Operator - 01 Read Free

the bluffs on the east side of the Hudson before peering down on the town nestled against the river. My footfalls echo softly against the row of clapboard houses as I run through the sleeping town, now and then peering up at the gray sky. The houses on King’s Road huddle together on their small plots like crows perched on a telephone wire. The colors on this street are muted, almost monochrome in their palette, with the exception of an azure blue house with yellow shutters sitting in the middle of the block like an orphan flower in a sea of weeds.
    I reach River Road and turn left, heading north toward Main Street. Conestoga is still, but for the occasional car that passes with headlights on or a stray head poking out from behind a door to snatch the newspaper from the front stoop. I’m conscious of retracing my childhood as I move through the deserted streets. I loop around Church Street onto High Bridge Road. Mel’s parents live here. Their driveway is full and there are a number of cars with out-of-state plates parked on the road. The house is dark, excepting a single light in an upstairs bedroom. Three blocks further and I make the turn onto Green Farms Road. My childhood house looks the same, except that someone has painted the old swing chair on the front porch. Mom’s battered Chevy pickup is parked in the driveway next to a spotless Cadillac Escalade that could only belong to my oldest sister Amelia and her husband Jeff. There is a beaten down Jeep Cherokee from the nineties sitting behind the Escalade and a Honda Civic parked on the street in front of the yard. Everybody’s home .
    I arrived at the funeral home late enough last night to miss my own family, though I did see Mel’s. I’ll see them this afternoon at the cemetery, though – no avoiding that. It can’t be put off any more. The farther I get from Conestoga, the more it pulls at me. I shake off the thought as the house fades into the gloom and I turn onto Ridge Road, climbing in earnest. I keep up a brisk pace for three miles as the road twists and turns until I reach the old mill. I pull up just shy of the rusted chain link fence barring the entrance. This is where my father and grandfather spent every working day of their lives. This is the mill that closed two weeks before I graduated high school. The place has power for me, like a Native American burial ground.
    Three towers thrust up from the site, looming over Conestoga like the witches from Macbeth over their cauldrons. In front of them are several buildings, the largest made of staged platforms with crazy pipes running through them. It looks like a competition diving platform constructed with a Lego kit. The platform structure is flanked by a schoolhouse-style administration building on one side and an enormous warehouse on the other. The buildings are crowded together – piled up against each other like old shoeboxes in a closet. The enormous yard in front of the mill has fallen into disuse, and grass has grown over the railroad tracks. A boxcar stands empty in the yard, waiting to be loaded. I see the first touch of red light hit the top of one of the towers in anticipation of the arriving dawn. Before I have a chance to think too much, I put my hand on the fence, testing the links. Then I back up a few yards and with three steps I am up and over. My real workout is just beginning.
    * * *
    The interment ceremony is brief. The cemetery behind Riverbend Church is the oldest in Conestoga, dating from the time of the town’s first settlement as a royal charter to a wealthy merchant in 1745. Conestoga has been going downhill ever since. Mel – Melissa Jane Harris – was Catholic but because of the manner of her death, she can’t be buried at Holy Oak Cemetery. Mel’s parents managed to convince the parish priest to say a few words for her, which he does. Then some of Mel’s friends and students say a few more words. I have certainly attended more funerals than any of the 300 Conestogans