No Heroes: A Memoir of Coming Home

Swapping Up

My former teacher, Frank Conroy, called to offer a visiting position at The University of Iowa Writers’ Workshop. I accepted without hesitation. Rita was ecstatic at the prospect of a return to the only place she’d ever liked living. Eleven years ago, broke and desperate, I’d left Kentucky to attend graduate school in Iowa. Now Iowa was again bailing me out of the hills like my own private French Foreign Legion.

We sold our house within a week, accepting earnest money pending closure. The realtor assured us that the buyer’s loan was in the bag. I drove a car held together by duct tape to Iowa City and found a small house in the neighborhood Rita preferred. An Iowa bank granted a loan without my needing to lie, and I quickly closed on the house. Two weeks later, the sale of the house in Kentucky fell through. I suddenly found myself unemployed with no savings, and a quarter of a million dollars in debt. For the next two weeks, I didn’t sleep and Rita didn’t eat. We could live on credit cards until my Iowa job started, but the salary wouldn’t cover two mortgages. Worse, we’d missed the brief window of house-selling in Morehead. The only people who move to Rowan County with intent to purchase a home are professors or doctors, and real estate deals occur for a single month. That month was long past. Our house had sat vacant for a year before we bought it. Now we faced the same problem.

The realtor blamed everything on the buyer, Dale Greer, a man I’d vaguely known years before. He’d had an illustrious career in television before settling in Morehead as a professor. I called him and asked if I could come by and talk. He grunted yes and I drove to his house. He invited me in and we eyed each other warily like two tomcats who might be enemies. I breathed long and deep to ease my way out of the tension.

“Look,” I said, “I need to sell my house. I’m in a bad jam. I already bought one in Iowa and now I owe two banks a fortune. When the sale here fell through I had to get what they call a bridge loan and the interest is killing me. Do you want my house or what?”

“Yes,” he said. “I want it.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“You tell me, Chris.”

“I don’t know, Dale. That’s why I’m here. The realtor tells me you’re uncooperative, that your loan’s no good, that nobody can get along with you.”

“That’s a laugh. The realtor said you were an asshole.”

We stared at each other without speaking. Behind him I could see out the window into a neighbor’s yard that appeared vaguely familiar. I recognized the furniture but not the view.

“That’s Mary Alice Jayne’s house,” he said. “I saw you over there before she died. Your kids, too.”

“She was a good lady.”

“My wife looked in on her once a week.”

“The whole county took care of her.”

Again we stared at each other. We’d shifted from cats to a couple of dogs trying to get along.

“I should have called you sooner,” I said.

“The realtor told me not to talk to you.”

“Same here, Dale. I thought maybe you were trying to mess with me on the price.”

“I can see how you might think that way, but it’s not true.”

“That’s why we pay a realtor’s fee, right? So they’ll lie to us about the other guy.”

“It doesn’t cost them a thing, either.”

“No, Dale, we’re the ones holding the bag. You want the house, right?”

“I love that house. So does my wife. She’s a painter and it’s perfect. It’s the second marriage for both of us. We’re trying to start over. She’s from the country and it’s a beautiful spot.”

“There’s some nice woods, Dale. I’ve made trails in them.”

“I know. The realtor showed them to us. My wife is madder about this than I am.”

“Mine won’t even talk to me.”

“Neither will mine.”

“What’s the holdup on your end?” I said.

“My damn car. I can’t sell it. I need the money for the downpayment and what I owe on the car makes me have too high a debt ratio for the loan. It’s through the V.A. so I only have to give a small downpayment, but they’re sticklers about everything. I’m at the end of my rope. We’ve run these numbers ten ways from Sunday. It all comes down to the car. Now I’m screwed.”

“Me, too, Dale. The realtor didn’t show the house to anyone but you, and now the buying period is over.”

“This place is a rental. We have to be out by the end of the month. Three weeks.”

“We can work this out, Dale. It’s just you and me right now. No realtors. I got an idea.”

He looked at me hopefully, recognizing the enthusiasm in my voice.

“I’ll buy your goddam car,” I said.

“Do you have the money?”

“Hell no, I’m broke. But what we can do is write it into the closing contract.”

“How’s that?”

“I knock the price of the car off the house cost. You give me a check for the original amount, and I write you one for the car.”

“It might work,” he said. “Sort of like throwing in the car as boot.”

“Right, I have to buy a car to sell the house.”

Dale called his banker and laid out the deal. I watched his face shift from hope to despair as he listened. His shoulders slumped and he hung up the phone.

“No dice,” he said. “The car has to be out of my name before the debt ratio changes. You have to buy it first, but you don’t have the money.”

“It can work, Dale. We just have to trust each other.”

“What do you mean?”

“You transfer the title to me now. I pay you at closing.”

“What happens if you wreck it, Chris?”

“I won’t.”

“But what if you do?”

“I won’t drive it, Dale.”

“You could turn around and sell it.”

“Yes, but if your loan falls through, I’m left owing you money I don’t have. Plus I own a car I don’t need.”

“It might work. We’ll add a clause that says if the loan fails the car goes back to me.”

“That’s a good idea,” I said.

“Will you throw in the appliances?”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m putting a car up. What’s your boot?”

“All right, stove and refrigerator. But not the washer and dryer.”

“Agreed,” he said.

We looked each other in the eye and shook hands. Then we went to the courthouse and transferred ownership for a dollar. A year before I had bought the house without stepping inside. Now I was buying a car that I’d never seen. Later his wife drove it home and he handed me the keys. The car had all the hubcaps and a terrific stereo system with six speakers. It wasn’t as quick as the Malibu, but handled better. The windows remained in place when you rolled them up. The headlights were bright and all the turn signals worked. If you slammed on the brakes, the car didn’t turn sideways in the road. My new Lexus would probably make it to Iowa.

That night, I invited Faron to the house. He parked his massive truck at the top of the drive and swaggered across the yard, his long hair swept over his big shoulders like a Viking. He wore cowboy boots and faded jeans. Faron enjoyed exotic pets such as an ostrich, a wildcat, and elk. He rode horses in shows and attended the drag strip the next county over.

“About time we got rid of you,” he said.

“They offered me a good job and I have to take it — for the kids, you know.”

“Yeah, them boys got to be took care of. You’ll be back, won’t you.”

“Faron, I’ve left here five times. What do you think?”

“You’ll be back. Your mistake was not moving to Haldeman this time.”

“Maybe we need to start our own Haldeman.”

“Haldeman Two,” he said.

“Son of Haldeman.”

“Shit, that’s us, ain’t it.”

“Damn sure is.”

“Chris,” he said, “you know what I remember most? The way you rode your bike faster than anybody in the woods. We’d all be setting somewhere and you’d come down the path like a bat out of hell and aim for the littlest space and stand on your brake and just crash into us. You remember that?”

“No, I don’t.”

“You were the most beat-to-pieces kid on the hill.”

“Sometimes I still feel that way.”

“Your fingers got so stoved-up it’s a wonder you got any left to write your books with.”

“I tell you what I remember, Faron. All us boys looking after each other. It didn’t matter where we were or what we were up to. All that mattered was we were us.”

We looked at each other and rapidly away. We had the past in common, twined memories like fossils lodged in a creekbank. We lacked the language for how we felt. As much as I loved Faron, seeing him made me sad — not at what we’d become, but at what we’d stopped being, innocent children occupying the moment.

“You got a dollar on you?” I said. “Give me a dollar, Faron.”

He dutifully pulled forth his wallet, removed a dollar, and passed it to me. I handed him the title to the Malibu, which I’d already signed and dated.

“You just bought yourself a car,” I said.

He didn’t speak or move. I thought perhaps he didn’t understand what I was saying, or considered it a joke.

“Faron,” I said, “it’s yours.”

He still didn’t answer. His face showed no expression whatsoever and I wondered if I’d accidentally insulted him. I proffered the title.

“Here, Faron. Take the damn title.”

Slowly he reached for the paper, his fingers trembling. He walked away without meeting my eyes. I watched him tow the hot rod off the hill in a drizzling rain. The next morning his girlfriend called and said that Faron parked the car in front of the house and sat in a lawn chair all day, looking at the Malibu. All he did was grin.

I went to the courthouse to pick up the new license plate for the Lexus. On the steps I nodded to a Haldeman boy who was now a lawman. In the hall I nodded to another Haldeman boy waiting to see the judge. My part of the county produced the most outlaws and cops, which made life simpler for everyone.

I waited on a bench for my turn with the clerk. Ahead of me in line were two men in work clothes, clearly brothers, sheepish about being in town. The older one tucked his legs under the bench to conceal his muddy boots. A woman in expensive clothes entered. She obviously shopped in Lexington instead of the mall. The clerk said, “Next,” and the woman stepped to the counter. The brothers and I looked at each other. I shrugged. The older man leaned toward me. “Doctor’s wife,” he said. “Or maybe doctor-teacher,” which meant a professor at MSU. I shrugged again.

When it was my turn, I spoke politely with the clerk, whose sister I recalled from high school. The license plate was remarkably expensive.

“Give you twenty bucks,” I said. “That’s my last offer.”

“Can’t take it,” the clerk said. “They won’t let us jew.”