The Tree and Me
Chapter Six
After thirty minutes of strolling along the road he saw a glow rise up ahead. It looked like two lines of white Christmas tree lights twisting through the prairie – it was a section of the super highway. It ran through a cluster of lights that surrounded five story poles topped with names of places for food and gasoline as beacons of the land.
He entered the warm orange glow of the cluster and headed for a truck-stop. No franchises for him. He was a ‘wanderer’ and that led him to the Crow’s Nest. There was a section for cars, off from the intimidating assemblage of those ‘ships’ of the prairie; the eighteen wheelers. Once inside the restaurant, he wanted to turn and leave. He felt like some outsider in this world of which he had no idea or experience. A stool at an empty counter seemed like a safe place. While lowering onto it, a droopy-eyed waitress came over and served him coffee. Luke was a tea man. She carried three pots and he mentally named her the, ’Coffee Cow’. She left and he plucked a menu out from a gathering of condiments and a napkin holder. The items in the menu sounded great to someone so hungry. Another waitress ambled over. She was young with short blonde hair, slender build, and several earrings in each ear. She whispered some words as her body swayed with the restaurant background music. Luke thought how Angie was all that too. She never broke into a full swing, just a private audience of herself; like Madonna, the singer.
“I want meatloaf, mashed spuds and a vegetable” came out before she could speak. She looked him over, took the menu with her tattooed arm, and plopped it back into the gathering of origin.
“More coffee?”
“No thanks. Do you have tea?”
“Yeah we do. I even got them to carry herbal teas, since I’m into health, you know.”
“I appreciate your interest. I’ll take an Earl Gray.”
A foot high decorated Christmas tree sat at the far end of the counter. He remembered eating a similar meal the night he searched for a special tree. It all seemed appropriate. He hoped his tree had not left or even worse, died. Almost like having a pet.
Luke played with a hot-sauce bottle while thinking of his time on the back roads with those sights and the magical quality of it all. Memories of he and Angie came up. The time they bought two small inflatable rafts and floated down narrow streams, going around bends, surprising raccoons and sending startled geese to flight. Sometimes the rafts barely fit between walls of cattails or hung up on small beaver dams. Then, there was that day on the wide Fox River. The summer drought had left the Fox as a series of deep pools separated by ankle deep stretches. They walked the rafts from one pool to the next, floating in the fall sun with gold, yellow and red leaves waving overhead from the high bluffs. Crows called down as if making fun of them. Six hours to cover six miles of the river. They were happy those times and their own natures sometimes found them kissing on the river bank. Then, a voice broke his reverie.
“Hey Bud, how ya doin’? Name’s Roy.”
Startled, Luke blurted out, “Ah. Yeah. Oh. My name’s Luke.”
“Where ya headed Luke?”
“I guess nowhere. Just floating in the night.”
Roy looked over his menu. His tee-shirt showed the Grateful Dead, his jeans were faded from wear and he wore clunky boots. And, of course he had some faded tatoo’s. He turned back towards Luke,
“Good for you , man. I hate going from A to B and the ‘To’ of no importance. But a man’s got to make a livin’ and mine is an eighteen wheeler carrying machinery.”
His right eye seemed to wink without his eyelid doing anything and to tell Luke the meaning of life. Maybe it was the long hair, the earrings or the peace sign tattoo. It all put Luke into a poetic frame of mind. Roy continued,
“Eighteen wheelers, to me, feel like those prairie schooners the settlers travelled in. Must’a been similar, ‘cept these mechanical monsters would’a gone lame fast in those days.”
Luke’s vision of that river, its sound and his attraction to its flowing darkness came out as a question, “What is the ‘To’ part you mentioned?”
“What yer doin’ right now Luke; just floatin’ around aimlessly in this night. Like explorin’ in the ocean, in the dark, and the creature’s lights like they find in those deep sea explorations shown on the Discovery Channel. That’s cool. That’s the ‘To’ for you, man.’ Roy’s eyes wandered as he talked.
Then those eyes set into Luke’s eyes and Roy grabbed his arm.
“Listen. When all is known, my heart beats in the dark of a cavity inside me. That’s its home.”
Luke noticed Roy’s eyes no longer did that ‘winkless’ winking. He saw the night in them and knew that all was right.
“O.K. you lovers.” the waitress smiled. “Break it up. Meatloaf for you young man and what’s for you Roy?”
“Coffee and two grilled cheese sandwiches to go.
Luke blushed a bit until the full meaning of ‘lovers’ came to him. They were lovers of something special that they shared. Luke enjoyed being connected in a deep way with someone; just as he had with Angie.
“Didn’t mean to come on to ya’ like that, man. When you’ think you’ve found a kindred soul on a journey you know about, you can’t not at least wave to one another. Part of it is, knowin’ you are not alone.”
Luke’s stomach made one of its loud growls about hunger, a good hunger; more than just feeding his stomach. Roy remained quiet while waiting for his order. ‘Madonna’ came with a bag and two Styrofoam cups.
“Hope you and Stella travel safely. You two are such hippies. I never could understand that time though.”
“Well honey, guess it’s a ‘generation gap’ but age sometimes builds bridges.”
As Roy arose from his stool, “Here, shake on it, man. Maybe see ya’ again and remember. . . to boooogie. He laughed on his way out the door.
Luke yelled out, “Canned Heat, right?” he was only twenty, but knew the sixties bands.
Luke took his time eating the heavy meal and it soon brought on a day’s worth of tired. A wall clock showed 10:10PM. Madonna returned,
“You’ll be needing some more tea. I can tell.”
She added water to the cup and dropped in a new bag. Luke finished it. He slowly rose up, ambled over to the cashier and paid the “Coffee Cow”.
Soon he was waiting for the car to heat up while he shivered. Then he fell asleep. He awoke as some headlights wandered over his closed eyelids. 10:30Pm shown on his car clock. Outside, the trailer trucks came in and out like ships at a port. He now felt some kinship with the drivers of those prairie schooners as Roy had called them. His was a solo trip, off the maritime lanes – an explorer. Luke filled his gas tank to Full and then was off and at the helm with the cozy lights of the dashboard; the little illuminated shapes of various colors, some of them moving. The clear sky now had new stars overhead.