TR found a dead boy. It was one of those days where the long morning bleeds into noon and there’s us by the side of the road with our flags laid in the tall grass. We were like two toads trying not to die of the heat. Nothing was happening for hundreds of miles it seemed. It felt we’d been gone from the crew for years and were spirits now with no opinion on any of it, any of life. Nothing mattered. We just wanted away from the heat.
Occasionally a cardinal would flutter by and bring some life with it. ‘Color,’ I’d think. Then TR and me would talk a little. But resting was the main thing. That and drinking water.
“I saw they have the civil servant exam next month at the community college,” I said.
TR heard me but didn’t say anything. He just looked straight ahead, like it was the cattle gate across the way that had said this to him. That was TR’s way of listening. I never took offense.
“Been thinking it’s time,” I said. “This placement? No future in it. No money, no future.” I made my point by tossing a pebble into the dry ditch at our feet.
“Thought maybe I’d call in sick tomorrow and ride out there. See about it. If you wanna come. Advance to maybe a management position? They’ll need the test score.”
TR looked at me. He was sucking on a long piece of grass which was stuck between his two front teeth. Still he said nothing.
“Anyway,” I said kicking my boot into the dirt. “This assignment is for the birds.”
TR pulled his water bottle up and took a long drink then wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “Well, good luck with all that,” he said, then lay back and closed his eyes.
I lay back in the grass like TR and listened to the sound of a semi somewhere off in the valley gearing down. I slept.
When I awoke the sun was cutting different across the fields. I pulled myself up quick. “It must be close to two o’clock,” I said. TR sat up too and rubbed his face awake. “I bet they’re four miles up by now, at least.” I grabbed my flag and stepped over the ditch.
“Shit,” TR mumbled.
“We’ve been asleep at least an hour,” I said.
I jogged up the road and turned back to see if TR was following. He was, but in his way which was slow and on his own time: boots untied, reflector vest slung over his shoulder like he always did. I went over a slight rise in the road and saw him disappear like a genie into the warbling heat.
After a few minutes of waiting over the rise and TR not coming I turned and slowly walked back. He came into view standing at the side of the road looking like he’d found another of his famous snapping turtles. He was like a magnet for those things and could handle them into the trucks whereas I wasn’t dumb enough to try. I liked having all my fingers and always told him so.
I walked up and looked at what he had. There mingled in with the grass was a jeans wearing boy in a crisp white t-shirt looking like all the air had gone out of him. I knew it was a boy by the wide shoulders but nothing else. His face was turned away from us, on his stomach I guess you could say though it was hard to tell because of his condition.
There was no smell like on the cop shows. It was just the usual honeysuckle and dirt mixture in the air. A crow flew over and sat in the tree above us and watched down like we’d finally found the thing he’d known about.
I reached around and unclipped my walkie from my belt but the charge was gone.
TR and I studied the body. The shirt was clean. The jeans new.
“Maybe he was hit,” TR said.
I looked up and down the road. It was stone quiet, all except the breeze cutting the trees and the swish of the tall grass.
“Man, it’s hard to tell,” TR said leaning in close, “but what do you think? White or black?”
I leaned in too and thought about it.
“Mexican?” he asked.
I shrugged and glanced back at the road.
“I say we didn’t see a thing,” TR said as he looked down at the boy. “None of my business as far as I’m concerned.” He walked back to the road and started up in the direction of the crew.
“Leave him here, buried in the grass,” he called over his shoulder to me. “Someone else’s problem.” I watched him snap a fresh blade from the beside the road and stick it in his mouth. The way TR walked always reminded me of the cowboys in the shows I watched as a kid, when they sashayed into a saloon full of danger like there wasn’t anything to it: sure of themselves, lots of hip involved, a smart comment ready on the lips. TR was tall and thin and had the legs for it.
I leaned over to see the boy again then looked back at the road. TR with his flag was moving off into the heat. He was whistling what sounded like random notes into the afternoon air. He reached down and picked up a rock and casually threw it in the direction of the blackbird that had followed him to a fencepost, as if calling him back. I gave one more look at the boy and followed.
When we got to the top of the hill we could see the lights of the crew in the far off distance, the orange glow of the trucks flaming in the sun. The smell of fresh asphalt washed in the breeze.
“I always liked that smell,” TR said. “Reminds me of when I was a kid and we’d be out in the road. The tar melting like it does in July.” He was carrying his flag over his shoulder, balancing it there, the pole, like he’d just come out of the creek fishing, taking his time, owing nobody nothing. I held my flag across my body like they showed in training. My vest was on proper though it made the heat worse.
“It doesn’t feel like respect is all,” I said finding my voice and glancing back at where the boy was.
TR stopped. He walked over and put a fatherly hand on my shoulder.
“It’s easy,” he said. “Just admit we have nothing to do with it and forget. That’s all, just forget.” He gave my shoulder a squeeze then started back up the road.
“It’s just, someone’s out there looking for that boy,” I called up to him, standing still in the middle of the road, holding my ground. “And here we are knowing something that could help.”
TR stopped. “Help who?” he asked whirling around. “There ain’t no helping nobody at this point.”
“Well, anyway, someone is looking,” I said. We began to walk again, our distance from each other consistent with me acting as the drag, the anchor pulling us back to the boy.
“I’m not a tyrant or nothing,” he said. “I mean I do care about people, some people.”
“Some people,” I parroted. Then I heard it in my voice, an anger that was rising.
“It’s you found the body,” I said.
TR shoed me away by throwing his hand back in my direction. We were close enough now to hear the hum of the paver down the valley.
“There you go. I found the body,” he said wagging his head.
“I guess the law would say it’s your burden to report it,” I said.
TR slowed. His boots shuffled to a dry stop.
“It sounds like you got this all figured out,” he said. “I’m the one now who’s got the burden of doing something about it, like it’s my hot potato.”
“Ain’t no potato,” I said stopping too. “It’s a kid, a young boy. Ten or something maybe.”
“Skip the civil exam and go be a detective since you’ve figured it all out,” TR said. “How do you know he’s not some nut who was hitchin’ rides and whatever else. Deserved what was coming to him.”
“So, you’re saying he was murdered?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to know,” TR said. “What I do know is that I don’t want to be involved in all this. He looked up the road as if he wanted to be with the crew already, like he wanted rid of me.
“You know,” he said. “I have half a mind to say something and teach you a lesson. You and me, unpaid day in the police station. That’s what you can’t get into your thick skull.” He jabbed the butt of his flagpole off his shoulder, toward me.
“Okay,” I said. “What if we do an anonymous phone thing later?”
TR let out a laugh and looked up the valley. “Oh, my god,” That would make it look like murder. Who would do an anonymous call on a body found unless they had some dirty business with it?”
Just then a car came. We’d been so involved in our talking we missed the sound of it approaching. TR pumped his hand flat telling it to slow. I snapped around with my flag and stood it on the pole-end, showing the word SLOW. The driver sped by. We watched it go around the corner up ahead.
“Is he guilty too?” TR asked pointing after the car. “I mean he drove right passed it. How many are guilty? How many drove passed and didn’t report it?”
“They don’t walk this road,” I said.
“Walk. Drive. Makes no difference. We’re all just the same, just passing through.” He pumped his eyebrows as if he’d made some smart point.
We started up the road again and stayed quiet. The gravel under our boots crunched telling us we were in step. I thought about what it must have been like to be in the Army, walking somewhere, on some sort of mission. In those days they must have seen things they couldn’t help. TR and me were no different really, maybe not soldiers, but still with a job to do, and a dead boy wasn’t part of it.
Just then the orange truck came around the corner. Gary blew the horn and pulled up on us. TR gave him the middle finger and laughed.
“You love birds having a good day?” Gary asked leaning out his window. His face shimmered with sweat. A cloud of diesel exhaust caught up with the truck and poured over us.
“Oh, we’ve been having a time to remember,” TR said tossing his sign in the back of the truck then climbing up on the side rails and opening the back door. He got in. I followed.
Gary turned the truck and headed in the direction of the crew. Hot air pulled in through the windows. No one talked. I watched TR look out his window as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
The boy was far away now, as if the valley had pulled him from us. I looked back but saw only trees and hills as far as the mind could think. What I wanted was the blue and red lights of a police cruiser, action where there was none. However, the boy lay alone and quiet. He was our secret for eternity.
Craig McMeekin currently lives in upstate New York. His experiences living in various parts of the country working as a laborer, carpenter, musician, and inner-city educator inform his writing. He considers himself a student of human social systems.