“Look at Me”
[The Great Flood of ‘51]
By Dennis L. Siluk
Index and Chapters:
[The Great Flood—1951]
Opening
Poem; The Great Flood of ‘51
Poem: A Child Voice
Introductory Chapter
The Wild Sandboils:
By the Railing
Cliff Steps
1—The Levee
2—The Storm
3—The Moon and Heart
4—The Rope
5—The Red Horse of Shock [To safety]
6—Hurricane [Ephemeral]
7—The Cigar
8—The Strength
9—Catching up
10—Water and Wind
11—The Bushes
12—The Woods in the River
—Mississippi Shanty
Interlinking Sketches:
The Mission [1917]
The Mac Camp Boy [1925]
John Nobel [1925]
Omaha Beach [June 6, 1945]
“…and his seed were the promises made. …; but as of one. And to thy seed, which is Christ.”
“…I therefore become your enemy, because I tell you the truth?”
[Galatians 3:16/4:16]
∆
The Great Flood of ’51
The night is dark,
the Mississippi lies asleep,
the moon is veiled in a velvet mist
with a blood-spattered chest.
It has hoary strange eyes,
restless with hazy fear,
slumberous and twitchy
with white thunder under her.
All who listen can hear
the whisper of the ghostly storm,
booming far—encircling near,
gliding overnight—overhead.
Opening: The Mighty Mississippi, as it has been often called, could be a time bomb at times, and has been for many; —that is to say, along the river by what was known as the High Bridge in St. Paul, Minnesota, along the shoreline were flats, where at one time they were inhabited by the poorest of poor people in St. Paul; the river-front people, the people of the Levee, or also known as the Upper Levee Flats. In essence, at one time these were considered nothing but shanties, amongst a multitude of other names (lowbrow), but this brief will do. The Polish, Bohemians, and Swedes lived there—, lived in this Shanty Town with it’s so called gloomy and haunting, drunken quarrelsome environment. Its atmosphere, its inhabitants were of a different nature, a different variety one may say, a whole new breed in comparison to the rest of the city, or so it was whispered: there were no church bells ringing in this area, or bibles or prayer books being carried by folks; nor was it slow and peaceful. If anything it was a dark nebulous—section of the city avoided if at all one could do so.
But that was long ago, even before Minnesota was a state, halfway through the 1800’s to the beginning of the 20th century it held that reputation. Then it took a turn, slowly, but surely, and it gained a new recognition, [gratitude if not status], and was called “Little Italy.” Nevertheless, throughout its history [the Mississippi, from New Orleans to Minnesota] it was known for its record flooding, disasters, that would leave thousands homeless— in particular, throughout the 1800’s, and into the twenty century. In 1951, there was just such a flood, a great flood, which did substantial damage to the dirt-road community, so great was it, the city decided to tare it down—the whole levee and its community, in consequence, thus, the last house disappeared, in 1960.
You are about read of just such a storm that took place [‘Mississippi Shanty’], and when the levee’s sandbags and dikes cracked open, it became a displaced iniquity of disaster. Although this story is about one man for the most part that fades into the whole story, “Mississippi Shanty,” many of the events in this story are based on true events, as others are equally true in fact, and in spirit. But we must remember I have diluted it to be historical fiction.
∆
A Child’s Voice
You can hear the sounds
Of a loved one’s voice
A child’s voice, gradually
Breaking
… The safety
Of the child … There is no rest
Beneath one’s feet on this world
(visible or invisible)
As the earth tries to settle this dispute
No rest at all for man or ghost until the child says:
‘All is well.’
11/10/03—revised 8/24/05
∆
The Wild Sandboils
Introductory Chapter
[By the Railings] By the railing, yes, he stands there the ole man, just stands—for the moment, yes, by the railings, overlooking the Mississippi, the levee, feeling the torrential rain on his back. Says the old man, “Incredible”; he was desperately looking about, as he chattered to himself, and he said that.
Cars flush with the waters, up to peoples waist. “Yes,” he murmured, “ah…” (Perhaps meaning ‘alias’) indeed, for the earth was surrendering to the sky. He only made sounds, never finishing a sentence, or even a line of words…perhaps—yes, perhaps it was not to be finished right now, he was not moving you know, or did he intend to escape anything, he was staying…looking over the rail, upon the levee, below the cliff, conceivably twenty feet below, or perchance, more like thirty feet: it could be. The winds were pussy, he stumbles a bit trying to hold his vision, focus, close to 60 ones eyes do not have the flexibility, the stamina, the potency to act so quickly as it did in his youth, it takes a moment to focus, time to allow the eye to digest, and then the mind to separated fact from fiction; was he seeing what he was seeing?
The levee contained sandboils [places where water assorted with sand comes up from side to side—the landward face of the levee; thus, forced up by the strain, or stress of the water contained in the levee]. It all looked like a basin now—a sunken swamp, just collecting more water as the rain poured down and the ground spit it up, spit up its watery guts. The sky, ostensibly looking like a canopy, punctured like a balloon, its drainage was toppling down upon the levee, it was day to dark; fangs dug into the clouds continued to rip at the clouds, ripping them open, their guts vomited out; unbearable for those on the levee. There was some deer in the river trying to cross it, and then they vanished. It took anesthetized nerves to bear this phenomenon, this flood of floods, and storm of storms.
[Cliff steps] He gazes at the storm—it could be his doom, or hers, or both of theirs. He has measures his alertness, knows he is fallible, and his judgment against natural forces, he castoffs the fact he is just simply mortal clay to the storm—nothing more; he has weighted the event against the eventuality; the circumstance, and his ability. He is in a crucial position now—ebbing down to the levee. A solitary man, his judgment forewarned; he knows the enemy will refuse neutrality; he ebbs nevertheless, perilously, down the cliff steps to the levee.
1
St. Paul, Minnesota, 1906
The Levee
Günter Gunderson, past 50-and nearer to 60 now; —a widower and friend to half the Irish, German and Italians in the city, land owner with several rental properties, along with some thirty-tenants, and father to only one daughter, Jean-lee Haigh, former: Gunderson: mother’s maiden name: Betty Silluak, sister to Teresa, daughter to Anatolee]
This (his daughter’s name) was not taken lightly, for he took his middle name and his deceased wife’s middle name [his young wife dying of cancer], putting much thought into the process, earlier, and named his daughter at birth, Jean-lee —capitalizing both the Jean and the Lee, to make it more distinct. In addition, he added the hyphen to show its individual nature, which he felt created the personification, or embodiment, of both his soul and his wife’s into his daughter’s character.
When she cried, “Papa…help!” seeing him as she looked up, standing in one of her two rooms of her house [a shack more so than a house], along the levee, not far from the broken dikes that had kept the storms water from flooding the area an hour past, which was of course set up for that purpose, for just this design, to keep the flooding waters from drowning the houses on the levee, flooding the streets, sinking the houses into mud; but this storm was not an ordinary storm, it was one that could sink the Titanic, a horrific storm to say the least. And so history would record.
Standing was her father, otherwise known as Old Man Günter, as he was often called, not so much because he was old, in which he was only fifty-eight (to some old to most, not real old I expect), but rather because he was like an old timer, his moods, his characteristics or aura. Furthermore, now he was like, that is, similar to a man on top of a vessel, a towering ship (as he stood on top of this roof), water all around the houses, and especially the two—the one he was on and the one his daughter was in, both of the houses sinking slowly, leisurely into the soft, the muddy, spongy gravel, into the muddy soft crust of the earth. With a stubborn, ascetic face, flabby-jawed, and dark-cave-eyes, gaunt arms and shoulders, he leaned forward, he could feel his stomach tightening. The house, the one he was standing on, and Jean-lee’s shanty was being cornered in by the storm, it was nothing less than a watery grave in the makings: perhaps he already knew this. He looked stern, unyielding as one might expect a captain of a ship to look when his ship is sinking, deliberating on something, looking severe, and thinking, thinking hard on how to save a sinking ship. Is it not so, a man takes on more than what he can, he learns how to bear what he shouldn’t, thus, he learns he can deal with anything, and this was how he was feeling.
On the other hand, you could tell on her face, Jean-lee’s face was happy to have made the discovery that her father was there, it was not always a pleasant surprise—but it sure was this time, today, at this very moment. He heard voices here and there in passing, but not knowing where, the wind was carrying them. He always made things work out though, work out right that is, storm or not, surely this was just a matter of thought on his part, on how to save the day, or so she conjured. The roof of her house was torn off, dilapidated in the water not far from her shanty, the old man could see it, broken to pieces, boards here and there, everywhere; parts of it were sailing rapidly down the Mississippi. About this time noon tomorrow he guessed—possibly the forenoon, the whole damn roof would be in St. Louis along its docks, if not the whole house, he told himself.
He laid down flat along the stratum, joint [seam] of the roof; it was extraordinarily strong he felt, that is to say, he felt it safer than the rest of the roof, and would be the last to cave in, and if it did, did cave in that is, it would serve as a boat, notwithstanding.
It was close to mid-spring, and everything was thawing out from a long heavy winter of over receiving [getting] somewhere around, one-hundred inches of snow—now melting and overwhelming the sewer system to where it also had overflowed. Along with the storm, the river had risen some thirty-feet, and was miles wide farther down the river, several miles wide if not wider.
As he looked about he noticed all her furniture, all Jean-lee’s possessions that is, to include the furnishings which was not much at all, but was all she had none-the-less, was all soaked, laying about, everything wet; in particular, her bed-mattress: he had given it to her on their wedding day, he was very proud to have done that, not many men think of that he remembered telling himself, think of insuring his daughter and son-in-law had a nice bed to sleep on; he believed that since one spends a third of their life in bed, it would be the perfect gift, yes, he was a proud man, and that also was destroyed in the wet decaying room she was standing in, the wedding gift, a heartfelt moment crossed his brow, —like everything else, it to was sinking through the soaked-wooden floors of the house slowly, like rotting wood, unhurriedly as if to torture the house, or possibly give the occupant a last chance to get out— bitter-sweet.
As the water circled the house, rising with the darkness, bit by bit, Günter knew in due course, the whole house would be under water: it was just a matter of time.
Again she cried:
“Papa…I see you!” She said that to assure him of course, she had seen him, for he was calculating, staring, holding a rope in his hand, in one hand, firm, tight, as not to allow it to slip away, staring, just thinking and staring: it was a different kind of thinking from the way in which you and I know people to think. He looked this way and that way, every which way as if he was examining, analyzing his next move—editing his thoughts, his life if need be. The storm had between thirty-to-forty-mile an hour winds a times, he calculated, increasing, dying-down, then out of the blue, increasing again. He noticed trees were blown right out from under their roots, as he become aware of that, he gave more time to calculating, and recalculate: another man might have panicked and jumped in after her, but he didn’t. (Be patient a little, for events move slowly in this narrative, lingers back and forth; but my chronicle will be swifter as soon as we get past some more rain.)
In Günter’s world he was after a shadow with no face, it seemed all the time, busy, busy, and busier. Little interest in uselessness, idleness, he was the matter-of-fact person. Although there was sadness attached to his childhood, it never got in his way, he never blamed, pointed fingers, it was the way it was. Life was simple to him, mostly black and white, and not much gray. You lived, and you died; in-between was time—you lived in the moment, that is how it was, how it was supposed to be, so he had told himself many times; it was an automatic thought now. There was an end to you, just like there was an end to everything. Cars get rusted out, building fall apart; people get old and worn out, horses get run down, not useless, just worn out. The good thing though, he thought was they got to display courage to help mankind during their time on earth—(referring to people like me and you, the whole world) which was part of being a man, and a woman. Today was no different than any other day in that perspective, a decision had to be made, quick thinking, like in his Army days when under attack, he had to make a decision, he had to do it quick, I mean quick, or be killed, then and now. No time to freeze, to become scared and end up doing nothing.
“Stay calm, I’ll get you out, no oo problem!” The old man yelled, commanded with a tone of voice as if he was still the Staff Sergeant he was thirty-years ago in the Army, or was it twenty-two [?] time, just time he told himself, it passes quickly. He commanded only his own words this time though—not like in the Army, but they needed to be stern, he knew this, for Jean-lee’s composure was shifting, he commented:
“No problem: no problem…” he said quickly in repetition, but there was a problem and he knew it. The storm was getting worse, not settling down. The sky was getting inky dark in spots, the moon—an eldritch darkness was filtering around it, was becoming more pronounced. The water was becoming deeper. And how long could he last up on this roof without getting blown off; unanswerable questions.
‘If I could get this rope down to her,’ he said with his rustic dominating and stubborn voice, as if talking to the rain, or the roof, or some invisible force, but talking out loud none-the-less, looking at her off-and-on as he tied the rope around his waist, wiping the pouring rain away from his eyes, wiping and wiping and wiping, reminiscent of wipers on a car window. He pushed his body out farther from the edge of the house, to where his shoulders were starting to lean over the arch of the roof, swaying the rope back and forth to get some velocity, then…then with his hand extended he pushed forward with a sharp jerk to the rope, it hit his daughter’s dress, as she stood there mortified, almost paralyzed: un-winking, shaking, not knowing what to do, not grabbing it, but watching it with her light-blue wide, and bottomless eyes.
He knew she’d had stayed right in that room, never moving, just remaining there, had not the roof blown off, stayed right in that room had he not shown up, and she’d had gone down with the mud, drown like a rat, he knew she’d do that if he hadn’t come to save her, yes, she’d had gone down to the bottom of the Mississippi, like everything else around this hell-forsaken levee. He knew she was mentally slow, he never liked to say that to her, just that she was slow, that is what he’d say if she needed to talk about her disability, that was harmful enough: and she never knew why she was, slow thinking that is, just that after years of watching everyone else, she became aware of it. She had even asked her father once,
“Why dad, why did God make me this way?” He had a hard time answering that question, stumbling over thoughts, pausing in a blank stare, all he could come up with was:
“It’s the way things are, I’m not sure why, you got to ask Him, you got to ask Jesus, but sometimes you build on them weaknesses, and don’t let it stop you from living, that is what you do.” And she never did, not once, not ever did she let it stop her from getting married, working, having two children. It wasn’t easy, but then life wasn’t always supposed to be easy, she had learned that from her father
The Mission
[Günter Gunderson; Minneapolis, Minnesota; 1917]
When he first came to America—a little placid, cleric-like face, juggernauts: while looking for work in the city of Minneapolis, and living in St. Paul (just a river apart), he had a few occasions where—having only one silver dollar in his pocket to his name—ended up at the mission eating. A tad degrading, but they served delicious food when one is hungry: chicken a few days old, with its skin on, gravy over it, with mash potatoes, and rice, a roll, a bit hard, but with the gravy it softens. A glass of milk, coffee, and water; the preachers at the mission would go out and look for hungry souls, and preach to them, then tell them if they wanted to eat, they’d have to listen a little longer, and follow them to the Mission House; there was little to do at 6:00 PM, if you didn’t have a job, and so that was fine thought Günter; for back in those days one did as they asked, and got that delicious backed chicken with grave over it; heavy-brown gravy.
The preachers would start and often times end at the, “Gateway Park,” that is, start there and preach, walk down into the other parts of the city, some three to six blocks away, and back again, then the chicken was right around the corner. It—the chicken was always on your mind during those walks.
So the old man knew what humility was, as well as hunger; yes, old man Günter experienced many things he never mentioned to his family. In contrast, something his daughter Jean-lee never knew was hunger (poverty yes, hunger no (he made sure of that).
The Park
At the Gateway Park, one could tell by first glance it was a typical gathering of unemployed men. (The Gateway was constructed in 1915 and destroyed in 1939.)
Those days were hard days he thought: days that ran into weeks, and weeks that ran into months and then years: years of building, and paying tax’s, and sleeping little at times to make a buck; walking in the heavy snow to get to work, thirty-four years of it since he had come—remembered the Mission House; thirty-four years of rain and snow and heat: of nights filled with refracted moon-glow, that lit his bedroom as he’d look out the curtains, look at the cars and the streets, and streetcars and horses—watching the horses disappear from the streets—the café’s come and go. Some of the years were long years, some short years. Sometimes he felt like he was the only tree in the forest that had fallen to the ground, in the silent forest among all the other trees: today was one of those days.
at times being mentally-slow became a contest for her, to see how many other people she could fool, fool in the sense of not notifying them of her malfunction, how they would react to her. He had remembered once when they was out with a friend at a café and she gave the woman a note, it was her dads date, kind of a date: a woman he was seeing at the time, it read,
“I’m slow, so forgive me if I don’t talk much, or catch on to things quick.”
Her father saw that, and the woman laughed, as if it was a joke, she was pretty, well kept, and could write [Jean-lee], but not very well—still the woman didn’t know that. And the father had to assure her, when Jean-lee went to the bathroom, that his daughter was truly trying to be upfront about her condition, and that she was slow. It put the date—a little on guard, but they both had a good laugh about it after the woman left, both Jean-lee and her dad that is. Matter-of-fact, he was quite proud of that moment, it meant she was regarding herself as not less than equal, —not smarter either, for she didn’t try to compete, just equal, that was the goal, and that was good enough.
And so she learned how to face the best of people without them learning of her little defects, her disability, and even polishing that hardship area so it wasn’t as much a defect as the doctors would have her believe; by and by she knew she had to learn this, it was not an option not to, for she remembered the heartless children in school who’d make fun of her, fix, fixity, repair it—this was her way.
Furthermore, she had learned how to read by her father’s persistence, —her dad having her read a stanza out of the bible a day, everyday, no more, no less, just one simple stanza for years. The doctors had said she’d never learn how to read, and so the father made a game and contest of it, and she did learn. Not all that good, but good enough, and better than some who were not originally, or as slightly mentally retarded as her, or as he said, ‘slightly slower,’ for she surpassed them.
Her real problem was numbers, counting money, figuring out the sum of an amount. For some odd reason, this seemed to be more difficult, more of a hurdle for her. So her father made a game of that also, putting two dimes in her hand, saying these are the little coins, the little silver ones, and the nickel was named the fat one, and all three made up a quarter, or two-bits—the big one. Thence, this was enough for two and a half movies at the cinema. This she understood, somewhat, and measured it accordingly, and tried to create a dollar out of it eventually. But, all in all, it was hard. Constantly, she’d have to be reminded of the coins and their values, whereas for the reading, it seemed to stick to her better. That was how she measured and weighed her buying.
Her husband—on the other had, whom was of the same standing as her, except he could do fairly well with numbers but could not read at all, was also a person of creative fortitude in this area, lazy at times but he tried. By and by, they made a good team. Matter-of-fact, he had a job as a cook, and drew pictures of what kind of food he had to make, and when the waitress came by, she’d point to the picture, with a number on it #1 for this and a #2 by another picture for that, he knew exactly what to do, what food to make. He had numbers for everything, everywhere, and it worked for him. Save for fact, down the line, down the road of life, they had some issues with pride; that is, and the son-in-law had a power and control issue between Jean-lee’s father and the son-in-law. It would seem he saw the father as someone interfering with his ability to control his family; as a result, he lashed out at that person (the abuser, or son-in-law, seeing this as loosing power within his family).
Jean-lee’s mother had died some fifteen-years prior to this current event, it was a sad moment for her father, and he never remarried, he had never felt the urge to, no need to, he was happy with his wife—(he said she wasn’t replaceable, and had enough to attend to without looking for another) and now she was gone, no one could, nor did he want any one to, replace her; —actually he became more rigid people thought, because of this: rigid, which showed in his body shaking when he got mad at life, at business. She (She being: Jean-lee) had wondered if the old man had forgotten how to feel love—, even sometimes she questioned if he had ever heard of love since her mother had died, had died from a stomach ailment that could not be repaired. No he had not spoken the ‘love’ word so freely, yet some people do not display it as others would have them do so, and he knew this, and he knew, it is not the lack of love they have for the other person, but it is a demanding selfishness on the part of the other party to demand it, for love is giving, not necessarily receiving.
She never questioned him, she was a bit fearful to do so. On one hand she could get whatever she wanted from him, and her husband abused this through her countless times, for self gain—; on the other hand, she was scared of his voice, but then she was scared of most every harsh, or rustic and dominating voice, that she focused on, on any voice that showed authority, or demanded respect, seemingly thinking it was, possibly was, rejection, something like that, something like kids used to do back in school, when she was just a young girl; back when they were heartless to her, back when she was a kid and they captured her dignity, her respect for herself—for being slow witted.
Her father had told her,
“Women seldom live long enough to realize their passionate hope can be met with their passionate desire” (she never knew what that meant, for she was happy), adding, “…seldom men can give that kind of love, passion to a women.” She felt he was trying to prepare her for the worst when she got married.
2
The Storm
‘This is a bad storm,’ murmured Günter, leaning over the edge of the roof, swaying his rope to his daughter. The levee was flooding: flooding like mad, a crazy-madness was in it; the dikes were all broken along its banks; parts of the levee were falling into the Mississippi River, some floating away, some sinking, drifting, as it covered inland all the way to the cliffs. It was middle-dust, and the old man knew time was running out, time was short for the rescue, if there was to be one. There had not been such rise in the Mississippi, not that much of a rise since the early l880’s—. Or so he had head from the old timers when he was younger. Yet still he had heard of the river down south, down towards St. Louis, and New Orleans, Cairo, and Memphis, and other places some years back having such storms, with the over flooding of the Mississippi. But this far north, it hadn’t been for a long time.
The old man’s muscles were getting cramps in them as he lay across the top of the roof; he wasn’t sure how much stamina he had left, feet down into holes into the roof—supported on large blocks of wood, secured tightly his knees, how much energy was or did he have was going through his mind—how much left. It was not like twenty-five years ago, when he could fight the currents of the Mississippi, or even possibly jump from where he was into the river and carry Jean-lee out, but not anymore: not any longer, it was a matter of endurance, and he couldn’t afford to be wrong, her life depended on it. It was twenty-feet he estimated for his daughter, this was how much he needed, and he had to use it sparingly, but she seemed a hundred-miles away.
“Get closer to the wall,” he yelled to his daughter. Freighted, she walked slowly as she was told toward the wall, leaning lightly against it. Now the old man got thinking, he could bounce the rope off the wall and she could grab it, that is, if she could catch it as it went past her as he thrust it out at her, towards her. At which point she could put it around her waist and he’d pull her out of that god-forsaken—stinking dungeon. There, he threw it…
“Yes, yes!” He cried, “good job!” he says.
“Here I am Papa…!” she waved her hands.
He looked up into the sky again, to see how much of it was fading into darkness It was all becoming grayish, with ink-like threads of lace going through it, all molding together, just a matter of time: way off in the far distance it was, yet on top of him, and it would blind him soon; —yet it had not drifted overhead yet, it was not where he was yet His eyes watching the shadows forming here and there, his eyes watching everything moving, everywhere It was mid-spring, and the days were longer, hopefully the storm would let up, but it didn’t seem so, not likely he hoped:
‘Why not?’ he asked hisself, ‘…why of all days, does it not let up?’
“Can’t you hear me?” he cried—
No answer came from her, the thunder was too loud anyway, and people’s voices screaming, drowning people high-pitched as they popped their heads out of the water for another grab of air —all around them, everywhere, sounds, crying, expressions of grief he had never heard before. He saw a horse float by—; but he maintained a flat-affect on his face incase his daughter would see it and take it as a hopeless gesture, and lose her composure, and possibly do something he could not fix, at this point he had a plan, and he was working on it, it was his style: think it out, don’t act on emotions, think it out, make a plan, and follow through. It was the way he lived life, it worked for him: for better or worse, it worked. If all failed, well then it did, but this time he could not quite think like that, it had to work, it just had to. He could smell the earth, the greenish dark water, the damp cliffs behind him, he could smell it all, and even the garbage and death that floated by, below him. Jean-lee’s voice was slow, sluggish, as she repeated herself,
“I’m waiting, I’m ok right now dad, let me know what to do?”
He wasn’t showing fatigue—but he was fighting it, for he was fighting against the winds and the rains, yes, fatigued—a growing concern, but he didn’t allow himself to display it—not yet anyhow, that also could trigger an action he was not prepared for, by Jean-lee The main thing he needed to do was assure her all would turn out well —as he continued his rescue, he needed to promise her all would be fine by showing her he was fine, if she remained calm, and she was to a certain degree tranquil now—calm and focused on him is what he wanted, exactly what he wanted and it was working If anything, Günter was getting a bit frantic at not being able to predict the storms moods, it never stopped raining, and the winds never stopped, but they would decrease, then increase, then the winds would shift, and pull, and die for moment This confusing storm was beginning to be madding
He held the rope up with one hand and with the other he grabbed it and flung-forward a ting, throwing it out, out in—in a tossing manner, away the rope flew, and into the area of his daughter it went, as she stood stone-still. It bounced against the wall—she lost it, couldn’t grab it, didn’t grab it, and almost losing his balance in the process—in a panic of excitement thinking she would grab it, almost falling off the roof and into the water, and his strength zapped for a moment, recaptured, yet it was, it was, was going—but he caught his balance: he knew he had to do something quick for he knew, weakness would not save anybody. At the same time he noticed the river getting wider at the levee, and smaller and smaller was the levee becoming: as a result, less land to work with.
Workers from all around the area, and even some from out of town, and up north had built a four-foot dike with sandbags in the past twenty-four hours, but the waters broke through it.
It was broadcasted over the radio that downriver the Mississippi was miles wide. The forests were now swamps, and towns were but mud piles, or about to be. The sandbags that guarded the levee were now at the bottom of the Mississippi, or again, about to be, and several roof tops of houses were sailing down river with families on them; thoughts were: they might even beat the train down to New Orleans, should the roofs last that long. That reminded him, the old man, old man Günter of his friend, John Nobel and the young Mac Camp boy—he stared into the water for a moment
John Nobel
[On down to New Orleans—1925]
“Niggers singing and dancing on the wooded raft, must had drifted down the Ohio to the Mississippi, must be at least twenty of them,” said John to himself, out loud. There were also some Negro babies he observed, women, and a few half breads, on the raft.
It was 1925; John Nobel was on a boat going down the Mississippi when he caught sight of the raft—: “…going to New Orleans,” he murmured, just like him; except he had left St. Paul, not like them, up river a long, long ways. He was standing on deck, holding a book, “Windy McPherson’s Son,” by Sherwood Anderson—on page thirteen, as the boat got closer to the shores—closer to the point, one could see the moss growing along the banks, stacks of sugarcane and cotton and more Negro’s doing the labor.
John got thinking of all the books he wanted to read, and had heard: such as, Andersons new book coming out: “Black Laughter,” and the new writers such as Faulkner’s, “Soldiers Pay,” and Hemingway’s ”Torrents of Spring,” along with Fitzgerald’s, “The Great Gatsby.” He was short of time, no time to read them, yes, even at 47-years old; he needed more time, maybe fifteen more years would do, but what would he do with those many years: read, read and read more books? It was a rhetorical question. He was the lone stone, in the valley no one ever hears when it falls and breaks off from a higher peak: cracks and rolls down the hill to the bottom, there it rests; people walk by and pay no attention to it, as if it—, indeed as if it, was there a million years. Yes, he was looking into an endless gulf of water, as far as you could see, or not see, the day now had turned into night as the Mississippi Queen chugged along, going down this endless river—empty except for water, his inner voice telling him what he knew, ‘Time was short, very short.’
Un-tearful, un-self-pitying: he thought about his wife, it was night, of the next day—his wife, no children, Rose, she died from childbirth, as did the child, years, and years ago—how many years past, he had forgot (he yawned, but he didn’t move, just stared into the black river). Rose was her name, he told himself, several times, “Rose, Rose!” looking at the moon now a ting slanted, or so it seemed to him, as it faded in and out of drifting clouds—mystic shadows, it was full dusk. The Riverboat went down the river string-straight: slowly, slowly the riverboat tugged along, frogs, fireflies, and crickets: he could hear them all, yawning for a nights sleep, like him.
Ever since he was a kid he had a notion to travel down the Mississippi like Mark Twain, right on down to New Orleans, only now he was dying, and when he thought of it he was quite young. Rose was quite young also; Rose was the sister to Ella (Mrs. Ella Sillvc: something similar to that, he couldn’t remember the name clear, or pronounce it—Russian, everyone pronounced it and wrote it differently).
He had noticed one of the Mac Camp boys were on the boat going to the same location he was: perhaps he was nineteen-years old he told himself, perhaps twenty, no older. His family came up from the South, or was it, a few of them went to the south, and the rest stayed here in the Middle West, or as they were starting to call it, the Midwest. They saw one another a few times, both acknowledging the other on the boat, both going about their day-dreaming; He—about writing the Great American Novel; and Nobel, about other things, and possibly reading that novel Mac Camp was wishing to write.
It was a darkish-blue black night, and the pilot was a bit nervous he had noticed, observing him in the pilot’s cabin above him. He knew that the Captain knew the Mississippi like the back of his hand, but this river could change from one steam boat trip to the next, and there the old coot was, pacing the square cabin as if he was talking to a ghost.
Out of the dark, came voices, “Negro voices,” whispered Nobel: thinking it was that raft of blacks he saw before, singing away, laughing as if not to have a damn care in the world: almost jealous the way they lived, free as a bee it seemed. Old man Günter had given him a loan; it was nice him he thought, it would come in handy. He kept the $500 hidden for this very thing, this trip. Not in the damn bank, but in his sock, underneath the wooden steps that went down into the basement of his rooming house. No one knew it. He sold him his shack of a house on the levee, a shanty, it wasn’t much, but the old man said he’d use it for someone he was thinking about, who might need it. He knew John had only a limited time to live; cancer was eating him up slowly, like a garbage worm, a maggot. He could have taken the railroad down along the river, faster, but this was more scenic he thought, more mystic, silent. Down to St. Louis, now down to New Orleans.
New Orleans
When John arrived at the Port of New Orleans, the place of his boyhood dreams, the place where he never thought he’d get to, go to, he got off the boat slowly, and onto land, and walked, walked right over to Jackson Park: he still had over $400 on him. He had hidden it in his socks, in his pocket, big pockets where he also kept four bottles of homemade brewed, strong whiskey. With his book in his hands and with the wind blowing through his hair he found a place to sit in the sun. It was 11:00 AM. He had purchased a few sandwiches before he got off the boat, to eat for lunch, and so he sat in the park, looking back at the boat, the and the Mississippi River, taking a drink of his whiskey, eating his ham and cheese sandwich, and putting down another shot of whisky after each bite; looking at his book and the people in the park.
“Jack London,” he said out loud, “I would like to read more of his stuff,” he liked especially the book, “Before Adam,” it was his favorite of London’s.
He had fallen to sleep now, for a spell, than woke up again, too a few more shots of whiskey, it went down with a push, a hard, very hard push, one that didn’t want to go down—it squeezed his heart, pained him to push it down farther, he looked at his book, opened it, it was on page #13, his face tired, and sleepy, almost drooping like a dogs, tired-droopy, he took another shot, rested his book on his lap, laid his head back caught some of that fine bright sun seeping through the leafier part of the trees, and never woke up again.
The Mac Camp Boy
[1925—New Orleans]
The young lad had gotten off the boat just like Mr. Nobel, but he went his own way, slim, milky-white skin from those long winters in Minnesota, blond hair, not tall, nor short, deep blue eyes. He hung around Bourbon Street drinking and doing what pleased him; going into the bars and listening to the Jazz Age come alive, the Fitzgerald age some called it; walking drunk down side streets giving tips to the street players that rested against the walls of the buildings playing their saxophones and trumpets, trombones, and drums; sleeping here and there, at houses—new friends he’d meet in the bars; a few women taking him in, taking their share of his money. It seemed after three weeks of this dauntless city life: in the City of Night, He wore his welcome out, as often we do when we have no more to offer the recipient, or friend; and thus, the doors were being closed to him, one right after the other. He got a few drinks though, but only a few.
Consequently, he was becoming a burden to his friends; friends he knew for only a few weeks, friends that had already been settled. He looked for Mr. Nobel, but could not find him; nor was he told by anyone of his death. In consequence he had no place to go, nor knew anyone to help him—yet he found a few dimes and nickels to buy a pint of whiskey, begging here and there.
He walked stiffly past the outskirts of the City, rigid faced with pride, unbecoming. He had been looking for an abandon house, or its equivalent: possibly an open door to an outside basement, potato cellar. His posture and face was in despair, pale and thin, he seemed to have aged over night; it was vanity and stupidity that got him into this mess; yet he kept a jonquil-colored voice to the situation.
And like Mr. Nobel, he had close to four hundred dollars: I say had. A sum not to laugh at, yet he had nothing left to provide for his survival until he found work, and an apartment. He wanted to be a writer, and so, carried a pencil and pad of paper always writing poetry or something. It had seemed to him, after a while he forgot the days, the names of the days to the week he was living in a stupor [a trance]; He even forgot the names of food, but not for the taste, for he had to eat, did he not.
It was close to 2:00 AM, and he had just found a barn door opened, a little ways outside the city—he had walked long and steady, past an old cemetery that had old seashells for tombs, molded into its marble like substance, crushed into its masonry
the wind must have opened the door, he thought. He could hear horses in there (he breathed deep and slow, feeling with each breath hisself diffused, becoming one with the hay and loft, and horses, he was so very tired). The sky was building up a storm behind him, outside, and the countryside was dark as black birds wings, with no lighting except for the moon, and the house, a house that, that was about three hundred feet from the barn, perhaps more…had no light in it either. But you knew someone lived there, it look so. It had curtains in the window; he could see that from the refractor of light of the moon beaming on them. Then suddenly it started to rain (as expected), not pour, just a medium-heavy rain, a few sparks of lightening, and a roar now and then that accompanies such lightening.
(He looked about as with a tremendous effort, as with a tremendous effort to find a place to rest, sleep, “Yes, O yes,” he said, in a whisper, with his suffocating voice, looking up to where the loft was.)
He climbed up the ladder onto and into the loft, it was filled with hay, and laid back, listened to the horses, two of them, letting them know he was there, they moved a bit to see who had entered, the wind woke them, disturbed them more than he did, as did the crackling of the door with their old hinges. Then he laid back and fell deep into the hay, covered a portion of his body with it, his mind had lost orderliness, space and time was oblivious to him: except he knew it was raining, for he could hear it—it was a blur, but he knew it, and it was dark, very, very dark, so it had to be night.
It must not had been but thirty-minutes, and the lad was woken up to the singing, the singing voices of Niggers, so was his notion, that’s what it sounded like, and so he laid back down again to sleep—again after pushing his body up a bit, like a turtle coming out of a shell, most of the hay falling off his legs, his bare shoulders and unbuttoned pants, his shoes off, and his long neck showing. But no sooner had he rested his head back on the hay, no sooner than five-minutes or so, the voices of the Negro’s had entered the barn, and now the horses got a little more aroused, unsettled you might say, not all that much, to wake the people in the house up, but then the storm covered that noise up pretty good, so everything remained stone silent under the sounds of the storm.
All three of these huge black-bucks stumbling about, drunker than a mule on local-weed; then one saw something move in the loft. Said the taller of the three black man,
“I hers a noise up in dhe loft, Lucas? Wuhs you think its is, da rat?” said Silas.
They all started laughing, his voice was deliverable: for young Lee Dennis Mac Camp heard it loud and clear, matter-of-fact, he pushed himself back a bit to get out of their focus, but he looked even more like a female to the stumbling drunk Negro’s as did, his hands now trembling as six-eyes stared up into the loft. He told hisself, ‘be quiet,’ but out of fear and terror of being raped or death, he couldn’t help himself. Lucas caught a glimpse of his milky white skin, and didn’t think of how the white folks would treat him should they find out what he was thinking: hang him for raping a white women, he just started climbing up the ladder like a bulldog after a cat, like a cat after a bird—drunk as can be: in the heat, and saturated with alcohol, lust seeped out of his pours, like sweat on the back of a horse, what man can be talked to or reasoned with—when intoxicated with both alcohol and lust, indomitable, he continued up the ladder with his two huge buck friends behind him.
Silas: “…I ain’ never mess up ‘round white folk kaze da hang ya ef dey catch yaw uh her wit a white woman…I guh see thing I ain’ wan’ see…she sho look white.”
Tad: “Some niggers is mighty fool, dey is, but dey an’ dat fool, wes best get on out of her…!”
Lucas: “Some women sho’ has a heap er hope, some on ‘em needs it…I hears her breathen…cryin’.”
Silas: “Don’t you forget me! Oh, Lawd, have mercy on my soul…”
Tad: “Yous bunch of helpless niggers, cus you got a mind for murder…I knows it.”
Lucas: “White folks got my body; efs da finds me now, da lynch me anywa’.”
The horses were now standing—curious as to what the commotion was all about. All of a sudden, Locus had the young figure, framed within his vision. Long blond hair, covering his ears, and he must had shaved, or couldn’t shave yet, for his face was smooth, no one could tell, for his skin looked as a woman’s.
(He had for gotten for a moment on how to reason, he was thinking on how to reason his way out, but his head wouldn’t work, it was blank, as if he fell down some stairs, knocked himself out, he was in a daze looking into big black faces, big eyeballs—white and red, then he suddenly woke up a ting more, more and more: something grabbed him…
“Im not a female,” shouted the boy, “Stop, stop,” but the big Negro’s just jumped on him, as he was already laying somewhat backwards trying to pull his pants completely off him, and the other two, holding his hands, his legs—successfully, pulled his pants below his knees—he know noticed—after he pulled his cloths off—Lucas, and the other two men, also it was a boy, just a pretty white boy living like a nigger in a loft, he grabbed him; which infuriated the boy, but could no little about it
“Fooled by a ign’ant white, wid de cunning’ of da fox—
You is a pretty boy…like da of a bird in de dark, and I jes a fool nigger…” said Lucas with a sacrilege tone to his voice, turning the boy around on his stomach: all peering over this young lad…
[And the sexual taboo was thenceforth broken, his boyishness was all but gone, completely gone, feminized with fear, brooded fear…]
(…He stared into the water for a moment) for the second time, he shifted and re-connected his feet into the holes of the roof, the holes his feet had sunken down into, bottomless morass now—to secure his balance on the rooftop’s edge. The hut, or shanty, his daughter home, was living in (the one Nobel sold him years ago—) and that she was standing in now (wet, crying, somewhat crying, trying to hold her face steady, as not to show her father her panic) was not much more than a matchstick for a house he thought, it would never last much longer, he was surprised it held in place against the pushing waters and drenching rains, the down pouring of the storm and its torrential winds—the torrents of rain was no match for such a structure much longer: the dying spring was melting away, and summer was to be, but what a horrid way to move into its existence thought the man.
The only and I mean only in the sense of a single solitary reason it didn’t go under [the house] was because it was built on 4x4’s that were built on a dock type area. And so the river had to rise over twenty-feet [from the edge of the river that is] to be underneath its floor, and it was there now, right next to it, just starting to seep through the wood—softening the wood, making it soggy to the point it would at any given moment, any given moment for sure, should a shake of the earth come about, or a blast of thunder roar loud enough to destabilize the shifting of the waves to a harder push, the house would for sure, without a doubt meet its maker. He had expected by the time the storm was over, it could raise another ten plus feet.
As he took his eyes off his daughter for a moment, just a moment, he saw: rats and rabbits, dogs, cats, squirrels and another horse in the water, all swimming, trying to survive amongst, rotting and worm riddled food floating by them, on them, dragging behind them, trying to find a haven, a dry and safe area, as must have been the likes of the Great Floods, when all of mankind looked for something to hang on to, or climb up upon, such as the highest mountains, anything for safety; then he saw a muskrat, floating—bloated and dead. As he continued to look, observer closer his eyes now filled with the rats, rats, water rats, grouping up, scampered up and down, and around; —floating on wooden planks, and every other kind of debris—squeaking, scratching and gnawing, at the death threat that faced them. Their eyes lit up, yellow-orange like, like little lit lamps, as the light of the moon danced through them. But Günter, somewhat accustomed to them from his basement apartments, dismissed this as playfulness, compared to his dilemma facing him at the moment, with his daughter.
‘Hush,’ said he, concentrating on his daughter; the larger rat, the one that seemed to catch his eyes, simply looked at him and fled. He said [complacently, to hisself]: ‘There now—my daughter, keep going north, north, north!’ as if he was practicing for a later moment.
(We all live in a long parade of days, stretched out into years, like a fence, a road, and like it or not there is an end to it, the fence—and one day you wake up to—no more time, and there you are, it’s all over: you’re at the end of the fence—so old man Günter was feeling at this very moment, so it is, there is a time for everything under the sun: so it has been written.)
The swirling of the water, and the winds were sweeping everything out into the middle of the Mississippi, as the mud sunk the foundations of houses [within the vicinity] to their floor boards; --and many of the walls started caving in; roofs looking like barrages were floating out into the Mississippi, or getting stuck by a tree on their way out, or buried deeper into the mud so they couldn’t float out, so they couldn’t float out and get caught on something else; everything bumping into everything else, or into everyone else. Even a few cars were floating about, sinking slowly, and its owners hanging on to the roofs, going down with their merchandise: “…fools…”he called them, “…all fools…”
3
The Moon and Heart
There was a moon with shadowy clouds seeping above the levee, like a canopy that had been broken open by God-Himself. There was brightness then a dimness that came from this flickering intermittent, phenomenon —everything seeping through the houses and trees of the levee. The heads of dogs were bobbing up and down in the water, which could be seen when his dimness was covered by the brightness for a moment. From the echoes out of the water, one could hear the voices of the drowning men and women, sounds of choking, snorting and spitting out of water—more so than before: painful sounds prolong sounds; everybody soiled and drenched; the whites of their eyes stained their face.
The old man was hungry, but all that appeared in his mind was tasteless—it was if the iron from water drained his taste buds. Only voices, sounds of movements all around him prevailed, grieving sounds, anguished sounds for themselves.
As the water poured on his head, like buckets, buckets of water drilling, and pounding, buckets upon buckets: he tied a handkerchief over and around it so it wouldn’t be so cold, so drilling like it was, the rains pounding and pounding, and trying to drill a hole in his head, as if someone were playing the drums on his head. His ears were getting the sound and pounding of thumping water drops on them, constantly on them; likened to some one snapping their fingers inside your ear, at them, on them, over them in them, at moments, he couldn’t tell where they were coming from, they just were there—they just kept coming.
“Get out…out of the way!” yelled a voice afar, in the river, a man swimming, and the boot filled with people hanging on, no one helping the drowning man: everyone worried about their space on the boat, thought the old man, ‘no room for me’ he mumbled, he said with a grief stricken cramp in his stomach, as he shifted his gaze, shifting it from nowhere to somewhere, looking down from the roof top to where his daughter remained.
Günter was now breathing hard, short of breath, and hardly breathing, taking in sips of air—slowly, very slowly, his mouth hanging open, and over as if he had swollen lips, run a hundred miles: trying to open his chest up by pushing air down, deep down into his stomach, it might give him strength he proscribed, considered; he also measured his heartbeat, he could even hear his own heart beating, it was racing, racing, running akin to a dog after a rabbit, it was as if to jump out of his chest, jump and leap to the State Capitol six blocks away. The Mississippi seemed to be on top of them, the levee was made from earth it was to protect the landform over-flowing bodies of water and waves. But it never did.
Logs, beams and large blocks of wood that kept the dike secure, now floating every which way were starting to block people from swimming, a few hit a, a small number of people, pushing them under the water, a few got in-between the logs crushing them to death, snapping ribs and puncturing lungs, saving them from drowning. No one had protection, matter-of-fact; being in the hut the way Jean-lee was, allowed her to be safer for the moment, at least for the moment. Luckily the floating logs, and driftwood hadn’t hit sharply, or hit directly his daughter’s house, not yet, not yet, but as he scanned the area with his tired ole ox-bloodied eyes, luck would not holdout forever he knew—floating blocks of wood, or logs hand not hit yet, but would sooner or later. “Luck,” he murmured, Luck, what is luck? —Luck is a poor mans way of saying he has no courage that is what luck is. You make destiny, you do it, something has to be done, and luck will not save anyone. ‘Nor will I,’ he murmured, if them floating logs hit her shack. How true that was, but possibly, maybe providence would do so, divine providence—it would have to be though a small miracle, yes divine intervention he thought, that would do it, help.
The levee was for the most part, a free government piece of land at one time: or at least at one time it was free if you claimed it, and built on it before someone else did. The Italians, gypsies had taken it years ago, and now it was the people’s land, they had combed it into a small community, as long as it lasted. But the question always rose, always came about, especially during flood season, to get rid of the levee, the houses on the levee, it was never meant for that purpose—it was meant to slow the river. But tell that to the once homeless folks, now of the same community; the folks above the levee, that community, not the community of the levee, didn’t want it; yes, they deliberated it out; it was a dangerous place to live: oh yes, at one time it could do well to slow the river, when there were no other ways of water control, but now dams were built. And today, this moment would be a deciding factor for its future survival of the upper levee. Was it more or less of an asset to the surrounding populations? Was the question to be answered at a later date?
Everything in the water was moving with its own inertia. He forgot about the moon now: the old man told himself, pay more attention to the silver gray water slapping my face, so he told himself as he opened his mouth, unwillingly gulping water down, right down to his burning throat, more than he wanted.
The Heart
There was a tremendous panting, needle like sharp pains in the old man’s chest, his heart; such endurance was not made for such aging men. A strain to the pendulum, as if it was an endless clock ticking, ticking away, for fifty-eight years it ticked with an odd cadence, but now it was jumping out of that rhythm, or so it seemed, and racing, racing for a collusion—a demolition. He could hear the crying of his daughter now, a quiet whimper, a shallow one [snivel you might say], but his ears could hear it; his senses were heightening.
He had raised her a few years during her adolescence life; precious years to him, years he got to know her better. Before the man she married took her away from him, cursed him for his trying to help them, and made their relationship sour. She had wanted to leave him once, saying in essence: he wouldn’t become much in life, he was too lazy; —but he told her to give him another chance, try and work things out as best she could, and if they couldn’t, she could always come home, and that he’d take care of her and the kids, yes, take her without anything, at that time, but she had one baby boy and a husband and needed to think about that at the time, now she had two, two boys; both children and father visiting with their grandfather on the eastside of town, over by Arcade Street some three or four miles away. By and by, it did prove to work itself out; he was happy for that, lo, it was not right to divorce because of simple differences; only because it wouldn’t work would be a good enough reason—good enough to leave that is, and it proved to work that way, work itself out. He even let them live in a four-plex he owned, a mansion he bought and had built into an apartment building with four-apartments to it, and had them be the caretakers, but the husband was stubborn and moved out. Then he bought the little hut for them, a two-room shack, to appease them I suppose, which didn’t work either. Nothing seemed to work, but then envy seems to always have a tight grip around a mans soul, so tight it makes him feel smaller than the person he begrudges for having what he has, and not himself. Actually he was fond of him [the old man], liked him, and he gave the money to a man now who had passed on in life, gave him $500, for the hut, and he kept it for such an occasion as when someone might need it, like his daughter and her husband. Although the land was free, the structure was not. And wherever the structure was, the land belonged to the structure, and he had a bill of sale, and deed.
“Envy and jealousy, crawls deep in an empty man’s jug,” he told his daughter once, and that was the character of her husband. His son-and-law’s face seemed to appear to him as he continued with the rescue. The son-in-law that had worked on a few of his properties, and one afternoon, took a sweeping blow at him, and that caused bad blood between them. Although he tried to settle the issue, it was not to be settled so easy, and he wished them no harm, to the contrary, feeling stabilization was the pillar they needed, and for him to demand his rights to see the kids and daughter, would not bring a successful conclusion to the envy of his son-in-law’s heart, (it seldom does) consequently, cracking if anything, the pillar of security for the kids. On another note, he knew, once poisoned, once the heart gets resentful, he knew he would be asking too much to be sacrificed of him to restore a family relationship which he did not want restored, and again, for his involvement would only make the situation more difficult. As far as he felt, he was decontaminating himself by staying his distance, and now, this very moment, possibly the purification process was taking form in its final draft, its final stage; its current winds would settle one way or another.
Accordingly the pain the son-in-law could inflict on his wife’s father was to hold him at bay, ransom, blackmail, not allow her to see him, or their children, at the cost of offending him, would be a final cost to harming them. Nor for that matter would the husband allow his family to visit any of the relatives on her father’s side—even the great grandmother was deprived of this right—right up to the day she died. Yet, no such dispute would be allowed to develop to such a degree on the son-in-laws side of the family, another thorn in the side of right and wrong, and undue punishment; repercussions of a acid heart. Should he die, he’d be the first in line he knew that: the first in line to count the money: counting the money as if it was in his pockets. I suppose he couldn’t die soon enough.
4
The Rope
His blood, soft tissue and thoughts were all in a heightened mode. He knew the floor she was standing on could vanish at any instant, any second; it was just a matter of time, not if, but when; should a tree or log bump into the hut, it would crack the 4x4-beams like a matchbox. The unpredictable water current was crushing and pushing everything every which way.
It happened for the third time, he throw the rope towards her, cast it right in front of her, he had held his breath, just like one does before shooting—pulling the trigger of a gun or rifle (his thoughts were not on business or his son-in-law, rather on the storm and the rope and the lifting of his daughter out—somewhere between now and soon), yes, he had held his breath, then slowly, very slowly, spread the rope to its destination as if it had an arrow on it,
In-between all this, he heard Negro voices:
“Dar tis,” one voice said.
“W-what yu say?” says another.
“Back yonder,” says a third voice. Then the third voice added, after the sound of spitting out water,
“I gwine….”
There must had been a raft nearby thought Günter: ‘goin’ wher, wher ya think hes goen?’ the second voice said,
“Dont know whar ‘tis…?”
Then he heard just mumbles, and then the mumbles died out—and only black shadows floated on the surface of the water…
and she caught the rope in her hands, a smile appeared, she looked up at her father, arched neck, proud, then as her eyes caught his two smiles emerged, a log hit the house and she got shook, real shook up, her eyes open up wide, wider than they had ever opened, like an awls, and she lost it again, dropped it, dropped the rope out from her fingers and palm, taking in a deep breath as it slid out of her hands, now looking up, up at her father in shock, disbelief—she looked as if she may have disappointed him—and the old man shook his head: ‘…it all right…’ he whispered, but she could read his lips; anybody could.
Now she lost her balance trying to stand still in one place, amongst the damaged furniture; plus her hands were trembling, they always trembled, but now they were trembling even more, more than he had ever seen them tremble, quaver. He smiled at her, as if to reassure her all was well; as if to say, don’t worry, we’ll try again. She knew if he was there, all would work out at the end, —somehow it would, and it always did, always in the past. Why would it not this time?
“Ok, daddy, I’m ready again,” she cried.
Said he to himself, ‘I need to give her more, more time, more time to put the rope around her waist‘. He looked about thinking, checking for options, then the chimney, the chimney came into focus, he stared at it, wiping the running water away from his eyes, staring at the brick chimney, he pushed himself back onto the roof more, then untied the rope from his waist, and got onto his knees, and wiggled himself back to the chimney, slowly, very slowly, as the wind and precipitation demanded some of his attention, the chimney got the rest, he then quickly tied the rope secure around its bricks, and crawled back (Günter had a reputation for precarious wit—that is, to the point of undefined courage, and sometimes too direct), crawled back to, to where he was, but this time the rope was not around him, he had more freedom, felt less secure, was less safe. With all the force and power he had in his body, for he was weakening bit by bit, he thrust the rope out to her again; he was now on his knees at the edge of the roof, the tip of the roof: the rope was in the air swiveling down to her like a snake—a toothless snake with spittle all over it from the debris and dirty water all about. She caught it, she really caught it, caught it like Annie Oakley would have, “She really caught it,” he hollered,
“Yes, yes daddy, I got it, see, see I got it…!” she yelled forgetting for the moment the predicament she was in, proud so very proud of her accomplishment. Then she made a knot according to how her father explained it to her, yelling:
“PutTTT ittt a rrrr ooo uuunnnnn ddd [around]
your waist!”
The air stream was now picking up a little more, for a moment anyhow, just a small break: for a fracture in time it had died, not completely, but somewhat, enough to have launch the adventure he just did. She now looked like a porcelain doll, thought her father as he shook his fist at the wind, as if it would yield—, but pride comes before destruction, does it not, even when it is done haphazardly, like this time; yes, he possibly had beaten the odds, and he knew it, and it was his, his victory for the moment, and then back to his focal point his eyes went, to his daughter, his eyes and his whole body shifted. The holes in the roof of the house that secured his feet and knees somewhat, were getting bigger and his knees were starting to slide, and not sink downward, with the weakening of the beam under the roof, as a lot of the wooden tiles on the roof were loosening, and some starting to fly off the house, and other structures thereabouts, flying north and east. His position was getting worse then his daughters, possibly, just possibly the roof might give out before her house gave in, he reflected, before he could raise her.
“Nay!” he said harshly, pushing one of the tiles away from his head as he caught a glimpse of it before it hit him in the side of the head, a second one hit him, hit him in the neck and jaw, like someone took a blow, a fist and socked him a good one, a sharp one with knuckles; he shook his head to gain his senses. He knew he was losing a lot of his strength just trying to keep himself stationary, firm, as everything around him become unfirm.
He tried to stand up, yet could not completely—falling forward a ting, so he let his knees bend somewhat, and pulled himself up slowly, pulling his body back and forth. With a grim face of pale vigor he pulled his daughter out of the war zone, yet he still had fifteen-more feet to go—to pull her up to his level. She was dangling in the air now five feet above her wet and sinking floor: 130-lbs on the rope. He was now standing, crouching somewhat on the roof looking at her with his swollen face from the wind slapping it, the cold freezing it, the tiles that had hit it. Pain was on his lips as he pulled another foot, icy cold pain that was starting to num his face; inflaming muscles, black blood spiriting out of his shoulders from contracting muscles, and debris hitting him here and there—from all sides of him, everywhere, causing wounds, and the wounds did open to cuts. A board flew by with a nail in it, ripping a piece of his flesh out of his thigh, it opens it to the bone, blood spurted out, cutting through the upper muscles. But he didn’t move, he couldn’t, should he move, he would lose her again, and he’d fall right through the floor, right to the bottom of the Mississippi, right down to, St. Louis, or perhaps to who knows where. Pain; let the pain go he told himself.
“Damn this storm!” the old man said. Every time he pulled his daughter up another foot he slipped a little on the roof, lost his so called seemingly secure edge, balance, footage, but he knew if he got her to the top, to the very top, they had a chance, she had a chance, but each minute each second, their options were becoming fragmented, less and less, in less than no time, there would be no options. He could see the inky-black clouds rested over his head now. Once he got her to the top of the roof with him they could scale the ridge of the roof together, jump onto what was left of the unsaturated levee—plateau, then climbed the steps by the cliffs to the top that lead into the downtown part of the city, and head on home, or to a secure place to rest out the storm. Thereafter, the only thing they needed to fight was the winds and pouring rain the rest of the way home, which was due north to his house, he assured himself, as if victory was in his pocket, this is how it would be. So, a mile past the capitol that was it, that was his home. Possibly they could rest in a building along the way, catch their breath if need be. Everything was closed now, closed down tight, but surely some of the stores harbored stragglers that couldn’t make it home, such as: the Emporium, or the Golden Rule, or possibly, the First National Bank. St. Paul was a friendly city to its native people; they had to be with the severe winters. If one was in trouble, you could count on a stranger to take care of you until you got assistance from somewhere. He was sure it would be the same today, once all was smooth. ‘North, yes…’ he told himself for the 100th time, ‘north, we will just go north, go home, get some hot soup when we get home.’
5
The Red Horse of Shock
[To Safety]
Chapter Five
He told himself, ‘…old man, now you got to find out what you really got left in you,’ so he stood up, pulled with all his will and might, his legs as if they were nailed into the roof, forcing even more pressure on the beams below him: holding firmly onto the edges of the roof (thinking quietly—don’t’ stop, don’t stop, she’ll panic and all will be lost). He looked at her, really looked at her, never taking his eyes off her for a millisecond, she looked here and there, but when her eyes came back to his, his was right there, right where she had left them a moment ago, and that made her feel safe, as if he was with her every second, inside of her almost, every minute, every single moment of this long, horrible ordeal of airlessly ascending to the top of the roof, two more feet that was it— “…just, just two more feet,” he told himself (but she could hear him mumble), he whispered with his almost frozen lips, but she could see them move, she could see everything, even his wrinkled face, his eyes, the wrinkles around his eyes if they moved, and they did, but only stress and strain was on them, not doubt, but no lack of hope was on them, that would had been crushing, she would have panicked; she didn’t see any of that.
Smiling, but gravely smiling, he stood there, stood there like an iron-statue, like the golden horses—the statues on top, in front of the State Capitol Building, the gold horses shinning with a glow, as the water poured off his face, around and through his wrinkles—like tributaries on a river. His heart pumping faster now to adjust to the twisting of his muscles, the pull on his physique, and the body temperature, —the cold, cold numb face looking at her, needed fresh hot blood, warm and fast flowing blood, not this thick slow choppy blood his brain and heart was now getting; yet she could not see the unawareness of pending death on him: she could only see the safety in the eyes of her father, to her, she had her father’s assurance, and he never lost a battle, never, ever once, no, not to her knowledge, he was a winner, a victor, and yes he seemed to have rode a red horse at times: a horse that galloped with no fear into places unknown--battles, but never, ever was he less than a success coming out at the end of his battles, his journeys of sorts, the red horse of battle never through him off. If anything, he was the one to have on your side when things got rough; matter-of-fact, she was a bit scared of him, not that he’d hurt her, or would, or had hurt her, just because of his tone of voice sometimes, and of course her disorder helped the paranoia along—for the most part there was no reason to it. On the one hand, many things scared her, froze her, and obsessed her; on the other hand, it was part of her disorder and expected her ill-faded slow mind. This suspicion, her mistrust for the most part of most people and situations, he tried to see this in her face, witness it when it came, and if and when it did, destroy it by changing his tone of voice, and reassuring her all things were fine, for he knew, real or not to him, it was real for her. Normally this was sufficient, it would repair whatever damage was about to take place. And quickly he’d find a second smile to assure her all was well, a smile, just a little smile would reduce the terror she might be enduring, he knew this, and so he tried to keep the smile that wanted to be a grin on his face. But business was often times written on his face, yet not today, everything was off his face, everything but love and caring and a sternness to save his daughter, to ride the red horse of battle out of the abyss. He was by nature a businessman, a serious man; but his world knew there was no one to take his daughter’s place in his heart, her husband even knew that. And of course he used it to his advantage, financially as well as egoistically. But then, he was of the same nature she was, but somewhat different—his paranoia was the opposite of hers, he boasted to build himself up, to announce to the world he wasn’t of such a nature, and played his disorder down—it was his way of dealing with an unwanted mental condition. It would seem he had no god, no future either: whereas, she was baptized a Christian, but had left it somewhat behind when she married him. But today, he was praying silently to his Christian God, over and over he was praying for one, just one more foot. If he could move the earth, today was the day to do it, and he prayed it would be moved, and at any cost.
So he stood there, his head solid against the wild dark wind trying to dominate the air, twisting it around him, as it whipped him, but he pushed against it as if in a boxing match; the blazing winds, and height of gthe swirling water was like a war cycle: it started up, and hit like a battalion of men bombarding, then pull back, and now God moved the earth, a bit, and he had his moment to pull her up a few feet with hell at rest. Not taking his eyes off his Jean-lee, not even for a second here and there, there was no here and there, it was all near and present. As the rope dangled about, the 20-feet or so he had pulled her up slowly—to her it seemed like an enormous distance to have to haul her up—he did not say that, she thought it. And he did not show it in his face, she did, she showed it in her face, she had counted inch-by-inch, dangling all the way, trying to stay stationary so the rope would not twist, or break. He also thought how nice it would be for them to get home and have a hot evening meal, some chicken soup, with big pieces of chicken in it, whole pieces of chicken with noodles, quoins, and the broth would be fully-yellow, and full of flavor, heavy yellow-broth, with big noodles. He wanted to share it with her, as he had tried to share whatever life had given him in the past with her.
Now he and the daughter watched the last few steps of the ascension, the last inches with unspeakable silence—the dragon was out of the wind for the moment—: then her heart started pounding in disbelief that they might mike it; his heart seemed to stop beating, for they both held their breath—silently holding their breath, no one said a word, not one little word, they even thought the storm was silent, yet it was anything but silent—it just didn’t move, it was most a violent holding back of the storm, you could feel it, like the beast was tied to the bottom of the river; in all respects: they did not hear it, not at this very moment: —as she reached out for his hand, his eyes opened up wide—ox-eyes they looked like: resembling golf-balls (he felt: is it really, really happening; more a statement than a question, he knew it was happening). Placing her bare foot, her cold and trembling foot, white and wrinkled from the water, putting it onto the wooded shingle edge of the roof, reaching out for a more secure grab of her father’s hand, they both, at the same time let out the carbon dioxide they were holding inside their lungs—it raced out with a gulp (she saw first his ugly painful scores on his face, but would not remember them for month, it was just a flicker of a moment she saw then, with painful eyes). She slipped her hands, both her hands as her foot secured a touch onto the roof, her hands grabbed his forearm, it seemed stronger to her, it was as if it was a shinning beam of light, it was so natural to grab, strong looking, more invulnerable; now the second foot dangling behind her, started to crawl up a bit to the wooden edge of the roof—feeling its way like a fish on playing with a hook: as she braced it onto the roof with the other foot, and forearm, the same forearm she found a steady footing with before, now for both feet, a balance came; as the house behind her, her hut that is, her only place, her little haven, shanty, wiggle like a match-box, it then started sinking into the mud, and the rope, like a snake (still tied to the chimney) she let go of.
Then a crash was heard, as one side of her house fell apart, one of the 4x4’s couldn’t hold the walls up any longer; she now grabbed her father around the waist strongly—letting go of the forearms: a long, long hug it seemed to be, both now embracing one another, yet it was but a moment, a short moment at best, in the life of moments, that is; yet the longest moment of his life, he would by no means, eternally forget this moment. She stepped a half foot forward, as her father stepped a half foot back, she seemed to be surprised she did it, she actually did it she made it up twenty-feet plus, to the top of the roof, and the smile on her face and her fathers face was from ear to ear, she was proud, and her father’s face said he was proud, proud of the moment, proud of her, and then she looked down, the house was sinking, sinking: water rushing through the floor-boards now, then she untied the rope around her waist, dropping it, once and for all, as it hung from the chimney, over the edge of the roof, and down into the water—like a snake; and again, darkness befell the earth. It seemed the rope could swim—as if it had a life of its own, as he witnessed it slapping the water, floating a bit, sinking, and the wind shifting it to and fro. It had been her lifeline, or at least, half her lifeline, her father being the other half, and God. But the journey was but half over, seemingly, it looked like the worse was over anyhow.
She looked once again at her father’s dominate face, not in panic, not because she was anxious of the sinking house, but to see if he was happy, pleased of her good job, the job, the trials she had done by following his orders: she witnessed her father’s face delighted, a profound relief, a calmness had come over it, the boils, perforations that seemed to cover them when she first looked up at him from down in the sinking house were gone, even the darkness around his eyes that looked like someone had earlier painted them a shadow-darkness was disappearing (but they were there, she just didn’t see them now, she would later, when she looked back at today), as if Halloween were gone; she couldn’t find any disappointment, the thing she most dreaded when she looked at his face, anyone’s face, but his face would always hurt her the most, was if she saw disappointment on it. As he noticed her do this, he smiled, and smiled, and smiled, and each and every one was real, a true, honest, and thank-God smile:
“No problem baby, we made it, OK!” She nodded her head yes.
She said with relief on her face:
“O…K! daddy, now what?” Quenching her eyes from the pounding wind and rain—, which seemed to start up automatically, drenching them both, they hugged again (a sigh appeared from her lungs), and a strong gust of wind caught them both off balance—
and then he heard a splash in the water and the daughter looked at her father, saying: “He’s telling me to leave; he’ll see me later (‘to go’)?” She hesitated, looked at him again, dumbfounded, speechless, with a frozen stare, standing alone now on the roof:
“—Look at me, LOOK AT ME, go oo!!” her father yelled: shouted, “Go north, north, north (pointing his hand and finger directly toward the State Capitol (some six blocks away); he hesitated a moment to wipe the water out from his mouth, the rain from his eyes, and confirmed inasmuch of a directive as he could,
“Go north! I’ll catch up with you later!!”
said the daughter, wild-eyed and thunderstruck, save for the fact she could see her father remotely in the dark-thickness:
“Why are you telling me (pause) to leave?”
But all she heard was the words: go north; fifty-times or so she heard it until he lost his strength, and then a murmuring: “I’ll catch up with you.”
Funny she heard that plain as day, as if it was reveled out of death somehow, in a fancy way—and that was all he said. Next, she carefully turned around and made her way slowly, and timidly to the chimney keeping her hands out as if to balance her weight against the winds, the echo of ‘…go north,’ still in her brain. She was even saying now to herself, ‘Go north, that is straight ahead, got to go north, by the Capitol, and go farther than that, until when I see Albemarle Street, then go north on that until I get to 1094, 1094, 1094. Dad will catch up with me, he’ll be with me soon, he always does, he said so, and he always has his reasons. He
told
me
so,
he told me so …oooo!!!!!’
‘Go north, go north,’ the echo came and never seemed to quite leave her brain. She found her way down to the ground from the roof, a few steps to the cliff, then she seen the iron staircase that lead up to the main part of the city, thirty feet up from the levee—safe from the torrential-rains, there she went, up the iron flight of steps to the top where the buildings were, looking back every four or five steps, wanting to go back, but hearing the words: “Go north, north, look at me, look at me—Go North!’ And she knew that look, it was a stern look, a fearsome look, it scared her a bit, but he hugged her, and so he must love her, but that look was hard, a very hard stern look the one that said, and meant, to do exactly, without question, as I say: go north, look at me. And she did ‘look at him,’ and she was ‘going north.’ She told herself, ‘I’ll be ok, because I always am when he tells me something.’
‘He’ll catch up with me soon, just keep going north,’ she mumbled to herself on and on. ‘He wanted me to leave him, yah, yaw, he told me so, he really did…he even got angry, I think… [?]’ She said in a bewildered voice. She now could see, the First National Bank, with its towering and mighty look—its bulky monstrous face, it stood out in the St. Paul skyline, like a pale horse, then she knew the Capital was north of that. She really didn’t know such thinks as or by north and south, only that her dad put the Capitol in the same sentence, the same frame, picture as north—and therefore, north must be by the Capitol, and she knew what direction it was in because she could see it, especially after seeing the bank, the Capitol was a little to the left, a few blocks and straight north—or straight ahead. She crossed Kellogg Street now; down Robert Street passing 4th Street, she was walking at a fast pace.
6
Hurricane
[Ephemeral]
Whoever heard of a hurricane on the Mississippi? But that is what the old man called it, was fighting— ‘…this is a hurricane of a storm’, he garbled. Nothing would ever be the same again, he told himself, nothing at all. Once the storm settled down, his plans, his business all washed up, everything would be different after the storm. He knew whatever was to happen he needed to let it happen. The dilemma was over, it was him or her, he had figured it might come down to that, and it had, it had come down to that, like it or not it was happening: he knew nothing would ever be the same, impervious was the hurricane to his pleas: enough was enough, but the tempest did not listen to the old mans growls, amicable he remained in his position; yes he wanted to eat, sleep, regenerate, but he was in a forgotten zone, a atrophy zone. If anything, his daughter standing by him, safely, for that precious moment would have to do; now he had to fight the storm a bit more. He liked seeing her face, her standing there with a smile, as if, as if the whole world was right there, the whole universe stood there for a moment in front of them, a little moment, oh no, not anymore, if it was before, it wasn’t now, it was gone; and this might be the most profound moment he would ever remember. He smiled with that thought, no words needed to be expressed, she was simply proud of him and herself, now he wanted to see her, to hold that memory.
He knew as he moved about in the water hanging onto wood, drifting wood, wood that once belonged to something, barren now, and other pieces of debris, that he needed to grab onto the rope, which was a ways from him, it was becoming out of his range to reach, floating away, getting out of his means, matter-of-fact, he couldn’t grab it, it was too far, ‘leave it, why waste the effort,’ but that wasn’t an option he concluded, he needed it, the wood would not hold him up forever, he’d sink soon
—He and his daughter and son-in-law had fought a year before about some work the son-in-law had done for him on one of his properties; before this, he and his daughter had a close relationship, had I say, but thereafter it soured, after the run-in with the Son-in-law. The son-in-law resented taking handouts from him [him being: the father-in-law, and landlord: Günter] not in the beginning though, not when they didn’t to have a home—save for the fact they were pawns to a ruthless landlord and begged Günter to buy a house for them, a duplex, someplace they could live, but after a number of years, the son-in-law resented it—after he had given him a home, even though he’d not admit it. Even though it was given without any malice or expectations, it had taken something away from him, away from the son-in-law: envy was his crutch, and is not envy the bird that you can never snatch above your head. He tried, but couldn’t.
Now the old man refocused: the rope was still hanging, he could see it:
he could visualize his daughter going up the steps for the tenth time, he could see her, so then he rushed to the next roof top, jumped over to it, and down to the edge of the cliff—visually and spiritually he was following her…
water now had risen up to the very edge of the cliffs; the whole levee was now under water. (It was a miracle he thought, she got out in time.)
He shook his head trying to clear it, he was worn-out, very drained, and he was not as young as he used to be: so he told himself, ‘rest a bit,’ but the water and the wind kept his hands busy, slapping everything away from him. ‘…My daughter, my daughter,’ went through his mind, ‘I got to catch up with her, make sure she is safe….’ Even though she was twenty-two years old, married, and had two kids, his son-in-law most likely was visiting at his father’s house, he presupposed—begging for cigarettes as usual. He then seen the steps, the iron steps his daughter went up (again): ‘Got to climb them he said,’ and as he seemingly made it up a few of the steps, he got tired, his mind shifted, lost for concentration, posterity would never photograph his last moments, it will say: ‘I was, and then I was not,’ that is what the old man told himself; my imprint will not even be in my bend in the morning, in my mattress, is what he told himself. He did not wish to understand, if so he’d have to adjust to it, and he really didn’t have the time; there was not such thing as adjusting to new days, or one to another, there would not be another. He would be a cold corpse by morning.
He refocused, as he started spitting water from his mouth, as if it was blood coming out of his lungs: aimlessly focusing on his environment: ‘…it so happens to be, I’m tired, even lazy at this moment,’ bats were in the air, he saw them. He could hardly breath, ‘…this damn storm,’ he cursed, adding, ‘…please Lord let my daughter be safe, if I don’t make it, please let her be safe, I don’t mind dying, she’s too young, take me instead.’ It wasn’t a call of piety, or pity, just a request from the vaults of his mind, his cold waterlogged mind. His intestines were curled; all cramped up inside him like a snake, cold like his mind, ‘…a cold corpse in the morning,’ he reiterated.
He climbed another step, again he had to rest, and it was as if his lungs were full of water again, he looked up into the inky-dark sky, and the storm was not letting up, it was like pouring buckets of water on his head, buckets and buckets and more buckets. There was no end to it. But still his mind went back to Jean-lee, his cold mind, and cold intestines, back to the steps, the steps he needed to climb—to and fro, to and fro.
The tempest was roaring he heard it all around him, like a train going from one ear to the next, the whistle: blowing, blowing, and blowing. Cold like his mind, his mind becoming numb, but the whistle he could hear, blowing, the wind…never-ending.
He had strong feelings for his daughter, and a strong fear she would lose her way home, possibly lose her way to his house. But she always surprised him he told himself, she had determination if anything, if she put her mind to it that is, and if she says: ‘My dad thinks I can do it,’ she’d do it. He told hisself to calm down, stop using so much effort; he knew he had only so much energy left, there was no way of regenerating in the chilling water. His arms felt like anvils, heavy, weighty anvils. He could catch up with her in a bit, he told himself, so calm down, just calm down, the storm will end, and she’ll make it to the house, and he’ll see her there.
Rain I
The first Hour, The sounds
The old man could hear the sounds of the rain drops, the pouring sounds, the dropping sounds, the sounds that go with velocity, the dripping sounds of water, and the splashes around him: all water sounds, all moving water-sounds; moving over, under and through places: areas (impervious to any prayers) water on water: try to move water he told himself, it is hard, very had. ‘Jesus, sweet Jesus,’ he said…then stopped, he had asked for one miracle, got it, Jean-lee had got it, and now it was time to pay, ‘than you Jesus, sweet Jesus.’
So much water, so much movement; it was a trial to see if the rain-god could make him shut his eyes; but his God, the only God helped him alter the sounds, the death sounds, the every circular-sounds of everlasting water: water, water, water, water, water, water... long sounds, short sounds, fat sounds, all sounds of dark water surrounding him, hugging him, crushing him, slowly, slowly devouring him. His God had taken the fear out of him—save for the fact he was not completely sure his daughter had made it to the house yet. The rain would slow down, then pick up, slow down and then buckets would fall, buckets of water, water, water, water, it was his new world: a water-world; thunder roared and bellowed, and shouted. But so what he said: let it do as it will, he had asked his God to save his daughter, now he had to stand down, not take advantage of Him. He had but one miracle to do today and he did it, and it was still in the process of being completed: not two, but one with two parts to it, should he ask for a third one, for himself: he could but he told himself one was in his heart when he asked, he felt too greedy to ask for two, or a third one, even though one with three parts would have been better. But one, only one did he ask for, and as the good book says, he quoted: “Ask and you shall receive,” [Matt. 7:7]: thus far, he had asked, and it looked to him like he was receiving.
Lightening was striking, here and there, why it did not hit him, it would be a quick death he assured himself, why it did not hit him, he did not know, but it didn’t (his eyes were empty, rolled back into his skull, until only the bluish whites alone showed; he remained flaccid and powerless for the moment. He had a cadaver face, as if he put a stolen carcass over it, a carcass out of a graveyard, sullen and quiet he remained). But even the lightening was unmotivated to challenge the water, to challenge his God, until the safety of his daughter would be at hand. Old Man Günter, was trying, and trying to sing, hum a tune, block out the sounds of water, the everlasting splashing, dripping of water from his hands, head, eyes, chin, eyes and chin, everlasting, never-ending: on and on and on it came.
He still had a solid grip on the rope—more like a frozen grip, one of those grips that a dead man has on something after his body waxes up and goes stiff; a slippery solid grip that is, with a smooth, slimy rope—it was all he could hope for: the rope that was tossed over to save his daughter was now allowing him more time on this earth, his home, his dominion within the universe, among the stars in the heavens, the moon and its sun, this was the only home he had ever known, earth, the world, the globe, his home: this was his time, his people, he knew it—a home with many names; and this water, it didn’t seem like home, but it was part of it now, if not his death to be: he concluded, ‘we all have to die somehow, someway,’ Like it or not, it seemed like he was being allowed to know how he was going to die, or so it seemed.
Yes, he fell in, slipped off the roof of the house that is, fell into the water below, some twenty-feet or more. The spinning rope left him to the whims of the river, the rains and the sounds of water. ‘Die, die, die!!!’ it said, the Winds and the Water and the rain told the old man, but the old man told them back, ‘not yet, not until she’s safe,’ and he meant it.
‘How often do we know, does anyone know,’ he told himself, ‘…know how one will die?’ We live a lifetime knowing the day will come, when it does, and then what, we got to face it, and we really do. We all say tomorrow, another day, just give me one more day Lord. We make fun of death, yet we watch others die, we know our time is coming, not yet, but coming. We even get some close calls, call it luck or God sent (we will never know how many times we beat death, got away from it, until we do die, but, perhaps we should had been dead long ago, so the old man mixed this up with his other thoughts) but it comes around again. We hear our mothers and fathers say: death is around the corner, but we do not relate it to us, then it comes, comes out of the blue—slaps us in the face: it says, ‘it’s your turn,’ then you got to face it: death says: ‘I will not morn, nor give pity, I want you,’ if anything, it may allow you a moment to patch up a few minor things, but that is it; look it in the eyes, everyone must look it in the eyes. We don’t quite know how to deal with it, it is just a hidden fact, a thing put aside for a later date, then the people around us try to say it is not so, as if to protect themselves from the inevitable, or us—yet we are the ones dying, for at that summit, most people have dealt with it, know it is about to take place, that they will not wakeup again on this earth: but go into the port of eternity, not at least in the same dimension they left it, in the physical way I mean, so the old man mumbled to his second self, his inner mind, his mind’s eye; he had to talk to someone, it was his inner eye he was talking to. And today, possibly today, was his day.
Almost asleep at times, the old man, the old stubborn man of war, focused on the sounds of water again, it kept him awake at times, shifting to a dream mode (almost in a coma state, and possibly in and out of a coma, he didn’t know) he was dreaming of putting on an overcoat, only to wakeup to water; he laughed, laughing is healthy he told himself, laughing helps the blood vessels move the blood, circulate it, keep it going, and he wanted it to go, go and go until he knew his daughter was safe—it was rain that was covering his body, not an overcoat, a blanket of rainwater: a warm overcoat would do though, he told himself, he told himself over and over, yet water would have to do, it was water, and more water, endless water. The river was his overcoat, his blanket, possibly his coffin.
His feet felt like they had balls of iron tied onto them for some odd reason, iron anvils—frostbitten, numb, he wanted to sink, but ‘not yet,’ he told his muscles: ‘not yet,’ he moved his face muscles more and more, he knew he had more muscles in his face than another place, and he had to move them, or have them freeze; oh no not yet: He told his heart, his brain: ‘not yet,’ he yelled at the cliffs he could no longer see them though: ‘not yet!” He told his feet: ‘not yet, you can’t sink now, but you can sink later, just wait, please, just, just—WAIT!’ And his request was granted.
As he starts to sink, he forced himself to rise quickly, fast and steady: rubbing his thighs to circulate the blood, pulling the rope closer to him, almost hugging it (as it rips at his skin, slippery as it was), this was still his life line, he knew it, but soon that would be gone, for the house was sinking, and he couldn’t hold on all night, and no one could help him, no one could help anyone, and if so, it was all but too late, and too dark; possibly before, but he was safe on the roof, and no one could see his daughter but him. He felt like a drunken sailor, like a prune with his revolted skin; akin to a floating buoy in the middle of the Mississippi, telling people not to go this way, stay away, danger, danger: for no one was coming to his rescue.
The old man was now floating in circles pointlessly, he no longer was cynical, nor did he have vanity or pride, it all sank in the water, with his new found death notice: this was the time he told himself each man has to fold up the pretense, throw it away, and be frank, honest, completely honest with oneself; as it often does when man faces the inevitable, the one thing that is for sure, the one thing most people do not talk about is death, and where they are at with everything; —no more ruthlessness or even bad words for the storm, that also sank to the floor of the river, it was like he had come to peace with the fact, death was, or could be, the price he had to pay—everything costs he told himself, everything: we don’t really get away with much. And if we think we do, we get the worry syndrome, which works on the body, and ages us before our time. When we hurt people, we hurt our life span: we hurt the world, we are all part of this moment, and we will all meet on the same street someday and be judged. When we rob and we still and kill and rape, we do not get away with it, we pay and pay and pay. We sink with our values, we lower our heads, and we have a hard time facing people—I’ve seen it a thousand times he told himself in the eyes of many; for he often said, ‘I look behind the face, that is where the soul is, once I find that, I know his character, and that is what they don’t want me to know,’ that is the pretense. He knew this, and so he tired to be fair, walk like the man he wanted to be, even if others didn’t, and most didn’t; but nothing haunted him, now or at anytime, he was at peace with God, himself, mankind, if success was in that order, he was successful. And he told himself: “I’m ready; I’m ok with it… (With death).”
‘Everybody wants to live forever,’ he mumbled, ‘…like so many victories I’ve had in life’s ticking clock (from illness and so forth) their comes a time when it is futile to struggle against the inevitable. Being stubborn, obdurate, unwilling to die, works for a while, but I must accept our mortality, at the end. Fighting against the odds is like a broken mantel clock, sometimes the parts are just too old to fix.’ It was not within his strength to fight on much more he knew.
The Cigar
Chapter Seven
For some odd reason Günter’s mind started shifting into a different mode—(possible a dream mode, possible a trance) he was at an old friend’s work place, at a party, he always liked a good cigar now and then, on special occasions that is, --and Molly, Molly the secretary, asked him if he wanted one. He looked at her, said ‘yes,’ in an inquisitive way, and to his misfortune, it was quite small. Bewildered he gave no response except, a shallow: ‘Thanks,’ and went about and lit it. Then the old friend—the one that mysteriously appeared (in his trance-dream), appeared one might say out of nowhere—was sitting by him, he wanted to try the cigar out for him, smoke it that is. But there wasn’t much, especially for both of them, and only nearly enough for him: consequently, should his friend smoke too much, he’d have none. For a moment there seemed to be not enough air in the room, he hesitated, and looked stern into his friends face, a youthful face, a face that didn’t age like his, ‘I have an idea,’ says he, to the old friend, ‘put the end of this cigar into your pipe, and then you’ll have enough to enjoy (implying they both will have enough)’ The mystic friend looked at him pleased, and just happened to have a pipe on hand, and pulled it out while Günter put the cigar, what was left of it anyways, into the barrel of the pipe, and gave it to his stranger-friend. As the friend smoked the pipe he started to choke, as if he was spitting up tobacco, pieces of the cigar, or blood, something; his throat was choking on it anyhow, and it was burning, a fatal burning sensation. He didn’t know what to do, so he told his friend ‘...here, here is some water, swallow it, quick, cool the throat, it’ll put out the flame’, and the friend did so, and all was well for the moment.
Now, Günter walked away from the table, and its festivities, finding himself by the store next to the office party. He noticed cigars for sale, big cigars, now he thinks: why didn’t Molly tell him they had big cigars here, instead of the little ones, thinking of course, it would have possible solved the problem with him sharing his cigar and not causing the coughing of his friend. Peculiar he tells himself, very odd, yet it is left at that. Then the old man shook his head, told himself, ‘stop day dreaming, rescue Jean-lee.’ As he found himself opening his eyes up, he was also spitting out water.
8
The strength
Rain II
Second Hour
His solar-plexus were sore, there was no cure for its comfort, he knew that, and the ongoing, oncoming chills, chills that reached into the marrow of his bones changed the pigment of his skin, it was the charging cold rains doing, its continued tedious haggling dominance; thus, bleaching his skin a pale white, an egg-white, blotches of egg and pale white stains. He remained, still remained, at a halt for a moment: thinking (not of his pigmented skin, or his marrow in is bones feeling like fruit jam), just thinking (perhaps of the old dead): the old Landlord had worked hard all his life (Günter: being the landlord), was given nothing, took nothing, built a small business, was in the Great War, a true American, he believed he was (so he was thinking); but that didn’t’ matter now, now was now, and now would end up being forever; how many now’s does a man get? He asked himself.
He held it all together no matter what: the now, the maybes the houses and the payments to his employees: no matter how hard it got, or would get, he had to hold it together now though, it was a different now, the before: just hold it together a while longer, as if he had a specific time in mind; guts, courage, taking chances, it was what life was all about anyway ‘wasn’t it?’ to him it was. He worked side by side with the obnoxious tenants: face to face, mind to mind: hand to hand, the ones that wanted you to do every little thing for them; when they became tenants they became helpless; when they became house owners they became reasonable. St. Paul, of all cities in the world was the most notorious for being anti-landlord: it never changed in his lifetime, ‘it never will,’ he said. The tenant could do no wrong, and the judges would side, lease or no lease: what is a lease anyhow, apiece of paper for the tenant; it didn’t matter, and it was for the tenant, not the Landlord. Save, the consertive city of culture as it was becoming or was, presently a hardship on every landlord in the business; and taxed him or her just as well. The courts, judges, the police, all in favor of the tenant, but they all begged him to rent to them: least you be a heal and not have pity on the poor tenant. And so he was a blessing to the community, and was cursed by them. The whole city acted as if a landlord was supposed to be a counselor, father, banker, and god knows what else for the poor tenants; and they were as wicked as wicked could be.
Some tenants would, out of revenge, piss all over the carpets before being evicted for not paying the rent. Others would hang on the chandeliers—loosing them from the ceilings (damaging the: ceilings, electric wiring, water pipes), or kick the walls in to damage water pipes, out of vengeance for being forced to pay the rent: what they owed according to the lease, the lease the Judges looked at only if it was in favor of the tenant, otherwise, they never cast their scornful eyes upon it. Some would pull knobs off doors, damage this and that call the mayor up call the housing inspectors up to get it fixed and they (they being: the authorities) would come out and enforce the law, that is, tell the landlord to fix it or get penalized: the law, that was the law, the real law that is: not the law on in the law books, but on the judges mind, in the courtroom of St. Paul, Minnesota. You had to be cleaver, or they would take you for any and everything you had, both the tenant and the city: and the state. They’d cry they could not pay the rent to the judge and he’d let them live there free for a few more weeks, perhaps a month, in protest of the tax-paying landlord. Günter would tell the judge: they spent the money on dope and drinking, but the tenants would not be asked how they spent the rent, and the landlord would be told to ‘…hush up;’ and on to another house, another embellished tenant, with his or her unfair reports, undocumented, hardly remembered, figured out five minutes before they saw the courtroom; would go into the courts room, cry to get a few more months free rent, supported not by the city but by the city’s tax payer, the landlord: not by the judge, who kept his money in his pocket, counted it when he got home, but by the landlord.
He had found out, it was a way of life for many. Smoke it away, drinks it until it was gone—gamble it up, (the rent money), and simply change your smile to a sad frown when court day comes, and the stupid judge would fall for it, and feel sorry for them, and they did, it worked. He had to be there every hour on the hour when they got paid, so he could get his rent money, god forbid if he wasn’t, there would go his profit, and livelihood: to the corner bar. He earned his money, as was said, the old fashion way, he worked for it. The obnoxious, the thieves, the complainers, everyone blamed the landlord. The Government, the judges, the preachers thought he was cold to them: yet no money came out of their pockets. But not many were willing to step into his shoes—either. Also, the county attorneys, the mothers and fathers, the newspapers, all against the landlord, the legislators, the mayor (I suppose they counted votes, and there was more tenants than landlords); but when it came tax time, to pay the taxes, to make sure the street-lights worked, the roads were repaired, the schools were paid for, it wasn’t the tenants paying the bulk of the taxes, it was him, now everyone liked him—god forbid should he go out of business, and everyone like him go out of business. ‘No,’ he told himself, wading in the waters, ‘…something’s I will never miss, alive or dead,’ and this was one. He wouldn’t miss that at all, should he let fall of this rope: slide off this rope, this slim wet life line, he asked himself—he’d not regret that he was done with the business?
He asked for no pity and gave little in his lifetime, unless a man was in a wheelchair, then and only then would he yield his seat to the man, or woman, or child. Pity was for the lazy, and that he couldn’t give. Pity was for the man in the wheelchair, the one that couldn’t help it. They called him “The Landlord King,” and he was: he gave little pity, and he got none, not from the judges, not from the city and surely not from the tenants.
He looked straight at the rope, or was it the rope looking at him, when you stare long enough, your mind can put eyes on many things [?] Could he even see it now in the dark-ink like atmosphere, in front of him? But he looked that way nonetheless. He could feel the rain on the rope; it slid right down to him: as if it was on ice, and it looked at him? Maybe he was looking into nothingness, just looking or perhaps, perchance, possibly he was trying to become of equal mind with the rain, but became weak to its steadfastness; weak and tired and feeble, and more drained by the minute.
9
Catching Up
As the storm was penetrating the atmosphere with its shifting, jeering and driving winds: —blowing everything about around inside out and on top of trees city lamplights, the city, the daughter now was but fifty-yards of the Capital; she is proud she has made it this far, as she fights her way north, farther north, and a little west. People are hiding in cars, a few tell her to come over, wave and yell at her to come over, but she won’t, she got to go north she tells herself, her father told her to, and that is what she is going to do, plus, if she doesn’t her father may miss her on his way trying to catch up to her, so she nodes her head at them: ‘no’, as she looks back to the ground, heading north, north behind the Capital, and up to Rice Street.
—(The winds come and go 50, 70, 80 miles an hour.) The old man sees the top of the stairs, and begs to get up to the top, begging his body to perform, just a little more, just enough to last to see his daughter safe. He knows if he can last a while longer, everything will be ok for her: and ok is good enough to die with. He can last, his heart beating slowly, his face turning into a pale wax form, death form: he could last a while longer. His heart beating one beat after the other, slowly now, so very, very slowly, he can count them—the beats, his mouth open: one by one he climbs the last few stairs, and slaps his hands together to get the circulation moving, they are white now, as if he had taken a three-hour bath, they look like ninety-year old hands.
‘One two, one two,’ he counts, now he’s on the top, on the top of the stairway looking at the city—‘I made it,’ he tells himself. Now the old man finds himself, not running nor walking, but going forward, with the swaying wind, as if it is pushing him to the street, little effort is made, the current of the wind is doing it. ‘Good,’ he mumbles to himself
his daughter sees him,
‘…Good,’ he says, self-confident of his vitality now, he moves faster as the ugly weather persists on dominating his environment, his shell of a body, which is fighting against the fire in his lungs again, as he spits out water.
‘Forward, forward, forward,’ he yells, as he seems to be going into a coma or some kind of trance. He tells himself to wake up, get that heart moving, you got to catch up to your daughter
He must have walked a mile or two— he finds himself by his daughter now. As he looks up, he is surprised, he had kept his head down so long fighting the winds and water that he forgot to see where he was going and here he was.
‘Are you mad?’ the old man hears his daughter remark, with a childlike voice, scared of his facial expressions, expressions that might emerge, yet have not.
‘No,’ he says, he tells her ‘I told you I’d catch up, and you did exactly what I told you, you went north and…’
The old man couldn’t think of what he wanted to say. He noticed as he looked up into the sky again, it was not letting up, --as he had hoped, then he looked around, everything was water, and more water. But now he tells her: ‘we’re close by the house dear, just a little more north, to Albemarle Street, remember if I can’t see it, you will be able to, you got better eyes, look for Alb…Alb…Alb…’ And she crossed Rice Street now and continued north and a little west. They both stopped, the old man was not keeping up,
‘…Go on I’ll catch up,’ the old man volunteered.
‘What’s wrong (she asked)…we got to go Papa,’
‘I’m not going without you’ she started to cry.
10
Wind and Water
Rain III
Third Hour
As he looked upward, it was a worthless twilight, tainted winds, his neck muscles were becoming numb he lowered his head back down.
“Ah,” he cried, “No need for hope,” no one answered, it didn’t matter, and he was at his wit’s end.
He knew this would be the last hour of struggle—water was his destiny for sure now, and for certain it was close by; with the rain and wind, the breaking up of the Mississippi, it was to be expected now: ‘…resistance breads resistance…’ he told himself, hence, ‘the river gives into the rain and the wind (it must give: he concurs, someone has to, or something has to). It is not any different for one life to give life, but one must give in first; call it being slain, whatever one wishes, one may call it surrender and so it is, so it must be; one must give in, in order to preserver the other [?] The river is no different. This is the will of nature. Someone is born, some one dies.’ It was like his mother, who had died in the hospital, while someone else’s daughter was spared—he had met the guy [the father of the child] at the hospital, and then thereafter, after the death of his mother and the resurrection of this guy’s daughter, they had met in a bookstore, and talked.
(Said Günter downtrodden) ‘The river knows the rain and the wind, and when it will stop: as I know Jean-lee will be home safe soon—it is the way things are. A lowly fee to pay for a generation of life for a youth; the augmenting rain and the waking quiet of the wind, the wind and the rain colliding together and the river, yes the river, they all know one anther like cousins, they all worked together, cooperate; illkept they may be for mankind, but together they are a force, we all know, we all sense this, we just don’t say it: no book written on such a choice,’ he mumbled. Adding, ‘The unerring heart, the infallible unerring heart of the rain and the wind, fills the Mississippi with love, so much love it does not stop to resist; it is like me,’ the old man chanted; it was now more than dusk.
He looked about, he knew by the sounds, the cold-blooded ongoing sounds of the insects and the water shifting, the bats flying by, the bodies floating by, a few skiff’s broken up, floating, adrift—going nowhere, in circles, he was not the only old man drowning, but then, there was only one of him, so to him, he was the only one, the only one in the wild eye, of this storm. The deadly icy air had taken several lives, he had noticed, as they were floating by, bobbing their heads up and down, then down, down, and never coming back up again.
“Everybody has their day to die,” came a murmur from his mouth; his mother died, he now remembered it clearly, he and she went to Stillwater, looking at the steamboats going up and down the river, she didn’t know that day she had only forty-eight days to live then.” (More thoughts.) ‘She created a good life for herself here on earth, and prepared herself for her life after death. She was wise, simple, shrewd, and lived to be eighty-three, longer than I’ll live—‘ so he told himself.
“Men and God, men and God,” he unintelligible trembled with his lips; thinking about now, WWI, the Great War, his war, where he had to kill people, now he was dying, the storm was killing him, he said with justifiable lips: lips that were no longer unfeeling, “when you become God, like God, or full of God, you won’t need to kill anymore—until then it lingers in us all…lingers in us men anyways, at least it did in war.” His iris-less, pupil-less, he seemed to be fad into, the up and down motion of the water, getting dizzy and more sick and lightheaded, as the waves pushed him to and fro making him wobbly and twisting his body in circles to where it was sore to even think about movement, hanging onto the rope as he became more woozy, more unsteady. The water pulled at his chest downward, down and up and behind, as if it was trying to suck him into a vortex, an under current—yet, he would not let go.
11
The Bushes
He said something but no one answered him. He said it calmly, yet he noticed they both stood looking at each other, drenched with water, half naked, blistered from the hammering winds and cuts all over his face from debris flying all about, —helplessly he continued to look at her face.
‘I can hold the rope Papa,’ she said.
‘Yes,’ I know you can, ‘the rope, yes the rope’ he mumbled.
The old man opened his eyes, and he was by some bushes with his daughter—‘Are you all right?’ she commented.
No response.
‘I’m lost,’ the old man said, looking at his daughter, ‘I’m not sure where the house is?’ The old man looked at his daughter; she looked so young, so very young; he had in his mind a picture of her when she was eleven-years old. After her mother had passed away she had asked him,
“Will you ever leave me,” and he said,
“No, ever.”
Life was not always easy, but he never did leave her. As he blinked his eyes dry, he stared at his daughter again, she was fifteen-years old, and she had lived with him for a number of years, until she got married at the age of seventeen.
Now he heard her voice again, as if it was looking for a solution—
‘Dad,’ it said [the voice], ‘…the house is just around the bushes.’
He thought about what she said, ‘bushes, around the bushes’ and now he was stone-frozen, it seemed like, unmovable, he couldn’t move, ‘bushes,’ that was where his mother used to live—he hesitantly told himself, the house was around the bushes, why are we by her house he thought: it’s out of the way: we should be going to Albemarle Street, not Cayuga Street. He was now thinking about his mother’s house, where he was raised, but Jean-lee confirmed it as his house, was he delirious [?] Jean-lee even confirmed they were going to have a hot-dinner once they got into the warm house. Something he had said before, told himself: why was she…he stopped (thought) ‘is she part of me,’ he asked himself, ‘…part of my: now?’ Somehow he couldn’t move around the bushes; that is, he couldn’t move period.
12
The Woods in the River
Günter wasn’t really going anyplace, anyplace soon, no place to speak of, as he moved within the water—and the water moved him, here and there: around this and around that; barely moving, hardly moving at all, within a small radius, possibly in a square of less than twenty square feet: within a circle of the square: it might have seen to an onlooker as if he was walking in water—it might have, had it there been someone there to watch, which he wasn’t, it was just movements though—half-deaths: death before death you could say, before drowning: and drowning slowly: had someone seen him, it would have looked as if he was, not swimming, rather walking on foot, moving with the little modesty he had left, yet walking nevertheless: however, he was not, not doing that—so it looked: the fatalist can be held by curiosity or pessimism, sheer inertia is what it was, and the rope: the rope, and if there was anyone watching, that is what was creating his inactivity. Günter kept moving in that aura of decorum—water with its stillness above his head, as the prevailing night kept creeping over him: Hell had its hale over his head, so he said, to himself, like a vampire bat, wide-eyed and cold faced, ready to suck out his blood, as if it was venom; like a spider weaving a web to sink his wading, his water-walk—his heavy feet. Yet it seemed he was becoming calm as a portrait now.
If anything, it was all to too much for the old man, the old man thought himself merely its champion, if not he would have at one time thought so, why not now. It was to too long in this gloom and doom and the vampire crypt was closing. He was not a man to go along with the status go, a laser-far situation, anything, everything was his previous outlook. He was a champion, to know that that he was the cities champion, his daughter knowing that the he was the city champion, the Stonewall Jackson of St. Paul, the J.J. Pershing of the 20th Century, the solid stone monument called the Sphinx he saw in books, that’s who he was—and his daughter knowing that, and his mother who might have known that, was gratifying; no: it was a flag of courage, something to die for, a flag to carry. It was really he; stubborn him, like his mother, like his mothers father, like him.
He—he being, the old man Günter, did more than that, more than one knew, he was a hero of sorts—he himself, bought up plots of land throughout the inner city and sold them on time, that is lay-way-plans: to friends, working friends, not lazy ones: friends that could not afford a down payment for a house; people that banks would not lend money to—like his friend Wally, Tony’s son who came back from WWII; Anatolee, he knew well, he was from the old country like him, and a mans word was his character, his soul, a hand shake was all that was needed—the old style, the old breed: a good reputation was better than gold, that was his thinking
Omaha Beach—
[June 6, 1945—POW]
Private First Class Wally Sillivk, it seemed every one in the Army spelled his name differently [Sillvk, Silluk, Silvic, and so on and so forth], said his goodbyes to his father Tony, and was on one of the five thousand ships, twelve miles out, off the beaches of Omaha, the date: June 6, 1945. He was, was looking at the coast of Normandy (Europe’s France; he and 200,000 other troops, American and British. The pathfinders had already left, the men who were to light up the way for the drop zones of paratroopers and gliders, infantry. This, this indeed would be remembered as D-Day. Back home, back in America, his sister Elsie was with her new child Edward, she was without husband, and working at the munitions plant. Her father was taking care of his restaurant, Tony, and they, Tony and Elise, like the rest of the world was holding their breaths to see the outcome of this Second World War [WWII].
H-hour, the assault troops were crunched in Coast Guard boats [LCA’s] racing for shore, racing by the U.S.S. Augusta on the sidelines. Mountains of waves hit his boat on all sides, as they received direct hits from the Germans ashore, thus blasting in flames, mounds of flames: flames flames flames many boats before they even got to shore were blasted, and were covered with fire, an inferno, ablaze. Never made it back home, it was their hearse.
You could see weapons being held over their head: the soldiers trying to make it to shore, holding them high over their heads; gear on their backs, drowning: too much, too heavy and to too long carrying them in the waves and flames, and fire overhead, all struggling just to get ashore, whereupon, Germans would be waiting for them: ambush, ambush, it was like an ambush. Many would die, and be wounded before the day was over: before the battle really started, many, so many had died. What if someone would had said: I’m not firing, and a chain reacting resulted in no one firing: God sent, but I think God this days said: “So be it!” And it was as it was.
Men from the 4th Division, at Utah Beach were also hit, lightly hit at first, but then, then came, came the Artillery—one could hear the German made shells ‘88s’, explosives among the troops still rushing out of the waters onto the beaches.
General Norman Coat, walked aimlessly up and own Omaha Beach, the reason? Who knows? Wally fell to a shell, it blew, and he flew, flew several feet in the air, the lower section of his leg now off, blown off, off from upper part of the knee. He would be a POW for the rest of the war; it was a rough day. Utah Beach was the biggest success of the day. By dusk, Utah was in allied control, as Wally was pulled off Omaha by the enemy, and put into a concentration camp.
The only thing Wally would remember of that day for a long, very long time was Father Edward Waters’s words, servicing the 1st Division. It was months after his arrival home that he got his full memory back.
Mississippi Shanty
he even tried to give his son-in-law a four-plex (apartment house) free: can you believe that: free: but, out of laziness, spite and pride, he refused it, bar, accepted a lesser dwelling, a rough wooden hut, a shanty, on the levee along the Mississippi: one he would not have to collect rent from its tenants, for there would be no tenants nor would he have to cut the grass: the lazy sonofabitch. The old man never argued it was or it wasn’t to be; perplexed he was, but notwithstanding, he let well enough alone: lest he cause trouble for his grand kids, and he wanted them to have a smooth upbringing. You only get so many breaks in a lifetime, if you pass them up, well, that is that, and then don’t expect another.
He’d believe in asking a man twice the same thing, a man says no, is a man’s no. As well as is his yes, a yes, mans yes. If pride is in the way, then again it is his concern to deal with it: to go look for integrity: once found, he than can move on; once more it is a mans duty to deal with it learn about stupid pride vs. God’s good pride, not to boast it, to make it a pedigree and part of his personality, it was to be distinguished like a disastrous fire. If he couldn’t put it out, then he’d learn the hard way. For is it not so, pride always comes before tragedy, destruction; and so with that person, he’d just get out of the way—and so he did, he did what he believed in
if a person had seen Günter in Rice Park, which was in the middle of the city (in the downtown area of St. Paul, Minnesota), you would have thought he belonged to the new generation coming about. In a city that was as concretive as a Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist Church that is. He was part of the fate that was turning the city into a landmark, the one Mark Twain visualized when he had come upriver and stayed a few days in the late l880’s, and had nothing but praise for the remarkable construction projects going on in the city. The old man was a planner, an accomplisher. If he was to give his life: what would he pass on? Perhaps opportunity in some way; a chance for her, and her husband to redeem themselves; what would his daughter become, greater than he; that was never the question, but it would be nice. If he had continued with his accomplishments would he own the city in another twenty-years, and if so, was this better to pass onto a dead daughter? He knew a live dog was better than a dead lion. Should he live that long, was a question to reckon with. Again, it was never a part of his mind-set, it was him, looking at his life now, seeing he had done all he could, all God had given him, he did: he did it as best he could, would he had done it better: if he could, he would have. It was like the parable, where Jesus gives each man so many gold pieces and tells them to go and make more money with it, and he did just that. He didn’t hide it like one man did, like his son-in-law was doing by not taking the gold he offered, that is, not allowing him to help him by giving him a rental property: to make life easier for his daughter and grandchildren. Should the time come, and come it will, it always doses: should the time come, and all things have their way of coming around the circle of life, it will be a question he will have to answer.
One life, one soul, has the same value as the next person, be it in India, Egypt, or America: so was his way of thinking, the old mans way of deduction. Should a king die and a peasant, what’s the difference if you can’t take nothing with you to the grave; if you got to give up [wakeup] at the gates, all you got at the gates is yourself, your character, your memories: be it at heavens or hell gates: what’s the difference who you are, or were: whatever you got you leave it behind. And so in his watery cell, he was no more than a naked peasant standing at the gates—one of the gates—heavens gates, or ready to stand at the gates, as his body was turning into a soft white cloud of mush, of nothingness, his muscles giving its last once of strength to its cells. What was the big difference was his character that was the core of his soul, his spirit that is what Jesus would look at, he assured himself. That is where it all ended up, when all was said and done: so he believed anyhow. This was all a stage show, that’s all, to see how you performed. Oh, he wasn’t complaining, for it would not be a returned act to perform—thank God, at least a physical one, and he appreciated his creation. But no one ever said it was forever on earth: everyone knows it is time limited. Time like a vapor from a fire, a flicker in the fire, and then it’s all over, that is all he was, he told himself.
‘Graves are for the living, the dead don’t need them,’ he once told someone that, I think his mother told him that, and he repeated it, and he told somebody, but couldn’t remember know who he told for sure. Graves only sit in the cemetery, winter after winter, people walk by, its cold, the leaves fall in autumn, the summer heat burns up the ground, and you know nothing of it. And seldom do people visit you: don’t even walk by your gravestone and glance. And if you are in hell, you could careless who glanced at your grave stone: and if you are in heaven, I doubt you’d want to come visit it again anyhow, what for, leave that old broken body where it lay: leave it where it lay. If you were a ghost, well, that might be another story.
He was a learned man, got his MA at the University of Minnesota; he had studied psychology, a minor in English. But made his money in Real Estate; war took him to Europe, the Great War. As these thoughts went through his third-eye: his minds-eye, he ended up staring ahead of himself, with a dim, soften gaze, a few reflections in the shadows he noticed: yet continued staring, staring, and staring as if in a trance; stillness filled his intent look. His mind was unmoving now, almost, if not already, in a coma: he put his breath on hold, thoughts subsiding, he put his left hand on his cold chest, a tingling came, through him, on his cold-wet chest, around him he now was aware, without seeing around him, he was aware, he now could see ghosts: vibrations filled the light-shadows, his 3rd eye, his brow was awaken to the transparency of life. They were just there, maybe those who had just died, maybe not. Shapes, figures, they had figures and shapes. He told himself, no one would believe me, if I had someone to tell this to: he said to himself. And it wouldn’t matter if they believed him anyway—he told himself. He believed a man was a man who said what he had to say, not what would save his position, not what others wanted him to say. That made the a difference, if not the difference
(Günter—still in the water, now has gone back to his youth, as he sinks to the bottom of the Mississippi River: thinking about growing up in St. Paul, his brother, an old school friend, his old school and home attic; and he remembers Psalm 46: 1-2 ((‘God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea ”))
Notes on the development of the book by Rosa Peñaloza: Originally named “Look at Me,” and changed on 8/22/05, to “And to Thy Seed,” but published in the month of July and August (during the authors editing process) in the Magazine Ezine; the first published word of this book was the chapter “The Bushes,” chapter 11, in Ezine, and did very well as far as readership went, and this reinforced the author to reedit the rest of the book and publish it in segments (readership of three-million for its first public exposure). The name was basically changed because the author found that there was another book, which had been published in the l980s with the same name. The first draft was originally written in 11/10/2003, revised, thereafter by adding a few new chapter into it, in 2004 [the interlinking chapters; see index]; and reedited in July, August and September of 2005. He put it down perhaps for several months in-between 2003 and July, 2005 because it was too emotional for him to polish up, or continue with (although he wrote the first draft without the interlinking chapters perhaps in three weeks; take or give a week—when his ideas come he has to write them down quickly, therefore I sense the initial writing of the story was perhaps in two weeks); and the best he could do was reedit it after 2005. A small book, with a big impact I do believe. Other names thought of were “Under the Guardian” and “Remember their Good” This was a very emotional book to write for Mr. Siluk, and many parts of the book are real. Then the book was changed back to its original name, and the subtitle left in place to distinguish the different books, between the l980s and his.
Notes: Introductory Chapter to the story, original name, “Look at me!” This chapter written 8/20/2005 (subtitle: ‘By the railing,’ 2/20/2005 ((and ‘Cliff Steps,’ 8/23/2005)) original story written earlier, see notes on the story in back section of the book. Original MS written, 11/10/2003. Name of book is still in question. Book will be put together in 2006 for publication.
