"I've got a one track mind, movin' down a one train line...leavin' the past far behind...going West. I gotta pick up speed, just to get what I need. The end of the line guaranteed. Your love is my rest." - Jimmy Dale Gilmore
Selena slumped wearily to one side in her seat by the window. Her cheek rested lightly on the glass, her breath fogging it just below her gaze to the world outside. Her body yielded in a small swaying motion to the sudden jerks as the engine began to stretch the train back into motion, car by car. Each one complained with a loud clank of the big iron knuckles that joined them together like slaves in a chain gang forced to move on. Selena had purchased a one way ticket going west.
Blackened shacks and shanties passed slowly by. Gritty people here and there stopped to stare, some perhaps wishing that they too were leaving all this behind. Clothes on a clothesline speckled with soot fluttered as though waving goodbye. It all looked so bleak and dismal, and yet Selena felt drawn to look as though it had its own allure. The way the windows must rattle in these places so close to the track. The way dishes and glasses in the dirty cabinet must chatter about the train's passing. The way the train's long wailing whistle must wander through restless dreams at night, and make one toss and turn on the dingy linens. She thought about what it must be like in such a place. What is life like in that shack there? And that one. And that one. And so on, until the view broke away into fences, pastures, and moody sky.
Two grey-haired women, their hair in buns, sat in the seats in front of her.
"Looks like we are going to get some weather," one said, as she looked out the window. It made Selena smile to hear her high pitched trembling voice. A warble of sorts that sometimes comes with age. Like her grandmother's voice. And it was just like something her grandmother would say on a day different from the others.
Eliza Knight stepped out onto the porch.
"Looks like we're gonna get some weather today," she said to her little grand daughter clinging to her hip.
"How do you know, granny?" the little girl said in a small voice, tilting her head up to look at her grandmother's wrinkled face.
"I kin jus' feel it in my bones, I reckon," she replied, running her fingers through the little girl's golden locks as she smiled down at her. "And smell the air, dearie," she added. "That's not Arkansas air there. That's Louisiana air done snuck in durin' the night."
"How come, granny?" the little girl asked.
"I 'speck its come to bring us some of the water from down there."
"Granny," the little girl said, tugging on the woman's dress. "When will Selena come back?"
"Lord only knows, child. But don't you worry none. Your big sister can take care of herself. You'll see her again one of these days. You can take my word on that." The little girl turned her eyes up to where her granny was staring at the sky beyond the wooded hills across the way.
"I hope she is ok," the little girl said softly.
"Are you doing alright back there, dearie?" one of the old women said as she peered back at Selena from between the seat backs. Selena smiled and nodded. What good would it do to say,
"No, damn it! I am a far cry from alright!" She looked down at the railroad map unfolded across her lap. A long line dotted with unknown places that would lead eventually to Albuquerque, New Mexico. There was nothing special in her mind about going to that particular place. It was just as far away from the place she had left behind as she could go on the money her granny had given her. In her mind, any point along the way might find her jumping down. Any train station the train pulled into seemed to have its own invitation as a place to begin starting over. She laid her head back into the niche between the seat back and the window, and closed her eyes. Maybe somewhere in Oklahoma. Maybe some place there. Some place with handsome cowboys. But, who knows? Maybe some rough shod gang of ruthless men may force the train to a stop in the middle of nowhere. Maybe they would abduct her. Carry her away. Maybe by some campfire they would get drunk and want to have their way with her. But, maybe a band of warring Indians might steal up in the night and kill them all, and take her to their village. Maybe she would fall in love with the chieftain's son. A handsome brave who would cherish and protect her. Eventually she fell asleep amidst such musings. In spite of all that she had been through, she was still hoping that love was out there somewhere for her. "You don't have to know what is right for you, before you walk away from what is wrong." That is what her granny told her.
When Selena woke, the train was really flying along. Telephone poles raced past her window. The sudden clanging of bells at the railroad crossings distorted behind her in a fading whine. And then there was just the rapid rhythmic metallic clicking of the wheels along the rails. The rain appeared as horizontal rivers of water across her window. She could feel her spirits rising as the miles passed by this way. Making the dark and menacing angry face she had left behind seem smaller and smaller. Soon he was as small as an insect she could squash with her foot. In awhile she would hardly remember how bad it had been. The heart has a way of licking its wounds.
Selena settled down to a life in a small town in Oklahoma. She actually got a job at the little train station there. At the ticket window. She sent money to help her granny out whenever she could. And she wrote in her letters of a young man that seemed to be coming around more and more often. And how she liked him. She described him as a 'gentle giant'. Her little sister was coming to visit soon. Each day she sat in front of the ticket window studying the faces of those buying tickets. Some faces were lit up with happy anticipation of reunion with some one down the line. Some had the look in their eyes that she once had in hers. A scared desperate look. The train was for them, what it had been for her. It was not the destination that mattered so much, it was more about what must be walked away from. What must be left behind. Without such courage, one doesn't stand a chance. That's what Selena's granny said, and she was right.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Saturday, October 2, 2010
The Last Alchemy
"Chance makes a plaything of a man's life." - Seneca, 3rd Century, B.C.
"We live, we have our ups and downs. We Hope. We wait for something. We hope. We lose hope, we move closer to death." - Andrei Tarkovsky, The Sacrifice.
Jasper Cowans returned to his home in Oklahoma after the war. At least, he tried to go home. As the song goes, "How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree?" In Jasper's case it was simply that, after living through Omaha Beach along the coast of Normandy., the young man that had left a few years earlier, no longer existed. It was as though the former brightness in his eyes had been snuffed out that day. As though the blood that colored his former youthful blush, had been drained away and sucked into the sand beneath his feet that dark day. Forever. He had bitter dreams of a foxhole that seemed to smell like the last of the bottle of Aqua Velva after-shave he poured down his throat in a desperate effort to call up the wildness, the necessary insanity it would require to get up and run the expanse of dead bodies before him. To somehow get to the bluff that so many never reached. Some part of him survived, and that is what came home to Tulsa. And it was too hard there, for what little was left of him, to recount all that had happened to the well-intended family and friends that wanted to know all about it.
"It was pretty bad," was about all he had to say. And so, he decided to go away. How can you speak of blood and body parts? And, how can you ever forget it?
It seemed he drove for days and nights before finding himself on a bench at the zoo in Calgary, Alberta. He took in the many wonderful creatures rather blankly. But then, he had a passing thought about how confined they were in this place. How abnormal, it seemed. He was captivated by their beauty, but felt guilty, as well, to endorse in this way, their loss of freedom. How trapped. And he had a realization then, that he too, had become a prisoner of sorts. As trapped as they were. Frozen in time. And he determined to somehow escape it.
He crossed the border over into the Yukon. The endless miles of wildness seemed to suit him. And, by the time he pulled into the small town of Whitehorse, he was thinking that perhaps he should be a prospector. Gold was all the talk in those parts, and had been for a half century or more. It seemed an interesting thing to do. Pan for gold. Even though he was told that most of it was long gone. It was not about the value of a nugget, as much as it was some psychic quest. To lay hands on something pure and elemental. A kind of alchemy, so to speak. To find something that might purify him. It was not so much the object, as it was the act of trying to find it, and find something in himself he had become separated from.
So, he bought ten acres of land, some eighteen miles out of town, along Bonanza Creek. It was a creek that fed into the Klondike river, which fed into the Yukon river. Creeks and rivers have it all worked out, how to get to the ocean after awhile. For Jasper, the ocean was like the soul he had lost along the way, and he was looking to find it. A hard task, since most people, in losing such, never find it again. And so, he set up camp.
There was an old abandoned delivery truck on his land when he got there. It took several driftwood logs to pry on its rear bumper and inch it to the creek. They kept breaking. But, he eventually had it where he wanted. He would live inside its cargo box. Not luxurious, by any means, but it kept him safe from the bears who came down to the water to swat fish out. He learned a lot watching the bears, and got adept at swatting fish out of the stream himself. And he found gold, too.
In hiking up a slope, following a small trickle of water that led down to the creek, he came across a small outcropping of rock about six or seven feet high. And it was from a crack in this rocky shelf that the water issued forth. It was a small, but steady spill that had created in the rock below it, a basin. A small pool that then overflowed to the creek. He was delighted to see that the little pool was abundant with watercress along its edge. It would make a wonderful addition to his diet of small game, and fish. He scooped out handfuls of cold water and threw it on his face and sun burned shoulders. And then, he scooped up a handful of pebbles from the bottom of the stone basin. And there, in his cupped hands were a dozen golden marbles. Some even larger than that. Gold.
Jasper began going to the assayer's office once a week. From there he put his money in the small bank one block down. It went on this way week after week. Each time he went to the pool, it had spilled more nuggets out. People in town began talking about him as a rich man. But, he had little sense of it. At the bank, the clerks would ask him if he needed some of his money. He would think about it, and then reply that he needed to buy a wheelbarrow, or some new boots. And they would give him some of his money. Other than that, his wealth seemed the farthest thing from his mind. Like he was in a daze. People began to talk about how he was not only wealthy, he was a bit crazy. But, Jasper still hadn't found what he was looking for. And then, he met Delia.
Delia worked in a diner that he went to now and then, before returning to his claim. She was nice to him, but then, so were a lot of people. But over time, and cups of coffee, he came to know that Delia had immigrated from Germany. She was a young widow. She showed him a picture of her young and handsome husband. He had died on Omaha Beach. It took weeks for that to soak into Jasper's brain, and to trickle down to his soul. He had killed many a German soldier that day, as he ran maniacally toward the bluff from the blood-soaked sands. It occurred to him, one sleepless night, that he might have been the one, that killed Delia's love. The one who put the dark hollow in her eyes, that seemed to match his own.
One afternoon, he told her in a scared breath, that he may have been the one who killed Hans. There was no way to know, really. He talked about the nightmare of that day. Confessed how scared he was to crawl on his belly out of that hole in the sand. Talked about his buddy's body parts parts lying all about as he ran with his gun firing so fast, it was hard to hold onto the heat of that steel. She listened quite quietly. Holding his hand. He paused, and took a big breath to regain his composure.
"Jasper," she said. " If you killed him, then you did. You maybe didn't even kill him, at all. But, if you didn't kill him, he would have killed you. That's the way it was that day." She put her arm around him, as he broke into sobbing. He cried big stormy tears he didn't even know he had inside him anymore. She caressed his face, and then kissed his cheek. In that sweet forgiving kiss he found what he had been looking for. And so did she.
"We live, we have our ups and downs. We Hope. We wait for something. We hope. We lose hope, we move closer to death." - Andrei Tarkovsky, The Sacrifice.
Jasper Cowans returned to his home in Oklahoma after the war. At least, he tried to go home. As the song goes, "How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm, after they've seen Paree?" In Jasper's case it was simply that, after living through Omaha Beach along the coast of Normandy., the young man that had left a few years earlier, no longer existed. It was as though the former brightness in his eyes had been snuffed out that day. As though the blood that colored his former youthful blush, had been drained away and sucked into the sand beneath his feet that dark day. Forever. He had bitter dreams of a foxhole that seemed to smell like the last of the bottle of Aqua Velva after-shave he poured down his throat in a desperate effort to call up the wildness, the necessary insanity it would require to get up and run the expanse of dead bodies before him. To somehow get to the bluff that so many never reached. Some part of him survived, and that is what came home to Tulsa. And it was too hard there, for what little was left of him, to recount all that had happened to the well-intended family and friends that wanted to know all about it.
"It was pretty bad," was about all he had to say. And so, he decided to go away. How can you speak of blood and body parts? And, how can you ever forget it?
It seemed he drove for days and nights before finding himself on a bench at the zoo in Calgary, Alberta. He took in the many wonderful creatures rather blankly. But then, he had a passing thought about how confined they were in this place. How abnormal, it seemed. He was captivated by their beauty, but felt guilty, as well, to endorse in this way, their loss of freedom. How trapped. And he had a realization then, that he too, had become a prisoner of sorts. As trapped as they were. Frozen in time. And he determined to somehow escape it.
He crossed the border over into the Yukon. The endless miles of wildness seemed to suit him. And, by the time he pulled into the small town of Whitehorse, he was thinking that perhaps he should be a prospector. Gold was all the talk in those parts, and had been for a half century or more. It seemed an interesting thing to do. Pan for gold. Even though he was told that most of it was long gone. It was not about the value of a nugget, as much as it was some psychic quest. To lay hands on something pure and elemental. A kind of alchemy, so to speak. To find something that might purify him. It was not so much the object, as it was the act of trying to find it, and find something in himself he had become separated from.
So, he bought ten acres of land, some eighteen miles out of town, along Bonanza Creek. It was a creek that fed into the Klondike river, which fed into the Yukon river. Creeks and rivers have it all worked out, how to get to the ocean after awhile. For Jasper, the ocean was like the soul he had lost along the way, and he was looking to find it. A hard task, since most people, in losing such, never find it again. And so, he set up camp.
There was an old abandoned delivery truck on his land when he got there. It took several driftwood logs to pry on its rear bumper and inch it to the creek. They kept breaking. But, he eventually had it where he wanted. He would live inside its cargo box. Not luxurious, by any means, but it kept him safe from the bears who came down to the water to swat fish out. He learned a lot watching the bears, and got adept at swatting fish out of the stream himself. And he found gold, too.
In hiking up a slope, following a small trickle of water that led down to the creek, he came across a small outcropping of rock about six or seven feet high. And it was from a crack in this rocky shelf that the water issued forth. It was a small, but steady spill that had created in the rock below it, a basin. A small pool that then overflowed to the creek. He was delighted to see that the little pool was abundant with watercress along its edge. It would make a wonderful addition to his diet of small game, and fish. He scooped out handfuls of cold water and threw it on his face and sun burned shoulders. And then, he scooped up a handful of pebbles from the bottom of the stone basin. And there, in his cupped hands were a dozen golden marbles. Some even larger than that. Gold.
Jasper began going to the assayer's office once a week. From there he put his money in the small bank one block down. It went on this way week after week. Each time he went to the pool, it had spilled more nuggets out. People in town began talking about him as a rich man. But, he had little sense of it. At the bank, the clerks would ask him if he needed some of his money. He would think about it, and then reply that he needed to buy a wheelbarrow, or some new boots. And they would give him some of his money. Other than that, his wealth seemed the farthest thing from his mind. Like he was in a daze. People began to talk about how he was not only wealthy, he was a bit crazy. But, Jasper still hadn't found what he was looking for. And then, he met Delia.
Delia worked in a diner that he went to now and then, before returning to his claim. She was nice to him, but then, so were a lot of people. But over time, and cups of coffee, he came to know that Delia had immigrated from Germany. She was a young widow. She showed him a picture of her young and handsome husband. He had died on Omaha Beach. It took weeks for that to soak into Jasper's brain, and to trickle down to his soul. He had killed many a German soldier that day, as he ran maniacally toward the bluff from the blood-soaked sands. It occurred to him, one sleepless night, that he might have been the one, that killed Delia's love. The one who put the dark hollow in her eyes, that seemed to match his own.
One afternoon, he told her in a scared breath, that he may have been the one who killed Hans. There was no way to know, really. He talked about the nightmare of that day. Confessed how scared he was to crawl on his belly out of that hole in the sand. Talked about his buddy's body parts parts lying all about as he ran with his gun firing so fast, it was hard to hold onto the heat of that steel. She listened quite quietly. Holding his hand. He paused, and took a big breath to regain his composure.
"Jasper," she said. " If you killed him, then you did. You maybe didn't even kill him, at all. But, if you didn't kill him, he would have killed you. That's the way it was that day." She put her arm around him, as he broke into sobbing. He cried big stormy tears he didn't even know he had inside him anymore. She caressed his face, and then kissed his cheek. In that sweet forgiving kiss he found what he had been looking for. And so did she.
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