Brute?

Am I really this loud brute,

This used car salesman,

Twanging my way through?

What is the quiet space between?

Who is praying before dawn,

between sleep, and waking,

that all are protected?

Where did the child under the house go?

Cool red clay staining his knees,

As they called from the sunshine,

Come out, come out,

We’re going to the circus!

Then their laughter, muffled behind slammed doors,

 As the engine roared, then faded away,

Into summer light.

Cousins

When we were adolescent, she got mad at me as she was prone to do and scratched my face.

I could tell when she did it she was sorry. The mirror of her eyes suggested  there was blood. She had wounded her cousin but couldn’t take it back or apologize because her rage was in the way.

Later she was kind to me and we read the Sunday “funnies” splayed out on the linoleum floor.

Mom and I would go to visit my Aunt and Uncle on the other side of town. My cousin was older and  I looked up to him . I was red haired and freckled. He was dark haired and handsome and wore his clothes well.

His sister (she was my cousin too of course) would watch the Beatles on Ed Sullivan and scream and cry hysterically. She was school smart. We weren't at all sure what was going on but just decided to be concerned. 

Even though he was super cool, he’d always spend time with me. He had a way of making me feel wanted … like he was glad I was there. We’d wrestle on the worn carpet. I had a temper with a jacked up motor so I’d give it my all as he laughed,  grinding me into the carpet. When we’d leave I’d have rug burns and a full heart.

Another cousin was coming to Mamaw's. I hadn’t seen her in a long time. Last I remembered she had been sitting on the gargantuan back seat  of a car as I looked over my shoulder from the front  to speak. She was alone there,  her skirt spread around her like some fairy tale princess. She was pretty and clever.

We were 16 years old and I wanted my best friend to meet her. She had become even lovelier and laughed that disarming raspy laugh as we joked and she teased us. I suspected she was amused by our blushing naiveté.

Later we sat on the steps of the old farmhouse while she played the guitar and sang. I was proud … always have been … still am.

Grayed and somewhat wiser, I was there when we gathered at a local eatery after the funeral of a beloved Uncle. There were two more generations now.  She was younger,  a feisty brunette; what we in the South like to call a” pistol.”

A cousin close to my age and I were discussing our childhoods after these many passing years. It was known that mine had been “challenging”. He shared some things that came as a surprise.

The “little Pistol” turned to me, tears in her eyes,

“I had no idea. Please tell me. I want to know what your lives were like.”

Over the next weeks, I tried.  I’m not sure if it helped. I only know that I had seen her love for family in those misty eyes. She just wanted to know the truth. She had not had a lot of contact with those of us much older and only knew the stories the aunts told and a few black and white photos.  I suspect she felt that knowing our stories would help her understand how she had come to be who she was.

We figured it out one time. I have somewhere north of 30 paternal cousins.

I think about them often. One of the few redeeming graces of social media is that I at least have a window into their lives.

I could tell stories until “the cows come home.”

My twin sons were born. She came with her Mother and sat on the floor of the nursery and held them ... played with them. I barely knew her. I’d been gone rambling those many years as she grew. Yet she had come ... wanted to come. 

He doesn’t come to the reunions. Truth is his childhood was the roughest of all. We roomed together for a while in our twenties on the outskirts of town. We had so many things in common I think it confused us a bit.  The confusion was the thing we had in common the most.

Her Mother was so kind it showed even before she spoke. She was the same yet beleaguered from the beginning by illness, yet her beauty and kindness never waned.  It’s been too long. I suspect the years have had their toll like with all of us yet i know the kindness will still live in those sparkling eyes.

In the rising dawn I sat and asked God to come to me. What came were their faces until they diffused into light and we were running, laughing in a field behind the old two story schoolhouse and heard the grownups calling …. Come home, come home … it’s time to say the blessing.

Mamas

                                                                  Mamas

Aubrey was a precocious child. It was boring at Mama Grace’s house. The old two story seemed to talk with wrap around porches. A steep "servant’s stairway" up the back way, off the porch outside the kitchen was interesting but the anxious women wouldn’t let him play there.

He’d get bored with the two giant pecan trees and you couldn’t crawl in the scuppernong brush because of the briars.

They’d seem to forget about him for a while so he’d snuck down to the muddy pond. Sweat running down his spine and his temples he’d toss stuff in. Minnows scurried from the muddy leaves at the shore and he’d wonder what they were running from? He sure wouldn’t hurt them.

Mama had warned him time and again not to go near the pond.

“You’ll fall in and drown like the other little boy did. “  She’d say.

He suspected since the “little boy” wasn’t given a name it wasn’t true but it sort of scared him anyway.

“What you doin’ down there, boy?” came a raspy voice from behind. It startled him so bad, he tensed and felt pee try to dribble, 

Turning he saw a big black lady sitting there on the porch of the small cabin. The tired porch roof drooped, wood planking the color of a cloudy day.

She was a cascade of folds in her faded dress and tattered straw hat. Seemed like every black lady he’d ever seen had a tin pot full of string beans they were snapping  by their foot.

“I’m not doin’ anything wrong,” he lied. 

“Come here. Let me talk to you a bit.”

“Yes, Mam,” as he trudged head down in guilt up the rise to the porch.

She was poured onto an old wooden rocker same color as the planks.

She motioned to a wicker stool by the pot of string beans and he sat in the shade there with her.

Funny, it was cooler here with a soft breeze. He could understand why she liked it there, gazing out into the heat.

“You know that pond can be dangerous for a little ‘ un, right?”

“Yes, Mam” he mumbled. “Mama says.”

“I know yo Mama says, cuz she told me you’d likely come down here and to keep an eye.”

Seemed to him his Mama knew most everybody. The man at the general store always knew he was coming. One time he’d dallied at the cemetery looking at the headstones and Mr. Joyner had' for the first time ever' seemed a bit cross.

“Where you been, Aubrey? Shoulda been here a bit ago”

Near as he could figure it was probably best to obey his Mama. ‘Specially if it was gonna make friendly people cross.

They sat for a while. She was quiet. The only sound was those beans snappin’ and the crickets and frogs at the pond. Well …  the ever present old crow was fussin’ as usual.

He waited a little. He was bored again but he didn’t want to hurt the lady's feelings. Then he had an idea.

“My name’s Aubrey.”

Yes, Honey, I know. My name’s Mae. I’ve known yo Mama since she wasn’t much older than you." 

“Well, I’m gonna go up to the house before her and Mama Grace get too worried and go to calling.”

“Yes … you do that, Honey. Tell yo Mama, Mae said hello.”

His heart jumped. If he told his Mama, she’d know he’d snuck down to the pond.

As he walked slow gazing at the old house up the hill he got to thinking. This was like that thing they’d told him in Sunday School. You might think you’re being sneaky and getting away with something. Thing is, God’s always watching.

Near as he could tell ... Mama was a lot like God.

GOODBYE, JOHN.

I was about 20 years old and still in the Navy. A buddy on the Kitty Hawk was living in Chula Vista with a couple guys. Couldn’t for the life of me figure out why anybody would want to live in Chula Vista, but there we were.

He’d called and I’d showed up at the large garden apartment. We had grown up like brothers listening to Steppenwolf and Led Zeppelin, Blind Faith and Cream and such.

We went in the Navy together but got separated so had not seen each other for a while. After a couple shooters, some beer and a little herbal medicine my buddy started to put on an album.

He asked, “You want to listen to some John Prine?”

“Who the hell’s John Prine?” I said.

I’d been listening to a lot of Allman Brothers, Goose Creek Symphony, Leon Russell ...

“Damn, Scott. You don’t know who John Prine is?”

“I been hangin’ out with a bunch of deck apes, Buddy. Guess the subtler nuances have gone by.”

A sort of folksy ballad thing was playing by now. I wasn’t overly impressed. You couldn’t dance to it. Didn’t make you want to stomp your foot or beat your thigh.

So we rattle on with Prine singing in the background until it came,

“daddy won't you take me back to Muhlenberg County

Down by the Green River where Paradise lay

Well, I'm sorry my son, but you're too late in asking

Mister Peabody's coal train has hauled it away.”

Through the fog, I got to thinking. This guy’s not just talking about strip mining. Mister Peabody’s hauled off a lot more than coal.

Years later I got straightened out and had kids. They were  budding
adolescent and music was growing more prevalent. We’d always sung hymns and country stuff like my folks sang while riding down the highway. 

One was prone to ask me about music I thought was important …. that I liked. Of course I told him about The Allman Brothers’ and Led Zeppelin, mostly rock, then from out of the blue I caught myself singing the chorus to John Prine’s “Paradise”. 

Needless to say, he was quite taken. 

I guess Mr. Peabody did haul off an awful lot. Thing is, if we survive long enough, looks like we can walk a good bit of it back home. 

Thank you, John.

See you on the other side.