We Could Take the Backroads

When you don’t know exactly where you’re headed, there’s no speed that’ll satisfy you. Pawnshop didn’t recline in the passenger seat of the faded, soot-colored Plymouth. He sat tense and taut, smoldering in his restlessness. Every once in a while it would really flare up and he’d spew a clenched groan.

The old man—Otis was his name—had relieved him from thumbing and pacing at the road’s edge. But Otis liked to touch his foot to the accelerator with the gentleness that an eggshell deserved while murmuring, “I feeeeel guuud. An’ I knew that I wuuud. So guuud. So guuud,” filling in the punchy, zig-zagging horn lines by humming out the side of his mouth. Pawnshop scrutinized the horizon, looking for any sign of a town stuffed in between the trees.

Neither of them had a watch. Pawnshop had traded his for a meal and a bust ticket some weeks back and Otis just had no use for one. It was early afternoon when Pawnshop finally spotted a sign that said “Mineola.” “Pull over. Pull over here, quick,” he demanded, threading his body through the car window and leaping out before Otis could even stop. “Thanks. Mighty kind,” he called over his shoulder.

Behind Mineola’s single-pump Phillips 66 filling station, a rutted, red dirt road led past two white-washed churches, a diner, a juke joint, a couple dozen sagging houses and a peach orchard. Pawnshop strode down it, fingering the contents of his pants pocket, which amounted to a broken-off corner of a mirror, a few half-crushed cigarettes, a book of matches, a stainless steel pocketknife with a pearl inlaid handle, eleven dollars and thirty-seven cents, a pencil stub and some rumpled, folded pieces of paper. Everything he owned, except for the dungarees, yellowed undershirt and thin-soled sneakers he was wearing.

Wherever Pawnshop went, he wrote things down. The smell and feel and taste of a place. People’s names. What they looked like, acted like. He hoarded all these morsels for a time to come.

I Am a Man (Autobiography of Milton Burroughs)

Beulah’s Diner wasn’t much of a diner. Just a rectangular box with a tattered sea foam green awning and a sign hand-painted in a leaning script that made it seem the words themselves were about to keel over.

Five weary bodies occupied the stools at the counter and the orange formica-topped tables, heads and shoulders hunched over their plates, shoveling spoonfuls of Brunswick stew into their mouths and soaking up the red, meaty juice with biscuits. A worn-down defiance could be felt in the hum of the icebox, the sizzling of the griddle and their bovine chewing.

There was a sixth figure at the end of the counter, the only one with the energy or gall enough to do much talking. He had large teeth, busy eyebrows and a voice that swooped from low and booming to an insinuating falsetto. He was leaning over a man in overalls, saying, “Now, Frances, you ain’t runnin’ around on Gladys, are ya? You ain’t runnin’ around with Pearl, are ya? The Alllmighty, he see all, and he burn away what don’t have no business bein’ there.” “Revrun, you know damn-well…,” the man started and trailed off, lacking the energy to eat and argue.

At that moment the Reverend caught sight of Pawnshop, and sidled up to him. “I’m thuh Lord’s man roun’ heah, Revrun Julius Ramshack. Say, brother, do you have a dollar to spare? Or a cigarette? I done cleaned out my pockets doin’ for those in need.” Pawnshop took in the thinly veiled shabbiness of the Reverend’s tan suit, the red suspenders straining to keep his girth in check, the doughy extension of face where neck should have been. The Reverend seemed like a pointing finger and an open hand at the same time.

Pawnshop kept one eye on him while he fished in his pocket for the money and the cigarette and thrust both at the Reverend. “I did’n catch yo name, boy.” “They call me ‘Pawnshop,’” he shot over his shoulder, already headed for the counter.

Pawnshop downed two bowls of the thick stew and five biscuits, staring at the oily wallpaper and the faces around the room, while the Reverend occupied the stool next to him, bumming a cigarette every few minutes until they were all gone.

Find You In Ohio

Pawnshop emerged from Beulah’s, free of the Reverend, who’d turned the full force of his attention back to Frances. The only pay phone in Mineola stood out front, halfway between the diner and the juke joint. Seeing it, Pawnshop felt as though his blood had begun to flow backwards in his veins.

She was states away. Desiree. Dark chocolate skin. She’d be pumping guttural chords on the piano with her left hand, coaxing and bending melodies with her right. And her singing. Warm and raw like molten lava, erupting into a hot and brilliant display. He fingered the change in his pocket and grasped for the number in his mind, pressed the phone to his ear and let it ring once, twice, before she answered. An old sweetness flooded him. He grabbed for it hungrily.

Her voiced sounded pleased and pinched at the same time. “Where you at, Pawnshop? What you doin’? You in Atlanta lookin’ for a good job?” The questions rang in the air. “No…Mineola. Ain’t stayin’ for long, though.” He shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “I did’n mean to tear up everythin’ by leavin’.” “Well, Pawnshop, you gone and done it anyhow.”

He was afraid his longing for her would stop up the phone line, so instead he asked after Ms. Yancey and her cat Queenie next door, and whether the plumbing was still screeching and knocking from time to time, and which picture show she’d seen last, what new Fontella Bass song she’d learned and what hateful, violating things the angry white boys on Fifth Street had said to her. But before he was ready for it, he heard, “Pawnshop, you in my heart. Always will be. Don’t mean you cain’t call me. But I gotta go now.” “Alright, Desiree.” The line and the pleasant sensation went dead.

Reverend Ramshack Run

The diner door burst open and Pawnshop could make out a voice hollering, “Revrunnn! I’m gon’ put a bullet clean through that jabberin,’ judging,’ know-it-all mouth o’ yours!” and the Reverend, whining, “But, Frances, Frances. I’m thuh Lord’s man, thuh Lord’s man.” He was trying to back away and bend over to grab something at the same time.

He freed a pistol from his shoe, tripped and landed sprawled out on his back at Pawnshop’s feet. Laying there he caught hold of Pawnshop’s eyes. The Reverend lifted the arm holding the gun and said, “You, boy. You comin’ with me fo my protecshun. Hep me up. Quick now.”

Pawnshop worked his hands in under the Reverend’s massive, perspiring back and pulled. On the second try he got the Reverend into a sitting position. Then he squatted and gave one mighty shove. Now upright, the Reverend took off waving the gun wildly and yelling, “Come OWWNNN!”

Frances was closing in when they reached a rust-colored Chevrolet pick-up and found the doors unlocked and the key in the ignition. Bullets pelted the cab and the doors as if the Lord were just getting started on the plague of hail in Egypt. The Reverend, huffing and puffing, managed to wheeze, “Dadgummit, drive! I gotta shoot!” The truck rumbled to life, its backfires sounding like gunshots, and they took off in a crazy beeline, careening down the road from one side to the other.

Looking For a New Way

They traveled a ways, spooked by the blasts from the truck’s own tailpipe, without anything or anyone getting in their way. Then a clothesline strung up with aprons and shapeless, flower-print dresses leapt up in front of the windshield. Pawnshop slammed the brake pedal to the floor. They crashed through a flower bed and into the side of a clapboard house.

The Reverend got out and headed down the road in a half-jog, half-limp, his left fist pumping and right hand keeping a tense grip on the gun. Pawnshop found himself looking through a now-broken window at a painting of a dark-skinned, fire-eyed Moses. He could feel that his bones and sinews were all in their rightful places, but he still couldn’t move. Moses had a terrible knowledge in his eyes and a crooked staff in his hand.

Movement to Pawnshop’s right broke his trance. He slowly turned his cheek to find himself nose-to-nose with a shotgun and leathery, arthritic woman. “What yo truck doin’ in my house?” she hissed. Then louder, “What yo truck doin’ in my house?” “It ain’t my truck,” was all he could manage. He inhaled the smell of steel in shallow spurts and otherwise dared not move. Several minutes passed like that and she just stood and glared at him with her gun. “I should kill you. But I won’t. It ain’t for me to have yo blood on my hands. You in a saaad state.” With that she lowered the shotgun and walked back toward her front steps. “Well, come on. You got my permishun to come in this time.” He could hear muttering, “reckless…probly drunk…cain’t even see where he goin’…,” under her breath. He had to work up his courage to not run off, away from the shotgun and the prophet on the wall.

Pawnshop had made it to the porch when she shuffled out with some black coffee. “You want some butter beans, chile?” “No’m,” he replied. “I’m sorry ‘bout yo house. Me and the Revrun was runnin’ for our lives.” “Hmmmph. The Revrun. What he know ‘bout savin’ anybody’s life? I’m Eula. Who you?” She was a stern woman, but not unkind. She accepted Pawnshop’s offering of his pocketknife as a paltry gesture of apology. Her sons would soon be back from the pecan farm they were working on, and they’d patch the side of the house.

We Came Alive Tonight

Pawnshop hadn’t been shot, hadn’t been shot twice since he got to Mineola, and he was agitated. It wasn’t that he wanted to be shot, but he just couldn’t make head or tails of his having survived the violent chain of events.

His feet were leading him back up the dirt road in the direction he and the Reverend had come. It was getting to be night. The left side of his face was sore from the wreck. His chest too. He hadn’t felt those dull aches until now. At length, his feet stopped and he found himself facing the payphone once again.

Digging out a dime, he dropped it in and dialed. The shrill, high-pitched clinging sound repeated itself over and over, but brought him nothing, no voice on the other end. It just rattled his restlessness around like rocks in a tumbler.

Pawnshop jerked into motion, mounted a wooden bench and started to pace. One step, turn. One step, turn. “Desiree,” he began, squinting his eyes but not closing them so he wouldn’t lose his balance and fall. “You shurrr is something. Thought I snuffed you out, but you keep comin’ back. I don’ know where I’m s’posed to be at. Tell me where I’m s’posed to be at! God Almighty—I jus’ don’ know!”

He paused and stared at the pay phone, gathering all the blame that he could muster in his eyes. It had failed him in his moment of need.

Down, Down, Put It Down

Someone was stirring in the shadow of Beulah’s. A stocky figure attempting a shambling stealth. The Reverend. He edged toward Pawnshop, beckoning him closer. Never had a familiar face been so unwelcome.

“I see Frances ain’t got you yet,” Pawnshop observed with obvious disappointment. “The Lord watches over the way o’ the righteous,” the Reverend replied. His eyes darted around. “You got to do somethin’ for me,” he said. Pawnshop was indignant. “How you figure that?” “I don’ saved yo life is why!” said the Reverend, as if that made more sense than anything in the world. There’s no arguing with a man of God once he’s put his foot down.

The Reverend poked Pawnshop in the leg with his pistol for added emphasis. “You go in that juke joint and you tell Pearl her Big Papa wanna see her tonight,” he said, mouth salivating and greedy with lust. Pawnshop turned and stamped toward the juke joint, muttering, “God a’mighty…have to have him a woman…liable to get us both killed.” He shook his head. Going on a dangerous hunt and it wasn’t even his quarry.

The juke joint—a thrown-together shack with tar paper walls and a string of bare light bulbs strung over the screen door out front—looked like a paper bag full of hornets, bumping and buzzing on all sides to get out. Somebody was playing gritty electric blues.

Pawnshop stepped inside. Three musicians were crammed in a corner. The wiry one in front swaying and scraping guttural sounds out of his guitar. The rest of the place throbbed with sweaty, snaking bodies. Pawnshop could generally appreciate carnality, but he wasn’t in the mood. “Where’s Pearl?” he asked a man sipping on a bottle of gin. The man pointed to the back wall where a woman was serving the drinks.

Pawnshop made his way through the crowd to deliver the message. Hearing it, Pearl just rolled her eyes. “What you want to drink?” she raised her voice over the din. “Jus’ a beer.” Pawnshop had one, then another, then another until he had no money left to buy any more.

The Grandest Prize

Not wanting to risk another encounter with the Reverend, Pawnshop left through the back door, his mind well-lubricated and his joints loose. He didn’t see the ancient man slumped against the wall and he tripped over the spindly, bird-like legs protruding from the pants.

“Here I is slowin’ down a man on his way,” croaked the man. He closed his eyes again and resumed singing to himself, gumming the words to mush in his mouth. It was a poor, grainy shadow of a melody.

Pawnshop pushed himself up from the bald earth, and squatted, arms hugging his body. He didn’t say anything. The old man had a narrow-brimmed hat with a navy blue band sitting cockeyed on his head and his fleshless hands folded in his lap. Pawnshop could not help but listen to the raggedness of the man’s song. “Whoaaamahdurrrlinnnn.” A string of hoarse nonsense. The sound of pure longing. It was strong like smelling salts. Too potent. Too much for Pawnshop’s ears.

He rose from his heels and rounded the corner of the juke joint, still out of sight of anyone out front, but putting distance between himself and the old man’s song.

Easier To Read

With his back against the tar paper, Pawnshop felt the rumblings of activity inside spread through his body. He reached in his pocket and retrieved the mirror, the matchbook, the pencil and the rumpled papers. They were all he had left. He scribbled down “Mineola.” He added “Revrun Ramshak,” “Frances,” “Eula,” “Pearl,” “ol singing man.” “Red eye profet on the wall.” “Guns.”

Pawnshop kept writing, pausing every once in a while to let his eyes focus on one word and then the next. He wrote as if he was figuring a math problem and was heading for a good solid answer that he could hold onto. A spot where he could plug himself into in the string of additions and subtractions.

He held the mirror close enough to see, but far enough away to capture as much of his face as possible. There was patchy black stubble from three days without a shave. Full, pink lips cracked from waiting and watching by the road in the Georgia sun.

The eye sockets looked a little deeper and darker and the eyeballs had taken on a glassy, red hue.

She Uses Love Like a Cuss Word

By the time Pawnshop grew tired of his figuring, the place had cleared out for the night. He got up, no particular destination in mind, took a couple of steps and stopped. Pearl was in the doorway, holding the screen door open with her hip and sweeping out broken glass and cigarette butts in strong, smooth motions.

Close-cropped hair accentuated a heart-shaped face and high cheekbones. Her mouth was set in a fierce, flinty look, as though she’d bare her teeth like a panther of she felt threatened. She was not an unattractive woman.

Pawnshop observed silently. She paused and stiffened, sensing a voyeuristic gaze, and narrowed her eyes on him. “What you think you looking at? You take yo rotten eyes offa me. I ain’t here to feed yo wants. You and the Revrun, just alike. Ain’t but one thing you chasin.’” “Naw, naw. I ain’t like him. I go my own way,” said Pawnshop shaking his head with his hands stuffed in his pockets. “Well, I ain’t on yo way. That I know fo sure,” she shot back. “You jus’ move along now.”

He held his tongue and didn’t ask what business the Reverend had with her, didn’t ask if she gave the Reverend what he wanted or why. Her heart was all scar tissue and toughness.

“Which way to the peach trees?” was all he said.

Your Name Is

Pawnshop struck a match and edged along the well-tended rows of peach trees. It was the wee hours of the morning. He had a delirious craving for sleep, for desire itself, for a shaking of the earth.

The ground and the trees were dry from lack of rain. He walked up to one on an outside row that looked no different from the others. If he still had his pocketknife he would have carved a permanent mark in the trunk. Maybe Desiree’s name. Something to prove that he was there and his heat wasn’t inert.

Instead, he grabbed the papers from his pocket, balled them up and lit another match. The tiny flame turned his pencil marks to floating ash. He jammed the burning pages between the tree’s branches. A few thin twigs started to catch fire. His own nerves were seared just watching them.

“Shoes off,” Pawnshop said to himself, and slipped the heel of one sneaker off with the other toe. He set them aside and laid down on the rutted, rooty ground.

In his dream the fire-eyed Moses was lighting matches.

What Would I Do Were They Free?

Pawnshop was knocked awake in the pre-dawn haze when a burnt-up peach fell on him. Its mushy, molten flesh spread across his chest like a mortal wound. He sprang up. The whole peach orchard was ablaze! Transfixed, he grabbed a flaming branch and held on for a moment, just enough time to gorge himself on the pain.

A bellow came from beyond the burning trees. A barefoot, shirtless man with a shotgun was standing on the porch of a shack the Pawnshop hadn’t noticed in the thick darkness. “I’ll kill de devil dat burn down ma trees!”

The gun didn’t alarm Pawnshop. He moved slowly and reverently. The mirror showed his irises wildly ablaze. He reared back and threw it into the heart of the fire. Finding what was left of his matchbook and pencil, he tossed them in too.

At the sound of a gunshot, he turned and left his fire, his good hand clenching the wrist of the burnt one. Walking at an even pace, he reached the road that cut through Mineola, turned left and continued on without looking back.

He’d left his shoes behind. A tall cloud of smoke loomed in his mind. He had nothing in his pockets and nothing in his hands but the mark of fire.