Burn: An Aubade for Alton
An Ode to Not Dying
A Conversation with My Cousin John, Before I Left Southern Illinois to Go to Graduate School in New York
Irishmen Don't Hambone
The American Firmament
The sun burned before years were years,
a star holding still in the dark
vacuum where gravity
(strength of force relative to mass)
insularly compressed every molecule
creating friction/heat/fusion/energy/
carbon/light which pierced darkness
dinosaurs never saw coming.
Nor could they understand that once
Alton was an ocean—piling and pressing
crustacean shells into limestone
bluffs along the Mississippi
where the Water Panther
hid and ate Indians whole
under what we call sky. In an age of ice
glaciers ate the bluffs and made the Mississippi,
where anti-abolitionist twice drowned
Elijah Lovejoy’s printing presses
in a town where my great-grandfather
beat the shit out of Robert Wadlo
for being too tall to be a sixth grader—
where I visited the graveyard
of my forgotten
and saw the limestone obelisk
marking Anderson Calvin Perkinson’s
final resting place. 12 squared
inches of nameless concrete
mark the grave of his slave.
Men, like Anderson, who couldn’t sit still,
moved here, to an unslashed wilderness
to farm and slash natives
who’d heard songs through the dark
for generations and saw, each night,
the path their souls would travel
upon parting: a song of light
caught in constellations. My people
moved here from North Carolina
where they’d arrived from Virginia
where they’d arrived from England
in the 1600’ds and they must’ve
(though they didn’t know)
walked under the light of the eye
inside the hand as they were questioned
by the bluffs as I am mesmerized by the river
outside of Alton, Illinois
where my grandfather worked,
alongside James Earl Ray, at the Glassworks,
in the town where Miles Davis began to blow.
You just keep going hoping
and knowing that things can't
be this bad forever, but they
never change. You work hard
and things seem like they're about
to be able to change. Things
don't change. You give up
but don't die. Things get even
worse and there's no reason
to care. Nothing. Some people
around you seem to have it worse.
In that nothingness you've
accepted you can't see, but
you're not dead. You're not
dead. Beauty. You are not dead.
A Conversation with My Cousin John, Before I Left Southern Illinois to Go to Graduate School in New York
You got a gun?
No.
You want one?
No.
You sure? We can stop by my place. I’ll
give it to you for free!
Ahh, that’s alright.
You know those fuckers’ll kill ya. You aint
scared?
No.
Nobody thinks about black people when they think about banjos. 400 years ago you only thought about black people when you thought about banjos. I just want to play the music my folks want to hear. — Jerron "Blind Boy" Paxton
No matter how many times I said Illinois
the Irishmen always said Indiana. Dermot
threw a Christmas party for the crew
and all the subcontractors we'd worked
with that year. An open bar
with catered food that none of us had
to pay for except the $20 bucks we all threw
for a tip for the bartenders and caters.
None of the other construction companies
in the city, except the one Dermet owned, did
it anymore though I heard it was once common.
It was like the job site. The Latino laborers
I worked with were at one end of the bar
and the Irish guys were at the other. John
Delany didn't show up, but John Smith
asked Luis, Victor, Manuel, Migel, and me
to join the Irish. I was the only one who had
a drink with John. Vinny the Tooth talked
about the Flintstones, Shlitz beer and the water table
in Indiana. How you could grow anything
you could plant in the ground and you don't
even have to water it. It just grew.
I'd met many of the subcontractors, but not all.
There were many Mexicans who wore cowboy hats
and ate and danced with their family.
Dermet said later I could play spoons with him
after he asked and I told him my family
didn't have shit and it seemed like the only thing
that mattered was the music we played together.
He said it was the same for him when he grew up
but I imagine my family had more shit than his.
Everyone danced to the Irish band Dermet
had hired. Everyone laughed. The music
wasn't entirely unfamiliar or familiar. Guitars.
Banjos. A bass drum. But it just drove forward.
There was nothing but forward
the same way the Irishmen worked like
spite. I got in trouble with it. The bartenders
cut me off so I drank half bottles others
had left on tables and I can't remember
thinking about doing that. Just doing that.
I had done that since I moved to New York.
Dermet was the happiest sing some song
he'd sang in Ireland, and I wasn't leaving.
Cathill had yacked just outside the door.
Dermot paid for his cab. When did Luis,
Victor, and Miguel leave? I had to leave.
I turned the corner and laid down on the sidewalk
as people walked past me and I thought
I might get arrested but just need a couple minutes
and then I woke up with people walking past me
and I stood and walked so I wouldn't be arrested
and I got to the uptown 1 train but and woke up
at Times Square which was downtown so
I waited for the uptown with all the beautiful
weirdos at 3am for a half hour and stayed
awake and rode to the end and called a cab
after 5am because I was in no shape to walk
the two miles between Wakefield station
and my apartment. A week later I flew to
Illinois and hoped more than anything to hear
Uncle Denny or Darrel hambone.
The country poor are hard to count,
but easy to blame for the way they live,
a dog chained to a wooden box,
a junk-pile heaped in the yard, a twist
of smoke rising from a barrel.
Surely they know better. Surely
we all do always, but don’t.
—Maurice Manning
I loved everything about putting up hay. At first
it was because I was too young to do any real work
so I took turns with John, driving in the field. Then I loved it
because I WAS old enough to work. Grandpa wouldn’t let
us buck bales until we were thirteen. He’d worked his ass off
since he was five and it fucked his back up. He started his sons
the same age, the same way—chopping wood and dragging it
around. Their backs got fucked up too. Grandpa started picking
cotton when he was five for the same reason he quit school after
the eighth grade: to work, to help feed his brothers and sisters.
I was six when I asked Mom what’s nigger mean? She said it’s
a curse word Grandpa uses and you can never say it. (Do I have to say
that? Is it dishonest not to, or is that just how you move
forward?) I started writing rhymes around the time I was eight
or nine. Grandpa never treated me any different, but John and I sat
in the shade watching him on the tractor. He was tethering a
hayfield, a field a friend let him cut for free—a favor for a good
guy who wasn’t afraid to work. The machine, the tether, used
long, thin, metal rods that pointed downward, mounted on round
disks that spun in conjunction with each other like clock cogs.
The downward metal rods looked like spinning egg beaters.
When it was pulled behind the tractor the egg beaters picked up
mowed hay and tossed it into a straight line behind. After it’s
mowed you just have a field covered with cut hay—a blanket of
stalks maybe a foot long. It becomes art if you consider what you
want, consider how the world weathers the process, if craft
becomes action—you have to know the nutrients are in the
foliage. That it can all disappear if it gets too dry. The leaves fall
or break in the machinery. It can spoil and mold if it’s too wet.
To do it right you have to care. Have to know how hard winter
can be on animals. Cold. Wet. What that hunger is like. Not
everyone cares. To some it’s math. Buy this + Do that = Get
this. They just spend more money if they miss. Mom’s told me
about when she was a kid and Grandpa missed. If they were in a
certain part of the country and had time they’d stop at a pasture
to check on horses Grandpa had to sell. They were always too
skinny and he’d say biggest fuckin’ mistake I ever fuckin’ made. Not
everybody cares. Not everybody thinks. Some would see
Grandpa in a field or hauling equipment on the road and then get
their shit going. It was always a race against rain, gambling the
weather. Hay needed the right amount of time to sit and dry. It
changed with the humidity and cloud cover. But, rain was
worrisome. Of Dave Murry, a TV weather man in St. Louis,
Grandpa used to say I wish I could buy that son of a bitch for what he’s
worth and sell him for what he thinks he’s worth!
Grandpa listened, to Murry, but made experience-based choices
and on The Farmer’s Almanac. He wanted to make sure somebody
would take over when he got too old to do it anymore. Instead
they sold all his tractors and equipment after he passed. It was
Grandma’s choice. None of the boys wanted any of it. I think
Uncle Chet took over a tractor. Grandpa had shown me where to
hit the bailer with the grease gun. More than once walked me
through a field explaining stuff. I’m not sure he did that with
John. Grandpa’d stopped and kneel at a row of hay. Grab a
handful from the middle. Move both hands like bicycle petals.
If it don’t break in five turns, it ain’t right. Wait. If it’s right in the middle
of the field walk to the edge where the shade sometimes hits it. If it don’t
break in five twists it ain’t right. Wait. Once it’s right and the dew ‘s lifted,
get to bailin’. I know he tried talkin’ to John. The bailer picks up
the rows of hay, twists & compresses them
into square bales, wraps them in taught wire before it spits the
bale back on the ground. If you got enough guys
you can load ‘em up as they come off the bailer. We usually
waited until 5 or 6 when everybody was off work. Grandpa
would start baling around noon, then we’d all work ‘til 9 or 10,
the last hour or so devoted mostly to drinkin’ beer and swapping
jokes & stories. That’s mostly what I know about puttin’ up hay,
pickin’ it up. The summer after the summer Grandpa fell from
the very top of a stacked wagon and broke his back, we got a
shitload of hay from Heather Smokes (a Thoroughbred farm in
Brighton). He was in his late 60’s then. That winter he didn’t
know if he was gonna heal right or ever be the same again. But he
worked his shit out walkin’ the hills, coon hunting with Uncle
Scott and Darell at night, and resting more than usual. I’d never
heard of a horse farm before so after that I had a good dream to
work for. It was a windfall of over 2,000 bales. The biggest field
was supposed to produce 1,500. I couldn’t imagine a field so big.
Some of the fields we worked only produced 10 or 15 bales. The
big fields we put up were like 200 or 225 bales. The guy was
downsizing and hadn’t sold the land yet. He said if we wanted to
put it up we could have it for free. Grandpa was supposed to run
the tractor and that was it. It was enough hay to fill everyone’s
barns which meant everyone was there to help. Sometimes it was
like twenty / thirty guys. It was more work than I could believe
would get done, but I loved it. One day Grandpa was
worried about rain. I’d spent the night with him, without John,
which happened sometimes. I was excited, it was just us, then us
and John until people got off work the next day. We stopped by
to pick John up the next day around noon. But he said it was too
hot and he wasn’t workin’. He was goin’ fishing. Grandpa
couldn’t understand. It was like somebody was speaking
Mandarin. Grandpa explained there was bales in the field and rain
on the way. John just shook his head. Grandpa told him to get his
ass in the truck, but he didn’t. Made me more excited. It was just
going to be me and him. A little scared, but mostly excited. When
we got to the field Grandpa wouldn’t let me out of the truck. I
couldn’t figure it. But I drove as he loaded and stacked by
himself. I’d get out and throw a couple bales in the back and he’d
cuss and tell me to get back in the truck. He didn’t want me
hurtin’ myself jus’ John wanted to go fishin’. He was a fuckin’ old
man. I stopped listenin’ when his face turned purple in the heat.
Didn’t get mad or nothin’, jus’ worked an’ acted like I couldn’t
hear ‘im. He had more strength and integrity than anyone I’ve
ever met.
They call ‘em square bales, they’re really rectangles. When you cut
the wire to feed you’ll find 16 flakes, each flake three to four
inches thick. 16 flakes every time. I don’t know how a machine
could do that to plants. I’ve never been inside the machine.
Grandpa knew everything about it. He could fix fuckin’
everything that went wrong—if he could get parts. He had to
learn the mechanical because he couldn’t afford not to be a
mechanic. It’s interesting stuff too, mechanical work, once you
know why it matters. A flake of hay looks like a square. Maybe
that’s why they say square bales. Darrel said I was dumbass for
saying so, but I loved almost everything about putting up hay.
The heat could be a bit much. The hay dust could sting if you
were sweaty and it worked its way into your pores. Everything
else I think I loved. The challenge of working your ass off in a
hot barn, so dusty it was hard to breathe. The smell of hay. The
barn. The field. The guys. The problem solving. The challenge. In
a little field off Hwy 67 John and me and Bob Schel bucked bales
on a hot day. There wasn’t enough work to wait until everybody
got off work so as Grandpa bailed we started pickin’ ‘em up.
John stepped on a hornet’s nest in the ground. He didn’t know it
until he was stung. Then they were everywhere. I ran. John just
stood there swinging his balled fists, screaming cuss words, trying
to knock each hornet out. Bob ran to him, stood in front of John,
took his hat off, and started swatting hornets. Bob got fucked up
in Vietnam. Then his hip got fucked up when his motorcycle
went down. He smoked generic, none-filters down so low the
cherry burnt the tips of his pinched fingers. He held the wet, tiny
things like the joints I watched him smoke. I think he was Uncle
Chet and Uncle Charlie’s friend first, but his limp never bothered
Grandpa. John got stung. Bob got stung. We picked up the rest
of the hay. We rode down Hwy 67 on top of a haystack. I like
that we rode home 40 or 45 mph, ten feet in the air with nothing
solid to hold onto. Bob lit one of those non-filters. I love that.
When we got back to the house
Grandpa fixed up some vinegar & baking soda and dobbed it
over John’s stings. Then we put the hay in the barn. But that was
a different day than the day John and me was sittin’ in the shade
watching Grandpa on the tractor and trying to figure out how to
be men, by telling each other the things other men did that
meant
they weren’t men. John asked how I could wear my hat
backwards and sag my pants and listen to rap. Asked me if I
knew how much that pissed Grandpa off. I didn’t know.
Grandpa had never treated me any different because of the
clothes I wore or the music I listened too. He was driving the
tractor forward while he looked backwards to make sure the hay
didn’t get fucked up—to make sure the machine didn’t fuck up
and break. He watched the machine work. You know Grandpa don’t
like that shit! It was all there: shame, guilt, fear—currency I was
learning to trade. I turned my hat forward. Maybe I’ve been
backwards ever since. I had to ask Mom what nigger meant after I
asked Grandpa a question about a girl I share a school bus ride
with. It dropped me off at the end of his drive. On the bus she
stood in between the seats yelling at a kid I called my friend.
It wasn’t one yell or two yells, but seemed like an explosion that
didn’t stop. I asked Grandpa why she yelled like that. He said
because she’s a nigger and that was that. When Mom picked me up I
asked her what the word meant. I didn’t know it then, Mom had
been best friends with the girl’s aunt all through high school.
That doesn’t make me okay or give me some kind of permission
to say ugly things, but things don’t seem to be changing. Mom
said it was a word I could never use. And that was that. It’s not
enough just to know not to do something.
In America the firmament is dark.
Jeremiah Driver earned an MFA in Writing at Sarah Lawrence College, won the Thomas Lux Award, has been a horse trainer, a service member in the United States Army, worked heavy construction in Manhattan, and taught literacy/ writing in Queens and the Bronx. His work has appeared in Terminus, Columbia Journal, UCity Review (noteworthy poet in issue 13), Prairie Gold: An Anthology of the American Heartland, Piecrust and elsewhere.
