Southern Mercy Summer
A steamy night near the swamp… the stars were out, it was so clear you just make out the phantom edges of the Milky way. Mosquitoes were out and they were repulsed by sweated alcohol, or perhaps we just couldn’t feel them anymore. The host, the old one, skin like a map… all burst capillaries and mole constellations… tonight read as a beat; storming into the woods and out. His back was lit by the fire and you could see him swallowed up by the darkness- there was no regularity to the disappearing act. Come out of the woods, sneaking up behind a couple of necking youngsters grab their heads and pretend to smash em together… by that time he may have actually done it a few times. And strained laughs, diaphragm contractions that became genuine after a short tickle of mirth. He had a mad happy gleam in his eye the whole of it, for a moment the fire catches his face in partial profile and the eyes sink, lids swell and darkness casts his face in the geological beauty of age: hard beauty, not ruggedness, but delicacy, aristocratic features angular, boyish weathering, erosion that made the man and the boy meet in the middle. “I found this place”-he sputters a bit- “past the ivy, on that one path, if you follow the tr-tracks and keep going past that rottten drum-the circle, the goes around, that pool…” and a trailing off. Again into the woods! And as he is engulfed: “I found this wonder- this b-b-beautiful pool you can really sink-into…” A grin and eyes fully into the black. Around the black, leaves and barks lit red, ablaze but cool and bleeding into nighttime-blue then nothing…he’s back already. In front of me now, smiling and silent. Asks me about my girl and I say shes fine but he’s the only who doesn’t know I don’t got one now. Grabs my shoulder and, and cackles as he turns again, standing on the edge of the brush that lines the wood, sinks into the darkness. And for another second the fire relieves him of youth, he resigned, and blue twinkles snuffed out like candles at the far end of a lightless room.
Start to feel a little sick, people laughing and yelling, a glow-in-the-dark football makes a green streak in my vision and silhouettes rush past, one by one, each cast by the fire opposite them, across them to me. A smash, someone has run into a parked car… my that one’s gone far the game’s over here…but its dark out here. Stay near the fire or get sucked into the woods like Old one. Couples near the fire taking time out from night-football to grab one another and radiate to one another, and they pull back and brush their hands across respective breasts and groins… hinting and pushing and pulling and grabbing clothes. Faces red, lips wet, smiles taper and turn to dead-eyed stares and mouths form half-words, we lip read, rather, they lip read and the prescience of two needs takes over. I turn away and see her with the new guy, I almost didn’t come for this, but the drink didn’t put me in the dumps like I thought, and I remember I’m doin alright. I’m okay, yeah they’re kissing now… and it doesn’t pierce like you’d expect, I forget myself, and realize that I’m glad, I’m glad because thats good and I’m not feeling like I felt it months ago… maybe Old one will see her with him and punch that fucker in the face for messin with who he thinks is my gal, but he’s too smart for that… he saw the self-effacement in my eyes when I said she was fine… just to maintain the sentimentality of the moment for the sake of the future- I’m not in denial, but I do my duty to engineer the images we retain of this night. But where did he go? He’d sunk into the forest a full five minutes ago and many heads go un-smashed, boys and girls are getting too cozy… and my stomach is beginning to turn on me. Did he sink into his pool?
And I’m on the edge of the woods standing like I’ve come out of a fugue-state, finding myself poised for combat, bent knees, hands out, elbows bowing, eyes wide trying to lap up the scanty light. I see him shuffle… he hasn’t noticed me when he’s about to enter back into the red ring of the fire, but I see a gray head turn a bit, start, take me in, and then, in the almost pitch-dark, a grin, two twinkles… and a cackle. The light that dawdles past the lining shrubbery was not kind to his face, therefore less kind to my nervous temperament: if he looks old by the fire, vital red old, in the darkness he is a wraith, and his grin iridescent. He’s gone, hear leaf-smashing steps leading away… and I follow because I must.
I must have blundered about for ten minutes… the place where firelight enters the wood is a red speck teetering on the edge of my vision and maybe sometimes he was beside me, behind me, floating next to me and mocking me… I’m struck suddenly by the impression that he is lord here. I freeze… I hear his voice- “almost there… my pool, it ain’t far”- a lazy laugh. And- a splash. Silence. Distant laughter. Yells.
I hesitate by the rotting drum… put my foot out to test the ground. Jesus, hell am I doing out here? Drunk, pitch goddamn black- and I’m near some water, gawd am I gonna fall in some water? Do I hear Oldie’s voice back by the fire. Oh, unmistakable. Thats him. Did anyone see me crash into the woods like I was on a mission? I ran around for ten minutes…but the wraith! I step forward and stop, the step back to where I was and- I find the water.
I break the surface and fall in, don’t immediately feel the bottom, thrash. Jesus christ, water, and I can’t see, dreading the moment when I can’t figure out which way is up… black water, unsettlingly warm and full of woody debris… who knows whats scraping up against me. And I touch the bottom, how far down I dont know. But- I remember: I’m okay, I’m alright. I go back to the surface, pass into a light coming through the top. A pillar of light illuminating some of this fresh forest water, and I see it isn’t so filthy, there are no ugly things floating here with me, it is translucent green-blue and beautiful. My head breaks the surface.
It is morning-and silent.
For just a minute I lock eyes with a deer who freezes, drops whatever its chewing and bolts off, the only sound: crash crash crash, smashing further and further leaves. Morning haze, dew, wet silence.
There is nobody by the fire, it is burnt down, a pathetic wisp issuing from the smoldering center. Nobody around. Cars gone. Not a thing. Trucks up and down the only road, farmers markets opening up. Golden fields in the distance.
I am smoking now. I do not reflect on what happened last night, I think of her. There are no ghosts out here, not in this part of the swamp… further out maybe… the good kind. No, there are no ghosts here- just soft young flesh, dark pools with leafy surfaces that slide around in the night, moving to overtake you and wash you out, mercy in the core of the woods. The anointing past the ivy, down that one path, bathe. You will climb out into morning mist.
