The Secret Place

Fiction Friday. It was in my "sacred grove" phase from reading The Golden Bough, by Frazer. So I decided to start writing short stories based on things I'd heard the old folks tell. This was on of my first efforts

THE ROOTS THAT CLUTCH

By Jimmie von Tungeln

 This day showed promise. Sheila knew it when she saw a pair of turtle doves courting in a tree before she started to school. Their soft cooing caught her attention and she stopped to watch the male nuzzle the female in the morning fog. She watched quietly as their heads bobbed in ancient ritual. In the mist the two appeared as a single gray organism, joined in an almost musical rhythm. Sheila bobbed her own head, smiled once and sailed a rock into them. It caught one squarely in the chest—the first direct hit of her life.

"Be damned," she said as she watched feathers drift to the ground, following the body in a slow, spiraling motion.

"Why'd you want to do that?" Robert asked. He jumped a ditch bordering a cotton field, swinging a rusty lard bucket that carried a small lunch for him and Sheila. “Doves is in The Bible."

            "Don't care," his sister said. "I'll kill 'em ever by god chanct I get."

"That don't hardly seem right," Robert said. Then his attention was caught by a blur on a far away county road. It was an automobile and he stopped to stare.

"Model A, I'll bet,” He said. “Ford Motor Company."

“Who cares?" was Sheila's answer as she scanned the fencerow for birds, a well balanced rock in hand. Straining, she failed to see the Hinson boys approaching.

           "Ya'll ain't pickin' cotton today?" asked Timmy, the older of the two as they joined the others. He also carried a worn and much dented lard bucket, hanging at his side like a burden of the world the young must carry.

           "Mamma said cotton still ain't opened up on account of the rain. So she said we might as well go to school. Papa may hire some hands to help us." Then she said "I kilt a bird."

           "You ain't never," said Roland, the younger. "Girls can't hit no bird, can they Robert?'

           "She oughten not to have done it but she did," Robert said and then asked "Know what makes an automobile run?”

           "Motor, I reckon." said Timmy with caution, looking at Robert sideways. "Ain't that right?"

           "It's internal combustion. That's what does it. They say that someday we'll all have one. Everybody in the world will have one...their own car to go places in. Can you picture that?"

           “Golly snot," said Roland, He was struggling with that image. He had trouble seeing himself even riding in a motor car, much less driving one. He looked to Sheila for validation but, seeing none, turned back to Robert.

           "Could I ride one to your house any time I wanted to?

           "Heck, you could drive it to Little Rock," said Robert.

           "Golly snot," said Roland.

           "I ain't havin'one," said Sheila. The conversation had strayed too far from her, a situation that she began to correct the way a person might direct a stray calf back into a herd. "My husband will have a buggy with a fine red mare to match my hair. He'll take me anywhere I tell him to, even Little Rock." 

           "But them cars will pass you right up," said Timmy absentmindedly, immediately regretting it as Sheila twirled upon him with the fury of one of those storms that descend sharp and wild, from time to time, upon the helpless delta. She was thin, but two inches taller than the boy and she swelled above him.

           "Well I wouldn't by-god worry about it if I was you!"

           "No, no I won't," Timmy said, and he dropped several steps behind the group.

           They walked in silence for awhile, the Hinsons hoping for Sheila's wrath to subside while Robert contemplated the mysteries of the internal combustion engine.

           Finally he looked up. "I'm sure gonna have me one."

           "You're a real dope," said Sheila.

           Robert didn't respond. He felt the cough coming and he needed his energy. He had spotted something on the edge of the ditch and was forcing himself to keep from looking at it directly. He turned to Timmie and asked him to hold the lunch bucket.

           "A dope like you couldn't ever afford a pair of mules, much less an automobile", Sheila said, hoping for continuity.

           "Look what I found", said Robert. He had leaped into the tall grass suddenly and claimed his prize: a long length of chain dropped from a wagon or bounced from a truck and laying unmissed by its owner.

           "I saw it first," cried Sheila. "Give it here."

           "We'll use it for the bridge," said Robert, ignoring Sheila. "This is what we need." Then he began to cough.

           "That's what you get," said Sheila. "You know you ain't supposed to get excited."

           Robert didn't answere and the coughs came deeper from his lungs as he struggled to stand erect.

           "Golly Robert, you sound worse than ever," said Roland.

           "I'm okay," Robert said as he knelt on one knee next to his new belonging and wheezed, fighting the pain. Finally catching his breath, he added, "Let's hurry and get to the bayou. We got time to make some progress today."

            “A brand new chain,” said Roland. “Golly snot.”

           "I'm gonna bust you up if you say that again," said Sheila.

           The four of them started off down the road.

           There were two routes leading to school, each leading through fields that today drooped with unopened bolls of cotton needing to be picked but waiting as the rains persevered day after day. Today a soft grey mist covered the fields and the world seemed mysterious and unchanging as the four moved through it. Soon they would be at the turning off place.

The main road to the school passed the small farms that covered the delta like the squares on a giant quilt. It served as a collector for the minor roads, paths, and finally trails that connected each farm with the world. It, itself, connected to the state road on which, it was said, a person could go all the way to Memphis.

The school was a simple white building sited on a small patch stolen from the corner of a cotton field. It sat just beyond a bridge that crossed a wide bayou in a low spot too wet for farming. The road made a wide arc toward the bridge whose builders had sought the narrowest crossing.

           The other way ran straight on a tangent to the old road led directly to the school across a wide stretch of bayou. It could only serve in the dry months since it crossed a bayou too deep to be forded during wet weather. Created by the impatience of youth, it was hardly more than a path. It was said that the children favored it more for the adventure of the crossing than for the short distance it saved.

           The two paths diverged just past the home of Fate Johnson and as the four came near, Sheila attacked.

           "You ain't speaking to them people today are you?"

           "I might," said Robert.

           "I'll tell; you know what Mama said. Why you want to anyway?"

           "They ain't hurtin' anybody, they just like to wave at us, that's all."

           "They's black and it ain't right. They don't know us."

            “You may not know them but I do.” 

“I told Mama that you ate their food. She said for you not to and for you not to be talkin' to them."

"They ain't hurtin' anybody, they just want to be friendly."

"Somebody told me they just got married," said Timmy.

"That's crazy", said Sheila, "They's colored."

"They get married too", said Timmy, defensively.

"But not like everybody else, do they?" asked Roland.

"No, they do every thing different from us", Sheila said, silencing Roland with a glare so severe that he felt its force hot upon his face. He stumbled to the rear and walked quietly.

Robert stared ahead, thinking of how, with the addition of the chain, they could complete a bridge across the bayou.

"I didn't know they got married like white people do," said Roland. "Do they really, Robert?"

"Shut up," Robert said.

            He walked for some time and then he realized that Timmy Hinson was walking beside him. Sheila and Roland walked a few yards ahead. Tommy kicked a dirt clod into the ditch and looked at Robert. He held the chain in his hand and it dragged behind them in the muddy road.

            “Do you really know them people?” he asked.

            “I reckon I do.”

            “How?”

“That man’s daddy used to work for mine sometimes. I didn’t know him until one day he yelled at me when I was riding our mare by here.

"Mamma says you keep hangin' out with coloreds, you start actin' like one," Sheila yelled back.

            Robert ignored her and continued. “What he wanted me to do was let him milk our mare. He said that a mare’s milk could cure a baby of the whooping cough and that his little brother was about to die of it. I didn’t see any harm that could come to it and he looked like he was about to cry. So I let him. I can’t see no harm in helpin’ anyone if you can.”

            “Golly snot,” Timmy said. “I never heard of such in my life.”

            “Anyway, he was thankful. He said the baby would be fine now, and that it would be my baby from here on. I just told him not to tell my daddy I let him. You know what?”

            “What?” Timmy asked.

            “It worked. He told me later,” he said and walked a little farther. “A real mystery… knowin’ that could come in handy some day.”

            “Is that why him and his wife do it?”

            “Do what?”

            “Run out on the porch and wave every time you come by?”

            “No, I just think they get lonesome.”

            Robert looked up in time to see Sheila walking back towards them.

            "They're waitin' on you and you better not talk to them today. And don't eat nothin' they offer you. We got food."

"Shut up," Robert said again. "Timmy, when we get to the bayou, we'll tie this chain to that big log and we can all four pull it down to the water. That'll finish the bridge."

"Don't you look at them Robert. If they got a biscuit, you don't eat it. You just keep walkin'."

Robert wanted to stop and speak but as he reached the corner of their fence, his breath failed and he felt the coughing coming again. From the corner of his eye, he saw the young couple sitting on their porch as always, the man waiting for the wagon that would take him to the field if the rains stopped and the woman waiting with him to wave at the children.

Walking without surrendering to the cough took the last measure of Robert's effort. He took each step with a resolution that exacted full payment in effort and he stared ahead. He could think of nothing but the pain and effort of breathing.

Sheila watched from the corner of her eye, her strength and determination ready. When Robert stumbled, she darted but he regained his footing and concentrated his entire consciousness on holding the chain.

The young couple held hands and waited, smiling and eager.

Only this morning there would be no greeting. There would be no chance to offer their gift. The boy stared straight ahead as he walked by, dragging a chain and gasping for breath. He tossed a hand at them but just barely, weakly. The girl walked backward in front, waiting to grab the chain if he faltered or turned to look at the couple. She stared at them victoriously, and the two younger boys followed obediently behind. They were gone quickly.

"I'll be," the husband said. Then he stood up, turned, and walked through the dark door of the house, leaving his wife alone on the porch as the soft rain began falling again over the fields.

"You all right?" Timmy asked.

"I'll be fine, just leave me alone."

"Last one to the bayou's a n****r baby," said Sheila, and she starting running, first along the road and then veering along the path that led to the trees that bordered the water. Roland started after her and then Timmy, who first checked to see if Robert was coming. Robert continued to walk, dragging the chain and struggling to breathe. The rain framed a curtain before him and he walked through it into the woods.

The place was quiet and seemed of another place and time to Robert. Giant oak trees towered above the lesser vegetation. Even in the middle of summer it would be a dark, sunless place and never quite dry. The forest floor was smooth with the tracks of millennia buried beneath its mud. It seemed as if he had entered a large, dark building. It was a mysterious place, suitable only for gathering, communing, and, today, planning.

When he reached the edge of the water, the others were gone. They had followed one on the many paths, some made by animals, and others by people, that followed the edge of the bayou. They were looking for wood—logs, limbs, pieces of broken lumber—that they could use to finish the bridge.

Robert sat on the stump of an ancient cedar and coiled the chain at his feet. He watched the flow of water and knew that it was higher, and faster, than before. He watched eddies as they sucked and whirled in the coffee brown water and he knew the flow was unstoppable.

The spot where he sat, the spot where they had chosen to work, had once been a large grove but the bayou had shifted over the years and now ran in a narrow course between the spreading trees. It was the right place to build a bridge, he was thinking, even though the water was too high today. He began to sing – aloud, but just barely and to himself, as the waters rolled by.

           "On the Jerico road....there's room for just two,

           "No more and no less....just Jesus and you."

           Roland had returned and was standing behind Robert now, waiting and watching as if he didn't quite belong in what was going on. Finally, hearing the others coming, he spoke.

           "How long we got to work today?'

           "Robert finished a verse and then replied, "Prolly half and hour. We'll have time to go back around the other way if we start when we hear the first bell sound."

           "We won’t finish today?"

           "No, not today, water's too high," and he started to sing again.

           "Oh brother to you ... this message I bring

           "Though hope may be gone ... he'll cause you to sing.

           "At Jesus' command ... sin's shackles will fall.

           "On the Jerico road ... will you answer his call?"

           "Shut up that goddam singing," Sheila was shouting as she and Timmy returned from upstream. "Let's get this stupid bridge built so I don't have to walk so far .... how much time we got?"

           "Not much," said Robert. "You find any wood?"

           "You dang sure didn't," she screamed, and then addressing the group "We don't need any more wood."

           "Why?" asked Timmy.

           "I figured out a new way since we found the chain."

           "Robert found the chain," said Roland.

           "It's half mine and I know how to finish the bridge with it," said Sheila. "You piss ants gonna help or not?"

           Robert still sat on the cedar stump with his feet resting on the coiled chain.

           "We'll finish next week," he said. "Water's too high today."

           "We'll wrap the chain around this tree here and tie the other end to that one there", said Sheila. "Then we'll push it over and it'll fall upstream. That'll stop the water 'til we finish," and she leaned against a tall, full, cedar whose roots were so damaged from erosion that it leaned far out over the stream.

           "Golly snot," said Roland, "That might work."

           "Damn right it'll work. Now let's get busy." Sheila turned toward Robert and waited.

           "We'll build it like we planned...water's too high today," Robert said and as he said it, he felt something terrible begin deep in his body and move toward his chest.

           Sheila took a step toward him. "You don't even have to help, just give me the chain and you can watch us."

           "We'll build it like we…," Robert started, but he never finished. The sickness sprang into his lungs and turned his world into a red nightmare. He dropped from the stump onto his knees through the redness saw the chain snake toward Sheila's hand and then knew it was in her hand and following her like an obedient child. Then he could see nothing but the redness and feel nothing but pain.

           When the coughing stopped, he was still weak, but managed to stand, and then to sit on the stump. He watched, wanting to speak but not able. In his mind spun the secret formulas and vectors that defined the danger but when he tried to distill, to coalesce, the thoughts into words they swirled and become part of the mist that rose from the spinning brown waters of the bayou.

           He watched helplessly as Timmy and Roland secured both ends of the chain and he forced damp air into his lungs desperately while Sheila directed the boys.

           "Goddamit hurry up!" she yelled as she began to push against the leaning tree as if her energy would complete in that moment the process that erosion had been working for years. She hurled herself against the tree again and again as Timmy and Roland completed the securing of the chain. "Help me", she screamed and the boys ran over to join the frantic assault.

           "That tree won't fall", Robert started to say but before he had finished, Sheila conceived another plan.

           "Timmy, get your ass up that tree."

           "What?"

           "You get up the tree and we'll push from here. When it starts to give, slide down and we'll catch you."

           "Why me?'

           "You're the heaviest, stupid."

           "I ain't gonna."

           "Yes, by God, you're gonna!" and with this she shoved him backwards into the muddy bank where he sat looking, alternatively, at her and Robert, waiting for the decision that he knew he deserved, knew was waiting, and knew that he feared in the very depths of his heart.

           "Don't", came softly from Robert, not spoken as much as aspirated into the mist where it lay without force or power.

           "You heard me damn it", said Sheila and the words flashed within the grove like the hiss and crackle of lightening.

           Timmy stood slowly and walked toward the tree.

           "You’re one of the saints now, brother," said Sheila proudly. "You just get it started and watch out!"

           "Timmy, don't", said Robert as the other boy inched his way up the tree.

           Sheila twirled upon him. "Shut the hell up!" Then she turned and joined Roland as they began to push against the base of the tree.

           "Roll Jordan roll", she began to yell as she pushed and then Roland joined her.

           "Roll Jordan roll," they yelled.

           "Roll Jordan roll."

           "Roll Jordan roll."

           Robert stood up now and walked toward them. He was only a few feet away when he heard the crack of the roots giving way and the sound of Timmy’s screaming.

           "Hold on Timmy", Robert yelled and as time slowed he formed the arc of the tree in his mind and calculated its destination. As the tree fell, he spun in a half circle and ran obliquely to its base, past the horrified faces of Sheila and Roland and then into the sliding waters of the bayou as the tree, and Timmy, hit the water at once in an brown liquid explosion of water, tree, and boy.

           Timmy sank completely beneath the water as the tree crashed in a wild boil, but then Robert saw him surface as the trunk of the tree sprang back straight. Timmy held to the very end of the branches as if taking some ride. His hair was plastered on his forehead and Robert noticed bubbles forming around his nose. By some miracle, Robert thought, his head stayed just above water.

           "Don't move," Robert yelled and began to slide his way further into the water which was becoming more turbulent as it sped into the tree. Just beyond his reach he could see Timmy and it seemed to Robert that his eyes were bulging so they might pop from his face.

           "Hold on, I'm almost there." To Robert's great relief, the bed of the stream did not fall steeply at this spot, and he was soon able to grab the boy's hand and begin to work him toward the bank.

           "The chain held," said Sheila as Robert and Timmy reached the edge of the bayou. "Roland, help your brother out of the water."

           "Golly snot", said Roland.

           "Just shut up, the both of you," said Robert as he and Timmy walked up the bank. The bank was wet and slippery and the younger boy stumbled several times as Robert helped him forward. Timmy was numb and he stared straight ahead as if led by some light that the others didn't see.

           "I didn't wanna," he said, "She made me," and for the first time his fear found expression and he began to cry, the tears marking a trail on his face through the brown mud of the bayou. "She made me do it Robert. I didn't wanna."

           "It's okay," said Robert, leading him farther away from the other two. "Don't let them see you cry," and he and the other walked out of the darkness of the woods back towards the main road.

           "It's time for school to start," shouted Sheila from behind them. "Where ya'll goin'?"

           Neither Robert nor Timmy answered. He removed his coat, wet nearly to the chest, and covered the younger as they started home.

           Sheila's screaming became fainter and more distant with each step. "By God you tell 'em he fell in. You'll be sorry if you don't." Robert heard Sheila but neither he nor Timmy acknowledged her commands. "Me and Roland are goin' on - you mind what I said." Then they couldn't hear her anymore.

           They walked back slowly, the two of them. The soft rain fell again upon the fields of cotton rotting for lack of sun and the fields lay damp and dying in the dullness of the delta. They passed Fate Johnson's house again but this time there would be neither smile nor wave. Those were gone now and so were the plans for a bridge across the bayou. Soon they would be home and they expected heat and dry clothes there. But for now, the cold settled into them like a vapor. The way seemed narrow and endless.

           The younger boy still cried softly. As he walked, he looked at Robert through his tears as if a veil had been pierced in the fall and the crash and he mourned that he could not make it never have happened.

           "I didn't wanna, she made me."

           "I know," said Robert. "You go ahead and cry because of it if you want to," and he put his arm around Timmy's shoulder. In the direction of the Hinson home he saw a thin slice of blue sky emerge from the clouds. As they walked, he began to sing:

           "On the Jerico Road,

           "There's room for just two,

           "No more and no less

           "Just Jesus and you."

Shall we gather at the bayou?

Faith and birth ...

Grains and Flowers

By Jimmie von Tungeln

Something stirred in the damp cell, a breeze perhaps. The man drew his blanket tighter and turned toward the small window. Through it he saw the moon as a small cloud scuttled across its surface. Holding the blanket around him, he rose from the stone ledge that was his bed and stood on aching legs. “Nearly morning.” he said to no one.

            He walked to the window and placed his head close to the wooden bars. There, the fresh scent of the late winter breeze replaced the cold, dead smell of the cell. He saw the feathered helmet of the guard to his left and spoke in a soft voice. “Soon.”

            The guard did not move, but the man saw him stiffen. “I do think the flowers are beautiful,” the man said. “What a shame.”

            “No talking,” the guard said.

            “Oh,” the man said. “Shall I be punished?”

            The guard turned his head in one direction, then the other. “You should be proud,” he said. “You have lived a blessed life.”

            “Of course,” the man said. “The best, most powerful, and strongest among a throng of pygmies.”

            “Do not blaspheme,” the guard said.

            “I won’t. The flowers do bring joy to both the weak and the strong.”

            “But,” the guard said. “You are not flowers.”

            “No,” the man said. “I am grain, the sustainer of life.” He looked past the guard to where a serape hung, its surface laced with dried grain stalks. Next to it hung a small chain containing wooden replicas of local flowers painted in gaudy imitation of real ones.

            A soft sound floated across the open field between the cell and the mound that was beginning to take shape on the pre-dawn horizon.

            “It begins,” the man said.

            As if being triggered by his announcement, a light appeared from the woods to the right of the ramp, then another, and another. Then there was a line of torches moving first to, then up the ramp of the mound. The uneven steps of the bearers gave the lights a sparkling effect, like the sun shining on the scales of a moving serpent. Both men watched in silence.

            Then the man spoke. “They will sleep well tonight.”

            “Silence,” the guard said. “We each do our part.”

            Something in the cell moved behind the man and he turned. A small girl, her age being two smiles before womanhood arose from the other bed and moved into the pale light provided by the watching moon. She wore a woolen dressed, decorated with painted flowers. Her hair was braided like the tips of cornstalks, two black strands tied together in back. She wore a necklace of silver trinkets, each in the shape of a flower. Smaller replicas dangled from each wrist. She walked in leather moccasins. They, like her dress, were covered with painted replicas of flowers.

            The girl walked to where the man stood and looked at him. She smiled the smile of a harlot and began to dance. Swirling across the room, she spread her arms in rhythm to the stamping of her feet. The beauty of her joyous face made the man’s heart ache as if a knife of ice had pierced it.

            “She believes,” he said.

            “More than believes,” the guard said. “She knows.”

            “She thinks she does,” the man said as the girl swept by him, her hands grazing his shoulder. “Do they ever stop believing?”

            “Hardly ever.”

            “How do they do it?”

            “Do what?”

            “Load such belief into a heart.”

            “They begin to build faith at the mother’s breast,” the guard said. “Faith is a powerful force if directed properly.”

            “But sometimes it weakens?”

            “Sometimes,” the guard said. “As they are placed in view of the crowd, the evil serpent Jemsnella places the sin of doubt in their eyes.” He turned for the first time. “But you know of doubt and of battles and of the warrior’s creed. One must not carry doubt into danger.”

            “Great warriors do not carry doubt into danger,” the man said. “But they often carry doubt away from danger.”

            “Do not blaspheme. You should be proud that the flowers will bloom.”

            “And that the grain will grow,” the man said as the girl danced by again, the trinkets on her necklace and bracelets making a sound like the words "shin-ing, shin-ing.” She grinned lasciviously as she passed. “So say the gods,” the man said. 

            “Do not question the ways of the gods,” the guard said.

            “I do not question the ways of the gods,” the man said. “But sometimes I wish they could find ways that are less ….” He stopped as the guard turned around and looked into the cell. The girl finished her dance with a grand and graceful bow.

            “Less what?” the guard said.

            “Cruel.”

"... whoever believes in him shall
 not perish but have eternal life."

 Fiction Friday. Here's one I did long after reading From Romance to Ritual by Jesse Weston. Yes, you'll recognize it as one of the sources recommended by T. S. Eliot as an aid to understanding his classic poem The Waste Land.

ARTIFACTS

By Jimmie von Tungeln

The fierce August heat poured from the sky without mercy upon the solemn fields. Below, nothing moved or showed any signs of life except the efforts of a small boy darting like an atom below the cruel sun. He hopped along a turn-row from one stalk of cotton to the next. The loose soil burned hot enough to scorch the soles of his feet, but at row’s end, the cotton threw a small circle of shade, providing relief for the traveler. He rested in each shadow for a moment before hopping to the next and, with this strange rhythm, reached the trees along the edge of the bayou where the dark forest promised relief. He reached into the pocket of his overalls to make sure his prize was still there, that it hadn’t bounced out or found a hole through which to escape. Feeling its cool, polished form, he smiled and entered the woods, safe from his ordeal by heat. The woods enveloped him like a mother’s arms might wrap around a young child and the vast fields of cotton again lay unmarked by human activity.

            Inside, giant, brooding trees shut out most of the sun’s light so that the boy felt the cool damp soil against his bare feet. He eased to his right and found a familiar trail, then struck for the bayou. The forest was quiet like the world on a frost-covered morning and the boy shivered at its majesty. He moved with a knowing assuredness among the vines and bushes. Before long, he spotted his target. He approached without making a sound on the soggy leaves.

            The old man sat in his place, like a piece of the ancient vegetation itself. A rusted five-gallon bucket provided a seat. He held a long bamboo fishing pole over the water and a white flour sack on the ground held, the boy knew, both bait for fishing and food for the old man. The man sensed, rather than saw, the boy and he spoke without turning his head or removing a battered pipe from his mouth. “Marse Robert,” he said.

            “Hey,” the boy replied. “They bitin’?” He found a spot to the old man’s right and sat.

            “Mostly slow, today,” the man said. “How you doin’?”

            “I’m almost six years old. My birthday’s day after tomorrow—August 21.”

            “Well now isn’t that something?” The old man eased the fishing pole forward until the baited hook emerged. Then he swung the line toward him, grabbed it and inspected the bait. A mangle of worms dangled in several directions and he found no sign of molestation. He adjusted the cork—a relic that had long ago been retrieved from the top of an empty snuff jar—then slid his hand along the line towards the hook. Turning away from the boy, he spat on the bait and tossed it back into the bayou. Late summer rains had flooded the banks and the dark, sluggish water pulled the cork toward some unseen destination until the line went taut and stopped it.

            “I was born in 1920,” the boy continued when he saw that the man was no longer occupied.

            “You don’t say,” the man said, pulling the pipe from his mouth and exhaling a puff of smoke which floated across the bayou like spiritt seeking a companion. “You be grown before we know it.”

            “How old are you?” the boy asked.

            The old man looked at his pipe. “The ‘chidren’ says I must be pushin’ on the door of 90 years or so,” he said. “I don’t rightly know.”

            The enormity of the number stunned the boy and he drew is knees up and stared at the meandering water. Then he remembered. He stood up in that single, fluid movement that only the young can accomplish and thrust his hand into his pocked. He retrieved his prize and thrust it toward the old man. “I fount an indian ‘arrerhead,’” he said. He held a perfectly formed artifact of pure black stone, contrasting against his small, white hand. The stone approached five inches in length and still held the sharp edges and fine point that its maker had first chipped into it.

It was too large to fit an arrow’s shaft. It doubtless had formed the head of a small spear. The old man regarded it, admiring its symmetry and the perfection of the creator’s art. “You shore fount a beauty there. Wherebout’s did you get it.?”

“Up the bayou aways, on the edge of the field the day after it rained. Hit was just a layin’ there. Poppa said Indians used to live here before we did.”

“They did indeed,” the old man said. He took the pipe from his mouth again and looked at the boy, bent toward him slightly to increase the importance of the moment. “Would you like to know something?”

“Sure,” the boy said, infected by the old man’s solemnity.

            “I remember when there were Indians here, at least one family. I remember when that last family left.”

            “You never…,” the boy started. The man’s look stopped him. “How could you remember Indians? Ain’t that been long time ago?”

            “It has for a fact,” the man said. “But I’m an old man and I wasn’t much older than you when the last ones left.”

            “Where were they at?”

            “Right down on this very bayou. This land wasn’t all cleared then and they lived in a lean-to right down near the edge of the water.”

            “Did you ever talk to them?”

            “Never did,” he said. “They kept to ‘theyselves’ and nobody ever went near them far as I knows.”

            “What happened to them?”

            “They just disappeared one night. Somebody noticed they left and nobody ever knew a thing about where they went.”

            “Did they leave anything?”

            “Not that I ever saw. When folks disappear like that, ain’t usually much left of them, ‘cept something like that there thing you holdin’. Folks finds things like that ever now and then.” He nodded at the artifact for emphasis. "Hit's a beauty alright."

            They boy stood without moving, absorbing this information and turning it around in his mind. The man returned to his fishing and his pipe. After a time, the boy closed his fist and returned the artifact to his pocket. “See you around,” he said and started walking upstream.

            “Yassuh,” the old man said and moved to inspect his bait again.

            The boy found a trail and followed the water as it edged sullenly toward its destination. From time to time, he felt in his pocket for his prize. It seemed to grow larger, he thought, the farther he went upstream. He thought about what the man had told him, and he thought about how the old man’s eyes had seemed to sparkle as he talked, almost as if a mist settled on them. He seemed to see the mist again and he felt as if he could see through it right into his own existence until he could almost see the very essence of what made him himself. He shuddered, “Indians,” he said to himself. Then he stopped and made a decision.

            The bayou was about to make a bend and he knew the trail would end. This was the perfect place. He searched among the trees until he found what he needed—the stump of a large tree left when a storm had taken its top. He scooped up a double handful of the soft mud at the water’s edge and carried it to the stump.

            He formed the mud into a small, smooth base. Then he went back to the water and washed the mud from his hands and wiped them dry on the legs of his overalls. He walked back to the stump, and looked at it, examined the small mud bed he had formed, and evaluated the worthiness of his handiwork. Then he took the artifact from his pocket and examined it as if he were seeing it for the first time. He held it in both hands, aiming the point upstream and into the impenetrable forest ahead. He slowly, and with as much respect as he could muster, laid the object on the bed of mud, pointing into the unknown. Then he backed away and stood still until he felt himself merging with the woods, the bayou, the artifact, and even the old man still fishing downstream. Maybe even, he felt, with the vanished ancients themselves. He felt himself becoming dizzy and then he felt a shaft of light coming from beyond the trees. He turned towards it and started from the forest.

            He whistled now as he walked.

Sunrise With Schubert: March 31, 2018

Upon leaving the United States Navy, I landed a provisional job in Little Rock, Arkansas. Problem was, provisional jobs pay very little. Almost nothing. Someone was kind enough to inform me that I was receiving a bit less than secretarial pay.

No problem. I found a cheap, but spacious apartment within walking distance of both the job and the city library. It was much larger than the library on the ship on which I had served, so it allowed me to expand a favorite pastime, reading.

What to read? The writings of T.S. Eliot interested me, so why not? I checked out a copy of his poems and started with The Wasteland. Ouch! It is a troublesome piece, used by generations of professors and mentors to discombobulate arrogant young minds, one belonging to me.

Now Eliot was kind enough to include substantial footnotes as part of the poem, so I checked out some works cited and tackled them.

What on earth, you might say, does that all have to do with the present time?

Well, you see, it’s Easter weekend. That has a lot to do with the topic of so-called “vegetation rituals” so densely treated in wasteland imagery.

It turns out that our ancient ancestors had a few strong beliefs. One was that the Earth exhibited some strange behaviors at times. Another was that it was somehow up to humankind to control such behaviors through various types of magic. And, as alchemy gave birth to scientific investigation, magical attempts at understanding and controlling Earth’s behavior helped give birth to religion.

A prevailing belief was that the Earth died each winter, and it was up to puny humans to revive it. This required great efforts aimed at the rebirth of vegetation. Unfortunately, some of these efforts were quite cruel by today’s standards. The sacrificing of humans as a trade for the rebirth was not uncommon. The giving of a single life for the safety of all became a ubiquitous motif in modern literature.

Hence the beginning of Eliot’s afore-cited work, “April is the cruellest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land …”

Interesting as well is the claim that Eliot’s working title for the poem was a line, borrowed from Dickens, attributed to a reader of newspapers who was extolling a certain writer, “He do the police in different voices.” There’s hardly a better example of that talent than T.S. Eliot.

Now ain’t that something? Education is such a dear and entertaining friend. One must wonder why such powerful forces seek to destroy it in America. I learned to appreciate it many years ago in a cheap apartment, filled with shabby furniture, in Little Rock, Arkansas. It made me happy then.

It has led me down many a path since. It doesn’t take much to satisfy the yearnings of a young man of limited means with the promise of a full life ahead. Way back then, I learned that joy can be found wherever you are, if you’ll only look for it.