A VISIT TO A RESTAURANT WHEREIN THE SIMPLICITY OF TRUTH OVERTAKES THE COMPLICATED PERSPECTIVES OF AN INQUIRING INTELLECT

I was on my way to mail a letter to a friend. It was a depressing letter, hand written or more accurately, scribbled, an obligatory reply to an encouraging communication in the other direction. A ‘thanks, but no thanks’ with all the depressing factors most anyone could concoct from a morose perspective on their lives. I had described all the reasons for my dismal failures of late, blamed everyone I could for every deficit I could account to them, and then concluded with a Psalmic reference to urge the reader to pray and not call the suicide hotline on my behalf. But something turned me aside on my path to the post office.

It was a dreary Saturday in the city of Bradenton, on the west coast of Florida. Clouds obscured the sky and a drizzle seemed imminent. It was too soon in the afternoon for the returning beach traffic and too near supper time for any serious shopping, so the streets were relatively empty. And the thought to u-turn on the four-lane didn't dissolve into a total lack of resolve as so many other thoughts had lately. With a perfunctory glance in both directions, I pulled a one-eighty and headed back to the restaurant I had just passed. Maybe some caffeine would help my mood. And I had a good book to read.

I walked into the restaurant and waited at the appointed place for a hostess to direct me and then noticed a phone booth near the cash register. I'd better, I thought and dropped a couple of quarters and dialed home. One of my kids answered.

"Is Mom around?" I asked tersely.

"Yeah," a small voice replied, and then, "Daddy?"

"What?" I responded, still terse.

"Have you seen Hildy?"

"No, darlin'. She's not with me."

"I can't find her."

"Look under the shed, darlin'. Now let me talk to Mom."

"Okay, bye, daddy. Here's Mom." she said. I waited and my wife came on the phone.

"Hello," she said. Her voice was tentative, not knowing what to expect.

"Hi. Look," I said, more tersely still, "I'm sorry I stomped out. I've just got some things to think over. Okay?"

"Well, you didn't have to........" she started to nag.

"I don't need the lecture," I interrupted, "I just wanted to call and apologize. I don't want to talk about it."

A short pause communicated her shift from nag to resignation. "Okay," she said. Then nothing more.

"I'll see you later," I announced. "Bye."

"Bye." she replied.

"Love ya," I lied. It even caught me off guard. It was such a conditioned response like ‘fine, thank you’ and ‘great’. But my heart wasn't involved at all. I wasn't currently bestowing any love. Not feeling any toward anyone. I hung up the phone and not seeing a hostess went and took a seat in a small two person booth in the smoking section near the waitress stand hoping to get served sooner there.

The hostess spotted me and came over with a menu. "Your server will be right with you," she beamed.

"Could I just have some ice tea?" I asked. "I'm waiting for someone." There was another lie. I wondered immediately why I thought I needed to lie about that. Surely they wouldn't begrudge me an iced tea without a meal. It wasn't a fancy place. It even had a counter with stools. I shrugged an inner shoulder. Everything was making me feel crummy.

"I'll get it for you myself," the hostess announced. The place wasn't any busier than the highway. "Want lemon?"

"Sure," I replied and opened my book to the bookmark. I was reading a favorite author, a rebel from earlier days. I liked his spunk. His cutting analysis of people and events could make me laugh.

The hostess brought my iced tea and seeing my total occupation with the book, set the tea quietly in front of me and left without speaking. Without looking up I pulled open a pack of sugar substitute and dumped it in and squeezed the lemon. When groping didn't provide me with a spoon I looked to the table and not seeing one looked up for a waitress. I didn't see one of them either so I just stuck in my finger, stirred, and licked the finger off.

I don't know how long he had been standing there before I realized it. He had pulled up alongside but slightly behind me, just out of my peripheral vision. He was stooped slightly and turned, reading over my shoulder. I should have been startled, but he so radiated peacefulness that discovering him there was pleasant. He smiled and looked back at my book and made an inquisitive noise. He hadn't really asked me anything but I was forced to answer him.

"It's one of my favorite authors," I stated, "He makes me laugh." I wanted to tell him how much I needed to laugh but didn't. I turned the book over and showed him the cover.

"Ummm," was all he said but with a slight gesture and his inflection, I distinctly heard him communicate that he was unfamiliar with the book or the author. I mentioned a movie that was made from one of the author's books. He repeated the name and although his tone implied recognition, I felt that he was acknowledging it because of its fame and not because he had seen it. I mentioned another movie.

"Don't really get to the movies much," he drawled, seemingly amused at his reply. He didn't move. His attention went from the book to me. His head was still at an angle as if he was trying to tune me in. He was tall and slightly bent and wore a clean shirt. Suspenders held his trousers loosely to his slender frame. His leathery face had farmer written all over it. I felt compelled to ask him to join me and I gestured at the seat across the booth. His demeanor suggested that would be an imposition and with a softening of his face he pleasantly declined.

More time passed silently. I began to get nervous and drank some tea and opened my book again and although it seemed rude to begin reading again, I didn't know exactly what to do with him standing there. As soon as I started reading, he walked off.

"Thanks for being so friendly," I called after him. He responded with a wave and went to a booth three booths away. As he walked away, I noticed one side of his suspenders had come unattached from his trousers. It was all I could do to keep to my seat and not go help him finish dressing.

What a compelling person, I thought, and tilted my head slightly in imitation, trying to read him.

I continued reading and drinking my tea, guffawing occasionally at the ironies I was enjoying. Once, looking up self-consciously after laughing loudly, I noticed the farmer eating soup and a sandwich. He didn't seem to notice my laughing. When I had finished two glasses of tea and had come to the end of a chapter, I folded the book closed. As I negotiated my way out of the booth, I looked at the farmer again. He looked up just then and waved for me to come over to his booth. I picked up the check and walked over and stood by him, waiting. In between chews, stuffing his food into his cheek, he said, "I'd like to talk to you some more," matter-of-factly.

I gestured towards the seat opposite him and he nodded and I sat down. "I appreciate your bold friendliness," I repeated. "I'd like to share more with you, but I've got some errands I need to run," I said, not wanting to spend the time now, some deep trepidation surfacing. It wasn't any wonder. Three lies in less than an hour and this saintly old farmer beaming like a country angel.

He swallowed his food and looked up. "I want to show you something," he said earnestly.

I looked at my watch, nervously. "I really can't," I said, shuffling in my seat toward the aisle. He just stared at me with that compelling expression. He wasn't smiling or frowning. He wasn't showing any emotion that I could read. He just stared at me and waited. Well, certainly my curiosity was stimulated. And I justified my staying around by wondering just what this old geezer was going to show me, but the reality of the situation was that I couldn't have moved away if I wanted to. He seemed to have some magnetic power coming off of him. I was helpless.

I sat quietly and watched as he finished his lunch. Then he did a mysterious thing. He raised a finger and the girl who had waited on me earlier came over. He took the check that I was still holding in my hands and combining it with his own from the table, he handed them to the girl. "Thanks," he said and his eyes sort of twinkled. She took the two checks and walked off determinedly, as if she had been sent on a mission. Then he picked up his napkin to wipe his mouth and I noticed two one dollar bills on the table that weren't there before. Had they been under the napkin? I felt confused. Where did the girl go with my check?

The old farmer smiled knowingly at me and stood. I stood, too. Then, with a gentle hand on my shoulder he guided me towards the door. I could feel him encouraging me like a son, but he didn't speak. Again I marveled at how well he could communicate without words. I was worried about not paying my check and looked back over my shoulder, but the restaurant appeared empty.

We went out the front door and walked around back past the newspaper racks and through a parking lot that was enclosed completely by a tall hedge. In the corner was a dumpster and he started towards it. I kept pace, wondering what he was doing. Was he going to show me something in the dumpster? I didn't know if I wanted to see it. I was beginning to wonder if this guy was some sort of kook and I had been hooked by his pleasant demeanor.

As we walked up to the dumpster, he took the lead and turning his back to it, he slipped between the dumpster and the tall bushes onto a narrow pathway. It was lined with ferns and led through a small wooded area. While I was walking behind him, I couldn't help myself. I reached for his suspender to attach it. He reached back and put his hand upon mine and looked over his shoulder at me and smiled kindly. I hooked the button in the buttonhole and we went on silently.

We followed the path for a couple of minutes. The overgrowth prevented me from seeing anything but the trees near us and I couldn't imagine where we were. I had driven by the restaurant many times before and I knew that there was a baseball park a few blocks behind it where the kids played little league. I thought that there was a small trailer park on the other side of the hedge, between the restaurant and the ball park. But we seemed to have gone somewhere else, somewhere that wasn't in my memory map.

After a short time the path led into a clearing. Here the old man stopped and pointed, indicating an antiquated Airstream trailer about fifty feet away. The lawn was pleasantly landscaped and there was a narrow brick path between pineapple plants and a small orange tree. I looked around to see where we were in the trailer park, but everything seemed hazy and I couldn't tell if there were other trailers nearby. The old farmer put his hand on my shoulder again and led me gently but firmly up to the door of the trailer.

"Go on in," he said and dropped his hand from my shoulder. I touched the knob and it seemed to turn in my hand. I walked into something indescribable. I'm not sure whether the farmer came in or stayed on the walk outside the trailer, but the door closed behind me. I can only attempt to tell you what was in that trailer. It was as if I had gone into another dimension. The walls and ceiling were where they should have been with the roundness of the Airstream’s ceiling apparent, but they didn't seem to present any boundary. While they kept the inside air in and the outside air out, they appeared more like the sky or the horizon out at sea. They were a delineation that moved and coursed with mysterious forces in a universe beyond my simple understanding. The trailer was void of furniture. If I hadn't walked in the door and if the farmer hadn't closed it behind me, I would have still thought I was outside. The walls had the appearance of moving clouds and the floor looked more like wood chips and pine needles and ground cover than parquet. In the back, where the kitchen should have been, there were large boulders with a path leading through dense foliage. Small stones formed a circle in the center of the room I was now standing in. As I looked at the circle of rocks, I realized that there was a fire of glowing embers. The smoke spiraled upwards and just disappeared into the sky that was ceiling that looked like sky. And then as he reached out and put a small branch on the fire, I noticed an old Indian in the corner. I was startled. I was sure there was no one in the room when I first came in. I could only guess that he had blended into the scene and been so still that I just didn't notice him. I turned toward the door, seeking reassurance from the farmer but apparently he hadn't come in. The old Indian motioned for me to sit by the fire across from him. I was too mystified to do otherwise. Somewhere, deep down inside me, a cowardly little boy wanted to run away, but the man nearer the surface knew he had to stay and find out what was coming.

I sat by the fire and stared at the old Indian. He looked like he could have been a hundred and fifty years old. His skin was deeply lined, his nose and ears large, his hair dark and full and hanging down on his shoulders. His eyes were deep and mysterious, dark and knowing. He smiled warmly and I melted. I had never been in the presence of such warmth; my whole being relaxed. I spread my legs out and leaned back against a rock and exhaled deeply.

The Indian spoke. "I will tell you a story," he said, "and when I am done, you will not understand. But later you will understand." His voice was a deep sound, more like water running through a large cave than a voice. No answer was required so I just waited for his story to unfold.

"Once, many years ago, perhaps a thousand or more, a native family was wandering the plains of your country." I was surprised at his calling it my country. I would have thought that he, especially, would have considered it his country.

"They saw a high plateau," he continued, "and ascended the rocks to it. From the top of the plateau, they knew they would be able to see the surrounding countryside to better decide their direction of travel. There were quite a few in their party, husbands and wives, natural and adopted children, old men and women and a few animals. They had with them all their belongings, their teepees and their food and their seeds. As the last Indian set his first foot on the plateau, the other foot slipped and the rocks tumbled in a landslide to the plain below. They were trapped on the top of the plateau.

"The women set to making a fire and cooking a meal while the men in the party went on a tour of the perimeter to see if there was any other way down. After walking all the way around they determined that they were indeed stuck."

Here the old man looked up at me through the wafting smoke and smiled. He seemed pleased with his choice of the word ‘stuck’. He picked up another stick and his smile broadened as he laid it on the fire. I got the feeling he was being silly. He went on.

"Life on the plateau wasn't so bad. Because of a certain wind condition created by a nearby mountain range, the rain came and fell on the plateau every afternoon about four-thirty. The Indians planted their corn and their vegetables, erected their teepees and lived quite comfortably.

"Time drifted slowly by and their family grew into a tribe. Children were born, matured and grew old and when they died, their children took their bodies to the edge of the plateau and ceremoniously dropped them onto the plain below. No other natives were ever seen on the plain again and no one ever attempted to climb down. The drop was sheer, the task impossible."

Here the old man smiled again. He had emphasized the word impossible and it obviously pleased him. I felt like an old leather bracelet and he was a craftsman putting small precious stones onto it in a pleasing pattern. He reached behind himself, into the rocks, and took out a leather bag. Reaching across the fire, he handed me the bag. I drank from it. The water was unexpectedly sweet. I returned the bag to him. He drank and went on.

"One evening, as the elders of the tribe were sitting around the fire, after the children had gone to sleep, an angel of the Great Spirit appeared brightly in their midst. His appearance was so startling that they all fell over one another trying to get away from him. He raised a powerful hand and stopped them and calmed them and made them sit back down around the fire. Then he talked with them much the same way I am talking to you." His old eyes gleamed red from the fire and sparkled. "The angel said, `I am the angel of the Great Spirit. In six months the rains will stop. In another six months you will run out of corn. Then I want you to all leave the plateau. Go to the edge and throw yourselves over. I will be there to catch you. I will bear you up and set you gently on the floor of the plain below and tell you in which direction you must go.’

"With this the angel stood and disappeared in a giant flash." The old man had become quite animated in this part of the tale. His whole face gleamed. The fire between us grew brighter and the shadow behind him loomed larger. I noticed a breeze wafting through the trailer. I looked at the walls again and saw that the clouds had been replaced with twinkling stars. I thought I heard the noise of wind.

"The next day the whole tribe was talking," he said, now speaking off-handedly and gesturing with his hands. "Some of the men were not sure whether they had seen the vision or not. Some disbelieved their own eyes even when the others confirmed the vision. But most of them were absolutely awestruck," he said, now approvingly, "and no one had any idea what to do with their new information. They told their children and the others who had not been there at the time of the visitation and the whole tribe talked about it for a week or so. After the story became familiar, they fell into their old routines and although nobody actually forgot the visitation, no one talked about it anymore after that.

"Six months to the day, the rain stopped. Everyone was surprised until they recalled what the angel had said. Exactly six months after that, although the tribe had tried their best to conserve their resources, the corn finally ran out. After that, every night, the men sat around the fire circle hungry. Every now and then, an elder of the tribe would sneak away from the gathering and go to the edge of the plateau and look down at the plain below. The bones of his departed ancestors would glow in the moonlight and beckon to him. But, afraid to jump, he would return to the fire, where the responsibility for leadership was passed around with the pipe. Two weeks passed. Nobody was willing to jump. The men avoided one another all day and didn't talk. They sat around the fire at night, hungry, chewing on their moccasins." The old Indian chuckled at this.

Then he sat up straight and looked me in the eye. "And now, my story becomes a riddle." After a long pause he took another log and put it on the fire. "What does it take," he asked, "to get everyone down off the plateau?" I hoped the question was rhetorical and he would go on, so I said nothing. But he leaned toward me, the fire illuminating the lines on his face and asked again, "What does it take to get the Indians down off the plateau?" He waited for my reply.

I hadn't realized there would be a test at the end. I had certainly paid attention. The whole scene was so exhilarating and mysterious that only a complete dolt could have been distracted. But I had expected him to just tell me a story and complete it. Did I have to answer? I guessed I had better be honest. "I don't know," I replied.

"Of course, you don't," he said, leaning back again. "That's why you're here. I will tell you. It takes one brave Indian." He paused. "That's all, one brave Indian who will go to the edge and hurl himself into the unknown and call back to the others, ‘Its okay to jump. The angel was right!’"

He stood up. The fire quickly died down to coals again. The stars on the wall faded. As I pulled myself to a standing position, the old Indian gestured toward the door. I was uncomfortable, being shuffled off. I wanted to stay and think. I had questions to ask although I had not formulated them yet. The door seemed to open by itself. The glare from the afternoon sun shone in and made me squint and as I looked around inside the trailer again, it had changed. I didn't see the rocks or the fire or the clouds or the stars. The ceiling was a dull aluminum, the floor a worn parquet. A faded brown couch filled one end of the trailer and a hallway lead through a small kitchen to a doorway in the rear. The farmer was standing in the yard. He put out a hand toward me and I stepped down the two steps onto the brick walkway. I sputtered a few times, wanting to speak, wanting to inquire, but no words came. The farmer led me silently back down the pathway in the ferns, through the woods and into the parking lot. Somehow, I got from the dumpster to my car without realizing what had happened to the farmer. When I drove home, my wife met me at the door. She didn't seem angry anymore, or distant. I think the bewilderment that showed on my face brought out her nurturing instinct and she led me into the bedroom and closed the door.

Twenty seven days have passed since I met the farmer and the old Indian. I drive by the restaurant every day. A few times I have inquired about the farmer, but no one seems to remember him or that afternoon I went in for tea. I even walked around the parking lot, over by the dumpster and tried to get between it and the bushes. But there is a chain link fence there now. It looks new and I wonder if it was just installed. The girls at the restaurant don't know anything about that either. I walked around the trailer park, too, but didn't see any old Airstreams.

I received a reply from the letter I sent to my friend. He encouraged me again to get my act together and commented that I didn't seem to be doing too well. He asked me if I was on drugs.

And I remember something else the farmer said to me. I was walking back to my car and I looked over toward the dumpster. He was standing behind the hedge and he seemed to have grown taller, higher than the hedge itself. He held a large leathery hand to his mouth and shouted so I wouldn't forget. He said, "Remember, every man must jump."

I don't know. But I've thought about it a lot. I guess if I had been the brave Indian who jumped first and had landed safely, I would have gone off to find trees and built big ladders to get the others down.