I went driving late one summer night to clear my mind and let the wind ease the burning in my heart.
Out I went into the night, past the city lights. Far out.
I knew I was getting closer to my unknown destination with every turn made.
The traffic was getting thinner. Then it was a few cars passing every few minutes. A highway giving way to two-lane roads. Two-lanes giving way to streets with no names. Finally, I found the place I was looking for when I turned down a small dirt road. Just me, the sound of insects and the whirring sound of my VW engine. The moon was almost full and yellowing with age.
I slowed to idling speed and turned off the headlights. Immediately the moon shadows snapped into view. Scores of dark than night shadows, the souls of old trees stretching far out into the road, burst in to view. Opals made of moonlight danced in between the irregular shapes and the stones as I drove over and passed the dark, shadowy fingers.
Houses from another century sat quietly in their yards. Their windows empty and dark, save for a kitchen light here or a table lamp there. Saying, we're still here!
I crept along that dirt road; silent...running.
I had passed it before I even realized. It was darker yet than the road I was traveling.
Another road. Disappearing into the darkness on my right. I stopped and backed up to taste it's exciting offer, and found it quite pleasing.
Of course I turned down that road. Immediately covered by a canopy so dense no amount of moon could break through. I smiled into the breast of midnight.
As I languidly rolled down the road there, in the distance, I saw little white objects like fingernails stuck in the ground. I knew in an instant what I had found. I drove up to the entrance of the graveyard spread almost into a cornfield.
With just a second of hesitation I pulled in. Leaning over the edge of my door and with the convertible top down I looked at the headstones driving slower than molasses.
I read names and dates "Olgen", "1886", "Margery", "1901", and on and on. The moon was bright enough to read handwritten directions on a piece of paper I found on the ground by "Edith Viola".
I had to get out of the car now. That paper called to me like cold beer on a hot day.
Standing there in the farm lands enjoying the new company I was keeping. Meanwhile the crickets kept talking about the dying of summer. The fireflies trying to mate one last time and dogs somewhere far off in the distance asking for friends, food, or to be let in before the night sets in.
I walked among these memories. Stepped over love. Brushed my hands over stoned hearts. Sat next to boxes and bones, wondering what they looked like naked and in bed with their lovers so many decades ago.
After I had my fill of fantasy, memory, loss, resurrection, and acceptance I walked back to my bug and laid in the damp grass next to her.
Looking up at the stars I wondered if we both looked good in the moonlight, or just out of place.
After my body became chilled from the dew that had started to form I got back in the beetle.
I turned the key and crept down the road at a trotting horses pace.
"No cigarettes, no sleep, no light, no sound
Nothing to eat, no books to read..." -the hollies
Just being.
And if that wasn't already enough I found what I was really looking for; a small road dead-ending in a cornfield.
I drove up into the crop and parked. I got out and walked right into the jungle of dark green stalks reaching for the sky. Leaves as long as my arm, reached out to scratch me as I passed. Sweetly. Mother nature running her fingernails over my skin.
It was dense. The stalks growing mere inches from each other. I had to keep my hands out in front to move their green fingers from my view with each step.
For some time I walked, maybe in circles. Deeper into the maze of myself.
Finally, I paused in what i thought was my center. Or was it the center of this cornfield.
Dwarfed by the cornstalks. Their very tops glowing white. Thin grains waving about like water from a Grecian fountain.
silence.
calm. no sound.
I thought; the kind of thinking that leaves Earth's atmosphere for the nearest stellar nursery "this is where I find my love". Again to myself, "this is what I do to look within and without. I have to drive. Walk. Explore. Travel to get to me." and yet, sweet little sassy can sit right where she wants and open the page of her imagination. She finds her passion and her loves in her own mind. Shaped discharges of ink on pounded paper can take her away on journeys. Sweep her up in arms of adventure.
I wanted to be like her, and in ways I already am.
I realize that I could not appreciate her, or anyone without being me.
I wanted to know you more. So I stood there. finding us. Who I am. Who you are to me. What this may be all about.
What is magic? what is mystery?.
Monday, February 27, 2012
A truck, some concrete, and destruction.
During most of the 90's I was living in Japan with an occasional guest appearance in America to see this person or that for a few short days, but spent most of my time eating and drinking all the things I missed from the good ol' US of A. Once every two years I would be sent back to the states for a month or two at a time and one November it happened to be Texas for military training.
I decided to drive up to northwest Arkansas to visit my mountain family. On the way up I grabbed Lori so we could catch up on everything. After a few hours driving through rural country sides we hit the family farm to hang out with the matriarch, aunts, uncles, cousins and a random bearded drifter.
As the hours passed and homemade biscuits and gravy were served we found ourselves in the late afternoon. Dusk was coming over the mountaintop as my uncle mentioned that a snow storm was possibly on its way and we should either settle in for the night or get a move on over the mountain passes before it hit.
With only small windows of time for me to be visiting, no less stuck in the mountains we decided to head out. I couldn't take the chance of being stuck for two days waiting for the plows to come through. After all, the military doesn't give a shit about your circumstance, they just want you at work/school.
As we loaded Lori's wimpy little Nissan up with our bags and snacks my uncle said we should put some weight in the back to help with traction in case we hit some drifts or whatnot. We hunted around the yard and couldn't find anything of substantial weight, just old wood planks, stones, and garbage filling a dilapidated shed. Then from behind the shed near the road we found a concrete block surrounding a manhole. With a crowbar and serious "manpower" we preyed it off the ground and left the manhole cover sitting there looking rather naked. Backing the truck up to the almost 400 pound block we lifted it into the truck like carnies coax an elephant in to a cage.
After we waved our goodbyes I started the truck off down the hill and straight into the mountains with the purples and reds painting the horizon.
It wasn't fifteen miles into the drive and before we even got to the first mountain pass that we hit the storm.
It became apparent the snow had already been falling up there for some time as the roads were covered and the trees looked like negatives imposed on the hulking, black backdrop of cliffs and spires. Minutes driving into the snow and the back end began sliding here and there making the curving roads even more dangerous ...and delightful.
About two miles later we saw a Jeep 4X4 off the road with the occupants still encased. The temptation to stop was high but with the slipping tires and the incline we were forced to hold a quick vote. It was unanimous to keep going for our own safety. I knew that if we stopped it would be an all-niter.
I felt bad for only a minute and then the snow really began to fall and I realized that this was going to be all or nothing.
Every time I decelerated to make a sharp turn the truck tires would spin wildly and fishtailing would last for minutes at a time. With my side of the truck leaning towards the mountain and Lori's towards the white and black abyss it became an old fashion horror movie. We finally came to the first mountain pass. It was marked by steep curves and dramatic drop-offs. Each vision added palpable fear to our internal counters. Lori would continually say "Shane, slow down!" or "Watch out, we are getting too close to the edge." to which I would comfort her with a masked voice of calm and say this is the only way we are gonna make it. I knew we could do it, after all I drove bombs tied to 40 foot trailers over maddeningly bumpy desert floors with movie style deadlines for delivery.
As we rounded another bend on the mountain pass we saw headlights pointing down the mountainside. It wasn't very clear with all the trees in the valley between us and the vehicle but I knew in two turns we would come to an accident. What I didn't know at that moment was that the accident was still happening.
As we came around the edge of the cliff's edge the scene of pure terror unfolded; an 18-wheeler was trying to keep from sliding down the embankment with heavy load and all. The back wheels spinning wildly with that sound only hot tires make when in contact with asphalt while the front end of the truck was already over the edge. The trailer had jack-knifed and was taking up both lanes as it slowly was pulled down the mountainside by its own gravity. Like watching a star being sucked in to a black hole.
Lori was weeping and shaking by this point, and inside, so was I. There was nothing we could do about this. I couldn't help this driver any more than I could help the two of us if we slid off the edge. As we approached the back end of the rig I realized that the road was virtually blocked off by the trailer. The only thing open was the breakdown lane for on-coming traffic. There was a little bit of the ditch next to the mountain side as well. If I drove in to the ditch this would be our resting point until daybreak. A razor's edge...illuminated by red tail lights and the soundtrack of screaming tires.
With much protest from Lori I kept the pace towards the trailer and right before we would have collided with the back of the truck I edged towards the ditch and let the tires grab and hit the gas.The truck bolted passed the trailer and didn't get a scratch...but I couldn't muscle the truck out of the groove in the ditch...and around a blind curve we went.
I don't know if the ditch was filled in or the road was worn down but we popped out of the ditch and back on the road swerving back and forth like a fish in hot pursuit of a fly hovering over the surface of a pond.
I gained control of the truck and my mind stopped screaming at me. Lori hadn't yet...actually it was more like a long and loud whimper.
So on we went.
Down the mountain pass and across a valley, but we knew we had one more mountain pass to go. As we drove along the quiet two lane road covered in thick white masking the sound of tires we almost felt calm again. A long cattle fence off to my right and the edge of large pastures played like a scene from the Flintstones where the same images keep passing over and over. We came upon two more trucks laying in the ditch on either side of the road but it was what came next that froze me with fear. I almost panicked but I knew Lori was barely holding on to herself and would sink into a nervous breakdown if I showed even one crack on my cool surface.
There, in the ditch on the side of the on-coming lane, a cop car.
As we passed it I looked at the undercarriage. Still steaming and black with glints of silver. It had slid off a really steep embankment and somewhere inside a cop was sitting in the passenger seat waiting for help.
Not ten minutes later came the apex of all my terror. It was at this point I realized that we were traveling on the wrong night, in the wrong place. Only my amazing luck, some driving skills, and a bit of concrete had kept us from laying in the ditch somewhere along this mountain, or worse, at the bottom of a mountain valley.
The wreck was still fresh. The lights still on and the back driver's side wheel still spinning slowly.
A snow plow, in all its orange glory, lay at an odd angle at the side of the road. The very snow plow sent to save us all from these dreadful road conditions.
I couldn't help but laugh manically. The same laugh I'm sure Custer gave out in his final moments. Lori thought I was having a ball. She didn't realize that I had the same look in my eyes as the guy standing on the edge of the building trying to talk himself into jumping.
A few more miles and several cars and trucks in the ditch we came to the final mountain pass.
No cars in the ditch!
Finally, some good signs. We had come to the longest and most gradual downhill curve you could ever hope for when you are on a bicycle but fear when the roads are wet or icy. The slope of all slopes that could be a skateboards dream or a runaway trucker's nightmare.
I put the truck in second gear and let her cruise down the mountain.
Hundreds of feet in front of us we watched cars and trucks gently slamming in to each other. A ballroom dance for drunkards. Bumper cars for the insured. Some of the vehicles would slip off into the ditch after making contact. Others would go on spinning in circles as they drifted down the six slippery lanes.
Lights all over like the snow, still visible road, and snow covered mountainside like a winter disco.
As I drove up to the small gaggle of cars and trucks currently kissing metal to metal I made slow and small turns into the on-coming traffic lanes and fluttered past them. I knew no one could make it up the mountain to arrest me for driving on whatever side of the road I deemed necessary so to hell with the laws and hurray for survival.
And then, we were down!
Twenty minutes later I saw the lights of a small town through the snow and then a gas station. I pulled in and without a word got out of the truck.
My legs were shaking so bad it felt like a disease. My hands felt like they were experiencing the onset of arthritis from gripping the steering wheel so tight.
I walked slowly into the gas station and bought a peanut butter Twix and said simply to the guy behind the counter "The roads are bad heading to Harrison. Very bad."
The guy nodded in agreement and said goodnight.
Lori walked in as I was walking out and said something that I can't remember but was probably like "I can't believe we made it." or "You are a crazy asshole and I am never letting you drive again."...or maybe both.
I just remember that I slept deeply and dreamt of lights pointing down in to the blackness of hell and the screams of tires.
I decided to drive up to northwest Arkansas to visit my mountain family. On the way up I grabbed Lori so we could catch up on everything. After a few hours driving through rural country sides we hit the family farm to hang out with the matriarch, aunts, uncles, cousins and a random bearded drifter.
As the hours passed and homemade biscuits and gravy were served we found ourselves in the late afternoon. Dusk was coming over the mountaintop as my uncle mentioned that a snow storm was possibly on its way and we should either settle in for the night or get a move on over the mountain passes before it hit.
With only small windows of time for me to be visiting, no less stuck in the mountains we decided to head out. I couldn't take the chance of being stuck for two days waiting for the plows to come through. After all, the military doesn't give a shit about your circumstance, they just want you at work/school.
As we loaded Lori's wimpy little Nissan up with our bags and snacks my uncle said we should put some weight in the back to help with traction in case we hit some drifts or whatnot. We hunted around the yard and couldn't find anything of substantial weight, just old wood planks, stones, and garbage filling a dilapidated shed. Then from behind the shed near the road we found a concrete block surrounding a manhole. With a crowbar and serious "manpower" we preyed it off the ground and left the manhole cover sitting there looking rather naked. Backing the truck up to the almost 400 pound block we lifted it into the truck like carnies coax an elephant in to a cage.
After we waved our goodbyes I started the truck off down the hill and straight into the mountains with the purples and reds painting the horizon.
It wasn't fifteen miles into the drive and before we even got to the first mountain pass that we hit the storm.
It became apparent the snow had already been falling up there for some time as the roads were covered and the trees looked like negatives imposed on the hulking, black backdrop of cliffs and spires. Minutes driving into the snow and the back end began sliding here and there making the curving roads even more dangerous ...and delightful.
About two miles later we saw a Jeep 4X4 off the road with the occupants still encased. The temptation to stop was high but with the slipping tires and the incline we were forced to hold a quick vote. It was unanimous to keep going for our own safety. I knew that if we stopped it would be an all-niter.
I felt bad for only a minute and then the snow really began to fall and I realized that this was going to be all or nothing.
Every time I decelerated to make a sharp turn the truck tires would spin wildly and fishtailing would last for minutes at a time. With my side of the truck leaning towards the mountain and Lori's towards the white and black abyss it became an old fashion horror movie. We finally came to the first mountain pass. It was marked by steep curves and dramatic drop-offs. Each vision added palpable fear to our internal counters. Lori would continually say "Shane, slow down!" or "Watch out, we are getting too close to the edge." to which I would comfort her with a masked voice of calm and say this is the only way we are gonna make it. I knew we could do it, after all I drove bombs tied to 40 foot trailers over maddeningly bumpy desert floors with movie style deadlines for delivery.
As we rounded another bend on the mountain pass we saw headlights pointing down the mountainside. It wasn't very clear with all the trees in the valley between us and the vehicle but I knew in two turns we would come to an accident. What I didn't know at that moment was that the accident was still happening.
As we came around the edge of the cliff's edge the scene of pure terror unfolded; an 18-wheeler was trying to keep from sliding down the embankment with heavy load and all. The back wheels spinning wildly with that sound only hot tires make when in contact with asphalt while the front end of the truck was already over the edge. The trailer had jack-knifed and was taking up both lanes as it slowly was pulled down the mountainside by its own gravity. Like watching a star being sucked in to a black hole.
Lori was weeping and shaking by this point, and inside, so was I. There was nothing we could do about this. I couldn't help this driver any more than I could help the two of us if we slid off the edge. As we approached the back end of the rig I realized that the road was virtually blocked off by the trailer. The only thing open was the breakdown lane for on-coming traffic. There was a little bit of the ditch next to the mountain side as well. If I drove in to the ditch this would be our resting point until daybreak. A razor's edge...illuminated by red tail lights and the soundtrack of screaming tires.
With much protest from Lori I kept the pace towards the trailer and right before we would have collided with the back of the truck I edged towards the ditch and let the tires grab and hit the gas.The truck bolted passed the trailer and didn't get a scratch...but I couldn't muscle the truck out of the groove in the ditch...and around a blind curve we went.
I don't know if the ditch was filled in or the road was worn down but we popped out of the ditch and back on the road swerving back and forth like a fish in hot pursuit of a fly hovering over the surface of a pond.
I gained control of the truck and my mind stopped screaming at me. Lori hadn't yet...actually it was more like a long and loud whimper.
So on we went.
Down the mountain pass and across a valley, but we knew we had one more mountain pass to go. As we drove along the quiet two lane road covered in thick white masking the sound of tires we almost felt calm again. A long cattle fence off to my right and the edge of large pastures played like a scene from the Flintstones where the same images keep passing over and over. We came upon two more trucks laying in the ditch on either side of the road but it was what came next that froze me with fear. I almost panicked but I knew Lori was barely holding on to herself and would sink into a nervous breakdown if I showed even one crack on my cool surface.
There, in the ditch on the side of the on-coming lane, a cop car.
As we passed it I looked at the undercarriage. Still steaming and black with glints of silver. It had slid off a really steep embankment and somewhere inside a cop was sitting in the passenger seat waiting for help.
Not ten minutes later came the apex of all my terror. It was at this point I realized that we were traveling on the wrong night, in the wrong place. Only my amazing luck, some driving skills, and a bit of concrete had kept us from laying in the ditch somewhere along this mountain, or worse, at the bottom of a mountain valley.
The wreck was still fresh. The lights still on and the back driver's side wheel still spinning slowly.
A snow plow, in all its orange glory, lay at an odd angle at the side of the road. The very snow plow sent to save us all from these dreadful road conditions.
I couldn't help but laugh manically. The same laugh I'm sure Custer gave out in his final moments. Lori thought I was having a ball. She didn't realize that I had the same look in my eyes as the guy standing on the edge of the building trying to talk himself into jumping.
A few more miles and several cars and trucks in the ditch we came to the final mountain pass.
No cars in the ditch!
Finally, some good signs. We had come to the longest and most gradual downhill curve you could ever hope for when you are on a bicycle but fear when the roads are wet or icy. The slope of all slopes that could be a skateboards dream or a runaway trucker's nightmare.
I put the truck in second gear and let her cruise down the mountain.
Hundreds of feet in front of us we watched cars and trucks gently slamming in to each other. A ballroom dance for drunkards. Bumper cars for the insured. Some of the vehicles would slip off into the ditch after making contact. Others would go on spinning in circles as they drifted down the six slippery lanes.
Lights all over like the snow, still visible road, and snow covered mountainside like a winter disco.
As I drove up to the small gaggle of cars and trucks currently kissing metal to metal I made slow and small turns into the on-coming traffic lanes and fluttered past them. I knew no one could make it up the mountain to arrest me for driving on whatever side of the road I deemed necessary so to hell with the laws and hurray for survival.
And then, we were down!
Twenty minutes later I saw the lights of a small town through the snow and then a gas station. I pulled in and without a word got out of the truck.
My legs were shaking so bad it felt like a disease. My hands felt like they were experiencing the onset of arthritis from gripping the steering wheel so tight.
I walked slowly into the gas station and bought a peanut butter Twix and said simply to the guy behind the counter "The roads are bad heading to Harrison. Very bad."
The guy nodded in agreement and said goodnight.
Lori walked in as I was walking out and said something that I can't remember but was probably like "I can't believe we made it." or "You are a crazy asshole and I am never letting you drive again."...or maybe both.
I just remember that I slept deeply and dreamt of lights pointing down in to the blackness of hell and the screams of tires.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
alone
I was seventeen and living in Fort Smith, AR for a few months in the Spring of the year. It was a time of transition in more ways than one. Bereft of home and purpose the only thing holding me together was a job as a dishwasher in a drive-in "Mom and Pop" and laborer in a discount home improvement warehouse. I would consider myself at this time something of a vessel lacking content but ripe with potential. I still hadn't read a book on my own for pleasure. Ozzy, Nirvana, and Steve Miller were about the limits of my musical library and I only had an Iron Maiden poster but not a single tape of theirs. I was struggling to pass high school having lost all interest in rute memorization and the desire to play social games. Life hadn't started for me yet, at least not that I was conscious of at the time.
The seismograph scratching away on the scale of my life recorded not an earthquake but an implosion one partly cloudy day as I walked the town roads headed towards the city for work.
I really enjoyed walking and did it quite often even though I owned a baby blue 1968 VW bug. In Arkansas the burbs are not really what one would consider "burbs" having only a Wal-mart and some "mom and pop" stores strung down twisty roads in between grazing meadows and drainage ditches. The expanses between each point of interest was greater than a small kid could wander and what would now require the average lazy American a car to traverse.
Walking along I left behind the town roads for the three lane highway and began the slow ascent up the small hill and around a long bend on that stretch of asphalt. Up ahead was the old, white building seemingly growing out of the top of the hill at the apex of the bend. A large field lay opposite the warehouse and had not a fence, a sign, or any signal that it was anything other then a field with a small dirt track breaking off the highway and running twenty feet into the field. I only realized there was a dirt track because for the last half a mile I was trying to walk on the concrete curb "tight rope" style and this little track broke my winning streak. So I stepped down onto the road and began to walk to the continuation of curb when something in the field caught my eye; a break in the browns of wild wheat and the greens of grass.
I decided to walk up the track to explore. As I approached the dull, flat grey spot my eyes couldn't quite grasp what they witnessed there in the ground. Trying to understand how that object could be there, like a monolith in the middle of a primate encampment, it wasn't until I turned my head and noticed another, and another that I began to understand somewhat where I stood.
It was the most plain and generic of all tombstones my eyes had ever seen. Nine in all. Two merely read the date of death and "Unknown".
Shocked and confused as to why these things were here I couldn't think of what to do, or even what to think about it all. Should I run and tell someone? Build a sign at the side of the road? Was this a long, lost graveyard?
I was without an idea as to how this could have come to pass. My mouth must have hung open for a good length of time since it had become dry.
Finally, I left the field and crossed the highway to a gas station just a little ways back from whatever it was I has just rediscovered. I bought a Mr.Pibb and a Zero bar in hopes that these two comfort treats would bring me back down to Earth and inside my body. I walked to the counter so the old man at the register could ring me up and mentioned what I had found to see what he thought or knew about it.
He remarked that it was the city's charity graveyard, a place for all those bodies to go when there was no one to pay for burial or an unknown body was found. In fact, a few years ago he watched the truck drive up and three guys got out, dug, and laid to rest the body of an old man found in an abandon truck at the edge of some woods not but a few miles from where we stood now.
I walked out the store and looked back towards the field and thought how strange and sad it was that such a thing existed. I couldn't process all of that information that day and went on to finish my walk munching and drinking, trying not to think about anything at all. Emptying my vessel.
A decade passes...
Just the other day this memory came to me in its entirety and I became deeply troubled and moved by the memory. How each one of these people were buried without fan fare. Without a caring escort. That at the end of their lives they were already forgotten. No families called their names out. No institutions claimed their membership. No buddies missed them at their card tables. They had died as alone as their final years must have been.
No money. No heritage.
nothing.
nothing.
For two of them, not even recognition of who they were on this mortal coil.
I wept for the thought of these souls buried on the side of a highway in a field North of Fort Smith, AR. They will never be remembered by name. Not even by me; I hadn't wrote a single one down.
One day I will go back there and sit with them and talk. It is too late for me to comfort them as humans and give them what we all want...attention and love. But I can do it for the memory of their souls.
Today, I am happy because at this moment in time I am thought of and loved.
I don't have all the things I need and I have even less of what I want, but I am alive on Earth and I can still talk and be with you all.
The next time I think I'm alone, that no one understands me, I will remember those nine rock placards and thank all the powers that be I can at least drive to a Walgreens and talk to a teenager behind the counter.
Still make a difference.
Maybe visit a nursing home.
Take toys to a boys or girls home or an orphanage.
The seismograph scratching away on the scale of my life recorded not an earthquake but an implosion one partly cloudy day as I walked the town roads headed towards the city for work.
I really enjoyed walking and did it quite often even though I owned a baby blue 1968 VW bug. In Arkansas the burbs are not really what one would consider "burbs" having only a Wal-mart and some "mom and pop" stores strung down twisty roads in between grazing meadows and drainage ditches. The expanses between each point of interest was greater than a small kid could wander and what would now require the average lazy American a car to traverse.
Walking along I left behind the town roads for the three lane highway and began the slow ascent up the small hill and around a long bend on that stretch of asphalt. Up ahead was the old, white building seemingly growing out of the top of the hill at the apex of the bend. A large field lay opposite the warehouse and had not a fence, a sign, or any signal that it was anything other then a field with a small dirt track breaking off the highway and running twenty feet into the field. I only realized there was a dirt track because for the last half a mile I was trying to walk on the concrete curb "tight rope" style and this little track broke my winning streak. So I stepped down onto the road and began to walk to the continuation of curb when something in the field caught my eye; a break in the browns of wild wheat and the greens of grass.
I decided to walk up the track to explore. As I approached the dull, flat grey spot my eyes couldn't quite grasp what they witnessed there in the ground. Trying to understand how that object could be there, like a monolith in the middle of a primate encampment, it wasn't until I turned my head and noticed another, and another that I began to understand somewhat where I stood.
It was the most plain and generic of all tombstones my eyes had ever seen. Nine in all. Two merely read the date of death and "Unknown".
Shocked and confused as to why these things were here I couldn't think of what to do, or even what to think about it all. Should I run and tell someone? Build a sign at the side of the road? Was this a long, lost graveyard?
I was without an idea as to how this could have come to pass. My mouth must have hung open for a good length of time since it had become dry.
Finally, I left the field and crossed the highway to a gas station just a little ways back from whatever it was I has just rediscovered. I bought a Mr.Pibb and a Zero bar in hopes that these two comfort treats would bring me back down to Earth and inside my body. I walked to the counter so the old man at the register could ring me up and mentioned what I had found to see what he thought or knew about it.
He remarked that it was the city's charity graveyard, a place for all those bodies to go when there was no one to pay for burial or an unknown body was found. In fact, a few years ago he watched the truck drive up and three guys got out, dug, and laid to rest the body of an old man found in an abandon truck at the edge of some woods not but a few miles from where we stood now.
I walked out the store and looked back towards the field and thought how strange and sad it was that such a thing existed. I couldn't process all of that information that day and went on to finish my walk munching and drinking, trying not to think about anything at all. Emptying my vessel.
A decade passes...
Just the other day this memory came to me in its entirety and I became deeply troubled and moved by the memory. How each one of these people were buried without fan fare. Without a caring escort. That at the end of their lives they were already forgotten. No families called their names out. No institutions claimed their membership. No buddies missed them at their card tables. They had died as alone as their final years must have been.
No money. No heritage.
nothing.
nothing.
For two of them, not even recognition of who they were on this mortal coil.
I wept for the thought of these souls buried on the side of a highway in a field North of Fort Smith, AR. They will never be remembered by name. Not even by me; I hadn't wrote a single one down.
One day I will go back there and sit with them and talk. It is too late for me to comfort them as humans and give them what we all want...attention and love. But I can do it for the memory of their souls.
Today, I am happy because at this moment in time I am thought of and loved.
I don't have all the things I need and I have even less of what I want, but I am alive on Earth and I can still talk and be with you all.
The next time I think I'm alone, that no one understands me, I will remember those nine rock placards and thank all the powers that be I can at least drive to a Walgreens and talk to a teenager behind the counter.
Still make a difference.
Maybe visit a nursing home.
Take toys to a boys or girls home or an orphanage.
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