The Claim

 

Rumor had it Maggie had taken ill, taken to bed on account of GB who’d abandoned her. All of which stirred in Joe a (near to fatherly) concern. Such a burden to carry alone.

 

A single lantern swung from a nail above the transom, lit the empty shell of the Slapjack, confettied the porch with the shadow of a moth. Maggie’d propped the windows, the three on a side, open, so as to ferry the cool night air over the sill and into the heat of the kitchen. Over a sill (the big one, up front) she’d slung a tablecloth to dry. In the dark of the yard, the brick at the base of the hand-pump shimmered white. Joe could smell the fresh of the paint. From one end of the porch to the other, a coalition of rockers and cane-backs and flimsy wobblers rode up top of one another, locked elbows, tottered over the boy who rode the mop. Magical the hour.

 

Joe paused at the gate. If he’d had a brake lever to shudder the world to a stop, here would be the place. He straightened his collar and ran his hand atop (without touching) the tin sign that bore the ghost of the old Royster Feed and Seed. The word DINER, in fat red letters, obliterated the rooster logo and the cursive—like piping on a cake—Royster. He could just make out in the glow of the lantern—there beneath a coat of whitewash—a silhouette: Corn, Chemicals, Twine.

 

Coleman Quick Lite, said the lantern, Sunshine of the Night. From the air it pulled, ample as the air itself, a steady breath. Infinite the breath. It whispered out in equal measure light, and heat, and the earthy scent of kerosene. Coal. Peat. Iron. Such a wonder. How it could be? A wicker filament size of a thimble lights a tree or a dock or an acre of grain, lights, right up to the rafters, the whole of a barn?

 

So it goes. From out the acorn, the oak. From out a grifter like Maggie, a palace of griddle cakes and hashbrowns and omelets and bacon. It was Maggie broke into the

abandoned building, hauled out the rubble, scrounged up a stove and a sink and a counter and a till. She put a cot in the corner and a sign above the door: Pie. Maggie the Maker.

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