There he was, on a Greyhound bus, heading from Muskogee to Fort Worth, and he was wondering how he ended up there, and if it even mattered. Just a week ago he sold most of his belongings and bought a bus ticket south. He was going to stay with some close family friends in Walnut Springs, just an hour’s drive from the Fort Worth bus terminal. He figured it was time to clean up, kick old habits, and collect summer wages. When he got to the bus station Marianne was already there. She was a lean woman with a kind face, and a warm smile. She appeared as though she had stepped right out from a Norman Rockwell painting. She wore flour sack dresses that she made herself and she kept her hair tied up in a tight bun and covered with a floral-patterned-kerchief. Marianne lived with her brother, James, in an old house trailer on their father’s land in Walnut Springs. Their father had a house about two acres from theirs.
An expanse of untidy meadow lay between the house and trailer, with swaths cut out as trails, leading from one home to the other. Behind the trailer they had a half-acre garden, fenced off and surrounded by tall grass, where they grew a retinue of vegetables, beans, hot peppers, okra, collard greens, and melons. Their father owned about twenty acres of land, the majority of which was wild, untamed fields of weeds, ending where the forest began, on the outskirts of town, and that’s where they were heading.
When Tucker stepped off the bus, he saw her immediately. She was standing in front of an old beat-up Packard, waving in his direction. The first thing he noticed was her smile. “Well, you haven’t changed a day since I saw you last, Tuck.” she exclaimed in her dulcet southern drawl. She threw her arms around him. He embraced her. He took her all in. He enveloped her entire being. There was a deep familial connection between them. In his right hand he carried a dirty blue suitcase, tied together at the buckle with a piece of cotton twine. “Shall, we?” he said, while gesturing to the car. He tossed the suitcase in the back and plopped down on the passenger seat, a real improvement from the padded plastic seats of the greyhound bus. Marianne started the car, and they pulled out.
Tucker was tired from the long ride, and one more hour or so felt like it would stretch out for days, but at least he was with a friend. He had never been to Walnut Springs, and didn’t know what to expect when he got there, but it would be a new start, and that was what he needed most. One more day living the way he was would have done him in. Something happens when you get complacent, your demons start taking roots. His life was going somewhere dark, and he knew it. He tried not to think about the past that he was leaving behind as they traveled out of Fort Worth, but he knew he’d be bringing it with him in some small way.
A few miles down the road, Marianne spoke up “You hungry Tuck?” Up until that point they had sat in silence as they paced along the stretch of open road in the dry heat of summer. He was staring out the window remembering the kudzu he had once seen in the Carolinas, the rich, almost otherworldly green of them. He was imagining being engulfed completely by the vines. Just standing there so still, they slither up around him like he was just another unsuspecting sapling.
He was wondering if he could even stay that still. If he even had it in him not to run away at the first timid touch of the tiny tendrils. “Tuck, did you hear me?” he snapped out of it and turned his head toward her, “What’s that you said?” The words fell out of his mouth in a slow slurry of molasses. He felt like he hadn’t said a single word in a million years. “I asked if you were hungry, Honey” she said “there’s a real good burger joint up the road. One of those roadside stands. Best damn burgers in the state of Texas, I can attest to that.” Her voice was so welcoming, so jovial, so full of comfort. How could he say no to a voice like that? “Sure Mari, I’d love a bite to eat.” He smiled, and they rolled along that country road like a ship through smooth waters. And the green grassy plains stretched out before them, and they really did look like the sea. He was lost in that sea. He was lost in the beauty of the land. He was lost in the sweet voice of a family friend, of the big white clouds coming down to shade them. He was lost in the old blue suitcase. He felt tucked in there somewhere between the books, and the faded old shirts. Stuffed down in the pocket of some old blue jeans and forgotten.
They pulled up to the place and he read the sign out loud, slowly enunciating each word, like a little kid who just learned how to read, “Best Burgers in Texas.” He chuckled. They parked the Packard and pulled themselves out of the car. They stepped on to the cracked dirt and little dust storms raged under their boots as they headed for the stand. Marianne ordered two cheeseburgers and two large Cokes with plenty of ice, and they sat together on the trunk of the car, staring at the vacant plain, and enjoying their burgers in silence, save from the sound of trucks rolling down the road every so often.
In the mind of Tucker, the entire world was visible. He felt like he was smaller than he had ever been. He wondered how far he would go. How long it would take him to find what he was looking for. As he stared at the sky, he saw a flock of floating vultures on the horizon, circling around the cerulean sky in perfect order, and he wondered what it must be like, to be up there soaring. He finished his burger and looked at Marianne, “What did you think of the burger?” She asked him, as she patted her lips with a napkin, and he replies, with a serious earnest “Best damn burger in Texas.” He threw his arm around her shoulder and asked, “How much further do we have to go?” and Marianne replied, “We’re about half way there, Tuck.”
J. Thacher lives in Upstate New York, where he runs a homestead
with his wife and son. He finds inspiration in the rolling hills
that line the country roads, and solace in the Cathartic act of
infusing his stories with his own experience.
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