"Headed west?" The old man said through a cloud of red dust.
"California," I said.
"Well, I'm sure not goin that far, though I wish I were. I'm gettin off the interstate up the road a piece. Not too much traffic, but if you don't mind the back-roads, I'll take you almost to Texas. Funny thing is, if I go west, south, or even southeast, we'll end up in Texas all the same. Onliest way to miss Texas is to head due east or north. You could go through Denver, I reckon; but I ain't a-headed that way."
"Anywhere that's on the way to California is fine by me." I was happy to get out of there any way I could.
The old man spun the truck onto the highway, fish-tailing and swerving into the fast lane. The radio blasted country music from Des Moines as we bounced along under the stars that popped out in the fading daylight. We spoke in low voices and peered through a bug-specked windshield at the oncoming traffic. Headlights transformed from pinpoints into demon's eyes as great trucks rushed toward us, flying eastward, passing, and throwing out gusts that rocked the old pickup, sending loose debris flying madly through the cabin.
Just as he seemed to lose control, the old man tightened his grip on the steering wheel and yelled above the radio, "Whee! Hee ha! That was a dandy---and here comes another one!"
In the blue glow of dashboard lights we sped toward the end of Oklahoma, the last trace of red daylight sinking beneath the horizon. Towns flew by, un-named and un-visited. Dazzling oil-rigs churned and cranked at the earth, sucking up the foul-smelling goop, reminding me of those toy birds that rock forward on coffee tables, dipping their wooden beaks into tumblers of water, pretending to drink; but all the while remaining nothing more than wood. Suicidal jackrabbits, their eyes mad and blazing in the headlights, leapt across our path and vanished into the tumbleweed and sage-brush shadows.
I was headed west, at last, but I felt the hopelessness of a rider on a city bus, watching the reflection of the bus gliding across mirrored office buildings, seeing the framed faces of the passengers in the windows, and recognizing his own from among them--just as the reflection vanishes into a vacant lot. He wonders if he were not the reflection of his other self, and had vanished into a field of tangled weeds and broken glass.
" You want a soady-pop? I got some iced down in the back. A feller gets thirsty drivin around out here."
"No thanks," I said. " I had one back at the gas station."
"So, you're headin for California, huh?" The old man said, just before spitting a stream of tobacco juice into the Oklahoma night. The tires sang over the blacktop as the radio crackled and hummed beneath the high-tension wires. "I lit out for there once myself, back in thirty-two or three, right after I got laid-off in the oil-fields. Caught a fast freight up north that went clean through the desert, lickety-split, not stoppin once till it got to Reno. It was hotter'n a fireman's britches there; so I rode on ahead to Sacramento to find a job on a farm. Went south from there to Bakersfield--and it was plenty hot there too. Didn't get to see the ocean though. I always wanted to see it too. I felt like I could smell it right there in Bakersfield; but I know I couldn't have. I could feel it though. I knowed it was out there, just over the mountains. I saw it on a map once; and I knowed anything that big, and that close, could sure be felt.
Someday I'm goin to get in this truck and just start drivin. I'll be seventy this September; and a man should see the ocean, just once before he dies. Yes sir, just once. I reckon there ain't nothin like it, standin there with all that water in front of you, and the whole continent at your back.
I saw a movin picture once, about these people that were ship-wrecked and lost, floatin around in a little lifeboat. All they could see in any direction was water; but they couldn't drink it because of the salt. I thought it was bad enough the time I broke down in the desert; but at least I didn't have to look at water that I couldn't drink. Nothin worse than dyin of thirst, I reckon; but having to look at water, and not being able to have it, that's the worst thing. It reminds me of an Arkansas feller I used to know. He told me his wife put her bed in another room, and wouldn't have anything more to do with him. He said that wasn't so bad; but knowin she was right there in the next room, and him just layin there thinkin about it and all, near bout drove him crazy. He did start drinkin after that; and got his self killed in a car-wreck. A feller can sure get into a mess of trouble with women-folk, whether he has a mind to or not."
"Were you raised around here?" I asked.
"Yep, born in Kansas; but I came down here when I was seven. Never been much of anywhere, except that time I went to California. I was in Dallas once. Went there to see the rodeo with my oldest boy. He lives down in Florida now. My youngest was killed in Korea. I should have gone off to fight the Germans or Japanese myself after Pearl Harbor. I tried to enlist in the Army, but they wouldn't have me. Said I was just about too old, and my feet weren't fit. Don't know why; they've gotten me around all this time--Look! I used to live near here--See that old house over yonder, the one atop that rise?"
An old two-story house, draped in a shadowy cowl of moonlight, stood gray and paintless, hovering over the highway like a ghost schooner adrift on a dark sea. The front porch lay under the rubble of the collapsing roof. Weeds and vines covered the yard; rotting tires and ancient car-parts lay scattered on the lawn.
"Looks like no one's lived in it for awhile," I said.
"That house used to belong to a German feller, Howard Kessler, back in the twenties and early thirties. Nicest feller you'd ever want to know--at least that's what folks thought back then. He was quiet and hard workin; but proud. You'd as likely find a chicken floatin on a duck pond as to see him in a beer-joint or dance-hall on a Saturday night."
"Where did you live then?" I asked. I could see no other houses around.
"About three miles up that gravel road. Nothin there now, though. All of it was torn down after the war. Well, as I was sayin, Howard married a woman from Ohio named Edith, and brought her out here to live. She was a city woman, and talked different from folks around here--not too hard on a man's eyes either. They had four children; but one of them died--a little girl--whoopin cough I think. You'd see ol Howard and his family in town every Sunday, dressed in their finest, on their way to the old brick Baptist church. It got blown down in a tornado, back in forty-nine, as I recollect. I reckon the only thing left is the churchyard cemetery. My wife and most of my kin-folk are buried there. Anyway, Howard always got up before dawn and worked til Edith rang the dinner bell. Then he'd head on back to the house and wash up, eat his dinner, and go on back to the field til suppertime. That's the way it was, everyday except Sunday. If the weather was nice, Edith would bring his meals out to him. I don't think he was mean to her and the youngins, or anything like that; and he never took a strong drink as far as I know. Of course, that was durin prohibition. If he ever swore or took the Lord's name in vain, I never heard tell of it. He took good care of his family, but he expected them to do what he said. He liked his house in perfect order. He figured a man's job was out there in that field, and women-folk's was back at the house. I reckon most German fellers are like that. No one ate till he sat down at the table and filled his plate."
"I've known people like that back in Indiana," I said. "It does seem like alot of German men are like that."
"Well, he Got wiped out in the dust storms. Ol Hollis Hart----he's gone now; he was Howard's hired hand. Nice feller. His was the only colored family in the county back in them days. Ol Hollis said that one day Howard went out and tromped around in the dust, kickin and scuffin at it, mutterin to himself, and lookin up at the sky like he was a-searchin for some sign that things was gonna get better. The sky was dark, and red with dust-clouds. He picked up a handful of that red dust and sifted it through his fingers, all the while lookin at all that crop damage----that dust was nearly a foot high then, and would make a feller hack and cough if he stirred it up a little bit--some folks got the dust new-moany and just shriveled up and died. The hens would peck at it like they was a-lookin for corn; but all they got for there trouble was a beak full of dust and some dry pebbles. His old dog would snuff and snort around the yard, tryin to get that dust out of his nose. Folks said birds would just drop right out of the sky. His youngins thought it was good fun, like a big snow before Christmas. They'd play in it when their mama wasn't lookin. They took sick from it, and was laid up in bed for a whole week.
Anyway, ol Howard saw that everything was gone, and nothin he could do would ever change anything. The bank was ready to take his farm; and there weren't even enough vegetables left in the cellar to see them through the winter. That night, after supper, he went to the barn, loaded up his twelve-gauge, went back to the house and shot his whole family while they slept, then he sat down in the rocker and blew his own head off. Even shot the old dog."
"That kind of thing happens too often," I said. "Any man who would hurt his wife and children deserves anything that happens to him."
"That's how I see it too. He has to answer to the Lord for his sins. But ol' Howard wasn't quite right in the head. Maybe it's like they say in a court room when a feller is on trial for murder. He admits he did it, but the lawyer says he shouldn't get hung because of sinuatin . . ."
"Extenuating circumstances?"
"Yep, that's it. He went out of his head. My sister's husband found them all. He was a preacher and he reckoned as to how Howard's troubles had just begun after he pulled that trigger. He said old Howard just blasted his self into hell. Pardon me, I don't usually use them kinda words, but even a preacher does sometimes. I reckon it was a preacher what thought up the word in the first place. Anyhow, the sheriff said that was the saddest thing he'd ever seen, with the youngins and all. No one moved in after that. Folks don't like to live in a house like that. I reckon they figure what ever drove ol' Howard crazy might get to them too.
The bank took the property and sold it to a Texas feller. They must have thought there was oil in the ground. They dug alot of holes around, and didn't find anything but dirt. They just left the house alone, figurin it would collapse all on its own, I reckon. Folks said there used to be ghosts roamin around in there, peekin out the windows at night, and stompin up and down the stairs, groanin, and kickin up a fuss."
"Used to be?"
"Nobody believes in ghosts anymore. Whether it's true or not, if no one believes in somethin, it just goes away. If a feller don't believe in the Good Lord, I reckon he won't hang around waitin till he has a mind to neither. Kinda like folks. If no one believes in them, they stop believin in themselves, and they just go off somewheres else, if they have someplace to go."
He pulled off the road and flipped on the dome-light.
"This is where I turn off. Not too many cars pass here this time of night, but you might get lucky," he said, his moist eyes gleaming in the electric glow.
He let me off at a crossroads with those tumbleweeds and Kessler ghosts. The old house was just a tiny shadow at the top of the only hill in sight.
"I wish I was a-goin with you," the old man said. "But I'm gettin too old to be traipsin around the country. Maybe I will get out there to the ocean someday. I don't know, maybe it ain't the ocean at all. Maybe I'm just a-scared of dyin; and maybe I figure if I just keep on a-movin it'll all pass me by somehow--No fool like and old fool they say. I reckon I'm lucky; a man likes to have someplace to go to; but it's a heap worse if he has nowhere to stay."
I watched as the old landlocked Okie philosopher turned up the prairie and vanished into the Oklahoma darkness, leaving me standing alone in the muffled silence. I wanted to unroll my sleeping-bag under a grove of trees, but no trees were in sight; so I found a spot near a dry creek and lay under the stars and white wisps that sailed past the moon.
I was alone on the spinning earth, with the cold stars dogging me through an ocean of sky. A far-off freight-train clattered unseen toward the west, its head-lamp playing on the low clouds and dancing on the naked prairie. To the north I could see the sky glowing red from the lights of a town. I closed my eyes and thought of the road behind, the road ahead, and all the roads that laced my restless soul, binding me to the moon-cast shadows of the past. I thought of Saigon, Sergeant King, Marie, the Kessler family, Gilbert O' Hara, and all the thirsty warriors and gentle rice-paddy ladies that once walked beneath the very same moon, dreamed the very same dreams--and were now dust.
Under a ruby moon, with the cool earth at my back, I drifted across those empty, moon-lit plains that I left behind, to those rolling hills and long rows of corn whose tasseled stalks rustled in the heavy midnight air. I smelled the summer fragrance of fresh-mown hay and heard the night-birds calling above a din of bullfrogs. I saw myself sitting on a riverbank, watching a quivering moon rising and falling on the rippled surface. A skipping water-bug stamped silver ringlets onto the moon and disappeared into the darkness.
I saw an old frame house standing like a familiar ghost at the edge of the river road. Moths battered its porch-light and invisible crickets chirped in the hedges. I sensed the family inside, sitting at the kitchen table under a glowing lamp, laughing and sharing the time. I wanted desperately to burst through the door and announce myself.
I imagined being welcomed into the kitchen, given a glass of iced tea and a seat at the table. They would ask me how I was, where I had been, what I had seen----and why hadn't I written? I would tell them of lying on my back in the cool desert night, watching the Big Dipper dangling in a domed sky, eating oranges straight from a tree, and feeling the foamy Pacific tugging at my ankles. I would tell them of surreptitious tigers that crept on their bellies through black Asian forests, hiding from man-hunting men----of saffron-robed monks that padded through monsoon streets, clutching empty rice bowls; and of silk-screen mountains, encrusted with morning fog and rising from valleys of secret bamboo groves. I would tell them of the glossy dead-men, clad in morning dew and strewn across the field in genteel silence, their eyes all murky and wise.
In the morning I would fix the child's rusty bike, taste hot rhubarb pie, and we would all go into town on a Saturday evening, just to see the latest picture from Hollywood. We would plant tomatoes in the backyard and fat puppies would chase their tails through the summer grass. On hot August days we would pray for rain under a giant oak, and say: "but it's a dry heat, and therefore we must love it."
In the winter we would throw logs on the fire and peer through icy glass at the smoke curling above the naked trees. An old cat would lie by the stove and watch with sleepy cat's-eyes as we draped popcorn over a tree and placed a white angel on top to look down on our simple world. Because that's what people did in those old frame houses that stood like familiar ghosts along those roads that wound through America's night.
Of course, I couldn't go in. I knew I would frighten them with my dusty shoes and road-weary eyes. They didn't know me anyway; and a dream, even under a ruby moon, is still only dream, and will always end, somehow.
Anyway, that old river didn't belong there after all----and couldn't stay. It was just passing through, snaking its way down to the Ohio, mingling with its brown water----just long enough to hitch a ride on the Mississippi, down to the voodoo mud of New Orleans, where it spilled into the Gulf to the beat of a Bourbon Street band and the smell of a Cajun catfish fry.
That old road was just another rocky trail leading to great asphalt highways that shimmered in the moonlight, stretching past gloomy grain silos and radiant gas stations that stood like solar cities in the night. All those bright lights sprinkled across the vast naked land, and huddled in the soul-less cities and towns, all those winking suburbs and neon-spattered Main Streets, were just sad glimmers of other people's lives and would vanish with the dawn.
In the morning, I started back across the shadows leading to those bulging Rockies that severed the continent. They said if he stood on the right spot, a man could see from there, straight through the crystal mountain air, all the way to California, where the sea laps at the white rocks and the Japanese sun dips into the red dusk. I never believed that----even then, when I still believed everything.
So, as I faced west, I knew seagulls would be sailing over those piers and beaches----just as they always had; and cable cars would be struggling up vertical streets like bell-clanging hives of human bees. North Beach would be sending its coffee smells down to mingle with the Chinese steam of hidden back-alley restaurants. Across the bay, the hills of Berkeley would be sparkling like a great bejeweled Buddha, winking at the gentle madness of the city. Coit Tower would still be counting the sleek ships that slipped through the Golden Gate----and there, at the end of the continent, where fat sea-lions splash in the surf and fog-horns bellow at the night, all the railroads and highways would meet in one last tangle of cloudy dreams----just before the earth slipped magically into the sea.
San Francisco would be like a polar ice-cap, sparkling white in the afternoon sun; and everything would be just as I left it----without so much as a single stone out of place. And all of yesterday's gloom and broken promises would remain back there----Back East, where people sit on their front porches under a summer sky, listening to the cooing of rain-crows, talking in low, mysterious voices, of Out There----Out There in California, where the Golden Madness lures the young folks over its cliffs and pulls them down into bottomless pits of oblivion.
When I arrived in the morning fog, I would burn my bedroll, scatter the
ashes, and never awaken to the sound of my own heartbeat again. I
believed that then.
