I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to pick up a few things and to see if Jake was ever going to make up his mind about setting up his web site. Jake has been on again and off again about having an internet web site for selling his Bar-B-Que internationally for several years now. In fact the first Charlie’s report I wrote was about Jake wanting me to design a site for him. Jake had visions of becoming an international Bar-B-Que mogul. Since then he has been alternately enthusiastic about moving on the idea and then hesitant about his prospects. Recently he has tended more toward hesitancy. When I pulled up to the gas pump and Jake came out, I asked him about the proposed site. Jake got that real serious look on his face and said he had been thinking about it. What that meant was, of course, the thought had not entered his mind and he was in no mood to discuss it in a constructive manner.
I decided the web site was a dead issue for the present and went on inside where Mister Johnson was holding down his regular chair over by the pot belly stove. Mister Johnson has been under the weather for the past several weeks, staying around the house and watching television. He told me he had decided the more television he watched, the worse he began to feel. So he got himself out of the house and came down to Charlie’s. He was beginning to feel better already. I told Mister Johnson I felt better just seeing him sitting in his chair and working on that piece of pine he always has with him. We talked about nothing in general, Mister Johnson told some of his stories, and I left and drove home just as Jake was closing up.
I fixed a quick supper out of a can and decided I was more tired than I had realized. I thought about watching a movie on my DVD player, then thought better and piled into bed. I awoke sometime in the night and sat upright in the bed. I had been dreaming about Charlotte Williamson and memories of when we were children in Selmer. Threads of the dream were vague and, the more I tried to get a mental grip on them the more they slipped away. I lay back in bed, but I soon decided I was wasting time attempting to go back to sleep, so I rolled out of bed and pulled on a shirt. I wandered through the house and reached to turn on my computer. Since I was up for the night, I might as well get some work done. Problem was I was not interested in work. I had one of those restless feelings and did not know what to do with myself. I looked at the clock to see it was three-fifteen. It was time I was up in any case. I started some water for tea. I do not much go for coffee unless it is free and someone else makes it. I don’t keep any in the house. While the water was heating I went to the door to look outside. A sliver of orange moon was peeking over the tree line. I went back and turned the heat under the water off and found my pants and shoes. I put my keys in my pocket, then decided there was no reason to lock up. I was not going far and, at three-thirty in the morning, no one comes out to my road.
I walked out into the cool morning and out to the road. A dog was barking far in the distance. Overhead an airliner was leaving Memphis for someplace east, possibly Atlanta. It made a muffled roar far above. I walked up the road to where the trees opened up. Stars were out and there were scattered rags of clouds looking dark gray against the black night. There was a low fog hugging the fields. I walked slowly enjoying the night. The arc of the moon had whitened out from the orange it was at the tree line and it was smaller in size as it climbed into the sky. While not near so bright as a full moon, the arc gave off plenty of light as my eyes had become adjusted to night vision. I walked slowly, enjoying the cool morning air and almost wishing I had brought my light jacket. It has been unseasonably cool the last few days and, while the pre-sunrise air was not exactly nippy, it was cool enough to open put a spring in your step.
I heard a distant sound of an automobile. I had walked far enough to be on the paved road that runs past my service road and on down toward the Spencers. Presently I saw headlights through the trees. I was in no mind to have my pleasant mood interrupted by civilization, so I turned off the road and up a field trail some of the local farmers use to get to their crops. By the time the automobile roared past, I was far enough up the trail I only got the backwash of the lights. I stood for a moment in the silence until the night sounds came back. Somewhere, far off, that dog was still barking. Bright points of lights danced and sparkled in the black as fireflies went about their business. I remembered as a child filling a Mason fruit jar with the little glowing insects and bringing the jar inside. I was planning to keep my own personal collection of insect light in a jar in case the electricity should go out. Be Prepared was my watchword. But mother had explained the little bugs would die all sealed up in a jar, so I had reluctantly taken them back outside and set them free. I was quite young back then.
I walked on for a while. Somewhere an owl called. Another bird call came from the woods off the road. I recognized the call, but could not place the bird. I was walking by a neighbor’s house and the lights were on inside. Why would anyone be up this time of morning? I smiled to myself. Of course, I was up and about. I looked at my watch in the moonlight. It was on past four-thirty. I had been out over an hour. More people would be up soon and more automobiles would be roaring along the road. The world would not much longer belong to me alone. Other people would be taking their share. I turned back toward home. Down the road in the shadows where the trees met over the road, something was in darkness. I walked carefully, trying to determine what I had found. The shape moved and I recognized a deer, a buck with a large rack atop his head. It has come to the point that deer are a common sighting around, but mostly we happen upon females. A buck is still a rare sight. The deer watched me a moment longer, then leaped off the road and into the woods. Walking on toward home, I knew it was going to be a good day.
END
