{"id":93,"date":"2019-06-01T00:12:37","date_gmt":"2019-06-01T00:12:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/?p=93"},"modified":"2019-05-28T00:29:25","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T00:29:25","slug":"mangled-beams-by-brodie-lowe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/2019\/06\/01\/mangled-beams-by-brodie-lowe\/","title":{"rendered":"Mangled Beams by Brodie Lowe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

            The old man walked up to the bed of\nmy truck when I pulled through the landfill\u2019s open gate and he counted eight\ntrash bags in the back before hobbling to my driver\u2019s side.  I rolled down the window, the stench of trash\nspanking me in the face.  With a hitch in\nhis step and clothes from a job that he\u2019d long since retired from, he held out\na rusted single-hole puncher in his right hand. \nIn all the years I\u2019d been going there, I\u2019d never seen his hand not<\/em> clasping that piece of metal\ntight.  And every time he held it up at\ncustomers, it was as if it was some kind of unspoken threat.  Either that or it was a barrier between him\nand the other person like those tinted sunglasses he wore to stunt his\nawkwardness.  To me, he looked like he\nwas in transition to become a real-life Terminator.  But the way he hobbled and how his eyes\nslowly registered movement, he was more of an outdated T-800.  Except there wasn\u2019t a Sarah Connor for him to\nfight alongside\u2014just him and the other two men who looked like Jack Lemmon and\nWalter Matthau, piddling around the little white office building with\ncigarettes, dropping salted peanuts, one by one, into cans of Coke.  And I wondered what would happen to them if\nthe world awoke from within and unleashed all the A.I. that the government\nsupposedly worked on.  Would they fight\nback with that \u201cold man strength\u201d that only came from years of cutting pulpwood\nor would they be laid to waste like dried up shrubs in a brushfire?  Would they still be around after it was all\nover?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Honey had told me to stop wondering\nabout people like that.  To focus on my\nown life and not pick people apart in my mind. \nShe\u2019d tell me to stop reading so much science fiction.  I told her that Asimov was onto\nsomething.  And I told her that cockroaches\nare the last thing to survive.  Old,\nhard-shelled cockroaches that never changed their ways.  She said that the end of the world would\nnever happen.  Not like that.  Said the sun would run out of light before we\nwere taken over by our own inventions. \nBefore we outsmarted ourselves. \n\u201cIf there even is such a thing,\u201d she\u2019d said.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cGarb card,\u201d the old man said, peering\nthrough those shades as thick as bottle caps. \nCouldn\u2019t tell if he was looking at me or the cemetery of books and mail\nand expired food coupons in the floorboard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cHow\u2019s that brother of yours?\u201d I\nasked, reaching into the middle console, fishing through old cassette tapes of\nRobert Earl Keen and Cary Hudson until I came across the lime green card with\nfour holes already punched through it.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cHe\u2019s holdin up alright.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cStill working over at old\nwhat\u2019s-his-name\u2019s place?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cHamilton\u2019s?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            \u201cYeah, that one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHoled\nup in there like a grunt in a bunker.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe got\nplans to leave anytime soon?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNot\nanytime soon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nhanded him the garb card and he got greedy and punched the last three\nslots.  It didn\u2019t make matters any better\nknowing that I\u2019d have to go back to the gas station down the road and buy\nanother five dollar garbage card.  Didn\u2019t\nlike going to that hole in the wall. \nThey called it Country Corner and they were the only ones still around\nthat pumped gas for you.  A man older\nthan this T-800 guy would come out, back bent like he\u2019d been sitting on a stool\nfor a week, and pump gas for people. \nWhen he pumped mine, he\u2019d linger around the front end of my truck,\nblocking my way out so that he\u2019d get his little tip for squeezing a\nnozzle.  And every time he did that, I\u2019d\npull out three or four dollars and oblige him. \nBut somehow, that guy was never grateful.  Every time I pulled away, he\u2019d look at me all\nside eyed and spit brown juice on the ground out of spite.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

After I\nunloaded the eight bags at the dumpster and turned the truck around to leave, I\npassed by a bushy bearded man in a brown jacket that looked like it had been\nworn by some unlucky enemy of The Punisher, holes all in it.  He pushed a grocery cart, its plastic\nfaceplate on the front advertising Winn-Dixie in red, its back right wheel\nskidding along the pavement and spinning in its loose socket.  In the rearview mirror, I could see him roll\nit to a stop in front of the old Terminator who pointed his hole puncher hand\ntoward the rising mountain of trash in the distance, showing the bearded man\nthe way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            I had the day off work and headed to\nthat day\u2019s job site\u2014a personal project that I\u2019d been putting off for a long\ntime.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

***      <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sat\nthere with it looming behind me, its shadow cooling sweat that made the crew\nneck stick to my back.  Sat there with a\nwilted cardboard box in front of me that I\u2019d found in the carport back at the\nhouse.  Had to sweep out white spider\neggs and took out a few yellowed and forgotten newspaper articles from it\nearlier.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I turned\naround to face it.  All those hot summer\ndays as a boy, working with my daddy, nailing up boards and watching him\ncalculate things with a yellow retractable tape measure.  There it was. \nAll the memories in that tree house that hung from the tree that it was\nbuilt on, its roof stuck in an eternal slump. \nThat tree house still there, sliding at an odd angle, ravaged by weather\nand old age and termites.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Had a\nfriend back then when I was about nine. \nName was Travis.  Couldn\u2019t\nremember his last name.  He\u2019d come home\nwith me after school and we\u2019d sit up there in that tree house and draw pictures\nof monsters and quote horror movies out the wazoo.  We\u2019d seen them boys on The<\/em> Monster Squad<\/em> do it,\nquizzing each other on Frankenstein and unusual ways to kill a werewolf.  We were waiting for some kind of monster\napocalypse ourselves.  Getting ready for\nit all, sharpening pieces of wood with Uncle Henry pocketknives into stakes for\nvampires.  And I\u2019d read some of Pet Sematary<\/em> (because Sean, in that movie,\nwore a red shirt that read STEPHEN KING RULES) while Travis would either look\nthrough binoculars out the window, surveying the area for any possible invaders\nfrom the netherworld or sift through his baseball card collection, carefully\npulling them out of their plastic sleeves to inspect them one by one.  He had this deep red birthmark that grazed\nhis Adam\u2019s apple and ran along his chin and jaw.  Looked like the shape of Florida.  I\u2019d never seen anything like it.  Looked like he\u2019d been caught up in a fire\nfrom somewhere that happened just before birth. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nalways thought about that kind of stuff. \nWhat if something had happened to us all before birth?  Some trial by fire that we had to pass\nthrough so that we could live here on earth. \nProve ourselves worthy. A buddy of mine who listens to podcasts said\nthat, on one of them with the guy from Fear\nFactor<\/em>, they talked about a director\u2019s friend\u2019s son asking his six month\nold brother to help remind him about heaven because he was starting to\nforget.  What if we all had forgotten\nwhere we came from?  That kind of stuff\nkeeps me up at night.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Guess\nTravis and I could imagine anything monstrously bad happening back then.  Especially me.  One time, I caught a glimpse of a dead man at\nthe bottom of a bridge when I was out looking for frogs.  I\u2019d kept the terrarium from a school project\nfor Mrs. Moore\u2019s science class and I intended on snagging a few of those\namphibians and study them for a bit before letting them loose in my back\nyard.  But when I saw that dead man, I\u2019d\nlost all sense of what I was doing.  He\nwas face down in a carpet of kudzu, his arm bent across the lower part of his\nback.  Whole hand was missing.  Looked like it\u2019d been chopped off at the\nwrist bone.  I heard something move off\nin the trees and the rest of that kudzu, and I skedaddled on out of there.  Sprinted for home like I\u2019d never sprinted at\nany football practice before.  Figured I\nmight have set a land speed record of some kind.  If only someone would\u2019ve had a stopwatch\nnearby, I could\u2019ve proven it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\nimage was burned into my mind.  And I\nwondered what was out there that could do that kind of shit to a man.  Tear him up and rearrange his body and then\nleave him all embarrassed looking to strolling strangers who he\u2019d never\nmeet.  That kind of thing is like some\nkind of undercover sin that no one even knows about or was told about.  To haunt people\u2019s thoughts forever with an\nimage of your dead body all messed up, even after you\u2019re long gone and buried.  Someone that was killed like that couldn\u2019t\nhelp that kind of sight.  Felt downright\nsorry for them.  I knew that we all had\nto leave this life in one way or another, but the little praying I did do\ncovered things like that\u2014things that others wouldn\u2019t think of.  Hopefully, if the Lord answered my prayers, I\ncould die in some decency and not scar a little boy\u2019s mind.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019d\nwanted to list the land that the tree house stood on for sale for a while.  It was my deceased dad\u2019s land.  And his dad\u2019s before him.  None of them ever had the mind to sell it.  I don\u2019t know why I was the first one to do\nso.  I guess they were too sentimental\nabout it.  I wasn\u2019t.  Sure, me and my friends had some good times\non that land, shooting BB guns, running after each other in the dark with\nairsoft guns, and shimmying up trees at night while playing hide and seek.  But I\u2019d outgrown all of that.  And there was a good chance that old Travis\nhad.  He probably didn\u2019t even watch\nhorror movies anymore, especially the newer ones, wherever he was in the\nworld.  The Witch<\/em> was something else and awfully eerie, but it wasn\u2019t the\nsame as watching The Lost Boys<\/em> and The Evil Dead<\/em> and Fright Night<\/em> on VHS tapes back in the day when my dad would let all\nmy friends spend the night and gorge ourselves on pizza.  But times had changed.  And I needed the money.  My wife would also be grateful if I sold the\nland.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went\nahead and went to work on the tree house. \nTook a rented bulldozer to it, knocking it down like a tower of\nJenga.  Came down easy, but those\nmemories sure didn\u2019t.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I took\na crowbar to some of the big nails and a hammer to the smaller ones (we\u2019d used\nwhatever shapes and sizes we could get our hands on when we built it) to break\nthem into more manageable pieces.  Held\nsome longer beams up at an angle and broke them down the middle by stepping on\nthem with my boot.  They broke\neasily.  The termites had done a helluva\njob already and mangled them beyond redemption. \nLoaded them all up in the bed of my pickup and, when it was mostly full,\nheaded back to the dump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I\nsaw the same homeless man from earlier that morning pushing his grocery cart\ndown the road at oncoming traffic, the left set of wheels scraping along the\nhighway and the right set digging into the moist grass on the shoulder.  That cart was piled up like the plate of food\nthat goofy giant was eating off of on that old Mickey Mouse cartoon where\nMickey had climbed up a beanstalk.  I\ncould see blankets in the bottom of it, a lamp, a folded up egg crate foam\ntopper, some framed paintings of apples and grapes in bowls on kitchen tables,\npregnant black trash bags tied off on the sides of the cart, latched on like\nticks chock-full of blood, and what looked to be Stretch Armstrong\u2019s rubbery\nbody dangling from the side, hanging on for dear life.  That dump sure was a treasure island for\nsomebody like him.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nmust\u2019ve hit something hard in the road because that rocked the cart to his left\nand an alarm clock toppled off that trashy heap and came cartwheeling into my\nlane.  I slammed on the brakes, heard the\nundercarriage rattle and nearly fall off, and I got out of the truck as he\nshuffled over to the clock.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMan.  You gotta watch it.  You\u2019re gonna cause a wreck out here,\u201d I told\nhim.  \u201cCause somebody to swerve and\neither kill you or kill themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSorry,\nsir,\u201d he responded looking down at the ground and bending at his back like a\nbroken accordion (which I didn\u2019t think was even humanly possible).  He grasped for the clock, but his reach was\nabout two feet too short.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nlooked off at the cart which teetered on the shoulder.  He was standing in my lane now and an\noncoming Chevy Blazer zoomed by the cart, the rush of wind toppling it into the\nlush grass.  It fell on its side in a\nquiet stillness.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHere,\u201d\nI said and grabbed the alarm clock for him. \nI could tell he\u2019d been drinking a lot for a long time.  He\u2019d reached a point in his drunkenness where\nI\u2019d been before.  And I knew that his\nperipherals were probably darkening.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis\nthing even tell time?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you\nwant it to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\nneed some batteries?  I got some\nbatteries.  What does this thing take,\ntriple or double?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cTakes\nsome batteries, sure,\u201d he slurred.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere\nyou heading?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNowhere.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLong\nas I\u2019m standing here, I ain\u2019t letting you go off alone like this.  Liable to get yourself killed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAin\u2019t\nnobody gonna die around here.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A belch\ncame out of him that rivaled those loud frogs I\u2019d hear at night back when I\nsearched for them after it rained with my blue Eveready flashlight.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\nthought about it for a minute.  Thought about\nhow far I\u2019d come from drinking so much in my day.   How, sometimes, I had needed to pass out on\na bed more than anything else.  \u201cNeed a\nlift somewhere?\u201d I asked.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019m\nfine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoy,\nyou can\u2019t make it out here like this. \nYou\u2019re gonna embarrass yourself. \nLet me take you on into town and you sleep it off some.  Take you down to the jail.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAin\u2019t\nnobody locking me up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo\none\u2019s gonna.  Sherriff\u2019ll let you sleep\nit off in the cell.  Got a nice a cot for\nyou in there.  I know him.  He\u2019ll be fine with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My\nfront passenger side didn\u2019t have a seat. \nAbout four days before, I had to take it out because a lucky coin that\nmy daughter had given to me rolled up underneath it.  I\u2019d just gotten off work that day and was\nexamining the elephant\u2019s scrunched up face etched on its copper side.  It was a token she\u2019d kept from some\noff-the-wall arcade I\u2019d taken her to for her birthday.  She held onto it and gave it to me for my own\nlater that year. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll\nhave to climb in the back,\u201d I said. \n\u201cHaven\u2019t had time to put the front seat back in yet.  Come on around here.  This way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The man\nlost his balance and fell to one knee.  I\nplanted my feet in a staggered stance and picked him up by his elbow.  Led him to the back.  Lowered the tailgate.  Helped him on into the bed with all that\nrotted tree house.  Even though there was\na bunch of wood in the back in disarray like pick-up sticks, there\u2019d been just\nenough room for someone to sit down.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once he\ngot settled with his back leaning against the broad side of one of the beams, I\nclosed the tailgate and got back behind the wheel.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I drove\ndown the road and wondered where I\u2019d be if it hadn\u2019t been for my Honey, all\nthose years ago, kicking my drunk ass out onto the street and warning that\nthis, that and the other would happen unless I got sober.  Wondered if I would\u2019ve turned out like that\nhobo in the back of my truck.  Wondered\nif I\u2019d be dead in a ditch somewhere or with my truck wrapped around a tree.  Wondered what I\u2019d look like if I grew out my\nown beard like he had.  If it\u2019d be a\nthick, unstoppable bush burning of white wisdom or something dull and brown and\nscraggly.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Couple\nof minutes down the road, the homeless man started moving around as if the wind\nhad woken him up some and I watched him out of my rearview mirror.  He looked at the sky as the little tufts of\nhair on the back and sides of his head swirled around like cotton candy in a\nchaotic carnival machine. He fought his focus between realizing where he was\nfor the first time and staring at the trees on the side of the road as they\nwhirred by us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\nturned toward me and stared at me through the rearview for a second before\nlooking up at the clouds.  His beard\nlifted up in the wind and that\u2019s when I saw the dark red birthmark clasped on\nhis neck and hurrying up his chin, shaped like Florida, playing peek-a-boo with\nme, and I nearly wrecked the truck.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Brodie Lowe is a finalist of Broad River Review\u2019s Ron Rash Award in Fiction and Still: The Journal\u2019s Literary Contest. He holds a BA in English from Western Carolina University and is an alumnus of Spalding University\u2019s MFA Community Workshop (Fall 2018) taught by author Silas House. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":98,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/daniel-pascoa-267972-unsplash.jpg?fit=6000%2C3375&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":103,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93\/revisions\/103"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/98"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/underwoodpress.com\/truechili\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}