Read Online Some Wildflower In My Heart by Jamie Langston Turner - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jamie Langston Turner
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my own, my confidence is shaken.
I fear that my story, so rich and solid in its reality, is but a pale, trembling phantom of itself. By the time my tale is told, I fear that I will have wrung my soul dry, dispossessing myself of the energy to repair the stylistic slackness of these early chapters. Some books are published with the notation Unabridged beneath the title. Perhaps mine shall bear the label Unrevised .
5
Tutors and Governors
When I disembarked from a Greyhound bus in Filbert, South Carolina, more than twenty years ago, I was twenty-nine years old. Though well acquainted with sorrow and exceedingly disillusioned by the people, places, and things in my life, I sought sympathy from no one. Even now I despise the person who publicizes his misfortunes and promotes himself as a victim. It is my unshakable belief that martyrs should be burned at the stake and thus permanently eliminated.
Vowing to conceal my past grief, to fold it away like stained linen and set it upon a high shelf, I prepared myself to start afresh in this small town where no one knew me. I had chosen Filbert a week earlier from a United States atlas at the public library in Marshland, New York, the day after I had overseen my grandfatherâs burial, an occasion that I shall treat more fully in a later chapter.
It was an early fall day in 1973 when I emerged from the bus station, suitcase in hand, and turned right to follow wherever the sidewalk might lead. The trees in Filbert, South Carolina, had just begun to change their colors, though they would not reach their peak for several more weeks. As I passed the local fire stationâa small wooden edifice that itself appeared to be a fire hazardâI avoided the eyes of the man (a fireman, I assumed) who was seated upon an unstable bench beside the gaping maw of the fire station, inside which was parked a single glossy red fire engine, and who was engaged in what appeared to be whittling. I also passed a residence bearing the shingle Notary Public and a drugstore with a sign above its door that read Health-2-U .
Beyond the drugstore, the sidewalk led me past a small grocery named The Convenient and then along streets lined with houses, all of them modest in size and varying in degrees of upkeep from immaculate to slipshod. I passed a bakery, The Rolling Pin, its window case displaying only five rather deflated doughnuts (and one fly), and a neighborhood park, deserted in the afternoon heat. Though my description of Filbert may create images in the readerâs mind of turn-of-the-century quaintness, such was not the impression in reality. Many of the buildings were indeed old, but the townspeopleâs dress, the automobiles, and the common public equipage such as parking meters, stoplights, and overflowing trash receptacles modernized the overall visual effect. Moreover, there was a certain indefinable smell of fried foods and accumulated grime congruous with more recent decades.
Since my mind was filled that day with the pressing needs of employment, housing, and a car, I was alert. My purse held a sum of cashâthe liquidation of my grandfatherâs assetsâand in the suitcase were a few personal possessions.
Presently the sidewalk led past Emma Weldy Elementary School, a low construction of yellow brick, where I viewed a host of children at play. They paid me no heed, for I was beyond the periphery of their fenced playground. Had I been a child, perhaps I would have gained their notice, but, being an adult, I was as a tree or post. I halted and gazed at the seething mass, listening to their childish shouts and noting the vivid patchwork of the many colors of their clothing. Colors affect me to such an extent that I have often wondered whether, with training, I might have succeeded as an artist.
It was the boys I sought most earnestly, their strong, wiry legs pumping in games of tag, their untiring arms in ceaseless motion. I saw a group of older ones in a far corner of the
I fear that my story, so rich and solid in its reality, is but a pale, trembling phantom of itself. By the time my tale is told, I fear that I will have wrung my soul dry, dispossessing myself of the energy to repair the stylistic slackness of these early chapters. Some books are published with the notation Unabridged beneath the title. Perhaps mine shall bear the label Unrevised .
5
Tutors and Governors
When I disembarked from a Greyhound bus in Filbert, South Carolina, more than twenty years ago, I was twenty-nine years old. Though well acquainted with sorrow and exceedingly disillusioned by the people, places, and things in my life, I sought sympathy from no one. Even now I despise the person who publicizes his misfortunes and promotes himself as a victim. It is my unshakable belief that martyrs should be burned at the stake and thus permanently eliminated.
Vowing to conceal my past grief, to fold it away like stained linen and set it upon a high shelf, I prepared myself to start afresh in this small town where no one knew me. I had chosen Filbert a week earlier from a United States atlas at the public library in Marshland, New York, the day after I had overseen my grandfatherâs burial, an occasion that I shall treat more fully in a later chapter.
It was an early fall day in 1973 when I emerged from the bus station, suitcase in hand, and turned right to follow wherever the sidewalk might lead. The trees in Filbert, South Carolina, had just begun to change their colors, though they would not reach their peak for several more weeks. As I passed the local fire stationâa small wooden edifice that itself appeared to be a fire hazardâI avoided the eyes of the man (a fireman, I assumed) who was seated upon an unstable bench beside the gaping maw of the fire station, inside which was parked a single glossy red fire engine, and who was engaged in what appeared to be whittling. I also passed a residence bearing the shingle Notary Public and a drugstore with a sign above its door that read Health-2-U .
Beyond the drugstore, the sidewalk led me past a small grocery named The Convenient and then along streets lined with houses, all of them modest in size and varying in degrees of upkeep from immaculate to slipshod. I passed a bakery, The Rolling Pin, its window case displaying only five rather deflated doughnuts (and one fly), and a neighborhood park, deserted in the afternoon heat. Though my description of Filbert may create images in the readerâs mind of turn-of-the-century quaintness, such was not the impression in reality. Many of the buildings were indeed old, but the townspeopleâs dress, the automobiles, and the common public equipage such as parking meters, stoplights, and overflowing trash receptacles modernized the overall visual effect. Moreover, there was a certain indefinable smell of fried foods and accumulated grime congruous with more recent decades.
Since my mind was filled that day with the pressing needs of employment, housing, and a car, I was alert. My purse held a sum of cashâthe liquidation of my grandfatherâs assetsâand in the suitcase were a few personal possessions.
Presently the sidewalk led past Emma Weldy Elementary School, a low construction of yellow brick, where I viewed a host of children at play. They paid me no heed, for I was beyond the periphery of their fenced playground. Had I been a child, perhaps I would have gained their notice, but, being an adult, I was as a tree or post. I halted and gazed at the seething mass, listening to their childish shouts and noting the vivid patchwork of the many colors of their clothing. Colors affect me to such an extent that I have often wondered whether, with training, I might have succeeded as an artist.
It was the boys I sought most earnestly, their strong, wiry legs pumping in games of tag, their untiring arms in ceaseless motion. I saw a group of older ones in a far corner of the
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