The America I Know

by m.s.wardrip

Small town, USA. One hundred applicants stand in line for one job opening. Headlines say police take 9 year old boy to hospital for malnutrition. Later the same day, the same police arrest the parents at the airport, trying to leave the country. The governor is in the nearest big town to dedicate a new bridge, a toll bridge. The churches all come together for a rummage sale, with the proceeds going to the war effort. The town had one city government employee whose full time job it was to go around town filling potholes in the streets. He always found time to chat with everyone. All the kids in town knew him as the “Patch-Man”, the mom’s brought him iced tea and hot chocolate or whatever he wanted. I always thought that was the perfect job. We found out as kids that Uncle Norm was a ”He-She”. It was a deep family secret and the only way we kids knew was that Daddy got drunk one night and told everyone in the house. He said God didn’t make no mistakes and that there was a purpose for Uncle Norm being that way, a reason that no one knew, just a reason, and to keep it under our hat. He said, “Promise never to tell anyone! It could get him killed!”, and I wouldn’t except for the fact that Uncle Norm, him/her self told everyone anyway, went public, standing up for LBGT, and the whole town was in support. Uncle Norm actually gained a lot more friends afterwards.

Then, there was the incident. The freight train derailed at about 3:30am one cool October morning. The toxic fog spread across town and settled in the valley with everyone in town sleeping. Eighteen dead, thirty-six brain dead, forty-four critical and over three hundred sick and vomiting. Parnell, MN would never be the same again. All the livestock and pets died. Even the bees never came back. The government eventually shut the whole town down and everyone was forced to leave the hazardous area. It was fenced off and designated a critical cleanup site. When I got out of the hospital after three months, I moved to Kilroy, MI. I became a roofer and lived downtown over a hardware store, married a librarian, had a boy and girl right in a row and owned a houseboat on the river. Everyone thought we were rich, but the rent was only $50 per month. The owner liked me and let us live almost rent free. I could afford toys then and my friend, the owner liked to play with them too. I had motorcycles, old cars and trucks, boats, scooters, 4-wheelers, campers, trailers and all the accessories to swim, fish, camp, hunt, play and shoot. Horses were the best investment. All though expensive to maintain, a pleasure untouchable by far. The war was over, the wife died, the relatives took the kids, I became an alcoholic, moved to Chicago, lived in the back room of a bar, drank with the owner, started a discount diamond and jewelry business. I sold watches at the Greyhound bus station. I sold marijuana to soldiers at the train station. I sold whiskey at the ball games. I drank whiskey everywhere I went. I was stoned twenty-four hours a day. I survived, met a crazy lady who liked to hitchhike. We wound up in Miami each working in a downtown hotel in exchange for a room. she became a stripper, ran off with a bartender and left me to wash dishes, which paid just enough to rent a one room efficiency with utilities included. I ate for free in the restaurant. I did that for six years and then became a lawn maintenance guy in trade for a two bedroom apartment in a gated community. Pool, clubhouse, nice neighbors, and one became my wife. A widow of an auto plant executive. She married me and took me house hunting… all over the USA. We settled in Savannah, Georgia in a two-story Tudor. Each had our own Mercedes. We took vacations in Europe, the Caribbean and occasionally Australia or the Orient. That was until she got cancer and died. I moved to a village on Banyan Island, married a local girl and started raising babies. That was before I got cancer and died. They had my funeral on the beach, cremated me and sent my urn with my ashes back to Parnell, MN where the relatives sprinkled me in the river. I think I made it back to Banyan Island by flowing across all the oceans. As it turns out, the America I know goes way beyond America.