The Driver

I stepped into Governor's from the pouring rain, near closing. Lou and Boone were both there keeping some noob entertained. This was our first rain storm of spring, only one week earlier it was thundersnow. Even still there was something comforting about the shower, pissing down as it was, probably the fact that you don't have to shovel water. When spring springs, it springs hard here. This year it seemed spring's springs were sprung, and that it might not spring at all. That all changed literally overnight, suddenly there were tulips pushing 3 or 4 inches above the soil, trees budding spontaneously, and folks acting like convicts whose cell doors had been mistakenly left open. Case in point, earlier in the day I was flashed by a woman on the back of a Harley, and my beloved lake trail was overrun by...people.

"There he is." Boone said as I shook my coat and saddled up. "Been wonderin' about you, where the hell you been at?"

Lou started to pour my pint but I stopped him just in time to ask for a bourbon Sidecar.

"I ain't got any of them martini glasses." he said with a cautionary air.

"You guys...your grammar is awful. On the rocks is fine, Lou."

Boone introduced me to the new guy, Jose. "He's from Mexico. But he speaks English pretty good." Jose said nothing, just gave me a salute and smiled wide. "He works for the Mexican Consulate."

"Diplomat?"

"Security." Boone said.

"I thought you said he speaks English?"

Jose hiccuped mid sentence, "Where do...you work?" Lou and Boone both stopped and waited.

It dawned on me that neither of them had ever asked what I do for a living...nor had I ever asked them (Lou's was obvious), so I paused for effect. "Did you know it takes three pounds of olives to make one cup of olive oil?"

All three just stared, so I took this as a sign that I should continue.

"Imagine you're standing on a hilltop overlooking a large olive grove. All around you is nothing but row after row of the most meticulously groomed olive trees in the Mediterranean. This grove has been maintained by the same family for generations. They watch after these trees for signs of disease and insects. Every bug is squashed between thumbnails, no chemicals. If a tree needs water, they bring it by hand. One bucket at a time. Some of these trees are over a hundred years old, the trunks have grown wide and thick, the roots reach out for yards under the ground and intermingle with those of the trees next to it. This has been their livelihood for so long, none of them know how to do anything else. They consequently...make some of the most succulent olive oil in the region."

Lou set my drink down in front of me. In a margarita glass. I took a sip and flapped my tongue quickly in the air. "Is it alright?" he asked.

It was awful.

"Oh yeah, just right. It'll smooth out after a few sips. Where was I? Oh yeah...the olives have to be watched closely, because the harvest window is very short. Picked too early it makes the oil taste bitter; too late and it turns out overly sweet. The moment has to be just right, and it has to happen in one day. They walk through and strike the base of the trunk with ax handles, the ready olives fall to the ground. This way all the fruit gets back to the press unbruised.”

Once the nerves in my throat burned off, the drink was palatable.

"The olives are pressed in an old cast iron contraption, the wheels are turned by hand. The juice goes into a series of centrifuges, those wheels also turned by hand. All the fragments cling to the walls, lured by physics. Over and over it is sent through until clear, pure olive oil comes out the spigot on the other side.  Then it gets interesting."

Lou said “Oh good.”

“The trip to town is treacherous. They've got this team of massive horses pulling a rickety old wooden cart through rutted valley trails, over windswept passes, through fields of wild flowers, down into town where people are waiting for that oil. One false move on the ridge line and that entire season's work will be lost. Without a steady hand, every bottle would break going too fast down the other side. Poor timing with the whip going uphill might cause the team to not make it up at all. Any of these things might mean financial ruin, and leave the people in town very, very upset. No oil to toss with their pasta. No oil to mop with their bread. No oil at all.”

Lou looked at his watch.

“So...yeah.” I said flatly.

After several seconds Lou broke the silence. “You're a bullshit artist.”

I leveled my finger at him and said “No...I drive the cart.”

Summer Swan Song

Full bellied barreling down 31, the ring's the thing

keep repeating over and over, wound tighter'n a spring.

Tires hum on asphalt, windows down, late night air

jostling by dashboard light, errant strands of hair.

Knees pointed this way, a little skin shown

eyes front on the highway, look down turn to stone.

And those fingers lithe and long, lord they're right there

close enough along the neck to feel each transparent hair.

Engine slows down, signal clicks, once into the next zip code

hoping to find the lift bridge down, get this thing off the road.

Diamonds scattered on black sackcloth, orange half moon

summer bacchanalia down below, autumn's coming soon.

Walking out to the edge, and the leash pulling farther

wagering between bonfire smoke and perfume on the collar.

The Aural Tradition

My first memory of the old man's face was the same as my last; an out take from an old Polaroid, taken from a distance. Over exposed in the August Kentucky sun, late afternoon. He was caught a few steps away from the outhouse, mid-stride with a raised hand and a wide toothless grin. Same yellow button up shirt, same patchy scruff with chaw spiddle.

He moved slow, but looked pretty good considering the years of swinging a scythe in someone else's wheat fields, of days in the rail yards, of holding up his fists to back up his big mouth.

“How do you like that pretty good beer?”

“It's pretty good.” I said. “But the glass has...there's chunks of something stuck on the bottom.”

He said “That's the best cold water could do.”

The chair let out a rusty squeak as he leaned back and arranged his legs into his bullshitting posture. We didn't say anything for a few minutes, the drone of dog-day cicadas interrupted only by his occasional sips. Not just the slurping, but the gasped “ahh” that followed each.

Soon the slurping beer and swallows were the only sound I could focus on. Slyly staring from the corner of my eye, the exhale of satisfaction became more comical. Finally I had to laugh out loud. “Sounds like you think it's pretty good too.”

“Well, that's whatcha get when you go without teeth.” He checked the pot warming by the fire, whistled a quick high note from the heat, and dropped the cast iron lid back in place. “About another twenny, I figure.”

He said getting his teeth knocked out goes back to when he hopped a freight train to a carnival a couple counties over. They paid out twenty-five dollars to anyone who could stay upright in the ring, for five minutes, with their strong man. On the ride out, his mind played back every fight he'd ever been in. Like the land owner in a dispute over a day's wage, the two heavies he'd poked with a pocket knife when they tried to dangle him out a second story window, all the way back to the school yard bully that deserved everything he got. “Despite the way the sunlight looked, washing over the fields Id be working in the next morning, I had a knot in my stomach and no one to talk to about it.”

He got up and lifted the lid again, this time using his shirt cuff. He dug out a couple big scoops of thick soup into a cracked bowl, made by his father in some small town pottery, and handed it to me. It no sooner hit my hands than I was jumping to find a cool spot on the side. Turns out the cool spot was also sticky.

“It's gonna be hot.” he said as he scooped out some for himself into a matching bowl.

“There's...there's still some stuff on the bowl, did you wash these first?”

“Yeah.” He said, sitting down again, “that's just the best cold water could do.”


Anyway, he said the strong man beat him up pretty bad. He ended up spitting out a few teeth in the ring, probably swallowed the others. He took a big bite of soup and started gumming a hot potato, cooling it through his words. “Big son-of-a-bitch. I just had to stay outta the way of his haymakers, wait till he give out, but he still hit me plenty. I'm sure he was looking out through one eye for a few days after, but damn...I thought he was gonna kill me. Don't know if anyone woulda stopped him or not.”

With two broken ribs he managed to get on a train back home, thanks to a hand from a few guys already on. The lurching freight car's rocking motion as it snaked through the hills would normally put him to sleep, but with busted ribs it was now keeping him awake. Only after the engine picked up speed in the flats did he finally fall asleep. When he woke up, come to find out he'd missed his jump and there was no sign of the two that helped him on. Twenty-five dollars missing from his pocket.

I had a hard time finding words. “What did you do?”

The answer came almost like a punchline. “I went home and took another ass beating from the old lady, that's what!”

That was the only part that really scared him; going home to explain to his wife. The train, the fight, losing the money he'd gotten beat up for. “It sounded like a good idea, and we could sure have used the money. But I never told her how I felt like such a fool, after the way it ended up. Tried to be a hero, ended up looking reckless.”

He'd tear the Reaper's nipples off if he ever dared show up for him, but he always pointed to his wife as the tough one between the two.

“I'm tired, that's it for tonight. Just leave your bowl and your glass there on the ground.”

“You sure? I can bring them up, I'd like to do something to help.”

He shook his head no, then turned and yelled “Cold Water! Get here!”

Out from under the side of the porch tripped the dirtiest, floppiest, sag skinniest, Redbone you ever laid eyes on. He panted as he trotted over, but you'd swear it was a smile. He got right to work, just lapping almost every last bit of soup from the bowls. Cold Water was able to get almost all the pickle jars clean of beer, all but the bottom.

“Nothin' cleaner than a hound's tooth.” he said.

Babylon

After more than a year of my occasional drop-ins and ending-ups at Me Olde Watering Hole, after months of listening to so many stories between Lou and Boone, it's to the point you don't know which parts are real and which are bullshit. Way past the point where it even matters, but just shy of what you really hope is true.

Boone had control of the music. Steely Dan, courtesy of the new mp3 juke hanging on the wall four feet above a permanent dust ring outlining where the old disc job used to be. He had downloaded their entire catalog and wouldn't leave it alone. Boone ordered another round in between the lines of a half-hearted break-up with some sweet young thing and an aging man's bachanalia in TJ. Lou joined us for a change, lightly gripping a shorty as he leaned his hip against the bar. Come to think of it, I don't know if I've ever seen him idle like this.

“I hate that damn thing” he said into the rim of his glass. “Now I gotta redo the whole damn floor. Ain't that a kick in the ass?” 

Boone pulled a James Brown maneuver to climb onto his stool and started tapping a Newport on the bar. “I played all of Gaucho. On random."

Boone suddenly found himself ducking Lou's dish rag. “You know I hate this shit, why'd you go an do that? Can't understand a word.”

While the two went back and forth about the complexities of art and the every day slob's ability to understand it, I faded into the woodwork. Faded to Babylon. Highway 89. 89 minutes with nothing to do but drive, swaddled in a valley like the ones you see sofa-sized at starving artist sales. Scorching my scalp through the sunroof. Listening to the CD she had made. Put a few days and a few thousand miles between me and the inevitable, hoping for the clarity that comes once in a great while. Suddenly I could hear her in the music, us in the lyrics. That music. One last plea that might be wallered in while away. She didn't have to talk.

“Dontcha think?” Boone said, then waited a few seconds for my response. “Hey, Major Tom. C'mon back.”

I snapped back to and got the rundown on the conversation that I'd missed. Boone's point was that just because you don't understand something doesn't mean it isn't any good. Lou thought that the minute you have to explain it, you've failed.

“This is the first cultured conversation we've had in here and you're miles away, c'mon now. Spill it.”

I felt my face go red.

“I was just reminded...I was just thinking about a friend of mine that almost died.”

Pause for effect.

“He was on a bike, hauling ass down this trail somewhere...really shouldn't have been out there alone. He was the last one out and trying to outrun some nasty storm clouds. He's so damn scared, no idea what's ahead and the black is bearin' down on him. Shit, he was just trying to hang on. He's duckin' shit, bobbin' and weavin'. He went over stuff that would've crippled others. The only sound was his own blood rushing by in his ears. Jarring bones and crunched joints.”

“The moment of clarity, right. Listen, we've heard this one.” said Boone.

But that wasn't the moment.

“Imagine the point when you suddenly realize exactly...what it is you want. In that moment, as the Larkspur whizzed by...as the sweat dripped down his face, he thought he knew exactly what he wanted.”

I leaned back, struck a cocky pose on the stool. Pause for effect.



"But he's not payin' attention, see? Suddenly he finds himself looking past the tips of his shoes as he dangles over the edge of the damn trail. Hair pin turn outta nowhere. Had to be...at least 200 feet down. Not a sheer cliff face you understand, but close. Eh, maybe the fall wouldn't have killed him. Maybe just break his legs or neck. Mangled to hell, but he'd live.”

Boone pointed at me and inhaled, but I interrupted before he could identify the moment.

“As he dangled...there was no picture show, no life flashing before his eyes kind of thing. In fact, he said out loud “so...this is how.” He couldn't say how the wreck happened...and he couldn't explain how he clambered back up. His brain redacted all that shit. So he stood there and got his breath for a minute or two...then started walking, just as he heard the first few raindrops hit his helmet. He took the helmet off and threw it in the bushes.”

Boone raised his eyebrows, I shook my head.

“When he crawled in bed...so damn sore, reaching down to pull up the sheet took a lot of effort. It hurt to breath in. Anyway, just as he hit the pillow and that sheet settled on him...he knew exactly what it was that he wanted. Not at all what he expected either.”

This pause for effect was too long. Lou broke the silence with a stern “What?”

“He was separated from what he wanted by a few days...and a few thousand miles.”

He got close to madness that night.

The Taking Lake

I've been along this stretch of shore countless times. I've silently watched a thousand cloud veiled sunrises and sang songs to the moon as it disappeared behind the bluff, blood red. I've listened to the waves crash in one night only to be like glass the next morning. You never know what mood the Taking Lake will be in, morning to morning or night to night.

She's always in motion but you'd never know it half the time. Pay no attention to splashes and waves, the current just past your vision is what you need to be concerned about. It takes things, moves things, puts everything in it's final resting spot.

Each stone on this expanse looks just like those around it. Cold and oblivious to the others, it thinks it's on the way to someplace grand. When I pick up one, I can't help but wonder where it came from. I think about how big it used to be. How long till it's crushed to a grain of sand. I wonder when it finally lost it's edge. Side-arm skip it as hard as I can, offsetting it's arrival to wherever the hell it's supposed to be by another 100 years.

Stare into her for long enough and the Taking Lake will start staring back. She may taunt you to try to upset the natural order of things, to take a few steps in and reclaim that dream you threw away a few years ago. The one fossilizing at the bottom in the dark. She'll invite you to pitch a penny and make a wish only to spit out a green hunk of worthless, unrecognizable copper long after you're gone, the wish still thumb-printed into Abe's face under rust.  


Every bottle with a message that washes up has writing inside that you recognize as your own.You may get the idea to speed things along, seems the easiest way to go about it would be to get in and let go, just sorta go limp and hope you're lucky as that penny.  Fighting it only makes it worse...but isn't that what you do? Seems the best advice would be to let go and let the current take you where it will. You may end up someplace wonderful. Or maybe on the banks of Hell.

Legend has it that she never gives up her dead but for everything the Taking Lake steals, sometimes it gives something back. Each rusted over penny has wish on it, most of which end up as some kid's trophy from a day at the beach.

 

Pohjola's Daughter and The Drowning Man

I had no idea, but one of my favorite little cafes is actually date night central on Fridays. I didn't know this because I'm normally there in the middle of the day in the middle of the week, somewhere round about 3 when I almost always have the place to myself. Not only were there more people there, the menu was different so it was weird and kind of exciting all at the same time.

The hostess (another new wrinkle) seated me then shortly looped back around and sat down a glass of ice water, silverware, and told me the waiter would be right over. Wellll, not exactly right over. The place was packed and the staff was slammed, but I didn't have anywhere to be so...what the hell, I waited and took the time to do a little people watching.

It was a really interesting mix; mostly couples my age who probably had sitters at home with the kids, but there was one couple a few seats away that really caught my eye. They had to have been in their mid 80's, the guy had pants up to his armpits and the ol' gal's wig wasn't on quite straight. They were sharing an entree of pasta, duking it out with their forks over who got which meatball. He kept putting just the end of one strand of spaghetti in his mouth at a time, then he'd slurp it in real slow with his eyes wide open, staring right at her. The opposite end would bap him on the nose or the cheek each time and she thought it was the funniest thing. She played footsie with him under the table and kept motioning for him to lean in so she could wipe the sauce off his face. Then he'd go right back into his routine and make another face at her.

Now, I don't hear too good in situations like this. A big room full of conversation along with clanging dinnerware is normally a recipe for disaster for me on the hearing front...what I get is mostly static. But the couple at the next table over for some reason was fairly audible. I kinda half tuned in as the hostess brought over a basket of rolls. This guy was fighting way above his weight. He was trying his damndest to get anything out of his date; something more than just a yes or a no answer. It was the standard battery of questions: where'd you go to school, are your parents in town, what do you do, yadda yadda yadda. His date was dressed in an outfit that would've been perfectly acceptable at a wedding reception...if she was one of the bridesmaids. Really elaborate make-up, dangly earrings and some sort of mock tiara holding her hair up. Our man was in a shirt and slacks combo that made him look like a neck-down model in a five-and-dime weekly flyer.

She wasn't giving him much, didn't seem too keen on asking questions herself, so in an effort to keep the dance going he started in telling more in-depth things about himself. With each story, she rebuffed. He kept shifting gears, trying new approaches, and finally asked her if she liked old cars.

“Yeah, classic cars are cool.” she said flatly.

Paydirt. “I've got an old Ford truck I'm restoring in my garage.”

“Ew. I don't do trucks.”

I've never seen a guy inflate then deflate so quickly.

As the waiter shoe-horned his way between our tables to take my order, she excused herself to the restroom. After he left I looked over to their table and watched as our man ran his fingers through his thinning hair and exhaled heavily through pursed lips.

“I'm drowning over here.” he said, noticing that I was looking his way.

Did you guys just come from a wedding?

“No, this is an online thing, I met her here. I didn't know it was going to be formal. This is my best shirt.”

I asked him if he had ever heard the story of Väinämöinen and Pojhola's daughter. He said that he hadn't, accompanied with a rather confused look.

Väinämöinen is the hero in an epic Finnish fairy tale. He's got a big scraggly beard and a magic sled. He's looking for a wife when he gets into this adventure, searching for a stolen artifact that can create just about anything.

“Is this going to take a long time? She's gonna be back any minute.”

Are you kidding? You've seen the way she's dressed. Besides, from what I've heard she's probably talking to her roommate, telling her to send a text in a half hour to get her out of here.

“Go ahead.” he said.

So he's on this adventure when he runs into Pohjola, the Daughter of the North. She's hangin' out on a rainbow, weaving a gold cloth. Väinämöinen says “hey, you're pretty cute...why don't you jump in my sled and come along on this little adventure with me?” She says she'll only go along if he can do a couple things for her...like tie invisible knots in an egg and make a ship out of her little weaving tools. He thinks “well hell, I'm Väinämöinen, I'll give it a go.” Well, as it turns out he can't tie the knots and ends up with egg on his face, and he cuts himself on his axe trying make the ship. It doesn't take him long to figure out “damn, this is some bullshit...ta hell with this, I'm flying on down the road.”

“So?”

So...every fair maiden has a test for her suitor, and that's her right. Just because you're not pushin' her buttons doesn't mean you're a bad guy, you're just not her hero. And you, you just gotta keep on keepin' on till you find yours. Look over there at that old couple in the corner.


"The one with the guy cleaning bolognese out of the bottom row of his dentures in the water glass?”

Yeah, that one. The woman he's with doesn't care. Maybe she loves him because of it, not in spite of it. They fell for each other because of who they are...not who they aren't. And don't think you're the only one havin' it rough. Think of Pohjola's Daughter, sitting up there freezing her ass off on that rainbow. She's waiting, too.

“So now what?”

Now, you finish the date. Keep doin' what you're doin', be polite and mind your manners, do the awkward hug at the end...then forget about it.

“Aw man, here she comes.” he said, tensing up again.

I told him not to worry, that I'd cover for him.

I started in on the punchline from some old joke; “...and then he says to the guy, he says “rectum?? It nearly killed him!”

Laugh? Our man nearly fell out of the chair.

A Pound of Flesh

It took almost a full pint with Lou and Boone for me to cover the high points of my annual Dirt Worship trip. Truthfully Lou only half listened, Boone was mesmerized. I told them about the dangers of hidden cactus and trails reclaimed by landslides. Line-of-sight navigation by posts through overgrown sagebrush and 9% grade switchbacks. Boone nearly went off the back of his chair when I told him it took 4 hours to do the first 5 miles of day one. It was the most rugged country I've ever seen. In some spots there would've been no evidence of man for miles if it wasn't for the rutted-out trail we were riding on.

Lou came swabbing down the bar with the same rag he just used to dab his sweaty forehead. “They've got roads out there now, you know. You coulda taken a car. Man, if you break down out there, you're in a lotta trouble.”

Yeah, trouble. Like when you roll into camp with a half hour of daylight left wondering how far back the other three guys in your group are. Making the effort to go in and try to help will end up in more people stuck out in the 48 degree dark. Thanks to all the recent oil activity out there, cell phone coverage is better than you'd expect. The three greenhorns called 911 and the operator found them through the phone's GPS. I'll bet Lewis and Clark are shitting in their graves. Anyway, the Sheriff dropped them off in camp around 10 o'clock. They said their bikes were in a ditch somewhere. They promptly grilled hamburgers and garlic bread, washed it down with PBR boilermakers. No shit. All that after bonking on the first day.

Lou told me that I was stupid before turning to wash some glasses. After snorting a few obscenities he started in with the scolding. “Why would anyone pay money to do that? And in that place? I drove my first and third wives through there for vacation. Miserable place.”

Going by car is different though, because you see everything from a tin can, like an amusement park ride. I prefer Hemmingway's take on it; the only way to really get to know a country is by bike. You see the land as it really is because you sweat up each incline to enjoy coasting down the other side. When you reach the top, you see the land as only a handful have seen it, in a way that never translates on postcards. It's the sight of miles of pure, wild grace that makes you forget your legs feel like they're gonna fall off. You marvel at stunning views from a car at a wayside, but after a hard climb on a bike you'll cry when you see it if you have any soul in you.

I told him that I fully anticipate something to happen on every one of these trips. The risk is part of it. That's the adventure. I'm scared to death before every ride, wondering if my legs will hold up or if I'll have a nasty crash. But I can prepare for those things...what, am I going to not go? Am I going to not know? It's in those last few revolutions of the pedals coming into camp that make every tumble, every missed turn, every cramp, everything...it makes it all worth it. You made it.

Lou said “Bet you'll never do that again.”

Actually, I would. I'd turn around and ride back into it right now if I could.

Boone chewed on the end of his swizzle stick with his eyes at half mast, locked squarely on me. He pushed the bourbon supported ice in his glass, then pointed at me all wet-fingered.

“You know why you keep going back?”

I finished my pint and shook my head.

“That's your pound of flesh. Jumpin' in the hurt locker like that, that's your offering.”

He grinned, tapping his Newport on the bar's ledge.

“You don't see it, do you? The land is your church, it's your sweat lodge. Those wheels are your prophets, your spirit guides. You're out there followin' posts, but you're really lookin' for a sign...hopin' for a vision. You get out there and bust down every physical wall you've got on that thing...that's how you get your mind right. All you have to do is finish the ride, nothing else means shit.”

Lou turned down one corner of his newspaper and said “I still think you're stupid.”

“Nah, he's still waitin' to hear, that's all.”

“Dumbass.”

Life is a lot like riding a bike; to keep your balance you gotta keep movin'. Ol' Albert Einstein said that, and he was a pretty smart guy. Hell, it might also be a microcosm of the whole damn universe.