Chevy in the Hole by Kelsey Ronan

Author:Kelsey Ronan
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.
Published: 2022-04-18T06:23:46.047640+00:00

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In Detroit, August’s car still sat in the driveway. No fines from the city were secured under the windshield wipers. When he kicked the tires, they were firm. In the back still a blue thrift store cardigan, food wrappers, and crumpled cigarette packs.

“And you tried jumping it already,” his mother repeated.

“It made a noise, I turned the stereo up because the noise was annoying, then the stereo died, then the car didn’t start. It’s fucked.”

“Just humor me,” Rose said. She bent into the hood with the cables: red to red and black to black. Each of them got back behind their respective wheels, August with his door open and one boot still on the concrete.

But his engine sputtered, then hummed. The stereo came on, striking into the middle of What’s Going On, bought in the Motown Museum gift shop, while Annie behind him in her funeral dress said, “Who still buys CDs?” The tank was three-quarters full, and Marvin’s voice floated out of “God Is Love” and dropped with the struck piano chords of “Mercy Mercy Me.”

His mother rolled down her window. “I should’ve been a better father to you,” Rose said. “You’re stupid about cars.” She frowned up again at the house that had sheltered a more wretched version of her son and asked if they could please never come down this street again either.

Once she was on I-75 heading back to Flint and August and his new battery were supposed to be behind her, he dug in the mailbox for the keys he’d buried four months before, gathering up the grocery circulars as they fell. No one had been in this house since he’d left it.

In his old room he picked up the pop bottles and food wrappers and crumpled cigarette packs from the floor. He took his razor and a dried-up bar of soap from the bathroom. He gathered up the library books to return, bookmarking a ten-dollar bill in one for the fine.

He stretched out on his mattress on the floor, fingers beating out a rhythm on his breastbone. He started to consider the person he’d been four months ago, then pulled up his phone to check his email. Re: parcel number 212. Re: 3 bedroom 1 bath. Re: auction ending 10/1/14.

He found listed on eBay and Craigslist hundreds of houses, acres of land. He was looking for a house where, if you looked at it askance, you could see the boards on the windows peeled away, the weeds and overgrown yard cut back, lights inside.

In another tab he kept open the results for the search what does the Bible say happens when you die? He’d ended up on an unpacking of the Gospel of John and the word abide. Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man loves me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him. The word abode, the blogger said, is the Greek word monē, meaning “dwelling place” or “abiding spot.

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