dmseay

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…

He saw her walk through the turnstile up at Columbus Circle on her way to catch the train…he’d seen her before…tall leggy brunette wearing white boots and leggings…like a go-go dancer of old…she had her hair up in a beehive and her lips had fresh paint on em…that was her…always wearing something sexy…provocative…like the tiger print silk scarf she wore loosely ’round her gossamer neck…the old man had seen her in other scarfs…red…black…orange…they always drew him to her tight fitting sweaters which showed off her young figure…how he wished he was younger…how he wished…

His wife was a fashionista…she had impeccable taste…she was a brunette as well…tall…just like her…with emerald eyes…green as the day is long…he used to watch her every morning in front of the mirror deciding which scarf to wear…sometimes he’d pick out two or three of them and look on in delight as she would put on a fashion show for him…walking up and down the hallway in their Chelsea apartment…she’d let him pick the one as she laid them out in front on the bed after she’d skipped down the catwalk…it was his favorite part of the day…they carried on like this for twenty-five years…till she got sick…

And he took care of her…made her soup…ran to the pharmacy for her…took his wife to appointments…he was convinced that if he loved her enough she wouldn’t die on him…he thought this was true…till one day she told him in a hushed tone…,dear…it’s time…

So now he stood alone in the subway and watched as the young lady walked through the turnstile…could it be her…could it be…she caught him looking her way…tilted her head and winked at him…blew him a kiss…he blew one back…and whispered…,I love you…the young girl smiled and said…,I love you too…, as she walked onto the train amidst the crowd…

He never saw her again…he went to Columbus Circle everyday…but…he never saw her again…Goodnight my love…

He went out lookin’ for her…she’d been gone for a couple of days…like the time before that and the time before that…so-on and so-on…it was a recurring theme in their lives…ever so often…say every other month they’d go out and tie one on at the local bar drinkin’ cheap shots of whiskey and cans of PBR…always on an empty stomach…you’d find em out back pukin’ their guts out at the end of the night…weavin’ home in their Dodge pickup truck…cops were familiar with em…

This went on throughout the course of their marriage…ever since she said I do…a Polish weddin’ down at the VFW hall where her daddy was a member…they danced that night…everything from polkas to old Bobby Vinton songs…hired a DJ to spin daddy’s vynil collection otherwise known as the box of rocks…scratches on em makin’ em skip…they’d all smile and clap their hands to the music as the bride and groom did shots on the dance floor…little guys dressed in butterfly ties tried to steal kisses from sixth grade girls behind the purple stage curtin…sneakin’ sips of vodka left behind on tables by their fathers…mothers…brothers and sisters…folks circled up for the chicken dance…a bouquet of flowers was tossed and a mad scramble on the floor did ensue…tin cans tied to the truck…made a rattlin’ sound as they headed out of town to the lake where they’d spend the next few days makin’ wild Polish love….screamin’ and yellin’ into the night as beer cans and bottles piled up outside in the snow…a drunken love…

And they never had kids…sought advice from their parents…the church…a doctor down at the neighborhood clinic…they all said just keep on tryin’…they did…tried all the time…in the mornins ‘fore he went to work at the factory…evenin’ time when he first walked through the door…they spent the first two years of their marriage drunk and naked in the house they rented ’till one day she’d had enough…got dressed and walked out the door…was gone…she wasn’t at her parents…her siblings…no-where to be found…just vanished…leavin’ him in a drunken haze as to what happened…he’d go out and look for her to no avail…called the cops…put up posters ’round town…then a month later she’d come home…said she wound up down in New Orleans and she couldn’t find her way back…that was the first time…second time she took off for Denver…third time Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania…he didn’t ask ’bout the other times and she didn’t know…everything was a dream-like state…a mystery with no clues…just torn dresses and bad breaths…

So…he took off after her this one last time…got to the edge of town and knew she was gone for good…stopped the truck and opened a beer…gave her a toast…then took a drive out to California where he stopped and looked at the ocean…turned ’round and headed back ‘cross country…through small towns and villages…big cities and long highways…pulled into his driveway only to see her there…a ghost of her…wavin’ goodbye…wavin’ goodbye…wavin’ goodbye…