Six Slices of Toast

I just landed, my first flight, my nerves still on the plane, me waiting for redemption, in a box car terminal. I was to be to plucked from the land of sand and pines, and deposited in my new home away from home, by the sea. A year they said, possibly. The “possibly,” never nudged my complacency from its excited state, as I was leaving the place I had spent the previous minutes, days, years of my life, and was finally escaping into the unknown from the nebulous consistency of a past. It left my envy, envious. 

I was to work with migrant laborers. An attempt to break the addiction the farm labor trade had on its participants, particularly the children. School was a sometimes if ever thing, and the results were the determining factor in hundreds remaining trapped in the squalor of Quonset hut living, and the long torturous shade less hours in the fields of never-ending rows. 

I was a volunteer. I was leaving the safety and mundane existence of the Midwest, to embark on a new endeavor in the tobacco lands of North Carolina, carrying only a rhetorical banner that proclaimed me a representative of the coined, Poverty Program.

Tobacco was king in that time, and had been for several hundred years.  But its days of being the only game in town were numbered. Anti-smoking initiatives were springing up around the country, and the future of this lop-sided industry was in jeopardy. 

The government in its fortuitous wisdom, was in search of diversity, as the tobacco industry had taken its toll on the productive nature of the soil and the profitability allotted to the souls who tended it. Vegetable crops were posed as a transitional means of employment for farm workers, who survived by the endurance of their bodies while negotiating the labor intensity of the planting and harvesting, of America’s food security.

I was to be met by a minister, a sponsor, who was to transport me to a hotel on the main street of Morehead. I was instead greeted by two teens, who if they had not been drinking, were having an abject reaction to no doubt, the weather.

An indigenous game that is played, that is no doubt testosterone induced, is traveling as fast as an old vehicle will move, and coming as close to the utility poles that lined the road, without losing a mirror or worse, questioning their temerity, for not having the ability to move. Had it not been for the hard packed sand of the road I would have been concerned, or at least anxious. But then it was a new land, and I was on the verge of a discovery, me.

The town’s main street consisted of one hotel, my hotel, whose main floor doubled as a lobby and a café. There was a theater with the majority of the marque lights functioning, and a harbor bridge that separated the town, from a similar town of equal stature. The wind blew cool off the Atlantic inlet where on clear days one could catch a glimpse of an oil tanker or freight liner heading either north or south, depending I suppose, on need.

I had been to many small towns in the Midwest and I would have to say there is a notable difference when compared to towns of the South. The main strip, or what served as one, was only three blocks long.  From the window of my room that looked upon the main street, I could observe the same four automobiles routinely cruising the vast expanse of road that managed to accommodated diagonal parking. Their passing, predictably to the minute, and under the scrutiny of a deputy no doubt dreaming of a grander future, left the nights humid laden air quivering with the addition of noise and exhaust.

The café was laced with the usual assortment of Formica and chrome tables and chairs. The predictable assortment of petrified gum clung lifelessly to the tables underside, as the checkered floor of black and white asbestos infused tiles searched the ceiling for anything out of the ordinary. Their sin being their lifelessness, as heralded by a song. 

The woman, fortyish, blond, an embossed smile, was cordially inquisitive; my face being new to the regulated agenda of mornings early life. I believe there is a certain type of personality that survives the petulant business of feeding those, to hurried to feed themselves. They are resilient souls, who meter out kindness by not subjecting the rude jackasses of daily life with a scalding hot rebuke, of scorching coffee. 

I watched her as I watched everyone that came and went from the cave like edifice, hoping to gain some insight into the mores of the local fauna. She, unlike those that hovered about like lost gypsy moths, was trapped in an existence of sameness that was evident in her stride, as she manipulated the tables, arms ladened with precariously balanced plates of eggs and grits. 

My monetary security at the time was dependent upon a government subsidy that had as yet to catch up to my phantom placement amongst the “My Town,” members of Southern society. My routine because of the uncertainty, allowed for only a meager existence consisting of water, which was free, and toast to accommodate my morning needs. I began this ritualistic balance of frugality and carbohydrates, as a means of staving off the pangs of remembrance.

My plight must have become evident to this stately woman of the kitchen wars, as her welcoming smile took on a lesser embalmed look, allowing her eyes to sparkle with what appeared to be a new found destiny, which was mine. My two slices of toast, would have to be sufficient to sustain life, even if minimally, until the tides of fortune miraculously changed. My two diagonally sliced pieces of fortitude turned magically one glorious morning, to four, and then six, and augmented with addition of small plastic containers of varied fruit concoctions that passed themselves off under the guise of jelly.

My newfound and unexplained gratitude expanded my horizons; empathy will do that to you. I splurged believing my destiny, being encouraged by the caring assumptions of my benefactor, was on the cusp of a new beginning.

I ordered coffee. The gesture in and of itself, lifted my spirits, set me free. The horizon, emboldened by the morning sea, changed its bend from one of a frown, to that of a smirk, in the face of life’s frivolities.

I spent nearly a year in a place, of them’s and us’s. Where color is blurred by passing cars discarding DUI evidence, in the direction of old men standing by the side of the road. The glass shards, like spilled diamonds, doing little to enhance their futures.

I left My Town America, with a renewed sense of kindness, only six slices of toast, and congealed sugar can provide.