Shadow Lands

The thing about Oswalt, he was deceptively strong. He maybe did not look so durable, though; and one of the fun things to do in the years Roy was here was read various ‘experts’ predicting Oswalt would succumb to arm injury woes anytime now. And he never did, really. He had an in-season ‘dead arm’ a few times along the way, and he famously dealt with a tricky groin for awhile; but his arm never actually went bad on him, or gave out. Some attribute this durability of his to the myth-like, almost surely apocryphal story in which Roy received a heavy-duty shock in that golden right arm of his one day several years ago, while fooling around with the battery in his truck.

Maybe. But some of the deceptive part of his sturdiness was due to the fact Roy O. was one of those people possessed of a physiology that used to be referred to as ‘wiry.’ Not big and bulky, but not weak, either. As tough as wire. Other than his legs and butt, which of course were the key, the rest of Oswalt made him appear as a sort of skinny, country-ass fuck, like someone you’d see pumping gas at a rural filling station. Laconic and hard to read, the guy gives you the directions you asked for. But was he really helping you out? Or giving you the bum steer? It was counterintuitive for some people, including me at first, to see the smallish-for-a-starting-pitcher but actually normal-sized Oswalt out there, firing 95 mph fastballs knee high on the corners. Something had to give, right?

Nope. I have in my mind a mental picture from a dream I once had about Roy Oswalt, set sometime after his playing days end. In my dream, Roy was living at his place in Mississippi, out in the country. It was late fall/early winter, and the leaves were on the ground, and it was kind of wet out. The air was steely cold under a grayish-white sky, and a stiff wind blew. Roy was inside his house, but realized he needed some more wood for the wood-burning stove. So he walked through the front doorway and around to the side of his house, where he had neatly stacked a couple of cords of split hardwood. He had harvested the wood by knocking down some trees with his bulldozer, and dragged them over to the side of the house with his tractor. He trimmed and cut logs into lengths with his Husqvarna 24” logging chainsaw, and he split the lengths with his hydraulic log-splitter. Roy grabbed up a couple of armloads of firewood off of the stack, almost effortlessly, and slowly carried it back into his house.

Outside, just beyond this tableau, a car had passed by on the road out front, and a young kid in the back seat witnessed this scene . . . Or, better yet, a barn owl was sitting up in a tree in the yard, wise and solitary, its huge black eyes taking in everything . . . No, I’ve got it. A red wolf was moving across Oswalt’s property, unhurriedly on his way to wherever it is wolves go. He suddenly sensed movement in the periphery of his vision, and glanced up in time to see Oswalt carrying a seemingly disproportionate amount of wood across the deck in front of his house and back inside. The wolf’s glance only lasted a second or two, just long enough to discern there was no immediate danger. No prospective meal, either. But in that few seconds of time, our wolf formed the wolf-equivalent of a coherent thought, in the front part of his lupine brain. And he voiced that thought, to himself, in whatever the language is that wolves speak to themselves in. He said, “Damn, that little guy is bad-ass.” And then, imperceptibly, he nodded. It was a nod only wolves can see. It was really just a minute motion of the wolf’s head, from straight ahead to slightly upward, back, and to the left. In the wolf world, this type of nod is a sign of grudging respect for an individual from a non-wolf species. The wolf nodded in Oswalt’s direction, but Roy was already gone. The wolf seemed to consider this for a second – probably me projecting a little here – and then he moved on, as well.

For a man, if he even knew the wolf was there, which Roy didn’t – red wolves are famously stealthy . . . for a man, a nod of respect from a wolf would be a great honor, I would think. I certainly would be honored. Either way, I am with the wolves on this one. Roy Oswalt was bad-ass. And for an extraordinary length of time in the baseball world, he was our bad-ass. Despite the bouts of whining and the demanding of a trade and accusations that he was not always the best teammate, I am sorry to see him go.

Like the red wolf in his yard, I give Oswalt my imperceptible nod of respect. He was bad-ass allright, and I will miss watching him.

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Between the idea
And the reality
Between the motion
And the act
Falls the Shadow

I knew this girl once, back in school, and she was really pretty. I don’t mean “hot” or anything like that. Neither did she have the classical good looks – high cheekbones, an aquiline nose, and a delicate facial bone structure. She was just pretty. Fresh and wholesome looking. For lack of a better descriptive example, she was Mary Ann to everyone else’s Ginger. She had long-ish dark brown hair, and even darker eyes. She was never a girlfriend of mine or anything, or even really a friend, I just kind of knew her. On the odd occasions when we met, walking across campus, or at a party . . . just seeing her always kind of made my day.

This girl’s whole face lit up when she smiled, which was pretty often. She literally beamed. But from the beginning I thought I detected something else there, too. When she smiled at you, all her facial inflections and body language signaled that she was wholly sincere, and I never doubted that she was. But just beyond the borders of her face, from just behind her, emitted something that seemed like a physical incarnation of something else, something approaching deep sadness. At least, that is what I thought at the time. The thinnest ribbon of darkness outlined her beautiful, beaming face, and for a brief moment a shaft of dark light would glint over her shoulder and onto me. What was that? I would think about it awhile, and eventually convince myself I didn’t really see anything. But by now I am pretty sure I did. I cannot adequately describe it in physical/spatial terms, but it almost appeared as if she had a second shadow following her around, a darker, heavier version of the original.

I don’t know what happened to that girl after school. For all I know she went on to a great career, a storybook marriage with wonderful kids, and a life of true happiness, mostly unmarred by the darkness out there everywhere. I certainly hope she did. Maybe the menacing darkness that seemed to stalk her in our college days decided she was too bright and good for even an extra shadow to fuck with, and so this extra shadow moved on, to dog the footfalls of some other poor soul.

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Between the conception
And the creation
Between the emotion
And the response
Falls the Shadow

The red wolf that happened by Roy Oswalt’s house several winters from now, just as Roy was coming outside for more firewood, had intruded briefly into our dreamy little vignette set at Roy’s place, and then just as quickly had left. But he didn’t exactly leave. He moved outside the frame of the picture, and out of our direct vision, as wolves will do. But something – I have no idea what and neither did he – something made that wolf want to linger there on the periphery of the scene for another moment, just beyond the lines of our collective sight and awareness. He hunched down silently behind some brush, and a small, fallen tree at the edge of Oswalt’s property, and he stared back at Roy’s house.

When Roy had been outside earlier, the wolf had noticed the interior of his house, through the slightly open front door. The wolf did not see much detail, but somehow processed the idea that the home emitted warmth and light and a certain level of comfort no wolf in this world will ever likely experience for very long, if ever. And deep down in his emotionless natural soul this wolf felt a tiny, brief tinge of something he’d never known, something like regret. This cold-blooded predator and howler at the midnight moon experienced, for just a second, a sort of longing.

He longed for something he did not know, and never would know, from a time so far back in history this fuzzy fellow, as apparently bright as he was for his kind, could not begin to comprehend it, or know how far back in time the object of his longing really was. Actually, we are talking mega-time here, hundreds of thousands of years (times seven for a canine, remember), too many years to be sensibly comprehended even by the bi-peds the wolf occasionally saw in his roamings around; like the little guy he saw earlier, carrying all the wood. In truth, the time frame this wolf was attempting to contemplate went all the way back to the time when his genetic branch had suddenly and dramatically split, back in the mists of pre-history. A time when some of his ancient ancestors left their brethren and made one of the biggest leaps of faith ever made by anyone (or thing) in biological history. They did this despite all their instincts and accumulated common wolf sense that compelled them not to. These ancient wolf ancestors had hunched down in the cold outside the mouth of a cave, just like their modern counterpart did at Oswalt’s house, and they saw the glowing light coming out of the cave opening, and they could smell cooking meat, and could hear the sounds of grunting camaraderie coming from inside, and they could sense the warmth there; and they could almost feel the comfort present in that bright, warm and safe place.

This is what they did next. One of the wolves, because it had to be just one very brave one at first, before more would see this action and follow, or not. . . one of the wolves befriended a caveman one day, while both were out hunting for their respective dinners. They had both stopped to rest, and warily, silently, they sat next to one another on a log. The dirty, hairy bi-pedal human dragged his paw-like hand across his protruding brow and then, following a built-in instinct he had no clue about then and his descendents still don’t understand, he tentatively reached out and lightly stroked the back of his new canine acquaintance’s neck, on the scruff. Right at the spot where the wolf’s mother used to pick him up with her teeth and cart him around while running her errands, back when he was just a pup. And the wolf experienced something like appreciation for maybe the first time, certainly towards a human. He opened his terrible, tooth-filled mouth, extended his rough sandpaper tongue, and lightly licked the back of the caveman’s hand.

After that, of course, it was all over. Man had got himself a best friend, St. Bernard had someone to bring him his brandy, and I had bestowed upon me a lemon beagle with a mind of his own, who is barking like a harbor seal out in my backyard just now; who from time-to-time deigns to communicate with me. Telepathically, he insists.

What our crouching wolf’s ancestors did, some of them, against all reason and good wolf sense, was form an alliance with this often stupid and mindlessly destructive race of mammals, who slaughtered wolves among other things with abandon and would continue to, forever. Those early wolves crossed the gulf between them and the two-legged cave dwellers anyway, because somehow they knew they had to do it; they had to befriend the humans, and allow themselves to be mutated and dumbed down to accommodate the human’s needs, to become companions and even servants to these humans. And to gain their trust and affection. All so that the rest of them, the wolves who did not cross over and all the descendants for the rest of time of the wolves who did not cross over, would have a chance, at least, to dodge extinction. A chance to survive.

What those early wolves did was mull over what they perceived as their their options at the time. Then they decided it was time, for the first time ever, for some of them to come in from the cold.

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Those who have crossed
With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom
Remember us – if at all – not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hollow men

Oswalt’s wolf had the germ of an idea and presence of mind to tap into whatever it was inside him that allowed him to peer back into time, all the way back to his earliest ancestors. Which is a remarkable thing, and reminds me of something from way back.

We were visiting my mother’s family in western Pennsylvania, and one day several of us kids, my brothers and cousins and some neighborhood boys, were playing in my grandfather’s pasture, firing crabapples at one another. My grandparents had stubby-looking crabapple trees nearly everywhere on their land, so ammunition was readily available, on the vine (unripened and hard) and on the ground (beginning to rot, all nice and squishy.) Then one of my cousins spotted a rather large hornet nest hanging from the bottom limb of one of the crabapple trees, maybe six feet off of the ground. We stood and looked at it for awhile, transfixed. Then we walked off a distance and began throwing crabapples at the nest.

I was 10 years old at most, but even I knew what we were doing, while entertaining, probably wasn’t such a great idea. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before one of my older cousins delivered those hornets a message pitch; some chin music, high and tight. The next thing we knew, hundreds of really pissed-off hornets were swarming all around the pasture, looking for someone to fuck with.

I did not know at the time I was mildly allergic to some varieties of the western Pennsylvania hornet, but I was. I got stung on the cheek, about an inch-and-a-half below my right eyeball. Almost instantly, that side of my face began swelling, a welt that eventually grew to softball size. My grandfather slapped some pre-chewed (by him) Red Man on my face, which was fucking nasty. But the tobacco juice drew out a lot of the poison, apparently. It wasn’t long before I was back out in that pasture again, squinting out of my bum eye, and firing crabapples around with abandon.

The odd thing was that just before my cousin’s toss found its mark, sending hornets swarming, I happened to be looking at the nest, and saw a soldier hornet crawling down the side of it. Then the crabapple hit, and I literally watched that particular hornet take off from the side of the hive, spot me, then make a direct line across the pasture for my face and plant his stinger into my cheek. The whole sequence lasted probably two seconds, but to me it unfolded in slow motion, almost.

I won’t forget that day. In a twist on the old WWI adage that you always heard the bullet that would kill you coming, I can say you sometimes see the hornet that’s going to sting you heading your way.

And, I would add, you can always see a certain kind of trouble coming, from way, way off, just like that hornet . . . you can always see coming the darkness that is going to do you in. I indentify so much with that wolf crouching outside Roy O.’s door in my dream, the one with the savant-like ability too see into the distant past; to see, from somewhere like here, straight back up the time tunnel to his million year old great-great-grandfather. I think part of the reason is because I, too, have looked up that tunnel. Not back a million years, maybe; but at least as far back as 1899 or so, to the hardscrabble coal mines and oil fields and company towns of extreme north-central West Virginia. In the front room of a damp, cold "company" house in late January, 60+ years before I was born, my fate was essentially sealed.

My paternal grandfather, my father’s father, was born on that day in that place, and from the moment of his first breath he had the hellhounds on his trail. I could see the shadow lurking over my infant grandfather, through the time tunnel, from my vantage point here and now. I could see it attaching itself to him, knowing that what it was really doing was setting out to get me in the end, three generations before I was even born.

The demons which hounded my grandfather drove him to an early death. He had started a career and family, but his wife abandoned them all a few years later, I never learned exactly why. The shadow had clearly descended upon him by then. The night he died, two years later in a house fire he started by passing out in bed with a cigarette, his oldest son – my father – ran into the bedroom to try and get his father out. But he could not, and had to flee to save his own skin. He watched his father burned to a crisp in the subsequent conflagration, all because he (the boy) was not strong enough to save the day. A few years prior, the same boy had come home from elementary school one day, to find his mother in flagrante delicto, you might say, with a neighbor from down the street. He hadn’t been able to do anything to fix that, either. She left them forever two days later.

Between the desire
And the spasm
Between the potency
And the existence
Between the essence
And the descent
Falls the Shadow

That boy grew up to be a father himself. As a child, in a hot, smoky bedroom with the flames closing in on him . . . in a suburban living room on a bright spring afternoon, he had seen that already he was doomed. He eventually passed on some of the existential blackness in his soul, onto someone he dearly loved, his oldest son; who was too young and naïve to know what was happening, to see whose instructions were being carried out, to defend himself from it at all. This son . . . I tried to deal with the darkness I inherited from my father any way I knew how. I tried to kill the demons outright for awhile, with various killing agents, but that did not work. I tried to think my way around them, to ignore them, to sic Jesus on them. None of that ultimately worked, either. I think I finally realized it was best just to go the way of my friend and mentor, a man called Jim Duncan. Duncan, you’ll remember, was the wraith-like apparition/former U.S. Marshal who materialized out of the heat and dust of the coastal plain one day and rode into the lakeside town of Lago, and then systematically exacted from it the most brutal, soul-cleansing revenge imaginable. At one point during the near-biblical mayhem he induced, Duncan and the town midget sat in a tavern, drinking whiskey shots and contemplating plans to ambush and slaughter some people they wanted dead. The midget turned to Duncan and said, “What happens after?”

“Hmmm?”

“What do we do, once it is over?”

“You live with it.”

The demon-haunted son had grown into a demon-haunted man . . . I looked down a dark tunnel like the one the wolf looked through. Like the one I had seen my grandfather through . . . the innocent baby’s beginning and the drunk man’s end. But this time, instead of looking backward in time, I looked forward. I wanted to see if there was a light at the end of that tunnel for me; which of course would mean I was about to be run over by a train.

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