Writing by Rhys Morrow
You will know when you’re getting close. The cracked highway, painted like a zebra with
patchwork tar, will gently wake you with its perfectly worn tempo. Or maybe you’ll be jolted
awake by your driver drifting onto the rumble strips. At one point they were gouged into the
asphalt to alert those who fall victim to the calming and rhythmic pattern of pastures and woods
and pastures and woods. Before you make the last left turn onto the double-ended
rainbow-shaped driveway, you’ll see five young children walking the ditch line, and you should
wonder who let them get so dangerously close.
We knew this roadside well. After being told to go pick up trash, we returned with
grocery sacks of styrofoam, empty dip cans, broken beer bottles, and all the other foundational
items of Taylor County. Cars passed by, and I can only imagine what they thought as five small
sets of eyes met theirs in the sixty-mile-per-hour flash. This recurring chore was followed by one
lucky older sibling, not quite yet old enough for a learners permit, driving the dented,
spray-painted Ford S-10 truck. The remainder on foot closely tailed behind. From there, we
gathered the fallen limbs of the pecan trees that were dotted about in the three main yards. They
collected into a mountain, and we would periodically scale it, jump on its peak, and pack more
in. Way up there, I scanned the yards hoping not to see dad cutting more and more down.
Depending on the season, the rusty pecan picker uppers, as we called them, were taken from the
truck bed, and then tediously rolled to gather every pecan with each squeaky rotation. When the
ellipse-shaped wire cage was filled with the nuts, we pulled a section open, allowing for them to
gather in an orange Home Depot bucket below. Finally, the grass was prepared to be cut, and
each of us went our separate ways. I’m almost certain we all learned how to drive the farm’s fleet
of mowers before a car.
After wrestling the pull cord of the push mower that was longer than my entire wingspan,
I would be dragged along in its dust, carefully tracing the exterior of the ancient cracked and
peeling pool. As my legs grew more neon green with the grass cuttings collecting at my ankles,
so did my frustration. With every increasing second, my hands grew stiff around the metal bar
and painfully hummed with the motor’s vibration. Each turn or unseen bump, yanked and twisted
my narrow shoulders, the rest of my body always one step behind them. Despite how often I
attempted to get out of these chores or wished that my parents would accidentally forget about
them, I reluctantly succumbed to doing them. These chores, and the blisters, sunburns, or ant
bites were the small price to pay for the childhood I adored.
To ease our hard-earned scratches and bruises, my siblings and I would reconvene at the
1970’s pool. The teal diamond patterned liner had faded and dry rotted, hidden with black rubber
patches and sealant. Its aluminum border grew hot under the southern sun and bit at our clinging
fingertips. But to us, it was nothing less than an oasis. On particularly fortunate days, we used its
water to redneck refrigerate an entire watermelon. Floating on the surface, we took turns draping
our bodies over its mass and attempted to hover in the heavy air for just a moment. In defiance of
its buoyancy, we collectively pushed it to the pool’s floor and watched as it shot into the open
pale blue sky. On its descent, we broke into laughter and cheers. The watermelon was forgotten
and drifted about as water gun fights, cannonball competitions, Marco Polo, and wave pool
making were shortly underway. When finally admitting exhaustion, something not easily done
for a child, we wrangled in the watermelon. Placed onto the black rotten wooden table, it was cut
into huge wedges and paired with Morton table salt. Usually at this time, my two brothers’
absence was noticed. We felt Dad’s agitated call from the opposite side of the shop all around us
as his voice bounced off the rusted tin roof and concrete floors.
In the green-tiled bathroom, seemingly frozen in time, I traded my swimsuit for
hand-me-downs. Following the once shag-carpeted hall, I reentered the strange world that was
this place. The kitchen fridge came up short on sweet tea-filled ice trays, so I left to see what the
old carport fridge had to offer instead. Sometimes, my mom bought us sodas and put them out
there, but most of the time there were only random items like a bottle of a mystery condiment, an
empty pickle jar, Bud Lights, or Pepsi’s exclusively for Dad.
A window built into the original exterior brick wall connected the carport and the shop.
Through this, I often listened to Dad bark demands and the inevitable outbursts that followed
when my brothers didn’t perfectly meet them. I learned big grown-up words. Words that made
me question how such a large insult could fit through such a small opening and make its way to
my ears. My younger brother Flynt especially, the one who looked the most like him, seemed to
disappoint him the greatest. “Fuck me!” or “You can’t do anything right!” Dad would yell at him.
But this one day in particular, he told him he wished he shot him and left him to die in the
swamp. A remark that incomparably resulted when my brother accidentally hit a tree attempting
to pull my Dad out from mud he got himself stuck in. My brother brushed this off, or at least he
appeared to, as best as a preteen could. But I knew, when they were no longer in his sight, both
Ryver and Flynt felt all of this. How they felt towards it, I can’t be certain, but nonetheless it’s
impossible to not feel it. Later in life, I’ll learn that this, how you feel and respond, is one of the
few things a man like Dad can’t control. I waited to see them turn the corner of the garage, eyes
full of anger or tears, and hastily retreat into the house.
I imagined what my Dad’s father must have been like, the one he swore to never become.
The one with a legacy of alcoholism and abuse that caused him to change his last name by high
school. The same last name he still gave as middle names to both my brothers. I wondered if that
physical resemblance to his own son Flynt is what irritated him so. Moreso, if carrying that
endowed likeness is what also made Flynt, around the same age, change his last name to my
mother’s maiden name. He wouldn’t think of any of this. Because, now with a shop that was all
his, full of tools only he could correctly wield to his standards, my dad sat there, and let the dust
gather into a pile on his head.
I would jump on a four-wheeler, drive recklessly down the long red dirt road to the
swamp. Sometimes I stopped to greet the neighbor’s cows, visit the abandoned school bus, or
drink from the artesian well. But on the days my head was particularly restless and his words
heavy on my heart, I drove all the way to the Flint River, sat on its burnt orange sand banks, and
wished I could stay there forever. It was in this water I first learned to swim, the fear of what
resided under its murky shallowness fueling my ambition. Dad told me I would be baptized in
this river, but never was. My brothers were named after this river. But the Is replaced because my
dad wished for us to all have Ys in our names; for us to be able to wonder “Y not me.” To
question the obstacles before us and pursue life with unruly passion. I believe it was this same
wildness that he found in playing rugby. It was during this sport that he broke his neck just
before I was born. From this accident, and the loss of the ability to walk, is where I assume his
bitterness grew subsequently filling the gaps and cracks of his spinal cord. He could no longer
run from the shadows of his estranged father, and instead took them up as his own. It is this
version of him that I have only ever known.
The river was not on our land. The neighbors never seemed to mind sharing though.
When the sun began to fade, I would make my way back to our land. Passing our ponds, I think
back to when I learned how to fish, my pink Disney princess rod now long forgotten. When I
grew bored or dad grew agitated with knotted lines and the uncomfortable silence between us, I
left the dock and found refuge staring at the shallow water along the sandy edge instead. The
minnows I attempted to trap with an old water bottle must certainly be grateful this was a hobby
that never caught on. The field that separated the ponds and the farmhouse glimmered with
golden waves as I drove by. I peered through the sand being kicked up in my face to see rivers of
red sourgrass snaking their way across it and interrupting its warm dance.
My brother and I sometimes walked aimlessly through this field with our arms at our
sides, aligned perfectly with the asparagus-like stocks of this weed. Most of them snapped with a
brisk pull, but sometimes we would be jolted back and be left standing there with a whole root
system still attached. This was of course hilarious to us, we eventually threw it back and we
continued to chew on the lime stocks of the cleanly harvested ones. Once, he and I collected two
arms worth of this grass and attempted to sell it to our own family members for a quarter a
bushel. We set up shop right in the driveway and divided our product into flavor types of cotton
candy, green apple, raspberry, and any other mismarketed taste. Despite its bitterness and the
strange dry feeling of its flowers, we felt as if this was something everyone must try. We did the
same with mason jars of muscadines and figs, but none of our other siblings wanted to be a
paying customer, and rightly so.
But those who drove by our farm saw the pomegranate tree, or had heard about how great
granddaddy stocked the ponds, and invited themselves to fill up their grocery sacks with the
fruit, or buckets with fish. After feeling like they had helped themselves enough, Dad installed a
heavy iron fence. He told us it was our Christmas present. But I couldn’t blame the thieves. I too
would have stolen a plum. I would have discounted our sourgrass booth to free if in doing so also
gifted them a part of this place.
Because now, it is too late. The best parts are locked up behind this gate and the tree line
replaced with a looming fence we spent multiple summer days staining. The pool has been
renovated, and the only ones to enjoy it are those who pay to rent it out. Chores are no longer a
sufficient currency here. Instead, Dad now watches it all through an array of security cameras, to
ensure the little he has left remains to be his. But no one will want a piece of this anymore. The
pecan trees have slowly grown dark with infection, the muscadine vine thinned out, the pond
desolate, and the fig tree struck by lightning and torn out. Even if still at their prime, all of this
would now leave a bitter taste.
So they will keep on driving, and watch as the once rivers of sourgrass have turned into
an untouched ocean. Some will drive by and force themself to look straight ahead and pretend
they don’t feel they are getting close. A few will rev their engines, and honk, and holler as they
pass and mirror his absurdities. Others will avoid this highway altogether, and take the less direct
backroads to get to where they are going instead. But after I drive over the river’s bridge, a mile
off from my grandparent’s house, I will know that I am close. With my head turned to the left, I
will desperately wish to see the five children walking the ditch line again, or picking up limbs, or
even, yes even, angrily cutting grass. But instead all there will be is the sight of Dad, his face
growing increasingly unfamiliar. But he will be too busy placing roadblocks in my path and
dodging accountability to notice that my window is down and I am not passing by very fast.
Approaching the second end of the driveway, I will be forced to return my eyes to the road, and
pity the man who now has everything to himself, but cannot hold any of it dearly as I wished he
had.
