The Pee-Dee River

Mom had left Four years ago, yet I had withstood her wrath.

“Bear,

Bear! “

Can you hear me?

The storm is heading east,

So the river will soon fall,

And I will lift you over my shoulders and walk you to the road.”

“Where am I?” Bear spoke.

He then step foot on ground and grabbed my hand before picking me up and running fast.

As we made our way back home, Bear passed me two AA batteries through his fingers.

“Keep these hidden in case we get caught.

Put them in your mouth and don’t talk.” He said as three flashlights were coming towards us at roughly the same direction.

The church of the Almighty Soil – Chapter One

Upon hearing a loud kick to my left ear, my eyes opened in pure adrenalin. And there for my brain to decode, was a series of bright red patterns. Yet even my quickly fading mathematical abilities could perform subtraction quick enough to know that I was Eighteen minutes late getting up.

It was 8:36.

Without performing any more math, I slid my arm from the side of my body, pushed past a blanket on top of me, and switched the alarm slide towards me. I had learned many years ago, to never cut off an alarm without getting up and out of bed as quickly as possible.

This day was no exception as I immediately pulled myself from bed, checked to make sure the alarm clock was off, put on some shorts, and a t-shirt, and walked to the kitchen with an urgency to pee. After pouring a cup of fresh coffee, I rushed to the bathroom with five items in two hands – glasses, cigarettes, a lighter, an i-pod touch,
and a cup of freshly brewed hot coffee.

While laying these objects beside the toilet, I glanced in the mirror to discover shock.

I have got to stop shaving my head, I thought. It makes me look like a white psycho-pathic redneck without hair. I thought about this no more as I dropped my shorts for a bodily function, lit a cigarette, sipped some fresh coffee, found some news, and farted quietly and without smell.

And after I checked my e-mail, but before I began to delete them, a sense of panic began to overwhelm me. Math had kicked in again with results from the latest query. The odds now of being on time for my job interview at Nine, was one-tenth of one percent. These calculations were based on minute math, and not seconds math. I had quite doing seconds in 2007.

I managed to smoke a cigarette in twenty seconds while I wiped the latest sins from my ass. And then in an involentary moment of movement, I passed my hand through my imaginary hair, and realized there were no shower haircuts required today, and then wondered about why after three-months, the urge to shave hit last night.

While accounting for this new variable, I turned on the shower, walked out of the bathroom, and grabbed my coffee-cup of cigarettes for disposal.

As soon as I turned on the water in the shower, I began to shave. And after shaving, I washed my scalped head in a repetitiveness of motion.

Then turning off the radio, I exited the shower in a rush of vigor. I needed this job. It would be good for me. I may meet some cool chicks.

As I sped off in my car, I cranked up the air conditioner and lit a cigarette. There was now a forty-three percent chance of being there at exactly Nine, without taking into considerations parking of course.

At the time of approximately 9:29, I cranked my car back up employed.

Birds in Springtime

As spring approaches, there are birds now migrating to the edge of the swampy forest that I call home.

The lonesome fiddle of frogs abound.

And as I sat peacefully in bliss and guilt, I began to hear a smell that took my senses of sight back years.

And how with the passing of my Dad, I had almost immediately began to notice birds.

And how they did not dart and fly away from me, instead they seemed to linger in moments of thought, and walk closer instead of flying away.

At this beginning, I thought and believed my Dad had come back as a bird, and the essence of his soul in the birds was a vouch for me to be treated without fear.

And how I had never feared my father, except of course his wisdom and his words.

And how I wished I had been around him more, and how I wished that I had listened more when aound him.

A few years later, I began to think the bird idea ludicrous or at least a stretch in logic.

And as I researched science more and more, it seemed like the universe was infinite, and the space between the small became infinite as well.

Yet here as I sit outdoors on a warming spring day a few years later, a redbird and a sparrows are walking towards me, twisting their necks in check.

An Iced Cigarette

As the dust settled, it formed a spiral. And seeing this happen, I then decided to change the narrative mode.

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As his Son leaned forward, His father leaned back.

“Why did you leave?”

“Not to be an asshole or anything, but which leaving are you asking about?”

In the middle of this air, was a sense of war.

“Why did you leave mom?”

And before his father could answer, His son stood up and said “I have to use the bathroom.”

“First door to the left past the Dining room.”

He then walked inside the house, opened the bathroom door past the dining room, shut the door, and began to urinate heavily into the toilet. After he finished, he pressed the flush lever and nothing happened.

“Dad, the toilet is not flushing.”

“Yeah..I need to replace the plastic chain holding the stopper to the flusher…do you want an answer to your question? Or shall we replace the chain?” his dad said.

His son then came back out and sat back down in his chair, picked up his lit cigarette from the ashtray and continued.

“Probably the answer, but we do need to flush that toilet as some point.”

New Years Night – 2011

It was the last day of the year, and was unsure of what I was going to do. This was not really a problem, as something always came up leading to the New Years that required a confirmation of commitment.

Yet here is was 6:50 and still no plans.

I then became unsure if my holiday of celebration was in order this year. It seems as the ending of this year will exit identical to its beginning. The start of this year last year was much improved. I had found full-time/part-time work after starting that year unemployed.

This year will mark the 1 3/4 years at my job. It seems the year began as it is going to end. It was then that I decided that I would celebrate the new year tomorrow.

So with a new invigoration, I decided to spend my time tonight painting an old log of Ceder wood. It combined two things in life I love into one – the smell of fresh cut cedar, and being alone.

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“I would really like that tree cut-down.” My mother said as pointing to the mid-sections of a cedar tree that was a twin. It has somehow split at birth into two trees that grew as one tree.

With a lot of rope and a small bow saw, the twins were slowly moved to a temporary woodpile that my brother-in-law was to pick up in few hours. They had offered me the use of a gas chainsaw, but I felt more comfortable in the tight space with strings and bow.

As I slowly cut down that cedar, a small piece of the trunk struck me as being nice and straight. I placed that piece of wood on a cement platform holding a large picnic table.

After spending many hours chopping off the bark, the exposed trunk was ready to dry outside for the Winter.

I now think that the proper curing of a cedar must take place inside a dry space. Most times learning is just about not making the same mistakes, but this was my first try at seasoning cedar.

A hard November storm

There have many storms I have withstood in life, but a blizzard of leaves and strong warm wind towards the end of November yesterday was one of most unique.

The weather professionals had said cold and colder for the night, yet I woke in a dry heat.

And walking out to get the morning paper in my underwear and one cigarette hanging freshly lit in the corner of my lips, a cloud of leaves pelted my body like hail, causing me to bite.

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And as I took a shower and washed my hair, I overcame the urge to pee.

surfing at night

Sometimes, when the time is good, I will surf at night. Blind. And in an awkward repositioning of foam and board, I see.

As my eyes fail me, and my nose fails me, and as my touch of finger underneath my ocean fails me, my ears come into life.

And I hear the sound of running water.

And as if no time has passed, a large swell picks me up, and lets me down, and then threw me left so hard that I could hear my heart.

And as I paddled weakly towards the roar, a swell from the ocean picked me up. And as the options of bailing became unclear, I padded more towards my left and then suddenly dropped twenty feet.

My board was under my feet when I landed at the bottom of the dark cave, and as I became to realize that things were not looking good, my board picked me up and threw me into a tight curl going sideways fast.

Caught with me in the wave were many small fish which reflected brightly in the moonlight. And as my right foot pushed down on my water-soaked rail, my board spun upward and out from the cave from which it had begun.

And as light mist passed over me, on the edge of a roar, I found this surfing night to be perfect in all ways.

Life by the River – Chapter Seven

After we were able to find our footing in the dark, Bear slipped. And as he fell, he grabbed my arm and pulled me into the mud with him.

He then lifted his head, and started saying words to me in a very fast and loud manner. I was unable to understand much of what he said, but I understand the beginning, because he spoke very slow.

“This has all happened, because you have to have batteries in your radio.

So you can listen to the Atlanta Braves play baseball.”

And then Bear raised his hand towards me and struck me with his right fist on my shoulder bone, which deflected his rage into the muddy red clay of an overflowing river.

And as I fell, the water hit my back and started washing me downriver again.

The amount of water in the river tonight was more than I had ever seen. I grabbed a log that popped up under my ribs, and turned with all my hands and all my leg to grab.

Thursday Musings

At the age of approximate guess to be 47 or so, I became a liberal.

And the harm it has caused more than makes up the effort.

To feel and sting and smell and burp to the days we live as human working class blue-collars makes me want to learn to keraoke.

But sometime one day can make up for six years.

Tonight I saw my son graduate from high school, and it made my eye year in thoughts of him growing up.

And I was so happy that he graduated in the great state of my birth, South Carolina.

Where I taught him to fish and learn spelling tests.

A place where water is life, and the soil is our church.

A painting

The hardest part of painting in primary colors, is blue.

The only hard color after blue, is yellow and red.

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