I’m sitting yet again in the breakfast area of another chain motel, eating sausages that I am convinced are filled with sawdust and using a plastic fork to chase runny gravy over a mound of hockey puck biscuits – listening to an old BeeGee’s song over the motel speakers while watching a weather channel that still can’t seem to find the state of Mississippi on their map.
I’m not in a downtown area or an area with ongoing construction work, so most of my fellow diners are tourist types: older women with short blue hair and light blouses sitting across the table from their baldheaded husbands wearing blue jeans and off brand shoes, a tattooed fellow hunched over a bowl of Cheerios, a young couple who appear to be flirting with Goth but have yet to make a full commitment. I suppose we are a fair representation of modern middle America. I head back for that second cup of coffee when a couple walks in with two young children in tow. She’s short and stout, pretty and pleasant. The kids are yawning and still dressed in pajamas. He’s a big fellow, tall, built like a linebacker with a butch haircut. The American eagle on his t-shirt stretched to the extreme across his broad back. Ex-military, I am guessing. He looked like a man who could be intimidating at will. He wasn’t. We exchanged “good mornings” as he waited for me to finish pouring my coffee, They chose a table near me and without intent, I watched as he catered to his family – helping his wife herd the kids through the food choices at the bar, bringing juice, utensils and napkins as needed. Someone had changed the channel to one of the national news networks. It doesn’t seem to matter which one anymore. I watch halfheartedly, my head slightly cocked toward the screen. I notice he is doing the same while waiting for his wife to sit down at the table. We watch as breathless newscasters pontificate about the price of Taylor Swift tickets and the latest buzz about the Barbie movie. Nothing about the war in Ukraine, the economy, the border or true politics. Then the screen lost the little attention that I had committed to it. I watched this young family do something that you don’t see much anymore. They held hands and said grace in the breakfast nook of a Holiday Inn Express. It was a good morning.
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The new preacher offered the standard condolences and took a seat on the old sofa across from the middle-aged woman.
“I know this is difficult but I could use your help with the eulogy. I don’t know if you’re aware but your Momma’s pastor for the last fifteen years passed away a few months ago and because of her health, I never got to know her well. I was hoping you could tell me something about her.” The woman tugged at the sleeves of her blouse and leaned back in her chair, her expression mixed with discomfort and disinterest. “Momma wasn’t close to her kids. We all disappointed her. I can’t tell you much.” He nodded, “I understand. Family’s hard. Just tell me what you can.” “She was born at home, a shack up there in the hills. They called her Tinny as a child. In school, she was Tina, then she was Momma for awhile. When she got older, folks round here started calling her Aunt Tinny and strangers called her Mrs. Bradford. Finally, they just started calling her “the patient in room 138.” The wet snores of the dog at his feet bounced about the room - from ceiling to floor, from wall to wall, from door to window. The rasping fits and spurts brought a degree of comfort. That at least, for a time, as the night aged, nothing terrible was pending - no bumps in the night, no monsters under the bed, no midnight knocks at the door. All is well when the dog snores.
The early darkness of December and the thickness of the forest had nearly consumed any light when the Widow approached the group of women. She walked slowly and stopped before reaching them, a small bundle in her hands, her eyes distant, her silence disconcerting.
The stout lady spoke, a slight irritation in her voice. “Well, did you find her?” I watched as the Widow gathered herself and seemed to look beyond the women into the darkness. She nodded. “She’s dead.” There was no gasp, no hands to the mouth, no tears. The women’s expressions were masked by the darkness, but most turned their heads to the ground as they stood in silence. The Widow walked forward and unwrapped the bundle in her arms. The baby was silent and still. When he was a younger man, he had one hope for old age - that things would be settled. That he could face infirmity with a peaceful mind. Now that he was old, it was assumed that he had all the attributes of an old man. Wisdom and peace tempered by aches and pains - anger and desperation. All things that come with a long knowledge of the world. Now his dreams came folded and spindled in fits and spurts - full of gaps.
When we become old men, we seek our youth; things that are lost to us. We dream of our childhood - forgetting the pain of little boys. The telling of tales seems to be a favorite pastime of men, finding entertainment in them when their brief existence allows. Men pass from this earth quickly and, as a result, find little interest in anything but their immediate needs and wants; their curiosity bound to those things they can see, touch or feel. Storytelling sometimes provides an escape from those limitations, evoking fantasies of faraway places, damsels in distress, magical and absurd creatures, fierce fiends, and noble heroes.
Since the human occupation, I have experienced a few storytellers: aged men around campfires, women telling old fables to small children as they tuck them into bed, men garbed in black on sleepy Sunday mornings, and such. They tend to be full of vigor and passion, bellowing tales of mixed truth, exaggerations and outright lies. It seems that these creatures possess something they call imagination, a capability that escapes me. Those lies seem to be born from this imagination. I see little merit in it but they seem to place great value upon it and use it to a variety of ends. I think most are in love with the idea of being a writer but not the writing itself. It is a hard thing to love. We love the attention, the possible acclaim, and certainly the idea of being paid. I suppose that is why there is such bad writing today.
To produce a work of substance, you have to be a storyteller; you have to love the words and the pictures they paint. Everything else must be of little consequence. Unfortunately, getting published often depends on who you are, your tribe, your conformity to the mold cast by those who profit. If you begin your story with the idea of making money, you’ve lost. If you write solely for profit, well, let’s just say there are easier ways to make a living. We fired our guns and decided it was best to wait for the others to get there ‘fore we started trampling through them woods. When they showed up, we figured a few of us would stay on the road and keep an eye out in case we flushed anybody out of there and the rest of us scattered across them heavy woods and thickets. We was about two hundred yards into the trees when the creek curved back toward us.
We could see where the horses came through and saw some tracks of people walking- appeared like they was walking in front of them horses. We looked down that creek bank and there they were. A man and a woman – stripped naked, laying in the shallow water of that creek. They was abused and their bodies was in such a state that it ain’t fittin to describe ‘em to a woman. ,I’m still on speaking terms with the young man I once was. We’ve always nodded in passing but as the years advance, our conversations have become more frequent. They have become clearer and more concise even though at times they end in little more than nods and grunts of agreement or dissension – he with downturned mouth and mild disappointment and me, myself with a gleam of distant satisfaction that he can’t yet understand.
It’s my job to let the dog out at inopportune times– at five thirty in the morning, seconds after I sit down in a chair or for a second time, late at night, after I crawl into bed. Despite that, I tell him he’s a good boy and in his own way, he tells me I’m a good boy and we get along splendidly. If I’m particularly froggy, I tell him he’s the best dog I’ve ever had. I’m ashamed to admit that I’ve said that to other dogs before but he doesn’t know that and seems to appreciate it so much that I don’t see the harm.
All my inadequacies that are so obvious to others don’t seem to bother him, or the fact that I occasionally lie to him. He is a good dog as far as I know, but I don’t know what he does when I’m not around. I suspect that he has a few disgusting habits, and if I had to guess, I would estimate that he would be a raging sexual predator if given the opportunity. People like to say that there are no bad dogs - only bad owners. Of course, now it’s no longer politically correct to present yourself as an owner, except when it comes to vet bills and local legal authorities. We must now refer to ourselves as pet parents. But I didn’t sign on to be a parent again. There is no coming of age, no level of maturity at which you send the dog off to make his own way in this world. There are no adoption papers, no birth certificate that lists me as the father. He just showed up as a starving young pup on my doorstep; a waif, if you will. Anyway, the idea that there are no bad dogs seems to be common. Some folks like to carry this idea over to people – that there are no bad people in the world. There are those that believe that people are just doing bad things because of bad parents or in the minds of a few - a bad god. I struggle with the whole thing. How can there be bad parents but not bad people or a bad god who wouldn’t delight in creating such creatures? Some folks need people to be bad so they can talk about them and feel better about their own badness that’s not quite as bad as the badness of the folks they talk about. And some folks need good people that do bad so they can justify their own badness without feeling bad. People are confounding. Dogs not so much. Bruce Cameron said: “You can usually tell a man is good if he has a dog that loves him.” Mark Twain had his own strong feelings about dogs: “Heaven goes by favor. If it went by merit, you would stay out and your dog would go in.” |
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October 2024
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