This World Will Pass Away: Prologue

Alongside the glow, darkness sat heavy and immobile, waiting.

Over the small town of Lucille, a crawling edge of warm, yellow light streamed across the asphalt and crept up the facades of painted brick buildings. With the sunrise, the ones facing east shimmered in the radiance. But alongside the glow, darkness sat heavy and immobile, waiting.

A few men—slumped over in the stillness—walked down the street in the blue shadows, leery of disturbing the sacredness of sunrise. Since it was late spring and the weather was warm, the dim figures walked lazily along the sidewalk in only their shirt sleeves. One had a jacket over his arm, but the others left theirs at home.

On the corner, where three streets met like tributaries, a small restaurant with a large front window threw an amber light over the sidewalk and into the street. Its owner had been awake and working for hours before the glow crested the flat horizon of the river that formed the meandering border to the north.

The restaurant was run by a stooped, pale old woman and her daughter, who wore her years like a noose. The smell of bread baking escaped the open screen windows while the griddle burned off the reluctant grease from yesterday. Brewing coffee mingled with yeast and heat and smelled like morning.

At 6 a.m., the daughter turned the sign hanging on a string fastened with a nail to the door frame to Open and then unlocked the door. Though no one was waiting outside, the restaurant easily filled with customers in a slow, human rhythm hardly wavering throughout the last decade.

An hour later, lights flickered on in the apartments above the storefronts. A gentle stirring rolled through the streets like a stretching cat. A few cars slowly drove through the town on their way to the state highway to the west. Pedestrians walked down the sidewalks in the fresh morning sun. Some stopped at the restaurant for a carryout coffee or a greasy breakfast of eggs and toast dripping with butter.

Soon, other stores began to stir. Keys scraped worn locks, and lights flickered with an incandescent glow. Flimsy screen doors held shut by long springs that snapped them closed with the ferocity of a rat trap invited in the cool, light breezes.

There were many small shops in Lucille, but the largest was a clean, hulking presence rooted in the geographic center of its main street. Large glass windows spread along the front of the building and were flanked on each side by two wide, painted wooden doors. The doors were immaculate and imposing. They were painted dark blue with polished brass hardware and seemed impervious to the elements and the wearing touch of the many who entered. The small town's identity and civic pride were the mortar between its bricks.

On this gleaming morning, the owner, Baldwin Byers, raised the windows in the apartment above the store.

It was a department store with departments running together, merging into more home than store. Prices that dangled like fishing lures from things in other stores were hidden here—subtly tucked into a suit pocket, inside the drawer of an antique desk, or taped to the bottom of a box or can. This store held things that many would consider obsolete, unwanted, and forgotten. But this space—inviting and without pretense—was curated like a museum by a tall, lean man who shaped the store to his inimitable desires.

On this gleaming morning, the owner, Baldwin Byers, raised the windows in the apartment above the store. The second floor opened into spacious rooms that were clean and illuminated by the columns of sunlight cutting through large windows.

While making his breakfast of dark coffee lightened with cream and three over-easy eggs, he went to a shelf holding a dozen vinyl albums. Sliding his fingers between the narrow upright sleeves, he divided the stack deftly and slid out Kind of Blue by Miles Davis, removed the record from its sleeve, placed it on a turntable near the bookcase, and clicked on the stereo. Quietly, “So What” began to play. He plated his eggs and sat at the table silently with a particular orderliness that many reserved for guests or church. Here, in his home, above his store, in the center of his town, he was free to be precise and revel in details that most found inscrutable.

He ate slowly and drank his coffee with purpose, savoring the black taste cut by the silky cream. He finished, poured another cup, and added the cream again. Finishing the second cup, he went to the sink and washed the dishes. As he wiped the silverware dry, the album ended with a rhythmic psst, psst, and then automatically raised the tonearm. It retreated to the side, rested on its small latch, and clicked itself off. Baldwin walked to the turntable, removed the record, placed it back in its sleeve, and slid it between the other albums lining the shelf.

The sound of his shoes, old but fastidiously kept and in good repair, made a warm, hollow shuffling sound as he walked across the buffed walnut floors to his bedroom. He opened the heavy wooden closet door, reached for a gray suit jacket, slid his arms in, and pulled his shirt sleeves down. In front of a large freestanding floor-length mirror in the corner of the room, he straightened his tie—his ritual run-through with compulsion. He indulged his punctiliousness because it brought him comfort and, though he would be hesitant to say it, superiority.

As he studied himself in the mirror, a small smile curled the corners of his mouth.