Digging Up Bones

 

As he negotiated the winding road through the pines, the memories came back of his days as a boy, riding in the back of his parents’ Studebaker, free of care or seatbelts, heading for his grandparents’ house “on the lake” in Louisiana. It was called a lake, but it was really a swamp, complete with cypress trees in the water, winding roads covered with oyster shells, and an adequate supply of mosquitos and bullfrogs to eat them. The jeep that he’d rented in Shreveport complained from the mud-tread tires and occasionally a bug of some unknown variety would commit suicide on the windshield. He relished in it all. A Cadillac, or Tesla might be more comfortable, but why come here with one of them? The very reason to be here at all was to be away from all that. As he crossed the levee into Bienville Parish he went back in time. He had stopped at the store where he’d been many times as a boy and got a Jax beer, which he drank as he drove. Sure, it was unlawful, but so were Bonnie and Clyde when they passed through here on their way to a date with Frank Hamer on a hot summer day much like today. He wondered if Bonnie had bought her baloney sandwich that was found in her lap later from the same store? Everybody knew who they were, but didn’t care. They didn’t come to rob their banks.

 

Turning off the semi-paved road onto a red gravel one he was glad he’d rented a Jeep as the tires proved their worth. Then another turn and heading deeper into the pines he eventually came upon an old fishing camp. This was where his parents would take him. It was a small place. No more than a dozen dwellings, one even being an old school bus with its windows painted black for privacy and the tires removed. He passed what was left of his grandparent’s place. Moderate shiplap shack with a screen porch. It sat on a rise.  In the camp you either sat on high ground, or on foundation poles or the swamp would invite itself in  during the spring rains and then you’d be living somewhere else until summer.

 

The boat house was still there, but only a couple boats graced it. There were thirteen or more back when he was a boy. And not the pirogues seen in movies, but flatbottom bass boats and a few larger ones. None of those fan boats. One of his uncles had a flatbottom and he would take it out and pick the fish from the cypress trees to sell to high end restaurants over in Bossier and Shreveport. He used “yo yos,” spring loaded gadgets that were fixed to the trees, and would snatch the fish up when they took the bait. That, trotlines and some frog legs to the well to do provided income to people who didn’t have much and were happy to be left alone. He never ate frog legs or crawfish l, and the fish he did eat came as nuggets in a sack like the one sitting on the passenger seat of the jeep from a state inspected fast food establishment in Shreveport. He wouldn’t even buy Bar B Q from a roadside stand or a sandwich from the little store where he'd bought the beer. Bonnie Parker was tough!

 

Easing down past the little camp store that had long since fell in on itself he turned into an oyster shell drive, easing to a stop. The bungalow was cleaner and newer than its neighbors, but not Austin standard yet that very reason was why he was here. The Austin standard had started to grate on his nerves of late and after the release of his last book he’d taken a break to do just this. This was not his boyhood home, but that was under modern buildings back in Shreveport, so this was the next best thing. He wanted to get away from the noise. He wanted to sit on a porch at night and see if he wasn’t crazy after all. If you were crazy in Austin nobody would notice, but this place was a better barometer of mental health.  These people were still upset about the outcome of the Civil War and didn’t trust Yankees of any color. He would submit to their therapy to see how much of himself he’d lost over the years. After ten books three wives and a girlfriend the realization of self was beginning to fade as he became whatever suited the situation he found. And none of it was real. No real feelings. No meaningful relationships. Not even wealth. While he made more money in one week than his father had made in a year, after three divorces he owned fifteen percent of himself and told everyone he kept his needs simple. Fast food simple.  He could relate to this bungalow.

 

The Realtor had stocked the kitchen and provided a Keurig Coffee maker. The last time he’d made coffee for his dad here he boiled water on the stove and poured it through a dripulator coffee pot. Louisiana coffee was different from anywhere else.  After three cups of it you could feel your hair grow. Everything except the bath was in one room with a single bed in the corner. There was a Lazy Boy recliner, a coffee table, dining table and the four chairs that were needed for that. It was adequate. He wasn’t here to party. He was here to think. As he went out to the porch, he sat on the rocker provided, opened a Jax, looked at the cypress trees, and they looked at him. He had arrived!