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From June 2005 Edition of Whoopsy Magazine
STOPPAGE TIME by Joe Mitchell Kickin' Around on a Piece of Ground In Your Hometown It seems like a fate worse than death. After 23 years away from the tiny hardscrabble North Texas burg that spawned me, I have returned with nothing but a portfolio of published articles, two books of short stories and essays, a hardened heart with enough battle scars to impress Vinegar Joe Stillwell, and about $16, American. I feel like a total washed-up loser. Maybe I am. I'm occupying a room in the south wing of my mom's red brick house, the one she paid $14,000 for in 1973 when I was in third grade, the year after my dad died in an oilfield accident. Moving to a new house was my mom's way of moving on, in a way. She never remarried. Never saw another man in her life. She must have cried when my dad died. My four siblings and I never saw it if she did. "She never showed it," we all say. I've never seen her cry ever. I put her through hell over and over again as a young hellion, and she never blinked. She would just stand there, straight-faced, never raising her voice. She'd calmly, yet sternly lay down the law. She managed to keep me in line. When I'm depressed or down on myself now, she always reminds me in that matter of fact nasally Texas tone of hers, "You turned out pretty dern good for a half-orphaned kid." It's an odd, but truly sincere way of saying, "I love you." I guess growing up and surviving on a dustbowl farm in the depression then scraping by during World War II makes you stoic. If you can survive that at the beginning of your life, everything must seem easy after that. When I look at my mom, along with everyone and everything around me here in Tiny Town, Texas, I realize just how bankrupt I am, and not just financially. Spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically, the accounts are overdrawn with dozens of hot checks pending. Karmic creditors are circling like vultures. Middle age crisis? Perhaps. I've had several bouts of depression since 1984. Every time, I've been able to bounce back quickly. However, as I get older, the rebounds take longer. This time, it's been about eight months since the really messy end of a really messy relationship, and I'm still a few miles from normalcy. It's why I'm back in "these here parts." Recovery from severe physical or psychological trauma requires a stable environment, even if it has horses and cows. I'd been back in the land of rustling mesquite only two days when we got the call that my eldest uncle had died. He was 86, less than two months short of 87. He was the husband of my mom's oldest sister, Sadie. My mom and I drove 30 miles to the funeral home up in Montague County the night before the funeral for what she termed "the visitation." I saw uncles, aunts, and cousins I hadn't seen in more than 20 years, all milling about a big drawing room where an open casket lay at one end. My uncle was laid out wearing a crisp white button-down shirt beneath a brand new pair of denim overalls. A gray felt Stetson was propped-up at the edge of the white cloth interior. I had to imagine he was wearing a pair of jet black Nocona boots since only the top half of the silver casket was opened. I smiled at this truly Texas image, realizing that if it weren't for the man that once occupied this rather spiffy corpse, I would have never existed. It was he that introduced my mom and dad. After the funeral the next day, I rode to the burial with one of my older sisters in her soccer mom minivan. Winding down a farm to market road, oncoming vehicles pulled to the side of the road and stopped upon seeing the hearse at the front of the procession. Some held their caps or cowboy hats out their windows as a sign of respect. Being city people, both my sister and I were blown away by this. "People in Dallas don't even slow down," she said. I stood behind all the mourners at the cemetery like I always do. I like to observe mourners for some unknown reason. On this occasion, there were several tough Texas beauties in their late 30's and early 40's to observe, or rather, ogle. Draped in black dresses accentuating their big bleach blonde hair as it whipped back and forth in the insistent breeze, these were the women that Ellen Burstyn played to a "T" in The Last Picture Show- brash, bold, and sassy, yet without the merest hint of neurosis. They looked straight ahead, poised, occasionally dabbing their eyes with tissue. Their sadness was buoyed by their resilience. These were the gals that had taken the stoic torch from women like my mom and aunt Sadie who rolled by in a wheelchair at the end of the burial chin-up, quietly nodding acknowledgement to everyone she passed. "She never showed it," my mom said later that night. |