dmseay

It was over. He could see that. Stared him right in the face. Time after time he’d tried to fix it. Bought flowers, rings. Would pay for dinners when there was no money in the bank; like magic.

She broke the news to him. It was right after they’d watched a movie together. Casablanca with Bogart and Bergman. It was their favorite movie. Or, so he thought. She confessed to him later that she hated the film.

Casablanca? he asked. How does anyone hate Casablanca? This relationship should’ve been over years ago, he said. Nobody hates Casablanca. It’s un-American, he lit a cigarette. Took a drink of whiskey.

I just don’t like old movies, she said. Never have. And you’ve forced me all these years to watch them, she downed a shot. Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, The Big Sleep, all of em, she yelled. All of em are terrible.

He was broken hearted. Not because she was breaking up with him. But, because the whole thing was a lie. It was something he believed in whole-heartedly. He lived in a black and white world. Complete with old jazz playing in the background. He thought she was a part of that.

Oh well. Here’s looking at you kid.

The fence was falling apart. Wooden pieces loose. Splinters. It was never primed nor painted. Just wood nailed together. Gate was coming off the hinges.

Overgrown bushes in front hid the old house. Bushes as tall as the first floor window. You could almost call them trees.

Brown ivy covered the home. Over the years it’d died on the orange brick. It stopped turning green in the spring time. It had a charm of winter’s death. Shingles hanging on by a screw.

When the old man bought it years ago it wasn’t in bad shape. An older house, built in the late 1800’s. The basement had a dirt floor and cut down trees holding up the ceiling. They were strategically placed.

He never did marry nor seek a great fortune. A teacher of history at the high school. Never showed up at events with a date. Everyone in town thought he was strange. Long beard, long gray hair, an arm that was covered in tattoos from over seas; a green outlined mermaid from his elbow up. Wore shortsleeves in winter time. Took baths at midnight. Read Miller, Conrad, Camus, Sartre and Mellville. But, he never sought his great whale.

And, he let things slip. Or, he never cared to begin with. Lived in that house for forty years. Wanted to sell it one day. Had ideas of buying a ticket to Mexico and never return. Sleep on the beach. Eat tacos and drink tequilla. Seek comfort in a Mexican whore house. Then just move on to the next life; the other side. Maybe he always wanted to be on the other side. Maybe.

The house was falling apart. It was the perfect time to leave. But, he never got that chance. They found him in his bath with a copy of Tropic Of Capricorn at the bottom of the tub. The water was red. His eyes stared up at God.

Like his soul, the house was restored.

Trees were green and lush. Fields freshly planted waited for October’s harvest. Grain silos and barns dotted the landscape.

We drove Indiana’s backroads on a summer’s eve. Amish in carriages being pulled by horses. Pickups passing them by. A kid on a bicycle trying to keep pace. Curves in a winding road taking us across state. We passed cows and bulls. Cemeteries with headstones dating back to another time. Small towns and tattoo parlors. Motorcycles parked out front. Signs that said No Passing.

I looked at the tall weeds on the side of the road. Mailboxes with obscure numbers on them. Did the United States Postal Service even know these people exist.

It was farmland. Our time in it was brief. Though it seemed to stretch for miles. Wires hung overhead. It’s a wonder they have electricity.

Windmills spun in the wind. An American flag on a wooden shed. Front yards an acre long. These people are forgotten.

Nighttime fell. Darkness swallowed us whole. We drove under a quarter moon across the Midwest. Soon there will be light. Soon.

And this land will stretch across country through valleys and mountains. Through The Plains. All the way out west. We’ll be home soon. Soon.

People gathered in the street to watch. Hours were spent talking. Catching up on old times. All winter they stayed inside. Summer nights with windows open made them all a bit curious. Arguments could be heard. Family celebrations observed. So much to catch up on.

The streetlight laid broken in the street. A pick-up truck had hit it. The official word was driving under the influence. Neighbors poured out of their homes and apartments to look at the action.

This driver of the vehicle was known in the neighborhood as being a drunk. He’d grown up on Berry Street and now lived in a one bedroom a few blocks from where he spent his childhood. The firemen pulled him from his truck. The middle-aged man was taken to a hospital as a tow truck cleared the scene.

I heard he lost his job, said Mr. Aleman.

Yeah, I heard that too, Mrs. Shakowski said. Shame. Is he going to make it?

I don’t know his condition, Mr. Aleman replied. He hit that pole awfully hard. There was blood on the dashboard, he said.

So, I see Ben has gone off to college, Mrs. Yablamowitz said to her friend Mrs. Yelton, whom she had not seen since Easter. All grown up. They grow up so fast, she shook her gray head.

Yes, going off to Michigan, Yablamowitz boasted. He’s so smart.

Not too smart, Mrs. Yelton thought. Got that girl pregnant last year. Mysteriously she lost the baby, she looked away at the pole in the street.

What the hell happened? a drunk standing outside O’Reilly’s said to the other.

Some guy hit a streetlight, responded the village idiot. Just flat out ran into it, he stuttered. Going ninety miles an hour, the fool exaggerated.

Well, it’s in God’s hands now.

Slowly the crowd began to break up. People went back to their homes. Moonlight made some sit on their front porches a little while longer. Talking of nothing. Just feeling the breeze hit their faces. Soon it would be daybreak. Folks had jobs to go to. Appointments to make. Fall could not come fast enough.

Looking outside at the red Mustang up on concrete blocks. Rusting. Tires off. A crack in the windshield from his first wreck. That was years ago. Back when he was a teenager. Back when there was an adventurous spirit in him. Now he was just a fifty-something year old living day to day. Downing beers and watching television all night long. Waiting for the good Lord to come and take him away. That’s what he wanted.

He’d drive that car all around town when he was young. Bought it used with money saved from working at the Piggly Wiggly store. The kid would cruise up and down Main Street. Showing off. Looking for women in bars. Sometimes he’d get lucky. Most of the time it was a fool’s errand. A waste of time. You waste a lot of time when you’re young.

Now he stayed up all night watching Gilligan’s Island reruns. He had a big crush on Tina Louise. Had posters of her all ’round his trailer. Had a signed black and white of her from a convention in Dallas. Sometimes at night he’d look at the red head called Ginger and talk to her. Pretending that she was there with him. That the two of them were dancing to slow music. It was Tina Louise he wanted. Not Dawn Wells.

Come daybreak he would wake from his dreams. Still drunk from the night before. He’d call out, Tina. Tina, and then stop. Realizing that she wasn’t there. She never was. He laughed at himself for such foolish thoughts. Then pop open a morning Miller. And, sure enough he was dancing again with Ms. Louise. Holding her close to his heart. Even though she was never there, she never left him.

He told the boy to wait. Wait right there in front of the liquor store. Daddy will be back in a flash. Just you wait.

And the boy waited. Looked at people as they went inside. Men in suits and ladies in tight jeans. Bums begging for bucks. A toothless woman holding a sign that read, Please Help Me.

The boy watched cars go by on Main Street. Pickups and four- doors. Some old rusted out Cavalier pulled into the parking lot. It’s back seat was filled with green and white garbage bags. A child’s toy sat up in the back part of the car. It was a dump truck. A yellow dump truck. Used to belong to the man’s kid. Now he was gone. Got cancer at a young age. The man’s wife blamed herself. It split the two in half. He went his way and she went her’s. The boy watched as the man stumbled out of the car. The man patted the boy on the head and smiled.

Daddy came out with a bottle of cheap scotch and a six pack of Old Style. The condensation seeped through the paper bag. They got into the Ford pickup and took off. The boy kept looking back at the liquor store in the rear window. Daddy opened up a beer.

The hibiscus in the back yard was in full bloom. Kind of a orange and red color. Lush green leaves. He watered it every day in the summer time. Watched it grow. It was his favorite. Loved it more than the orchids he had. Loved it more than the green ivy growing on the fence.

Sweat would pour out of him as he did yard work. Mowing the grass, planting flowers his wife had bought at the market. Piling stones for a retaining wall. A rusted wheel barrow by his side. A mud caked shovel at his feet. A can of Miller High Life in his hand. He would stand on the patio surveying his work. It was the only thing he’d ever accomplished.

He and his wife would sit in the garden and drink wine in the evening time. Sometimes they’d talk. Other times in silence. Just smiling as the sun went down. Waiting for the seasons to change. Hoping that summer would last a little longer. Wanting life to last a little longer.

And fall came. They would sit amongst death. The hibiscus gone. Just a brown stem.

The two of them sitting quietly. Not telling the other their thoughts. Thoughts of leaving. Wanting something more than just summer. The green was now gone.

Angie Dickinson was on television the other night. She was talking to Johnny Carson. The old man was watching with the sound down. Kept calling out the name, Pepper. That’s what they called her on Police Woman.

Boy came home around midnight. Tom Snyder was on. His guest that night was the man who put Charles Manson away. The old man was now whispering, They should’ve killed that son of a bitch. All that tax money wasted, he said. Boy grabbed a Miller and closed the refrigerator door.

You some kind of judge? Boy asked. Think you’re some kind of authority on these matters? he continued.

He murdered a woman and her unborn baby,the old man said. He paused. Did you ever see Sharon Tate? She was something. Got involved with that director. That Polish guy.

Roman Polanski, dad. His name was Roman Polanski.

Didn’t he rape some young girl?

That’s what they say. He left the country. Lives over in France.

How do you know so much?

Read. Watch the news. Educate myself on the matters of the world, Boy got up and grabbed another High Life. The old man turned the channel. Watched the midnight movie. It was Rebel Without A Cause. Starring James Dean and Natalie Wood. The two of them on his television. There was silence.

Be nice if we could hear it, the boy said.

Be nice if you’d leave. Drinking all my beer. Talking to me like I was an idiot. I knew who that polack was. Roman Polanski. I knew it the whole time, the old man stared at the TV. Sal Mineo was on the screen now. You know,the old man laughed, He was a straight up homosexual Sal Mineo was. Bet you didn’t know that did you?

Sure I did. Could tell just by watching him. He walks and talks just like a fag, boy said. He tries to play it straight in Giant,but, you can tell. Least I could.

You gotta eye for that sort of thing boy?

What are you insinuating?

The old man just laughed. He got up and walked back to his room laughing. He closed the door. Boy could still hear him laughing. Laughing at him. He grabbed another beer and walked out the door. The boy lit a cigarette and could still hear the old man laughing inside. Laughing like a hyena. Wild laughter. Like he’d never heard before. Then it stopped. It was quiet again.

The boy went back inside. Silently shut the door. Rustled through the old man’s pants pockets and found a twenty. He quietly snickered. Placed the bill in his wallet and stretched out on the couch. He slept well that night.

The river is lower now. Less threatening. Was way up high. Overflowing the banks. Flooding the farm land. Strange how fields flood then become dry as the Sierra.

Over in Newton County the corn is taking off. Growing higher each day. Sweet corn should be in by late August. Farmers are counting on it.

A body washed up on the banks of the Kankakee just yesterday. A young man. Body was blue; puffed up like a balloon. There was no identification on him. His hair was bloody and muddy from the waters. Holes in the back of his head.

They took him away on a stretcher. The County Coroner later confirmed he’d been shot. Right in the back of the head. Now all kinds of questions emerged. Where was he from? Drug deal gone bad? Did he owe somebody money? Where do you begin?

The sun is coming up over the river and the fields. I’m watching the ball of fire in the sky as summer’s heat turns up a notch. Soon it’ll be noon and the temperature will be close to a hundred.

There’s a section of the banks roped off as a crime scene. Cops looking for clues.

My brother hasn’t been home in a week. Folks tell me he’s up to no good. Said he owes half the county money. Has habits that could cost him.

I didn’t report him as missing. Figured he took off to California, or, somewhere. Wanting a new life. Maybe he found one.

A tattoo said Fearless on her right arm. She was everything but. Took off with some motorcycle gang when she was seventeen. The young redhead liked the way they worshipped her. Like she was some kind of goddess. A virgin hand picked by Zeus to satisfy their needs.

They rode all over America. Her green eyes shined in the night. Glowed against camp fires in Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, on in to California. They’d let loose on Highway 1 all the way down to Tijuana where they’d drink cheap tequila and ramble off into whore houses. Leaving her behind. Sitting on a barstool taking drags from Marlboros. She didn’t belong to just one man. Shorty belonged to all of them.

That’s why she didn’t cry. No one could claim her. Tossed around like a sack of pure white flour every other night. Riding on the backs of Harleys. Confederate flags waved in the air from the handle bars. She felt free. But, not fearless.

Other women in the gang felt the same way. A tough act, but, inside they were just scared little girls. Leaving one abusive father for another. They’re right when they say freedom isn’t free.

Freedom bites you. It kicks you in the stomach. Makes you feel like you want more. More air blowing in your face. More punches taken. Anything to prove you’re fearless.

The tattoo on her right arm said fearless. You decide.