As a child, I was king. A king of lonely, hot, humid summer days where only the buzz of insects filled the stillness and storks stood fishing on one leg for hours on end. I was a prince. A prince of a long dead bayou and kept cool within the muck and mire of black, stinking mud beneath the weeping yellow moss dangling from drowning giant Eucalyptus trees.
Slinking noiselessly through this forgotten world I wore the slaughter of dead snakes draped through my belt. Blood dripping from crushed eyes and mangled jaws ran down my tanned, dirty legs and into my burr infested socks. I was also the duke of raving thirst in a sweltering, insect infested land of stagnate, green, mossy water and I had learned to suffer gladly like some tough guy in the movies. My peers had no stomach for my savagery and no understanding of my remote madness. I was wild and in this wildness I carelessly reveled.
Eddie was the exact opposite. You might think him slow witted but he wasn’t; he was just very deliberate and careful. Careful of everything he did and whatever he spoke. He rarely looked you in the eyes, careful that others didn’t see the shyness, the longing or the softness that swam in the large cavity of his soul. He would look down or over his shoulder talking softly with a slight smile playing around his full lips. His hair was curly and like his eyes, lashes and eyebrows, dark. Eddie had a handsome, almost pretty face with a dimpled chin and full cheeks. He was never angry and always agreeable. Eddie was a Rockwell painting of youth and innocence.
Eddie was fascinated with my audacity, my reckless wildness. We would sit behind my house fishing in the drainage ditch for crawfish and I would tell him about the rodeo stock at the auction barn. I painted the pictures of my stories while the humidity hovered in the mid nineties and cumulus nimbus rumbled above us as the billowing clouds climbed into the heights. Eddie would look at me with large eyes full of wonder while crawfish drug his tied off bacon around the bottom of the drainage.
The auction barns stood on the distant outskirts of our small urban development. Its’ old wooden structures tweaked and bent under the blazing, southern, pale blue skies as the inhabitants, with legs splayed and heads hanging to their knees, took shelter within the shade of the bare planked walls. The corrals were deserted as the workers took shelter themselves in the heat of the afternoon when I hiked the fence lines teasing the bulls and feeding the horses crab apples and flakes of stolen hay. It didn’t take many days before the horses became used to my presence and I could slide from the fence to their dusty backs. To ride these horses became Eddies’ greatest desire and to be his hero, mine. These desires were so strong nothing else mattered and they created a destiny that was inescapable.
How could I have known the future, the extent of my actions or their consequences? It seems so obvious when I look back. But I was a child and a selfish, unthinking, careless child who was full of himself with no room to care for or about anyone else. I lived within my fantasies where there was no room to think of consequences or room for disasters. It was a blindness beyond naivety, beyond common sense.
Eddie was homebound. Tied to his family as a dog to his house. He was a treasure that was never out of sight or call. His existence suited him like a pair of worn, comfortable slippers and his parents and older sisters doted over him constantly. Eddie was never less than the center of attention. His universe was his family and he was the center of that life, the one great hope and star of them all. Now Eddie had was straying from their influence and was getting caught up in the gravitational lure of my life. I had captured him like a plunging comet gathering a smaller rock into its’ orbit.
On this day we watched Egrets spear fish, hawks swoop on mice and snakes sun themselves on flat rocks. Once we were within the shabby domain of the auction barns while, hidden inside a wild blackberry patch, we watched a cow give birth. Eddie stared in unbelievable wonder as the huge sack containing the calf burst to reveal its’ miracle. He had no idea where animals came from, no idea of his own origin.
There was no need to slink and sneak, peeking like thieves from my various hiding spots along the edges of the twisted fence line. It was just my way. I was an outlaw and all adults were the posse. I pictured my wanted poster plastered on all the refrigerators from the border of Mississippi to Texas. It read “WANTED DEAD OR ALIVE” for disobedience. “If seen, contact the nearest mother.” Although a fantasy, it wasn’t too far from the truth. There were kids in the neighborhood who were not allowed to play with me. My own brothers included.
The fact that Eddie was miles from home without his parents’ knowledge and with me was a hanging offense and the neck in the noose was mine. So, there we were, Eddie and I slithering from fence line to fence line, working our way deep into the heart of the auction barn complex.
Eddie was beginning to wear away like an old pair of jeans after years of hard labor. His hair was tangled with small blackberry thorns and sticks. His face was smudged from dirt and sweat. His always washed and ironed shirt torn from crawling under barbed wire fences. One knee of his jeans was torn from a shove from behind that had sent him sprawling, out of sight of the men feeding the hogs.
By now he wasn’t having much fun, especially after seeing the dead piglets thrown into the wheel barrow and the pools of blood at the slaughter pen. He really had no idea of the reality of life and death in the real world. But I was here to educate him and he would have to learn.
I could tell by the look on his face that he was regretting this whole affair. He was experiencing the sacrifice that comes with chasing dreams. But it did not matter, we would not quit now. We had come too far, or at least, he had. Eddie had a dream. He had confided in me. He had confessed his greatest desire and had placed his destiny in my care. I would not let him fail. Even though the effort would be great and Eddie would be weak I would see him through.
The afternoon sun blazed down on all life with a vengeance. It was an uncommonly hot day and the humidity climbed into the high nineties, sucking the moisture from our bodies like a dry sponge. Not a cloud in the sky, yet the air was laden with water and a haze lay close to the surface of the land. Distant trees floated above the surface behind mirrors of mirage that appeared as glassy lakes. Not a breath of air moved among the motionless grass. There was a silence everywhere. It made us whisper in its’ presence. But here in front of us was our destination, shimmering in the liquid air. What was going through Eddies’ head you could read in his bloodshot eyes as he peered beneath the barbed wire? Dust devils swirled and played within the corral, their short lives lived out in a dirty dance beneath a scorching sun leaving behind a settling curtain of brown mist. The shadowed interior of the warped and sun-bleached barn was an inky black mystery with an equal ominous silence. The moment of truth was upon him and the pressure was a palpitating presence as we crawled beneath the last obstacle and approached the horses hidden within the barn.
All of his life Eddie had been protected by his family like some kind of living heirloom, until now. He had finally stepped out from beneath the umbrella and was, for the first time, confronting a kind of fate. He was unsure and it was this that had slowed his feet in an invisible mire that was getting deeper and deeper the closer he came to that black opening. The first of his young life.
For me it was different. I had been here, illegally, many times before. I knew what to expect and even though these animals knew me they were, still, broncs in my eyes and I was there to ride. We crossed the expanse, Eddie trailing as another dust devil whipped up, danced and died. A horse’s head appeared outside of the deep shadow, framed in the doorway like a dusty picture and then disappeared back inside. I waited for Eddie and, putting my arm around him, encouraged and reminded him how friendly the large animals were while I dusted him off as if I was going to introduce him. I could see him relax a little and even manage a small Eddie smile as sweat dripped off his nose. It would be the last time I would ever see Eddie smile.
We entered the barn through the opening barely wide enough for the body of a horse. Inside was a heavy, moist darkness with a silence that was punctuated with occasional snorts, a horse’s hoof striking or pawing the ground and the swishing sound of their tails as they stood head to rear whisking the flies from each other’s eyes, ears and noses. I left Eddie below, climbed the wooden ladder to the hayloft above and cut away a length of bailing twine from a bale of hay to use as a halter. From above I looked down at Eddie as he stood against the wall studying the sleeping huddle. Not all dozed but those that did not had gone somewhere that time could not follow. A thoughtless non-existence that should have been foreign to them. They were together in a void and in this vacuum their surroundings could be anything. It would be no different then, head to tail, they stood in the cool shade under large elms in the midst of fresh spring grass bending in a gentle breeze with the nearby gurgling sound of a clean, cold brook. This is where, I would like to believe, they dreamt of. All but one. The one that had poked her head from the door. The guard, the matriarch. She looked standard in her features and less famished than the rest with a spark of intelligence in her eyes as she lifted her nose to the rafters where I stood.
“Hi.” I offered.
She snorted, showing me her profile as she looked out of the side of her face and watched me carefully as I descended the ladder. I moved slowly, talking easily, flattering and cajoling, low and slow allowing my awe and love to creep into my voice. Slowly I offered my hand filled with hay. The other held the halter. She must step to me, no other way will this work, I thought. Her neck stretched, her lips opened and, amazingly, she reached out to pull strands of hay into her outstretched mouth. I told her how brave and beautiful she was. She snorted and shook her neck and mane disturbing a cloud of flies. I offered her more hay, and she accepted and took one more step. Her brown coat was covered with dirt, her mane and tail matted with burrs and stickers. She was a good looking horse that had some spirit left in her friendly heart. It wasn’t long until she had taken the remaining hay and had moved onto checking me out with her soft nose and hard yellow teeth.
I scratched her between eyes and ears and messaged the neck muscles below the mane always talking in a soothing tone. Easily I slipped the fashioned halter over her nose and around each side of her neck like reins. She showed no alarm and only looked back at me as I stood at her side eyeing her back, whispering, “Easy, easy.”
While she watched, I jumped to her back, lying across her, stomach down and legs dangling.
Her head came up, and she snorted and moved off quickly into the midst of the awakened herd while I righted myself into a sitting position, holding my straw bale reins before me. The herd’s reaction was surprise and alarm.
‘Something is happening!’
‘Man! Man!’
‘Which way?’
‘ Follow the rest!’
‘What’s going on?’
‘Out the door! Out the door!’
Then in mild panic we, all at the same time, made with a charge in the direction of the small opening that would barely admit one riderless horse.
Riding the top of my horse like a hunched down jockey in a tight squat at the beginning of the Kentucky Derby, I popped out of the opening of the barn like a cork out of a champagne bottle. I was on top of the world. We thundered around the coral for some time in a cloud of dust and snorts. I waved an arm as if I was driving a herd of wild horses and shouted ‘Hah!’ until my mouth filled with dirt. In a while a horse dove for the small opening in the barn and, in mass, we entered as we had left. I was now as the horses around me. Like the horses, I hacked the dirt from nose and mouth and sweltered in a rising stench of horse sweat while the dust settled in streaks of sunlight that filtered through the warped planked walls of the old dried up barn.
Our breathing soon returned to normal and I slipped from the mare’s back. I stood amongst the grumbling horse snorts and pawing hoofs as if the horses were saying,
‘What the hell?’
‘Are we done?’ and horse words that meant,
‘Damn!’ and,
‘Crazy ass humans!’
As the horses settled down I led the mare back outside through the settling dust to the fence line. I urged Eddie as he climbed to the top span of the fence and once he was even with the mare’s back he slid into position. I placed the bailing twine into his small, trembling hands as he looked down at me through large, round and frightened eyes. This was nothing like his dreams. It hurt to have his legs stretched so far around the back and sides of the horse and while he squirmed and tried to make himself comfortable the mare reached back and bit the calf of his leg. Right then he was for giving up and dismounting, but like a fool I talked him out of it. The mare stood with him on her back next to the fence with her ears rotating as she waited for some kind of command or signal. I told Eddie to put his heel into her sides with a little kick, but this only moved her a few steps toward the center of the corral.
By the fence lay a stick. There in the dirt, coated with dust, its’ bark peeling and revealing a fresh green shredded tip, a branch about twenty-four inches long beckoned. A hand reached down and dirty fingers curled around, lifting it into the hot and humid summer air. The stick, as if with a life of its’ own, rose above my head dragging my fingers, my hand and my arm behind it. The stick hesitated at the apex of the swing giving me one more chance to change my mind and then descended with a swish onto the flank of the mare. With a crack that raised the dust the horse’s back arched as she leapt straight up pulling her rear legs forward, kicking out and twisting, flinging little Eddie high into the air. Like a large, flightless bird he soared, his body rotating, his limbs groping in the air for a non-existent purchase and then he dove into the ground, sounding like a sack of potatoes and raising the dust into a descending cloud.
Eddie was still, lying face down as the dust settled around his form. The mare stood to one side with her head up and her ears flat, looking down her nose at the motionless boy.
The seconds that passed were minutes of agony. I willed Eddie to move with the superstitious powers of my need. But as the air cleared and the mare trotted off he was as still as death. I moved to stand over him and called his name around a choking lump in my throat. I called again, louder, and begged him to get up. I bent to my knees and touched his shoulder. A trickle of blood ran from his ear. Again I called his name and then sat in the dirt next to his still body. I sat in a timeless state, empty of thought, incapable of action, feeling a remorseful eternity of doom and guilt. Then Eddie moved, groaned and spat dust from his mouth, pushed his chest off the ground and stared at the dirt. He rolled over onto his back, more blood trickled from his nose as his eyes focused. Relief flooded through me as a great weight was lifted from my shoulders. Time returned and Eddie sat and then stood, unsteady on his feet.
Without words we left the complex defeated and, in my case, deflated. No more fantasies as we trudged back the way we had come. Eddie was having a hard time walking and he refused to speak. He didn’t know where he was or why he was there. He would stop and look around confused with tears streaking his dirty face. He was a mess. Clothes torn and filthy, arms scratched and cut. He looked like an escapee from a prison camp. We made it back just before dusk, the sun’s disk a dark red descending into the horizon. Eddie’s sisters ran from the house calling his name and taking him into their arms, casting furious looks my way.
Eddie’s mother descended from the porch beseeching God with tears in her eyes and Eddie disappeared into the womb of his family and home.
I remembered the first time I saw Eddie. It was through a curtain of rain while I stood next to our mailbox. It was raining on his side of the street while not a drop fell on mine. A knife-edge curtain of rain that ran right down the middle of the street. Eddie stood beneath his carport and raised his arm in a shy wave while I laughed and twirled on my side of the street.
Several days slid by while I astounded my parents by voluntarily mowing the lawn, sweeping the carport, cleaning the storage shed and doing numerous chores that allowed me to watch Eddie’s door. But no Eddie. Finally, I gathered my courage, crossed the street, that now had become a mill stone, a barrier, and knocked on Eddie’s door. His sister answered and with venom informed me that Eddie was still in the hospital, no thanks to me. I shrunk, and became someone I had never known. I slunk back across the barrier that now separated me from my former life and withdrew into fathomless guilt.
The king, the prince and the duke had died. The snakes persevered and the swampland was no longer trespassed. The auction barns and the horses no longer suffered the solo attacks and the legend of a small boy evaporated into the thin air of a breath. And Eddie? He never left the hospital until his parents had sold the house and moved away. To this day, I know no more about Eddie than the day I left him at his house.
Lost to everyone.
