Land Run. Mark Graham
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the last part of the downpour. He rather liked the storms. This morning he thought back to his childhood, as he did most of the time. He would say that is where he learned most of what he knows but only recently understood what he had learned. He reached for his walker and made his way around the two-hundred-year-old bed that was passed down through his family. Elijah pressed his body along the walls on his morning journey to the bathroom. The poorly painted, dirty walls of his nursing home dorm room were plastered with memories, the very best ones—mostly of his wife of fifty years and in particular the battalion he served in WWII, also some ships that took him island-hopping in the pacific. Elijah was finding that at his age, you get honest. Everything around him came closer to who he really was and to what his heart had always prized. For him, it was his war and his girl and Montgomery Farm, his land.
At breakfast, Elijah was freshly appalled. He was a cook for the Marines for twenty of his years—the best years, to his mind.
“You’re trying to kill me.”
“No we ain’t, Mr. Elijah.”
“You know I was a cook for twenty years in the Marines.”
“Yes, Mr. Elijah. We know,” one woman answered, picking up trays.
“My granddaddy was a slave, lived to a hundred and four. Died in forty-five.”
“Sorry to hear that, Mr. Elijah. I lost my grandpa too.”
“Well, that’s a debt ever’ one has t’ pay. We goin’ anywheres today?” Elijah asked.
Elijah eventually found his way to the front porch of the home. He rocked there most mornings after breakfast. He liked to watch the people go like crazy to get to work or wherever—in such a hurry to get to the cemetery, he would say. He rocked. He also didn’t want to miss one inmate’s daily last-ditch effort at self-reliance. The man was in his late nineties, short and stocky, and loved to walk. He came to this country when a boy from Italy, from some town Elijah never bothered to pronounce correctly. He had said that he worked at a tool and die factory in Ponca City his whole life. He would talk to Elijah about all the other types of work he did over the years to support his wife and the kids and how he made it through this world by himself. Elijah thought about what his pastor said, how impressed he was with the people Elijah’s age. There was something about the WWII and Korea generations. They really lived for their kids. So they were happy to be in a home so as not to be a burden to their children. But some worried so for their grandchildren because they saw that they taught their own kids, by their own experience, that they should live for themselves. The day care and nursing home businesses were now booming.
The man made a break for it.
“Good luck!, I think this could right be your day.” Elijah attempted to yell.
The old man was headed for the plaza, for the IGA. He was intent on, as he would say, “Getting my own Dad-blamed food.”
Elijah always kept his old, wooden canes across his lap as he rocked. He prayed for his friend to make it to the store next time while humming something from his childhood. There was a lot he knew and could tell folks, but no one listened. But the Lord listened. And for that he was grateful. He prayed himself to sleep as two attendants pushed the old man back into the building.
It was Jake’s turn to clean the kitchen. The room looked like a kind of Moose Lodge for roosters. His wife, Amy Lynn, loved roosters. There were small and large ceramic roosters strewn about the counters. The wallpaper was populated with them. And a serious-looking army of roosters lined up around the room on the wall border running along the ceiling. But Jake was most comfortable in there. They gave his home balance. He had four daughters.
Amy Lynn was giving the little ones a bath while the oldest helped her dad out in the kitchen.
“Dad, you know I’m a ‘tween? That’s when you’re in the double digits but not a teenager yet.”
“I had never heard of that, kind of like being a Webelos Scout, not quite a full Boy Scout?”
“What?” she asked and moved to dry a glass.
“Nothing. That’s neat. How was your piano lesson today?” Jake asked.
“Cool, I guess. You know why I can play a song from memory after I play it once?”
“Cause you’re as smart as your dad?” Jake answered.
“No. Miss Franklin said I play without the work of other kids because I hear the music, I play by ear.”
“Sweet!”
He walked to the pantry and felt her eyes on him connected to a sudden awkward silence. Jake turned to see what the matter was.
“What?” he asked.
“Dad, you are way too old to say, ‘Sweet.’”
The girls were in their respective rooms and bunk beds by nine thirty. The popcorn and drinks would be made by nine forty-five. Since they started budgeting for cable, it would be the History Channel or the Food Network. It really depended on who was the most tired that night. Amy Lynn had changed quickly and was curled up next to Jake on the couch. Tonight, he could tell it would be she who would give in. She never imagined she would live this life and love it. Jake was watching her and remembered how Amy Lynn was hotly pursuing a career as a businesswoman when they first met. Amy Lynn had just graduated college among the top of her class. She was in seven honor organizations, three in which she was an officer. They were so different that Jake never thought he had a chance with her. He now marveled at her radical change in goals. She homeschooled their children, sometimes giving oral instruction while grinding her own wheat to bake fresh bread. She made sure that her milk and eggs came straight from a small farm that pasture-fed their animals. She liked that this supported the humane treatment of animals and provided food untouched by corporate shortcuts. He found her to be just as driven as she ever was and still so very different.
“Some folks were going on about your sermon this morning,” Amy Lynn said, grabbing another handful of popcorn.
“Good stuff?”
“You didn’t tell me how the visits went. Someone new to town?” she asked.
“We never actually made it to that visit. Our first call was like a hundred miles away. It took too long to get there and back.”
He pressed the mute on the remote, staring off at a place across the room.
“Oh. Was that the man with the hurt foot? I really should take him a meal.”
“Of course you should.” He laughed.
“What?”
“Nothing. He is fine, I guess. Well, not really. I think his foot is healing though, and that’s good.”
“Good. You ever notice that all you ever see on that channel of yours is something about Hitler or the Nazis? I will never understand your fascination with that stuff. Good night, honey.”
Amy Lynn stopped and turned back to Jake.
“Please don’t stay up too late. I need your help while I run to the library in the morning.”
“Yeah. I learned something out there today, something about grace. God loves his puppies.”
Amy Lynn looked at him curiously. Jake saw she was about to ask him what he meant but then thought better of it. Jake didn’t think he could bait her into deeper waters of theology but thought it worth trying.
“That’s nice. Can you tell me more about that tomorrow?” she quietly demanded.
“We’ll see, depending on how this war turns out,” he replied. Jake smiled and turned back to the TV.
Before shutting her door, she trailed off with, “We win.”
“Not fair!”
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