Soul Dancing with the Brass Band (The Brass Band Series) (4 page)

“I picked a place near the back.” Dad continued, “As far as I could tell, I was the only white boy. They’d been building a ceremonial bonfire all afternoon, but by evening the wind was blowing so hard, they couldn’t get it lit. That’s when I saw Rolling Thunder for the first time. He was an ordinary looking man in jeans and a worn western shirt, but when he stepped forward, I realized there was nothing ordinary about that fellow at all. He turned his head until the wind blew his hair away from his face. I wasn’t sure what he was going to do, but all eyes were on him. He stepped in front of the bonfire, raised his arms and opened his palms toward the wind. I’ll be dammed if that wind didn’t slowly stop! The young braves quickly lit the fire as Rolling Thunder lowered his arms and the wind came again.”

“Was your mind just blown away by that, Dad?” I asked.

“My amazement has never ebbed, Darlin’. An experience like that, seeing something supernatural first hand, has the tendency to make you wonder how many other things exist in this world that you haven’t seen yet. It makes you want to keep your mind wide open, so you don’t miss anything.”

“Have you ever seen any other miracles, Dad?”

“Those crops growin’ out there in the field and you,” Dad said so softly, I almost missed it. “Miracles happen every day, some large, some small. You just have to be lookin’ for ‘em.”

When Dad pulled the tractor to a stop a few yards short of the chicken coop, Mom was already on the porch. I hopped off of the fender and ran to the front porch to give her a big hug. She was a tiny thing, only 4’11”, with jet-black hair and ivory white skin and still a beautiful lady. She had always been outgoing, the high school cheerleader type which made her an unlikely match for my father, the quiet farm boy type. They first met in kindergarten, but it took another fifteen years for them to fall in love.

“Hi, Mom, how’ve you been?” I asked as I rested my chin on the top of her head as we hugged.

“I’m great now that you’re home, sweetie. Come in. I have breakfast ready. Tell me all about school.” She stopped to wait for Dad, who sometimes seemed to have one foot in this world and the other in the ethers. “Hurry along Terry! Come back to Earth,” Mom teased.

NOTHING ON
the farm had changed just because I went away to college. Mom was still in the kitchen, Dad was in the fields and Kenny, my younger extremely athletic brother was still addicted to playing baseball. When the high school season was over, Kenny, along with everyone else in town, gathered on Friday afternoons down by the overpass to play a game of ball. The dirt parking lot on the north side of the overpass was set up with a diamond, home base, first, second and third.

The third base line ran ten yards from a metal building, housing a business named “Guy’s Nuts.” As a kid I never thought twice about that name because Mr. Guy sold chips and nuts, but as an adult, I found more humor in the name. If Mr. Guy were still alive, I’d ask him if he was naive or just that gutsy.

The overpass was built for trains, but for our town it separated the infield and outfield. On the south side of the viaduct lay the outfield. The men with the best arms filled those positions, but anyone was allowed play.

There were even positions for older folks on top of the overpass. Their job was to communicate between the infield and outfield. They also kept an eye on the traffic and stopped the game periodically.

Spectators attended with chairs or a blanket in hand because in Kansas the chiggers will eat you alive. And when the locusts began to chirp, Mom passed around the mosquito spray. Over the years the whole system had become very well organized, but my favorite part will always be seeing all the farmers out there playing ball in overalls.

When we pulled up to the baseball field in Dad’s big pick-up truck, I wasn’t disappointed. I spotted a few kids I went to high school with, along with both sets of grandparents.

If I understood it myself, I would explain the situation with my grand folks. The thing was, my respective sets of grandparents were seldom seen within twenty yards of one another. They never spoke beyond a cordial hello and I think that was only for appearance sake. Today was no exception with one set of grandparents at one end of the field and the other as far to the other side as they could get and still be considered “at the game”. I spent a few innings visiting with each of them and then found a place on a tailgate to catch up with my high school friends.

We all watched as Kenny made a home run in the middle of the fourth inning. The ball cleared the overpass and judging by the hollering of the folks on top of the viaduct, the ball must have been lost in the weeds. The spectators all jumped to their feet to cheer as Kenny crossed home base because home runs
were few and far between. The bases were ten yards further apart than on a normal diamond to make up for the outfielders not being able to see the infield, allowing only the most fit players to make it all the way around the bases without stopping at least once to take a breather.

Late in the eighth inning Dad stuffed a book he brought to the game into his back pocket and asked me if I’d like to walk down to the train tracks to see Ol’ Ben. He knew the answer by the smile on my face and soon we were walking along the dirt road.

“What’s that book you’ve been reading?” I asked. “It must be pretty interesting to replace watching the game.”

“I think I’ve found my next note for my tractor dash. Let me read it to you and see what you think.” He pulled the half folded paperback from his jean pocket and opened it to the page he had marked.

“
Our mind is our predicament…life is not suffering, it’s just that we do suffer rather than enjoy it. We must let go of our attachments and just go for the ride freely, no matter what happens
.”

He turned to look at me as he folded his copy of The Peaceful Warrior and stuffed it back into his pocket. “What do you think about that?”

“I think
letting go
is harder than it sounds.” I took another swing at a small stone that I had been kicking down the road.

“Dad, you said this morning that you need to pay attention, so you don’t miss things. Does that include dreams and déjà vu?”

“I imagine it does, although I’m not an expert on either one.”

“Well, they both have been happening to me so often lately that I’m beginning to feel a bit crazy.”

“You’re not crazy. I can assure you of that,” Dad said as he put his arm around my shoulder. “If you want an answer, put the question out into the universe. The answer will come if you listen very carefully for it. It might sound simple, but it always works for me.”

I must have been about nine years old the day Dad met Ol’ Ben. A teenager had come running up to the game, yelling that some drunk guys were at the old man’s place giving him a hard time. Dad walked off the field alone, picking up a bat as he went. As I watched him go, he began at a jog and then broke into a dead run
toward Ol’ Ben’s boxcar. It scared the crap out of me, but fifteen minutes later, he was back in the batter’s box taking his practice swings.

To this day Dad stands by the story that when he got to the boxcar, all it took was a talk with the two inebriated men. He claimed they left without any trouble and the details have always been Dad and Ben’s secret. But whatever took place caused a very special bond to form between them.

As we reached the path that lead to Ben’s front door, I noticed that his boxcar had undergone some changes. His path was now graveled and a swing hung from an elm tree in his front yard.

I couldn’t help but remember the old days, when Kenny and I were forbidden to come down here. I didn’t know if Mom was more afraid of the train tracks or Ben. I’m sure Mom had a hard time trusting an old indigent man no one knew. I can understand that now, but as a kid, that’s what made Ol’ Ben interesting.

The noise of Dad and me on the path brought Ben to the door. He looked quite a bit older than the last time I saw him, but his almost toothless smile remained welcoming and he invited us in. Ben took my hand between his two very warm, wrinkled ones. He felt boney and frail and I wondered how many years he had left. I sat in a chair near the door, so I wouldn’t get that claustrophobic feeling the long dark boxcar sometimes gave me. The air was usually stale because of the lack of ventilation and windows.

I noticed the old TV Dad had given him a few years before, as I looked around at other odds and ends that people had dropped off. The boxcar was comfortably furnished even though nothing quite matched. It was hard for Ben in the early days because he couldn’t read, but since the arrival of the TV, he’d learned there was more to the world than the fifty square miles he’d lived in all of his life.

Silently, I listened to Dad and Ben as they had their regular conversation.

“How are ya doing,
Ben?” Dad asked. “How’s your health, your eyes? Are you getting enough to eat?”

I knew food wasn’t a problem after spotting the Methodist‘s round robin meal delivery list. I also noticed a stack of church bulletins under the coffee table and smiled at the realization that the church ladies hadn’t figur
ed out that Ben couldn’t read.

Ben was hard to understand without his teeth, but as he mumbled away, Dad seemed to understand every word. After a while we stood to leave and I could see the affection Ben had for my dad and Dad for him. I said goodbye and waited for them to finish their hug. Dad was the only person Ben hugged. I figured it had something to do with that afternoon with the baseball bat.

On our walk back to the ball field, we began talking about how some people need very little to be happy, while others will never be happy no matter how much stuff they accumulate.

JUNE 15, 35 AD

We call them Dreamers, the ones whose souls travel far from their bodies while in trance. Our encampment is aware of the incredible value of a Dreamer like Terrance, who has the ability to warn us of approaching danger. We are thankful that we have two.

Kathryn loves to run free in the forest because she is far too full of life and uncontrollable energy to sit still in the temple for morning meditation. Her meditations are much more chaotic and full of dance than we are used to, which causes us to sometimes gather at the forest edge just to catch a glimpse of her. She is so graceful that the magic of her movements can bring a grown man to tears. Even the small woodland creatures are mesmerized by her tenderness.