I wrote this a few weeks ago for Ash Wednesday:
Once upon a time, there was a tree living in the countryside. Besides the harsh winters, the tree enjoyed his environment very much. The land was full of good hills to block fierce winds, there were plenty of fresh streams, and the sun’s loving rays fell on this land gently in the spring, summer and fall. And, on top of that, there was plenty of company for the tree. He was surrounded by mighty oaks and tall pines, rivers were surrounded by willows and to the south was another grove of hickory and maple.
Ever since this tree was a young sapling, he longed to be like the other trees of the land – especially the oak. He saw the mighty strength of the oak and the vibrant colors in the fall, and the tree became fascinated with power and riches. He longed day and night to join their company – to be admired for his strength, prominence and adornment. So, daily, he would walk the woods trying to impress the mighty oaks, flexing his branches and standing firm upon his trunk. And the oaks were very impressed indeed. They gave him plaques and honors and made him a member of the Mighty Oak Club.
Well, these achievements lasted for a while, but soon the tree started to notice that the tall pine trees seemed even more wonderful. They never lost their decoration and their pliable limbs moved gracefully in the wind and held the snow with such majesty that the little tree was determined to be just like them. So, he began searching the ground for needles. And, eventually, he had enough needles to clothe himself. Then, the pines started to notice him and give him attention. The other trees also started to praise him, and the tree said to them, “Oh, little old me. I am nothing special. Just another tree.” But, in his heart, he was delighted, and when the people came to celebrate Christmas, they choose him as the tree to decorate. He was overwhelmed with joy.
But, after Christmas, the tree grew sad again, longing to be noticed and appreciated. So, he decided he would become a willow tree – and a weeping willow at that. He watched the willows for days and days, and over time, he too learned how to sag his branches. It wasn’t long before people started saying, “Now, look there: There is a willow that is full of piety and humility. Why he has not raised his branches to the sky in months now.” And the tree had to try as hard as he could to keep from smiling.
By the summer, while the other trees of the land were trying to resist the heat by remaining still and lying quietly next to streams, the tree began looking for the next audience he could impress. He had already won the favor of the oaks and pines and willows and maples and beech trees. So, he started roaming the land day after day. Every where he went he adapted and changed to impress the trees of the forest. And one by one, the trees clapped and bowed and saluted.
But one fine day, late in the summer, the tree came home to rest for the evening. And as he was preparing his costume for the next day he suddenly heard a voice from the sky calling out to him.
“Little tree, little tree, do you not know? Have you not heard? Have you not bee told? You were not created for your own glory. You were created by me – to bring glory to my name for your own satisfaction.”
And the little tree hid behind his branches, and began to plead, “But, my maker, I have learned so much, and seen so much, and …”
But, before the little tree could go any further the voice interrupted him again and said, “Little tree, you have broken my heart. Did you not know that you have only one audience? And that audience is me. And I have loved you from the day you were planted. I have loved you in your sapling days, and I loved you during the coldest frost and bitterest wind. I nourished you and fed you with my love.”
And, the little tree thought he heard a sniffle and a sob.
“Little tree,” the voice said again, “you’ve spent so much time trying to win the approval of others, you’ve neglected yourself … and you’ve forgotten me. Little tree, don’t you know? You are a fruit tree, but since you have spent so much time vigorously seeking the praise of others, you have cultivated no roots, no inner strength, and – alas – no fruit. Little tree, you’ve forgotten why I made you.”
And with this, the little tree could no longer be mistaken. A mighty sob resounded throughout all of heaven and a steady stream of rain began to fall on the tree.
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Showing posts with label short story. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Thursday, May 08, 2008
A Day in the Life of Charles Widmore
I wrote the following piece as a way to coax myself to sleep ... that it did not do, but it was fun to write. It is, like all forms of art, partly me and partly my imagination.
A Day in the Life of Charles Widmore
by Wes Kendall
It was in that chair where he often ended his days – landing there in both triumph and defeat, as though his survival were victory. For arriving to that part of the day meant – at last – that something was reserved for him, a type of spiritual attic for his soul that had been refinished for his escape and salvation.
He let his head roll back the cushioned foam, feeling the texture as a way to root himself. Material and sensuality were his saving grace after long days of cerebral exercise.
Charles, as one of the untold unknowns working to secure accounts and build profit, managed to fix himself to a great wheel that had spun and would spin through human history. Supply and demand, market forces: whatever it was, it was mostly devilish and brutal to any soul – like the medieval wheels that slowly, surely tore men from their own bodies.
For Charles, it was particularly cruel, repressing his once passionate soul beneath wave upon wave of figures and reports. Many days he was not at all sure that the computer he worked at for the majority of the day had not spread some virus through the keyboard into his body, eliminating most of his humanity. His work was a symbiosis of subtle death, a virus he was sure had been let in by his own fear. He began this career not knowing what else to do with his life; he only knew that college lay behind him and life’s hard knocks before him.
By the time Charles returned home from work, his mind taxed and his eyes worn dull by two twenty inch wide windows of digital information, he was the equivalent of a calculating brain, an awful thing, totally unlike the observing eye that Thoreau had proclaimed as the goal of true humanity.
Such a state - that is being all brain with a soul buried somewhere in its recesses – was, of course, a terrible condition to be in for any environment, but most of all for home. This was a fact that Charles realized almost every evening as he emerged out of his car, passed unobserving through his garage and into his house, where his wife and two children usually lay in waiting in a state of near emergency, needing significant attention.
At work the crisis was always something distant, or – otherwise – something in his mind, but it was always internal. At home, crisis became external, and it forced him into action in ways he was not prepared for. He always felt foolish and inept, dropping his bags by the door, shamefully slipping by his wife and kids with only half cognizance, hurriedly changing out of his suit and dress shoes into something moderately comfortable, then reemerging with hopes that his bedroom closet might serve like some phone booth to transform him into something other than who he was.
On his better days, Charles was able to do just that, morphing from calculating and decisive into sensual and playful – letting his son climb upon his back while tousling his daughter’s hair at the table. On his very best days, he even stood with his wife in the kitchen, helping her prepare the evening meal, talking through the day’s highlights, thumbing through the mail with vague interest. If he was lucky, there was no significant issue that would need to be resolved at dinner, no bill that needed explaining or reviewing, no issue with the children that would require his intervention.
On his worse days, Charles was nothing – a vague shadow in the house, a fact that only compounded his wife, Mary’s, own exhaustion from holding a house together. His lack of engagement pushed the whole system into a sense of chaos, each person in the family seeking some way to assert its needs and desires as each felt the horrible dependency of being around people who needed community or independence, and were instead mired in the malaise of a crowded, unsettled room.
Typically, he bounced somewhere between the good days and the bad days, doing just enough to hold his wife’s anger and exhaustion at bay while engaging his children’s longing for continued stimulation. This too, though, was a performance, and it wore him down, which only made his soul stretch beyond the moment, into that place where he might find rest and leisure.
When he did arrive alone to his chair, he was so worn thin and the days usefulness so past, that he preferred to expedite his settling back into his body through alcohol. The nightly cocktail thus became medication to slow his mind and bring back his senses. By the end of the night, though, he was not unaccustomed to pushing beyond the harmony of spirit and body into a prolonged buzz of delayed, slurred feeling.
It was a habit he acquired in college, one he learned as a way to deal with the infinite stress and anxiety placed upon him through academics and society. These escapes began as a volcanic release, usually ending in dark tours into oblivion over a toilet. But, with time and the prolonged reality of his uprooted soul, he had learned to drive away the madness through subtler forms of numbing and forgetting, his first choice being two stiff glasses of Johnny Walker, the second without the ice.
By the time Charles reached his thirties, sleep would not come at all quickly. Shortly after drifting near subconscious, he would awake – sensing that something inside of him was agitated, unfixed, disturbed, like a planet let loose from its orbit with unknown and ominous consequences.
When he was a child, his mother would calm this rising tide, this sea of tumult. The very rhythms of her voice would move into his soul as her hand rubbed his back and he let his head find its way back to earth. She had the power to force the demons away, or at least turn Leviathan back into the deeper waters.
Now, as a man with his own children to sooth, he was unable to unearth mercy or healing in such profound measures for himself. He sought other voices – sirens – to fill that space and serve that function. Some nights it was jazz. Other night: blues. Some nights it was Motown – Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke. Whoever it was, he preferred an artist who had at least wrestled with the devil and with God. He claimed you could tell whether an artist had really done their homework if you could picture the devil and God warring to determine the outcome of an album. Would it end in harmony and reconciliation, or would it descend into dissonance and chaos? This is how Charles measured music. He thought himself quite a critic, but he knew – deep down – that this was one of the passions that he had never truly embellished.
This evening he choose to listen to Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear, one of Marvin’s most personal – written as a testament and release to a marriage that had fallen apart. With the alcohol warming Charles' cheeks, he closed his eyes, and listened as the music took him through agony and longing. He remembered a fragment of a poem he had read earlier in the week, something about the way that even joy in old age can become sorrowful, the way memories can dull in the mind while continuing to pierce the heart. And, with that lingering thought, he tried to let his body let go of the world. His wife encouraged him to try certain exercises to aid his release – picturing himself holding specific pieces of paper, persons and conversations from the day, then letting them drop, watching them float into a waste basket, trusting that they are gone. “Today has had enough troubles of its own,” she would say. “Let them go. Tomorrow will worry about itself when we get there.”
With that advice, he busily moved through his morning, watching the numbers fall off his computer like molten pieces, burning down his desk and cooling on the floor. He saw his boss enter with the stern look of a mortician, but in Charles’ mind, his boss never made it half way across the room. Instead, he dissipated into sand and fell into a pile on the carpet.
Occasionally, Marvin’s voice sang out, “When did you stop loving me; when did I stop loving you?” And Charles’ mind would become fixated on something deeper in his core. Dismissing it he moved on, but his focus upon the day was itself now disintegrating. He looked around the room, for once feeling as though he was actually occupying it, letting his head nod to the synthesizer playing within the music, singing out loud, “Sometimes my eyes were red as fire … intoxicated … sometimes the spirit was moving on me … I’m gone … I’m gone … and I’m gone … and I’m gone … You have won the battle. Oh, but dad is going to win the war.”
A slight smile finally crept across his face, as though he were finally satisfied to realize something that no one else knew. And with that he let the empty crystal glass rest on the table next to his sofa chair, tucked the recliner back into itself and stood up upon the cold, dark, hard wood floor, letting himself feel the ground beneath his feet, letting his head rest as a piece of his body, and nothing more.
For Charles, it was particularly cruel, repressing his once passionate soul beneath wave upon wave of figures and reports. Many days he was not at all sure that the computer he worked at for the majority of the day had not spread some virus through the keyboard into his body, eliminating most of his humanity. His work was a symbiosis of subtle death, a virus he was sure had been let in by his own fear. He began this career not knowing what else to do with his life; he only knew that college lay behind him and life’s hard knocks before him.
By the time Charles returned home from work, his mind taxed and his eyes worn dull by two twenty inch wide windows of digital information, he was the equivalent of a calculating brain, an awful thing, totally unlike the observing eye that Thoreau had proclaimed as the goal of true humanity.
Such a state - that is being all brain with a soul buried somewhere in its recesses – was, of course, a terrible condition to be in for any environment, but most of all for home. This was a fact that Charles realized almost every evening as he emerged out of his car, passed unobserving through his garage and into his house, where his wife and two children usually lay in waiting in a state of near emergency, needing significant attention.
At work the crisis was always something distant, or – otherwise – something in his mind, but it was always internal. At home, crisis became external, and it forced him into action in ways he was not prepared for. He always felt foolish and inept, dropping his bags by the door, shamefully slipping by his wife and kids with only half cognizance, hurriedly changing out of his suit and dress shoes into something moderately comfortable, then reemerging with hopes that his bedroom closet might serve like some phone booth to transform him into something other than who he was.
On his better days, Charles was able to do just that, morphing from calculating and decisive into sensual and playful – letting his son climb upon his back while tousling his daughter’s hair at the table. On his very best days, he even stood with his wife in the kitchen, helping her prepare the evening meal, talking through the day’s highlights, thumbing through the mail with vague interest. If he was lucky, there was no significant issue that would need to be resolved at dinner, no bill that needed explaining or reviewing, no issue with the children that would require his intervention.
On his worse days, Charles was nothing – a vague shadow in the house, a fact that only compounded his wife, Mary’s, own exhaustion from holding a house together. His lack of engagement pushed the whole system into a sense of chaos, each person in the family seeking some way to assert its needs and desires as each felt the horrible dependency of being around people who needed community or independence, and were instead mired in the malaise of a crowded, unsettled room.
Typically, he bounced somewhere between the good days and the bad days, doing just enough to hold his wife’s anger and exhaustion at bay while engaging his children’s longing for continued stimulation. This too, though, was a performance, and it wore him down, which only made his soul stretch beyond the moment, into that place where he might find rest and leisure.
When he did arrive alone to his chair, he was so worn thin and the days usefulness so past, that he preferred to expedite his settling back into his body through alcohol. The nightly cocktail thus became medication to slow his mind and bring back his senses. By the end of the night, though, he was not unaccustomed to pushing beyond the harmony of spirit and body into a prolonged buzz of delayed, slurred feeling.
It was a habit he acquired in college, one he learned as a way to deal with the infinite stress and anxiety placed upon him through academics and society. These escapes began as a volcanic release, usually ending in dark tours into oblivion over a toilet. But, with time and the prolonged reality of his uprooted soul, he had learned to drive away the madness through subtler forms of numbing and forgetting, his first choice being two stiff glasses of Johnny Walker, the second without the ice.
By the time Charles reached his thirties, sleep would not come at all quickly. Shortly after drifting near subconscious, he would awake – sensing that something inside of him was agitated, unfixed, disturbed, like a planet let loose from its orbit with unknown and ominous consequences.
When he was a child, his mother would calm this rising tide, this sea of tumult. The very rhythms of her voice would move into his soul as her hand rubbed his back and he let his head find its way back to earth. She had the power to force the demons away, or at least turn Leviathan back into the deeper waters.
Now, as a man with his own children to sooth, he was unable to unearth mercy or healing in such profound measures for himself. He sought other voices – sirens – to fill that space and serve that function. Some nights it was jazz. Other night: blues. Some nights it was Motown – Marvin Gaye and Sam Cooke. Whoever it was, he preferred an artist who had at least wrestled with the devil and with God. He claimed you could tell whether an artist had really done their homework if you could picture the devil and God warring to determine the outcome of an album. Would it end in harmony and reconciliation, or would it descend into dissonance and chaos? This is how Charles measured music. He thought himself quite a critic, but he knew – deep down – that this was one of the passions that he had never truly embellished.
This evening he choose to listen to Marvin Gaye’s Here, My Dear, one of Marvin’s most personal – written as a testament and release to a marriage that had fallen apart. With the alcohol warming Charles' cheeks, he closed his eyes, and listened as the music took him through agony and longing. He remembered a fragment of a poem he had read earlier in the week, something about the way that even joy in old age can become sorrowful, the way memories can dull in the mind while continuing to pierce the heart. And, with that lingering thought, he tried to let his body let go of the world. His wife encouraged him to try certain exercises to aid his release – picturing himself holding specific pieces of paper, persons and conversations from the day, then letting them drop, watching them float into a waste basket, trusting that they are gone. “Today has had enough troubles of its own,” she would say. “Let them go. Tomorrow will worry about itself when we get there.”
With that advice, he busily moved through his morning, watching the numbers fall off his computer like molten pieces, burning down his desk and cooling on the floor. He saw his boss enter with the stern look of a mortician, but in Charles’ mind, his boss never made it half way across the room. Instead, he dissipated into sand and fell into a pile on the carpet.
Occasionally, Marvin’s voice sang out, “When did you stop loving me; when did I stop loving you?” And Charles’ mind would become fixated on something deeper in his core. Dismissing it he moved on, but his focus upon the day was itself now disintegrating. He looked around the room, for once feeling as though he was actually occupying it, letting his head nod to the synthesizer playing within the music, singing out loud, “Sometimes my eyes were red as fire … intoxicated … sometimes the spirit was moving on me … I’m gone … I’m gone … and I’m gone … and I’m gone … You have won the battle. Oh, but dad is going to win the war.”
A slight smile finally crept across his face, as though he were finally satisfied to realize something that no one else knew. And with that he let the empty crystal glass rest on the table next to his sofa chair, tucked the recliner back into itself and stood up upon the cold, dark, hard wood floor, letting himself feel the ground beneath his feet, letting his head rest as a piece of his body, and nothing more.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Hope
Several people inquired into my mental health after I posted "Poverty" a few weeks ago. Some were even close to checking me in for monitoring and psychological evaluations. Okay, you were right. That was dark.
Without trying to convince you that I am not deeply depressed, I do want to say briefly that writing is therapeutic for me. So, writing those thoughts helps me expunge the emotions that otherwise might take me down.
Anyhow, I owe it to you, and - more importantly - myself to go in the other direction tonight. So, here you go.
I got home on Tuesday afternoon in a vibrant mood. The sun was out, a caressing, uplifting surprise - especially given that a remnant of a serious snow fall still lingered in those places in our roof that escaped solar elimination. That same snow fall also brought the usual filth and grime that accumulates on curbs and cars. So, I took the opportunity to take Wyatt over to the local car wash - hoping he would enjoy the chance to spray winter away as much as I would.
I figured there would be a good many cars at the car wash. There were and there weren't. The car wash included four bays for manual washing, and one automatic run through. Each was filled, but there were no other cars waiting anywhere. Upon turning into the car wash, I faced a probability game, and logically pulled in behind a blue Chevy pick-up that I felt was far cleaner than most others.
I've been to the car wash enough this season to know that each car typically requires seven or so minutes of washing. By the looks of the Chevy, I figured there was maybe two minutes left of quarters. Playing Mr. Cool and Super Dad altogether, I leisurely put the parking break on, got out of the car, went around to the other side and cradled Wyatt out of his protective shell of a car seat.
I then took him over to the coin machine, and deposited three singles into the slender opening - trying to explain the absurd and magical wonder of how one dollar equals four quarters. After I had multiplied three to make twelve, I strolled back to my car, expecting the Chevy to be gone.
Instead, I found the woman who also had a small girl with her applying a soapy foam with a brush, a technique which meant there were many more minutes of waiting ahead of me. Sure enough, as the woman continued to cleanse her truck, other bays began to empty. I contemplated trying to maneuver my car such that I could steal the opening - much like we all do at the grocery store. Then, I thought better.
Parking my need for expediency, I simply sat watching the woman thoroughly extinguish the dirt, from inside the deep caverns of the wheel, off the bumper. Meanwhile, I also began to watch the small community of folk who were now going about their own rhythms with efficient anonymity: the young "Jack and Dianne" couple in the Ford Probe, the Latino brothers or cousins in the ark-like American cruiser, the blue collar man digging in his car for quarters.
A car pulled up even behind me, setting the deepest queue at two. And still the woman continued to spray her Chevy as though it would never see a speck of dirt again. By this time, I had given up on my need for progress and had settled into the pleasant confines of release. Wyatt lay comfortably on my chest. I had been calming and soothing him of his fear of the whirling brush in the automatic vacuum that looked somewhat like a Sesame street character in a tornado. His initial fear turning into a soothing posture of dependency and trust.
Maybe that is what won the woman over. I do not know. I never saw her take a long look at me and my child. Her attention was perpetually upon the sole duty of cleansing, so much so that I began to wonder if she would ever break the cycle. The blue paint on her truck sparkled brilliantly, and she even took a solid minute to spray away the dirt that lingered at the based of her freshly groomed industrial horse - an act I took as both economically stupid and immeasurably centered. I was doing much more than waiting by now. I was watching, learning even. Which is precisely why I was more awed than aghast when I saw her reaching into her jeans for what I already knew contained a wellspring of quarters.
She headed over to a small panel that looked something like the display of a pay-phone, and, just out of line of my vision, began to eliminate the bundle in her hand.
I was mystified by this point, ready to expect anything. But, somehow, I knew precisely what she was doing, and I couldn't do anything except just accept it for what it was: grace.
And that is what I found as I rolled our little car into the washing bay: eight minutes and twenty three seconds of grace put into my life's clock. That's probably just about the same amount of time I sat there with my son watching the world go by, and enjoying the beautiful day. That's what she bought me. Not a free car wash. She bought me time, the very thing I am working against so often, the very thing I seek to wrestle into my own terms and hopes.
That's quite a gift. I'm just sorry I could only leave five minutes and twenty eight seconds for the next guy.
Wes
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Tornado
A tornado - or three - blew through Owensboro last Thursday, doing some pretty significant damage to the historic regions of this city. Third Baptist Church had its steeple collapse inward to the sanctuary - a terrible blow that could have been much, much worse considering there were people in the sanctuary who vacated a mere five minutes before the collapse.
That day was a bizarre day in general, and I had intended to publish a blog that night about one of the strange occurrences. It didn't happen; but here it is ...
---------
By the time I was ready to leave the home of a church parishioner, the rain was dropping in sheets and wind was howling across the eastern hills of Daviess County. I had arrived around 3:30 pm in the afternoon to give a 3rd grade girl a bible – a bible we had intended to give her back in August. Family travels had kept them away from the church and poor excuses and old routines had kept me away from them.
Wyatt – bless his soul – traveled the fifteen or so miles out into the county to visit this girl and her mother – screaming for two-thirds of the journey. Two motives drove me to take him along with me: Anna’s need to prepare our home and a meal for guests and my desire to make this bible presentation as overtly family oriented as possible.
Wyatt was a good companion – only a minor distraction from time to time. Although he did find it terribly frustrating to get a lock on the family cat only to have it evade his affection.
And I can’t say that my attention was always focused. There is a disorienting awkwardness about entering a family’s home under the pretenses of pastoral work. But despite the timid nature of both parties, we made well at conversation.
I was welcomed by a young girl at the door. Her mom had told me that her daughter was terribly excited about this, and as I entered, I wondered what the girl was hoping or expecting. I needn’t wonder long; her eyes spoke truth. She focused her vision firmly on the burgundy book with minor gold lettering tucked into a corner on the front.
I was carrying a mystery of magic – some wonderful book that she knew not much about except that it had deep, profound worth to certain people, I being one of those.
After some good discussion about school and about pets, I asked her and her mom where she liked to read in the house. This inquiry threw her a bit – not sure if that secret was okay to reveal to me, a relative stranger. Her mom encouraged her: “you like to read in here,” (referring to the living room), “and in your bedroom.” Not wanting to gift God’s word to her in a realm that was too personal, I proceeded then and there to briefly express the beauty, truth and marvel that is scripture. “This is a light, a way to see as you journey through life. This is a seed planted, a seed that can grow to produce peace, joy, patience and kindness. It is not an easy book to read. Some of it is quite confusing. But, it is our story. And, if you ever have any questions, you know you can ask your parents. And you can ask Jonathan or me. You can ask your Sunday school teachers.”
After I stammered this out, the girl took the bible in her own hands – clasping it as though it were her highest prize. Before I left, she dug out three other bibles that were buried beneath some other books near a shelf in the dining room. She wanted me to know they had others. And she told me how she had just watched Evan Almighty, and how she knew the story of the ark. “Genesis 6:13,” she said. “That was the verse in the movie. Genesis 6:13.” And with the bible now in her possession, she hunted the chapter and verse down and read in her naively trusting voice, “Then God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and now I am going to destroy them with the earth.”
The mother quickly averted this apocalyptic word by pressing the conversation back to school. The girl: she was delighted, having taken her new book of wonder and utilized a key she remembered from a movie to unlock one of its mysteries.
Yes, it was about that time the storm broke, which took this already surreal moment into the realm of bizarre. Huge sheets of rain flooded the driveway and rolled quickly off the deck onto the ongoing acres.
I realized the chance to escape with Wyatt in a quiet, smooth fashion had come and gone. So rather than waiting out the storm, we made a fool’s attempt to keep Wyatt dry with two umbrellas, two adults and one sippy-cup.
We slipped Wyatt into his car seat fairly smoothly, the large sheets of rain kicking against the stony drive and our legs. I fumbled my way in front of the car and to the driver’s seat, the mother holding one of the umbrellas to the air like an olive branch against a flood.
On the way home, tornado sirens screamed all over the countryside as varying degrees of gray gathered and hurtled their way into the eastern sky. To the west, vaulting clouds of cotton white where trying to climb one another into the highest heavens, and in between the duality of dark and light, a pristine sky of blue stretched north to the Ohio River. To top it all, a rainbow stretched from north to south over a lone farmhouse. It seemed to disappear into my car it was so close.
I think about that drive now. The bible. And that girl.
The rest of the evening has played out with more fury from the sky. Tornado sounds blared all night long – emptying themselves upon the city and county, forcing families to find shelter and refuge against the sinister spiral. Water ran up and down the street, trees shook their arms as if celebrating the long-missed rain with Pentecostal flare.
I wonder: what if that girl truly believed what she read. What if her faith moved that storm up onto our county? Of course, that would be preposterous. But, you have to wonder …
She eyes that book as though it were a truly magical work – something Harry Potter might employ. She remembers some verse, focusing her mind upon it to give her a way to unlock this new gift. She speaks the verse in wonder and trust – letting the story come alive in her mind even as her mom dodges the brutality of it all.
And God hears the story written long ago, lets it come to life again in the heart of a child. And, for a brief moment, the floodgates are unbound, brining a torrent of rain onto the land. God speaks through the flowing river dropping from the sky:
“Yes, girl, that part is true. I came within a hair’s breadth from snuffing out all that ever breathed – like two fingers joined together against the flame of a candle. There was great violence in those days. Still is. Great violence to fill a world full of tears if I let those tears run from my own face. But my tears were too much for me to bear. And so I set limits upon the earth, and I set a bow in the sky – a weapon of war to mark the peace that will rule the day into eternity.”
I wonder.
That day was a bizarre day in general, and I had intended to publish a blog that night about one of the strange occurrences. It didn't happen; but here it is ...
---------
By the time I was ready to leave the home of a church parishioner, the rain was dropping in sheets and wind was howling across the eastern hills of Daviess County. I had arrived around 3:30 pm in the afternoon to give a 3rd grade girl a bible – a bible we had intended to give her back in August. Family travels had kept them away from the church and poor excuses and old routines had kept me away from them.
Wyatt – bless his soul – traveled the fifteen or so miles out into the county to visit this girl and her mother – screaming for two-thirds of the journey. Two motives drove me to take him along with me: Anna’s need to prepare our home and a meal for guests and my desire to make this bible presentation as overtly family oriented as possible.
Wyatt was a good companion – only a minor distraction from time to time. Although he did find it terribly frustrating to get a lock on the family cat only to have it evade his affection.
And I can’t say that my attention was always focused. There is a disorienting awkwardness about entering a family’s home under the pretenses of pastoral work. But despite the timid nature of both parties, we made well at conversation.
I was welcomed by a young girl at the door. Her mom had told me that her daughter was terribly excited about this, and as I entered, I wondered what the girl was hoping or expecting. I needn’t wonder long; her eyes spoke truth. She focused her vision firmly on the burgundy book with minor gold lettering tucked into a corner on the front.
I was carrying a mystery of magic – some wonderful book that she knew not much about except that it had deep, profound worth to certain people, I being one of those.
After some good discussion about school and about pets, I asked her and her mom where she liked to read in the house. This inquiry threw her a bit – not sure if that secret was okay to reveal to me, a relative stranger. Her mom encouraged her: “you like to read in here,” (referring to the living room), “and in your bedroom.” Not wanting to gift God’s word to her in a realm that was too personal, I proceeded then and there to briefly express the beauty, truth and marvel that is scripture. “This is a light, a way to see as you journey through life. This is a seed planted, a seed that can grow to produce peace, joy, patience and kindness. It is not an easy book to read. Some of it is quite confusing. But, it is our story. And, if you ever have any questions, you know you can ask your parents. And you can ask Jonathan or me. You can ask your Sunday school teachers.”
After I stammered this out, the girl took the bible in her own hands – clasping it as though it were her highest prize. Before I left, she dug out three other bibles that were buried beneath some other books near a shelf in the dining room. She wanted me to know they had others. And she told me how she had just watched Evan Almighty, and how she knew the story of the ark. “Genesis 6:13,” she said. “That was the verse in the movie. Genesis 6:13.” And with the bible now in her possession, she hunted the chapter and verse down and read in her naively trusting voice, “Then God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end of all flesh; for the earth is filled with violence because of them; and now I am going to destroy them with the earth.”
The mother quickly averted this apocalyptic word by pressing the conversation back to school. The girl: she was delighted, having taken her new book of wonder and utilized a key she remembered from a movie to unlock one of its mysteries.
Yes, it was about that time the storm broke, which took this already surreal moment into the realm of bizarre. Huge sheets of rain flooded the driveway and rolled quickly off the deck onto the ongoing acres.
I realized the chance to escape with Wyatt in a quiet, smooth fashion had come and gone. So rather than waiting out the storm, we made a fool’s attempt to keep Wyatt dry with two umbrellas, two adults and one sippy-cup.
We slipped Wyatt into his car seat fairly smoothly, the large sheets of rain kicking against the stony drive and our legs. I fumbled my way in front of the car and to the driver’s seat, the mother holding one of the umbrellas to the air like an olive branch against a flood.
On the way home, tornado sirens screamed all over the countryside as varying degrees of gray gathered and hurtled their way into the eastern sky. To the west, vaulting clouds of cotton white where trying to climb one another into the highest heavens, and in between the duality of dark and light, a pristine sky of blue stretched north to the Ohio River. To top it all, a rainbow stretched from north to south over a lone farmhouse. It seemed to disappear into my car it was so close.
I think about that drive now. The bible. And that girl.
The rest of the evening has played out with more fury from the sky. Tornado sounds blared all night long – emptying themselves upon the city and county, forcing families to find shelter and refuge against the sinister spiral. Water ran up and down the street, trees shook their arms as if celebrating the long-missed rain with Pentecostal flare.
I wonder: what if that girl truly believed what she read. What if her faith moved that storm up onto our county? Of course, that would be preposterous. But, you have to wonder …
She eyes that book as though it were a truly magical work – something Harry Potter might employ. She remembers some verse, focusing her mind upon it to give her a way to unlock this new gift. She speaks the verse in wonder and trust – letting the story come alive in her mind even as her mom dodges the brutality of it all.
And God hears the story written long ago, lets it come to life again in the heart of a child. And, for a brief moment, the floodgates are unbound, brining a torrent of rain onto the land. God speaks through the flowing river dropping from the sky:
“Yes, girl, that part is true. I came within a hair’s breadth from snuffing out all that ever breathed – like two fingers joined together against the flame of a candle. There was great violence in those days. Still is. Great violence to fill a world full of tears if I let those tears run from my own face. But my tears were too much for me to bear. And so I set limits upon the earth, and I set a bow in the sky – a weapon of war to mark the peace that will rule the day into eternity.”
I wonder.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007
Holiday
I found this short story I had written a few years back - during my seminary days in Pasadena. It was a common thing then, as it is still now, to do a lot of my processing on concrete with definite lines and the clear reality of misses and makes.
The story is an exaggerated experience I truly had. Pardon the language in it, but for anyone who has spent time around a basketball court in the city, you know I could have made it more raw and rough. The story is titled "Holiday." The setting is a bright and sunny Martin Luther King Jr. day when our society is in half-motion, not knowing whether to celebrate, mourn, speak of the good achieved or criticize the ongoing realities of racism.
I hope you won't find this story condemning of anyone but myself. Truly. I wrote it as an indictment of my own smug indifference to the reality of inner city struggles and injustice. It tries to deal with the irony and tragedy of how King's dream for civil liberties and equality of race has born a holiday that has perhaps caused deeper division and isolation between blacks and whites.
It's also about the great tension I felt throughout my time in California regarding individuality and public space. No space in Los Angeles is ever truly private, which means people have to work hard to carve out their own identities. And communal places - like parks - are rarely truly communal (except for pockets of community ... the Latino gathering celebrating a birthday, the two young artists riding their bikes).
And, like I said, this is a story that still convicts me. It convicts me of the stereotypes from my own story. It convicts me of my own indifference to King's legacy and the way I used public parks as personal therapy rather than community awareness. It makes me realize how much I feel entitled to my own space and time - and woe be it if anyone or any social situation troubles those spaces or times. 'Nough said. I hope it speaks to you.
Holiday
by Wes Kendall
I went to shoot baskets at a park this past Monday. Actually, it is not so much a park as a collection of recreation – two playgrounds, some open ground, benches for parties, nice tennis courts and a decent basketball court complete with lights. I went in the early afternoon on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I was hoping to find a game going – to ease my mind by running my body down. I wanted to reduce time down to simple actions: dribble, pivot, run, shoot.
No luck. There were two groups of kids and two fathers– split evenly by family on the two goals. Not only was there no game, there was no place for me to shoot: the worst of all scenarios.
Just off the court kids were playing on the playground and a homeless man sat upright on a bench about thirty yards away from the basketball court – apparently he was drying off his clothes while the sun was out in splendor.
I walked over towards the homeless man, stopping three benches short to lock up my bike and await the first departure from the court. It was clear I might be waiting for a few minutes, so I began to dribble up and down a slab of concrete. I dribbled down towards the homeless man. He was shirtless, and he reeked of concentrated body odor. But that was the only sign of life; he was silent and motionless. He could care less about the brief dribbling exhibition I was providing. The only person who noticed was the father of two boys who were playing a game of one on two: father vs. sons. “We’re about done here,” he called out to me as I dribbled nearer to the court. “Oh, that’s okay, I’m just having fun watching you play your kids,” I said with a smile of hospitality. I dribbled away, growing anxious to get my shots in, and then I started dribbling back towards the court.
It was then I noticed a young woman approaching. She was young, a light skinned African-American woman with short afro hair, a white tank top and denim jeans. Out in front of her, two young boys of similar skin tone came running off the sidewalk of Del Mar. They were delighted to be at the park, and I figured this mother was also excited to take her boys to the swings or maybe to the slide. The thought also crossed my mind, “Ah, it’s the mother of this man and two other boys. That’s quite a family.” I overestimated. She wasn’t connected with this man; nor did she have any desire to be maternal at this moment.
She came suspiciously towards myself and the homeless man – seeming to seek out company in this unoccupied space. “Hey, lady, I’m just here to shoot some baskets,” I said to her subconsciously as she approached. She ignored my body language and sat directly behind me. I was seated now – dribbling methodically between my legs. I was itching for the man and his boys to leave – to give me an escape before I had to talk to this woman.
She must not have been up for conversation either, though. She took out a brown bag – hiding a treasure of malt liquor. “You boys go play,” she commanded, “I didn’t bring you to the park to sit. Go and play over there,” pointing to the playground. She had come to cast her children off and to seek comfort in a bottle. Occasionally, she would pull out her cell phone and make a call only to get no response. She left a message. She drank some more.
By this time, I had begun to think of the tragedy of this woman ducking her social responsibilities as a mother. I grew even more disgusted by some anonymous black man – leaving his bastard children underprivileged from the start. And finally, I grew leery. I feared this woman was going to latch onto me as a life preserver in her drowning world. She haunted me as a manifestation of both pity and plight – especially since she seemed to make direct efforts to plant herself in my vicinity.
When the two boys and their father stopped shooting, I thankfully took their spot on the court. I took the opportunity to focus my attention on ten jump shots from each elbow. Then ten free throws. I was out of shape, and my initial efforts immediately fatigued me, and I tried to muster up the determination to make eighty percent or perhaps ninety – trying to figure out the right balance between will and grace.
Just as I finished my ten free throws – only going six out ten – this woman walked over towards the courts. She passed behind me as I blew two easy lay-ups. My legs were shaky, and her encroachment made my fingers lose their control. She finally came to a rest at a bench just off the court. She was now facing me – bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
All that I could figure was she had something to ask me. I wished she would and get it over with. I had just missed five more shots – each looking more cautious and jittery than the last. Finally her two boys broke the silence. They were yelling at each other, and then I heard one boy cry out, “MOOOMMM! He said f--- you!”
“Darriel, you stop that right now or were going home,” she said in a harsh tone but her body was indifferent. I couldn’t believe my ears, and a mother and son nearby stopped in unbelief as well. The woman went on to look at her cell phone when the boy went off again, this time even louder, “MOOOOMMM! He said f--- you again!!”
“Darriel,” she shot back,” “that’s it. Next time we’re outta here.” But she made no movement all the while. She sat lazily staring into space, sometimes resting her eyes on me or the mother and her son.
The first time Darriel shouted I was too shocked to respond. After the second time, I needed no further proof. My mind was made up and ready to cast judgment.
Little did I know these boys who bounced so gleefully into the park were already filled with profanity, but sure enough. And what did the mother care? She only cared that they broke some public ethic. People like me might be offended so she had to speak with some severity, but it was clear her chastising ultimately would have to fall back into her own lap. It was all just an act. She could care less about what her boys did – to scold them would be the same as scolding herself. This wasn't a day to teach. Her boys were just some menace – some nuisance – to her holiday. She had come to the park to forget her problems and unload her responsibility. She wasn’t going to leave that park until her bottle was empty.
“Deadbeat,” I thought. I missed two more shots. “Damn.” It wasn’t worth it anymore. Her presence irked me. I wanted to yell out at her – tell her to throw the bottle away. “Lady, I know you’ve probably been dealt a lousy hand, but you’ve got to take care of your own. What are your boys going to think if they see you drinking your problems away?
"And you’ve got to watch your mouth around them; they’re what five and six years old? And don’t even get me started about doing all this on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Lord knows what he would think, but I know what I think: you’ve got to have more self-respect. Pick yourself up.”
In reality I didn’t say a word. I was just shooting baskets one after another from all around the perimeter. Made one. Missed two. My legs remained cemented to the ground; sweat began dripping into my eyes. Missed another badly. I usually like to end on a make, but not today. That was it. I was ready to go. So I went over to the bench with my bag, put my ball up and unlocked my bike. I took a long drink from my water bottle, put it back onto the bike and climbed up into the bike seat. I started to peddle away, but I had to pass her to leave. I had one more chance to tell her how I felt. “What a waste,” I thought. But I said nothing. It was my holiday, too, you know; I didn’t need her problems.
The story is an exaggerated experience I truly had. Pardon the language in it, but for anyone who has spent time around a basketball court in the city, you know I could have made it more raw and rough. The story is titled "Holiday." The setting is a bright and sunny Martin Luther King Jr. day when our society is in half-motion, not knowing whether to celebrate, mourn, speak of the good achieved or criticize the ongoing realities of racism.
I hope you won't find this story condemning of anyone but myself. Truly. I wrote it as an indictment of my own smug indifference to the reality of inner city struggles and injustice. It tries to deal with the irony and tragedy of how King's dream for civil liberties and equality of race has born a holiday that has perhaps caused deeper division and isolation between blacks and whites.
It's also about the great tension I felt throughout my time in California regarding individuality and public space. No space in Los Angeles is ever truly private, which means people have to work hard to carve out their own identities. And communal places - like parks - are rarely truly communal (except for pockets of community ... the Latino gathering celebrating a birthday, the two young artists riding their bikes).
And, like I said, this is a story that still convicts me. It convicts me of the stereotypes from my own story. It convicts me of my own indifference to King's legacy and the way I used public parks as personal therapy rather than community awareness. It makes me realize how much I feel entitled to my own space and time - and woe be it if anyone or any social situation troubles those spaces or times. 'Nough said. I hope it speaks to you.
Holiday
by Wes Kendall
I went to shoot baskets at a park this past Monday. Actually, it is not so much a park as a collection of recreation – two playgrounds, some open ground, benches for parties, nice tennis courts and a decent basketball court complete with lights. I went in the early afternoon on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and I was hoping to find a game going – to ease my mind by running my body down. I wanted to reduce time down to simple actions: dribble, pivot, run, shoot.
No luck. There were two groups of kids and two fathers– split evenly by family on the two goals. Not only was there no game, there was no place for me to shoot: the worst of all scenarios.
Just off the court kids were playing on the playground and a homeless man sat upright on a bench about thirty yards away from the basketball court – apparently he was drying off his clothes while the sun was out in splendor.
I walked over towards the homeless man, stopping three benches short to lock up my bike and await the first departure from the court. It was clear I might be waiting for a few minutes, so I began to dribble up and down a slab of concrete. I dribbled down towards the homeless man. He was shirtless, and he reeked of concentrated body odor. But that was the only sign of life; he was silent and motionless. He could care less about the brief dribbling exhibition I was providing. The only person who noticed was the father of two boys who were playing a game of one on two: father vs. sons. “We’re about done here,” he called out to me as I dribbled nearer to the court. “Oh, that’s okay, I’m just having fun watching you play your kids,” I said with a smile of hospitality. I dribbled away, growing anxious to get my shots in, and then I started dribbling back towards the court.
It was then I noticed a young woman approaching. She was young, a light skinned African-American woman with short afro hair, a white tank top and denim jeans. Out in front of her, two young boys of similar skin tone came running off the sidewalk of Del Mar. They were delighted to be at the park, and I figured this mother was also excited to take her boys to the swings or maybe to the slide. The thought also crossed my mind, “Ah, it’s the mother of this man and two other boys. That’s quite a family.” I overestimated. She wasn’t connected with this man; nor did she have any desire to be maternal at this moment.
She came suspiciously towards myself and the homeless man – seeming to seek out company in this unoccupied space. “Hey, lady, I’m just here to shoot some baskets,” I said to her subconsciously as she approached. She ignored my body language and sat directly behind me. I was seated now – dribbling methodically between my legs. I was itching for the man and his boys to leave – to give me an escape before I had to talk to this woman.
She must not have been up for conversation either, though. She took out a brown bag – hiding a treasure of malt liquor. “You boys go play,” she commanded, “I didn’t bring you to the park to sit. Go and play over there,” pointing to the playground. She had come to cast her children off and to seek comfort in a bottle. Occasionally, she would pull out her cell phone and make a call only to get no response. She left a message. She drank some more.
By this time, I had begun to think of the tragedy of this woman ducking her social responsibilities as a mother. I grew even more disgusted by some anonymous black man – leaving his bastard children underprivileged from the start. And finally, I grew leery. I feared this woman was going to latch onto me as a life preserver in her drowning world. She haunted me as a manifestation of both pity and plight – especially since she seemed to make direct efforts to plant herself in my vicinity.
When the two boys and their father stopped shooting, I thankfully took their spot on the court. I took the opportunity to focus my attention on ten jump shots from each elbow. Then ten free throws. I was out of shape, and my initial efforts immediately fatigued me, and I tried to muster up the determination to make eighty percent or perhaps ninety – trying to figure out the right balance between will and grace.
Just as I finished my ten free throws – only going six out ten – this woman walked over towards the courts. She passed behind me as I blew two easy lay-ups. My legs were shaky, and her encroachment made my fingers lose their control. She finally came to a rest at a bench just off the court. She was now facing me – bottle in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
All that I could figure was she had something to ask me. I wished she would and get it over with. I had just missed five more shots – each looking more cautious and jittery than the last. Finally her two boys broke the silence. They were yelling at each other, and then I heard one boy cry out, “MOOOMMM! He said f--- you!”
“Darriel, you stop that right now or were going home,” she said in a harsh tone but her body was indifferent. I couldn’t believe my ears, and a mother and son nearby stopped in unbelief as well. The woman went on to look at her cell phone when the boy went off again, this time even louder, “MOOOOMMM! He said f--- you again!!”
“Darriel,” she shot back,” “that’s it. Next time we’re outta here.” But she made no movement all the while. She sat lazily staring into space, sometimes resting her eyes on me or the mother and her son.
The first time Darriel shouted I was too shocked to respond. After the second time, I needed no further proof. My mind was made up and ready to cast judgment.
Little did I know these boys who bounced so gleefully into the park were already filled with profanity, but sure enough. And what did the mother care? She only cared that they broke some public ethic. People like me might be offended so she had to speak with some severity, but it was clear her chastising ultimately would have to fall back into her own lap. It was all just an act. She could care less about what her boys did – to scold them would be the same as scolding herself. This wasn't a day to teach. Her boys were just some menace – some nuisance – to her holiday. She had come to the park to forget her problems and unload her responsibility. She wasn’t going to leave that park until her bottle was empty.
“Deadbeat,” I thought. I missed two more shots. “Damn.” It wasn’t worth it anymore. Her presence irked me. I wanted to yell out at her – tell her to throw the bottle away. “Lady, I know you’ve probably been dealt a lousy hand, but you’ve got to take care of your own. What are your boys going to think if they see you drinking your problems away?
"And you’ve got to watch your mouth around them; they’re what five and six years old? And don’t even get me started about doing all this on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day. Lord knows what he would think, but I know what I think: you’ve got to have more self-respect. Pick yourself up.”
In reality I didn’t say a word. I was just shooting baskets one after another from all around the perimeter. Made one. Missed two. My legs remained cemented to the ground; sweat began dripping into my eyes. Missed another badly. I usually like to end on a make, but not today. That was it. I was ready to go. So I went over to the bench with my bag, put my ball up and unlocked my bike. I took a long drink from my water bottle, put it back onto the bike and climbed up into the bike seat. I started to peddle away, but I had to pass her to leave. I had one more chance to tell her how I felt. “What a waste,” I thought. But I said nothing. It was my holiday, too, you know; I didn’t need her problems.
Sunday, May 20, 2007
A Good Place to Die - A Short Story
"If you could have a song played at your funeral, what would it be?"
Brandon took his right hand off the steering wheel and let it hang beside he and his girl. He began to pull up a litany of songs. "Good question." He began to process his options. Something mellow perhaps - like Coltrane or Oasis. Or maybe country - an old spiritual plucked out on a guitar and sung by some sweet voice ... Emmylou Harris? Maybe, though, the best song would be nothing but moods, like Moby's Everloving. Yeah, that was good enough.
"Everloving. Everloving by Moby. That would be my song. What 'bout you?"
Laura turned her head away from the passing darkness and towards Brandon - staring at him while pulling her chin to her chest and raising eyebrows. "You can't be serious. Moby. Everloving. No words, no message? Just some random collection of beats and effects?"
"Yeah. That's what I want. An effect. I don't want anyone thinking my life can be summed up by some song - like three stanzas and a chorus could capture my life."
"And Moby can?"
"No, but it's as close as I can get." He wasn't hurt. He knew it was a silly answer. But, shit, this was a silly question. And if he was going to play, he at least wanted to play the whole thing out. "Okay, what's yours?" Brandon asked - shaking his head and turning his palms up towards the roof.
"Easy. When They Ring the Golden Bells. Natalie Merchant. Beautiful. Haunting. Simple. And it says it all."
"And it moves like a cow through crap."
"Oh, come on. I didn't knock your song, but then again I'm not planning on having my funeral in a club."
This was all either could handle of this brief, flirtatious game. They both began to laugh and roll their eyes. Brandon was trying to figure out how to extend the evening - cruising in the countryside and extending his left arm out the window he felt the cool air settling down upon the fields.
"Laura, this is good."
"What is Brandon?"
"This. Life. Driving through the country, talking about nothing - just piecing together memory after memory. You do know we'll never forget this evening."
"It has been great - dinner was excellent, probably the best meal I've ever had."
"Yeah, that was good, but that's not what I mean. I mean ... I mean the whole of it. These are the nights that stick deep into your heart - the quiet sunset, the easy conversation ... and now, a memorable subject. Death songs."
Still giddy from the wine, Laura left Brandon's words alone, choosing instead to focus her attention on the way his eyes reflected street lights and celestial stars. God, she loved this man. Not to the point that it ached in her. Not yet. Right now, it was more of a burn, a subtle, strong pulse of flame and ember. And part of that burn came from the tension of attraction and resistance, the delicate game of waiting and wanting.
Brandon continued along the road - easing the car into a ninety degree curve that bent to the left. Corn fields guarded both sides of the road - sequestering cars and making the roads seem both innocent and dangerous. Laura closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She conjured up an image far back in her happiest days - running with her grandmother to a back patch of land where raspberries and blackberries grew wild and where she would stroll along picking berry after berry - eating one, keeping another.
As Brandon cruised around the bend he began to notice a strange brilliance in the periphery. Laura kept on dreaming of yesteryear while also beginning to hum When They Ring the Golden Bells. And before Laura ever got to the first line, a wave of light flooded the interior of Brandon's car. It was the high-beams of an old Dodge truck - hellbent and swerving. It was too late. All Brandon got out in the end was a brief curse. Laura opened up her eyes just in time to throw her arms at the light. She could only stutter, "Brandon, no."
And after the cars collided and shattered and dislodged various parts, the quiet country road was full of nothing but the subtle murmur of crickets and Gimme Shelter from The Stones - pouring out from that old Dodge.
Wes
Brandon took his right hand off the steering wheel and let it hang beside he and his girl. He began to pull up a litany of songs. "Good question." He began to process his options. Something mellow perhaps - like Coltrane or Oasis. Or maybe country - an old spiritual plucked out on a guitar and sung by some sweet voice ... Emmylou Harris? Maybe, though, the best song would be nothing but moods, like Moby's Everloving. Yeah, that was good enough.
"Everloving. Everloving by Moby. That would be my song. What 'bout you?"
Laura turned her head away from the passing darkness and towards Brandon - staring at him while pulling her chin to her chest and raising eyebrows. "You can't be serious. Moby. Everloving. No words, no message? Just some random collection of beats and effects?"
"Yeah. That's what I want. An effect. I don't want anyone thinking my life can be summed up by some song - like three stanzas and a chorus could capture my life."
"And Moby can?"
"No, but it's as close as I can get." He wasn't hurt. He knew it was a silly answer. But, shit, this was a silly question. And if he was going to play, he at least wanted to play the whole thing out. "Okay, what's yours?" Brandon asked - shaking his head and turning his palms up towards the roof.
"Easy. When They Ring the Golden Bells. Natalie Merchant. Beautiful. Haunting. Simple. And it says it all."
"And it moves like a cow through crap."
"Oh, come on. I didn't knock your song, but then again I'm not planning on having my funeral in a club."
This was all either could handle of this brief, flirtatious game. They both began to laugh and roll their eyes. Brandon was trying to figure out how to extend the evening - cruising in the countryside and extending his left arm out the window he felt the cool air settling down upon the fields.
"Laura, this is good."
"What is Brandon?"
"This. Life. Driving through the country, talking about nothing - just piecing together memory after memory. You do know we'll never forget this evening."
"It has been great - dinner was excellent, probably the best meal I've ever had."
"Yeah, that was good, but that's not what I mean. I mean ... I mean the whole of it. These are the nights that stick deep into your heart - the quiet sunset, the easy conversation ... and now, a memorable subject. Death songs."
Still giddy from the wine, Laura left Brandon's words alone, choosing instead to focus her attention on the way his eyes reflected street lights and celestial stars. God, she loved this man. Not to the point that it ached in her. Not yet. Right now, it was more of a burn, a subtle, strong pulse of flame and ember. And part of that burn came from the tension of attraction and resistance, the delicate game of waiting and wanting.
Brandon continued along the road - easing the car into a ninety degree curve that bent to the left. Corn fields guarded both sides of the road - sequestering cars and making the roads seem both innocent and dangerous. Laura closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She conjured up an image far back in her happiest days - running with her grandmother to a back patch of land where raspberries and blackberries grew wild and where she would stroll along picking berry after berry - eating one, keeping another.
As Brandon cruised around the bend he began to notice a strange brilliance in the periphery. Laura kept on dreaming of yesteryear while also beginning to hum When They Ring the Golden Bells. And before Laura ever got to the first line, a wave of light flooded the interior of Brandon's car. It was the high-beams of an old Dodge truck - hellbent and swerving. It was too late. All Brandon got out in the end was a brief curse. Laura opened up her eyes just in time to throw her arms at the light. She could only stutter, "Brandon, no."
And after the cars collided and shattered and dislodged various parts, the quiet country road was full of nothing but the subtle murmur of crickets and Gimme Shelter from The Stones - pouring out from that old Dodge.
Wes
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