I. Shaped by a Mother
Worn was the road that led to the gravel path beneath the soles of my feet. In my hand I carried a gift that ushered me into adolescence: a new pellet gun.
Along the path there was a single yellow leaf among a span of green. It sat high in a tree, an indicator of things to come, and I knew this was the first leaf of autumn. Perhaps it was the first yellow leaf in all the Northwest and arriving much too early. This leaf was a rebel, or maybe a revolutionary, depending on perspective.
This seemed as good a sign as any. I stepped off the gravel path, for I had grown tired of target practice on empty pop cans, and into the thicket of bright green foliage — save for the one leaf. Soon, I heard the patter of wing hitting branch as bashful light flickered through to the undergrowth. Pockets of shadow made for good hiding, but this game had a large vocabulary and was easy to find.
A closed eye.
A held breath.
An exhale.
And silence.
My quarry fell and tumbled down a ravine, muddy from an unusual summer rain the day before. It would be too difficult to collect.
In the silence that followed I thought there were echoes, ringing through my ears. A bird’s call, softer than before. The echoes spurred me through a shallow scrape of vegetation, beneath a shrub. Not too far along, burrowed slightly in the ground, twigs and sticks and other bits were collected and shaped by a mother, who now lies dead down a mud ravine. In this nest there were echoes.
Cupped in my killing hands, I carried the nest out of the thicket, down the gravel path, and back along the worn road — as if by following the path backward I could undo the act. To my mother I brought the nest. To her I pleaded, with her own eyes.
She had a penchant for lost, broken, or orphaned things — a stray dog, an abandoned kitten, or a misplaced uncle. The steady stream of animals and relatives, each nursed back to life in my childhood home, are peppered throughout my memories.
My mother made a shelter of a cardboard box, old blankets, and a used heat lamp. We took shifts watching over them.
That summer I traded my pellet gun for a plastic eye dropper, which is how you feed baby birds when you have killed their mother. That summer we raised California Valley Quail.
II. A Dog Named Never
Worn was the road that led to the blades of grass peeking between my toes at the backyard fire pit. The warmth from the flames parodied the cool, stiff breeze.
My son was roasting marshmallows, pleading at me with my own eyes for just one more. We took our share, and then some. We had hot cocoa too.
Marshmallows, I thought, were more artful than tasty. Tanned in their luxury golden brown, or even the burnt, crisp marshmallow, fallen and forgotten, waiting for the inevitable line of tiny black ants is less food and more art. Yes, there is art in the forgotten marshmallow.
Paper clouds shuttered the stars in patches and the fire made us sharp silhouettes to anyone looking on from a distance. Over roasted marshmallows and hot cocoa we discussed pet names. After months of searching we had found the perfect puppy, just like I’d promised him. She was a chocolate lab and would be part of our family in two short weeks.
I liked conventional names like Scout and Bella. He preferred fanciful names such as Zelda and Marshmallow.
It was a Friday when we sat by the fire, when we were silhouettes just picking pet names and eating too many sweets.
It was Sunday when I was arrested.
I spent the next few months in county jail wondering and worrying, among many things, whatever happened to that dog?
III. Make Us Silhouettes
Worn was the road that led to the cold sting of bare concrete against my feet. It’s much too early and from my window I can see blue breaking black, whispering about the coming of dawn. I sip my instant coffee from my plastic mug. It’s bitter and somehow far too sweet: artificial, pink, Saccharin. I’ve added a cocoa packet with the tiny marshmallows, but they dissolve quickly and have no meaning.
In the early morning hours, the patter of wings echoes gently. The birds, swallows not quail, are active this time of day, making their nests on window ledges from mud and other debris.
Later, I’ll watch as black and yellow labs, with the occasional golden retriever, play in the fenced grassy area. These are service dogs trained by inmate workers.
That is what I see from my cell window: birds and dogs.
The view sparks memories for me, with whispers on the edge. It accuses me, and not unfairly. It says, “Killer of Bird Mothers … Breaker of Promises …”
My son is almost 17 now. Ten years have passed. He lives with my parents and is the beneficiary of mother’s penchant.
On the phone he tells me about the girl he will marry, about prom, and about learning to drive.
I try to make his memories my own, to include myself where I wasn’t.
I imagine having dinner with the family of the girl-he-will-marry. I tell stories from his childhood, meant to playfully embarrass him. I bring out the photo album.
I imagine helping him pick a tuxedo for prom. I pay for the nicer one, because I know he really wants it, but it’s expensive enough that he won’t ask. On prom night I fix his tie before he leaves and think to myself, “money well-spent.”
I imagine sitting in the passenger seat when he learns to drive. I have my seat belt buckled and I’m holding the handle above the door tightly. I remind him about blinkers.
But these memories are not real; they are the possibility of memories. They are just my empty hopes. I’m on the periphery of his life, sealed on the outside looking in and he is just a silhouette.
When my son visits me in prison, he tells me he is happy. He tells me I am forgiven.
But I know his eyes.
They are my eyes.
They are my mother’s eyes.
He tells me he is happy, but his eyes say, “There were happier times, when we were silhouettes together, when you were my father. I wish you’d come home.”
IV. The Worn Road
Can you hear the music, faint from down the road?
The child in me wants to retrace my steps, but the man knows a life spilled down a mud ravine is a hard thing to collect and piece together.
All the moments in my life I have lived twice — first on the outside, but later within. When the inside moment happens is when you say, “Wouldn’t it be nice to go back to the outside moment and try that again?”
What a delight it would be to know the grass beneath my feet once more, or the crinkle of leaves and breaking of twigs under my shoe. What a delight it would be to know the smell of dirt again, or to hear my son’s round laugh without the buffer of prison phone static. What a delight it would be to hold him asleep in my arms on the day he was born, just one more time.
How about this? There is a possibility of a memory I think of, sometimes. It goes that, I’m a boy on the road, but I’ve left my pellet gun at home. I never took it out of the box. I don’t leave the gravel path, and I never cross into the thicket. Instead, I find the yellow leaf, the one I passed along the way. When I find the leaf, this predictor of things to come, I stand beneath it. It hangs like a painting, so fragile. I hold out my empty hands, palms facing upward, and I wait, as if to say, “I will catch you when you fall.” | PL