Knox Farewell
I’d thought about this moment
on dozens of occasions over the past few
weeks. At times, I imagined it emotionally grandiose
and theatrical, like the scenes performed
at campgrounds for tips by a couple
of Shakespearean actors who traveled with us
for a time. In the end, though, like so many
things in my life, it passed in a whisper.
We’re rolling out in five, my mom said.
Dawn and Rowdy got mixed up in some mess
and we can’t stick around in case the cops show.
Okay, I’d said, turning. But then. Hey, Mom.
What, baby?
I’m not going this time.
What do you mean?
I’m staying. I’m going a different way. It’s time. I’m eighteen now.
Her eyes welled with tears, and they slid
down her cheeks like raindrops on a windshield.
I don’t think of you as a man now. I still think of you as my little boy.
That doesn’t change who I am, I said.
It’s so sudden, she said.
Sometimes you have to leave that way. You taught me that.
I had prepared that line. I could see her fighting
within herself to try somehow to make me stay,
but such compulsion violated our family’s most basic ethos.
But why?
I just need to, I said.
My mother hugged me, redolent of essential oils
of Haitian vetiver, Indonesian patchouli, rosemary, and the Atlas cedar and clove she wore to ward off biting insects. We hugged until a voice
from outside called, Rollin’ out! and the school bus roared to life.
My mom grabbed a tent and a sleeping bag
from a plywood compartment and shoved them in my hands.
On top of them, she wedged a wad of rolled-up bills, her earnings
from her oil blends.
I love you, Mom, I said through my tightening throat,
my voice a hoarse rasp. Check your email more often now.
She put her hand to my cheek. You’ll find your way to joy, baby. You’re resourceful
and brave and you have a gentle heart. She hugged me one more time, tight
like she willed her body to absorb me and carry me inside her again.
Then she boarded the bus. I waved to the quizzical faces
pressed to the windows as they slowly departed, so they would know
I was staying behind by choice. They’d known people to linger
for a season and then go their own way,
but usually not after eleven years.
Then they were gone.
I once read about a man marooned
at sea. He spoke of the emptiness and solitude
on the yawning black ocean
at night, the sky an infinite chorus of stars.
I closed my eyes until my tears dried
on my cheeks and my breath quieted and I stood
in the stillness and aloneness, my earthly possessions
arrayed at my feet like fallen leaves, the vast dark waters
of my future stretching to the horizon in every direction.