Journey

By Cayce B. Shelton

Every person needs to find his roots, even if he lost them only a short time ago. We all need to believe that we belong somewhere, whether that somewhere is a place or a time. As for me, I know that my roots have been ripped from the ground, and from time itself, and destroyed, the remains gone as if scattered across the waters of the sea.

I had roots. I had roots in the form of a mother and father that scrubbed a slight living from a poor dirt farm in the worst part of Texas you can imagine. No one can tell you now, even if anyone cared to ask, if the greasy spot in the road known as Beall's Corner ever existed.

Most people who would know are either dead, have escaped into the mass of humanity somewhere else or, which is more likely, are afraid to talk. I know the last possibility is a fact because I tried to talk to them a long time ago.

I left my family in a fit of anger, mostly at myself, after a fierce argument with Dad. That old man was hard as nails and did not hesitate to slap Mom or me around if we sassed him. Our fights were usually about something I really wanted, and he saw no way of me getting. When I threw it in his face that I had been doing most of the work since he had hurt his leg and I deserved a fair share of the crop we had just harvested, he went berserk. After knocking me down, he started in on Mom- blaming her for putting such ideas in my head. Before he figured that he needed to work on me some more, I was gone.

Four years went by, most of which I spent in the United States Army. I didn't bother to write anyone. I never had a girl friend or many male friends. Everyone that I ever considered a friend was no one I wanted to share my miserable life with. Then, after discharge, with plenty saved up pay and nowhere to go, I foolishly headed back to Texas.

The truck driver I hitchhiked out of Palm Springs told me he was going to Van Horn. Beall's Corner was halfway to Van Horn, and it was nearly midnight. I climbed aboard and unintentionally drifted off to sleep. The blast of sound caused by the release of the truck air brakes brought me out of a sleep I sorely needed.

"I wish you had woke me up near Beall's Corner," I told the gut-over-the-belt Bubba as I realized we were in Van Horn.

"I didn't go through Beall's Corner. I don't even know where that's at. Can you get there from here?" he asked trying to scratch the cooties on his head through the dirty cap.

"It's halfway to Palm Springs," I told him, slightly put out.

"There ain't nothing between here and Palm Springs, fella," the trucker replied as he turned to go into the diner.

I stood in wonder that a man could drive a rig like we had just left-one that could kill any living thing it touched as it traveled down the road at eighty to a hundred miles an hour-could miss a whole town. I shook my head and holding my duffel bag followed the waddling cowboy into the diner. Finding a booth empty, I ordered breakfast and information.

"Can I get a ride to Beall's Corner," I asked the aging waitress.

"Where is that?" she asked, a hand on a hip, a scowl on her face.

"Beall's Corner, that spot in the road between here and Palm Springs." I watched her face as I spoke; there was no change in her expression.

"There ain't no place 'tween here and there," the lined face snarled as the overweight body turned away. There was no use talking to her any more and there was no one else around who looked as if they would care the slightest about what I wanted. I ate my breakfast in silence, wondering why someone as old as that old crone would not know anything about Beall's Corner.

At the bus station, the ticket master was insistent on telling me that I could get a ticket to Palm Springs, not Beall's Corner. I didn't see why I had to pay for a trip all the way to Palm Springs when I was only going about twenty-five miles, and I said so. Of course, the bus company employee was not going to argue with a customer. He simply stated that there was not a ticket available to Beall's Corner. His next statement made me comply with his wishes.

"Look, mister, I don't know who you are. I don't want to know. I like my job and my life, and I would appreciate it if you would either buy a ticket to Palm Springs or get the hell out of here."

I got on the bus early and took the seat immediately behind the driver so I could watch the road ahead. He and I got into a lively conversation about military life even though he told me it was against company policy to talk to the customers. He looked surprised when I told him I wanted off at Beall's Corner.

"There's no Beall's Corner on this road, mister," the driver said, looking straight ahead.

I told him I had been born and raised there, just a few miles down the road. The driver shook his head and did not look at me. Our conversation ended.

Guessing at the miles we had traveled and the surrounding countryside, as well as I remembered it, I began looking out the windshield for the familiar buildings I knew were just over the next rise.

When the bus rolled over that little hill and roared on without stopping, the shock of what I did not see took my breath away. There was nothing that I remembered. There was nothing that I could have remembered.

There was nothing.

The scenery looked the same as it had before we had rolled over the last little hill. Up ahead the scenery was the same- fields of dry grass, no buildings, no fences, no people, not even a dog. I sat dumbfounded, waiting for the few buildings I knew to be the sum total of the town of my youth to come into view. When the hills of Palm Springs became recognizable, I slumped in my seat. I knew I would have to rent a car if I was going to find home, or what I had thought was home when I left it.

The rental car cost more than I wanted to pay. It seemed to me that when I told the old man behind the counter where I was going, the price of things skyrocketed. In addition to paying for a week rental in advance, he demanded payment for an insurance policy to insure the return of the vehicle. When I inquired if it was customary to charge such fees for a one-day use, the expressionless face said the words that made the hair on my neck raise up.

"It is when the feller is going to Beall's Corner. There have been several seekers for such a place in the last couple of years. I ain't had a car returned by any of them." There was no hint of emotion in the old man's face as he stated his case, and I saw nothing in his eyes. The statement was a simple statement of fact. I got the Taurus and headed out of Palm Springs back toward Van Horn.

The road was as barren of life going away from the town as it had been coming into it. The closer I got to where I knew Beall's Corner was, or rather had been, the headache that had popped up got worse. By the time I stopped beside the road, which should have been in front of George Gordan's Mobil Station, I could hardly see because of the pain. Washing down a couple of Advil with water from my bottle, I laid my head back on the car seat and slowly viewed the surrounding wasteland.

Not a bird nor a mammal moved. There were no trees or bushes, large or small, for as far as my burning eyes could see. Nothing was as it should have been.

As the pain in my head subsided, I left the car for a look around. Fear of the unknown had never bothered me before, and it certainly didn't waste my time right then. Seeing as how fear was the only thing around to cause anyone any harm, I thought I was pretty safe. I walked through the fields on each side of the road, looking for signs in the ground that something had been there. Poking around with a tire tool failed to turn up any evidence that a town had ever existed. Even the roadbed did not seem to change from one area to another. Every foot of road and field was the same from Van Horn to Palm Springs. Beall's Corner seemed to have existed only in my mind.

Leaving the area that I thought had been the center of town, I drove slowly toward Van Horn, looking for the turn off to Dad's farm.

Some little knot of knowledge kept reminding me that I had not seen any side roads on the bus trip to Palm Springs. That knowledge was confirmed by the time I had driven five miles down the road. It was time to go back to a place I could recognize.

Returning the Taurus to the rental agency did not generate any excitement as the old man was not in attendance. The young filly who refunded all the excess charges seemed quite put out to be paying out so much money. She finally asked why I had been charged such high fees for just one day.

Telling her I had gone to Beall's Corner did not cause any reaction from the young female. When I asked how long she had been in Palm Springs, her answer of two months did not surprise me.

After a sleepless night in a fleabag motel and a few hours wandering around the hot city the next morning, I spied an old man sitting in the shade of a large oak tree near a small park. Checking the surrounding area for other signs of life-there weren't any- I casually moved across the way and stood in the shade near the old man. He looked at me only one time, with a slight turn of his head. I watched him for several minutes before I spoke.

"Sir," I said, "I apologize for bothering you, but I really am lost, and I need some directions." The old man did not make any motion that he had heard me.

"I just got out of the Army and was on my way home, but now I can't find it," I said, speaking softly and sorrowful, I hoped. The old man turned his head slightly but did not look up at me.

"Where is your home, son?" The slowly spoken words sounded like they had been thrown from a bucket, like clods of dirt that would sail through the air without sound. I bent to hear as I asked him to repeat what he had said. The stutter of soft words jumped out from under the large straw hat.

"I said, where is your home, boy. Can't you hear good?" The old man's body shook slightly as sudden anger gripped him.

"Yes sir, I can hear. My home was in Beall's Corner," I said, kneeling on the ground to look up into the elderly face. I looked up in time to see the sudden movement in the man's face, the set of his jaw and the frown quickly overtaking his features.

"There's no such place around here, young man." The words seemed to jump out of his face and drape themselves around my head. I looked at the frowning face and could not read anything out of the ordinary. I finally asked the question I wanted to ask when I first saw the old man.

"How long have you lived here, sir," I asked, looking around the park carefully. I did not really know why I suddenly felt uneasy. Hearing the noise close by, I looked up to see a few cars and one trash truck drive slowly by. After they had passed the old man spoke softly.

"I have been here more than seventy years." The wrinkled face under the straw hat slowly drooped forward.

"Well, sir, can you tell me if you have ever been to Beall's Corner in your lifetime," I asked.

The old man took a long time to answer. Finally, as he spoke, I had to lean closer to hear the words coming like so many bullets.

"Every day I sit and wait for the unknown to drop it's black cloak over my head." The bent head did not rise as the words rumbled over his swollen belly. "Every day I sit and wait for an end I don't want to see. I hope when the devil comes for me he will take me quickly so that no one will know when I am gone and no one can find where I was."

The old man quit talking. Although I asked several more questions, he was finished with me. As I walked away from the lonely figure, I studied his words.

"Take me quickly so that no one will know when I am gone."

I said those words out loud and smiled as I thought that Beall's Corner had done just that. And then,

"And no one can find where I was."

I laughed as I turned my head to look back at the one person that had given me something other than no information.

I walked back through town until I came to the motel where I had slept. I looked around, and the sight of the hot, dusty, lonely town choked me worse than the memory of the farm life I was trying to find again. I took a deep breath and cried out at the burning sun. No one paid any attention to me.

Then, with the knowledge that my past was gone and no one cared, I laughed at myself and packed my bags. The parents I had left fighting and the farm on where I had almost destroyed my life were gone. The school and all the ugly kids I had grown up with were gone.

The wasted lives in a wasted land had vanished. All that I remembered was a memory only I recognized. No one wanted to share my memories and no one cared when I left them there.

The bus ticket I bought from the same ticket teller, without argument this time, would take me to the cooler climates of the northeast. Somewhere I would make roots that would not blow away with the hot Texas winds.