Four Images While Driving on the Freeway
Mountains Seen During a Setting Sun
These raised scars on Earth's surface
Painted black on an orange canvas
Are like paper dolls,
Flat and linked with nothing
Defining them except
For their clean cut silhouettes.
They rise, unconquerable,
Waiting for the sun to set
To blend the world
Into their own shadowy mass
Until we all have become inseparable in the night.
Living Fog
Cresting a ridge I look down into
Nothing.
The path in front of me
Has been swallowed by a white wall
Like Jonas and the whale.
If snow is earth's blanket
And dry summer heat its sauna,
Then this fog is its cold steam room.
Early light illuminates its outer boundaries—
Far off to my right it's born from the lake
Like steam rising from hot coals.
To my left it reaches up with
Sticky fingers to scale the mountain wall.
As I reach the swirling brink
I hold my breath as it pulls me in.
Window Message
My breath catches in the
Frigid air of my car.
The vents emit winterized gusts
As the engine begins
Its slow revival from overnight hibernation.
I turn my head to look disappointed
Out the frosty window
At the snow falling like ash.
My warm breath
Momentarily stains the glass
To reveal the previously invisible heart
I drew the morning before.
I smile at my childishness
And think that winter has one benefit:
Hidden window messages.
Sunlight Reflecting off the Ice of Frozen Lake
Yellow sunbeams pierce the low
Lying cloud cover of a January afternoon.
The shafts of light
Reflect off the crests
Of frozen waves
Caught at the pinnacle
Of their journey.
Their life is prolonged
By the mercy of winter.
But then clouds shift in a sudden wind
Closing the small sunwindow,
Plunging the lake
Into a flat, gray state.
If you watched So You Think You Can Dance last season, you will know where the inspiration for this story came from.
Sammy
It was the summer I turned twelve that Sammy came to live in the same foster home as me. He was two years younger, but we took to each other like peanut butter and chocolate. My parents died in a car crash when I was four, and with no relative willing to take me in I was put into the system to move from one home to the next. That was my fifth house, and even though I had gone through the transition five times, it never became easier to say goodbye. Not all the homes were bad, and when I left there was always at least one thing I came to miss. But Sammy, Sammy was the hardest to say goodbye to.
Two years before Sammy moved in, his mom ODed and his dad...well his dad was a mystery that even his mom didn't know the answer to. She got pregnant during her hallucinogenic phase and claimed Sammy was a modern day Jesus conceived by the imaginary man in her dreams. She, however, didn't get a religious following, just a trip to the county psych ward and a course in rehab.
Sammy was quiet, we all were at first, and he spent most of his time in his room. It wasn't until I invited him to come along to the canal with my friends and me to race paper boats, that I finally got him to open up. After that afternoon, I couldn't get the boy to shut up about the canal and boats and how much fun he had. Actually, I couldn't get him to shut up about anything. He would come into my room at night and sit on the floor and talk at me. Most the time I let him jabber away, but sometimes when I was really tired I would tell him to play the quiet game with me. He fell for it every time and in the morning I would find him on my floor having fallen asleep while still playing the game. I always felt guilty on those mornings because I realized he had something he wanted to tell me so badly that he waited in my room all night in hopes that I would talk first so that he could tell my his story.
That's what I loved most about Sammy: his innocence. For a boy who's seen more than most adults, he never lost his purity. I always hated how other people would call him slow in the sense of mentally handicapped when all he did was take his time. He thought through things, making sure that he understood it completely before moving in.
It was like the time I told him a joke over breakfast and he gave me a blank look before giving an obligatory laugh. It wasn't until we were riding our bikes later that day that I realized he was no longer beside me, and I looked back to see him rolling on the ground. At first I thought he was in pain, but as I got closer I could tell it was fits of laughter. Between his gasps for air, he told me he finally got the joke. His happiness at finally getting the joke had me holding my sides right along with him.
That was the best summer of my life. I became the big brother Sammy never had and he became the person I needed to protect no matter what. I didn't protect him out of some sense of obligation, but I did it because it was something I needed. Looking back, I now know I felt that way because I needed to be needed. All my life up to that point, I had been cared for out of charity, but with Sammy, I could be the one to care for him. I had a purpose when the rest of my life was out of my control. I became the Batman to his Robin.
It wasn't until the end of the summer that our relationship took a different turn. We were down by the canal again, like we did most days either catching crawdads or floating our boats or on the days we were lucky, using Chris' dad's four wheeler to tie a rope to it so that we could pull a tube along in the canal. One of us would drive down the dirt path lining the canal while another one of us would be pulled along in the tube. Sammy didn't know how to swim which was one of the main reasons I never let him ride in the tube when we managed to get the four wheeler. He hated being left out, but my protectiveness stopped me from letting him get in the tube. We never came away unscathed, and we always wore our wounds with honor.
This time, however, it was just Sammy and me down by the water, trying to skip rocks in a space too small for the rock to get more than one good bounce if we even got it to bounce at all against the current. It was one of those lazy days where it's better to do almost nothing than it is to do something, so Sammy and I just enjoyed one of the last free days of summer vacation.
I watched Sammy a lot that day, running up and down the small embankment trying to find the perfect skipping stone. When he found a particularly good one, he would call me over to verify that it was indeed a good skipping rock.
It was during one of times he was looking for a rock, that I saw him squat down right at the edge of the sharp slope into the water. He was stretching for a rock just outside his ten year old reach and in one agonizing second, I watched him lose his balance and fall head first into the water.
I stared, frozen, at the spot Sammy had occupied only a moment before. It only took an instant for my instincts to kick in and I started racing down the canal road. The current was faster that most people would guess, but I knew from hours of experience just how far and fast it could drag a small boy.
As I ran I looked for two things: the first, of course, was Sammy who managed to reach the surface every ten feet or so; the second, a stick I could use to reach out to him as he floated past.
Even now, 25 years later, I don't remember how I managed to pull Sammy out of the water. All I remember was the absolute terror in Sammy's voice as he yelled out my name, Rick, before he lost his air and slipped under the water once again. I also remember after I pulled him out of the water as we lay panting on the road. Both of us were in tears that mixed with the murky water dripping from our bodies. Needing to know Sammy was truly safe, I pulled him close to me just to feel his warmth and the shaky rise and fall of his chest. He clung to me probably to remind himself that he was alive.
It was during our embrace that I made a promise that has stuck with me to this day when all other childhood promises have faded away. In the lull between realizing he's not dead and the fear that he could have died, I whispered to Sammy, “I will never let you drown.” I don't know if I ever broke that promise.
I was the first to be transferred out of the house and Sammy left soon after. I don't know where he went, and all that I have left of him now are my memories and an old picture of the two of us of my twelfth birthday sitting right here on my work desk.
I still think about him often, probably more often than I should for someone who was in my life at such a young age and for only a short while. I think about that summer and the canal and the nights he fell asleep on my floor, and I can't help but wonder what ever happened to Samuel Theodore Lovehearst. He would hate me for things his full name, but it's hard to picture a grown man still being called Sammy.
“Mr. Reynolds?” A knock at my office door brings me out of my revery. “You wanted me to remind you when it was 5:30.”
I smile. “Thanks, Josh. I'm sure my wife will be grateful one of us got me to the restaurant on time.”
Josh gisve a quick laugh and a small, you're welcome, before exiting the office.
I start gathering my things and before I leave, I give one last glance at the picture that's been on my desk for the past thirteen years. I don't know why, I always feel a little guilty when I turn my office light off and plunge the picture into darkness. Maybe I have a little bit of Amish superstition in me that a picture captures the soul; I don't want Sammy's soul to be in the dark. I laugh, I guess I'm still protecting him even now.
It's a short walking from my office building to the subway. I like taking the subway because it gives me time to think and saves a lot of money not having to get a cab or trying to park in the city. Also, it conveniently stops just a block from my apartment. You can't beat that.
I follow my normal path to the station, not really thinking about anything or paying close attention to what I was doing except to avoid large, stationary objects. It is in this near daze that I feel someone slam into my left shoulder. I loose my balance and stumble slightly before I right myself and can see who I ran into.
At first, I thought it was a short man, but I can see that he is actually quite tall, just hunched over with his head tucked down and shoulder pulled up as if he is trying to hide his head inside his body. The next thing I notice is his bedraggled state. Obviously homeless or extremely poor, his clothes have holes in them and the knit hat he's wearing has broken strings sticking out that with one good tug, the entire thing could unravel.
He, too, lost his balance for the collision, but since I gained mine more quickly, I reach out to help steady him. I think I startle him because he pulls away from my grasp, throwing himself more off balance catching his heel on a step and falling into a door.
I take a quick step towards him and squat down to make sure he is alright. It is when I am down at eye level that he looks at me for the first time. Our eyes meet and I feel my heart stop for a single beat and then begin to race. I know those eyes. I have seen them every day on my desk, staring at me from the face of a ten year old boy. When you look someone in the eye for that long, you don't forget what they look like. But I second guess myself, thinking it is my imagination playing games on my since I had been thinking about Sammy only a short while ago. For proof I search for the scar he got one afternoon while riding bikes when he caught his tire on the curb and flew head first into the concrete. It had taken almost a month for the scab to heal above his eye, leaving a scar only a ten year old could be proud of. When I look ove the man's right eye I can see the scar faded over the years and hidden under a thin layer of dirt, but it's till there, nonetheless.
“Sammy?!” I whisper before I can stop myself.
He looks at me then. I mean really looks, as if he is trying to remove the layers of years from my face. I can tell he's working on who I am and I don't want to rush him. He hated being rushed as a kid. If he couldn't figure something out, he'd ask and I know that that still holds true now.
It takes him a while, but I know right when he figures out who I am because his eyes get and and his mouth opens slightly. “Rick?” He says.
I break into a smile and before I can think about my reaction, my body leans towards his trying to pull him into a hug. Before I can touch him, Sammy hunkers back into his shell and scoots as far into the doorway as he can get.
That's when I realize that he is not as happy to see me as I am to see him. The years have obviously been hard on him, and have probably destroyed him more than anything else could. He had needed a protector as a boy and he had found one in me for a short while, but in the end I couldn't save him. I look at his face; it's tired as if all that's left in him is his innate reaction to breathe—not even the will to breathe, just the automatic response that keeps his body alive. I think back to that little boy gasping for air as I pulled him out of the water. He's no longer gasping. He's already drowned.
As I take in Sammy's state, he watches me right back. Not with interest or even indifference, though. Indifference take a willful choice. Sammy is watching me like he would a speeding subway—like its easier to let me just pass by him without trying to bring me into focus.
“Sammy,” I say, trying to bring him out of his strange daze.
It works and his eyes slowly move up my face to catch my own. Oh how I wished to see those eyes again in person, and now that I have I wish I hadn't. When I first saw them I knew who they belonged to, but now I can tell they are not the Sammy's I knew. The one's I knew lit up at sailing paper boats down the canal. These though, these haven't been lit in years.
My heart arches at seeing what has become and I can't help but feel a need to protect him once again. This time not from bullies or strong currents, but from himself. He is my little brother in all the ways that count and I can't let him stay like this.
I stand up, towering over him. “Come on, Sammy.” I nearly command him as I bend down to grab his arm. He tries to shy away again, but this time I don't let him. I pull him to his feet so that we can look at each other eye to eye. “You're coming home with me. You need a place to stay and a good meal and I am not going to leave you on the streets to starve.”
I don't know why, but something changes in him as I speak—he no longer has a blank look on his face. He becomes angry. No, not angry, furious like he wants to hit me, and I am actually scared he might do it. I drop his arm and take a step back and as I do, his fury changes just as suddenly as it came. He's cold now, dangerously cold. Heat and fire may consume, but they can be extinguished. Cold swallows someone whole, burrowing down into their core. You can't get rid of cold, and in an instant I know I cannot save him. He won't let me.
His all to familiar eyes stay locked on mine, and even though he has changed so completely to be almost unrecognizable, I can still tell he is working through a thought just like he did as a kid. It only takes him a few moments to settle his mind and before he speaks, I know these are going to be the last words I will ever hear from him.
“You should have let me drown.” He spits at me. With that fatal sentence I know that I have broken my promise to him, and through my own grief I can see it breaks the little bit of strength he had been able to muster. All emotion leaves his face except the tired which has come back. His shoulders slump and his head drops while he leans against the wall and gently slides to the ground. I watch him for one moment before I step over his protruding legs and walk down the subway station stairs.
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