It was the seeming permanence in everything that frustrated us, precocious pubescents who had been through everything before. Our gravel-road boners were grinding against the denim wall of our Wranglers, as we jumped from the back of the truck. The '57 Ford that my brother-in-law was so proud of rolled lazily across the road into the waiting Cenex. Everything was a stinging wind, parched by the granules of what optimists called "top soil". The noon sun chased the shadows--panting like dogs or criminals--under the rocks that speckled the ashen desert, Ole Yeller's matted fur punctuated by the soft, green sage and the occasional rattlesnake.
Time was going slowly--a lethargic predictability in which questions must arise, formless, made of suggestion, just like feelings. As in every summer past (cast like silver coins into the river's familiar bend), there were, generally a few days between the end of harvest and the county fair. It is this respite itself that best illustrated our conundrum: Now that the boys and I had a few days of liberty the ideal had been flattened by the accurate complaint that there was "nothing to do." The Piggly Wiggly was still there with its abbreviated lunch counter. As we entered, there was a loud crack as if somebody had dropped a large volume of some kind...
The spring of that small town's trap was about to snap, leaving this vermin breathing but not able to move. "The spine is the nerve's super-highway," someone had said. Then, someone added, "This little guy's a paraplegic. He ain't driving a super highway, none too soon." I am easily distracted. I began to drift away. I thought about a reckless Mouse and the Motorcycle, about Ralph as Marlon Brando with a twitching nose and a death wish. The janitor, unceremoniously, had rid the store of this cadaver. He stretched the miniature guillotine back and set the spring. Almost silently, he slid the death raft back behind the refrigerator. (An Aside: There is nothing humane in luring rodents into (a presumably raucous party) "hotel" thats lobby turns into Treblinka once their rubbery tail is through the turnstile and the concierge locks the door. Forever.)
The spring holds back everything: winter's return, summer's arrival, the prank of a mouse's decapitation. The spring in the park--a sloppy, artless fountain--flows constantly. It holds back the desert as it pours over the well-eroded granite into a narrow ditch. The sound settles into a ripple that transforms into this narrow, glimmering creek. Still, it babbles. It is this creek without a name that circumnavigates the single block of green oasis that is the small town's only park. The water cuts bravely through the manicured lawn, past the peeling painted horses secured individually on their own metal springs, around the back of the patient gazebo, and hungrily along the side of the log shelter where the VFW sells burgers and dogs every Saturday night.
Knowing these patterns is comforting but, for Milo and our other 4H buddies, comfort is claustrophobic. We posit ourselves, lemonade in hand, in the screen porch of our grandma's place. Then a makeshift army arrives. They are spraying pesticides along the roads, in the ditches. They are laying long billowing ribbons of the chemicals from a laughing, dancing plane. The crop duster challenges the monotony. Coming in the morning flames, the wax crayons melt and smear on the eastern horizon. The plane reminds us of the possibility beyond this permanence. It feeds our imagination.
Time was going slowly--a lethargic predictability in which questions must arise, formless, made of suggestion, just like feelings. As in every summer past (cast like silver coins into the river's familiar bend), there were, generally a few days between the end of harvest and the county fair. It is this respite itself that best illustrated our conundrum: Now that the boys and I had a few days of liberty the ideal had been flattened by the accurate complaint that there was "nothing to do." The Piggly Wiggly was still there with its abbreviated lunch counter. As we entered, there was a loud crack as if somebody had dropped a large volume of some kind...
The spring of that small town's trap was about to snap, leaving this vermin breathing but not able to move. "The spine is the nerve's super-highway," someone had said. Then, someone added, "This little guy's a paraplegic. He ain't driving a super highway, none too soon." I am easily distracted. I began to drift away. I thought about a reckless Mouse and the Motorcycle, about Ralph as Marlon Brando with a twitching nose and a death wish. The janitor, unceremoniously, had rid the store of this cadaver. He stretched the miniature guillotine back and set the spring. Almost silently, he slid the death raft back behind the refrigerator. (An Aside: There is nothing humane in luring rodents into (a presumably raucous party) "hotel" thats lobby turns into Treblinka once their rubbery tail is through the turnstile and the concierge locks the door. Forever.)
The spring holds back everything: winter's return, summer's arrival, the prank of a mouse's decapitation. The spring in the park--a sloppy, artless fountain--flows constantly. It holds back the desert as it pours over the well-eroded granite into a narrow ditch. The sound settles into a ripple that transforms into this narrow, glimmering creek. Still, it babbles. It is this creek without a name that circumnavigates the single block of green oasis that is the small town's only park. The water cuts bravely through the manicured lawn, past the peeling painted horses secured individually on their own metal springs, around the back of the patient gazebo, and hungrily along the side of the log shelter where the VFW sells burgers and dogs every Saturday night.
Knowing these patterns is comforting but, for Milo and our other 4H buddies, comfort is claustrophobic. We posit ourselves, lemonade in hand, in the screen porch of our grandma's place. Then a makeshift army arrives. They are spraying pesticides along the roads, in the ditches. They are laying long billowing ribbons of the chemicals from a laughing, dancing plane. The crop duster challenges the monotony. Coming in the morning flames, the wax crayons melt and smear on the eastern horizon. The plane reminds us of the possibility beyond this permanence. It feeds our imagination.
