dmseay

You don’t listen, do you?  I say words, full-on sentences, and they go one ear and out the other, he told her. Tell you not to mess with something, and you go ahead and mess with it. You got to stick your nose in it, she looked at the floor. How long does it take? he asked the young woman.  How long till you finally catch on? she placed her small hands over brown eyes. She ran her fingers through black hair. 

What do you want from me? she asked him. I’m trying to help you out. Trying to be your partner. Your wife. I didn’t sign up for this, she mumbled. 

Till death do us part. I can arrange that. The old man went to the closet and pulled out a heavy chain, the kind you place on dogs to keep them in the backyard. He hooked it to the collar around her neck. She sat on the couch, panting, sweating. The young bride knew what was coming next.

He took out a wooden paddle with the words, The Law written on it in red. The old man used The Law quite often. If she said something, he disagreed with, out would come The Law. If she fixed a meal he didn’t like, out would come The Law. On nights when she would not make love to him, out would come The Law. He used it every chance he got. Sometimes, he’d spank her just for the fun of it. It wasn’t the spanking that entertained the old man as much as it was just watching her squirm, trying to run away from him, no-where to go. 

That fear she had was starting to turn into anger. Anger became rage. She plotted. She planned a way to leave. To escape. For her, there was only one way to do that.

In a glass case down the hall of the trailer, he kept a shotgun. It was always loaded. Other than women, the old man had a huge fear of black folks. And, as more and more blacks moved into the trailer park, his fear grew. He wanted to be ready at all times. If someone of color was walking in front of his trailer, he got the gun out. If he heard voices outside, he got the gun out. If someone knocked on the door, he got the gun out. People in the trailer park knew this about the old man. More and more, they avoided him.  They just let him be.

However, one morning, the whole community gathered around the old man’s trailer. A body in a bag was carried out on a stretcher, placed in an ambulance that drove off in silence. A woman stood in the doorway with black hair and brown eyes. She was holding onto, The Law. 

Storage units. Billboards.  Land for sale. Signs that say no stopping or standing. A semi carrying coils. Travel centers with certified scales.  Green leaves overlapping the highway. This stretch of road does not end. Makeshift memorials to those who have died on it.

U.S. 20. Heading into Michigan City.  A town of poverty and despair. He speaks Spanish into his cellphone. Talking loud. I can’t make out what he is saying. But he says Michigan City very clearly  into the mic. I will meet you in Michigan City, he laughs. He goes on talking about a casino. The Mexican plans on winning big. I don’t have the heart to tell him that in Michigan City, nobody wins.

The sign on the outskirts of town says welcome to Michigan City: sand and smiles. Along the way, a plasma center pops up. A Popeyes Chicken sits next to a Fannie May candy store. Travel Inn is on the next street across from a dead-end strip mall. It is a true symbol of the American small town. Brick and mortar left behind. Passengers on the bus do not take notice of the store closings, motels turned to shanties. Everyone looks at their cellphones for salvation. Bare parking lots and a Dollar Tree store. Black girls walking in short shorts. Weeds taller than them on the sides of the road. Debris drifts across the highway.  Sand and smiles.

It is on to another town. We’ll be deep into Ohio by midnight. More small towns and people left behind along the way. Flags wave. Nobody sees them. The driver keeps going. All of this is too familiar.  A trailer park. Gas stations. Farmlands sprout up. A dead dog on the shoulder. The sun is going down. Soon, it will be dark. No one can see without light.

Voices grow quiet. I wonder how the Mexican faired at the casino. I hope he got a piece of the American dream.

There is no definitive statement.  No words. Maybe silence speaks for itself. Time goes by. These minutes that tick in quiet. Makes me think of  rain. Both of us in the rain. Soaked, he said. Rainfall in sunlight. Rays of light. Shining on us. Water glistens.

Asleep. She didn’t hear a word he said. Tubes in her mouth. A heart monitor making a beeping sound. She was still breathing. He held her hand.

Do you remember the last time you were in the hospital? When our son was born? Long time ago, the husband caressed his wife’s palm. He came out wailing like a tenor. I believe he was scatting.  Ripping off jazz notes, he smiled. The green line on the heart monitor still jumped up and down. Waiting. Come on, Father. Take her home.

What are we talking about here? he asked, sitting on the edge of the bed. Does any of this make sense? he lit a cigarette, the room was dark. Logic, he told her. We have to think about these matters logically. Thoroughly thought out. No mistakes, she rolled over on her side, placed her hand on his thigh, moved her finger up and down his leg.

How much money you got? she asked. Think you have enough? she continued stroking his leg, circling the knee.

Got enough. Do you have enough? she laughed. I know. There’s never enough, he told her. Right?

You could say that.

When we first started this thing, I didn’t know where we’d end up. Maybe Montana? Texas? Wasn’t sure. But we made it out to California.  Surprise, surprise, he turned his back on her and looked at his phone. Bank says I got $2000 left before I gotta start working again. I say we spend it all in one night.

I got $500.

That’ll do.

Yeah.

Well. So much for logic.

Sometimes, there’s no sense in trying, he said. It’s broke. You can’t fix it, he told her. People try every day. They wind up making it worse. Ends up in pieces, he looked out the window at their son wheeling around on his tricycle in the yard. He’ll understand.  Not now, but later. He’ll get it, the husband lit a cigarette with a shaky hand. 

Years from now, she said. It’ll take him years. 

Yeah.

Abandoned.  He’ll feel left behind.

We gotta do this. It’s at that point. They both nodded their heads. He looked out the window at the kid again. This time, he was drawing circles in the dirt, talking to himself. Singing a nursery rhyme.  Should we tell him? he asked.

No. I can’t say goodbye.

They left things behind. A couch, bed, clothes, small television, box of Graham Crackers. The couple walked out to the truck and drove away.

Pictures from magazines taped to  walls. Photographs of women in swimsuits, half naked, some biting their bottom lip. Carpets with blood stains on them. Smells of cat piss throughout the house. Twenty felines circling an empty food dish. He sits on a wooden stool, smoking hand rolled cigarettes one after another.

Do you remember when dad drove us up to Cave City to look at diamonds? he asked himself. We all piled into the station wagon and got on the highway to go look at them. Shiny rocks of red, blue, and yellow. None of them were clear, he whispered.  Maybe they weren’t real diamonds.  Just rocks.

Dad said they were rare gems. Said you couldn’t find them nowhere else. Just in Arkansas. The five kids looked on in amazement. Sparkling rocks made them dream of riches. Riches they never touched. 

Nothing is real, the old man said. Just illusions. This, he looked around, this isn’t real. No, it is not. It’s just my perception of what is real, he laughed.

People lie.

There’s nobody out there, he said. Absent. Been missing now for weeks. Used to come out at midnight. Could see his outline in the moonlight. You’d hear his feet crunching on leaves. Now. Nothing. It’s just blank out there. No movement. No sound. Just hear semis in the distance over on 41, he closed the blinds, lit a cigarette. 

He’ll be back.

When? And in what form?

He’s a ghost right now. An apparition. One day, he’ll come here and be in human form. Physical. You’ll be able to touch him. Just like they did two thousand years ago when he walked this earth.

I don’t believe it. I’m beginning to think he’s a figment of our imaginations, he poured two cups of coffee. Offered one to his friend. Opened the blinds one more time. Nothing.

Why are you so concerned about this? He’ll come back when he wants to. When his father says it’s the right time.

He made a promise. I never break a promise. 

You think it’s too late? The whole world has gone to hell in a handbasket. Things don’t matter anymore. Maybe they never did.

Yeah. Maybe, he crushed out his cigarette on the top of a Coke can. I’m going to stop looking. Stop waiting. I’ve waited now for weeks. Months.

Maybe it wasn’t him. Could’ve been something else. Midnight plays tricks on you. You don’t get enough sleep. You begin to see things. Things that aren’t there.

Right. Just seeing things. Life will do that to you. Fool you. Turn your head around.

A dog barked.

He used to love early mornings. A coffee cup sitting on the patio table. Some whiskey poured in for good measure. 

Tall grass waved in the breeze. Sand leading out to the lake was still cool on calloused feet as light broke darkness. A kid’s castle destroyed by morning’s tide.

I used to watch from my bedroom window. Sometimes, I could hear him talking. Mumbling about how it used to be. Days of war. A flag flown overhead.

In afternoons, hot dogs were grilled. White smoke going up to the heavens. A new pope had been elected, the old man said. Pope Grandpa the 1st, he proclaimed. Then he he’d bless us with his steady hands. We all laughed. Highball glasses replaced coffee cups.

A bonfire on the beach was our nightly ritual. Grandmother and Grandfather sitting on folding chairs sinking into the sand. Singing old songs.  The ones Sinatra sang. Burnt wood left behind.

Down the hall at midnight, I’d hear him crying, talking out loud. Saying, one day, this will all be over. One day.

A hunter followed me to Walden Pond, where tall oaks casted shadows, and pine needles covered the ground.

I heard him behind me on I-95 going south to Baltimore only to turn around and head north to Philadelphia where statues in parks whispered my name.

He chased me in New York all over town, from the Bronx Zoo to Washington Square. Yelled at me on the 6 train going to Brooklyn; a mad man beating a drum. Never was there solace.

In Maine, looking out at the Atlantic, I thought there was peace. His waves crashed against rocks, and seagulls flew over.

I watched as sunlight grew dark. The radio played jazz from another time. WKCR remembered Miles Davis. And so did I. Peace had come. I was no longer hunted.   

Have you ever been to Oakland?

No. Not physically.

Spirituality?

Sort of.

How do you mean?

I fell in love with this woman on the phone. We used to talk every day. Sometimes, till three in the morning. Talking on the phone. A couple of thousand miles away. It’s amazing how hearts reach that far. 

They say Oakland has a lot of crime.

Couldn’t tell you. We didn’t talk about crime. Talked about meeting one day. No more of this phone stuff.

Why didn’t you drive out there?

To Oakland?

Yeah.

Too scared of truth.