"Oh boy," I say.
Buck has just lifted off the head of the engine of the Model A. The number one cylinder is filled with rust from the top of the piston down through the cylinder walls. The number two, three and four cylinders are fine but that doesn't matter. Number one is seized.
"Look like Stuart didn't drain the water out of the radiator when he put the Huckster up on blocks. It was probably a leaky head casket." Buck says.
"Looks that way, doesn't it?" I say. "Damn."
Buck sprays a ton of WD-40 in and around the number one cylinder.
"Well, we'll let that sit for a day and see if we can break it free by tomorrow." Buck says.
Fat chance, I think. I knew we were in trouble earlier this morning when I tried to hand crank the engine and it wouldn't budge. So much for the dream of taking my dead father's Model A Huskster Wagon to Tucson. Hell, so much for the second dream of selling it for 15 grand and paying off my credit card debts. My guess now is that it's worth five to eight thousand as is.
"Yea, I'll try and crank it tomorrow. Buck, thanks a lot for trying to get this old thing going. But I think it's froze up pretty good."
"Well, if we break it loose, I'll put the head back on for you, after you've flown back to Tucson."
"I appreciate that."
This little trip back to the ancestral home in Raleigh has cost me more than I thought. Plane ticket. Battery and parts for the truck that won't turn over. Vacation time from the day job. Shipping cost for a hula hoop with lights, that I haven't even used. Well, nothing ventured, nothing gained as my Dad used to say.
I decide to go for a drive around some of my old haunts this afternoon, in my sister Pamela's car. She lives in the Raleigh house now. My mother Mary has come down from Virginia to visit with me since I'm just back for a long weekend. I rarely come back home to North Carolina. Mary and Pamela are off doing something. Shopping or a movie I suppose.
Buck has left and some clouds have moved in. Living in the desert for 20 years has left me unequipped for the Eastern Woodlands. The low ceiling of overcast makes me claustrophobic. The smells of composting pine needles and damp moss I find confounding now. The only thing reminiscent of home in Tucson is the occasional tapestry of The Virgin of Guadeloupe hanging from the eves of the front porch of a Mexican immigrant's house. Granted, there are tortillas in the grocery stores now in Raleigh, but they are machine made not hand made like in Tucson. Even though, I've woken up in my old childhood bed the past couple mornings, the house, the town, the state all feel foreign to me. Home but not home.
I used to think that Thomas Wolfe was saying that we can't go back home again because we have changed. Home changes too.
I'm using a road map just to get out of Raleigh to guide me to Chatham County. For sure, I usually went into Chatham County from the Chapel Hill side back in the day, but this is a little embarrassing, having to use a map. As I get to what I thought would be the outskirts of Raleigh, I'm actually still in town, or at least the suburbs. Strange to see huge two stories houses sitting in what used to be cow pastures, as if they fell out of the sky. Small plots with big houses, arranged at odd angles. Who thought this looked good?
Finally, I've left the suburbs of Cary and Apex and am heading west on US 64 in my sister's white Oldsmobile. Thick stands of Loblolly pines flank the road. Convenience stores advertise Deer salt and hunting stamps. The girl who just sold me a couple packages of Nekot crackers and a soda, sounds like she is from here, unlike many of the transplants in Raleigh. Pickup trucks replace SUVs. For only the second time since I've been back in North Carolina, I feel like I'm at home. (The first time was hearing the Drive By Truckers, a smart Southern Rock band, a couple of nights ago.)
I cross Jordan Lake, a man made affair that was just filling up with water when I left North Carolina in the early 80's. It's full now. And I begin to worry that the Haw River may not be a river anymore, but just part of this lake. God, I hope not.
I check the map. Getting close. After a few more miles, up ahead I can see the Haw River bridge. Actually two bridges, for US 64 is four lanes all the way to Pittsboro. My heart rate goes us. Will I see a lake or a river. I cross the bridge and look over the side as I drive across.
"Yes!" I say softly. Still a river.
After a little effort, I find the way down to the western bank of the Haw off US 64. Twenty plus years ago, you'd just pull off the two lane black top and parked by the 10 foot tall cast concrete cross that proclaimed 'Jesus is Lord.' The cross is gone but the River is still here. I park the Olds, grab my Rollei and my Brownie and head for the forest along the river to look for the old trail.
It's still there. Not much trash about. Just a couple of beer cans. A hundred feet down the trail, and all signs of flotsam and jetsam are gone, save an occasional fishing lure and line, here and there. I'm thrilled that after all these years, the Haw is little changed. Seems to be just a bit wider but the rapids are just as strong as I recall from college days.
We used to drive down here in my Karmin Ghia from Chapel Hill, Bo, Tom, and I. We'd get stoned on the way and walk down this trail that parallels the river for about a mile, get lit again, and walk back. Doesn't sound like much but it was important to us to get back to some real woods after sitting in classes day after day. One time, I grabbed a 30 pound granite rock and carried it back to the car. Bo and Tom thought I was nuts, which wasn't really that unusual. They thought I was crazy most of the time. I explained to them it was for a sculpture. That rock never made it into a sculpture but I lugged it from house to house for a number of years. That old concrete cross was briefly featured in one of my experimental 8 mm movies, from those art school days. Brought a woman down here, from time to time, back then too.
The trail narrows as I go. The water isn't high but high enough that the river does roar. The overcast sky isn't bothering me now. Even when I walk into a spider's web that spans the trail, I'm not as freaked as I used to be as a college kid. I don't remember everything about this part of the Haw, but enough, and the river has changed some. A few feet wider. Some new trees. Some old trees wider in girth or dead. But the sound and the soul of the river are the same.
Indians once lived here. The Haw Indians. The word 'haw' means river in their language. So I guess I'm walking along the river river. I walk by some small rapids on my way to the big rapids with its twenty foot bluff that overlooks the river. A favorite place back in the 70's. Oaks, Elms and Poplars and a few Pines fill the forest. I pass the old bluff without knowing I had. It is now thick with young trees and old growth. Not the viewing spot of twenty five years ago. The large rapids are still churning as ever before, still the nemesis I presume of weekend canoers from Durham and Chapel Hill. I stand on some rocks that push into the river and breath in the sound and the spray. This place is definitely more deeply felt by me now, without the haze of being stoned. The low notes. The high notes. The whole song of the river.
After a while, I head on back toward the car, but I stop along the way at the smaller rapids I passed before. I sit on a set of boulders close to shore. I carve a spiral in some moss and it looks contrived. I shot it with the Rollei anyway. Then I take out the Brownie and simply shoot some of the rapids, some rocks, some trees. I blur the pairing image with the sharp shot, to create motion, a mood, a bit of mystery. I do this a number of times, then sit on these rocks again by the rapids.
Breathe in, breathe out.
Listen. Close my eyes. Open them.
Across the river on the eastern shore, two Bald Eagles leave their perch in the high branches and glide down stream. Are they really Balds, I think? Yes,they are. Balds. I raise my hands above my head, palms out in salute to the Eagles. They fly down the river, behind some trees and out of view. My eyes mist. Still Home.
I lower my arms, sit on the rocks and close my eyes again.