The Nature of a Mountain Free Dating, Singles and Personals

The Nature of a Mountain Posted: 5/2/2009 7:42:38 AM
The beginning of a tale inspired by local color. On-going? Possible, depending on your comments, which I am asking for, and will thank you for - favorable or not - in advance. SC It’s the nature of a mountain to weather, to be broken down—they set themselves up for it. But I’m looking at three old guys leaned over the hood of a pickup truck, and wondering if there isn’t something in the air up here that beats and breaks everything else down along with the mountains. Something other than the wind and rain, the freezing and thawing. Maybe it’s the atmosphere, extra gravity, hell, the Spirit of the Mountain telling us to get back down where we belong. I check the meter on the pump. The truck is less than half full. I lean back against the bed and c**k my elbow over it—my apathetic truck owner viewing rodeo pose. I feign being transfixed by the rotting diesel and kerosene pumps beyond and to the left of the three old guys. I’ve never trusted sunglasses to conceal sideways scrutiny. It might be my conscious, but I always feel like people know I’m looking at them behind the dark lenses. And what am I going to do, ask? Anyway, if it works or not, I’m using them as a blind and gleaning some more details from my peripheral. My theory is gaining validity with each casual glance. At least it warrants a government funded looking in to. I’m certain that something greater than mere elements has abused these old guys, and their truck, relentlessly, since they left the womb—or dealer’s lot. They’re old guys, I tell myself. Old guys look this way. No, my dad, a flatlander, has got to be older than them and he doesn’t look half as gnarled. They’re all twisted and sinewy and their skin looks like some kind of protective bark. Jesus. I turn around and look the parking lot over. I can see the noses of two ragged cars and the American made body of a third, packed with ragged kids, who, through the glass, are the color of shot rock. The mother (I assume) flashes a smile of shale teeth, tells her brood to settle down in there and clatters the nozzle into the side of the car. She couldn’t be thirty. I can see the young under her shell. Now that I’m looking, even the pumps seem prematurely aged and I know their only three years old, I saw them installed. How come I never noticed this? I guess I’m in the middle of it and it grew on me, slow, like the poor grammar and limited conversation topics. I’m sure this doesn’t happen in places like Aspen or Tahoe; young, sharp, resort mountains, without enough topsoil for a man to take good root. You keep moving on that kind of mountain. Keep moving until you move on. It’s these old, low Appalachians, with just enough good dirt to make a man hope. Men slow down here, stay put and get pounded by whatever supernatural fist can beat the tar out of solid rock. I turn back to my pump and notice the old timers, on my way around, looking at me. I stop mid-way and nod. My reflection is standing in the Quick-Mart window behind them, pumping gas. Jesus, I look bent and hunched over myself, like I’ve been clinging to the side of this wind whipped ridge for twenty years. I’m one of them now. I’m this damn mountain. And whatever is beating it down is beating me down too. The heavy fella’ nods back, but the other two act as if they didn’t see me, which is possible. The pump clicks off. I cradle the nozzle, get my debit receipt and head to the store. I need beer. “How you boys doin’ tonight?” I say. I’m from California, but when in Rome… “Fine like wine,” one of the skinny two that didn’t see me earlier says. “You?” “Be better in a few.” They laugh. After twelve, you only buy gas, beer or cigarettes here. Mandy, the girl at the register doesn’t card me anymore but she always comments about the price of the Heineken I buy. There are a few things I could never assimilate: Nascar, football and Bud Light. Heineken isn’t my favorite, but it’s the best I can do here. Mandy’s voice is dreadlocks with a drawl. I tell her I won’t drink them all at once without calling her. She laughs. Mandy’s twenty-one, with three kids. I’m sure that it’s not just the mountain air that makes her look worn out. “You look better already,” the heaviest older says when I come out the door. “Damn straight,” I say. “You boys stay out of trouble—hear?” “We’ll try, but if we don’t we’ll name it after you.” They’re still laughing when I pull out and wave them, “Have a goodun.”