“There was just nothing left to me, for me, after she died. Still isn’t. It’s like I’m trapped in a different world. Landscapes are in black and white, food has no taste, flowers have no smell. I see it all but everything is void of virtue,” Hal blurted, without knowing it. He was in some place else now, that other place he went to so often, where he kept himself right after she died, the time and place where suffering and isolation was the greatest.
“I imprisoned myself the minute the funeral was over. Didn’t take calls, allowed no one to see me, wouldn’t even talk to her parents. Just shut down, shut the world out,” Hal continued, spewing his stream of recollection as if on the sofa at a shrink’s office.
Ozzie stared into the fire. The realization that Ozzie couldn’t understand a word he was saying encouraged Hal to continue. “I took a month to get everything in order. You know, accounts, property, bills and all that bullshit. I decided I’d go into the woods and disappear. Don’t really know why. Figured I could suffer and die here, I guess I wanted that most of all. Didn’t have it in me to commit suicide. Just didn’t feel that was my right. But I wanted it to all be over. The hate, the suffering, the anger, the loss.”
Ozzie tried to reposition himself, but his pain was getting worse. He grunted and grimaced as he tried to move. Hal snapped out of his diatribe and realized Ozzie was in pain. “Careful there Ozzie, you’ve had a rough go,” he said.
Ozzie stared at him, unsure of what to think.
“Oh yeah,” Hal said, “I know your name. Right there hanging on that tag they stuck on you, like military dog tags or a prison tag. OZZIE, it says. Can’t imagine where you came from though. Don’t care none, neither.”
Hal leaned over, grabbed his jug of corn whiskey and walked to Ozzie. His approach frightened Ozzie and he tried to get up, but a sharp pain from his rear made it impossible. He grimaced again. “Easy there,” Hal said. “Like I said, you’ve had a rough go. Them coyotes clean broke your leg and bit right through it and your shoulder. I’ve been wanting to blast them suckers to smithereens for some time now. They was hooting and hollering up the ridge there not a hundred yards from here so I walked up with my shotgun and there they were beating you like you was Rodney King. Didn’t look like a fair fight to me so I took two of them down. The other two scattered off and I brought you back here. That was...let’s see...don’t really know what day today is, but that was three or four days ago, I reckon. I’ve been keeping you fed on this moonshine to take the edge of that pain off.”
Hal stopped talking for a moment to look at Ozzie’s wounds.
“I had to leave these wounds open, son, to let them drain. Made you a bandage out of some sphagnum moss I took from a mountain bog not too far from here. They used to use this stuff in the Civil War, you know, when they ran out of sterile dressings. Healed wounds faster than the cotton did! That’s cause this stuff doesn’t let bacteria grow.”
Hal let the moss bandage do its work and held the back of Ozzie’s head to pour a little shine into his mouth. Ozzie drank it, vaguely remembering it. Hal gently placed his head back down and stroked it before returning to the fire.
“That right there’s the whole problem with this world,” Hal said, on the verge of a rant. “The answer to most things is right there in nature. But you can’t put a patent on that moss so there ain’t no money in it. Instead we just whip up some concoctions made of who knows what, put it in a pill, give it a stupid name so a pharmaceutical company can sell it. Only, if you listen to the fast-talking snake oil salesman on the commercial, it creates all kinds of side effects that need another pill. So people buy that pill! Ain’t no need for none of it!” Hal concluded out of breath, his face becoming flustered. He thought for a moment as he checked the bacon.
“Bacon’s done,” he said. “I’ll just put it over here. You can try some later if you’d like.”
Hal sat back down, looked at Ozzie, and shook his head at all he had said in the last few minutes. He didn’t want to talk, had become used to not talking, but the words just bubbled out as if someone had shaken the soda bottle violently before opening it. “I don’t know what I was thinking,” Hal said, his words still bubbling out. “I just didn’t want to live without her. Didn’t want to have to talk to anyone, hear them say shit like “oh we’re so sorry” and “she was such an amazing woman” and whatever. Hell, I know how amazing she was. We did everything together, and I mean everything. Worked together, slept together, played together. No other friends, just her. And I was her one and only friend. And then...one of us is gone, leaving the other all alone.”
Hal looked at Ozzie and realized that he too must be alone.
“Well, like I said, I just wanted to die, to be gone. But I couldn’t pull the trigger. Couldn’t jump off the bridge, if you catch my meaning. So I just hightailed it to the woods figuring if I had to be alone without her I’d just as soon be alone without anyone. Besides, the world’s going to hell in a hand basket anyway. So I grabbed the things I needed to live out here and came and found my spot. To tell you the truth I figured for sure I’d be dead by now. Hoped I would, anyway, but death hasn’t taken me.”
Hal stopped, realizing that he had been talking nonstop, and wanting to extend an opportunity to Ozzie if he had something to say. Ozzie’s eyes were sealed as the moonshine had coaxed his pain away and his body to sleep.
Hal continued ranting, half drunk now.
“Hey...I’m a quarter Cherokee, you know. Yep, Skinner, you can look the name up on the Dawes Roll of 1906, it’s right there. My ancestors were run off this land, did you know that?”
Drool oozed from Ozzie’s mouth as he lay on the porch.
“Back in 1838,” Hal continued. “Made to march on foot about a thousand frigging miles, you believe that? White men like the other three quarters of me imprisoned them and took their land. A frigging crime!” Hal took a stick and stirred the fire as he continued his rant. “Then again, the Cherokee ended up keeping some slaves of their own, so I guess we’re all either captor or captive depending on what day it is. Can’t just let every creature live freely I reckon.” Hal exhaled as he concluded his rant and stopped talking, realizing that he had put his first audience in five years to sleep.
Hal walked over to Ozzie and checked on his blanket. He had been badly hurt and would need time to heal, but for the first time in a very long time, Hal felt a twinge of purpose. For so long his life had no meaning and he wanted only for his body and soul to fade into the forest soil, becoming lost amidst the winter leaf litter. To just end it all already. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust and all that.
In Hal’s barren field of despair a lone seed of hope now germinated, and its name was Ozzie. He had nurtured it for days, nursing it to its next phase of recovery, and he would continue nursing it. Hoping for it the happiness that eluded him and perhaps tasting a bit of happiness for himself once more.
Chapter 12
“Want me to freshen that coffee, sugar?” The Clayton Cafe waitress gave Blake a warm, Tuesday morning smile.
“Sure, thanks,” Blake said. He felt calmer than he had in weeks, but was staring at a tough week ahead. With only four days until Nick’s 50-Forks dinner he and Terry had plenty of work cut out to do. Blake cut into a biscuit smothered with sausage gravy.
“When?” A man’s voice from the next table asked the waitress loudly as she relayed a story.
“About...3-4 weeks ago,” she said. “Just flat out disappeared. Two boys that lived down on Warwoman just up and vanished, two best friends.” Blake turned his head to listen. The waitress caught his gaze and turned her body to include him in the gossip group.