A Dirty Miracle

That last night before she left I went home and stripped. And I scrubbed at my skin and then at my heart trying to wash away the doubt. In the morning I put her bag on the bus and we stood alone in the shadows. The bus driver, an old Indian with eyes that had watched a thousand goodbyes gently said, “All aboard Miss. Got to get gone now.” She started to cry. I wanted to say something about trying to do something right in a world full of wrong, about courage and what it demands. About the ache that crawls inside and attaches itself forever. But I said nothing. She looked up into my eyes one last time and blinked back the tears then she reached out and gripped my hand, feeling for the scar and what was true between us. Got to get gone . . . Then the bus carrying all I knew of love moved away down Old Hope Road. - - - I walked onto the job site out by the county line to pick up my last paycheck. Some brickers were working on the second story of some office building that would never be finished in Critterville. But I was done with all that now. I was done with the crack in my own foundation. Something about that girl, gone now, had poured into the bottom of me. And I heard the murmur of her whisper filling my heart allowing it to finally heal. But broken jaws follow forever. They wait patiently every day with a shovel. They try to bury you above the ground. I felt the crack at the back of my head and heard a groan rise up over the murmur. Hours and three of his guys dragged him off me. I was out cold, lying face first in the same dirt she had tried so hard to clean from me. The back of my head split open, the feel of blood matting my hair and darkening the floor of my neck. He had a gun in my mouth. It misfired just before they pulled him away. The old man hollered for a truck and the crew chief had two of his boys load me into the flat bed. I came to in intensive care. The back of my head shaved, my jaw wired shut. They said it had been a week but I could still taste the gunpowder. “Your skull is fractured”, the doctor said. “It’ll heal up, but you’ll always have that scar. Your hair will cover it all. You're the only one that'll know its there." He looked away. "But that's a forever souvenir." I closed my eyes, pushed away the pain and reached out once more for the girl. In the black I could hear her calling my name. But it sounded so far off, like it came from a place I could only remember but never reach. --- I awoke the next day with Hours gripping my hand. He reached out, both hands enveloping mine. “I told you boy. Clean hands is hard to come by.” "How long?" I whispered. "Been ten days now. But don't worry. The owner’s lawyer come by the site after. Worried about getting sued. Paid your hospital bills upfront.” The old man's face, lined with years of hard living and the remains of good intentions, twisted into concern. “You’re gonna be fine. 'Cept that old scar. That’s aint nothing much. No one’s even gonna know its there ‘cept you. Like all them other scars people carry.” “And in a few days you’ll walk out of here free and clear.” Free and clear sounded like something you tell a kid. You’ll be free...free from trouble and heartbreak...like the the world won’t still be waiting with its ten thousand toll booths telling you ‘you gotta pay for every wrong turn.' Free was just something you dream about when you rattle the chains you know you’ll wear forever. I looked away and shut my eyes and felt the weight of my decision again. Letting her go. Trying to protect her. About what it cost me and how sacrifice feels when you know its the right thing but dammit you can barely stand it. And clear, that was something else. Clear needed a shovel to get thru to me. Lying there I was suddenly clear about what I wanted and what I owed. About what I loved and needed. Clear about what I felt and always would. Every time I touched the back of my head. Everytime I whispered her name. “You got nothing to worry on with that old boy no more though,” Hours said. I opened my eyes and stared up at him. “The cops come later and filed a report.” He looked away. "Them cops think ink is the same as justice.” “Turns out he was on probation down Birmingham. Killed a Mexican. Manslaughter… but he cried self defense and the judge decided one rancid white man was worth more than a picker's justice.” He had a chaw in and looked to spit but stopped. “Let him go on probation. Told him to get gone from the county for good though. For good, that's a laugh. That fella was just natural born crooked. Crooked way of seeing things, crooked heart. Hell he even walked crooked. He couldn’t find straight with a yard stick.” “After he laid you out the boss said “Don’t need your kind of trouble. Got plenty of my own. Let him go.” "But I seen him later that night... I was at a back table at the old woman’s…” He looked away. “You know the way I get sometimes. Just so sick of this old world. Sick of the crooked and the hurt. When your heart feels like a dog been kicked so much it can’t stand much of anything but a corner full of alone." Hours stared at the floor, a tremble in his voice. "He started in…the bottom shelf hootch, talking about how he never walked away from no job not done. Said he weren’t no half assed bricker no sir. And how that foundation out in Critterville had a crack they needed to repair the next day. The rebar was already in and they was coming at dawn and he was gonna fix the work himself dammit… pay or not.” “He could barely see by closing. He took his crooked self out there alone in the dark. Must of just passed out, face down. Just like you.” Hours looked up. “That Readymix truck rolled up early, still dark and poured it in wet. Trying to fix that crack. I suppose that bricker had some crack in him too. Maybe it weren’t his fault. Maybe it's no ones fault. Some things just ruin from the start.” Hours took a deep breathe. “But no concrete for a man. Don't get deep enough to fix whats wrong. We just cover the cracks with time, call it right and move on. The float boys found him too late, one hand reaching up and dragged him out. They laid him to the side and went back to work." "Covered it all up and smoothed it out. Cracks fixed now. Just like it weren’t never there.” “The Readymix driver was a Mexican. When he saw the body he fell to his knees…scared…started praying for forgiveness." Hours looked up. “Seems like half the time we spend praying for help. And the other half praying for forgiveness. Sometimes they come down together.” “They called the sheriff. He took out a pencil and started to write it up. Then he stopped, folded the report and put it in his hip pocket.” “Nothing here but justice," he says. Then looking at the broken bricker, stiff as starch, the sheriff says, ”Just a bad foundation is all we got here. Nobody’s gonna miss an accident report or some old boy like this. Just make sure he ends up forgotten,” then he pointed to the fields. “The Mexicans nodded solemnly and carried him to the groves. One more unmarked grave, just every other picker that ran out of time looking for some hope to dig up.” Hours sat quiet for a long moment. “That concrete driver was scared though. He showed up at the bar that night. His girl was there. He cried and told her what he did and said he was afraid, you know...that kind of fear you get from expecting the worst your whole life." "But he said something. Something I aint heard before. Something sounded true. He said he weren’t afraid for what they would do to him, but that they would take him and he would never see her again.” “She listened to the words, closed her eyes and she prayed into the dark to God, for mercy and love and some way to finally reach both." The old man paused feeling the weight in the words. Uncertain they could carry all he felt. “Then she reached out and took his hands. She prayed with her hands and she prayed with her eyes. Then that old weary juke music began to play and together they prayed with their arms. I seen women pray like that before... praying with their eyes and their arms, hoping that a man could feel love beneath the fear in them.” Hours face was blank, but his eyes filled with tenderness. “And then as the music swept up into the air all around them, she prayed with her feet, moving to the rhythm and the howl under the music…all of it ...all of it rising up like some kind of busted hymn." "I couldn’t say a word. I wanted to. I wanted to say 'damn this world.' I wanted to spit for the trouble all around. But I didn’t say a word.” Hours looked out the window. “I seen a lot of things boy. Mostly terrible. Come to expect it. But that night I seen something else. Some kind of holy passed back and forth between that boy’s fear and that girl’s forgiving." "I don’t know a damn thing. Not a damn thing.” A nurse looked into the room and continued by. “The old woman watched it all too," Hours finally said. "She watched the Mexican and the girl say good bye, then after the girl left that old woman watched the boy trying to be brave, him sitting at a table.. put his face in his hands and began to cry.” Hours stood and walked to the window. “That old woman, she seen a thousand bar fights. She knows the world, same as me. Knows the hard of it, the mean at the bottom of it. Seemed like she changed too, from the watching. “ “She come around the bar with a mop and locked the door. She took hold of her jug of bleach and began to work like she does every night at closing. She worked, pushing the bleach over the dirt and begun to mumble to herself. Then she stopped and hollered up at the rafters. “Don’t know why there has to be so much trouble. Aint you had enough yet? Don’t know why there has to be so much heartache.” Then she started shaking her mop pouring that bleach and she cried out, “You must be some kind of dirty God.” Then looking from the mud on the wide plank pine floor to the Mexican boy and she whispered, “Is all we are to You just some dust in Your eyes...is all we are just dirt on Your hands?” The old woman shook with anger, then looked at the boy staring at her. He got up to go, then stopped. “God will never forgive me Mrs., will He?” he said. "The old woman set the mop aside then stepping toward him looked into his eyes. “Come here son. Hold out them hands.” She took them and tightening her grip whispered, “These hands got some good still to do. You got to hold a wife’s hand someday you’ll feel hers in this palm and she will swear forever. And someday with this hand you’re gonna cradle a baby.” She pulled at his hands until his dirty palms stretched up and his eyes went wide. “Forgive me,” he whispered to her. “Nothing to forgive boy," she says. "It’s just living. It uses our hands against us." “Then the old woman took the jug and carefully poured bleach over his hands. The boy began to cry and the old woman dried his hands with her apron." "She said “Go on now. Go out and use them hands for what they should be used for. For building a life and loving a woman and being a man.” The boy stood and turned away then stopped. He straightened, then turning back held out a hand. The old woman took it and in a moment his hands enveloped hers. And taking her in his arms she let out a small cry. Then he turned and walked away. “What are you looking at old man?” she said to me. “A miracle," I told her. “A dirty miracle.” WLM