Side Roads and Dandelions

by W.H. Harrod

  ~~ Chapter Ten

  Sam talked non-stop about his personal life and his career. Allison encouraged him to keep talking whenever he seemed inclined to slow down. Ernest and Bobby were dead to the world so she made use of the opportunity to get Sam to open up and talk about anything and everything relating to his personal life for the last thirty-four years. It didn’t take long for her to realize, most likely, this was the first time he had ever done anything like this. This surprised her as it wasn’t as if the guy couldn’t cover the price of an occasional visit to a shrink. What do wealthy people do with their money? she wondered. Most of the wealthy few she had known or had reason to consult with over the years didn’t seem to be able to make themselves any happier for having so much more of the material things people needed to survive. That’s what confused her most. Why bother going to the work of getting it, or keeping it, if it didn’t make you or the people around you happy?

  Allison’s mental wandering ultimately ceased upon the realization that the subject matter of Sam’s conversation no longer related to his pathetically rich, yet shallow existence. Now he spoke of logistical matters concerning their current mode of transportation and the need to stop for gas and other essentials. They were less than an hour east of Amarillo, Texas, and as neither recollected any fond memories of having stopped there on the return trip in ‘69, they decided any well-lit truck plaza this side of the next big city would work fine.

  Glaring lights on the horizon told them a potential oasis lay just ahead. As the bus slowed to exit the interstate, the two passengers in the rear came to life. The prospect of stretching their legs and enjoying some refreshment appealed to everyone.

  “I need to find a john,” voiced a raspy but reenergized Bobby.

  Sam responded first. “Bobby, my man, how in the hell are you?”

  Bobby, still prone to using short declarative statements as a way to converse with others, replied. “Doing better, I guess.”

  Allison, delighted in hearing Bobby speak, asked, “Ernest, what can we get Bobby to eat that will make him feel better?”

  “I can handle it now, Allison,” said Bobby calmly. “I’m coming out of it. I need a black coffee.”

  All three of Bobby’s old friends had many questions, but they would have to wait until later. Right now matters of nature and mechanical necessity superseded everything else. There would be enough time ahead to find out what happened to their friend.

  “I’ve forgotten,” cracked Sam, “does this contraption use gas, diesel, or kerosene?”

  “I’ll let you figure that out while I excuse myself,” said Allison, exiting the vehicle towards the bright lights of a convenience store that looked exactly like thousands of others that now played such a large part in the oil industry’s plans to dominate commerce on the country’s road systems. Sam exited the bus and started filling the tank with gas. Ernest hesitated while watching to ensure that Bobby could get himself out of the vehicle and into the restroom facilities. Bobby did not disappointment him, although, his progress came slowly. Without any help, he exited the bus and began to follow the same route as Allison. Ernest followed along behind him at a cautious distance.

  By the time Allison returned to the bus, Sam had replaced the pump nozzle into the island gas pump/car wash approving/credit card machine.

  “I don’t expect you’ve given any thought to stopping somewhere for the night, have you? You know we’re not the destitute young people we were the last time we did this,” Sam said jokingly to Allison as she approached.

  “We have less than two days before the President’s ultimatum expires. That means we need to cover the remaining fifteen hundred miles in less than forty-eight hours. If we stop for a night we will have difficulty making it there in time. However, this is a democracy, so I will go along with the group.” Allison expected Sam to say something but instead he stared past her towards the building.

  “What the hell happened with Bobby?” he asked. “He looks like he got run over by his own tractor.”

  “I plan to get him to talk about it when we get back on the road,” commented Allison absent-mindedly as she looked back to observe Bobby’s slow progress. Right behind him walked Ernest carrying two large cups of coffee, one for him and one for Bobby.

  Sam smiled, “Oh! Kind of like the way you got me to start blathering away on the way here? You must be very good at your job, I’ll wager. Nevertheless, I’m anxious to hear what happened to him, so I’ll keep my mouth shut and listen.”

  Allison, Ernest, and Bobby took their time resettling into the bus while Sam took his turn in the house of bright lights. When he returned refreshed and stocked up with goodies, his passengers were ready to go. This time Bobby sat on the backbench with Ernest while Allison and Sam reclaimed their previous spots. Sam checked to see that everyone was secure and then started the engine and maneuvered the bus towards the interstate ramp. Now it was Bobby’s turn to give up some personal history for the group, and it would be Allison as the group’s designated information gatherer who asked for it.

  Soon the familiar sound of the VW engine provided soothing background noise. Sam remained quiet as he said he would. Ernest, acting as if he knew what lay ahead, also stayed silent as he sipped his coffee. Bobby busied himself emptying six bags of sugar and four creamers into his steaming hot coffee. Only when the refuse of this effort was disposed of properly and the added ingredients stirred did he take his first small sip.

  “That’s better,” he stated to no one in particular. “Well, you might as well get to work on me now, Allison,” he added calmly. “Let’s get it over with.”

  If Bobby could have seen the look on her face, he would have seen her surprise at his correctly anticipating her intentions.

  Not waiting for her to start, he asked a simple question. “Where’d you guys find me, and when?”

  This wasn’t Ernest’s job so he stared straight ahead while sipping his hot truck stop coffee, and Bobby didn’t bother to look towards him as if he expected it would not be for him to answer. They were now waiting on Allison to respond. She was the Grand Inquisitor.

  Allison collected her thoughts and gave some quick consideration to what information she wanted to extract from Bobby and then turned around sideways in her seat to get an unobstructed view.

  “We found you on your back in the ravine behind your machine barn,” she stated in a non-accusatory tone. “We have no idea how long you were there. I’m grateful it wasn’t January with ice on the ground. We carried you into the house where Ernest put you into a tub of hot water and began forcing liquids down you. While he did that I took a look around to see if I could find out what happened to bring this on. What I found was a farm with no farm equipment, no animals, and no crops growing or in storage. The place showed no signs of any farming activity in a long while. Inside the house, I discovered that you were obviously living by yourself and had been for a long time. On the dining room table was a notice of foreclosure from the bank and the unsigned divorce papers. That’s about it, except, for the handgun we found beside you that I personally threw into the middle of your pond and the little suicide note you left on the table. The presence of these last two items caused us to automatically include you in our little adventure. If you are pissed off at us for interrupting your attempt to kill yourself with either that ugly gun or the liquor we found on your person, well that’s going to have to be your problem. There’s is no way we were going to walk away and let you wake up and take another shot at it, pardon the pun.”

  “Boy, it’s sad when you can’t even kill yourself.” Bobby still lacked the strength to put much emphasis on his words. “Now even you guys get to see how screwed up I am. Not that I’m not glad to see you folks, but I’m real sorry that you’re seeing me like this.”

  It became evident that Bobby had nothing else to say at the present. This time Allison didn’t adhere to her usual rule of out waiting the other person in the discussion. She had a personal experience in mind tha
t could make an impression on her troubled friend. A long time ago she recalled an occasion when someone said something to her at a time when she was sure she didn’t want to live one more minute. What was said to her very possibly saved her from killing herself following the most horrible and painful experience of her life. Now that person sat behind her thirty-four years later with similar thoughts of killing himself because he, too, did not want to live with the pain that consumed his existence.

  “Bobby, you said something to me that night in Berkeley when I asked you to please leave me there in that ditch so my attacker could kill the rest of me. Do you remember what you said to me? I’ve never forgotten it, and I never will.”

  “That was a long time ago, little girl, a long time ago.” Bobby smiled weakly and shook his head as he recalled the night.

  “What did you say to me, Bobby?” demanded Allison.

  Bobby didn’t look as if he was trying to be recalcitrant, but considering the amount of booze he’d consumed of late it was probably pushing it a bit to ask him to repeat the exact words he employed in a dramatic encounter thirty-four years earlier.

  “Well, no matter,” said Allison. “It’s only important that I remember and say the same words to you. The words that saved my life were, ‘If you will find a way to stay alive to wash away the blood, someday your spirit will wash away the pain.’”

  Bobby looked up at Allison and smiled. “I remember hearing that from a Chaplin at the VA hospital. I remember thinking about it a lot, wondering if it was true. I said that to you? Is it true? Did the pain ever go away?”

  “Much of it did, more than enough to allow me to enjoy a life with my wonderful family. I’ll admit there were difficult times when the memories resurfaced, but I would remember what you told me that night, and it always made things better. I stayed alive and washed away the blood, and over time my spirit washed away much of the pain. My family and I are indebted to you for sharing those words with me. You saved my life in more ways than one.”

  Now Allison did what any good salesperson would do when they finished with their pitch. She shut up. This time she intended to outwait Bobby. It was essential that Bobby be the first one to speak. Whoever spoke first conceded that the other person’s ideas or proposition held merit. She had to bite her tongue and keep her mouth shut. Sam and Ernest said not a word.

  The steady drone of the VW engine kept pace with the passing minutes. Five minutes passed, then ten minutes, then fifteen minutes, and still not a sound. Allison began to have doubts, but she held on. Twenty minutes, twenty-five minutes passed.

  “I’ll be damned,” said Bobby only barely above a whisper. “So I actually managed to help someone after all, well I’ll be damned.”

  Allison felt overwhelming relief. It took all of her self-control to keep from hopping into the back and hugging Bobby. This simple declarative statement from him meant there was hope for his survival. He had conceded to the notion that he did something worthwhile in his life. They could build on that.

  Ernest and Sam sensed the breakthrough, and they, too, began to show signs of life.

  “We have a long drive ahead of us, Bobby,” said Allison, and we’re prepared to listen without judging. We’re not here to judge; we’re here to help. The reason we came by your home is because you’re important to our lives, and I believe you know you’re with friends you can trust with your life. Tell us why you did this. What happened?”

  Once again silence ensued. Once again Allison displayed infinite patience.

  Bobby didn’t take long to make his decision. He responded as people do who know instinctively that they are confronted with a pure yes or no situation. Most of the time people function in a world of indecision and multiple options with their actions and words having slight importance or effect on the world around them or their own well-being. Every once in awhile though, something happens where the clutter is shoved aside by the gravity of the situation, and they arrive at a place where affectation and hyperbole are dispensed with, a place where you put up and shut up. Bobby had arrived at such a place.

  Bobby took a long sip of his coffee before beginning his story. “I wish I could tell you guys I fell on some real hard times or got snookered by some con men or got done dirty by a wife or something like that. I truly wish I could. But I can’t. Nothing like that happened. I pretty much did this by myself, to myself.”

  No comments or responses were necessary from the listeners. All that Bobby needed was their attention.

  “I hate whiners and I’ve tried hard not to be one over the years. Shit happens. So what? Sooner or later it pretty much happens to everybody to some extent. Everyone has problems, so shut up and get back to work. Soon enough we’ll be dead and somebody else will deal with it. I stopped believing a long time ago that there was any kind of plan or purpose for this gaggle screw we call life. Whenever something happens good or bad, I try to not make too much of it as next week it could change. I tell myself to go with the flow, to roll with the punches, to expect everything, and to expect nothing. If you wake up in the morning, get up and go to work because you’re alive and that’s what living people do.”

  Another sip of coffee temporarily halted the story. “That’s the way I lived ever since I can remember. I tried to never be a bother to others or to inflict any pain on to other people’s lives. I tried to be fair, and I tried to stay out of the way giving people time and space to move around unhindered by my personal activities. I tried even harder to be nonjudgmental. I never felt I had the right to judge others as I felt they had no right to judge me. As much as possible, I tried to leave other folks alone and for the most part, I wanted to be left alone.”

  “That’s the way it went for years, and I suppose I figured it would be like that forever. The first thing that happened that changed things was my son deciding he didn’t want to be a farmer. He went to the state college and got himself a degree in sociology, whatever that is. He lives in Dallas now and works with developmentally disabled children. I’m not sure what that means either, but he’s found something he enjoys doing and says he has no plans to ever come back to the farm. I told him that the farm belonged to him to pass along to his son someday as my daddy passed it along to me, and as his daddy passed it along to him, but it didn’t make any difference.”

  “Sometime later my wife told me she thought the real reason my son left was because he could no longer stay there and watch me slowly waste away. She said he referred to me as the Oklahoma Dead Man Walking. Couple of years later, she did the same thing. She was even less flattering with her description of my life. She said I was the finest dead man she could ever hope to be married to, but she wasn’t going to stay until somebody got around to throwing the dirt over me. I would have to get someone else to do that. She’s also living in Dallas. It’s been about five years now. I’m the one that filed for the divorce. I expected that if she hadn’t come back home by now, she wasn’t going to. I tried to sign the papers a couple of times, but something held me back. The last thing she said to me was, ‘If the real Bobby I knew and loved ever comes home from Vietnam, tell him his family is waiting for him in Dallas.’”

  The ensuing silence was more pronounced this time but still not another person filled the void. Bobby wasn’t finished.

  “Well, after that I guess I lost interest in things. I went through the motions of farming and ranching but as you saw, I didn’t do a very good job. The cattle market got upside down again, and I ended up on the down side of it. The government dropped the wheat support payments and that coupled with some dry spells and hail damage, which resulted in bad crops, put me in a hole. You put together a few bad years along with some bad farm management and it can make for a small disaster. It got to where I couldn’t make my bank payments so they came and took my equipment and now, they’re going to take most of the farm as well. I’ve said all along, crap happens to all of us if we live long enough.”

  “What you guys stumbled into,” continued Bobby, “was th
e last act of my own version of the true American gaggle screw. It occurred to me that it was finally time for me to follow up on the single recurring thought that has been with me for thirty-four years. I might as well take the pistol my daddy left to me and use it to bring this miserable excuse of a life to an end. That’s what I was trying to do when you folks so rudely interrupted my plan. So as they say, that’s my story.”

  To say that a somber mood prevailed inside the bus would be a more than fair assessment of the situation. Sam, for all his smarts, refused to say anything. Allison needed time to assimilate the new information. Only Ernest was willing to ask a very pertinent question.

  “Bobby,” Ernest blurted out, “I have a question. If you were so intent on killing yourself why did you try to do it with an empty gun? I checked the cylinders and the cartridges had been fired earlier. I don’t care how drunk you were you couldn’t have missed six times at that close of a range. Didn’t you know the gun was empty?”

  “It wasn’t empty when I started,” said Bobby rather meekly.

  “Are you saying you did shoot at yourself and missed six times?”

  “No, what happened is, something interfered with my plan.”

  “Something interfered with your plan? What happened? What could possibly have stopped you out there by yourself behind your barn?”

  Bobby looked too embarrassed to tell the true story. “Damn it! There’s been this old coyote coming around the house nosing into everything for better part of two years now. I tried everything I could to run it off but it kept coming back. The few nights that I did go to bed sober, I’d always hear this damn coyote howling. I blew the side out of the tool shed one night when I thought I had that critter in my sights, but it got away as usual.”

  “And?” asked Ernest when Bobby halted his story.

  “So wouldn’t you know it! When I finally did make up my mind to end my useless life, I figured it would be best to do it behind the barn in case it made a big mess. I stood with a jug of whiskey in one hand and that old pistol up to the side of my head when this damn coyote started yelping. I became incensed, and I decided to take that noisy critter out the door with me. That’s when I messed up.”

  “And?” persisted Ernest.

  “Well damn it, I started firing away at that beast and before you know it my gun was empty. The worse part about it is I was out of bullets and still alive. That’s when the idea came to me that the situation called for drastic measures. I decided I was going to have to pistol whip myself to death. Unfortunately, it looks as if I only got in one good whack.”

  Ernest spit out a mouthful of hot coffee. Sam, feeling the hot liquid on the back of his neck yelled as if someone stuck him and almost ran into the side of a semi trying to pass. Allison also turned away so Bobby couldn’t see her trying to keep from laughing out loud.

  Let the healing begin.