lay. 

Me and Mike had that understanding of seeing someone a half-dozen times a year, but only so he can order some cabbage rolls from the hot bar and maybe a jam donut. He had this sort of punch-drunk, spacey look and a canvas wallet with a Velcro strap. Inside was a picture of a woman and a girl with red hair. About five years ago I asked him how old she was. Nine, he said. So I bet she’s ready for high school now. 

Mike always sat by the window. He wasn’t the only one with a usual spot. Bunch of those truckers crisscrossing Illinois stopped here when their route dragged them up the I-39. Joel sat far in the back, said the hot bar made him feel sick. I think the pack of Lucky Strikes he burned in the parking lot had something to do with it. Now Cisco, he started off near the exit, all flighty like he didn’t have the time. But I’d ask if he wanted a hot dog, Chicago-style, and he’d look at his watch, say, “alright,” and settle further into the faded twill. So I had my place, kept it clean, staffed it with decent burnout kids from the high school. And I was happy doing it. I had Eva and the boys. I didn’t think about what wasn’t worth thinking about. Not about those two years of college, when I’d let myself get spooked by it all. Or about our sweet pinscher Oba, who used to run around the yard. Or about that poetry award from the fifth grade that my mama hung over my desk, in that honey brown frame from Walgreens. 

Anyway, that’s not what I want to tell you about. 

I guess I’ve just been thinking about this one day. It was around a year ago now. And you know, it’s not like it was this earth-shattering thing, but something about it keeps lurking around. Now Eva, she works the night shift at the Bloomington ICU. When she shuffles back over the doorstep, nobody better keep her from her sleep. So sometimes I pull down those heavy curtains and go out to the back porch, watching the sun turn the grass gold, thinking of that strange kind of light on that strange kind of morning, and a high, keening sound, and a breaking man’s face in the glass. Then I get Tayo and Amandi up for school. 

 It was around a year ago now. We’d just heard there were six more weeks of winter, groundhog’s orders, and a cold front was already misting up the glass. When I took out the trash, I felt it like pinpricks, biting in the thin air. It wasn’t busy. One guy bought a can of Campbell’s and ate it lukewarm, his eyes glossy like a bullfrog’s. In the corner, the ants chewed Raid for breakfast. I was reading the Sun-Times when Mike walked in. He came with his sort of careful way up to the counter. 

“Morning. What’ll you have?” I asked. 

“Four cabbage rolls. Thanks. And one of those cream kolaches.” 

“$5.63.” 

He didn’t use my name, and I didn’t use his. Mike took his tray and sat by the window. He looked out at the gas pumps and the store’s neon sign that said ZIELIŃSKI’S. It wasn’t much of a view. Cars and trucks filtered in at odd intervals, some of them parking, some of them loading up and darting back into the fog. 

When you work a job like that, you’ve got to be careful. That fresh air-conditioned quiet gets you sort of trance-like sometimes. Outside you hear the rumble of big 18-wheelers, hear the doors slam, hear the boots hit the asphalt. If it’s a high wind the trees rattle with a hiss. And all the while this icy film just sort of rests on the windows, waiting for the daylight.

I remember an SUV pulled into a space near the dumpster. It was about 5 a.m. A family got out, the little girl racing around her brother, shrieking clear and high. The mom shut her eyes for a second and then swept the girl up. Mike watched them through the window.

 When they walked in, the dad led them to the cafe. He took the girl from his wife and let her peer down at the food. His son looked over fermented vegetables and bins of sausage links. He stuck his tongue out. I laughed. 

“Not your style, little man?” 

“No. It looks gross.” 

“David,” said his mom. But not harsh. 

“He’s alright. Not my style, either.”

The woman smiled. 

They ordered chicken sausage and toast, then bought some donuts. The dad settled them at a far table and opened a Red Bull. I liked their chatter. The sound of little kids talking was really a great sound. 

Mike was finishing his kolache. He had his own thermos of something that steamed. I guess he didn’t like the coffee here. He probably didn’t like a lot of things, and I’d never know about them, because I’d never asked. Foli’s wasn’t really an asking place. You came here after a hundred-mile empty stretch, sighing like a stray dog, and the last thing you needed was some guy poking around. These boys, they all had that practiced respect that was very different from friendship. 

Friends were who you met up with maybe twice a year, sitting on someone’s porch or in the living room. Ragging on teachers from your high school in South Side, smoking good cigars and listening to Fela Kuti, because if you missed your shot to do something with your words, you could at least listen to someone who didn’t. It was nice, but it also had that dangerous way of holding the past up to now, thinking unhelpful rot about expectations and even dreams, telling yourself, “Yeah, you dropped out on your own, fool. Don’t you remember?” Sometimes it was better just to ring up beef jerky. 

The family was throwing away their trash and swiping at the table. When they headed for the door, I saw Mike looking at them. The door chimed. I looked down again at the Sun-Times, at the lotto numbers. Sometimes I would take a ticket from behind the register and scratch it, just to see. But I kept glancing up at Mike, because he seemed like he was thinking hard about something. 

When it happened, I only saw it ‘cause I was watching him watching them. The dad was reversing the SUV. But the engine started loud, I guess, and this blur of black and gray ran out from under the dumpster. He must’ve been spooked, but bolting was a bad call. He hadn’t thought it through, really; he just up and froze. The back wheel hit him good. There was this awful sort of yowl, and the car jerked to a stop.

I thought I should lift the counter and go help them out. But I just stood and watched. The car was in park, and the driver’s-side door opened. The man stepped out. He walked, slowly, around the back. He saw that raccoon, badly hurt, bloody. You couldn’t get a good look at the guy’s face. After a moment he sank into a crouch. He reached out and touched that yowling raccoon’s head. Then he jerked his arms in a twist. The yowling stopped. It wasn’t the kind of thing you wanted to watch. But part of you felt like you ought to. 

Boy, I did not envy that man. He had to get back in and think up some story for his kids. Avoid his wife’s eyes. Hand-sanitize the blood from his palms and take the car steady back to the highway. He must’ve been in his 30s. I bet he never thought he’d have to do that. 

I would have to go out and clean up that carcass. But I didn’t want to do that yet. I guess I just wanted to stay still for a little longer, thinking of Oba’s calm face and how euthanasia was humanity’s kindest invention. 

That’s when I glanced back at Mike. He was still looking out the window. In the dim reflection of the glass, I saw his lip trembling. You know, not many people notice you until it’s all sprawled out on the concrete. Not many people watch you scramble to hold the rest inside, when you gather it like wet sand in your fingers and beat back the wave break. But under those store lights, I saw. 

***

I’ve been thinking more and more that a year is impossible to measure. You lose track of it. You look up near December and think about whether it felt long or short. You can’t remember if something happened that year, or last year, or ever at all. 

One thing I know. When I was in the fifth grade, they made every kid write out a poem. We were reading Lewis Carroll and all that. I thought I wrote a pretty good one. They picked out the top three poems from each class. Then all the fifth graders voted on which one they liked. And I swear to you, I won that whole thing. And I got up on stage, and the principal handed me this nice beige certificate with shiny gold edges. And at the front my mama took a picture of me with her old Nikon, and she hung up that picture right next to that certificate. Maybe that’s silly that I remember. But I was so proud, and not scared at all. 

In the last year, I haven’t seen Mike around. I’m not sure if his route changed, or whether he doesn’t feel like coming around anymore. I pray Frito-Lay didn’t give him the boot. All I know is no more Mike at Foli’s place. I’d ask around, but Foli’s isn’t really an asking place. There were a couple questions I think I would’ve liked to ask Mike, though. Like where he lived. Like where he’d gone to high school. Like why hadn’t that picture in his wallet changed in five years, the edges getting all bent up. But some things you just don’t ask about. 

On my days off I’ve been getting up at first light, and sometimes I take a legal pad with me. That sunshine on wet grass in the morning is really a great sight. Few times I’ve forgot to wake the boys up for school. Eva comes home in her scrubs, asks me why they’re still sleeping. I tell her I forgot. And you know what? She can wake them up if it bothers her that much. That pen didn’t move for a long time. I don’t want to stop it when I’ve got it going. 

So I work the register off the I-39, and some people think that’s a whole lot of nothing. But there’s things I see that I want to write down. Now, these boys don’t like scrutiny. You’ve got to be economical. You’ve got to watch how Cisco’s eyes pulse when he’s tired, and how he screws them shut until the twitching stops. How when Joel strikes a match, his face blazes up in the dark, just for a moment. Or how a grown man’s face can crumple like a little boy’s and how a raccoon can bleed out by the trash bags with brake dust on its fur. 

I guess I’m trying to write down the tricks that happen out there. Like how for a second, when those drivers cross the pavement back to their trucks, they aren’t just men. They cut through the glacial pre-dawn like old gods of gravel and gasoline, their upturned faces burnished beautiful in shivering neon light. 

I guess I just don’t want to leave them on the side of the road. I guess I owe it to them to look. 

 

 

Lana HaffaR