Now comes the second and final installment of the busted jeans.
These I did not mind so much about, they came from the Goodwill store and I probably paid a dollar for them, I had probably quit wearing them because they were starting to bust. I probably packed them without thinking because I am a pack rat and had not discarded them. At least I was wearing my one pair of fancy under drawers that morning.
We were checking out that morning to head toward the rodeo in Rockyford, eventually. I was on postcard duty, making sure those I had promised would be receiving one, and that as many people had a chance to sign them as possible. Who is this? Who is this? Driving on the sidewalk?!? Ellemeno, Meryl, Eric, Paul, Mouk, Judy, Pete, all seen my fancy underware. RouxB was packing, but only Lynne told me I had done busted my britches. That is why Lynne is my friend. They all thought I was an exhibitionist. Well, I did change into my swimtrunks in the Denny's parking lot. (well I am chuckling, hope you are too.)
That morning was like the Olympics on flypaper. People would take off, people had to wait, while waiting someone would decide to wander off, someone needed to get gas, please wait, by the time they returned something else had happened. Kirk and Juan joined us and Kirk, who had been up late on the computer, had copied down the directions to A) Monroe's house; and B) Jack's murder sight.
Well Monroe's house did not exactly hold much appeal, but I am glad Judy and Gail, who was the last arrival, had devine providence on their side when it was time for them to visit. It was decided we would go to the murder sight. This would entail a freakish joyride thru the heaviest traffic the whole trip, Kirk's Kia, The Pimpwagon, The Yaris and The PT. Just to maintain visual contact, sometimes you got to settle for what you can get and trust you will all be where your supposed to be when the time comes. It was so that day.
Several times on this trip when confronted with emotion I have been reminded of scenes from my own life, stories I have heard that were similar. There are a couple I will write about at somepoint, but not tonight. Going to this railside I got a feeling I had buried a long time ago, going to see where my sister had lost her life. It was much the same, flat, a few trees and planes in the air.
The location is on the NE outskirts, past the airport, out in the country which begins abruptly. We went down that road that got narrower and narrower, a truck transmission lay on the right hand side. We reached a point where the road kindley petered out, at least it was the last place where the vehicles could easily turn about.
There were those of us who elected not to go, and I respect their decision. We set off on foot like we drove, everyone for themselves. I was walking alone mostly, carrying my medicine bag and realizing to my dismay I had left my camera in the car, I was not about to go back for it. It didn't feel right to do so, yet, there was no need, cameras abounded. I had been down roads like this before, a discarded beer bottle here and there, a smashed car window in pieces on the found like spilled diamonds. A twist of barbed wire emerging from the ground ready to snag any tire that crossed it. How had it gotten there? How had I gotten here? The road continued, disused but evident, across the tracks, we were there. Like everyother place the angle was different, it seemed smaller.
The tall green grass had been trampled, no doubt by members of our group who had been there earlier. The place was eerily calm and quiet. Judy, Mouk, Lynne, Pete, Kirk and myself took it in, took it up. I wondered aloud what the other side of that sign on the rail road said and Kirk stepped to check it out. Like a Woody Guthrie song, the otherside, didn't say nothing. It was the same here, as it was there.
I lay down in the trampled grass, like instinct, gazed up at the clear blue sunny sky, blue, the color of Jack, Jack the murdered prince, Jack who gave his life, to redeem the life of the one he loved I have heard some speculate. Here, in this grass, starring up at the sky so blue you could drowned in it, he drowned in his own blood.
When I raised up I could see Kirk was praying at the fence post. Mouk was up on the tracks, alone with her thoughts, Judy and Pete speaking and taking pictures. Lynne, swaying ins ome instinctive prayer she carries in her DNA. And the phone rang.
In Denmark, Maine, United States of America, Lisa of the Book, Lisa, messanger to the Vatican, had broken the endless game of phone tag she had played with Judy for days. Judy told her as calmly as she could where we were. I could have head her screaming without the benefit of the phone. Devinne Providence, showing its pretty head this Saturday afternoon.
We all spoke with her, I couldn't tell you a word she said, it was all strange and unnerving. I think it was right she called when she did, it was a lifeline, keep us in this world and not let us cross over to where we didn't belong.
I reached into my medicine bag and pulled out a braided cord of sweet grass. This I had carried with me for sometime, never using , never setting flame to, I had other medicine in the bad, mint that would have been good to use, but my fingers pulled out the sweet grass. I stuck it on a barb on the fence, it was curled like a baby snake, this braided. With tobacco, I prayed healing for what had been filmed there, prayed healing for all those who had been tormented by seeing the result. May that prayer slide off that braided for a long time, onto the winds of Alberta, and sail around the world. May that nicotine satisfy the nerves of something greater than the sum of us there.
There was medicine all about, in the tall grass, stalks I picked and braided and carried with me. There was intention in that grass and I had an idea already what to do with it. I also found a rusty, but otherwise unused railroad spike, a witness, no doubt to the filming. It fit in me hand nicely. I will sometimes ask rocks if they want to come with me, human made object always do.
Back along the road, the field of diamonds, pools of violence and penetration and failed mechanics. I stumbled along in a dream. The hands that had held me so long, they kept me on course.
I hope she don't mind my telling this, but one of the most moving things I heard said I heard back at the cars. RouxB explaining her feelings on the sacredness of the story, how she feels it should be handled and not in the way I have handled it at times. People need a release from the grief and finding no closure they sometimes act out, sometimes say and do things that don't honor the characters or the story. I am no different. I relate, and I am guilty too.
I am always seeing the flying creatures. They come at times of emotion and separation. The hawk at a burial, the bird that stands and just watches you, the fly than lands on you hand when you thing of someone you have lost. Here then, standing beside the open door of the Pimpwagon where I showed Juan my railroad spike, came the dragonfly, green and delicate, I held up my hand and it lit there. Its mechanical eyes swivelling about checking me out, studying me, maybe extracting some salt from my skin. Lynne got out her camera and I looked into those eyes. Who are you? Come to tell me something? Would I ever hear you if I could? It stayed a minute or more, and then it was gone, off in the breeze, back to its world.
Pete and Ellemeno can probably tell you I was not the best driver. I need prompting to go at stop signs. My heart was heavy and sad and few words spoken in that car did I hear. I remember a billboard with a giant chicken head on it, remember pointing it out like I needed to still connect with the world somehow, but it was only a head with no body on a billboard. I dropped off Pete and Ellemeno off at the Best Western and then went over to the Travel Lodge.
I had the trunk open, to get the bags out. Judy, she come up to me and said something nice and asked if I could write down what I had said out yonder and I could feel it coming up out of me, like banshees howling. Like my guts being ripped from their mooring, the tears came up in my eyes the way they have done hundreds of times the last 19 months, but this time, a monster was behind it. I grabbed a hold of her and held on, and let that beast out. It was awful, it was wonderful. I saw colors. Not pretty ones, but gelatenous, like old pus. I saw my mother kiss my dying fathers hand, I saw Curt driving blind in a fountain of tears, I saw Stinky jumping off Abrams Falls, I cried out, for every person I had cared about now just a memory, I cried for the stories I had heard and read, and in a minute it was over. Jack Twist was dead. Standing there was Judy and RouxB and Mouk and Lynne. It was late July and I was in Straffmore, Alberta in my swim trunks. I was back home.