The back door was still open. Slipping into the coveralls, John opened the front door and felt the cool damp morning air flood into the house. He pulled one suspender over his right shoulder and left the other one dangling at his side. He stretched and gave a satisfied yawn, drawing air that seemed to fill his body with renewed vigor.
The old wooden screen door was slightly bent on its hinges and stuck a bit against the stoop, requiring a bit of effort to push it open. It creaked loudly against the ancient hinges. John hesitated a moment before stepping outside into the cold wet grass. He yawned once more and stretched the last sleep from his body.
The town was quiet, mostly. There was the hum of activity at the mill along the tracks, a few blocks over. It sounded more urgent than usual, not not enough to cause John to take much more than a passing note. A rooster awakened down the street. The first golden light was catching the tree tops across the road. It sparkled upon the grass and everything as warm daylight spilled through the trees. The colors of the world were soft and dream-like.
The yard was littered with clumps of leaves and pieces of tar paper from the roof. A large branch was torn from a spruce along the creek. It had split from the trunk but was still partly attached by sinewy golden-white slivers. A clump of spiky green Iris' had been flattened by the downpour. Their long orange flowers had been battered, but they'd seen worse and would recover before long.
He went out a distance from the house. Patches of black tar paper had been torn from the roof exposing the dingy-blond wood frame in places. Wasn't as bad as he feared last night, but John hardly relished the thought of climbing up there to fix it yet again. He'd patched it up pretty good the previous autumn, one of those obligatory preparations for the long hard Iowa winters. He’d need more paper and some longer nails, which would tax their already meager finances. As a matter of course John wondered what would have to be sacrificed in its place. He was mulling over that problematic budget when movement in the house drew his attention.
Anna was just climbing from bed. She was nearly lost to the umber shadows of the house, like a figure from a Rembrandt painting, fading into murkiness. She was nude, her rust-red hair wild and tangled. For a moment she lingered in the bedroom door with her back to John, looking down upon the bed, as if it was the place of a crime or something terrible she wished to but couldn't ignore. She turned and, as if she could feel him watching her, found his eyes with a guilt-laden gaze before looking away.
Anna sipped on a robe and came slowly to the back door. She smiled reluctantly, and slid along the door frame. She stood straight again and pulled back the long hair from her face, drawing it to one side. In the same motion stepped down into the wet green grass. With an economy of gliding steps she found John and wrapped her arms around his waist. Anna breathed in the scent of his chest and the memory of last night.
“Sleep well?”
“You?”
“Like a rock.”
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Monday, December 21, 2009
EMMETSBURG: Four
These dreams, these little torturers and redeemers, these liars and betrayers of the conscience. They are perversions and predictions, and so fully out of the soul’s feeble control. Where is the line crossed between temptation and imagination? That they reside within each soul, are they proof of ultimate corruption or reason for hope? And what of the pious man, tormented by demons he eschews by day? Is he then a hero or a hypocrite?
John woke with a start. His heart was racing. He had been dreaming something but he could not recall what it was. It was an odd thing. He always remembered his dreams. They escaped him now for some reason, which was just as well. His breaths upset the early morning still of the room. He glanced to Anna, certain it would disturb her sound sleep. She remained asleep, a deep and peaceful sleep. There was just the slightest furl to her brow. John touched her forehead gentle and it relaxed
.
There was a cob web hanging lazily from the ceiling above. It was fat and gray from dust. The creature that had created it had long ago passed from the world, or moved off to a better place. John watched it sway gently from a breeze somewhere. It almost lulled him back to sleep
Dreams stalked John. They had since the war, which had revisited him on nights too numerous to count. They were shocking, detestable images so real he would awaken believing he was still in some muddy, lice-filled, corpse ridden trench in France. That morning when he awoke those dreams had left him. More than that, John actually felt free of them, as if they had been a terrible fever that had suddenly and unexpectedly passed.
He slipped quietly from bed. The floor was cool against his bare feet. The floor boards were uneven. Not disjointed or separated in any way, but rather rose and fell like waves on the ocean. Anna was on her belly. The blanket was bunched at her waist. One leg was bent along side of her. The other stretched to the end of the small, high brass bed. Her bare foot dangled at the edge. The pre-dawn darkness softened the contours of her back, bare to her hips. John recalled their lovemaking during the night with a mix of joy and concern. He touched her bare ankle as he moved around the edge of the bed, where he scooped up his coveralls and went out into the kitchen.
John woke with a start. His heart was racing. He had been dreaming something but he could not recall what it was. It was an odd thing. He always remembered his dreams. They escaped him now for some reason, which was just as well. His breaths upset the early morning still of the room. He glanced to Anna, certain it would disturb her sound sleep. She remained asleep, a deep and peaceful sleep. There was just the slightest furl to her brow. John touched her forehead gentle and it relaxed
.
There was a cob web hanging lazily from the ceiling above. It was fat and gray from dust. The creature that had created it had long ago passed from the world, or moved off to a better place. John watched it sway gently from a breeze somewhere. It almost lulled him back to sleep
Dreams stalked John. They had since the war, which had revisited him on nights too numerous to count. They were shocking, detestable images so real he would awaken believing he was still in some muddy, lice-filled, corpse ridden trench in France. That morning when he awoke those dreams had left him. More than that, John actually felt free of them, as if they had been a terrible fever that had suddenly and unexpectedly passed.
He slipped quietly from bed. The floor was cool against his bare feet. The floor boards were uneven. Not disjointed or separated in any way, but rather rose and fell like waves on the ocean. Anna was on her belly. The blanket was bunched at her waist. One leg was bent along side of her. The other stretched to the end of the small, high brass bed. Her bare foot dangled at the edge. The pre-dawn darkness softened the contours of her back, bare to her hips. John recalled their lovemaking during the night with a mix of joy and concern. He touched her bare ankle as he moved around the edge of the bed, where he scooped up his coveralls and went out into the kitchen.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
EMMETSBURG: Three
Midnight blue. The storm was all but spent now. It lifted like a veil from the night. Bright white flashes on the tilting horizon silhouetted a tree line at the end of his property and a distant barn, reminding him of France and distant artillery duels. The barn was turned so that he could see directly through the open doors at either end, like an escape through this world into another. It left the yard strewn with branches, and torn sheets of tar paper from the roof. Anna pulled away slowly, holding on to his hand. She tugged at it lightly.
“Come to bed,” her voice was laced with reluctant desire. “We’ll get a new perspective on things in the morning.”
At the bedroom door she lifted away her gown and let it fall to the floor. John smiled, for not a moment before he’d had a strange sense, a feeling that the moments he was living now were as memories, as if they had already happened. At the bedroom door John took in her nakedness. She lay across the bed, her arms stretched above her head, accentuating full breasts, shone white and perfect in the darkness. Anna’s nipples were round and swollen. Her hair was thrown across the pillow. The room was suddenly filled with the scent of her sex. It beckoned him to her.
John slipped from his shorts and climbed up over her, hovering there momentarily, as though he was floating above some intensely desirable landscape; as if he was a banished native to that land coming home after so long. As she opened herself to him Anna reached up and touched his face.
Her expression was encyclopedic. There was desire to be sure, but more than that there was the deepest sadness. Her eyes were the deepest of dark pools, and John could not be certain if that sadness was more for her or for him. Her thighs caressed his flanks. He hesitated at her gaze. It was almost too much for him.
“Are you sure?” he whispered.
She nodded, her eyes filled more with resolve than anything else. “Come into me, John.”
He found her and teased her lightly, delighting as she pulled eagerly at his hips. Her breath was warm. Anna brought her lips to his ear and pulled at his hips, imploring him to fill her. A sigh escaped her as he pressed himself tightly to her. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and whispered softly to him.
“Oh, John, I missed you.”
They made love for what seemed an eternity, erasing the world outside; the storm, sirens across town, the rattle of an old truck as it sped down Pleasant Street.. The rain came in fits and starts. The storm’s power, its melancholy and passion fully reflected in their lovemaking, as though it was a symphony to their dance. Finished, John and Anna lay beside one another staring at the ceiling. Their breaths thundered in the room, their bodies glistening from their sudden and unexpected expressions for one another.
Bluish flashes of lightening were distant now, the thunder barely audible. John looked over at Anna and thought to say something. There were tears in her eyes. He knew what they were for. A sorrowful moan almost escaped him. Sleep came quickly and as a blessing.
“Come to bed,” her voice was laced with reluctant desire. “We’ll get a new perspective on things in the morning.”
At the bedroom door she lifted away her gown and let it fall to the floor. John smiled, for not a moment before he’d had a strange sense, a feeling that the moments he was living now were as memories, as if they had already happened. At the bedroom door John took in her nakedness. She lay across the bed, her arms stretched above her head, accentuating full breasts, shone white and perfect in the darkness. Anna’s nipples were round and swollen. Her hair was thrown across the pillow. The room was suddenly filled with the scent of her sex. It beckoned him to her.
John slipped from his shorts and climbed up over her, hovering there momentarily, as though he was floating above some intensely desirable landscape; as if he was a banished native to that land coming home after so long. As she opened herself to him Anna reached up and touched his face.
Her expression was encyclopedic. There was desire to be sure, but more than that there was the deepest sadness. Her eyes were the deepest of dark pools, and John could not be certain if that sadness was more for her or for him. Her thighs caressed his flanks. He hesitated at her gaze. It was almost too much for him.
“Are you sure?” he whispered.
She nodded, her eyes filled more with resolve than anything else. “Come into me, John.”
He found her and teased her lightly, delighting as she pulled eagerly at his hips. Her breath was warm. Anna brought her lips to his ear and pulled at his hips, imploring him to fill her. A sigh escaped her as he pressed himself tightly to her. She wrapped her legs tightly around his waist and whispered softly to him.
“Oh, John, I missed you.”
They made love for what seemed an eternity, erasing the world outside; the storm, sirens across town, the rattle of an old truck as it sped down Pleasant Street.. The rain came in fits and starts. The storm’s power, its melancholy and passion fully reflected in their lovemaking, as though it was a symphony to their dance. Finished, John and Anna lay beside one another staring at the ceiling. Their breaths thundered in the room, their bodies glistening from their sudden and unexpected expressions for one another.
Bluish flashes of lightening were distant now, the thunder barely audible. John looked over at Anna and thought to say something. There were tears in her eyes. He knew what they were for. A sorrowful moan almost escaped him. Sleep came quickly and as a blessing.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
EMMETSBURG: Two
Anna felt his worry. She turned to him as the first fat rain drops patted against the front of the house. He could feel her looking at him. For a moment they were both silent. He reached over and pulled the window shut. Instantly the heat rose in the room.
“John?”
“Go back to sleep?” he said quietly.
“What is it?” she asked, touching his bare shoulder.
He didn’t wish to worry her and frowned over thoughts refusing to form themselves into proper sentences.
“It’s nothing. Get some sleep.”
With a blinding flash of lightening, thunder, like a rumbling kettledrum, shook the world. John’s heart skipped a beat. Anna pulled closer, her warm breath at his neck. Her gasp was lost to the racket of a sudden spectacular downpour.
“Worried for the roof?” she asked. She ran a hand across his strong chest.
“Some,” he said.
He was worried for the roof, worried for the truck, for Anna and the prospect of not going back to work any time soon. He worried over the banks and all those who had lost hope along with their homes, and he worried for a world whose governments always saw the simple way out of their population’s discontent and disillusionment through war. He could feel it out there somewhere, rising as a certain tension in the world. And tensions had either to be relieved or they broke altogether. And John feared the world seemed to be coming to one hell of a break up.
John turned his head and found her hazel eyes in the dark. He said the only thing he could have said to her. The only thing his ego would permit. “Be fine.”
She pulled him closer and he suddenly felt trapped there. John’s heart thudded madly, as though about to burst from his chest. He was already sliding sideways out of bed, pulling gingerly away from her.
“Be back,” he said.
In just shorts John pushed his feet into a pair of old brown slippers. Anna didn’t protest. She watched as he left the room and crossed the small dining room to the kitchen door. He pushed open the back screen and a gust of wind tore it from his hands. The sound of it banging against the house was lost to the roaring waves of rain. Water already stood deep in the yard, with waves whipped and sheared by the wind.
Anna sat up, her feet still covered beneath her late mother’s heavy quilt. She swept back a lock of long Irish-red hair and studied him as if he was a strange animal, at once wild and beautiful in its power. It was like those pictures of great male lions from the National Geographic. The fight had long ago gone out of them though they still projected awesome strength.
John’s shoulders were broad and strong. His wavy brown hair brushed with the pewter evidence of hard years and great disappointment. He was no longer the bright-eyed boy she waved goodbye to as he went off to join Pershing in Europe. He was every bit the man who returned to her darker for that year at war.
He was silhouetted in the door against the silvery blue downpour like some dejected mythical hero. One arm was upraised, a hardened and calloused hand pressed to the frame. But the lightening, that immense and constant lightening threw his shadow in snapshot moments across the floor, making him appear all the more tragic and lonesome. There came the flat tap-tap-tapping of water falling upon kitchen tiles behind him. Anna watched with a measure of sympathy and understanding as her big man sighed heavily at the sound and looked skyward.
Anna loved him. She loved him more than he could ever realize. She loved that enduring energy, the stalwart refusal to quit, to quit her and to quit this life where lesser men might have given up. She loved that quality which compelled him to remain in the fight when all conscious faculties might have convinced him of its futility. It drew Anna from bed.
She paused in the dining room. There was hardly enough room for the old oak table and four heavy chairs. Let alone the Franklin sewing machine, where Anna hired out her services to help make ends meet. The lace-white curtains over the window were pulled tight. Beside the window a trickle of water ran along the wall past an oval framed photograph of her parents, taken just after landing in America. The couple looked ancient, and part of a very different world than they would leave for their only daughter.
Anna went to John, wrapping her arms around his body and pressing her cheek against the cool flesh of his bare back. She breathed him, suddenly and completely aroused by his scent. She moaned softly and listened to the steady thudding of his heart.
“Bad storm,” he said quietly. A flash of lightening brought a sharp and quick boom from somewhere across town. It was of a much different character than the thunder.
“Been worse,” she softly kissed his back.
He was a man of so very few words, but each was supported by deeply resonating thoughts. The words he chose so sparingly truly meant something.
“Gets so fighting even the little ones is too much anymore.”
She was quiet a long moment, and was suddenly fearful that he might slip away from her. “John Perkins, don’t you quit on me.”
He mulled over the words and held a hand out to the rain. It was cool and perfect. There was something about the rain. It had a power, as though the true character of the storm resided in the collaboration of each of those myriad drops. He thought about the waste of the European War and wondered why men of good conscience failed to rally as those myriad drops.
The rain let up just a little, and was already turning the long garden troughs into little canals. Already he was figuring a way to fix the roof, and would keep at that roof as long as he still had the breath and strength to do so. John managed a smile and touched her arm.
“Too dumb to quit.”
“John?”
“Go back to sleep?” he said quietly.
“What is it?” she asked, touching his bare shoulder.
He didn’t wish to worry her and frowned over thoughts refusing to form themselves into proper sentences.
“It’s nothing. Get some sleep.”
With a blinding flash of lightening, thunder, like a rumbling kettledrum, shook the world. John’s heart skipped a beat. Anna pulled closer, her warm breath at his neck. Her gasp was lost to the racket of a sudden spectacular downpour.
“Worried for the roof?” she asked. She ran a hand across his strong chest.
“Some,” he said.
He was worried for the roof, worried for the truck, for Anna and the prospect of not going back to work any time soon. He worried over the banks and all those who had lost hope along with their homes, and he worried for a world whose governments always saw the simple way out of their population’s discontent and disillusionment through war. He could feel it out there somewhere, rising as a certain tension in the world. And tensions had either to be relieved or they broke altogether. And John feared the world seemed to be coming to one hell of a break up.
John turned his head and found her hazel eyes in the dark. He said the only thing he could have said to her. The only thing his ego would permit. “Be fine.”
She pulled him closer and he suddenly felt trapped there. John’s heart thudded madly, as though about to burst from his chest. He was already sliding sideways out of bed, pulling gingerly away from her.
“Be back,” he said.
In just shorts John pushed his feet into a pair of old brown slippers. Anna didn’t protest. She watched as he left the room and crossed the small dining room to the kitchen door. He pushed open the back screen and a gust of wind tore it from his hands. The sound of it banging against the house was lost to the roaring waves of rain. Water already stood deep in the yard, with waves whipped and sheared by the wind.
Anna sat up, her feet still covered beneath her late mother’s heavy quilt. She swept back a lock of long Irish-red hair and studied him as if he was a strange animal, at once wild and beautiful in its power. It was like those pictures of great male lions from the National Geographic. The fight had long ago gone out of them though they still projected awesome strength.
John’s shoulders were broad and strong. His wavy brown hair brushed with the pewter evidence of hard years and great disappointment. He was no longer the bright-eyed boy she waved goodbye to as he went off to join Pershing in Europe. He was every bit the man who returned to her darker for that year at war.
He was silhouetted in the door against the silvery blue downpour like some dejected mythical hero. One arm was upraised, a hardened and calloused hand pressed to the frame. But the lightening, that immense and constant lightening threw his shadow in snapshot moments across the floor, making him appear all the more tragic and lonesome. There came the flat tap-tap-tapping of water falling upon kitchen tiles behind him. Anna watched with a measure of sympathy and understanding as her big man sighed heavily at the sound and looked skyward.
Anna loved him. She loved him more than he could ever realize. She loved that enduring energy, the stalwart refusal to quit, to quit her and to quit this life where lesser men might have given up. She loved that quality which compelled him to remain in the fight when all conscious faculties might have convinced him of its futility. It drew Anna from bed.
She paused in the dining room. There was hardly enough room for the old oak table and four heavy chairs. Let alone the Franklin sewing machine, where Anna hired out her services to help make ends meet. The lace-white curtains over the window were pulled tight. Beside the window a trickle of water ran along the wall past an oval framed photograph of her parents, taken just after landing in America. The couple looked ancient, and part of a very different world than they would leave for their only daughter.
Anna went to John, wrapping her arms around his body and pressing her cheek against the cool flesh of his bare back. She breathed him, suddenly and completely aroused by his scent. She moaned softly and listened to the steady thudding of his heart.
“Bad storm,” he said quietly. A flash of lightening brought a sharp and quick boom from somewhere across town. It was of a much different character than the thunder.
“Been worse,” she softly kissed his back.
He was a man of so very few words, but each was supported by deeply resonating thoughts. The words he chose so sparingly truly meant something.
“Gets so fighting even the little ones is too much anymore.”
She was quiet a long moment, and was suddenly fearful that he might slip away from her. “John Perkins, don’t you quit on me.”
He mulled over the words and held a hand out to the rain. It was cool and perfect. There was something about the rain. It had a power, as though the true character of the storm resided in the collaboration of each of those myriad drops. He thought about the waste of the European War and wondered why men of good conscience failed to rally as those myriad drops.
The rain let up just a little, and was already turning the long garden troughs into little canals. Already he was figuring a way to fix the roof, and would keep at that roof as long as he still had the breath and strength to do so. John managed a smile and touched her arm.
“Too dumb to quit.”
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
EMMETSBURG:Part One
We are storms and banks and reeds
Whipped by the wind we rise to bluster and succumb to our own floods
We are fear and desperation and pointlessness
Cold we huddle for fear of being forgotten, yet that is our fate.
We are hope and need and desire
Dragged from our homes with cries lost to the tumult of the world
We are tragedy and sickness and alone.
And if there is any redemption left to us it lies in the sacrifice of love
Silver. The leaves of Oak and Maple trees across Pleasant Street turned over in anticipation of the rain. In the moonlight, before that light was obliterated by storm clouds, the leaves shone polished and ghostly against the midnight sky. From the semi-consciousness of a restless sleep John was vaguely aware of the approaching storm. It came at first as a sudden gust pushing the long branches of the old willow out front against the small white wood frame house. The wind was scented with rain and cool, breaking a string of broiling days that had taken hold of Northwest Iowa.
There hadn’t been a drop of rain in nearly a month. There had been that sudden all too brief downpour just as church was letting out the week before, but not enough to help crops withering in the fields. But for scattering the usual social congregations on the steps of the old Saint Mary’s church, it dried almost before hitting the ground. Soaked a few folks caused Mabel Conlon to take a spill down the steps of the church. Mabel is a large woman though and, but for a possible bruised bottom-which only Mister Conlon could verify, she could only lay claim to an injured ego.
A few counties over some cows had come up sick. The government had sent out inspectors to make tests with the authority to condemn whole herds if need be. It would be a disaster for a family to lose a herd (pennies on the Dollar was as good as a loss). In times such as this it was, well, a declaration of war on decent salt of the earth folks. It was only a matter of time before it brought good men to the end of their rope, and showed conniving men for their darkest character.
The cost of everything had gone up, while paychecks went down. Banks called in bad debts from folks with no means to pay those debts. Those banks foreclosed and threw good god-fearing people off their land and out of their homes, then closed their own doors for good. Other families didn’t bother to wait for the bank to call in their notes, and overnight packed up and left Iowa forever. Every day brought some new insult, some new weight around the neck of a struggling economy that was, in the end, not international bankers and corporations and industry but millions of men and women toiling and bleeding and dying for their god-given right to carve out a small plot of this earth.
John sighed heavily and turned towards the window. He’d seen all this coming. This great slump, as it had come to be called, didn’t happen overnight. Nothing happened overnight, except to fools and those fighting desperately to fend the constant indignities of being down and out. John had seen this coming, at least as much as an average working Joe could. Maybe it was the war that had opened his eyes, or darkened them enough to see how fragile and arrogant the veneer of civilization was. He eschewed the allure and temptation of debt. It meant that he and Ana had to go without during the spend and boom years of the Twenties, but they had a roof over their heads and a chance to weather this better than most.
Anna was beside him. Her buttocks were warm through the thin cotton fabric of her gown he’d bought her last Christmas for a buck and change from the Sears & Roebuck’s catalog. She was breathing rhythmically, her lips fluttering ever so slightly. For a moment it built, disturbing his sudden onslaught of thoughts and worries and memories. John reached back and ran a hand across her hip and stilled her somewhat. It was the first decent sleep she’d had since, well, in some time anyway. That thought led him invariably to a place he preferred not to be.
It was best not to dwell on such things, force them from the mind and get on with living. Of course it was easier for a man than a woman. Men are so much farther from the body. They are ego drenched in misgivings, but they by force or by necessity buried those misgivings deep. They buried them deep enough that it takes a lifetime for them to resurface again. Women, by contrast were worry vainly longing for lost innocence. Theirs was an ill-defined ideal alternately negotiated with or abandoned to men.
There was something more though, something that John struggled to fathom. It was that marital rhythms came more naturally to women. She knew his secrets, while he could barely come to terms with them himself. She knew desires and thoughts he endeavored to keep for himself. It was that which made him desire and despise and long for her and run from her all at once. It was that which kept him at her side while wishing for the far horizon.
“Oh,” he sighed, exhausted. It came as a trembling breath that escaped him almost without knowing. It was a lament. It was a lament over life and all its many burdens. It fell like a weight on his chest, and protested the purpose of existence at all. His thoughts led inevitably to some end, with the realization that the precious nature of each life was alternately a definition of its ultimate futility. It was a thought that reflected the tragedy of the past several months and of a growing cynicism that engulfed him like a cancer.
Sleep fell away from him now, like metal shavings on a concrete floor. Sleep gave way to primal stirrings and more rational worries over the tarpaper roof he’d put on the summer before. It had taken the worst Iowa winters could muster, holding on by hardly more than a wish. But John could sense this storm was something more. He could feel its power as it fell upon little Emmetsburg, and knew it would be a hard night. What he couldn’t know was how this single storm would call into question everything in his life, and even life itself.
Whipped by the wind we rise to bluster and succumb to our own floods
We are fear and desperation and pointlessness
Cold we huddle for fear of being forgotten, yet that is our fate.
We are hope and need and desire
Dragged from our homes with cries lost to the tumult of the world
We are tragedy and sickness and alone.
And if there is any redemption left to us it lies in the sacrifice of love
Silver. The leaves of Oak and Maple trees across Pleasant Street turned over in anticipation of the rain. In the moonlight, before that light was obliterated by storm clouds, the leaves shone polished and ghostly against the midnight sky. From the semi-consciousness of a restless sleep John was vaguely aware of the approaching storm. It came at first as a sudden gust pushing the long branches of the old willow out front against the small white wood frame house. The wind was scented with rain and cool, breaking a string of broiling days that had taken hold of Northwest Iowa.
There hadn’t been a drop of rain in nearly a month. There had been that sudden all too brief downpour just as church was letting out the week before, but not enough to help crops withering in the fields. But for scattering the usual social congregations on the steps of the old Saint Mary’s church, it dried almost before hitting the ground. Soaked a few folks caused Mabel Conlon to take a spill down the steps of the church. Mabel is a large woman though and, but for a possible bruised bottom-which only Mister Conlon could verify, she could only lay claim to an injured ego.
A few counties over some cows had come up sick. The government had sent out inspectors to make tests with the authority to condemn whole herds if need be. It would be a disaster for a family to lose a herd (pennies on the Dollar was as good as a loss). In times such as this it was, well, a declaration of war on decent salt of the earth folks. It was only a matter of time before it brought good men to the end of their rope, and showed conniving men for their darkest character.
The cost of everything had gone up, while paychecks went down. Banks called in bad debts from folks with no means to pay those debts. Those banks foreclosed and threw good god-fearing people off their land and out of their homes, then closed their own doors for good. Other families didn’t bother to wait for the bank to call in their notes, and overnight packed up and left Iowa forever. Every day brought some new insult, some new weight around the neck of a struggling economy that was, in the end, not international bankers and corporations and industry but millions of men and women toiling and bleeding and dying for their god-given right to carve out a small plot of this earth.
John sighed heavily and turned towards the window. He’d seen all this coming. This great slump, as it had come to be called, didn’t happen overnight. Nothing happened overnight, except to fools and those fighting desperately to fend the constant indignities of being down and out. John had seen this coming, at least as much as an average working Joe could. Maybe it was the war that had opened his eyes, or darkened them enough to see how fragile and arrogant the veneer of civilization was. He eschewed the allure and temptation of debt. It meant that he and Ana had to go without during the spend and boom years of the Twenties, but they had a roof over their heads and a chance to weather this better than most.
Anna was beside him. Her buttocks were warm through the thin cotton fabric of her gown he’d bought her last Christmas for a buck and change from the Sears & Roebuck’s catalog. She was breathing rhythmically, her lips fluttering ever so slightly. For a moment it built, disturbing his sudden onslaught of thoughts and worries and memories. John reached back and ran a hand across her hip and stilled her somewhat. It was the first decent sleep she’d had since, well, in some time anyway. That thought led him invariably to a place he preferred not to be.
It was best not to dwell on such things, force them from the mind and get on with living. Of course it was easier for a man than a woman. Men are so much farther from the body. They are ego drenched in misgivings, but they by force or by necessity buried those misgivings deep. They buried them deep enough that it takes a lifetime for them to resurface again. Women, by contrast were worry vainly longing for lost innocence. Theirs was an ill-defined ideal alternately negotiated with or abandoned to men.
There was something more though, something that John struggled to fathom. It was that marital rhythms came more naturally to women. She knew his secrets, while he could barely come to terms with them himself. She knew desires and thoughts he endeavored to keep for himself. It was that which made him desire and despise and long for her and run from her all at once. It was that which kept him at her side while wishing for the far horizon.
“Oh,” he sighed, exhausted. It came as a trembling breath that escaped him almost without knowing. It was a lament. It was a lament over life and all its many burdens. It fell like a weight on his chest, and protested the purpose of existence at all. His thoughts led inevitably to some end, with the realization that the precious nature of each life was alternately a definition of its ultimate futility. It was a thought that reflected the tragedy of the past several months and of a growing cynicism that engulfed him like a cancer.
Sleep fell away from him now, like metal shavings on a concrete floor. Sleep gave way to primal stirrings and more rational worries over the tarpaper roof he’d put on the summer before. It had taken the worst Iowa winters could muster, holding on by hardly more than a wish. But John could sense this storm was something more. He could feel its power as it fell upon little Emmetsburg, and knew it would be a hard night. What he couldn’t know was how this single storm would call into question everything in his life, and even life itself.
Emmetsburg
Emmetsburg
A novel of the Great Depression
By
W.C. Turck
Exclusively
on
BLOGSPOT
Copyright W.C.Turck 2009
A novel of the Great Depression
By
W.C. Turck
Exclusively
on
BLOGSPOT
Copyright W.C.Turck 2009
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
THE LAST MAN: Epilogue
The sea is a mirror of the burnt orange sky, hardly disturbed by the wake of our little boat. It lops lazy and hollow against the old wooden hull. Behind us the sounds and images of war are distant and low. I stopped rowing sometime ago, content to drift for a while and not cause any more noise in the world than absolutely necessary. The scent fills me, and will forever remain wedded to these first hours of freedom.
The wind has stopped, the crisp cool air salty and sweet. It is as still as that painted sea. Desiree is asleep and curled in the bow beneath a crudely sewn blanket. I wish that I could say it is a peaceful sleep. More accurately it is an exhausted sleep haunted by all she has been through. None of this was hers by choice. She is so perfect there, and for the first time I am truly happy. I am sunbeams through the clouds. I am hope and I am nearly saved.
Is this some sort of victory? Have I won anything? If freedom is the only measure then I have won everything. However, if escape remains the measure then a man must know what he is escaping to as intimately of what he is escaping to, with full understanding that he may never escape himself. I am settled and at peace for the moment, but with the understanding that the world is moving to something. The world is always moving to something, some final accounting, a cataclysm, and a sum total of all that has come before. What form it will take is impossible to say. Nor can I say whether it will come with a whisper or a like a storm.
The boat drifts invariably towards the ruins, floating among massive pylons supporting iron and concrete platforms high above the sea. They are terrific and large, like great rusting sea monsters frozen in a time long passed. Among them the air is funneled to create its own wind, which tugs as great cables. The wind whispers and whistles through the ancient structures. Desiree wakes with a start as I steer the boat close to one of the structures. Her eyes go wide as we pass beneath the first platform, neck straining at its towering superstructure. I stretch a hand and let it brush along the massive concrete support. A rush of excitement sets me to light and sends a shiver through me.
It is clear they are long deserted, perhaps for centuries. The flames I spied from my flat, the fires I dreamed and fantasized over for so long was merely the sun reflecting off broken window. The movements I believed were people like me, upon whom I weighted all my hopes were birds or tattered fabric pushed and pulled by the wind.
There is a small dock below the structure. It is rusted and bent by centuries of storms. One end is underwater, the rich brown rust, like the overlapping blossoms of some ravenous ivy patiently dissolving and devouring the platforms covers the platform. A metal sign hangs at an odd angle by a second chain above the platform. Like the dock it too is steadily being devoured by rust and salty sea water until almost nothing of it can be read. I can make out only a hand full of words, but they mean nothing to me. I mouth their sound. Desiree says them aloud.
SHELL OIL
All Visitors Must…
I use the oar to push away from the platform and guide the boat into the open sea. What lies beyond the far horizon is impossible to say. I remain hope, and I remain hope for Desiree. In those dark hours when I am without I will stand if only to be that hope for her. What else is there? As for freedom, I know now it is not some distant land or some castle to conquer. It is not me and it is not mine. It is not fleeting as a storm, nor it is anything a man can ever retreat from once it has been tasted. It is a bittersweet fruit whose taste is unknown yet familiar to the man who has never known it, and the harvest plundered and wasted by the man who has never been deprived. It is a breath of life; fully mine one moment and gone the next…
THE END
The wind has stopped, the crisp cool air salty and sweet. It is as still as that painted sea. Desiree is asleep and curled in the bow beneath a crudely sewn blanket. I wish that I could say it is a peaceful sleep. More accurately it is an exhausted sleep haunted by all she has been through. None of this was hers by choice. She is so perfect there, and for the first time I am truly happy. I am sunbeams through the clouds. I am hope and I am nearly saved.
Is this some sort of victory? Have I won anything? If freedom is the only measure then I have won everything. However, if escape remains the measure then a man must know what he is escaping to as intimately of what he is escaping to, with full understanding that he may never escape himself. I am settled and at peace for the moment, but with the understanding that the world is moving to something. The world is always moving to something, some final accounting, a cataclysm, and a sum total of all that has come before. What form it will take is impossible to say. Nor can I say whether it will come with a whisper or a like a storm.
The boat drifts invariably towards the ruins, floating among massive pylons supporting iron and concrete platforms high above the sea. They are terrific and large, like great rusting sea monsters frozen in a time long passed. Among them the air is funneled to create its own wind, which tugs as great cables. The wind whispers and whistles through the ancient structures. Desiree wakes with a start as I steer the boat close to one of the structures. Her eyes go wide as we pass beneath the first platform, neck straining at its towering superstructure. I stretch a hand and let it brush along the massive concrete support. A rush of excitement sets me to light and sends a shiver through me.
It is clear they are long deserted, perhaps for centuries. The flames I spied from my flat, the fires I dreamed and fantasized over for so long was merely the sun reflecting off broken window. The movements I believed were people like me, upon whom I weighted all my hopes were birds or tattered fabric pushed and pulled by the wind.
There is a small dock below the structure. It is rusted and bent by centuries of storms. One end is underwater, the rich brown rust, like the overlapping blossoms of some ravenous ivy patiently dissolving and devouring the platforms covers the platform. A metal sign hangs at an odd angle by a second chain above the platform. Like the dock it too is steadily being devoured by rust and salty sea water until almost nothing of it can be read. I can make out only a hand full of words, but they mean nothing to me. I mouth their sound. Desiree says them aloud.
SHELL OIL
All Visitors Must…
I use the oar to push away from the platform and guide the boat into the open sea. What lies beyond the far horizon is impossible to say. I remain hope, and I remain hope for Desiree. In those dark hours when I am without I will stand if only to be that hope for her. What else is there? As for freedom, I know now it is not some distant land or some castle to conquer. It is not me and it is not mine. It is not fleeting as a storm, nor it is anything a man can ever retreat from once it has been tasted. It is a bittersweet fruit whose taste is unknown yet familiar to the man who has never known it, and the harvest plundered and wasted by the man who has never been deprived. It is a breath of life; fully mine one moment and gone the next…
THE END
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