Category: southern writing

creative nonfiction, southern writing

Four: Storm

by rayclifton10 Comments on Four: Storm

I am sitting in a grassy field under a small tent. A young nurse is taking my blood pressure. She is dressed in army fatigues, like one of the nurses from the old television show M*A*S*H. It is sunny and the light is very bright. She is talking to me, her voice muffled like we are under water. There are no other sounds. No birds singing, no traffic, no other voices. We are alone.

“We are going to get you to a room soon honey, okay?”

“My head hurts.”

And later:

I am lying in a bed somewhere. My head feels as if it were in a vice. I hear my son’s voice.

How you feelin’ dad?”

“I don’t know what to do. They gave me all these COVID kits to put together, and the instructions are in Chinese. Can you help me figure it out?”

I would later learn that the first memory never happened. I was admitted to the hospital by standard procedure, through the emergency room.

The second did. My son found me babbling like that the next day. I had received no treatment up to that point. My fever had spiked to 103.

I remember almost nothing about what transpired in the week that followed. Most of what I write reconstructed from The Book. Other things were false (or no) memories that the Redhead explained in the days and weeks afterward.

No, family did come to see you, you talked to them. Yes, you did have your phone, but I did not see you look at it. Yes, you were awake a good bit of the time. Yes, we talked about a lot of things. No, they did bring you meals. Don’t you remember any of that?

I did not. I do not.

The Book has pages and pages of tests. Bizarre imbalances in blood profiles. Some categories were extremely low, others alarmingly high. There were also MRIs, CT scans, and ultrasounds.

They were looking for West Nile virus, but that test was negative. They considered meningitis, but never did a spinal tap (an error, given what was to come). The baffled internist bowed out and referred me to the “Infectious Disease Expert.”

After four days of intravenous antibiotics and fluids, the blood tests returned to normal.

A memory, confirmed to be true:

I am sitting in a chair and a doctor is speaking to me in a quiet voice.

“Mr. Clifton you have been an extremely sick man. We have done a lot of tests, but we do not know the cause. I suspect it may be related to the tick bite you had, but tick-borne infection tests must be sent to a lab in Virginia. It will be two weeks before the results come back. Until then, I am giving you a prescription for one week of Doxycycline just in case. By the way, I noticed from your chart that you haven’t had your COVID vaccine, and I really think you should consider…”

“No. I am not taking your shot. You should focus on figuring out what I have rather than trying to get me to take some so-called vaccine for something you think I may get.”

“Sir this is not a political thing, but…”

“No, it is not political. End of discussion.”

“Understood. I will call you when your lab results come in.”

Admittedly rude, that. It might have affected our future relationship.

The Redhead drove me home soon afterward, but to this day I do not remember the ride.

Life in Alabama, nonfiction, rural life, southern writing

Part Three: Stormfront

by rayclifton8 Comments on Part Three: Stormfront

The following Monday I made the weekly hour’s drive to my employer’s headquarters for staff meeting and consultation with my coworkers. At that time, most of us were working from home, so Mondays were a chance to talk to a body in a body, even if was technically supposed to be from a “safe” distance. That had value for me. “ZOOM” was the name of a children’s program on Public Television when I was a kid. I wish it had stayed that way.

On the drive home I started to feel a little “off,” like I was coming down with something. Sluggish. A little feverish. You may recall from the previous post that this was June 2021, and COVID was beginning to make another run in Alabama. I imagine that anyone who had as much as a sniffle during those two years had the same thoughts that first went through my mind. What gatherings have I been to in the last week or so? Did that lady who sat beside me at church yesterday cough?

I took my temperature when I got home – 99.1.  Yes, I was getting sick.

I took a hot bath. As I toweled-off I made the discovery – an attached blacklegged (deer) tick. It was engouraged, so I knew that it had been there a while. I thought back. Must have been Saturday. I pulled it off and flushed it down the toilet.

Now, dear reader, I realize that you might not be the outdoors type. Perhaps you have never been bitten by a tick, and the whole idea that I could have acted in such a matter-of-fact manner seems incredulous.  But please remember that I am a forester. I had repeated that same process hundreds of times over the years. For those who work in the woods it is routine. Just an annoyance. Cost of doing business.

Tuesday morning. I felt worse. My head hurt a little and I was beginning to feel achy all over. So, I did what most folks do these days. Took my business down to one of the local “doc-in-a-box” franchises. There was a time when you could call your family doctor (now called your “Primary Care Physician”), but those days are gone. To do so now means two to four weeks unless there is a cancellation.

The routine at the corporate franchise is always the same.

“Have you been here before?”

Yes.

“What?”

I pulled my mask down to be heard. YES.

“Sir, please keep your mask on at all times. I will need you to fill out these six pages of medical history and consent forms. Sign or initial as indicated.”

But I did that last time I was here.

“We have updated our computer system. Oh, and I will need to make a copy of your driver’s license and insurance card. Also, your credit card for the copay.”

Thirty minutes later I made it behind the door to get my vitals checked and get the obligatory COVID test.

“You have a slight fever.”

Yes, that is why I am here.

“Go down to Room 2, second door on the right. The doctor will be in with you shortly.”

Several minutes later he entered.

“Good news, you do not have COVID. So, what brings you in to see us today?”

I have a slight fever and I do not feel well.

“Ah. Seasonal allergies. We have been seeing a lot of that these last couple of weeks.”

But I have not sneezed, coughed, or had as much as a sniffle.

“Well, that is probably coming. We caught it early. Stop by CVS and pick up some Mucinex D when you leave. I will have the nurse give you a steroid shot.”

Doc, I am sure this is not an allergy.

“Tell you what. We will draw some blood and see if everything looks okay. I will have the nurse call you back in if not. But I am quite sure you will feel better by tomorrow.”

I did not feel better tomorrow. I felt worse. Head and body. Like I was in the initial stages of the flu, but I still had no respiratory symptoms. My fever had crept to 100.

Wednesday, I went back. Same doctor.

“What brings you in to see us today?”

I saw you on Monday, remember? I have a fever and my headache is worse. My whole body aches.

“The steroid shot and the Mucinex didn’t seem to help?”

No. What about the bloodwork?

“Did we draw some blood? Let me check on that.”

A few minutes later he returned.

“You do have some elevated numbers here. Looks like you have some sort of infection. I am going to start you on a seven-day course of a broad-spectrum antibiotic.”

Doc, I do not know if this is relevant, but I should mention that I was bitten by a tick last weekend.

“I do not think so. Tick diseases are rare in Alabama. At your age it is more likely prostatitis. Go home and get some rest. Give the meds some time to work.”

Sunday, June 13. I go back again. My fever is holding at 100.5 and my headache is severe. Shut the door, close the curtains, turn out the light and get in bed migraine severe.

I got the same doctor. He ordered a chest X-ray.

I go back home and tell the Redhead that she needs to take me to the emergency room.

It will be one of the last things I remember over the course of the week ahead.

creative nonfiction, Life in Alabama, southern culture, southern writing

Haircuts and Memories

by rayclifton10 Comments on Haircuts and Memories

The weather is hot here in central Alabama, and lately the Redhead has been hinting (well, nagging really) that it’s time to get my “summer” haircut. The summer haircut is an old southern tradition in which men get their hair cut a little shorter than usual for the summer months. In my case, it’s not going to make a lot of difference, because every passing summer leaves me with a little less hair to worry about.

The summer haircut brings back old memories. I hated haircuts as a child. Funny how the passing of the years turns such memories into soft-edged nostalgia.

My dad always took me to a downtown barbershop in Sylacauga back in the late 1960’s, which I believe was located on one of the side streets between Broadway and Norton. This shop was a real man’s haven: three big leather-clad barber chairs, black and white checkered tile floors, and mirrors on the back wall. Other walls adorned with mounted deer heads and a largemouth bass or two, along with an auto parts store calendar featuring a pin-up girl (scantily clad in the latest one-piece bathing suit). In one corner, an old glass-front cabinet filled with creams and tonics that every man needed to keep his coiffure under control. Metal chairs with vinyl cushions lined the waiting area. One or more conversations taking place at all times, usually about football, problems at the mill, or the latest frustrations rebuilding a small block 350 engine. Plenty to read while you waited: Field and Stream, Popular Mechanics, and the current edition of the local newspaper, The Daily Home. An old AM radio on the counter, playing good country or gospel music. Depending on the time of day, you might even hear old L.R. Ross tell you what great merchandise was available for sale or trade on the “Shop and Swap” segment on W.F.E.B.:

“Neighbors, we have a man who’d like to trade a real nice goat for a single-shot 12 gauge shotgun. If you have a gun you’d like to trade, please call…”

I can still smell the witch hazel and talcum powder.

Although there were three chairs, I only remember one being used. The barber was old Mr. Mallory. As a little boy, it seemed quite possible to me that he had probably given Moses his first hair cut. Mr. Mallory wore glasses that had lenses as thick as the bottom of an old green glass coke bottle, and the end of his nose was always about an inch from your head while he worked his magic.

Mr. Mallory always asked “How you want it?” The answer never mattered. You might “want it” like Elvis, but you “got it” in a style called “flat top.” I believe it was the cut he liked best. But it was the haircut for the small town southern gentleman at that time. I was always just relieved to leave the chair with both ears still attached. If I didn’t squirm too much during the whole ordeal, I’d get a piece of Bazooka bubble gum as a reward.

Times sure have changed.

The place I go these days for a haircut is a “style shop.” The customers are both men and women, although the barbers are all now called stylist and are exclusively female. The walls are pastel and there are flower arrangements. Something soothing and “New Age” plays on the sound system. The place smells of bleaching chemicals and potpourri. There is no Field and Stream, though if you look hard enough you might find a copy of Time or National Review. The last time I went, the receptionist asked me if I wanted a warm cookie.

My stylist is blond and attractive. She tries to engage me with conversation about American Idol or Dancing with the Stars, but it is to no avail. I have never watched either. Confident that my ears will survive intact, I usually have to fight the urge not to doze off while she works. She always asks if I would like a little mousse or styling gel before I leave. I always decline. As Eastwood said, “A man’s got to know his limitations.”

She and her coworkers are trained psychologists. They tell me how good I look–how my gray hair makes me looked “distinguished.” I am aware that I am being worked for return visits, like a young, pretty waitress works a middle-aged man for a bigger tip.

I’ll admit she does a good job with the little bit of hair she has to work with. But for her skills, she charges a fee that would have probably made Mr. Mallory decide to close up early and take the rest of the day off.

Manhood still barely intact, I leave knowing I’ll have to return in a month or so. I feel a strange urge to go rebuild a small block 350 engine or shoot an animal.

Maybe times haven’t changed all that much over the years.

I still hate haircuts.

This post originally appeared here in 2010.  

creative nonfiction, Life in Alabama, southern culture, southern writing

The Lunatic

by rayclifton6 Comments on The Lunatic

The lunatic sits under the firmament, waiting for the appointed time.

Tonight, both sides of the moon dark.  A blood-moon.  Blood cries from sky as well as the ground.

In a little patch of pasture grass between stands of pine, darkness falls slowly then all at once.  Thunder off to the northwest, air heavy but cool.  Sky thick with clouds.

The first lightning-bugs of the year hover along the tree line.  A visage that once meant empty pickle jars with hole-poked lids.  Remembered days of daisy chains and laughs.  Does it mean anything now?

We are refugees from Babel.  Once sky-gazers, mumbling in strange tongues.  Huddled by fires against the darkness outside animal-skinned shelters.  Looking for a sign from the sky.  Now screen-gazers huddled inside, forsaking all but strange truths.

The appointed time passes, and the clouds will not part. 

The Book says “A wicked and adulterous generation seeketh after a sign.”

The bulldog sighs. 

“Okay,” I say.  “Let’s go to bed.”

creative nonfiction, Life in Alabama, rural life, southern culture, southern writing

The Old Man, the Chihuahua, and Jesus in the Woods

by rayclifton4 Comments on The Old Man, the Chihuahua, and Jesus in the Woods
Back in my younger days I bought a tract of timber from an old man.

As a side note and for your education in the intricacies of forestry parlance, anyone associated with the timber business refers to a parcel of wooded land as a “tract,” as in “that’s a nice tract of wood.”  It is pronounced “track,” and I suspect a good many of them would spell it that way.

But I digress. Reckon I got off tract.

I had just moved a logger onto the tract when the owner drove up.  He was an old man dressed in old man work clothes:  khaki pants, matching khaki shirt, red and black plaid hunting jacket, and a cap with ear flaps.  Looked like he might have just stepped off the cover of a 1957 edition of Outdoor Life.  His car was also from the ’50’s, a Rambler I believe, and it was as neat as the creases on those khaki pants.  I initially thought “bless his heart, this poor fellow has come today because this land is dear to him.  He probably inherited it from his father, who managed to scrape up enough share-cropper dollars to buy it just before the Great Depression.  Now he wants to take a last look at the trees he and his poor old daddy planted together right after he got home from the Big War across pond.”

I would later discover that he owned a couple of thousand acres of land and had more money than Carter had little pills (Google it, youngsters).  I have more imagination than sense sometimes.

He motioned me over to the passenger window.  “Hop in, young fellow, I want to show you some things before you get started.”

Now at this point in the story I should mention that there was a chihuahua in the back seat of the Rambler, who looked to be about as old as the man (in dog years, of course).  I should also mention that he was in a rage, barking and snarling and flinging himself against the rear passenger window.

I am not a person who has any fear of dogs.  But I do have a healthy respect for a snarling one with a murderous look in his bugged-out eyes, even if he does weigh 15 pounds and barks with a Mexican accent.

I hesitated.  “Is your dog going to bite me?”

“No, son, get in.  Jasper, hush that up now, you hear.”

Jasper was apparently bilingual, as he did calm down slightly.  But as soon as I got in he jumped to the top of the front seat, where he hunkered-down facing me.

We rode around in that Rambler for twenty minutes as the old man pointed to this and that.  We bounced down roads and pig-trails that I wouldn’t have attempted in a four-wheel drive pickup.

I said “Yes sir” a lot, but my eyes were straight ahead and I was trying not to flinch.  That chihuahua’s nose was one-inch from my cheek, and he was growling the entire time — one of those breathing, inhale/exhale growls.  I knew if I made one move my left ear was gone.  I was focused.

We eventually made it back, my face still intact.

The next day I called the logger to see how things were going.  “This is some good wood” (more forestry parlance), “but I’m afraid we’re going to accidentally kill that old man.  He stays out here all the time watching us work.  We’ve had several close calls.  He just appears out of thin air beside the machines.  I almost cut a tree down on him this morning.”

I promised I would come by the next morning and talk to him about the dangers of logging equipment.  Make sure he understood.

Let me digress again and tell you a little about this logger.  Tony had found Jesus at a Pentecostal tent revival a couple of months before, and he was as excited and sincere about his new-found faith as any man I had ever met.  Within a week, his entire crew had joined the flock as a result of his preaching.  Tony had invited me to his church, the “West Georgia Assembly of Signs Following,” where the Spirit was working.  People were speaking in unknown tongues, being healed of various afflictions, and sometimes were “Slain in the Spirit.”  No timber rattlers were being passed around, so I guess all the signs following were not yet on display.*

Once Tony asked me if I had ever been Slain in the Spirit.

I said I didn’t think I had.

“Well, you ought to come to one of our Saturday night services.  It happened to me a couple of weeks ago.  It was like being hit by a bolt of lightning.  Knocked me slam out of my shoes.”

I smiled and nodded.  Didn’t say anything.  Never had any desire to be struck by lightning.  Try to avoid it most days.

Back to the story.  The next day I came out to talk to the old man, but he was nowhere to be found.

I stopped Tony and asked if he had been out to the job that morning.

“Oh yes, he left about an hour ago.  I asked him if he knew Jesus, and he said ‘No, I don’t want any part of religion,’ so I radioed all my men and got them to come in.  We formed a circle around him and prayed for his eyes to be opened by the Spirit, but he just jumped in his car and left.”

Funny thing, we never saw that old man again.

Probably just afraid of lightning.

 

* The Bible, Mark 16:17-18.

This piece first posted in 2016.