American Rust: A Novel

Grace tries over and over again to reach Harris, but he isn’t answering his phone. She’s resolved to do whatever it takes to help her son—including sleeping with her boss, Steiner—if she needs money for a lawyer. Finally, Harris returns her call, and she invites him over that evening. When he arrives, she tries to negotiate on behalf of Poe, but Harris won’t consider it. He’s helped Poe too many times in the past. They argue, and Harris starts to leave, but Grace runs after him, repentant. Harris tells her of all the times he’s let her family slide, including Virgil. Their history surfaces, Harris angry about all the times he’s helped her only to have her snub him once again. She pleads for forgiveness, but Harris won’t be taken in again. He drives away.

In the morning, Lee drives Poe home, and he disposes of his sneakers by burning them in an open field. He tries to imagine what the world will be like in 25 years (the end of a likely prison sentence) or even the possibility of lethal injection if the judge is unsympathetic, but he cannot wrap his mind around the enormity of this. He goes inside and falls asleep next to his mother, but he wakes to the sound of Harris banging on the door. The police chief finally barges in and takes Poe into custody.

Driving to the station, Harris questions Poe about Isaac, but Poe denies his friend’s involvement. Harris also warns Poe that the district attorney' will likely seek the death penalty; the sentence would sensationalize the conviction, which would advance the attorney’s career. Still, Poe only tells him part of the story, about Jesus holding a knife to his neck. The eyewitness, Harris claims, never mentioned a knife, instead blaming Poe for the murder and for instigating everything. Harris then lectures Poe for all his past indiscretions, for how often he as the Chief of Police has looked the other way, and for how his behavior has affected his mother. Poe gets angry and threatens him.

Inside the station, Ho takes Poe’s fingerprints and mugshot. Harris isn’t satisfied until they get a shot that makes Poe look young and innocent. He advises Poe not to say anything without a lawyer present. Harris then drives Poe to Uniontown to be handed over to the state police. Harris takes a long route to give Poe more time to talk, but Poe doesn’t say anything more. At the Uniontown police station, Poe is identified in a lineup. Harris tells him he’ll be sent to Fayetteville, the state prison rather than the local jail. When he arrives, the prison guards put him through the routine: strip search, debasement, psychological profile questions. He is escorted to his cell amid the jeers and taunts of the other prison inhabitants. Inside his cell, Poe’s head spins: “There was no way he was ever supposed to be put in a place like this” (175).

Isaac wakes up on the edge of a golf course, the pain from his beating worse than the day before. He shoulders his pack and heads back into the woods, moving at a snail’s pace. He passes a power plant and a small town and soon finds his way back to the railroad tracks. He imagines himself as “the kid,” an alternate persona, a superhuman avatar undaunted by pain, hunger, or distance. He finds a convenience store and fills his pack with snacks and water, but he notices he’s spent nearly $30 and only come 20 miles. He needs to hop a train, soon.

He approaches Clairton, home to the largest coke-processing facility in the country (coke is a high-carbon fuel derived from coal). The plant is still active, although it can’t “stop the city from going to shit” (180). He sleeps until midnight and keeps going. He passes a homeless man huddled against a fence and hands him $20 from the wad of cash in his pocket. He decides to hop a train running out of the coke plant. As he nears the plant’s loading dock, he finds a small community gathered around trash can fires: people without homes, people using drugs, and teenage partiers. He wants to join them, but a fight breaks out. One of the men in the group leaves, walking right past Isaac and advising him to move on: “There’s a couple of bad seeds in there, dopeheads” (182), he tells him. They walk together toward the train tracks, the man—the Baron, he calls himself—questioning Isaac about his destination. The questions make Isaac nervous, and he resists the man’s offer to travel with him, although he accepts his help looking for the right train. Soon, the train begins to move, and they both hop on board. The train passes Pittsburg and continues west.