Grave Digger

 GRAVE DIGGER     Part II

©Johny Appalachia

It is difficult for me to address my past.  Some people call me autistic; most of them are dead or seriously stocked.  Mom hated psychiatrist.  She said they were the devils brew – mostly sordid perverts hanging at police stations, waiting for prey.

I had serious hearing problems, thrown from a building at an early age.  When she said pray, I thought she meant prey.  It was a misunderstanding.  I was always making mistakes.  Everything I did was wrong somehow.  I just got used to it, learned to live with it, and studied perpetual revenge.  I grabbed my knife and bow, to spend the week spear fishing. 

Everybody looks good in a suit; I never had the luxury.  But the guy next door had a huge wardrobe.  I used to visit his home, a half mile away to play with his toys until his mother kicked me out.  She gave me a new name, Truculent.  I liked her because I thought it meant truck and referring to her build, like a big Mack, with a bulldog face, stout body and rugged figure.

School was something I looked forward to.  Big sister was eight years older, a kind benevolent soul and great cook.  I begged her to teach me to read.  She was destined to teach.  I was only four when already learning abc’s.  We were diminutive.  I wanted to play school, so I borrowed baby sister from the crib, while mother slept.  We stuck her in the chair while I sat on the floor with crossed legs, to concentrate.

It wasn’t too hard.  It took a few weeks and that was all.  Sister helped me with suggestive thinking.  I learned, “A,B,C.”; next, DEF.  I’ll always remember that – she said, “that’s what you are Johny.”; however, she was a kind woman and meant no harm to anybody. 

Big sister was my real-life hero and she watched over me, coached me across the road in traffic – that was a scary day while the bus was coming and we had to be at school on time.  Sister, was sitting beside me and whispered in my ear, “It’s going to be a hard life Johny and you won’t live forever; make the best of it.”

School was a nightmare, reticent of years ago.  There was something mesmerizing about the odor in the atmosphere, which led me out of class and down into the basement.  I spent most of that day there. 

I was living in a bubble; that is the only way I can describe my feelings.  Most people just called me Loony.  It was OK, because too many people said it.  I would have to burn an entire classroom to get even.  That is cold calculation, like math.

Math is something I do not understand.  It’s boring and concentrated.  It takes time to write down and cipher figures.

My daddy was a cipher.  He balanced books to the penny and made pennies doing it.  I used to help him at night, because there was nothing else to do.  He gave me a penny once and I hid it in a corner under the bed.  It was easy.   The floor was made of dirt.  I was sleeping in the far corner of our basement.   Perhaps that is why I was drawn to basements and spelunking catacombs. 

People avoid basements for some reason, not I.  One could spend an entire lifetime spelunking among catacombs’ tunnels, the bodies laid out in various stages of decomposition, mostly beyond stench and just settling into dank and musty.

Age process is amazing.  Fresh corpses, maybe dead only a year or so; withered in a cacophony of shapes stretching over bone.  Fingers and facial expressions amazed me.  I could let my eyes lust over them for hours ; facial expressions of greeting or eluding death, the fingers always resting upon each other  with the same rosaries laced over their hands; and further down the Hallway of Sisters,  flesh turned leathery, ashen in assorted forms of decomposing to complete skeletal order, a biological study of death.

When I finally found my way out of the basement, unfortunately, they caught me as I was stepping back into classroom; however, the punishment was suitable and served as an accessory – they stuck me the hallway until after school.  I missed the bus and walked home.

As I walked by my neighbor’s home, his mother smiled at me, acting friendly.  I thought she was a nice lady and looked sharp, well dressed.  They were stepping from the car.  He rode in the back seat, looking graceful in his suit.  They had driven by me while I was walking home, never stopping, never offering; I did not deserve a ride.  I walked home in time to teach baby sister her diminutive abc’s.

School was a drag; however, you need to get through some things in order for progression.   I was a chosen gang leader, age six.  That was not my choice.  It was my calling.  They put me at the front of the line and started pushing my back and poking my kidneys.  Then, guys in front affronted with the same treatment.  I was surrounded.  Vexed.  I turned around and started pounding my way out, kicking chestnuts along the way.  They dropped like flies and I decided it was good.

Some things, you are born with, and others acquired.  I was short for my age and some kids said I was a demented dwarf – most died.  By the time I was in sixth grade, I was leading a gang of extortionist, not even my forte.  The execution was by their hand.  We were divided groups with boundary zones.  I hated gangs.  I hated everybody.  I hated myself.  Perhaps my greatest enemy was I.  I threw a rope around an apple tree, while the other end was on my neck, and jumped.

When you die, it is the essence of darkness come to light where no emotion is spared by each of those who morn; and most of all, the mourner mourned.  Wander into rooms long neglected in total darkness, the essence of forever even as it passes you will drift beyond and within another realm of  inner conscience; perhaps a review of lives past, such as the Spartan (another story).

I felt myself falling, head hitting hard against the tree.  My limbs tingled and I passed out.  It was interesting.  When I opened my eyes to feast upon a virgin, she held my hand in hers, while addressing my wound with her other.   They were carrying me on a stretcher, my neck would not move.

I was short, and my life short lived.

I must have died 100 times that year, in my mind while I was laid up with nowhere to go and no friends.  You cannot feel sorry for yourself, when you are always beating everybody up.  More sadly, it is the only thing you know, and your vocabulary consist of less than six-hundred words; you cannot waist them.  Instead, you carry a short wick of perpetual flame, the flame of fear and revenge.  My gang days were over and I was heading for commerce while my life spiraled downhill like a shot of fine smooth bourbon posed for the demise. 

I did the logical thing and quit school to live in the woods at a place called Jack-knife hill.  An ancient weathered log cabin set there along the edge of time awaited my body on a bed of straw upon the floor.  A bucking saw was set up, hanging on a mantle hook beside the fireplace.    I was a rich teen living in the woods at an abandoned cabin besides the nation’s finest fishing, free.  Fresh air, fishing and bucking wood must have helped me.  I felt invigorated and ready to move on with my life.

One day I met the High School principal who happened to be fishing along my creek.  It was a tense moment as I pondered events past; however, short lived.  He greeted me with a grim smile and I knew that he knew that everything could end quickly, my Bowieknife slightly resting the tip into a wooden log, within arm reach.  He came with a message.

“I looked at your records.  You were A student material, and your grades were average or above.  Test records show you took advanced tests, lowering grade averages.  You never turned any homework in.  I am not asking you to return to school.  Instead, I promise you that if you do, I’ll do everything in my power to insure you a smooth path.  You deserve to graduate, young man.”

Some people graduate with honors.  I felt honored to graduate.  Mom and Dad greeted me, and gifted me my only suite and a new pair of dress shoes.  It was an emotional moment for everybody; and then I left.

Mountains have always mystified folk, not me.  I was born there and my family for generations.  There is no claiming anything except fact; we are each a speck of sand being carried upon our mother’s back.  I guess somehow, everybody is related.  The only country I know is the one I was born with in the mountain village, miles from everybody.  Sometimes we need to leave behind all that we love in pursuit of something more important to the inner being.  You capture in your mind’s eye, mountain beauty in your soul.

They call me a lone wolf, some who lived to tell; most met tragedy at young ages.  In truth we are never alone, and I never felt that way; being more at home in wilderness than city; nevertheless, I left my gun at home while leaving our mountain view and trading freedom for the bowery.

In the country, you are never alone.  Birds and other creatures track your moments to warn others, while other creatures, perhaps squirrels may trail you knowing safety.

Cities are mostly devoid of animals.  Animal residents are hostile, defensive packrats.  There is always somebody stalking prey; corpses left in dumpsters or wherever they get dumped.  Teen upon teen and add infinity that escalates everything into extinction, I just observed, preferring to make no waves. 

I needed a job and devised my plan.  I guess everything is digavu.  Perhaps we are programmed to follow our destinies of distinction, extinction.

There was a thousand dollar loan to repay.  I went to the banker requesting a job.  She stared at me hard while making a call to the caecilian king.  Fate often plays a heavy hand on life.  When she hung up, she scribbled a number that only said, call.

When it comes to work, I am a man of business; always hungry and needing a job.  It took Misiu, my dog and me about twenty minutes to drive from Chicago to Cicero.  Just outside town, you take a left on the only dirt road in Cicero; drive about six-hundred feet (maybe two football fields), and a yard on the left signaled with an open gate.

Sometimes courtesy eludes us.  As I pulled into the driveway, tons and rows of trailers lined the way at the far section of the lot.  Several trucks parked beside a long dock.

An ashen faced guard greeted me; looking frantically at the commotion before us.  Perhaps he had good reason.  It appeared that a person was taking a blow to the arm, from a tire iron, wielded by a powerful man, while two centuries stood idly by.  Another great man looked on from dock’s end, forcing an apparently unwanted jump.  She broke her ankle as she fell, but that was not all.

They barely made it into the parked auto and that was not enough.  His anger escalated to oscillating rage; picking up a pipe iron, which was laid along the dock, perhaps an oversight; he preceded momentum, striking on the vehicle roof and smashing the rear windshield of the fleeing couple. 

Silence followed; then a loud explosion.

Some days you know to be difficult.  I reached across the seat and petted my big dog.  His fur bristled and he was emitting a low decibel growl.  To insure safety, instinctively I reached toward my Bowie, making sure it was properly placed and the sheath unlatched.  The only thing covering that sharpness was the hilt of my boot and blue jean flairs.  We only dress for a reason.  Both of us were hungry and might not have food for a week. 

Hunger and greed produce slaves of green.  I can only speak for myself. We were of simple means, the dog and me, living daily depending on combining our wits.  On the low scales of poverty, simplicity dictates ones movements.  There is no right or wrong answer to infinity; rather, galactic inertia predicts outcomes. 

If I had a choice, it would be dinner over dinnertime driving.  Drivers are encouraged to drive without lunches.  I always thought of trucking as the working person’s prostitution.    You do it because you have to.  Sometimes it is enjoyable.  Mostly it is just a job.

Shortly I looked into the cold steel eyes of a man who had just murdered his daughter.  He slammed the pipe upon concrete, the loading dock base platform, and it bounced to smack him on the forehead hard enough for a welt to rise.  He looked dazed and staggered backwards, reaching for his enlarged temple, grasped a step railing for balance, while sitting on the stairwell, and changed his mood. 

Wearing my best poker face, I handed him the paper slip. 

Hunger taints the mind decisions.  We were both numb from that experience.  I reached for his hand to help him up and he turned into a lamb.  A cherubic smile graced his face and he welcomed me into the fold, four drivers and he.  On any other day, I would have walked away, but there were bills to pay.  He said, “Lacey, show him the beast.” 

I guess when you are truculent, you drive a truck; however, the man I called, “Boss” had another name for me, Abrasive.  Where vocabulary begins, my words often end.  We crossed the thresholds of ABC’s and graduate, having little more than a pittance for the life journey we carry upon our shoulders.  The mountain solitude away from groups of people more than three, remain forever where they stay with family and far away friends.  Beauty brings about boldness that poverty exacerbates. 

That beast, was Grave Digger.  It was wreaking odors of fuel oil, road dirt and crud, badly in need of a bath.  A bucket was set just inside the dock bay door and instinctively I collected that and some soap.  The demographics of life can change at a heartbeat, life changes so fast.  Food and lust contribute; none of them last. 

A bucket of water and some soap will go a long way to cleaning a truck, dog and man.  I soaped and scrubbed each of us, cloths and everything you could put water on.  Misiu, my only friend delighted himself, sprinting back and forth to shower at the hose water cascading off the truck side. 

There was lots of blood to clean that day; perhaps a score to settle, a debt to pay.  In retrospect, maybe I should have walked away that afternoon, instead of choosing to stay.  The giant truck lured me.  It demanded work from me.

I worked an entire day and into twilight.  The truck was shining deeply against sunset, barely noticeable amongst shadows cast from a dearth of trees and impregnation of high rises.  There is something softening about evening when you spit your last saliva of the day to shine a waxy truck.  The sparkle in the shine reaches deep for everyone to read, paint versus reflections; what a way to let a mind wander.

It was reaching into twilight and, Boss came to me with an envelope anchored to a clipboard.  He said, “I’ll give you twenty-five percent, and thanks again.”

Misiu, my trusted friend was lying behind the rear tandem tires and I distinctively caught a low growl, lending perhaps a bad start to our commercial relationship.  In the back of my mind I realized the situation needed addressing, and carefully ordered the dog into his new truck bed sleeper.  It seemed to agree with him as he lay watching, emitting low decibels.   Perhaps the smell of blood had confiscated his olfactory senses.  One does not question logic in a dog.

He walked over to where he kept parked his Cadillac, bright shiny midnight black and sparkling chrome trim, set his self within and left.  Boss had made his mark.  They say the first five seconds of appearance influences are lasting.  Last thing he said to me, “Get yourself something to eat.”