dmseay

He’d gone up to the mountains a few times; in search of peace and maybe in search of himself.

Packed his truck with bottles of booze; some whiskey, cans of beer placed in a cooler. He planned on watching the sun go down with a drink in his hand and his green eyes peering out at God’s creation; just wanted to see it all one last time.

It was back in November that he got the news; cancer had spread throughout his body; started in the lungs; years of smoking Camels had done this to him; the old man wasn’t going to stop now. In fact, he smoked more. Drank more too.

The farmer declined the chemo and the radiation. Said he was ready; ready for an afterlife of walking along the side of Jesus and Vishnu. Drink tea in a garden with Buddha. Have peace in his life. Just wanted peace.

So, the wiry old man sat by the fire watching as old gold took to rest for another day. Took a sip of rye and prayed; prayed for forgiveness of his sins; prayed for a family he never had; prayed for a world he no longer recognized.

And, by the time he said Amen sleep had set in. A long sleep filled with dreams; women he’d been with, money that was squandered, jackpots scored on slot machines. He dreamt on throughout the night. He dreamt on forever and ever. Amen.

The old man got tired of trying. Every time he got up the gumption to do something it would just fall through. He made plans; always making plans. Wanted to go to Idaho or Northern California. Maybe Washington state or just hang out in Utah for awhile; didn’t matter, he’d be silent no matter where he went; just keep to himself. He found that to be the best way.

So, he loaded up the old Ford and took off on a trip ‘cross America; longing to see land he’d never seen before; left Vermont in the middle of the night; headed south then west; he was in no hurry.

The retired janitor made it a point to stop and take pictures along the way. He would take shots of old oaks and tall maples in the Midwest. Snapped photos of skyscrapers in Minneapolis; looked on in awe.

All those years of cleaning up after kids had left him a little dough. It was his thought to spend it all; not take it with him in the next life. As he drove, he thought about the next life.

Were the Hindus right? Maybe the Christians and they’re belief in grace had the right notion. Perhaps the Jews, God’s chosen ones who were still waiting for a messiah, someone to come and save us from this world, could be they were right?

He thought about this as he mumbled along to old songs by Conway Twitty, The Statler Brothers, Marty Robbins. The old man believed he saw God at three in the morning out on the highway running through Nebraska; the mind plays tricks on you; at least his did.

As he got closer to Idaho it dawned on him. Was he in search of America, or God? Maybe in searching for one he had discovered the other.

He pulled the pickup over to the side of the road on the outskirts of Boise. Took in a breath and called out to Jehovah, My Lord, my Lord. What magnificence you have created.

The old man could now die in peace. And, that’s all he ever wanted.

The wind whipped ’round Highway 41 last night ’til the early mornin’ hours. There were snow walls built up on the sides of the road….big yellow plows with the state’s emblem on the doors pourin’ salt as they swiftly moved north and south past towns like Morocco…Lake Village…Schneider…small towns with volunteer fire departments and maybe one or two cop cars patrolin’…officers hangin’ out at the truck stop drinkin’ coffee and eatin’ jelly donuts…waitin’ to be called…

JT was up ’round 3 in the mornin’ lookin’out his back doors made of glass as more and more snow piled up on the wooden deck…out in the yard he could make out shadows of animals runnin’ on his property…raccoons…coyotes…stray dogs that’d ran away from home…tomcats callin’….

He poured himself a cup of coffee and went back to the sliding glass doors…he could hear the plows off in the distance…saw the snow comin’ in at an angle…sideways…coverin’ the side of the barn…down the road a bit Christmas lights flickered in the blackness of night…,another winter…, he thought…,lit up a cigarette and cracked the door just a bit…

Down the hall Jessica remained asleep…dreamin’ of easier times…back when she and JT first met…it’d always been tough…but now as they got older the years just seemed to get harder….he slept in his room…and she in her’s…the kids lived down the road a bit…all of em workin’ on the farm that Grand Dad had inherited and his daddy ‘fore that…beans…that’s what they grew along with rows and rows of corn…corporate windmills were out on the property as well…the money just made too much sense…Jessica hated those mills…said it set off the look of the farms ‘cross the county….but her voice was silent…fell on deaf ears…

Soon the sun would be comin’ up…the newspaper from downtown hit the front door and made a thud…,WINTER STORM HITS…,was the headline…,no shit…, JT thought….,no shit…

A few more years from now the kids would be takin’ over the farm….JT and Jessica would be down in Florida…far away from all this…the old man put the paper down and chuckled…,Yeah…pretty soon now…pretty soon…

The wind whistled outside and the sun began to peak through…it was ’bout that time…bout that time…

They’d go for these walks out in the woods…long walks through pine needles…old dead leaves…weeds comin’ up to their thighs…treaded over memories from when they were kids and they used to play out there in the deep forest…far away from everything…couldn’t hear momma callin’ em…nor the traffic goin’ up and down the stretch of highway along 24…they’d been walkin’ these woods for a real long time…

And they’d see these animals out there…deer…raccoons…chipmunks…find carcasses of dogs that’d ran away from home…just like they’d thought of doin’ a time or two…leavin’ this small town behind in search of somethin’ bigger…like out in Hollywood or New York City…Chicago…they’d talk of these adventures that never took place…they just stayed in that small town forever…scared to go off and see what it was like anywhere else…

They finished high school and took jobs…he wound up workin’ at the steele company while she was a cashier at the grocery store…she was real pretty back then and he knew he’d better make his move or some other man would…so…he asked her to marry him one night with a ring he’d bought at the local pawn shop…small diamond…small ring…fit her hand just right…she was real happy…asked her that spring and by winter they were hitched…

Kept tryin’ to have kids…never took place…they’d lost a couple of em…miscarriages…they’d try and try…it never took hold…left her lonely inside…had this void that he couldn’t fill…he’d buy her things…tell her how wonderful she was…until after awhile it’d stopped…the young man was gettin’ older…gettin’ hard inside while she became more and more distant…got to the point where they wouldn’t talk at all…made em wonder what they were doin’ with each other…regrets were startin’ to pile up…blame was placed by both of em…but mostly they just kept quiet…a quiet marriage where no one said a word anymore…just silence…

They’d go for these walks out in the woods…amongst pine needles and dead leaves…they didn’t remember the past anymore…didn’t talk about a future…they just walked…and they’d walk until the sun went down…head back home where there were dishes to wash and newspapers to be read…she’d go to her bed and he’d go to his…seperate rooms…seperate lives…

Yesterday the president got impeached…life went on…neither one cared…it didn’t effect em in the least…just one more day of bein’…just one more day…what did it matter to them…

what’re you getting at…

I’m talkin’ ’bout somethin’ you can hold onto…somethin’ tangible…a person…an object…some Teddy bear when you were a kid…

You’re talking about the impossible…

How so…

We never get that close to anything…people that is…we’re too caught up in ourselves to cling to anything…not even husbands and wives get that close…in fact…they fall farther apart…

But…we all strive for it…we all want it most of all…to be held onto…to hold in your arms…

Not me…not me…

No…

No…it’s not me…I cling to nothing…never have…even as a child never did I yearn for my mother’s arms…didn’t want any part of her…or anybody else…girlfriends…I can do without…friends…not needed…I simply wish to stay alone…alone…

You think that’s healthy…

Yes…considering the alternative…never get too close…never…it’ll burn you everytime…

The truck was parked on the side of the road on the outskirts of Joplin…blue rusted pickup with a busted taillight and a gun rack hanging on the rear window…it’d sat there for a couple of days…drippin’ oil on the gravel…makin’ it black…

He kissed his momma goodbye that mornin’ after she’d made him a big breakfast of bacon and eggs…biscuits and butter…a thermos of coffee to take with him…sat there in his camouflage and ate it quickly…kept his hat off…never wore hats indoors…wasn’t civilized…

So…he drove through town…rifle on his gunrack…Dwight Yokham on the radio…took a nip from a flask he had in his coat pocket…the mornin’ air still stung…

There was a lot on his mind that mornin’…he drank some more to try and forget…hopin’ he could tag a buck…make jerky and steaks from it…maybe some sausage for spaghetti sauce…he used as much of the deer as possible…never wasted…

And he sat out there waitin’ for hours in the cold…hearin’ gunshots goin’ off in the distance…it put him to sleep…dreamin’ of a woman he’d been in love with…dreamin’ of how he left her after she’d decided not to have the kid…he felt real bad ’bout that…real bad…just slept there up in the tree tortured by nightmares…some say she comitted the sin…but he knew they were both to blame…both of em…

The truck was parked on the side of the the road on the outskirts of Joplin…

It was towed away a few days later…

and winter came

darkness…cold

barren trees

winter came.

a child born in the month of December

crying out to the world

he has arrived

this infant

babe

sent to wash away tears of a mother

given to her

naked to the world

they cling to each other

her breath his and his her’s

welcome to this world

this December

this darkness.

and as you seek out light

becoming one with the stars

traveling away from mother’s arms

only to return

to become her breath and her’s his

til death do we part.

til death do we part.

oh December

I’ve longed for you

yet feared you as well

this month of one season changing to next

as I do change

and give back what is owed

in December.

December.

He’d wake up in the middle of the night…early morn…fix himself a cup of coffee with sugar and cream…place some bread in the toaster and wait for it to pop up…fry two eggs leaving the yolk a beautiful yellow like the sun comin’ up outside his windows every day ’round 7:30…he liked to watch the sun come up…it gave him hope…

For years he hated to see the sun…lived in the dark…blinds were drawn…curtins closed…he put newspapers up in the windows of the front door not letting in any light…stayed in bed for most of the day…no human touch nor communication with anybody…just a silent way of livin’…drinkin’ bottles of cheap vodka and cans of Old Style which he’d get at the liquor store when it was dark outside…surrounded by homeless guys askin’ him for spare change…a buck or two…he’d march in and get his booze and then walk right back home to the trailer which was rusting and fallin’ apart…he shared that trailer with his wife and two kids for a number of years…till one day they were gone…woke up in the afternoon and they were gone…his family had left him…driven out of the place by his ways…couldn’t take any more of his drinkin’ and the dark…

There were two little girls he had…two daughters…and his wife was this short squatty woman who had high cheek bones…and Indian right off the reservation out west…he found her in a bar on the South Dakota line years ago…she was lookin’ for a man and he was in search of some kind of comfort…got married in Las Vegas at one of them little chapels…officiated by an Elvis impersonator…had the golden sunglasses and sideburns…said, Thank you very much…,at the end of the service…gave em a stack of cards to hand out to people that read, MARRIED BY ELVIS, on em…they gave em out to friends and kept the rest for themselves…beside pictures in scrapbooks and with magnets on the refrigerator…the wife usd to laugh everytime she got milk…she’d tell the kids…,Your father and I were married by Elvis…,and she’d let out a yelp…

That was long ago…back ‘fore the drunkeness became mean…back when he had a job and he’d take the litle girls for rides in the back of his pickup truck…long time ago…years passed…and one day he was alone…just him and a quarter bottle…cans lay on the floor…some crushed…others not even opened yet…

And…it was in that brief second that he realized he was alone…sittin’ in the dark…talkin’ to himself…he was blinded by a light…a ray of sunlight when he opened the curtins just a crack…he fell back on the dirty carpeted green floor and began prayin’ for help…just prayin’ for some kind of guidance in his life…the light nearly blinded him…

It was in this early mornin’ hour now that he waited for the sun to come up…gave him hope…hope that one day he’d get his family back…

But…there was never a knock on the door…no-one ever opened it to come inside…he waited in sunlight…he waited in sunlight…

He looked at her…sitting there drinking her beer…talking to the fellow next to her…as his ashtray piled up and pint glass became empty…neon lights blinking on pinewood walls and tarnished brass losing its luster over the years like him…like him…

Remembering when he was young…dancing with women…old black and whites showing a man in his prime…not this old toothless cynic of today…not this man introduced to the hardships of life…the smoking and drinking…affairs too many to mention…heartbreaks woven over the course of time…he looked at her…

Her with the pretty brunette hair and high cheek bones…eyes bedroom brown…he wondered if she ever cried…if ever there was sadness in her life as she lifted a shot glass to her pink lips…

We’re in a bar drinking…,he thought…two people drinking…not knowing each other…much like communion being passed…,I wonder if she gets sad…,he said…,Of course she does…she’s human…

He saw her…didn’t think much…a tall blonde with a little weight on her…middle aged…raking leaves in her front yard…he wondered why she didn’t have a man doing that for her…he wondered…

Maybe like so many middle aged people he knew…himself included…she and the hubby might’ve went splitsville…he watched her…she had her hair pulled back in a ponytail…she wore glasses that made her look like a librarian…and she had good form in raking the leaves…put her hips into it…he just sat there in his Sedan watching…smoking a cigarette and watching…

She made him think of his ex-wife…she liked to rake leaves too…he used to help her bag all of em…the browns and golds…rust colored ones and firey orange ones every Fall…they would get done and go inside to warm themselves with blankets as old jazz played on a turntable…nothing lasts forever…

This woman…raking leaves…does she know the allure she has…,he thought…,is she aware….I wonder if her husband ever told her so…

And…sure enough…a tall man…well built…came out and began to help her bag the leaves…they kissed…they laughed…it was like old times…