58
I’ve beaten the sun up. Might as well go for a drive.
With a coffee in hand, I find my keys and leave Rose a quick note.
Good morning, baby. Out for a drive. See you at Jimmy’s .
There’s somewhere to be, though I’m not sure where.
It doesn’t matter.
The thing is to go.
I decide to drive into town and check up on everything.
The ambient feel of Johnston before sunrise is always potent and wonderful.
There are flavors of post-apocalyptic fate about it and one can imagine it completely abandoned.
There is nothing new or overtly clean.
The buildings are small and unmodern.
The lawns along Main Street are mostly left askew and mismanaged during this time of year.
And most of all, there is not a single soul in sight, just the few muted lamp lights from some of the earliest risers, all of whom I imagine are in their 80s, reading.
I almost stop by one of these lit homes and ask for company.
When the elderly caught me at the right moment, I could get so damn emotional.
I could all of a sudden be overtaken with an extraordinary feeling of compassion.
I could sense their tangible nostalgia.
All around, the people they saw were unconsciously waving flags and singing them farewell.
What was it like at the end of such a long rope? I can’t help but fear some may look back on an unfulfilled life.
Have they missed anything? Why are they sleepless? Are they by themselves? How many phone calls from grandchildren did they get these days?
Who was it, out there in the void of the last leg of their journey that they clung to? Perhaps God, and God alone.
They have my admiration and respect.
I only hope they know they’re invaluable reminders, testaments to life-lived and true possibility.
Perhaps they are fragile today, but they were strong long before the now fading image.
I think about Nancy in Cambridge.
I wonder if she’s missed me at all.
I miss her.
Sometimes, I miss everyone all at once.
Nancy.
What must it be like to see oneself in the mirror grown older? Once, she was young.
She had blood flowing freely.
She had a fit body and drove all the boys crazy.
How did it feel to let go? We don’t know ‘till we know.
I love them all.
Those I’ve met and those I haven’t.
Those that have gone and those still to go.
I thank you for paving the way.
I drive past Sal’s Auto and on.
It seems like Frank and Charlene have made the most of their storefront.
Maybe they’re flourishing.
I make a note to stop by.
The Shell station and Mario’s.
It seems like forever ago I passed out on that pavement.
A lifetime had come and gone in months.
The high school, the mill, the insurance agency, the grocery store, and the salon.
These are the usual landmarks, and I enjoy them, eternal as they are.
They’re sleeping and I sing to them softly.
Dream Johnston, please.
Dream yourself so strong that you will live on and on, forever in obscurity.
Promise me you’ll never die.
Promise that the truckers down the highway will always have a place to hang their weary heads and get well.
I think about Mo, she’s probably already at the joint.
I contemplate visiting, but right now I can’t stop.
I’m memorizing all the details again.
I’m driving through the tiny neighborhoods and remarking upon the homes like it’s the first time I’ve seen them.
There are always little changes, not to be missed.
There’s the chipped paint and eroding wood.
Clean lawns and toys left from children.
There are half flown flags and curtained windows.
There are sidewalks run crazy with grass, weeds sprouting up from the cracks.
There are potholes in the middle of streets, those that had long since lost their painted lines and I know that these roads will survive longer than us all.
There are iron rusted gutters where only the most desperate of animals wander and hide, and all the trees in the yards have gone bare, preparing themselves for the merciless winter.
The railroad that runs straight through Main Street hasn’t housed the roar of a train for a decade and so and it too, is rusted, a relic of days gone by.
Johnston.
What will be your fate as the rest of the planet moves on? Will these train tracks lie here for centuries?
Still, the sun has not risen.
Perhaps it has grown tired at last.
I keep driving through, winding and winding around the street blocks looking back on the immense past.
Will it always repeat? On our knees we pay homage to ancestors, but do we hold on too tight? We do it well around here.
Perhaps the best.
To think as a kid I rode my bike down these streets, and still I remain.
Do we outgrow anything? Do we ever leave ourselves behind? Is that my reflection in the gray dawn sky?
I decide to make the drive back out to the country.
I’m going to the Motel 8 to have a word with my father.
There’s no use in waiting till tonight.
If we’re to have it out, there’s no better time than the morning.
The whole landscape is clear, the world illuminates before me.