Spencerville

out in a perfect grid from north to south, east to west, with few natural terrain features to inhibit the early surveyors, and, from the air, the northwestern counties looked like a sheet of graph paper, with the muddy Maumee River a wavy line of brownish ink meandering from the southwest into the big blue splotch of Lake Erie.
    Keith drove until noon, crisscrossing the county, noting some abandoned farmhouses where people he once knew had lived, rusted railroad tracks, a few diminished villages, a defunct farm equipment dealership, boarded-up rural schools and grange houses, and the sense of emptiness.
    There were a number of historical markers on the sides of the roads, and Keith recalled that Spencer County had been the site of some battles during the French and Indian Wars before the American Revolution, before his ancestors had arrived, and he had always marveled at the thought of a handful of Englishmen and Frenchmen navigating through the dark, primeval forests and swamps, surrounded by Indians, trying to kill one another so far from home. Surely, he’d thought as a schoolboy, those wars were the height of idiocy, but he hadn’t been to Vietnam yet.
    The territory became British, the Revolution had barely touched the inhabitants, and the growing population had incorporated as Spencer County in 1838. The Mexican War of 1846 had taken a fair number of militiamen, most of whom died of disease in Mexico, and the Civil War had nearly decimated the population of young men. The county recovered, grew and prospered, and reached its zenith around World War I. But after that war and the next world war, with their aftermaths of rapid change, a decay and decline had set in, imperceptible when he was young, but now obvious to him. He wondered again if he intended to live here, or had he come back only to finish up some old business?
     
    *  *  *
     
    At a crossroads outside the town, he pulled into a self-service gas station. It was a discount place with a brand of fuel he didn’t recognize, and attached to it was a convenience store, an interesting marketing concept, he thought: high-priced, brand-name junk food, and cheap off-brand gasoline of suspicious quality. He figured the Saab, like himself, should get used to a different diet, so he got out and pumped.
    The attendant, a man about ten years younger than Keith, ambled over.
    The man eyed the car awhile as Keith pumped, then walked around the Saab and peered inside. He asked Keith, “What’s this thing?”
    “A car.”
    The attendant laughed and slapped his thigh. “Hell. I know that. What
kinda
car?”
    “A Saab 900. Swedish.”
    “Say what?”
    “Made in Sweden.”
    “No kiddin’?”
    Keith replaced the gas cap and stuck the nozzle back in the pump.
    The attendant read the license plate. “District of Columbia—The Nation’s Capital. That where you from?”
    “Yup.”
    “You a G-man? Tax collector? We just shot the last tax guy.” He laughed.
    Keith smiled. “Just a private citizen.”
    “Yeah? Passin’ through?”
    “Might stay awhile.” He handed the man a twenty.
    The attendant took his time making change and asked, “Stayin’ where?”
    “I’ve got family here.”
    “You from around here?”
    “Long time ago. Landry.”
    “Oh, hell, yeah. Which one are you?”
    “Keith Landry. My folks are George and Alma. Had the farm down by Overton.”
    “Sure. They retired now, right?”
    “Florida.”
    The man stuck out his hand. “Bob Arles. My folks owned the old Texaco station in town.”
    “Right. Still twenty-two cents a gallon?”
    Bob Arles laughed. “No, they’s closed up now. No stations left in town. Property taxes too high, rents too high, big oil companies got you by the short hairs. I spot-buy from anybody who got to dump it cheap.”
    “What did I buy today?”
    “Oh, you got lucky. About half Mobil in there, some Shell, a little Texaco.”
    “No corn squeezin’s?”
    Arles laughed again. “Little of that, too. Hey, it’s a livin’.”
    “You sell beer?”
    “Sure do.”
    Arles followed Keith into the convenience store and introduced him to a stern-looking woman behind the counter. “This here’s my wife, Mary. This is Keith Landry, folks used to farm down by Overton.”
    The woman nodded.
    Keith went to the refrigerator case and saw two imported beers, Heineken and Corona, but not wanting to seem like a total alien to Mr. Arles, he chose a six-pack of Coors and a six-pack of Rolling Rock, both in cans. He