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Imprison
"Find the time to be a stone and feel the intention."
That's what he said to me. I think it was his favorite mantra, something he said to help him get in touch with the
fish. He said he could feel them sometimes floating in the depths or swimming without caution so close he could
almost grab them with a hand.
It is probably the wisest thing he ever said if you don't count the time he stood in front of the jumbo screen at
Toby Jug sports bar with cash winnings from the fantasy football season. Swaying uneasily on his feet with a
pride-inflated chest, he told the crowd, "There's no such thing as perfection but I'm damned sure getting close!" But
that was different.
Out there in the lonely woods, he stood wearing waiters, a spectator to a season he didn't pretend to understand.
There was no yelling in disappointment for bad plays or shoddy management, no pitchers of beer or stats running
around. There was perfection in the river and Douglass Fir, meadows filled with cow pies and barbed wire running for
miles. In that spot he could laugh without reason at the clouds rolling in and out accepting without protest the fate
of every fish in the stream. Watching him smile, I often thought he must have looked like that when he met my mother.
He was in love.
"Look man, the warden's rules is no ramblin'. They've got a special place for ya'll. Put you in a bed so nice 'n soft then fill you with drugs till your head don't work." Sitting on the toilet my cell mate stares at the floor picking his nose. "I'm just telling you cause your new and obviously don't know shit about shit. Consider it a favor. You can pay me back later."
The whole valley is dead now. First came a small fire that burnt down the home along the stream; a few locals dead
set on keeping the place wild and cozy. One belonged to my dad's boss at the refinery who wouldn't stop complaining
about the firefighters who never showed up until too late. None of them owned more than those logs, an old pickup and
some tools. Some lost it all and nobody had the money or intent to rebuild. They kept saying it'll grow back some
day.
Then came prospectors, roads and dump trucks. People's memories fought back for a while but there is a lot of money
in coal and the company bought the town a new elementary school. The guy my pop knew got a couple million, more money
than he ever dreamed of having all at once. So did the other property owners. Lawyers explained they didn't own the
mineral rights since big coal bought them back in the Depression for less than the cost of a new set of tires. Nobody
complained. People got jobs. New families moved in with fresh faces and young blood. There was a dance floor popular
for a while but the sicknesses came. They came at the same time, speed and a poisoned river.
My cousin told me he smoked crank with the sheriff, his teeth jingling under his black-lung laughter. The Department
of Wildlife said the stream and its fish weren't safe to eat or drink. Young folks moved away because everywhere was
more exciting. Both my parents died of cancer in their 50s. They never took to drinking bottled water. My dad would
say, "This is the same stream it's always been," then draw deeply from the innocent clear glass as if it was the
morning's crisp air he remembered.
"Great story man. You should send it in to Sob Story Weekly. You've got me so worked up I'm going to explode." The man moves quickly to squat over the toilet. "Why don't you just look the other way?"
"The third bottle looked just like the fireflies who performed aerial acrobatics after sundown. The fire revealed
warehouse silhouettes, mountains of hell helping to choke the light from the sky. Indeed the night seemed darker than
most. The methyl born flames danced like liberators as I watched. The firemen wouldn't beat the police so each moment
of revenge's voracious appetite was waiting to be enjoyed. Heat stirred the air into currents taking on the shape of
demons. Their work was dirty and exciting, their breath fierce. Through the roar steel beams screamed and crashed.
Barrels filled with diesel and spent oil caught and exploded, shaking the ground with sensuous violence. "Burn" was
all I could think. Arson's craft fought back where words spoken through melancholy complacency failed. Fire knows no
rules. It only grows and consumes without mercy, with terrible grace. It was the only beast big enough to carry my
rage.
What separates now and then is a hazy ride sustained as a dream. In it everything made sense. There was balance. The
future so temporarily irrelevant became a future set in stone. Judge not lest ye be judged.
"Shit that shit stinks. Sorry man I don't mean to make this tomb worse. Why don't you go take a walk outside in your
woods and get some fresh air."
Leaning into grimy steel bars the concrete and hoarse laughter of an apathetic cell mate begin to settle as reality,
sour and overwhelming.
"Honestly, this place is one of the worst places I have ever been. It reminds me of the houses full of sad eyes still
carrying better days around, days when the good life was free. You remind me of them and these bars feel just like
ignorance."
KURT PATTISON writes from Durango, Colo., where he finds inspiration from his teacher, the natural world.
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