At the End of the Tracks

After a long and rather boring drive through the northern countryside, the sight of the village appearing seemingly out of nowhere nearly took my breath away. Every time and without fail, from as early as I could remember until well into adulthood, it was something to behold. Infinitesimal homes, barns, and brick-lad institutions dotted the valley floor below in random assortments that belied the village’s status as both paragon of rust belt victim and poster child for once-expert, perfect zoning.

The descent from the hilltop along the winding road came with a sense of the town disappearing from view at irregular intervals, whether it be behind the folds of the hill itself or a particularly knotted outcropping of foliage. But at long last, after what felt like twenty minutes but was almost certainly closer to two, we would find ourselves rolling down what was once a main artery, a hub of commerce and community, that now played host to a gas station, an attempt at a restaurant, and a long-abandoned factory. A few turns in our out of place car brought us to our final destination for the day, a chance to see relatives after too long a time apart.

The house was dated, but in the sort of stuck-in-time way that most anyone could find charming under the right circumstances. Odd details that might immediately catch the eye of a newcomer barely registered in my childlike brain: the funhouse tilt of the cellar stairs, the plethora of avian-themed decor adorning nearly every usable surface.

As children’s shoes, mine included, crossed the threshold into the living spaces, those shoes and all other belongings deemed superfluous would be abandoned. The owners of said shoes would then flee to the upper floors of the house with abandon, the sole purpose of their flight to free every toy and game imaginable from their boxed-up prisons, free them from their hiding places in closets and drawers. The tufted blue carpet doubled as ocean, rainforest floor, raceway, or even the surface of an alien planet depending on the day. Card games were learned, forgotten, and relearned on that floor, piles of improvised poker chips being shoved back and forth across its uneven yet welcoming undulation.

When all of that was no longer enough, the shoes left in a haphazard pile at the house’s front door would regain relevance and become the vessels by whose mercy a thorough exploration of the outside world would be possible. What entered the home as clean would return caked in mud and memory, but not before traversing terrain both familiar and otherwise.

The youthful horde would stroll down lonely country roads, only occasionally passing other homes that brimmed with unimaginable, full lives of their own. Farmland gave way to forests, which gave way to riverbanks. And along one riverbank in particular, a set of neglected railroad tracks. Gamesmanship was not entirely abandoned out there in the world, as a single metallic rail could just as easily become a gymnast’s balance beam, or perhaps, one’s last line of defense against an unforgiving lava field.

I remember picking up a loose railroad spike on one such visit and quietly concealing it in my pants pocket. As I sit here now, I realize I had no real reason to do this, and yet, I did it anyway. A part of that version of me knew something that the me writing this now cannot recall. But, of course, the version of me here in the present knows many things that version of me could never dream, things no one would never even wish to dream.

At the end of the navigable stretch of track was an open field — open except for the presence of a single, midsized tree. Most visits to the village, the house, the railroad tracks, and this field occurred outside of flowering and fruiting season, but when pressed, one grandparent or another would swear it were a pear tree. I never remember seeing produce upon its branches, never remember plucking and enjoying its storied bounty. And yet, there it stood all the same, either barren or simply adorned in green depending on the season.

When he died years later, we children-turned-teenagers fashioned a memorial of sorts at the tree’s base complete with his name, birth and death dates, and a quote from one of his favorite Westerns:

There are some things a man just can’t run away from.

Through tears, we returned to the house on foot by way of the railroad, unsure how we would ever go on without him. I remember hoping that the tracks would never reunite with the river, thus forcing us to continue walking away from this new reality until we found a better one. But we found the river all the same, crossed it wearing newer, larger iterations of the shoes that first found the tracks and the field and the pear tree, and traipsed back through the forests and farmland until our eyes were as dry as they ever would be after everything.

I hear now that the tree is gone, but no one has been back to the village, the house, the tracks, or the field to confirm. The elements, or other children, or perhaps the march of time are just as likely to have corroded our memorial and left the tree alone, but the thought of someone or something tampering with that tree gnaws away at the recesses of my mind at times, even now. If only I had thought to extract a piece of its trunk or its leaves and concealed it in my pocket that day.

The rusted, oddly shaped piece of metal I retained instead lasted among my belongings for several years, longer than either I or my parents ever could have imagined. I cannot remember when I finally parted with it, or where it ended up once I laid my eyes upon it for the last time, but it must be out there somewhere. Even if it has been destroyed on some fundamental level, its essence must still exist.

I suppose a memento from the tree would have lasted in my possession for an even shorter period of time, perhaps being mistaken for rubbish by a parent or sibling overeager to maintain a tidy, well appointed home. But I long for even the memory of a shard of that tree more than anything in my entire life.

When he died, he took so much with him, but left even more behind. And I don’t even mean his family and the interconnected existences we had knitted together by his needle-bearing hands. I mean all the good things, the memories, the physical and emotional manifestations of a life well lived.

He left a village behind. Though on its last legs in many senses of the phrase, he kept it alive as best and as long as he could, and it loved him for that.

He left a home behind, its slanted stairs and off-kilter decor finding new owners and new environs, respectively.

He left an entire world fit for exploration, accessible from his very own former backyard. I like to think that he walked the same paths we did when we visited. I like to think that he held a particular affection for those rail lines, for that field, and for that tree. It was so singular, just like him. In the same vein as what we scrawled upon his memorial, he never ran away from anything.

If he could have been there with us as we walked alongside the rusted metal beams, over rotted lengths of lumber and mounds of multicolored gravel the day we erected the memorial, he would have scoffed at our desire to just keep walking into the distance, out of sight of the tragedy of his absence. He would have laughed, that hearty, indelible guffaw, and run in the opposite direction. And he would have done all of that with your arm in his hand, never once thinking to leave you behind.

Some day, I will make that familiar drive once more, and when the houses, barns, and other buildings finally peek through the barren tree branches atop the hill, I will gasp just as if I were once again a child. After a beat, I will allow the reel of film in my mind to wind its way back through everything we left behind in that village and I will smile. Perhaps I will walk those tracks once more and find another errant spike to call my own. Perhaps I will never let it go, not ever.

And I will make my way to that field eventually, to the tree. I do not know what I will find when I get there, but I hope it is him. Not him in the literal sense, but a piece of him. Something I can pick up, feel the weight and texture of between my hands, and never leave behind, not ever. Something from which I can never run away.

Amid the roiling seas of impermanence, I think he — and my memory of him — can give me at least that much. The pear tree and the memorial may be relics of an eroded past, much like the railroad spike, but that does not mean he has to be, too.

He is forever, and he is ours.

I will run toward that thought for as long as there are railroad tracks upon which to run.