Some of us young people rose in the ocean waves crashing like froth. Authentic--yes, glamorous--no. Besides being boomed and busted by the American cycles and not having any real security, we were bundles of emotion and energy. Between the menopausal middle agers and the difficult elders and every sort of "traditional" gone or going weird, some of the Cherokee men and women called for extra meditation and bonding. Many got kind of sucked into not walking away.
"But I'm not thrilled about any of this," one Cherokee woman said. She'd managed to eek out a living in a full-time-job-necessary environment while being decidedly shut out of automatic benefits and job security often being told keep at it, it will change. Like she might do the right favor or....I hesitated to finish the sentence. A Cherokee man who'd taken time to read some of my writing knew I was having a hard time writing "truth" without being harassed as the messenger. His hand lingered over re-packing some dollar store groceries but when I didn't finish my sentence he asked out loud, "Kissing the right, probably white, asses?" I nodded yeah.
"Why did you bring all our food up here into the forest?" A woman asked as she completed the walking-in with duct-taped shoes and newly carved-on walking stick. "Why not?" The man asked back. The woman sighed. "I thought we were going to," her words fell away and her eyes filled with tears which the man did not see because he'd put a rip in a bag of macaronis and busied himself picking up dropping out macaronis. "Just go back to normal?" The man asked.
A boy, small, but like a little man, came and sat at the pinic table. He watched the man spill out more macaronis to pick up. Weathered labor hands seemed to decide which macaroni should be picked up next and then next. The woman just stood there. The evening sounds of the forest were beginning to rise. "If we move away, we may not come back." The man said more to the macaronis than anyone specific.
"Because you gave up a long time ago," one man said to another man. The beer cans were in a descending order of really crushed to barely crushed but the man's can do mood was clearly ebbed away. "At least they're not in the river," the other man had declared regarding progress to a fellow forest worker just checking in, and going home.
A forest messenger held up the relay to check in with some of the women and children. She stood, mohawk hairstyle slightly sagging for the afternoon's thundershower, and one kid hollered out, "MOM!!!!". Other children made way from imagination and invented activities towards the figure waiting. "Wow." A thin small girl said. "That's some hairdo," a brother finished the sentence. Our mom made way to the relayer. "Do I write it down?".
"You can."
Mom dug out her Astronaut pen and scissors from a sagging back pocket. "No paper," she told as she was remembering using the last of the looseleaf for starting a campfire and a songwriting session. "What is the message?" The relaying woman asked. Another mom with the feet part of her stockings cut away and feet dirtying walked over. "She wants to know if her menfolk are okay," she said. The brother smiled bright and glamorous and looked at our mom and said, "I'm good. Can't you tell?!" Mom smiled too. "Yes, I can. But I haven't heard from my other, uh, menfolk."
"She has many." A Cherokee mom also walked up.
"And what part of the Forest are they staying in?"
Mom dug around in more jeans pockets and found scraps of paper but was tear-ing up and so the barefooted woman in the business suit skirt put her hand over the scraps and told, "She misses her husband." Sherry nodded. A couple tears plopped on her blushing cheek. These she wiped away after stuffing the scraps back into her pocket. Her girls smiled then, okay.
Nearing the Appalachian Trail the amount of wetted-and-dried paper towels and wet wipes was considerably less than in the campgrounds. A skinny guy in a colorful nylon jacket like a horse jockey's came down out of a very tall pine tree. His rock climbing shoes and chalkbag were zipped-in between the jacket and his bare chest. He tucked a small but stealthy pair of binoculars into one of his pockets. "HARK! I hear the angels have been singing," he said to the relay messenger. She took a leather pouch out of her raggedy pants waistband. Unrolled a little rolled pile of small dollar bills and licked a finger to count out twenty-three dollars. "Groceries." The man asked, "Mostly salad?" And the woman snatched the money back. "I'll find someone else." The man pulled out a twenty from the not binoculared pocket. "Your B-eye."
"Your kids need their own food to keep staying," she pointed chewed down dirty finger nail at a hand-drawn map, "There." The man's eyes flashed wide open, then brow furrowed. "You found them?!"
"No message."
"But, did they look okay?"
The mohawk somewhat bounced as she nodded. The man gave her the twenty dollar bill and leapt a good four feet from ground onto tree trunk. He shimmied to a remaining low, thick branch and sat his butt there. "Practicing," he told me. I shook myself from just gazing. "Do you do it professionally?"
"Right now there are only some contests."
"I think I saw one announced in the newspaper."
"There's a newspaper?" The mohawked woman asked.
"Sort of. Funny story really. To hear tell because of the gas prices and all that, we had to relay a bunch of had-beens to produce a few sheets worth of 'area' news."
"Had-beens?"
"Cha. Had-been actively literary but when the economy broke a lot of people suddenly just had dreams but no money."
"Same with us outdoorsy people," the man finished unpeeling a fruit rollup ans let the wrapper drop. "You stop that!" The woman said. I went closer to the tree and swiped the trash up. The man let half a fruit rollup wrapped in a dollar bill fall out of the tree. "It's all yours Eve. If'n you want it." I looked up quizzocally at his now swinging feet. Hard muscles like ballet people I'd met in New York City. Then I left it there and started to walk away.
A clanging could be heard before we got to a mancamp. The woman with the mohawk flapped her hand twice on my shoulder and pointed with her head that I should stay back. I fell behind maybe twenty, twenty-five feet but found a hiding spot near the entrance. The relay messenger walked the length of the campground area, came back to the entrance, pulled up a pantleg and removed a small bundle of mail-looking materials including a Time magazine. Then she went back in and matched a list of numbered "messages" to campsites.
Without being able to hear, my mind matched up the image of the strange-looking person talking with various men with how it might have seemed as "diplomats" checked-in with various stalled fighting tribes. The woman made her way towards the clanging, a site in the middle. A man put down a hammer he'd been using on an anvil and stood but didn't leave his stool. The messenger handed him an envelope. He slumped back onto the stool and clearly was hesitant to open it. He asked her something. Then she asked him something. He pointed with the envelope to another man and a small boy. The taller of the two's eyebrows went up and he pointed at himself like a questionmark. The woman chewed the inside of one side of her lips. Then went towards the pair. The older quickly sat down in a plastic lawn chair with three good legs and one leg busted like it had a folding knee.
The small boy looked at his Daddy and crouched into almost sitting down too. "Are you Mr. Lane?" The woman asked. The man slowly nodded. The messenger woman slightly bent over and hugged him. Then stood and sent the missing you's. She started to step away and the small boy stood up and took her hand. The father asked him something like, what are you doing? To Mom the boy told. The Dad showed him his lap and sighed, still waiting Son. The small boy blew out a breath, let go of the hand, and climbed into Dad's lap. The messenger patted him on the shoulder and then tossled his short hair. The boy smiled.
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