Marshall Ramsey

One a cold January night, an exhausted man placed his head on a magic pillow. As he began his quest for a good night’s sleep, he felt the weight of the blankets on his body. His eyes looked up at the ceiling and counted the ceiling fan’s still blades.

One…..Two…..Three…….

He began to drift off into another realm; his vision faded into darkness. He felt his body lighten and then felt a slight falling sensation.  Time and space began to droop like a Dali painting.  Fleeting images flirted past his head like a hummingbird in search of nectar.  The magic pillow was beginning to work.

Vivid dreams began flooding the chambers of his brain.

He dreamed of being in shape. Of having plenty of energy to work through he hectic day and looking good to impress his wife.  He dreamed of finishing the big 10K race in town. He could hear the crowds cheer him as he crossed the finish line. He saw his kids holding signs congratulating him.  He tasted the sweat drip down from his brow. He felt his lungs labor and burn.

He then dreamed of having a successful career as a writer.  He saw himself standing at a podium speaking to an audience who had come to buy his latest novel.  He saw his book on the NY Times Best Seller List

He dreamed of having a happy family. Of his wife smiling and his children growing up healthy and happy.

He dreamed of wealth. Of never having to worry about money again.  He drove his nice car and enjoyed his modest but luxurious house.

The magic pillow cradled his head, allowing peaceful sleep that allowed his desires to come forward and dance on this brain’s main stage.

He watched his wife sleep, heard her soft snore and smiled.  First he’d go for a run. Then he’d write 1,000 words. Then he’d do some work around the house to surprise his wife when she woke up.  All before anyone else in the neighborhood lifted their head off their pillows.

He looked down at his magic pillow and realized how its power truly worked:  You have to lift your head off of your pillow early every day and get to work.

It was the first step in making his dreams come true.

A beagle howled in the distant hills.  Somewhere a rabbit was having a bad day.

Jake Duffy slammed the door on his rusty blue 1978 Chevy truck with a metallic thunk. He laughed — It was a miracle the door just didn’t fall off onto the frost-covered grass. Winter held its grip on East Tennessee.  The surrounding mountains were painted in gray and brown brushstrokes. A blanket of snow capped the distant peak of Mount LeConte.

The fence was broken from a fallen cedar tree.  Jake rustled around for his work gloves and his hammer. He pulled the wire and boards from his truck and prepared to get to work.  Sunrise came late this time of year and he had a ton of work to do back at the house. The sun had already peaked its head over the distant mountains.  The law and this broken fence wouldn’t wait.

The beagle howled again.  Jake smiled and thought of the beagle he had as a child.  The damn dog’s brain was in its nose.

The good news was that none of his cows had gotten loose.  That was one of the reasons he had gotten to the back part of the farm so quickly after the storm.  He had the world’s laziest cows: They didn’t produce milk. They produced butter.  And they sure didn’t hurry off when there was a breach in the fence. A Jersey cow wandered up the hill to investigate what was going on.

“Good morning, Iris,” Jake said.

“Moo.”

Talking to cows was easier than dealing with people.  At least the cows were innocent. And in some cases smarter.

Being a District Attorney in these parts meant you dealt with a lot of Methamphetamine cases.  Jake never understood the appeal of drugs.  But meth completely escaped him. Methamphetamine was made from ephedrine in Japan in 1893 by chemist Nagai Nagayoshi.  And it was all downhill from there. Why someone would want to destroy so much for the sake of getting high was a complete mystery to him.  He had come home to fight the toughest war he had fought yet.

“Moo.”

“I’ll get the fence done, don’t you worry.”

Iris didn’t seem to believe him.

Jake was first in his law class at Harvard Law. He had a stack of offers from the top firms in New York but he had done what he always did: He took his own path. He joined the Army, joined the J.A.G. Corps and served two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.  He saw things that would make the toughest Marine cry.  That’s why he came home. Instead of trying to make a difference in the mountains in Afghanistan, he thought he’d try to help his own community.

It was rewarding and at the same time frustrating.

He checked his Timex.  “Sorry Iris. I’d love to chat. But I have bad guys to prosecute.”  His first case was in two hours.

Iris seemed offended and headed back down the hill to join the rest of the herd.

He put the broken parts of the fence in the back of his truck. He looked at his old truck. His classmates drove Porsches and BMWs.  They’d look down their rich noses at his ride.

During  a rocket attack in God-knows-where, Afghanistan, he had made a promise to God and himself that’d he never be like his classmates. That he’d make a difference in this world. Some days he doubted he had.  But on other days, the days when he saved a child from a meth lab or helped a good kid get clean, well, he felt like he was keeping up his end of the bargain with God.

That’s why he bought the farm. That’s why he came up to fix the fence. He needed to see that snow-capped peak at Mount LeConte to remind himself that there was indeed a higher power. That there was good in the world.  Because between two wars and now a war on Meth, he had had his faith challenged.

The beagle howled again.  A gunshot rang out. The rabbit probably needed more than a good lawyer at this point.

Now it was time for him to go be a beagle.  It was time to chase down a few rabbits of his own.

Jake Duffy put the truck in drive and headed to the County Courthouse. It was time to make a difference in his hometown.  It was time to make another payment on a debt.  It was time to go after the bad guys.

The beagle howled. He had picked up another scent and was hot on the trail once again.

The small commuter plane bounced through the sky like a cork on a stormy sea. The passenger in seat 4A gripped his barf bag, looking out the window for any sign of land.  Lightning skipped from cloud to cloud, painting the thunderheads with a frightening glow.  He preferred bigger planes.  They made it easier for the authorities to find the crash site.

It had been a long year up North. Cold winters and cold people had left his heart with a nasty case of frost bite.  But now he was coming home. To the place he loved. He felt his heart melting. If Flight 3212 from Atlanta would now only make it to the ground safely.

His stomach and the landing gear dropped toward the ground.  The plane had broken free of the storm and the full moon dramatically illuminated the ground below. Lights twinkled like stars in the Southern sky and he saw the ink-like reservoir pass beneath them.  The plane banked and make its final approach.  It was now headed South.

South.  A place where people dropped their g’s.  South. Where kids were still taught to say “Yes, Sir” and “No, Ma’am.” South. The place where he was raised. South. The place where his Mama was. Home.

The elderly black lady next to him closed her eyes as the plane’s wheels touched down.  Her name was Dorothy and lived in the small Delta town of Belzoni.  He had struck up a conversation with her when they had taken off — something he NEVER did when he was up North.  She had nine kids and 23 grandkids.  They had pitched in and bought her a trip to Europe for her birthday.  That’s where her deceased husband had fought bravely in World War 2.  He loved the South just for that reason: The stories.  Southerners loved to tell their stories.  He had missed that. Talk to someone on the sidewalk where he lived and he or she would think you were about to attack.

The door opened and he felt the blanket of hot, humid air cover his soul.  The damp air reminded him of his childhood. Of playing in the puddles after so many June thunderstorms. Of skipping stones in the nearby lake. He smiled, grabbed his carry-on bag and headed toward baggage claim.

The blonde woman at the rental car counter was studying a college textbook.  “How may I help you sir?”  He hung on every word of her Southern drawl, each one-syllable word was deliciously drawn out to at least two.

“I’d like a car.  I’m going home.”

Home.  He told his co-workers at the bond firm that home was where Mama lived. They laughed at him for saying, “Mama,” but he didn’t care.  If he had had a compass, it would not have pointed North. It would always point true South. It would point home.

He headed east on the interstate. Driving was weird. He had been riding trains and in cabs for so long he had almost forgotten how. Three does and a buck munched on grass in the highways’s median. A truck passed him with a Mississippi State sticker.  Pines reached up to the sky, defining the horizon.  A pink glow kissed them on their heads.  A Southern sunrise was welcoming him back.

He got off on “his” exit, turned right and drove South on the narrow state highway.  An armadillo ran across the road, nearly ending up as opossum on the half shell.  He laughed to himself — he had not thought of that corny joke in years. Thirty miles of hardwoods, pines, fence posts, trailers and homes until he saw the dirt drive.  He put on his signal (like there was anyone driving at this time of morning) and heard the familiar crunch of gravel beneath his tires.

The lake looked like a mirror.  Glass-like and reflecting the glorious pink storm clouds, it stood like a sentinel.  A guard between him and his final destination.  Vapors of mist danced across the ground from the earlier rain. He stopped his car, got out and felt the squish of the red clay beneath is Ferragamo loafers. He took them off and threw them and his socks into the backseat. He felt the mud between his toes. Just like he had when he was a kid.

He walked over to the lake and picked up a flat stone.  It was time to tithe to the gods of the lake.  The first rock skipped five times. The 20th rock skipped 10.  He watched as the rings grew and grew and grew each time the stone touched the glassy surface.  Each one changed the lake and then the lake when still again. Just like the event he was here for would change his life.

He pulled the car up to the driveway and saw the cars already there.  He walked to the small house’s front door and took once last breath of his childhood. He held it for as long as he could and then he exhaled.

The door opened and there was his father.  The two men hugged for the first time in their lives.

“Your Mama would have wanted to hug your neck.  I did it for her,” the old man said. “I’m glad you made it home for her funeral.  It was all so sudden.”

“I know Dad. I miss her already. I miss her laugh. Her comforting me when I was hurt. I miss her smile.”  The two men walked quietly into the kitchen. There the funeral food was already starting to pile up.  He looked on the counter and saw fried chicken and wine.

And then he lost it.

On that muggy Mississippi morning, he broke down in tears.  His compass had brought him South to where his Mama was. It had brought him home one last time.