The Nomadic Life

You've Done it Now

Chapter 11

Junior showed up at the motel today, a crumpled note from the 'munchkin' principal clutched in his hand. It carried an ultimatum: If I wanted Junior to stay in the school and town’s good graces, I had to promise never to step foot on school grounds again.

Junior frowned, confusion in his eyes. “I don’t get it. What did we do to piss off the whole town?”

I sighed; my voice heavy with the weight of it all. “They’re mad because we chose Mom over the kindness they showed us. They think we owe them for looking after us when she didn’t.”

Junior furrowed his brow. “That’s dumb.”

Placing my arm on his shoulder I tried to reassure him.

“Yeah. It is. But... I see their side. They stepped up when Mom and your dad didn’t. Maybe they feel cheated, like we turned our backs on them.”

Through a frustrated sigh Junior looks at me, relief visible in his eyes,

“Well, I’m just glad it’s over.”

I clinch my jaw, nearly biting my tongue off. “It’s over for you, Junior. For me... it’s just starting.”

I was eighteen, a high school dropout, broke, and living in a 20-room motel. No car. No prospects. And a promise to myself that I wouldn’t rot in Mathiston. Somehow, someway, I knew I would find a job and claw my way out of this hole I dug for myself.

The motel owner, Mr. Ford, shot down my request for a weekly rate. Years later, I would learn that the mayor himself had ordered him not to cut me any slack. Their revenge seemed petty, but I would not let it deter me from my goals.

Finding myself in dire straits, destiny would lead me two and a half miles down the road to Maben, an industrial town where the air smelled like sawdust and sweat. My mother got her job back sewing couch cushions at the furniture factory. I would try there first, but they had no openings. I found work instead at the frame mill, stacking lumber in the scorching heat and freezing rain. It was physically exhausting work, but it earned me an honest living.

The first two weeks took a physical toll on me. My old shoes soon wore thin, the sole splitting open from the miles I walked each day. When it rained, water soaked through to my socks, bringing misery with each step. Rides were rare and precious. Relief came when a coworker offered me a daily lift from the Jet Café. I jumped at the offer repaying him once a week by buying him breakfast.

But fate has a cruel sense of humor. Just when fortune seems to smile upon me, another rug gets pulled out from beneath me. I ran out of money two days before my first paycheck, forcing me back to the roach-ridden boarding house I'd hoped never to see again.

Evenings were a nightmare. The sharp crack of mousetraps split the darkness, followed by the slow, sickening thump of their tiny bodies desperately trying to free themselves, followed by a horrible silence. Sleep remained elusive, just beyond reach. Many mornings I showed up to work physically drained and dragging.

Ralph Burton, a portly man of thirty-three with thinning brown hair and kind eyes greeted people with a farmer’s firm handshake and a philosopher’s wit, putting everyone he met immediately at ease. A perceptive man as well, he noticed a decline in my personality. He too had his share of troubles and shared with me a bit about his personal life. He tells me of a failed marriage and forced return to his parents’ farm. He never looked at bad fortune as a burden and saw everything life threw at him as a learning experience.

I asked him one day how he handled the stress of it all. He looked at me and smiled saying, “I live simply and greet the morning with reverence. The good Lord allows me to wake up each morning and I repay him in kind by living my life through his teachings.”

He then shared with me his philosophy. “If you live your life one day at a time, surrounding yourself with good food and people, then life seems to have a way of working itself out. Enjoy what you have, work hard to attain what you want. Weed out the negative people in your life and surround yourself with true friends and loving family. If you can do all that, your life will be full and happy, and soon you will find that you are richer than the wealthiest of men.”

I admired Ralph, not just because he was a kind man, but for his genuine nature. He cared about his fellow man and saw value in everyone.

When he finally pried the truth from me about my living situation, his eyes filled with concern. "Why don't you just get another place?"

I shook my head, the words leaving a bitter truth. "Can't. Got enough saved for rent, but not for the deposit."

A few days later, Ralph took me aside offering a solution to my problem. He tells me of a friend in Eupora who owns an apartment, and because of their friendship, he promised not to charge me a deposit. It would have been the perfect solution, but Eupora was ten miles away and there is no way I could ever walk that.

But Ralph just grinned. “Don’t you worry that big head of yours none. I’ve got a plan.”

I didn’t know what he was up to until he took me to yet another one of his friend’s house. Randy was a shade-tree mechanic with a yard full of cars in various states of disrepair. Some cars with hoods up, sitting on cinder blocks and others with replacement parts sitting in the front seats.

As I look around this, what I can only assume is a junk yard, my heart stopped.

There, beneath an old pine tree in the grass and gravel, sat my mom’s old Nash, a reminder of the decision I made months ago which causes me to live the way I do today.

Ralph slaps me on the back. “Fifty bucks covers the carburetor and a tune-up. That’s all Randy wants."

I wondered if Ralph knew this was my mother’s old car or was this serendipity? As fate would have it, he did not, but Randy did, which is why he wanted so little money for the car. Mom can be a difficult woman to forget.

To Ralph fifty bucks may seem like chump change but for me, it was a hell of a lot of money. That was half a paycheck for me. An impossible sum for me to come up with.

Before I could protest, Ralph removes a crisp bill from his wallet and handed it to Randy. “You can pay me back a couple dollars at a time."

I stood there, my throat tight, my head swimming and with a light heart, it was all I could do to keep my tears of joy at bay. But I choked my feelings down, knowing better than to be overemotional in front of his friend. He seemed to understand, no words needed to be spoken. Ralph merely looked at me with a knowing glance as if to say, “that’s what friends are for.”

Ralph taught me more than how to care for cattle or fix fences. He taught me the rarest lesson of all: what true friendship looks like. And how, sometimes, the smallest acts of kindness can leave the deepest marks.