Chain of Thought

The road outside the house where I grew up was long and nearly empty of anything but woods and farmland. The only houses were ours and Stewie Anderson’s a half-mile away. The Andersons lived on the corner of our road and a larger highway. I remember when I was very young the school bus stopped at Stewie’s house then came down our road and stopped at my driveway. Since there was no good way for a bus to turn around after that, it would have to travel another 2 miles or so before the road curved back to the highway again. The was not the most efficient way to go so when I started the fifth grade, it was agreed - not by me, of course, but by my mother and Skinny Willie, the bus driver - that I’d walk up to Stewie’s house and catch the bus on the corner with him. I’m sure Skinny Willie enjoyed the extra few minutes he saved, but for us kids, it meant we spent more “quiet” time in the bus room. It also meant I had to walk that half mile.

In the winter months that walk up to Stewie’s house was pitch black. We had one light at our driveway and there was another at the intersection. The road was wooded and made a wide turn such that even with the leaves off the trees I could see neither light for much of the walk.

My mother always reminded me to be careful of cars as she sat perched on a kitchen stool in her nightgown, coffee in hand. But I don’t think I ever saw a car on the road at that time of morning. I was more afraid of what might be out there in the woods, in the dark, lurking.

I was raised in the country, but I am not, and have never been, a country boy. It’s just never been “me”, I suppose you could say. It’s true I’ve done all the chores - there was no avoiding that under my father’s roof whether it was “you” or not. It’s true that I have more of a farmer’s notion of life and death than that of the city people I surround myself with today. There’s a respect that comes from directly taking a life in order to sustain your own. It’s also true that I was raised with a farmer’s practicality and a farmer’s skepticism. I was taught the foolishness of ghost and ghoul stories and even Santa Claus. I was taught that all you can trust in is the good Lord up above, and the concrete - the substantial - that which you can see with your eyes and hold in your hand.

Still that early morning walk in the dark, that was spooky.

At the beginning of fifth grade I was 10 years old. Despite my down-to-earth upbringing I was an imaginative child. I’d lay in bed at night dreaming up stories of epic space battles between the evil slob-people of Poopion VI, and the handsome and brilliant Captain Xander Hooper of the United Earth League. These battles waged on each night and I’ve only recently realized it was a way of keeping myself awake in an attempt to postpone the next morning’s walk.

While my imagination might have been fun at night, the stories I dreamed up in the morning were much less so. Still I found myself unable to stop. Deep in the woods lived an evil old mad woodsman. He had long patchy gray hair and walked with a hunch, his weight resting on a large gnarled staff. He’d roam the woods at night looking for some kid to drag down into his cave to do...well whatever evil old mad woodsmen do. Or sometimes rustling heard off the side of the road would become the scraping claws of a demon-possessed opossum who was stalking me along my way, just waiting for the right time to pounce. On moonlit mornings, the extra light hardly soothed me. The pale moonlight cast eerie shadows turning leafless trees into gruesome skeletal hands reaching onto the road or dead logs into sleeping beasts ready to be roused by the sound of my passing. A howl in the distance was a wolf-man raging with fury and hunger.

At 10 I found myself still young enough to believe in the monsters of horror comics and late-night movies my father sometimes allowed me to watch, but too old to admit it to anyone. I know now that my mother - had she understood the utter terror I faced each morning - wouldn’t have made her deal with Skinny Willie or at least would have given me a ride up the road. But to her - and to my father if he took the time to notice - the whole thing was character building. Part of becoming a man. And, as I said, being the kind of people they were, neither of my parents would’ve considered that I might be afraid of spooks hiding in the woods. It just wouldn’t have occurred to them. Had I come to them worried about bobcats or snakes, then they likely would have understood, and we could have had a conversation about it. But old mad men and demon opossums - that's just silly talk.

Once I made the mistake of mentioning something about how creepy the road was to Stewie. He, of course, immediately pounced on this weakness. He told our fellow bus riders that I was afraid of the dark, and for the next several weeks, I received a lot of “Baby need a night light?” And, “Sissy’s scared of shadows!” Not being a country boy in the country already meant I was at the bottom of the social order, and I certainly didn’t need any more trouble. That was my last attempt to elicit any sympathy from my classmates.

So I carried the fear all alone. And I walked that road, alone, for the next seven years. Right up until I convinced my father to lend me the money for a car. I remember the first day driving to school. I zipped right past Stewie Anderson as he waited for the bus and I didn’t look back.

But before the car, I had the walk. I had the walk and the fear of that dark road. As I grew older the stories my imagination produced changed. For the most part monsters were replaced with men. Biker gangs camping in the woods looking for a plaything. Religious cults practicing human sacrifice. A band of convicts, escaped from prison, hiding out waiting for just the right victim to kick-off yet another bloody rampage. Drug-crazed lunatics, high on marijuana, jonesing for an innocent youth. I’d scan the forest for the glimmer of a camp fire. I’d listen closely for the rumble of a harley-davidson. I’d smell the air for incense or drugs.

Even at 16, while I can’t say I was actively terrified of the road any longer - I had a lot on my mind in those days, school, basketball, the soft warmth of Michelle Bonney - I can’t say I wasn’t afraid either. Maybe it was habit by then. Maybe I just wished it was. But walking that road, looking into those deep woods, I still found myself wandering to the darker places of my imagination. And, I always - from the very first walk at 10 years old - tried to tread very, very quietly.

You know, if I’m to be honest, thinking about those morning walks usually makes me feel a bit silly and embarrassed. In the two and a half decades since I got that first car I’ve driven that road more times that I can count. Driving it - even in the dark - takes maybe a minute and carries absolutely none of the terror walking did. Not even a hint of fear. I think the act of driving isolates you from the world outside the windshield. For me it makes the anxiety of those dark mornings on the road hard to remember. Until today.

This afternoon driving the road with my wife sitting beside me I was once again filled with a sense of dread, though dread of a different sort, I suppose. The time for monsters and maniacs has - mostly - passed. See after dad died we offered to let mom move in with us, but she wouldn't hear it. She wanted to stay at home. We argued but eventually her country stubbornness wore us down and we agreed. Now, though, there can be no arguments. Last night mom called me in a panic saying someone was breaking into the house through the upstairs window. This wasn’t the first call of it’s kind. She's gotten progressively more moody and paranoid over the past year. It’s a change my wife and I have noted with concern. So I had my doubts about the intruder, but still I called the sheriff's office and they sent someone to take a look. Not surprisingly they found nothing.

We spent the morning clearing out some of the clutter that had piled up in our daughter's room since she moved out on her own. I think mom will be comfortable there. It's a big room on the ground floor with a southern exposure. There are trees in the back yard and come spring there will be plenty of green outside the bedroom window. Our's is a nice neighborhood. Safe and quiet - by city standards - and there's a cozy park just down the street.

I know it will be a change for her - a big change - and I worry about that. I worry about the effect it will have on her. Actually, I worry about a lot more than just that. Worst case scenarios have been competing for my attention since I hung up with the sheriff's office last night. It kept me awake late into the night.

And now I'm here in my old bedroom squeezed into my childhood bed with my sleeping wife. It’s amazing how little this house has changed in 25 years - the changes were all saved for it’s inhabitants, I suppose - but after tomorrow this old place will have to move on too. In the morning we'll pack mom into the car and head to the city. I’ll come out in the next week or two with movers to clear out the place. Some of her favorite things will come back with me - to make our house as much like home as possible - and the rest will go to storage for the time being. We'll keep her with us for as long as we can, but I know that eventually - too soon I fear - we won’t be able to take care of her alone. I guess we'll make those arrangements when the time comes. We’ll do what has to be done.

Before all that, though, I believe I'll get up early. I’ve got a mind to take a walk. There’s a nearly-full moon that ought to be shining bright the hour before dawn, illuminating the woods that line the road. I expect the cold morning air will do me good. Might help calm my nerves and clear my head of some of these dark fantasies. Yes, I think that old familiar path is just what I need. At least, I know it won’t hurt.