Tuesday, November 20, 2007
The Red in the Masonry
(Clarity on the Rocks)
It was a great objective. It could have been better, granted it lacked peaceful resignation, but it meant for so much more. It would have been atypical for Sam to make such an irrational decision, but today was an irrational day.
On the jagged horizon, with the tips of sullen mountains gloriously lit, the sun was rising. Sam looked out cockpit window, but missed the silhouette of the small crop-duster glinted like an eclipse. Sam was looking at his destination, a small, white, steepled church in the middle of a vast, yellowing field.
Sam knew that he was destined as a chain in the mithril of an infinite struggle. He could've been a policeman in a corrupt city, making the law abide by justice one step at a time. He could have been a revolutionary in a third world country. He could've tackled an environmental issue after running for president. He could have been a dreamer, a poet, a visionary. He was all and none of these things, and he knew it.
The plane, a pale speck in the grand tide, dived down, lower and lower. It was suspended by the air slamming against its metal skin. It flexed and eased, calmly. Sam steered the plane in a helix, gradually ending with a small, repressed bang.
He thought of his father, a valiant, Catholic Air Force Sergeant. His father would be proud, wouldn't he? How could he not? The "Ride of the Valkyries" flooded Sam's mind along with a great confidence. He smiled, shallowly, to himself.
"Well, I won't worry about anything now," he muttered to himself."
The plane came down faster, meaningfully. His eyes widened and a final thought was brought before him as his old aircraft slammed into the nearly-built, small, white church.
"What if…?"
The brick-laying was tedious, especially in the sweltering summer heat. The small Mexican town lay within five miles of American land, but the real joy, the real experience that Sam was supposed to find was in the laying of these bricks. He was building a church.
"Hey, Sammy, could you barrel over some mortar?" Sam looked over at the bearded gentleman. He was burly, and masculine. He would also kill for Jesus Christ.
"Christ, Mr. Keller-" Sammy started
"Samuel, do I have to remind you that you are building a holy vessel on God's green earth? Please, don't make me remind you to not use the Lord's name in vain."
Sam stood up, after the older man looked down. He grabbed the wheelbarrow of mortar and walked it over, along the edge of the building to Mr. Keller. "Thank you Samuel," he said. "And God bless you." The older man took a bucket beside him and swiftly filled it with mortar.
Sam spun and walked back to his bricklaying. The sun was high enough in the sky for one to block it with their hand. It was ten in the morning.
He slopped the mortar on to the edge of the foot tall wall. He placed the brick down and thought of God himself placing different species on this planet, like an elaborate game of chess. The knights go here in Italy. The King gets placed into power here, and stopped here. Here are the pawns that will toil till the day they die.
Sam saw these sacrilegious comments appear in his mind every day he was at work. This had only been the third day of working in the small town, his burns already accumulating. He had been coping with this substantial open space and position of a forced audience member with sarcasm and blasphemy. It was only blasphemy if it was spoken, so Sam kept himself quiet, under the harsh stare of Mr. Keller or the judging glance of the other at-risk adolescents at work at different stations.
This journey was for him to discover his faith. He was being pushed to his limits, in the hopes of his soon-to-be-divorced parents he would find God in the desert.
The problem lay in his doubt and mistrust of religion. He was himself very faithful, but not of a title to his love for life.
This Eden was a fat camp for atheists and hoodlums.
Hours later, a whistle shrieked over the flat, sandy land to order all of the workers within the mile of the campsite where the mission trip advisor was setting up lunch. Sam looked up, his brow furrowed and drenched with sweat.
"Christ, why is everything on schedule here?" he muttered to himself, sullen and bitter.
He stood up, wiping the layer of dirty sand off of his skin. He felt like a prisoner of war.
The sun rippled and hazed in the empty sky. A blue plaster sheet hung over the air like a suspended window. The thought of his father breaking through the giant window above, and gliding down over the frame of an old building delighted Sam, just momentarily.
The shrill whistle screeched a second time, dotting the 'i' that was Sam.
He marched toward the large green tent and canopy to see his coworkers ready for conversation or noise that wasn't their own breathing. Sam didn't much come face to face with most of these people, primarily because they volunteered to build churches in their spare time. Sam slept and read in his spare time, but the desert highlighted neither of those things.
"Hey, Sam! How's the mortar?" a ruddy teenager in charge of moving bricks asked, with a demeaning undertone.
"Oh, you know it's great, peaceful and light." Sam noticed the boy's complexion was suffering in the sand. He looked like he had shaved for the first time with a machete. Sam enjoyed the view.
The lunch today was a mixture of leftover burritos and fresh chili. Sam waited in line behind the ignoramuses and the clandestine agnostics. He smiled by the scent of the food. The salty aroma lit his nostrils and made his stomach clamor in hunger. The warm food was slopped into a paper bowl, which Sam eagerly rushed to a table and inhaled.
The food was like water, dripping down his dry throat, his canteen as worthless as a three cent piece. Sam licked his salty lips and watched a plane take off not far from the site of new Eden. The plane was a crop-duster, and was fitted with fertilizer. The mission trip information packet made this barren area seen deserted and primitive. There was a coke machine at the market two miles away. One car that was passed in the trek to Eden was a Prius. A crop-duster, not two miles away, flew over the empty land, skimming the window over the amphitheatre of sand. Sam pondered this scene, and realized that Jesus was being thrown at these people as if they were lame in the mind and completely ignorant and blind to even mildly popular culture.
Was this church a nice gesture? Was it structurally sound? Was it the only church in twenty miles? Sam knew these answers were yes, but was this Protestant mega-cross in the center of possible farming land to support dozens of families necessary? Sam gulped from his canteen and thought.
The moon bled holes in Sam's eyes; it drifted, dead center in the middle of a purple nebula, swirling and smiling. The man on the moon waved down, winking. Sam smirked and nodded his head. He looked on, towards the blanket of snow, dark blue melting, on the nearest mountain. He saw a darkling creature dart in zigzags down to the foothills.
The panting, dark animal appeared in front of Sam. It was a light brown coyote with bright sanguine streaks, parallel. It spoke.
"Beauty lies within each of us. A glory in the machine is in my brain, infested with diabolical substrata. If you believe in me, you believe in God and the Devil. I am, as you are." Her voice was soft and smooth, like verbal silk. Her sharp white teeth filled a grin with spinach leaf hanging to the side caught Sam's attention. She was an herbivore, he knew.
"You are, and you always have been. I want you to look in my eyes." Sam already was, but she knew that.
"I already am," he said pointlessly.
She nodded. Sam looked deep into the shallow pool of black and red. He stared in, as if there was some great truth hidden inside the black gems and-
He saw it. There was a white glint grazing the surface of her eyes' reflection. He spun around, looking at the now green sky. A pale plane flew toward an engulfing fire. He wept and spun again. The coyote was gone, drifting on the other side of the mountain.
Suddenly, he was drowning.
No, he was actually drowning. He opened his eyes, bathing in sweat.
"God," his body shuttered and watered the tent walls. "Oh, God."
Maple syrup dribbled down Sam's hefty pile of pancakes. He spun the pile with his fork, looking at the mess inquisitively.
"It doesn't look good, but they are so good. I'm telling you."
Sam looked up, hardly awake, and smiled at the hairy guy across the wooden table. He looked eighteen, he was probably sixteen. Sam had learned from the name game that he went by Taylor. "I just feel weird, you know? Hard night," Sam spoke with an unusual amount of pleasantness and extroversion.
"Dude, I hear you. Sleeping on sand is terrible, uh." They both laughed. "Samuel, right?"
"Sam."
"Okay, Sam, I've got it. Taylor."
"I know."
"Name game?"
"Yeah," they laughed again, quietly.
Sam brought down his fork and scraped it around like a poor pizza cutter. This was disgusting. Nothing on the table looked edible. If he ate, he would most likely regurgitate it, as if the sand were baby birds. The sand was not a baby, nor was it a bird. He pushed the plate towards Taylor. "You want some?"
"Nah, I'm stuffed, man. Thanks though."
"Okay." Sam wriggled out of his chair and threw away his pile of pancakes.
Taylor eyed Sam. "You okay, man? Substance is sustenance, you know?"
"I just don't feel good." Sam took a swig of his water.
After Sam walked away from his lunch and left his snack bag of chips unopened, he went back to his mortar and bricks. If he just worked through the day, the job would be done faster and he wouldn't have to work any longer than necessary.
His wall was as tall as he was, and forced him to use a ladder. He saw Taylor and his friends working, laughing on the other side of the building. Sam's wall was, by far, the tallest, and he was alone in making it. He watched Taylor fling sand at his friends. He must not have cared how long this took him, Sam thought. Lazily holding a brick, Sam's hand, without him noticing, buckled and dropped the brick down. He heard the soft catch of the sand. He looked down at the brick, and suddenly he was very tired.
Like a rag doll, Sam fell of the top steps of his ladder and face first, into the sand. As his eyes automatically closed, Sam saw a white plane slowly scuttling in his direction, but much higher. The lights went out.
He found himself, in a microcosm within the black of his mind. Sam was enraged, blameful, but immobile. He was alone with his resentful thoughts.
Where am I? Sam inquired, glancing around the empty space. The darkness separated into a building site, under a glaring sun. It hit him, just like he had hours before. Culpability was suddenly the focus of his mind.
If it were not for this vile establishment of a church in a desert, no less, I would be awake and aware. I didn't want to come here, anyway. This was not my choice, he thought, mentally spitting furiously.
Sam thought of his visits to churches, his hand held by one or both of his parents. "Here, Sammy is a place of God. This is where we worship. Can you say worship?" He was four, then, the memory still crisp in his mind, like a mild concussion. He was bored into submission and dreaded each Saturday night's passing. When he grew, he learned of other cultures and how each thought they had recorded the voice of God.
"Mom, why is Judaism wrong?"
"Well, Sam, it's complicated, but they just are."
The youth leader, Mr. Keller, looked at the body of Sam, with the slight trickle of blood from his forehead bandaged. Sam frowned and shook his head slowly. Mr. Keller stared, wide-eyed.
Sam remembered growing throughout Junior high and realizing that zealots were wrong on a rational level. This thought brought him back to his temporary resting place, and the reproach settled.
What great Injustice! What incomparable arrogance is the outlet of the churches in communities with deeply-set cultural beliefs that are not necessarily the same as the churches. This behemoth structure being erected probably feet away was against Sam, was pushing him down. He would not tolerate this.
Sam opened his eyes.
"Samuel, buddy, you awake? The sun is still shining on you." Mr. Keller looked at Sam, right in the drop in his eye, not piercing, but somehow seeming to Sam as if the youth leader knew exactly what Sam was thinking.
"Mmm." Sam looked around. He was in a small, dark green tent, with first-aid kits and a jug of water. He eyed his canteen near the door. This was sure no Providence, barely an Adventist. "I'm here."
The older man smiled and turned to the side of the cot Sam rested on. He turned back with a damp compress. "Good, Samuel. Good." He placed the compress on Sam's suddenly throbbing forehead.
"Christ, Ow," Sam blurted and paused. "Sorry, about the Lord's name and stuff. That just stings."
"Yeah, I know. Sorry, buddy."
Sam's father used to call him buddy. It was something Sam loved to hear when he visited him in the cancer ward at the hospital. The last time he heard "buddy" from his father, was during his last visit to the small, sterile room. Sam had walked in, teary-eyed and noticed the nurses had tied the paper airplanes and model kits he had made for his father from the ceiling. Sam gasped with a childlike excitement as he walked in the room. "Hey Buddy." His memory stopped with a burst of tears.
To Mr. Keller's bafflement, Sam sat erect and marched out of the room, grabbing his canteen on the way. "Sam! Wait!"
Sam did not falter, he had a simple plan.
After laying a last level of mortar on his own wall, Sam turned the corner to work on the walls next to his masterpiece. He stacked and spread for hours, breaking only to eat, despite his stomach pains, and to drink from his canteen habitually. He did not want to find anger in black emptiness again; he had found enough, already. Taylor noticed the odd work ethic.
"Hey, Sam," Taylor said, interrupting Sam's working groove.
"What?" Sam asked, shortly.
"You okay, man? You seem to be pushing yourself pretty hard, and we've got a week left. You don't have to put out so much. Rest, Mexico is sweet." Taylor smiled, his green eyes showing a genuine cheerfulness.
"I'm fine, everything's fine," Sam said sheepishly.
He continued slathering mortar while Taylor stood for a second, then departed.
The following morning, a quiet alarm buzzed next to Sam's head. He jolted up, ready. He was already clothed in warm, dark garb. He unzipped his tent's outer zipper one zip at a time. He waited what seemed like an eternity between each zip. He stepped out of his upright shroud and looked around. Good, the sun had hours to before its rise.
He stepped with his heels on the sand, and walked as silently as he could to the entrance road, a quarter mile away from the site.
His face was calm, indifferent. His eyes were droopy and punctuated with dark bags. He did not waver. He marched onward.
The wind breathed salty on Sam's face. He heard is name being whispered by his old friends back home. He smiled and received them. The rough terrain made him feel like a gaucho or a frontiersman, rugged and masculine. He marched for several miles north, guided by the stars. He felt the sun rubbing her eyes, and knew time was being cut short.
Minutes later, Sam saw his dull, white instrument, conduit, channel. He looked at the small plane, and thought of how these machines had been utilized as tools of destruction. This machine had no turrets, or attached explosive, but it still could destroy a man.
Sam glanced around. No one was in sight, no dusting for another three hours. The time was six am. Sam had everything planned.
The trek back brought Sam to the waking of his fellow architects and carpenters. He smiled, knowing that they loved what they did for God. They sure understood life, didn't they?
His smile did not pass, did not move, as he ate his heaps of eggs and toast. Somehow, his food stayed in his mouth, with a full grin of a joker. He sipped from his canteen and giggled. His jovial sensations were on the downswing, he knew work was on its way.
Sam brought all of his force to his extremities, laying the brick and slopping the mortar. This process was almost finished for all of the walls. Sam had even stepped up his help of Taylor's wall. He wanted the church built, darn it.
"Man, this is some heavy stuff, right?" Taylor asked, the bright sun, closing its eyes, Mr. Keller setting up a makeshift campfire in the distance.
"What do you mean?" Sam was elsewhere, lost in his thoughts.
"I don't know, building a church, hundreds of parishioners to come. This will be an epicenter."
"Yeah, I guess it is kind of cool." Sam looked at the dusking day. What glory, he witnessed on this everlasting night. "Yeah, it is cool."
In his dreams, pushing and pulling his mind around like a broken balance.
His rationality and his morals tugged at his psyche and culminated in his subconscious images.
A great beast of a building, the Empire State, proudly was being washed by Sam. He hung on a roped platform, a mile in the air. In his dream, the building was two-dimensional, though. He was on a cardboard cutout of a giant.
His clear plan in his dream began as he swung the platform from side to side, adherently not dangerous, but adding tension to the rope. He swung back, making a circle pass through the air, and the rain began to pelt his head. He swung forward and slammed into building, but his eyes were closed, and his ears plugged.
Sam fell from the platform knowing nothing, as if he couldn't know what was to come. He woke, his forehead dripping like a flooded attic.
The time had come.
Again, Sam was fully clothed, ready for the day to pass, as all things must. He unzipped his tent, slowly, but not apprehensively. Each passing moment provided even more understanding of the hours in progress. His obviously confused, near-lucid dream notwithstanding. He knew the score, and he was ready to play.
Walking in the footsteps he had created the day, Sam held his gear (a canteen, a flashlight and a pair of scissors) and pushed onto the beaten path, like an old poet.
He heard an anxious voice call out, as quiet as a fallen tree, miles away. "Sam? Man, what are you doing?"
He tensed and almost fainted. Sam quickly faced the man behind, knowing the voice. "Taylor, you startled me." He breathed deep. "I'm just going out for a walk; I've done this on all of my mornings.
"Sam, I know something has been going awry lately, but I don't know what." Taylor looked concerned, grave. Taylor could never understand what he was up to, Sam thought.
Sam sighed and focused his melancholy, "I just miss home. That's all."
"I'm not sure I believe you."
"Taylor, I am fine.
Each stared into the other's eyes.
"Taylor, I wouldn't lie to you. I am perfectly fine." Sam's face did not move, but his stomach dropped to his feet.
"Okay, man." Taylor spoke with a disappointment, repressed with a history of bitterness. Sam didn't know the first thing about Taylor, but Taylor wished he could have shared his stories. Taylor turned, his stomach at his feet.
Sam speed-walked, knowing it would be his last chance, all the way to the small crop-duster, by doing this, he ensured the safety of all of his trip-mates. They were not a target, not by him.
He gaped at the stars and the land around him from his snake-eye view. He smiled, half-unsure. Sam placed his hand on the cockpit door and felt the tension of the ropes holding him high in the air. No, he told himself. This was the only right option.
Sam swung open the side door and stepped inside. He took his theft gear and went to work. The Air Force had taught his father many things, and most of the immoral skills were passed down to Sam. He cut two separate wires with his scissors under his flashlight and hit them together. The engine revved. He would be in flight momentarily.
He took a swig of his water and pressed on the accelerator, gently. The plane eased forward and gained speed; Sam flipped the occasional switch and turned his attention towards the sky. These motions had become habitual.
He was in the air, and gaining height.
As Sam hit the top of his stride, he began to slowly change his grade toward the Earth. On the jagged horizon, with the tips of sullen mountains suddenly, gloriously lit, Sam was flying.
Sam knew that he was destined as a chain in the mithril of an infinite struggle. He could've been a policeman in a corrupt city, making the law abide by justice one step at a time. He could have been a revolutionary in a third world country. He could've tackled an environmental issue after running for president. He could have been a dreamer, a poet, a visionary
The plane, a pale speck in the grand tide, dived down, lower and lower. It was suspended by the air slamming against its metal skin. It flexed and eased, calmly He steered this downward spiral.
The "Ride of the Valkyries" flooded Sam's mind along with a great confidence. He smiled, shallowly, to himself.
"Well, I won't worry about anything now," he muttered to himself.
The plane came down faster, meaningfully. His eyes widened and a final thought was brought before him as his old aircraft slammed into the nearly-built, small, white church.
"What if I was wrong about everything?"
And it hit him, with a thousand bricks on his head. This was a great violent, hand-crafted nuisance, and he was stealing a man's machine and destroying one of the mission's finest works. Guilt swept over him like an avalanche. He couldn't win. He'd already lost. He spoke.
"So God, Buddha, whatever, I would just like to go down saying that this was wrong. Okay? I feel terrible about lying to Taylor, he was-"
