By myself. To see David Delarosa’s old college roommate and wrestling buddy, Howard Shay. Eric had never been able to find him in Florida, but I’d kept calling his house and just that past Wednesday I’d finally connected with him. He’d been back in Ohio just three days. “The house is still a mess,” Howard said, “but if you want to come out, that’s fine with me.” “I don’t mind a mess,” I said. Mallet Creek is in neighboring Wyssock County, a tiny crossroads community surrounded by miles of cornfields. If you ignore the 35 mph limit on those empty county roads you can get there in an hour. I easily spotted all the landmarks he’d told me to look for: the fire station, the Methodist church, the meat packing plant with the huge plastic bull on the roof. The bull was sitting back on his haunches, joyfully eating a hamburger made out of the same plastic he was. Just two houses west of that monument to bad taste stood Howard Shay’s house, a brick, sixties-style ranch at the end of long driveway.
