Abilene Trilogy

Home isn’t where you’re from, it’s wherever you find the light when all grows dark

Oct 14, 2023

Part 1

Hansen

He didn’t mean to do it. Sometimes things just happen on the road, that’s all. It wasn’t his fault, Hansen told himself. She started it. He set up the mikes and the snare stand, then he kneeled down on the dusty stage to adjust the kick drum monitor. “Hey!” Silas yelled over at him. “Don’t touch them Zildjians! I got them cymbals set just the way he likes ‘em. So leave ‘em alone.” Hansen gave him a dismissive nod and, shaking his head, he hissed, “Jackass”.

They were in Tennessee tonight, just outside of Gallatin. They’d been on the road for three weeks. He was new at the job, and catching on pretty fast. He hadn’t caused any major disasters, at least, his only mistake being he hadn’t called his wife, Ada Lee, in a long while.

Hansen stood up and was brushing the dust off the knees of his Levis when Bonita, the drummer’s available-looking wife, casually walked up behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. “Wait a minute, cowboy. Hold on,” she said. “Let me fix this.” She pulled his long brown hair loose where it was half tucked in beneath his jacket collar. She ran her fingers through it slowly and smoothed it out over his back. “There,” she said, looking him over with a flirty smile. “That’s working a little better for ya.”

It was an unexpected, intimate thing to do, touching him like that. He thanked her and quickly turned away, gathering up a snarl of extra cables. He glanced over at Silas who had a sleazy grin on his dumb-ass face. Silas winked at him, and gave him a sly thumbs up. That’s about the time that Hansen’s luck started going bad.

Ada Lee

She walked up the two-lane highway toward home, a long, chilly two miles that seemed more like twenty. Ada Lee’s feet already hurt from waiting tables all day, then that goddam truck wouldn’t start again. She was so fed up she just kicked the bumper twice, shouted something filthy that she hoped no one heard, and left the useless thing right there in the parking lot of the Hi-Ho cafe.

She needed to get home to her girls before dark. They got off the school bus at four every day and were alone for an hour until Ada Lee got home from work. Even though the neighbor lady was close by in case of trouble, her eldest daughter was only seven. She told her aching feet to get a move on.

Arriving home at sunset, she saw Hansen’s Plymouth on the other side of the hedge, and thought he’d come home. She’d forgotten for an instant that it was right where he’d left it over a month ago. Maybe it’s time to give up on him, she thought, shaking her head, but how was that to be done?

She noticed that the fence around her garden was broken into again; this was the third time. The boards were dangling like loose teeth. Pulling her coat more tightly around her, she walked over to see the damage. Someone had yanked out all the carrots this time and made off with them. At the moment, it was more than Ada Lee could bear, and she burst into tears. Maybe I should just leave the shovel out for them so they can steal the potatoes, too. Oh hell, if they are hungrier than we are … well, God bless them, I guess. She laughed as the tears poured down her cheeks like a salty-rain.

She went into the house and found her little daughters sitting on the carpet making paper dolls with pictures from the Sears Roebuck catalog.

“Hi, babies.”

“Look, mommy!” Millie said. “We are cutting out hats!

She kissed them both and sighed. They always grounded her, reminded her what was important to worry about. It wasn’t her absent husband and it wasn’t that broken-down truck and it sure as hell wasn’t those stolen carrots.

Francine and Millie

They were huddled together in their bed with the old quilt pulled up over their heads. Francine was reading to her sister about Mr. Toad in the faint glow of a fading flashlight. She was doing her best to veil the sound of their mother sobbing out in the other room, which happened every night now.

When Millie fell asleep, Francine slid out of bed and tiptoed in the dark out into the kitchen in her bare feet. Her mother, sitting at the formica table drinking beer, quickly wiped her face with the dish towel.

“Don’t cry, Mama,” Francine said, patting her mother’s knee. “It’ll be okay. Ever’thing’s gonna be okay.” Her mother didn’t speak. “You want me to make you some coffee, mama? Or some sugar-bread?” The roles had been reversed in this family ever since Hansen left. Little Francine was doing the mothering now.

“I don’t need anything, Francine, but I thank you, my sweetheart.” She pulled her daughter to her. “My darling girl, where would I be without you?” Francine did not know the answer to that question. She didn’t want to think about the answer to that question. My daddy is gonna come back, she thought. He always does. And ever’thing is going to be happy.

Part 2

Clint

“How you doing, Ada Lee? You’re looking cute as a bug’s ear this morning with that little flower stuck in your hair like that.” Clint sat down hard on a stool, threw his keys and his book on the counter, and blew out a heavy breath. He always showed up for his breakfast a little late because the Hi-Ho Cafe was in the weeds, as they say, if you showed up before nine. Truckers crammed in there early, like pickles in a jar.

Ada Lee smiled at him. She brought him a mug of coffee and shouted back to the kitchen, “Gimme a Number 7 – two eggs flopped - burnt bacon in the alley!” Clint had been ordering the same thing every morning for at least a year – two flapjacks, two eggs over easy and a few slices of side pork, scorched to a cinder. If nothing else, Clint is steady and predictable, Ada Lee thought. Nothing wrong with that in a man.

“So… have you heard from Hansen? Is he on his way back yet? Seems like he’s been gone a long time.”

“Oh, he’ll be back, Clint,” she said, shaking her head. “Haven’t heard from him in a while. He’s been gone over a month this time, but he is working, so that’s a good thing. And he always comes back. Sometimes I wish he’d just keep on going. You know what I mean?” she laughed.

“Must be tough keeping it together with him away and all.” He watched Ada Lee wipe off the ketchup bottles and fill the sugar shakers. She was his lodestar; he needed no other compass.

That Hansen, he thought, an outright fool is what he is... a beautiful woman like that waiting for him. And those sweet little girls. A damn shame if you ask me. I’d take ‘em all in a minute and love ‘em forever, if I had the chance.

“I’ll go out and have a look at that pickup of yours before I head out, Ada Lee. See if I can’t figure out what’s wrong with it. Toss me your keys, girl.”

A half hour later, Ada Lee, watched Clint stride out the door and head for her old truck. It had been broken down in the parking lot for two days. As he propped up the hood and began tinkering, she put down a tray of cups and dishes she was carrying. Watching him out the window, she suddenly saw him for the first time, not as a customer, but as the good and kind man he was. Why had she never noticed that about him before?

Bonita

Hansen thought to himself the minute he’d met her, I’ll just stay away from that one. It was the hungry way she had of looking at him — too long, and a little sideways, like a bird of prey. He was not the only man Bonita pinned to the wall with those eyes, either. He saw how she hung around the bass player, leaning over him when he was drinking his beer, giving him a closer view of her assets. Hell, she even toyed with Otis. What kind of woman would bother with a loser like that?

Hansen ran through the rain into the roadside tavern and saw her sitting at the bar working on a Jack and Coke. She was already drunk as a boiled owl. Sitting down on the stool next to her was not a good decision, but it wasn’t the first mistake he’d ever made, God knows. Hansen knew that Bonita’s husband, the drummer for the Rumple-Stumps, was not stupid — he’d surely seen his wife flirting with Hansen for the last two weeks. But Hansen told himself it probably didn’t bother the man. Turns out he was wrong on that score.

Hansen now found himself staring out a grimy window in the back of a Greyhound bus as it pulled out of Knoxville. He’d left Richmond early this morning, and already had four-hundred miles behind him, with a thousand more to go. He felt crapulous – hung-over, stomped on, broken. His teeth were loose; it hurt to blink and it hurt even more to breathe.

The other passengers avoided looking at him, with his two black eyes and the swollen nose that was no longer quite in the center of his face. No one took a seat anywhere near him. They couldn’t even imagine the worst of it, the painful ribs, cracked by multiple impacts of the drummer’s steel-toed boots. When he’d found them together in the Turnpike Motel, he’d beaten the crap out of Hansen and dragged Bonita away, calling her names that Hansen had never even imagined before. Needless to say, he got out of there soon as he could manage to stand up and get his pants back on.

He just wanted to get home now – home to Abilene, to Ada Lee and his own bed. He dreaded the two days of bus travel, but he was going to need that time to figure out what kind of story he could tell Ada Lee that accounted for his injuries and about what blame-free circumstances had caused him to lose his job. It never even occurred to him to tell her the truth.

Hannah

Hannah was standing at the kitchen window watching the little neighbor girls play. They were sitting out in the dirt with soup spoons, scraping out little roads and using pinecones for houses, rocks as cars. The broken twigs might have been fences. They were making up little stories as they played.

She loved watching those little girls. She usually kept an eye on them after school for an hour or two, waiting for Ada Lee to get home from work. She went to the back door. “Hey, you little sweethearts. Come see me. I have a treat for you two girlies.” Francine and Millie jumped up, brushed off their pants and came racing over through the hole in the hedge. They took turns standing on a little red stool, washing their hands at Hannah’s kitchen sink.

She put a small plate of molasses cookies on the table. “I made these myself. You girls want milk with them?”

“Yes, ma’am,” said Millie, bouncing like a rubber ball.

“Yes, please,” Francine, reminded her little sister.

“What were you two doing out there sitting in that dirt?”

“Jes’ playin’,” Millie said, around a mouthful of cookie.

“We’re building us a town,” Francine explained, “with houses, dogs, streets, ‘an ever’thing.” She used her napkin like a big girl.

Hannah sat down at the table with the girls and listened to their happy chatter. It seemed to fill all the corners of her usually quiet house, her solitary life. Hannah was expecting a baby girl of her own in 4 months. Nobody knew about that but her — not her neighbor, not her sister, not even the baby’s father, whoever he was. He had just broken into her house one late night, took what he wanted from her and left. Hannah hadn’t even bothered going to the police.

Part 3

Ada Lee

“I don’t want any alimony or child support, your Honor, I just want out. He can just barely support himself, if you want the truth,” said Ada Lee. “It’s like this, ma’am: I am a working woman and a working woman can always find work. Hansen is lazy, and a lazy man can never find work — and he makes excuses for it. He drinks too much, he runs around with other women. He goes away for days at a time. He has no sense of responsibility, your Honor, to himself, to me or to the girls. He doesn’t know what it means to be a grown-up. He can’t even keep his car running, or mow his grass. I can take care of myself and my girls, but I don’t want to keep on taking care of him, too. I have given him nine long years, and I do wish him well, but I am done with this marriage.”

The judge looked out at the observers in her court room. “Folks, now this is an example of the true pioneer spirit – a woman who faces her future with determination and confidence in her abilities. I commend you, Ms. Greer, for staying with it and for trying to work it out, and I’ll grant you a divorce. I’ll accept your request for waiver of any alimony, however, even though you don’t request it, I am granting you $1 per month child-support, so that should your children require financial support in the future, you can apply for a higher amount. If I waive support for your children now, you cannot sue for it in the future, so I am just looking out for you here.”

Ada Lee was glad it was over. It had been a hard decision, one she did not take lightly. Hansen hadn’t even shown up in court today, didn’t even try to speak for himself. She walked down the steps of the courthouse, with her chin up, went straight to her truck and got out on the highway. She had to get to her afternoon shift at the Hi-Ho, just like any other day.

Alvie

Hansen’s brother was driving him nuts. He’d been sharing his brother’s disgusting motor-court apartment for about a year now. Just a temporary measure, he said. Alvie was the opposite of Hansen in nearly every way. True, both were hopeless when it came to keeping a steady job, and both were always broke, and both had a high degree of affection for beer, but where Hansen was slow and quiet and a complainer, Alvie was excitable and impulsive. He wasn’t stupid, exactly, but everything was always a joke to him. He couldn’t seem to communicate like a normal person. Maybe he was a little stupid.

“Hey, buddy-roe! Ya’ finally got yourself cut loose! Yer a free man now, ya’ bastard!” he slapped Hansen on the back, punched him hard in the shoulder. “Let’s get our asses on over to the Arrow and have ourselves a couple of cold Lone Stars to celebrate.” He threw Hansen’s Levi jacket at him, grabbed his phone and headed out the back door.

Hansen didn’t feel like celebrating. He’d married Ada Lee just one year after he’d dropped out of high school. He’d loved her for a long time, and now he’d lost her. And he was stuck in this pig-sty with his crazy-ass brother. None of it was his fault. She never did understand him, that’s all. He had bad luck, just couldn’t manage to get ahead. It seemed the whole world was against him. He followed Alvie out the door. To hell with it, he thought, I am gonna go get drunk.

Family

The girls were in the back bedroom giggling, because giggling is what little girls do on a Sunday afternoon when summer’s coming, and they are all safe and happy. Francine and Millie, and Hannah’s little girl, Callie, were inseparable, always stuck together like fingers in a mitten. They had been taking turns singing into the little red Sony microphone, pretending they were rock stars, practicing their dance moves. And giggling.

Ada Lee was busy in the kitchen, humming under her breath, stirring a pot of chicken stew. Peach dumplings, too, were bubbling slowly on the stove top, filling the room with the smell of heaven. Hannah was making up some soda bread to pop into the oven. Their friend, Clint, from up near Hawley was coming for dinner tonight. Over the last two years their lonely lives had merged in an unexpected way, they had become a sort of family. Clint had made a wish, and had magically received far more than he ever dreamed of. He had five women in his life now – Ada Lee and Hannah and the three little girls, and a wide future to look forward to. They all decided that family is family, whether it’s the one you start out with, or the one you choose along the way. And home isn’t where you’re from, it’s wherever you find the light when all grows dark.

The lovely portraits are by photographer, Joseph Wyman, who travels the U.S. in a van, immortalizing folks with a process of “tintype” photography from the late 1800s. Have a look at his sensitive, evocative portraits of Americans. Stunning! JOSEPH WYMAN PHOTOGRAPHY

LEAVES

Discussion about this post