Road Noise
Mark Turcotte
for the man who was my father,
and for the man who is my son
Election Day 1
As America was stirring from its usual slumber, I stood on the ice-encrusted steps of the church at St. Ann’s Mission. It was Election Day 1992, a stark and stormy North Dakota morning. Shivering in my too-thin coat, cupping a match to another cigarette, I watched the cars filled with mourners grind up the slippery hill. Below me, the men were struggling with the weight of the long gray box, their thick, brown hands cracking open in the freezing air as they huffed up the steps, shuffled past me, and were swallowed up into the church. As the heavy doors closed behind me, there was a sudden burden of breath upon my neck, sweet and musty warm. The wind rose swirling snow about my legs. The trees in the yard began to shake, the brittle branches clacking together, clicking together, clicking, click click, click click, click click.
Road Noise 1
The story of your skin echoes along the steel-ice rails that run like black-blood veins over the heart of America, shivers beneath the screeching wheels of lumbering engines. The rocking boxcars are haunted by the dreams you left behind, that howling. The freight yards ring with the ghost songs of men like you.
Men like you, who as boys, jumped the trains to escape the farmers and their fields, the forced labor, the hands that held the whips that burned the welts into your backs.
Men like you, who as boys, only a generation after Wounded Knee, a generation after the assassination of Sitting Bull, lived with all that blood screaming in your ears, all that blood running down your backs, all of that stinging.
Men like you, who as boys, grieved for the thunder of the herds, dreamed of the thunder of the ponies and their hooves, that howling.
Men like you, who as boys, sought out, discovered and created, road noise.
Fists and Fingers Dream
A man can be so many things, hard and cold and soft and warm and tender. A man can be smooth as a blade, jagged at the edge. His eyes can draw you in, cut you open wide to please his teeth. A man can be so many things, a sinner or a saint, anything that fists or fingers can dream.
The witnesses say, The thing about him was his voice. Glory, he was angel-tongued. Devil, he was like Lucifer with that laugh that made you reach for a rosary. He had the most gentle hands, stroking my hair that day on the porch, humming one of them Indian songs. He’s the one, that’s him, he was saying candy and then his big hand was up and under and I…
When he caught that woman who jumped from the window of the burning building, he was sixty years old, got an award from the police. He hit that cop so hard, even his wife, afterward, didn’t recognize his face. I saw him once empty his pockets to all those drunks outside the tavern, gave ’em everything he had. Two months with him and there was nothing left, but us in the street, and him never looking back. My kids, they loved him, jumped all up and down when he came ’round. He slapped that little boy on the ass till he was either gonna piss or bleed. Potty training. He had it hard, you know, his mama saying he was someone else’s child, not even hers. He gave it hard, you know, left behind so many bruises, so many bodies, so much wreckage.
A man can be so many things, broken or beautiful, strong or lonely. Damaged, damned and angry. Resurrected. Forgiven or forgotten. A man can be so many things, a sinner or a saint, anything that fists or fingers can dream.
Road Noise 2
For men like you, the rhythm in the rails leads to the hiss of desert highways laid out flat, edge of Earth to edge of Earth, everything and nothing in-between.
From Flagstaff to Needles to Barstow, snapping lizard tongues, dried up armadillos, the devil’s playground, everything and nothing in-between. Juke joints, truck stops, cup o’ coffee cup o’ coffee. Revival Lighthouse Palace of Christ, speak in tongues for a bowl o’ soup bowl o’ soup. You mop a floor, peel off a pair of fishnets, pick a pocket, and level that thumb again over the heated strip of tar and dreams, that howling.
Slice your way through the north-country, the hum of the roads walled in forests, far as the eye can see, tree line to tree line, everything and nothing in-between. From Duluth to Chicago to Detroit, belching factories, rotten-egg rivers, the rust-belt grind, everything and nothing in-between. Juke joints, truck stops, cup o’ coffee cup o’ coffee. Salvation Army bread lines, sing a hymn for a bowl o’ soup bowl o’ soup. You wash a dish, bust a head, then go to jail, listen to the wheels whining in your bones, that howling, father highway calling.
Election Day 2
As America was stirring from its usual slumber, I stood on the ice-encrusted steps of the church at St. Ann’s Mission. I crushed the butt of my cigarette beneath the toe of my new dress shoe, tightened and straightened the knot of my tie and turned to enter into the church, into the dim light of death and murmuring. There he is, that’s Andrew’s boy, don’t you know he looks like Andy’s boy. As they all looked to me, searching my face for a sign, I nodded, floating between the pews. They all looked to me.
The long gray box was open and waiting at the other end of the room. The long gray box was open and vibrating at the other end of the room. The long gray box was open and laughing at the other end of the room. My hands began to remember. There once was a sunny day, big water.
Then, suddenly I was heavy to the floor, the aisle stretched out before me like another endless highway, a pavement hot and sticky with blood beneath my heels. My hands began. At the other end of the room the long gray box was open and spinning, the needle in a mad compass every direction pointing to every direction.
My hands, the box was open, began to remember, the box was open, I hated you, the box was open, I denied you, the box was open, I waited for you, the box was open, I looked for you, the box was open, I loved you, the box was open and spinning, and they were all looking to me, searching my face for a sign, and my hands began to remember.
Road Noise 3
Father highway calling, the wheels whining in your bones, everything and nothing in-between. Only the road noise in your head, your blood always remembering, your blood always reminding you there is no way to get away.
The story of your skin was written in the wind of wounded horses, and the world never wanted to hear that noise. The noise of men like you. The world didn’t want to know and would not know and could not know. So, they give you thirty days in the hole, bread and water bread and water, over and over, again and again.
No, America doesn’t want to hear that noise. They just want to make it, and louder. Their chugging engines to muffle the sound of their cannons. Their clanking factories to drown the sound of Chippewa children falling in the snow. The hiss of machines to bury the sound of bad medicine hidden in the weave of blankets. The boiling pots of rancid meat, the maggots twisting in a plate of beans, I mean, they don’t want to hear. Not even the noise they make, the noise they gave to men like you.
The noise to be born with and raised with, to live with and to love with, to hurt with and hate with, create with and kill with. The noise of men like you pacing in your cells, rocking on your heels, shadowboxing, boxing all those shadows. Always in motion, always the father highway calling, always holding your hands over your ears, tearing at your hair, saying, stop it stop it stop it, it hurts oh, God God God, it hurts, you hurt me, God, you hurt me, you let them hurt me with their God, with all that noise.
The story of your skin is told in the rumblings that shiver through you, in the endless hall of echoes stretching through you like a road, winding deeper and deeper back into the forests of men like you, forests filled with the ghost songs of men like you. And through your blood, men like you, leave the noise to ring in the ears of men like me.
Dust
Little boys, they sure do love their daddies, look up to their daddies, they want to walk like their daddies, they want to talk like their daddies, too, they want to try their feet inside his shoes. Don’t you know, they love to hear, someday you’re gonna be big just like your daddy. Little boys, they love to fall into his wide grin, love to be lifted in his hands, higher than the trees. And they love to watch him dance with Mama, to hold her safe and tight, to listen to him hum and strum guitar, singing songs to Mama, just like Johnny Cash, singing, flesh and blood needs flesh and blood, and you’re the one I need. Like Jim Reeves or Hank Locklin’s “Four Walls,” out where the bright lights are glowing, you’re drawn like a moth to a flame, you laugh while the wine’s overflowing, while I sit and whisper your name. Little boys, they sure do love their daddies.
The child was struck, at a tender age, with the dry mouth taste of his father’s dust. The dust of lies, the dust of rage, the dust of wandering, the going away. The child was struck, gasping for air, parched and choking on the memory growing in his throat. For his father made the earth shudder beneath the fall of his foot. His father made other men tremble beneath the gust of his voice. The dust of lies, the dust of rage, the dust of wandering, the going away. For his father ate the sky with his teeth, and with his hands dragged deep scars into the flesh of hearts, the flesh of backs, the flesh of minds, into the flesh of dreams.
For his father was the first to bruise the child with the fist of his patience, to rape the child with the body of shame, to sting the child with the tongue of hate. The dust of lies, the dust of rage, the dust of wandering, the going away.
The child was struck, at a tender age, with the dry mouth taste of his father’s dust, for his father was the first to make the child want to spit.
You laugh while the wine’s overflowing, while I sit and whisper your name. Little boys, they sure do love their daddies, always trying to be like Daddy, trying to find Daddy in their own eyes. Always trying to find Daddy, to find Daddy, to find Daddy. And daddies, don’t you know, they love their little boys.
Road Noise 4
Through your blood, men like you leave the noise to ring in the ears of men like me. And that’s all you ever gave, that noise, taut wires snapping in my veins. All you ever gave to me is the need to kill the noise with more noise, to walk away and walk away, to heed the call of father highway, the call of highway father.
For you, the four walls were the four directions stretching endlessly, everything and nothing in-between. And I learned it right away. At three years old I hit the road, and when they realized I was gone, they caught up with me a mile and a half away, and I told them I was going to find my daddy, because I needed to find my daddy. When they realized I was gone.
Still, I swore I was never gonna be like you. But I was angry, I was hopeless. I couldn’t touch, I couldn’t feel anything or anyone. I swore I was never gonna be like you. But all the while my wheels were turning, I was on that road, spinning and spinning. I was thirteen and driving so fast and so far into my core that I saw nothing but the blur of passing landscapes. I was seventeen and driving so fast and so far out of myself that I knew nothing but pure light, a blinding light. I was twenty-five and driving, hit and run, leaving a few bodies behind, now. I was thirty and driving, leaving a few dreams behind, a little more of myself behind. And when they realized I was gone, caught up with me a lifetime and a half away, crawling along the shoulder of the road, I told them I was going to find my daddy, because I needed to find my daddy, to look into his eyes, to ask him, why, why do I need to be like you?
The Waiting
And while you were growing old in Fargo, I was growing weary. Waiting for you on the side of the road, waiting in those wide-open west-Texas nights. Even standing perfectly still, I answered the call of father highway, staring up at the stars, driving deeper and deeper into my own night, the Earth turning beneath me, the thundering herds, the ponies and their hooves, all that blood screaming in my ears, saying, you are he you are he you are he.
All that blood, my hands shaking, opening and closing, trying to reach out.
I was el Indio the night of the dance. Down along the border whirling, I watched her whirl to Tejano guitars, while golden beckoning birds flew from beneath her shimmering skirt.
My tequila fingers, reaching for her, trapped a bird within her hem, ripped the glimmering thread, and she looked at me as though I had torn the moonlight in half.
While you were dying in Fargo, I was exhausted. My hands empty, el Indio waiting on the side of the road, walking the mesquite desert, looking for any sign of my family, footprints, feathers, blood. My bones so noisy, now, that there was nothing but sound, white noise at fever pitch all those voices telling me, you are he you are he.
And then one night there was nothing left but the sputtering candle. The monster of my face in the bottom of the glass, the noise. The night the bullet the pistol the finger and the trigger, and me never looking back. I was el Indio, waiting for you to set me free, when the telephone rang. There was a whispering, saying, you are he you are he you are he.
Election Day 3
As America was stirring from its usual slumber, I was moving down the aisle of the church at St. Ann’s Mission. They were all looking to me, searching my face for a sign. Before me, the long gray box was open and waiting.
My hands began to remember, the box was open and singing, my hands, the box was open and humming one of them Indian songs, my hands began, the box was open and whispering, and centuries began speaking to me—
Come closer, Grandson, they said, we have been waiting for you, he has been waiting for you. It is time to begin to finish. It is time to break the circle, to
make the circle new again. It is time to rise up from the father highway, to rise up and fly, for you are not he you are not he. It is time to bury the man, to find the father, even if a father he could never be. It is time to make it so, to set yourself free, for you are not he you are not he.
The box was open and waiting. I saw you. It was election day and my hands began to remember.
Hands
Old man, I stood over you in your box, and when I reached to touch your gray folded hands I remembered, instantly, a fair summer day beside big water, when you laughed and lifted me higher than the trees, and I felt like a big boy, I felt like a big boy, in your hands I felt like a good boy, and you said, hey Chee-pwa, do you see any angels up there, do you see any angels up there?
Old man, I leaned over you in your box, touched my hands into your thin gray wave of hair and I whispered, may the Grandfathers give you feathers, all is forgiven down here…
“Road Noise” is included in Exploding Chippewas, TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, 2002.