Speaker 1: Dinosaurs by Tom Franklin. On the day he saw the rhinoceros,
Speaker 1: Steadman woke in an hour before dawn in the living
Speaker 1: room and in the dark, he stared at the fish
Speaker 1: tank for so long as coffee grew cold. Something the
Speaker 1: end of a dream. Maybe it nagged him and left
Speaker 1: him uncertain and pensive. The house seemed too small, so
Speaker 1: he loaded his equipment and he left early. Soon, the
Speaker 1: knobby buckshot tires of his truck were humming comfortably along.
Speaker 1: The Interstate mobile was behind him, Montgomery far ahead, the
Speaker 1: gas station signs at every exit, colorful smudges in the fog.
Speaker 1: He drove a company pickup, a big silver Ford F
Speaker 1: two point fifty with four old wheel drive he rarely
Speaker 1: had to use. On the back glass, he'd attached green
Speaker 1: peace decal. He knew the gas guzzling truck and the
Speaker 1: sticker contradicted each other, but Steedman had been at odds
Speaker 1: with himself lately, a bit distracted. He nearly missed his exit,
Speaker 1: for example, and had to jab his brakes and swerve,
Speaker 1: And soon he found himself on a quiet, unfamiliar two lane,
Speaker 1: with the eight o'clock sun hazy over the trees. Where
Speaker 1: had the miles gone. Lines of barbed wire and redtail
Speaker 1: hawks on fence posts, cattle licking dark salt blocks. Occasionally
Speaker 1: he'd pass a rusty harrow kudzu climbing its spikes, and
Speaker 1: think of his father, a retired geologist who lived refurbishing
Speaker 1: antique tractors, now in a nursing home. He called Stedman
Speaker 1: more and more, but he remembered him less and less.
Speaker 1: Kilpatrick Claire Station was a flat, gray cinder block lump
Speaker 1: with a shed against the back and a faded green sign.
Speaker 1: Beside two antique gas pumps stood the rhinoceros, giant head
Speaker 1: lowered right, foot lifted as if it were pawing the ground.
Speaker 1: Its purpose, Stedman guest, was to attract customers. But from
Speaker 1: the looks of this dump, the rhino might soon be
Speaker 1: out of a job, like you, pal Stedman thought, watching
Speaker 1: old Kilpatrick suck on his unfiltered camel and glower through
Speaker 1: the drug store reading glasses at the paperwork Stedman had
Speaker 1: spread across the office desk. Above them, also glowering was
Speaker 1: a dusty crow nailed to a piece of driftwood. We'll
Speaker 1: get to it, the old man said, I ain't got
Speaker 1: all day. Even his breath smelled like gasoline. Your underground tanks,
Speaker 1: Stedman began, Where you store your fuel? I know what
Speaker 1: they are. Steadman unfolded a pamphlet that explained corrosion in
Speaker 1: simple turns. Did you know they've probably been leaking for years?
Speaker 1: Kilpatrick stubbed out a cigarette and a clamshell ashtray. He
Speaker 1: lit another and smoked while Steedman gave his usual pitch.
Speaker 1: How the storage tanks needed a leak detection system, or,
Speaker 1: according to federal regulations, there'd be no choice but to
Speaker 1: shut down the station. At best, if the tanks were secure,
Speaker 1: leaked detection wells could be installed for around a grand net. Worst,
Speaker 1: Kilpatrick's tanks would have to be excavated and replaced with
Speaker 1: the new EPA approved above ground units, a cost of
Speaker 1: several thousand dollars. When Steedman finished, there was a long silence,
Speaker 1: which he finally broke with his usual remark about doing
Speaker 1: good for the environment. The environment. Kilpatrick snatched off his
Speaker 1: class take you a good look out the window yonder
Speaker 1: at the environment. Steadman gathered his papers politely and closed
Speaker 1: his briefcase. Outside the hot white sky and the two
Speaker 1: lane black top, the distant pine trees, no house or
Speaker 1: building in sight, just the rhinoceros baking in the sun.
Speaker 1: When Studman returned two days later, he always gave customers
Speaker 1: time to check his background. Kilpatrick was smoking and leaning
Speaker 1: against the rhinoceros with his arms folded. He wore baggy
Speaker 1: coveralls black with oil. What he would do first, Steadman explained,
Speaker 1: unloading his hand auger, was dig holes around the underground
Speaker 1: tanks for soil samples. I'll go down a few feet,
Speaker 1: he said, and that's where we'll find your contamination. The Augur,
Speaker 1: stainless steel extendable to twelve feet, was warm from the sunlight.
Speaker 1: Kilpatrick squinted at the corks screw blades. You planned to
Speaker 1: dig with that thing by hand? Steadman shouldered the auger.
Speaker 1: You want to show me where your tanks are buried?
Speaker 1: Kilpatrick nodded toward the right side yard of the station
Speaker 1: and then limped over the concrete and went into the
Speaker 1: glass office and eased himself into a folding chair. Steedman
Speaker 1: watched him open the coke machine and fanned the cool
Speaker 1: air into his collar, and then draw a budweiser from
Speaker 1: the rack and prow off the lid with a bottle
Speaker 1: opener from his coveralls pocket. Round the building was a
Speaker 1: jungle of grass, bitter weed, and briars, out of which
Speaker 1: stuck two four inch dimeter pipes with padlock caps. The
Speaker 1: porch used for measuring and filling the underground tanks. Steedman
Speaker 1: leaned the auger against the wall, walked over and gave
Speaker 1: each pipe a solid kick. He knelt and he sniffed him,
Speaker 1: and then took hold of the left one and started
Speaker 1: working it back and forth. After a minute he had
Speaker 1: the pipe wiggling, and soon it came out of the
Speaker 1: dirt in his hands, a foot long length, not connected
Speaker 1: to anything. He tossed it in the air and caught it.
Speaker 1: Kilpatrick wasn't the first station owner to pull something like this.
Speaker 1: They do anything to knock him off. The scent and
Speaker 1: their bullshit usually helps subdue his guilt at closing them down.
Speaker 1: Steedman dropped the pipe and collected the auger and walked
Speaker 1: behind the building, past the rusty trailer in the rickety shed.
Speaker 1: The dirt back here was stained with oil. Kilpatrick could
Speaker 1: be fined if Steedman chose to report him. Greasy shapes
Speaker 1: lay scattered about transmission housings caked with grime, torque converters,
Speaker 1: leaky oil filters, and stacks of cracked car batteries. There
Speaker 1: was an old bathtob full of greenish water, and an
Speaker 1: anvil with a dog skull on it on the other
Speaker 1: side of the station. Steedman kicked away way a milk
Speaker 1: crake to reveal two rusty ports, the real ones locked
Speaker 1: with combination locks. He chose a spot a few feet
Speaker 1: east and took hold of the auger's T shaped handle,
Speaker 1: and he began twisting. The ground was hard and rocky,
Speaker 1: but Stedman's arms were hard, his skin browned from digging
Speaker 1: hundreds of holes through the miles of gravel in the
Speaker 1: hot sun hell. With the gas powered jackhammer in his toolbox,
Speaker 1: not even concrete would stop him. His smart ass coworkers
Speaker 1: called him the lust leaky underground storage tanks Man. Steadman
Speaker 1: couldn't imagine a less suited acronym. He found nothing lusty
Speaker 1: about gasoline contaminating the groundwater, and he hadn't lusted for
Speaker 1: anybody or anything in a long long time. He'd been
Speaker 1: given this nomadic grunt work as punishment for his behavior
Speaker 1: on his last project at the Civil Engineering firm, which
Speaker 1: specialized in hazardous waist clean up. He'd been he geologist
Speaker 1: in the remediation of a large chemical plant. On his
Speaker 1: first day, he learned that for years the plant had
Speaker 1: been dumping blood red chemical byproducts into the Alabama River.
Speaker 1: Now this was no surprise, but what pissed him off
Speaker 1: was that each morning, two clueless black workers without safety
Speaker 1: gear had been sent out in a motor boat to
Speaker 1: net the dead fish floating on the surface. Steedman, before
Speaker 1: several laborers restrained him, had nearly shoved the plant engineer
Speaker 1: into the river. He was three feet into his fourth hole,
Speaker 1: the dry dirt growing softer farther down, when the cellular
Speaker 1: phone in his truck chirp, Happy birthday to me. His
Speaker 1: father's dry voice sang off key. After two choruses, Steedman
Speaker 1: interrupted him, It's not your birthday yet. Hell, I know that, boy,
Speaker 1: It's tomorrow. Tried December, Steedman said, five more months. Well,
Speaker 1: knock off the bull crap and give me a hint squirt.
Speaker 1: Steedman sat on the tailgate, remembering that two days ago
Speaker 1: had been his mother's birthday. She'd been dead six years,
Speaker 1: and this wasn't the first year he'd forgot Dad. He said,
Speaker 1: are you okay? Do the nurses know you're on the phone?
Speaker 1: A to hell with them? It's not their fiftieth, it's
Speaker 1: not yours either. Steeddman thought his father was seventy eight.
Speaker 1: This was the first year in the home. Bigger than
Speaker 1: a shoebox. I hope his father said, what is my present?
Speaker 1: That goddamn dog you gave me last year must have
Speaker 1: run off. The dog was a black lab, a gift
Speaker 1: from Steedman's mother had died of old age a decade ago.
Speaker 1: Steedman moved the phone to his other ear. He recalled
Speaker 1: that on trips into the country, his father had always
Speaker 1: picked up hitchhikers, but made them right in the back
Speaker 1: of the truck with the dog. Dad. Steedman said, now listen,
Speaker 1: I've got one for you. Crows easy a murder. This
Speaker 1: was a childhood road game. His father used to name
Speaker 1: an animal, and Stedman was supposed to give its group's
Speaker 1: title an army of frogs, a parliament of owls, like
Speaker 1: that turtles. Steedman said, Let's see, his father would do
Speaker 1: this all day, like a dog who never tired of
Speaker 1: fetching a bell. How about Stedman looked over by the
Speaker 1: gas pumps rhinoceroses a pause, and Steedman pictured his father,
Speaker 1: who still wore the safety glasses required by his last job.
Speaker 1: He'd be standing at the payphone in his blue jump suit,
Speaker 1: right hand tapping his ample belly, probably wearing his steel
Speaker 1: toe work shoes too. A pride, he said, pride of rhinos.
Speaker 1: Behind Stedman. The door slammed, and kill Patrick came limping
Speaker 1: around the building, carrying his folding chair in a six pack.
Speaker 1: He suddenly looked smaller. Stedman stood up, Dad, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: call you later. Kill Patrick opened the chair and sat
Speaker 1: in a narrow strip of shade the building offered and
Speaker 1: watched and drank as Steedman resumed digging, twisting the augur
Speaker 1: deeper into the ground. He thought he could smell gas already,
Speaker 1: regular divining ride. Ain't you, kill Patrick said, crossing his legs.
Speaker 1: He didn't have socks, which bothered Steedman, like the smelly
Speaker 1: bastard was on vacation. I do declare, he said, You
Speaker 1: plumb determined to shut me down, ain't you? Stedman wiped
Speaker 1: the sweat from his eyes. You know what, if you
Speaker 1: want the truth, I'd rather not the hell, kilk Patrick said,
Speaker 1: you so goddamn eager to rearin a fellow's living. You'll
Speaker 1: find some gas in the ground. If you have to
Speaker 1: pump it in their young damn self, that'll be my
Speaker 1: last sale, he said to the sky. Three gallons for
Speaker 1: this here, smart alect to pour in the dirt. You
Speaker 1: try it on over here, Steedman said, Stick your snout
Speaker 1: in this hole and see what you smell. Kil Patrick
Speaker 1: stubbed out his half smoked cigarette and put it behind
Speaker 1: his ear. Stedman stepped aside and rubbed his biceps. As
Speaker 1: the old man came over and squatted. He steadied himself
Speaker 1: on the auger handle, which stood upright like a detonator.
Speaker 1: He made a loud sniffing noise. What do you smell there,
Speaker 1: Steedman asked, not a thing? How about that? Steedman stooped
Speaker 1: beside Killpatrick. I declare, if I don't smell gas, well shit,
Speaker 1: Kilpatrick said, and he belched. You smell what you want
Speaker 1: to smell. If you were lonely enough, you'd smell a
Speaker 1: girl down in that hole. I don't guess you'd strike
Speaker 1: your lighter and hold it there, Steedman said, taking the
Speaker 1: old man's to help him up. Kilpatrick yanked his arm away.
Speaker 1: Got me a boy, he said, played ball for Auburn.
Speaker 1: If he was here today, he'd knock your dick in
Speaker 1: the dirt and we'd let that goddamn handle there be
Speaker 1: your grave marker, he stalked off, stopping to collect his
Speaker 1: chair and his beer. The whole Stedman had been digging
Speaker 1: was four inches across in three feet deep. The goods,
Speaker 1: that's what his father had called, the petroleum deposits that
Speaker 1: he'd found. Steedman knelt and took a handful of soil
Speaker 1: and let it fall through his fingers. He longed to
Speaker 1: touch something undeveloped and uncontaminated. His father used to come
Speaker 1: home excited about a pocket of crude they'd hit. He
Speaker 1: would kiss Mom on the lips, and then Scooper and
Speaker 1: Steedman into his lap and tell them how the dinosaurs
Speaker 1: had died mysteriously, how after millions of years fermenting in
Speaker 1: the earth, they had become oil. As he fell asleep
Speaker 1: those night, Stedman imagined himself a famous archaeologist in a
Speaker 1: field jacket and a miner's light on his pith helmet
Speaker 1: and a brush in his hand. Whisking away old dust
Speaker 1: to uncover the prehistoric bones of an unknown species, a
Speaker 1: rib cage the size of a ship's skull, a skull
Speaker 1: big enough to sleep in. He got to his feet,
Speaker 1: went to the truck after soil sample jars. Soon he
Speaker 1: had them filled and neatly labeled. He brushed himself off,
Speaker 1: and then got in the truck and pulled to the
Speaker 1: pumps to buy a gas. If it hadn't all leaked out,
Speaker 1: the phone rang. It was his father again, with the
Speaker 1: right answer. A crash, God, damn it, a crash of rhinos.
Speaker 1: Steedman said he'd called him back later. The unleaded pump
Speaker 1: was slower than kilpatrick four cents, six cents, eight cents.
Speaker 1: Steedman thought he'd been staring at the rhinoceros all day.
Speaker 1: He's seen such thing as a kid on tractory excursions,
Speaker 1: when he and his father stopped for gas each station
Speaker 1: as they drove deeper and deeper into the country, stranger
Speaker 1: than the one before. In those days, owners often tried
Speaker 1: to attract customers with gimmicks. A two headed pig preserved
Speaker 1: in a vat of alcohol, an albine old rattlesnake that
Speaker 1: swallowed live possums, free choke taw airheads. Kilpatrick's rhino, though,
Speaker 1: seemed more impressive, stretching past the regular gas pump on
Speaker 1: one end and the unleted on the other. It was
Speaker 1: almost as long as Steadman's truck, and nearly its breadth
Speaker 1: with the pump running. He approached the rhino and touched
Speaker 1: its flank, as gray and dry and rough as the
Speaker 1: side of a mountain. He brought his fingers to his nose.
Speaker 1: They smelled musty and leathery, a little oily, like an
Speaker 1: old saddle. Clumps of stiff hair stuck out of the
Speaker 1: rhinoceros leg joints and hung from its slung belly. Its
Speaker 1: eyes were marble and sad and bovine, and Stedman imagined
Speaker 1: it chewing grass in an African field. Egrets and wrens
Speaker 1: across its broad shoulders and back. The lion or water
Speaker 1: buffalo wandered too close, the rhino would toss its great
Speaker 1: tank of a head, horns slicing through the air like
Speaker 1: a scimitar. He slid his fingers down the slope of
Speaker 1: its neck and along its stiff ears and the bony
Speaker 1: eye ridges and the snout. The smaller lump like horn
Speaker 1: and the larger, more formidable, curved horn. Something rose in
Speaker 1: Stedman's chest and his fingertips tingled. It felt like he
Speaker 1: was touching his own past. My boy done that, Kilpatrick said.
Speaker 1: He stood in the office door with his hands in
Speaker 1: his pockets. Got him a job in a carnival after
Speaker 1: he tore up his knee playing ball at rhino died
Speaker 1: in him and some of his friends clowns and midgets
Speaker 1: and shit. They tied it on a trailer and stole
Speaker 1: it before anybody could burn it, or whatever the hell
Speaker 1: you do with a dead rhino. Kil Patrick chuckled that
Speaker 1: crazy boy skinned it and mounted it. He weren't too smart,
Speaker 1: but he was a swift running back and held on
Speaker 1: wheels and taxidermy. Stedman pressed his shoulder against the rhinoceros's flank.
Speaker 1: He could barely move it. It had small, delicate legs
Speaker 1: in its feet except for the one lifted, were nailed
Speaker 1: to wooden planks with inlets for a fork lift. What
Speaker 1: is the way? Steedman asked, she the old man said,
Speaker 1: joining him three point fifty. I reckon. My boy was
Speaker 1: a strong one. He could lift half of anything. Stedman whistled,
Speaker 1: a wolf spider had laced a web between the rhino's horns.
Speaker 1: He flicked the spotter off and pulled away the web.
Speaker 1: Would you sell her, he asked, Kilpatrick snorted, reckon, I'm fixing.
Speaker 1: I have to sell everything. He wiped his lips with
Speaker 1: a black rag. Well, these folks pay a heap for
Speaker 1: that big horn by itself. Then poachers overseas said, if
Speaker 1: you grind it up with powder, it's like giving a
Speaker 1: woman a bucket of damn oysters. What if Steedman said,
Speaker 1: I could let you keep your station, Kilpatrick regarded him,
Speaker 1: I could rig something. Steedman said, you got to have
Speaker 1: a leak detection. That's all there is to it. If
Speaker 1: you don't, we'll both get caught. He studied the ground
Speaker 1: at his feet, dirt he knew deep down was contaminated.
Speaker 1: You couldn't guess what might happen below the top soil
Speaker 1: when you mix things up. He'd work one project where
Speaker 1: several tons of buried in secticide ways had been accidentally
Speaker 1: discovered by a baiko. The sludge had eaten through the
Speaker 1: metal barrels it had been stored in and mixed with
Speaker 1: each other, and the minerals and the and they formed
Speaker 1: a strange new chemical combination. The unlucky backo driver had
Speaker 1: died instantly from the murky green cloud that belched out
Speaker 1: of the ground. Stedman walked into the road, hazy with
Speaker 1: heat as far as he could see, and for a
Speaker 1: moment he thought a truck was coming, an eighteen wheeler,
Speaker 1: but it was only a mirage. Shading his eyes dizzy
Speaker 1: with heat, he barely heard the gas pump click off.
Speaker 1: I guess you were right the first time, he told Killpatrick.
Speaker 1: On the clean side of the station, where the tanks
Speaker 1: weren't buried, Stedman placed the fake pipe he'd pulled out
Speaker 1: of the ground. He used a sledge hammer to drive
Speaker 1: it deep, and then tamped the dirt tight with the handle.
Speaker 1: He resumed with the augur and began digging the first
Speaker 1: of four holes around the fake ports and then the
Speaker 1: widening strip of shade. Kill Patrick watched and drank beer
Speaker 1: and smoked, and crossed and uncrossed his legs. His shirt off,
Speaker 1: Steedman augured into the night. At about six feet down
Speaker 1: groundwater started seeping into the holes. He saw it with
Speaker 1: his flashlight, clear uncontaminated the goods. He kept digging. Kill
Speaker 1: Patrick rose once and leaped toward him and handed him
Speaker 1: a beer. The old man turned and walked several feet
Speaker 1: away and took a leak while Stedman drank. Then he
Speaker 1: came back for the empty bottle and returned to his chair.
Speaker 1: In the distance, a coode began to howl, and kill
Speaker 1: Patrick yelled shut up, and the howling stopped. Stedman finished
Speaker 1: digging just after nine thirty in the bright moonlight. A
Speaker 1: car had passed a few minutes earlier, and only now
Speaker 1: did he comprehend it. It had slowed, and a black
Speaker 1: face peered out the open passenger window, and a black
Speaker 1: hand had waved. Had Stedman waved back at his truck,
Speaker 1: He slid four eight foot long PVC pipes from the
Speaker 1: side rack. Kilpatrick, who'd been napping, woke and said, what
Speaker 1: are you up to now? These are your monitoring wells.
Speaker 1: Stedman grunted, twisting the pipe into the first hole. The
Speaker 1: way they work is when I stick them in the ground,
Speaker 1: they fill up with water, and if the water is contaminated,
Speaker 1: like it probably is on the other side, it have
Speaker 1: an oly sheen on the top. But over here, you
Speaker 1: shine your flashlight in there, you'll just see clean water.
Speaker 1: And if the EPA comes to check on you, these
Speaker 1: ones will be clear. Stedman forced the last pipe in
Speaker 1: the ground until all but eight inches showed there, he said,
Speaker 1: strewing on the cap. Now tomorrow I'll come pour seamen
Speaker 1: around here so nobody will be inclined to check your authenticity.
Speaker 1: Kilpatrick's camel glowed. A strange sound came from the darkness.
Speaker 1: It's a fart maybe, or a grunt of approval. One
Speaker 1: more thing, Stedman said, disassembling the auger. Tomorrow that rhino
Speaker 1: comes with me clean her up tonight. Kill Patrick said,
Speaker 1: you can borrow my trailer. After a moment, the two
Speaker 1: men shook hands. The next morning at the office, Steedman
Speaker 1: fed ex the jars of soil from a jar to
Speaker 1: the lab in Savannah. The results would be back in
Speaker 1: a week. He popped his head into his secretary's office
Speaker 1: and told her that kill Patrick Sinclair's station had been
Speaker 1: a bust, that the old man already had a leak detection.
Speaker 1: Then he told her it was his father's birthday and
Speaker 1: he was taking the day off. Ignoring her raised eyebrows,
Speaker 1: Steadman walked down the hall and went outside to his
Speaker 1: truck and with eight bags of quick dry cement. He
Speaker 1: drove to kill Patrick's. The old man sat smoking in
Speaker 1: his office beside an open coke machine. The unleaded gas
Speaker 1: pump still showed the eighteen dollars Stedman had bought yesterday.
Speaker 1: Kill Patrick jerked his thumb toward the back of the station.
Speaker 1: The rhinoceros stood on the trailer, held tight by chains,
Speaker 1: and come along. Kill Patrick walked out from under the shed,
Speaker 1: hands in his pockets. He directed Stedman in backing the
Speaker 1: truck to the trailer. The rhino's skin was clean, its
Speaker 1: eyes polished and smelled of lice on. It looked ready
Speaker 1: to stalk those feet and break loose from the puny chains,
Speaker 1: and come along and charge. Well, you say, kill Patrick said.
Speaker 1: Steedman paused the bag of seaman on each shoulder. It's
Speaker 1: cooler today, the old man squinted at the sky. Yeah, Mike, rain, Mike,
Speaker 1: said Steedman. Steedman poured seamen around the wells, adding water
Speaker 1: from a leaky garden hose, while Kilpatrick hitched the trailer.
Speaker 1: Cigarette dangle from his lips now and again. He coughed.
Speaker 1: When he'd finished, Steadman walked to the trailer. Kil Patrick
Speaker 1: was wiring the trailer lights. How come your son gave
Speaker 1: you that rhino, Stedman asked. Kil Patrick didn't look up.
Speaker 1: I don't remember, he said. Together they threw a tarp
Speaker 1: across the rhinoceros, and then stepped back to inspect the job.
Speaker 1: It seemed illegal and transporting something so large and so threatening,
Speaker 1: But that worry was soon shrieking in Steedman's mirror as
Speaker 1: the truck kicked up dust enough to blot out kill
Speaker 1: Patrick from sight. Hell of a lot bigger than a
Speaker 1: shoe box, Steedman thought, picturing the rhino beside the azaleahs,
Speaker 1: surrounded by old people at the nursing home, his father
Speaker 1: among them, touching and stroking the dangerous beast with lust
Speaker 1: in their fingertips. A birthday gift, ancient, faithful and unforgettable
Speaker 1: birds to collect on the rhino's back, and Stedman knew
Speaker 1: his father would impress everyone by identifying the birds. As
Speaker 1: he drove away from Kilpatrick's Steedman pretended the rhino chased him, and,
Speaker 1: like a child running at night, he went faster and faster,
Speaker 1: but the rhinoceros stayed close behind, its eyes tiny and clear,
Speaker 1: and its nose low, and its horn inches away from
Speaker 1: Stedman's gas tank,