Free The Bighead by Edward Lee

the tragedy of this
place, the social grimness that reality had racked upon Appalachia,
Charity felt the core of her own realities dissipate to nothing.
Her admin job where she’d be lucky to get a raise to $15,000, the
stifled city and all its impersonality, and—particularly—her
absolute failure with men… This generally ran amuck in her
thoughts, but not now, not here. I’m
home, she thought obtusely, for it really
was an obtusion. Coming here from the city could be likened to
moving from one world to another.
    “ Here?” Jerrica
asked.
    Charity focused. The white facade of
St. Stephen’s Church approached before the orange tint of dusk.
“Yes,” she said. “Veer left onto Old Chapel Road. If you go right,
you’ll end up in the boonies.”
    Jerrica’s slim, tanned arm moved
adroitly as she downshifted. The car hitched slightly, the engine
revving. They passed the church in a smooth sweep, and Charity felt
suddenly blitzed by disappointment. St. Stephen’s Church, once
grand and cleanly white, stood now in something close to ruins.
Time and neglect had blistered its pristine paint. The fine,
glittering stained-glass windows were either boarded up or punched
out, showing only tarnished lead lacings. One of the front
double-doors hung off its hinge.
    Gone to rot, Charity thought. It was a sad realization; in her
childhood, the church had always been a proud landmark. Now,
though, it remained only as a symbol of everything else around
here. Dilapidated, sucked dry of its blood by ongoing recession and
apathy.
    Jerrica paid it no mind. “That
church—it reminds me. Your aunt said something about a priest
coming to stay at the house. To reopen Wroxeter Abbey. Will you—”
Her words trailed, softened. “Will you take me there?”
    “ What? To the
abbey?”
    “ Yeah.” Jerrica’s blue eyes
thinned excitedly. “I’d love to see it.”
    “ I’m sure there’s nothing
much to see. You heard Aunt Annie; it closed down years ago. It’s
probably in worse shape than the church we just passed.”
    Jerrica downshifted through another
bend, her hair flying. “So? I’m dying to see it. I need it for my
article. Come on. Let’s go there now.”
    “ I don’t even know where it
is, Jerrica. You’re forgetting, I left this town over twenty years
ago; I don’t know anything about the abbey accept what Aunt Annie
said. We’ll have to ask her for directions tomorrow.”
    “ All right. But I’ve
just got to see
it. I want to find out all about it. I want to know everything about this
area.”
    Charity admired her
companion’s enthusiasm, however overstated. But why on earth would
she want to visit an old abbey, or a still site, for that
matter? I guess this place is as new to
her as the city was to me… “Here we are,”
she said next. They slowed as the road descended, and just as
quickly, “downtown” Luntville was upon them. Main Street looked
washed out—uneven, drab buildings to either side. A red light
winked from afar. “Luntville’s only traffic light,” Charity
remarked.
    “ But…there’s no
traffic.”
    “ Most of the stores close
at six.”
    “ But—” Jerrica decelerated
before the light, glancing around as if stunted. “There are barely
even any stores. Look.”
    Another sad realization, and more
proof of this town’s disease. A good many stores along the drag
were locked up tight, FOR RENT signs taped to their plate-glass
windows. At least Hodge’s Farm Market hadn’t gone under, nor had
Chuck’s Diner, which actually seemed to have a few patrons
inside.
    “ Turn here,” Charity said,
pointing right. The car purred through the turn, proceeded past
another block of closed shops. Then Charity, staring aside,
muttered, “Oh, no. I don’t believe it. Even the school is
closed.”
    Jerrica pulled to a stop, eying the
shabby brick building full of broken windows and chained doors.
“Did you go there?”
    “ Yep. Clintwood Elementary.
I was just starting the third grade when the