Monument

The rust colored dust spewed from the rear tires of the old truck like an avalanche of finely ground paprika as it sped past the gate up the dirt track to the impressive house. Henry Ford could scarcely have foreseen the success of his mass production techniques in this particular instance, but he was dead and had nothing more to be proud of. Like its driver, the truck seemed to be pushing 50 and was solidly built with the scars of a few errors in judgment to add to its character. Faded and gray, an ironically coincidental homage to the driver’s hair, it rolled to a stop just as it approached the porch where another, younger man sat sipping a can of Coke. The dust hung in the air, undecided.

The sun was already dropping low in the west and reflected violently off the older man’s sun glasses as he rose from the driver’s seat. His face betrayed his irritation and the sweat seemed to sizzle on his forehead. He resented having been summoned. He didn’t think much of the younger man and couldn’t resist thinking on how far below the legendary accomplishments of the father and grandfather this son had fallen, but he also knew the world was not the same these days and accomplishments were more difficult to come by.

“Good to see you Mayor” began the younger man. “I appreciate you taking the time to stop by. I know you are a busy man.” There was a distinctly patronizing tone to the greeting.

“Never too busy to see the man who owns the world” the older man replied with a sneer. “Perhaps you could spare me the small talk, Alan, and explain what gives you the right to demand my presence.”

“Come on, Mayor. I haven’t demanded anything. I just told Regina that it was important that we talk soon. You have been avoiding this discussion for a week now because you don’t want to cooperate, but you know I can get the Council to overrule you, if necessary. I was hoping to avoid that.”

“I know that you think you can still run everything like your family did for all those decades, but the mills are gone, Alan, the economy is in shambles and nobody gives a rat’s ass how many acres of bone dry dirt you own. People in this town can’t make ends meet anymore and your arrogant insistence that we spend money nobody can afford and time that no one has for frivolous indulgences that matter only to you is, quite frankly, disgusting.”

The younger man smiled condescendingly. “Well, Mayor, everyone’s entitled to an opinion, but I think you will find that there are still a lot of people that remember what my family has done for this town. My grandfather donated the land where City Hall sits. My family gave the land for most of this city’s parks. The library would never have been built without our contributions, not to mention the taxes we have paid, the jobs we have provided and the leadership we have exercised all these years. This town would be less than the ass end of nowhere that it is now if my family hadn’t spent generations trying to make something of it. It is hardly my fault apocalypse has bad timing”

The Mayor had heard this speech a dozen times before; it was trotted out every time Alan didn’t get his way and he was sick of it. He had too many responsibilities to waste more time listening to a history lesson. History had taken a new track and these things didn’t matter anymore.

“Alan, your father and grandfather did these things, not you. Their names are on everything in town. What more do you want?”

“I want people to remember” said the younger man, “while there is still someone left who can remember. I know we’ve been through some difficult times lately, but that is not a reason to forget the past. In fact, it’s all the more reason to honor the people who spent their lives putting their blood and sweat into making this a place people could be proud of. You act like remembering how things used to be is some sort of weakness. We’re in a down cycle right now, but this will not last forever, and when things turn, the years my family has put into this town will provide a solid foundation to build on.”

The older man stood silent, realizing that he would lose this battle like he had lost so many others over the years. Alan’s family still owned the imagination of the town no matter how worthless a possession it had become, and he would not prevail against the weight of history, not now, not ever.

“Alan, you know that what you are asking is wrong. You grandfather has only been dead a week. It’s a little early to be canonizing him. If your father were still living, he would probably shoot you.”

“But he’s not still alive, Mayor, and the responsibility falls to me. You know what needs to be done.”

*********************************************

The younger man drove his silver BMW into the center of the town’s small business district. He still had an office on the second floor of one of the few modern buildings, but he seldom visited it. Business had been slow for years now, and the government’s economic development and repopulation programs had not reached such out of the way places. He had some investments in larger cities, but he didn’t like to travel anymore. It wasn’t safe.

He turned the corner and pulled into the parking lot of the State Court Building which bore his grandfather’s name. Although the Court still held some impromptu trials there, it was now mostly vacant, but it was still the most impressive structure in the town, red brick and white marble and four massive Doric columns supporting the portico above the entrance. He walked around to the front.

His grandfather was there, as he knew he would be, standing almost still under the shade of the canopy contributed by the local funeral home. He was dressed in his best Armani suit and looked every inch the Southern gentleman of leisure that he had been. The younger man grinned at the thought that his grandfather was finally immune to the oppressive summer heat and would never mop his brow again. The old man stared blankly with metallic gray eyes, but he shuffled his feet and seemed to turn his head in his grandson’s direction. Unfortunately they had insisted that he be tethered to a stake in the ground, against the younger man’s wishes, but Grandpa had no teeth now and he wasn’t going anywhere. He had built this town, given it his life, and he wasn’t going to leave it now that it really needed him, now that he was dead.