The Eaton Read online

  “Wow,” breathed Vaughn and Sam in unison, before looking at each other and cracking up.

  Sarah was thinking “wow” as well, calculating all the work and time and money that would be needed to reinvent this place as something approaching “hip.” She opened her mouth to speak, but one look at Sam’s drunkenly happy visage convinced her to keep such boring, practical thoughts to herself. This station was his baby, and you don’t remind a proud new daddy that he’s going to be changing a thousand diapers.

  “Finally sinkin’ in, huh?” Janet had removed her sunglasses and was gazing over the wreck, hands on her hips, like the queen of a conquered land.

  Sam smiled. He had been waiting for this day for seven months, from the first time he found the building up for sale, to the time he found century-old pictures of the station on Google’s image search, to the time he hired Janet as a reluctant buyer’s agent, to the time he convinced her to break into the property the day the combination on the key box inexplicably failed, to the time the bank finally approved his loan after months of battles, to…well, there were about a hundred specific, detailed memories of this journey, each frustrating milestone pushing him a small step forward to the ultimate goal of ownership. Having only lived in apartments and rented rooms since leaving home, it was intoxicating to be standing inside the first property that was finally, uniquely, irreversibly, his.

  “So,” declared an energetic Vaughn, determined to break the reverent silence, “you’re putting the bar against this wall, right?” He leapt over some fallen boards and pranced to the southeast corner. “I’m thinking…something really smokin’, here. Like, glass, with underlights, or some really cool curved limestone, or maybe just a giant sheet of black onyx.”

  “I’m actually thinking concrete.” Sam walked over to Vaughn’s location, and spread his arms to illustrate the size of his imagined creation. “I’ve been reading up on concrete countertops online, and you have infinite flexibility. You can build them yourself, get the shape you want, the color you want, and it’s just labor—the actual, physical costs are next to nothing.”

  “Ha!” interjected a new voice from the doorway. “Just labor? Because, shit, what’s labor? Labor’s nothing. Sure, go ahead, give it a shot.” Then, dialing the sarcasm knob further into dripping territory, “I’m sure it will look super-duper pro.”

  Sam choked back a retort, and forced a laugh. “Guys,” he explained, motioning to the backlit figure, “this is Albert. He’s the restoration expert I found who’s going to be helping us out.”

  “Al,” revised Al, offering his hand to Janet. “And this boy’s gonna need it.”

  Without another word, and without introducing himself to Vaughn or Sarah, Al proceeded to kneel and study a nearby baseboard, as if he was alone in the room. A dusty, world-weary man of fifty, but looking sixty, Al was right at home among the disrepair and the rubble. He moved swiftly, efficiently, yet respectfully along the walls of the station, stopping every few moments to touch a particularly interesting gouge, scrape or natural imperfection in the rich wood paneling.

  “Where’d you find this guy,” whispered Vaughn.

  “He’s the best,” came Sam’s swift, defensive reply. “I met him a few months ago when he was repairing Beaumont Tower’s carillon—for free, just cause he loved the shit.”

  “Is he working for free for you too?”

  Sam smiled. “Let’s just say he has a lifetime gratis bar tab when we’re up and running.”

  Al was on his knees, knocking meaningfully at a floorboard, grimacing for no apparent reason that Sam could detect, then moving a few inches further, peering closer, and knocking again.

  Janet broke the awkward silence with a clap.

  “Oh! I almost forgot.” Janet tittered over to Sam with his new key, complete with a large, impractical four-inch plastic keychain emblazoned with the realty company’s hideous logo. “She’s all yours.” Then, adding, “as long as you keep up with the payments.”

  Sam chuckled. He was well aware what he was getting himself into. Even if all repairs and design went as scheduled, he still had at least half a year’s worth of monthly payments on a property that couldn’t make a dime until they opened for business. And even then, it would take time to turn any sort of profit, if ever. Eaton Rapids was a city of just 6,000 people, and even with the new condos and developments going on at the old mill, and a surge of young people emigrating from nearby Lansing, this was an unlikely location for an upscale club. The banks thought so, too, and Sam had been rejected for more than a dozen small business loans. If this was going to work, he had to do the heavy lifting himself. Hence, a homemade concrete bar, not onyx.

  “We’ll make it happen,” Sam declared in preemptive triumph.

  “Uh huh,” muttered Al, who began knocking on walls this time, listening closely, the chiseled lines across his face wrinkling deeper, as he jotted notes onto a tattered paper pad he had retrieved from his back pocket.

  Although the building had been neglected for many years, the structure was sound. The mullioned windows, which were high and arched at the top, were still intact, and the rich wood molding around them had suffered little damage over the decades. The paneling, which ran up from the floor to about waist-level, was in a more battered condition, as if many years of clumsy movers had knocked furniture against every possible board at every possible height. Above the paneling, sickly beige paint was peeling off the walls in great scabs, all the way up to the high ornamented ceilings, which was to be expected from a building suffering without climate control through a dozen baking summers and freezing Michigan winters.

  Sam’s mind flashed back to his childhood, the day his family moved into their first real home, after years living in a trailer park of, he would learn later, some ill repute. Their new home had a modest square footage for its neighborhood, but compared with the trailer, it was a castle. It had three full bedrooms (though Sam would remain an only child), an office, a real dining room, an attic with dormer windows, and a basement half-finished and half-creepy—the creepy half leading Sam on an endless futile search for hidden passages and buried treasure. Though only six years old, the memories of exploring this new castle for the first time remained among the strongest of his childhood.

  “So Vaughn, is there really enough room for a dance floor here?” Sarah was trying to imagine the setup, and having trouble visualizing a workable layout. Vaughn had been spinning as “DJ Knight” at a much larger club in Lansing for the past year, and Sarah found it hard to believe such an intimate setting would service his boisterous style.

  “Absolutely. Remember, I do weddings, too, and those fold-out dance floors are no bigger than this. There’s an upside to tight—people have to be closer together, and nothing’s hotter than bodies grinding in a confined space.”

  “Literally,” interjected Al from the far side of the room, “since there’s no air conditioning.”

  “We’ll fix that,” promised Sam.

  Vaughn shrugged. “Ya sure? Cold temps might cut into drink sales.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Janet was kicking some fallen boards from her path. “I wish the seller had at least cleaned up the place. You need a good junk guy?”

  “I kinda want to go through everything piece by piece first,” replied Sam, gazing around at the smattering of old boards, upholstery, and papers. “You never know what you’re going to find, especially in a place with this much history.” He was thinking of the old military discharge papers he had once found lodged under boards in the closet of his childhood bedroom. Although left behind by the previous owner, Sam had imagined they were hidden on purpose by a time-traveling super-soldier, to be retrieved only when the robot apocalypse had begun.

  Al had left the main area, and was poking around in the other section of the property, a back room which would have been “employees only.” Curious, Janet made her way to join him.

  “Have you decided what
you’re using that area for?” Vaughn began walking to the employees area as well.

  “Well, there has to be some storage, and expanded bathrooms,” offered Sam. “I’m really not sure. We still might have to add on to the back so there’s enough space, as long as the city lets us, and that would be a good place to remove a wall.”

  Vaughn nodded, then disappeared into the small room. Sam was about to follow, but felt a hand on his arm. Sarah tugged his shoulder downward, so she could whisper in his ear.

  “We need to kick your friends out and christen this place properly,” she cooed.

  “You don’t want to share the champagne?”

  “You know that’s not what I mean.”

  “Oh, I know.”

  Sam smiled and brushed his fingers across her right cheek. She closed her eyes and returned the smile, resisting the impulse to turn and bite his hand, as was her usual response to such mushy gestures.

  “We should probably wait until I get the power and heat turned on,” explained Sam. “It’ll be a few days.”

  Sarah pouted, but did not otherwise object to this cruel but practical observation. It was indeed quite cold. In fact, Sarah was convinced that it was colder inside than it had been in the parking lot, even if logic demanded the opposite. The October day had been sunny, but crisp and windy—“good football weather” as her father used to say. At least inside they were sheltered from the moving air. But the chill persisted, as if her legs, and the back of her neck, were exposed to some unseen draft, that followed her body no matter how she happened to turn, or where she happened to move.

  “Yeah, yeah,” she agreed. “Besides, Kedzie will be coming by after she gets off work, and probably wouldn’t appreciate the show.”

  “Really? From what I know of Kedzie, I bet she would.”

  Careful, Sam thought.

  Sam led Sarah into the back area, where Janet and Vaughn were watching Al rip blue, stained low-pile carpet from one corner. The main room had wood plank flooring, as expected, and Sam had assumed this smaller room would have a similar composition, once this unattractive covering had been removed.

  Al looked up. “I’m assuming you don’t want to keep this,” he said to Sam, gesturing to the carpet.

  “Oh, God, no,” Sam replied.

  Without responding, Al continued with his work.

  “Need a hand with that, man?” Vaughn knelt down and started tugging as well. The fabric began to crack and crumble beneath his strong hands, and he wondered if he should be wearing a respirator. “Damn, how old is this shit?”

  Sam and Sarah bent down to help as well. Only Janet demurred, preferring to act in the role of supervisor. “That corner’s sticking,” she chirped unhelpfully, and “roll it up tighter to save space,” and “pull a little harder,” and “it’s sticking on that nail, see it?”

  The flooring underneath was indeed the same hardwood as the main room, but in far better condition, having been protected and preserved under carpet for many, many decades. Curiously, there was even an inlaid parquet pattern in the center of the room, which was unmatched by anything in the rest of the station. Small pieces of dark wood created a looping design resembling a lowercase “e” repeated as a border.

  “Now why would they bother with something so fancy in what was clearly an employee's area,” Janet inquired to the room, though looking squarely at Al, the only one who might have the qualifications to venture an accurate guess.

  Vaughn answered instead. “Maybe this was for the boss’s desk. Can’t blame the big dog for wanting a little class under his feet.”

  “Eaton Rapids, you may recall, was a pretty big deal when this station was built,” offered Al. “It was the so-called ‘Saratoga of the West.’ Back when Michigan was still ‘the West.’”

  Sarah scoffed at this. “Here?”

  “That’s right,” explained Al, still scraping and rolling carpet away from the center of the room. “Lots of wealth came through here. Luxury hotels, mineral baths…Eaton Rapids was the place to see, and be seen.”

  “Not just blankets and ice cream, eh?” Sam was referring to Eaton Rapids’ most popular turn-of-the-century industries, notably the woolen mills and Miller Dairy Farms. Janet got the reference, but Sarah and Vaughn, not originally from the area, exchanged a lost look.

  “That still doesn’t explain why builders would lay down a nice inlay in the private part of the station,” complained Janet. “The main area’s floor is pretty boring. No offense, Sam.”

  The carpet was rolled in a tight tube against the far wall now. Al stood up, brushed his hands on his jeans, and admired the pattern before them. It was indeed a complete square, about five feet along the edges. After a short examination, he cocked his head, and smiled. “Now this could be interesting,” he mused.

  Sam couldn’t see what Al was referring to. “The pattern? Looks like a lot of letter ‘e’s. For Eaton Rapids, I suppose?”

  Al shook his head. “No. Well, maybe. But I don’t mean the pattern. Here, listen.” He crouched down, and began tapping his knuckles against the floorboards, first inside the pattern, then just outside of it. He glanced up, looking for a sense of understanding on Sam’s face. Finding none, Al tried again, knocking slower this time, in series of three, first outside the square, then inside.

  Vaughn noticed the distinction. “Yeah…I hear it. Inside the square, it’s more of a hollow sound, right?”

  Al stood up. “Right.”

  Sam turned to Janet. “Does that mean there might be a crawl space after all?”

  “No,” the Realtor replied in the tone of an expert. “This is just a slab foundation. Having a basement of any kind would have been extremely rare for this type of structure, especially of this period.”

  Sarah was crouching down now, examining a conspicuous seam between the parquet pattern and the surrounding planks. “This here…there’s a bit of a gap, isn’t there? That’s what you saw, right?”

  Al peered down again, as did Sam. “Fascinating,” Al concluded after a long period of study. “Here, stand back.”

  The group took a step away from the square as Al proceeded to jump up and down on each corner of the pattern, then again on each full edge. The solemn look of concentration on Al’s face as he did this made the act look particularly absurd. Vaughn shot Sam a look that seemed to ask “no, seriously, who is this guy?” Sam opened his mouth as if to offer a defense, but responded with a shrug.

  Al stopped, though it was not immediately apparent from his face whether he had successfully observed what he was expecting, or had given up. He instead left the room without a word, and exited the station itself. The remaining group exchanged confused glances, and Sam was about to apologize for Al’s behavior, when they heard a trunk slam, and Al returned to them. In his hands was a large crowbar, and he wasted no time in crouching down once more, jamming the sharp edge in between the gap Sarah had observed moments ago. The nearby wood splintered, making a dull, crunching sound like boots marching on dry Autumn leaves.

  “Hey, wait,” Sam protested. “Don’t fuck up the floor—it’s vintage, and can be restored, and…”

  And…it moved. At first, just a fraction of an inch, barely perceptible from the overhead view of a standing man. But then it was clear what Al was attempting. By driving the crowbar further between the gap, he was able to pull the entire square upwards, as if prying off a large floor tile. Yet rather than pop out of its slot, the massive wooden square began to pivot, opening smoothly, like the lid of a gigantic jewelry box. Two massive iron rocking hinges, embedded beneath the floor, assisted Al’s motion, and soon he wasn’t exerting much effort at all, the five-foot square opening itself a full 90 degrees, standing upright like a monolith in the center of the dusty room. With a soft thud, it found its resting place, and Al shot a broad smile at the building’s new owner, whose own jaw had dropped as low as the section of floor had once been.

  Sam blinked, then stammered. “What the
hell?”

  The massive trap door hadn’t just revealed a crawl space. The five peered down into a darkness that must have been at least ten feet deep, for the meager light in the room couldn’t reveal the eventual bottom of this very black pit.

  But they could see the stairs.

  three

  Every summer, little Sammy Spicer would spend several weekends at his aunt’s house in Mio, Michigan, a small unincorporated village a few hours north of his family home in Eaton Rapids. He liked Aunt Eleanor very much, for she was always sweet to him, and always had sweets for him—homemade pies, cookies, cakes, and a particularly memorable homemade chocolate fudge, which seemed to take a great deal of time and concentration stirring a large wooden spoon into a heavy saucepan over an open flame. Even after Aunt Eleanor had given Sam’s mom the recipe, giving into Sam’s persistent pleadings, it was never the same at home. At first bite, his mom’s attempt tasted just like he remembered, but it didn’t, as they say of wines, “finish well.” It was somehow less rich, and a little gritty, just an understudy to the real deal. Perhaps it was the extra care his aunt was able to devote to the task, or maybe, looking back, his mom’s electric cooktop just couldn’t compare to that ancient green gas stove that Aunt Eleanor had mastered. Or maybe, in a playful act of sibling rivalry, Eleanor had omitted just one, simple, secret ingredient that assured her own creation was free from competition.

  Visiting Aunt Eleanor’s would have been perfect, if not for two unfortunate caveats named cousin Matt and cousin Pete. Both older than Sam, Matt by three years and Pete by four, they had grown up not with a father, but rather an endless string of unworthy boyfriends of their mom’s. As the real “men of the house,” they therefore tried to act older than they were, and so frequently tried to parent—and punish—young Sam. Not in a big brotherly way, but in the manner of a drunken stepfather. They would spend time with their young cousin, invite him into their world of “adult” interests such as violent sports or dangerous risks, and Sam would do his best to keep up and have fun and try and be accepted. But at some point in each activity, Sam would be too scared to go the one step further, or to climb the one branch higher, or commit to the one final act which would make him one of the big kids. When this happened, Matt and Pete wouldn’t call him a “baby” or a “pussy” or a “fag” or any of the normal playground insults. No, they’d use far more sophisticated, and therefore more hurtful words, such as “immature” and “disappointment” and, worst of all, “embarrassment.”