I tried to stay inside with my mom but she was on the verge of another child induced breakdown. She kept banging dishes in the sink and stuffing or pulling things out of the icebox with unnecessary force. I could tell she was getting irritated so I left her in a hot kitchen to sweat it out alone.
I went and called on my girlfriend at the time, Claire, but she didn’t want to play. I asked her to go to the swimming hole but she said something about it being so hot the cows were boiling in their ponds. Then she added some comment about prawns being cooked in cool water so they died painlessly but I quit listening.
The week before I noticed the Prichert boy hanging around and I can only imagine she picked up “Prawn” from dinner at their house. What do they eat over there? I guess my mom’s cooking isn’t good enough for her. I wondered if my mom was a better cook I might end up with a better girlfriend.
I’m getting off track though, I met someone today. That’s what I want to tell you about, meeting this old woman. Our town’s pretty small but I’d never seen her before. I was standing on the corner, it was so hot, I was sweating just standing there. I was right on the edge of the sidewalk, the abyss of dirt road stretched east to west in front of me. Little dust devils kicked up and rode about on the wind; they danced and twisted as they passed.
The sidewalk ran alongside the new road. It was the only pavement in town and had just been laid during the early summer before the heat set in. The town put up signs calling it “Main Street,” pretty original, right? The road ended on both ends at a “T” you had to make it a point just to drive the thing and it was the “Main” street. It wasn’t connected to anything, just like our town, adrift on the range.
Our town was established in the year of our lord 1892. It was born out of a ranching family who had been here since the early 1800’s and decided it would rather sell the land to ex-slaves then have it confiscated by land runners.
Back when it was still Indian Territory a son or brother or such had married a squaw and the family moved in heavy. They started with a plot and parcel until the cattle started coming in. Turned out the river was good crossing near here and soon they opened a boarding house and started buying cattle of their own. They built a big ranch house, four smaller houses for extended family and two shacks for the slaves. The street was named after their family, Connely Rd, until this year.
I’d spent some time running around the property, chasing cows, hunting quail and deer but I stayed away from the houses. The main house was still in use. As one father died his son would move in and keep-up the residence. It kept going like this until in the 1940’s when two outa three boys went off to The War and didn’t come back. The surviving son had a homecoming full of visible joy and hidden tears; I think his name was Jacob; he lives in the big house now. The four other houses weren’t lived in again, grass came through the boards and trees disheveled the porches. At least that’s what I thought.
I started walking south down the gravel drive away from “Main” street. The crunch that came with each step reminded me of how our town used to be; before the cattle left, before the street was paved. I only caught 15 years of it and don’t remember most of the time.
Growing up is simple, just wake-up every day and it just sort of happens. For a town though it’s different, first money has to come in, then people have to want to live there. Since we found enough money to pave the road any and everything left was going toward attracting people. It was kinda nice though, the movie theater got remodeled, new street signs, a national grocery store even moved in but something was missing. The new homes looked too much alike; the personality of the town was disappearing underneath the burden of bringing in more money and people.
Before I came over the rise that opened onto the houses I took a sharp left following the ridge and staying out of sight. The heat hadn’t killed the prairie grasses which were tall and flowing. Behind me a trail was creeping forward as I tramped down the grass. I didn’t really have a destination in mind so I cut around the houses in a gully that came out behind them.
I came walking out of the field real slow and crouched down. No reason to go announcing my trespassing. The Indian Grass was brushing my face and I imagined myself as a lion stalking through the savanna. I saw a picture of it in school once and the lion seemed so powerful and graceful, its hair the same golden blonde as the grass. I was heading toward one of the servant shacks when something moved in the corner of my vision. An old woman was sitting on the back porch of one of the decaying houses.
I thought of turning around and heading back into the open acreage behind me but something stopped me. I must have had more courage on that day because normally the two facts of unwanted trespassing and unexpected kin should have sent me home but I saw her. I saw her and she didn’t see me, maybe it was the lion in me that tried to creep up on her. I don’t know if I was going to try and scare her or just see how close I could get but as I got within earshot she called out.
“What are you doing down there in the tall grass?”
I was close enough to see a smile on her face.
“I lost something, I was looking for it” I said as I quickly stood up. I got lost in my game and was embarrassed to have been caught daydreaming.
“Come up here” she said with a little laugh.
I dragged my feet but made it to the porch. She was still smiling as I stepped onto the hardwood.
“You’re a nice looking boy. What’s your name?”
I started to mumble something that would have been inaudible when she cut me off.
“Don’t matter none. What are you doing out here?”
I gave another mumblely response and she brushed me off again.
“That don’t matter neither” she said as she looked away from me.
I looked in the same direction but there was nothing, just grass and wind. The gusts made rivers in the field as it went along, pushing down the relenting grains. I never spent much time sitting still and for the next ten years I probably didn’t stay in one place as long as we sat there.
“How long have you been here?” It was the first true words I had spoken to her.
“What year is this, 1965? Guess that makes me about 87. I was born in that shack” she said pointing a gnarled finger toward the little house I had been heading toward. “We lived there through the 90’s up until the 30’s. Parents died sometime in the teen’s. When the boys didn’t come back I moved in here. Guess that would have been 41 or 2. Fill this up for me.” She kicked a water bucket that was sitting by her feet; the handle was tarnished steel sticking out of the top.
I bent down close to her and caught a whiff. There was something both comforting and threatening about her smell. She smelled like slow death and flowers, decay and birth, blood and perfume. I grabbed the bucket and went to the well.
It was only ten yards from the house, I pumped it four or five times and the water that came out was a rich earthy tone. I gave it another couple pumps and let it run until it started flowing cleaner. I know she watched me the whole time, I could feel her eyes on my back, or imagined I could. She nodded as I set it back in its original place.
“You from town?” she asked.
“Course, I ain’t part of the family if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Don’t get wise boy, this aint your property to be snippy on.”
The snap in her voice let me know she was accustomed to dealing with rowdy grandchildren and dependents. All the years bringing up her kids as well as the familys children, it must have been hard after The War. I wonder if she cried for the lost boys?
“Yes ma’am, Im from town. My names Jonathan and I was just having a walk.”
“That’s better, speak up when you get the chance, not gonna happen very often. Jonathan from town, you look to be about 17, close?”
“15 and a half ma’am, my birthday is this January.”
“Big strapping boy, you suiting anybody?”
“No ma’am.”
“huh,” she grunted, “with that deep voice I bet you could ask any girl dancing”
My cheeks burned crimson and I felt like a schoolboy again sitting on the playground while the girls ran circles calling my name. We had a game I remember where you chased her or she chased me and depending on who caught who a kiss was given to the other. I remember it being innocent, mimicry of how our parents acted quick pecks on the cheek or mouth; no “I love you’s” or staying the night, no awkward mornings, all fun and laughing, children enacting the roles they would later fill hesitantly.
“Don’t say much do you?” she asked.
The question snapped me back to the porch and long hot summer days.
“You have anything to eat?”
I rummaged around in my pockets, I knew I saved something from lunch but couldn’t remember if it was fruit or jerky.
“I got this here peach,” I said offering her the bruised, dirty fruit I had carried with me since morning. Her eyes lit up like the a brush fire. She took the peach.
“Thank you kindly” she said “I’ve been dreaming about a juicy peach for the better part of six years now.”
She bit into the fruit tenderly. I could hear her sucking in the juice and flesh as she bit. Her eyes rolled back and she worked the bite around her mouth, spreading the flavor to every corner. Finally she sighed and opened her eyes. There was no great joy in her eyes, she looked disappointed.
“S’matter ma’am?”
“Noth’n can be help.”
“Cant it?”
“Only through years and age, life don’t work that way.”
“My life does, each year comes and I get older”
“And I get older. Someday you’re going to turn a corner and start counting t’other way. First we come out excited to create distance from the womb and frail youth, then you start counting toward the days of frailty and unending gloom. Life’s a stream, best follow the water.”
“I’ll understand when Im older?” I asked since so many of life’s other problems were explained to me this way.
“Indeed you will. I can’t taste nothing, tongues dryer than a tumbleweed on a cactus. All I wanted to do was savor this peach and it’s been stolen from me. Stolen as if I didn’t take a bite of nothing, all I taste is dust and sorrow. Come back tomorrow and I’ll show you my rifle collection.”
The looked up at her, she was dismissing me, telling me to go home. I jumped off the porch and started heading back into the gully when she yelled one last thing
“The road is free to all, don’t worry about the taxes and tolls, and for God’s sake, speak up when you have the chance.”
I never saw her again; I never tried to see her again. I spent more time on their land but avoided the houses, especially her’s. I don’t know when she died but she must be dead by now. I got a job later that year building a pipeline that was passing through the area and followed it across the southern states. Sometime in the 80’s I came to see my mom buried and to settle her estate and I’ve been gone ever since. Nothing there but fading memories and rolling fields with wind running valleys in the hay, breath of the country, passing away.
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