Runaway Dreams (3 page)

ceremony doesn't change you

the old woman said

you change you

ceremony

is just the trail

you learn to follow

until you reach the place

where that can happen

I became an Indian after that

I ran away the first time when I was fourteen

sleeping in the cab of a rusted old Chev pickup

in an orchard outside of Beamsville

and waking to a morning purple as an old bruise

hungry, cold, lonely as a whipped pup

knowing I had to go back

but wishing strenuously

otherwise

I hit the road again at fifteen

and made it all the way to Miami Beach

the feel of the Greyhound wheels churning

through Pennsylvania like a hymn

and listening to an old black man in the Cincinnati station

sing me Bukka White songs with a tambourine

brought me more of the world in three verses

than I'd ever heard before

wandering Louisville

in the stark grey-green of morning

and realizing that Kentucky was more

than just the words of some old song

that it was people streaming to work

and the smell of fresh bread hanging in the air

somewhere like a tire on a rope

spinning and telling its stories to the breeze

then suddenly Knoxville

and the rippled blue promise of the Appalachians

while the guy beside me stank of old tobacco

and sipping Southern Comfort from a flask

talked of his home in the hills and how

Baltimore never really gave him a chance

to get his feet under him and make more

of things as he'd planned

for Ruth Ann and him

and the three kids

waiting

I kept repeating the name Chattanooga

to myself well into the red clay hills of Georgia

and there was something in the way Atlanta shone

with a hard resilient southern promise

that gave everything a sense of adventure

and hope so there was no room in my chest

for lonely or sorrow or melancholy or pain though

they were my constant partners then and I had

no wish for anything but the road

and the miles stacked up like a wall

between me and the bog of faces and smells

and recollections that had never once

meant anything like home was supposed to

in anything I'd read

from Lake City through Jacksonville

Daytona Beach and Fort Lauderdale

then swinging jauntily through Hialeah

into the shimmering pastel light of Miami

Florida was a dream unfolding like a map

I traced with a quivering finger against

the slick and polished windows

I splurged on sandals and a flowered shirt

and headed over the causeway to the beach

and stood gape-jawed and shaking at the glitter

of sand and surf and cocoa buttered bodies

and the push of cerulean blue

rinsing St. Catharines from my feet

I had paper route money

I'd taken from the bank

and it was enough to see me through a few days

and nights of sleeping on the beach near the breakwater

and the old hippies I met sharing wine and weed

singing Beatles songs, everyone caterwauling

the na-na-na Hey Jude part before downshifting

into “Let It Be,” told me where there was a job

I could have if I could cook

up a good enough story and it turned out

I could and I spent a week and a half swamping

the floors of a cafeteria and bussing dishes until

I couldn't come up with a social security number

and they let me go with a handful of cash

and a sack of leftovers I carried to the beach

and joined in for a round of the goatskin

and a huff of the weed before seguing into

an emboldened version of “Me and Bobby Magee”

we stamped the streets of Miami Beach like rogues

swiping drinks from sidewalk tables careful

never to break a glass and laughing giddy

as only young fools can, never minding things

like hunger, rootlessness and a unique kind of lonely

that sets in on you when you see families together

ebullient in their joy of stepping forward into

the world joined by the hand and a look in the eye

that says “contentment” that jostles at your ribs

and one night talking

at the bus station counter with a motherly hooker

named Esperanza who fed me and made me

drink milk and eat an apple before turning me in

to the Border Patrol and telling me to go home

because I could die on those streets and kissing me

full on the lips the smell of her

all sweat and salt and jasmine

I carried north into the hard slant of winter wind

at the airport in Toronto

where it faded in the cut of eyes

waiting to get me home

and out of the public eye

there was no hope for me after that

the world had come up and flashed me

and shown me that there was more to it

than the brutal isolation of that house

and that magic existed in the open spaces

between buildings and people bent on

making something more out of something less

and all the runaway dreams —

they tried of course, to bend me to their rules

to discipline the Indian right out of me

and with every whack of the belt or hand

the bruises they made sure were

hidden well beneath my clothing

they'd look me sternly in the eye and say

“you'll never run away again” and I

would almost laugh out loud because

of course

I'd already left a thousand times

by then

Riding the big rig out of South Cayuga

while headlights peel the skin off

Highway 3 leading you into Byng and Winger

then dipping south again into Wainfleet

with the smell of horses and cow dung

and fresh cut alfalfa. Timothy maybe, clover

and rain cutting north and west off Lake Erie

the sway of the fields so close

it felt like a sea

and the smell of grease and oil and rope

in the cab of the old Mack truck made you feel

like a mariner even though at seventeen

you'd only seen an ocean once

only ever felt adrift without a compass

or a pole star to lead you

so you pull into the town asleep

in the early morning wet

and stand shivering beside the rig

while other carnies drift across the lot

to stand beside the ride boss, smoking

smelling of last night's beer, cheap weed and two weeks

on the road without a bath and no one

says a thing, just stand there scratching

at their stubble or their ribs while the big man eyes the grounds

then grabs an arm of staves to mark the midway

marches it out in a matter of minutes and returns

to spit a stream of snuff at your shoes

and says “let's get 'er in the air”

you had no clue of what it meant to be Indian

then but it always struck you as a tribal sort of thing

that clanging, banging, sweating, cursing ceremony

of getting rides in the air

the lot of you bound by the carnie code

that says you work the show together

tossing wrenches, bolts and ball-peens between

the Tilt-a Whirl, the Octopus and Ferris Wheel

seeing whose crew could “get 'er done” first

then walking over to lend a hand elsewhere

so you heave and grunt in the hard sun

of another small town morning and try to ignore

the parade of hurly-burly village girls

trying to pretend they're not

the dip and swirl and thrust of young hips

eying the brown of you like a midway treat

edging closer and closer and asking questions like

“where ya from?” and “is that like, really heavy?”

and laughing, teasing, all rosy pink and clean

until you nod and smile and wipe the sweat and oil

from your face and start to promise rides

for free until someone's father grinds a smoke into the dirt

with the heel of a battered work boot and hollers “git”

you learned to live in a neon world back then

the flash and glitter of those lights all spin

and dance and synchronized and the wheel

turning slowly in the night above you

laughter falling like rain or confetti or the recollection

of dreams lying spent and sprawled, discarded

on the road somewhere behind you

people thanking you for transporting them back

to their own dreams of special girls, special boys

and long, wet first kisses while the wheel crested

throwing the whole midway into view

the light of it spectacular suddenly and them

giddy with the weightlessness of youth

the whole candy floss and candy apple world

rising like the ground to meet them

your world was roustabouts, semi-hacks and game-joint touts

and the smell of frying onions

from the grab joints down the way

and the creak and squeal of gears and turnbuckles

and cables taut in the wind that sent the dirt

in whirling dervishes to skittle across the apron

of the ride you swept clean fifty times a day

and the neigh of ponies in their harnesses

against the scream of someone's kid

frightened by the yawing mouth of a funhouse gargoyle

or a clown all brilliant and sad in the hard slash of sun

and the smell of sawdust in the rain

when the skies opened up and everyone came to huddle

under the awnings and smoke and cuss the luck

that sent the townies, the marks and the rubes packing

and the lingo of the lot was the argot of the road

where a town was a spot and a trip was a haul

and moolah was money except when you got specific

and what you really meant to say was

a fin, a sawbuck, a double or half a yard

the whole rambunctious, unpredictable

half-crazy, dizzily original

abstract landscape of it all set down hard against

sleepy, wink-eyed, dreamy small town Ontario

or Manitoba, Alberta or Quebec or wherever

that could come to feel like permanence almost

until the last ball or ring or dice was thrown

and the lot boss stood in the middle of it all

and yelled, “let's get this shit on the road!”

you'd tear it down just to build it again

a hundred miles down the road

and seventeen came to feel like a hundred sometimes

so that when you stood on the hub of the wheel

after bolting spokes and pulling cables snug

you felt the road and the miles and the wind

on your face and the feel of you

standing there suspended, thirty feet in the air

slowly growing older