We are the Avalanche

For a pair of specifically heavy boots. For the barn that almost burned to the ground when the planets aligned and we all acidentally came home. For everyone back home that still wants to tuck me in.



My name is Lee.
At least my first name is.
The most important thing you should know about me
Is that I like to put

"Universe, Milky Way Galaxy
Earth, North America"

preceeding my address.

I like to be sure.

Since I turned 9,
Ive been measuring my age
in Dog years.
A ratio of 1 human year to 7 dog years.

I am almost 630 dog years old now.

I am the opposite of young

And I know I can get kinda preachy these days
But I need someone to know the value of listening
And being sure

When I was a boy,
All the snow in the mountains melted
And the river swelled into our house
Like a long acheing scream that the mountains finally let out
after keeping the worlds secrets for a thousand years

The secrets were so loud
I thought it would break me in half
To listen to them howling in that flood.

At night the water rose even higher
and I watched all our horses get washed away by the current
Their eyes were HUGE
But they stayed so very VERY silent.

I asked my father why they stayed so quiet
When they knew they were going to drown

He said:

On the 2nd night at Gettsyburg,
Our artillery was landing on the 8th Virginia Cavalry Regiment
on Cemetery ridge.
And the whole ridge was ablaze

All we could see was the frantic silhouettes of men and horses
churning into long shadows in the smoke

We choked on the fog of gunpowder
and watched the only Yankee unit from Virginia
get torn down to skeletons

Many of the men had brothers and fathers
and even sons up there....

The tremendous roar of artillery
from down by the Peach Orchard
and the distant yelling of men
and neighing of horses
was all we heard for most of the night
until one soldier let out a cry unlike anything
we'd ever heard
from the dying OR the dead.

We were bombing his sons company.

We leaned our faces on our muskets
And every time the dull explosions lit up the clouds
you could see our entire regiment
wish they were on the recieving end of cannons that night

General Lee was on his horse watching this with us.
And I watched in silence right nex to him.
After the better half of an hour
he looked down from his horse
and told me himself,
that he could annihilate the entire Army of the Potomac
in a single maneuver.
And he could do it "TONIGHT!"

But he turned away and kept watching
the way old sea captains used to watch the Atlantic
Every time they knew "Tommorow" was THE day
that they fell off the edge of the earth

General Lee knew...
HE KNEW!
The next day would have to be the last day of the battle

...But he could hear the electrical storm of Americas heart-beat
Throbbing in the air seperating the two armies
A tremendous pump puMP PUMPING
Louder than all the cannons in the war

The last thing he said to me was
"The only thing seperating those men from us.
Is that field.... that DAMNED FIELD!"

His eyes were as wide and orange as the ridge.
And JUST as sad.

Because he wasn't talking about distance.

Lee stayed silent for the rest of the night.
Even past the end of the bombardment.
And Americas thick heartbeat spoke to him
and pleaded "Not tonight"

And so the next day, Lee threw the war

On that very field

And Pickett tried to strap a giant magnet to his chest.
And paint his uniform like a big red bullseye
And ride his horse to the front of the charge

My father leaned towards my ear and finshed by saying
"Sometimes, we are supposed to lose our armies.... and even the war."

I asked him how I'd know when to lose MY war.
And he said "Just be silent, and listen. Like the horses."

His answers were always stories.
I think because he had a mustache.

The next month brought the fever and
that was the last story my father was able to tell me
But that story is why I have my name.

Well,
The water rolled in under our door for days
until it filled up the first floor
It swallowed ma's rocking chair
And then it rose past the pictures on the wall
Until it pushed our family to desperation
And we sat on the roof waiting for the river to rise to us...
Maybe even INTO us

It brought the ice age

My sister and I
made a telephone out of a two tin cans
and a long string
And I would talk her to sleep from one side of the roof
When she was cold

That was the closest my sister and I ever got

On that rooftop, waiting for the Ark
Seeing our own breaths in a can,
but hearing the others voice
It was like magic

And my stories kept her warm

One night she packed up two suitcases and went to sleep.
I snuck downstairs and felt them to see if they were heavy.
To see if she was really leaving

They were boulders.

We think she left for New York to be a nurse
Back then we didnt have Milk Carton kids
And we never heard from her again

Except once I think....

It was when the Palmers bought thier Model T,
It was the first time I rode in an automobile.
And we were laughing as we drove down the road
that led by ma and pas old house

We passed a young woman in the road,
with two suitcases banging against her thighs
as she struggled up the dirt road

I watched her summer dress flutter in our wake
Her face was veiled by the dust
But I just KNEW it was her
Somehow. I could feel it in my chest.
I felt like an avalanche
Waiting on a mountain for a suprise "HELLO!"
to bring me crashing down at the speed of light
to reply
I felt very heavy. And very happy.

Its strange how the first time you ride in an Autombile,
You can wish they were never invented

When we got to the end of the road,
I left the Palmers, and ran to the old farm house
I tore down the boards that covered the doors and windows
I used charcaol from the old fireplace
to smear a "Welcome Home Maria!"
on the front door

I made a telephone out of two rusty cans and a string
and placed one can carefully on the front porch

I closed the front door,
took the other can
and sat in dads old chair
.....waiting

I made sure to be quiet
Just like Pa said

I wanted to hear her small feet crunch through the gravel
and creak onto the porch.
So I could hear her little metallic voice ask
for "Just ONE more story Lee!"

I pressed my ears into the can
I was ready to press 12 years of bedtime stories into it too

But the gravel never crunched
And the porch never creaked

I leaned on the water damaged walls.
I imagined I could hear her say "Im right here"
And my avalanche came down without her

I cried into that can like Pickett cried
when he sent his boys across the field
whistling dixie, going to hell in a handbasket
I died the way Pickett died
When he learned all his liuetenants and commanders
were killed only fifty yards from the Union line

I left the house open
I didn't board up the windows or doors
I left the charcoal smeared across the decayed door
I put the cans and string telephone on the roof

Because my dad was right about some things

And wrong about others

Sometimes you SHOULDN'T lose your armies OR the war.
No matter what you hear
Even if you hear nothing

I know this because
when I travelled to New York with the Navy
many years later
I met one of the doctors
my sister had worked with
at a hospital

He told me she had died a few weeks or so
before the summer I saw her on the road
And to this day I am convinced
that it REALLY was my sister that came home that day
I think she took a few weeks to come back
because her suitcases were heavy,
filled with string and rusty cans
banging against her thighs

I am glad I saw her come back.

Doggy years arent any easier than human ones...

I had quite a few jobs after that
I was a fisherman in Vermont
I made ice cream and moonshine in Tennessee.
I built big Billboard signs for buisneses.
I was a cheap magic act in a shitty travelling circus
I was a navigator on a Navy ship in the Great Lakes
I was a typewriter salesman in Alabama

I think liked running moonshine the most though.

Or typewriters...

I fell in love with a very poor woman
who wouldnt buy a typewriter from me.

I asked why she wouldnt
thinking it was because they were hard times
for her and the rest of the country
But she said
"Because it wont fit in my luggage darling"

Nobody had ever called me darling before
or since. And nobody, I mean NOBODY
around there had money to gallavant around county.
Let alone the country

So, I asked her
to name three damn places
in the whole damn world
she'd need to take her damn luggage

And
She answered
"EVERYWHERE of course!"

Aint love Grand?
Like Hell it is!
Let me finish my story Jackass

Love is something you can be sure about.
And I like to be sure.

She said "Love has to be said with a sigh"
So we'd say "Love...ahhhh"

Seven months later we were married.

Nine months later
the doctor said it was cancer.

Love is impossible....

I remember where I was the day
of life sentences, and anvil heavy x-rays
The day every calendar in the world
ended in "6 months."
Maybe a year

I was 168 dog years old.
And I was the opposite of ready

When she started getting frail
I told her
"Everything will be ok."

Even though we both knew it wasnt true
It doesnt make me a liar.
It just a stubborn way of showing love.

Theres lots of ways to show that.
Im sure of it.

When her eyes became as dull
and as wide
as the Arctic circle
I knew she was going blind

So I learned to read Braille
And I taught her.

Id rush our trembling hands,
over the tiny bumps
that told her simple things

Ill tell you now,
If you ever want to appreciate
how beautiful a woman is
close your eyes
and read her body like Braille.

Softly

She'll think its weird at first
But we all have alot to learn
About what is beautiful
Especially from the blind.

It wasnt even half a human year before
The hospital became permanent

I never wandered the corridors
to kill time.
I couldnt even FIND time
And if I could
I would have shot it in the face
Repeatedly

We had to pass time
Even when there wasnt much left

We made the list of places we'd finally visit
when she got better.
It was called the EVERYWHERE LIST
Even though we both knew it should have been called
the Never never land list.

She liked to play a game called
"Count the number of times
Lee says "I LOVE YOU" in a day"

When she was conscious
I told her every two point five minutes

When she was asleep
I played my own game.
I would count the number of steps from my seat
to her bed. And make sure it was never more than three.

One
Two
Three

One Wednesday night
She squinted and mumbled for me
from her hospital bed

One
Two
Three

I kissed her forhead.
It was hot.

She said "Everywhere..."

She said "Love"
And sighed deeper than the Mariana trench

I said
"I know..."

My dad was right about some things....
Sometimes you just have to listen.

I ripped all the beeping cords off of her
and picked her up out of her bed
She didnt weigh anything.

I put her in a wheelchair
and rolled her out of there before anyone could stop me
I remember she looked like an avalanche in her hospital gown
tearing out of that sterile tomb like Loki

I helped her into our tiny car.

She smiled HUGE.

That night was like ANY other night
We had had hundreds before
We ate ice cream
We told jokes
And cracked up for a decade
We made love
We ached for a hundred extra years
We ached for a hundred extra days

We stayed awake talking and laughing
We thought we'd be awake all night

Awake for the rest of our lives....

But the spaces between her words grew longer
And all the film negatives of all the pictures we ever took
Were melting in their photo albums
She finally said "Im acheing...to hear you say it"

I thought of waking her to tell her .
But I thought that there would be another night.
There would always be another night
We had had hundreds before

ONNNNNNNNNNEEEE....
TWWWWWWWWWWOOOO....
THHHHRRRRRREEEE....

But there simply werent anymore nights
She died on a Thursday

She's been gone for a long time.
Since then Ive been counting the steps
to "EVERYWHERE of course!"
Since I knew, thats EXACTLY where she'd be

One
Two
Three

Four
Five
Six
All the way to infinity....

I remember my youth
And it bursts into a thousand colorful peices
I remember love.
And it makes me feel achey breaky
And I want to run backwards.
Fast.
I want the thousand dog years
to TICK TOCK their way back
ALL THE WAY BACK!

So I can tell he horses that they'll be fine.
And to just close their eyes.

So I can let the mountains thousand year secret
crack me in half!
So the flood funnels into me like a black hole

I would hold it in my warm guts,
and spit it out into my rusty can
So my sister could have
the heat of a fourth of July Fireworks display
Sitting in that can with her
on that freezing rooftop.

I want to go back to tell dad
that he never had to be
on the recieveing end of any cannons
to be my hero.

I want to un-invent his fever,
and also automobiles,
so I can let my sisters suit-cases
bang against my legs,
knowing whats inside them.

So we could have got home at the same time,
and tore apart the boards that said "We're coming back",
and wrote with big triumphant smoky smears "We ARE Back!"

I want to go back to selling typewriters over and over again,
so I can hear the fearlessness in her voice when she said "Everywhere!".

I want to go back and kiss her HARD,
because thats the ONLY way we ever kissed!

I want to run back to saying "Love" with sighs,
and trade our list for boat tickets.

I want to attach rockets to your wheelchair
and send you out of the hospital
glowing into the dark night like Sputnik.

I want to run back and eat ice cream with you.
ALLLLLLLLLL NIGHT

But most of all,

.....I want another night
Just like any other
To tell you what you want to hear
when you ache the most


My name is Lee.
I am almost 630 dog years old now

I am the opposite of young

Soon there simply wont be any more nights
to tell you,
that
LOVE IS BIG