My suppliers would no longer give me credit. Within a year I was hopelessly in debt. I had to close my store.
AMy wife had tried to help by looking for work, but the only one in town that was hiring was the store that had put me out of business, and she could not bear to work for them. She finally got a part-time job at a local supermarket, but her hours interfered with her being available to the kids when they needed her.
AOf course, I was home and took care of the kids as best I could while I tried to find work too. The store that sold the cheap appliances wanted me to come work for them at a fraction of what I was making when I had my own store. Despite the anger I held toward them I was so desperate I took the job.
ABut my anger ate at me. All of our income still was barely enough to meet our needs. We had already spent almost all of our savings and were living paycheck to paycheck. I tried to hide from my anger and my shame by drinking, first a little, then more and more, until I got drunk almost every night.
AThe money I wasted on drink cut into what little we had for necessities. Eventually my wife could take it no more, and she left, taking the children with her, to go back to her parents in a city a thousand miles away.
AI could not keep the house up, so one day I packed a few belongings, left the house behind, and became what I am now, a homeless tramp who sleeps on the ground and begs for handouts from strangers.@
Scott told his story in a soft voice. Clearly, he was shamed of what he had become. As he finished his head hung down so low his chin almost touched his chest.
David and I were momentarily at a loss for words. Then David spoke, AWhat happened to you could have happened to any of us. I, too, went on the road because of a conflict concerning a business. I was fortunate to have some money to help me in my journey. But if I had lost everything as you did and had to go to work for the business that destroyed your living, I might well have ended up drowning my despair in alcohol. I feel great sorrow and sympathy for your situation.@
Scott raised his head and smiled at David. AYou are a good man, David. As you go on your way, remember me, please.@
AWe will both remember you,@ I said. AMy parents are poor, and so I know what it is to be poor. I ran away to escape that poverty, but I wonder now if I did the right thing. I think that it=s only because I didn=t have access to liquor that I didn=t wind up as you did, Scott. As David said, what happened to you could easily have happened to us as well.@
ABut it didn=t happen to you,@ Scott said. AAnd I hope that it will never happen to you. Adversity affects each of us differently. How it affects us depends so much on chance, on the love and support we find, on those things we consider most important. I concentrated on the business I lost and on my own pride when I should have concentrated on my family. And so I lost both my business and my family.
AYou have each separated yourselves from your families. Someday you must be reunited again. You, Adam, have two families. You must care for them both.@
I was dumbstruck. AHow did you know I have two families?@ I blurted.
APerhaps I am not all that you think I am,@ Scott replied mysteriously. ACome, we have finished our breakfast. Let=s leave. It=s clear that I, at least, am not welcome here.@
We rose. David left a tip and I paid the bill at a cash register near the door. The cashier, who appeared to be the manager to restaurant, looked straight into my eyes. AYou folks are not welcome here any more. We served you because you=re just passing through. Get on your way now and don=t come back.@
I did not reply to those rude comments. The three of us left the restaurant and stood together in the parking lot.
AThank you both for the excellent breakfast,@ Scott said, Aand for the kindness you showed me. There was no reason you had to help me. Everyone else passed me by.@
ADon=t mention it,@ David replied. AWould you like a ride to someplace? We=re continuing down this road.@
ANo,@ Scott replied, AI am walking in the other direction. Go on without me.@
Scott slung his small bad of possessions over his left should and began to walk away from us. Then he turned back. AThank you again, both of you. Because of the kindness you showed me you will both find what you are looking for, but it may not be what you expect to find.@ With that he turned away and continued walking,
David and I watched him for a short time and then got in the car. AWe=re going to find what we are looking for, but it may not be what we expect to find,@ repeated David slowly. AWe need to ask him what he meant.@
AAnd how he knows,@ I added.
We both jumped out of the car and began to run in the direction that Scott had started to walk. He could not have gotten far, but he was nowhere to be seen. We got back in the car, turned around and scanned the roadside for Scott, but we did not find him. So we turned around and were once more driving on to we knew not where.
The Country
The mirror told us to continue straight ahead down a road that was straight and seemingly endless. We passed through several small towns and one small city. We stopped for lunch and to refill the gas tank, and then we traveled on.
Passing through the countryside, I observed the houses, the barns, the fields, the stores, all those things that are an integral part of many lives, and I tried as best I could to imagine what those lives were like.
I saw many signs of poverty: trailer homes with siding that was discolored, often with portions loose or missing altogether. I saw small houses whose roofs were a patchwork of repairs and on which the paint was pealing. I saw old cars, apparently broken beyond repair, left to rust in front yards or driveways. All this reminded me of my parents= home, but there was no forest into which to flee.
What did the poor do for a living? Did they work odd jobs to gain a meager existence like my father? Did they receive miserly pensions for a life of hard work that now consigned them to a life of poverty?
I saw some people sitting idly on a porch or in their yard. Perhaps they were enjoying the life they had. I could not discern their feelings, and I had scant time to study their faces as the car quickly passed them by. Had life passed them by as well? I wanted to stop and talk to them, to learn more about how they felt, what dreams they had, what they would have chosen had fate not made their choices for them.
There were also large houses with beautifully trimmed lawns, usually with elegant iron or white fences surrounding the fields of the owners. Often such houses were built on a hillside at the end of a long driveway protected by a locked gate. Did such people live in fear that the poor would rob them? As they drove down the same road I was traveling, did they notice their less fortunate neighbors, and, if so, what did they think? Did they want to reach out to them, to help them? Did they thank the heavenly powers that they were not like those unfortunate poor? Or did they simply ignore them, trying not to notice they were there?
As on almost all roads, there were billboards advertising many different things that those having enough money to do so could buy. There were motels seeking guests, but I suspected that the poor rarely entered a motel, except perhaps to clean rooms. They probably never traveled far from home because they could not afford it, while the rich could go almost anywhere they pleased.
The yards of the poor sometimes boasted a goat, some chickens, or a dog. The large fields of the rich were populated with cattle, horses, or acres of crops. The world of the poor was cramped, constrained. The world of the rich was open and manicured. The yards of the poor were often, like the yard of my home, littered with junk. The fields of the rich were populated with lifestock, crops . . . and sometimes oil wells, oil wells like those that Daniel had caused to spring up in Henryville and would now bring to Hardwick. Wells that sucked wealth out of the ground and into Daniel=s pockets while impoverishing those who rightfully owned the oil.
Are the rich happier than the poor? They may be anxious about losing what they have, or they may be consumed with the desire to have even more. The
poor may also be consumed by greed and envy, but they may also enjoy simpler lives that are unencumbered by things.
But it is one thing to be poor by choice, and quite another to be poor because one has had no choice in one=s circumstances. Both the rich and the poor may be miserable, though for different reasons.
There were also, course, the houses of those who seemed neither poor not wealthy. They were modest homes, well-maintained, perhaps a picket fence enclosing a modest front yard with a flower bed in front of a porch or bay window. These reminded me of Samuel and Martha. I wondered how they were faring in my absence and whether Samuel was still alive.
But Samuel had to be alive. He and Martha had given me three months to find Robin and bring him home again. Samuel would certainly wait for Robin to return so he could die in peace. And if I brought Robin back, I could return with a clear conscience to my own parents, knowing that Robin would take care of Martha once Samuel died. It was the pressure of those three months that kept me moving, much as I would have liked to explore more deeply the people and scenes we were passing by so rapidly.
Already a week had passed since I had started my search for Robin. A week is not a very long time, but I still did not know where Robin might be, or assuming I found him, how I could convince him to return to his parents. And with all of that, I was assuming my mirror would lead to Robin and then back again to Samuel and Martha. The mirror was the only guide and hope I had.
And then there was David. I, at least, had a clear idea of what I was supposed to do. That was not the case with David. David accompanied me because a strange man in a forest that no longer exists told him to stay with me, that his quest was to be joined with mine, and that only in that way would he be successful. But who or what was David to find? What was he supposed to learn so that he could return home and take his rightful place as the patriarch of his family?I was supposed to learn how to love. I needed to learn this, so a strange man told me, so that I could teach my parents to love, but how would I know when I had learned how to love? Who would tell me that my education was complete? Who would even tell me clearly in terms I could understand what love is? Is love something one comes to know but cannot describe? Is it simply lived, but one dares not try to write about it? And if this is so, how then can I communicate it to my parents?
The afternoon was fast approaching evening, and David and I again began to think about a place to stay for the night. I thought that I might consult my mirror, but decided that surely we could make that decision without the mirror=s guidance. And so we did. We found an attractive motel next to a diner.
We checked in, pulled our bags with toiletries and clothes from the truck of the car, carried them into our room, and then walked over to the diner. I wondered how many more motels we would stay in, or how many more diners we would visit before our search was over. Even with David=s good company, the trip was becoming tedious, and we had barely begun.
Despite our adventures, I began to long for the stability of my home and the companionship of my parents. I wanted to tell David that we should turn around now and forget about finding Robin, forget about his taking over his family=s business. Martha and Samuel had lived without Robin for years before I met them, and David was certainly bright enough to start another business of his own. Why should I care what happened to Martha and Samuel? Why would David want the frustration of dealing with the greed of his aunt and uncle?
David noticed my pensiveness. He and I knew one another rather well by now. ANo,@ stated softly, but firmly, Awe cannot turn around and
The Magic Mirror Page 10