Detritus

Being the mouth of God is not such a grand thing. In fact, you could say it’s a drag. Your life is overly scrutinized, and people seem to enjoy your mess-ups. So I tried to be the exceptional preacher, the contrary preacher, the guy in loafers who wasn’t afraid to cuss, a bible-toting pain in the ass. I was lemon juice in the communion wine and mold on the crispy flesh of Christ. But I never tampered with love. Love, a priori and unfailing, dwelt within me. It was the crux of my faith.

Some time ago I officiated at the wedding of a good friend. I told him and his bride that love never fails, that the two are made one through love, and that marriage is like the individual linking his or her allegiance to Christ. Some years later, my friend found a lover, fled his marriage, and rented an apartment. His wife, Sarah, and his young son, Aby, died in a car crash soon after. I attended the funeral. My friend sat glumly in the front, not taking his eyes from his lap, his whole body trembling relentlessly. The little casket gripped me. I couldn’t stop staring at it. A scythe cut into me and slung my beating heart onto the muted blue carpet of the funeral parlor. Dead love.

My friend, of course, became anguished to the point of death. One evening his lover found him hanging in the stair well of his apartment complex, nearly dead. He was rushed to the emergency room, treated, and admitted to the psychiatric floor. He went to his required sessions and took his prescriptive drugs, but he soon disappeared after his release. Occasionally he called and left cryptic messages on my machine, often verses from the Vulgate, but these became less frequent, then ceased altogether. I fear for his live. Does love never fail? Love, the cornerstone of my belief, became ashen and I was set adrift. I felt responsible for my friend’s failed marriage. I owed somebody penance.

I decided to take a sabbatical from my congregation and took to wandering the streets. I found solace in wandering. Moses wandered in the desert. David fled into the wild, hiding from Saul. Jesus wandered in the wilderness when the crowds got to be too much for him and when the disciples got on his nerves. Now it was my turn. I didn’t know what I expected to find, nor did I expect that through my wandering an anvil of light would strike me with revelation--I just had to get away. My only agenda was to experience the world outside my head.

All who knew me were bemused by my unusual actions. "Are you all right?" they questioned.

"Never felt better," I answered. My feet didn’t feel so planted in the ground.

So I shut my door and entered the cold grayness of winter. As I walked, I recalled a passage from John: Are there not twelve hours in the day? No one who walks in the daytime stumbles, having the light of this world to see by; anyone who walks around at night stumbles, having no light as a guide. I laughed at the dark, winter sky above me as the moon nodded its approval and shed a little light on the trail under me. I was in the park near my house. Technically the park closes at sundown, which, in the winter, is around six o’clock, but I crawled under the closed gate quite easily. Ghostly hickory leaves crunched underfoot. I knew from previous walks that the trail was about three and a half miles long. It lay next to a canal dug in the eighteen-fifties. The diverted water from the river was meant to supply electricity to the town’s burgeoning industrial zone. The bank was formed with the dirt form the excavating crew. The trail and canal’s terminus was at an abandoned warehouse that the city had renovated into a quaint market where, in the summer, artisans and farmers sold their goods. A brick patio faced the canal. People lounged here in the summer, drinking tea and eating scones, while watching the fat, listless mallards float by. Now, as I approached the market with its frozen patio and stacked chairs, I watched a dozen or so ducks scamper across the ice and swarm me, all the while quacking softly in their throats. A female with a portion of her bill missing stayed behind and stared quietly at the others. They were hungry, but I had no food for them.

Next to the market was the old building that once housed the generator. The water form the canal flowed under the building and dropped ten feet over a ledge. The building was rotting. Glass ws scattered across the metal walkway that wrapped around the building. Its mortar was turning to sand, and the window frames were crumbling. Pigeons flew in and out from the glass-less windows. The rear of the building had rusty pipes jutting from it in an "L" shaped fashion, making it look as if the building was smoking several pipes. It looked old and comical, wizened by time, strangely reminding me of my grandfather.

"Hello old friend," I said to the building.

At the end of the trail I stopped in a pavilion and sat at a picnic table. I pulled a candle from my bag and lit it. Though there was no breeze, the flame snapped its hot finger at me, reprimanding me for waking it from its slumber. Snow began to fall. The tea in my Thermos was hot. The mallards clustered together as the snow covered them. I had stuff I could do: read, write a letter or two; but I just sat there watching the ducks. Though it was late, the sky gradually grew lighter as the snow reflected the city lights. It was cold, and I was tempted to go home, but I toughened up and rolled out my sleeping bag. The picnic table was hard, but warmer than the ground. The ducks eyed me warily from the frozen canal as I shivered into sleep. In that liminal state, I heard two distinct ducks converse:

"Fillet, then broil or grill?"

"Grill, most definitely."

"The poor chap will never know what hit him."

"He’s kind of skinny, though."

"Well, Leonard, you don’t want too much fat--won’t fit into your bill."

"True enough, Spackman."

"Get a knife."

I awoke with a cramp in my gut. The sky was gray, and I couldn’t tell whether the sun had yet risen. The snow had stopped falling, but not before covering the ground. I sat up, and when I did, the ducks, who were huddled beneath the table for warmth, scampered and flapped their way towards the canal, quacking quite loudly all the while. I was glad they fled. I rolled up my sleeping bag and stashed it, along with all my other stuff, in a hole in the wall of the generator building.

I left the trail and took the slushy road downtown, carrying only my day pack. The city trucks had been spreading salt and sand all night, making the snow look like Slushies from 7-11. It was a strangely, wonderful sight. I always drove this road to church, often through snow, yet I never noticed the exquisite texture of slushy snow, or he way it gives quietly beneath your feet, as if exhaling, as if compressing the chests of millions of tiny living snowflakes. On the sidewalk the snow was fluffy. It squeaked and padded my footfalls as I walked. Why were the ducks so cranky when they could be in this all day?

At the café I ordered a coffee. The farmers were in.

"Well, it’s the cows. You should see their udders of they don’t get milked," remarked one farmer after I had asked him why he was here so early. "They’re huge! Damn, I wish my wife had teats like that! Anyway, they gotta be milked. I never get a day off."

"But five AM?" I asked.

"Hey, I milk at four. I gotta eat," he said. "What do you do?"

"I’m a minister," I answered.

His look grew sober. "Sorry about what I said earlier, you know, concerning the sexual references about cows and their teats."

"Hey, no problem," I said. "We all got needs."

"Well what on earth are you doing here at five AM?" he asked.

"Checking in on you. The big man sent me," I said pointing at the ceiling.

He stared blankly into his empty coffee cup. "Thank you," he said.

I smiled, paid my bill, and left chuckling. Lying comes so naturally to me.

Winter wreaks havoc on the roads. The asphalt freezes, thaws, and cracks. Potholes seem to form overnight. So I felt sympathy for the guy on the moped. I’m sure his knowledge of the roads was usually correct, but he never saw the pothole. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, nor a hat, so he had to be cold. His moped was decked out with American flags: two tattered ones attached to his rear fender, and two on metal shafts attached to both ends of his handlebar, not to mention numerous flag stickers pasted everywhere else. He was at a red light waiting to turn, and, when the light changed, he accelerated and drove straight into a pothole. He yowled as his bike went down. The metal shaft of one of the flags on his handlebars punctured his eye. He lay in the road, thrashing his feet, cursing, and holding his hands to his face. The flag drooped serenely over his face. A woman in a car behind him called 911 and drove away hurriedly. I watched the paramedics arrive and load him into the ambulance. They pushed his moped to the side of the road and took him away. He screamed the whole time, cursing snow, ice, God, and the law that took away his license to drive a car. Suddenly a snowplow barreled around the corner and ran over the moped, causing it to lurch and scream like a wounded animal. I gave the moped its last rights as its horn moaned quietly into the crisp air. The tail light faded as its battery died. Its rear wheel was bent, and the handle bar was ripped from its frame.

Here, in my own city, on streets traveled often, I was noticing new things. Hardly worth mentioning, I suppose, but I was taken aback how quickly the core of who I call me was being torn apart and simultaneously constructed. I was pushed into a place at once utterly familiar and fearfully new. I looked at a storefront displaying shoes and noticed in a mirror that my face was furled into a frown. My face looked chapped, and my lips were cracked, and the corners of my mouth dropped incredibly low, as if they couldn’t bear the weight of language. I tried to smile.

Perhaps it was the smile that warmed me, or the golden arches that rose magically from behind as I stared into the mirror. I turned and stared at the downtown McDonald’s. Now there was a bit of home. On Tuesdays (how could I forget) I took my church staff to McDonald’s. This wasn’t the exact one we visited weekly, but it was a McDonald’s nevertheless. When I smelled the Egg McMuffins, a bit of my self returned. I sat on a frozen hydrant in front of the shoe store and watched people enter the restaurant. Outside the door stood a stuffed waste receptacle made especially for McDonald’s. Mesmerized, I watched the snow cover French fry boxes and soda cups in beautiful crystal icing. I had to keep myself from crying out when an employee began to pick up the renegade trash and cram it unmercifully into the can. He didn’t see a cup, however, and it stood on the curb tall and proud, guarding the trash, collecting the sky’s snow and catching slush from passing trucks. That lone cup comforted me. Inside McDonald’s were thousands of cups, and all I would have to do is ask for a coke and give the kid some change.

Around noon I wandered into a bookstore. The temperature had dropped, so I was gratefule that the bookstore had a warm, cheerily lit coffee bar. A small jazz trio was on a makeshift stage playing for money. The guitarist had his case opened below him. There were four dollars inside. I walked to the counter and ordered a coffee.

"Size?" the coffee keeper asked. She looked bored.

"A small, please," I answered.

"We only have tall, grande, and mega," she said, smiling. She had white teeth, not the teeth of a coffee drinker, and a swatch of bright red hair cruised down the length of her face and curled under her chin. She was reading Rolling Stone. What appeared to be a philosophy textbook was crammed into a corner on the counter. Papers were jammed under its cover.

"I just need a small," I repeated.

"You mean a small-tall," she replied. She took a quick snatch of bottled water and tossed the magazine aside. "This is a small-tall," she said as she held up a cup.

"It looks too big to be a small," I said.

"But if you would only compare it to its family," she said as se lined up all the different sized cups, "and put it in its context, its cultural setting, its milieu, if you please, you’d see it was small in comparison."

"Standing alone, however, it’s rather tall, don’t you think?" I said.

She rolled her eyes. "Do you want room for cream?" She had taken the tall and began to fill it.

"No, black please," I replied.

"Can I interest you in a muffin?"

"No, thank you," I said.

"The sugar is over there," she said, pointing to a table littered with napkins and sugar packets.

I sat down and sipped my coffee. The jazz was great--they were doing Coltrane. At my table I noticed a card imprinted with a landscape painting. It was an announcement for an art opening tonight at a gallery downtown, not far from where the moped had died. The artist was a woman named Mona Garrett. I decided to attend.

I wandered back downtown after a few hours in the bookstore. The gallery was a part of the university’s art department. I knocked the slush off my boots and went inside. This was my first visit to the gallery. It was housed in an older home, probably built in the early nineteen hundreds, which had been remodeled into modern-looking space. The rafters were left exposed and track lighting lit up the gallery space, leaving the opened attic shrouded in blackness. The old floorboards groaned as people walked across them. They were pine and unevenly cut. Dust filled the cracks between the floorboards. I was intrigued.

"What were you in your previous life?" I asked the dust. "Who shook you from a rug? On whose farmer’s boot did you enter this house?"

A wooded landscape painting grabbed me, and I was soon shocked to discover that the paintings were not paintings at all; rather, they were large panels collaged with junk. This was not noticeable until I came within a few feet of each piece. Asphalt shingles became trees; old strands of Christmas lights became vines; Barbie legs became branches; and shards of pottery became fallen leaves. I soon realized the piece I was admiring was the piece photographed for the gallery announcement. How clever, I thought. I wandered over to the table that held the cheese and wine. I felt frumpy and wished I had nicer clothes to wear. With my wine in hand, I walked to the piece that grabbed me, then stepped back, and then walked forward again. I was amazed at how the trash melded seamlessly into a painting. As much as I tried, I couldn’t tell when the trash became art. Was it at ten feet from the painting? Five feet? I walked up to the picture and struck my nose a few inches from a pottery shard.

"Fuck you!"

I jumped and nearly spilled my wine. I turned towards the voice and saw a tall, slender woman with dark hair smiling at me.

"Excuse me," I said. "Was I too close?"

"Mona Garrett," she said. "I’m the artist."

She held out her hand. I shook it. "Nice to meet you," I said.

She chuckled. "Didn’t mean to startle you."

"That’s quite all right," I said.

"The ‘fuck you’ is what this piece is saying," she said.

"Really?" I said. She had temporarily reeled me into a nether land. I wasn’t used to being sworn at.

"Yeah. You know, here’s this beautiful landscape painting. ‘Oh Henry!’" she mocked. "‘Come look at this piece. Isn’t it beautiful! The texture, the color--it’s simply gorgeous!’ Henry comes over. ‘Oh Marge! What exquisite taste you have!’ He kisses her and pulls out his fat checkbook. ‘How much is it Marge?’ He writes a check and never realizes that the shingles and the water bottles are from his own fucking trash can! Ha! The joke’s on that rich old bastard!" Mona laughed aloud. "He paid twice for his artwork."

A little boy came running up to Mona. "Mama, can I have a cookie?"

"Did you eat some carrots?" she asked him.

"Yes."

"Just one cookie and no more," she said to him. "The sugar bugs will rot your teeth." The boy ran towards the hors d’oeuvre table and grabbed two cookies.

"That’s my son," she said. "He’s five."

"How cute," I replied.

"He looks like his dad," she said, as if used to that sort of comment.

"I really like this piece," I said after a pause.

"Thank you," Mona said.

"I am amazed how much this looks like a painting."

"Well, my goal is to make people come face to face with their trash in order to help them realize what consumer society we live in. Buy, buy, buy," she said. "‘Is not the fact that the glass packaging can be thrown away surely the sign of a golden age?’"

"Pardon?"

"Oh, that is from Jean Baudrillard," she said.

I was suddenly aware of my ruby wine housed in glass.

"Glass, so crystalline, so pure. And yet we ditch it. Recycle it. Throw it away. It’s just another common household item used for our needs. Yet look at it." She held up her glass.

"It is beautiful," I said.

"Indeed."

"But I reuse and recycle," I added.

She swigged the rest of her wine and said, "Good for you. Here’s to glass."

I tapped my empty glass to hers, perhaps a bit too hard, for our glasses shattered. Mona found a broom and dustpan.

"I’m so sorry," I said.

"It’s just art," she said.

"What will this become?" I asked.

"Who knows," she said. "Absolutely stunning!" she exclaimed as she held up a piece of glass with a hairline crack running across it. She kissed it and laid it in her napkin.

"It could become part of a wave. You know, the top part of the wave that’s crystalline, the part that catches the ocean light, just before it rolls onto the sand?" She carefully emptied the contents of the dustpan into her napkin. I caught a glimpse of a long black hair winding around the broken glass, tying shards together, trying to mend the wineglass. Mona folded the napkin around the glass like a blanket around a newborn. She made sure her infant glass was snug and warm. This woman was madly in love with junk, an affair neither clandestine nor secret. The detritus of our society had found a spokesperson.

"You know, you’re work is quite shocking," I said. She smiled as if she knew what I was about to say, as if she had heard this all before. "Your pieces are lush, full paintings; they’re very still and serene, meditative. But man, when you approach them--wow! I mean the objects could maim someone. All that glass. It’s so, well, pointy, sharp." My attempt at art talk, though not the greatest, garnered a bright smile across her face.

"Yeah, you wouldn’t want to hang it in a toddler’s room," she said, "unless, of course, you dislike children."

"But shouldn’t your work be ugly? All that trash face to face with the viewer?"

"No. I want my trash to be a lure, to be beautiful. No one wants to look at their garbage in the eye, so I need to make it alluring. Consumers like things new and shiny," she said.

"Refrigerator boxes aren’t beautiful," I protested. "Nor are they shiny."

"When you cut one up and pour a paint wash over it, it is," she said, pointing to some tree limbs. "A cardboard box."

I looked closely at the work. I could see "Maytag" bleeding through her wash. The tree limbs, at once mundane and sublime, filled me with horror: I could sense the terror of the trees, the lumberjack’s ax at my throat. Something was askew with the world that was projected into my eyes.

"Does the trash ever let you down?" I asked as I loosened my scarf.

"No. It somehow all comes together."

A man in a brown, woolen jacket suddenly barreled into Mona, talking loudly and gesturing wildly with his arms, nearly spilling his wine from the glass stuck in his hand. He pulled her to another piece. I was left in his stale air, in the exploding hubris of his insolent chatter. Mona rolled her eyes as they stood under an American flag made from UPCs, nutrition labels from Coke bottles, and shreds blue water bottle labels.

"How much?" the man demanded. "Just name a price!"

"You can’t afford this one," Mona told the man.

The man sulked away when Mona turned from him a walked towards me. "Sorry about that," she said as she pulled a napkin from the hors d’oeuvres table. She pulled a pen from he hair and scribbled on the napkin.

"What’s this?" I asked.

"Come by," she said. "Friday, for supper. My husband is fantastic in the kitchen. It’ll be a total gas. Seven o’clock."

"But you don’t even know me!" I exclaimed, pleased with her offer.

"I know you enough to like you," she said. She ambled back to the office to check on her son. I put my hat on, grabbed a handful of miniature carrots, and left the gallery.

I wandered through thick snow across the university lawn. The town seemed muffled and gagged. Cars floated through the streets. I wondered if Mona felt sorry for me, my in my clumpy, muddy boots and hole-strewn jeans, me in my red long johns with an old-growth forest for stubble, me all wrapped up in an old scarf then stuffed into a second hand down parka. Did I look hungry? Or maybe she thought me an intelligent man, albeit in need of toiletries. In my other life I was she: I was the one to invite folks in and feed them; I was the one who created; I was the one who was warm. I was unsure how to exist in this state, how to be in this role and accept gifts.

My circuitous route led me past the only bar in town that crafted its own beer. Since it wasn’t yet late, and the canal was only a few blocks from here, I stopped in for a pint. Christmas lights glistened in the windows. I walked under garland and mistletoe into the bar.

"What’s on?" I asked.

"We’ve got a fine amber, a stout, and a pale ale that’s real smooth and not too hoppy."

"Stout, please," I said as I sat down at the bar.

"Good choice," the bar keeper said as he drew the beer and set the pint in front of me. The TV above the bar featured the president. He was muted, and I was too far away to make out the closed captioning. He looked very earnest, however. Soon oil fields flashed into view, then B-52 bombers and Abram tanks, and then a young man kissing his wife and son before boarding a transport plane. I shook off a chill and looked away. My beer was thick, and it began to warm me.

"You know you’re drinking a product of yeast shit?" a large man asked me. He jabbed his elbow into my side. He wore a T-shirt that read "NO FAT CHICKS," and he smelled like a locker room.

"Pardon?"

"Yeah," he chuckled. "The yeast eats the sugars in the grains till it can’t handle any more food whatsoever, till it thinks its gonna puke, and then, BLAM! it shits carbon dioxide all over the place!"

"Really?" I asked.

"I ain’t kidding you, man," he said, his mouth moving beneath his delicately trimmed handlebar mustache. "And we drink it!"

I watched him contemplate what he just said. He seemed deeply moved, almost teary-eyed, before ordering another Budweiser.

"Liquid bread," I said. "Nothing finer."

"I’ll drink to that," he said, a broad smile crossing his face. He laid down his money and left quickly.

"Nice talking with you," he said on his way out.

"The pleasure’s mine," I said to my beer. I glanced up at the TV again. Guys were playing hockey. The president, along with all his men, was relegated to CNN. I looked out the window. The courthouse across the street was lit up, and the snow sparkled like jewels in a storefront window dressing. Around the edges of the light I noticed a strange movement, a sort of phantom automaton. I looked closely at the tall spruce, its branches bowed with the weight of snow. All seemed still: even the falling snow lingered in the air before landing gently on the white lawn. Suddenly the branches of the spruce dumped their snow as a refrigerator box bumped into them. The box swiftly shuffled across the snow, paused, then shuffled some more. It made its way across the courthouse lawn and toppled over onto the portico. Amused, I paid for my pint and ordered a growler to go.

I ambled across the street and up to the portico. A dark mass lay inside the box.

"Hello?"

The box was quiet. I took a step closer.

"Hello in there. Don’t mean to bother you," I said. I heard a low, menacing growl, growing in intensity the longer rI stood in front of the box.

"I’ve got beer," I offered. The growling stopped immediately. "It’s a very good stout. It’d keep you warm on a night like this"

The box shifted a bit. "No Pabst?" The box’s voice sounded like tires crunching on gravel. Cigarette smoke drifted from the opening and lingered momentarily before catching the cold breeze.

"Stout only. Got a cup?"

An arm protruded from the box with a cup in hand. I filled it.

"What’s with the box?" I asked him.

"Just got it today."

"You move quite well in it."

"You saw that?" he asked.

"Of course," I replied. "It’s not everyday one sees a box traipsing through the snow."

"Well, shit. How many people saw me?"

"Just me," I said.

"You ain’t the law?" he asked.

"Nope. Just a preacher." I took a swig of beer to warm me.

"You drink?" he asked surprised.

"We all got needs," I said.

"What church do you belong to?" he asked, holding out his cup again. I filled it.

"Somewhere you’ve never been," I replied.

He was quiet for a bit. The snow swirled onto the concrete in the portico and dusted the box. I could hear him drinking and mumbling, and I could faintly make out the shadow of him inside the box. I thought maybe he was a bit hairy, or maybe it was just a scarf with tasseled ends.

"It’s a really nice box," he said. "It came from Sears. I found the best one. The others were all washing machine boxes. I’ve got a bit of foam in here. I think it helps insulate it. Tomorrow I’m getting it painted white. That way it’ll last longer." He held out his cup again and I poured him the last of the beer.

"You’re right. I’m as warm as shit," he said. "Well, if you don’t mind, I need to get some sleep. Where do you stay?" he asked.

"Over at the old canal. Under the gazebo, next to the market," I said.

"Watch out for the ducks," he said as I stood to leave. I wished him a good night and began my trek to the canal.

When I returned to the canal, I retrieved my sleeping bag from the hole in the wall. The ducks were clustered under the picnic table, and they did not move even after I shooed and quacked at them. They stared at me defiantly, and one duck pooped on my boots. I was too tired to care, however; and I soon fell asleep to the mesmerizing lullaby of murmuring ducks. Their throaty sounds gradually shaped themselves into words inside my head, and I soon understood their hushed conversation.

"He’s not right."

"For grilling?"

"No, Spackman. I mean he must be sick in the head to want to sleep out here. He still looks delicious."

"Well, Leonard, we’re some pretty lame ducks, then, out here in the cold, eating God-knows-what from the bottom of this canal."

"He’s one of us, it seems. You know, if I had my druthers, Spackman, I’d take up residence in a nice condo. But I can’t operate a key."

"And that is why we live outdoors."

"Then I guess it would be pretty difficult to eat him when we can’t even hold a knife."

"Ah, well spoken, Leonard. How shall we proceed?"

"All we’ve got are beaks."

"Dull ones, I might add."

"Let’s talk later, Spackman, as the others are beginning to stir. We need a plan. Everyone is getting hungry." § § §

I awoke the next morning with two ducks on my chest. Startled, I sat up. The ducks lifted slightly into the air and landed gracefully in the canal. The cackled as I tied my boots and rolled up my sleeping bag. I strapped my day pack onto my shoulders and headed to the café. The farmers grew silent when I entered. The farmer who talked of cow teats the morning before cleared his throat and began talking to the man seated across from him about a Wednesday evening church service he once attended. I smiled and waved and took my coffee to go.

I decided to go uptown, and, because the road was not pedestrian friendly, I walked along a creek that ran parallel to the shopping strips beside the highway. It was snowing lightly, and occasionally the sun glimmered between the racing clouds. Cardinals fluttered through the brush, surprised by my presence. In the stream, an armada of crumpled paper floated quietly along the opposite shore, dodging twigs and ice. The boats seemed lost, idly roaming foreign shores. This wasn’t where they had planned on being, this was not the new world they had anticipated. The little sailors yearned for a breeze to carry them away.

Not watching my steps, I stumbled over a thick branch and nearly fell into the water, catching myself on a sapling. My boots were caked with icy mud and bits of trash. I felt limicolous, like shit oozed from rock. An eddy in the water ahead of me caught my attention: the stream was easing its way around a portion of a bathroom stall wall stuck between two rocks. It was rusty and green, and someone had scribbled in marker, "Here I sit now broken hearted, tried to shit but only farted," and, below that, "Jesus saves." I looked across the stark bank and could see the backside of Lowe’s. It was constructed on a flattened mound of earth that rose sharply from the surrounding roads. It sat above the tree line, and little gullies of brown water trickled down the mound through the white snow into the stream. I moved away from the water and walked higher up on the stream bank. Buried in the snow in front of me was a plastic sack, its handle ripped and flapping wildly in the breeze. I pulled it from the snow and looked inside. I found a credit card, a wet Playboy, a can of Skoal, an empty bottle of beer, and a condom, unused, thank God. These item struck me as curious, so I stuffed them into my bag. Perhaps Mona could use the trash.

It wasn’t long before the stream banks turned to concrete. I pulled myself onto a newly poured sidewalk and turned towards the main thoroughfare. The sky had become heavily clouded, and, whether from my exertion or from an actual temperature change, I began to warm up. Dirty snow squished into my boots and wet my socks. At an intersection, I turned north and began walking along the main strip. I hadn’t been this way in quite a while. It struck me: how strange one strip mall could be so deserted, its buildings locked up, and its tenants long gone, while the very next center was filled with brand new buildings, flush customers, and shiny new cars. Old Navy loomed to my left. Two storefronts down was a church that sported a sign, its lights flashing like an adult video joint, that read, "God wants your knee mail." I could see God here, pimping out his girls, enticing souls for his harem. I moved on. The next plaza also housed a church in one of its abandoned storefronts. It was called the House of Worship of the Divine Love, and next to its flagpole was a sign that read, "The best vitamin for a Christian is B1," followed by, "God Bless Our Troops." I stopped and stared into the lights. They flashed like the previous sign, burning white spots into my eyes. A swift bout of vertigo overcame me, and as I took another step I slipped and fell face first into the wet snow. My checks stung. I lifted my head and looked at all the things around me, all the things that demanded my devotion, the cars and shops and restaurants and churches. I felt like an empty shell picked over by gulls. I wanted to go home. I wanted my congregation. I wanted coffee. I wanted Mona. Art. Trash. A pink sunset in asphalt trees. I sat up and dug into my pocket, remembering the slip of paper she had given me, and looked at her address. The thought of her put me at ease, warmed me. I stood up, shook off the snow, and began walking. I must of looked sort of out of place, for a group of kids drove by me, rolled down their window, and laughed at me.

I slipped into a coffee shop and ordered an espresso and bread with treacle. It was three o’clock, and I needed an energy boost before heading back to the ducks. Out the window, across the lot, and over the road I could see a solitary tree on a hill. A spindly fence was connected to either side of it. A bemused, docile cow watched all the commotion below her. These were the hinterlands, the outskirts, the wilds waiting to be tamed into something more useful and friendly. And, with all the clean lines of passing SUVs, flat buildings, and taut wires, the craggy oak looked spooky, unkempt--evil perhaps.

I paid, and as I left the shop, I almost stumbled into a pierced, jagged, angular couple. They both were skinny, and their joints looked razor sharp as they jabbed and sliced the air around them. They dove into a car and drove off in a swirl of screeching music.

The sky turned a wonderful orange as I returned to the stream. Dusk was settling in. I stopped at the canal and grabbed my dry clothes from the hole in the wall. I had a dry set of clothes, and Mona seemed the type who could never refuse a stranger her bathroom. The ducks seemed happy to see me. The quacked and waddled towards me, wanting food.

"No food, guys," I said. "Sorry." A mallard tried to bite my leg. I kicked him lightly. He was the duck from my dreams, I suddenly remembered. I looked for the other one, but soon realized that all the male mallards looked just like him.

Mona lived in the old part of town. A once grand neighborhood, it suffered for decades before becoming a neighborhood of choice among aspiring artists, university professors, and computer folk. The houses were slowly being repaired, and each house was exquisite and different from the others, and, though not huge, spacious. Stars were peeking around bare branches as I crunched through the snow onto her steps. I rang the doorbell. I could hear Mona’s son squealing in delight at the prospect of company. She was telling him to go wash up as she opened the door.

"Hello!" she exclaimed. "I’m glad you came." She pulled me inside. The house was warm and yellow and exuded soup. I was famished.

"My husband--he’s so great," she whispered. She tugged my arm and led me into the kitchen. The walls in the kitchen were a mosaic made from scrap tile, mirrors, glass, and broken dinner plates.

"Did you do all this?" I asked.

"Yes. It’s simple, really," she said. A man walked into the room. He was shorter than she, slightly muscled, and wearing an apron.

"Peter, this is...you know, I never caught your name."

I introduced myself.

"Nice to meet you," Peter said as he stuck out his hand. I shook it. "Are you hungry? It’s a simple meal, really: soup, freshly baked bread, cheese, wine--a peasants’ special. Would you like some wine?"

I nodded, and he uncorked a bottle and poured me a glass. They seemed not to care that I was dripping wet, smelly, and unshaven. "May I use your restroom? I’m a bit wet, you know, the snow and all."

"Of course,"Mona said. She led me to the bathroom and shut the door. I took off my boots and jerked my wet pants down. They rolled into a tight wad around my ankles. I kicked them off, dug through my bag, and slipped into a warm pair of corduroy pants and a flannel shirt. I looked in the mirror. My eyes were red, my sockets sunken and black. I felt like a fine specimen for Mona’s mosaic kitchen, like a walking square of chipped tile. I splashed hot water on my face, desperately wanting it to redden. I looked in the mirror again. I felt better but still looked like shit.

As I reached to open the bathroom door, the door burst open and Mona's son was at my feet flopping around on the floor.

"Hi my name is Sam. Want to see my trains?" he said so fast that I had to parse the words in my head. Mona was there in an instant. She picked him up, kissed him, and told him to talk slowly.

"He loves company," she said apologetically. She stood him up and he ran to the sink to wash his hands. "He’s pretty high maintenance."

We sat below a huge collage/painting of willows gracing a stream bank. The scene was pastoral, and the gold of the autumnal willows struck me when I shut my eyes as Peter said a blessing for the food. I could see the golden leaves hanging in the blackness of my eyes, blazing in the darkness, making the night mute.

Over sips of soup and mouthfuls of chewy bread, Peter talked delightedly about his seminary days when he discovered that I, too, had a master of divinity degree. Mona kept quiet, constantly grinning over her wineglass, her teeth sparkling like the snow in front of the courthouse. I wondered why she said so little, even after Peter probed me to tell him of my past few days. She didn’t seem the least bit surprised at my wanting to become rootless for a while. Transience seemed completely normal to her and Peter.

"Do you miss your home?" Peter asked.

"Being here makes me miss home," I said.

"And it has only been three days?"

I sipped my wine. I was warm and full. "Yes," I said, "though it seems longer."

Mona jumped up and called Sam to follow her upstairs. It was time for bed. "Come back and see my trains," he said, rubbing his head. His stray hair tickled my nose as he hugged me tight. His head rested on my neck as he tapped me gently on my shoulder. His hug was the best I’d ever had.

"And that is why we don’t sell him to the gypsies," Mona said.

"Do you have children?" Peter asked me after Mona and Sam left.

"No, I never married."

"Really? Why?"

"I’m sure I do better at performing weddings than participating in them," I said.

Peter furrowed his brow and looked at me through squinted eyes. "Has love failed you?" he asked.

"I don’t think I’ve ever been in love. Has it failed you?"

Peter sat a bit, thinking. "You know," he said," marriage has become a brand name, a commodity. We treat it like gold. It’s new. It’s fun. But, like everything else we buy, it wears with age. There was a time when marriage was hard for me. I once fell for a young, pretty woman. Mona, she was working, always working, her art an obsession. The young woman was a good lover."

I winced. His confession made me feel awkward.

"It’s okay. Everyone knows. It’s not an issue any longer. Anyway, it was commitment that struck me. If I had left Mona, I’d still be hauling around a hell of a lot of baggage. It’s a paradox, really. My fling exposed my constant craving for something new and disposable. It took betrayal to wake me up. My marriage would have eventually failed if I wouldn’t have had this fling." Peter paused and pointed to the willows before continuing. "Mona and I once entered that picture. We slid down its bottle-capped banks and landed in the river that pooled underneath the candy-wrapper willow leaves. We floated in the warm water as the leaves grazed the surface of the glassy river with their long, yellow fingers. The sky above us was flat and cloudless. Light filtered through the warm, fall air and made everything orange. Naked now and giggling, we crawled from the river and made love in the yarny grass. It snaked between my toes and crawled up my ankles as we rolled in the sun. Mona laughed at the sight, her breasts heaving with delight. And then we conceived our son, in love, in trash."

We both sat quietly and stared at the painting. His soliloquy was mesmerizing. I wanted to feel the water, to feel the grass and sun, but the picture stayed on the wall. Mona entered with a tray of coffee. She said nothing and only smiled as she gracefully poured coffee into our mugs.

Later, Mona took me to her studio that was housed in what used to be the garage. Suspended from the ceiling with a rope through a pully were angular shaped slabs of steel that tapered into sharp edges. They looked deadly. She lowered one to the floor.

"I’m still working on how to display these," Mona said. They’re awfully benign on the floor, yet I'm not too sure about them looking so deadly and menacing. Setting them on the floor makes them tamer, but they loose their punch down here."

I touched the lowered piece. It was cold and spattered with rust. The sharp edge could’ve cut me in two. I shivered and moved towards the wall. Mona pulled the piece up. I could swear the steel was yearning for the soft, fleshy rope that suspended it in the air.

"I think I like it better on the ground," I said.

"Maybe it’s your personality type," said Mona as she pulled it back to the ceiling.

"Maybe it’s because I value my life," I said.

"You're funny," Mona laughed.

I declined Mona’s and Peter’s offer to spend the night in the spare room. I wanted the air, I said.

"At least take this," Peter said, shoving a loaf of bread into my hand. I thanked them and walked into the cold. The lowest clouds were gathered into the uppermost branches of the leafless maples. It began to snow as I walked down the sidewalk, clutching Peter’s bread. I didn’t see a soul the whole way back to the gazebo.

My sleeping bag was warm. I lay on my side and watched the heavy flakes cover my tracks. The snow erased me, covered me, made me irrelevant. Mona and Peter seemed far away.

"You look ridiculous, Spackman. For god’s sake, take out those dentures."

"You don’t like them?"

"You look like a preacher with that toothy smile."

"I thought they might help, Leonard."

"We can’t eat him, remember?"

"Oh yeah. Okay ducks, gather round. It’s time for some song. Mona, join the group. We love your voice through that half-bill of yours. Stand here. From the top....

The ducks sounded beautiful when I awakened, their voices ringing clearly in the chilled morning air. I broke Peter’s bread and began to feed them. One duck pecked my boot. I looked down. It was the half-billed duck. She seemed as if she wanted to smile.

As I fished through my day pack searching for my gloves, I made a welcome discovery: the trash I found yesterday. I decided Mona should have it, so I headed back to her place. The morning seemed to contain the promise of a day-long thaw even though the clouds covered the sun. I took my hat off. The sidewalk was slushy.

Mona wasn’t home, and neither was Peter. A police officer was standing in their drive. The garage door was opened. He stepped in front of me.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

Over his shoulder I could see the massive steel that I had touched last night lying on the concrete floor. Two paramedics were looking around. Blood splattered the floor and freckled the gentle arc of the steel. I dropped my sack of trash. I didn’t want to know, not now, not today. I turned away, half expecting the officer to question me, but he didn’t.

"She could be alive," I thought aloud over and over. I walked quickly, carelessly, sloshing snow into my boots. I could see her in the welding. I could see her in a spark jumping through space. In her dwelt more energy than I ever thought possible for a human to contain.

At an intersection I tripped over a man with a bandage wrapped around his head. As I passed him, I heard him mumble something. Thinking he was speaking to me I stopped. His voice seemed familiar, and the song he began to sing surrounded my trembling body with childhood memories: I’ve searched the land of corn and wine, and all its riches freely mine; Here shines undimmed one blissful day, for all my night has passed away. O Beulah Land, sweet Beulah Land, as on thy highest mount I stand, I look away across the sea, where mansions are prepared for me. And view the shining glory shore, my Heav’n, my home forever more! My grandmother held me on her lap. Her hands were soft and smelled like onions. Her fingernails were painted a soft pink. She turned the pages in her Bible and examined verses she had underlined in red ink. She covered them with a bookmark and then recited them to me verbatim. My Saviour comes and walks with me, and sweet communion here have we; He gently leads me by His hand, for this is Heaven’s borderland.

I remembered the man after he had finished singing. He was the driver of the moped.

"Your eye..."I said quietly.

"I can’t see from it," he said as he calmly rubbed his head. "That scooter hit a pot hole and I poked my eye out. Don’t have a car. Don’t have a license. Don’t have a moped no more. Don’t even have a bicycle. And my eye rolled down the drain. I’m shit out of luck."

I stared at him a bit longer. He began to sing again. He kept his good eye closed the whole time.