“-And if your brother is not near you, or if you do not know him….”
Deuteronomy 22:2
“Alright, we’ll give you a call when it’s done. Have a good one.”
His words put the matter to a neat conclusion. They came from the mouth of a mechanic, a man deep from the bowels of all things grimy and gasoline powered. His eyes are sharp and clear and cut like that of a wild animal. He speaks slowly and his voice is disarming. He smiles at my smile and we’ll leave it at that until later today sometime.
After seven years of dutifully carrying out my wishes, my truck has finally had a sick day. I’m indebted and mentally nod my head and touch my breast for Kiichiro Toyoda.
The shrill metallic chime of bells suspended from the door signals my departure from this enclave of curious automotive men. I thank God for the shrewd grubby tradesmen who know their way around the guts and innards of my automobile better than I. When these men or others begin speaking of trucks and their physiology, they might as well be speaking Greek in my ears. I think this sick day had something to do with starters or batteries or fuses; and its words like starters and batteries and fuses, where I usually check out, my eyes glossing over, pining for the knack and wisdom of these deft grimy men.
I cross the threshold, sling on my pack and set out for nowhere specific. I’m leaning into this car-less freedom today, light and peppy at the thought of a day nixed of schedules and plans to carve up my hours. Freedom to be bored, to rove, to linger. Freedom to stay or stray, or trace whatever course I choose, like some conscious, capricious meteor.
Daylight is nudging the streets to life as I shuffle beneath traffic signs and over the faded bones of crosswalks, beating the shot clock. Everywhere, people are in some stage of coming and going. Mornings in every phase of commencement or conclusion. I stride, jaywalking from one street to the next as cars whoosh by in their designated paths. A beleaguered Native couple hobble by in oversized shirts, big gulps in their tan hands and Nipsey Hussle rhythmically, slurring and sledging through their speaker.
‘Really came up in the field. Get money, get life or get killed.’
I skirt sidewalks beneath the big banks. Friendly trees and their shaggy limbs loom gently over the cracked cement. Somewhere, something is burning in this state. Strained, rosy sunlight, pours down over my metronomic, aimless steps. Bird songs pierce through the trees like sparks off an anvil. I wander and vagabond my way south through alleyways and deserted side streets. A soul glides by on a bike, shirtless and unkempt, like the shoddy two wheels were his only possession in this mortal life, though he’s smiling. I turn to witness again, to mouth something, to wave, to inquire, but he’s already well downstream. Gliding softly through this quiet street.
More steps…
Ah, a fan favorite. A clean, sleek courthouse, looking imperial and imposing and important. Named after some man who did something at some time. More strained, morbid sunlight dances and glares off its vast windows and colossal metal ‘do-not-f@#$-with-me’ signage. Dwellers of the streets, frenzied commuters and whatever I am, all like pathetic little ants beneath its austere gaze.
More steps...
Moored in the middle of a sidewalk I see a grocery cart and behind it, a woman so short she clutches the handles about chest high. Her blonde hair is nearly dreadlocked and her leathery face is carved deep with dusty grooves and deltas of crows feet. Age and years spent from without the cover of a roof and the silent peace of walls that surround. Her eyes are keenly awake and she quietly mouths something earnestly and entreatingly to those unseen, as if giving her audience the lowdown. Her silent utterance, her psalm, her cry for mercy, her sagely advice, her sidewalk TedX right then and there; it all appears convincing.
I pass by and smile.
“Hiii.”
“Hi there,” she says quickly and nods as normal as ever.
These traversers of reality, who kindly and lucidly acknowledge yours in passing and then, just as quickly return to engrossing banter in another…
“We pass one another, our day’s march on from this brief convergence, of two people, home to the same place on earth.”
More steps…
I pass a coffee shop. The fresh ground beans and tailings of loamy earth from faraway places greet my nostrils. Inside the coffee goers are scowling, deep in thought or riveted to their screens or lulled softly by earpieces behind floor to ceiling windows.
I stroll on.
Like a breeze, the pungent scent of a crop sold at buildings with green crosses wafts past my course, smelling strong and deliciously stinky.
I chart another direction for my feet on some lonely meridian a few blocks over and a few streets further south. This hushed pavement and sidewalk now leech, tall sinewy overgrowth, barbed and vile, almost reptilian in their green spines and sturdy arms. Old cars rest precariously on rusted bottle jacks as though forgotten and put off last millennia. Chain-link dutifully boarder’s patches of dusty earth and menacing dusty dogs. Domains sizable to postage stamps.
Quiet streets that seem to hide in plain sight. I pass a heavyset man with inked arms and a flat top. He’s languidly dragging on a cigarette in the shadow cast from a bygone warehouse. Everything in sight seems to languish.
He nods his head up at me, a universal shorthand for a friendly equal, another just trying to beat the game.
“Howdy,” he says.
I smile and wave. “What’s up man?”
In the freshness of early morning, people can exude a sort of crisp kindness, one as though rehearsed the night before. When nearing triple digits by noon, no one cares about their script and everyone is chill and lethargic and gentle. Especially in the shade. Oh, the shade.
More aimless steps for me.
I pass workers shoveling gravel beside the train tracks, looking as if scolded by our galaxies biggest star, they nod beneath broad sun hats. Searing, gooey asphalt, sentenced to stare up at the sun, another note that greets this wandering nose.
My feet continue like a metronome, walking intently to nowhere really. I come across modern petroglyphs grown dim and faded, depicting proudly or obscenely, names or some abstract defiance; applied with pressurized paint in a neat cylindrical can. The Rims shimmer and dance above the refinery in a torrid, fumey imagery, like a mirage rising, cooked in the kiln of a city.
On every street, placeless denizens of Billings, molder like old fishing boats on third world shorelines. I pass an unwashed and putrid old man, whose just been panning for food amidst this streets trashcan. He’s hunched and shaggy and shirtless, a walker bearing his weight as he drags his feet along. He’s wearing what appear to be scrub bottoms, holes along the knees and sneakers that look as though they’ve walked the circumference of the earth. He’s foul with smears of something along his chest, his hands discolored and scabbed.
“Hey there, would you like a shirt?”
Looking up, “uh, sure,” he replies softly.
“What’s your name?”
I’m expecting garbled, unintelligible words. But a clear “Tim” pierces through the muffled din of city sounds. His lucid declaration almost makes me blush as I shake his hand, sticky residue from his, clinging to mine. It’s as though his clear voice seems to underscore a volition and an independence. I think for an instant that my act seems saccharine to someone so right of mind. I shuffle through my backpack and find his shirt, placing it in his hard, worn hands.
I leave it at that, wishing I could do more, or say more or be more.
“We say goodbye and our day’s march on from this brief convergence, of two people, home to the same place on earth.”
When everything under the sun seems trite, where is that shade to pacify wandering hearts and scabbed hands?
I duck in to our public library.
The solace of such a place is hard to ascribe words to. Sitting in the comfort of a clean and quiet and sprawling air conditioned space, nestled in the nearness of timeless words and thoughts. To be snug between stacks and ensconced in quiet, paperbound ruminations that reverberate and hum some inaudible healing, is quite nice on a roasting day like this one. I suppose myself and the homeless searching for a mid-day haven, must be equal parts admirers of the written word and groupies of quiet cool places.
I feign some sort of productivity and loiter around the drinking fountain, gulping long and sloppy like some weary traveler. After a little while,
More steps…
I return to wandering the blistering streets amongst my neighbors. A clean, glinting Monte Carlo rolls past, more lyrics over beats slurring and sledging through the thick oppressive air. I’m on a street, spanning long vistas in opposing cardinal directions. This street leads up toward the airport, a sort of runway in itself. A run way of fast food and fast cash and people found wanting. Off in the distance are more lonely souls who huddle and congregate in rare pools of shade, under awnings or trees. Others either amble or loaf along cracked sidewalks, neither coming nor going, simply moving, indifferently, lifelessly.
Today, emancipated from my car-ownership I also had my vision checked. Seeing more closely, close enough to smell and hold and hello my neighbors. How out of touch I am in my climate controlled cabin and dangling “little trees.”
I pass a svelte older black woman with unruly nappy hair. She’s barefoot, walking intently as her eyes are fixed in a blank 1000-yard stare toward whatever is behind me in the distance. Her loose arms bob and swing as she walks with a wide gate on her mission. She vacillates in and out of blithe smiley looseness and laughter and then fitful bursts, paroxysms of clinched jaws, and ferocious, flailing, swatting arms. Forefingers used like the point of a spear to prevail her vindication. Veins around her eyes and through her neck swell and bulge as her conviction reaches a crescendo. She shouts at her accusers, her tormentors but walks on toward them with a wide, proud gate, staring down the world.
“We pass one another, our day’s march on from this brief convergence, of two people, home to the same place on earth.”
I cut across a vacant parking lot and pass a bus stop. Only one waiting for public transportation. There, a pasty heavyset woman, carrying likely everything she owns in her bulging pink backpack. Turning around swiftly she points at the cement behind her, admonishing whatever must be there in her eyes, imploring and spouting off to….. a dog? An annoying urchin? Some demon crawling after her, like a broken cricket?
It’s getting late in the afternoon, and I don’t feel like walking this city anymore. I’m now lamenting my car-less lot. I decide to sit on the cathedral steps of a catholic church downtown, soaked in sunlight and sweat from my wanderings. I bask in whatever hour of the day it is, admitting my servitude and lowliness to a master 93 million miles away hung high above my head. My face turned up to it like some equatorial lizard, still loving its warmth on my cheeks and forehead. I’m out of water, sitting defeated and incinerating seems like the only proper thing to do.
My phone rings, I look up from black shoelaces and stone steps and rare views of America’s most depressed city.
“Yeah, Griffin? Your truck is over here ready for pickup.”
Sounds like you were having a bad day, no joy in Mudville. At least, you now have wheels.