The Owl Man and His Son

My father always drove with one hand on the steering wheel. His head, relaxed, sat against the headrest. His other arm, calm wherever he chose to place it, moved only to roughly squeeze my small arm. Releasing his grip, he would mumble something under his breath; a strange comment or a passing, mysterious thought. As a child, his enigmatic speech puzzled me to obscene lengths. I would sometimes ask him what he had said or what he had meant, but his answers were just as indecipherable. Those were our car rides: consistent, silent, and impossible.

He never changes, my father. He still hoots to the moonlight, summoning owls to him that are just as unaware of his humanity as he is. He still refuses to trust salesmen, wary of anyone whose profession revolves around coercing money from his protected wallet. And, he still has only two requirements for his vehicles: red and truck.

That day, that classic Alabama day that caused only one drop of sweat to slide from my forehead, we weren't riding in his dark, brooding Ford. We had taken my sister’s car, with him telling me to turn left or right at his leisure. All the while, he kept on his sunglasses and I kept my eyes on the road.

“I’m gonna show you something beautiful,” my father said, telling me to pull off the highway and onto a beaten down, gravel-like path tucked away beside a large sign advertising Christmas trees in the middle of March. His arcane words, when heard, were commandments. I turned onto his path without hesitation.

There were no other vehicles on the road; there were only houses. They lined the road sparsely, appearing and disappearing now and again. They were sad houses; cracked, defeated, and dark, even with the shine of the sun dripping its natural paint onto the gloomy walls. I felt sorry for the sun, unable to force any of its charm onto the forgotten homes. Yet, my father and I were the only people who cared. I saw no one.

My father said nothing about the scene around us. He only mumbled a phrase a few times, “you’ll see why I love this place up here.” Each turn I made only revealed more of time’s damage to the town. I could not imagine the small collection of houses and dying grass to be beautiful. Perhaps my father saw something with his eyes once that I could not. Or maybe there was simply never anything here but perpetual ruin.

When the car hit a stretch of road that seemed safe, I finally let my eyes look to the right and down on my father. His arms sat on his knees. His head sank back onto his seat. And his eyes, his eyes that would betray only the most powerful of emotions to the familial eye, were hidden behind the black, clandestine wall of cheap sunglasses.

“Do you know what that is?” My father asked, breaking my trance of vexation.

He gestured to my right, pointing to a large green machine in a field of corn.

“A tractor?” I answered, starting at the only moving thing I had seen for miles.

I don’t remember what he said. He said the words, but he didn't tell me them as he normally did. I remember everything that my father tells me. I know that the cows that graze in the fields beside my school are called Simmental cattle. I know that if you don’t go, you don’t know. I know that my father does not think that he will live past the age of fifty. But, I don’t know what my father said in that moment. His voice was different; it did not enter my thoughts easily. It seemed forced; a plea for help amidst the heartbreak.

I saw signs ahead telling me of an oncoming turn.

“You’ll like this up here,” my father said.

Distrusting his eyes, I said nothing to dissuade him. As the car turned, a green, opaque river appeared on the right side of the car. The water was as sad as the houses, and the sun’s glare did nothing but prove how murky and clouded the water was.

“The water’s up…” my father said, trailing off into nothingness.

I stared at the opposite end of the river, looking past my father’s countenance, and noticed mud caked on the edge of the riverbank, devoid of the soothing touch of water for some time.

“I think the water is down, dad,” I said.

He stared at the water for a while.

“It might be a little low,” he said.

He asked me to pull to the side of the road beside the river. We stepped out of the vehicle; he slammed his car door a bit too hard. I followed him to the edge of a steep drop onto the rocky beach of the river. Below us was a sprawling mess of dead trees, damp moss, and small insects praising the absence of humans. My father was rapt. The small vein above his eye pulsed. He crossed his arms firmly and his head jutted out ever so slightly from his neck. Yet, his eyes remained tucked away.

“They tore down my damn tree.” The words caught me off guard. I traced his line of sight to a stump below the mass of dead life. “They tore down our tree.”

I realized where we were. The path where my sister and I slid down onto the rocky beach. The fire pit my father lit to dry the river’s waters off our clothes. The tree that hung stalwart and eternal over the bank.

“That sucks,” my father said. He pointed to the stump. “We used to change under that tree.”

He turned from the sight, shuffling back to the car. I let my gaze linger for a few more seconds, cursing whatever lesser god allowed the travesty to occur. I eventually turned, unable to torture myself much longer.

“This is why I want to live in a small town,” I said, “where nothing changes.”

“Yeah…” my father said with a slight, weakened smile. Then, he faltered. With his small hesitation of step and speech, he and I both experienced a moment of eternity. We viewed it, we comprehended it, and, in an act of disheartening humility, we hailed to it.

“Everything changes, son,” my father mumbled.

We were both children after his words, lost in this world and afraid of time. I could not see his eyes, but I knew that they would betray his sadness at the loss of a shard of innocence.