Storied By Josh

The cat rests on my lap. A glass of bourbon I received for my birthday sits on the table to my right. She comes in from work. She looks harried, and tired. This month has been a tough one for her. Fall always is. She lets her purse fall to the floor and says

“I’ve had a rough day.”
“I’m sorry.” I say. Sometimes the only thing to say is the best thing to.
She sits on my lap. She’s 5’8” and her brown hair falls down from her and rests against me as she places her head on my chest.
“I’m glad it was slow, today was a hard one.”
“What can I do?” She shrugs slowly.
“Tell me about the place you never call home.”

Tell me about the place that you never call home, the place that you say you’ll always know.

The rain falls outside and I close my eyes.

Memories of my high school years flows from my mind. The land’s square footage is the size of West Virginia, but the population was less than three thousand people. There is one radio station. It is a religious and conservative one. They loved to say that the basin was roughly the size of Ohio, but this isn’t true. It’s less than half the size. It was always a bone of contention for me, emblematic of a people who believed what felt good, rather than what was true.

Most of my youth I rebelled against nothing and everything. I listened to Blink 182, got into fights, bullied kids smaller than me, kissed the girls, and generally wasn’t a good person.

I like to think that as I became older, I learned a little more empathy, a little less self-centeredness.

I wonder about the people I abused, the hearts I broke and I hope they are doing well, maybe my transgressions are forgiven, forgotten. But the price of growing is that your past sins are always remembered by you, as you weigh your scales and hope you aren’t found wanting.

I remembered how the place looked, brown and muted. It exploded in population during the eighties due to its proximity to a pipeline that brought oil south. After that the population dwindled as the economy stagnated. Now the old trailer homes, ramshackle buildings and rotting businesses are being eaten by nature as it claims much of the place. The old ones, who had lived there for thousands of years before it was exploited by industry are making a comeback after years of abuse and state sanctioned persecution. The younger generations now walk with their heads high. The language, once considered dead, is being categorized and studied by academics. The youth use Athabaskan language in every day conversation. The white Catholics, who slapped their faces, forced to stand outside in the winter, who tried to sterilize and destroy the culture are long dead and gone. They were replaced by evangelicals, arguably a more dangerous strain of religion, though even they are leaving and dying.

The people endure. As they have. They live forever there in that place I’ll always know among skinny black spruce trees, the swamp that envelops the entire area. Under the one mountain range that is so far away and stands as a beacon to the ones who live there. It is their guardian, the one who lets them know they are home.

It was never this way for me. Instead it seemed as Mount Doom, warning the civilized that they were entering Mordor. I avoided it mostly this summer, to visit it. I ended up spending a night there when my brother and his fiancée were married.

She shifts in my lap and I realize that I was caught in my own memories. I smile at her.
“Shall I tell you about when my brother was married there?”
“Anything and yes.”

His fiancée is one of the most beautiful. She smiles and the room feels okay, and everything will be okay. He lived with us for a time this summer while he got his feet under him, after he graduated. Together we played video games, laughed, told stories and wondered what tomorrow would bring. I played Blink182 for him, but he disregarded it as he liked country music. He taught me phrases that the young say, that I don’t recognize. He would laugh incessantly as I tried to use them in normal conversation, but always incorrectly. I had a grand time with him when he stayed. Occasionally his fiancée would come into town from the place I’ll always know and we would visit well into the night. Her family has lived there for three generations now, though as the economy stagnates, the younger generation is moving to the city to look for a life. My brother and her are in love and beautiful and young.

I never thought that I would grow old. Now to me, sometimes I feel like a jug of milk left out on the counter, I used to be something that was worthy and now the world has moved on. She smiles at me as she listens.
“I don’t want to know what it’ll be like when you hit midlife.”

Me neither.

He moved out a few weeks before they were married. He asked for help finding suits for him and his groomsmen before the wedding. I agreed and met them at a fashion shop. We joked as they, those rednecks and men goofed around the suits of the entitled and rich. They found matching suits and one of them even bought himself a pair of Florsheims. I told them, though the need for one is rare in Alaska, a man should always own at least one suit, and it should be fitted.

Sometimes when the young begin to transition the old begin to cry. The reason is only something the old can know and the young never will. It is something you will only know when your time has come and left. As I walked alone back to my car, I felt a lump in my throat. “I saw a part of you that only when you are old you will see too”

The day of the wedding, I drove for hours back there, to where few know, even fewer recognize. I met my family at my parents’ house and we drove down to my brother’s fiancée’s grandfather’s house. The ceremony would be held there. It is a sturdy two story log cabin, built years ago against the banks of the river. I put my suit on and, I’ve gained a few pounds since I bought it. It fits strangely, but it is of quality and looks decent as long as I keep the jacket unbuttoned.

The wedding began and I held a camera to my face for most of it. My father said beautiful words during the ceremony. My mother struggled lighting a candle symbolizing unity, and the bride’s mother offered her help. It was a fitting metaphor.

It has been a long time since our entire family has gathered together for an occasion. The girl with the sunkissed hair took pictures of us together and I loved her. She wore a summer dress and we brought a beautiful friend who moved to Alaska to experience the adventures we hold dear. They were both lovely. I sat in a chair in a tent during the reception. I am surrounded by my family, we so few and beautiful here. My uncle laughs with my aunt. My sister and her boyfriend laugh together with my four brothers and their significant others. My mother and father are proud. and handsome. The children run through the trees, finding adventure and being daring knights, Kings and queens, brave and true. Old friends and new converse with me, under the sun and the biting insects are working overtime.

If the world had ended in that moment, with me surrounded by the people I loved the most I would have left with a heart so full there was no room for anymore.

My grandmother was there with my grandfather. He is a solid man, built and made in the Korean war. He is 86 now and just as strong as I’ve ever known him. He is gruff, rude and beautiful. My grandmother is part of the first people. She holds in her mind an encyclopedia of knowledge that comes from generations living in the same place for thousands of years. She sits proud and her spirit is strong. They tried to take it from her in the old days of the Catholic school, but she held onto it. It is gargantuan. I hold her up as we walk to her car after the reception, she has become old and frail. Her breath and her strength leave her now. She rests her head against me. And I love you, I love you. I wave goodbye.

I meet the newlywed bride at the dj table and she has tears. I ask her if we should go for a walk. No she says. She is just so here and now. And I know. I put my hand on her arm and let the world hold away for her. It can be so terrible and wonderful, but let it wait a little while longer.

After we have all said hello and goodbye to the ones we hold dear, we head to an old bar in the area. A very good, very old friend meets our group there and we drink and visit until it is dark. Luckily there is enough sober people that we make it to where we are sleeping safe and sound.

I spent that night with my best friend, and my other brothers at a bed and breakfast on a river in the place I’ll always know. He retires to bed early with his girlfriend. She is a pretty and shy girl. She speaks only to say something of substance.

The rest of us stay up late and play pool, loudly and terribly. Eventually we become so tired that we too head to bed. An old friend who lives in Pennsylvania now but came to visit stays up with me later than everyone else.

We speak about things no one speaks about sober and we are the better for it.

When we were younger I was a rough individual, prone to anger and bullying and now as I look back toward this friend who I used to take advantage of, I wonder how many I hurt, how many I missed out on, while I tried to be the biggest in the room.

I give him a hug finally as night becomes early morning. The box of beer is empty and I am ready

I am ready.

The sun comes up early and wakes me much too harshly. My friend tells me to give her a ride to her car and I acquiesce. We say our goodbyes. Why do we take so long to see these ones we love? I walk to the edge of the river alone. My people come from this place. I feel the rumble of the river, the gray rocks that line it. The cold breath it gives. I hear it speak to me. I close my eyes. I will always know this, no matter how far away I go. The river speaks to me through the old ones and it gives me goosebumps, it is life giving and I feel rested.

My brother beckons to me.

I eat breakfast with my brothers and our friends. It is mostly wordless.

After we gather around my brother’s truck. We talk about the weekend and put off our long drive back to where we live. A few days later I will see my newly married brother and his wife. She smiles when she says the last name of ours that she adopted. For the record, I warned her not to.

The leaves there are turning. The morning causes steam to release from our mouths while we stood there for a time and talked. Then, one by one, we got in our cars and drove away.

Back on the couch I look at my now empty glass of bourbon. She lifts her head off my chest.
“What did you mean when you said that we wait so long to see these ones we love?” She asks.
I think for a while.

Every moment we have with the ones we love, is all we have in the end. When He comes for us and we are alone when we meet him. He will weigh our scales. He will do this by having us tell him our stories. All that will matter then is not the money we possess, the things we own, but the memories we show him as we make that long walk.

I do not look forward to it, but when it does happen, I’ll greet him as a friend and tell him my stories. I’ll tell him about my friends I made across the ocean, I’ll tell him about how I was with you when I stood in the Colosseo, ate dinner on the Eiffel tower, drank at Oktoberfest, Laid on a beach in Maui, and cried in the Roman Forum… And then I’ll tell him the same one I am telling you.

I’ll tell him of when my brother married his wife, in a place I’ll always know.