Chapter 1: Strangers and Friends
August 25 – The outskirts of Nashville, Tenn. Hendersonville
“There’s no defeat in life save from within, unless you’re beaten there you’re bound to win …”
Author Unknown
Old Hickory Hill took the first enlightening whispers from the morning sun. Far beyond the region of the Smokey Mountains, yet east of the great Mississippi river rested that quiet bulge, which stood benignly defiant of the horizon’s rarely noticed dip.
Hundreds of feet below, the emerging sun brought a small community into sight. From its base, the sunrise began with a creeping clearance of the dominant summit.
Etched by the already evaporating early morning dew, unusual for so late in the summer, sunlight stabbed its way through crevices, holes, insignificant cracks and other spaces. That magic transition between dawn and day began; when the goddess Aurora began her graceful withdraw. And, with the sun’s relative angle still low, a stark contrast grew: midget flowers shone purple and yellow. The grass seemed to glow, and above this there rose from the flat tableland great pine trees. Some of these grotesquely crooked, yet still upright giants reared fully some thirty feet above the flatness.
Through most the prior evening, other less pronounced light stabbed the darkness in the little settlement called Norchester. Along the southern rim of the floor surrounding the Hill, a series of blue-white incandescence blasted upward. These brilliant yet tiny houselights created a series of oases, which banished Nyx. And now, as day crept into existence, those lights faded.
Through this maze of natural and manmade objects, the probing sun found his way into everything and uncovered movement. Two men wearing the light brown jumpsuits and white hardhats with fluorescent strips of the city’s sanitation department stepped off the slowing truck. One glanced at his watch then turned to study the long series of metal and plastic containers that lined each of the driveways before them. “About that time,” he noted. His companion nodded, indicating the front door of a house not too distant. “Any minute now,” he smirked as the refuse collecting bots deployed form their bins.
As if on cue, the door to that house opened and a teenage boy stepped out, turned about then stood expectantly as he slid on a pair of dark lensed sunglasses. He appeared slightly anxious, as if wishing to himself that whatever this morning’s schedule held would happen quickly. He wore grey, baggy sweatpants, no shirt. He stood just shy of six feet, perhaps a little thin but carried himself with confidence, his dirty blond hair somewhat disheveled.
He stood for a moment, breathing slowly, looking out past the small collection of vehicles in his driveway and plotted a path before him. His hands moved slowly and placed a pair of older headphones over his ears. He forcefully clamped them down with a lightly colored and sweat stained strap, then shook his head, adjusting their position. Satisfied, he placed the microdisc in his Walkman; time to move.
Nathaniel Barthalemew Baird ran in disciplined form, his legs kicking up dust from the gravel as he ground-up distance. He deliberately fell into rhythm with the music, and, once achieved, his stride mirrored the swing of a clock’s pendulum. His subconscious took control as he kept going. He rarely concentrated on the ground or reflected on the distance traveled, but instead coaxed the music through his head, allowing it to keep him in sync, the pendulum as constant as a universal coefficient.
The air felt unusually cool and crisp, dry despite the evaporating dew. It forced Hypnos’ clutches loose and the last vestiges of sleep departed. He nodded to the workers he saw each week, ducking under a bot as it returned with a container. He cleared the truck’s length in short order.
Nathan became a junior this year, an upperclassman in the micro-society of high school. With a wrenching force, it seemed, the times began to change. Whether society moved gloriously forward or fell back a step or two would remain for others to argue incessantly. Theories came and went like wisps of wind, but last night on the evening news, an interview with a distant college student struck some hidden nerve within Nathan. He didn’t fancy himself particularly ideological; politics, it seemed, simply existed as a necessary evil. Still, he sympathized with what the student said.
“We are the people of this generation, bred in at least modern comfort, housed now in university dorms, looking uncomfortably at the world we will inherent.” She then looked straight at the camera. “Today’s youth, tomorrow’s leaders are sensitive, searching, poetic. We seek the establishment of true democracy, of individual participation in order that we may share in those decisions that will determine the quality and direction of our lives. We will be silent no longer.”
Rehearsed words, but their impact ignited the crowd about her. This message echoed repeatedly from university campuses throughout the nation, reiterated by students of varying ages, diverse ethnicities, differing religions. It originated from a tragedy that literally exploded onto the headlines shortly after President Richard Nixon’s second inauguration -- its crescendo growing with each month. It has become known as the Bath Consolidated School Disaster, where 38 elementary school children, two teachers, four other adults and the bomber himself, Andrew Kehoe, died. At least 58 people were injured.
When authorities found Andrew’s open letter, they learned he had become ostensibly upset by a property tax levied to fund construction of the school. He blamed the additional tax for financial hardships that led to foreclosure of his farm. He used a detonator to ignite dynamite and hundreds of pounds of pyrotol, which he had planted inside the school over the course of many months. As rescuers started gathering at the school, furthermore, Kehoe drove up and detonated a bomb inside his shrapnel-filled vehicle, killing himself, the school superintendent, and several others. During rescue efforts, a second series of explosions destroyed the school's south wing.
President Nixon went to the site the very next day. Overriding Secret Service objections, he spoke to the crowd, standing near the rubble. He rejected the apparent division some saw in American society. He vowed to “bring us together.” “We cannot learn from one another until we stop shouting at one another, until we speak quietly enough so that our words can be heard as well as our voices.”
The election of Richard Nixon surprised few when he unseated President Matt Santos six years ago. Although Nathan had barely reached the age of eleven, his family – always political junkies – became wrapped-up in the unfolding drama. Nixon won not because he emerged as the overwhelming favorite, not because he was particularly well liked, not because President Santos was doing poorly but because of a single exchange on the border of New Mexico toward the end of the campaign. A growing rift over immigration caused the first markings of what many started to see as a division in society at large. The death of a young child, just prior to a campaign rally brought it all to the forefront. When confronted by some of the demonstrators, Nixon calmly stood his ground, refusing to move. “You must understand that we are willing to die for what we believe in,” said one protestor. “I understand that,” Nixon replied. “I would like you to understand that we are trying to build a world in which you do not have to die for what you believe in.” Unscripted and filmed by someone in the crowd, it played over and over for the rest of the campaign – and with that came the White House.
Such matters remained distant, almost as if they took place on another planet. Nathan had other more pressing problems: high school.
Fate possesses a keen sense of irony. On the one hand, things may seem to fall into place; how his current situation reflected the desired change for which today’s “youth” cried – for “change,” it certainly was. For two years, Nathan attended, and hoped to graduate from, Knox Doss Senior High, but, alas, such a fate did not rest in the stars. It would not come to pass. The School Board voted to rezone the whole area with the completion of the city’s third high school built to accommodate the growing population. Two years of deliberation, months of debate on a bill that faced rewrite after rewrite, and then, with the stroke of a pen, Nathan now attended Christopher Samuel Hawkins Senior High School, the city’s oldest and most well-known institute of secondary education.
His former school’s number one rival.
Personally? Nathan never quite “got it.” He never understood the pride, how it consumed those around him. Sports? Maybe. Football? Okay. But, the student populace as whole? No. To be labeled by where you live? You’re either a Laker or a Dosser, and naught in the twain shall they meet. This held especially true for gangs. They too seemed rather mindless, and yet they existed in both schools, like a growing cancer. Last year a student almost died after a stabbing at the year-end Knox Doss / Hawkins Game. And, for what, exactly?
Nathan opined that people wanted to belong to something greater than themselves, but he did not truly understand the deeply rooted feelings that back these actions. He, however, learned to respect their intensity and become wary of their consequences. Surviving high school with your sanity intact rests in analogies not maxims. Once can illuminate the consequences of actions in comparable situations, yet each individual must discover for themselves what situations are in fact comparable. In other words, just keep your head down.
Deliberately, Nathan began to slow his pace, lessen his stride, retarding his momentum until he came to a brisk then slower walk and finally halted. Down the hill, past the fence, Nathan could see the back of his house. Only one obstacle stood between it and him. He lowered his sunglasses.
Saint Patrick.
Actually, Nathan did not really know the great German Shepard’s name – or the name of his owner for that matter. He did know, however that it did not want anyone near its yard, and that it was also a great way to end every morning run: a true challenge not simply a contest against yourself. That’s why he nicknamed the beast after his younger brother.
It rested on its porch, staring intently at Nathan as he stood still in the street above. Nathan bit his lip, bringing his breathing back under control then regulating it into short spurts. He moved without the slightest broadcast of intent. Using his left arm as a pole, he cleared the chain link fence and now invaded the dog’s sacred territory. He landed flat, both feet square, knees bent. He checked his Walkman then launched himself forward, taking huge strides as he cut across the yard. In the short sprint, a Shepherd can reach almost 35 miles per hour, and Nathan did not even see it leap from the porch. He did, however, hear its barking. It was fast, incredibly fast, and closing rapidly.
“Don’t look back,” Nathan hissed between his clenched teeth as he cleared the side of the house. “Don’t look.” The yard took a sudden dip, and Nathan almost slid down the embankment; he glanced over his shoulder. “You looked,” he sighed to himself. The dog was in flight, leaping the length of the embankment. Nathan switched course, heading for the old stump. The dog landed and started its turn, almost losing its footing in the grass, yet it still gained on Nathan with every completion of a stride. It lunged.
Nathan’s foot touched the stump, and he vaulted himself a good eight feet into the air, both hands gripped the top of the privacy fence, and he swung his legs over as the Shepard land on the far side of the stump. Nathan hit the ground a tad harder than he intended, rolled, finally sliding to a halt as the dog continued barking and throwing itself against the fence. Nathan smiled as he came to his feet.
“Whoosh,” he exhaled. “Someday … maybe.”
With that, Nathan removed his headband and walked toward his house.
No comments:
Post a Comment