As Good As Gone (9781616206000) by Larry Watson Read Free Book Online

climbs the stairs to his room, closes the door behind him, and goes into his closet where the can of Schlitz is hidden inside a shoe box and under layers of green plastic army men. He transfers the beer to his tackle box, but before he leaves the house, Will checks the bathroom door. Just as he thought: The house has been remodeled over the years, and the lock is no longer the type that has a keyhole.

SIX
    The day that Calvin Sidey knew would eventually come has finally arrived: When he drives into Gladstone, there are more places and faces unfamiliar to him than familiar. That Chevrolet dealership with its snapping banner and rows of sun-­glinting windshields occupies the space where a feedlot used to be. Joe Tidwell had a little saw mill right where Meissner Appliances is now perched. C. C. Hurley used to have his blacksmith shop there. And that office building over there occupies a space that used to be a vacant lot, and it was where the Haskells would stretch out the hides of the coyotes they killed. By God, the youngest Haskell boy—what the hell was his name?—had a nose for sniffing out coyote dens. That gathering of young people in front of the Range Rider Cafe—would they be the grandchildren or the great-­grandchildren of men and women Calvin Sidey used to know? Chances are just as good that they all have last names unfamiliar to him. And that quartet of men standing in the shade of the Farm and Ranch National Bank, all of them in shirtsleeves and ties and two of them with pearl-­gray Stetsons and two with straw fedoras? These are probably Gladstone’s current shakers and makers, and Calvin doesn’t recognize a single one of them, nor any other man, woman, or child on the sidewalk. There was a time when anyone he drove past would likely raise a hand in greeting.
    Not only did he once know every street, store front, and building, he could feel as though he had something to do with this town becoming what it was. Hell, they’re practically the same age. He sold the lot that the Nash Finch is built on. He helped Clarence Beall swing the financing for that apartment complex on the corner of Third and Front. Calvin Sidey helped get the bridge built that now connects Gladstone’s north and south sides. And maybe there’s still a family or two living in a house that Sam Dellum’s construction company built in partnership with Sidey Real Estate. Calvin gave the Olivet Lutheran Church’s board of directors a good price on a lot when they wanted to expand and add on a Sunday school wing. He was on the school board when Oscar Kershaw was hired as superintendent. And Calvin was still on the board when that high school history teacher was fired after having an affair with the school secretary. He can still remember the year—1927—because the teacher’s name was Lindberg, the name that was on every American’s lips that year. Although the teacher spelled his name without the
h
, he still believed he might be a cousin to Charles, and when it was announced that the famous aviator would visit Boise, the teacher went there in hopes of introducing himself to the most famous man in the world. It was while Phil Lindberg was in Idaho that the secretary confessed their affair to another teacher, and by the time Lindberg returned to Gladstone, the school board had already convened, and the teacher was out of a job. In the years since, Calvin has sometimes wondered why he didn’t defend the teacher’s right to fuck whom he pleased.
    Now it almost feels to Calvin Sidey as though he navigates the streets of Gladstone not by sight but by memory, since he recognizes so little but remembers so much. Just last week he was picking up supplies in the general store in Gable, and as the storekeeper, Henry Foss, brought items down from the shelves, he asked Calvin, “Have you run into old Ben Murrow lately?”
    â€œNot lately.”
    â€œWell, Ben’s gone senile.