Beyond the Dirt Road

The old man was the first person I saw when I woke up.

The fuzzy feeling in my eyes turned into fuzzy light and that light soon turned into shapes. With a finale tickle from his brush, the shapes turned into brilliant, beautiful things all around me and I saw for the first time the old man sitting there and smiling. He sighed with satisfaction and leaned back in his chair to gaze at me. “There we go,” he said, “You’re finally beautiful.”

As he turned and cleaned his brushes his merry gray eyes laughed at me through delicate wire spectacles. I watched him in curiosity. With his set of paints and brushes snapped shut in a smooth wooden case, he turned to leave.

“Fonzie’s going to love you.” He smiled at me once more, then chuckled on his way down the steep steps of the loft.

I dried in the sun.

The morning light pouring in from the single dorm window warmed my face and lit up the delicate dust particles as they floated past. Looking up at the strong honey-colored beams holding up the attic’s roof, I felt safe in the warm wooden easel. I will never forget that first hour by myself in the attic.

Perhaps it was then that I first noticed what was around me in my own world. I was cradled in a swing, my legs dangling out from a short summer dress and my bare toes about a foot from the grass. The swing was suspended from a great big oak tree and sitting at my feet, smiling up at me, was a rust-colored puppy.

To my left a dozen yards away stood a white two-story farmhouse, its door facing us, with a red brick chimney climbing up the side. A dirt path ran in front of us, one way leading down towards the shining rooftops of a town, the other way curving beside the house and disappearing up over a bluff. I wondered what was over that bluff. The path looked so inviting, as if just on the other side of the hill some wonderful spectrum awaited me. I so badly wanted to slip out of the swing and let my legs carry me down the path and up and over the hill. What could be over there?

My curiosity was cut short, however, when I heard the groan of the stairs and the short huff of the old man as he climbed them. He appeared holding a bundle of brown paper and a chord of string.

“We better get you wrapped before Fonzie comes home,” he said as he carefully lifted me and placed me down on the brown paper. The sides were folded around me and gently tied up with the string. Lifting me up in his hands I was carried down the stairs and into the house. It was dark and I could tell I was upside down when he placed the package in a chair, but I had no clue on what was going on or what was about to happen.

Then Fonzie came home.

On entering the room, she said, “Oh Elroy, you know I didn’t ask for anything.”

“I know,” Elroy said, “Just open it. It’s been a long time in the working.’

My sides were lifted into a soft lap, and as Fonzie peeled away the wrapping I saw for the first time her beautiful face.

She cried when she opened me. Tiny trickles of tears squeezed their way out of her eyes and down her wrinkled face. I immediately loved her and felt a strong tug towards her. As she wiped her eyes with the hem of her apron, Elroy came up behind her chair and kissed her. “Happy birthday, my love,” he murmured.

“But how?” She asked, recovering from the shock, “I thought this painting was lost forever.’

“It was,” Elroy said, “But I found it and finally was able to finish her face.”

“I still remember this day…”

Together they stared at me and shared a memory between them hidden deep in the archives of time. I was taken from their parlor and placed around the corner in a front dining room where Elroy hung me on a brick wall above a little brown piano.

“There,” Fonzie said, “Now I can see it every time I play.”

They kissed again.

From that day forward I happily hung above Fonzie’s piano and enjoyed the simple life that people of their age live. Elroy and Fonzie busied themselves during the warm spring days by reading or drinking tea together with ice at the dining room table. Large wooden-framed windows filled up one wall of the room and Fonzie spent many hours of each day watching the little sparrows and barn swallows that hopped from one bush to another.

As the summer bloomed and the sun got more stubborn to leave the sky, the big screen door across from me was opened and the cool summer breeze and rich fragrance of honeysuckle swirled in and cooled the house. Those days were filled with lemon bars, wedges of sweet melon and lots of iced tea. Then came my favorite part when dusk rolled around and the fireflies zipped in front of the large windows. With the table cleared and decorated with the soft glow of two old fashioned oil lamps, and the screens were in for the night, Fonzie slid onto the piano bench and paged through a hefty volume of music that sat cradled above the keys. After a minute or two she began to play.

Her music filled my heart and gave me life. I could feel as the rich sound would escape the body of the piano and crawl up the brick wall into me. My chest filled with her melodies and nearly burst with my love for her. Elroy would sometimes look up from where he sat reading and look over at her with a twinkle in his eye as her fingers danced over the keys.

An hour passed and with it a lifetime of music. Then a finale jolly piece brought it all to an end. He always applauded and she always blushed. If I could have clapped I would have.

Then the lamps were turned down, and chuckling, the two went off to bed leaving me with a warm feeling in my chest. I could live this way forever.

As the house cooled and the moon rose, putting a large patch of white on the floor by the table, I was left to think. It seemed like during these soft moments in the dark, I couldn’t help but come back to thinking what was over the hill. I don’t know what fascinated me about it. It was just so close yet so far…

Then one hot summers day, Elroy and Fonzie’s daughter showed up from the city. She arrived in a cloud of perfume, and on entering the dining room, the first thing that slipped from her mouth was, “Where’d that painting come from?”

She was looking at me. There weren’t any other paintings around the house that I knew of.

Fonzie came up beside her and said in a rather excited voice, “Oh Beverly, your father painted it! Isn’t it lovely?”

Beverly eyed me suspiciously. She was a bulky lady in an incredibly frilly pink dress and matching sunhat. Turning up her little shrimp of a nose, she spun and strutted into the parlor. Elroy and Fonzie followed at a safe distance as she proceeded to further familiarize herself with their resent changes to the place. As odd as it was, I could tell this visit was annual and expected by both her parents.

It wasn’t until she sat done at the dining table, motioned for Fonzie to get her tea, and stared directly into Elroy’s face that her tone got cold.

“Father,” she began, “Once again I wonder why you two are wasting away on this awful farm.”

Elroy sighed a deep, tired sigh as she continued, “You know this place is too much work for the both of you to take care of. Either you come home with me to the city, or you break your neck fixing that darn roof or…get trampled by the cows next door.”

Fonzie was quiet as she poured the tea, and I could see her hands shaking. Elroy sat unblinking as he gazed out the large windows. Minutes passed. Beverly’s lips were tied up in a pinched line and she was glaring at her father, waiting for him to make a move. Then Elroy finally murmured, “We’ll think about it, sweety…”

Beverly erupted, saying, “Dad, you say that every time! We’re heading to the city whether you like it or not!”

When Fonzie finally spoke, her voice was oddly quiet, “Baby, your father just needs more time to think about it, that’s all.”

Beverly huffed, rose from her chair and stormed out, slamming the door behind her. After the murmur of her car was gone, the two didn’t say anything for a while. Then Fonzie came up behind him and placed her hands on his shoulders. “You know she means well…”

“I just don’t want to lose what we’ve built.”

“I know.”

A month passed before seeing Beverly again and our entire life changed.

One rainy fall morning I waited for Elroy and Fonzie to come out of their room and start their day. The house was cold, and water poured from the eaves outside above the windows. An old clock in the parlor struck nine and I was beginning to worry when suddenly, the front door opened, and Beverly hurried in as white as a bedsheet. Heading towards her parents’ bedroom she emerged a minute later leading Elroy, and my heart broke when I saw his face.

He looked dead. Wet cheeks suggested he had been crying. As they shuffled out the door I had one question on my mind: Where’s Fonzie?

An eternity passed as I worried. Then finally the front door was opened wide and Beverly returned leading two women I didn’t know dressed in black uniforms walking a strange yellow table with wheels towards the back bedroom. Beverly looked broken.

They rushed in and came back seconds later, and lying strapped to the table was Fonzie. Her face was a milky white color, and she was looking blankly up at the ceiling.

If I could have cried I would have.

They wheeled her away and I never saw her again. The morning passed and no one came back into the house. Dark rain continued to pour. Hours passed. I didn’t know what to think anymore. What had happened to Fonzie? I needed to know.

Finally, when the clock struck four in the afternoon, Elroy came back and milled around the house, sobbing. He would wonder into one room, crumple down into a chair and wail loudly. Then move on, until finally he stopped before me, and staired up at me.

When he spoke, it was the voice of a broken man. “Fonzie. Can you hear me?” He was looking directly at me, into my eyes. “Fonzie,” he repeated, “Can you…”

He stopped. Reaching up he unhooked my frame from the brick wall and held me out in front of him loosely in his arms. Then he opened the front door and carried me out into the rain.

I had never been outside before, and my head spun with all the different things around me. Their house, of what I could see, was a charming blue house with clean neat white trim. A tiny beige car sat parked out front and Elroy carried me towards the back, where he opened the hatch and crammed me in. The rain had messed up the red dog at my feet and my left foot drooped awkwardly towards the grass, but I didn’t care. Elroy got in and rolled the car away, from the house, from the piano, from my life. Driving up over a bluff in the gravel driveway, I saw something that shocked me. Their, off the path sat the remains of a white farmhouse and an ancient tree, the treads of a swing dangling from a limb.

I had been over the path the entire time.

I was Fonzie.