Will's Point

CARETAKER (revision 1)

2010-12-14T08:56:00.001-06:00

When did the smell of formaldehyde stop making him sick? In the beginning its brisk, alien nature soured his stomach, put his brain on high alert, made him dread the start of work. Far from being distracting, its chemical presence sharpened his focus but wore him out, made lunch feel like quitting time. But over the years the assaults faded as his defenses naturally built up. It lurked in the background now, an easily ignored bystander.

Every body is different, he thought. You can see this every day of your life and never get to the bottom of it.

Skin tones were as distinctive as fingerprints. A section of skin built up and soft on someone’s uncle can be little more than a crease on a wife. And wounds were even more varied. A knife slice, by the time he saw it, was simply a discolored mark, but gunshot blasts caused tearing, as if, a long time ago, something angry had escaped.

There were two living bodies he could use for comparison - his, of course, and his wife’s, but not hers anymore.

“How’re you going to make that look decent?”

Efram, the mortuary's accountant, had stumbled in, looking for conversation.

"It’ll be safe. You won’t see it under the suit.”

“But everyone will know it’s down there somewhere, won’t they?”

Kurt remained silent for a moment, glanced down at the pads of his fingers. They were thoroughly clean, the cleanest living surface on the face of the earth. Making sure of that was part of the daily routine.

He exhaled, not quite a sigh. “People forget. Most don’t even realize what they put out of their head.”

“No kidding. The only reason I come here is to duck what my kids are up to! No, really, they’re great. I mean, they’ll trip themselves up once in a while, but they come to their senses quick. Like yo-yos, up, down, up, down. Good thing you and I are solid citizens, huh?”

“That’s a good thing. A really good thing...”

The dead man’s face stared up at him, surprisingly inert, existing somewhere off the radar. He scrubbed it with the unscented, light-grit soap he used for the first pass, carefully working through the creases and folds of deceased’s face, making sure all the grime was removed without disturbing the skin (abrasions on dead skin can’t grow back, a surprisingly obvious point Professor Jackson had buried in his head, like a fleck of grime that could never be scrubbed off).

The funeral was a 2 o’clock and he was pretty much on schedule. The face is the last thing - the crowning touch - and then just putting on the suit. However not a suit this time, but, per the family’s request, a jogging outfit and a dirty pair of Nikes (Kurt could picture the eulogy. “He is being buried the way he lived - running!” The line would get a laugh, and begin the process of healing, give people the OK to start forgetting death and turn back to their lives.)

“Great. Fine. Almost done. Don’t rush me.”

-----------

It turned out to be a fine day to have a funeral. Kurt had learned that clean weather was just as important as clean bodies. Rain can make grief go sour. Too much wind just confuses things. Cold forces the attendees to choose between loyalty and guilt - “I need to stay” constantly fights with “I want to go”. The struggle ends up being distracting, and takes attention away from the ability to make peace.

But with blue skies and a slight chill in the air, everything will go just like it should, he thought, just like its gone time and again.

Kurt approached the graveside, slowing as he came near the back of the crowd. A dandelion sprouted just in front of his feet, a full, bursting bloom, its feathery seeds deployed like an array of missiles, waiting for the next gust of wind to fire them off.

A mild breeze swept across petals of silk flowers, first a bouquet of reds and oranges, then a similar arrangement further away. Kurt gazed into the topmost branches of the trees that spread across the cemetery and fell into imagining what it would be like to be up there, watching the world from such a great height. He would see the bald spots of the older men. Flowers would be pixels, car paths would be ribbons, and the highway would be loud. Nothing would block his view to the sky, to the God who lived above it all. Nothing could get in the way of his questions being heard, the only thing left being finding the answers.

From up there he could also see directly into the graves, a view no one else was privileged to have, the textures and colors of the caskets clearly visible, the brilliance of the cadavers just as clear.

------------------

But it was a bad evening to be alone, to be left behind by a wife who had finally given in to a cancer that had nibbled away at daily routines until there was nothing left, leaving Kurt to pick his way through an emptied world, specks of air-borne dust spinning in his wake.

Dust levitated before him now, hanging unnoticed in the thin shafts of light allowed by the trees. His light sweat, dried by the breezes, had become a crust on his skin, stiffening patches of his short sleeved white shirt. His arms, set either side of his hips, supported his back. His bottom, he assumed, had gone numb.

He couldn’t help but remember all the other times his job had brought him here, walking down this narrow ribbon of concrete to one grave or another. Over to his left, just nearby, he recalled a small group of just three. The two men were tall, with worn tans and angry faces - farmers, maybe? - that were used to cursing nature for what it could or couldn’t do. A second group, just behind him, was a knot of folks jockeying for position, something up front they needed to see.

But he could see another group, maybe larger, near the highway, just past the edge of the neatly arranged trees. There was drizzling rain that day, and mostly black umbrellas, but one blue. Strong emotion radiated through the congregation like steam, eyes both tearful and laughing, broken, joyful hearts. He could still hear the sounds of the men slapping each other’s backs, the women producing light giggles in spite of stained makeup, the hands of the speaker gesturing gently toward the ground, then finding glory in the huge, gray sky.

His wife was buried somewhere else, in soggy ground in the nearby state of Louisiana, a little too far away to remember from here, the sounds of her funeral more than he could bear to think about, just now.

CARETAKER - Short Story by Will Woodard

2010-12-08T08:30:00.003-06:00

When did the smell of formaldehyde stop making him sick? In the beginning its brisk, alien nature soured his stomach, put his brain on high alert, and made him dread the first few hours of work each day. Far from being distracting, its chemical presence made him too awake, wore him out, made lunch look like the end of the day. But over the years the daily assaults faded as his defenses naturally built up. It lurked in the background now, an easily ignored bystander.

Every body is different, he thought. You can see this every day of your life and never get to the bottom of it.

Skin tones were as distinctive as fingerprints. A section of skin built up and soft on someone’s uncle can be little more than a crease on a wife. And wounds were even more varied. A knife slice, by the time he saw it, was simply a discolored mark, but gunshot blasts caused tearing, as if, a long time ago, something angry had escaped.

There were two living bodies he could use for comparison - his, of course, and his wife’s, but not hers anymore.

“How’re you going to make that look decent?”

The mortuary’s accountant, Efram, had stumbled into the prep room and was asking questions that didn’t need answers.

"It’ll be safe. You won’t see it under the suit.”

“But everyone will know it’s down there somewhere, won’t they?”

Kurt remained silent for a moment, glanced down at the pads of his right hand. They were thoroughly clean, the cleanest living surface on the face of the earth. Making sure of that was part of the daily routine.

He exhaled, not quite a sigh. “People forget. Most don’t even realize what they put out of their head.”

“No kidding. The only reason I come here is to duck what my kids are up to! No, really, they’re great. I mean, they’ll trip themselves up once in a while, but they come to their senses quick. Like yo-yos, up, down, up, down. Good thing you and I are solid citizens, huh?”

“That’s a good thing. A really good thing...”

The dead man’s face lay in front of him, surprisingly inert, existing, but somewhere off the radar. He scrubbed it with the unscented, light-grit soap he used for the first pass, carefully working through the creases and folds of deceased’s face, making sure all the grime was removed without disturbing the skin (abrasions can’t grow back, a surprisingly obvious point Professor Jackson had buried in his head, like a fleck of grime that could never be scrubbed off).

The funeral was a 2 o’clock and he was pretty much on schedule. The face is the last thing - the crowning touch - and then just putting on the suit. However not a suit this time, but, per the family’s request, a jogging outfit and a dirty pair of Nikes (Kurt could picture the eulogy. “He is being buried the way he lived - running!” The line would get a laugh, and begin the process of healing, give people the OK to start forgetting death and turn back to their lives.)

“Great. Fine. Almost done. Don’t rush me.”

-----------

It turned out to be a fine day to have a funeral. Kurt had learned that clean weather was just as important as clean bodies. Rain can make grief go sour. Too much wind just confuses things. Cold forces the attendees to choose between loyalty and guilt - “I need to stay” constantly fights with “I want to go”. The struggle ends up being distracting, and takes attention away from the ability to make peace.

But with blue skies and a slight chill in the air, everything will go just like it should, he thought, just like its gone time and again.

Kurt approached the graveside, slowing as he came near the back of the crowd. A dandelion sprouted just in front of his feet, a full, bursting bloom, its feathery seeds deployed like an array of missiles, waiting for the next gust of wind to fire them off.

A mild breeze swept across petals of silk flowers, first a bouquet of reds and oranges, then a similar arrangement further away. Kurt gazed into the topmost branches of the trees that spread across the cemetery and fell into imagining what it would be like to be up there, watching the world from such a great height. He would see the bald spots of the older men. Flowers would be pixels, car paths would be ribbons, and the highway would be loud. Nothing would block his view to the sky, to the God who lived above it all. Nothing could get in the way of his questions being heard, his only real effort trying to discover where the answers were.

From up there he could also see directly into the graves, a view no one else was privileged to have, the textures and colors of the caskets clearly visible, the brilliance of the cadavers just as clear.

------------------

But it was a bad evening to be alone, to be left behind by a wife who had finally given in to a cancer that had nibbled away at daily routines until there was nothing left, leaving Kurt to pick his way through an emptied world, specks of air-borne dust spinning in his wake.

Dust levitated before him now, hanging unnoticed in the thin shafts of light allowed by the trees. His light sweat, dried by the breezes, had become a crust on his skin, stiffening patches of his short sleeved white shirt. His arms, set either side of his hips, supported his back. His bottom, he assumed, had gone numb.

He couldn’t help but remember all the other times his job had brought him here, walking down this narrow ribbon of concrete to one grave or another. Over to his left, just nearby, he recalled a small group of just three. The two men were tall, with worn tans and angry faces - farmers, maybe? - that were used to cursing nature for what it could or couldn’t do. A second group, just behind him, was a knot of folks jockeying for position, something up front they needed to see.

But he could see another group, maybe larger, near the highway, just past the edge of the neatly arranged trees. There was drizzling rain that day, and mostly black umbrellas, but one blue. Strong emotion radiated through the congregation like steam, eyes both tearful and laughing, broken, joyful hearts. He could still hear the sounds of the men slapping each other’s backs, the women producing light giggles in spite of tear stained makeup, the hands of the speaker gesturing gently toward the ground, then finding glory in the huge, gray sky.

His wife was buried somewhere else, in soggy ground in the nearby state of Louisiana, a little too far away to remember from here, the sounds of her funeral more than he could bear to think about, just now.

Killing

2010-06-12T10:11:00.007-05:00

The moment the razor thin blade pierced the fish's heart he felt a sting in his own. His eyelids grew heavy and he fell into something like prayer.

The fish, however, was oblivious - his astonished stare and perfect circle of a mouth remained unchanged, whether the world allowed him to continue living or not.

2010-04-21T10:22:00.004-05:00

Heroism

His blood had popped, filling his veins with something like helium. One bullet had spit through the air so close to his ear he could feel its sharp, metallic edge on his tongue.

But just one day later they watched him wander through town like someone unaware of his surroundings, like someone whose intellect has vanished in the shock, like a mystic filled with a sudden knowledge of the universe.

Touring a Potter's Studio

2010-02-11T10:28:00.001-06:00

At first, a vase is just a vase.

As we gather around the workstation a clay-stained finger directs our attention to a recent creation. It's been left out for our benefit and steadfastly refuses to violate any expectations - it's earth-colored, curved, with a flat base and a hollow core.

It can't be loved or even discussed in this raw state. So far it's nothing but an abstract concept, like Justice, and stands before us like a tall, blind eye.

But it can't stay that way for long. At some point it needs to be turned into something a person can use. A pot is nothing without decoration.

But what kind of decoration? A swirling pattern? A stylized landscape? Simple patches of green and blue? As soon as the first brushload of paint is smeared across the rough surface the pot begins to emerge from its lifeless state, becomes more and more personal, changes slowly from something we all find equally dull into something only an increasingly smaller set of eyeballs will be able to appreciate. When it's done, a lucky few will find something to truly love, but others will find nothing at all. The thought of a world breaking to pieces over personal taste swirls through me like the accidental inhaling of a stranger's cigarette smoke.

Warned, I shake myself, and sort through the mental archives. A bible verse occurs to me:

"Now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known."

Ahhhh. I exhale - a gentle, wordless sigh.

Artz Ribs

2010-01-26T20:10:00.001-06:00

Enter. Order. Beef ribs, please. Chew, slow motion...

My teeth push through the solid, charred flesh, well supported by a foundation of bone. The odor works its dark magic and my intellect vanishes, unneccessary baggage. The intimate presence of flesh done in by fire and smoke breaks me apart, makes me a Neanderthal, full of joy at the wild nourisment provided by the spoils of a finally successful hunt.

...pay. Leave. Sunshine. Back into the real world once again.

Shady Grove

2010-01-24T09:48:00.001-06:00

Shady Grove near Barton Springs in Austin, Texas. Have you ever eaten there? I look across the table, over the years, and see Debbie's heartbreakingly beautiful, never-failing smile mostly, but one or two other friends also from college days, warm memories, too. The air is dense and warm, often too warm, but that's okay - this is Texas after all, and we've long since decided we'll put our efforts into believing we're used to it. The tables are filled with comfortable, aging hippie city-fied farmer types, people who deep in thier hearts find things to admire in Willie Nelson.

Cadillac chili is what it's called on the menu, and it stings a little as it goes down.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Austin, TX

Yellowstone, Galveston, Jesus

2009-12-09T08:31:00.004-06:00

YELLOWSTONE NUKED

Noted naturalist John Muir dragged his roughened hand across the unearthly surface, across one of the serrated edges left behind when the Yellowstone River sliced through the soft rock eons ago. Later, those same fingers flew over the keys of his typewriter, and his brain nearly blew to pieces as he struggled to convey to others what he had seen.

"The walls of the cañon from top to bottom burn in a perfect glory of color, confounding and dazzling when the sun is shining,--white, yellow, green, blue, vermilion, and various other shades of red indefinitely blending. All the earth hereabouts seems to be paint..."

87 years later Yellowstone showed radically different colors. Reds and yellows - now more fierce than glorious - raced through its forests as the worst fire in recorded history threatened to ruin the park, particularly devastating a 660 acre section that has since gained the nickname "The Blowdown". Roy Renkin, a vegetation specialist for the National Park Service, put it this way. "It was just nuked. It looked like the bottom of a barbecue grill. The predictions were that it would be a meadow for centuries. People talked about how the soil was sterilized.”

GALVESTON RUINED

The Flagship hotel, perched on battered pylons off the Galveston shoreline, nowadays looks more like the victim of a wartime offensive than the swank vacation destination it once was. Mortar shells have apparently done their job on the ramps that once allowed patrons to drive off the seawall, over the beach, and into the hotel's parking lot. Looking up, you can see portions of the outer shell of the hotel have also been shattered. What was once an expensive suite now lies gaping open, its front wall obliterated. Graffiti covers what's left of the room's interior. A chain link fence surrounds the structure, warning most passersby away from what has become a dangerous area.

Later in the day, a barista in a downtown coffee shop answers a simple question.

"Are the meters outside free?"

"For now. Because of the hurricane."

JESUS DESPISED

"But they were insistent, with loud voices asking that He be crucified. And their voices began to prevail..."

YELLOWSTONE REBORN

The blowdown area, during the first winter after the fire, had the feel of an ancient ruin. Charred matchsticks that once were lodgepole pines stood like ruined columns in the cold snow. The place felt empty, the objects left behind suggesting that life had once existed here, but only in some distant past.

But this void didn't last long. The very next spring, as the earth began to warm, specialist Renkin saw a stunning change, what he called "the greatest wildflower show ever.”

“Boom! The purple lupine came out. Then the daisies would come on."

And so did the lodgepole pine. As it turns out, the tree produces what are called "seritonous" cones, whose seeds are buried deep within the cone's structure, and can only be released in the presence of severe heat, like that created at the center of a forest fire. Just after the fire it was noticed that seeds had scattered over the area, covering the devestation with something between 15,000 to 2 million seeds per acre.

GALVESTON NOURISHED

Some forms of seafood gumbo are based on an edible slurry known as a "roux", a mixture of oil and flour that is carefully heated until the flour toasts brown or red or black, depending on the skill and patience of the cook (it's not easy to sit idly by as the dish you've carefully nurtured gets darker and darker, hoping you haven't yet crossed the fine line from toasted to burnt...) The waiter at the Gumbo Bar, located in the middle of a ghostly section of downtown Galveston, sets a bowl in front of me that's full of shrimp, rice and sausage surrounded by a roux as black as any I've seen. I pick up a spoon, take a sip, and find my mouth filled with flavors that seem, at least today, to be living well together - the bitterness of the salty sea and the overpowering darkness of strong courage.

JESUS RESTORED

"Come up here and I will show you what must take place after these things... Day and night they do not cease to say, 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come...'"

Lust vs Love

2009-09-30T19:04:00.003-05:00

Her body, he had to admit, was strangling him. He watched her move, out of the corner of his eye, and burned like hard coal.
_____________________

He watched her move, sturdy as a lumberjack, stepping across the carpet then on towards the kitchen counter, only gently aware that she was, somehow, administering perfect medicine.

Big, Big Announcement

2009-09-24T11:59:00.007-05:00

And now for a big announcement!

My novel "The Mostly Honest History of the City of God, Texas" has just become available for the Kindle and Mobipocket ebook readers!

The novel centers around Sonny Stevens, a modern day Texas farmer who has been hopin' for rain for quite some time. His way of coping with the stress of this lack of support from the heavens? Well, let's just say it's unique.

The novel sports the goings on of a host of wacky characters, from the beautiful pie baking of Maybell and Shirley to the testosterone-challenged Johansson place (having been blessed with twelve girls and not a single boy!) to the dirty financial dealings of Baron John.

The novel is funny, touching and if you're not careful, you might learn a little something, too!

So, you're asking yourself, how can I pick up a copy of this wonderful object?

If you have an Amazon.com Kindle, just go to the store and search for my name, "Will Woodard". The novel will pop up in the search screen.

You can also read the book on your laptop using the free Mobipocket reader. Here's how to set that up:

1. From an internet browser, go to http://www.mobipocket.com/en/DownloadSoft/ProductDetailsReader.asp
2. In the “Mobipocket Reader Desktop 6.2” section click on the Download button.
3. Save the file to your hard drive and run it.
4. Follow the directions in the Mobipocket Reader 6.2 Setup Wizard.
5. After it has installed, run the Mobipocket reader software.
6. The first time you run it, it will tell you there are no books to read. That's sad! To fix that terrible problem, click on “Go to ebook store”.
7. In the search box in the top right of the screen, type “Will Woodard” and hit enter.
8. You will see a picture of the cover of the novel. Double click on it and follow the instructions to purchase it.

I hope you enjoy the read. If you like it, tell a friend!
Thanks for your support and don't forget - Always pray for rain!

2009-08-31T14:49:00.003-05:00

In the middle of a dense forest, crowded around by trees, I've learned I can still peer into the far distance. My view doesn't have to end at the stand of yellow aspens, or even at the careful scrutiny of their quivering leaves.

Creation's a riddle, with the potential to drive a careful observer mad.

How can there not be a creator?

The Mostly Honest History of the City of God, Texas - Chapter Two

2009-07-16T09:46:00.005-05:00

“Sonny! Sonny! Cattle’s out again!”

Sonny, still on top of his hill, was listening hard. His widened eyes stared straight ahead. His body tipped forward. I’ll never get over this, Sonny thought, being able to talk to people who are somewhere else. His face glowed with the amazement of a kid watching a good magician and wondering: How'd he do that?

He cradled the source of this prestidigitation in the palm of his hand – a small, silver package. He turned it around slowly, full of admiration at how nothing on the object’s smooth surface gave away the trick. He savored the little wonder like a man would savor a chicken wing, nearly laughing out loud at how something so small could cause so much trouble.

“Mfff, mnnn, munnnin.”

Shocked back to reality, Sonny quickly put the cell phone back up to the side of his face so he could hear Brett clearly.

“Pigs, too! And chickens!”

These sounds are words, aren’t they? Sonny thought. Ok, let’s see if I can get this. Cows, pigs, chickens. Out. All of them at once? Goodness…

Brett’s words scattered in Sonny’s brain like flushed quail. He could just see the bedlam, could imagine the crazy mix of feathers, moos and flying slop, could imagine P.T. Barnum stepping into the scene, studying the disorder with practiced eyes.

“WHO IS THE AUTHOR OF THIS HILARIOUS CONFUSION?” P.T. proclaimed, clear as a bell, inside Sonny’s imagination.

I guess me as much as anyone, Sonny replied. I must have left something loose or unrepaired. But, you know, for some time I’ve thought they looked like they could use a freeing!

Barnum smiled wide as a big top, and nodded to Bailey, who replied, “YOU, SIR, ARE A COMIC GENIUS! AND, WITH YOUR ASSENT, SHALL BE RETAINED BY THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH UNDER THE TITLE OF MASTER CLOWN!”

The phone spoke again. “Mfff, mnnn, munnnin. Sonny, its not funny!”

Sonny, funny. Shoot, Sonny thought, why not chuckle?

“We need to get going before one of them gets away. What do you want me to do?”

“Okay, okay, hang on, let me think. You’re good with the cattle – Maybell Cow always liked you – so you head off for them. Where are they?”

“Grazing just off I-35.”

“Darn that Lady Bird. How many are out?”

“Eight. I’ve got the fence back up, so that’s it.”

Those blasted mesquite fence posts again, Sonny thought. Have to say I’ve never been completely sold on using that kind of wood. You just can’t ever get one that’s good and straight. Makes my fences look like a long army of drunks. Still, they do the job most of the time. And they’re as free as the weeds. Not so bad, actually, when you take in the whole view.

“Ok, Brett. Start heading them back toward the highway gate and I’ll get you some help.”

“Right. But hurry down now. They won’t come back on their own, you know.”

The hot sun pressed down. So did Aunt Janie, just then making another one of her appearances in Sonny’s brain.

“I’m getting a little warm, sweetheart. Be a dear and get me some water.”

In a minute, Sonny thought. I’ve got other things I have to do right now.

He shook his head back and forth, blinked big, once, twice. He thought hard, then decided to fly around the predicament, zooming over a mental 3D map of the area, visiting each trouble spot like Superman would, one hand out, one hand in.

Eight cows over to the west, Brett already there. He’ll need a couple more folks.

He swooshed over to Davy’s house.

Davy’ll help. He’s a little eccentric, but solid. Sees things through, always does. He and me, we’ll take care of the cows.

Swoop, back to the house, over the barn, over the sty.

Could set the Johanssons loose on the pigs, his kids would take it like a game.

And Maybell and Shirley?

His thinking voice went suddenly a bit higher pitched, and a chuckle, if one were to come out just about now, would probably have been a bit, well, giggly.

Wonder if they would want to get the chickens? Couldn’t hurt to ask, now could it? No, they wouldn’t want… But they might. I could, uh…

He shook his head, got down to work. His amazement over his phone was gone now, pushed clean away. The silvery magic trick had turned back into a tool, solid and normal as a hoe. His fingers skittered over the buttons like a practiced cashier. Conversations began, ended quickly.

No one refused to help.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Squeals and snorts ricocheted through the air. The world had gone haywire, had slipped from its normal order and become an avalanche of pink boulders.

“Yep, pigs are out.”

Carl Johansson stood still in the middle of the swarming mass, as content in the chaos as Jesus strolling the stormy sea. His long arms bent his jean pockets backwards, threatening to rip them right off. His elbows were bent into tight angles. His shoulders drooped below what seemed humanly possible. His mouth was held – only right molars clenched – as if it were ready to chew, but didn’t. He had given up tobacco a long time ago.

Around him, wide-eyed pigs were busy being run down by a wider-eyed gaggle of little girls. Carl was mostly just thinking, but every so often his eye would catch bits and pieces of his daughters: a flash of long brown hair trailing back; fingertips stretching forward, near to catching something; gingham skirt hems and lacy bows crazy to keep up, worried about being left behind in the commotion.

The air was haywire too - with odors. Little girl sweat and simple, sharp perfume brewed together, then slipped around that familiar barnyard stink that sometimes smells fertile and wonderful and other times, well, doesn’t. The whole scene was like what you see in that big airport in Dallas when it’s crowded and everyone always seems to be suddenly realizing they’re about to miss their plane.

Only Carl stood motionless in the middle of the madness, seeming to have done nothing more than randomly appeared, a big lump of a leprechaun whose travel-across-long-distances spells fired off whenever the mood struck.

“Girls, now the point is to get the pigs back into the pen, not to catch them. Don’t go to the trouble of slowin’ them down, just get them speedin’ in the right direction.”

Carl knew how those words would play out, had had practice in leading his kids in the ways they should go. He saw the glee in his girls’ eyes begin to evaporate - their eyelids sagged just a bit as their inner balloons deflated. His balloon deflated some, too, but he knew they’d get the message. They can work hard as anybody when they put their minds to it, he thought. They’re just as sturdy and good hearted as their mother was. All twelve of them!

The giggling slowed, retreated underground. The girls peeked around at each other, smiling, their grins big and their eyes a bit devilish, but only a bit. Like a team of one-celled organisms, like antibodies flooding a diseased blood stream, they snuck around and behind the pigs, forming up in the shape of a sickle, slowly limiting the pigs’ freedom of choice, curing their wildness like a disease, inching them toward the open gate. Carl caught a glimpse of their mother in the way the girls moved, could see the way she had played “tickle monster” in their grins.

Those pigs didn’t have a chance.

One pig, apparently smarter than the others, seemed to have become aware of his predicament and tried to sneak himself off to the right, against the grain. The sickle morphed slowly, but firmly, like a string of pearls floating on the sea, the slow hypnosis of it lulling that pig back into the conviction that he was master of his fate, that it was really too much trouble to go over there anyway, that he really wanted to go the way the girls wanted him to go anyway. He turned around and melted back into the pack.

“That’s it girls, you’re doin’ great. Nope, now you’re too close, they’ll get spooked. Wait, hold, hold… That’s it, let them move ahead a bit, keep the right distance away, just behind. They know what you’re thinking, don’t believe anything different. They can tell when you’re jittery and then you’re losing and they’re winning. You have to relax, just a bit, have true patience all the way inside. Don’t just pretend, they can tell. There you go. Excellent, excellent!”

The girls’ glee grew, if possible, bigger, that last little bit of devil slipping away, their smiles now shining with the full joy of angels.

And, just like Carl had said, and you and I both know to be just as true as anything, the pigs could see what they were thinking. That last little flare up of joy just about did them in.

Aw shucks, the pigs thought, we might as well give up. There’s no fighting it now!

And with that, they turned and walked, with their clip-clop, tippy-toe, piggy daintiness, back into their pen. The last one even closed the gate behind him.

Would’ve locked it, too, if he’d been tall enough.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Shirley could hear what Maybell was thinking. Had really always been able to, as Maybell had this habit of thinking out loud.

“Chickens are a tough nut to crack, aren’t they. They can go everywhere you can’t, running and flying, darting around, getting to you with their squawk. Plenty of people would just give up, let these go and just buy some more, like Jill and Jason did. Can’t blame ‘em…”

Shirley stood with her hands clasped together at her chin, like someone waiting to be given a cue to pray. Her eyes looked to Maybell, watched her studying the fenced-in yard around Sonny’s house. Maybell’s palms were planted on her full hips, elbows away, spine solid and straight. Her carefully managed coiffure surrounded her head as precisely as it always did, the practiced hands of her hairdresser having carefully shaped the shiny black helmet that hovered just above her scalp. You could paint her gold and she’d be right at home on top of a championship trophy.

“Three chickens out, there, there and there, escaped through the broken board just to the right of the gate. Shirley, be a good girl and block that hole somehow.”

Shirley, who had placed herself a little distance away, listened and obeyed. She searched the vicinity. That old barbeque grill? she thought. That could work.

She picked it up from the side of the coop, disentangling it from the tall patch of grass it had become nested in. After a bit of trial and error, she discovered that she could weave it around what was left of the fence, working it behind the bottom slat, over the two broken sides and again behind the slat above.

Solid as a rock, she thought. He won’t even have to fix it the right way now!

“Got it Maybell!”

Maybell pulled herself up, somehow even straighter than before.

“Excellent! Now the real work begins. It’s time to do the do!”

And that do had been moving inexorably toward getting done ever since the moment they had gotten the call from Sonny, earlier in the day.

“Hey guys… uh, girls. You busy?”

Shirley couldn’t help but grin, just as she could hear Sonny was doing. “Hey, Sonny! No more than the usual. Is there something we can help you with?”

“As a matter of fact, maybe so. Chickens are out. Could you guys…I don’t know…maybe lend…” – chuckle – “hand? A hand?”

“Of course we could, Sonny. When?”

“Now?”

“Sure, we can help. No problem. Be there in a bit.”

Sonny’s voice clicked off. Shirley stood still as the commotion of the happy customers dimmed away into silence. She blinked, and her hand, still holding the phone, drifted downward. Maybell had lost a bit of her composure also, as the half of the conversation she could hear had made her go blinking and silent too.

They both stood that way for a few moments, staring and quiet, until their growing sense of responsibility swelled back up enough to shake them from their trance.

Maybell shook her head, blew out a hard breath. She slapped her palms together, hard, startling Shirley back into reality.

“Alright, Shirley, here we go. We’ll be at this for a while, so we might as well settle into it. First the rooster, over there. Chase him – not too hard. Get him used to having someone run after him. Hold your apron close, bunched up at your waist, ready to surround him when the time is just right. At that moment I’ll distract him, and you pull the noose tight!”

“I can do that Maybell!”

“I know you can! Well, let’s go!”

And you can bet your bottom dollar Shirley was ready, just as ready as she had been for anything in her whole life. The universe, at least for her, had faded dead away. There was nothing left in the entire known or unknown world but that rooster.

“Heeeeeere, chick, chick. Heeeere, chicken.”

Shirley bent low at the waist, stretched her head forward like she was aiming a cannon. Her elbows, almost without thinking, raised and lowered at her sides, slowly, full of a sense of great purpose.

“Buck, buck, bu-CAW!”

The rooster turned around, couldn’t help but notice the strange scene playing out before him.

Humans, he thought. They never fail to amuse!

Shirley advanced. “Buck, buck, bu-CAW! bu-CAW!”

My dear, the rooster thought, I’ll admit this has gone a bit past amusing and into disconcerting. This woman seems to be quite mad! I’d best make my way toward safer ground.

The rooster flapped and flew a bit, giving himself some distance.

Shirley turned, steeled herself, and went at it again.

“Buck,” (wings up) “buck,” (wings down) “bu-CAW!” (wings every which way).

My, this is certainly becoming tiresome, the rooster thought. But this woman, although fully bonkers, really isn’t much of a threat. I’ve evaded her outlandish advances once - quite easily, I might add - and will certainly evade them again. Just another of life’s distractions one must face and be strong through!

Shirley scratched the ground with one foot, shot her head forward, then pulled it back.

The rooster sighed. I’ll distract myself with more pleasant thoughts. I wonder what I should whip up for dinner tonight, perhaps something a little special after all this effort? A nice arugula and kiwi salad perhaps? With that wonderful raspberry dressing that hen Gina brought over the other night. I wonder what I have in the fridge?

The rooster flapped, flew, landed, looked around.

“Hey, mister rooster! Look at me! What do you think about this? I’m doing the hoochie-koochie for you!”

The rooster turned his head slowly in the direction of Maybell’s voice. And as she gradually came into view, as the reality of the sight being laid out before him became more and more clear, that unassailable composure of his fell totally uncomposed. His eyes bugged out, cartoon-like. His jaw dropped open, wide enough for bugs to fly in. What he was now witnessing was beyond the comprehension of even his advanced IQ.

Maybell stood before him, her hands still planted on her hips, but her spine now anything but straight. Her hips swiveled slowly, hypnotically. Her head fell, demurely. Her eyes fluttered, pulling all who watched under her spell.

Maybell spoke.

“I’m the girl of your dreams, big boy.”

The rooster’s eyes bugged, if possible, even further.

Maybell was dancing, doing something that seemed to be a distant cousin of the hula. Her hips swayed gently and her hands floated delicately in the tropical breeze.

“Aloha, Mr. Rooster!”

The rooster’s eyes bugged even further, like two little balloons about to pop.

And now she was Mae West, one hand on her hip, the other primping the side of her bouffant.

“Hey, big boy, why don’t you come up and see me sometime?”

Large drops of sweat leaped from the rooster’s forehead. Totally stunned, he couldn’t have moved if Colonel Sanders himself was right behind him. Which, essentially, he was.

“Or maybe I'll come and see you – IN YOUR PEN!”

The noose tightened. Shirley had gotten close enough. The apron unfurled and surrounded the rooster like a gingham blizzard. He had been caught.

Later that day, as he pecked at his pile of grain, the rooster went over the events of the day. Oh my, he thought. I’ll never live this down if word gets out. So I’ll just have to keep acting as though everything is normal. Dum-da-dum. Well, hello there, Gina hen. Have I mentioned that everything is completely normal? Nothing abnormal over here, that's certainly a fact. Honestly. I mean it. Nothing out of the ordinary happened today, that’s certainly for sure.

Nothing, the rooster thought to himself - later that night, wide-eyed, unable to sleep - that time won’t eventually heal.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Sonny stuck the wireless phone back into his rear jean pocket. He had owned it long enough that is was beginning to feel at home now, his backside almost at peace with the intrusion. The conversations it had brought him effected his grin. It had grown and settled in, had become sturdier through the support he had received from his friends, like the time they had pitched in to lay a new roof on his barn.

I need to get myself over to Brett and those cows now, Sonny thought, and going all the way back to my truck would just take too long. I’d have to tractor back to the house, and then make my way down the highway on ramp and then back up around. Better to just stick with the tractor and take a straight shot across the field.

“My, my. What a distraction,” Aunt Janie said. “All this good time wasted just getting things back to where they were two minutes ago!”

Sonny agreed. Aunt Janie, when you’re right, you’re right.

Aunt Janie continued. “It’s all that Lady Bird’s fault. Deciding not to mow the highway medians so’s the wildflowers will grow. Maybe America thinks it beautiful, but so do the cows. Beautiful like a buffet!”

Sonny agreed again. Goodness, that’s the truth. Cows can’t really think on their own. They just follow their stomachs - over a cliff if nobody’s there to stop them! All Lady Bird’s done is just surround them with temptation. Maybe when I get out there I’ll drop the mower blades - accidentally, of course - and fix the whole problem!

Sonny’s laughter came out hard and crackly this time, like a carburetor with the mix set too high. He jammed his hands stiffly into his pockets, tensed his shoulders closer to his ears.

He paused. Behind him the tuh-duh-thump, tuh-duh-thump that had been slipping into his head for some time had grown just big enough to be recognized. It was Winifred, Davy’s horse, the one he had named after a pretty girl from that TV show a few years ago.

Sonny turned, watched his friend ride. You know, he thought, a person can’t help but be proud at how well that young man sits up there. One hand’s on the reins, holding them just right. Posture’s picture perfect, body’s balanced, ready for whatever jostles might come. He loses points for having no hat, and letting that haircut get loose - makes him look like a cave man, or Mo from the Three Stooges. But, for all that, there’s still a lot of Roy in the boy.

Davy pulled up near Sonny’s tractor and called over.

“Ready, Sonny?”

“I’m comin’. Hang on.”

Sonny tried to get himself back to the tractor quickly, but that new bite of arthritis he had noticed this morning in his both his knees caught him up at each step.

Ow, ow, ow, ow…

I’ll eventually work out the sting, he thought, right goes away pretty quick, usually after a couple of steps. But the left hangs on a while, a fire that has to be wheedled into quitting. I think it’s taking a bit longer nowadays, too. Durn thing is getting belligerent.

Finally at the tractor he gave a quick hop (the pain vanishing, for some reason, whenever he moved up). At the top of his arc he swiveled, and slid his bottom into the molded metal seat, the curves, as always, fitting exactly.

This is my tractor. The thought filled him without having to think.

Sonny pressed the starter button. The engine, hanging in its open frame like the rib cage of a skeleton, exploded on, after a moment’s agony settling down, expressing its contentment with a rough-and-ready chiga-chiga-chiga-chiga. He jammed the clutch down, lifted the brake, and the monster zipped forward, its speed over rough terrain always giving him a bit of a pleasant shock. It bounced up a small rise, then plunged down the other side, leaving him hanging, as though gravity had just gotten turned off for a second. A pregnant moment later he crashed back on the seat, a bit behind where he needed to be, deftly correcting the deficit by sliding forward, fitting himself back into the dent.

He looked over at Davy, grinning big.

“Yeehaw?” Davy asked, yelling to be heard over the roar of the engine.

“Yeehaw indeed, my friend!” Sonny replied.

He turned his head back forward, setting himself up like he had learned, relaxed and tense at the same time. He closed his eyes and waggled his hands, back and forth, back and forth. He breathed out hard, once, twice. He grabbed the front of the seat with his right hand, the pain from this morning’s fence mending gone now, and lifted the other above his head, acknowledging the crowd. Finally he smacked the gas down hard, responding to the heavenly appeal he could hear so clearly.

The angels spoke, trumpets blaring!

Hi-Ho Silver! Away!

The tractor jerked forward, all its loose parts – bolts, joints, right headlamp – just as surprised at the power that had been released as anyone else, clattering for a second then silenced, acceleration trapping them slightly to the rear of their accustomed positions.

“Yeehaw!”

“Yeehaw, Sonny! Go man!”

The tractor, with Sonny on top, tore out, heedless of danger. It clattered over the rough terrain, blasted right through the smaller bumps.

Winnie had kicked herself into a light gallop to keep up. She neighed, tossed her head around. Her mane separated, broke apart into randomly flowing tassels, flowed with the wind. Davy had his head up too, laughing hard. His bowl haircut swirled around his head, was beautiful too.

“Hang on Sonny! Here comes a good one!”

Before Sonny could react, a large mound rose before him. Up the front side, fast. Gravity gathered strength, worked hard on him like an awakening monster, pulling him down so he could feel his jowls sag.

But Sonny held on, eyes still closed, not needing to see, knowing just what would come next.

Down the back side, falling. His right hand held firm, but his arm was ready to stretch, and lengthened just when it needed to. His other hand moved in quick spasms, a hummingbird on a string, providing balance, precisely, as needed. His bottom lifted up off the seat. His long legs were bent, knees thrown up above his waist.

This wild tangle of boots and elbows and Yeehaws would have been, anywhere else on the face of the earth, signs of a mind with more than just a few loose bolts. But here, it was just what was needed to get a person through.

A crash landing. The wheels hit, beautifully, all four at once. The suspension creaked, then everything else crashed too, bolts, joints, headlamps now clattering down. Sonny landed last, a planned split second behind everything else, his bottom slipping gracefully into the momentarily stable seat, his arm shrinking back to normal size, his feet back down on the floorboard, his right foot out of position, his left foot finding the gas, flooring it again.

“Yeehaw!”

“Yeehaw!”

“Yeeeeeeeee-haw!”

There are very few things on this earth that a person can be completely sure of. But one of them is this. Sometimes there are things in life that can only be responded to by a good set of yeehaws!

Sonny kept bucking his way across the field, Davy at his side, towards the highway gate. Up, down, tilt right then left – the field threw everything it had at Sonny.

Finally Sonny made it through the outer gate, the one that separated his land from the nearby highway. He jammed the brake, hard, heard the squeals of complaints from his mighty steed as it slowed to a walk. Perspiration dotted his forehead, lent his reddened cheeks a healthy sheen. Davy’s face was glowing too, full of pride at the magnitude of his friend’s accomplishments. Sonny had stayed on the bucking bronco the full 8 seconds, and done it with expert form.

“Sonny, that was some ridin’. Seems to me you’ve actually gotten better since last time!” Davy leaned way back and tightened up on the reins as Winifred tip-toed down the steep embankment, the outside of the drainage ditch that separated Sonny’s place from I-35.

Sonny turned a bit right to take the ditch at more of an angle. “Yessir, I was in rare form, wasn’t I? I think I could still take on some of those youngsters down at the rodeo. Acquit myself real well. What do you think – an 85, 86?”

“95 if a bit, Sonny!”

Back now in the real world, his left knee flared up again, itching hot. But, flush with victory, he simply refused to be nagged. Still, the job at hand was staring him in the face – up the highway, in the far distance, Brett was working to corral a handful of the cows.

“Looks like Brett could use some of our help, Davy. Let’s get up there.”

“Right, Son.”

They had made it through the steep ditch, down the V and back up, and were now moving north on the graded shoulder of I-35. Cars zipped past at irregular intervals, too fast, buzzing like giant Texas mosquitoes. Sonny floored it, moving quickly over the smoother terrain. Winifred broke into a quick trot, keeping up.

“That was great, Sonny. Why, I’m right proud of you.” Davy pronounced the word right as raaaht, teasing him. “Now let’s go rustle up some cattle!”

Sonny looked over and grinned. Shoot, this moment could be a movie poster, he thought. Davy, me, the cows, a buckin’ bronc - it’s like something that could be pasted onto a marquee!

Sonny continued his line of thought. “CATTLE RUSTLERS ON THE RIO GRANDE”, it said at the top in big red letters with the C in Cattle a sideways horseshoe. Just below that Sonny could see the words “Starring Sonny Stevens and Davy Franklin”. And just below that “With a special appearance by Clayton Moore, TV’s Lone Ranger”.

The main picture featured three heads, all staring intently off to the right, into the direction of danger. Sonny’s face was in the lower left, forehead pressing into the wind, his peaceful satisfied grin just as worn-in as the other deep lines in his dark tanned face. Davy’s mug was in the middle, his hair flowing back behind him like a wild Indian brave’s. And at the top right was the familiar masked visage of the Lone Ranger, tearing down the plains at a high gallop, giving everything he’s got to get to wherever the bad guys happened to be.

The Lone Ranger’s head pulled itself off the poster, addressed itself to Sonny.

“You’re no stranger to these parts, are you Sonny? I can tell by the way you rode that bronc just a minute ago. Mighty fancy. A 95, I’d say.”

Sonny blushed. “Thanks Mr. Ranger. Coming from you, that’s a real compliment!”

“You do us all proud, Sonny. The plains of Texas were once a wilderness, a no-man’s land where outlaws roamed free. This state was tamed by men like you, Sonny, and what I see before me today is someone who is carrying on that great tradition.”

Sonny drank the Lone Ranger’s words in. He closed his eyes, relaxed, and let the pleasure of the dream take over.

“You know, I can always use a man like you. Ready to ride. Confident. Full of the self-reliance a man needs out here to survive. Someone who can, no matter what circumstances, take care of himself…”

The words trailed off into silence. Sonny looked up, wondering where Ranger had gone. He had apparently vanished into the pain in his left knee, the sandpaper smoldering hotter now, one edge a bright, burning coal. Sonny winced.

Davy’s voice broke the silence. “Anyway, I’ll go on ahead and help Brett guide them back toward the gate. You can catch up in a second.” He yelled up to Brett. “Brett, why don’t we just surround these guys. You head over to the left and I’ll sneak up from the right…”

Sonny watched as Davy zipped north, faster even than the cars, it seemed, Winnie happy to be let loose. He watched them become smaller and smaller, the dust plume they created billowing high into the air.

Something inside Sonny had settled. What just a minute ago was soft and bright had somehow gone dull. The harsh sun suddenly made his eyes water, forced him to squint, protectively.

Maybe that’s the way things really are, dear, said Aunt Janie. But what I’m really hoping for is that glass of water...

The cars on the highway zipped past the puttering tractor like giant Texas mosquitoes – too close, too fast, too eager to bite.

The Mostly Honest History of the City of God, Texas

2009-06-25T12:04:00.002-05:00

The Mostly Honest History of the City of God, Texas
A Blog-Serialized Novel by Will Woodard

Prologue

Well, then. I’ll bet you’re reading this because you’re itchin’ to know more about the city of God. You saw it in a magazine somewhere, or noticed the sign out at the city limits like I did and were just going to drive on by.

But you got to thinking. A city. In Texas. Called God.

Hmmm. Something like that can get stuck in one’s craw.

I’d say I first became interested about twelve years ago. I was working my way towards Dallas when I noticed that sign, just off the interstate. It was one of those standard green ones, a piece of sheet metal on poles, barely big enough to notice. But the words sure were noticeable, couldn’t help but make me smile once I realized what they were saying.

Apparently, God was just five miles down the road.

I could feel my decision to end up in the big city begin to wither under the warmth of a better idea. I spun the wheel just the least little bit to the right and began my descent from the heady speeds of the highway to the more everyday pace of north Texas farmland. I landed at the access road stop sign. The motor had calmed down to a purr, but was still anxious to continue on. After a respectful pause I turned left and obeyed the Follow-the-Arrow-To-God signs, letting them guide me around the edges of giant cornfields and pastures as I said hi to sturdy heifers with eyes saying it would be a wonderful thing if they could say hi back. God got closer and closer.

I snuck in one end of town and began working out the lay of the land, starting with Main Street. I saw churches, silos, sky-blue wraparound porches. I heard John Deere green-and-yellow contraptions as big as starter houses rumble so loud they took over the world, then let it go as they rumbled away.

I saw a farmer in a field, just watchin’, and a group of young girls playing in a yard. I felt like a tourist, or like someone might at their first social in a new church - the smiles and nervous laughter and even the smell of potato salad make you think you might be at home here, too, some day.

And actually, I’ve stuck around for quite some time now. I’ve watched this town go about its daily business during days where the sun shined and days where it didn’t. I’ve watched the people struggle, succeed, fail, and succeed again. And I have to say most of the time what I’ve seen makes me proud of this little piece of Texas. I feel like I’ve been watching a son grow up right!

So if you want to know more about the city of God, Texas you’ve certainly come to the right place. Are you curious as to how the town is laid out? That’s an easy one - it just ain’t that big! Want to know the pecking order – who’s on top (or who thinks they’re on top) and who isn’t? I can tell you that, too. Want to hear about the people who live here? I’ve come to know them all – where they live, what they do, how they think, even how they behave when they’re all alone, and they feel they’re the only ones who notice or care…

So what I’ve really been up to all this time is exactly what these farmers do twice a year - I’ve been harvesting, laying aside a crop or two of information for just such an occasion as this. Now that the work’s done all I have to do is show you the things I’ve learned, shuffling it around a little bit depending on what you want to know. I’m more than happy to do this for you. God is a special place, and people need to hear about it.

Well, enough of this, here’s what let’s do. Let me pull everything I’ve come to learn into a good old fashioned story, give you a small piece of the town’s history so you can understand the whole. Wouldn’t that be best? I can also make it so that it’ll keep your interest going, even during the dull parts. I don’t think anybody’d mind if every so often I stick in something just for fun - put a little tall in the tale. Do you?

I mean, if you want to know the facts you can ask the librarian over in the next county. She’ll give them to you dry; he was born then, she got married here, these people died then and then and there.

But you pulled off the interstate for the same reason I did. We both know dates and names aren’t the same as really knowing. I’ll see if I can’t use what I’ve learned about tale-telling to shake the truth awake, rouse it from its natural state of lazing around just the other side of he and she and there and then. I'll back off a bit, try to keep a low profile, and let the story tell itself. I mean, you don’t want to hear about me, you want to hear about God! But I'll pop back up every so often, don’t you worry. As I learned from tales past, there’ll be plenty of times where I just won’t be able to help myself.

And if you want to get to know the city of God, you’ll have to get to know its best resident, Sonny Stephens. We’ll start sometime in September last year - I forget the actual date - just before that string of difficulties he fell into. More specifically, I think we'll start with the sorry state of his right hand…

One

Sonny Stevens’ right hand was a bloody mess. A section of fence had collapsed – again – and one work glove had gone missing, forcing him to grip each mesquite post without protection while he hammered it back into the rock-hard dirt. Each smack of his mallet reverberated violently through the wood, causing it to vibrate against his palm. This abuse had finally broken through his skin, producing a raw spot that left behind a smear of red on several of the posts he had put back right. He had gotten the job done nevertheless, and was resting now in a nearby, higher field, sure he knew how those fence posts felt – sturdy and tense between wires that pulled both ways.

He stared hard into the sky, his eyes shifting from here to there and back, gathering up pieces of a puzzle.

“Not yet”, he said, thinking out loud.

He shook his right hand, trying to flip the sting away.

“Maybe soon.”

The field Sonny was standing in was like a second home to him, even though he couldn’t have said who owned it, if anyone. He came here often, didn’t even have to think anymore as he pushed his way up the path that ended at the top of the town’s highest hill. His boots were just at home here as he was – they fit the patch of worn dirt perfectly, and their tooled patterns faded from soil to leather as the eye moved up. His hands slipped easily into his pockets but bottomed out too early, forcing his shoulders to rise like pistons at the top of their cycle. He held them in that position easily, as if his whole body was getting ready for the next good chuckle.

Sonny looked at the sky one more time, just to make sure. Yep, that grayed-up blue was still there, hadn’t changed one little bit. The sky’s best colors were still being washed away by the merciless sun. Had been for quite some time. In fact Sonny couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the deep, deep blue that would always show up before a northeast Texas rainstorm. Out here, in the middle of the grassy plains, you can actually see the edge of the storm boil towards you. It comes with a deliberate stride, like a man with slow purpose. The sun will step to one side, knowing it’s only needed in a supporting role, content to turn its shine down to a glow, softly illuminating the sky’s blues and grays and brightening the crystal clear raindrops from behind.

But for Sonny those sights and sounds were now only dearly held memories, friends that had mysteriously gone missing. It had been years since there had been any real rain and the surroundings showed it. The sky’s dullness, the stubborn heat, the dust-filled breezes – that’s all the area had to offer nowadays.

Sonny bowed his head. No use in worrying, he told himself, mostly convinced.

Sonny smacked the ground with his boot, halfheartedly. Dusty storm clouds gathered around his feet, rich and thick. From on high he watched his accidental creation puff up beneath him, for a moment growing effortlessly, poised to cover the world. Then just as quickly it thinned out, in an instant whisked away by a random breeze.

The chuckle came easily. I get the joke, Father God. I get it.

His gaze drifted down and across the way to his own fields. A month ago the place had looked like a battlefield - the year's first crop had to be torn out of the dusty, dry ground early. He remembered standing next to his tractor, surveying the damage, feeling torn up inside too, just like he had felt after putting one of his horses down, working to accept the death of a trusted friend.

Even good ol’ Roy Rogers had trouble with that kind of thing, Sonny thought. That crazy cowboy had had Trigger stuffed.

Nevertheless, he had found the wherewithal to set his fears to the side and get done what needed to get done. He dragged his plow through the mangled earth, the blades slipping through the dry soil easy for a while, but eventually catching something particularly stubborn, like a sailboat sliding onto a sandbar. The tractor would work itself into a frenzy, straining near to breaking, finally dislodging huge, brittle clods of primeval earth that, once exposed to the air, fell apart in a poof of dust. Sonny would watch this and couldn't help but giggle – the whole thing was so wrong it was funny. But in spite of all that his fields flowed now in gentle, combed rows, full of the year’s second crop, winter wheat, each seed doing nothing but waiting and looking up into the sky just like he was.

But this crop didn’t have the luxury to wait. It had been five long years since his last moneymaking harvest, and his debt to the local bank was gathering steam. There was a second kind of seed sitting around, one that lived in Sonny's gut and took the more sinister form of a shadowy minion of the everlasting, almighty Bank. It seemed to always be lurking around back there, somewhere in the dark.

“Whatcha doin’ Sonny?”

This voice from nowhere made Sonny jump, hitting him like an electrical shock. But as his mental dust settled it became clear that the voice belonged to his brother – Brett was at it again, sneaking up from behind. That battered truck of his was remarkably silent, thanks to Brett’s constant fidgeting over it. Even on the roughest terrain it would roll smooth as a ghost on skates.

“Goodness, Brett, you startled me.”

“Sorry, Son. What’cha doing?”

“Waitin’”

“For what?”

“You know for what. Rain.”

“Right. It’s been a while, hasn’t it.”

“More than a little while, Brett. A long while.”

Brett puffed a blast of air through his nose, a sharp, horse-y exhale.

“C’mon Sonny. God will provide. You know that. Have a little faith. Pray some more. He’ll hear you and won’t be able to help Himself. He’ll give us all the rain we need!”

Over the years Sonny had learned to be on his guard when Brett was around. Brett had this strange way about him – he would open his mouth, let slip a few carefully intoned syllables and you would agree in spite of yourself. Nobody thought there was anything wrong with Brett, but, if you looked in the back of people’s minds, you would see they held the suspicion some part of him had gone a bit, well, sneaky.

He acts just like Aunt Janie did, Sonny thought. At least how she was at first.

Aunt Janie had been his mother’s sister’s sister (it was confusing, and never explained) and had been around Sonny most of his life. Near the end she had gone batty enough to need to live with someone and Sonny was elected. She took over the back bedroom and spent her days knitting and rocking away in that chair of hers, having mostly polite conversations with people who weren’t there.

She would usually keep to herself, but every so often, if you weren’t careful, didn’t hold your mouth just right, she would begin to insist on various things. “I need some water, if you wouldn’t mind”, she would say, sweetly enough. There was really nothing stopping her from getting it herself – she was no invalid – and, if you were thinking straight, you’d know just what to say - “Glasses are in the top cupboard, and you got the choice between tap water and tap water.” But there was something about her words that could put a little bend in the straightest thoughts; the sweet tone of her voice was slippery, like oil, coating her claim on your spirit so it would slide down easy. Most people just got her the water.

And Sonny, in the deep recesses of his mind, still heard those same kind of demands, clear enough. He knew better than to listen to them, but couldn’t ignore requests that sounded so much like his aunt; she was a blood relation, after all. His mind would play tricks on him and he would hear her clear as if she were still down the hall.

“I need some water, if you wouldn’t mind. Get it for me now, please, there’s a good boy…”

Sonny shook his head, clearing his mind. He looked up at the sky again and felt a warm surge of friendship and pity. He knew parts of him could be scraped away, too.

“Brett, uh, go and check on the cattle, would ya? I’d sure appreciate it.”

“Sure Sonny. Just come soon, ok? We all need you down there.”

Brett circled around, the motor still weirdly silent, its revving betraying him only when it passed nearby. It glided away, over the edge of the hill, down and out of sight, the weight of the wheels creating thin clouds of crushed dust that hung around long after the truck had left. A friend once told Sonny that the combination of that smile of his, his large jaw, and browned, weathered skin made him look like an Indian head nickel that had just gotten the joke. He thought about that a bit, and chuckled at how right the description felt just now.

Well, enough of all that, Sonny thought. He looked up and found his fields again, off in the distance. He raised his hand, traced the plowed furrows with the tips of his fingers. His smile went soft and warm, turned into a curve just as gentle as the ones he had dug into the earth.

Sonny moved his hands to the small of his back and stretched, giving his tired muscles a well-deserved treat. He lifted his arms above his head – his long arms unfolding higher than one might reasonably expect - and stretched up, languidly inhaling a lungful of good country air. Nearby, a lonely scrub mesquite grabbed the earth, branching wide and irregular, stretching up in its own way, a solid, stubborn weed that wasn’t going anywhere soon. Tall grass huddled in tufts here and there, growing in patches scattered about. Standing in the middle of all this, at the top of the hill, Sonny felt for all the world like the last hair of a man just about to give in to a comb-over.

Further out, off to the left, was the town cemetery, its orderly rows running up and over a neighboring, slightly smaller hill. It was well groomed, neat as a pin, clean as a brand-new McDonald’s. Maybe a little too neat for what it was? Still, it was a place where cheerfulness won out more often than not, odd as that might seem.

Even further, mostly beyond the reaches of Sonny’s vision, were the town’s four churches. And even though he couldn’t pick them out exactly, he could feel their presence – his mind caught their humming. Baptist, Assembly of God, Lutheran, and the Combined Houses of the United Methodist/Presbyterian Synod, Reformed, US, East of the Missouri, South of I-20. (The denomination had expanded here from its humble roots in the southeast, but was stuck with a name that hadn’t moved with it, and couldn’t even be shortened by using just initials, for obvious reasons). Not bad for a town whose city limits proclaimed a population of 32.

The homes in the city of God didn’t hum. They seemed to make more of a wind chime sound, a ting-a-linging in the back of your brain. Sonny could picture Davy Franklin’s two-story box sitting all by itself in its field, paint flaking, dirt driveway just showing up one day, worn in by habit as much as anything. He could see Baron John’s place rise high and mighty, colored up like a paint-by-numbers, glossy and pretty and hard, as though a tough outside is all the protection you might need. And, Sonny thought, the light blue of the Johansson’s wrap-around porch just sails along, that specific color seeming to help it catch even the gentlest breeze.

The city’s business establishments had sounds also, two of them to be precise – shooosh, then ahhhh - the noises of folks coming and going, regular as the waves at Galveston.

Then there’s the gas station everyone flows through two, three times a week. Farmers need gas and Carly sits all day in front, leaning his chair against the wall, doing absolutely nothing but somehow managing to be as useful as anyone else.

There’s the barbershop that opens up irregularly whenever someone needs it. The chairs and magazines and conversations and gentle snip-snip-snips turn it into a place where folks can get down to the necessary business of sitting and watching each other think.

And the Good Eats Café! and their famous fried pies! Goodness. Other food, too, naturally, but the pies…made with real, deep-down pride by Maybell and Shirley, their sugary apple hearts surrounded by dough, then dumped directly into blistering oil just the right amount of time, finally presented to men and women and children, their faces full of gratefulness that’ll last longer than anything, their eyes glittering like a night full of stars…

The wind around Sonny had been growing in strength, and had finally gotten to the point where he realized he would have to attend to it directly or find himself knocked to the ground. This new gust had more meat and muscle behind it – it had obviously come a long way, and had some distance to go before it was done. It blew past Sonny like an express train bypassing a small town, finally rumbling far away across the plains.

Sonny knew someone was on that train to see him. He looked around, expecting company, but could find no one, only heard the remains of the wind gust howling off in the distance. Sonny looked harder, like a man weary from the desert heat searching for his next mirage.

There, Sonny thought, is that him? It could be, it could be…

A visitor had begun to take shape just before Sonny’s eyes. He was materializing out of thin air, at first flaring and sputtering awkwardly, then finally, after a few more seconds of sputter, coming full into focus. It was a man on a horse.

Sonny knew what his old friend was going to say, even before he said it.

“I know Roy, I know. I’m losing my peace, aren’t I? You never had any of those kinds of problems, I’ll bet.”

There, before Sonny, just as clear and glorious as when he was alive, was the figure of Roy Rogers. He stood before Sonny just like we all remember him - tall in the saddle, mounted securely on the back of his faithful horse and constant companion, Trigger. And Sonny saw him just as clear at that moment as he had in the past, back when he appeared every week on the TV Sonny laid in front of as a child - stomach down, chin resting in his hands, feet wagging contentedly in the air.

Sonny had been mesmerized by that TV, by the glowing shapes that drew him close into other, better lives. Sounds also came from that box, and they glowed too, radiating outward in a soft sphere. Get yourself close enough, settle down inside that globe, and you were safe. The sounds you heard there – the bursts of honorable gunfire – BAM-BAM-BAM! - fists smacking against the jaws of evil - CRACK! - these sounds had the power to turn your heart in an instant towards the ways of the good and the pure. Wise words were inside that globe, too, and they never failed, remained firm and unassailable - "...we'll cut 'em off at the pass...you'll never get away with it!...take that, and that!...don't worry miss, he won't be bothering you any longer..." They remained firm and unassailable even while the world around you broke in two. “Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear”, the announcer had asked, and Sonny was more than happy to oblige.

Visitors, like the kind Sonny saw before him now, had become a regular occurrence over the past years. None of them were anything more than a figment of Sonny's warmed up imagination but, in spite of that, real enough. And one of those visitors had come around again, as he had many times before, appearing whenever needed, a friend for many years.

Sonny looked up and smiled at what he could see. Roy’s face gleamed, lustrous as a waxed countertop, strong as a sun did its job right, warming you without wearing you out. His cheeks were red and rosy, full of life. His eyes also sparkled like the stars, could see down past the surface of the world, weren’t fooled like most people’s are, knew nothing but peace and joy. And that smile, that trademark smile! Thanks Roy, just for smiling! That curved, beautiful, firmly set mouth showed clearly that Roy knew the score, knew what life had to truly offer a man. Roy had seen those things himself, and could tell others, just through that smile.

“I imagine you’d act different if you were me, Roy. You wouldn’t even have the jitters in the first place. This silly tingling inside - I’ll bet you never once had to feel anything like it at all.”

Sonny glowed, warming up to his internal discussion.

“You wouldn’t because you knew the Lord above would never fail you, anybody who ever looked at you once could tell that. That smile of yours – you see Him like He’s in the same room, don’t you?”

Roy made no reply, just continued to gaze into the sky and smile. Sonny basked in the peace such a power provided, like the time he visited the inside of Hoover Dam and felt the twenty stories tall dynamos humming away, happily making all the electricity anyone would ever need. A grin rose up from deep in the center of Sonny’s heart and expanded into a full smile. A low, satisfied chuckle came out, the icing on the cake.

Still smiling, Sonny lowered his head, closed his eyes for a moment.

The merciless sun, as though suddenly smart enough to choose to, took the opening. It squeezed itself tighter, shone a bit hotter. Roy faded a bit, blurring into heat waves, only after a long moment struggling back to solid form.

Sonny and Roy enjoyed each other’s company a while longer, basked in the delight of a joy that should and could be. Even Aunt Janie was satisfied for the moment, at least in Sonny’s imaginings.

“Thanks a bunch for the water, Son, I knew you’d come through eventually. You’re a good boy, such a good boy…”

The businesses and homes and churches had gone silent, too. Everything, at least for this particular, blessed moment, was peaceful in the city of God, Texas.

(Check back in two weeks for the next exciting installment of The Mostly Honest History of the City of God, Texas!)

Waking Up

2009-04-29T09:56:00.005-05:00

In the morning, every morning, during the moments I first become aware of the grogginess that has soaked me during the night, I find myself struggling. It's as though I've caught myself in the act of dissolving, frustrated that I've allowed such negligence to continue.

Disoriented, I begin to wonder - Who's there?

At first, nothing seems to help. Stretching only mildly relieves the stiffness that has grown throughout the night, making me feel like I'm helplessly struggling against a spell that has nearly succeeded in turning me to stone. Rolling over isn't satisfying either - I know I'm just putting off the inevitable. Blinking doesn't help - the sky just keeps getting brighter and brighter and brighter, stinging my spirit as well as my eyes.

So every morning I lie there, encased in the haze of sleep, the quickly evaporating pleasures of drowsiness offering meager protection against the looming anxieties of the day. From this perspective - tangled in sheets, collapsed in an exhausted heap - nothing makes sense. Threats loom larger than they've rightfully earned. The normal protective force fields that I'm able to raise around me when I'm awake, sharp, and in full command of my resources can't be invoked - the internal switch that brings such forces to bear has faded into the night, and new armor hasn't yet hardened around me to take its place. I'm helpless, a baby in a crib, wondering if it's time to wail.

But the fact is, I do eventually wake up, every morning. A battle, not too far away, took place, and the night's dark magic was once again defeated, its dull hunger melting away the instant someone decided to be brave enough to try.

But who was that brave soul? Even though I’m now fully awake, I can’t help but continue to wonder…

Who’s there?

Kids and Arches

2009-02-18T14:12:00.000-06:00

It sits on a huge desert plain, as calm and collected as a man looking off into the distance with his eyes closed. These 88 square miles of the state of Utah have been set aside as Arches National Park.

The flat terrain allows you views of rock arches of all shapes and sizes, scattered about in clumps, near and far, like families standing in an open field. Vegetation is sparse, as though the surface of the land is just recovering from a recent cleaning. The heat slows you down, forces you to conserve your efforts. When you do decide to speak, the wind blows your voice away from you, into the open sky.

Grown-ups allow the silence to put them into a reverent mood. Kids also play quietly here, rarely noticing anything higher than eye level.

God in the Woods

2009-01-30T22:51:00.000-06:00

The path curves through the forest, right now leading me steeply down and to the right, curving around a rise that would have been too difficult to attack directly. It's clear this path isn't used often - it's barely worn, just enough to suggest a general direction. Random patches of weeds and grass snake across it, threatening to, at least eventually, pull the trail back into obscurity. And even though I've walked this way many times before, my feet haven't learned from the experience. They're never sure what to expect - a new jumble of roots, sticks and pebbles appears under each step.

Far above my head, the foliage has tangled itself into a dense web of green and brown. Sturdy trunks rise up to support the mass, lifting the covering into the air. This is the kind of scenery that moves by slowly. Patterns appear, then, moments later, reappear, only slightly modified.

I've been looking forward to a peaceful stroll through the woods for some time now. Goodness knows, I've needed it. The load at work was slowly wearing me down. The irritations that come from disagreements and conflicting desires were building up. My attention was becoming overwhelmed with traffic, bills, chores, errands. The world, it seemed, was scraping me raw, like an absent-minded carpenter sanding a poor, dumb piece of furniture while his thoughts were somewhere else.

So I left the house this morning with high expectations, sure that the gentle breezes, bird songs, and friendly beauty of the forest would work their magic, smooth the prickly bristles back down and help me return to a state of mind I'd enjoyed several times in the past, a state where I feel not just rested, not merely prepared to make my way through the next effort thrown at me me by the world, but fully rested, the peace of soul a good king might feel, sitting quietly on his throne after a full day of wise decisions.

But even kings have bad days. I've been walking for some time now and have witnessed a good share of richly colored vistas, heard plenty of bird songs. A mockingbird, throwing out an apparently endless string of copied warblings dazzles me through the sheer effort of his overlapping feats of memorization and performance.

But while I can certainly appreciate the technical brilliance of the bird's performance - I can barely believe that such a tiny being can hold such encyclopedic knowledge - in the deeper recesses of my heart, in the place where thoughts, like water slipping into vapor, turn into a kind of soft bedrock, I still feel weak and withered, as if I had foolishly wandered out into a desert, and haven't had anything to eat or drink for days.

I look up, and, expecting to find nourishment, I find only leaves.

And not just leaves, but something less than leaves, mere objects, things that have just happened along and, apart from any reason, have decided to alight here, bringing along only a physical presence and nothing more than that. The beautiful forest has gone dull, flat and blank, has become a tangle lacking even an evil purpose, existing, but not caring whether it trips me up or not.

But it cared the last time I was here, didn't it? I remember, clearly, the peace I felt, not so much hiking the path, but floating down it. My thighs always sting with the strain of a long outdoors stroll, but there are times when that strain seems not to weigh me down but to spur me on, brings on a confidence that things that would normally limit me, don't at the moment, that I can find the wherewithal to move on, even enjoying the burden of carrying my body across the frustrating, uneven surface of the earth.

But not today. Today my muscles have resisted every impulse to move forward and my heart is finding it difficult to understand why it's being asked to beat so hard. My body needs constant convincing, and, as much as I might hope to the contrary, I seem to have lost track of the point, too. It's flown away, pushing off a branch like a wild bird that's been eyeing the over-confident hunter all along.

This realization brings me to a halt. I stop, standing awkwardly in the middle of the trail, hearing breezes swirl in the treetops above me. The force of the wind pushes through the leaves, making them crackle for a moment. The sound is distant, like it's coming from a seperate world, one that I've only heard of in stories. The gust passes and the sound stops, leaving everything silent as if the surrounding oxygen had suddenly been sucked away.

Discouraged, I wander off the trail, distractedly kicking my way through ankle deep brush. I try, half-heartedly, to figure things out, but nothing occurs to me - I have to give up finding my own way through the woods. The only thoughts that remain are the leftovers of previous mental efforts. Bits and pieces lay scattered across my brain, like the floor of a child's room. I can see the phrases of a Psalm I was thinking through this morning, taken apart and rearranged in an attempt to make the syntax more clear.

"But You, O Lord...are my glory..."

That grafted together phrase didn't make sense this morning as I thought through its individual pieces - What is glory? I wondered. Astonishing beauty, perhaps. Furthermore, it says that the Lord is the source of any beauty I might possess. But no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't see anything deeper than the words themselves - they comprised a couple of facts, listed one after the other, nothing more than that.

But now, surrounded by the rubble of other, failed beauties, my earlier expectations ruined, I'm beginning to see where the source of true beauty lies.

I turn around and slowly make my way back to the trail, continuing my train of thought. Unnoticed, somehow, the woods around me have begun to revive themselves, are working their way back to being beautiful again.

Three Climbers

2009-01-20T14:14:00.000-06:00

You can get to the place shown in this photograph almost immediately from anywhere in Colorado Springs. Garden of the Gods City Park sits on the edge of town in no-man's-land, in an area that's neither as civilized as the city itself nor as wild as the nearby mountains.

A log fence on the edge of the main parking lot stretches along the north side, gently insisting on a single access point. The facilities here are well kept up and thoughtfully laid out. Visitors are given wide, paved paths dyed the color of the surrounding rock, suitable for sneakers and baby carriages. They tame the terrain beneath to a great extent, but can't help but follow the overall curve of the land - some stretches force you to trudge uncomfortably uphill, others pull you downhill a little quicker than you might like.

In spite of that you can move easily through this rough country. Native grasses cover the low hills on one side, dirt-orange slices of rock tower abover you on the other. Informational kiosks dot the landscape, and strengthen your understanding of the area by explaining the things that are going on beneath the surface.

But this is not the park's only entry point. From other parking lots you can see dirt trails that wind into the trees or disappear over a rise. The hike here is rougher. You're forced to watch your step as you pick your way over a rocky, steep incline and even, in some places, find something to grab as you cross a narrow ledge. Each trail seems to have a goal - an interesting rock formation, or a high point with a view. From here you can see the entire area. It's as cluttered as a child's toy chest. Off in the distance you can see the city, small and peaceful.

But climbers can only see rock. A small outcropping, just within reach, is carefully studied and gauged for strength, shape and grip. The climber makes a decision, takes hold, and trusts as he pulls himself up.