Family Line by John H. Matthews

Author:John H. Matthews [Matthews, John H.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bluebullseye Press
Published: 2018-07-19T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 24

Living in a small town is like having windows all around you, everyone knowing what you’re up to at all times. I had tried my best to stay out of the windows. I left my house for groceries and to pick up tractors from out of town. Most days I figured I was forgotten about, a man older than his years living alone out in the country. My customers came from all over, very few from my own town, or I’d hook up the trailer and drive to them. Conversations were short and stayed focused on the work they needed done. I’m sure some of them thought me a rude man, or simple minded, when I’d ignore questions that would lead to longer talks.

I looked forward to the drives. Oklahoma would roll past outside the windows of the pickup and I took it all in. I never knew what Larry didn’t see, why he wanted out so badly. It wasn’t perfect, I knew that. But it was real. I wouldn’t mind seeing the ocean some day. Something about water was calming. Driving over the bridge at Grand Lake always relaxed me. Would be nice to have a boat, maybe a pontoon with chairs and even a place to cook out. I could spend all day out on the lake. No people around, just me and the gentle swells of the water.

Moments strung themselves together into minutes then hours. Days flew by quickly in the workshop, hands deep into the grease and steel that made up the big engines powering the farm equipment vital to the Oklahoma landscape. Putting the last bolt onto an engine brought a sense of accomplishment. Occasionally I wished I could create something new, something unique, rather than just rebuilding the same things over and over, but then the next tractor comes in and I’m addicted to the cylinders and gears once again, checking and rechecking to make sure everything is lining up and working smoothly.

I caught myself mimicking my grandfather. Though I’d bypassed the old man’s tradition of throwing trash out up on the hill, I still liked to drive my truck up top, light a campfire and sit under the stars in the middle of the seventy-five acres of hills and woods. Sometimes I had a bottle of whiskey with me, sometimes a thermos of hot black coffee.

I’d bring the old bible and read through my grandfather’s dreams until the sunlight faded and it grew too dark to see the words. After so many years I’d been through them all so many times but continued to read, finding comfort in them. Even though he was gone, just knowing someone else had been through this, experienced the dreams and the deaths, and came out some semblance of normal, helped me keep going.

Many nights I thought of Jake, Pyothopi of the deer clan. I knew him only a few hours but his memory stayed with me. I’d never been one to question the universe or the

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