Mountain

I came out of the blackout to more trees, the truck moving miraculously through them. The music was still blaring, arrogant, insane and relentless. My headlights raked across attendant pines ahead, black dust tinged red with my taillights still rose behind.  I cornered badly, hit more washboard, the back end bucked and broke loose again. I laughed at the ridiculousness of it all. The box of beers fell off the seat next to me and into the passenger well, bottles rattling and shattered against themselves. My two good right tires bounced along the ragged edge of where it went from road to straight down. I managed to bring it out of the skid, avoiding the holler, and then clambering over another hill made it somehow over the final ridge. The idea had been to take the fireroads home from Carolina. I was racing against my body as it shut down from pure exhaustion. The clock on the dash read 2:48. The road started falling again, snaking down into the valley, the truck and I punched a hole out of thick woods.  I got on the brake finally and crept through the rough back acres of somebody’s farm. The moon was up and shone, but I knew what all lay there anyway. Woods gave way to rolling, lumpy fields, rough-shouldered where limestone had rubbed through, peppered with raw grey tobacco barns.  The road smoothed from hardened mud to newish crush and run. Cedars lined it there, barbed wire strung along between and buried a hundred years deep in their necks. The track rounded and finally ended at the county road, I rumbled across an open grate cattle bridge and paused over the creek that ran along the belly of that valley. I turned my lights off and waited for sign of other travelers, Lawman or otherwise, but there were none. I figured I could leave the truck idling and go for a piss in the reeds down by the creek. 

        I had no jacket, so I lit a cigarette for warmth. It wasn’t quite the hammer-cold of deep winter, but more of the raw wet that tricks you into thinking it’s not really that bad, but then suddenly has crept into your very marrow. That cruel, spring, variety of cold. The old house was there as usual, set into the hill across the road. Tall windows broke out like ghost eyes overseeing all the land. The rusted metal roof shone in whatever moonlight could muster there. I figured I was twenty miles out, desperately needing something to keep me awake. I thought about the bottle of Jack under the seat but decided against it. Staggered around to the passenger side instead and bent myself into the box, rifled through the wet and broken glass until I found one whole, levered the cap off with the butt end of my lighter against my thumb, flung the cap into eternity. Got around and back in the driver’s seat. Reached across to the crumpled box on the dash which yielded yet another smoke, and I set it blazing. 

          Back home Irises had pushed their pretty heads up through cracks in the limestone that formed our backyard garden. Too early, their arrival added to my frenzied sense of urgency. We decided once the kitchen was finished we’d leave Tennessee right then and there.  I installed checkerboard peel-n-stick over the asbestos flooring. Put in a stock countertop and left the old steel cabinets alone. Removed the hand-crank flour mill and ripped a backsplash out of cheap bead-board plywood. Painted everything “bone.” I worked day and night. I had coffee and pills and booze to keep me going.  I had music, treacherous music.  Late snow had come, wet and heavy and split the ancient boxwoods lining the front, cleaved them right down the middle and melted away without ceremony. I could not abide it. I couldn’t get the music to play right in my head so after my wife went to sleep with the children, I packed whatever booze I had left, rolled the truck down the steep driveway before starting it, and took it into the mountains with me.  I ran all night. The music wore a groove in my mind. At some point, some empty crossroads, I decided to come home. Maybe it was the thought of a warm child sleeping against me. More likely it was something based entirely on fear. I always ran, but I always came back, you see. There was no accounting for it.

       The old house before me waited to see what I’d do. Clumps of yellow flowers, for which I had forgotten the name, blossomed under the false light of a third-quarter moon, tricked into opening their idiot faces by the light. They lined the bottom rotted edge of the crumbling porch. Everyone’s seen this house, passed it a hundred times. Family gone and whoever’s left unable to make up their minds what to do with it. Unable to deal with the memories or each other, can’t get the money right, so it waits to burn or fall over.  I smoked and regarded it, watched for anything to move in those windows. I rolled the window down and smoke flew out into the cold. I got the idea this could be my place. I’d creep up the twin track drive and park around back. I’d stay as long as I needed, alone. I’d speak to whatever ghosts may come. I’d get my water out of the creek. There was probably an old cot down in the basement. I’d find blankets or old curtains and sleep as long as I wanted. Sleep forever if need be. I wasn’t amounting to much of a father anyway.  As I sat in the cab, and considered all of this, the world faded away once again.

        I came out of it near the dog leg in the road which comes around a foundation where the old mill once sat.  My body was no more my own, wouldn’t do what I wanted. I ran the truck off the road, tires falling, slammed down into the ditch. I hit something big and hard and everything in the cab got airborne. I somehow managed it back onto the road and made another curve before the whole rig pulled hard to the right. I had the acid fear in my gut that comes with big trouble. I fought with the wheel and slowed it all down.

Narrow fields ran to the right up under the woods of the mountain line, I came up on an access road that crept to an outbuilding. I was going slow enough that it didn’t take much to stop and back it up off the road onto the old grass track. Opened the door and fell out onto spare gravel. Let us see what this is all about. Across the way a small rancher was set up on the hill and as soon as I opened the door hounds erupted there with great gales of noise and alarm. I found the tire flat alright, then got back into the cab and shut the door. The dogs stopped right away. Lit a cigarette to figure out what next to do. Well I’d just have to change the sombitch. Got out again and the dogs started right back at it. Fuck me running, I said to them. They barked in agreement said they thought that was a fine idea. Kneeled down, more of a controlled fall really there by the tailgate, I found the spare up under there with no identifiable way to get it loose. No flashlight, I held the lighter till it burned my thumb twice, it was some hateful Jap mystery fastener that held the sucker in place. It dawned on me I had no idea where even the jack was located, the truck was only about nine months old and I had yet to crash it. I got back into the cab, left the door open with the dome light on, located the jack behind the seat and commenced to cipher the virgin, grease-free manual. With the light continually on, the hounds went plumb out of their tiny little minds. My own head started up the chorus of This is Bad This is Bad This is Bad and my gut, which I usually relied on to just not give a goddam, had unfortunately started to agree with it. Deep fear had crept in and sat there, and no amount of booze and cigarettes would settle it. I was a wild animal trapped. I tried to read the manual, but my eyes couldn’t fit the words together to where they made any sense.  I decided my best option was to pass out in the truck and see what I could do with it in the morning. I closed the door finally, lay down on the bench, with the stink of beer and cigarettes and waste all around me and was gone in half a minute. 

I’ll never know if Lynn Lloyd saw me parked out there on his field while having a cup of coffee in his kitchen or if it was after he’d let the dogs out and started off to hunt that morning with his son. All I know is that I woke up to two men covered completely in insulated camouflage, with camouflage face masks and rifles were knocking on the window of my truck. I very nearly screamed.

        “Oh! Jesus Christ don’t shoot me please!” I sort of laughed but the funny thing I was dead-ass serious. I might have wailed a little. I left the window up. 

Lynn Lloyd said “Hold on, nobody’s gonna shoot anybody. Are you okay in there?” 

I rolled the window down, let in the cold and blue morning light. I’m sure a distillery smell billowed back at the man. “Yeah, I’m sorry, mister, I’m just drunk as all hell. Got a flat tire back up the road a piece. I know I’m where I ain’t supposed to be, I’ll get off your property just as soon as I can.” I fumbled around for my cigarettes.

“It’s alright, son, just take it easy.” None of my fear was helped by the fact that I couldn’t see the man’s face from the mask. All I could focus on the large caliber rifle slung over his shoulder. “Me and my boy here are going hunting up along the ridge yonder, should be back in a couple of hours. We’ll help get you straight okay?” It was just then I noticed all the riot of hounds teaming all around the legs of the two men. 

“Okay, thank you so much. I’m gonna go back to sleep for a while then.” I said. Too much more conversation and I would be bawling.  

        “Yeah, that sounds best. You sleep for a bit.”

When they came back, the sun was well up into the morning and the dogs were gone.  I sprung up right away, unafraid this time, got out of the truck and everybody introduced themselves. Lynn was stocky and short with a black mustache flecked with grey. I don’t remember what the boy’s name was.  He had brought me a bagel smothered in cream cheese and a humongous cup of coffee.  There was no hangover yet, but I wasn’t so drunk anymore I couldn’t behave myself. Turned down the bagel but downed most of the coffee in two gulps. “Can’t eat right now,” I said.

“You said you come from Greeneville?”

“Yessir.”

“What you doing way out here?”

“Got a wild hair last night, drove to Hot Springs, came back on the fire roads.” I said.

“You came over the mountain from Hot Springs last night?” he asked. The boy just stared at me. 

“Yessir.”

He paused for a minute, then said, “Son, you’re lucky to be alive.”

“Yeah, I know it.” I said. It wasn’t the first time I’d heard it. “Hey you mind if I go wash my face in the creek?”

“Not at all.”

I lurched down the access road to where it crossed. There was no bridge, just  shallows, the water too high to be crossed now.  Pregnant with snowmelt, I kneeled where the grass dove into it, splashed water over my face, rubbed my eyes with it. It was colder than anything I ever knew. The world snapped into focus. There was grass under the fast water too, waving. Across the way was the ubiquitous grey-boarded outbuilding.  Metal roof a dull rust orange, holes stove in the side, still standing mostly out of habit. Behind it land rose, knobby, grew trees and formed a mountain. I washed my face some more, it was like being hit with an electric current.

Lynn was examining the flat when I returned, “Yep, you’ve surely killed that one.”  he said. The boy still examined my every move with huge green eyes.  I had him figured at a tall nearly fourteen. His too-long neck gave it away, all spindly, muscle and no meat. He already stood a half foot over his dad. I wondered what kind of impression I made on him. 

“I couldn’t figure how to get the spare off last night, and the dogs kept going hog wild every time I opened the door. I figured I’d better hunker down until daylight, maybe lessen my chances of getting shot.” 

“Shit, the dogs go crazy over anything. I’m amazed his momma hasn’t left me by now. This here is a Toyota, right?” I nodded, he pointed at a small hole just above the license plate. “Go stick your jack-wrench in that hole and twist it, that’ll lower the spare down. “

“Really?” I said, “Dammit if I don’t think I’d ever have figured that one out.”

“Yeah I used to have one the same way. Flummoxed me to the point where I nearly traded it with a flat tire.”

I kneeled in the grassy mud, inserted the rod deep inside the frame until sure enough it bedded into something that turned easily when I tried it. I twisted and peeked under. The world spun. The tire lowered slowly with greased mechanical precision that would have been nowhere to be found on my old Ford.  “I don’t know about this grass, it’s awful wet.  Might have a hard time gettin her up in the air with this little jack. “

“Yeah, the foot on that thing ain’t but about eight inches across. You want me to call you a tow truck?”

“Naw, I got something might work. “  The tire bottomed out finally.  Lynn told the boy get in there, the boy hurried onto his stomach and scooched up under the truck. The tire was held in place with a cup-shaped contraption dangling from a length of cable. The boy twisted the cup on edge and it slid easily through a notch in the center of the rim. We manhandled the tire out into the morning.

           The grass was of the ancient mossy variety, slow growing and sparse. After the jack made contact with the frame, the foot slid down easily into the grass while clear water bubbled up around it, as if the world was filled with water. I crawled out from under, waited for the dizziness to ease, then hopped up into the bed. I fished keys out of my pocket and opened up the dented white cross-box I’d salvaged from the Ford, rummaged around elbow deep in tools till I dug out my bright red twenty-ton bottle jack I’d been using recently on a sill-plate job in Jonesborough.  Lynn asked me my trade. I told him I was a carpenter, worked for myself.  

“You got any kids?”

“Yessir, got a four-year-old boy. Just had a little girl about three months ago.”

“Hm.” He said, his mouth had a grim turn to it. “You got a lot on you.”

“I get nerves real bad. I drink too much because of them. Do stupid shit like drive to Hot Springs in the middle of the night.” As I spoke, it occurred to me that Lynn might have spent a night or two sleeping in a truck himself. 

“You were on your way home when you broke down?”

“Yeah. Can’t stay with the dogs instead, can I?”

Lynn Lloyd chuckled and smiled “Nope.”

Lynn and the boy headed back to the house to search for scrap lumber to put under the two jacks.  I smoked on my tailgate and watched the swollen creek with the outbuilding behind it. The water caught what little sunlight there was. It shone. The sound of it eased out the noise of smoking ruin I had in my head. I decided right then and there, that little creek who had nearly jumped its banks, and its cousin the tobacco barn would be my idea of heaven.  Rushing along with grass waving inside of it. Fast and cold and pure. 

          After a minute an older man appeared in the field across the road in tan and black coveralls.  Well, I say black but when he got up on me I noticed the black were great streaks of grease, oil and dirt. I waved and called. Tall and bearded, he said nothing until he got up on me.

“Yeah, I know who you are,” he said after I introduced myself, “I’m Lynn’s uncle Bobby.  He asked me to come watch after you.”

“Oh. You been hunting with them this morning?”

“No. I was by myself over on that far ridge. Trailing this fuckin’ bear that’s been chewing our hounds up.” He growled this through a salt and pepper beard.

“Really?” I asked and chuckled. “What were you gonna shoot him with?” I hadn’t seen a rifle.

He reached into his grease-stained coveralls and pulled out a pistol with a barrel the length of my forearm.  “This here.” He fixed a steady gaze on me and then put it away.

“Oh. That might do it.” I said. He put the gun away, pulled out a bag of chewing tobacco and commenced to load up.

“Good thing you broke down here“, he said, fitting the plug into his mouth “About a quarter mile back and you would have been on old Copperhead’s place.” He had the same grim smile Lynn had, a few small random stalks poking out from his beard. It occurred to me his eyes didn’t have the same kindness as his nephew. “Things might not have worked out so well for you there.”

I knew what property he meant; an old bungalow next to a country store long boarded up. The yard had multiple vehicles sitting in disrepair, four-wheelers, trucks, innards strewn about in the dirt. Not one but two confederate flags waved on the listing porch.  “You mean that old place up by the dog-leg in the road?”

“Yeah, used to be Miller’s store.”

         “Thank god I didn’t roll up on that man there in the dead of the night. Does he own the store too?”

         “Yes he does. Place goes back five generations of his people. His momma and her sister kept it going till they died off, and then he promptly let it all fall to shit.”

“Across the road from there is an old foundation by the creek. Was that the old mill?”

“Yes it was. It burned before my time. My daddy said they used to grind for the whole valley.”

“Wow.”  And left it at that. I figured I’d better shut-up for the time being, however struck by a thousand questions. I sat instead on the tailgate and lit another cigarette, watched the smoke rise and tried to imagine what the valley might have looked like. The fun, loopy, still-drunk feeling was ebbing and was quickly replaced by a throbbing behind my eyes. I rubbed them. The creek sang its forever song. Bobby leaned, elbows on the sidewalls of the bed of my truck and punctuated what the creek said by spitting occasionally into the grass.

Lynn and the boy eventually showed back up, “You two getting along alright?” he asked.

“Famously“ I said.

They had brought an armful each of various scraps of two-by-eight, cut on an angle, about two foot long. They were wrapped in dirty cobwebs, potentially the drop-offs from old rafter tails.  The sides were rough-hewn and brown as tobacco. I hated dropping them into the mud, but I needed to shake the worms in my head, get on the road and get on home. I tried not to think about home. I set to it, crawling under the truck and positioning the two jacks. Lynne’s boy stayed out and cranked the rod on the little one, and I found a flat on the axle where my cherry-bomb could get a good bite. It took a minute, even with the wide boards, the weight and the mud kept sliding everything out of plumb. The boy got his end straight first, started cranking a few times with the twist rod, and then waited for me. I got mine to come around finally and the back end of the truck began to rise when Bobby suddenly commanded “Come out from under there.” I did, of course, fearing that I’d done something terribly wrong, something worse even than everything I’d already done. 

“Break those lug nuts loose while you still got some weight on that wheel. It’ll be a lot easier than once she’s ass-up in the air.” 

I stared at him amazed. The kid laughed. Lynn just smiled at me and said “Stick around this world a little longer, and you’d be surprised at what you might learn.”

They all stood there and let me get into the wet and wrestle the tire around. I could feel the old man scrutinizing my every move, judging how I worked, how my hands moved. Just to make conversation, I got them to describe how their land went back to where the rolling hills tucked under the darkened tree line and then crept up the mountain. They told how many generations had been on it, what all they had farmed. They only had a few cows anymore. The rest they just mowed. “Reefer turns a good crop,” said Bobby. Everybody laughed, nobody thought he was joking. 

“You ever thought about selling it off?” I asked, twisting each nut into place, finger-tight.

“Nope.” 

“You know, I sometimes work for a contractor who’d pay good money for that old barn over yonder. He takes ‘em down and re-assembles them for log cabins up in Cashiers. Rich folks love them.”

“Yeah,” Lynn chuckled over my shoulder “he’s stopped by here a few of times.”

“What are y’all gonna do with it?”

“We’re gonna let it stand there as long as it wants to.” He said

I stood on the wrench for the last turn, putting all my weight on each lug-nut. I got up from a crouch and faced them, wiped my hands on the wet knees of my jeans. It was time to go. Three generations fixed the same look on me with eyes the color of the creek. It was neither a look of meanness nor particularly of welcome either.  I thanked them as graciously as I could, apologized for rooting everything up into mud and eased it back on the road. Pointed it toward home and whatever I would find there. I figured I wasn’t so pickled anymore that I couldn’t keep it between the lines. Fierceness, I decided, it was the look of fierceness. The boy waved and called out, 

        “Be good.”