Somehow figuring into nearly everything I’ve written, it was the subject of my first published poem, which was not as bad as one might suspect; the setting for my first published story, which was relatively bad but at least honest; serves as a backdrop for the novel I’m currently writing; is the subject of this piece... “No single poem,” wrote Walter Kaufman in an introduction to a slim collection of German poetry, “can provide any adequate idea of what Greece meant to Hölderlin.” For the poet, Greece was too much, too expansive and overwhelming for simple explanation. Hölderlin spent his entire life exploring the subject. His own personal religion, the Greek pantheon to him was real. Analogously, Tennessee left a profound impression, except there is no pantheon – only rivers, woods, animals and the people I met and befriended; an endless litany of the most interesting people, real life characters, to whom I am continually drawn and inspired.
For my father, who was born there, it was paradise – a kind of utopia. Raised on a farm, my father idealized his upbringing and thought the country the best place to be. Acquaintance with the land – rivers, woods, wildlife – instilled a kind of appreciation and sensibility that is essential to young life. To him the city, where we lived, and all forms of urbanization were poison, a corruption of the idyllic existence. He liked the independence and freedom of the country, and longed for it. So for us every holiday, every vacation, every long weekend was Tennessee. Far from town and main roads, my widowed grandmother lived on a 100-acre farm surrounded by dense, wondrous woodland and creeks. Growing up, I spent summers there hunting, fishing, hiking, tracking, camping, gathering intimate knowledge of the land. I made quite a few friends over the years, young and old alike. Despite the love, the more I think about Tennessee, the more the face of a dear friend from that time, a friend I lost along the way, comes to mind.
* * *
My father was illiterate. I never saw him read anything. He never owned or purchased a book. That is not to say he was stupid or unintelligent. On the contrary, he figured things out quickly and had a mind for numbers and motors. He just never went to school or developed any interest in what we would call education. He always impressed me as the unreflective, unintellectual man of action, something straight out of Faulkner, more Snopes than Compson, more Bundren than Satoris.
We were out sight-shooting targets with a rifle one day from a distance of about 50 yards. It was windy, and he was explaining to me how to adjust my shot accordingly. I changed the target and tried again.
“There you go, son,” he said.
I checked with binoculars. The shot was on target but a bit high, just outside the circle.
“Let me see,” he said, taking the rifle. An excellent shot, my father had perfect form. The way he held and handled the weapon, it was all so natural to him. You could tell he grew up with it.
He aimed while I raised the binoculars to my eyes. Freestanding and without a scope, he fired.
“You missed,” I said.
“The hell I did,” he said.
I looked again. There was only one hole in the target, mine, just outside the circle. I’d seen him shoot at this distance 100 times. There was no way he could have missed. I’d seen him hit moving targets, crows in flight from impossible distances, squirrels up so high you couldn’t see them.
He said he shot through my hole and left it at that.
Later, I went down to the target and inspected the fence post to which the target was attached. You couldn’t really tell if two bullets were lodged in the same hole as the post had been mutilated by our forays, and all the shots looked the same.
* * *
It was something special out there, something transcendental, as if a secret had been passed on to me. This feeling or sense could not be explained easily to friends and family back home.
“Don’t bother,” my father would say, as if these epiphanies were never meant to be explained, as if others, brainwashed by city life, cramped quarters, meaningless activity, television, drugs, alcohol, distrust, violence, whatever, could never understand. It was the awareness of the vast cultural differences between the north and the south, the city and the country, that led me to contemplate my first stories.
The Newman’s, a prominent family in the county, lived all over, some right off the road, others tucked deep away into the woods. I befriended one of the boys, Ronny, my grandmother’s neighbor. Every time we went down there I’d visit him. His mother, a kind, respectable woman, was widowed, and they had a nice home. The father had been killed in an accident on the job, and Ronny’s mother won a settlement. She made sure Ronny had the best, and, unlike the rest of the family, they were well off. Ronny had all kinds of things: ATV’s, a dirtbike, a pool table in a barn-sized recreation room, guns, swords, ninja-type weapons (we scoured the flea markets for these), knives, plenty of food and sweet tea. A friend of Ronny’s, Dale, lived further up the road and his family kept horses. It was enough to keep anybody occupied. Both of them were a few years older than me. It became difficult to tag along when they matured, as we had much less in common. They wanted to drink and get girls while I wanted to play pool or ride horses.
At this time I befriended Brandon, Ronny’s cousin, who lived farther down the road. Brandon, known affectionately as Critter by everyone who knew him, was younger than me, but we had much in common. He reminded me of my younger brother, also named Brandon, who, since he lived with our mother and had a different father, never once went with me to Tennessee. Soon it was Critter who looked forward to my visits, and I’d stay with him and his grandmother, Mammy, the whole time I was there. Mammy’d raised Critter on her own with little help from anyone else. Theirs was a small house made of cinder block with only a wood burning Franklin stove for heat. Mammy was kind and loving and special; I’ve never felt more welcome anywhere. Compared to his cousin Ronny, Critter really didn’t have anything, but he and I would go out into the woods to hunt, fish and play. At night we’d watch movies, listen to music and play video games.
It would have been at this time that I developed an unusual obsession with trees. I think it was either from watching the movie Walking Tall, the original with Jo Don Baker, based on the life of Buford Pusser, the legendary McNairy County Sheriff whose home and museum were close to Shiloh, the Civil War battlefield we’d visited on occasion, or The Natural, where the protagonist makes his own bats, I don’t remember, but I started making my own bats, clubs, weapons, bows, arrows, handles, walking sticks and pool cues. I wanted to know the names and properties of all the trees and the best wood to use for each project. My father grew up working in sawmills and knew the names of all the trees and where to find them. Ash, the hardest and least likely to break, was perfect for bats and clubs. Hickory, unusually flexible, was ideal for arrows and walking sticks. Oak and its infinite varieties were all so versatile. Maple, Elm, Cherry, Sycamore, Birch, Cottonwood were all pointed out to me lovingly, patiently. I located and identified them all by leaf, color and shape. I kept a scrapbook of their leaves. I’d chop the smaller ones down with an axe or cut them with a saw, strip them of bark and branch, soak them, or just hang them out to cure. I spent hours chopping, cutting, whittling and shaping the wood into whatever it was I loved, whatever it was I desired most. I couldn’t imagine a better exercise for a young boy. Critter was on this kick with me for a while. When I came down we’d share projects. But soon we became interested in other things and would somehow find a way to the pool hall in town, almost an hour away by car, looking for girls and kicks.
One night, sitting on the trampoline in his backyard, surrounded by stars and trees, we smoked a joint and talked about all the things we wanted to do, all the things we wanted. It was a cool summer, Southern night. Tennessee, the place I remember. As I grew into adolescence, the trips became less frequent. One night, a couple friends and I ran away from home and drove south in a stolen car through the night straight to Mammy’s. As always, she welcomed us and offered us something to eat and drink, homemade blueberry cobbler and sweet tea. Critter enjoyed our company and made friends, but inevitably we had to go back.
He said he shot through my hole and left it at that.
Later, I went down to the target and inspected the fence post to which the target was attached. You couldn’t really tell if two bullets were lodged in the same hole as the post had been mutilated by our forays, and all the shots looked the same.
* * *
It was something special out there, something transcendental, as if a secret had been passed on to me. This feeling or sense could not be explained easily to friends and family back home.
“Don’t bother,” my father would say, as if these epiphanies were never meant to be explained, as if others, brainwashed by city life, cramped quarters, meaningless activity, television, drugs, alcohol, distrust, violence, whatever, could never understand. It was the awareness of the vast cultural differences between the north and the south, the city and the country, that led me to contemplate my first stories.
The Newman’s, a prominent family in the county, lived all over, some right off the road, others tucked deep away into the woods. I befriended one of the boys, Ronny, my grandmother’s neighbor. Every time we went down there I’d visit him. His mother, a kind, respectable woman, was widowed, and they had a nice home. The father had been killed in an accident on the job, and Ronny’s mother won a settlement. She made sure Ronny had the best, and, unlike the rest of the family, they were well off. Ronny had all kinds of things: ATV’s, a dirtbike, a pool table in a barn-sized recreation room, guns, swords, ninja-type weapons (we scoured the flea markets for these), knives, plenty of food and sweet tea. A friend of Ronny’s, Dale, lived further up the road and his family kept horses. It was enough to keep anybody occupied. Both of them were a few years older than me. It became difficult to tag along when they matured, as we had much less in common. They wanted to drink and get girls while I wanted to play pool or ride horses.
At this time I befriended Brandon, Ronny’s cousin, who lived farther down the road. Brandon, known affectionately as Critter by everyone who knew him, was younger than me, but we had much in common. He reminded me of my younger brother, also named Brandon, who, since he lived with our mother and had a different father, never once went with me to Tennessee. Soon it was Critter who looked forward to my visits, and I’d stay with him and his grandmother, Mammy, the whole time I was there. Mammy’d raised Critter on her own with little help from anyone else. Theirs was a small house made of cinder block with only a wood burning Franklin stove for heat. Mammy was kind and loving and special; I’ve never felt more welcome anywhere. Compared to his cousin Ronny, Critter really didn’t have anything, but he and I would go out into the woods to hunt, fish and play. At night we’d watch movies, listen to music and play video games.
It would have been at this time that I developed an unusual obsession with trees. I think it was either from watching the movie Walking Tall, the original with Jo Don Baker, based on the life of Buford Pusser, the legendary McNairy County Sheriff whose home and museum were close to Shiloh, the Civil War battlefield we’d visited on occasion, or The Natural, where the protagonist makes his own bats, I don’t remember, but I started making my own bats, clubs, weapons, bows, arrows, handles, walking sticks and pool cues. I wanted to know the names and properties of all the trees and the best wood to use for each project. My father grew up working in sawmills and knew the names of all the trees and where to find them. Ash, the hardest and least likely to break, was perfect for bats and clubs. Hickory, unusually flexible, was ideal for arrows and walking sticks. Oak and its infinite varieties were all so versatile. Maple, Elm, Cherry, Sycamore, Birch, Cottonwood were all pointed out to me lovingly, patiently. I located and identified them all by leaf, color and shape. I kept a scrapbook of their leaves. I’d chop the smaller ones down with an axe or cut them with a saw, strip them of bark and branch, soak them, or just hang them out to cure. I spent hours chopping, cutting, whittling and shaping the wood into whatever it was I loved, whatever it was I desired most. I couldn’t imagine a better exercise for a young boy. Critter was on this kick with me for a while. When I came down we’d share projects. But soon we became interested in other things and would somehow find a way to the pool hall in town, almost an hour away by car, looking for girls and kicks.
One night, sitting on the trampoline in his backyard, surrounded by stars and trees, we smoked a joint and talked about all the things we wanted to do, all the things we wanted. It was a cool summer, Southern night. Tennessee, the place I remember. As I grew into adolescence, the trips became less frequent. One night, a couple friends and I ran away from home and drove south in a stolen car through the night straight to Mammy’s. As always, she welcomed us and offered us something to eat and drink, homemade blueberry cobbler and sweet tea. Critter enjoyed our company and made friends, but inevitably we had to go back.
* * *
A few years later my grandmother died. I went to visit Mammy and Critter. In and out of juvenile detention, mostly for truancy and poor behavior, Critter had turned into a troubled youth. Rap music and marijuana smoke blared from his bedroom. Southern rap music, “trap music,” was just taking off and Critter carried the flag wholeheartedly. It was so good to see him, but as I was headed to college and he to juvy. We could feel our paths diverging. I’d seen the same story with so many friends already: the thief, the gangbanger, the dealer, the user who couldn’t quit, but run it instead straight into the ground every time. Paths that lead nowhere. Somehow I’d steered clear of all this and was hungry for something more.
My first poem was published in our college literary magazine. It was about a canoe trip I took with Critter on the Buffalo River. It’s basically a conversation with Critter, asking if he’d remembered the trip and what had happened.
You remember that time we went canoeing?
You remember that time we went canoeing.
It’s a good beginning to a generally bad poem. Painful to reread, all of the interesting details of the trip, it seems to me now, were left out. If I could I’d rewrite just about every word. In it I mention the ever-present water moccasins whose Loch Ness forms crisscrossed the river constantly, the little whirlpools in the eddies, the vortex of the river itself, how it pulls you into sublimity…. I’d canoed the river with family a number of times, so the voyage wasn’t altogether unfamiliar, but the river was unpredictable. Pulling ashore one time, my aunt stepped out of a canoe on one side where it was ankle deep. My uncle got out on the other and fell in over his head. Places that appeared calm had a strong undercurrent. A cousin of mine had been swept away in shallow water instantly but, a strong swimmer, was able to navigate the draw to safety. I don’t remember how the idea came about, but Critter and I decided to go out on our own. Critter’s uncle and kind of father figure, Larry, let us borrow his truck, a sky blue, Bondo’d piece of shit with old boards rising up from the bed so he could haul trash or whatever it was he did. No muffler, of course, loud as a locomotive, smoked like hell, no signal lights and a special procedure just to get the thing started. I was 16 and had just received my driver’s license. Critter was 13 or 14. I was afraid to drive the truck as I myself didn’t own a vehicle and wasn’t used to driving.
“Not a thing to it,” Larry, a wild man, one of those real life characters, yelled. He waved, screamed, hollered, joked, sang and talked with everyone he knew. It’d take him two hours to get to town because he’d only drive 40 mph and as soon as a vehicle approached from behind he’d pull off on the shoulder and wave them past. “Wooooooo,” he used to holler all the time in a high-pitched, bluegrass voice, “Wooooooo… ain’t that the truth, son!” You’d swear he was drunk every time you met him. But he wasn’t. He was just crazy. He dressed crazy, had a crazy haircut, drove a crazy truck, lived in a crazy little trailer out in the pines and would kick, sing, dance and scream without hesitation. “Woooo hoooooooo, baby!”
So he lent us his truck. It was an hour’s drive to the river. We rented a canoe and the company dropped us off with it upriver. We had beer, wine, whiskey, cigarettes, weed and some pills Critter’d stolen from his mother – all for an afternoon canoe trip. How we could have possibly procured all of this in a dry county I’ll never know. But we did and we were off. And we were free. And it was beautiful. The landscape shifted from deep riverside woods to limestone cliffs that rose up from the banks and kept rising. We felt like we were moving into prehistoric time. We found a little waterfall and went underneath it to smoke.
Remember that? How about the cascade?
So he lent us his truck. It was an hour’s drive to the river. We rented a canoe and the company dropped us off with it upriver. We had beer, wine, whiskey, cigarettes, weed and some pills Critter’d stolen from his mother – all for an afternoon canoe trip. How we could have possibly procured all of this in a dry county I’ll never know. But we did and we were off. And we were free. And it was beautiful. The landscape shifted from deep riverside woods to limestone cliffs that rose up from the banks and kept rising. We felt like we were moving into prehistoric time. We found a little waterfall and went underneath it to smoke.
Remember that? How about the cascade?
And the climb?
A little farther down we found a group of older kids diving into the river from the cliffs, about 30 or 40 feet up in the air. We pulled up to the bank and climbed the elevation that lead to the peak from where they were jumping. It’s okay, they said, there was no bottom. Critter and I, buzzed and delighted, jumped a few times. On the last jump I came up in the middle of the river, too far from the bank, and was caught in the mild downstream current. I couldn’t get out of it and almost panicked before I let go and let the river take me with it a few hundred yards. I walked back along the bank to the canoes with difficulty, never letting on that I’d misjudged the jump and would have drowned had I not just let go. Navigating the draw. This part and the beautiful recklessness of the older kids swan diving from the cliffs should have been the heart and substance of the poem. Why it was left it out is beyond me. Instead, the poem wanders off into abstraction, concluding with the illusory nature of the river and the uneasy fear we found at the cliff. It’s about Critter, too, of course.
* * *
A few years after my grandmother died, Critter called me. I was living and working in the city and had not heard from him since her funeral. He said he’d decided to give the city a shot and had just moved up. He was staying with a distant cousin way out in the boonies somewhere and working at Burger King. He wanted to meet up. You’re so far away, I told him. Neither one of us had a vehicle, and there was no way to meet up. I gave him my address and told him to visit if he could and to stay in touch. But I never heard from him.
Years later, when it came time to bury my father (in Tennessee, as he’d wished) I went back. But it wasn’t the place I remembered. Drugs, namely prescription pills and meth, had devastated the region like a plague, an epidemic. Almost everyone I knew from back then was gone, strung out or locked up. Mammy had passed. Everything was uncomfortably strange, foreign.
There was a little party in my hotel room the night before the funeral with friends and family who’d made it in. I answered a knock at the door. It was Critter and his girlfriend, a beautiful young girl who danced at the club by the interstate truck stop, she would brag later. I almost cried, it was so good to see him. But like the place I remembered, he wasn’t the same either. Dope and the lifestyle had taken its toll. He wasn’t as sharp as he had been and, having been involved in a few accidents, one very seriously with a motorcycle, had back trouble and walked with a slight limp.
He related to me one sorry story after another, each one leading nowhere. The usual tragedy of incarceration and probation, the poor decisions that led to it.
Without sympathy I told him he needed to get his life together, but, as it had been so long, we were just happy to see each other and talk and laugh. We drank long into the night.
“I first got drunk with this guy,” Critter said casually to his girlfriend.
“Really,” she said, laughing, “I never thought I would ever hear that,” as he’d been drinking and getting high for so long.
“Yeah, me too,” my cousin Jim, about the same age as Critter, said. “Ain’t that something?”
Painful to consider and hard to live down, I’d never thought of the consequences of my behavior. What had I done? The younger ones had looked up to me. In some ways they wanted to be like me, and I’d led them nowhere, to a place worse than nowhere. I’d never meant to hurt them. At the time it was all so much fun…
Critter left me a cell number, and we talked a few times before it was disconnected. I heard from kin that he was arrested again and sent to prison. I’d like to get his address and send him a letter. I’d like to tell him I miss him.
A little farther down we found a group of older kids diving into the river from the cliffs, about 30 or 40 feet up in the air. We pulled up to the bank and climbed the elevation that lead to the peak from where they were jumping. It’s okay, they said, there was no bottom. Critter and I, buzzed and delighted, jumped a few times. On the last jump I came up in the middle of the river, too far from the bank, and was caught in the mild downstream current. I couldn’t get out of it and almost panicked before I let go and let the river take me with it a few hundred yards. I walked back along the bank to the canoes with difficulty, never letting on that I’d misjudged the jump and would have drowned had I not just let go. Navigating the draw. This part and the beautiful recklessness of the older kids swan diving from the cliffs should have been the heart and substance of the poem. Why it was left it out is beyond me. Instead, the poem wanders off into abstraction, concluding with the illusory nature of the river and the uneasy fear we found at the cliff. It’s about Critter, too, of course.
* * *
A few years after my grandmother died, Critter called me. I was living and working in the city and had not heard from him since her funeral. He said he’d decided to give the city a shot and had just moved up. He was staying with a distant cousin way out in the boonies somewhere and working at Burger King. He wanted to meet up. You’re so far away, I told him. Neither one of us had a vehicle, and there was no way to meet up. I gave him my address and told him to visit if he could and to stay in touch. But I never heard from him.
Years later, when it came time to bury my father (in Tennessee, as he’d wished) I went back. But it wasn’t the place I remembered. Drugs, namely prescription pills and meth, had devastated the region like a plague, an epidemic. Almost everyone I knew from back then was gone, strung out or locked up. Mammy had passed. Everything was uncomfortably strange, foreign.
There was a little party in my hotel room the night before the funeral with friends and family who’d made it in. I answered a knock at the door. It was Critter and his girlfriend, a beautiful young girl who danced at the club by the interstate truck stop, she would brag later. I almost cried, it was so good to see him. But like the place I remembered, he wasn’t the same either. Dope and the lifestyle had taken its toll. He wasn’t as sharp as he had been and, having been involved in a few accidents, one very seriously with a motorcycle, had back trouble and walked with a slight limp.
He related to me one sorry story after another, each one leading nowhere. The usual tragedy of incarceration and probation, the poor decisions that led to it.
Without sympathy I told him he needed to get his life together, but, as it had been so long, we were just happy to see each other and talk and laugh. We drank long into the night.
“I first got drunk with this guy,” Critter said casually to his girlfriend.
“Really,” she said, laughing, “I never thought I would ever hear that,” as he’d been drinking and getting high for so long.
“Yeah, me too,” my cousin Jim, about the same age as Critter, said. “Ain’t that something?”
Painful to consider and hard to live down, I’d never thought of the consequences of my behavior. What had I done? The younger ones had looked up to me. In some ways they wanted to be like me, and I’d led them nowhere, to a place worse than nowhere. I’d never meant to hurt them. At the time it was all so much fun…
Critter left me a cell number, and we talked a few times before it was disconnected. I heard from kin that he was arrested again and sent to prison. I’d like to get his address and send him a letter. I’d like to tell him I miss him.
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