El Paso: Back Burner #2

This is a really rough first effort at a little metafiction.  I couldn't get a grip on it but due to the overwhelming response to "After the War Started"  I thought I would put this up for everyone to ignore also.  tj


At five AM in the early spring in the Ohio River Valley the grass is wet. It is wet and full of crisp valley dew and in March, you damn sure can see your breath as you squat on the corner where they make the drop and you whip those newspapers into that old time newspaper fold, hard and tight and the town ain't that big so the news isn't very large and the folded newspaper is just the right size to fit three hundred copies, folded tight and ready to throw. You stuff them into the big canvas bag that hangs across your handlebars. Man, you are out in the street before even your Mom is up and at five AM the cold bites hard, but what of that? You are fuckin' A twelve years old and a Giant in the Universe and these papers have got to be delivered; it is up to you and these papers have got to be delivered and you have done it through the hard Indiana winter and even when you were sick and now it is forty-five degrees and you fold the last paper and thrust it down into that big sack you got from Ricky Donovan back when he got his driver's license and then took off to St. Louis and got that job with the aluminum siding company.

You are a Giant of the Universe and as you stuff the last tightly folded newspaper into that bedraggled sack that you got from Ricky (that he got from his brother Reggie who got killed in Khe San) you look up into the Universe and say the Newsboy's Prayer: God, make me strong and let me ride swift and safe and deliver the News. I'm counting on you God and please, no rain today.

That's it and then you are off and fast and your bicycle is a 1967 Schwinn Stingray. You hit the first pedal stroke and that is all it takes; no longer are you a twelve year old boy in a small Indiana factory town. Now you are a Giant of the Universe and the cold dark Northern sky is deep indigo and yet filled with uncountable frozen lights that smile down on the Young Brave as he pedals furiously on his route. The chilled Ohio Valley Sun lurks just below the horizon. When this Stout Heart finishes his delivery chores there will be a Sunrise over glistening fields to behold; there will be morning hot chocolate laced with coffee and Mom in her giant rumpled bathrobe. There will be two little brothers to whom he is a God and then school. There will be school and good grades; for you have made a promise.

Promises should not be broken and in High School things seem easy and promises are easy to keep. There are girls and buddies and adoring teachers. But the lad is not typical. He is often seen far beyond the outskirts of town, pedaling smoothly and serenely while his friends are experimenting with drugs and sex and alcohol and some are already dead as a result of these experiments. As the dreadful teen years wash over him he rides. He rides his bicycle and works a night job and goes to school and manages to keep his promise.

Then comes the new bicycle and college to pay for and he is paying for it with his heart and his lungs and his legs. He is the only bicycle messenger in a bustling little college town where no one had ever considered the notion.

“I don't get it. I just don't get this whole bicycle worship shit.” It is 1973 and your tiny off-campus apartment is filled with books and talismans and lady's things and a bicycle and more than a little stress. The Lady doesn't live there, she lives in the dorms. But she has managed to fill your place with stuff, too.

“If you don't like it why don't you take all this crap and get out? Just get the fuck out! Jesus! I've got deliveries to make . I promised I would get it done and I really don't have time for this.”

The Lord of the Universe grabs his 1972 Schwinn Paramount. He carefully pulls it down from the hooks in the ceiling even though he is trembling with rage. Finals are only a few days away and this boy has been hitting the books. This little old newsboy has been hitting the books, alright. Astronomy ain't easy. But that old vaginal wrench has been tweaking his reality pretty hard and some of those faculty members that first noticed his abilities have now noticed the decline. They have noticed his distraction and some new odd lack of ambition. They might have understood better were they to see some of the books that crammed every free space of the little apartment.

Colorado in January is a very cold place. But if you have ever been there you also know it is worth the pain. The light from the nighttime sky is indeed a thing to behold. Even in summer, the stars have a brilliance that can dazzle and the mountains breathe down upon the lowlands a fragrant breeze that occurs nowhere else.

But our Hero never made it there. Wait! Take it easy, The Newsboy is fine. He never had any business or reason to go to Colorado. I just wanted to let everyone who has never been there in the Summer Time know that they should get off their asses and go. To the Rockies. At least once in your life.

The Newsboy? Hell, I don't know. He got all messed up somehow or another and ended up dropping out of school in his third year. His little brothers back in the factory town grew up to be factory boys. They did what all the other factory boys did in those towns that fell into decline: they got into the unemployment and then the methamphetamine and then the littlest one died. He was forty two.

Me, I dropped out also. I got into the construction business and did all right. There were pretty good times during the boom years and a sailboat and a house on the river. A wife and kids and all the trimmings. Of course, nothing lasts forever. Things slowed down and then stopped and the stress and the booze were too much and then the world was split asunder and the promise was broken. I also was broken and found myself contemplating a sad trail of loss, but I try not to dwell on it overmuch. Mostly I ride my bicycle.

The Moon is rising full and strong on the horizon and this nighttime desert highway is fully illuminated. It reminds me of my time on the open ocean when I was amazed to see how the nightime sea was as illuminated as a magical dream. The pedal strokes have become my mantra in the night and to tell the truth, I no longer know who I am. But these pedal strokes are my mantra into the night and I will pedal until it ends.

Does the salvation of one brother pay for the loss of the other? The God is huddled on the side of the road somewhere outside El Paso. Mom died a little while back but brother number two seemed to be okay. He was working and he was happily married and he was doing fine. But not now. Now he is whimpering into the telephone about being physically abused by his wife. It is three o'clock in the morning outside El Paso. Texas is a vast and lonely place. The night is very cold and the Universe and the Smiling Moon are shining down on their Little Darling. They are not mocking him; he really is a favorite of the Gods.

“This is the Evansville Police Department. How may we help you?”

“I'm calling from my cell phone in El Paso, Texas. But stay with me. My brother is being assaulted in his home in Evansville and called me for help.”

“Sir, why didn't he call 911?”

“Because it has always been up to me. Listen, right now you send a patrol over to that old saloon on the West Side by the railroad tracks that got boarded up. It was called the Crooked Angel. That's where they live now.”

“Sir, we need an address.”

“You listen to me. You get on the radio and tell them what I just told you.  They will know the place. Quickly, or whatever happens will be your fault.”  He clicks off his phone.

I can see Mexico. It is only a mile or so away from here. Mexico. Maybe I will go to Mexico.

The smiling moon and the deep blue stars are laughing now as the Newsboy climbs back on board his bicycle and resumes his pedaling mantra into the West. The cyclist rides alone, but not really. He is never really alone. He knows this to be a true thing and he rides his bicycle into the West as a faint glow washes over the land behind him and another day begins.