Road Home
By Paula M. Bolado
You are dead. Stick shift still in hand
and the old gravel road of Big Cove begins.
Tiny chunks of mica and quartz crackle under the tires.
Birds bounce under the rhododendron.
The car rolls to a stop beside a house, gray and green,
where an old post covered in lichen says LINQUEST.
He died thirty years ago and the old sale sign
across from his broken, red mailbox has rusted
and the realtors don’t work there now
because they too have died.
Away from the Linquest place, there’s a sharp incline.
Your little car needs low gear or it will slip back into the
trees
and wrap around the poplars below—
Below, where it is dusty enough that if were you to go back,
The path would be gone;
the dust never cleared.
Half way up Big Cove, it should still be light out.
The light effervesces through the leaves of the giant
poplars
and speckles the grave stones of the children who died long
ago.
Long ago, when the baby pines fought for sunlight
over and over again under the poplars and always lost.
The light will guide you beyond an abandoned shack, a silo,
and
another grave. Up a steeper, narrower path etched into the
mountain,
where you remember the days of youth, where Danny and Tom
threw sticks at squirrels and shot BB guns in these woods.
Tom had just kissed Julie, and Julie was a secret friend on
Saturdays;
the days when you shared stories Tom never would tell,
because Tom went to church, and your parents were never
sober enough to go.
Watch for coyotes and black bears or an occasional stray dog
or two.
The light is fading. You must watch for potholes
and deep pockets covered in leaves beside the road;
the road is not always kind it seems;
they are a hindrance on voyages like these—
these upward climbs from the purgatory below.
You want to say, “I can go no further; here I turn away.”
But your mouth is stopped with blood.
My house, golden in color, with marble floors
and cascading fountain sculptures is always
visible in the fleeting light.
I will wait for you, but will you wait for me?
Turn right, then sharply left, and follow the road.
Turn quickly or slide along the soft sand and rocks,
like when you were riding dirt bikes with Julie,
and she slipped along the dirt, screaming in pain.
The blood splotched her clothing and you were scared,
scared like the children in the house that burned down in
the fire;
their small bodies charred black like toast.
It was the fire Mr. Lindquist started before he shot himself
in the mouth.
He was a lonely man for many years, like you.
But you would never do such a thing. No.
Such madness of men is treated at the bottom of the
mountain.
If you’ve made it up this path, past Linquest’s place,
the grave stones, and the potholes, you have made it far
enough.
Park and walk up another steep path.
Through black soil, buckthorn, blackberry briars, and
multiflora rose,
and your legs will hurt just as they hurt
when you rode off for help because Julie had broken her leg,
and no one was around, and you became lost riding through
rambles of rhododendron, pushing your bike over deep creek
beds
while thinking a shortcut was better. Remember?
She waited in the woods for hours, but you were lost.
Her father found her finally.
Julie married Tom and they had four kids.
You never finished school and ran a red light one night
when it was raining, and now you are here.
You just got lost. I
just got lost you have thought over and over again.
This is your second chance to find me.
I will be waiting for you in a golden house with the fountain,
Where I won’t abandon you nor do you harm.
You’ll find me; just keep heading up the mountain.
I will save a table for you with the finest of linens.
We will wear our funerary gowns, you and I.
Will you stay for dinner?
_________________
