Endless Journey

By Larrywomack.com

As he sits on the small day bed, his rough hands fumble to open the tiny locket.  Though he knows its contents well, his heart races each time he opens it.

The clasp finally releases to reveal a faded picture of a teenage girl. He wants to touch the picture, but it is too small for his thick fingers.

Memories flicker through his head like a silent movie, eventually bringing him to the present.  He fastens the locket, puts it in his shirt pocket and reaches into the opposite pocket for a cigarette.  He removes the matchbook from the cellophane around the Luckys and takes out a smoke.  With one hand, he opens the matchbook, bends a match, strikes it and lights the cigarette.  He’s done it a million times.

The taste and feel of the smoke flowing into his lungs is calming.  He takes several slow drags on the Lucky and then holds it away to look at the burning ash.  The action raises his anxiety.

There is no ashtray, so he spits on his fingers and crushes the burning ash between them.  He puts the butt back in the pack and lies back on the bed.  Placing his hands beneath his head he closes his eyes, not to dream, but to wish the anxiety away.

The room is small and sparse.  On the table, next to the bed is a shadeless lamp stand with a dimly burning light bulb.   A crooked window shade hangs on the sill blocking most of the sunlight.

The one picture in the room hangs over the bed.  It is a somber painting of peasants in a field somewhere in Europe. There is a well-worn brown throw rug on a water-stained hardwood floor.  His old black cardboard suitcase sits beside his shoes on the floor.

He’s too big for the bed, but too tired to complain.  When he turns off the light, it flashes and then goes out.  He shades his eyes from the beam of light that peeks through the crooked shade.

Down the hall, someone strums mindless cords on a guitar as an accompaniment to his anguish.

It’s taken me ten years to get here, he thinks.   Ten years masking as eternity.  Why would anyone want to live forever?

The weight of his burden pushes him into unconsciousness.  He dreams of scooping water from a cool stream and being watched by a deer and several snakes. He is not afraid of the creatures but hopes that they will leave him to drink alone.

He turns in the bed to face the wall and places his hands together beneath his right cheek.  The dream fades.  He sleeps in peace.

When he awakens, the room is dark.  The first sound he hears is a distant toilet flushing.  Shortly thereafter a man and a woman engaged in hushed conversation stop at his door.  He hears a turning key, muffled laughter, and footsteps scurrying down the hall.  Strange, he thinks.

Rolling on his back, he touches the pocket where the locket is placed; he sighs and sits on the side of the bed.  Age and the cramped sleeping position add difficulty to the task. He fumbles for his shoes and ties the strings with the deliberateness of one who has a mission.

Got to pick up the pace, he says, as he stands in the darkness. Carefully moving toward the light under the door, he reaches for the knob.  It is cool to his touch.  He turns it left and then right.  Left again, right again.

His heart sinks.  I must have left the key in the door when I opened it.  Why did they lock me in?  Did they think that was funny?

He pounds on the door.  Hello?  Hello?

Nothing.

The window’s no good.  I’m on the third floor.

Reaching down, he finds his way back to the bed and sits.

I’ve got to think of a way out before it gets too late.  Options race through his mind.

I think this will work!  He eases to the floor, slides the rug to the doorway and pushes half of it through the threshold; then he crawls back to the bed and fumbles for the lamp cord. He jerks it from the wall and pulls the plug from the end of the cord.  When he drags the cord toward the door, the lamp tumbles from the table and the bulb shatters on the floor.

He pokes the lamp cord into the keyhole, and in seconds, the key falls onto the rug.  Gently pulling the rug back into the room, he sees the shadow of the key.

He smiles at the small victory, the first in weeks, maybe months.

With suitcase in hand, he makes his way down the stairs to the front door of the rooming house.  Once outside he pauses to survey the surroundings.  It has been ten years since I’ve been to Macon, he thinks.  The rooming house is on Walnut.  Christ Church is just five blocks down the street.  It’s probably the only thing in Macon that hasn’t changed. The peace of the Lord be always with you, moves through his mind.

If my memory serves me correctly, New Street should be the first street to my right. Cherry would be about a mile south.  Turn right, and the corner of Cherry and Spring would be a few blocks north.

The air is brisk for October, but the wool shirt is sufficient for the walk.  As he starts the last mile of his ten-year journey, he touches the pocket holding the necklace.

His left ankle begins to hurt as he makes his way towards Cherry and Spring. His stride is slow.  Thoughts, memories, and ideas ricochet through his mind giving him a reason to pause and rest his hand on a wrought-iron gate.

As he stands there, the bewilderment in his mind merges into a single question:  Will the journey bring resolution or deepen the wounds? What if I can’t find the house?  What if they are no longer there?  What next?

As he nears the finish line, exhaustion from the anxiety brings reason to sit and rest.  Placing the suitcase on the curb, he uses it as balance to lower himself.

The sky is filled with stars.  The light moist breeze reminds him that the Okmulgee River is just a few blocks away.

I fished that river as a boy – catfish and bream, cane pole and worms, and sometimes dough balls.

He was once again that boy and also watching that boy fishing in the river.

Why can’t you just remember something without having feelings? He says out aloud. The gruffness of his voice makes the memory seem so long ago.

He again uses the suitcase for balance to push his tired body up from the curb. Picking up the suitcase, he ambles on towards Cherry and Spring.  As he walks, he inventories the suitcase contents in his mind – shirt, pair of pants, collar, razor, toothbrush, soap, towel and a well-worn copy of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer.

What I should do, he thinks, is to ditch the suitcase and just carry the Prayer Book in my pocket.  It’s the only thing in there worth keeping.  I could also keep the razor and the toothbrush in my pocket if need be.

Reaching a corner, he looks up at the street sign.  The direction in which he is moving is identified as New Street and Cherry.  Spring and Cherry are to his right.

Pains begin to pulsate in different parts of his body.  The soreness of his left ankle intensifies.  His right shoulder hurts.  A throb begins in his upper chest.  It’s taken four years to get back.

Most of the houses on Cherry have been torn down.  It worries him.  He lights a Lucky.  That’s where the Dewberrys lived.  Their son was killed in Nam.  They never got over it.  That house was a rental.  Seemed like every poor folk in Macon, black and white, lived in that house one time or another.

He could easily see the house on the corner because the one next to it had been leveled and the lot graded.  There is a sold sign out front.  His heart sinks.

As he stands looking towards the house, the family blessing echoes in his head:  In thy mercy Lord, smile on us, pardon and forgive us and make us thankful for this and all the other blessings of life.  We ask in thy name.  Amen.

He has said it a thousand times.  Tears run down his face.

Since the Sold sign was pasted over the For Sale sign, there is some hope they will be there. When he reaches the door, he knows they are gone.  He turns the doorknob left and then right; left again then right again.  It is locked.

He lowers his left shoulder and slams it against the door.  The door springs open as it had years earlier under a different anxiety-driven circumstance.

The couch is still there, but the coffee table, pictures and chairs are gone.  He walks toward their bedroom.  It is empty, except for a few broken recognizable relics of his past.  He reluctantly and fearfully walks towards his daughter’s bedroom.

The bed is still there with all the bedding.  He looks for the woodland scene he had painted on the wall that included Bambi, Bambi’s mother, and some rabbits.  It had been papered over.

He begins to sob.

As he sits on the small bed, he opens the suitcase and removes the collar and the Book of Common Prayer.  He places the collar on the bed beside him and turns to page 336 and reads silently:

O Lord Jesus Christ, who by thy death didst take away the sting of death, grant unto us thy servants so to follow in faith where thou hast led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in thee, and wake up after thy likeness, through thy mercy, who livest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end.  Amen.

He closes the book and places it beside the collar on the bed.  His rough hands fumble to open the tiny locket. His heart races.  The clasp releases to reveal the faded picture of the teenage girl. He lies back on the bed, places the locket on his chest and takes out the pack of Luckys. Memories flicker through his head like a silent movie.

He removes the matchbook from the cellophane around the Luckys, takes out a smoke and, with one hand, opens the matchbook, bends a match, strikes it, and lights the cigarette.  He’s done it a million times.  He places the still burning match on the pillow beside him, closes his eyes, and softly says: “I’m sorry.”