Ecstatic by Victor LaValle

Author:Victor LaValle [LaValle, Victor]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literary, Humorous, Sagas, Fiction
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 2007-12-18T08:00:00+00:00

17

The Dodge Neon’s trunk was broken open. Its lock looked attacked by claws. Chips of white paint on the Hampton Inn parking lot. My duffel bag was still inside, but Mom’s eighteen figurines were gone.

I forgot about Ledric like lickety-split, opened my bag to make sure my clean suits were there. It’s possible that there was a gewgaw thief in Lumpkin, but I doubted it. I unfolded one suit, shook it out and changed in the backseat of the broken car. Though I tried a few times to slam the trunk closed, it wouldn’t shut.

Stepped out then walked the eighty-five feet back to Comfort Inn. A girl in the employee uniform, jacket and smile, walked me back outside and pointed southwest to a huge carnation-red building where ceremonies were to be held.

The Blue Ridge Theatre.

–I think that’s what you’re looking for, sir.

Preliminary events, like casual and athletic wear, were going to run at eight o’clock.

–That’s a half hour, I said.

–We have a bar inside, if you’d like to pass some time.

–I shouldn’t start drinking, I told her. I’ve got to drive somewhere tonight.

– Is your daughter in it?

–My sister. Did you see that other contest this afternoon?

–Uncle Allen’s? Oh sure. A lot bigger this year. My cousins were in it ’93 and ’94.

–Why not you?

–My life’s been pretty good, she said.

I borrowed twine from the clerk to tie the trunk of our Dodge Neon closed. How sad the sight made me. Just a day before, on November 10th, Mom brought this car home; it made the block seem brighter because it was unspoiled. Now with the white string looped through the trunk this car looked like any of the duds double-parked up Hillside Avenue.

I started the car and left Lumpkin, Virginia, at seven-forty-five.

Miser’s Wend was an even smaller town forty miles south of Lumpkin. The two were separated by the larger city of Winchester, Virginia. Miser’s Wend would never have an exit on I-81 today if not for the Quakers who came in 1773. These facts, the year of founding and who did it, were stamped on plaques every eight feet within town limits. Declaring stones, curbs, cigarette butts as historic Quaker landmarks. But by 1995 the Quakers were aged right out of importance. When I drove into Miser’s Wend I entered an extinct society.

Downtown was only four blocks long with one bookstore, a food market, a dry cleaner; their store fronts had all been built before the Civil War. I felt a mix of admiration and aching back. Sleeping in a car seat all morning still hurt me.

A Quaker meeting hall was in a large field, left to itself. Fifty feet by fifty, one story with a gabled roof. I wouldn’t say it looked like a religious building except for the way it seemed to shine under direct focus from the moon. The wood became whiter. There was a porch on the right side of the meeting house with one small chair out there. It faced me; I drove by.

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