The Tower, and other pieces - 8. "Up This Road"

"Up This Road"

He wondered about his life, now that it was soon to end. "Neal Winter; my parents named me Nelson, what a weird sense of humor…" and so his thoughts marched out as words towards his younger listener. "Ninety-some years ago that was; they sure picked an unfitting name for a tramp miner."

"Yeah. Well…" the listener was able to get out.

"But of course, they didn't know their 'Nelson' would grow up to become me, so I don't reckon I much well blame them – "

"Yeah, old man," the listener interrupted. Then he firmly asserted with a handshake: "You take care of yourself."

The young man got up from the table he had been sitting at with his host, and began walking backwards towards the door that would take him out of the old man's shack. He would have made it in one graceful move too – from the rickety old kitchen chair to the door – if he hadn't misjudged and slammed his shoulder against the wall. The delay gave the old man just time enough to take verbal evasive action.

"I know you got to get moving on, down the road, and I don’t want to keep you. But, I'm really sorry, you know, that nothing's happening here, but times are slow. Well, I reckon we all know hows it goes."

The two miners, the young and the old, gave each other a look garnished with an uncomfortable smile, for the old man had made an understatement so profound, it seemed silly. The smiles died, and the younger miner opened the door. The older man rose with a creaking sound from both his knees and chair to follow the other man outside, and to talk.

"I know that just down the road, there's a job waiting for ya."

"Well, thanks a lot, pardner. I'll catch you next time around," chimed the younger man, still moving backwards.

"Oh, I don’t know about that, if God's willin' I suppose."

Walking around to the cab of his rusted Ford pickup truck, the visitor said sincerely, "Sure you will. You'll out last us all!" He quickly got in and drove away.

The old man raised his hand, and said far too softly, "Goodbye."

˚˚˚˚˚

Beneath the rising cloud of gravel dust kicked up from the seldom-used road, the two were alone again: the old man with his agèd dog, and the young with his agèd truck. Each one thought. They thought of basically the same things, only in different tenses.

'I've got to do something else. Hell, getting work in the meatpacking plant, and making hamburgers all day long is more honorable than tramp mining,' thought the younger man while he drove.

'Nelson. God, that's sounds like a goddamned lawyer's name, or some missionary type. Jeeze, that's what they thought I'd be.'

"Come on, dog," he said out loud. And then he thought, 'Now, what's the name of that dog again? Did I ever bother to name this one? Oh, it doesn't matter now.'

And the man and dog went into the shack. He sat down, and was again alone with his memories.

'People used to be so much nicer back then; it's a shame I wasn't nicer. Had to drop out of high school for cheating on a test. I shouldn't have done that, and then there was Marilyn – '

He stopped thinking at this point and stared at a spot on the wall. All his energy was focused on the word Marilyn, and on what she made him feel so many years ago. There were oh so many feelings that words could not possibly express.

'God, what am I doing?' the young man thought in his silent drive over the bumpy trail. 'I can give this mining crap up, and settle down. It doesn't matter what job I get, as long as I've got one. Maybe I've got enough money. To hell if I don’t, tomorrow morning I'll quit being a tramp miner. I'll drive straight through, and the first town I see in daylight will be my new home. Yes, I'm on my way.'

The word still haunted the old man. 'Oh, what did I do to you, Marilyn?' A specter from the past that made the old man weak, she was a lovely, sweet girl, who could never have threatened anyone. 'Why was I so damn mean; I had never been meaner to anyone in my whole life when she told me she was pregnant. Why didn't I help her? Why was I so goddamned mean? Dad said if you have ambition and determination, you'll succeed, but he didn’t say anything about other people. He didn't say there would be so many people in the way. I did so love her, I just was afraid that she'd 'get in the way,' and I was mean to her. God, how that mistake has haunted me; pregnant, and what did I do? I asked her who the father was, and said that if she expected money from me, she was outta luck. Of course it was my child; I knew she'd never lie, not to me…'

'How can I be out of work, if I've never really found any?' the younger man considered with a chuckle. 'Well, that's all going to change! Yes, sir. It's all gonna change.'

Without really want to, he thought about the old man, about how only a short time ago he was sitting, listening to him. His eyes had been fixed on the speaker, but his mind wandered onto different surroundings, surroundings with 'her.'

"Yes, sir. It's all going to change," he chanted with less conviction.

He was not going to become an old man, alone in a shack with an old dog, and even older memories.

"Up this road I've been before…" he tapped out the melody on the hot steel of the steering wheel, chanting the words out loud. "Funny, I can't seem to remember the rest of that song…"

˚˚˚˚˚

The young man stuck to his plan, and potholed byways became paved country roads, and then he slid onto state highways until he saw an Interstate entrance. On and on he went, both fearing the crack of the coming light from the east, and longing for it with his entire being.

For his part, the old man settled his nameless dog on the blanket nested on the floor at the head of his bedstead, and snuffed out his kerosene wick.

'Well, it don’t matter now,' the old man thought, as he drifted into his sleep. His dreams were made of ninety-four years worth of memories. But, early in the morning, his memories ended. There was no pain – he didn't even stir – the memories just moved on and left his body behind.

The noon hour of the new day found the young man in a mining town with a job: a mining job.

In a week, he wasn't needed anymore, and he got in his truck and went on up the road looking for another town where he could do what he'd always wanted to do. His memories had just begun.

~