Finding Joe's Fire: Parts 1-3
Part 1
Why don't you shame the world
Shame them with your words and I'll smile
Why don't you shame the world
Shame them with your words and eyes
A pattern of make believe
Jennifer ran barefoot through the dark, foreboding Blackwater forest, fear gripping her every stabbing step. She was keenly aware of the punishing pain the ground forced into her but she kept running.She was afraid. She thought for sure she was being chased by a group of miscreants who would have their way with her and then cannibalize her if they caught her. She was trying desperately to find the Blackwater River, a slow, lazy stream of dark water that meandered through the northern Florida flora and fauna and lazily tapered and fell off into a bay that feeds the greedy waters of the Gulf of Mexico. She was alone and had been since the shots rang out and ended the life of her husband, a man she reluctantly married and then found herself amicably loving. Now he was gone. Dead, his tangled, broken body lying in the grip of a bottomed out crevasse of tangled cypress roots that looked like the hands of the devil himself.
The couple camped along a little stream, fleeing and living on the edge of a knife like so many in the hinterlands of the dark north Florida forests. They were overtaken by a gang of unholy savages who had gone bent after the recent nuclear war began and the fallout of neighbors and communities splintered like a crown of thorns through every small town neighborhood in the remotest parts of north Florida.
The bombs that collapsed the country and forced everyone into the dark ages were hundreds of miles away, but the wave tumbled over even the most remote parts of the deep South. The war between the U.S. and its allies against Russia and China finally washed over the land like the first plague, Moses commanding Aaron to stab his staff into the soil. The waters turned to blood, though not in the literal sense. Neighbors shot neighbors, mothers and fathers died at the hands of their own children. Babies were left in their bassinets as mothers lost their minds and fled naked into the open streets, only to be put down like wild dogs by the remaining police who turned on their own.
Jennifer, too, was now alone. She lost her arranged love. The one who agreed to protect her and enjoyed a few untroubled moments of intimacy with her before a gang cornered them. He was killed and the group had their way with her before laughing it off as she lay in a puddle of mud, weeping in misery as they drove away to find more victims and loot.
Now Jennifer only knew how to run. And the hidden forest lanes, cut years earlier as fire lanes by the forestry service served as her guide. She didn’t know where she was going but pleaded with the Lord Almighty she would find a gracious old couple who would take her in, or at least an old lady who needed some help around a cottage. Anyone unthreatening would be a welcomed gift.
After the death of her husband, and the abuse she endured, she awoke in a daze, the campsite disheveled by the marauders and rapists. The small fire from the night before was a smoldering ash heap, smoke barely licking the cool air above before the ghostly fog snuffed it out. Jennifer panicked and backed away from the puddle she rolled in all night. She perched her cold, exposed body against the base of a pine tree. She pulled her knees toward her, the tiny blonde hairs standing sheepishly on end, pricked by the cold. Her pants were gone, in tatters, laying among the remnants of the evening night’s dead fire. She gripped her legs at her shins and pulled them tightly toward herself. Her loose, stretched shirt barely covered her exposed thighs.
Though she was alone in the forest she felt more exposed than ever, the shame of ten thousand devious eyes peering at her small frame nestled in the bottom of a broken, cold and lonely forest floor.
The previous night’s events had escaped her but were beginning to take shape in her mind. She was still in a daze, but the foggy memories began to entangle themselves around her mind like the vines that strangled the shrubs around her. She saw the band of thugs, Joe struggling to keep her behind him as he used his other arm to swing violently in all directions, like a blind man fighting a swarm of bees. She saw them pull him away from her, strip him and beat him remorselessly. She cried as one of the quieter men held her at a distance. He was stout and an unfortunate soul, caught up in things that betrayed his faith but held sway over his weak and cowardly soul. He breathed heavily and sounded like a steaming kettle when he exhaled. He would soon be dead, unprepared for the physical exertion the future would require. If only he knew, perhaps he could have protected both Jennifer and Joe from his gang and find a respite in a quieter future. None of them would ever know.
The beating commenced until Joe fell dead at the bottom of a ravine leading to the creek. A cypress tree’s roots caught his lifeless body. The roots that caressed his broken shell were meant to stay beneath the water, but the fall drought stole water from every brook and creek and river in the region. The exposed roots seemed angry and vengeful. Joe was an unfortunate blood offering and the roots gladly accepted.
Jennifer sat against the base of the pine for a few moments. In her mind, she might have sat there for centuries. Suddenly, a flock of migratory starlings called overhead as they passed, just above the heavenly reaches of the cypress and pine canopy, a few stopping to land briefly before continuing with a rejoinder toward the flock. Jennifer was startled by the unsettling sound. She sat up and the sun finally rose high enough to kiss her thighs and provide a degree of warmth. Her aching muscles screamed. Her nose, unchecked and desecrated, ran remorselessly, the snot and tears mingling through the night and eventually drying into a crusty pie of tainted goo that she would want to look after. She tentatively arose from her place and wiped the crust away from her face. She looked around. Like a madman, suddenly free from arrest, confusing his would-be captors through sheer magic, she, too, wandered at her surroundings and the whirling daylight blindness that suddenly dried the crisp, overdue contacts covering her eyes.
The struggle began anew.
She wandered around the campsite. She panicked when she saw Joe’s lifeless, graying ashen body tangled among the roots. With no shoes, no survival bag, no plan, Jennifer ran. She had no idea where she was going but most people in a panic don’t. She ran until the night broke through the daylight. All she knew was she needed to flee the place were she was and find a peaceful place to fall and perhaps die.
The following morning, Jennifer awoke along the bank of a lazy stream. How much time had passed since she fled the campsite where Joe’s lifeless body lay? She was delirious from hunger and suddenly felt the jolting pain of the previous night’s run stabbing into her bruised feet. She gasped, which reminded her the brief sleep was breathless. She sat up and began to cry. The slumbering winter sun still hid behind the cypress and pines but blushed a sweet, warm amber glow that announced a new merciful morning in an otherwise dismal world. The light was weak and gentle, and like a sweet mother, it gently brushed her hair aside and showed her eyes that she was still alive and free. She crawled toward the gentle water and dropped her face into the thin winter stream, which was lower and more accessible than normal due to an ongoing fall drought that lumbered into winter. She collapsed into the cold stream. The water lapped over her — cold, like a quick burst of lightning. She immediately burst forth from the stream with renewed energy, letting out a high-pitched squeal. The water was bitter.
It was December, and even in parts as far south as the northern Florida Panhandle, the weather could be cruel, bitterly humid, damp and cold. On this day in this particular year, the weather dropped down as low as 16 degrees in the dark, bleak corners of the northwestern Florida frontier. The eve of Christmas Eve — the Christmas Adam — was a full moon; the rain drizzled and the temperatures sunk below 20 degrees in several parts, a rare flurry of ice and sleet gathering in the treetops and even falling in disparate, scant sheets onto the earth. How did Jennifer survive those temperatures in nothing more than an oversized threadbare tee-shirt and her underwear?
The water had long cooled from the previous months of kayakers, bass boaters and river rats who gushed their High Lifes and discarded them along the banks. Not to mention the abrupt break in life of nuclear war, the immediate shutdown of all technology and the fierce battles between neighbors that ensued.
Jennifer arose from the stream, flailing back and girding herself on her tentative legs, growling angrily and loud as she realized the water served two purposes. It awakened her physically, but also sent a lightning bolt up her spine and into her brain, awakening a dull center that had fallen asleep or had been suppressed altogether amidst the rigors of fleeing near death experiences. She was alert now, if for a moment, and was aware of her own demons. The anger at the world, the cruelty of neighbors, the cowardice of the comfortable, the willful blindness of those in power. She was truly alone and that recognition spurred within her a bleak hatred for mankind. She worried it would remain. And just as soon as she worried of its arrival, she let the hatred cradle her within its deceptive grip. She felt a brief, calm comfort, rocking back and forth within its clasp.
The hatred was captivating, but like all evils, it wanted something from her, it breathed on her neck, it enticed her and lured her in her weakest moment to submit to its rip and slash from reality. It forced her to outwardly foment rage, a poor decision for an already weak and vulnerable small woman all alone in a deep, endless forest that was only interrupted by the repetitively gloaming lazy water. The anger took hold of her until she was a different beast altogether. She, though small and normally charmingly affectionate toward all creatures, had the same temptations as all men; the lure to submit completely to an evil made her delirious, like a mad person withdrawn from days of a needed medication; she began to respond to the surrounding canopy with rage. She screamed. “Why!?” She screamed. She cursed. She blamed God and nature and man for her plight. Perhaps there was some truth tucked within those accusations, though none of them were neatly arranged so as to test the merits of her manifest angers. The rage could only last so long. After all, she was surviving on two days of hard physical punishment, nearly freezing to death, a broken emotional state and a stomach that could use several thousand calories to return some sanity to the withering grey matter within her brain.
The screaming and staggering went on briefly until it puttered into slobbering sighs and mournful cries. Jennifer was otherworldly at this point, a fragmented shape tangled among the drowning roots of the cypress tree that effortlessly pulled Joe away from her, from her present, away from an old life that was all but a foregone conclusion.
Then the rage found a temporary conclusion. Staggering and breathless, she fell again, headlong into the shallow river stream. This time she didn’t get up.
The water, weak and gentle, moved lazily around Jennifer. It was so shallow her half turned head had no problems staying above the flow even as her cheek pressed into the sandy bottom. The water didn’t wash over Jennifer’s face as much as it meandered around it, her head like an ancient stone in a shallow stream, diverting the water and mindlessly reshaping its surroundings.
It was a new morning. The sun was bashful and hiding low on the horizon, behind a veil of fog and distant trees. The world was about to awaken and in doing so, awaken Jennifer. It was still brutally cold and she would most likely suffer as a result.
She let out the briefest, tiny cough. It was enough to allow a small plug of water to tickle the back of her throat. She lifted her head out of the water, unable to immediately open her eyes. She opened her mouth and out of the weakened corners the burglarizing water dripped away and rejoined the stream. She slunk back onto her knees, barely away from the shallow water’s edge. She lay with her legs folded, her knees into her breasts and her face down in a prostrate prayerful position, resting heavily onto her crossed forearms. There was no weeping. There was no recognition of the world around her. These firstborn moments of the day were devoid of feeling, of regret, of anger, of fear, of pain. There was simply a vacant tomb possessing her mind; she wasn’t allowed to begin the day with a predisposition toward the past, toward her circumstances. She was just there. Just like the trees were there. The lichen was there. The moss in the cypress, the water in the stream. It was all effortless and yet a holy orchestration of creation playing its song endlessly, every day, all day. It was the dying, mournful soliloquy contrasted with the crescendo of the forest erupting with a buck deer chasing a doe, the unabridged change of wind direction that startled the tree tops and caused them to whirl and swoosh. The birds, for no reason other than what was known only to themselves, fleeing one tree canopy for another. The forest had its audience. Jennifer didn’t know just how fortunate she was to experience the priceless symphony.
She sat up from her prayerful position, wiped at her eyes and noticed faintly a slow, drifting smoke in the distance. She was hopelessly vision impaired without her contacts, but as the time and harsh surroundings dictated her future, the ones angrily squeezing on her eyeballs were becoming increasingly troublesome. She finally made the difficult decision to remove them and then immediately tossed them into the stream. She was far-sighted, so she would at least see the forest for the trees. She was more specifically engaged in the smoke. Where did it come from? Was it merely a flush of steam and fog lifting from the river stream, or was there something there? She got up and barely noticed the dull, cruel pains along the bottoms of her feet, the cool river stream numbing every step. She staggered slowly toward the smoke, which rose from the opposite side of the river where the land seemed to dip slightly away and hide from the rest of its surroundings. She staggered across the stream and was immediately reminded of the previous days’ pains, the weakness in her body and soul, the frail state of her mind. She began to weep as she drew closer to the smoke. She staggered like a zombie from some now-unattainable movie from a previous age. A gentle ridge revealed a chimney delivering the smoke, and attached to it was a well-build, rustic cabin that looked as old as the earth surrounding it. There was a long, open front porch with two lazy swings dawdling and playing with the morning air currents. A stack of firewood as long as a Buick dressed out the edges of the porch. As Jennifer approached, her vision began to blur; her heart raced but seemed to clumsily clip away at a weak pace. She had to trudge up a shallow but formidable ridge that concealed the world beyond from the low-lying creeping river bottom.
Upon reaching the top, she saw a new land. An open space with a garden, an ancient cabin, a chimney billowing smoke, signaling life inside the home’s walls. A relief washed over Jennifer and quickly tickled her vagus nerve, which caused her to crash into a heap where she would remain unconscious for several hours.
Part 2
Upon reaching the top, she saw a new land. An open space with a garden, an ancient cabin, a chimney billowing smoke, signaling life inside the home’s walls. A relief washed over Jennifer and quickly tickled her vagus nerve, which caused her to crash into a heap where she would remain unconscious for several hours.
A dark, gangly silhouette stood over Jennifer. She was groggy but awake, dismayed, curious and equally afraid of the dark spectacle towering over her frail body. The silhouette also revealed the outline of a rifle, bolt action and most likely impressively loaded. She didn’t have the energy to muster up a response. She just acknowledged his presence and collapsed again, buried deep within a fog of misery, exhaustion, and peaceful resignation.
“Well, what am I gonna do with you?” a voice said, frail and crackled but directly spoken from the dark silhouette towering above Jennifer.
“Let me get the cart.”
The man walked away and immediately wasn’t nearly as foreboding; his frail frame escaped the backlit sun-exposed treatment that hovered over Jennifer’s near lifeless body.
He wore coveralls. They were a size too big on him, but kept the breeze from cutting through. He was slow moving, and often grunted and prayed simple prayers as he performed certain physical tasks.
He’d bring in firewood. “Help me, Lord.”
He’d stand on the porch and gaze out, looking for rabbits, squirrels or deer. “Please feed me, Lord.”
The man returned with a flat cart, homemade, evidently, the axil rehashed from old bicycle parts, the wood hewn unapologetically from the local forest. It had a strong axle and was a decent size cart with two handles as well as an extension with a brace and a welded fixture that could accommodate a hitch onto either a livestock animal or a mobile piece of machinery, which was extremely rare, especially in these dark times.
The old man grabbed the cart and assumed the position of a jackass or some other working animal. He grunted and began to work toward the near lifeless body of Jennifer, his prayers whirling like a smoke cloud into the heavens. It suddenly dawned on him the state she was in.
“She’s freezing, stupid.” He turned around and walked up the steps of the old home and disappeared, the spring-loaded screen door smacking behind him, echoing clear across the other side of the river. He re-emerged from the home, carrying two strong, well-made quilts. He sat the quilts in the cart and walked it her way. Upon arriving at her location, which hadn’t changed in more than 12 hours, he reached down to grab her arm and pull her into the cart so as to carefully transport her a little closer to the house.
As he reached toward her, her hand quickly spasmed. He immediately pulled away in horror. He thought the rigor mortis was beginning to rear its ugly head.
For fear of disposing of a body too soon, he leaned in slowly to observe. He sniffed.
Would the chest ebb and flow? And if so, could he get close enough to her mouth to hear the unmistakable work of breathing?
He took his chances. Tentatively, he moved close to Jennifer’s chest. As a lonely and old man he felt a little ashamed to invade her personal space. But as he did, he noticed she was, in fact, breathing. He grabbed one of the quilts and gingerly placed it over, like a mother covering a small child who fell asleep on a couch and looked too peaceful to disturb.
“Joe, you can check her over without violating her,” he told himself.
“I know. I know. Stop being such an ass! I know what I’m doing.”
Joe was talking to himself again, which wasn’t unusual. He had been living in the woods so long he wouldn’t have known about the nuclear war if one recent trip to town proved unsuccessful and downright dangerous.
Joe secretly felt hopeful as he watched her breathing deepen, like a cribbed baby content in a dreamland. He wanted to load her in the cart but was hindered by two things. Firstly, he didn’t want to disturb her. She must have gone through something horrible to be in such straits. Secondly, he no longer had the strength to carry out the task.
He had no choice. He must awaken her. The irony of the flailing rescuer. Her help was required for him to help her. He thought about that for a moment and cursed the cancer that ate away at the marrow in his bones, that sent alarm bells of pain shooting through his abdomen, that made him breathless and dizzy. He cursed his tired, old, dying body.
“Ma’am.”
“Ma’am, I want to help you but I need you to wake up.”
Jennifer barely stirred, even as he gently placed his hand on her shoulder which was now wrapped in the cocoon of the big, burly quilt. It was a gift of old from his grandmother’s homestead deep in the woods of Alabama. The quilt was a little like a tree that would outlast its maker, and every recipient that would follow.
When nudging her didn’t work, Joe came up with another idea. He called for Silver.
“Silver, come here girl. I need your help.”
His ghostly white German shepherd emerged from the old home’s crawl space. She was getting old, too. In an earlier time, she would have alerted Joe to Jennifer’s near lifeless body. At 13, she was almost indifferent to life itself.
Achingly, she lumbered toward Joe and Jennifer.
“Can you help, girl? I don’t know what to do. Maybe lick her face.”
Silver whimpered a little and lay down close to Jennifer’s head, and in doing so began to perform what looked like an army crawl toward her, each front leg extending ever so shortly toward her until Silver was close enough. She got within sniffing distance and smelled Jennifer’s hair. She gently pawed at her and licked Jennifer’s forehead. Nothing. Silver whimpered again before laying her head on the ground, nuzzling close to Jennifer’s unkempt blonde hair.
Joe thought for a moment. He grabbed the cart and headed back toward the home. Silver looked toward him briefly, her ears dialing in his direction, before she lay her head back down close to Jennifer’s. Completely resolved to stay at her post, Silver let out a sigh and rolled comfortably onto her side.
Joe parked the cart next to a wood pile and began stacking piles of split oak one at a time into the cart. He removed a crinkled, split piece of plywood from the top of an old 5-gallon bucket and pulled out some lighter kindling as well as some pine straw and a wad of disheveled, hairy bark from a cypress tree. With flint and stone, he began construction of a small fire close to Jennifer. Starting small, the spark ignited the hairy bark. Small sticks and pine straw followed. He took a small hatchet and split the lighter into tiny strips. He stacked them neatly and blew into the heart of the fire. His bellowing action was abruptly interrupted by a crackling cough that sent him on all fours. The cough was deep, hoarse and clunky, like an old truck struggling to idle. The coughing was exhausting. The fire took care of itself and Joe collapsed next to the cart, trying to regain his breath while wiping the moisture from his eyes. His chest heaved as he lay on his back, the world spinning above him. It wasn’t long before he drifted off to sleep, too.
Joe awoke, stiff, his head languid with a drunkenness that was brought on by his brain deprived of oxygen. The second quilt covered him clear above his shoulders. The fire smoldered, and like all good, seasoned fires, it was now low and evenly full of glowing bright red coals that warmed everything in its light. The small flames flickered a few inches above the coals, yet the warmth seemed to have arms that reached beyond the glow and into the shadows beyond Joe and Jennifer. Jennifer sat next to the fire with her quilt still wrapped over her shoulders. Silver had her head in Jennifer’s lap.
Jennifer sipped from a mug. Evening was approaching. The cold was barely noticeable beneath the quilts and near the fire.
“Well, hello. Are you OK?” Jennifer asked.
Joe pulled his aching body to an upright position and readjusted the quilt over his shoulders. Despite being old and decrepit, he could still sit with his legs crossed. Perhaps the sinewy bands of dehydrated muscle that remained beneath the skin aided in this process.
“Name’s Joe. I found you out here this morning. I was worried you were dead. I tried to keep you warm and build that fire. It got the best of me. I’m sorry.”
“It’s OK.”
“My husband’s name was Joe. He’s dead now.”
Jennifer held the mug and looked toward the bleak, darkening forest.
“I’m sorry for your loss. I’ve been Joe a long time. This is my place. I’ve lived alone since my wife died of cancer back in ‘87. We used to live in town, but after she died, I decided this old river camp was the best place for me. I came here to die myself. Damn if I don’t just keep living.”
The corner of Jennifer’s mouth lilted and she regained her focus, peering across the amber glow at the leathery, wilted face of Joe’s.
“I see you must’ve found my kitchen. I’m worried about you being so close to naked. I have clothes you can wear. I have an old chest at the end of my bed. It’s full of my wife’s things. I never had the heart to get rid of them. Please take what you want. Y’all were about the same size.”
Beneath the heavy quilt Jennifer was still wearing the stained shirt and panties, the clothing that reeked of the past 48 hours, the clothing that betrayed the comfort of the fire and the solace of her present company. Everything she wore reminded her of a severed, broken life that ended less than two days earlier.
Earlier that day, Jennifer did find the kitchen. After waking to find the fire and the old stranger snoring next to a dodgy old cart, she arose and inspected her surroundings. Her memories were dusty. Like her eyes now lacking the contact lenses she depended on to see clearly, her memories of the previous two days were blurry. She stood to her feet and tentatively examined Joe. He slept peacefully but his skin was cold. She saw the second quilt in the back of the cart and draped it over him clear up to his neck. She tucked it nicely around his shoulders and gave a brief massage to them to ensure the quilt made contact. She felt the bones that were once enveloped by muscle. Before limping drowsily toward the house, she did shake Joe a few times, hoping to rouse him. He just snored. She let him sleep.
She limped on her bruised feet up the porch and into the old home. She stood in the quietness of the old place and marveled at the feeling of timelessness that existed within the cabin’s walls. Old sepia-toned and black and white photos adorned the dark, wood-paneled walls. A few plaques hung unceremoniously in drab, dusty corners. She read them. Joe was a genius. There was a picture of Joe next to Albert Einstein. The date was 1950. Joe was a little boy who had won a prize for his daring exploits in the field of science. There were other plaques from NASA and MIT. Jennifer felt a little surprised. She would never have admitted it, but that old wiry, redneck looking zombie of a creature was once a genius?
A brick pad along the floor protected the space from a wood burning stove’s sparks. The kitchen was tidy. Jennifer began to wonder where the woman of the house was. On a window sill, she found a row of Mason jars, each filled with different herbs, many labeled, but some mysterious. She found four jars, all labeled medicinal herbs. She opened the lid and the wafting fragrance of marijuana took over. She shut the jar and let the buds fall back to sleep. She came across one jar filled with dried lemongrass; a small jar of honey sat next in line; The top read, “Leland’s honey.”
On the counter there was a jar of what appeared to be a home-brewed alcoholic concoction. She popped off the cork and sniffed. The smell was a little rough and noxious, but there was also a sweetness lurking just above the neck of the bottle. It couldn’t hurt, she thought.
The wood burning stove between the living room and the kitchen had its own coals burning. To her surprise, she found the kitchen faucet worked fine and she filled a kettle for the tea. When the water warmed, she steeped the dried lemongrass with a dollop of honey and a noisy gluck of that brown beverage. The three magical ingredients, along with the warm water, renewed her soul. She didn’t want to linger in the house. After all, she was still a little mystified at waking up next to a fire, a quilt wrapped around her and a near lifeless old man laying close by.
After making her tea she returned to tend to the fire. She would have worried about her mysterious neighbor but his snoring assured her he was at least breathing.
Jennifer tended to the fire and Joe slowly came around. He sat up and crackled madly for a brief few moments before sighing heavily and heaving his chest upward and outward, hoping to catch his breath. He whistled through his teeth.
“Boy, dying sure does make living inconvenient. But I guess the whole world is dying at this point, so we’re all in the same gutter.”
“Dying?” Jennifer said, the single word more as a question.
“I’m eat up with it. I have cancer and it’s crawling like a parasite all through me. I was getting treatment and was doing OK until those damned bombs started falling. Even though none of them hit here, the offices closed. The whole world panicked and everything shut down. About two months ago I went into town for a routine appointment, but was faced with a mob of high school kids who were ready to take off my head. Two years ago I tutored a couple of them. I even said that. I said, ‘Lewis, it’s Mr. Joe. I was your tutor.’ He just rehashed an explicative that has grown tiresome. I narrowly escaped, only because a girl in the group was pregnant, her water broke and I commenced to help those bastards with labor and delivery. Talk about the grace of God. There wasn’t so much as a thank you when we were done. The boyfriend or whatever he was told me to get lost because we were ‘even.’ Pardon my French, but if that little fucker ever shows up here we won’t be ‘even.’ ”
Jennifer laughed, her tea still warming her gullet and inspiring her to remove herself, if ever so briefly, from her own trauma.
“I’m so sorry,” she said. How do you feel?”
“Most days I have my moments. I awake early because I basically don’t sleep. I tend to my little garden. I feed my chickens and I pet my dog Silver. I get the fires going. I take my axe and my old cart out to the edges of the river and try to gather up some wood for the stove. I’m so tired.”
At his last statement, Jennifer teared up, nearly evading the entire conversation by fleeing the fire. She felt broken for Joe, but also had the tainted mingling of her own brokenness disturbing her equilibrium. Her vision was slightly blurred from disposing her contacts. While her body ached, her bruised feet were finally comforted by an old pair of plush hospital socks she dug out of the chest at the end of Joe’s bed.
“Girl, are you hurting? I can see the tears in your eyes.”
The question opened up a floodgate. She began to weep. She couldn’t control the tears that she held hostage over that last few days.
Joe got up, and like all old men do, he made quite a spectacle of himself. Aching and noisy, clamoring around, he came in close; he sat next to Jennifer and with hesitation, wrapped his quilt around her shoulders and pulled her close. Her head rested on his tired old shoulders. He felt alive for the first time in several years.
Joe was old and adjusted. He wasn’t thinking about Jennifer in any way that would be a violation of her humanity. He was thinking of her as his first daughter. To his eternal shame, he and his wife, Carla, never had kids. He was thinking of her as the one person in the world who understood him and provided a breath of life into his dying soul. He thought of her in the most wholesome sense as home. Holding Jennifer that night made him miss his sweet Carla in ways he hadn’t thought of in years.
Part 3
Joe and Jennifer made it in after talking for hours in the cooling evening air.
The talk endured for awhile but Jennifer eventually broke the conversation that swirled around the smoldering fire:
“Can we go inside your cabin or do I have to sleep outside another night?”
“My God, I’m sorry!”
Joe acted like one of NASA’s lead mechanics as a gasket erupted on a grand spaceship’s journey heading toward space.
At one time, Joe was one of NASA’s lead mechanics. The Challenger would go down, but not without Joe’s protestations. The politicians and bureaucrats wouldn’t listen, but the part froze, the ship erupted, the people died, and the country lamented and demanded inquiries. The NASA folks tried to pin it on Joe but he knew their game, throttled them with evidence and provided written and audio documentation of their avarice and greed; he walked away from the hearings a free man. After his wife died, he left NASA, fled for the woods, made home in his family’s cabin and never left.
Jennifer’s request jolted Joe from some far-flung memory.
“I’m so sorry, yes, ma’am, let’s head inside. I’ll get us a fire going.”
Despite her weak state, Jennifer was a strong woman. Despite Joe’s protestations, she helped load in the firewood and even left the porch to grab some kindling.
“I’m not some kind of Christmas tiger, you know?” she said.
“I don’t know what that means, but I get your point.”
Once inside, and with the fire going, they both nestled deeply within the soft crevasses of their respective seats. Joe didn’t peep a word when Jennifer sat in his recliner. He was glad to see her so comfortable.
The fire began to take light and the two found themselves in an awkward silence.
Jennifer looked around the walls of the cabin, tapping the sides of her crystal glass that was filled with one of Joe’s homebrewed concoctions. The walls were not bear. They were adorned with shelves of books, records and tiny artifacts, framed certificates from ages gone by. She loved books and sensed their smell; it was a comfort that reminded her of her own mother. What she didn’t quite understand were all the records. There were literally thousands.
“Did you ever buy a CD player?” she asked with a little bit of a joke mingled within.
“Hell, no. Don’t need the damned things. Have you ever heard a needle fall on a record and play the most glorious sound you can expect to hear this side of Heaven?”
Jennifer, almost startled by Joe’s new energy that revolved around his precious records, found herself curious.
“I thought not. Let this evening be one of education for you, young lady.”
She nodded her head like a little school girl and was willing to submit to any newfound sounds Joe could muster.
“OK, impress me with your great audiophile mind.”
Joe then felt challenged. He was a little nervous. He had all kinds of ideas. Would he grab the rare classics that turned out to be worth a small fortune? No, that music was a little boring, he thought. Would he start a musical odyssey, beginning with the early Appalachian soundtracks he had and swiftly move into the African-influenced music that eventually created the blues and made its way to Sam Phillips at Sun Records? Would he skip ahead to the forbearers of the early indie music sound, play the best songs of the Velvet Underground, or the quirky electronic experimentation of Karlheinz Stockhausen? He immediately went to work, pulling albums one at a time, building a playlist that would introduce Jennifer to music she had never heard. He assumed she already knew about Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. But had she ever heard the Flying Burrito Brothers or Big Star or the Cramps? There were so many rabbit holes and Joe had to control himself.
While Joe was feverishly pulling from various shelves, Jennifer interrupted.
“Where’s your bathroom? Is it working? After all that tea, I really need to go.”
Joe pointed down a dark, wood-paneled hallway.
“Thank you. Please, keep building your playlist.”
The hallway was dark and Joe, not used to a guest, worried over every tiny detail that could possibly emerge. In a different age he would have been described as someone with obsessive compulsive disorder, as well as a tinge of anxiety and depression. He was meticulous and cared for every tiny detail.
“Here’s a lamp for you,” he said, interrupting her walk down the hall.
“I know we have electricity, but I’m trying to get used to no lights if it all goes south in an instant.”
“That makes sense. Thank you.” She clutched the kerosene lantern and walked down the hallway, swinging it left and right until she discovered the bathroom was the first door on the right.
When she returned, Joe was grinning from ear to ear, a stack of records cradled beneath his frail arm, ready to blitz the player.
“Have you ever heard of Scott Walker?”
“The congressman?!”
“Heck, no. The artist. He had all these self-titled albums and numbered them. David Bowie was still in pajamas when this guy started. You should hear it. Can I play it for you?”
“Of course,” Jennifer said, realizing Joe was a little woozy at this point from a medical balm to go along with the evening’s music. Jennifer assumed this was a normal experience and part of an evening that served as a medical apparition to protect him from the most disastrous of days that could make life difficult for the dying. She didn’t judge.
The needle dropped. The song began. Jennifer kicked up the recliner and relaxed. Joe, yet unwilling to sit, leaned against the fireplace hearth.
It's raining today
and I'm just about to forget the train window girl
That wonderful day we met
She smiles through the smoke from my cigarette
It's raining today
But once there was summer and you
And dark little rooms
And sleep in late afternoons
Those moments descend on my windowpane
I've hung around here too long
Joe stood by the record player. He wiped away a tear as the music whirled. His music collection was vast. Most of his shelves were stuffed with records and books. His wife was the book collector. He was the record collector. But in her absence, he cradled the entire collection in his body and soul.
He read books that meant nothing to him, but knew they meant something to her — his late bride — so he kept reading, hoping there was some message she would send him in her unceasing silence.
He’d play albums they had danced to and pretend she was still there. For 30 seconds or so he felt alive. And then he realized she was gone and felt nearly as alone as Jesus on the cross. He sympathized with his master and pleaded for forgiveness. His prayers began anew.
When the Walker song ended, Jennifer noticed Joe’s lament. She assumed the song captured a memory from a former time, or he was just moved by the lyrics, the tune, the somber artistic beauty that erupted the equilibrium of the present time.
“Does that song mean a lot to you?”
“They all do,” he said, his eyes running over the shelves with the thousands of records arranged neatly and tightly.
“That is one of my favorites, but they all have their place, given the moment.”
“The world is so dark. Play me something happy,” Jennifer asked.
“Something happy, huh?”
Joe flipped through the stack he pulled earlier. He was always alone in his love for music. When he was younger, no one understood his crate-digging, not even Carla. Why on earth would you spend good, hard-earned money on plastic and the crackling, fickle sounds of some flailing dreamers? His musicianship started the whole mess. Initially, he played his instruments — drums, piano, guitar — because he was told to; as soon as he fell in love with them, he was told they were too loud, too annoying, and he stopped.
As Joe looked for something upbeat, his memories turned to an earlier time. When he was old enough to make something of himself he started buying records. He knew why. He was barely born when Elvis went to Sun Studios. He heard Sonny Boy Williamson on the A.M. radio dial late at night, when black artists weren’t heard much on the F.M. side of things.
He was raised in a rural backwater, but still knew when Bob Dylan was crooning about the changing times and the crippling theft of the human soul. He was in college when the world erupted into the war in Vietnam. His politics were murky and blinded by the cruel forces that did the same to everyone, but at least he was undrafted and free.
By the time the late ‘70s came around, he was already in his 30s. In that day, he was perceived as old when he entered a run-down nightclub and showed his I.D. to the bouncer. He was on a work trip and looked for something to do to endure the early darkening hours of the English countryside. The trip was for work for MIT. The town was a small English backwater, though one filled with kids like any American town that pleads for a cultural anchor despite their stilted existence.
Upon trying to enter, the bouncer, a rather small fellow, given the important nature of his job, seemed amused at Joe. “Come on in,” he said with a crawl-filled cockney accent. An American with a fake I.D., he thought. What a joke. He was the first pilgrim to show ID in ages. Most just gave the bouncer a hand gesture along with a few taught words and entered the club.
Upon entering the pub, an angry, dry, remorseless sound oozed forth. It was new, a transmission from a star that suddenly interrupted the atmosphere and displayed something completely different from another galaxy.
His curiosity purchased his ticket. Before approaching the stage, he bought a pint of a dark porter and instantly became transfixed.
The young man on the stage staggered and waved madly as he sang and murmured through the song’s lines. He stared into the distance, past everyone watching him. He saw no one.
Mesmerized, ghost-like, he seemed to break the bones in his elbows and shoulders with every pronounced lyric. There was no half-commitment, there was no lukewarm faith. Joe was quickly proselytized. An American, completely removed from the culture and the music he left back home.
The lyrics robbed Joe of his previous innocence. They told him to believe in something larger than himself; the lyrics told him he was alone and without hope; or perhaps they told him the opposite. He was a subject, an abject observer who would feel all the pains, all of the suffering from times of old and find a way to change. The Wilderness song rang out:
I travelled far and wide through many different times
What did you see there?
I saw the saints with their toys
What did you see there?
I saw all knowledge destroyed
I travelled far and wide through many different times
I travelled far and wide through prisons of the cross
What did you see there?
The power and glory of sin
What did you see there?
The blood of Christ on their skins
I travelled far and wide through many different times
I travelled far and wide and unknown martyrs died
What did you see there?
I saw the one sided trials
What did you see there?
I saw the tears as they cried
They had tears in their eyes
Tears in their eyes
Tears in their eyes
Tears in their eyes
Nothing broke Joe like those lyrics. When he first heard them he was a young man, committed to the duty of the motherland. A few months later, on the 18th of May, 1980, that young man who wrote those lyrics died, killed by his own hands.
“How’s this for upbeat?” Joe put on an early Stevie Wonder record. The snare drum kept time, the drums sounded like they were recorded in a silo. The keyboards, bass and guitars grew together, like the limbs of a child as it entered a walking life. Horns and strings stabbed and strutted. The harmonica burst onto the scene at the correct moments. Then the wonderful voice took center stage and a tambourine joined in. The song was just what was needed. It was loud and direct; Jennifer nodded along while sipping on some of Joe’s special elixir. The two clapped their hands and laughed along to the beats. Every song on the first side was welcoming; the songs freed Jennifer from her previous days’ torments. Joe’s coughing fits stayed away. The song invoked something even greater than happiness. It was mirth — a gladness and merriment that was connected both to body and soul, and also to things outside of Jennifer. For a brief moment, she wondered if the world was still a rotten place, or if it could be redeemed.