On the Divinity of Second Chances (9 page)

BOOK: On the Divinity of Second Chances
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First, I saw his tractor upside down. They are so easy to roll. Hit a bump, jerk the wheel, and it’s all over. It happens every day in these parts. I stopped the truck and walked over to it. I dreaded what I would be confronted with the entire walk over to the tractor. I dreaded reaching in and seeing if I could feel a pulse. I shined my flashlight on the ground. “Henry? Henry?” I called, but not very loudly because I knew there would be no answer. I noticed the swerve of tractor tracks in the soil before me. I followed them with the flashlight, noticed where the tires had really trenched in, and then I saw it . . . his hand. At first, I didn’t know what it was, but then the flash of his wedding ring gave it away. As soon as I recognized what it was, I moved the light of the flashlight, paused, turned, and went back to the truck. Sure, if his hand had just been cut off, it might not have been hopeless, but I figured he had been there for a fair bit, long enough to have bled to death, and I didn’t want to see it.
I drove away. It was a long, quiet, creepy ride back. I shook, but I did not cry. I didn’t know what to think. I knew I should cry. I tried to cry. I just couldn’t. When I finally reached the house, Mike was waiting for me. I stopped by the side of his car. He looked at me questioningly. I slowly shook my head. My eyes must have told him a lot. He got on his radio and called for backup. I drove on into the driveway, parked, and went into the house.
I couldn’t stop thinking about his hand. It struck me that he no longer had a hold on me, and that I no longer had his hand in marriage. I thought about his hand, how it had never been particularly tender, particularly loving. I thought about how I couldn’t remember if we had ever held hands after our wedding ceremony. I don’t think so. It was an interesting body part to find lying in the dirt. There is so much to a hand.
The house did feel strange without Henry for a while. That was about the extent of my grief, though—uneasiness. Maybe because I didn’t love him, or maybe because I just didn’t have time, I never did grieve. I learned within two days that Henry had mortgaged the farm to buy that tractor, and I was about to lose everything. That left me with no time.
Phil on Lesson One
(June 3)
“Good to make your acquaintance, Phil,” Al says to me in a heavy southern accent. He looks like Colonel Sanders in a skirt and sips scotch. He points me to a seat in his bare living room. “I am sorry to hear that your marriage is in the toilet.” What? How did he know? Before I can ask, he adds, “No one learns to play the pipes unless their marriage is already in the toilet, Phil. Okay now, hold this.” He hands me a long singular pipe. “This here is a chanter. First you play the chanter. In a few months, we add the bag, but cork the drones, and you practice blowing your arm off the bag. That, Phil, is called ‘playing the goose.’ Although you are clearly experiencing marital problems, do not confuse playing the goose with choking your chicken. True, pants are worn for neither, but other than that, they are entirely different. Now, when you find you are able to play the goose, keep your tone even, and march simultaneously, yes, Phil, when you can do that and not pass out, you are ready to uncork one drone at a time. This is no overnight process, Phil. This requires patience, Phil. You do not look like a patient man.”
I’m at a loss. What do you say to that?
“At one time, I was not a patient man either, and then I discovered scotch. Okay now, place your fingers over the holes. You will play notes by removing one finger at a time. Try not to cover the holes with the tips of your fingers. Keep your fingers flat. Yeah, like that. Good. Now blow.”
I blow. It squeaks. It’s the worst noise I’ve ever heard. Still, I can hear potential and am encouraged. I keep trying. I’m finally able to hold a note. After a little time, it begins to sound pretty good!
“Now uncover this hole here. Blow.” I blow again. Wow! I love this!
“Phil, it would appear as though you are a natural. Let us begin learning the fingering for ‘Amazing Grace,’ the greatest song ever written.”
I have always dreamed of playing “Amazing Grace” on the bagpipes! This is great! I concentrate hard on keeping my fingers flat. I am determined to be the best student Al has ever had. He thinks it takes patience; I think it takes commitment and determination.
At the end of the lesson, I pay him sixty dollars for the chanter and book, plus thirty dollars for the lesson. That was ninety dollars well spent. Ninety dollars would have only bought me a halfway decent putter had I chosen to pursue golf. Ninety dollars wouldn’t have even gotten me to the first green. Bagpipe lessons are a screaming good deal.
Jade on Olive’s Reality of Single Motherhood
(June 7)
“Hey, sis. How goes it?” I ask Olive. She opens the door to reveal a stack of neatly labeled cardboard boxes.
“All right.” She nods unhappily. “All of this is ready to go to Mom and Dad’s.” She looks pale and her eyes are sad.
I pause and study her for a moment. “Are you all right?”
She looks at me long, takes a deep breath, and says, “I’m pregnant.”
“Oh.” I say and try to act surprised, but calm at the same time somehow. It’s an important time for me to keep my mouth shut. “Do you have a plan?” That’s neutral. I sit on a cardboard box labeled “Financial Records and Photo Albums.”
“All I know right now is I’m not ready to tell anyone.”
“Not even Matt? I mean, he’s the father, right?” She won’t look at me. She just keeps focusing on the pile of boxes.
“I wouldn’t call him ‘the father.’ He doesn’t want anything to do with this.”
“You told him?”
“Not exactly.” She sits down on the box next to me, staring straight ahead. There’s a heaviness in the air between us and I wish Grace were here to help me. “I asked him a hypothetical question about what would happen if I accidentally got pregnant.”
“And?”
Olive puts her head in her hands and starts crying. I swallow hard and put my arms around her.
“It’s gonna be okay . . .” I whisper, and rub her back.
“No, it’s not, Jade.” She gulps for air. “He honestly believes that if I got pregnant, I’d have done it on purpose as a way to manipulate him. . . .”
“Oh, Jesus . . .” I wasn’t prepared for that.
“He’d ‘seriously have to wonder if he’d want to spend the rest of his life with someone who would do that to him.’ That’s what he said. I mean, we’re talking about a baby here and all he gives a shit about is himself!” She places her hand on the lower part of her belly. “I’m on my own, Jade.”
I shake my head. “Man, Matt’s really blown it.”
“I can’t believe I spent more than five minutes with him. You know, when I first fell in love with Matt, I really believed that he was in his guy chrysalis and that he’d emerge a man.” She shakes her head. “Wrong. He’s chosen to stay a guy. In fact, you could say he’s adamantly chosen to remain in guydom.”
“Well, I guess if this is who he truly is, it was nice of him to tell you now. You were smart to believe him.”
“If I was smart, I would have made these discriminations before I ever slept with him. Maybe if all women refused to sleep with guys and only slept with men, maybe more guys would step up and become men.” She shrugs. “I gambled on Matt. I thought for sure he was in the final stage of becoming a man. I gambled and lost, and ultimately it’s this baby who’s going to pay for my error in judgment. All I can do is try to minimize that cost by not subjecting her to willful abandonment. It’s always the children that pay. In retrospect, no sex is worth the debt I just imposed on this baby. I really screwed up. I’d give anything to be able to go back and do things differently.”
“He flat out told you he’d want out?” I feel the need to clarify. “What were his exact words?”
“I asked him if I got accidentally pregnant would he still expect me to live in a tipi, and whether he thought a tipi was adequate shelter for a baby. That’s when he said the tipi issue was irrelevant and what was or wasn’t adequate for the baby wouldn’t really be his problem. The real issue for him would be whether he’d want to spend the rest of his life with someone he obviously couldn’t trust.”
“Olive, remember when we were little, how obsessed we were with what we’d do if we ever saw a rattlesnake? And I showed you how I’d walk slowly away from it? Well, the first time I saw a rattler, pow! I was out of there! I didn’t think at all. I just jumped. I didn’t know I was capable of jumping so far. I just wonder . . . maybe it’s just wishful thinking . . . but I just wonder if for Matt this might be one of those cases where you think you’d do one thing when it’s just hypothetical, but when it’s real, something else takes over and you discover strength you didn’t know you had.”
“What happens if I tell him and he decides to claim his custody rights? I’m then supposed to leave this baby in the hands of a guy who thinks adequate shelter’s not an issue? No way! ”
“If you tell him and I’m right, maybe you two can work things out where you raise this child together. That would be best for the child.” Shit. Wrong thing to say.
I wait for her to explode, but she doesn’t. “It’s a long shot, Jade. I can’t afford to gamble and lose. By telling him, I’d be handing this baby over to a really messed-up legal system.”
As I take in everything she’s saying, I see Grace appear. Finally. Grace is smiling and nodding her head as she says, “Oh, yeah, she’s gettin’ her mama bear mojo workin’!”
Olive’s eyes are red and tired; this conversation has worn her out. “Trust me, Jade, no one wants a storybook ending more than me. It’s just not going to happen.”
I nod as I stand up and choose which box to carry out.
“Look at the bright side,” she says. “At least I won’t end up like Mom, sleeping on a lawn chair when I’m in my fifties in order to get away from a loveless marriage.”
“She’s sleeping on a lawn chair?” I ask.
“Yeah. That’s how much she can’t stand Dad,” Olive says.
I pick up the box and carry it to my truck. She picks up another and follows me out.
“Did you pick a light one?” I ask. “Let me get the heavy ones.”
“Blankets and towels,” she replies.
“Good.”
Forrest on the Walk Home
(June 9)
I make my way east up and down ridges and draws I have named. I climb “First Hill,” then walk across “The Ridge with the Warm Wind.” I continue up “The Hill Where I Fall” (I usually slip on the return trip down), and wind through “The Place Where the Spirits Live.” I think I see them from time to time out of the corner of my eye, never directly, and always in this eighth-of-a-mile stretch. I’m not sure what they are. When I spy them, I feel neither welcome nor unwelcome. Mostly I just feel them watching. After that, I climb up “The Wall,” the steep hill where I usually begin to feel tired, until I reach “The Place with the Tree Where I Rest.” Usually, I rest there on hot days, enjoying some shade offered by the ancient ponderosa, but not today. Today I start right up “The Hill That Never Ends.”
I decide to walk into the night to finish the journey early. The moon is full, the wind is down, the rattlers are asleep in the ground, and the temperature is bearable. My mind is full of clutter, and walking often clears it.
Part of the reason I chose to check out of society is because it lacks humanity. How exactly am I contributing to the solution? Given, just not being part of the problem is a huge accomplishment. Somehow, though, I’m left with the sense that I’m wasting my life. I don’t know what to do about it, though; I’ve burned so many bridges.
These thoughts overwhelm me, so I do my best to replace them with disjointed lines of poetry, building blocks for a new poem to be written later.
From the top of “The Hill That Never Ends,” I see a campfire below. I don’t recall ever seeing a camp there before. I walk down a ridge in the general direction of the camp and find a somewhat clean-cut guy sitting on a log just staring at the fire. I’m worried about his fire, so although I normally don’t talk to anyone but Jade, I decide to make another exception.
“Hey,” I say, a little startled to hear my own voice after so many months. I wasn’t half as startled as this guy, though. He jumped, and then tried to pretend he hadn’t. “Got a water bucket?” I ask. With a puzzled expression, he shakes his head. “It’s dry. Your fire may have already ignited roots in the ground. The fire travels along these roots and springs up all over the place. Root fires are almost impossible to fight. Do you have a shovel?” He shakes his head. His eyes are fearful. I take a minute and consider how I look. I reach up and touch a long lock of dreaded hair. Yeah, I bet I’m quite a sight. “From now on, use a camp stove so you don’t burn down my home and the home of everything else that lives out here.” He nods timidly.
I take a moment and survey his camp. A little truck is parked below on the other side of a stream that is nothing but mud now. A minefield of toilet paper wads littered the flood-plain. Gross. He’s been chopping at a large log, not even sawing first. What a moron, chopping at a big log instead of just collecting the right-sized pieces. He has five gallons of store-bought water in a wheelbarrow that’s stuck in the mud stream. A little tent sits right next to the mud stream where all the mosquitoes hatch out. He hasn’t put his food up in a tree. It’s clear he has been eating food too close to his tent. Even though he really should be selected out, I don’t wish a bear attack on anyone, so I say, “Never eat by your tent. Never have food anywhere close to your tent. Get a rope, and hang all your food from a branch at night. Toothpaste, too. If you keep eating near your tent, you’re going to wake up one night with a bear on top of you.” His eyes widen with alarm.
“Are you living here?” I ask.
He nods. “I’m saving for a house. I’m Matt,” he says and holds out his hand. I ignore it and choose not to introduce myself.
“Do you go to town every day?”
He nods again. “I have a job.”
BOOK: On the Divinity of Second Chances
8.81Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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